The Broken Man

by Brandon Jones

  She opened her mouth, intent on commenting further, then shut it, apparently thinking better of it for some reason, shaking her head. Instead, she set a fist-sized green bag on the table without explanation and stared at Josen.

  He looked from the bag to Vale’s hard stare and back, unsure of what was supposed to be happening. Was he supposed take the bag? Was it something he should recognize, or did she want him to ask about it?

  “That’s a, um, nice-looking bag,” he said, baffled. Were those blood stains on it?

  Vale didn’t say anything.

  “Very sturdy,” Jose said, searching. “Is there a reason you’ve put it on the table?”

  “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Josen,” Vale said. Her voice was gentle, but still firm, unyielding.

  “Well, starving hells, Vale,” Josen said, irritated at being treated like child. “What exactly am I making difficult?”

  “Josen, this is serious. Like I said, I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure, but this is the wrong way to handle it. We can talk about spreading some of the responsibility out if we need to.”

  “Vale—” Josen started.

  But she didn’t even slow. “We could send you on a vacation once the seed is all planted. Father had a nice place on the Kendanese coast I’m sure we still own. You could spend a few weeks winding down—”

  “Vale!” Josen whispered fiercely, cutting his sister off. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Vale pursed her lips angrily, unwilling to believe he might really have no idea what she was talking about. She slid the bag toward him and took her hand away from it. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t have said from where.

  “It was in your pocket,” Vale said as Josen opened the bag and looked inside. His mouth dropped open, unable to believe what he saw inside. “We found it when we got you home to Ceralon, after we dragged you away from the Carter on Silo Hill a week ago.”

  The bag was full of rub.

  “Starving hells, Vale, what is that?” Josen recoiled from the bag and barely kept himself from shouting. “I mean, what is it doing here?”

  “Why, Josen?” Vale said, her eyes full of concern and anger both. “Why, with everything else our family is going through, all the scrutiny we’re under, would you do this right now? Why?”

  “Vale,” he said, breathless. He felt sick. “You … you think this is mine?” he asked, aware even as the words passed his lips that it was by far the most reasonable explanation. Why else would a person carry around a bag of rub, except with the intent to use it? Or sell it, he supposed, but when would he do that? And to whom? “You don’t think I would ever use this stuff, do you?”

  “What else am I supposed to think, Josen?”

  “No, Vale, I swear. My hands don’t even have the scars—”

  “I appreciate that at least you weren’t dumb enough to have used your hands, but we both know there are other ways to get high on rub.”

  There were? He certainly didn’t know that. How else would a person use it?

  “Josen,” Vale said, the concern and sympathy in her voice winning out over any anger, “I’m here to help you. I know I haven’t been the most supportive sister since you came back, but I want you to know that I love you.”

  Josen stared from his sister to the bag and back. It did look familiar, but he still couldn’t place it. Vale took his hand, gave it a gentle squeeze, then tucked the bag away and left.

  Josen nearly asked her to leave the bag—he needed to figure out where it had come from, why it looked familiar, and how it had ended up on his person at all—but he knew she wouldn’t give it to him. Asking for it would only confirm her suspicions.

  He sat there for a long time, contemplating, the sights and enjoyments of the night now lost to him. In the end, the only thing he could figure was that this was one more in a long list of attempts by someone to make him and his family look unfit for Stewardship. Vale had said it herself—someone was trying to bury them and was doing a good job of it. She seemed to think it was Berden, but Josen didn’t buy that.

  Berden had certainly manipulated them—forced them—into an overlarge allotment, but there were also the attacks to consider. Josen’s ceral estate wasn’t the only one being sabotaged, but it had been the first, and it had seen more attacks than the other Stewards’ estates. Tori’s warning the week before had even sown a seed of suspicion that the events in Ludon surrounding the Parose job and Saul’s eventual death were somehow connected to the troubles he was facing now. As much as he hated to admit it, his coming back home to Ceralon and becoming Reverate Steward had put his family in a precarious situation.

