The Celebration

Night had fallen, torches had been lit and I knew by the tightness of my skin that I was burned to a crisp.

Diandra wasn’t wrong, the celebration lasted into the night and things could get sordid.

This was, I was guessing, because this culture was whacked.

It was also because, like any people, primitive savage cultures or not, you pass the booze around freely, shit happens.

It all started merry, drumming, dancing, jugs were produced and passed around, casks were set up, the latter two people partook of liberally as in, the Korwahk knew how to party and they did it hard.

Women threaded through the throngs weighed down by huge wooden platters groaning with food. There was a lot of laughter, lots of random cheers of Suh Tunak! and the constant din of happy, party conversation under the equally constant banging of the drums.

Throughout this, I sat on my white throne and often people would approach, children, adults, the elderly, and all of them had flowers or petals. Their eyes would go to their Dax, they’d receive his consent (an arrogant jerk of the chin, by the by) and these flowers or petals would be tossed at me feet or in my lap or anywhere around my chair so that now I had a pile of them around me everywhere.

I had flowers but no conversation. The Dax allowed them to bestow their blossoms on me but they were not allowed to come close or speak and outside of his arrogant jerk of the chin, they ceased to exist for him too.

Weird.

Shortly after the celebration began, a woman moved to Lahn with a silver chalice that she handed to him, filled from a jug and then she backed away while I stared at her thinking it didn’t surprise me I didn’t get a chalice but it would become clear why very quickly.

I was to be watered and fed by my king.

No joke.

If he wanted me to have a drink, he turned to me and offered the chalice which, at first, was filled with what tasted like orange juice mixed with pineapple and then, later, water and finally wine. If a woman (and there were a great number of them) advanced with a tray of roasted meat, roasted vegetables, slabs of spiced meat, cut fruit, flat breads slathered with what looked and tasted like herbed hummus or a white yogurt sauce with cucumber, onion and garlic or even pieces of candy that looked like creamy white sugar bark doused liberally with nuts and candied fruit, Lahn would make my selections for me, turn to me, lean into me, his hand held out and I’d have to take it not with my hand (I learned that with a quick, clipped, bark of “me” from Lahn at the beginning) but with my mouth.

Annoying and, might I add, insane.

But I played the role of the golden queen, took food and drink from my king’s fingers at his command, listened to the drums, watched the dancers and revelry, listened to the shouts of laughter and cheers and searched the crowd hoping to see Narinda.

I did not see Narinda. I saw Sheena dancing a couple of times but no Narinda. I also saw the vendor who I got the bangles from. He was talking to some people and pointing at me so I waved at him.

This caused him to smile a smile so big it had to hurt his face, jump up and down and clasp his hands toward the heavens again which made me laugh the only laugh I’d laughed since getting to the selection

Shortly after the ceremony was over and the celebration began, with a terse order, Lahn relieved Diandra of her duties. She gave me an encouraging smile, moved quickly down the steps and disappeared in the revelers. This meant I didn’t even have my new friend to talk to.

If I was truthful, there was a lot of it that was interesting. The fruit juice, food and even wine were all delicious. The dancing was

manic and strange but fun to watch. And clearly Lahn’s people were having a good time. This was my first celebration where I had it in me to pay attention so I didn’t know the normal vibe but it seemed everyone was very happy, joyous even. And a lot of those types of looks were thrown in Lahn and my direction indicating a great many people believed the legend of the Golden Dynasty was coming true and a future of promise lay before them.

And, I had to admit, it didn’t feel crap in the slightest that people rained flowers on me.

That said, I was not wrong and I knew I was scorching under that hot sun and although Lahn often got up to wander the top of the dais, chat with the man in robes, warriors who came forward or other men who approached, I was not allowed to do so and since my husband could not communicate with me and since he was in warrior king mode he didn’t try so a lot of the time I was bored out of my freaking mind.

The sun had long since set and I was glad for it. Lahn had just offered me wine and it was the third sip in a row he allowed me to refuse. After that heat and it being hours since I had any water, I needed alcohol like I needed a hole in the head. I had been sitting all day but I was exhausted. I needed to get to the cham, figure out how to communicate to the girls I needed a cool bath and then I needed to figure out how to get the fuck out of this place.

I lifted my heels to the seat, wrapped my arms around my legs and pressed my cheek to my knees, doing all of this carefully so as not to aggravate the tightness of my skin but doing it because night had fallen, a chill had hit the air and against my burning skin that chill was freaking chilly. Then I turned my unseeing eyes at the dancers.

Then they blinked as what my eyes were encountering penetrated my distraction and my head came up. Then it turned away because I had seen a painted warrior with a woman who was wearing a short sarong, not a long one like mine and all of the other women I had seen while in that world. The back of her sarong was at her waist,

she was bent forward, he was behind her, she had nothing but his hands pounding her hips into his groin to keep her up and they were fornicating.

Fornicating!

On the dance floor!

Diandra called it sordid?

I’ll say sordid. Good God!

My eyes swept the scene and I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. Most of the crowd had moved the revelry amongst the tents.

The front of the dais was taken up now by painted warriors and a lot of women the type I’d never noticed before. Skimpy bandeau or halter tops (if they had any on at all!) and short sarongs, bare feet, very painted faces, wild hair.

And I knew that the celebration had changed. This part was for the warriors and these women were not wives or brides. They were something else.

And there were a lot of warriors, enough that at least some of them had to have wives.

Seriously, I needed to get the fuck out of there.

“Kah Lahnahsahna,” Lahn called and I turned my head to him.

“Vayoo ansha,” he ordered, his voice quiet, his head tipping to his lap.

I stared at him, my heart lurching.

“What?”

“Vayoo ansha,” he repeated with another dip of his head to his lap.

Oh God.

I didn’t move, just stared.

He leaned toward me, his fingers curled around my elbow, gliding down to my wrist at the same time pulling my arm away from my legs. Once he had it extended to him, he lifted it high and repeated,

“Vayoo ansha, Circe.”

Fuck. He wanted me to come there.

My concern was… why?

Hesitantly, I slid my heels off the throne, let my legs go and got up. Lahn didn’t let go of my hand and kept it lifted high until I was standing in front of him. Then his hand released mine, both of his came to my hips and he pulled me forward, not so I was sitting in his lap but so my knees were in his throne at either side of his hips and I was straddling him.

Shit, shit, shit.

Luckily, I’d been able to use my sarong to shield my legs from the sun but my current position still wasn’t comfortable because his horns had no pads and they were hard and rounded, digging into my shins.