Chapter 10
That night, as she lay on her stomach, the welts on her back burning even in the cool night air, she heard her curtain pushed back, and his low voice murmur, "Shmi?"
She twisted toward him, and gave a little gasp as the movement shot pain through her back. "Kern! But I didn't say anything to Irneeto…"
He came and sat beside her on the narrow bed. "He said you would need me."
"Yes." The tears she had been able to resist since the beating broke through at last. She buried her face in her thin pillow and cried for a long time. He stroked her hair until the shuddering sobs faded and she was still.
"I hate being a slave, Kern. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it…"
"Soon, beloved. Soon. Neither of us will ever have to go through this again. I promise."
She clung to that promise with all her strength, as he gently spread soothing salve on her throbbing wounds. When he was finished, he lay down next to her and eased his body against hers, careful to avoid jarring the sore places. She leaned against him, the warm length of his body against hers igniting desire, even through her pain. "I'm willing to try, if you want…"
"Shh, don't be silly. I don't think either of us would enjoy it very much tonight. We have time. All the time in the world. Just rest, so you can heal."
She took comfort in his closeness, and soon she did drift off to sleep. He slept too, holding her all through the night, until shortly before the morning klaxon he slipped away, back to his alcove.
She was stiff and sore, but able to get up and go to work as usual. Against the ache in her back, she set her mantra of hope. Kern loves me. We are going to escape. Until then, we will be together, every mealtime, every night.
She hurried to the dining hall as soon as she was released from work. He was there at the head of the line waiting for her, and it was as if all the long months of loneliness had been nothing but a dream, for things were just as they had been, except that now each was acutely aware of how close they had come to losing the other forever.
Since they got their food early and ate quickly, they had time to retreat to the solitude of the courtyard, though they were scrupulously careful not to overstay their allotted minutes this time. They talked, filling each other in on everything that had happened while they had been apart. Shmi was hungry for the sound of his voice as much as for his body, so while the pain of her wounds prevented her from enjoying the one as much as she wanted, she contented herself with the other.
She was most interested in the details of their plans. "When are we going to be able to leave? How soon will you know?"
"We're on round ninety-five now. Each round takes about three or four days, although the closer we get to the end of the game and the more exciting it gets, the more time they're going to want to spend playing, so it might go quicker. But we'll get to round one hundred and three in a few weeks, maybe a month."
"Are you going to be able to keep winning, do you think?"
He shrugged, pushing the sand idly into piles in front of him where they sat cross-legged on the ground next to the patch of flowers. "I hope so. Sabaac involves both luck and skill, so partly it depends on what cards I'm dealt, but more on how well I play. I'm better than most of them, but Ketrell is very good. If anyone beats me, it will be him."
"And you're sure they'll agree to bet to let you go? They won't just turn you over to Jabba?"
"Oh, no. There is a certain code of honor among gamblers. As long as the offer is on the table, it's sacrosanct. They would never dream of revealing it to anyone outside our game. And if I win, they will carry out their part of the bargain without any hesitation."
"But if you lose…"
His eyes were grim as he turned to her. "If I lose, they'll turn me over to Jabba immediately. And you know how he deals with slaves who attempt to escape. That's why we only have the one chance."
Shmi stared at him, eyes round.
He shrugged. "That's why it's a gamble. I think I've got better than even odds. Come on, we can't risk you being late again."
In the days that followed, Shmi's back slowly healed. Kern slipped into her bed each night, and they whispered together and cuddled and drank in the pleasure of long unhurried hours together, but he was always very careful not to do anything that might hurt her whip welts further, and she was grateful for his consideration. But the morning came when she awoke to find she had rolled over onto her back during the night without waking, and she wiggled her shoulders against the hard bed without feeling anything more than mild discomfort.
Kern had slipped out of bed already, and was dressing himself in his tunic, preparing to sneak back to the men's quarters before the klaxon sounded. Watching him, she felt a delicious thrill of anticipation mingled with terror run through her body.
He turned to kiss her again before leaving. She caught his hand and held him for a moment. His grey-green eyes gazed into hers. "I'm ready," she whispered. "Tonight."
He hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Tonight." Their gaze held, intent and solemn, for an endless instant, then his smile washed over her, warm and full of light, and she answered it with a tremulous smile of her own.
That day, the rarest of all events on Tatooine happened, a sudden brief shower of rain. Throughout the compound all the slaves crowded to the windows to see, and the overseers pushed right in with them to stare in wonder for a few moments before ordering them back to work.
