“Ha, red-on-the-forehead!” said Halmis. “I had a dream last night! We met rivers and mountains, but the wagons and the oxen swam like boats and flew like eagles and we came to a golden house—”
Ramiki was often jealous of Halmis’s dreaming, but he did not think now of that. All was lost in the fact of that red mark, made now, not after he had taken Halmis’s hand in his, before witnesses!
He spoke, “Taru and Nardan, your brothers, stay in the plain. They have marked their foreheads with blue, and Ina and Matar, their wives, are marked with blue. All their household....”
“I leave their household,” answered Halmis. “I am going to seek it—the golden house beyond the hills!”
“My house?”
“I want to know what is there, beyond the hills! It was not your house, Ramiki, in my dream, nor my house.” She lifted a reed in her hand. “It was the house.”
Ramiki moistened his lips. “A woman without a husband goes or stays as goes or stays her father. If her father be dead, then she goes or stays as goes or stays her brother or her nearest kinsman.”
“They made that rule. I am prophetess of Arzan. I rule for myself. I have spoken to the chiefs and the elders. By the god-stone, many watching, I put red paint upon my forehead!”
Ramiki breathed hard. There was a Ramiki who was going to speak, and somewhere else there was another Ramiki. Both lived, but the one who had the word was of great size.