Chapter 14 — The Dance

Darkness came quickly beneath the palms. Fires replaced the sun one by one until the clearing existed in circles of orange light and moving shadow. Across the creek, other drums answered Pentoaya's. The sound traveled over water and returned from farther villages until Diego could no longer tell which rhythm belonged to which fire. Food continued appearing. So did casseena.

Micco kept the full-strength drink moving past Tomasa and replaced it with a small vessel diluted so heavily that Tomasa accused her of serving scented water.

“You nearly choked on tobacco this afternoon,” Micco reminded her.

“That was this afternoon. I have matured.”

“Remarkably.”

Tomasa took a dignified sip and made a face at the weakness of it. The dancers changed.

Young men entered wearing animal skins and acted out a hunt with enough exaggeration to make the children shriek. One hunter missed an imaginary deer so badly that another dancer pretended to be struck instead and collapsed across the fire circle.

Tomasa laughed until she saw the young man who had spoken to her near the cooking fires earlier. He saw her at the same time. He straightened. Then barked. Tomasa covered her mouth. Micco closed her eyes.

“No.”

“I did nothing.”

“You smiled at him.”

“He barked at me.”

“That is why you should not encourage him.”

Tomasa looked toward Diego. “Captain, do Spanish men bark when interested in a woman?” Diego's face became grave.

“Only admirals.”

Mateo choked on a piece of cassava. Micco looked at Diego despite herself.

“You are becoming a bad influence.”

“I was told I had excellent teachers.”

The young hunter barked again. Tomasa waved. Micco caught her wrist halfway up.

“Tomasa.”

“I am being diplomatic.”

“With your fingers?”

“We have no common language.”

Diego turned away because laughing openly would have encouraged both of them. A group of maidens entered the clearing and formed a circle around the central fire. Their dance was simpler than the ceremonial performance had been: repeated steps, shoulders turning together, one hand resting briefly on the person ahead before the line opened and reformed. Tomasa watched for less than a minute. Micco saw the decision happen.

“No.”

“You do not know what I was going to say.”

“You are going to ask whether you may join them.”

“May I?”

Micco looked at the old Cassekey. The old woman had already seen Tomasa watching. She waved her into the circle before Micco could object. Tomasa stood.

“She outranks you.”

“Do not become unbearable.”

“Too late.”

Tomasa hurried toward the dancers. The maidens opened the line for her. At first she followed half a beat behind. Then she learned the pattern. The crowd cheered when she turned the correct way without help.

The young hunter barked so loudly that people on the opposite side of the clearing turned to look at him. Tomasa laughed and nearly lost the step. Micco found herself laughing with everyone else. Beside the warriors, Diego watched Tomasa complete another circle.

“Your governor is going to kill me.”

Micco answered without taking her eyes from Tomasa. “Why you?”

“I was given responsibility for his daughter.”

“You delivered her alive through a hurricane.”

“And now she is dancing around a fire while an Ais hunter makes animal noises at her.”

Micco considered that.

“Do not include that part in the letter.”

“I had reached the same conclusion.”

Tomasa passed the hunter again. He clutched his chest and fell backward dramatically. The crowd roared. Tomasa pointed at him without breaking the dance, delighted. Diego shook his head.

“Seventeen years old and already destroying affairs between nations.”

Micco's smile faded only slightly.

“She is happy.”

Diego looked toward her. The words carried more weight than the dance required. For days, Tomasa had been soaked, terrified, sunburned, hungry, thirsty, surrounded by dead men, and dependent on strangers for everything she had once taken for granted. Now she was laughing.

“Yes,” Diego said. “She is.”

Micco watched another circle.

“I had forgotten what that sounded like.”

Diego understood. He did not answer with comfort. He simply stayed beside her until the dance ended. Tomasa returned flushed and breathless.

“I was excellent.”

Micco handed her water.

“You survived.”

“That is becoming everyone's standard for me.”

“It is a useful one.”

Tomasa drank, still smiling. The old Cassekey called Micco's title. Micco's hand stopped halfway to her own cup. She knew that tone. Not the words yet. The tone. The old woman motioned toward the empty center of the clearing. Micco stared at her.

“No.”

The Cassekey smiled. She repeated the request. Tomasa looked between them.

“What?”

