There was a chorus of "no's," some louder than others, some crankier than others. But the result was the same.
It made Shelby feel good. Damned good. As she headed back to her ready room, she realized that Mac would very likely have been proud of her. The thing she couldn't quite figure out for her-self was, if Mac would have been proud... then did that mean that the Shelby she had been would have been ashamed?
RHEELA
rheela had a bad feeling about that evening's town meeting, and she had no idea why. Then again, truth be told, she always had an uneasy feeling about such meetings, so it really shouldn't have surprised her. Still... this feeling seemed stronger than usual, and she wished she had some idea why that might be.
She had just changed into the one truly decent outfit she owned. Unlike her normal clothes, there was a splash of color to this en-semble. Since she wore them less frequently, none of the threads were coming unwoven; no spots on it were obviously in need of repair. She studied herself in the mirror and nodded once in ap-proval. From a large, overstuffed chair nearby-his long-time fa-vorite piece of furniture-Moke watched her giving herself the once-over. "You look very pretty," he ventured.
"Thank you, honey," she said appreciatively.
"You really do."
"Thank you again."
There was a knock at the door. Rheela immediately looked at Moke in confusion, her face a question. Moke shrugged in re-sponse. Obviously he wasn't expecting anyone, and Rheela cer-tainly knew that she wasn't. She headed to the front door and opened it... and let out an alarmed shriek.
Standing there was the purple-eyed man who had tried to stran-gle her.
Immediately she slammed the door in his face. Moke, who had not seen who was on the other side, struggled out of the chair. "Ma, what is it?" he said, picking up on her obvious consternation.
"It's him!"
"It is?!" Moke blinked. "Him who?"
Before she could reply, there was another knock at the door. There was no more urgency to it than before, and when he spoke from the other side, it was with a mixture of amusement and obvi-ous regret. "It's all right," he called.
"How is it all right?" she demanded.
"I'm feeling much better now."
"Oh! So you're in much better shape to attack me again, is that it?"
"I'm sorry about that," he said, sounding genuinely regretful. But she had to keep reminding herself that just because he sounded a particular way didn't make it so. "If I'd been in my right mind, I'd never have hurt you. I was ill. But I'm not anymore."
"I think he means it, Ma," Moke suggested.
He certainly sounded like he meant it, but that didn't give Rheela the slightest compulsion to lower her guard. "I think you'd better go now!" she called. "If you don't, I'll... I'll tell Majister Fairax that you were harassing me!" She definitely liked the sound of that. She was taking a firm, no-nonsense position from strength, and not coming across as the least bit frightened. That was definitely the position to take under the circumstances.
So it sent a chill down her spine when she heard him say, "Ma-jister Fairax is dead."
She had no immediate response to that. "Dead," she whispered. "Did... did you..."
"No, of course I didn't kill him."
"How do I know? How do I know that you didn't kill him and want to finish the job-?"
And then, to her shock, the door was suddenly shoved inward.
She let out a shriek and stumbled back. The purple-eyed man was standing there, his hand flat against the door. She'd had no lock on it... had never felt the need. The only thing that had been hold-ing it closed against him was her own body weight and strength, and that had been as nothing to the frightening man who stood there, his gaze boring into her.
"Because," he said quietly, "if I wanted to kill you, I could."
With that, he closed the door, still on the outside. It clicked silently back into place. Rheela stared at it a moment, not quite be-lieving what she had just seen. She picked herself up, dusted herself off. Moke was watching the entire sequence of events, apparently spellbound by them. "Wow," he said. "He's really strong."
Once more, a knocking. By that point, of course, the message was obvious to her. He could enter at will, could do whatever he wanted. Instead, he was leaving the option of keeping him out en-tirely up to her, showing respect for her concerns and fears. If he were really as frightening and terrifying a creature as she had pre-viously thought him to be, well... she'd likely be dead by now anyway. The fact that she was still breathing-that alone should have been enough to make her realize that she had badly mis-judged the situation.
As if reading her mind, he said, from the other side of the door, "Can't blame you, really. If I were you, I'd be terrified."
"I'm not terrified," she lied, but she was beginning to feel her concern subsiding.
"If not cm my behalf, then certainly on the boy's."
That was certainly true enough. After all, if he attacked and murdered her, Moke would most certainly be next. Still...
"How did the Majister die?"
"Some thugs murdered him."
She shuddered. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. A good, honest man, losing to creatures of evil. "Have they been brought to jus-tice?" On some level, it was a pointless question. No amount of "justice" would bring the Majister back to life. At the moment, though, it was all she could concern herself about.
