Quatrain

by Sharon Shinn

  “I have no particular reason to be sharing stories with a blueskin woman,” he said.

  “You do if you want my help,” she reminded him. “Does your father know you’re here in the city, looking for your mother?”

  “My father is dead.”

  “When did he die?”

  “When I was ten.”

  That made her raise her eyebrows and straighten in her chair. If she had spent much time with gulden women—as it seemed she had—she would quickly understand how precarious his life had become at that point. “A ten-year-old with no father or mother, living on Gold Mountain,” she said. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive. Who took you in? Did you go to an uncle or a cousin?”

  “I stayed with Tess,” he said.

  She looked bewildered. “Who’s Tess?”

  “The woman my father married after my mother disappeared.”

  “So she’s your stepmother.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what’s she like?”

  Kerk permitted himself a smile. All his thoughts of Tess were good ones. There was not a single bad memory from any of the years they had spent together. He and Jalci had been speaking in bluetongue, but the nuanced, roundabout gulden language was best for speaking of a gulden woman. “She knows that softness can be the greatest source of strength. She knows that kindness is an investment that pays back a thousandfold. She knows how to bend and bend without coming close to breaking. She is cherished because she makes everyone around her feel cherished first.”

  Jalci digested this. “So you like her,” she said in bluetongue.

  Kerk nodded and resumed her language. “Very much.”

  “So your father married this Tess woman when you were, say, eight or nine. Did they have any children together?”

  “No.”

  “Was this a disappointment to your father?”

  Disappointment was hardly a big enough word to cover it. “Yes.”

  “But Tess didn’t run away from Gold Mountain. Maybe he wasn’t as cruel to her as he had been to your mother,” Jalci guessed.

  Kerk didn’t answer. But he thought Jalci was wrong.

  “So then your father died and—how did he die?”

  “A fever. Everyone in the household was very ill, but the rest of us recovered.”

  “And there you were, a ten-year-old nonperson and your stepmother. If I understand things correctly, even widows aren’t allowed any independence in Geldricht. Some male from her family would have to assume responsibility for her, yes? So where did she end up? And why was she allowed to bring you with her?”

  “She returned to her father’s house. She was allowed to bring me with her because her father is very wealthy and he already housed a dozen cousins and nephews. He never spoke to me that I recall, but he did not mind that I was there.”

  “That must have been an interesting time for you,” Jalci said. “I’ve seen young gulden boys fight for pride and position. You must have been taunted and picked on a lot.”

  “I was able to defend myself,” Kerk said modestly. In truth, he had acquired formidable fighting skills in Tess’s father’s household. From his father, he had learned how to endure pain without whimpering, and those jeering young boys had not been able to inflict nearly the level of punishment his father had meted out on his most casual day. And while any boy who defied his father risked literal death, it was expected that he would respond aggressively when his opponents were his own age, or close to it. Kerk had learned to fight back, and fight back hard. Pretty soon, the sons and nephews and cousins decided to leave him alone.

  Jalci was openly appraising him, noting the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles of his arms. “I’ll just bet you did defend yourself,” she muttered. “So then what happened? Do you still live with Tess’s father?”

  “Tess remarried. A man named Brolt Barzhan.” He had been trying to limit his answers to strictly accurate responses to her questions, but at this point he couldn’t help adding, “A good man. The best Gold Mountain has to offer.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that, finally!” Jalci exclaimed. “So far, your life has sounded very grim indeed. And Brolt didn’t mind that Tess brought this ten-year-old nonperson along with her into the marriage?”

  Kerk couldn’t hold back the tiniest of smiles. “Tess’s father pressured her for some time to marry, but she kept finding excuses to delay,” he said. “Her father presented two—perhaps it was three—potential grooms to her, but none of them suited her.”

  “Tess’s father sounds more patient than the average gulden man,” Jalci observed.

  “Tess’s father loves his daughter,” Kerk said. “By the time he found a husband who was agreeable to Tess, I had turned twelve.”

  Jalci practically bounced in her chair and clapped her hands together. “Oh, clever Tess!” she exclaimed. “And she did that on purpose?”

  “We did not discuss her marriage prospects,” Kerk said coldly.

  Jalci rolled her eyes again. “I’m sure you didn’t. But I am going to assume that wise-kind-strong Tess knew exactly what she was doing when she didn’t take a husband until after her stepson was considered a grown man. I think I like her very much.”

  “I’m sure that would please her,” Kerk said sardonically.

  Jalci grinned. “So this Brolt married Tess, you came along, no one was mean to you anymore, and—then what? You were raised in the household like a son?”

  “Not exactly,” Kerk said. “I have been treated with great fairness, and I have been given a position in the family firm, and Brolt Barzhan respects my contributions. It is possible that I might retain this position the rest of my life.”

  She was listening closely, so she heard the unspoken half of that sentence. “And it’s possible that you might not,” she said. “Do Tess and Brolt have children?”

  “Three. A son and two daughters.”

  “How old is the son?”

  “Eleven years and eight months.”

  Jalci raised those fine eyebrows again. “So in four months, when this son is officially a man, what happens to you?”

  Kerk had wondered that every day since Makk had been born. “My life becomes very interesting.”

