Flood Tide

by C. J. Cherryh

  Mondragon might not be a karma-obsessed Reve-nantist, but there were few things he liked less than owing, and he owed Kamat more than money these days. Standing out on the balcony with a child in his arms—even his own child—while the names were proclaimed would retire a substantial portion of that debt. And, as Richard pointed out, Tom didn't believe in the future.

  "Who'll be standing with me?"

  "If it's a girl, Eudoxia Wex and Lidmilla Kuzmin-Exeter; if it's a boy, Eudoxia and Anastasi Kalugin."

  Rain-heavy wind struck the spire again. Tom stiffened, but probably not because the floor listed beneath his feet.

  "The midwives say it will be a girl. They say they can tell by the way it's dropped."

  "I'll stand." Tom opened the door.

  "One last thing ... If we're going to put Rigel Takahashi's name on the contract, we'll need someone else from his house to witness it. Do you think you could deliver the Takahashi Heir for grooming tomorrow?"

  "You don't want much, do you?"

  Richard shrugged. "No. If I really wanted a favor, I'd ask you to keep my uncle Bosnou out of mischief."

  "I've been hearing about him. Something to do with sheep, wasn't it?"

  The tension broke. Richard laughed and Tom left the room smiling; Bosnou had that effect on everyone. Kamat's Househead was satisfied that he'd gotten the best out of the entire situation that he could, but he was in no hurry to tell Marina that the marriage plans weren't going to change.

  Despite the fact that Marina was adamant that Mondragon was responsible for Andromeda's bout of deathangel addiction earlier in the year, and despite the fact that she hadn't said a civil word to anyone since Tom had moved into a flat above the dye-room, Richard was certain Marina loved Mondragon and expected him, not Raj, to sign the marriage contract on Satterday.

  All traces of good humor faded from Richard's face as he stared at the fireplace. It would have been much easier if Marina had aborted the child, but she hadn't and reality ran a collision course with tragic romance.

  Lineage and alliance determined the shape of Merovan civilization, and children were its chief currency. Maybe in Merovingen-below men and women loved and bore their children without regard to marriage contracts, but in Merovingen-above these things could not be left to chance. The men and women of the Great Houses had their highly visible affairs, but when it came to producing the next generation precautions were taken. Inbreeding was the official, and very real concern. The Scouring nearly evaporated Merovin's gene pool and the first few generations after the Scouring had consolidated the damage. Every family produced its share of simpletons and misfits—witness Kalugin's Clockmaker.

  But the greatest concern in Merovingen-above was the sly opportunist whose genetic claims could not be disproved. Every formal government or religion on Merovin denounced the barbaric social customs of humanity's origins, but almost every formal government or religion drew its hierarchy from the wealthiest families.

  Marriage contract bridged the gap between the ideal and the real: witnessed declarations of parental intent. In many houses each birth was the culmination of a different alliance. It could be said, albeit crudely, that a successful family traded the fertility of its women like any other commodity. It could be said that Kamat's rise had been slowed by its members' reluctance to make multiple contracts. Marina would not be the first woman in Merovingen-above to contract marriage after she was pregnant to a man who was not the father of the child, but she would be the first in Kamat.

  Under no circumstances, however, would Marina be the first Kamat to give birth to an uncontracted infant if they had to hang her by her heels until the ink was dry. Marina had insisted the birth could not possibly occur before Falling, but anyone could see that was just another of Marina's numerous miscalculations.

  Richard's pen snapped in two. He stared at the pieces, scarcely knowing where they had come from. "Dickon! Dickon . . . m'ser Kamat!"

  Eleanora Slade rapped on the door as she opened it. Her face was flushed and she was gasping for breath. There were a hundred steps from the main floor to the landing outside Richard's office; she'd run up them two at a time.

  "Dickon, he's here!"

  Richard brushed the pieces into the waste basket.

  Since coming to the household, Eleanora had taken a firm grip on the domestic reins. The young widow was the one who translated Andromeda's grandiose schemes into reality. She cossetted Marina when no one else would go into her rooms. Richard trusted Eleanora as he trusted no one else. The doors to his office and his bedroom were always open to her.

