“Renounce this marriage,” Tesaryn Wen demands, this time to me. “Or I will be forced to take action.”
“Do your best,” I say. “The marriage will stand. If you have any grievances, you can go yell them into the void.”
“If that is the way you want it.” She steps closer to Doka, now so close that their noses nearly touch. “This is not the first mistake you’ve made as Matris, but it will be your last,” she whispers, so soft I have to strain to hear it. Then her lips keep moving, and I can only catch every few words, each of them pointed and sharp.
Doka’s face drops for a moment, then anger wells up in his eyes. Nearly instantly, they’ve gone red. His fists clench, but they stay at his sides, as if he refuses to be provoked.
Baradonna, however, doesn’t allow herself to be contained by political decorum. Her back stiffens, and all at once, faster than I can blink, she’s reached out and caught Tesaryn Wen by the neck.
Tesaryn Wen struggles and coughs, a crooked smile beaming on her face. “Assaulting a member of the Senate is treason,” she manages to choke out.
“So is threatening our Matris,” Baradonna says lightly.
“I would never do such a thing, though if I had, such words wouldn’t leave bruises like the ones you are surely giving me. Look at the commotion you’re causing. The traditions you’re ruining. Who do you think they’ll believe?”
“I heard you. Doka heard you. Our word will prevail.” Baradonna squeezes tighter, then lifts Tesaryn Wen up from the ground, her toes struggling to find purchase. Tesaryn Wen’s smile is completely gone now. All that is left in her bulging eyes is panic. Her fingers grasp at Baradonna’s grip. All around, accountancy guards converge on them.
“Baradonna,” Doka says, laying a soft hand on her muscular shoulder. “Don’t. She’s not worth it.”
“No, but you are,” Baradonna says. “No one can threaten you and your family, and especially not your child. And if bruises are all the Senate is concerned with, then I might as well make it totally clear where I stand.” She rips her knife from her sheath and presses the blade to Tesaryn Wen’s temple.
She arcs the blade down in a quick motion, then tosses Tesaryn Wen into a heap. For a moment, Tesaryn Wen cowers there, sucking in painful gasps of air, but then the blood comes, a thin red line going from her cheek to her chin. I stand there in complete shock. I’d never been overly confident in Baradonna’s ability to control her temper, but I never thought she was capable of something like this. I don’t understand what’s happened.
Baradonna drops her knife to the floor, then puts both hands behind her back as accountancy guards swarm her. She grins a satisfied grin as they struggle to subdue her, even though she doesn’t fight back. Accusations of treason fly from Tesaryn Wen’s mouth as she keeps her hand pressed against her injured cheek. The cut is neither deep nor serious, but from the delicacy of it all, we all know it so easily could have been deadly. Doka pleads for leniency as Baradonna is dragged away. But we all know that is impossible.
The trial will be immediate.
It will be short.
She will be banished.
Cold hands grip around my biceps. “Seske,” comes a weak voice. I look over and see Charrelle, a pained look on her face. I pull her into an embrace, protecting her from the chaos all around us.
“It’ll be okay,” I tell her. “Baradonna is strong. Doka is smart. Together, they’ll figure a way out of this.”
Charrelle shakes her head, taking shallow and deliberate breaths. I thought she was glowing before, but it’s not that. She’s glistening. Sweating. She rubs her hand over the swell of her belly. “I think I’m about to have this baby.”
I nod slightly, as if she’s told me that the buffet is out of fancy cheeses.
“Did you hear what I said?” Charrelle asks when she doesn’t get more of a response from me.
“Yes,” I say, remembering that I am her midwife and am supposed to be comforting her. “Yes. Okay. Well, obviously you can’t have the baby right now. It’s too early. I still have my classes to complete.”
“This baby isn’t going to wait for you to take more classes, Seske,” she says. “She’s coming. Now.”
