The priest resumed his incantation, and Mara fought the urge to reach beneath her veils and scratch her nose. The pomp and the formality of the ceremony made her recall an incident from her early girlhood, when she and Lano had come home from a state wedding similar to the one she sat through now. As children, they had played bride and groom, Mara seated on the sun-baked boards of a thyza wagon, her hair decked out in akasi flowers. Lano had worn a marriage mask of mud-baked clay and feathers, and the ‘priest’ had been an aged slave the children had badgered into wearing a blanket for the occasion. Sadly Mara tightened her fingers; the ceremonial wreath in her hands was real this time, not a child’s imitation braided of grasses and vines. Were Lanokota alive to be here, he would have teased and toasted her happiness. But Mara knew that inwardly he would have been weeping.
The priest intoned another passage, and the gong rang. The guests reseated themselves upon cushions, while the acolyte on the dais lit incense candles. Heavy scent filled the hall as the High Priest recited the virtues of the First Wife. As he finished each – chastity, obedience, mannerliness, cleanliness, and fecundity – Mara bowed and touched her forehead to the floor. And as she straightened, a purple-robed acolyte with dyed feet and hands removed one of her veils, white for chastity, blue for obedience, rose for mannerliness, until only a thin green veil for Acoma honour remained.
The gauzy fabric still itched, but at least Mara could see her surroundings. The Anasati sat to the groom’s side of the dais, just as the Acoma retinue sat behind Mara’s. Before the dais the guests were arrayed by rank. Brightest shone the white and gold raiment of the Warlord, who sat closest to the ceremony, his wife beside him in scarlet brocade sewn with turquoise plumes. In the midst of the riot of colours worn by the guests, two figures in stark black robes stood forth like nightwings resting in a flower garden. Two Great Ones from the Assembly of Magicians had accompanied Almecho to the wedding of his old friend’s son.
Next in rank should have been the Minwanabi, but Jingu’s presence was excused without insult to the Anasati because of the blood feud between Minwanabi and Acoma. Only at a state function, such as the Emperor’s coronation or the Warlord’s birthday, might both families be present without conflict.
Behind the Warlord’s retinue, Mara recognized the Lords of the Keda, the Tonmargu, and the Xacatecas; along with Almecho’s Oaxatucan and the Minwanabi, they constituted the Five Great Families, the most powerful in the Empire. In the next row sat the Shinzawai lord, Kamatsu, with the face of Hokanu, his second son, turned handsomely in profile. Like the Acoma and the Anasati, the Shinzawai were counted second in rank only to the Five Great Families.
Mara bit her lip, the leaves and feathers of her marriage wreath trembling. Above her the High Priest droned on, now describing the virtues of the First Husband while the acolytes draped necklaces of beads over the paper swords of Bunto’s litter. Mara saw the red and white plumes of his marriage mask dip as he acknowledged each quality as it was named, being honour, strength, wisdom, virility, and kindness.
The gong chimed again. The priest led his acolytes in a prayer of blessing. More quickly than Mara had believed possible, her maiden attendants arose and helped her from her litter. Bunto arose also, and with the priest and acolytes between them stepped down from the dais and bowed to the gathered guests. Then, in a small procession that included Buntokapi’s father, the Lord of the Anasati, and Nacoya, as the Acoma First Adviser, the priest and his acolytes escorted bride and groom from the hall and across the courtyard to the entrance of the sacred grove.
There servants bent and removed the sandals of Mara and Buntokapi, that their feet might be in contact with the earth and the ancestors of the Acoma as the Lady ceded her inherited rights of rulership to her husband-to-be. By now the sun had risen high enough to warm the last dew from the ground. The baked warmth of the stone path felt unreal beneath Mara’s soles, and the bright birdsong from the ulo tree seemed the detail of a childhood dream. Yet Nacoya’s grip upon her arm was quite firm, no daydream. The priest chanted another prayer, and suddenly she was walking forward with Buntokapi, a jewelled doll beside the towering plumage of his marriage mask. The priest bowed to his god, and leaving his acolytes, and the Lord, and the Acoma Chief Adviser, he followed the couple into the glade.
