by C. L. Polk
Rules and Regulations
Zelind coasted beside me on our bicycles, kher arm held out to signal a turn. “Doesn’t Nolene have to prove criminal intent on the part of the clan?”
“Yes. And that’s what’s going to save them,” I said, coasting down the slight hill from the Princess Mary.
We were taking the zigzagging, scenic ride along Hillside, the part of Riverside that marched up King Philip Hill to the rest of Kingston. Zelind sat upright, taking kher hands from the handlebars, and stretched. “So the logical thing is to march all those witches onto the stand and let them testify. If they have the nerve to trust the court.”
“Some of them will. The rest can submit written statements,” I said. “My worry is if Nolene gets an advocate who isn’t below the occasional dirty trick.”
“Like what?”
“Endless motions, for one,” I said. “They take time and money, and if they ask for the activities at the hotel to be suspended … they could drag this out until Miss Minerva dies.”
“And then it’ll be a mess.”
Zelind leaned over the handlebars again. “What will we do if Clan Cage loses?”
I sighed. “I think we’d have a hard time finding them somewhere as suited to their needs as the Princess Mary Hotel. But if they need to be together—”
“They do,” Zelind said. “It’s how they grew up. Together. Doesn’t it make sense to you?”
“Yes. It does now,” I said. “And I think I need to get Solidarity behind this. Public opinion could drive this story in the direction we want.”
“We can win this,” Zelind said.
“We can win this,” I repeated. “With the right advocate, it’ll be over before we know it.”
We arrived at the clan house in good spirits, and Zelind held my hand to steady me as I slid out of my shoes.
“Robin, is that you?” Aunt Glory called from the second parlor. “Come in here, please.”
“We’re coming,” I called. “Is Orlena here?”
“I’m here,” she called. “Is Zelind with you?”
“Why are we shouting across the house?” Zelind muttered, and then raised kher voice. “I’m here!”
Orlena sat with a printed contract in her lap sitting on top of a folded copy of the Star of Kingston.
Orlena was a first cousin. Whip smart, more interested in the law than in her power to speak with birds, she was a slender, elegant figure in the custom-fitted suit she didn’t even notice anymore. Gray streaked her tidy, tight-braided hair, and she had chosen polished agate beads for the ends. She watched us, and I doubt she missed a detail of our attire or our demeanor.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” Zelind said.
“You’re not. I came early,” she said, her soft, girlish voice startling out of such a handsome, mature-looking woman. “I’ve read the contest rules, and there’s a problem,” she said. “I’ve underlined the relevant portions.”
Zelind took the long document and paged through it, squinting at the tiny print. Khe traced one finger over a passage and scowled. “‘Applicant agrees to a transfer of rights to their entry upon application,’” khe read, and looked up from the document. “Hold on. I get a quarter of a million marks, but they hold the rights to my invention?”
“It’s worse than that,” Orlena said. “They claim the rights of all entrants, not just the one who wins.”
“Thievery,” Aunt Glory said. “All these Mountroses, they’re all the same.”
“No,” Zelind said. “No, that’s not going to happen.”
It was dirty. How many people had an advocate to read the jargon of the rules to find out what they were giving away?
“That clause is completely unfair,” I said. “You can’t enter the contest, Zelind.”
“I won’t,” Zelind said. “Word of my ancestors, I’ll never fall for thievery like that.”
“But what do we do?” I asked.
“I start my own business.”
Glory glanced up from her knitting. “With your pension? That you haven’t been paid yet?”
“All I have to do is build one turbine,” Zelind said. “When the neighbors see the lights shining through the window, that will do the rest.”
I sighed. “It won’t be that simple. You need an investor. You need manufacturing space. You need employees—”
“Ownership share workers,” Zelind said. “And maybe we can do it on orders—there would be a lot of backlog at first, but—no. We need an investor. But who?”
“Let me think about that,” I said. “But we have to do it fast. You need to register your invention—”
“Here,” Orlena said. She held out a sheaf of papers. “I thought you might want them. If we fill it out today, I can start the registration process tomorrow.”