  He'd never known her to be intimidated by anything Kamat before, yet it was clear by her hesitation that Great Uncle Bosnou had made her nervous. Understandable. Bosnou Kamat made everyone nervous. Richard got his jacket. He paused in front of the mirror, adjusting the lapels and the rolled neck of the sweater beneath them. Eleanora tucked a wisp of his hair back into line and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  "For luck," she explained.

  Richard nodded grimly, heading down the spiral-ing stairs.

  Sometime in the Scouring, or perhaps before— who knew what went on before the Scouring—custom decreed that, written contracts notwithstanding, a marriage wasn't a marriage without a performance. The woman had her part, and so did the man, but the most important part went to the eldest member of the family in which the contract originated. The eldest Kamat was Bosnou, youngest brother of Hosni who had founded the family's Merovingen branch.

  Bosnou had loyally followed Hosni to the big city, and left it a month later. Life on the Det estuary wasn't for him. Had Bosnou been the eldest brother, they'd all still be herding sheep. Instead, Bosnou ran the stancia and came to Merovingen only when tradition demanded. He hadn't come to Nikolai's funeral, but Marina was his Angel's-daughter and that was an obligation Bosnou took seriously.

  "Where is she?" he boomed once Richard reached the mid-level landing. "Where's my 'Ree?"

  Bosnou hadn't changed. Though nearly eighty, he could pass for an active man in his early sixties. In his own terms, he'd dress out at just under two meters and just over 120 kilos. His hair remained more black than silver, and his eyes missed very little. He gave Richard an embrace that lifted the younger man off the carpet, and a kiss that reeked of mutton and garlic.

  Richard was grateful when his feet touched the carpet again. He wrapped both his hands over one of Bosnou's. "Good to see you, Great Uncle. How was the journey?"

  "Nothing for complaining. She's over and we're here until we leave, eh? Everybody got sick, yes, but no one died except one of the sheep. So we roasted her over a fire and everyone felt better."

  "You brought sheep?" Richard asked with none of the authority appropriate to his position as Househead.

  Bosnou opened his arms wide. "Great Uncle Bosnou comes to a feast with nothing but himself? Last time the Old Stick—" the distressingly accurate nickname Bosnou had given Richard's late father "—said we hadn't brought enough for everyone. This time, Dickon, we are prepared."

  The mid-door opened. Richard honestly expected a flock of sheep to trot into the vestibule. Instead he got a flock of his cousins, none of whom he recognized. The sheep, Bosnou said, the fifty living, bleating, eating, and defecating sheep were being ferried to the Kamat warehouse as they spoke.

  Richard's stomach rebounded off his bowels. He stood mute as a round-faced, round-bodied woman barely out of her teens separated from the rest. For a moment Richard thought his great aunt hadn't changed a bit, then his intelligence reasserted itself. This woman couldn't have been more than twelve the last time he'd seen Bosnou. He had a new great aunt—the sixth, or so he believed.

  "Malaki," Bosnou said, confirming Richard's suspicion. The last one had been Belina.

  With his thoughts still dominated by the sheep, Richard embraced his great aunt, then shunted her over to his pale mother. "We've set aside the third level for you, Uncle Bosnou."

  Bosnou turned to his brood. "You heard him. Run al
ong, then. Follow your cousins, they'll show you where to go. I'll be along later."

  Richard tried not to feel jealous of his great uncle. Fowler's would never give odds that the Merovingen branch of the family would ever scurry off to do his bidding as Bosnou's folk did his. A spar of an arm descended around his shoulders and Richard found himself drawn into Bosnou's confidence.

  "You tell me, now, how is my Angel's-daughter doing? You know she got your mother's hips." Bosnou cast a disparaging glance Andromeda's way. "What good is a woman with skinny hips, I ask you? Malaki—she's all hips. Good hips, good laugh, good cook—everybody's happy. You remember that.

  Now, your sister, why isn't she down here to greet her great uncle, her Angel's-father. Why not?" "She's . . . resting."

  Bosnou chewed that over. "She got her feet up, eh? Else something fall out?"

  Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Richard nodded.

  "Where's the father? Let me welcome him into the family, man to man. Is that tavern still down in the Gut?"

