by Robin Roseau
Of course, Balotorid immediately agreed and then asked, “I don’t know why you act as if I have a real say.”
“You do have a real say,” Mordain replied. She snuggled up to him a little. “You make me so happy.” The two kissed, and it was very sweet. Then she turned to her sister. “Sartine, I miss you, and sometimes I miss my old friends. But thank you for trading me to Sudden.”
Sartine smiled. “I miss you, too, Mordain,” she said. “When we left you here, I feared I would never see you again.” She leaned over and kissed the top of Cecilia’s head. “And yet, here we are.”
Mordain looked at Cecilia. “When do I start?”
“Would you be able to begin tomorrow morning?”
“I don’t know,” Mordain replied. “Would I be able to begin in the morning?”
“Of course,” Valtine said.
Mordain turned to Balotorid, who held his hands up defensively. “I really don’t know why you ask me.”
“Because, Balotorid,” Sartine said, “Whether you always agree or not, Mordain knows she is your Galatzi wife.”
“It’s not only that,” she said. “We are married. Balotorid talks to me before making important decisions. If you were talking to him about something like this, he would at least give me a chance to remind him of other obligations, or to ask for a day or two for ourselves before beginning a new commitment.”
“Communication is key to success in a relationship,” Valtine declared. “We are glad the two of you realize this.”
“Then this is settled,” Cecilia said. “Today is a sad day, but for the good of Talmon, we look forward, as Chaladine is doing.”
There were nods and a moment of quiet, and then Sartine asked, “Baardorid, does Sudden pay a heavy price to support the empire’s presence on Talmon?”
“That isn’t how I would put it,” he replied. “Sudden pays a price we are pleased to pay, and we are rewarded. The empire has never asked of us anything we weren’t ready to offer, if only we know the need. What I would like to know is if there is more need, and Governor Grace fails to ask.”
“No, but I’m working on it,” Cecilia said with a smile.
* * * *
We reached home. We finished our foot ritual, and I stood, moving right into Kalorain’s arms. I looked into her eyes. “Will you tie me tonight?”
She smiled. “Was that a request, my Galatzi wife?”
“Not if you wanted me to pamper you.”
Her smiled widened. “You know I like tying you. Stay here.”
As she slipped from me, I began smiling, and my body quivered in anticipation, already knowing what was coming. Kalorain was gone a moment or two, and when she returned, I stood to attention. She set her small burdens aside and began undressing me.
“I love you so much.”
* * * *
In the morning, we collected Mordain. I’d been riding, but we took my cabriolet, the three of us pressed together, all of us in a jovial mood. In the back of my head, I knew Chaladine was gone, but I also knew we were doing what she would have wanted.
I vowed her planet would be strong and healthy when she returned to us. I was not going to let her down.
Ristassa picked up our mood and pranced as we traveled through the streets. Mordain spent half the ride admiring “my new cabriolet”.
“It’s not yours,” I said. “I’m only letting you use it.”
“Same difference,” she said. “It’s beautiful, Maddalyn. I don’t know why you would ride a horse when you can ride in this grand conveyance.”
“As you put Ristassa in harness, and then take her out, and then put her in, and then take her out, you’ll learn,” Kalorain said with a smirk.
“It might be worth it.”
“Well, that will be your decision,” I said. “Today I wanted to take the carriage, and Kalorain agreed.”
“You’ll hear no complaints from me.”
When we reached the embassy, the three of us together saw to Ristassa and the carriage, making short work of it. Mordain commented how easy that was. Kalorain and I said nothing. She could make her own decisions.
Inside, Cecilia and Sartine were waiting in Cecilia’s office. The three of us joined them, clustered around her conference table.
“We’re going to talk about some basics to begin,” Cecilia said. “Maddalyn, you already know most of your duties. I want you to coordinate with Kalorain and Mordain. Work out areas of responsibility and then let me know. I don’t need to be involved in that conversation, but I do need to know whom to ask.”
“When you don’t know,” I said, “You come to me.”
“Good,” she said. She looked at Kalorain. “If I told you that at work, she is not your Galatzi prize, does that bother you?”
“You and Sartine do a good job managing when you are Governor Grace and when you are Galatzi Wife Cecilia,” Kalorain replied. “Maddalyn and I won’t have a problem.”
“Good. Technically, the three of you work directly for me. In reality, it will be easier for me if much of the time, it feels like you work for Maddalyn.”
“That isn’t a problem,” Kalorain said.
“Mordain?”
“No problem,” she said.
“Good,” said Cecilia. “Here’s the next. You now have two vendarti.”
“Three,” I said. “You are also vendart for those working for you, whether we use that title or not.”
“All right, but we don’t use that title,” Cecilia said, “Unless we’re specifically doing it to make a Galatzi trade legal. Sartine will rarely act as Vendart when we are away from Indartha, and what you call her when we are away matters less. When we are at Indartha, she is Vendart, and you will treat her as such.”
Kalorain started it. She nodded to Cecilia and then turned to Sartine. “Vendart.”
“Vendart,” I echoed.
Mordain grinned. “Sartine.”
“Brat,” Sartine replied.
