The General's Leman: A Love Story

by Alma Boykin

  The General’s Leman:

  A Love Story

  Alma T. C. Boykin

  2014 © Alma T.C. Boykin

  Cover Image: © Olira|Dreamstime.com – White Single Rose

  Used with permission

  The General’s Leman:

  A Love Story

  Eleána heard the whispers from the villagers and ignored them. She’d grown used to the sound and instead concentrated on stepping down from the transport’s steps without falling or dropping her handbag. She smelled the ozone and exhaust from the old public transport, and dust, the hot dust of the southern plateau country. The heat felt good after the long chill of the ride from Santo Dorado. Once on the ground, she hurried out of the way as best she could, mindful of the rough surface of the old road.

  “These your bags, ma’am?” the loadmaster asked, although he knew. No one else would have such brightly colored stripes on their luggage, at least no other women would.

  “Yes, thank you good sir,” she replied, offering him four tilahrs, one for each case. He took the money and tipped his hat in the old way, then helped move the bags out of the air wash from the bus. Eleána waited until the bus departed before opening the little bag trolley and loading the four cases onto it. She’d already made inquiries about what she needed to do first, and who to visit, starting with the prefecture’s clerk.

  Eleána walked slowly, savoring the afternoon heat. It helped her stay relaxed and eased a little of the pain, enough that she could straighten her back and raise her head to stand almost normally. The warm sunlight reflected off the old, tired wood and brick buildings of the rural town, a farming and market community where people worried more about rain than about the war, or so she hoped. She strolled, taking her time. Time and honor were all that remained to her now, and her dignity. She left her luggage outside the dust-colored square building housing the prefect’s offices and stepped inside.

  A frazzled-looking young man blinked up at her from behind the desk, then raked a flop of brown hair out of his eyes. “Yes? What do you want?”

  She presented her ID and the lease papers. “I need to register my address and tax benefit forms.”

  He grunted and swept her documents over the dirt-dark wooden counter and onto his desk with a sweaty hand. “Eleána Norhado, born of Monté, formerly of Isla del Morada,” his voice trailed off as he entered the data. He stopped, jerking his head up and staring at her with disbelief. “You’re a Contracta?” He blurted, “We’ve never had a Contracta in Isla de Avila.”

  She removed the small version of her Contract from her handbag and showed him, along with the silver bracelet on her right wrist. As he stared from them to her, an older man in a tired blue tunic emerged to see what the commotion was. He stopped, looked at the documents, and bowed slightly, touching his forehead in a ghost of a salute.

  “Welcome, Contracta. How may we be of service?”

  She smiled and touched her right hand to her heart, nodding. “Thank you, gentle sir. I merely need to register my residence with you.”

  “Certainly, Contracta.” He looked over his assistant’s shoulder and frowned. “Gentle lady, is this truly to be your address?”

  “Yes, sir. Is there a problem?” There shouldn’t be. She’d already paid and had used the last few favors anyone had owed her to check the details of the title for encumbrances.

  He shook his head, still unhappy. “It is … small, Contracta.”

  “I no longer have need for more, sir. Thank you for your concern,” and she smiled, showing appreciation but also distance, as she’d been trained.

  As she’d hoped, he looked again at the name and rank of her Contract Partner and made the logical assumption about her Partner’s fate. He bowed again and returned to his office as the young clerk handed back all her documents. “Do you need further assistance, Contracta?”

  She smiled again, a little cooler this time. “No, thank you. Good day.”

  Eleána reclaimed her bags and walked almost two kilometers, down the half-paved road, past the edge of town, to a ferociously overgrown lot surrounded by a tatty, weathered grey wooden fence. A tiny cottage sat toward the back of the hectare, almost hidden by the sunflowers and the green arms of un-pruned medicinal roses. The cottage bore no trace of resemblance to her old residence, and the tired woman felt more of her tension leaving. She dug the key for the cottage out of her skirt pocket and opened the pathetic excuse for a gate, threaded her way past the riot of exuberant herbage, and opened the cottage door. Eleána took a deep breath and recoiled. “Ugh!”

  The inside reeked of mice and mold. Someone had left the tiny window open and the recent late spring storms had blown rain and leaves into the half-cottage, turning the floor into a mucky, mildewed mess. She wrinkled her nose, then caught herself, leaned against the battered doorframe and laughed at the circle of her fate. “As I started, so do I finish.” The scene reminded her of some of the places she’d been forced to stay at in the cold years before she found her talents and a Training House. “Well, I suppose I need to buy a broom first and foremost.” She set her cases inside the door, removed a little of her tiny store of cash from its hiding place, and locked the door behind her.

  Eleána bought some food and cleaning supplies, and a set of basic garden tools that someone had missed and left languishing in the corner of the used-goods store. “I’m an herbalist,” she explained. That should start attracting business, she thought. Although the government had eased medical rationing, some common and cosmetic drugs remained hard to find, especially away from the larger cities, making herb knowledge valuable once more. And her new profession explained why she’d leased the old, useless half-cottage with the huge garden attached. Eleána moved slowly and carefully as she carried her purchases back to the shed. She could feel her muscles starting to twitch, the first warning of an attack. Well, she sighed, she’d been lucky the past few days, and luck always vanished at some point.