  "Uncle Bosnou, there are some things you should know. Things you should hear from me . . . man to man."

  Richard led Bosnou into the doorman's closet. The old man listened while Richard sketched in the situation: Tom and Marina; Tom and Boregy; Tom and Kalugin; Tom and Raj; Marina and Raj. The eldest Kamat leaned against the doorframe. He scratched his beard and adjusted his homespun breeches, then he began to pace the length of the closet—two steps each way.

  "This is not good." He tugged on his beard again. "This you should not permit. Who is this Mon-Dragon that he holds himself so far above Kamat? He does not want a child; he does not have a child. He has a child; he stands by his child—"

  Richard cleared his throat. " 'Ree admits she misled him, so Tom . . ." he cleared his throat again. "So he would use none of the ordinary precautions."

  "He believes her? A woman with skinny hips and he believes her? Where's he from—a cloister? You let me talk some sense into him." He reached into his boot and pulled out a knife that was easily the length of Richard's forearm.

  From his perch on the mail desk, Kamat's House-head silently swore that Bosnou would never be left alone with Tom Mondragon. "It's settled, Bosnou," he said in his firmest voice, ignoring the honorific. "Marina is going to sign a contract with Rigel Takahashi. It is a good alliance for her, for the whole family. We've made arrangements with Takahashi. There were no arrangements to be made with Mondragon."

  Bosnou snorted. "Arrangements! Your arrangements! What of the child's arrangements? How does my Angel's child know who he is when your arrangements are more important than blood? You make a lie to serve maybe Takahashi and Kamat, but it is a lie just the same; it is karma ..."

  Richard shook his head. This was a three generations argument that had begun with his grandfather. "This is Merovingen, not the stancia. In Merovingen we do what other Merovingians do. That is our karma."

  "Is that what do they teach in your College? Karma is paid in the blood. The survivors knew that, and they knew never to forget it. Like the sheep. We start with ten sheep. Ten sheep would not make three generations. But the shepherd knows about blood and karma. The shepherd knows the lineage of every sheep. We have made twenty generations of those ten sheep. Still we watch the blood."

  "Merovingen is not a flock of ten sheep, Great Uncle. Times change—" a Revenantist got chills saying that to another Revenantist. "Merovingen doesn't worry about bad blood . . . we've got more important things to worry about," Richard added the last in a whisper he immediately regretted.

  "Your soul will be mired on Merovin for all eternity if you forget blood and karma."

  Richard made another mental note: keep Bosnou well away from Cardinal Willa Exeter. One preferred not to imagine her reaction to hinterlands theology while the College was renovating orthodoxy and every House in Merovingen was on its best behavior. With a cautious eye on Bosnou's still-naked knife, Richard relinquished his perch on the mail desk.

  "It's too late now, Uncle Bosnou. What's done is done—that's karma, too. We've made arrangements with Takahashi—at least we've improved the mire a bit."

  Bosnou hesitated, staring hard at his grand-nephew, wondering if the young man would flinch. Karma, blood, and family honor notwithstanding, he'd known the advantages inherent in the Takahashi arrangements.

  "I figure you'll be needing a thousand more white fleeces a year, just to have something worthwhile in the dye-vats once we get all that fancy white mordant. Bred us twice as many Merin ewes this fall, and sent Malaki's folk to clear a new valley. We'll need maybe twenty families for settlement contracts by spring."

  Richard shook his uncle's empty hand firmly. "Twenty? I think we can manage that."

  "Thirty, if it's that easy to get twenty."

  Richard nodded. Unlike most Merovingen island families, Kamat retained strong ties to its outlying territories. The city branch kept up appearances, but the cream of its profits went back to the stancia along with a steady trickle of emigrants hoping for a better life than the Det offered.

  Bring on The Rock and the College—what could they do to Kamat when Kamat's wealth and fortune remained on a sprawling stancia five hundred klicks to the east? Could they bankrupt Kamat? Could they persecute Kamat? Could Merovingen send blackleg soldiers so far from home?

  "Let me get you something to drink, Great Uncle."

  "None of that dark water you cityfolk drink from spit-glasses?"

