Flood Tide

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Marina Kamat," he said for Jones' benefit. "It's time for you to leave!" Tom jostled her in his arms, but Marina could not, or would not, stand up. "I'm going to call Richard," he threatened, but not even that could stop Marina's incoherent wailing.

  Jones was fully occupied absorbing every detail of the scene into her deepest memory; she didn't twitch. Tom sought a better grip on his burden. He gave Marina another shake, released her. She wobbled, then caught her balance.

  "Now you listen to me, Marina Kamat." Tom cupped his fingers under her chin, forcing her to look at him. "You're going to walk out of here and never come back. You're going back to your room and tomorrow you're going to sign the contract with Raj. And you're going to forget you ever thought you loved me. You understand that?" He loosened his grip so she could no or say yes. She did neither as her lips twisted into a grimace of pain and tears streamed down her cheeks.

  "Your brother's put your whole damn House on the line for you—you owe him that much." "I'll die without you." "You're not the type."

  Without taking his eyes off her, Tom stepped back. He folded his arms over his chest. Marina ran out the door. Tom emptied his lungs. He turned to deal with his other problem, but Jones was gone. The outer door clicked shut.

  "She'll be back, or she won't. Karma." Tom heard himself and shook his head. "It's a damn disease!"

  The outer door slammed and bounced behind him as he left. He didn't bother to go back to latch or lock it; everyone, it seemed, had a key to his bolthole.

  Richard Kamat awoke well before dawn. The rain had stopped, the skies were clear. Eleanora had opened the balcony. The aroma of mutton roasting in spices seeped in. Richard leaned over the rail to fill his lungs with it. A wall of clouds hovered beyond the harbor. Kamat could contain the festivities with its balconies closed and its windows shuttered, but the next eighteen hours would be immeasurably easier if those clouds stayed where they were.

  Considering what he had eaten and drunk at Fowler's, Richard himself felt remarkably fit, almost eager for the day's events.

  "Dickon?"

  "Out here, Eleanora. I wouldn't have believed it possible, but I think we're going to have clear skies and smooth going. I must be doing something right."

  He heard her come onto the balcony and turned to take her in his arms. Her brows were drawn with anxiety. His arms fell to his sides. "What's wrong?"

  "That boy—Raj's brother? Ashe found him in the mail closet—locked into the mail closet. He bolted the moment Ashe opened the door—"

  Richard started looking for his clothes. "Did Ashe lose him?"

  "No, but the boy bit him good. Doctor Jonathan had to put two stitches in—"

  "Where's Tom Mondragon?"

  Eleanora hesitated. "No one knows. The apartment's empty. Both doors're unlocked."

  Richard stomped his foot into his boot. "Damn it all," he swore as much at Tom as at the nail coming through the heel.

  "I think he's just scared out of his wits," Eleanora meant the boy, not Tom. She had children of her own and knew how to see past belligerence. "But none of us downstairs can convince him that there's nothing to be afraid of."

  "Right." Richard paused by the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot; he hadn't washed or shaved—hardly the adult image to reassure the Takahashi heir. "How's Marina?" he asked as he opened the door.

  "Sound asleep so far as anyone knows. There hasn't been a peep out of her or her nurse all night."

  "—Grateful for small blessings." The rest of his comment was lost to the clatter of his boots on the stairs.

  Ashe and two other men had Denny cornered in a lower house washroom. They'd separated him from his clothes and run him through the tub. There were puddles all over the floor, and water-dripping from the ceiling.

  "I ain't no Deneb Takahashi!" Denny shouted when he saw Richard standing in the doorway. "I ain't. You got the wrong kid. I never heard of Takahashi. I don't have any brother either!"

  Richard's eyes rolled involuntarily. He'd never laid eyes on the young, already-legendary Takahashi Heir. He'd managed to convince himself nothing could be as dire as the portrait Tom and Raj pointed between them. Of course, if Tom, damn him to a Sharrist hell, hadn't bothered to explain anything to Denny before locking him in the mail closet, the boy's terror was completely understandable. And if Tom had said anything about the letter Elder Takahashi had sent down from Nev Hettek, the terror might well be incurable.

