by Doris Egan
"Look, uh, Theo, you've been really nice to me, and I appreciate it. My family's a thousand kilometers away. I didn't have anybody but Trey I could turn to."
Probably so. And bad sense in gambling and bad taste in perfume don't make you a murderer. Now let's see you explain the IOUs. I shifted a few steps back; he was still between me and the door.
"I owed money to half the halls on Red Tah Street. I just wanted to get them off my back, you know? So I put all my debts together with Kade." And used the new cash flow to hit more parlors, instead of paying his back debts. I was beginning to grasp the picture. "Don't tell me you've never done anything crazy in your life. Never took any risks? Never threw any dice?"
Shook off two planets and married into alien thinking, magic, and unreason. Apparently I didn't waste my time gambling with small painted counters.
"Come on, Theo. Cut me a little slack."
"What about Kade?"
"I told you, I didn't do anything to Kade. I'm not a sorcerer, I'm just an agency hire-out. Besides," he stepped closer, gesturing, "don't tell me you care kanz about him."
I didn't, to be perfectly honest, as a good Athenan should be. But that wasn't the point.
He said, "Be reasonable. I'm just trying to get along. How great can my life be, sweetheart? I'm living in a mail box." I didn't need to be called "sweetheart" by Loden Broca. He was standing right next to me by then, his blue kerchief spilling out of his outer robe pocket. He put one hand against the wall behind me. "Am I asking so much?" His voice had gotten low and throaty.
Had Ivoran-style culture shock finally reached some cumulative level where I'd lost my senses, or was Loden making a play right here in Moros's hut, with his friend Trey sprawled on the floor? He leaned over and kissed my cheek, gently. "I'm just asking," he said, moving down toward my mouth, "for some understanding." Then he pulled back an inch and scanned my face.
I must say, I was utterly absorbed in morbid fascination. Never had I seen such unjustified nerve and ego married to such folly. It must be terrible to depend on glamour and have none. The situation was repulsive, yet riveting in a sick way. It seemed distant from my own life, like a scene from a melodrama, with the stage in lights and me way back in the tenth row caught up in watching somebody else's reality. I had a sudden suicidal urge to go along with him, just to see what he'd do next, and had to stop myself from returning the embrace.
But common sense broke into my wonderment, in the form of a voice, or rather the memory of a voice.
My old combat instructor: He's standing right next to you.
So he was. Wide open.
Well? You know what to do.
Regretfully, I did. At this point I was beginning to consider Loden as a minor child, in need of guardianship, or possibly institutionalization. But I knew what my instructor would expect me to do. And Ran. And Kylla. And every other non-Athenan soul on this planet.
I put my arms around his neck to position them better. He bent down again.
I brought up my knee sharply. As he doubled over he came out with an odd sound, something like a ground-hermit whose neck has just been twisted for the pot. I took hold of his head, shoved it farther, and brought up my other knee to meet it.
He fell to the floor. His eyes were closed, but I heard a low, involuntary moan. He didn't move.
Give him a icicle to make sure he's out, said my instructor's voice.
Come on—he's not armed. And he's in no shape to come after me without weapons.
It's proper procedure.
But he's an idiot. Can't I just let him go?
No answer from my internalized coach. I walked the other way around the stove, opened the door, and left.
I should have enough adrenaline to make it back to the city, I thought, climbing up the slippery bank. But I'd probably be out of commission for the rest of today and tomor-
row. I passed the stack of broken tah tables, lying in muddy splendor, the green-lacquered sides cracked. They looked rather pathetic. Once somebody had placed them proudly in their house. Oh, well, we'd all die eventually, just like the flotsam here.
—Oh, for heaven's sake, Theodora. Go home and pour yourself out a bottle of Ducort—one bowl will put you out, the way you are now. Ran will be there, and tomorrow you'll be all right.
Good idea. I climbed past them. Something seemed to glitter past the edges of my sight, some trick of sunlight; I turned and looked behind me.
Loden was standing in the doorway with a pistol in his hand. The charge must have gone over my head.