  "No, no brandy. We'll go down to Fowler's. He's laid in a barrel of sour mash just for you."

  Bosnou's face warmed with anticipation.

  Marina Kamat flattened herself—as much as it was possible to flatten herself given her advanced pregnancy—against the passage wall. She held her breath as her brother and great uncle went down the other passageway. Her heart was pounding. She forced herself to breathe deeply.

  Some primal instinct warned Marina that her next histrionics would send her irretrievably into labor, and she wasn't that foolish. In her own mind she wasn't foolish at all. She'd made more mistakes than she'd expected, a few miscalculations of character and timing, perhaps, but nothing foolish. Foolish was running away when the going got difficult—as it undoubtedly would before this evening was over.

  She caught her reflection in a wall sconce. All the mirrors in her rooms—the rooms where her nurse and keeper was sound asleep—were covered over. Angel-on-high, none of her friends had blown up like cooked sausage when they got pregnant. Marina knew she'd gained fifteen kilos, at least, in the last three months—the tailors never stopped complaining about the fit, or lack thereof, in her marriage costume—but she tried not to think about them or see them.

  She'd packed herself into the only clothes that still fit: imitation canaler scruffies from her College days. She tried a variety of expressions and poses. Nothing worked. A doubt glimmered in her mind: maybe she would play her last hand and lose. Her eyes glistened, her jaw trembled—and she finally had the expression to thaw Tom's heart.

  She also had a key to the back door of his apartment. A key which like several others she'd kept hidden for many years; a romantic heroine never threw keys away.

  "I waited for you," she began as the first tears slid down her cheeks.

  Mondragon was studying account sheets. His pen left a trail of blotches across the next columns. "Marina—" he stammered. There were a handful of comments fighting for his tongue, and to his credit he swallowed them all.

  "I thought you would come to tell me yourself."

  "Tell you what?"

  Neither the tears nor the trembling were pretense. Marina could see from the look on his face and the way that he gripped the back of the chair when he stood that he didn't know why she'd come. "My life is over and you're sitting here balancing accounts!" Her voice was shrill and rising. "What about my accounts, Tom? How can you do this to me? Don't you care about me?"

  Tom inhaled. He didn't, but Richard would turn him out of the apartment if Marina had that damned baby in his livi
ngroom before the contracts were signed. The apartment was Tom's last bolthole and, at the moment, he cared about it.

  "I care, 'Ree, but it's better this way. Better for you and Raj." Tom Mondragon never sounded more sincere than when he was lying through his teeth.

  "It can't be better for me. I belong to you! I love you!"

  Her tone got behind his defenses and made him feel, for once, unjustly accused. "I find that hard to believe. For six months you've hissed and clawed at me. I believe you used the word hate yourself more than once."

  "Because you hurt me. Angel's mercy, there's karma between us. Karma, Tom—we're bound for all eternity."

  Mondragon's education did not include an understanding of a karmic spiral leading to a purified Merovin and the nirvana of the stars. In general, Adventists had a more precipitate view of eternity, and nothing in Tom's life led him to change his thinking. The intricacies of Revenantist theology, as interpreted by sheep-breeders and incurable romantics, eluded him. "You're a willful woman who can't stand not getting her own way. I told you how it was with me at the very beginning. You brought this on yourself, Marina Kamat. There's no karma here but your own."

  "Is it my karma to bear the child of a man who hurts and abandons me?"

  "Your choice, Marina, your words."

  Her face was a dangerous shade of red. Her shoulders heaved with every breath, but she could not find a voice for her outrage.

  "You'd best leave now, before you make a bad situation worse."

  The room was silent for a fraction of a second, then a key clicked in the lock of the front door.

  "Hey, Tom! Ye about, Tom?" A voice Tom recognized all too well boomed down the hall. "That outland Kamat brought fifty sheep with him. What a mess! You shoulda been—"

  Altair Jones, scruffy, armed, and perfumed by the sheep she'd been moving since sundown, got one unsuspecting stride into the room before Marina launched herself at the father of her child.

  "I love you!" she trilled.

  Reflexes, not thought, guided Tom's arms. He caught Marina, stared at Jones, and felt like a man damned by circumstances far beyond his control.