“Orlena, you are the best,” Zelind said. “We can work in the dining room—”
“There’s one more thing,” Orlena said. “The offices are close to Main Street. We get the afternoon paper an hour before delivery makes it to Riverside, and today’s headline is—Robin, I am so sorry.”
“What? What is it?”
Orlena unfolded the paper. The Star’s headlines were bold, often one word and a picture to drag two cents out of a reader’s pocket. This one read UNFAITHFUL, and beneath it read JACOB CLARKE’S SECRET MAN COMFORTS WIDOW.
The subtitle floated above two photographs. The photograph on the left was of a younger Jacob Clarke standing with his arm around Duke Corbett, who laughed as Jacob tried to blow a note in the band-man’s trumpet. I’d seen this picture before—it hung in the hallway at the Clarkes’. But I had never noticed the soft admiration in Duke’s eyes. How had I missed it?
The photograph on the right was taken outside the funeral home. Winnie Clarke stood beside Duke, whose head reached up to nudge the widow’s chin higher, saying something, by the set of his lips.
But Duke wore that same tender look when he looked at Winnie. The caption under the photo read THE WIDOW AND THE OTHER MAN.
“Oh no,” I said. “This is all over Kingston? Right now?”
“It’s spreading as we speak,” Orlena said. “They’ll talk of nothing else at the press conference tomorrow. What are you going to do?”
I smoothed my hand over my skirt pocket. “Handle it. I’m sorry, Zelind. I have to go see Winnie.”
And if I was right, Duke wouldn’t be hard to find either.
* * *
Every reporter in the city crowded the entrance of the co-op where the Widow Clarke lived, and I spotted the chrome fenders and white enamel of Duke’s favorite bicycle.
“Excuse me,” I said while I shoved a reporter off-balance and snuck into the gap. “I beg your pardon. I’m going inside.”
“It’s Robin Thorpe,” someone said, and the scrum spun around, notepads and cameras thrust in my face. “Miss Thorpe. Is it true that you have trapped Jacob Clarke’s soul to do your bidding?”
“Is it true that the spirit of Jacob Clarke leads Solidarity through you?”
“Miss Thorpe. Does Jacob have any comment about his long-standing unfaithfulness to his wife?”
“These questions are all nonsense and I have no comment,” I said. “Excuse me.”
I pushed, trod on toes, and bullied my way through the scrum, only to be confronted by the double row of brass buttons shining on the coat of the doorman, who scowled.
“You know who I am,” I said. “She’ll want to see me.”
“Mrs. Clarke said she didn’t want to be disturbed. I can’t take you up.”
I slipped one hand inside my pocket and pulled out my card holder. “Send my card,” I said. “I’ll leave if she says no.”
“Miss Thorpe!”
“Miss Thorpe! Did you know about the affair? Were they still having liaisons?”
I kept my back to them and watched the doorman disappear up the stairs. It took twenty minutes for the doorman to return, gesturing me inside with a sharp nod. I jogged all the way up to the fourth floor, where Emma ho
vered in the doorway, looking peaked.
“She’s in terrible shape,” Emma whispered. “She’s groggy.”
More sedatives. I nodded and stepped inside, crossing the foyer to the plush, carpeted parlor, where Winnie leaned on Duke’s shoulder, still weeping. She lifted her face and stared at me through a starry veil of tears.
“Did he say anything?”
I went still. I listened. Would the sight of his wife and his lover stir him to any kind of response?
Winnie’s face fell as I waited for something, anything to happen.
“There’s nothing. I’m sorry, Winnie. How long?”
Winnie blinked. “What?”
“How long have the three of you been married? Does your clan know that Duke here should actually be Duke Clarke and not Corbett?”
“They know,” Duke said. “My family doesn’t. They would never have accepted it. And now people think that we betrayed Winnie? We’d never do that. It’s been thirty-two years.”