  "Leave him with me," Richard told his servants.

  "He's a mean one, m'ser," Ashe averred.

  "I can handle him."

  But he couldn't. The instant Denny saw a sliver of freedom, he dove around Ashe and made for the door. He led with a hard fist that caught Richard roughly where a man least likes to be hit. Richard lurched to one side and, naked as the day he was born, Deneb Takahashi squirted by.

  The only path Denny knew led back to the crowded servant's hall, so he took the stairs up into uncharted territory. He went up a second flight before dashing down a hallway. If he could get outside the house, if he could find an air shaft or ungrated window, he'd be out of danger—even naked as he was.

  Denny knew the exteriors of half the isles of Merovingen, including Kamat; his experience with the interiors was more limited. He'd always imagined that Merovingen-above was an orderly place with square-corner rooms and level corridors. Instead, the private quarters of Kamat were as convoluted as any canalside rat's nest and lined with heavy, locked doors. Finally, he saw a pool of sunlight.

  The window grate should have opened from the inside—fire was as much a threat as theft in Merovingen —but Kamat's servants shirked their duties and the salt air had turned the hinge into a single rusty knob. Desperation overcame intelligence; he tried to squeeze through the largest opening. The scratches would have been worth it, if he'd gotten through, but he got stuck with his neck and wasted precious moments getting free. Even worse, he was in a cul-de-sac and the foot-echoes were getting louder.

  "Psst, you there . . . boy, this way."

  An old man beckoned from a doorway. He wore a baggy, striped shirt and a tasseled cap no Merovingian, no matter how cold or how poor, would have worn on a bet. Denny shifted his balance from one foot to the other.

  "Boy, you got no chance standing there."

  Denny made up his mind. He darted under the old man's arm, even knowing it was likely a jump from the frying pan into the fire. The window was wide open and so obvious that Denny distrusted it. He rolled under the bed with the dust devils and the cobwebs. The door closed; the lock tumblers clicked. Fleece slippers moved across the room to the window.

  He bought it! Denny exulted, then froze as his pursuers came down the hall.

  The slippers pointed toward the door. The old man didn't speak when his door knob rattled. He didn't move until the hall was quiet again, then he sat in a chair. Denny's confidence crept back. He didn't know many old folks, but the ones he knew slept like cats the moment they stopped moving. All he'd have to do was wait, and wait some more.

  Denny vowed to count to a thousand, but when he reached three hundred and the old man hadn't twitched, he eased out of his hiding place. His luck had definitely improved: not only were the old man's eyes closed, there was a fine wool flannel shirt draped over the doorknob. It was way too big for him, but down on the canals it would be worth as much as everything he'd left behind. With it tied tightly around his shoulder, Denny headed for the window and freedom.

  "I wouldn't, if I were you—"

  I wouldn't either, if I was you, Denny agreed, but he figured he had to be faster than ten old men until he got on the window sill.

  "—Unless I had about fifteen meters of good rope."

  If the drop went straight to the canal, Denny might have chanced it, but he was looking down on the steep, unforgiving slate of another roof.

  "Nope, I wouldn't try that without a hanging rope, and, boy, hanging rope is one thing I didn't bring with me, so why don't you come back over here and tell me j
ust what you've done to get yourself in need of hanging rope."

  Denny was whipped. He undid the knot at his neck and slid his arms down the too long sleeves before facing the old man.

  "I didn't do nothing. Kamat's got me mixed up with someone else."

  "Do they?"

  "I don't look like no House-Heir, do I?"

  The old man chuckled, a surprisingly friendly, agreeable sound. "No, I don't guess that you do. How'd they come to make a mistake like that?"

  Denny stayed by the window. There were circumstances under which the drop could look pretty good, though none of his survival instincts were tingling. Not that he hadn't misjudged the codger. Now that he studied the situation properly he could see that the pieces didn't add up to a doddering old man. In fact, they didn't add up well at all, but Denny was a canal-rat; stancia-folk were as alien as the sharrh to him. In the end he had to trust his instincts.

  "They must've been looking for my brother."

  The old man's brows tightened into a doubt ridge. "Your brother?"

