by Patty Jansen
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Milleus called out the window. He tried to sound optimistic, but oh, how he wished to take the youngsters with him. They were only children, and this camp seemed a hotbed of conflict, even within the southern population.
The large tent and the gathered onlookers, and Isandor and Jevaithi slid from view.
The convoy rolled down the hill, past tents that had been taken down, past the burnt-out remains of the feeble barricade that would never have been adequate to hold back the Chevakian army. Milleus was sure: the Chevakians had been ordered to retreat. Possibly because they had no interest in the conflict, or because they had established a more effective perimeter to isolate the riots. And what had the fights been about, anyway? Just southern refugees being frustrated and angry, and Chevakians being frustrated and angry.
There was no one in the lower third of the camp. Whatever tents had not been pulled down had been divested of their contents. Beds, blankets and whatever sparse furniture had been dragged to the top of the camp, leaving the ground dusty and muddy with occasional black spots. There would be trouble in Tiverius over this. The people would say that the southerners didn’t deserve their support if they started burning things provided by the Chevakians. They should be more grateful and have respect. He could almost hear the voices in the doga. That self-righteous prick Janus, if he was still alive.
Ahead were the camp gates. The two metal-barred panels. Closed. Milleus slowed down, and then stopped. The trucks behind him did the same. He had expected to have to argue to be let through, or to be arrested. He’d expected a fight. Whatever he had expected, it was not this.
He honked the horn, but no one came, so he opened the escape valve, parked the truck in neutral and let himself out of the cabin.
There was no one in the gatehouse.
Mercy, what stupidity was this? Milleus rattled the gate. Through the strips between the bars he only saw the Ensar road snaking down the hill.
He banged his fist on the metal. “Hey, is anyone here?”
Artan came up behind him.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“I have no idea,” Milleus said. In his day, the army didn’t just abandon a job. He banged on the gate again. “Hey! Can anyone open this?”
No one came. Artan peered through the gate and the restricted view it offered of the world outside the camp. “I guess we could use your wire-cutters again.”
The other Chevakians had also come out of their vehicles and inspected the gate and fence. Several men rattled the gate. Others discussed how they could possibly open or break it, or cut through the fence.
Others suggested they go back to the south side of the camp.
“The gap we made has been closed,” someone said.
“But can easily make another one.”
They discussed this for a while. Other people had also noted the activity of trucks in the forest and concluded that someone had made a route through the forest for the traffic on the Ensar road to escape.
“Hey, someone’s coming!” Artan said.
Everyone crowded at the gate, or prised aside the tightly-strung cloth that covered the fence on either side.
A small panel opened in the gate, and a man said, “What’s going on here?”
Milleus was dismayed at the young and innocent voice. This was only a junior officer. He was wearing a sonorics suit over his uniform, complete with hood and visor.
“Let us through,” Artan said, and his call was repeated by some of the others. He gestured for Milleus said, “We’re Chevakians and we got stuck in here last night. We ask to be let out.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Sir.” His voice sounded muffled under the mask. “The camp is to be sealed off. General’s orders.”
“Finnisius?” Milleus said.
“Yes. General’s orders. Chevakian or southern, everyone in the camp is contaminated. You’d endanger the population.”
“Rubbish,” Artan muttered. He held out a bare arm. “I don’t feel anything.”
Milleus said, “Surely what little sonorics these people contribute is not going to make a difference to overall levels within Tiverius.”
“The Chief meteorologist says differently. The General has ordered the camp sealed off, Sir. I cannot speak against my orders.”
What? Sady had given the orders? Sady would not do such a thing as isolating people unless it was warranted. Just how badly contaminated were the southerners? What again were the early symptoms of sonorics illness? Surely sore joints were a symptom of old age, or were they?
“I am here on the invitation of the doga.” He groped in his pocket, but the letter with the signatures was in the truck. “We need to get through, for the safety of the Chevakian refugees.”
“They are being dealt with.”
“By mercy’s sake, use some sense. Let us out.”
But it was a waste of breath. The man was too junior to argue with, and would never make a decision on his own. Milleus knew that too well.
“Can I speak to your superior officer?”
“I’m afraid, he’s not available, Sir. You will understand that we are very busy.”
“Then go and get him. Tell him Milleus han Chevonian is in the camp and wants to have a word with him. He’s an old mate of mine.” Not quite. Finnisius had been a junior officer, a bit of a self-righteous prick if Milleus remembered correctly, one of those people with slavish attention to rules.
The man flicked his eyebrows in a kind of is that so? way. But he didn’t respond, and Milleus had an awful feeling the soldier didn’t believe what he said.
“Look, just get him here, and let me do the talking.”
“Sorry, Sir, he’s busy. We’re all busy.”
The man turned and walked away.
Several of the men banged on the metal panels of the gate. “Hey. Let us out.”
