by L D Inman
She came, but stopped before him instead of reaching for a cup. Then she took a breath, looked him in the eye, and said: “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Douglas said.
“For calling you a traitor?” Her eyebrow went up, a familiar gesture. “I think I should.”
“Very little else you said was untrue.” He added acutely: “And you haven’t changed your mind about the proposal.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t support it. I’m sorry, Douglas.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said again. “Just tell me the truth. I need nothing else but that.”
“You’re going to do what you think is right.” Neither an accusation nor an affirmation. “And you’ll pull the rest of us with you. Part of the way, at least.”
“That’s what pains you about this.”
She nodded.
“It pains me too,” he said. “I know that doesn’t help.”
“It doesn’t.” She swallowed. “But it helps me not hate you, at least.”
Douglas couldn’t speak. Instead, he reached to fill a fresh cup with tea and offered it to her on its saucer, with both hands.
She took it.
Others were coming in. Douglas made himself a cup of tea, as Cameron went with hers to find a place at the table. He sat down at his place, sipping, and watched his senior staff enter one by one, provide themselves with tea if they wanted it, and choose their seats. At last they were all present and settling down, speaking only in the lowest of murmurs. Douglas put down his cup and rested his mouth against his hands curled together, elbows braced on the table. He waited.
The silence in the room grew: a dynamic silence, not suspended, in which their collective presence seemed to hold in common both anger and curiosity, grief and determination. No one wept, though all remembered Marag’s tears; no one raged, though Cameron’s remembered anger was still a solidity among them. Douglas sat, still as a stone.
He did not need to say anything. Aligned within himself like a lodestone, he could feel the give and pull between himself and his officers, a living engagement. And he felt the moment when balance was reached, a smooth striation of agreement and resistance that grew into a silent consensus without rejecting the calm disagreement still present. The consensus grew so palpable that it seemed to shed its own light in the space at their center, saturating the glow from the lamps in the still-dark early hour. Was this his gift?
It was Stevens who let go of his posture and sat back in his chair, and all the others took deeper breaths and looked at him.
“Well,” he said, “how else are we going to get them into a proper arena?”
Douglas took his hands away from his lips and smiled.
~*~
He sent a note to Selkirk: They will do it.
Then, as the light rose with the dawn, he doggedly set about clearing his desk of piled tasks until Selkirk should call him back. He was still at it when Stevens came in, looking ill-at-ease.
Douglas opened the topic for him. “Is Cameron going to be all right?”
“I think so,” Stevens said. “More or less. I don’t know what you said to her, but it seems to have made it easier for her to bear.”
“All I said was that she was right. She’s not the only one who’s going to have that response. I suspect it was you, and whatever you said, that helped her more.”
Stevens fidgeted where he stood. “I didn’t say much. In fact, I—” He stopped, then abandoned what he had been going to say. “I didn’t say much.”
A sliver of insight came to Douglas. “You gave solace to one another last night?” he asked, though it didn’t really need to be a question.
“Yes.” Stevens was unembarrassed. He added seriously, “I’d offer the same to you, you know. If I thought it’d help. And if I thought you’d accept it.”
Douglas couldn’t repress an amused smile: Stevens’s tone said plainly that he thought the latter even more impossible than the former. “I appreciate the thought anyway, Stevens. And I don’t begrudge you and Cameron the comfort.”
Stevens made a wry mouth. “It’s too bad we don’t have Speir here.”
Douglas looked up. “That’s…not why I would want her here,” he said.
At this, Stevens did blush. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that. I only meant that you should have your chosen family near you. And so should she.”
“Yes,” Douglas answered, with an absent sigh. In addition to evolving as a school, he was coming to realize, Ryswyck was going to be a hospital of souls. With Berenians in it. His terror of the day before had never really left him.
“And meanwhile,” Stevens was saying, “you need a proper lover. A handsome one. Who doesn’t break your heart. I’ll put Marag onto it—he’s supposed to be a good matchmaker.”
Douglas’s head and spine came up, and he glared in protest: Stevens grinned, having achieved his goal of getting a rise out of him. “Now shoo,” he said. “Your shift is ended. You’re off duty. Get up and go away, sir.”
Reluctantly, Douglas let Stevens chase him out of his desk chair, and wandered thoughtfully out through the main hall into the cloister. The cold had truly settled in now, hovering just above freezing point, and the rain was falling in sharp spicules that were not quite ice. The cloister was still quiet; but the ceasefire had changed the silence to a suspended hush, gravid with fate. Whatever happened next would dovetail with this moment, barbel to barbel and filament to filament.
He crossed to the arena complex and ducked into the chapel. He was alone this time, though there were still plenty of prayers burning on the rock frieze. Douglas added to them his small light and drew up a cushion as he had seen Speir do. As she couldn’t do right now. He didn’t know how to bear witness for her, except to just be here. Or how to bear witness for all the people in his care—Rose, Orla, Stevens, Marag, Corda. Barklay.
