A Mother's Unreason

by Andy Graham

  “Humour me,” she said, once he caught up with her. “What do you see?”

  “Drizzle.”

  “And?”

  Another dead woman that I slept with. “A ruin.”

  “I see more than just a ruin. I see humankind’s impermanence, the finality of nature. A tribute to all those poor women, slain so brutally.”

  The VP armed the sweat off his brow. He refused to let this woman win. “I see no tribute to the dead. Churches were never about that, they were a business venture. The early priests had more business skill than most modern-day politicians. They sold heaven using threats of hell, all paid for with a non-existent currency: people’s souls. If that didn’t work, they just killed people and called it the will of the divine. That’s why the Ailan government banned religion in the wake of the Silk Revolution. It’s why we’ve had no religious hate crimes since then.”

  “If you change the law so that crime doesn’t exist, then of course you won’t have any hate crimes.”

  “Fools like you are playing with fire with your secret society.”

  “A secret society that you willingly attend. What is it they say about the wise man that follows the fool?”

  He gripped his phone in white-knuckled fingers. “OK. I’ll play your game. I look around me, at this temple to acquiescence, and see a business opportunity, land to be redeveloped, building materials to be sold. There are benches and chairs to refurb and donate to a local school, a perfect promo-op. And if I were of the less scrupulous type, I see a group of stray sheep to be brought back into the government’s flock.” His voice hardened. “And the government’s shepherds have much sharper crooks than you.”

  She lifted her head up to the sun. “Only in this world.”

  “Oh, please. Stop the soothsayer song ’n’ dance routine. It works for most of your witless devotees but not me. And tell me, why are you so calm, given what’s happening to the women in your Ward?”

  “Grief manifests in many ways. I fear I have passed beyond rage and sadness into incomprehension. Or maybe the rage is waiting for me?”

  She walked away, forcing him to follow again. His pulse was hammering out a tattoo in his ears. Her finding out about Lena’s death before him irked. He dealt with far more skilful players on a daily basis. Why did she get to him so?

  A family of small birds, startled by their approach, flitted above them, zig-zagging their way to safety. The small ceiling that housed their nest covered the entry to the nave. The supporting columns were smothered in ivy. His phone beeped. “I have a meeting with the president in a few minutes. If you have nothing else for me than this tour around a faded ruin, I’ll be going.”

  “I do have a question: why us? Why are the women from my society being killed?”

  Claws scuttled under the exposed joists in the floor of the transept where they were standing. Not for the first time that day, he shivered. This place should have been razed to the ground a long time ago, before it became a haven for the vermin and livestock that moved in to replace the faithful. “Maybe someone’s trying to send you a message,” he said. “You’re supposed to be the one with the answers, you work it out. Could be someone likes the type of women who comes to your meetings. Does someone find the innocence appealing? Or is it gullibility?”

  Her grey-blue eyes met his odd-coloured pair. They stared at each other silently, neither prepared to back down first.

  “Ever the cynic.”

  “This is pointless. I have to go.” He checked his phone. “Thank you for your time. It’s always a pleasure.”

  Before he had gone more than a few steps towards the apse, she called after him.

  “Why are they left with no hair?”

  He looked down at his distorted reflection in his polished shoes. “I don’t know. The coroner said it was done before they were killed but we have no idea why.”

  “Don’t your experts have a theory?”

  “They’re working on it.”

  “I don’t trust experts,” she said.

  “Would you if they supported your views?”

  She paused in putting her hat on and looked over at him quizzically. The birds had settled on a wall above her, the tilt of their heads and lean of their bodies tiny echoes of her own posture.

  He shook his head. “I have no idea what makes a man do that.”

  “What makes you think it’s a man?”

  “We’ve found stray hairs on enough of the women for it not to be a coincidence.”

  “Did you sleep with them as well as Lena?”

  “Why so interested? Jealous?” He returned her smile, polite and tolerant. “I slept with Lena, I’ll admit to that.”

  “I guess that counts as a straight answer from a politician. The hair—”

  “—had traces of a common DNA, a Y chromosome.”

  “The male chromosome,” she said.

  “I assumed the killer is a man because I hope that a woman couldn’t do that to another woman.”

  “Everyone starts out female up here.” The Famulus tapped her head. “Some of us stay the way that we were intended to be. That makes all behaviours originally female, even the less desirable ones.”

  One of the birds chirped and stabbed its beak into the bricks. The dark shape it tugged out of the wall twisted slowly in the air, trying to avoid the sharp beaks that pecked at it.

  The sun disappeared behind the grey clouds. The birds flew off to a damp shadow to be alone with their prey. The Famulus hugged herself, seeming to feel the cold for the first time that day. “Do you really think it matters to them who killed them?”

  “It matters to me.” He pocketed his phone. “I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Thank you. I mean it.” She tucked her straggly fringe underneath her hat.

  He stood unmoving in front of her.

  “I thought you had to go?”

  “The president can wait.” He flipped his heavy collar up. “A word of advice from a fool to the wise. Watch your back. Your beliefs didn’t protect those other women. They may not protect you. Nature makes mistakes; mistakes that we have to fix.”