“We should discuss languages,” Cecilia said. Until now, we had been speaking Talmonese. “I wish an honest assessment of my Talmonese and Maddalyn’s. Begin with mine.”
Everyone turned to Sartine, who nodded. “All right. Cecilia, you carry a distinct accent. It is uniquely you, although your family carried an even stronger version of the same accent.”
“Let us consider that a Centos Four accent when speaking Talmonese,” Cecilia replied.
“Yes. You have been a fluent speaker for years. Occasionally I use a word you do not know. And you still struggle when someone speaks in a poor fashion, although that is most likely to be a problem only when there is also other noise.”
“That may always remain true for me,” she said.
“You are not fully comfortable with idioms,” Sartine said. “You know the ones used around you, but when we visit other villages, you hear idioms not frequently heard in Indartha. And you avoid using most of our idioms, but sometimes you translate English idioms and slang into Talmonese, and then no one knows what you mean.”
“Except you.”
“Except me, much of the time. I know what you mean when you say mad when you mean insane, but no one else does.”
“Why would she make that mistake?” I asked.
“Said the woman whose English is her third best language,” Cecilia said, but she smiled and touched my arm while she said it. “It is English slang.” She used the English form of mad.
“This is where the phrase madhouse comes from!”
“Yes,” she said.
“I never understood that one.”
“Now you do,” Cecilia said. She turned back to the others and said, “Madhouse. It literally means an angry home, but as an idiom, it means a place that is crazy, insane, or simply wildly disorganized. You might use it when there are a group of children running around screaming in their play, for instance.”
“You struggle with the equivalent in Talmonese. When you do not understand a slang word, and another word is used commonly that depends
upon an understanding of the slang, it sometimes confuses you.”
Cecilia nodded. “This may be exacerbated because most people speak very carefully around me.”
“And so you don’t hear the slang very often,” Sartine said. “Possibly.”
“Is there more?”
“No.” She looked at the other three, who shrugged.
“All right. Maddalyn’s turn.” And everyone turned to Kalorain.
“I haven’t thought about this in the same way Sartine has,” my wife replied. “I imagine everything she just said about Cecilia is true for Maddalyn.”
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“I can tell when she uses her implant to look up a word,” Kalorain said. “If she can’t find it, she asks me, and then I can see while she updates her implant.”
“How often does this happen?” Cecilia asked.
“Sometimes a few times a day, but it’s not every day.” She paused. “She does not use English or German unless she is quite sure there is no Talmonese equivalent.”
Cecilia turned to me. “German?”
“I don’t necessarily know the English word.”
“You have a translator for that.”
“There are German words that require a full sentence to explain,” I said. “Schadenfreude is my favorite. Even English speakers use that word.”
“Frequently, language defines thought patterns,” Cecilia said. She nodded. “Please continue, Kalorain.”
“If the primary goal were to make Maddalyn as fluent as she is ultimately capable, I would not have let her come back to work for you as soon as she did, Governor. I would have subjected her to a year or two. She is able to discuss any topic except technology and rely entirely on Talmonese, but as soon as we begin to discuss concepts outside my understanding, English or German creeps in.”
“I have a hard time hearing people in the baths,” I said.
“I do sometimes, too,” Cecilia said. “Mordain and Sartine, do you care to add to that assessment?”
“No,” they agreed.
“All right. Is there continued need to continue intensive immersion in Talmonese for either of us?”
“You’ll both continue to get better,” Sartine said. “Especially in difficult environments.”
“I lose my Talmonese if I get too worked up.”
“Kalorain must be very good,” Sartine said immediately.
I realized what she meant, and what I’d said, and I began to blush, which amused the vendart immensely. Kalorain said quietly, “I’m not sure that’s what she meant, although that happens sometimes. Not very often, as I worked hard to train her out of it.” Then she grinned. “So when it does happen, I take it as a compliment.”
“That word Sartine used for Mordain applies to the two of you,” I said.
“When you lose your Talmonese, what language do you use?” Cecilia asked.
“Deutsche.”
She nodded. “That will get better in time but probably will never go away. I encounter it less not so much through practice but through years. It is harder to fluster me.”
“And I consider it a compliment when it happens during lovemaking,” Sartine said with a grin while brushing her fingertips to her chest.
“That doesn’t happen,” Cecilia said. “Seeing as how our language at home is English. You are the one who forgets.”
“Um.”
“Yeah,” Cecilia said with a smile. “Getting back to Maddalyn and me… We’ll both continue to get more practice when working with people outside this group. Kalorain, do you consider that sufficient for Maddalyn?”
“Yes.”
Cecilia switched to English, speaking far more carefully than she did in Talmonese. “All four of you need to become more comfortable in English, and so this is our language.” She looked at me. “Comments?”
“My Talmonese is better than my English,” I said. “Are we going to be punished for using the wrong language?”
Sartine and Cecilia eyed each other. It was Sartine who said, “That served a purpose. That purpose is past. It could come back if people grow lazy and use Talmonese when they could be using English.”
And so we had a decision.