  And now the conspirator had even managed to turn Josen’s own family against him. It had to be connected. Josen couldn’t prove it, but there were too many little strings pulling at him for it to be a coincidence.

  “Reverate Oak? Do you mind if I join you?”

  Josen looked up, surprised by the soft, feminine voice. Alia stood hesitantly, as if she was afraid he would chase her away. He had been so involved in his own thinking that he hadn’t even noticed her approaching—though now that he saw her, he didn’t know how he could have missed her.

  Her black, floor-length dress was luminous Kendanese silk, cut slim and fitted through the hips, then gathered behind her like a shimmering, moonless night and sown to pool at Alia’s heels, trailing behind her like liquid shadow. The shoulder of the dress was embroidered with white roses cascading down across the front of her dress, wrapping around and behind. A matching white rose corsage sat on her wrist, and dramatic, smoky makeup completed the outfit.

  She was stunning. Josen gaped, then realized she was still waiting for an answer, her eyes full of a growing fear of rejection.

  “No. I mean, yes,” Josen said, stumbling over his own tongue. “I don’t mind at all. Please.” He stood and pulled out the chair Vale had vacated moments before, gesturing. “Please sit.”

  She did, smiling uncertainly—probably at Josen’s strange behavior as he tried to reorient his brain. His conversation with Vale had sent is head spinning, and he was struggling to recover.

  “So,” she said as he reclaimed his own seat, “are all the galas like this?”

  “With the art? The glass and colors?”

  “Overwhelming, exhilarating, exhausting—”

  Josen laughed. “Your first?”

  Alia flushed but nodded. “It’s beautiful—”

  “But it’s a lot.”

  Alia nodded again.

  “I think Reverate Vasture wanted tonight to be especially overwhelming, if it makes you feel any better. The big secret, the dark room and the sudden reveal, the muted dress requirements and riot of light and color. The whole thing is designed to be overwhelming.”

  “One of my cousins attended the Midsummer Gala two seasons ago at Reverate Shepherd’s villa. She said it was themed around some Kendanese folk tale about a people who live in the sea, half fish and half man. I thought it sounded strange, but she said it was beautiful, all the people dressed in shimmering blues and greens and golds. She said there were huge tanks of live fish. She talked for weeks about the stage players in beautiful costumes, and the exotic seafood from Kendai.”

  “I can’t speak for anything so recent,” Josen said. “The Stewards usually try to do a theme of some kind—except for Berden, of course—but as often as not, the themes are surprises.”

  “So … maybe masks or something?” Alia asked, sounding both shy and excited. Josen laughed.

  “Maybe. One of the Stewards does a masquerade at least once every couple of seasons—people have enough fun with them that they’ve become a semiregular choice—but no one would try to keep it a secret. They’d rather build up the excitement.”

  “I hope there’s one this year.”

  “What about the exhibits?” Josen asked. “Did you find anything fun? And where is your date? I thought you had someone else accompanying you tonight.”

&
nbsp; Alia grimaced. “I did, but apparently he found something more pressing. He disappeared just before they turned the lights on, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “He what? You’ve been wandering alone for the past hour?”

  “It’s fine,” Alia said, and sounded like she mostly meant it.

  “God’s tears, no wonder you’re feeling overwhelmed. I’m sorry. I’ll go find him,” Josen said, starting to stand. “What’s his name?”

  “No! No, it’s okay. Really. If Delton has something more important, I say leave him to it,” Alia said, surprising Josen with her intensity. “Please don’t go,” she said more gently.

  Josen hesitated, caught between going to fetch her apparently feckless date and staying with the beautiful girl the moron had abandoned. When he put it like that, it really wasn’t a choice at all.

  So he stayed, and they talked.

  Chapter 26

  “What is your slowest drink?” Josen asked one of the tenders at the drink table—a young man with long dark hair and a thin mustache. Josen’s head felt like it was spinning in slow circles, like the few tired couples still dancing on Reverate Vasture’s dance floor.

