by Shannon Page
He stopped talking as the front door banged open and his little grandson, Biri, came trotting in to tug at Maleen’s dress. “Mommy, Papa said to tell you that some men who just came by say Lord Colara has sent soldiers to Three Cats to —”
“Yes, dear. Go tell your father thank you for me, but your grandpa and I are having an important conversation now, all right? Go back out and help your papa guard the house, okay?”
Little Jila stirred, and brought a thumb up to her mouth, but didn’t waken.
“Okay.” Biri pouted, but did as he was told.
If only everybody in this family were so obedient, thought Arouf. “All I did was ask her to be accountable for her behavior,” he said when Biri was gone. “Was that so unreasonable? After she’d run off to march around with that Butchered God cult, and gotten herself infected with this … obviously demonic, and completely illegal —”
“She didn’t march around with anybody,” Maleen cut him off. “She was attacked on her way to meet with —”
“There was no Hanchu trade delegation, Maleen! Do you think I didn’t check? I don’t think you understand how much trouble she’s gotten us into. For a week now, I have been harassed — at home — by temple priests, Factorate security officials, trade associates, even bill collectors — all looking for your mother! If that’s not abandonment, what is it? Some strange oaf even showed up claiming that Sian had hired him. It’s been like a circus! If you ever came to see us anymore, you would know what she’s been —”
“I’ve seen!” she cut him off again. His daughter had grown very rude, it seemed, since having children of her own. “She was here just a few weeks ago, remember? And yes, she said some … strange things. But abandonment and infidelity? How could you?”
“I told you, she ran off with Pino! That was weeks ago!” He raised his arms helplessly. Had he not explained this several times already?
“And you call her crazy? Pino is a boy, Father! She’s old enough to be his mother too!”
“That’s what makes it so indecent! Can’t you see that? And he’s not the only one, Maleen. Oh no. These people who keep coming to harass me: they’ve been asking about some man named Reikos too. A sea captain! Who knows how many other men there are? She’s turning our townhouse on Viel into some kind of brothel! Just imagine what our clients —”
“Listen to you!” Maleen screeched. Jila woke up and started to whine.
Maleen’s eyes were round as coins now. She still wasn’t getting it. What more would it take, he wondered, to make her understand how bad Sian had gotten?
Before either of them could say any more, the front door banged open once again as Biri ran inside. “Mommy! Come look, Mommy!” he exclaimed. “There’s a fire on Three Cats now too!”
Maleen whirled around and went back to the window. Arouf came to see as well. Sure enough, a new column of smoke was rising there, just across the water. The insanity was coming closer. Maleen was right about one thing. Sian was not the only one who’d lost her mind all of a sudden. Maybe it was some kind of plague. Would they all be crazy like this by morning?
Maleen looked down at Biri anxiously, jiggling the baby. “I’m sorry, honey; what did Papa say those men told him — about the soldiers Lord Colara sent?”
“They went to fight Lord Orlan,” Biri said, his eyes bright with excitement. “On Three Cats.”
Arouf drew a startled breath. If the great houses were fighting each other now, then this was no longer just an Alkattha family quarrel. What a disaster. To think that he should live to see this … It hardly mattered what Sian did now, he thought. Nobody’s business would survive this — except the Mishrah-Khote’s. And the undertakers. Monde & Kattë was ruined now for sure.
Maleen looked back out across the water, shaking her head. “She could be anywhere out there … in all of this.” She reached down to gather her son close, snuggling both her children as they gazed out at the new fire, then looked over her shoulder at Arouf, in tears now. “Did you even try to find out where she really is before you did this?”
“I sent her letters!” he protested. “I even went to the townhouse — it’s clearly abandoned. I came here hoping you might know where she could be — as soon as I found out about the Factor’s absurd war against the Census Taker.”
“You should have let me know about this sooner, Father.” Maleen turned back to the window. “She told me we were all in danger … I did not believe her.” She looked down at her son. “Maybe you should stay in here now, Biri. Would you like to play with Grandpa for awhile before you go to bed?”