The soldier came back. “I’d advise you against cutting through this fence. We have a perimeter set up over there, in that line of bushes over there. Anyone coming out will be seen as a threat to Tiverius, and hostile to us.”
They were actually going to shoot at Chevakian citizens? “You have to be kidding.”
The man met Milleus’ eyes for a moment, turned on his heel and went back to his truck.
What now?
Artan was looking at Milleus, and he wasn’t the only one. They all expected him to know what to do.
Milleus shrugged. “Guess the only thing we can do is go back and wait until a senior officer comes into the camp.”
Chapter 10
* * *
“SADY.” THERE WAS a voice in his dreams, a voice that wanted him to come into a dark mire. He couldn’t see the speaker from where he stood, hesitating, on a tall wall, surrounded by mist, with no idea how he’d managed to get up there. Everyone he loved, his parents—long dead—Milleus—missing—Suri—killed herself—was down there and wanted him to jump. But the water—and the dark substance underneath the mist must surely be water—was cold and there were weeds that would drag him down.
Another voice called from behind him, “Sady!”
This voice he recognised as Lana’s, except the woman who had spoken wasn’t her. He didn’t know where she came from, but this was a dream and things happen like that in dreams. She looked like an old shrivelled prune of a woman, probably twice his age. She was wearing a wedding gown and carrying a wilted bunch of flowers. He had promised he’d marry her, but he couldn’t possibly, not like this—
“Sady, wake up.”
Sady woke with a shock. Opened his eyes in bleary morning light. Recognised that there had been someone calling him for real.
Sady said, “What?�
�� Only it came out like a croak, and his mouth felt like sewerage.
The remnants of the surreal dream fled his mind.
The voice belonged to Orsan, who stood in the doorway, poking his head into the room. Bright daylight peeped between the curtains. What was the time?
Orsan continued, “Sorry, Sady, I’d like to let you sleep, but there have already been two messengers from the doga for people demanding to see you.”
“What for?” But the moment he said that, reality rushed back to him. Lana dead. The trashed guest quarters, the four bodies, the deranged killer. They’d be the victims’ families, or other people attacked by this deranged youth, or people from the hospital protesting the loss of two surgeons, or—
“Give me a moment. I’ll be there soon—and Orsan, wait.”
Orsan came back into the room.
“Any clue about where the baby is?”
“No. Not yet.”
Orsan left, and Sady rose from the bed. He’d slept in his clothes, too, and they smelled of sweat and dust, and blood stains marked the front of his shirt.
No time for a bath.
He retrieved clean clothes from the wardrobe, raked a comb through his hair and shaved as quickly as he could. It made him feel slightly better, but did not dispel the dirty feeling.
In the kitchen, he found the southern family eating breakfast at one end of the table, and Farius staring into a cup at the other. Merni stood at the stove, stirring the pot that Lana used for making roccas.
The southerners looked tired. Sady presumed the city guards had interviewed them last night, presuming they had been able to find someone who could translate.
No one said anything when Sady came in, but the southern girl rose from the table, the baby still in the sling, and gave an awkward bow. “Thank you, thank you.”
Sady wasn’t quite sure what he was to be thanked for, but he returned a polite nod and sat at the table, feeling empty and bleak. Lana’s absence was like a big hole inside him.
Merni gave Sady his breakfast. Her eyes were red. Yes, Lana would do this normally. Serran would be at breakfast, too.
Sady smiled at her, but her expression was hollow, and she turned back to the stove without saying anything.
“It’s not fair,” Farius said, in a low voice. “He was like a father to me. What do I tell his family?”
“I’ll deal with it,” Sady said, not looking forward to that task. When families provided sons and daughters for service to doga households, they expected them to be safe.
“What sort of person would do this?” Merni said, whirling around. She cast a furious look at the southerners, none of whom met her eyes.
“Merni, please.”
“It’s because of them.”
Sady sighed. He rubbed his hand over his face. Mercy, he was tired. “Let’s be rational. I don’t know what happened and why.” But the man they caught was a southerner, and he could fully understand her anger. “All I know is that we can’t turn it back. We have to ride the cart we bought.”
She gave him a hard look. Yes, that’s right. She didn’t like old sayings.
“Besides, we caught the killer. He is likely an escapee from the camp. He will be questioned and dealt with.” Last night, Farius had confirmed that the man had not been with the family when they arrived at the house. “Meanwhile, please treat these people as you would like to be treated yourself. The woman has lost her baby. I doubt that was her choice. Give me some bread and I’ll take it to her room.”
“I’ll do that,” Merni said, meeting his eyes squarely. She sounded offended.
“Then do it soon,” Sady said. “Please, look after her as you would if she were my sister. They are our guests.”
Merni grumbled and went to get a tray.
Sady drank his tea. His eyes pricked.
He turned his attention to his bowl, filled with a gluggy substance with bits of grain.
