by Emerson, Ru
"Well, yeah, okay,” Chris said. “Just—wanted to get the ground rules straight, you know? I mean, I like hanging out with girls, and I'm sure not ready to marry one at seventeen."
"Sensible of you,” Enardi said. “If I had life-mated at seventeen, I could never have come with you to Podhru. There's time for that, but later."
"Oh, you could've come to Podhru with us,” Edrith informed him cheerfully. “But you'd have had to act like your father. If we have a little time, like we did in Bez, we can have some real fun in the Emperor's city. I've never been there, but I know some who have. And even if the Festival of Numbers isn't started yet, there will be lots of other things going on.” He tapped Chris's wrist. “Is it possibly time to get Jen up? I'm quite honestly freezing; we don't get fog like this in Sikkre."
Chris slid his arm out of the sleeve, twisted it around so blue light hit the dial. Conserve the battery, leave the little light button alone. “Close enough. Hey. Thanks for the information. You know how mom is, scared somebody's parents are going to murder me if I so much as look at their daughter."
"We'll keep you un-murdered, I promise,” Edrith assured him.
"Great. Let's crawl in, then; it's Jen's turn and I'm tired all of a sudden.” But once he was curled up in his blankets, he found himself wakeful. Never did ask about the gay thing, he realized. Oh, well, the other was tough enough. And should I care what Lialla likes?
It just seemed unfair, if that was her problem. Poor old Lialla. He had thought she was pretty stuck-up until the afternoon she healed the physical damage the Cholani had inflicted on him. And told him something about living with Jadek, the way he'd knocked her around. She hadn't had to do that; it took guts and he admired her for it. She'd been trying to make him feel a little less ashamed for having been kidnapped and beaten, and she'd succeeded. She was as old as Jen, maybe older, but she was awfully young for her years and, like his mom, she needed someone to lean on. Most of her life she hadn't had anyone—well, she had someone now.
2
The fog was thicker than ever the next morning; by mid-day, they could see sun—a pale yellow ball wreathed in cloud—but the cloud cover never lifted enough to allow them to make any speed along the road. During the middle hours, they all rode, at a walk, but late in the afternoon, Chris and Enardi dismounted and walked ahead of the others. Not only was visibility down to the point where Jennifer could no longer tell what was on either side of the narrow road, but the road itself had deteriorated from the already dreadful mess it had been.
Aletto rode close to Robyn, as he usually did, but he had been quiet most of the day, and now he sat the horse in discomfort. He'd pulled the hood low over his forehead so no one else could see the set of his mouth, the line between his brows. Robyn gave him both aspirin she'd reluctantly accepted from Jen the night before for her headache and never swallowed. The nera-Duke must have felt as awful as he looked; he took them without a word of protest and drank both down with a swallow from her water bottle.
Robyn chose her words with care as she capped the bottle and hung it from one of the numerous hooks on the saddlebow. “How much farther, do you think?” For a moment, she was afraid he'd ignore her, or glare at her for asking a stupid question, the way her men usually did. Aletto stared over his horse's ears for several moments, finally shrugged.
"Not very, I hope. But I don't know how we're supposed to decide where to stop.” He wrinkled his nose. “Those tablets have an awful taste."
"I know. Do they help?"
"I suppose—times like this, it seems they take forever, though.” He cast her a very brief smile. “I've been so wrapped up in myself I've forgotten you. Are you all right?"
Robyn shifted her weight cautiously. “I really hate being wet and cold, but—yeah, I'm fine.” She caught her breath in a faint little gasp as Chris suddenly came back between them. He caught hold of both bridles. “Don't do that, kid, you scared me!"
"Hey, sorry. Next time I'll lay down a couple lines on the way back, so you know it's me, all right?” He grinned self-consciously and shifted into a clipped, rhythmic cadence. “Like, ‘I'm your main M.C., rappin’ down the roadway, tellin’ you to hang close, everything be okay.'” He tilted his head back to give her a broad, exceedingly smug flash of teeth. Robyn ran a hand across her forehead and closed her eyes.