His eyes closed, his hands open on his lap, Douglas waited for the right action, or the right non-action, to reveal itself. Have you forgiven Barklay for what he did to you? He could do it once, today, but he knew better than to think once was for all time. No; he would be doing the hard work of mending Barklay’s fault for many years. He would be angry again, he would be disgusted again, he would feel his heart break again. What could he give over that would be a true offering? His claim on Barklay, perhaps, to accuse and to mourn? He imagined letting go of that: the thought hurt only a little. Until he found his way to its root. What will I be if I do not love him?
He himself was the offering. Inescapably, it was himself he must yield up. And no sense waiting for another better hour. It was fit and right to do it now. Briefly, he trembled and his eyes prickled wet behind their lids; then that was past, and he bowed his head and let go.
Then, the same unmeaning stillness he had always known when he tried to pray. But almost too subtly to notice, a change came into it, like the change he had felt between himself and his senior officers during their decision. This too he gave over, and found that he was not waiting for enlightenment—he was not waiting at all. He was in a state of contemplation, which became complete when he ceased to notice it.
I have loved you long. The thought drew him out of contemplation even as it invited him back in, like a swing in a dance measure. He didn’t know if he was saying it, or having it said to him: it didn’t matter: it was all true. He caught his breath softly and let go again.
When he opened his eyes again, he did not know how much time had passed. Then his eye lit on the flame he had kindled and anchored; it was nearly burned down to a puddle. Time reasserted itself. Douglas drew a fuller breath and looked around.
Beyond the vestibule, outside the entrance, a pair of boots stood encircled by the shelter of a rainshade. Without hurry, Douglas got up and went out to meet their owner. When he fastened his own boots and stooped under the lintel, he found that his messenger was Lieutenant Orla.
“Please, sir,” she said, “I didn’t like to disturb you.�
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“All’s well,” Douglas said. “Do I have a call from Central One?”
“N-no, sir,” Orla said. “It’s from Council Hall One. Lord Commander Selkirk is sitting in High Council, sir.”
“And he wants to speak to me from there?”
“He says the High Council wants to speak with you, sir.” She took a deep breath. “They want you to bear witness as an advisor.”
~*~
Speir did not see Jarrow again after he had undertaken to pray in her stead, which was, she thought in her clearer moments, exactly what one would expect. A specter of her own mind would serve its purpose and then drop away. Even so, her moments with Jarrow became lifelines, memories worn smooth like the pain button under her thumb, and each time a wave of pain broke over her she would cling to the fragment of thought: He is giving it over. You don’t have to. It’s being done.
Days passed: she did not know how many. Gradually the pain abated enough that she could keep conscious for a few clear hours. Then she could elevate her bed and sit up. She ate a little farina, drank some tea, and slept. She found herself toying with the pain button, looking at it—drab plastic grimy from her sweaty grip—and holding back from using it, as long as she could.
She was given another dose of serum and told that the shrapnel had all been safely removed; she would want further surgery in the future to repair damaged ligaments, but for now she was mending reasonably well. Did they get all the toxin out? she wanted to ask, but could not summon the voice to form the question. Instead, she nodded, and the medic touched her shoulder very gently and went away.
She found that thinking too much exhausted her, as if surviving the pain had exacted too much of her life force for cognitive activity. Nor was she hungry; she gummed what was set before her and lay back to close her eyes before it was half finished.
Smocked caregivers came in to change her bedding, and give her a sponge bath, all their movements slow and careful to keep from setting off reactions in the nerve endings of her skin. Hours cycled past and they came to do it again.
The third time they came, Speir broke into tears at their gentle touch. Maternal hands held her and let her cry, and they explained to her that this was a good sign, that she was getting some distance on the pain and could feel things again. Speir agreed, but even as she nodded agreement, she nodded into sleep, still halfway through her bath.
A day came when she was well enough to leave her bed, which was good, as she had grown thoroughly sick of the drab-painted walls and ceiling of her room. They loaded her—still very slowly and carefully—into a push-chair and wheeled her down a corridor into a sun-room. The sun-room on this floor of Central Med was very like the one in her own flat at home, only larger and more elaborate: it had bayed windows to the outside, where cold raindrops sped over the light-filmed glass, obscuring the view of the capital’s towers and ombrifuges. Light panels covered the ceiling, and stands of green plants both freshened the air and provided a little privacy for patients parked among them. Speir closed her eyes to savor the light on her face, and asked for tea, but was asleep again before it was brought.
Every day after that, she spent her afternoons in the sun-room, a soft blanket over her lap, a cup of tea at her elbow on a tiny portable table. Until one day she sensed vaguely that the caregiver pushing her to the sun-room was strangely nervy; and she was not the only one. Speir heard a few snatches of tense voices talking, though she never did pick up words, and the medic who brought her tray of farina and checked her vitals spoke to her very abstractedly.
He went away, and there was the sound of voices raised in uncertain debate; and then someone in dress black and double rows of brass buttons approached her chair. Speir squinted up at him; he seemed impossibly tall for her memory.
“Lord Commander Selkirk,” she heard herself say. Possibly, she thought, this would turn out to be another dream.
But it seemed not. “Captain Speir,” he greeted her, and gravely drew up a stool. “May I sit?”