How in the name of the gods did he get that? I dived behind the broken wagonseat. He hadn't been wearing a holster. Trey hadn't been wearing a holster. Why would either of them tuck a pistol away anywhere else? The wagonseat wasn't going to make it as protection, I thought.
Loden started up the hill, awkwardly, one hand going to his head. I crawled through the mud behind the wagonseat and into a pile of old boxes. I didn't know what was in them, but they stank.
This was terrible. I was going to be killed by somebody I didn't even respect.
And it wasn't right, either! I pulled myself under an overturned carton. Not that I expected fairness from the universe, but this was like one of those tile-machine games that nearly laid itself out perfectly for you, then missed by a single tile. Theodora the barbarian had just taken out two fully grown security guards. Two! Trained. And after that… shot in the mud by a libidinous, egotistical fool without sense to come in out of the rain.
Loden reached the wagonseat. I don't know why it bothered me to be killed by Loden, particularly, but it did. It's not that I looked forward to being taken out by an honorable and intelligent enemy; I looked forward to dying in bed. Or better yet, not dying at all. But this was just so, well, lacking in dignity.
Told you to give 'im the extra kick.
Oh, shut up. I burrowed beneath the pile. Kanz, I couldn't see Loden from where I was any more. Risking death seemed preferable to suspense. I came out on the other side of the cartons and raised my head—very, very slightly.
The wagonseat had been cut cleanly in two, on the diagonal. The ground behind it was dry, no longer muddy. Loden was nowhere to be seen.
There was a wardrobe with a door missing standing farther up the bank, tall enough to hide a man. Unless Loden had chosen to crawl behind one of the piles of junk… but his present headache would probably make crawling unattractive. Still, he was so clearly enraged with me that he was working hard to scare me to death otherwise he would just step out again openly with the pistol.
I did have a knife, but it can be more dangerous to pull that out in a fight than not. Knives can be taken away from little female barbarians and then their throats can be cut with them, which is a poor use of irony in one's life. But he was far enough from me now that I could throw it… though not as fast as he could use a pistol.
Kanz. Ran was never even going to know exactly what happened.
I am not a person of action! I thought desperately. I'm just a scholar! I collect things, I write things down…
Movement on the periphery of my right eye. I whipped my head around. Far down the bank, on the path beside the water, two figures… A red and white robe I recognized. A walk, a gesture, in the person beside him. Ran and Stereth. What were they doing here together? Who cared? I smothered a dangerous impulse to jump up and wave my arms.
They were still a good distance away. If Loden saw them, he'd shoot me quickly, pick them off, and get out of here. No. Keep him occupied, don't let him know the game has a time limit. Go on, Loden, torture me some more. Toy with me, scare me, remind me that you've got the pistol and I don't.
I crawled around the cartons and behind a table. If Loden saw any movement, it would take his eyes farther from the path below. Was that the edge of a sleeve hind the wardrobe?
"Lady Theodora!" His voice came over the empty air, the open silence around us, and the faint sound of the river.
If I answered, he'd know for certain where I
was, if he didn't know already. "Why are you doing this?"
Why am I crawling through the mud and stink? If you'd seen the look on your face, you wouldn't have asked.
"Come on out and talk to me, like a normal person," he called.
I'm sorry I can't reproduce his tone of voice here. What it was saying was: Come out so I can shoot you and get on with my life. I don't know if he had any idea how transparent he was.
I glanced down the bank: Still too far away. Shame to die now, with possibility so close, but that's the way some of those tile-games end—when you're one tile down, you lose the whole pot. I turned back. Loden had emerged from behind the wardrobe. "You know, I really have nothing against you personally," he assured me, walking forward, toward my hiding place. "I was angry at you a few minutes ago, but I realize you were scared." His voice sounded more sincere now. Possibly he meant it as an apology for shooting me.
"Trey's not dead," he added. Why he wanted to share this with me, I don't know. I let myself roll down the slope toward the garbage sacks just below.
