Mikael hadn’t heard that, but the gossip would have flown everywhere in Below. “He’s upset, Eli.”
“He says Gabriel would have made better decisions.”
“Entirely possible. I don’t know Gabriel well.”
Eli turned a stricken face toward him. “Do you think I wanted this to happen to Maria? She’s my sister.”
Mikael put a hand on Eli’s shoulder. “I don’t think it ever entered your mind someone would do that to her. You don’t think that way. You aren’t cruel. You aren’t stupid. Your mistake was thinking you could control things.”
Eli covered his face with his hands, then lowered them to the balustrade. “You always lecture me about control.”
The wind picked up then, cold stinging the inside of Mikael’s nose. “You want to control everything, Eli, but there are some things that are out of your hands. That’s hard for you, I think—asking for help. You’re going to have to learn to ask for help.”
“My father. . . .” Eli idolized his stern father. He wanted to follow in his father’s trade, representing the Family as one of their legal counsels.
“I adored my father,” Mikael told him. “He treated me like I could never do anything wrong. When he was around, I felt like the most important person in the world. But I never asked him for advice.”
“Why not?”
“Because he would just tell me to do what I wanted or do what sounded best to me. Life wasn’t very serious for him.”
“It is for my father,” Eli said with a rueful shake of his head.
“I know. I’m a little scared of your father,” he admitted. “So why did you never tell him she was breaking the rules?”
Eli shook his head. “I’m not entirely innocent myself, Mikael. I’ve been sneaking off to meet Rebekka all year. I wondered if Maria did this because she saw me getting away with it.”
Mikael pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh Hel. Are you having sex with her?”
Eli glanced across at him, nostrils flaring. “No, I promise. Not since she put on her blacks. I know the rules.”
Meaning that he was willing to cross the line, but not quite as blatantly as Maria had. Frankly, Mikael was a little surprised, but it explained his reluctance to report his sister. “But you were doing so before.”
“Yes.” Eli waved one hand dismissively. “A few times. I . . . She’s only four days older than me, Mikael. Did you know that? These rules are ridiculous.”
That was actually possible. Rebekka would have had to be born during the last couple of days in the year and Eli during the first couple of days in the next, but that difference would place them in separate yeargroups. Even so, there was no point in arguing against rules that were set in place to protect children.
“I understand your point,” Mikael finally said. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
“So what do you think I should do?”
“About what?”
“Father is going to ask the elders to have Maria sent to one of the enclaves. Gabriel says we should try to talk him out of it.”
Sending Maria to one of the enclaves—places outside the Fortresses where those of Family descent lived together—was a bit like sending Sera to Halvdan, intended to let someone else handle the problem that Maria posed. “I noticed Gabriel is pretty protective of her.”
“Don’t read anything into that,” Eli said. “Gabriel’s in love with Tabita, but Maria’s his only female cousin. My mother’s family has a tendency to produce boys.”
Mikael wished he could access Shironne’s knowledge of Eli’s yeargroup. Even though she’d only been there a week, she probably understood what passed between them far better than he ever could. “I guess the most important thing is to ask what your yeargroup wants. Have you talked to them to find out?”
Eli shook his head. “I haven’t had time.”
“I think you might try that then. Cancel everything else, get them all together. I know you know the law, but there are some things the elders might take into consideration.”
* * *
The yeargroup spent the afternoon bickering. Eli had contacted their instructors and asked to have the time off from classes so they could discuss the issue Maria’s current circumstances presented.
Shironne felt strange there among them. She’d misunderstood the problem the night before, mostly because everyone assumed she knew what the issues were.
If this were a Larossan girl, bearing a child without a husband would be a disastrous source of social condemnation. Here it wasn’t. Here the issue appeared to be her behavior toward her sponsors and yeargroup leaders . . . and the commitment involved in introducing a child into the yeargroup. Once Maria’s initial recovery ended, the others would be required to make up her duty hours whenever she missed. And after the child was born, they would have to help care for it. Children were apparently a communal responsibility.
“I can’t believe we’re even discussing this,” Tabita said when one of the other girls—Shironne couldn’t recall that girl’s name—complained. “Yes, Maria broke the rules, recklessly so. But we can take up any slack that’s left by her absence from our schedules. I’ll take an extra runner shift every week.”
That brought forth silence. Surprise coiled around where most of the girls were sitting, tinged with something that felt like shame. Every one of the sensitives would feel that. Shironne held her tongue.
“We can rotate the extra shifts,” one of the others—Hanna this time—said.
Shironne waited for the other girls to join her voice. This was something that she couldn’t volunteer for. She couldn’t be a runner. She wouldn’t ever be a sentry.
“If we support Maria,” Gabriel said then, “we’re only changing the timetable. Once we’re adults, there will be children among us and we’ll constantly be taking shifts for each other. If nothing else, her pregnancy would give Eli practice moving hours around.”
And that would dump most of the excess responsibility onto Eli, who felt guilty enough that he would take it on without complaint. Not today, at least. He would complain later, Shironne guessed.