**One of them. The others will. I promise."
"You promise." What odd phrasing.
"Listen..." he continued, "I came to apologize. To tell you that you've nothing to fear from me. And I felt it would be better to tell you now, here, in the privacy of your home, rather than for you to see me in the streets of the city and ran screaming, under the mis-taken assumption that I'm going to hurt you again."
"Why would I see you in the streets?"
"Well... what with my being the new Majister..."
That, finally, prompted her to yank open the door and gape at him. Sure enough, pinned to his shirt was the burnished metal out-line of a flame: the torch of justice emblem that was worn by any-one who had the title of "Majister."
"You can't be serious," she said tonelessly.
"Why? Just because a criminal tossed in gaol one day becomes the chief law enforcer the next day? Does that strike you as strange somehow?"
"Very," she said evenly. Nevertheless, for all her consternation and grief over the loss of Fairax, she couldn't help but note that this newcomer had a very pleasant smile. And yet, there was some-thing in that smile, and in those eyes, that bespoke pain deeply felt.
He cleared his throat. "My name is Mackenzie Calhoun." He paused, and then added, "My friends call me Mac. I would like to think I can count you among them."
"Rheela," she said after the slightest hesitation. "And Moke." She indicated her son.
"Yes, I... vaguely remember him. Vaguely remember a lot of things."
"Including trying to kill me?"
"Yes." Had to give him credit: he faced it head on, with no pre-varication. "I have already apologized. If you'd like, I'll apologize again. There's really only so much I can do about what's past. If you're unwilling to forgive me-"
"No, no, it's all right," she said. "I... forgive you."
"Thank you." He paused, and then said, "Well... I said what I
came here to say. Good evening to you, then." There was a luukab, the one that Fairax used to use, standing nearby. Calhoun turned and started to head over to it.
And Rheela heard herself saying, much to her surprise, "Would you care to accompany me into town? For the meeting?"
He turned back and looked her up and down. "I'd be honored," he said. "Is Moke coming?"
"No... no, Moke is always bored at the-"
"I'll come." Moke was immediately at her side, looking up ea-gerly into Calhoun's eyes. "If it*s okay."
"Of... course it's okay. I'm just surprised, Moke. You went once, and you said it was so boring that you never wanted t
o go again."
"I know. But Mac is going to be there. Right, Mac?"
Calhoun nodded readily. "I suppose I should be."
"See? And I bet, with Mac there, things are never boring!"
'1 appreciate the vote of confidence, Moke."
Rheela shook her head. "I... don't know what to say, Cal-houn. He's... not usually like this."
"Like this? You mean, an exuberant child?"
"Well... yes."
He laughed at that.
She decided he had a nice laugh.
The ride to Narrin on their respective luukabs went without in-cident. She was surprised to see how engaging and pleasant Cal-houn was when he wasn't trying to kill her. She also noticed, however, that he was decidedly guarded whenever she would broach-however cautiously or in a roundabout manner-ques-tions about his own background. "I'm from up north," was all he said. "No place you ever heard of."
"Really? What's it called?"
He looked at her with quiet amusement as the luukab's back swayed gently up and down. "Xenex," he said finally.
"You're right. I never heard of it," she said. Moke was seated
behind her, his arms wrapped around her narrow waist. "Tell me, Calhoun... do all the men in Xenex have purple eyes?"
"No."
"Or scars?"
He sighed. "Only those few who were stupid enough to let it happen."
"A fight?"
He nodded.
"I'm sorry you fared so poorly," she said. "And the one who did it to you... T
'Tared even more poorly," Calhoun said. There was something in his voice that made it quite clear to her that further inquiries along this line might not yield any result she'd be comfortable with.
She wisely dropped the inquiries on that topic, and instead said, "Have you ever been a Majister before?"
"Not... exactly. I've done some jobs, though, that were some-what along the same lines. They were just called something else. On that basis, I suppose I'm qualified to do this."
"And... do you have a woman?"
"Not... exactly," he said after a moment's thought.
She looked askance at him. "A man?"
He laughed. "No," he said with far more conviction. "And you?"
"And me what?"
"Do you have a man? What of Moke's father?"
She felt Moke tense up behind her, and she said quietly to Cal-houn, "This... might not be the best time to discuss such matters."
Apparently he had realized as much even as he had spoken. "Yes. Of course. My apologies." They spoke no more of it. In-stead, they chatted in simple, noninflammatory ways about simple matters of less-than-dire consequence.