He shook his head. “I want to keep helping Papa.”
She sighed, and smiled anxiously. “All right then. But if he tells you to come in, you do it right away. You hear me?”
Biri nodded, as if this were foolishly obvious, and turned to dash back out the door.
When he was gone again, Maleen turned back to Arouf, looking haunted. “Do you think she knew? That this was coming?”
“Your mother?” The idea seemed ridiculous at first, but, on second thought … “It would not surprise me anymore if she turned out to be responsible for all of this somehow.”
Maleen inhaled sharply, glaring at him with such outrage that he took an involuntary step backward. “Go!” she hissed, launching one arm up to point rigidly at the door. “Go out and help my husband guard this house! Or go clear back to Little Loom Eyot! I don’t care. But I won’t hear another word of your insanity tonight. Is that clear? We all have too much to cope with at the moment!” She turned away as Jila started crying in earnest. “Even she is tired of your madness!”
Arouf knew how to pick his fights, and this one was clearly not a winner for him at the moment. He nodded, already sidling carefully around her toward the door. Perhaps Haron would be more reasonable to talk with.
“I’m so sure that Mother made the Factor burn the Census Hall!” Maleen yelled as he escaped into the yard. “I’ll bet Pino was there too! And this Captain Reikos! I can see now why she left you!”
Arouf winced as he stepped out onto the landing and pulled the door closed, then turned to find both Haron and his grandson staring at him from beside the vine-covered gate. He offered them a sheepish smile as he descended the stairs.
Haron leaned against a hefty pike, brand new, it appeared, and considerably taller than himself. For all Haron’s muscular physique, Arouf had always thought him rather short for a blacksmith.
“Do you find, sometimes, that women can be … difficult to live with?” Arouf asked, grinning at this time-honored little joke between two world-weary men.
“I do indeed. Sometimes.” Haron turned back to look across the water at Three Cats. “Especially when I’m screwing up at something.”
Arouf’s grin faltered as Biri turned away as well, to look up at his father, then across at Three Cats too. No hope of support here either, then. Ah well. Arouf understood what it was like to be henpecked. Likely best to change the subject. “So …” he said, hesitantly, walking out to join them at the fence, “what do you suppose that is, burning over there?”
“Lord Orlon’s estate, I’d guess, from what we heard a while ago about Colara’s house guard. It’s in about the right place for it.”
“But why are they fighting each other like this at all?” Arouf asked with resurging irritation. “Where did this come from? Just a week ago, everything was fine.”
“Was it?” Haron asked, still staring at the distant fire. “Work’s been busier than ever for the last few months.” He looked back at Arouf. “You know what I’ve been forging?”
“I can’t begin to guess.” Arouf knew, of course, that Haron’s specialty was fine ornamental copper, brass, and silverplate, but he didn’t see how months of brisk business could be anything but yet another indication that things had been going fine, just as he’d said.
“I’ve been forging weapons.” Haron nodded at the pike he held. “Like this one.” He turned to thrust his chin across the channel at the
fire. “Not my normal stock in trade, but that’s all anybody seemed to want. Lord Orlon’s been among my biggest customers, though I’ve had large orders from three other major houses too. I have it on good authority from friends down at the guild hall that Orlon had a couple cannons made this year as well.” He shrugged. “This hasn’t all blown up since just last week, Arouf. I’m pretty sure of that much.”
“Too much time on their hands,” Arouf grumbled. “Too much money, and no idea what to do with it. That’s what I think. And a damn poor Factor up on Home, of course.”
Haron raised a brow at this. “That’s our family you’re speaking of.”
“Sian’s family, not mine.” Arouf frowned at the memory of his last conversation with her. They are targeting my family … “Launching cannon at his own cousin. Insanely rash. I don’t know or care what they were quarreling about, but that’s what started this. The man has always been erratic. This whole Butchered God nonsense that’s swallowed up my wife; he started that as well. Ordering that … thing that washed up, hacked to bits and fed to people? How mad was that? If he’d just had the sense to let the creature rot there, as it should have, our whole workforce wouldn’t be out marching pointlessly around now while the nation’s business goes to hell.”