“Longer,” Winnie said. “Since college. Aelanders don’t understand triangle marriage. It confused Duke for years. Do you remember that song, the delight of three?”
It was before my time, but I knew it, and I followed Winnie’s sedated chain of thought. “Yes.”
“It was banned.” Winnie reached for Duke’s hand. “That only made us want to play it more. We were inseparable friends.”
“You and Jacob and Duke the third wheel.”
“It never felt like that,” Winnie said. “We’d sit up and wait for Duke to come home from a performance or a tour and—you couldn’t take us apart. So we did it. We were three. But now—” Winnie shut her eyes. “He wasn’t done. There was so much left to do. There was so much we were going to do.…”
Triangle marriages were illegal. But you couldn’t stop a trio from saying vows. You couldn’t stop them from ordering rings with two names engraved inside them instead of one. You couldn’t forbid anyone to name whomever they pleased as a beneficiary of their estate. And that was good enough for any Samindan to bind themselves to the person—or people—to whom they belonged.
No one would go to jail for the crime of bigamy. Winnie and Duke weren’t legally or illegally married to each other. But white Aeland would be aghast at the truth of their relationship. There would be talk for weeks, and so they kept it quiet.
“Who knew?” I asked. “Who witnessed your vows?”
“Our clans,” Winnie said. “The Clarkes. Some of my mother’s clan came, too. We held it at the Princess Mary Hotel, on Duke’s birthday.”
“And you kept it quiet all these years,” I said. “The Clarkes, the Windhams … people from your mother’s clan—”
“The Brewers of the Fragrant Meadows. And Preston, he was at the ceremony.”
I went cold. “Anyone else from the steering committee?”
“Tupper Bell showed up early one morning—seven years ago? And found us all at breakfast,” Duke said. “You’re trying to figure out who told the papers.”
“It could have been any one of dozens of people. Did anyone disapprove?”
Duke shrugged. “A few people were concerned for Jacob’s respectability during his first political campaign, but the worry was unfounded.”
“Until now,” I said. Tupper had the charge of hundreds of children. He’d worry about appearances. Preston was our most reliable plan-breaker, who never let us take a step until he was satisfied. And he wasn’t happy I was succeeding Jacob.
And dozens of family members. But I felt it in my bones: It was one of those two. But which one?
“We have to figure out how to handle the press,” I said. “They’re not going to go away until they get their answers.”
“I can’t face them,” Winnie said. “I can’t.”
“I think you have to,” I said. “You and Duke both. At the press conference. Tomorrow.”
“At your press conference?” Duke asked.
“Yes. And I think I already know our strategy.”
“What is it?”
“Never tell a lie when the truth will do,” I said. “You’re going to give the press a love story—the love story of you, and Jacob, and Duke, and how triangle marriages are a part of Samindan culture denied by the law.”
“I can’t— Oh, Robin, please, I can’t say all that.” Winnie clutched Duke’s arm. “Not like this, not right now.”
“You will. You will both go. Winnie, you will wear your veils. Duke, you will wear butterflies, as you should, since your spouse has died. You’re bereaved spouses. You tell the truth, because the truth is beautiful, and anyone who doesn’t like it can kick rocks.”
“We will,” Duke said. “Do you want to fight your way out of that mess tonight? We have plenty of room.”
“I didn’t bring my clothes for tomorrow,” I said. “If I’d been thinking, I would have. But I’ll come early. At breakfast?”
“Please,” Winnie said. “And if you— I know he doesn’t talk to you. You said so. But if you could just stand by my side, in case he can hear me.…”
“I will,” I promised. “I’ll be with you through the whole thing.”
* * *
Breakfast at Winnie’s was delicious, and I hardly ate any of it. I had to go downstairs and speak to an entire curiosity of reporters, and that was nerve-wracking enough when all I had to do was announce my candidacy. Now I had to head off a scandal, and so I ate half of my custard and blueberry sauce and paced when it was time to go and Winnie wasn’t quite ready.
