by Gayle Greeno
“I’ve just the thing for that, you’ll even like the taste.” She turned to find the bottle.
While Mrs. Jopling felt some things required intimacy of speech, her next topic wasn’t one of them. The waspish voice buzzed and circled through the shop, waiting to sting. “Heard you’re to marry that Varon Bell with that hellion of a boy. You’re getting a handful of a stepson with that one, mark my words.”
She measured the licorice-based syrup into a smaller container, concentrated on not spilling any of the stickiness on her hands, She didn’t know the boy well yet, knew it would take time. “So what is it that makes him such a hellion?” And cursed herself for asking, as if she’d believe anything that old gossip told her. Her hand shook with nerves, and a tendril of dark, viscous liquid leaked down the neck of the bottle, a looping, black snake strand of a trail.
“That Varon’s got his own problems, but the boy’s got all of his mother’s, may she rest in peace in death as she never did alive. You hear me, girly? There’s something uncanny about the boy, as if he looks right through you clear to the inside and mocks everything he sees there. You feel unclean when he’s done. And you feel,” she groped for the word, “diminished, somehow.”
They had both been so intent that neither had noticed the gentle ring of the bell, or the squeak of the door opening. The presence of a tall, broad-bellied man innocently intruded into the intimate fears that seemed to throb in the air. Kraay de Groote, the town’s baker. He took two tentative steps backward, aware somehow of his intrusion, offering the politeness of distance while Mrs. Jopling rapidly fanned at her face with one end of her paisleyed shawl. He spoke at last, “Sorry, Mrs. Jopling, Miz Marbon, but you did say come about now so you could change the dressing.” He waved his right arm to emphasize the bandage, justifying his intrusion. An odor of cinnamon and yeast, currants and sugar frosting emanated from him, a faint cloud of flour haloing each gesture in the sunlight from the window.
“Of course. You’re right on time.” She put her hand to her mouth, licked the spilled syrup off her fingers. Capping the bottle, she took her pen and wrote precise instructions on a label, took brush from glue pot and daubed, then flattened the label on the bottle. “Instructions are clear and simple, Mrs. Jopling. And don’t try to outguess me on this, the dosage I’ve stated is correct. More will not make you happy in the morning, believe me.”
The old woman snatched the bottle, making a shushing sound, and wheeled out the door, cane heralding her retreat. “Tomorrow, girly, I’ll tell you how it goes tomorrow.”
“Old prune,” de Groote muttered under his breath as the door swung shut. She nodded in agreement as she washed her hands, then came around the counter and sat the baker down to check the bandage on his arm. The silence seemed companionable after her last visitor, and lasted until she eased the old dressing free and applied a fresh poultice. He winced, involuntarily jerked his arm at the sting. “Meddler!” And this time his words were vehement. “Not you, her! She riles me no end. I overheard, didn’t mean to, but she was trumpeting, and most times I’d say don’t pay heed to a word she says, Miz Marbon.” He gave a tentative touch at the large burn on the soft underside of his forearm. “People think a baker should know better than to get burned. She’ll burn you worse than my ovens can, if you take stock in what she says, but this time, this one time, I think I’d take heed of her words. There’s something about the boy that just doesn’t sit right. Poor Varon won’t see it, can’t see it. Even the dogs and cats are wary of the child, though I’ve never seen him do a mean thing at them.” He sighed. “If the ovens didn’t always singe the hair off my arms, those hairs would prickle when that boy walks into my shop.”
She finished rebandaging the arm, split the tail of the wrapping and tied it round. “I appreciate the confidence, Mr. de Groote, but he’d only an eleven-year-old boy. He’s lost, lonely, still resentful after his mother’s death. He’ll come around with time and care and love.”
Doyce sat rigid beneath the night skies, measured the wheeling of the constellations as she clasped the blanket tight to her, still achingly awake. Memories flew thick and fast, blizzarding like snowflakes presaging the winter of a soul, her soul, her hopes. They piled against her, drifted, changing patterns, no order to the time or place of them, they simply came.
