Jai came out of his bedroom as I was dishing out breakfast, arranging it so as to best conceal the burnt bits. Mushroom omelette, roasted sporebread, kebab of black bat, and a bowl of spicy stew. A jug of sugar water stood in the middle of the table, and three ceramic mugs. I'd done my best, but somehow the result still ended up far less impressive than it had in my imagination. Once again, I had decided that this perfect domestic wife act just wasn't for me.
'Ah! He emerges!' Rynn grinned. It was meant to be a bluff greeting, but Jai took it as a dig. It was the kind of misunderstanding that was becoming more and more frequent between them.
'It's not that late,' he said, looking at the brass clock on the wall.
'Come and sit down,' I told him, with a smile. The sight of him in his morning robe, dark hair in disarray, brought back a surge of that grateful warmth which had inspired me to cook in the first place.
He took his seat. Rynn had already begun to eat. He had quite an appetite, and he wasn't fussy. I loved that about him.
'Your father has to go away again,' I said as I sat down. Jai was loading up his plate. He paused, looked inquiringly at Rynn.
'That's right,' Rynn said, between forkfuls. Then he slapped Jai on the shoulder. 'But you're a young man now, eh? You'll cope.'
I caught the wince that crossed our son's face, before his expression fixed into the reassuringly grave frown of a boy acting a role beyond his years. 'Of course. It'll be, what, a few weeks? Voids, I'll be fine.'
'Don't curse.'
'Sorry.'
'I'm sure it won't be that long,' I said. 'One of us will be back pretty soon, I bet.'
He gave me a quick little smile. It's alright, Mother. But the smile didn't reach his eyes. He couldn't quite hide the disappointment.
I watched the two of them as they ate. Rynn oblivious, comfortable with the silence. He never spoke unless he had something to say. But Jai was all coiled up, wanting to speak but not daring to, knowing that he wouldn't be understood. He was palpably awkward around his father, and I suffered when I saw him that way almost as much as he did. He was so desperate for the approval that had been withdrawn from him, but he didn't know how to get it back. Just being near Rynn was torment, and yet being away from him was worse, because then there was no possibility at all of redemption.
Rynn was only aware of it because I'd told him. But he didn't know what to do, either. Jai was too smart to fall for false compliments or feigned encouragement. Rynn was too honest to give them. Jai couldn't deny that his truest desire was to be an inventor, not a warrior. Rynn couldn't deny that his son – the only child we would ever have – didn't match the image of manhood that he'd dreamed of. Between the two of them, they were at a stalemate.
Jai took a breath to speak, but he was interrupted by a frantic rapping at the door.
'It's Liss,' he said. Rynn groaned.
I got up, knowing that Jai had guessed right. The second barrage of hammering proved it. Nobody else ever assaulted our door with that kind of agitation.
'What's that woman want now?' Rynn said.
I cast him a sharp look. Don't disrespect our masters in front of our son. He fell to his plate again, grumbling. 'More trouble than it's worth knowing those two,' he muttered around a mouthful of omelette. He'd long forgotten that the only reason we had a son at all was because of the twins.
I opened the door and Liss threw herself into my arms, wailing. She was in a particularly flamboyant fashion phase, her thin frame swathed in layers of bright colours and her hair dyed green and orange. Thick red and yellow makeup had run down her cheeks.
'Hello, Liss,' Rynn said, deadpan, as if her melodramatic entrance was the most normal thing in the world. Jai suppressed a laugh.
Liss threw him a haughty look, sniffed, and wiped her eyes, smearing her makeup further. 'Let's go elsewhere,' she hissed. 'I have a deadly and terrible secret!'
I was worried about her, a little; but this last line, delivered with absolute seriousness, almost made me crack up. I turned it into a cough instead. She was so ridiculous sometimes, it was easy to forget how dangerous it was to offend her.
I didn't need to ask where Casta was. Liss was only ever seen alone when Casta disappeared on one of her periodic absences. The abandoned twin was more than usually woeful and lachrymose during those times, but she was doubly excitable when Casta returned.