  12

  More than Ugly

  It was nerves, the VP realised. The tingling in his fingers, the slight catch in his chest. Nerves threatened to betray him and upend his delicate mood. The last time he had been in the president’s private office, she had turned his world upside down. He stared through the open glass doors and fumbled in his pockets for the tin of mints. He must have lost them on his journey from seeing the Famulus. “It’s just a balcony, just a tree,” he muttered. “Fear people and ideas, not things or places.”

  He tossed his coat across the president’s leather sofa and stepped through the glass doors. The leaves of her tree rustled a greeting. If he were given to flights of fancy, he would have sworn it was welcoming him back. It was reminding him of his last visit on Midwinter’s Eve. The night he had vomited his shame and disgust across the balcony flagstones, his stomach heaving as it tried to empty itself of a past he had never known.

  The balcony was much as he remembered: the table, the chairs, the helicopters and drones circling at a discreet distance. There was a box of Alcazar pieces. The tiered board game was set up next to two mugs of something thick and green. His mood stuttered. His satisfaction (it was more relief he had privately admitted to himself) at Franklin’s capture had already been dented by the news of Lena’s death. Now this? Alcazar, the multilevel strategy game that was fiendishly complicated in its simplicity, meant one thing: Field-Marshal Chester. She had been here, and judging by the fresh mugs, this morning.

  The president was standing at the farthest parapet from the doors. He made a point of walking over the thick glass that formed much of the balcony floor. (He didn’t, however, look down.) His vague curiosity as to where the roots of that tree went was now subsumed in other thoughts, namely: “We got him. It worked.”

  Bethina turned her blue eyes on him. “I heard. I still don’t believe Ray Fran
klin fell for that trap? A piece of paper nailed to the preacher tree?”

  “Guilt. It’s a useless emotion but a valuable currency.”

  She quirked an eyebrow at him. “More so than problems or chaos?”

  He tugged at his collar and mumbled an answer she would not have appreciated hearing.

  “No matter, what of Dr Swann’s children?”

  “The Unsung have the brats. I’m going to order them to pick up her husband en route to the old cells in Tye’s Bridged Quarter.”

  A frown touched her forehead. “You are aware that I disapprove of such tactics. Targeting families and children is ethically wrong.”

  “Not if it gets quick results.”

  “Professor Lind used to say that if you’re so focused on playing the man rather than the ball, you risk missing the rest of the game.”

  He reached into his pocket for the tin of mints. His fingers closed around his thumb instead. “Professor Lind and his family haven’t been seen since Camp X517 went up in flames. I think we can forget about what Lind said. Ma’am,” he added as an afterthought.

  The look she gave him felt as if he was having hairs plucked from his body, one by one. The breeze picked up, cooling the sweat on his brow. Over the parapet, beyond the sweep of steel and glass skyscrapers that made up the capital city of Ailan, the River Tenns glimmered in the distance. The ugly caw of fisher gulls hunting echoed along the water. The noise bounced back off the ruined building of Effrea’s older sister city on the far bank.

  The president let out a long sigh. “Are you also aware that I’m finding it harder to contain the whispers that accompany your behaviour? Field-Marshal Chester, for one, is increasingly agitated.”

  “I’m happy to discuss matters with Chester face-to-face.”

  “You’d be wise not to make too many enemies. Do not underestimate Chester. I’m not entirely sure how you have the Unsung eating out of your hand, but the rest of the legions have a great deal of respect for Chester. If you cross too many lines too soon, you may find that the loyalty of Chester’s legions lie with her, not us. Many of those men and women are itching for a good tear up.”

  He grabbed her arm. “Then give them something to fight. Mennai is weak. Their border with us is unprotected. We can ruin them.”

  “That’s not what I want.” She glanced down at his hand, and his fingers sprang free.

  “And what of what I want?”

  “While I am president, we will not go to war with Mennai. We will destabilise them as much as we can, support the ethnic Ailan people living there both covertly and overtly, but we do not have the resources for an all-out conflict.”

  Her calm, unflappable voice needled him like a nettle rash in his ears. “But—”

  “Nothing.” The president held up a warning finger. “I warned you before about restraining your natural tendencies. That didn’t stop you turning Substation Two into an inferno that is still smouldering in places. Effrea is not the only major city struggling with an energy deficit. Your exuberant behaviour did this to us. I will not have you ruin anymore of our infrastructure for petty vengeance.” The words were tight and controlled, calm.

  “I did what I had to do.”

  “You did what you wanted to do. Big difference. I grew up around men and women who used exactly the same argument to justify their lazy opinions and bigoted, sexist behaviour. Women who refused to think beyond what was on their kitchen table or in their make-up cabinet. Men whose responsibilities to their families ended with making money and babies. You, of all people, given the work we have done together, should appreciate that.”

  He smiled. It was greasy and sickly. “I did what I had to do. Just like you, Bethina.”

  “Don’t get cocky with me, young man.” She stormed over to the table. One of her dogs, the scarred one with the mangled ear, stood up from its blanket, stretching out its front legs. The other opened a lazy red eye and fixed it on the VP.