  Eleána got as far as putting the food up out of easy mouse reach when the attack struck. She sat on the floor, then curled onto her side as her muscles began cramping, pulling her into a contorted pile. She forced herself to concentrate on breathing and staying calm. Tension and strong emotions made the spasms worse, to the point that some victims couldn’t breathe and died, suffocated by their own bodies. Eleána counted inside her mind, inhaling for eight seconds, exhaling for eight seconds. Inhale-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. Exhale-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight, over and over as the light in the cottage dimmed with twilight. Slowly her other muscles began to relax, and she could extend her arms and legs a fraction of an inch. Now she felt the gritty, dusty floor under her, and she sneezed. Half an hour after the attack began, it eased enough for her to be able to sit, then stand, still hunched over, her neck twisted to one side.

  Warp gas had to have been one of the most vicious developments of the war, Eleána swore yet again. Or at least the most vicious that she knew of. The terrorists had planted canisters of the stuff in three of the plazas and all the parks of Isla del Morada, and more along the official escape routes, interspersed with car and suicide bombs. It had been their first and last major assault on civilians, if you counted the massacre at the commemoration ceremony as part of the attack, which she did. Eleána assumed that the terrorists had chosen Isla del Morada because of the concentration of government and military families living in the old section of the city.

  She remembered the attack all too well, because the first vehicle bomb had gone off half a block from her former apartment, shattering the beautiful old opalized glass windows, knocking her Partner’s books and possessions off the shelves, and starting fires that had driven her and others out o
f the complex and onto the walks leading to the closest park. She thought she’d be safe there in the open, where the wind could thin out the smoke.

  Eleána propped open the cottage door and began sweeping the little building, just to get the worst of the dust and other things out for the night. She sneezed again: the park had been no refuge, but a death trap. She’d been lucky, or so the orderlies in the hospital had informed her: three-fourths of the people exposed to warp gas died. She’d only gotten a few little whiffs, but that had been enough to start the neuro-chemical reactions. No, no one had found a cure yet, and Eleána didn’t expect them to, at least not before she died. Whenever that might be, she grumbled, chasing yet more dirt back out into the feral garden. The so-called experts had not even sorted out how warp gas worked, so how could they find a cure? Other than giving the victims large doses of muscle relaxants, which carried their own risks, of course. Eleána snorted, inhaled, and sneezed again.

  As she’d expected, word travelled quickly in the tiny town. She felt the stares as she dragged a cart with three laying hens and a rooster back to the cottage. She needed the chickens for egg money, meat, and to keep down the insects in the garden. Eleána knew that people watched her as she worked on her hands and knees methodically weeding and tilling the large herb garden, restoring it to usefulness. Only one person had approached and spoken to her by the end of the week, an older man, probably in invalided veteran, who’d asked if she needed help, and had agreed that only hand tilling made a proper bed for yerba colorada. Even so, people knew her on sight, and once it became apparent that she knew her plants, the first tentative customers appeared at the gate.

  Eleána traded half the overgrown sage and a large bunch of rosemary and cider-seed for an old-style rolling chicken coop. She also visited with a carpenter about a table, chairs, and bed frame, trading herbs and lessons in cosmetics making for the furnishings, along with a little bit more of her remaining cash. Eleána soon gained a reputation for being hard working, polite, and respectful, if a little distant. But then, everyone knew that distance and perfect manners befitted a Contracta, even one fallen as low as she had.

  At night, when no one could see or hear, she wept out her anger and loss into the pallet she’d made on the floor. A Contracta, an officer’s Contracta, reduced to spending her waking hours rooting in the dirt! Eleána wondered if she’d have ever left the streets and back burrows of the city if she’d known she’d end up a deformed herb wife, abandoned and impoverished. Some nights she thought no, she’d rather have starved, or died of disease or drugs like so many cheap night-walkers did. Those were the nights when the wind snarled around the isolated shelter, and the ancient stove could not keep the half-cottage warm, and her memories tormented her. She looked at her Contract, placed up on a shelf out of harm’s way, and wondered what Major René Atwiler and his wife were doing, in their warm, snug home somewhere.

  Other nights she dreamed of René, hearing him thinking aloud as was his wont, seeing the secret joy in his dark eyes and running her fingers through his tight black curls, now touched here and there with hints of silver. “Star of my night” she called him in their private hours. He’d teased her, “my golden shadow,” because of her golden brown hair and how she walked two paces behind him at official events. That following him allowed her to keep an eye on all the things he’d forgotten went unsaid, of course. He’d issued very few orders, trusting his Contracta’s taste, judgment, and training to keep his social and private worlds running smoothly. René’s patronage had given her the stability that she craved and room to indulge herself, while she kept him organized and coached him on the manners and skills he’d needed to advance through the social and military ranks. She woke from those dreams, face damp with tears, aching for the touch of his hands, for the sound of his voice, for one last hint of the scent of him after passion. Instead she smelled dust and herbs, and heard the clucking and crowing of her chickens.