Haron shrugged again. “If so many people hadn’t been so hungry, he’d not likely have come up with the idea.”
“You approve of what he did?”
Haron sighed and looked back at Three Cats. The island had turned orange and purple in the evening light. “I’m just saying things were plenty bad for quite a while before that corpse arrived. If it hadn’t snapped the twig, likely something else would have.” He reached down absently to tousle his son’s hair. “The question now is what to do about all this.”
“About a war?” Arouf asked bitterly. “Too late to do much of anything, it seems to me. For us, at least. They have to figure out what’s to be done now. It’s their mess.”
“Papa,” Biri said.
“It’s our mess,” Haron told Arouf. “It may be their fault, or it may not. But the only person I can trust to make my life work is —”
“Papa!” Biri said again, tugging at his arm. “Who is that?”
Arouf and Haron both turned to squint into the sunset at whatever Biri was interrupting them about. Two haggard-looking women — aged vagrants by the look of them — were hobbling up the street.
“Is it looters?” Biri asked. “Should I go get Mommy?”
“No, son. They’re just old ladies. They won’t hurt us.”
“Is it Grandma?”
Haron smiled down at his boy. “No, Biri. Grandma’s somewhere else right now.”
Biri looked back at the women uncertainly. “Why are they coming here then, Papa?”
“They’re not coming here. They’re just walking by to somewhere else.”
Biri looked again, and shook his head. “No. Look! They’re waving at us!”
To Arouf’s surprise, they were — and one of them was calling Biri’s name!
“It’s Grandma!” Biri cheered, smiling broadly and waving back at them. “Hi, Grandma! We thought you were looters!”
Footsore and parched, Arian followed Sian up the dust and gravel lane toward a modest but attractive teak-gabled house, raised on poles above the vegetation, with lovely wrought-iron grillwork over all its windows.
“Oh, there’s Haron now,” said Sian, “and my grandson, Biri!”
In the yard, before a large outbuilding, two men and a wiry, dark-haired little moppet stood beneath a jasmine-covered gate, watching them come, hands held up to shield their eyes against the evening sun. The handsome, coal-haired man beside the little boy was of medium height, but quite well muscled, holding up a tall, gleaming new brass pike, of all things. The larger man behind him was too obscured by flowers and shadows to make out well.
Sian raised her hand to wave at the little boy, who said something to his father, then grinned and started waving back.
The second man leaned out from behind Sian’s son-in-law to peer at them in apparent surprise. “Who is that?” Arian asked Sian.
Sian stopped abruptly. “Arouf! What is he doing here?”
How cozy, Arian thought uncomfortably. “Should we modify our story then?”
“No.” Sian frowned. “Let my husband hear what his stupidity has cost. Let them all hear.”
They had realized while walking here how difficult it would be to explain Sian’s ‘maid’ without touching on their time with Escotte — especially in their current, ragged condition. Arian did not want herself connected with any of the past few days’ events — at Census Hall or temple. So they had built a new cover story around the abandonment complaint filed by Sian’s husband. Which would doubtless be even more interesting to relate now, with him standing there to listen.
“Are you sure?” asked Arian.
“Yes.” A grim smile curved Sian’s lips. “This is even better, in its way.”
The little boy had run back into their house by the time they reached the gate.
“Sian?” said Haron, coming out to meet them, astonishment and dismay written plainly on his face. “By all the gods, what has happened to you?”
Arouf came up behind him. “Where have you been?”
“Arouf,” Sian said, her voice cold. “We need to talk.”
“Indeed we do. I’ve been looking for you. For two weeks now! Who is this woman?”
“My name is Freda,” Arian said, not liking this man any better for having met him in the flesh. What kind of greeting was this to give a lost wife in such obvious distress?
“What have you done now?” Sian’s obnoxious husband demanded. “You both look like tramps.”
