SPIRIT WALKER

Chapter 10: A Pwi Wedding

Even now, Tull wasn't sure. Had Beremon gotten what he deserved? Tull hated slavers, hated the pain that they caused. Part of him said, Yes, they deserve it. Yet he could never have killed the man himself.

"I know," Wisteria said again.

"And if you marry me," Tull answered, "You will have to live with that. You'll remember every day of our lives that I betrayed him."

"You didn't," she said, wiping her face. "It was an accident."

"And if you marry me," Tull said, "you will still be alone for a long time. I'm leaving in a week, and I won't be back until midwinter. This will be a lonely time for you. The hardest in your life."

Wisteria sat down on the grass and began coughing up great wracking sobs. After several moments she said, "I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be without you! I can't stay in this town right now anyway. It hurts too much. Everything reminds me of what happened last night. I want to come with you."

Tull studied her. Always before, humans had seemed so . . . emotionally resilient, or perhaps just emotionally sheltered. They were never destroyed by pain half so much as the Pwi. To see Wisteria this way, weeping in the grass, he could almost imagine she was Pwi at heart, that the evil kwea of last night would drive her away from here. And Tull realized something else—he was trying to talk her out of this marriage in spite of the fact that he desired it, in spite of the fact that he wanted it so badly he couldn't bear the thought of losing her.

"You've never loved me," he suddenly said. "Not completely." She didn't love him the way that a Pwi woman would.

She looked up. "I was too young for commitment. When we were younger and I kissed you, I was . . . crazy with want. When Father sent me away, I dreamed about what life would be like with you, about how it would be to make love to you, and twice I tried to run away from Lady Devarre's. But last night, when I ached for someone to comfort me, I realized that I needed you. Without you, I'm . . . only half a person."

Tull wanted her, but this all seemed so sudden. For months now he had been thinking about Fava. She was a simple girl, strong, and the quaint scent of vanilla water in Fava's hair charmed him. But from his youth, Tull had imagined life with Wisteria. The attraction he felt for her was strong. Suddenly Tull understood his fear, his hesitancy to enter the circle. He took a deep breath and almost choked as he offered his last excuse—his only real reason for hesitating, "Wisteria, I'm afraid to marry you. My father——I . . . I don't know how to love. When I was younger, I didn't believe in love. For years I felt dead inside, as if I were the world's lone witness to a great joke—the fact that everyone else believed that such a thing existed when obviously, so obviously, love was a lie. But over the years, I realized that love exists, that everyone else feels it but me. I want to feel it for you. I feel something. I feel drawn to you. But you're as human as my father, and I'm afraid of that."

Tull didn't know if Wisteria could understand. She looked up at him, her eyes wet and bloodshot, though no tears flowed down her cheeks. She sniffled, and said very clearly. "I'm not like him. Jenks is a twisted man, even for a human. But love? Love is easy. I'll show you how to love."

Tull found himself staggering into the circle. All the years of waiting to love seemed to collapse inward; all the walls he'd built against it tumbled down. He wasn't even aware that his feet were moving till he stood in the second circle and took her hands.

She held her palms out and up, in a beggar's gesture, and they clasped one another's wrists. She spoke the words of the wedding ritual, though she had no friend to witness. "I seek shelter from loneliness. I bring all that you see within this circle. But mostly, I bring my heart."

Tull's jaw trembled. "This house, it is empty without you, just as I am empty without you. I offer you shelter, until hand in hand we take our journey to the House of Dust."

He kissed her, a long slow kiss, and carried her into his house.

It did not seem right to make love to her. He knew she had been up all night, knew that she needed consolation. Yet he could not refrain. The desire that was in him pulled him, tore him till he was tossed in the wind like dandelion down in a storm, and she seemed eager to caress him and give herself.

Wisteria's voice was husky as he pulled her to him. "You don't know how often I dreamed of this. I'll teach you how to love," she said, cupping his head in her hands. "I'll show you how."

Among the Pwi, it is said that when two people first make love, that the Goddess Zhofwa bends near the land and blows her kisses upon them, and at that moment, their act becomes holy, Thea, and if the love is pure the Goddess will enter them for a time to join the dance of the lovers' bodies.

Tull held Wisteria, wanted to drink her with his eyes, learn the colors of every mole on her body.

The air suddenly seemed fresh and clean. He felt the Goddess kiss him in the small of the back, and an intense cool thrill of pleasure passed down his back and into his groin. It felt as good as he'd dreamed love could be, and for the first time he knew that he could be touched by love, that he could give.