  Jalci flung her hands out. “But here you are in the city,” she said, her dark eyes snapping with excitement. “In the city, a gulden man can take a job that does not depend on his father’s position or his uncle’s goodwill. An indigo woman can flout her grandmother and refuse to marry the very nice but very boring man her mother has picked out for her. In the city, people can be responsible for themselves. They can make their own mistakes and figure out their own rules.”

  “It sounds like a lonely existence,” Kerk said.

  Jalci laughed, somewhat taken aback. “You have not been so lucky in your family that I would think you would want to cling to it.”

  He was surprised to hear himself speak the words. “Family is the only thing I have ever wanted,” he said. “I didn’t hope to leave it behind in the city. I hoped to find it.”

  Jalci had dropped her chin in her hand again, but now she seemed to be considering her own life. “I’ve spent much of my time trying to get free of family,” she said. “Much is expected of an indigo heiress, you know! All the land that will fall to her once her grandmother passes it on—all the responsibilities that come with it—all the social connections she is expected to maintain, the duties she must perform. My grandmother can spend a solid week with me and never stop lecturing me about proper behavior, essential land management, the bloodlines of the Higher Hundred, and how instantly she wants me to produce a daughter. She never once will ask what I’m thinking or feeling or what I desire from my life. And my mother’s just as bad, except a little more subtle about it. There are days I feel like I will start shrieking and never be able to stop.”

  Frankly, Kerk didn’t think it sounded like a bad life at all. Frankly, he was not that interested. But she might be able to help him, and so he tried t
o be polite. “And what do you desire from your life?”

  “I haven’t entirely figured that out,” she admitted. “But I know I want it to mean something. I know I want to do work that matters, that puts good into the world in some fashion.”

  “Maintaining property and watching over a family is meaningful work,” he said.

  “I want to do something more immediate,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons I started volunteering at the Lost City. I thought I could be of some use.”

  “How did you get interested in the Lost City in the first place?”

  “Through Aunt Kitrini.” Jalci waved a hand. “Well, technically she’s not my aunt, but it’s too hard to try to explain the relationship. She’s this incredible activist who has volunteered at the Lost City for years. She’s the one who taught me how to speak goldtongue. She’s my idol.”

  Kerk had no idea what to say in response to that. “She sounds most inspiring.”

  Jalci laughed. “And you don’t care at all,” she said. “You just want to find your mother.”

  He looked at her. “Yes.”

  Jalci got to her feet. “Then let’s go looking.”

  Four

  Avery short trip on the Centrifuge took them back to West Zero. Jalci strode confidently down one of the tumbledown streets, and Kerk fell in step beside her. She pointed to a few of the buildings as they passed. One had been purchased outright by a donor Jalci had courted; newcomers to the Lost City could live there free of charge for up to a year. Another housed a women’s cooperative where residents could exchange food and other goods.

  “Nothing ever goes to waste,” Jalci said proudly. “And lots of restaurants and clothing stores in the city donate their leftovers and unused items to the co-op, so there’s always fresh merchandise.”

  It looked like a horrible way to live, Kerk thought. He said nothing.

  They eventually arrived at a sort of compound, a few moderately well-maintained buildings that appeared to be an office building, a school, and maybe a warehouse. There were children playing in the schoolyard and women bustling between doorways—all of them gulden, though it took Kerk a minute to realize why they didn’t look like any of the guld-women he knew. They were all dressed in drab, nondescript clothing, beige and olive and brown, colors that washed out their skin tones and did nothing to enhance their features. Why had they left behind the bright colors so favored by women on Gold Mountain? Why did they no longer put ribbons in their hair and brush cosmetics on their faces? Were they trying to turn invisible here in the city, to completely escape the attention of the gulden men? Or were they just trying to reject every outward symbol of their former lives? When I was a gulden chattel, I dressed in red to please my husband. But now I am a free woman, and I will dress in the colors of the earth to please myself. . . .

  Kerk shook his head. His goal had always been to be more gulden, to steep himself in the culture, not to strip it away. He could understand leaving Geldricht behind physically, but not emotionally. He had always wanted to get closer, not farther away.

  “I warn you,” Jalci said as she pulled open the main door in the building that looked like administrative offices. “Del isn’t very friendly.”

  In fact, everyone they encountered in the hallways looked downright hostile. Kerk tried to keep his arms down, his muscles lax; he tried to make his expression tranquil. But it was difficult when everyone who saw him gasped or glared or turned away as if afraid he would go berserk and smash all of them against the walls.

  Del turned out to be a small woman bent into an even smaller shape by the pressures of age. Her skin was paler than that of the average gulden, and her hair was pure white. She gave the impression of having been left outside so long she had been bleached to a husk by the unforgiving sun.

  But she mustered enough energy to jump to her feet when Kerk followed Jalci into her office. “Jalciani Candachi!” she exclaimed. “How dare you bring a gulden man into a place of safety for gulden women? How could you be so careless and so cruel? We have trusted you, and you have betrayed us all!”