  “I’m sorry?” the man asked, confusion clear on his face. Josen reached across the table and pressed a coin into the man’s hand.

  “I need two drinks—something that takes a long time to fix.” Josen said. The man looked back blankly. Josen closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing back the headache pressing in behind eyes now. “I’ve been sent to fetch drinks,” Josen said slowly, “and would like a moment by myself to think,” he said. He and Alia had talked through most of the night, sometimes in a quiet corner, sometimes as they wandered the exhibits, until neither of them could talk a moment longer without something to wet their throats. “Make me two of something complicated enough to justify me taking that moment. Yes?” The young man’s eyes flicked down the coin in his hand, and he nodded, pocketing the coin.

  “I think you’ll be happier with fresh mint leaves for your drink, Reverate,” he said slowly, as if to confirm. “If you’ll wait just a moment—”

  “Good man,” Josen said. “No rush; I’ll be sitting there,” Josen said, pointing to a secluded table at the edge of the hall. “Bring the drinks when they’re ready.”

  Josen could hear the rain pounding against the windows—hard rain for this late in the season—as he sat in an overstuffed chair and put his head in his hands, euphoria warring with dread inside him. Neither feeling was particularly used to sharing space in his head, and the beginnings of a spectacular headache was gathering at the base of his skull. He had probably eaten too much of the candied ceral, munching on it mindlessly as he talked with Alia. Headaches like this happened sometimes when he ate too much ceral and not enough of anything else.

  He glanced up across the hall at Alia, who was engaged in conversation—a serious conversation, by the look on her face—with two couples at a table near where he had left her. Starve him, she was cute. She pointed up toward the ceiling, a questioning look on her face, and one of the men shrugged. Josen wondered what they were talking about, was surprised at how much he cared about whatever about that concerned look on her face.

  He couldn’t even pretend to himself that he didn’t like her. He liked her a lot—liked talking to her, liked hearing her laugh, liked the little fierce streak that surfaced when she waxed passionate—and that should have been a good thing.

  Except that admitting feelings for someone like Alia—an innocent, naive daughter of a wealthy merchant—made Josen feel like he was giving in. It felt like admitting that he really was a part of this world of politics and galas and ceral farming, like he was becoming something he had scorned for so long. He didn’t want to settle down, to stop sneaking around with Akelle, working to pull off one of their crazy plans. Josen wasn’t ready to give up that thrill, and he didn’t think Alia—or any girl like her—would understand his double life. And she deserved someone who could be honest with her.

  “Ah, Reverate Oak,” said a lightly accented voice, interrupting Josen’s thoughts. Josen looked up to see a pair of smiling brown eyes set in a deeply tanned brown face. “I see that you are finally available for speaking to. That is well. Reverate Vasture has put on an engaging evening, but my wives and I grow tired and we yet have business to attend to.” The man stood there, somewhere between middle aged and just plain aged, his mostly grey beard cut short and neat, and an expression on his face that said he expected Josen to be expecting him.

  But Josen had no idea who he was. He looked at the smiling man quizzically. “I’m sorry,” Josen said. “Who are you?”

  The man chuckled softly. “Young men,” he said, speaking to one of several women standing to either side of him. “So easily addled by a woman.”

  “What is your excuse then, old man?” one of the women shot back, a handsome middle-aged woman with streaks of grey in her coal-black hair. She looked slightly familiar, but Josen couldn’t have said why. “You are older by far, and more addled than most.”

  “Yes, but I have more women to addle me.”

  “And it takes every one of us to keep you from ruining yourself,” said another of the women. She was shorter and thinner than the other woman. “Fool of a man,” she said, smiling fondly.

  “I’m sorry,” Josen said again, interrupting before their bantering could wander too far. “But—”

  “My apologies,” the man said, turning back to Josen. He sat in a chair across from Josen, and the three women—Josen could only assume they were his aforementioned wives—sat as well. “Ya’samael said that you were wishing to speak to us about a potential business partnership.”