“It should be the people who knew and said nothing,” one of the boys said. “This would change our yeargroup, and the ones who knew should have intervened.”
“Hel’s tits, that’s lousy of you, Iver,” one of the others hissed.
“It’s the truth,” the first boy returned. “You’re asking all of us to take on years of responsibility for her child when she clearly thumbed her nose at us.”
“One shift a month, at most,” Tabita said. “But we can leave you out, Iver.”
“Fine,” he said. “You know where I stand.”
The ambient among them roiled for a moment, frustration and embarrassment and regret washing all about her. Shironne pressed her lips tight, keeping the emotion at bay as best she could. It tugged at her, and she wanted to go rail at the boy in question, only she wasn’t even sure who he was.
The couch she sat on shifted as someone else sat down. A hand touched her gloved one. “It’s me, Hanna,” the girl whispered. “You show all your emotions on your face, so Tab asked me to come talk to you. You look confused.”
Shironne held in a groan. The Lucas were trained from childhood not to show their emotions so that only other sensitives would know whether they were alarmed or happy. She hadn’t been. “I’m not sure of the rules here,” she whispered.
“I thought you knew everything Mr. Lee knows.”
Shironne shrugged. “He knows about Lee yeargroups, not Lucas ones.”
“Oh,” Hanna said. “That makes sense. They’re making a fuss over this, over who will take responsibility, but not so much over throwing Maria out.”
“So . . . they’ll let her stay?”
Hanna squeezed her hand through her glove. “If the elders agree.”
Even through the cotton of her glove, Shironne could feel Hanna’s thoughts swirling, around the sore spot that was how Maria had always treated her,
how Hanna wished she could stay, too, but wouldn’t be allowed because she was an outsider, no matter how hard she wished to fit in.
It told Shironne a great deal about Hanna’s heart that she was still supporting the other girl when she wouldn’t receive the same protection herself. Shironne squeezed her hand back.
* * *
Deborah sat in the back where she normally did, never as vocal as some of the others. Still, she could raise her voice enough to be heard. “The girl is in no condition to be moved. As Head Infirmarian, I’ll have to refuse to do anything with her until I think she’s well enough.”
Joanna spared her a grateful glance. Seth’s cabal whispered among themselves, some of them old enough to have been elders when Deborah herself had been the girl under discussion. She refused to look in their direction, settling for making notes in a journal. That made her look harmless.
Seth spoke, the Battlemaster droning on about keeping the standards high for the upcoming yeargroups. “We can’t expect our children to follow rules when they have such an example.”
“Nor can we expect them to learn to forgive if their elders cannot do so.” Noah’s voice came in on the heels of Seth’s words.
A silence followed. Deborah imagined Seth rolling his eyes. As the Head Chaplain, Noah enjoyed a position where few could contradict him without looking tactless.
“We can’t let this go unpunished,” one of Seth’s cronies finally said.
Deborah sighed again. “A violent rape, two cracked ribs, a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder, and a broken nose. What additional tortures did you have in mind for the girl?”
Another silence followed that, and Deborah thought she’d won that point.
One of the council guards leaned into the room and signaled for permission to enter. Frida, the oldest of the elders, allowed the guard to approach. After a quick conference, the guard left and returned a moment later with Eli.
The young man came and sat before the elders, expression stoic.
“Elias,” Frida said, calling Eli by his rarely used full name. “Why have you come here today?”
“It’s regarding my sister, Maria.”
Frida nodded her gray head. “Go on.”
Eli took a breath and plunged in. “I have spoken with my yeargroup. Several of us knew something was wrong. I directed the others not to report it to our sponsors. In that way, I am as much at fault as my sister.”
“It showed poor judgment on your part, Eli,” Noah said.
Eli turned a shade paler when the chaplain made that pronouncement, but wisely didn’t argue.
“Still,” Noah continued, “she willingly deceived her yeargroup leaders and her sponsors. That was her choice, not yours.”
Eli nodded. “My yeargroup feels that Maria, and her child, would be better off with us. We ask that she be allowed to stay.”
Deborah didn’t look in Joanna’s direction, but suspected that her ally had turned to face the wall to hide her tears.
“And why should we do that, Elias?” Frida gazed at the young man with a steely eye.
Eli’s gaze flitted toward the old woman and then back to the ground. “There are precedents,” he said, his voice firmer now that he’d gotten their ear, “cases in which the elders found it better for either the safety of the mother or the child to retain them in the Fortress. For example, when a child is determined to be of Anvarrid blood, the possibility of inheritance can become a motivating factor for other members of the House involved.”
Half-Family children could inherit property from their Anvarrid parent if acknowledged, while half-Larossan children—like Jon Cerradine—had no such guarantee. Deborah smiled, thinking that Mikael might well have reminded Eli of that odd legal fact. That law made Mikael Valerion’s legal heir, even if his father had never married his mother.
“And is the child’s father Anvarrid?” Seth asked. “My understanding is that the girl refuses to divulge a name.”
“She hasn’t named him,” Deborah said. “But neither does that prove he’s not Anvarrid.”
“You’re suggesting that they might murder her to keep her from bearing the child,” Frida asked.