  Wildfire tingling shot down Denny's back. "Yeah ... I got a brother."

  The old man appeared to relax; Denny wasn't reassured. His instincts weren't exactly saying danger, at least not in a way that made the window attractive, but he decided not to say anything more. The room got very quiet—the way it had been when he was under the bed—and after about the same amount of time Denny got restless.

  "Who're you? What you doin' here? Why'd you let me in?"

  "You didn't look like a dangerous criminal."

  "You didn't answer my other questions."

  "You could say I'm an old friend of the family, everybody's Great Uncle Bosnou. What's your name?"

  "My friends call me Denny, Denny Tai." He meant to sound confident, but it was difficult to swagger with shirt-tails tickling his calves.

  "Denny Tai, is it?" Bosnou sat back in his chair. "You want some tea, Denny Tai?"

  Bosnou began preparing breakfast without waiting for a reply. He counted on the smell of fresh food and Denny's age. Malaki had baked the biscuits before they left the stancia. A dollop of fermented honey and a tightly sealed tin kept them safe from the rigors of a sea journey. Bosnou suffered a twinge of regret as he set the last of them within Denny's reach.

  Malaki's biscuits were like no biscuits Denny had ever seen before, and if they hadn't looked sticky and sweet he wouldn't have tried them at all. His life had enough adventure without eating unfamiliar foods. But they called his name and he knew he could eat all five from the first bite. Midway through the third, it occurred to him that they might be drugged or poisoned. If they were, he reasoned, it was already too late; the tin was empty by the time the water boiled.

  Tea came in thick, opaline glasses set in silver-wire baskets. Ever the connosseur of easily removable property, Denny appraised their value canalside. His eyes narrowed.

  "Who are you—really?"

  Bosnou dumped dark crystalline sugar and dried peel into each glass. "How did you come to lose all your clothes?" he asked as he took away the empty tin and set a steaming glass of tea in its place. "A cap I could understand, even a sweater or shoes, but everything? You must have been in a pretty tight corner, buko."

  Denny had no intention of telling anyone the humiliations he'd endured since midnight. He was sure he could resist any interrogation, but the old man only asked his question once. As before, Denny grew restless waiting for his tea to cool sufficiently.

  "It's all on account of my brother. He thinks everything happens to him—but it rolls onto everyone else. . ."

  The old man sipped his way through two glasses of the potent tea and Denny, who was unaccustomed to an attentive, adult audience, kept on talking. Most of the people and places meant nothing to a man who avoided Merovingen like the plague, but there was enough, along with what Richard had said in Fowler's the previous night, for a fair understanding of the boy's problems.

  "But is it worth running from, Denny? Is it worth attracting their notice? These city people with their heads so far from their hearts—isn't it better to be part of the flock when the shepherd's awake?" Bosnou asked when Denny finally ran out of things to say.

  The mid-morning peal began. Denny had a minute to gather his thoughts before answering.

  "Would you want to be Deneb Takahashi?" he countered when the bells were silent.

  Bosnou stroked his beard. "If I had a choice, no," he admitted. "But you don't have a choice. You are Deneb Takahashi."

  "They're gonna cut my hair an' make me wear a starch-tie and shiny leather shoes with buckles!"

  They'd finally gotten to the core of the matter. Bosnou shook his head sadly and went rummaging.

  "Me, too," he confided, tossing piece after piece of lace-trimmed linen onto the bed. When he turned around he held an old-style velvet jacket dyed the distinctive First-Bath blue of Kamat and crusted with gold braids. "Fifty years I've had this cursed thing, thank God it still fits or I'd have to get another." He put it carefully beside the linen. "But I wear my own boots. Family's family, but a man's got to draw the line somewhere."

  Denny looked slowly from the jacket to the high leather boots standing in the corner. They were well-made and well-worn, and their stiff, thick soles would be downright dangerous on the rain-slicked wooden walks of Merovingen.

  "You must be one of those other Kamats," he whispered. The dense wool flannel, sweet biscuits, and silvered tea glasses finally made sense.

  "Did you think I was some old fool taking up space? Well, I'm that, too, when I come visiting."