"God. I swear you sound proud of yourself. What the hell was that?"
"You're kidding. Where you been the last couple years you never heard rap?"
"And why would I have listened to rap?"
Chris chuckled. “Yeah, I forget, it doesn't get air time on your golden moldies stations. Think of it as the logical successor to all those weird rhymes Bob Dylan used to do, okay?"
"Words fail me."
"Sure, mom."
"You're right, they don't. That was bad, kid."
"Well—hey,” Chris said rather defensively. “I only just got started, and I rap better in English. Besides, with no kind of sound system—you know I'm gonna have to teach one of the guys to do backbeat for me? Listen, though. What I was trying to tell you, the road seems to be clear, but the fog isn't going to. But Ernie says that unless he's like totally confused, we aren't too far from a good place to set the tent up, trees for shelter, running water, all that. Sound all right to you?"
"Lead me to it,” Robyn said.
"Yeah, me too.” Chris let go the reins and turned away to head back to the front. “I hate it when I can't even figure out where the sun is, and there's water running down the back of my neck.” He vanished in mist before he'd taken five steps, his voice coming back to them as a low, disembodied sound. “One of you ease back a little, tell the others, will you? I really don't want to yell in this. It's creepy."
"Never mind.” Jennifer's voice came from somewhere behind Robyn. “We heard. Get back up there and find this campsite, will you? And see if you can't find a hot tub while you're at it."
"I wish."
"Work on the rap, kid; it's a start but it needs help."
"Tell me.” Silence descended, except for the occasional creak of harness or the crack of a metal-shod wagon wheel against stone. Edrith was driving the wagon—or, rather, holding the loose reins while the mule followed Robyn's and Aletto's horses—and mumbling softly to himself. Jennifer drew her horse back a pace or two from the wagon, and then a little more; the possibility of a collision at this speed might have once sounded like a joke to a woman used to fifty-five miles per hour on the freeway, but she didn't want to be on the horse that slammed into the back of that wagon, if Edrith stopped suddenly. My luck, I'd go right off and break something, she thought gloomily. Accordingly to Neri, some things couldn't be healed instantly—like broken bones.
Dahven had stayed so far to the rear that for one terrible moment she wondered if he'd simply turned and left while he had the opportunity, while her attention was diverted. But he was there after all, farther back than he had been, bundled in a thick cloak and hood from Chris's things, hunched over the saddle. He started when Jennifer touched his arm.
"Not far,” she said softly.
He nodded, stifled a cough. “Good.” They rode in silence for some moments. “There was fog like this, a few days, out at sea. It's—I don't like it."
"No,” Jennifer said quietly. “I wouldn't like it either."
Another silence. He touched her knee and when she looked up, he gave her a brief smile. “Thank you."
"For what?” She shook her head but he merely shrugged. “For not asking any more than you want to tell me? Or not judging you, thinking less of you because you find the fog unnerving? You have cause, and I wouldn't judge you."
"People do,” he said after a moment. “Judge others, that is. When something terrible happens. I remember one of my father's men who'd gone through something rather nasty, I was young enough, I don't remember what, just something to do with one of Father's sorcerers, it was hushed up. The man was—sick, I guess—for a time, no one saw him except the healer and his
assistant. I remember thinking it odd, because when he came back into service he didn't really look so different—thinner, perhaps, like he'd been ill. For a while he joined Father's market guard, but he left almost at once, left Sikkre entirely, I think. I remember when he was still in the halls, how people—other guards and servants—stared at him all the time. Wondering what had really happened, how he felt. Or they'd ask him what happened—questions people don't have a right to ask each other, but they'd ask because they were curious and they thought that gave them a right to know. I didn't think that then, of course; I didn't realize what it was until—well, you know. But I remember the look on his face when I asked.” He glanced at her. “He—froze. And then he—went on talking, just as though I hadn't said anything.” He slammed one hand against the saddlebow; the horse was apparently too damp and miserable to pay any attention. “I understand better now, better than I wish I did. I couldn't stand it if anyone else knew, I'd feel Aletto's eyes on me whenever my back was turned, I'd feel all of them wondering.” He was silent for a moment. “I suppose it's stupid to feel so—part of me feels shamed and dirty and—oh, I don't know."