She opened a hand. “By all means, my lord,” she said faintly.
A nervous tech brought a tray of tea for them both. Speir watched Selkirk pour from the pot, watched steam spiral up from the glancing surface in the cup he handed her. The cup was warm and real enough. “You’re really here, then.”
“Did you think I wasn’t?” His smile was strained.
Speir hastened to recover her manners. “I am very honored by your visit, my lord.”
“No,” he said. “The obligation is all mine. I wanted to be the one to come and see you.”
The one of what? And why did he have the time to come over to Central Med and pay her a visit? Wasn’t there—
A medic passed them, pausing to straighten a pile of books on a table. Speir saw that there were tears on her face. She was about to look a query at Selkirk, but then she became aware that not only had the strangely fraught voices continued, there was also a sound emanating through the windows from outside. It sounded like…bells. Like all the alarm bells of all the towers of the city, jangling together in no pattern. Speir dragged her gaze back to Selkirk, and saw that his eyes, too, were full of tears.
“What’s going on?” she said, in a small voice.
He smiled, broadly; his tears glittered and began to spill.
“It’s armistice,” he said.
18
The address led Speir to a down-at-heel neighborhood in an outer ward, the sort of neighborhood that had been built in a time when Ilonians could spare the luxury of nostalgic architecture. That generation had given way to the more utilitarian structures of the central city, and left these snug rows huddling, their broad scrolled trims exposed to the elements, colors washed or crumbling away, the photo-line treatments peeling away from the windowpanes. The street looked deserted in the light pricking rain, except for the the stoops where summer plants had not been carried in, pots coated with grime and overflowing with brown leaves.
There were no pots, or any sign of life, on the stoop before her, except for one thing. The steps had not been refitted for people who could not use stairs, so someone had gathered some spare bricks of odd colors to put between each riser, and fastened them there with clumsy gouts of resin. It doubled the number of steps, but certainly made them easier to negotiate. Speir took them one at a time, with her stick measuring her balance from behind. At the top she caught her breath and reached for the knocker. Even tapping it firmly failed to produce a strong knock; she wondered if the panel behind was blocked with debris, if the vibration could even be heard inside.
But within a minute she heard slow, uneven steps coming to the door; then saw a flicker at the inner curtain before the door swung part way open.
Jarrow stood before her, in house-slippers, worn trousers, and a threadbare pullover. He looked half-turned from her, but it was only the illusion produced by the uneven twist in his right shoulder. Angry burn scars feathered up from his collar on the left side, all the way to his hairline, where the hair had grown back white. He recovered from his expression of outright dismay, drew himself up, and pierced her with a glare.
“What are you doing here?” he said harshly.
“Hello to you too,” Speir said, without surprise or rancor.
Jarrow was not amused. “You shouldn’t be here. Your superiors won’t like it.” His glance cut around the empty street, as if to check for officials or watchers: then back to Speir, who stood alone in her half-dress greens. He glared at her more intently, nostrils flaring. “It would look bad for a war hero to call on a traitor.”
“I’ve nothing to say about war heroes or traitors,” Speir said calmly. “I’m here to visit my friend.”
“Well, there’s no friend of yours here,” he sniffed.
“Ah, well then. I’ll just have to talk to you.”
She stood, feet and stick all three planted, and met Jarrow’s eye, which he sustained for quite a long silence before he breathed in and then out in a long sigh.
“Very well
, then. My poor hospitality be on your head.” He shifted backward and opened the door wider, adding sourly, “And your visit will be on mine, like as not.”
Speir crossed the threshold into the unlit vestibule, and Jarrow shut the door behind them. She picked her way through the musty gloom—the vestibule’s drying vents had likely not been cleaned out in a while—toward the direction indicated by Jarrow’s pale outstretched hand. He guided her through a bare corridor and into a sitting room of aging elegance, furnished with a clutch of unappealing chairs and a table made from a glass panel set on two moving cartons.
“Make what you can of the seating,” Jarrow said. “I’ll bring tea.” He shuffled out.
The seating was indeed a hard question. One was an armchair, and looked by its placement to be the one he most often used; but it was low and deep, and once she was in it she’d find it a painful struggle to get out again. One was an upright writing-desk chair without the writing desk, and too tall either for the table or for Speir’s legs. She decided to risk the third, a rickety wooden folding chair; with her stick propped between the back and the wall, she eased herself down and drew a long breath.
Presently Jarrow came back, maneuvering carefully with a tray, and bent painfully to set it down on the table. His sharp eyes took note of her choice of seat, of her right leg stretched out and her left foot braced; but he said nothing, and sank down in his accustomed chair. She watched him pour tea from a small pot into two handleless cups, and accepted hers when he handed it to her. His hands were awkward and also burn-scarred.
The steaming herb tea was fragrant, and surprisingly good. Speir closed her eyes for a grateful sip. She had begun to worry that she had been wrong, that coming here was every bit the mistake Jarrow claimed. But the tea was good and the house was quiet, and with her eyes closed Speir could feel past his hostile looks to the strange security of his undefended presence.