She’d certainly not come to Ruysdael with any intention of marriage. It had been the last thing in her mind; she had felt too frail and emotionally impoverished for that, afraid she had nothing left to give after her rigorous training and equally rigorous casting off by the eumedicos. But then she had met Varon Bell, and Varon had convinced her she had something to contribute, mainly because he was so sure that he himself lacked all hope. They were both wrong.
“I killed my wife,” Varon had stated the night he had proposed to her in her tiny, ugly quarters behind the apothecaire shop. The room served as partial payment for her work; she couldn’t afford to be choosy. “You probably know that already, it’s hardly a secret.” Only a force of effort kept his large, work-scarred hands clasped in his lap, trapping each other to hold them still; only the yearning to reach out and touch her showed clear on his face. Yet his green-gray eyes seemed calm and tranquil, as if, having said the worst, he rested content that he had said it.
She sat at right angles to him at the foot of the narrow, swayed bed, picking at a darn in the coverlet, while his broad frame overwhelmed the one easy chair the cramped room could hold. “Yes, I knew that. More from the records than from what anyone said.” No need to mention Mrs. Jopling, that was a given. She’d listened but tried not to hear. “I don’t have time for many general conversations with people, let alone to indulge in gossip. Too much to do just to spend the day in chatter.”
He roused himself, his face creased in a subdued smile that crept into his eyes. “You should try a little more, you know. Your special grace is that you listen and care, almost know what’s going on inside people’s minds.”
Just like a eumedico. A bitter thought, but the man hadn’t said that to throw her failure in her face, hadn’t made the connection, and he sat, patient, waiting for her to speak, so she did. “The records are marked ‘Partial transcript. Sealed by the Order of the High Conciliators.’ I know that much from the index. Why? That happens very rarely.”
“The Seeker Pair and the Chief Conciliator knew I spoke the truth. They took the request for a verdict to the High Conciliators at the capital and asked that the majority of the testimony be sealed. Better the world not know what I knew.” Varon’s chuckle was short yet not mirthless despite the gravity of the topic, but his hands remained clasped, locked between his knees. “The record also states, ‘Guilty: Extenuating Circumstances. No Sentence Passed,’ I believe.”
“You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to.” She felt torn, intellectually curious about what had happened, but emotionally incurious, knowing that whatever she learned could not change her feelings for this troubled man whose large, competent hands could accomplish the most delicate joinings of wood ... and of bodies.
“No, you’d best know why you’re going to tell me ‘no.’ Don’t want false pretenses between us.” He shifted, let out his breath. “Else, my wife, Vesey’s mother, wasn’t like most people, not like most normal people, whatever that means. Those of us who laugh and sometimes weep, overcome pain, feel joy, who survive and heal ourselves through the love of others. Else wasn’t like that. They said her father did terrible things to her in mind and body when she was a child. Taking out his own longings and fears and fantasies on her. And when her mother died, giving birth to a fourth son who didn’t live, there was just Else and her two younger sisters left for her father to play his fantasies upon.”
His eyes stared far away and long ago, beyond the tiny room with its faded, peeling paint the color of yesterday’s porridge, its thirdhand furniture, beyond her. “I don’t think any of us in town realized, had any idea. She went to school, did her chores, played with us all, laughed. But
she learned to love pain.” Face furrowed, he turned back to Doyce, his expression pleading with her to explain it to him, the complexities behind the reality of the words he’d uttered. “Can you imagine that? To learn to love pain as if it were love itself?
“And that’s how she loved Vesey! I should have realized it; I saw it and felt it between ourselves sometimes when we made love, but I’m a big bear of a man, able to ignore the things she did to me. Thought it was just her way of showing her passion, her love, and I was righter than I knew.
“Came back early from work one afternoon. Forgot a chisel, left it at the house, but it was a beautiful spring day, so sharp and bright you could practically feel the grass growing at your feet, the crocus straining up and up all purple and orange, and I thought perhaps we could all go out for a picnic.” Tears streamed freely down his face now. “Vesey was only seven, just seven, mind you.” He was on his feet pacing, short sharp bursts of movement one way, then the other, a captive of the room and his recollections.