Cooking roccas was Lana’s specialty. Merni had left the grains in the water for too long. The skins had burst and the grains were no longer separate and juicy.
The grain had gone like jelly, was hard to scoop up, and stuck to the inside of his mouth. Trying to swallow made him gag, and he had a distant memory of being forced to eat a plate like this as a young boy at his grandmother’s house; she had been a particularly careless cook.
Merni watched him, and said nothing. The southern family at the other end of the table sat like statues, pretending not to be there. All three of them had eaten Merni’s attempt at roccas, no doubt out of politeness.
But he wasn’t so afflicted. He shoved the bowl aside. “I’m going to work.”
From the fire into the war zone.
* * *
The truck was waiting outside the gate by the time he left the house, and, by the looks of things, had been there for some time.
Sady got into the van, with an apology to the driver and guards. Orsan sat in the front passenger seat. He was ones of these people who could survive on hardly any sleep, and right now, Sady would give everything to be like that.
The vehicle drove through the near-deserted streets under a cover of low clouds. Wind whipped fallen leaves, still green, and dust and rubbish through the streets. Doors and windows were closed and obscured by boards or curtains, as guidelines for a level one sonorics warning dictated.
He tried to force his thoughts to the problems at hand. As he had become accustomed, someone in the office had left a folder with important items on his seat. They were documents on the financial crisis, which was a bad enough problem by itself. Several senators were pushing for a criminal case to be brought against the doga’s chief accountant, who had allowed the missing books to leave the building. Destran said, of course, that he’d never taken the records out of the building and had returned them. But they were nowhere to be found.
Today, those problems seemed minor. While the truck drove through the streets, he kept reading the same passage of the document over and over, and could not stop the memories playing through his head.
Lana in the kitchen, smiling as he came in. “I heard you won!” Her eyes shone. “Congratulations, Proctor.”
Lana, with her open smile, with her hearty laugh. She wasn’t pretty or seductive, and had accepted her role as housekeeper, while she should have been his wife. Never mind that she wasn’t from the right family. She lived for him. She never looked at another man. She had, once, even covertly suggested that he sleep with her.
It was a few days after Suri’s funeral, when Sady had come home from staying with Milleus and Milleus looked unlikely to follow her in killing himself, and all the fuss had died down. They were in the kitchen. Just her and him, and they’d been talking about Suri and how desperate she would have been to take her life, and if only he’d known, he could have told Milleus. He had trouble keeping his emotions down. Lana was making tea, and she lifted the kettle with boiling water off the stove. Through the steam, her eyes met his. She said, “If it would help you feel better, Sady, I can stay with you tonight.”
He remembered saying, “But you already stay with me every night,” when he realised what she meant. It shocked him so much that his reaction had been immediate.
“I would never ask you to do such a thing.”
She had turned back to her task without saying anything, but all night he’d lain awake wondering about the strange remark, and about her silence following his too-sharp, shocked reply. She had never mentioned it again, and he’d often wondered what would happen if he’d said yes, or, after one of their late nights talking politics in the kitchen, instead of waving and disappearing out the other door, he’d come up to her, and put his arm on her shoulders. Would she shrug it off, or would she turn up her face so that he could kiss h
er if that was what he wanted? Which he probably would.
Now it was too late.
Two women he loved gone without ever having felt his touch. That was what was wrong with him: he never made a move when he should, always trying to think up excuses as to why a relationship was inappropriate. With his brother’s wife, or with his housekeeper.
People might say he just chose the wrong women, but both of them had led deeply unhappy lives because of him, because he kept them on an emotional leash, giving them hope, but keeping what they wanted just beyond their reach.
And now it was too late.
Too late.
The truck jerked to a stop, and Sady, deep in thought, lost grip on his documents. They slid onto the floor. He scrambled under the bench to retrieve them.
The driver opened the door. “You’re all right, Proctor?”
Sady rose, the dishevelled papers in his hand. “I just dropped these.” He climbed down from the cabin, feeling the driver’s questioning gaze on him.
Mercy, he was in no state to run his household, let alone the country.
He clamped the papers under his arm and, accompanied by Orsan, he entered the gates to the doga building. The guards at the gate to the forecourt greeted him with salutes. Honest, open faces. They expected him to have all the answers. He crossed the courtyard and climbed the steps. In the hall, he gave his cloak to the wardrobe boy and turned towards the stairs, where the sound of many voices echoed in the high hall.
What was the ruckus up there? The crowd was halfway down the stairs.
Someone yelled, “It’s the proctor!”
The shout was repeated up the stairs all the way to the foyer in front of the office.
Sady said, in a low voice, “I thought we had set up a process for people to submit their complaints or issues in the morning.” He’d hated how the citizens used to crowd in front of the proctor’s office shouting like they were at a camel auction.
“I warned you that a lot of people had come to see you,” Orsan said.