Micco answered the old woman in Ais. The old woman answered back. The Chipco began smiling. Two of the women beside the Cassekey covered their mouths. Tomasa leaned closer.

“Micco. What?”

“Nothing.”

“Everyone is looking at you.”

“That is the problem.”

The Cassekey spoke again. This time Tomasa caught one word. Karaya.

“What does she want?”

Micco looked toward the fire. Then toward the warriors opposite them. Diego had stopped smiling. He knew the conversation involved him only because Micco had looked directly at him and immediately regretted doing so. Tomasa saw that too. Her eyes widened.

“Oh.”

Micco turned. “You do not know what it is.”

“Neither do you, apparently, because you refuse to tell me.”

Micco lowered her voice.

“There is a dance.”

Tomasa waited.

“A royal woman may perform it when she wishes to show interest in a man.”

Tomasa's mouth opened. Micco pointed at her.

“Do not.”

Tomasa closed it. For almost two seconds.

“You have to do it.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“Micco.”

“No.”

The Cassekey called something from beside them. Micco answered without looking. Tomasa asked, “What did she say?”

“That I am afraid.”

Tomasa's amusement disappeared.

“Are you?”

Micco looked across the fire. Diego was watching now, but without curiosity. He could tell from her face that something had become serious and had the sense not to turn it into entertainment.

“Yes,” Micco said.

Tomasa followed her gaze.

“Of the dance?”

“No.”

“Of him?”

Micco shook her head. That answer came easily. Too easily. Tomasa understood before Micco said more.

“Of choosing.”

Micco looked at her. The word sat between them. Other people had decided almost every road Micco had traveled. Florida to St. Augustine. St. Augustine to Havana. Servant. Companion. Passenger. Spain. Even the hurricane had chosen where she returned.

Pentoaya had placed a title back into her hands and asked what she meant to do with it. Now the old Cassekey was asking something smaller and more frightening. Not whom did Micco belong to. Whom did Micco want? Tomasa did not tease her again.

“You do not have to,” she said.

Micco turned toward her.

“A moment ago you said I did.”

“I was being excited. I am allowed to improve.”

Micco almost smiled. Tomasa touched her hand.

“If you stand up, do it because you want to.”

The simple sentence went through Micco more cleanly than any ceremony could have. Across the fire, Diego waited without knowing what he was waiting for. Micco looked at the old Cassekey. Then she answered.

The drums slowed until every conversation around the clearing died beneath them. The dancers left the center. No one called for silence. No one needed to. Micco stood beside the Cassekey. For the first time that evening, the title Karaya felt like hers. She stepped into the firelight. Diego looked toward Tomasa. Tomasa was smiling so fiercely that she was no help at all. He leaned toward Mateo.

“Do you know what is happening?”

Mateo did not take his eyes from the clearing.

“Absolutely not.”

“Useful.”

“Always.”

Micco began moving with the first drumbeat. The dance had changed in her memory. As a child, she had practiced the steps because her mother insisted a woman of their family should know them whether she ever chose to use them or not. Back then the pattern had been no more meaningful than learning how to sit before a Cassekey or how to receive a greeting. Now each step carried an answer. She circled the fire once. Not looking at Diego. That was part of it. The woman did not begin with the man.

She began with herself. At the eastern side of the circle, Micco touched one hand to her chest. At the southern side, she lowered that hand toward the earth. At the western side, she extended it toward the people watching. At the northern side, she turned back toward the fire. Body. Land. People. Home. Her mother had once supplied the words. Micco had forgotten them. Her body had not. The drums quickened slightly. On the second circle, she allowed herself to look across the fire. Diego sat completely still. No grin. No captain's confidence.

He looked more uncertain than he had when entering Governor Torres's residence behind four senior officers. That helped. Micco moved on. The pattern narrowed with each turn around the fire. Not seductive. Intentional. A public decision made through movement because the custom was older than the Spanish words she would have needed to make the same declaration. The crowd understood before Diego did. The young warriors stopped joking. The Cassekeys watched him. The Chipco's smile broadened. Tomasa pressed both hands together beneath her chin. Diego noticed all of it. He looked at Mateo again.

Mateo whispered, “I believe you are in danger.”

“From what?”

“Ask her.”

