by Shannon Page
“I’m not just mad; I’m furious!” Arouf launched himself from the wall with balled fists, shoving Sian aside to get at Pino in the doorway. But Reikos snaked a hand out to grab Arouf around the arm before he got there, at which point Sian’s husband turned with murder in his eyes to head-butt Reikos in the chest, while she shrieked and jumped out of the way.
“Stop it! Now!” yelled Haron, lunging forward to knock both men through the doorway into Pino, who went tumbling backward with them, out onto the moonlit landing. Haron moved to fill the doorjamb, followed by Sian, who peered past him. “I’ll have no brawling here! If you can’t behave like men instead of children, you can leave now.” He glared down at Arouf. “Your grandchildren are asleep in here, old man. I don’t know or care what may have happened elsewhere, but you will respect my home and family, or you will not be welcomed here again.”
Arouf looked … not sorry, Sian thought. But cornered, anyway. And possibly embarrassed. As she was feeling too now. She sensed Arian’s arrival just behind herself and Haron, and turned to find her looking out between them onto the landing as well.
Pino scrambled to his feet and backed away from both the other men. “Domni Monde, I have had nothing … nothing to do … that way, with Domina Kattë,” he stammered, clearly as shocked as Sian was that her husband could have imagined such a thing.
Arouf stared daggers at him for a time before his fierce expression faltered, and uncertainty began to register instead.
Hopeful that this madness might be done at last, Sian allowed herself an impatient huff, which just reignited Arouf’s ire. He turned to glare at Reikos next. “I am possibly mistaken about my runaway employee,” he said a bit more quietly. “But I don’t think I am mistaken about you.”
“I am a shipper and importer, Domni Monde,” Reikos said with icy calm. “A business associate of your wife’s — and of yours, actually, for many years now — as you’d have known, if you had ever come to Alizar Main to negotiate with me yourself.”
Sian watched them, careful to keep anything at all out of her face.
“My wife seems awfully fond of her business associates tonight,” said Arouf, straining to imitate the captain’s calm now, it seemed.
“And again, if you and I had seen more of each other all these years,” Reikos answered, “we might have become such good friends ourselves by now.”
Her husband shook his head and turned away. “You are a snake,” he murmured.
“Arouf,” Sian said, feeling responsible for this spectacle. “This is not the time or place. We’ll work these things out at home.”
He turned to her in mock astonishment. “Oh. You’re finally coming home, then?”
Sian glanced back at Arian, wincing at the knowing expression on her face. She had not wished to tell her about the captain, or about the rest of Arouf’s marital complaint. Now she wished she had. She looked back at Maleen and Haron as well, seeing very clearly that it was too late to have handled this more wisely with anyone.
“I’m sorry, husband. Truly,” she said quietly. “I cannot come home just yet. I have … unfinished business I must tend to.”
He gazed at her, without any sign of the new outburst she’d been braced for. He just emitted a tiny humph. “You don’t care at all what a fool you’re making of me, do you,” he said softly. “You never have.”
That wasn’t fair. “Whatever you’ve assumed, Arouf, I have not been off dallying with lovers all this time — or at all! I have been running for my life, imprisoned, tortured —”
“You’re still clinging to that story?” he cut her off crossly, then jerked a thumb at Reikos. “With him standing here in front of us?”
“She’s telling you the truth,” said Pino. “The Census Taker had us all imprisoned!”
Sian heard Arian’s soft gasp behind her in the doorway, and shook her head at the boy as slightly as she could and still have hope he’d notice.
“The Census Taker?” Arouf’s brows climbed in comic parody of shock. “My dear wife’s lofty cousin? Has he gone to war with all his family members now?” Arouf turned back to Sian. “I thought you’d been arrested by the Justiciary. Let’s get our stories straight now, shall we? Which one was it?”
Sian had no idea what to say. Arian had gone still as porcelain. Even Pino looked around uncomfortably, seeming to realize that perhaps he’d said something wrong. Reikos had seemed turned to stone for some time now, while Haron and her daughter just wore sad, confused expressions. With Reikos and Pino here … What a disaster.