  “Yasa-who?” Josen asked before he could stop himself. Pomish names were impossible to remember, long and stuffed full of too many vowels. Pomish. The realization acted as a final mental push, and Josen realized what he should have the moment the conversation started.

  “Sam,” Abbahim Binovine said with an understanding smile, “My son. I believe the two of you are acquainted.” His eyes sparkled, as if he was on the edge of laughing, and his eyes had a head start.

  “Here are your—” The mustached man with Josen’s drinks approached, and then trailed off at the sight of Josen now joined by three other people. “Er… drinks, Reverate, sir,” he finished. Josen looked up at the flustered man, holding a pair of very fancy looking drinks. “You did say two, yes?”

  “What’s your name?” Josen asked, standing and stepping closer.

  “My name, sir?”

  Josen said nothing, just continued looking at the man.

  “Oh, umm, Yur, Reverate, sir.”

  “Yur. I have another job for you.” Josen stood and put his arm around the man’s shoulders, turning him toward the tables. Alia was still there, sitting now with the same group Josen noticed her talking to a moment ago, though one of the men looked to have left. Josen didn’t recognize them, but he thought they looked Chessian. Likely acquaintances from home. “There is a table over there,” Josen pointed, “the young lady sitting at that table, dark hair, roses on her dress. You see her?”

  Yur nodded.

  “Good. That beautiful young lady is Miss Alia Nicoa. Please give her this drink, and my apologies. Let her know I enjoyed our night so much that I forgot about a very important business meeting scheduled for this evening. Make my apologies to her. I will return as soon as I possibly can. Make sure she and her friends are comfortable and refreshed until then.” Josen gave Yur a steady look. “Can I count on you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Yur said without hesitation.

  “Good man,” Josen said, and Yur left for Alia’s table with a broad smile, drinks in hand. Josen turned back to Sam’s father and his wives. “Master Binovine,” Josen started, doing his best to focus on business at hand, but he was mentally exhausted.

  Over the past week, Josen had contacted every horse seller and half the carpenters in the Passbound Cities. He had negotiated, haggled and begged
until he owned every available draft horse and ox in the Union with more than three legs. He had had commissioned hundreds of plows for those animals to plow and arranged for all of them to be moved to the Basin. The plows were still unassembled, but the last of both the equipment and the livestock had been successfully moved this morning—a small miracle, considering the time restraints. The temporary corral in the southwest fields, built right up against the Blackwater River, was packed tighter than was typically wise, but the animals would be moved to the outer farms starting tomorrow so they could get to work. He had spent a several fortunes in the space of a few days on the bet that he would be able to condition his fields for planting with the help of this man in front of him—Abbahim Binovine. It was a large wager, but Josen was tired, and well out of time.

  “I apologize for making you wait,” Josen said, smiling his best smile. “Would your lovely wives like to excuse us so we can—”

  “Please, call me Abbahim. The waiting was no trouble. As I said, this has been a lovely party. We appreciate the invitation,” Abbahim said, inclining his head slightly.

  “And no,” said one of the wives, the one with grey streaking her dark hair. “We lovely wives will not be excused. Our lovely husband would beggar us with his overlarge, over-soft heart if we left the business to him.”

  “Peace, Hafsa,” said the last of the three wives, taller than Abbahim by nearly half a head. She laid a gentle hand on Abbahim’s shoulder and turned to Josen. “Perhaps you would like to walk with us to one of the balconies,” she said, “where we might enjoy more privacy.”

  Josen followed the three women—Hafsa, Dilek and Riesa—and Abbahim up a wide, sweeping staircase and onto one of the balconies overlooking the main hall. The balcony was sparsely decorated compared to the rest of the hall, but comfortably furnished and unoccupied. The buzz of the party was less intense from their perch above, but the sound of the rain and rattle of thunder were more pronounced, nearer to the roof as they were. Josen ignored both and explained to Abbahim and his wives his proposal. Riesa, the tall woman with deep brown hair, seemed uninterested, but the others listened with varying degrees of intrigue and apprehension on their faces.