“All right.” She gestured to Sartine, Mordain, and me. “The three of you are authorized to fly into Indartha.” At that, Mordain began to grin. Cecilia ignored it and turned to me. “When we go somewhere, Sartine does most of the flying, although I tend to do landings into any difficult locations.”
I wasn’t sure why she was telling me this. “All right,” I said slowly.
“When I go somewhere, you go somewhere,” she added.
“Ah.” Now I understood.
“Sartine may go. She may not. She has duties to Indartha.”
“I understand, Governor.”
“So far, you do,” she said. “I don’t know what to advise about your jumper.” She sighed dramatically. “I may have to be without your company for the flight to Indartha tomorrow.”
“Governor, how often do you expect me to travel without you?”
“On duty for me? It happens. It will be convenient not needing to arrange someone to take you.”
“So I would use my jumper then. I wouldn’t take yours.”
“You’re going somewhere,” she said. “Jump to it.”
I looked at Kalorain who said simply, “This is entirely your choice.”
“Governor, I bought that jumper because I wanted it for my duties, and because I wanted my wife to be able to see her mother more often. So the question is this: should my jumper remain here, free for Mordain to use? Or should it come to Indartha for me to continue to use?”
“Oh,” she replied. “Both are good answers. This is your choice. If you leave it here, you can see how Mordain will respond.”
We turned, and the woman was giving me the biggest set of pleading eyes I’d ever seen.
“Your opportunities to pop over to Beacon Hill are going to be fewer,” she said. “It isn’t done as casually as from here.” She paused. “You know, if I go somewhere, it’s almost certain you’re going as well. So if my jumper is unavailable, your schedule isn’t your own, anyway.”
“Let us consider the other half,” I said. “Your jumper, in spite of being larger than mine, seats four. Your ground vehicle consumes the remaining space, and that space doesn’t convert into additional seating when you leave the ground vehicle behind. I imagine most of the time if you are bringing me, we are also bringing Kalorain, and much of the time Sartine as well. That fills your vehicle. Do we need two at Indartha?”
“If we need two for some reason, it won’t be to transport people from Indartha,” Cecilia replied. “So we could always stop here first.” She paused. “All right, that’s not absolutely true, but if we need additional transportation, as rare as that may be, we can make arrangements for someone to come up.”
“Like me!” Mordain said. “Isn’t that part of my job now? You let me learn to fly for a reason, and I need more practice.”
All of us laughed. Of course she needed more practice. Was that what she was calling it?
“For now,” I declared, “I will leave it here.”
“Yes!” Mordain said. She jumped from her chair and bounced around the room exclaiming, “Yes! Yes!”
Cecilia waited until Mordain had returned to her seat before she asked, “Have you had a check ride in Maddalyn’s jumper?”
“No.”
“Arrange one with Arthur, today if possible.”
“I’ll message him as soon as we’re done here.”
“Do it now,” Cecilia said. “Maddalyn, would you authorize Arthur as well?”
“Of course. Anyone else?”
“No. Wait. Yes. Sartine and me.”
I laughed and dived into my implant, taking care of adding four people to the authorization list. I gave Cecilia and Arthur administration rights as well, so they could make other adjustments, then I sent Arthur a note telling him what I had done, but askin
g him not to do anything that will surprise me.
“Done,” I said.
“Sent,” Mordain said, looking up from her tablet.
“All right. Maddalyn, one of Chaladine’s duties was to pay for everything. Are you taking that responsibility now, or is Kalorain?”
“Will she always be along, or will there be times only I am?”
“Oh, I suppose that’s a good point.”
“We’ll share it,” I said.
“Very good,” Cecilia said. She got up and moved to her desk, coming back with a heavy pouch and a metal money box. She set them on the table and slid them across to me. I glanced in the pouch and found an assortment of coins. I slid that to Kalorain and then palmed the lock of the strong box. It had more money, all of it Talmonese. I closed it again and slid it to Kalorain.
“Try to open that.”
She did and looked inside. Then she closed it and looked up. “Did we just get paid?”
“No,” Cecilia said. “Maddalyn, do you understand this?”
“Yes, Governor.”
“Then you will teach her.”
“Yes, Governor.”
“Hmm. We’ll go to lunch together. You’ll have to handle it until you’ve taught her, and I want you to supervise until you’re confident.”
“Yes, Governor.”
I turned to my wife. “Some of this is Cecilia’s money. Some of this is the embassy’s money. Today at lunch, we will pay the bill from this money and then record what we spent and for what.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, I understand now. I used to do the same thing for Mother all the time.”
“Then all that changes is how you record it,” Cecilia said. “Maddalyn, you have this?”
“I have it,” I confirmed.
“Good. Come here.” She rose, the rest of us following her. She moved to her desk and palmed the embedded tablet, then pressed buttons. A section of wall slid aside, exposing a wall safe. She moved to the safe and palmed that, then pressed the numbers. A moment later, the safe opened.
Inside was more money, some of it Talmonese, some of it Tarriton, and some of it Centos Four. But then Cecilia pulled something else out. She turned and held it up. “If you know what this is, raise your hand.” Sartine and I were the only ones to do so. “Sartine, what is this?”