“Cat got all your tongues?” Arouf glanced almost happily around. His eyes fell on Arian, and lingered. “And where do you fit into all of this, Freda? Truthfully, I mean. Do my wife’s appetites these days run even more broadly than I had supposed?”
Arian’s lips parted in offended astonishment.
“That’s enough!” Sian shouted. “You’re acting like a pig, Arouf!”
“You’re acting like a whore!” he shouted back.
Haron moved to shut the door, but Sian stopped him. “There will be no more hitting here,” she told him quietly. “But it is long past time Arouf and I spoke truth to one another. It cannot wait, apparently, and I am tired of waiting anyway.” She’d done quite a bit of thinking since she and Arian had talked back in the tunnels. Whatever mistakes she’d made with her husband, he had not just been some passive object on which she had acted. He’d had as much power as she to see that things were going wrong, and try to fix it. He just hadn’t tried.
“Well, this should be entertaining,” Arouf said, folding his arms across his chest. “Which new truth will you tell us now, I wonder?”
“The truth about why we are finished,” Sian said, feeling all her insides fall into her knees. “And about when our marriage really ended.”
Her husband’s face went very still. Maleen gasped, and put a hand across her mouth, her eyes wide and reddening. Haron looked back at his wife, then set his jaw and left the doorway to go take her hand.
“I did not leave you for any lover, Arouf,” Sian said, slamming her heart shut to drown the frantic voices there all begging her to stop. “I never wanted to. It is you who have abandoned me. Many years ago, I think.”
“What are you talking about?” He was still angry, but quiet now. “I’ve been right there making dinner for you every time you’ve bothered to come home from that townhouse you’re so fond of. I’ve spent every day for years right there at the looms and dye works that provide our livelihood. I spend more time in any single month with all the people we employ than you’ve done in the past three years. I’m the one who’s been at home the whole time you were gone! What have I abandoned?”
“Me,” she said. “You have abandoned me to handle the whole frightening world for you, while you hide at home, puttering around the kitchen, and tinkering with machines I’ve hired people to maintain, enjoying your sleepy little home day after day without ever having to look up at all the paper I must wade through, reading ’til my eyes burn late each night, writing ’til my fingers knot. Or all the scheming people I must chase and charm and wheedle for concessions while you cook stew at home; the hiring, the management of supply and distribution, licenses and fees. You never have to leave your snug cocoon, Arouf — not even to come see your grandchildren. Not that I’ve been much better at that, anyway.” She looked back at Maleen, wondering if that would be too broken now to fix as well. “You’re right, Arouf. That’s where I always find you, safe and sound, whenever I come back from all the precarious uncertainties and punishing expectations you have abdicated to your absent wife.”
“I thought you enjoyed your work!” he protested.
“I thought you appreciated my help,” she replied.
“If you’ve been so overwhelmed, why didn’t you just ask my help?”
“Two weeks ago I begged for help! I told you I had been assaulted and … and changed into something frightening! I proved it to you, by healing Bela! All you did was clutch your preci
ous business — the business I was out there trying to build when this was done to me — and call me a wicked, irresponsible threat to your cocoon!” She swiped away tears. “And told me you were no part of my troublesome family, of course,” she added quietly. “I begged your help, and you just cast me straight into the sea. It’s been my job all these years to protect you from trouble, hasn’t it? Not to ask for help.”
“Did you ever love me?” he asked, just above a whisper, looking only hurt, not sorry or concerned.
“We loved each other once, I think.” She thought again about that picnic lunch atop their new island, many years before, and tears leaked out once again. “But we went to sleep somewhere along the way. I … don’t blame just you for that. Maybe I left you … too little, when I agreed to go out and manage the world for us. Maybe I just managed you instead of paying attention to what was really best for us. But, Arouf, you were as capable as I of speaking up if you weren’t satisfied — of struggling after answers. I did not force you from my bed, or from my life. You could have done something to try fixing all this too. Long ago.” She shrugged miserably. “You don’t though. You don’t want to. You just keep sleeping, hiding, expecting me to fix what’s wrong with us. Alone.”