'We're having breakfast,' I told her, though the protest had little force. As a Bondswoman, I was at her beck and call. I was just hoping she'd understand and put her own crises aside for a moment.
She didn't. 'Never mind them. Come on! There are lives at stake!' She took my hand and tugged me towards the corridor outside.
'I'll see you when I get back, then,' Rynn said. Cold.
I was suddenly angry at him. What right did he have to take that tone? As if I was responsible for Liss's shitty timing. As if I had ruined things.
But I knew what he was thinking. He disapproved of my friendship with the twins. He thought I should have made an effort to distance myself from them. And this was the result. Hence, my fault.
I didn't trouble to reply. I'd only have said something snappy. It hurt me to leave this way. We were both passionate people, and that meant we had our arguments; but we always resolved them before we went to bed. Now I would be replaying that last comment over and over the whole time we were apart, constructing arguments, imagining what I'd say when we next met. I should have just been able to forget it, but I never could. I hated the idea that he'd scored a point on me without giving me the chance to defend myself.
And what was worse, I hated the idea that he might die with this faint thread of poison hanging between us. If he was to die, I wanted it to be with the absolute certainty that I loved him.
I followed Liss out into the corridor, glaring at her back. The good mood I had woken up with had soured. I felt a failure as a mother and as a wife.
This had better be good, Liss.
I tried to ask her what was wrong, hoping to get it over with quickly so I could get back to my family. She hushed me. 'Too many ears and eyes,' she said, and wouldn't be drawn further.
She took me high up into the Mansions, to her chambers, blind to my obvious impatience. The twins' rooms were embarrassingly opulent but messy, an uneasy fusion of Liss's extravagance and Casta's more restrained personality. She led me by the hand past the door guards, through the reception rooms with their gaudy curtains and pools stocked with bright fish and eels, into the bedroom where the twins slept.
The enormous bed was in disarray, and Liss's clothes were draped over any place that would serve as a hook or a hanger. Casta's influence was evident in the carefully organised ornamental figurines that populated the bedside table and window sills. Shinestone lamps of coloured glass gave the place a cosy ambience, although there was still a faintly creepy tinge to the room. Something to do with the idea of the two of them sleeping together.
Liss threw herself down on the bed and I perched next to her. 'So tell me,' I said. I could still catch Rynn outside the Mansions if Liss's latest problem could be dealt with quickly.
She rolled onto her side and gazed at me hard. 'I received a letter,' she breathed.
'And?' I was annoyed, and it slipped into my tone.
'You're not listening to me!' she snapped, and then her head slumped down on the bed and she sulked. 'You don't care.'
I took a steadying breath, composed myself. Being thorny wouldn't help my cause. Better to just go with it. 'Forgive me,' I said. 'I didn't mean to be curt. I just have a lot on my mind.'
'You hate me,' Liss accused, lip trembling.
'No, I love you,' I said, stroking her hair. It was hard to stay mad when she looked so pathetic. 'We're friends, aren't we? Aren't I the one you come to when Casta's away?'
Liss sniffled and nodded. She was like a child: infuriating, selfish, but ultimately innocent. She didn't think about other people; it wasn't in her nature. She didn't know any better.
'
Tell me what was in the letter.'
Suddenly animated, she flung herself upright and drew out the letter from inside her dress. She presented it to me proudly.
'I have a suitor!' she declared.
I blinked. This was the cause of the tears? She certainly didn't seem too sad about it now. I took the letter.
'Open it!' she said. 'It's from Thulia Iolo. He says he wishes the pleasure of my company at his mansion in the Rainlands!'
'Well, that's good,' I said, reading. I looked up. 'Isn't it?'
'Yes! He loves me, he loves me! And I love him!'
'You do? Have you met him?'
Liss waved that away. 'When two people are meant to be together, they just know.'