My roll stopped and my face bumped into something hard sticking out of one of the garbage sacks. A chair leg. Hardly any chairs on the entire planet, and I bump into one while escaping a lunatic. My nose started to bleed enthusiastically.
The sack in front of me parted, cut neatly in half, the surfaces of the cut smoking faintly. Loden's voice, pleased, said, "You left a trail when you slipped down there, Theo."
So much for hiding. I jumped to my feet. He blinked, startled, at my sudden appearance. I turned quickly to check for my potential rescuers, and Loden's glance followed mine. My beloved husband and the Minister for Provincial Affairs were well within sight; Loden goggled. As I recalled from the hut, he did not react well to surprise.
But he pulled himself together. He turned to me, raising the pistol. I faced the lower bank, took in the biggest lungful of air I'd ever taken, and yelled, "STERETH!"
The two figures on the path turned. Loden's arm pointed straight at my face. Ran's pistolcut hit his shoulder—a full second after Stereth's cut cleaved his skull in half.
Feeling too shaky to stay on my feet, I sat down in the mud in my party robes and waited for them to climb the hill. Ran reached me first.
"There's blood all over your face," he said, breathing hard.
"It's just a nosebleed. I bunked into something."
He glanced briefly at what was left of Loden and then gave me a look that said we would talk later. Then suddenly he was kneeling in the mud next to me, looking shaken as he gazed at the pistolcut in Loden's shoulder. Stereth came a few seconds later, extending a steady hand to me that showed no trace of nerves whatsoever. "I'd prefer to sit for a minute," I said.
He stepped back obligingly and took a pipe from the pocket of his outerrobe. He packed it, lit it, and turned to Ran with an air of courtesy. Ran was still kneeling by Loden, his face pale. "Thank you," he said, without looking up.
Stereth smiled. "Well, sir Cormallon," he said kindly, "it would seem that you owe me a favor."
Chapter 17
Well, they debated debt, obligation, and what to do with the bodies for a good quarter of an hour, apparently forgetting me entirely. (In fairness, I must say that I encouraged them to ignore me while I angled my head back in an unbecoming fashion, waiting for the bleeding to stop.)
Then they hauled Loden's remains down to the hut, where it would have taken a while to find him, even if my two rescuers weren't discussing the merits of throwing a match on the spilled chemicals—no point in being asked any administrative questions by the city. When they returned, about forty minutes had passed, and my nose was gushing more violently than ever.
They fell to arguing again. "Ran!" I said. Oops. Raising my voice increased the flow. "Ran. Stereth." They didn't seem to hear me. I kicked out with my foot and landed one on Ran's shin.
"What are you—" he began, then frowned, looking down on me. "You're still bleeding."
"No foolig. I'b begidding to suspect I bay deed bedical help." Breathing through my mouth seemed the best option.
Stereth squatted down beside me. "I saw a lot of wounds in the Northwest Sector," he said kindly. "Try pinching the bridge of your nose."
We all hunkered around in the mud, pinching my nose and replacing one sopping handkerchief with another. Fortunately I'd laid in a good supply when I'd heard I was invited to the Poraths that morning. Damn the Poraths anyway. The insides of my nose had probably gotten weak from all that blowing.
After a while Ran said, "It doesn't seem to be stopping, does it?"
Stereth considered it thoughtfully. "It's getting worse. Coming out like a young river. We seem to have broken in on an artery."
I must have made a pitiful-sounding moan, because they both leaped to reassure me: "But you'll be fine!" —Sorry about the moan, but if you'll look back, I think you'll agree that this hadn't been a good day for me. It's not easy being the hero of your own story. We all do our best.
Anyway, my pathetic sound must have finally prodded them to action. "She's losing an awful lot of blood," said Stereth. "We'd better get her to a healer.
I said, through the mess of handkerchiefs, "Ad outpladet doctor." I have great respect for Ivoran native healers, but they're better at prevention than cure, in my opinion. Not that I wanted to debate the issue then.
Ran said, "A healer could handle this, Theodora."
"I wat a doctor."