She saw something moving, finally, there behind his eyes. “So … you’re just going to leave me now?” He seemed genuinely astonished. “I’m sorry if … if the complaint I filed caused you trouble.” He looked at Haron, Pino, even Reikos, as if expecting them to take his side. Then his eyes wandered back to hers. “I just thought they’d bring you home.”
“I hoped once … that you would come after me.”
“I have. I’m here, aren’t I? Come home,” he pled.
“I will,” she said, “when I have finished dealing with the trouble I’ve been handed.”
“And when will that be?” he asked. “I need you there. The business …”
She closed her eyes. For just a minute, she had thought … had hoped … “You can hire someone to take care of that.” She dared look, finally, at Reikos, who was gazing back at her with all the sadness in his sea-blue eyes that she had hoped for from Arouf. “We have the money to buy you a business manager, Arouf.” She wished she dared go to Reikos right this minute and let him hold her as she cried into his shoulder once more. “We left each other long ago. We sleep alone now. We live separate lives.” She looked back sadly at her onetime husband. “You make a very tasty stew. But I’ve eaten many lovely dinners with a lot of people I have never married, and will never love. I’m sorry.”
Arouf looked down at the dark landing, seeming as bewildered as a child. Had he really thought she would just be bullied back in line, and come home to resume their long, sad, farce? If you even wanted to wake up … she thought. But no. He didn’t. Even now. His expression became stony as he turned to walk slowly down the front stairs and into the yard. “If you’ve decided to divorce me, then you’ll have to file the papers by yourself. I’m not going to do it. This wasn’t my idea.”
“I know,” she said numbly. “I’ll take care of everything. As soon as I have time.”
I came here trying to save her, Reikos thought, watching Sian’s husband leave the yard, head down, humiliated.
When they’d found no one left but fleeing servants and distracted soldiers in the Census Taker’s burning mansion, Ennias had suggested they head for the Factorate on Home, since that was where the women had been bound if all had gone as planned. On Home, Ennias had learned from soldiers he knew there that the Factora-Consort was still missing and that no one even knew who Sian Kattë was. That’s when Pino had suggested looking for them here. He’d known where Sian’s daughter Maleen lived, of course. They’d left the sergeant at the Factorate to serve the embattled Factor there, and made their way back up through all the madness breaking out on Cutter’s and Three Cats. … Only to destroy her marriage, and disgrace Sian before her family.
Reikos had come intending to tell Sian that he understood, at last, how blindly he’d been treating her — for years now. How much better he would be henceforth … He had intended to tell her that he loved her as he had never loved, nor ever wished to love, any other woman.
But one could hardly speak of love at such a moment. Especially when that moment was his fault. Always charging to the rescue. Always landing her in even greater trouble than he’d found her in. He looked up at her, standing sphinx-faced in the doorway, watching Arouf go. Did she need saving? It did not seem so.
So, what were they doing here?
“Will you come in, then?” Sian asked, looking first at him, then at Pino.
“Are we … wanted?” Reikos replied.
Sian looked back into the house, toward her son-in-law and daughter, then turned back to him. “Have you somewhere else to be?
He shook his head.
“Then come inside,” she said wearily, turning to go in herself.
Reikos looked at Pino, who shrugged at him. They started for the doorway.
“Mother, you’re not really leaving him. Are you?” Reikos heard the daughter say.
“I’m … so sorry,” Sian said to her. “For everything that’s happened here tonight.”
“But, are you?” Maleen pressed.
Sian nodded, clearly struggling not to cry again. “Yes, Maleen, I’m sorry. But there’s really nothing left there to go back to now.”
Sian’s son-in-law gazed stolidly at Sian, then turned to hug his weeping wife.