I shake my head. “Babies don’t spontaneously get birthed! There are contractions and heavy breathing and broken water and . . .” I wrack my brain, trying to remember what we’d learned so far. Trying not to remember my own experiences giving birth to a tentacled egg. My back starts throbbing. My stomach twists up. I’m overwhelmed with the urge to take the largest shit of my life.
“Well,” Charrelle says through a pained grin. She takes a couple deep breaths, then continues. “I was feeling a little odd this morning, but I thought it was pre-wedding jitters. By the time the ceremony started, I knew something was going on, but I figured I could wait it out. I didn’t want to cause a scene.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s get you comfortable then,” I say, helping her to a quiet spot near the edge of the room, then down to the floor to find a comfortable position to labor in. My phantom pains—sympathy pains—continue to ravage me. Everyone is so caught up with Baradonna’s drama that no one notices us. I signal to my heart-mothers, and finally catch my ama’s attention. She rushes over to us, hands pressed to the sides of her head.
“No, not now,” she says. “It’s too soon!”
“We’ve already established that,” I say, grabbing a whole stack of cloth napkins from a nearby service table. “But the baby is coming. Right now.”
“I’ll run and find a midwife,” Ama says, recognizing that the chances of me being any use in this situation are next to nil, and I’m not about to argue with that. “You keep her comfortable.”
Charrelle pants on all fours. I rub her back, and she sways side to side, trying to deal with the pain. The Zenzee egg I carried had doped me up with alien hormones to within an inch of unconsciousness, washing away my concerns and leaving me in a state of euphoria while the thing inside me stretched my body in ways it wasn’t meant for. Even after the egg had passed, long after the egg had passed, I never fully felt like the same person I was before.
“Seske,” Charrelle says, thankfully snapping me away from the memory. She looks at me with tears in her eyes. “I think something is happening.”
I toss up her many layers of damp, frilled skirts and help her out of her panties. Then I look and see what’s between her legs. Tentacles. So many tiny little black tentacles. I fight the urge to flee, and instead, shake my head vigorously. When I look back, the baby’s head is crowning, a whole mess of beautiful black hair.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look back and see Vonne, who’s served as a midwife for countless births. She’s kind, asking if I need help instead of just taking over, even though I clearly don’t know what I’m doing. She somehow manages to put both Charrelle and me at ease. Charrelle pushes three more times before the baby comes.
“It’s a boy,” Vonne announces.
I hadn’t expected those words, but I smile at Charrelle anyway, because he’s so absolutely wonderful. Charrelle stares back, a mere hint of disappointment caught at the edges of her smile. “We haven’t thought about any boy names,” she says, exhausted.
“It’s okay. We have time,” I say. Boys are rare, especially in families of our status, but when they occur, they are a blessing. They are a labor of love, an investment for our whole people. It is a very honorable sacrifice, raising a child for someone else’s Line, and once he is married off, our family will be able to have a girl child of our own and secure our Line for the next generation. I smile at the thought.
Vonne cleans the baby off and hands him to me, swaddled up in a large napkin with our family seal. I hold him close for a moment, smell the top of his head, then hand him carefully to Charrelle. He lets loose a cry and something within me clenches. Vonne fidgets with the top of Charrelle’s gown until she’s freed enough material for the baby to nurse. Mayhem still stirs all around us, people shouting and fighting, but here,
at the edge of this great room, we’ve found a little bubble of normalcy, and I relish it.
“Seske,” Vonne whispers to me, her hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got a little . . . stain on you.” She points to my chest. I think that maybe Baradonna hadn’t done such a great job of removing the jelly after all, but when I look down, I see two purple-black wet spots blooming through the fabric of my dress. My breasts suddenly feel heavy and uncomfortable.
My stomach gets queasy as I reach down inside my corset, my touch like hot needles poking at my nipples. I wince and draw my hand back quickly, and find my fingertips covered in a dark, sticky liquid.
Daide’s bells, I’m lactating.