Rigidly adhering to her role, Mara dared not look back; if the ritual had permitted, she would have seen Nacoya’s tears.
The procession passed the old ulo’s comfortable shade and in sunlight wended through the flowering shrubs, low gates, and curved bridges that led to the Acoma natami. Woodenly Mara retraced the steps she had taken not so many weeks earlier, when she had carried the relics to mourn her father and brother. She did not think of them now, lest their shades disapprove of her wedding to an enemy to secure their heritage. Neither did she look at the man at her side, whose shuffling step betrayed his unfamiliarity with the path, and whose breath wheezed faintly behind the bright red-and-gold-painted features of the marriage mask. The eyes of the caricature stared ahead in frozen solemnity, while the eyes of the man darted back and forth, taking in the details of what soon would be rightfully his as Lord of the Acoma.
A chime rang faintly, signalling the couple to meditate in silence. Mara and her bridegroom bowed to the godhead painted on the ceremonial gate, and stopped beneath at the edge of the pool. No trace of the assassin’s presence remained to defile the grassy verge, but a canopy erected by the priests of Chochocan shaded the ancient face of the natami. After a session of prayer and meditation, the chime rang again. The priest stepped forward and placed his hands on the shoulders of the bride and groom. He blessed the couple, sprinkled them lightly with water drawn from the pool, then paused, silent, while the vows were spoken.
Mara forced herself to calm, though never had the exercise learned from the sisters of Lashima come with such difficulty. In a voice of hammered firmness, she spoke the words that renounced her inherited birthright of Ruling Lady of the Acoma. Sweating but steady, she held fast while the priest tore away the green veil and burned it in the brazier by the pool. He wet his finger, touched the warm ash, and traced symbols upon Bunto’s palms and feet. Then Mara knelt and kissed the natami. She remained with her head pressed to the earth that held the bones of her ancestors, while Buntokapi of the Anasati swore to dedicate his life, his honour, and his eternal spirit to the Name Acoma. Then he knelt beside Mara, who finalized the ritual in a voice that seemed to belong to a stranger.
‘Here rest the spirits of Lanokota, my brother; Lord Sezu, my natural father; Lady Oskiro, my natural mother: may they stand as witness to my words. Here lies the dust of my grandfathers, Kasru and Bektomachan, and my grandmothers, Damaki and Chenio: may they stand as witness to my deed.’ She drew breath and managed not to falter as she recited the long list of ancestors back to the Patriarch of the Acoma, Anchindiro, a common soldier who battled Lord Tiro of the Keda for five days in a duel before winning the hand of his daughter and the title of Lord for himself, thus placing his family second only to the Five Great Families of the Empire. Even Buntokapi nodded with respect, for despite his father’s formidable power, the Anasati line did not go as far back in history as the Acoma. Sweat slid down Mara’s collar. With fingers that miraculously did not shake, she plucked a flower from her wreath and laid it before the natami, symbolizing the return of her flesh to clay.
The chime sounded, a mournful note. The priest intoned another prayer, and Bunto spoke the ritual phrases that bound him irrevocably to the Name and the honour of the Acoma. Then Mara handed him the ceremonial knife, and he nicked his flesh so the blood flowed, beading in dusty drops upon the soil. In ties of honour more binding than flesh, of previous kinship, more binding than the memory of the gods themselves, Buntokapi assumed Lordship of the Acoma. The priest removed the red and gold marriage mask of the Anasati; and the third son of an Acoma enemy bowed and kissed the natami. Mara glanced sideways and saw her bridgeroom’s lips curl into an arrogant smile. Then his features were eclipsed as the High Priest of Chochocan slipped the green marriage mask of the Acoma onto the new Lord’s shoulders.
Mara could not remember getting up. The procession back to the entrance of the glade passed in a blur, a dream set in time to birdsong. Servants awaited to wash her soiled feet and replace her jewelled sandals. She endured while the Anasati lord bowed formally to his host, the new Lord of the Acoma, and she did not cry as Nacoya took her place