'He's certainly a rich man,' I mused. 'Good political match. I can't see Ledo objecting.' I managed a smile. 'I'm happy for you, Liss.'
Her face clouded with dread. 'Oh, but you don't know, you don't know. You don't know how Casta gets.'
'How does she get?'
'Murderous! Murderous angry!'
'She doesn't know?'
'No! No, no, no! How could I tell her?' She was pacing around the room now, agitated. She opened the door and peeked out in case Casta should be listening. Once certain that we couldn't be overheard, she became courageous. 'And why should I? She goes away and never tells me why, but what about me? If I want to go away, she forbids it! If I want to have a husband, she says she'll do terrible things! Just because she hasn't got a suitor. Who could love her?'
She cringed and then ran to me, clutching me for protection. She'd gone too far and was afraid that her sister would somehow know. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that, don't you?'
'I know you love your sister,' I reassured her. 'And she does, too.'
'Where does she go, when she goes away?'
'Perhaps she's looking after Clan business. After all, if something should happen to Ledo, she'll become Magnate.'
Liss snarled. 'She always acts the older sister. Older by a few minutes! That's all! If I'd come out first it would have been different!' Then she became maudlin. 'She doesn't keep any secrets from me. Not from me. Only this.'
'Will you go to the Rainlands, do you think?'
She nodded. 'I'm ruled by my heart, Orna. Nobody understands the love that I feel. I'm helpless in its grasp.'
'And will you tell your sister?'
'Never!'
But I knew she would. Liss was too weak-willed to keep a secret from Casta. I wondered if Liss's fears about her sister were founded in anything factual, or if she was just overreacting. Certainly, Casta was possessive. But dangerously so? Who could say?
Thulia Iolo was either very brave or very ill-informed.
Then Liss was away on another tack, rhapsodising about how she felt like a woman at last, now that she was the object of a great man's affection. My hopes of seeing Rynn before he left dwindled to nothing. I settled in and resigned myself to a long session of counselling. The needs of a Bondswoman were secondary to the needs of her masters and mistresses.
Once, my life had been simple. So very long ago. Once there had been a farm, a mother who cooked wonderful meals and a father who was invincible and would never let anybody hurt me. Once we told tales by firelight and I didn't have a care beyond what games I would play with my little brother. Once the White-skins were only a story to frighten children into obeying their parents.
I wanted those times back. I wanted a world that was straightforward and clean, a world where I didn't have to kill anyone and nobody tried to kill me and I could be a mother to my son and a wife to my husband.
But that world, if it existed, had passed far beyond my reach.
37
'You're pregnant?'
I looked at Rynn, my eyes hard. Daring him to follow through on the shock and horror in his tone. Daring him to imply it was my fault.
He was normally oblivious to non-verbal cues – my husband didn't do subtlety – but he got this one. I saw him swallow the words he was going to say.
'This is bad,' he murmured.
I knew it was bad, but I still chose to take his words the wrong way. I was nineteen, scared and furious and spoiling to take it out on somebody.
'I'm glad the thought of our having a child brings you such joy,' I spat at him sarcastically.
'Don't be stupid, you know that's not what I meant,' he barked back at me, and I shut up. That was why I loved him. He didn't take any of my shit.
He stood immobile, framed against the circular window that looked out over Veya from the heights. Our rooms in the Caracassa mansions were lit with soft lanterns, throwing low shadows across the polished rootwood floor.
'How?'
'Well, when a man and a woman like each other very much, they-'
'Voids, Orna, I'm not in the mood!' he snapped.
I was stung. Foolish of me. I dealt with my fear by joking, but he didn't. He used anger. And he was terrified.
'I was sick,' I murmured. 'You remember? Sometimes the potions don't work when you're sick.'
He remembered. The illness took me out for twenty turns. It's not easy for a man like Rynn to go that long without sex. The moment I felt up to it, he was at me with breathtaking fervour. We should have waited till my body was back in balance.
He glanced at me from under his heavy brows. Determining whether I was blaming him. I wasn't.