Doka
Of Tempting Offers and Disappointing News
You’re only as safe as your unborn child is. Tesaryn Wen’s words strike me hard. It’s impossible to not read the threat behind them. The legitimacy of my rein will continue to be tenuous until I produce an heir. After that, even Tesaryn Wen’s antics would come under intense scrutiny with all the power Charrelle’s family holds. No one would dare cross the father of their granddaughter.
If something happened to her before her birth . . .
I ball my fists and bid myself to keep eye contact with Tesaryn Wen, even though I’m itching to look back and make sure Charrelle is okay. My eyes start to burn at the thought of someone harming our family. But to lash out here, among so many witnesses, would be inadvisable to say the least. But as soon as I finish the thought, Baradonna’s got her weighty hand wrapped around Tesaryn Wen’s throat. Shock falls upon me, and by the time I gather my wits to tell her to stop, it is too late. Blood drips from Tesaryn Wen’s cheek wound in thin, dark red rivulets that continue down to her chin. They pool into a heavy drop that falls, vanishing into the sky-black floor.
I’m swept up into the resulting chaos, bodies pressing me forward as Baradonna is taken away for an inevitable conviction and sentencing. She’s so close, I can almost reach out and touch her, but the accountancy guards surrounding her will have none of that. Instead, I shout to her, saying we’ll find a way out of this. And we will. We have to. In the meantime, I keep my steps deliberate so I don’t lose my balance and end up being trampled by this mob, thirsty for vengeance.
There is not enough room to fit the aggrieved masses inside the Senate chambers, so Tesaryn Wen has a few guards hoist her up onto one of the decorated columns outside, so that she can address the crowd. Her face has been hastily bandaged, but blood is seeping through it, making for a damning image.
“We have all witnessed the violent crimes committed against me, a long-standing and respected member of the Senate,” she rasps while perched upon the hefty carved tentacle of a Zenzee, her arm grasped around another for support. “We are not a people who tolerate such vehement acts, and we cannot afford to let this offense go unpunished. Such treason and disregard for authority deserves immediate conviction and sentencing, and so it is imperative that Accountancy Guard Auditor Baradonna Resson be sentenced to banishme—”
“Stop!” I yell, my words cutting straight through the crowd’s rapt silence. “Baradonna was protecting me. She only reacted that way from your threat against me and my family! She deserves a medal, not punishment.”
“Did anyone else hear such a threat?” Tesaryn Wen asks her audience. “Or are we supposed to trust the word of someone who has in one evening completely corrupted the sanctity of our institution of marriage and left us vulnerable to strangers we are yet to truly know?”
I laugh. “There is no sanctity among any of our traditions.”
Tesaryn Wen sneers at me, her eyes calculating and cruel. “Be as that may, we all saw Baradonna’s actions. There is nothing to defend.”
“If you believe there is nothing to defend, then what is the harm in granting her a trial? Or are you afraid of the truth that might come out of it?”
“If you wish to waste everyone’s time, then very well,” Tesaryn Wen says with haughty airs, as if she knows I am only prolonging Baradonna’s grim fate. “Who will serve as her counsel?” She looks out into the audience, but the law auditors among them all turn away, unwilling to blemish their records with such a hopeless case.
“I will be her counsel,” I declare. I’d read Misfits and Criminals end to end, a behemoth text that chronicled the greatest trials of our history. I knew enough of the procedure that I could cobble together a defense. I look over at Baradonna. She shakes her head, warning me not to do this. Yes, it will paint a bigger target on my back, but she stood up for me and my family. I can’t let her get banished to who knows where.
“You must recuse yourself from the vote, then,” says Tesaryn Wen.
“I accept,” I say as soon as the words are out of her mouth. My vote only matters in cases of ties anyhow, and honestly, swaying even half of the Senate to position my way will require more favors from the ancestors than they have granted me in my whole lifetime.
Tesaryn Wen gives me a sly smile. “You have one hour to prepare your defense,” she says. The crowd groans in protest. It is an awful sight—the unsated bloodlust lurking behind their eyes while they’re dressed in their finest silks and their most elegant patinas, hair adorned with precious beads and shells, some of them from Earth. They came for a wedding, but are all too eager to settle for witnessing the first banishment in three years.