  Over the course of the year Eleána’s herbs and chickens paid for the furniture, and bedding, and secured her a place in Isla de Avila. “I come from a farming family,” she told people who asked, and it was true. She’d grown up with her grandmother, a dignified, cold woman who’d planned for Eleána to make a good marriage, assuming the girl could save enough for a decent dowry.

  Her grandmother had taught her all about herbs and gardening, and handwork, even though no one ever made their own clothes any more. “You should marry a farmer or herdsman,” her grandmother had ordered over and over. “You’ll never starve.” Eleána chuckled at the memory as she hung another batch of fennel up to dry. Those declarations had been the first clue that her grandmother’s mind had begun slipping, sliding back into the long-gone past. By the time she died she’d thought they were back in the colony years, as best Eleána could tell. And then the fire burned down the house, taking all her dower savings with it. No dowry, no husband, no hope; Eleána had gasped, staring at the embers left after the roof collapsed.

  “René didn’t believe in dowries,” she recalled one spring morning, back at the cottage after visiting the square to read the weekly news and marriage postings. Eleána removing a batch of jewel weed from the rack and packaged it as she thought. She also began sorting and tying bunches of potherbs for the weekly market. No, René had hated the dowry as much as she did, which was why he’d sworn never to marry. Instead, a hesitant ranger Captain René Jerome Atwiler had presented his credentials, references, and financial information to the matron at the Training House, applying to be considered for a Contract.

  He’d been far less experienced than Eleána, in many ways. They’d complimented each other’s strengths and compensated for their weaknesses, as Contract partners were supposed to. After ten years, they’d renewed the Contract, making it permanent. He’d given her a set of beautiful amber and gold jewelry as their anniversary marker, just before the war called him away. They’d been apart yet united for two years. Until he returned her letters, unopened. And then came the gas attack, when his aid had appeared at her bedside with Colonel Atwiler’s demand for release from their Contract.

  Eleána felt her back and hands beginning to tighten and she closed her eyes, counting backwards from one hundred until the memory faded and the feelings disappeared. Well, she scolded herself, anger heated her heart but would not warm by even one degree the attar of roses and other things she needed to be brewing and distilling. It really was a pity she could not fuel the stove with memories and anger—she’d never have been cold, even in midwinter.

  As a war-twisted woman simmered herbs and memories, on the other side of the country, General René Jerome Atwiler stared at the four letters in his aid’s hand. “Where did you find those?”

  Major Albert Mancuso held up a basket of personal letters and small parcels. “In Captain Ochoa’s desk, along with these. The Inspectorate’s man also discovered the drafts of two blackmail messages on Ochoa’s computer, in his open files, which suggests that we’ll find a lot more as we continue searching, sir.”

  René’s blood started to boil and his face flushed. He chose his words with care, trying not to bite his aid’s head off or curse so strongly that he called down heaven’s wrath on them. “Will the investigation require the contents of those four letters in your left hand?”

  Mancuso held them out to his boss. “No, sir. We documented the find, and the dates, and confirmed that they still carried the original seal. That’s all the Inspectorate needs, since they are obviously personal.”

  René took the thick packets and sniffed one. A hint of Eleána’s perfume lingered, even after two and a half years. “Yes, most definitely personal.” Anger warred with desire as he looked at the letters, the first word he’d had from his Contracta since a year before the gas attacks at Isla del Morada. He wanted to rip open the letters and devour them, but duty’s demands prevailed. He locked them into the secure drawer on his desk and dismissed Mancuso back to helping the Inspectorate’s men.

  That night he sat in
his quarters and looked at the four missives. He’d been away on missions, incommunicado, for almost a year before the Morada incident. He and Eleána had agreed several years before the war began that he should shift directions when the ranger-scout position appeared in his transfer papers, even knowing that they’d be separated. Ranger-scout officers seemed to have a fast track to the highest ranks, provided they survived. That had been three years, no, four years ago, he realized, counting back. He’d given her full legal powers and financial rights, something almost unheard of and that he’d had to explain at least ten times to various personnel and security clerks. Then he’d been pulled into duty and had not heard anything from her before he’d gone into the field. He’d returned for a four month debrief and training program, working with the new scouts, before being allowed to rejoin the “other world,” as he’d come to think of normal life.

  He’d come back to learn that he’d been promoted, that his parents had died, and that Contracta Eleána Norhado had vanished from the face of the planet. René knew that she’d been alive and well a month before the attack on Isla de Morada, because she’d paid for a very nice memorial stone for his parents, in his name. He’d found the receipt and pictures in his financial notes, along with a notice that his bank accounts had been blocked for several months because of an attack on the financial system. He’d never noticed, of course.

  Now he had letters from her, all dating before the terror attack. He arranged them by date and opened them, reading slowly. They described Eleána’s activities and feelings. The first letter mentioned his son’s graduation from reserve officer training and warned that since she’d had to pick the gift herself, he should not complain. René smiled as he heard her voice in his memory. She’d also connived with his daughter to evade the dowry question before Consuela’s elopement and he sighed with relief. He’d grown so sick of damn dowries and of the fathers who tried to push their daughters at him, finances first.