  He took a step backwards. He hadn’t noticed those filthy animals. They were going the same way as that tree the minute he got the chance: off the edge of the balcony. “Just like you killed Prothero, your real father,” a voice whispered in his head.

  Between his perfectly polished leather shoes there were splatter marks across the balcony. Something acidic had stained bubbles and streaks into the flagstones. His stomach lurched. His knees ached as he remembered the impact from when he had collapsed onto them on Midwinter’s Eve. The VP settled into the seat opposite the president, declining the offer of a drink. The tea stank of self-righteous goodness: the type of herbal drink that only worked if you believed in it.

  “There is another way,” he said, trying to calm both the situation and himself. “A way with minimal collateral damage. A way that will leave the infrastructure of Mennai intact. We can populate that infrastructure with our own people. Think of the PR. We would have a massive opportunity to fill the key Mennai facilities with people from Ailan. We could hold a lottery for jobs, promote people, give them opportunities to move up the social ladder that most have stopped even dreaming of.”

  “No. I know what you are thinking.”

  He felt a catch in his throat. “You don’t understand.”

  She placed the cup down. “I know of this project you employed Professor Lind to run behind my back. I also know enough of that plan survived Ray Franklin’s trashing of Camp X517 for it still to be almost viable. Even if it were fully viable, I am not going to sanction what is effectively a genetic dirty bomb. Neither should you. Your stepfather was an evil bully. He also happened to be from Mennai. Those two things aren’t correlated. One does not make the other. Don’t add hate to a mistake. And have you forgotten that Rose Franklin, your real mother, was half-Mennai on her mother’s side?”

  His hand slapped down onto the table. One of the dogs growled. “Don’t talk to me about the Franklins. I hate that family for what they represent: the rebellion against the established order. I hate Rose even more knowing what she let happen to me.”

  “She was forced to give you up when you were a child.”

  “So you say.” But I’m checking, Bethina. You lost all right for me to take anything you say at face value the last time I was here.

  “You have accepted she is your mother at least?”

  He slammed both hands down on the table this time. One of the dogs leapt up, ears flat, teeth bared. “I said do not talk to me about her.”

  The lines that edged from the corners of her eyes deepened. “As you wish. But,” — she leant forwards — “David Prothero, your real father, was also from Mennai. You have Mennai genes. This genetic dirty bomb of yours will affect you.”

  “Professor Lind was confident his research was specific enough. I can take a long holiday. Prothero was born in New Town, on the border with Ailan. My real mother’s mother was from a distant corner of Mennai. They are practically a different race with more in common with the Donian than anyone else.” He shrugged. “There are a multitude of reasons why I will be OK. The issue of my genetic heritage putting me at risk is one I’m prepared to take.”

  “But not one I am prepared to take.”

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  The president blew the steam off her tea, settling back into her chair with an ease that made him want to scream. “I said no. The touch of self-depreciating humour you had when you first joined this government was healthy and refreshing; this self-loathing is not. I will not condone this. Besides, what you are proposing would entail gutting the Donian Mountains to get at that element. We would need tons of this gwenium in order to make your project practical. I’m beginning to wish that element had stayed a dirty secret in those tunnels,” she added quietly.

  “You don’t understand, ma’am.”

  “No, I don’t think you do. Your hate has blunted that brilliant mind of yours. What of the cost to the people? Did you think about that?”

  “The Donian are peasants.” He reached in his pocket for the mint tin, stil
l not there. He shouldn’t have let her talk like this, she was running rings round him again. She was wrong. He knew it. Facts and stats be damned, she was wrong.

  “Not the Donian tribes, our people. You’re talking in soundbites culled from a political manifesto. Have you considered the long-term effects? Played out the game as it could actually happen rather than the fantasy dream world of how you want it to happen? Destroying Mennai will not automatically improve life here. Men enslaved by their lust for glory and revenge usually bring nothing but chaos and loss to those around them.”

  “As opposed to those other men who bring nothing to any body.”

  She arched an eyebrow and he shifted under the weight of her gaze.

  “Possibly,” she conceded finally. Beth gestured to the board game. “You should try Alcazar. You have a talent for politics and tactics, but Alcazar would refine it. The game teaches three things: restraint, sacrifice and patience. Qualities our society appears to be haemorrhaging.”

  “You think a board game will help me? Are you—” He grit his teeth to hold the anger back, exhaling slowly. “I don’t think playing a board game is what I need at the moment. What I want is you to take me seriously.”

  “I have never taken you more seriously.” The quiet edge in her voice silenced him. “And there are three more reasons why your plan is not going to happen.

  “One,” she held up a clenched fist, thumb jutting out from the side. “I’m less concerned about the effect the mining would have on the Donian than it would on our people, especially while the full effects of this element remain unknown.”

  “We know what it does.”

  “We know some of what it does and what we don’t know is filled with a whole lot of conjecture and wishful thinking.”

  “I gave you reports.”

  “Those things?” She snorted. “Those only-to-be-plugged-into-a-blind-terminal reports you gave me on the riverside last year were redacted to the point they made the page look like a geometric oil slick.”

  “That was before Ray Franklin and his team went into the Donian Mountains. My scientists have progressed since then.”