“One hour?” I ask. “That’s hardly enough—”
“If the truth is so obvious as you claim, then it should be plenty of time.” Tesaryn Wen’s stance grows bolder as the audience starts chanting for justice.
Bella Roshaad stops us right before Baradonna and I are escorted away. “Do not let Tesaryn Wen intimidate you. She is loud, but she does not speak for all of us.” She presses an abridged copy of the Codes in my hand. “I believe you.”
Baradonna and I are taken to a private room off the side chambers where we can confer. I’m about to present her with my plan—a plea of her being in an unfit state of mind due to the confusion at the wedding, but as soon as the door shuts, it is Baradonna who does the talking.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she scolds me. “You have so few allies left as it is. You are forcing them to side against you.”
“They will see the truth.”
Baradonna laughs at my naivete. “They will eat us both alive out there no matter what defense we present.”
“But if we—”
“You’re wasting time,” Baradonna says. “When I’m gone, you’ll be more vulnerable than ever, and I have no doubt that Wen will go through with her threat. A physical attack may occur at any time, and you’ve got to be ready. Never let your guard down. Especially when you’re in public.”
“I don’t know how to defend myself!” I say, feeling doomed. “I’m a scholar, not a fighter.”
“If you keep your eyes peeled, you can spot danger before it comes to that. Keep your ears tuned to background noise and whispered conversations. Every environment you’re in will tell a story. Your senses will guide you and warn you when something is about to go awry, if you learn to pay attention to them, that is.”
“That’s easy for someone who’s had years of training to say.” Fear grips me. What’s happening with Charrelle now? Are she and the rest of my family safe? How am I supposed to protect them if I don’t even know how to protect myself?
“I won’t be there to save you anymore, Doka. But the good news is that people are easy to read. The signs are clear if you look for them. Pay special attention to the eyes. To posture. Words are meaningless. Lies are plentiful, but the truth bleeds through the body. Now, watch me closely. Pretend I am one of your books.”
Baradonna spends the remainder of our hour together teaching me to read body language, moving her own body as well as she can with her arms bound behind her. She shows me the subtleties of sloped shoulders and how they, dependent upon degree, can indicate intimidation or shame or guilt. She lies to me, then tells me the truth, and I watch how her body folds into a lie a
nd opens up for the truth. I watch her do it again, as someone more practiced in deception, seeing the tension in her body as she overcompensates for resisting its natural urges.
Slowly, I begin to understand. It is a lesson that should last weeks, years, if it was being done properly, but we don’t even have minutes left. The door opens, and through it comes an escort of accountancy guards. Baradonna stands as a hand comes down on each of her biceps to guide her away. I race toward her before they can do so and wrap her up in my embrace.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter into her shoulder. “I’m sorry you ever got assigned to protect me.”
“Serving you has been the highest honor of my life,” Baradonna says, resting her cheek against the crown of my head. A moment later, she is being dragged away, and I am left feeling empty and hollow.
My defense takes only three minutes to lay out. It is not a very good one, just a simple plea for mercy for a blatant mistake on Baradonna’s part. I relayed how sorry she was, how much remorse she had shown during our consultation, feeling how my own body folds into these lies. But lies and hope are all I have. No one would believe the truth.
“All in favor of pardoning Baradonna for her crimes, raise your hands,” Tesaryn Wen calls out to the Senators.
I look out into the crowd, a motionless mass. I look to my mothers. I look to Charrelle’s mothers. Not a single twitch among them.
“Then the matter of banishment shall proceed, and as of now, this person standing before you does not exist. Has never existed. To hold a single memory to the contrary is punishable by three days thumb hanging.”
Baradonna is whisked away, and it is all I can do to keep my feet under me while I watch. She’s saved my life so many times, and yet I’ve failed her.
Symbiosis Page 12
