Behind them came two male Ivieth in their finery, carrying a colored palanquin with Jokain, who watched the crowds with every awareness of his destiny. Teenae’s Gatee clutched the railing of another gaudy palanquin, wide-eyed at the pageantry. Another transported the twins. A tall female Ivieth, bare-breasted and in elaborate skirt, carried Teenae’s new baby who ignored everything in her contentment with the milk of the bosom at which she suckled.

When the procession had passed, the young creche-Kaiel affectionately took the arm of her male companion. “Let’s get married so we’ll have a broader range of topics to fight about!”

He gave her a hug. “I think bachelor Aesoe had the right idea! Once you start this wedding business, where does it end?”

“Seven!” snorted the old man.

WEDDINGS HAD SERIOUS moments but mostly they were times for fun. Six tumblers, three men and three women, slipped into the great plaza of the Temple of Sorrow in mock wedding finery, one malevolently tripping another to be caught by a third to be tripped himself and caught in a cycle of marital quarrel and assistance that accelerated into a dazzling display of body-throwing.

A rustle of attention fell over the audience as the members of the real procession found their seats. Behind the maran and the new brides, the Chanters were grouped on the stairway with the wall behind them to reflect their voices into the crowd. They wore the resonant facemasks that changed the trained human voice into a vibrant instrument able to handle the deepest rumbles or highest trills. Now they sang for the tumbler-contortionists.

These buffoons never stopped their torrent of jokes. Three-husband would flirt with two-wife, and becoming lecherous, would back up to run at her for an embrace, only to crash into two-husband while two-wife stepped aside into the embrace of one-husband while two-husband had to throw three-husband at one-wife to save his robe from the intended fate of the robe of two-wife. Everything they tried ended as a miscalculation but miraculously every disaster landed them on their feet or in some astonished rescuing arms. Their lovemaking was a breathtaking vortex of contortion. Sweet flirtations ended in mayhem. A sly husband ran off with Teenae, followed by three irate wives who tumbled over each other in pursuit, not quite catching him before he managed to kiss her… and so it went, to the audience’s delight.

With the tumblers gone, men with casks moved among the crowd pouring a free sweet punch touched by the flavor of whisky while the Chanters began a light melody that pranced through the party almost unheard above the laughter. The sun was setting.

A Liethe woman slipped out of the Temple unnoticed, shifting in happy steps, dressed in a luminous sun orange and white with a bridal crown. Hers was the hesitant motion of a blithe woman unused to such happiness. She ran and stopped. She skipped. She leaped — and had the full attention of the audience who wondered where she had come from.

Her suppleness was the merry frolic of a girl recalling moments with the husbands she loved, a blush, a touch, a tryst. She bounced in a way that made her audience gasp, as if she were free of gravity. Gradually, she moved out among the people, dancing for an awed child, or she would take an old man for a partner and prance with him until he was young again, or climb mischievously to the shoulders of an Ivieth. All the while, as the twilight deepened, she spread her magical cheer over the wedding guests. Then, at the very moment God appeared in the purple sky at the horizon, she vanished.

This was the first ascension of God in the week of the Reaper in the year of the Spider. Weddings were always timed to begin with God on high so that He might witness the ceremony. The crowd began to hush as God rose into His Darkening Sky. The Chanters became silent. A few stars peeked through the cobalt-blue vault of the heavens. A woman pointed out Stgi and Toe to her young son. The insects clicked and rustled even here in the middle of the town. A baby cried and was hushed. An old woman coughed. God moved, His Tiny Beacon brighter than any star. All eyes were on the Streak. Suddenly, at the very moment of high-node, the Wedding Chant resonated from fifty masks.

Fifty right hands which had been raised beside the masks came down and drew the sign of loyalty between the Chanters and God.

The seven Kaiel who were making Union were now in the center of the plaza and dropped their eyes from God to themselves. They were silent, motionless.

Each of the maran, and the maran to be, raised their right hands, fashioning the gesture of loyalty that bound them to each other. Teenae’s eyes flicked to Oelita and Oelita looked from Kathein to every maran in turn. Noe thought about loyalty and thought she was beginning to understand it. Joesai was thirsty and his coat was uncomfortable. Gaet admired the beauty of his women. Hoemei was at one with God, at peace with himself, and in love with his family. Kathein wondered if she would make a good wife this time. The masks resonated again.