She yearned to say, Stop, it doesn’t matter now, it’s all over, it’s all done, but Varon would have overridden her words, would have continued even if she fled the room. Not the Seeker General, not the High Conciliators, not the Monitor himself could force Varon to imprison the memories any longer.
“Only seven! Else was twirling around our bedroom, dancing, twirling, dancing, twirling, humming some jaunty little tune. Marking time with a wire bristle hairbrush in one hand. Oh, how the light sparkled on that wire, glittering like a scepter. Vesey perched on a stool in the center of the room, knees drawn up tight to his chest so that his little heels just barely touched the edge of the seat, arms locked round his knees and his head pillowed there. It took me a moment to see, to really see that he was naked.
“And Else kept twirling, humming, twirling by Vesey, and each time she twirled by she struck him with the brush, with the wire bristles. Twirl, hum, strike! Ruby pinpricks of blood on Vesey’s back, his sides, his thighs, sometimes scarlet threads where it trickled down. He didn’t move, didn’t whimper, didn’t cry, just sat as if he’d played that game before.
“I ran in and she smiled at me, the most beautiful dreamy smile, and she slashed me across the face with the brush.” One large hand knuckled the scar along his cheekbone, came away wet with tears. “I grabbed her wrist and the bones felt so tiny, no bigger than Vesey’s. She saw me but didn’t see me—her eyes were huge, pupils so dilated you couldn’t tell her eyes were cornflower blue. She just kept murmuring, ‘My love, my love, my love,’ and slipped out of my hands and struck Vesey again.
“ ‘Stop it, Else! Stop!’ I begged her. But she just put her finger to her lips and swirled by again and lashed out with the brush at my eyes. I grabbed her and we struggled, and for all her tininess and dainty bones it was like wrestling a demon. She kept screaming, ‘My love, my love!’ over and over again, and when I slapped her across the face, Vesey leaped off the stool and came at me, pounding, kicking, biting ... a little silent, deadly fury. In my own house, my own wife and son!
“I cuffed him off, but he was on me again as if he’d never felt the blow, arms wrapped around my leg, teeth sunk into the back of my knee. I thought he was going to hamstring me! I pried him free, and all the while Else was raking both of us, Vesey and me, with that damned brush. I threw him on the bed, hard, and he hit his head on the post.
“That drove Else wilder. And yet it was strange, as if each blow she gave me were a caress or kiss, as if she were trying to seduce me then and there. I almost wanted it, too.” Tight-faced with shame, Varon made the admission, his back to her. “I ... I’ve never felt an excitement like that, could have taken her right then and there regardless of the pain.
“But the one thing I wasn’t prepared for was feeling her in my mind, turning me round and round and inside out so that black was white and bad was good and pain was love. I could feel her doing it, like the tightening of a violin string to its proper pitch. It felt good, and she kept whispering away inside my brain, telling me, showing me, other ... things. And Vesey was there, too, inside my head because of her, and she murmured, ‘No, I love Vesey, but he’s just a child. You’re a man.’ Sometimes I was seeing her with my eyes, and sometimes I was looking at me from her eyes ... there was nothing separate anymore.
“ ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘No!’ And with each shout I tried to pull myself back into myself, the me within me, the me who was a gentle, good husband and father, a master carpenter who carved and shaped useful, needful things out of wood, who saw the possibilities and hidden potential in the grain, the knots, the secrets of each timber or plank. And I concentrated on that, on pushing her back within herself and me back into me. I shut my eyes tight and forced myself with all my being. Until finally it subsided.”
Varon faced her, stared at her as if seeing a stranger, his voice flat, no longer reliving each moment of the struggle. “Except I discovered that each time I’d been shouting ‘No!’ with each pulse of concentration I’d tightened my hands around her throat. She hung limp in my arms, but I could see the look in her eyes, a peak of ecstasy we’d never climbed when we made love. I clenched my hands one final time, and laid her down. Then I realized that Vesey was conscious, had seen the whole thing.”
