Exile's Children Read Online Free PDF

and, to a lesser extent, those of all their neighbors, were abustle as the time approached. Usually, Rannach’s chosen man would have gone amongst the Tachyn to summon forth the bride and present her suitor, then lead them back to the groom’s clan, but now that Nemeth and Zeil were taken into the Commacht, Bakaan went to their tent and called that they come out.
    Rannach stood behind him. His hair was woven in the warrior’s braids and his wedding clothes shone with beadwork bright as his eyes. Three times Bakaan called, and at the third cry Nemeth and Zeil threw back the flap and led their daughter out. Arrhyna wore pale deerskin, bracelets of Grannach work glinting on her wrists, little combs of the Stone Folk’s precious silver glittering in her fiery hair. Bakaan took her hand and brought her to where Rannach stood, then motioned that they follow him to the cleared center of the Commacht encampment.
    Morrhyn waited there, with Racharran and Lhyn, and as the procession drew near he was reminded of their wedding. Gahyth had presided then, and he had stood behind the aging Dreamer, fighting to curb his envy that his closest friend won the woman he loved. He had thoughtsuch memories long buried, but as Rannach and Arrhyna approached, he felt them rise anew, and must fight down the same sense of loss. He hid behind a wakanisha’s gravity as he motioned the pair kneel and raised the sacred rattle over their heads.
    The crowd fell silent as he intoned the ritual and the couple gave back their responses. He touched them both with the rattle, asking that the Maker regard them with favor, and it was done. Racharran led out a piebald mare, her coat brushed to gleaming smoothness, and saw Arrhyna mounted; Lhyn brought her son’s favorite horse. Then Morrhyn gestured that they follow him, the parents falling into step behind the bridal pair as the wakanisha led them amongst the Commacht lodges and then on in a wide circuit of the Meeting Ground, through all the encampments.
    As they passed, he proclaimed the traditional words: “Let the people see these two are wed. Let the People ask the Maker bless them.” But as they went by the Tachyn lodges he was unpleasantly aware of the muted response—even more of Hadduth’s unsmiling visage, the wakanisha’s lips moving silently in what might have been either agreement or curse. Few there came out to follow the procession, and of Chakthi or Vachyr there was no sign. It was a relief, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, to go amongst the Lakanti, and after them the Aparhaso and the Naiche, where folk shouted joyously and came trotting behind calling greetings and good wishes, laughing as they showered the bridal pair with dried petals and sweet-scented herbs.
    Bakaan and those other warriors closest to Rannach had erected a lodge for the pair, set apart from the others on the edge of the Commacht camp, close by the Maker’s Mountain, that their first nights together be spent close under the watch of the Maker and they have privacy. There they would remain until the Matakwa was ended and they have pitched their lodge with the other married folk. Looking at their smiling faces, Morrhyn thought they had sooner go there immediately, but first they must partake of the feast.
    That was ready on their return, the guests trailing them in a great laughing crowd: a marriage made at Matakwa was considered most lucky. And perhaps it is, Morrhyn thought as he watched the informal celebration commence. But like a blade, luck has two sides, and he wondered should that luck be good or bad.
    He found a place at Racharran’s side, where the most favored guests sat. Lhyn was on her husband’s left, next to Nemeth and Zeil, with Rannach and their daughter; Juh and Yazte and Tahdase were there, each sided by their wakanishas and their wives. Kahteney favored Morrhyn with a smile the Commacht Dreamer returned even as he wondered, Where is Chakthi?