Esh

As a poet of modest success, I am often asked about my feelings on love. But unlike many of my vocation, some of whom have made whole careers rhyming on the subject, I have never found it an easy theme to broach. In fact, in all my many verses, I have never managed to produce a satisfactory love poem—surely a glaring omission for any poet's oeuvre.

I was once asked why by a journalist for the Sol Literary Supplement. The answer I gave was an evasive and, I must admit now, disingenuous one, lamenting my own inadequacy in the shadow of masters of the past: How could one compete against the likes of Sappho, Shakespeare, Neruda, Limón—who had written about love with such passion, such wisdom? What could I say that they had not already said a thousand times more eloquently?

The truth of it, however, is that whenever I try to write a love poem, my thoughts inevitably turn to Esh and the customs of the curious horned people who call that distant world home.

I first visited the planet several years ago on the invitation of Itkka Itkka, a talented poet sadly rather obscure in the central systems of the Commonwealth, whose acquaintance I made early in my career when she was commissioned to translate my first collection.

Over the course of many consultations, we became close friends, and so I was subsequently delighted when she asked if I would attend her wedding-wake. (Unions on Esh, I later learned, always share their celebration with the mourning of a death.)

When I questioned her about her words, which made little sense to me, she told me that according to Eshan traditions, romantic union could only occur when two suitors were willing to vie for the hand of their mutual beloved. The suitors, having gained the approval of their intended, proceed to engage in deadly combat, using the horns that protrude from their heads, much like those of a bull, to claim the victory. Unlike analogous contests one might see in nature—the clashes of stags or rams, for example—all Eshan duels end in death. There is no quarter.

Indeed, whether she was to be married or mourned, Itkka Itkka said, she did not yet know, as her duel was not to take place until the following month, one day before the event.

When I arrived at the celebration (admittedly rather late, my starliner having been delayed several days due to issues with its interstellar drive), I was, however, delighted to see that Itkka Itkka had in fact prevailed, and knelt beside her beloved—the beautiful Matta Matta—at the head of the temple. Both were draped in robes of vibrant emerald green, the Eshan colour of mourning, and were, when I entered, engaged in a visceral wailing and weeping at the feet of an ornate bier that had been erected atop the altar. The corpse, which I later learned to be that of Itkka Itkka's cousin, was wrapped in robes of bright yellow, the Eshan colour of celebration. The betrothed couple wept for her death, while she, in turn, celebrated and blessed their union. Itkka Itkka, who I know to be a gentle soul with a subtle and delicate way with words, appeared quite pale and said little throughout the ceremony, having suffered a near-fatal puncture wound to her neck, which caused her considerable discomfort and pain.

Due to my delay, I had not been witness to the duel itself; however, for a vivid description one need look no further than the poem "A Spring Union" by Itkka Itkka herself (the Terran translation of which she kindly prepared at my request).

Hands clasped, heads bowed,
We dance, for love, to the death:
Thrust, clash, twist, break;
the hole you open in my neck
sings a serenade of blood.

We vie again! Thrust, clash,
twist, break; I run you through
the lungs, and they croon
sweet words of love to Matta Matta.

Scarlet streams down my horns,
makes a rose of my face,
which I will give to our beloved
at our wedding-wake.

At the prospect of such violence, one would think that Eshan marriages would be few and far between. But for Eshans, love is something unequivocally worth dying for; there is no shortage of unions—or, for that matter, of passionate young deaths.

The ceremony ends with a solemn ritual known as The Shearing of the Horns. Once removed from both parties, these are placed in the hands of the corpse to be burned, along with it, in a great bonfire. Thus, once married, an Eshan will never be able to duel for another lover again. Such a commitment may seem shocking to us in the Inner Systems, but to the Eshans, there is no doubt about the value of such a bargain (the Eshan equivalent of "I love you" can be roughly translated as "I have risked death for you, and I have killed for you," to be responded to with "You have risked death for me, and you have killed for me"). Furthermore, to throw away a love won in such a way would be of greatest disrespect to the one who lost their life fighting for it.

In the rare cases that an individual does leave a marriage, he or she is summarily exiled, Eshan sensibilities having no tolerance for those who commit what they see as a truly heinous betrayal. Before Esh was brought into the Commonwealth, exile more often than not meant death from malnutrition or exposure for the offending party. Now, these exiles, though they are few, find their ways to other planets, where they can sometimes be found in bars picking fights with happy couples, never quite being able to adapt to a non-Eshan mode of courtship despite their rejection of it.

I encountered one of these exiles just once in one of the revolving bars on the Tokyokohama Spire, while sipping cocktails with the playwright Kano (with whom I was, ostensibly, in love at the time). Kano was, and still is, I imagine, a highly civilised man, our congress characterised by a true meeting of minds; from our mutual love of Proust to our disdain for turn-of-the-millennium architecture. We were sitting, talking, laughing, when I caught sight of the Eshan across the bar. His horns had been removed, leaving circles like the stumps of tree branches on his forehead, but he wore no emerald in his ear, as is the custom for those on Esh who are married. I cannot say for sure whether there was something in my look that suggested I might be susceptible to his advances, but the next moment he had marched over and put his hands heavily on Kano's shoulders. There was a faint smell of alcohol about him, which suggested that though he was drunk he was not yet entirely insensible.

When Kano turned to see who was accosting him, the Eshan fixed him with a grim stare and said, in slightly slurred Terran, "I'll fight you."

Kano, aghast, replied—"Excuse me?"

"For her," the Eshan said, gesturing at me with what was left of his horns. "I want her. You want her. I'll fight you for her."

Before Kano could respond, however, two security guards were on the Eshan and were dragging him unceremoniously away. He struggled like a demon, and as they threw him out the door, he fixed his eyes on me with a feverish intensity, and howled so loudly that everyone in the bar could hear: "I would risk death for you, and I would kill for you!"

Hurriedly I took a sip of my drink. My heart was racing.

Kano watched me for a moment in silence, examining my agitation. Ever the perceptive one, he said eventually, "You wanted me to fight him, didn't you?"

I bristled at his words. "Of course not," I retorted. "That would have been barbaric"—though I found I was unable to meet his gaze . . .

***

It is at this point in my recollection, the poem barely begun, that I inevitably put down my pen, unable, as much as I might desire it, to compose another word.