“I’ve been scolding him all afternoon,” Maleen said wretchedly. “Yelling at him for making such ridiculous accusations.” She looked at Reikos, who wished with all his heart now that he’d just refused Sian’s invitation to come back in. “How much of what he said is true?”
The other woman there had retired to a latticed, teakwood bench across the room, as far away as possible from everyone by now, though she still watched with clear concern. Reikos wondered who she was, and wished he’d had the sense to plant himself much further off as well, but was afraid even to move now.
“I have never thought of touching Pino,” Sian told Maleen. Reikos saw the look on Pino’s face as this was said. Had Sian seen it too? No, of course not. She was clearly blind to all of Pino’s looks. Perhaps the boy was luckier than he knew. Just now, at least. Or maybe not. “But your father and I … have not been lovers either, for a long, long time, Maleen.” Sian turned almost fearfully to Reikos, who just managed not to drop his head into his hands. “We had a kind of understanding about all of that. At least, I thought we did. It was one of those things … as many things become when you’ve been married long enough. … Or even too long, it appears.”
Maleen shook her head, and looked away. “I can’t believe this. It’s like I have been living in some other world.”
“You were living here. In your world, where you belong,” Sian said. “With Haron and Biri and Jila. It is Arouf and I who have been … out of touch. I don’t know how to tell you — now — how sorry that makes me. How determined I am to change that much, at least. If … you can forgive me, and allow it.”
“I’m still not even sure what all I’m supposed to be forgiving you for.” Maleen’s eyes darted skittishly around the room. “Who are these people, really? Where have you been? What is really going on?” She gazed at the other woman. “Please, tell me who you are, and why you and my mother need to leave again tonight.”
Reikos looked back at the other woman too now, more sharply, understanding only then that she was not just some friend of Maleen’s family, some stray neighbor. If she and Sian were together … and had to leave tonight — “Oh, by all the bloody gods,” he murmured.
Seeming to have just then reached the same conclusion, Pino looked at Reikos with round eyes, then, staring at the woman, went half-spastically onto one knee. Everybody stared at Pino, as Reikos wondered if he ought to do the same. He was no bloody Alizari. He’d never even seen the local royalty. Was he supposed to bow?
“Get up!” the woman said in obv
ious alarm. “What are you doing?”
“Aren’t you …” said Pino. Sian shook her head, too late. “The Factora-Consort?”
The woman’s brows shot up. “How can you … think such a ridiculous thing?” she backpedaled bravely.
Maleen’s eyes darted back and forth between the woman and Pino, who got uncertainly back onto his feet. The lad has all the sophistication of a newborn puppy, Reikos thought. Of course they had told Maleen and her husband some concealing story.
“She’s right,” Maleen said to Pino. “What a ridiculous thing to …” She looked back at the woman, who was still gazing at Pino, trying very hard to make distress seem irritation. “I’ve only ever seen the Factora-Consort from a distance,” Maleen said. “But she looked not at all like you.”
“Of course not!” the woman said, as if offended at the very thought. “I don’t know what this boy’s been drinking, but —”
“Why did you tell us you’d been imprisoned by the Census Taker?” Haron asked, looking at the boy with an expression that told Reikos all their masks were off, or just about to be. The man was clearly no one’s fool.
Far too late, Pino looked uncertainly to Sian for guidance.
“Oh … oh … no,” Maleen murmured, shaking her head as if she feared for her own sanity. “Don’t tell me this.” She spun to face her mother. “It can’t be true! You weren’t there.” She glanced in panic back at Pino, then at Reikos. “Not all of you! I laughed at him! He said you were behind this, and I laughed!”
“Who — said I was behind what?” Sian asked.
“Father said this whole war was your fault!”
“That’s absurd!” Sian protested.
“That’s what I said,” said Maleen.
“The war is my fault,” said the strange woman, looking weary and resigned now. “And my husband’s, and Escotte Alkattha’s … and the gods only know who else’s, but not your mother’s.”
Maleen simply stared at her, incredulous. “You … are clearly not … in any way the —”