She decided that she actually liked this man. She didn't trust him, of course. She trusted no one. She had no intention of allow-ing him into her life, any more than she would permit men such as Tapinza near her. There was no way to tell what anyone's true pri-
ority was, after all, or whether they intended good or ill for her and her son. All she knew was that she wanted to live her life, let Moke live his, and do whatever she could to help the people of Narrin. In a way, it had become a challenge for her. The more she was cold-shouldered by some, the more she felt compelled to try and make the remainder realize that she could only benefit them.
The city was now evident in the near distance. "I'm told you're a rainmaker," Calhoun said suddenly.
"I wouldn't say that. I have... influence. No one 'makes' the rain do anything."
"Then what exactly do you do?"
"I..." She smiled. "I ask nicely. Make requests of the weather, and it listens to me."
"How very considerate of it. Would it listen to me if I asked equally as nicely?"
"I don't think so," she admitted. "But I wouldn't take offense if I were you. The weather is, after all, just the weather. Most of the time, you can't change it. Not even so much as which way the wind blows."
"Very wise words. I'll keep that in mind," he said
There was a good deal of activity outside the town meeting hall. Apparently it was going to be a fairly full house that evening. Then again, it was a full house most of the time. It wasn't as if there was all that much to do around town most nights.
"Do you get into town much?" asked Calhoun as they ap-proached the meeting hall. They had both left their luukabs tied off at a nearby post. The creatures seemed more than content to just stand there and wait for someone to come back for them.
"No. Not all that much," she said.
"I'm surprised. A pretty woman such as yourself..."
She stopped in her tracks and turned to face Calhoun. Moke had gone on ahead, attracted by the lights from within and the general loud noise and discussion. "Majister Calhoun," she said, sounding quite formal, "let me be quite clear: I appreciate that
you apologized to me. I appreciate that you took the time to ac-company me here to the meeting. I freely admit that I misjudged you... albeit understandably, considering that misjudgment was based on your attempts to throttle me." He inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the comment, and she continued, "How-ever, you can stop now."
"Stop? I wasn't aware I'd started."
"You are being overly solicitous, overly attentive..." She sighed heavily. 'It's obvious, I'm afraid."
"Obvious?" His eyebrows knit "If it's that obvious, would you mind explaining it to me?"
"You have your own motives, your own desires. You want
"I do?"
"Yes. You do."
"And might I ask what that isr
She folded her arms and made an exasperated sound. "Are you going to compel me to spell it out for you?"
"Ah." The edges of his mouth turned upward. "I see. Is that what you think?"
"Majister, I don't know what to think, and to be perfectly hon-est, I don't want to have to worry about it one way or the other. I have too much to worry about a farm-or what there is of a farm-to attend to, and a child to raise. I simply don't need any further complications in my life."
"I appreciate your honesty," he replied. "Now let me be equally candid: I'm simply passing through. I do not intend to be here for an inordinate period of time. And I need complications in my life even less than you need them in yours. All right?"
"All right," she said, suddenly feeling uncertain. She had the abrupt impression that she had offended him, and, in mentally re-viewing her words, she realized that there was probably no way he could not have taken offense. She tried to say something to that ef-fect, and perhaps even apologize, but he was already walking away.
Well... she needn't dwell on it, really. He seemed a sturdy
enough individual to be able to handle even perceived insult Still... k was a shame that he was obviously cross with her, be-cause Moke certainly liked him...
Immediately she drove the thought out of her head. She couldn't think about what Moke liked and didn't like. He was a child, she was the adult, and it was up to her to watch out for his best interests. That was all there was to it.
She headed into the hall, and she noticed that there were a few nods of greeting. In times past, many people had been reluctant even to glance her way, but, slowly, some folks seemed to be thawing toward her. She held no illusions; it was probably because she had provided them with water not too long ago. As long as they felt there was a need for her, they would probably treat her decently. Well... there were certainly worse fates than being treated decently.
Once inside the hall, she took a seat at the end of one of the long rows of benches. She looked around, trying to catch sight of Moke, and finally spotted him halfway across the room. He seemed to be engaged in animated discussion with Tapinza. That was certainly something that she couldn't say she was happy to see. What was it about that boy that he seemed drawn to men who would ultimately be bad for him? She supposed that she shouldn't think of it that way. Moke was simply an outgoing child who got on with just about anybody. Indeed, if there was ever someone whom Moke was at odds with, Rheela would be well-advise
d to run in the other direction the moment that person drew anywhere near.
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