“Arouf!” said Haron, turning to him in amazement.
“Mother? Oh!” Sian’s daughter came running from the house with Biri at her heels. “What has happened to you?” the woman cried as she and Sian threw their arms around each other. “Are you hurt?”
“I cannot be hurt very easily anymore,” Sian reminded her as they pulled back from one another. “But I’m much better than I’ve been, now that I am here with you. Where is baby Jila?”
“I’ve already put her down. Mother, where have you been?” Maleen asked, wiping tears from her eyes. “We’ve been so worried, what with everything that’s happening.” She waved an arm at the columns of smoke rising above and beyond Three Cats.
And what has been happening, exactly? Arian wondered yet again, hoping desperately that these people would be able to tell her.
“Well, I’m very sorry to say,” Sian began, frowning back up at Arouf, “that until this afternoon, I have been held in the dungeons of the Factorate Justiciary. Thanks to you, husband.”
“Me!” Arouf gasped. “How am I possibly —”
“Your ridiculous complaint!” she cut him off. “Abandonment, Arouf? After, what, two days? Had I been gone even that long when you sent your vile document after me?”
“Oh, Father!” Maleen exclaimed, turning to him angrily. “Look at what you’ve done!”
Arouf gaped from daughter to wife in disbelief. “No one is arrested for a marital complaint!”
“Not in ordinary times, perhaps,” said Sian. They had prepared for this. “But these are clearly not such times, and they weren’t feeling as lenient as usual. I have had much time to think about how angry I am with you, Arouf. Am I a child now, that I can’t even leave home for a few days without permission? If not for all this sudden chaos, I might never have escaped.”
“Why don’t we all go inside,” Haron said with studied calm. “Clearly, you two ladies need a moment to refresh yourselves. When that is done we can —”
“Oh no. No indeed,” Arouf sputtered, shaking his head fiercely. “You are lying to us, woman. Again! I have been tormented all week long by temple priests and Factorate officials who seemed desperate to know where you might be. I told them about my complaint. I asked them why they hadn’t found you yet. Are you t
elling us it did not occur to them to check in their own prisons?” He turned to Maleen. “Did I not tell you how she is now? This is all more lies!”
Seeing that a patch was needed quickly, Arian spoke up. “Have you ever been inside the Justiciary’s prison, Domni Kattë?”
“Monde!” he snapped. “She is the Kattë here! I am Monde!”
Arian raised a brow at this. “Well then, Domni Monde, have you, or have you not?”
“Of course I haven’t,” he grated. “I am not a criminal.”
“Then you don’t understand what a madhouse it is,” Arian said calmly, though the admission made her cringe inside. “There are dozens to a cell sometimes, and hundreds of cells. Sadly, it would not be very hard, I think, to lose someone there for years. You’re lucky that your wife escaped at all. These officials you speak of might not have rediscovered her themselves until your grandson here was grown with children of his own.”
“Who is this?” Arouf sneered. “One of your fellow inmates, Sian?”
“Father!” Maleen shouted. “You’re frightening your grandchild.” Everyone looked down to find Biri now hiding in his mother’s skirts. Maleen reached down to stroke her anxious child’s head. She shook her own, and turned to take the boy inside.
“We should go in now,” Haron insisted. “Sian, Freda, please accept whatever refreshment we can offer you. Then perhaps we can discuss things more civilly.” He shot Arouf another warning glance, and waved Sian and Arian toward the house behind Maleen and Biri.
Sian’s repugnant husband lingered behind, shaking his head as if for some other, invisible audience, before following them. Arian could not imagine what had possessed Sian to stay with him long enough to bear children. Then again, she reminded herself, she was likely not seeing them at the best point in their long relationship — or at the least stressful time for anyone. Which reminded her …
“I am sorry,” Arian said to Haron as they climbed the stairs and stepped into the family’s comfortably appointed little dwelling. “Sian and I have only recently met, thrown together on the road as we fled all this … all those fires …” It took no acting ability to look distressed and confused.