It must be the fog, Jennifer thought, the fact that he couldn't see her face clearly, that she couldn't see his, that let him speak freely for the first time. She opened her mouth, closed it again in sudden panic. God, he needs real help, and all I have to offer him is pop psychology from Jan's magazines and TV programs about rape victims! But she had to say something; any moment now, he'd begin to wonder if he hadn't gone too far. Confessed more weakness than she could accept. Another moment, and she would lose any chance she had to at least try and help him talk it out. “Ashamed? Because you didn't somehow know not to go home, because you didn't somehow know in advance what your father was capable of? Because you weren't stronger than a shipful of armed Lasanachi used to brutalizing other men? Or because you can't just put it behind you and pretend it never happened? Nothing so terrible has ever happened to me, Dahven, so I only know what I've read or seen of other people's experiences in my own world. No one survives being victimized, brutalized, without bearing some kind of emotional scars. Scars don't fade overnight, but usually they fade in time. Maybe it's harder for someone who was always in charge of his life, to suddenly be at the mercy of others, to carry the guilt that you should have somehow done something to avoid it. Everyone feels that guilt; at least, that's what I'm told, and I believe it. I would feel that, in your place. It wasn't your fault! Believe that!"
"I—that's not really it. It's—somehow, I feel almost as though it were someone else.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “As though I were pretending it had been me, to gain sympathy. But I'm not like that!"
"I know that,” Jennifer said rather tartly. “Think, though: to stay up all night, ride home, be carried off by slavers, chained to an oar, beaten—and then, after a month—sorry, a moon-season—you get thrown ashore in the dregs of Bezjeriad, lightheaded with fever and half-drowned, bargaining for food and shelter in a filthy hut from a man who'd steal your boots once you passed out. That's so—so alien to anything you've ever experienced, why shouldn't it seem like a nightmare after too much to drink? We haven't that much background in common, Dahven, but I had a very regulated, patterned life. If anything like that had happened to me, right now I'd begin to wonder if I hadn't made it up, or maybe that it had happened to someone else and I was pretending it had been me, instead. Or that I was blowing things out of proportion, pretending it was worse than it really is. I'd be afraid anyone I told would think I was trying for sympathy by acting sick, hurt—spooked by it all after it was physically over.” Jennifer waited. Dahven finally nodded, one barely discernible motion of his hooded head. “You're not making it up; I know better. I—was there, remember?” He nodded again. “It happened, it's over, but it's not going to let go of you right away. I know all that. I understand it. And I know that when anything so awful happens, you can't possibly return to normal the next day."
"You can't—"
"I can. In my own world, there are men who killed in a war twenty years ago and still have nightmares of what they did; raped women who live with guilt, with a horror of all men for the rest of their lives. I'm not trying to say you'll carry this with you so long; not many do, and you're stronger and more sensible than most people I know. But right now, you have every right to be unnerved by fog—or anything else. It's not stupid, it's human."
He considered this. Finally shook his head, looked up the road—the little he could see of it—and sighed, deeply. “I don't feel in control of my life."
"You are. Everyone has setbacks."
"Setbacks.” Dahven gave a snort of laughter. “If I were truly in control of my life, I'd be on my way to Sikkre right now, I'm no asset to Aletto or to you, just another body to protect if Jadek sets another trap. You'd be better without me, and I could remove one of the matters gnawing at my guts—I could deal with my brothers and maybe even discover what really happened to my father."
Jennifer sighed. “I thought we'd decided to bury this particular discussion. Dahven, you couldn't possibly have ridden from Bez to Sikkre as sick as you were; you still couldn't. You don't seem to understand; your brothers are calling you traitor and I'd swear by anything you like the men he's sent to capture you don't care what shape you're in when they deliver you."