  Denny was on his feet and looking anxiously from the window to the door.

  "Settle yourself, Deneb Takahashi," Bosnou commanded, and Denny sat down with a thud. "Dressing fancy won't kill you. You run now, you're no different from this brother of yours; leaving a mess for someone else to clean up." He glowered until Denny shrank within his borrowed shirt, then he softened. "Now, you take that linen and my boots. We'll find out what manner of torture my niece, Andromeda, has in mind for you to wear, and then we'll get through this day together.

  Still looking like he was condemned to a fate worse than death, Denny did as he was told.

  They found Richard Kamat on the catwalks above the huge dye-vats. Those few Kamat employees not needed for the festivities were getting ready for the First-Bath run that would take place, as it always did, on the new moon tide. Some things were more important than marriage contracts.

  "We're ready," Bosnou shouted up from the work floor.

  Richard was too far away for his expression to be easily read. Denny was immensely relieved to see that Richard wasn't limping.

  "I see you found our young fugitive," Richard looked at Denny not his uncle. "Where's Tom?"

  " 'Bout as far away as he can get."

  Richard nodded curtly. If Tom wasn't signing the marriage contracts, he wasn't necessary. His absence would cause no more comments than his presence and, given his dubious relations with some of the people who had to attend, it wasn't surprising that he'd decided to light out. And he had, after a fashion, delivered the Takahashi Heir; Kamat itself had almost lost him.

  "Mother will be inspecting the men in the library at fifteen-thirty. I think a buffet's been laid out there as well."

  "And my young friend's clothes? He seems to have lost track of them."

  "They're drying in the kitchen. I'll have someone send them up."

  "That my clothes, or just the frilly stuff you want me to wear?"

  The look Denny got from the Kamat Househead made him very grateful for Great Uncle Bosnou's presence. "I suppose we can find your clothes after the ceremony."

  Denny's instincts told him not to press his luck.

  They also told him to keep the old man between himself and Richard, which he did as they left.

  The letter upstairs in Richard's safe consigned Denny's training and education—or retraining and reeducation—to Tom. Watching his uncle put a big hand on the boy's shoulder, Richard wonder
ed if Denny's chances for survival would improve if he were sent to the stancia for a few years instead. Richard was already planning to send Marina there once the child was born. Marina and Denny might be more than even Great Uncle Bosnou could handle, though.

  So Denny would be Tom's problem, for the foreseeable future. Richard's would be Marina with whom he should be having lunch rather than dawdling beside the vats.

  But we can't both be acting like children, he chided himself.

  Marina was surrounded by pillows on a daybed. The hairdresser had been and gone. A profusion of false curls, ribbons, and flowers framed her forehead and cascaded over one shoulder. The marriage costume—a confection of pale blue satin and midnight lace—stood beside her on a headless mannequin. The arrangement was coincidence, though for a moment Richard had the disconcerting sensation that his sister's head would simply be taken from one body and placed on the other.

  "You'll be very beautiful," he said, feeling more sympathy for her than he'd felt in the last month.

  "Mother's worked miracles to hide the fact that I look like a bloated fish."

  " 'Ree—"

  "Don't lie to me, Dickon. I'm over nine months pregnant and I look like a slobbering cow. Angel's blood, I wish it were over. All over."

  She sighed and pulled her bare feet under her dressing gown. Richard sat down on the cushion she cleared. Lunch was a wilted salad and sandwiches obviously prepared yesterday and left sitting in the cold pantry. Richard took a bite. The bread was stale, the cheese waxy, and the meat as dry as leather.

  "You'll be back to your old self again in no time, 'Ree. In no time at all this will just be a bad dream—"

  "With a contract and a child," Marina snapped.

  Richard shook his head. "A contract marriage, 'Ree, nothing more. Raj understands, and so will the child. We are the exceptions, Ree, with a mother who lives only for her family: her husband and children. Has it made things any easier for either of us?"

  Marina stared out the window. Everyone else in Kamat might suspect Richard and Eleanora, but she knew the truth. It was just about the only confidence she'd managed to keep throughout these long months of hysteria. "I love Tom. I'm in love with loving him—the hopelessness and the pain of it."