Micco completed the final turn. Then she crossed the remaining distance between herself and Diego. The drums stopped. She stood before him. He rose because every instinct he possessed told him remaining seated would be wrong. The clearing held still. Micco extended one hand. Diego looked at it. Then at her.

“I am missing an important part of this.”

Her voice was low enough that only the nearest people heard the Spanish.

“Yes.”

“I suspected that.”

Despite everything, she smiled. He did too.

“Tell me before I accidentally declare war on someone.”

Micco's smile faded into something more vulnerable.

“If you take my hand, everyone here will understand that I chose you.”

Diego stopped breathing for a moment. The meaning rearranged the entire dance behind her. He looked once toward the old Cassekey. She was waiting. Toward the Chipco. Waiting. Tomasa. Radiant and absolutely useless. His gaze returned to Micco.

“Chose me for what?”

It was not rejection. Micco heard the care in the question. That made answering harder.

“To court me. To let them know I would hear you if you asked.”

Diego's eyes changed. The public clearing seemed to fall away from them without actually becoming private.

“And if I take your hand?”

“You tell them you would ask.”

He did not reach immediately. Micco's heart beat once hard enough to hurt. Then Diego said, “And what do you want me to understand? Not them. You.” No one had ever asked her that question so plainly. She looked at his hand beside him.

At the cloth no longer tied around his wrist, lost or removed somewhere between the beach and Pentoaya. At the same man who had written servant beside her name because the ledger required it. At the man who had left a queen's necklace in a flooding ship.

At the man who had followed her judgment when Florida became a world he did not understand. Micco lifted her eyes.

“That I am asking whether you would choose me back.”

Diego took her hand. The clearing erupted. Not all at once. First the old Cassekey struck the arm of her seat with delight. Then the warriors shouted. Then the drums answered even though no one had signaled them. Tomasa jumped to her feet. Micco barely heard any of it. Diego's hand was warm around hers. He leaned closer.

“There is still something I do not know.”

“What?”

“What am I supposed to do now?”

Micco looked at his mouth before she could stop herself. That answered part of the question. Diego saw. Her face warmed.

“You may kiss me.”

“May?”

Micco's eyes narrowed.

“Do not become difficult now.”

“I am making certain I understand the order.”

“It is not an order.”

That stopped the humor between them. Micco felt the significance of her own words. Not an order. Diego did too. He lifted his free hand slowly enough that she could have moved away long before it reached her face. She did not. His fingertips touched the side of her cheek.

Nothing about the contact resembled the storm, the surf, or the accidental closeness in the wrecked cabin. There was no danger forcing them together. Diego bent his head. Micco met him halfway. The kiss was brief. Warm. Careful.

Long enough for Micco to understand that all the moments before it had not been imagination. Short enough that when they separated, neither could hide behind passion and pretend it meant less than it did. The people around them cheered. Tomasa cheered louder than anyone. Mateo shouted something Diego promised himself he would punish later.

Micco kept hold of Diego's hand. For several breaths neither spoke. Then Diego glanced at the crowd.

“Your customs are less subtle than Spanish ones.”

Micco's smile returned.

“That is why they work.”

“I was not warned.”

“You were told Florida makes people wrong.”

He laughed softly. The drums resumed. The crowd began moving again, giving them privacy by becoming noisy rather than by leaving them alone. Diego's thumb moved once across the back of Micco's hand.

“Micco.”

“Yes?”

He looked as though he had more to say. Then he looked around the festival, at the old Cassekey watching them, at Tomasa nearly vibrating with triumph, at the Ais leaders who now knew something about him he had not known himself an hour earlier.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

Micco understood. Not because he was withdrawing. Because some words deserved daylight.

“Tomorrow.”

He released her hand only when the Cassekey called Micco back to her place. Micco crossed the clearing through people who smiled at her as if something important had been settled. It had not. Spain still existed. Governor Torres still existed.

The ship was wrecked. Diego still had men to recover and duties that did not disappear because a village had cheered a kiss. Micco's grandfather was somewhere south, coming toward a granddaughter he had not seen since she was a child. Nothing about the future had become simple.

But when Micco sat beside Tomasa again, one truth felt different from every title and journey that had preceded it. The hurricane had chosen Florida. Pentoaya had named her Karaya. No one had chosen Diego for her. She had crossed the firelight herself.