He threw another couple of fresh handkerchiefs on my face and said, "Suppose we just take you to whatever is closer."
That made a lot of sense. I let them lead me down the bank to the path, and up the edge of the canal. I ran out of handkerchiefs around then, and Stereth took off his robe, removed his shirt, and gave it to me to hold over my face. I could barely see where I was going.
I mean, I'd just fought off two attackers and seen somebody who tried to kill me shot before my eyes. This would be the time when a real storybook heroine would be gracefully accepting accolades before marrying the prince. And there we were: A ragged line of three grimy people, with me being led along with my head tilted back and an old shirt over my face. And it wasn't even because I had a wound from fighting the dragon, a swordscrape taken in battle; no, it was a nosebleed. Life takes no notice of our wish for dignity.
We went to a healer in Dart Street. She was a cheerful-looking, intelligent woman with a sensible, motherly smile; just what you'd want in a healer. Of course, I couldn't see her at first through the cloth I was holding over my face. She very carefully stuffed my left nostril with enough cotton gauze to make curtains for all the conference rooms in the Taka Hospitality Building, packed it tight and covered my nose with a bandage. I can't say I was enthusiastic about it at the time, but the outcome was more than satisfactory. About ninety percent of the bleeding halted immediately.
What a simple solution. What excellent results. Perhaps I should stop fooling around with the more arcane legends of Ivory and study basic first aid.
She was pleased that I was pleased. "How do you feel?" she asked.
Under the circumstances, it was a question I needed to think about before answering. Finally I said, tentatively, "It's nice not to have blood running all over my face."
She burst out laughing. "Everything is relative, isn't it?" She helped me up off the table and we went to the next room to see Ran.
"Stereth said good-bye," Ran told me. "He was late for an appointment." He looked at the healer. "Will she be all right?"
"Help her to take it easy for a few days." She turned to me. "Don't do anything strenuous. Don't bend over. Try not to laugh too hard. And if you have to shit, don't strain on the pot," she added, with the complete lack of embarrassment Ivorans have about bodily functions. "And don't try to take the dressing off yourself; come back in two days for that. I want to have my cauterization equipment ready in case it starts bleeding hard again."
"Your what?" I asked.
"Have you ever had the inside of your nose cau
terized?"
"Uh, no, I don't think so," I replied, vowing silently that I would go to one of the outplanet clinics to have the dressing removed. I smiled. "Thank you for your help, gracious lady."
"Not at all," she said, "it's a treat to have a barbarian to work on. Everyone in this neighborhood seems to be from the same province."
We sat on the steps outside her office and waited for the carriage Ran had sent for. After a moment he said, "Stereth told me I'm to go to the medical clinic of my wife's choosing."
"—Ah." I was glad suddenly not to have won my point about the outplanet doctor. He might consider the obliga-
tion discharged. "You know this healer here doesn't count as my choosing."
"I know that. Why did Stereth make that particular requirement?"
"Uh…" Such verbal ability as I had was deserting me.
"Theodora? My wife?"
"Well. You know I want us both to have a genalysis to see whether we can have a viable child—"
"I've told you it would be grossly irresponsible for me to allow the Selians to examine my genetic structure."
"I wasn't planning on going to the Selians."
He digested that. "Share this with me, then. Who were you planning on forcing me to see?"
I said quietly, "I thought we might both go to the Jack Lykon Free Clinic."
"There's no clinic by that name in the capital… although the name is familiar."
"He's the man I met at the meeting with the Tellysian junior ambassador. Ah, the Tolla representative."
He turned to me slowly. "Are you telling me you consider the Tolla a safer repository for secret House information?"
"Ran, I have an idea." The concept of using the Tolla had shocked him into temporary silence, and I took advantage of it. I brought up the anecdote about the brewers, their adoption, and the enforced silence placed on them. I said, "Why can't we adopt Jack Lykon into Cormallon? There haven't been that many good genalycists around since Gate 53; the knowledge that you think makes him dangerous could make him useful to our House. The Tolla will be glad to lend him to us in return for our help with their weapons problem."