After their meal, when Shmi and Kern emerged into the courtyard, a few droplets still lingered, spangling every surface with crystal-bright sparkles in the restored light of the suns. They laughed together like children. The flowers were outdoing themselves with blooms in response to the abundance of water. Kern gathered droplets from their petals on the tips of his fingers, and touched them to Shmi's eager tongue. The tiny bursts of coolness tasted like sky and wind and wide, unbounded space.
They sat together, drinking in the unexpected beauty. Kern picked a handful of the tiny white and gold flowers and began braiding their stems together. Shmi leaned against his shoulder, watching his deft fingers twine the blossoms into a wreath of stars.
He shifted onto his knees and turned to face her. She straightened, gazing into his eyes. He held out the wreath to her like a gift.
"Marry me, Shmi."
She was dazzled by the emotion radiating from his eyes and singing in his voice, but cold reality punctured her joy, and she turned away, swallowing the bitterness that rose in her throat. "You know slaves aren't allowed to marry."
"Maybe not legally, with all the proper papers, but that doesn't matter. We can do all that later, on some other world. But right now, we can make our vows to each other." Suddenly diffident, he lowered the circlet of flowers into his lap. "If that's what you want."
She reached out with trembling hands. "More than anything in the galaxy." She twined the flower chain around their clasped hands.
"Except?" he teased her.
"Except nothing, you silly man." The memory of their first kiss danced on her lips.
They knelt facing each other, hands bound together by flowers, and gazed at each other a long moment in silence before Kern spoke, in words of ancient ritual. "I, Kern Bluesand…"
She answered, the words she had never hoped to be able to speak. "And I, Shmi Skywalker…"
Their voices twined about each other, his low and her high, declaration and response, melody and counterpoint of a song with no music but their voices and the wind and the beating of their hearts.
"Give you my hand."
"Give you my heart."
"To be your husband."
"To be your wife."
"In days of want and days of wealth."
"In times of sickness and of health."
"Through pleasure and pain."
"Through sunshine and rain."
"By day and by night."
"In darkness and light"
"This I pledge to you."
"This I promise you."
"By the stars above us."
"By the Force within us."
Their voices joined and spoke the final words in unison. "From now until our lives' ending, united as one. May nothing save death part me and thee."
For a long perfect moment there was silence. They leaned toward each other and their lips met, soft and warm and sensual.
Shmi looked at Kern, at the patch of flowers growing and the ones still linking their hands, and around at the rain-washed courtyard. She closed her eyes, engraving it all in her memory, wishing she could freeze the moment forever in crystal, perfect and unchanging.
But all too soon reality reasserted itself. They were still slaves, after all, and even the transcendent moment of their marriage must be cut short, and they must separate for a time. They rose, and Kern unwound the flowers from around their hands, settling them instead around Shmi's neck.
The flower necklace drew odd looks, that evening in the kitchen, but Shmi didn't care. She carefully tucked away the best bits of food she could find, ready for trade.
She prepared herself even more carefully this time than that other, ill-fated night. After her shower, feeling as fresh and clean as the rain-washed desert, she replaced the wilted circlet of flowers about her neck, their sweet fragrance perfuming her. As soon as darkness and quiet had overtaken the slave quarters, she slipped out to Irneeto's post.
Kern was there already, chatting with the blue alien. She slipped into his embrace, reaching into her pocket for her offering to Irneeto. They hadn't prepared roast bantha in the kitchen for quite some time, but she had found some slices leftover from last time stored in the deep freeze, and appropriated them. She bubbled with suppressed laughter as she handed them to Irneeto. "Would you like some roast bantha tonight?"
He looked back and forth between Shmi and Kern, and smiled in understanding as he accepted the slices. "I would like that very much. I take it this is a special occasion?"
Shmi was delighted that she could at last share their secret. "We're married, Irneeto. Thank you so much. It couldn't have happened without you." She threw her arms around the surprised alien and kissed his cheek. Kern shook his rightmost hand and thumped him on the back.
He regarded them with bemused approval. "Congratulations, then, and the moons' blessing on you both." He patted her shoulder affectionately. "Go on then, furling, I'm sure you've got better things to do than stand around talking to me. Good night."
Shmi and Kern both bid him goodnight, and hand in hand slipped away through the dark corridors to Shmi's alcove.
As the curtain fell closed behind them, Shmi felt strange all over again to have him there with her, but that feeling was soon swept away in the pleasure of his mouth and hands. They undressed each other and slipped together into her bed. In their inexperience they were both awkward and clumsy, and it took experimentation to work out exactly how to go about things. There was laughter, and some pain, and tears of both frustration and joy. But in the end they found their way together to their destination, and Shmi knew profound happiness as their bodies, like their hearts and their spirits and their destinies, became one.