by Paula Volsky
“Good, we are agreed. What more?”
“I’ll continue to lecture, and endure no complaints and reproaches over the impropriety of setting foot upon a public stage.”
“Agreed. Have you ever known me to complain of impropriety?”
“Now that you mention it, no. I’ll continue to write and publish under my own name. I will not submit my manuscripts to your inspection unless I happen to feel like it, and you will exercise no authority over the content.”
“I have never aspired to editorship. But there is one qualification. Your work will reveal nothing of our lives at home, nothing personal of our family or friends.”
“Oh, agreed. I’m no scandalmonger, that doesn’t interest me. I’ll accept payment for my work, and the money I earn will be mine to use as I please.”
“Fine, as long as you don’t use it to finance the anarchists.”
“All right, no anarchists. I’ll be free to read what I like, eat and drink what I like, wear what I like, go where I please without anyone’s permission, and choose my own friends, whether you approve of them or not.”
“Agreed, so long as you break no law and take no action endangering anyone other than yourself.”
“Some laws are unjust and should be broken.”
“Should be changed.”
“Too slow! But I promise I’ll make every reasonable effort to keep myself out of jail.”
“I suppose that will have to do. And now a few conditions of my own. First, you may choose your own friends, but you will not inflict upon me the society of anyone I detest as a longtime houseguest at Belfaireau or in Sherreen.”
“Reasonable.”
“Nor will you cultivate an independent friendship with any man leading you to meet with him alone, either in private or in public.”
“Agreed, so long as you yourself cultivate no such friendship with any woman.”
“The disposition of the inherited v’Alisante monies and properties will remain solely in my hands. You will be very welcome to express your opinion or to offer advice, but all final decisions in such matters will be mine. Once such decisions have been made, you’ll abandon argument and accept them without complaint.”
“Very well.”
“And finally, when you find yourself with child—”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh—when you find yourself with child, you will throughout the term of the pregnancy subordinate your own impulses to the welfare of the infant—”
“You don’t need to tell me that, Girays!”
“And following delivery, for a period not to exceed four years, you will not absent yourself from the child’s vicinity for a period exceeding twenty-one days—”
“Aha, I see what you’re about, but it won’t work. Following delivery I agree not to absent myself from the child’s vicinity for a period exceeding seven days, provided the child is permitted to accompany me on my periodic excursions—”
“What?”
“Well, why not?”
“You can’t very well drag a v’Alisante heir off to the Bhomiri Islands or the Forests of Oorex, where he’s likely to end in a pot. Don’t forget the welfare-of-the-infant proviso. When you stop to think about it, the true welfare of the infant demands the presence of both parents, so you can’t drag him away from his father for months at a time. I’m afraid you’ll have to consider—”
“You’re right, it wouldn’t be fair. So you’ll have to sacrifice, Girays—you’ll have to come along, from time to time. For the sake of the child.”
“There is no child.”
“You’re the one who raised the issue. Come, would it be so bad?”
“Not so bad at all; I’ve developed a taste for travel. But I couldn’t do it every two years. Five, perhaps.”
“Four.”
“Agreed. Anything more?”
“No, I’m content,” she declared. “These conditions accepted, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife.”
“Then let’s seal the bargain.”
He kissed her then in the middle of the path, indifferent to the scores of amused or disapproving spectators. The city seemed to spin around them. When he released her, she was flushed, breathless, and happier than she had ever been in her life.
“You know, it’s all out there waiting for us,” she said, when she could speak again.
“What is, Luzelle?”
“The world, and everything in it.”
About the Author
PAULA VOLSKY is the author of Illusion, The Wolf of Winter, The White Tribunal, and The Gates of Twilight.