"They wouldn't dare—"
"Oh, no?” Jennifer shifted in the saddle so she could look at him; a swift snatch of her hand pulled the hood off his tousled hair. “You weren't there, when they jumped us in the desert. You weren't in any shape to pay attention when they came down on us south of the Bez docks."
"I heard some of the rumors from that man—Dowbri, Enardi's wedded brother."
"One of them I knew from your father's hospitality; he was the wizard's guardsman. He didn't like you much."
"Mmmm—big man, ugly eyes, bent nose? Snake's personal man, Vikkin. No, he and I never got on. My brothers sent him?” He scowled down at his hands, across the horse's ears. “To bring me back?"
"He didn't say anything about alive, either,” Jennifer replied dryly. He didn't answer, he was clearly considering this new—and not very pleasant—news. “Look, just weigh it, will you? Think about how simple things would be for your brothers if you really were dead. You should have been, of course; the idea as I understand it was that the Lasanachi would keep you in chains until you died—which wouldn't be that long. They were supposed to."
"Three years,” Dahven whispered.
"But the Lasanachi panicked and set you loose."
"I was already ill, I think; I remember being unlocked, shoved into the few clothes they'd taken from me, into my boots because those hurt my feet; my feet were so swollen from sitting on the benches to row.” His low voice trailed off. Jennifer fought a shiver and waited. “Why did they panic? No one frightens Lasanachi."
"Perhaps they'd wondered all along why anyone would sell them a Duke's son. And then word came that your father was dead, you missing—they thought they were being somehow set up."
"Set—? You're not making sense. Or I'm not understanding."
"Sorry. What if they believed you had been sold to them so that later it could be brought out this had been done? What they do is illegal, isn't it—buying Rhadazi men? So they do it very quietly. And now it comes out that they have bought the Thukar's son, and you're in dreadful condition. The Lasanachi either think you'll be held up to public scrutiny as you are—or perhaps as a dead victim of the dread rowing ships. Might that not be an excuse for the Emperor to declare war against them?"
"Shesseran wouldn't—"
"Not from what I've heard of him. Perhaps they don't realize that. I don't think they do, as quickly as they dumped you overboard."
Dahven rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It's insane enough to be logical—to a Lasanachi."
"Fortunately, since it meant they would get rid of the evidence and run for open sea. But of course, that wasn't what your brothers planned, just what
the Lasanachi thought had been planned. No one knew where you were except your brothers and your father. Officially, the story is that your father tried to disinherit you and you killed him in the quarrel, only to discover he'd taken the precaution of writing you out of his will."
"And people really believe this?"
"More importantly, who would bother to question the story? No one has, because it looks all right: Your father is dead and everyone knows you argued, there is a will giving Sikkre to your brothers. And your brothers have been sending out companies of guards to track you down—their traitor brother—and bring you to justice. It should be enough to keep the Emperor from worrying about their part in matters, and I've heard often enough that he doesn't want to know how things are run so long as they're run smoothly."
"There's something in that,” Dahven admitted.
"Stay with me, then. There is no reason for them to let you stay alive—you could be a focal point for rebellion, if people in Sikkre thought you'd do a better job of being Duke than your brothers."
"That's true. And they wouldn't want me to tell anyone what really happened—would they?” Dahven considered this and shook his head. “It sounds just fine, until I realize it's my brothers we're talking about! You've seen them!"
"They don't look capable of working up the energy to kill and sort out such a plot,” Jennifer agreed. “Then again, perhaps your father set it all up, not realizing they wouldn't wait for him to die naturally. It wouldn't be the first time a father underestimated his children. And murderers don't have to look like thugs. Your brothers struck me as self-centered; people like that can justify removing anyone who stands between them and what they want, and they seldom worry about it later. All that matters is what they want, and getting it.” Silence. “Think about it, why don't you? About what you'd be getting into if you turned around and went home right now? About honestly whether you're ready to deal with it?"