'We have to tell Ledo,' he said.
'Yes,' I replied, but I had gone cold at the thought.
'Do you know what-'
'I'm keeping the baby,' I told him.
'That's not your choice,' he said.
I looked away from him, crossing my arms. Mind made up.
He stormed across the room, a shadowy hulk of rage. Grabbed my arm, thrust one thick finger at the symbol on my left cheek. Three diagonal slashes: the Bond-mark.
'Do you really know what this means? Do you? It means you're property. It means you're Ledo's to do whatever he wants with. How do you think he's going to react when you tell him?'
I pull away from him. 'He'll tell me to get rid of it,' I say.
'And if you refuse?'
My voice is smaller. 'He could execute me.'
'He will execute you both,' Rynn corrected. 'He could execute you just for getting pregnant. He could execute me too.'
'He wouldn't. He wouldn't waste two of his Cadre that way.'
'Are you sure? Are you sure of anything where the aristocrats are concerned?'
'He wouldn't,' I insisted.
Rynn calmed a little, stepped away. He walked to the window and looked out. After a long silence, he said. 'You're his property, as I am. You've already proved yourself one of his best. You'll be out of action for whole seasons. Even after you're back, will you ever take the same risks again? Will your mind be on the job, or on our child? Will mine?'
It was a speech of exceptional length from my husband. Usually he chewed matters through in his own head, not aloud. He must have been really scared if he felt that he had to share it with me. This wasn't something he could handle alone.
'I'm not giving it up,' I said again.
'He'll kill you, Orna. There's a process. We should have asked permission. Our first duty, above all others, is to serve him.'
'I swore myself into Bond when I was ten,' I said. 'Don't tell me about loyalty. He won't execute me because I'm too good at what I do.'
'He'll execute you if you disobey him.'
And he was right. What use were Bondsmen if they were not utterly obedient? Death was the inevitable consequence of rebellion for the Bonded. And still, it didn't seem to make a difference to me. The threat of what might happen had paled in comparison with the threat of not having this child. I saw the logic of the situation – voids, it's not as if I hadn't thought it through myself a hundred times – but it didn't seem to connect with the process of choice. It just didn't matter.
Even while contemplating the possibility of my own execution, I had been drifting
into fantasies. A baby, a place of our own. Rynn coming home from his work, something mundane and boring and safe, me staying at home, learning to cook, trying out my culinary experiments on my hungry husband. I dreamed normality, the life of the Veyans that ran shops, shuffled papers in banks, bid in the auction-houses. The simple life, where husband and wife were never apart for more than a few turns and nobody had to die.
But fantasy was all it was. We could never be other than Bonded. Rynn could never have a job other than the one given him by Clan Caracassa, and they would never consider it because, like me, he was so good at what he did. I would never be allowed to be a mother, because what use was that to Caracassa? Our children would not be Bonded. Rynn was the last in a three-generation lifedebt and I had only sworn my own life away, not that of my children.
They would make me give up the baby. But I couldn't do that.
'Do you want me to get rid of it?' I asked him.
His back was to me. I saw him tense slightly. Then he exhaled a long breath. It was the question he had been dreading.
'If we get rid of it now, Ledo doesn't have to know,' he said slowly.
'Then we can ask him for permission. If he grants it, we can try again.'
'I know that,' I said. 'Do you want me to get rid of it?'
He sighed again. Rynn was very careful with making definite decisions, because once made he almost never went back on them.
'No,' he said. 'I want us to keep it.'
Tears welled up in my eyes. I blinked them back. 'Can we run?'
'If there's no other choice.'
'You mean it?'
'I said so, didn't I?'
He did mean it. A life of poverty and probable starvation, of being rejected by society, eking out a living on the borders of Eskara. Nobody would trade with us or give us jobs. Our friends in the Cadre would devote their lives to hunting us down.
Better than nothing.
'First we talk to Ledo,' he murmured. 'See what he says. Agree with whatever he orders us to do. Then we run, if we have to.'
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