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Fifty-Six

The return trip to Theedalit took Brokols and Vendorrci twelve days, five days longer than the trip out. Brokols had taken sick early on the second day out of Kammnalit, puking and shitting, sweating and shaking, and occasionally babbling out of his mind. During his semi-alert periods, the first two days, he wondered if he was going to die. It was over with, though, on the morning of the third. He'd rested on the third and fourth, and would have rested longer, but he had a wedding to go to in Theedalit—his own. Instead, for the first two days back on the road, they'd taken it easy, resting often in the shade, snacking.

When he'd just begun coming down with it, they'd stopped at a hamlet, where Vendorrci had rented an unused hut and helped the trembling Brokols to bed. Meanwhile a youth had ridden to a village some miles away to bring a master who lived there. Brokols couldn't remember what the master had done, but he had the distinct if subjective impression that the man had saved his life. The people there said that child fever was going around; apparently he'd been infected, and it had hit him far more severely than it did Hrummean children.

When they got back to Theedalit, he looked and felt pretty much normal, perhaps a little weak. He luxuriated in the hot tub while his houseman took his Hrummean road clothes to a washerwoman. (Brokols never wore Almaeic clothes anymore.) A long night's sleep in his own bed completed his recovery.

* * *

He was not allowed to see Juliassa, or allowed in her home while she was there, as was the custom during the week before the wedding. Instead, on the second morning he was taken to a wedding grove to practice the ceremony. In Theedalit there were one or more wedding groves in every park, large or small, and one in the garden of the amirrial palace. The groves were sacred to Hrum, and they were where weddings were held. In each there was a round gazebo about twenty feet in diameter, where the actual ceremony was performed. The gazebos were pillared and without walls, but trellised and vine-grown behind the altar, which was on the west side.

In an earlier stage of Hrummlis, night had been regarded as the time belonging to Makklith, the female aspect of Hrum in charge of sex and birth. Thus tradition had weddings taking place at dusk, to represent the change from singleness to marriage. The wedding would be presided over by a master, but for Brokols' practice, Reeno Venreeno presided, and Gorrvis Vendorrci stood in for the bride. Beside the altar were two open bronze lamps on tall stands, and a fire was lit in each of them, as during the actual ceremony.

Venreeno himself had been remarried while Brokols was off in Kammenak.

There was no set wording for the service. The master would speak as Hrum-In-Him prompted, although the thoughts expressed were custom, and did not vary, however phrased. Reeno said those same things during the rehearsal—reflecting ideas they'd discussed earlier in their talk on being a husband. They practiced the ceremony twice, then Reeno declared it enough.

After that, Brokols went to his apartment, and with his houseman packed his things. He didn't have a lot; he'd rented the place furnished. Then he had his chests and boxes loaded on a wagon and hauled to a small house near the palace, bought and furnished for the couple by Leonessto. Juliassa's things had already been moved in and arranged as she wanted them. Brokols was leery about moving or even touching any of it, so he had most of his piled temporarily in a storeroom.

An exception was the wireless; a room had been set aside for it.

The next morning he went to Reeno's office and got updated on both the grenade and mine projects. Gleebor manure was being used to make saltpeter in quantity now. A large quantity of grenades had already been shipped to Kammenak by boat. Also, a dozen or more mine casings were being built each day, though only a few had yet been loaded with gunpowder. Production of clocks and trigger mechanisms had been slower, but even so, the current rate of production was predicted to fill their needs, and production was increasing with the experience of the artisans. Three east-coast schooners had been chartered and brought around to transport the mines and personnel, and K'sthuump had assured Juliassa that week that more sullsi were enroute to the islands off Haipoor l'Djezzer than were actually needed.

Brokols was a bit uncomfortable about the time prediction. After all, it was based on a dream!—the dream he'd had of the fleet leaving Almeon during lenn harvest. It had seemed so real and compelling when he'd dreamed it, but now, in the cold light of logic . . . every time he thought about it, he had a pang of anxiety.

But the dreamed departure time was much earlier than originally expected, so it didn't really prey on his mind. Much better to err in that direction than in the other, although it would be a terrific nuisance to be more than a couple of weeks early.

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Framed