The torrent of words ended. Varon sat, the old upholstered chair protesting at the unexpected weight, and crossed one foot over his knee and began to scrutinize the sole of his boot. She rose, moving carefully, feeling eons old, frail and aching in the face of such agony. An ex-eumedico without words of wisdom or comfort, of soothing or healing, just her presence. Shakily, surprised at the depth of exhaustion she felt, she poured two cups of red wine and brought them over, put one on the table beside Varon and smoothed hair dark with sweat back from his forehead, then leaned over and kissed him full on the lips. “Yes. I will marry you.” The sudden look of light on Varon’s face made him appear shriven.
She had understood all too well why the records had been sealed: What had happened to Varon and Else at the very end, the melding of minds—let alone the near-stealing of his by hers—was not supposed to be possible except for the symbiotic relationship of Seeker and Bondmate or the special and rigidly supervised trances the eumedicos learned to delve into their patients to discover the mental and physical causes of their illnesses. And the eumedico’s trance, she knew, was a fraud. They did not have the vaunted powers they so carefully shielded from the commonality.
What Else had been was a Gleaner, a mindstealer, rare and flawed and dangerous. No one knew what caused a person to become a Gleaner—whether the first inhabitants had carried the trait with them unbeknownst or whether it was a mutation on this new planet, or perhaps was some imbalance set off by extreme stress. Some argued for a rare viral infection, and indeed, Matthias Vandersma and the first Seekers had been viewed with terror at the beginning because the populace feared the ghatti had infected them, just as rabies is passed from animal to human. The eumedicos were remarkably silent, kept their own counsel as to the differences between their gifts and the Gleaners’ flawed abilities. Very few cases had been documented, and when such individuals were discovered they were dealt with swiftly and with the utmost care for fear of contamination.
Mindstealing, Gleaning, was one of the few offenses to invoke an immediate death penalty from the High Conciliators. Thus, while Varon had murdered his wife—and that, too, was a crime subject to the death penalty—he had done so in self-defense and had invoked inadvertent justice. She was sure the Seeker pair and undoubtedly the eumedicos they had called in had thoroughly examined the evidence and had advised the Chief Conciliator and the High Council that it was better if the world at large did not know all of the facts in the case.
So she had married Varon, sure she knew what she was getting into, sure that she could console and heal the stepson so scarred by his mother’s love. And she had been partially right: the union was a good and true one, her love for Varon growing until it filled and sustained her, almost made her forget
her failure as a eumedico. But no matter how she tried with Vesey, she failed, unable to love him enough to help. An armed truce was the most she could hope for, and the most that Varon could attain with the son he so hopelessly loved but who did not love him in return after witnessing his mother’s death.
The birth of the baby Briony, a chubby, laughing infant girl with her father’s square hands and Doyce’s hazel eyes, had made them a family, with Vesey trailing them like a comet, swinging near, then away beyond their reach. He was good with the baby when he chose to be, patient and soothing, but distant, concerned yet uninvolved.
She could visualize them together, dark head bent over light one, hooded, intent eyes locked on carefree hazel ones, boy giggle merging with baby laughter as she grabbed for his finger. And she would hope, would think, perhaps, perhaps, it will all work out in the end.
But it hadn’t. Vesey was twelve, Briony nearly a year old, the day she decided to take an early supper down to Varon’s shop and eat with him so he could work late and finish the hutch he’d promised. Nothing she hadn’t done before, nothing unusual to leave the baby in Vesey’s care for a short period. Briony slept in her cradle, clutching a tiny whirligig Vesey had carved for her. He had his father’s skill with his hands when he chose to display it. Whether he’d apprentice or attend Tierce next term was arguable. The weather crackled sharp and nippy, and she built up the fire before she left. Winter would visit soon.
“Vesey, if Briony stays asleep, bring in some more wood, please,” she requested as she left. “It’s going to get even colder tonight and we want to keep the fire built up.”