“No. Instead one might argue,” Eli said smoothly, “that only the fact that none knew she was with child saved her life. Had her assailants known that fact, she might well now be dead.”
“The implication being that someone in the hypothetical father’s House actually beat her,” Nicanor said. “What reason would they have to do so?”
Deborah knew full well that Nicanor knew the answer to that question. He was providing Eli with a chance to state it in front of the council.
Eli nodded to Nicanor. “Succession and inheritance, sir. Given that the father is a member of an Anvarrid house, any possible child of his would place the father higher in the familial line of succession.”
“A custom,” Seth argued. “Not codified into law.”
“Nor do I believe, sir,” Eli said, “that there is a law stating that a child who violates the rules be sent to an enclave. It is custom, controlled by the elders, of course, but custom.”
Deborah hid a smile behind her hand. Seth wouldn’t like being bested by a Sixteen, but he should have known better than to take on Master Elias’s son in the field of law. Eli could defeat him there with ease, although it wouldn’t win the young man any friends.
“So,” Frida said then, leaning forward and placing her chin in her hands, “on the off-chance that the child’s father is Anvarrid, you wish us to bend custom, Elias?”
“There are other precedents, ma’am,” he said. “In the twenty-fifth year of the treaty, the elders granted dispensation to a girl of the eighteens who . . .”
He’d just gotten warmed to his topic, Deborah realized. She shifted on her hard chair and fixed a patient expression on her face.
Epilog
* * *
THE EARLY EVENING was still bright, the clouds departed after dropping their snow everywhere. Since Gasanen had asked for such a late appointment, many of the roads and sidewalks were cleared, either by shop owners and neighbors or by the city’s street men. So Mikael walked down along the streets, heading for the northern edge of the town, away from the river. He could have taken one of the coaches from the royal stables or hired a cab but walking and mulling through the last few days’ events might help him gain some clarity.
Deborah had an idea who had wanted Shironne, and he couldn’t blame her for not telling him. Deborah took her responsibilities and oaths seriously. If it was a Family secret that she couldn’t tell him, she wouldn’t, no matter what it was. No matter how bad she felt about it.
Did Dahar know? He had barely spoken to Dahar since the night Shironne was kidnapped. His mentor had too many other worries at the moment. But that brought him to the question of whether Anna knew. If it was a Family secret, he supposed she shouldn’t, but she’d been comparatively unconcerned about the question of who wanted to take Shironne. That hinted she did.
They were all trusting that Shironne’s location in the Fortress would keep her safe, but incidents like last night’s were inevitable. They needed a better plan, and to create one, Mikael needed an idea who would be the farthest end of the line . . . their enemy.
The colonel suspected it might be someone in the Cince Empire, a possibility that seemed farfetched. Larossa simply had too few dealings with that side of the continent. He ran through the options in his mind as he walked, then ran through them again, and again.
Mikael sighed, letting his frustration have free rein since he wasn’t around any sensitives.
He’d reached more tailored streets now, the cobbles better laid. The snow had been cleared back, likely by those who owned the expensive homes in this part of town. They rose, buildings of pink granite, roofed with darker slate and bearing accents of marble. Many had gardens as well kept as the colonel’s, although far larger. Stone walls surrounded the properties to keep the riff-raff like him out, no doubt.
He r
eached the end of the street he traversed, where it opened into a cobbled central area off of which four houses had their drives, with a large well-maintained park on the opposite side. One was Gasanen’s, vaguely recognizable from the previous night’s errand. Pamini sat cross-legged on a bench in the park not far from the drive, cleaning her nails with the tip of a small knife.
“His guards know I’m here,” she told Mikael as soon as he neared. “I figured there was no point in staying hidden. Too uncomfortable and I would get tired faster. If they know I’m here, might as well sit.”
Mikael couldn’t argue that logic, except that it limited what she could see. “What if he goes out another gate?”
“There isn’t one,” she said. “Messine triple checked.”
“I can’t imagine someone like Gasanen not having an escape route.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are a couple of ways out on foot, but you know how that works. Every egress is also a possible ingress.”
And therefore, Gasanen wouldn’t expose them, much like the Family tried to keep their underground exits out of the Fortress secret. The more people who knew, the more likely someone would find out and use one to sneak in. “No movement?”
“I think we’re wrong. Gasanen isn’t going to whoever wants that horse. The buyer is coming here.” There was certainty in her voice, which suggested she had inside information.
“All the more reason not to be seen,” he pointed out.
Pamini gestured toward her drab servant’s garb, then swept one hand toward him to indicate his black uniform.
“I take your point,” Mikael said.
Pamini nodded once, never taking her eyes off the gate. “So, go away,” she hissed.
Mikael walked off at a strolling pace, heading for the spot where she was supposed to be hiding. At least the trees would offer cover for his overly obvious Family garb.
He watched the traffic on the street, the occasional carriage rolling by, along with a handful or workmen passing periodically. This part of town, solely residential and wealthy, was one where traffic didn’t flow without purpose. Everyone here had a reason to be here.
In Dreaming Bound Page 30