I nearly lost hold of my normally dignified stomach when I saw them all spilling out onto the street, pressed against the small wooden podium where I was going to stand and speak.
I couldn’t do it. My hands went cold; my throat dried up. This wasn’t where I belonged—not up there, trying to catch the attention of a crowd. But I had to do it. If I was going to lead Aeland, I had to do it.
I climbed the wooden steps and stood, now head and shoulders above even the tallest of them.
“Thank you for coming. I have a statement,” I said to the assembled gathering of reporters. “I’ve provided copies. Please take one. After that, I will take questions for five minutes.”
Because if I had to stay up here any longer than that I was going to be sick. I looked out at the faces of the reporters with green spots in my vision from all the flashes, and the smell of a hundred extinguished matches in the air. Beside me, Winnie squeezed my hand and leaned on Duke for support.
That had the reporters in a mumble. “The first thing I want to talk about is the accusations of infidelity smeared across Jacob Clarke’s good name. The truth is, he and Winifred Clarke and Duke Corbett entered into a private commitment ceremony known as a triangle marriage over thirty years ago.”
Shouts from the reporters. More flashbulbs, and someone off to the side hand-cranked a strip-film camera, optimistically hoping there would be a way to replay it soon.
“Ring marriages are not uncommon among Samindans, who have historically recognized that marriage should encompass more than two people. Aeland has known and looked the other way for centuries.”
“But that’s … that’s bigamy,” a reporter stammered. “How could an Elected Member indulge in such an immoral practice?”
Aelanders! There was nothing immoral about it, but they controlled the lawmaking process that kept traditional romantic bindings between two people, and they had to be between people whose bodies configured exactly the way Aelanders expected. We Samindans let them have their law, working around it with legal designations other than registered marriage.
It was silly. But the people assembled in front of me were rocked by the idea. The truth scandalized them, however they thrilled to romances between men or women at the cinema.
I had to get this under control. I couldn’t backpedal from my earlier statement, though, and so I spoke over the babble. “Winnie, Jacob, and Duke engaged in a Samindan cultural practice with thousands of years of history behind it. There is no controversy
here. Duke was Jacob’s husband. Winnie is Duke’s wife. Both have lost their beloved. They ask for privacy while they mourn the loss of their husband. Please treat them with respect.”
Skeptical faces looked back at me. Some of the reporters were tight-lipped. Some paper would follow up with a piece about Samindan triangle marriage and smirking stories about historical triples who loved each other as spouses. I had made it worse, telling the truth. But Duke stood up beside me, facing the curiosity as they dropped flashbulbs in their pockets and loaded fresh ones.
One of them spoke up as Duke wrapped his arm around Winnie’s shoulders. “Duke, are you worried that the revelation of your peculiar love life will reflect badly on your musical career?”
“I’m only worried about one thing, and that’s Winnie’s happiness,” Duke replied. “For thirty-two years, I wore a ring very like the ones some of you wear, and cherished my family, just as you do. These questions are ugly. I won’t dignify them with a response.”
He took Winnie down from the tiny stage and guided her inside the co-op, leaving me to face the reporters alone.
“Thank you. Duke and Winnie are not taking questions.”
“Miss Thorpe, is your own marriage to Mx. Zelind Bay legally sanctioned?”
I fought to keep the outrage from my face. “That’s none of your business. The period for questions about Jacob’s marriage to Winifred and Duke is closed. I’m moving on to the next matter.”
Half the reporters rushed off, eager to get their copy typeset for next morning’s edition. The man with the strip-film camera covered the lens with a cap, as my announcement wasn’t worthy of motion film. But enough reporters stayed to listen, and so I cleared my throat.
“Jacob Clarke was murdered in broad daylight. His murderer is still at large, while the police expend minimal effort to bring justice for a man who fought tirelessly for the rights of Aeland’s citizens. Jacob’s assassination was meant to silence him and shatter the Solidarity Collective. It has left a hole in our hearts, but we persist, even with guns pointed at us. We stand firm against their hope that if they cut the head off our movement, the body will die.