  She was speaking bluetongue, obviously believing that Kerk would not understand her words. He stepped forward and answered her in the same language, trying to keep his voice soft and nonthreatening. “She has done me a great kindness by bringing me here, and I will not dishonor her by offering any threat or incivility,” he said. “Please do me the courtesy of listening to my story—and do Jalciana Candachi the courtesy of believing she would never bring harm to her friends.”

  Del’s head had snapped up at his first words, and she listened to him in cold silence. But at least she had stopped scolding. “Who are you?” she asked when he had finished speaking. “What do you want?”

  She had continued employing bluetongue, which was the language for plain speaking, so he answered in the same language. “My mother left Gold Mountain seventeen years ago, and I was hoping to find her here.”

  Del was unimpressed. “So you can beat her into a grave to avenge the insult to your father?”

  “My father is dead,” Kerk replied.

  “Dead fathers sometimes require the hardest vengeance.”

  “I will speak no word against my father, but no part of my quest relates to him,” Kerk said.

  “An abandoned son might very well seek vengeance on his own behalf.”

  Kerk held on to his temper. This difficult, defiant old woman held too much power in her hands, and Kerk knew better than to offend any individual with power. He switched to goldtongue. “A seven-year-old boy knows little of the world beyond the doors of his own household,” he said in that careful, indirect singsong. “He knows little beyond what his mother says to him at night, what his father teaches him by day. What is he to understand once his mother is no longer there to tell him stories? What should he try to glean from his father’s silences? Whispers tell him what the true story might be. His own mind puts the puzzle pieces together when he is old enough to understand the ways of the world. A woman might leave her husband for many reasons. These would not concern a boy. All a boy knows is that he loved his mother and that she is gone. All the man knows is that she is somewhere still, and perhaps he can find her. Does that tale offer any threat to you? Does that tale offer any threat to her?”

  “Gulden men have lied before this,” Del said flatly in bluetongue.

  Kerk watched her steadily but still without menace. “And do gulden women only speak the truth?” he said softly. “Are they without flaws and errors?”

  Del snorted. “I have no reason to trust you,” she said, but for the first time she seemed to relax. At any rate, she seated herself behind her spindly desk again, and Jalci and Kerk took chairs facing her. “Most gulden men who find their way to the Lost City trail violence behind them like a brightly woven flag.”

  “What can I do to prove to you that my intentions are peaceful?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Del said. “I will never tell you your mother’s whereabouts.”

  “Del!” Jalci exclaimed just as Kerk jumped to his feet.

  “Then I will take no more of your time,” he growled, spinning toward the door.

  Del’s voice stopped him. “But I might help you,” she said.

  Kerk turned around more slowly to face her. It was becoming harder and harder to hold his temper in check, particularly since he was not used to placating women. Del was being deliberately obstructive; perhaps she was trying to provoke him into a rage, trying to prove her very point about the untrustworthiness of gulden men. He kept his voice even. “I would welcome any aid you would be willing to give me,” he said.

  “I will see if I can find your mother for you,” she said. “And I will ask her if she is willing to be reunited with you. If she is, I will set up a meeting. If she is not, I will not speak another word to you.”

  “That’s fair,” Jalci said, before Kerk could answer. “That’s perfect. Thank you, Del.”

  Kerk inclined his head ever so slightly. “The lady
Del is most generous to a stranger,” he said formally in goldtongue. “I will strive to prove to her that her faith in me is not misplaced.”

  “I hope you are able to perform such a feat,” she answered in the same language. “I would like to meet a gulden man who was worthy of my respect.”

  Kerk inclined his head again and did not reply. Del spoke in bluetongue again, a little more briskly. “But I’m not certain I’ll be able to help you, even with the best will in the world,” she said. “Seventeen years ago, this charity did not exist. There might be no records and no memories that go back far enough to contain your mother’s arrival.”

  “Then how will you find her?” Jalci asked.

  Del permitted herself a small smile. “Someone will know someone who knows this woman’s story,” she said. “There cannot be a guldwoman in the entire city I cannot find.” She addressed Kerk. “What is her name?”

  “Bree Socast,” he said.

  Del tilted her head to one side, seeming to test the name against an internal data bank, but coming up without a match. “And her father’s name, in case she no longer wanted to be known by her husband’s? And her mother’s?”

  “Velder and Cahbrist,” Kerk replied. He thought Del looked surprised that he could answer so readily. He was pretty sure Makk didn’t know his mother’s mother’s surname; few gulden boys would. But Kerk had tried to immerse himself in family history. He could have offered names from many more generations back, if Del had asked for them.

  Del shook her head. “None of these sound familiar. But someone will recognize one of these names. In fact, Ria might.”

  “Oh, yes, Ria knows everyone,” Jalci said, on her feet at once. “Is she here today? Let’s go ask her.”

  They made a strange procession out of the office and down the hallways again. The small, stooped old guldwoman led the way and was greeted with universal respect by the younger women they passed. Jalci, following after Del, elicited a mix of friendly, curious, and measuring stares; in this setting, her cobalt skin and night-black hair marked her as utterly alien. Kerk, bringing up the rear, towered over all of them and came in for most of the attention. As before, it was largely hostile, but the fact that Del was tolerating him made some of the women eye him more with speculation than hatred.