by Doris Egan
I said, reluctantly, "I'd better give you food money. Don't eat it inside there, it'll stink the place up."
"All right." He took without hesitation the new ten-tabal coin I gave him.
Then he went to the cookshop, and I put up a brief note on the station to the effect that it was out of order, and all parcels should be diverted to the Shikron villa.
When Ran came home, I hoped he would be in a tolerant mood.
"I put him in the mail box," I said to him as Sim discreetly left the room.
"I beg your pardon?" said Ran. "Mail box?"
"The one out front. I figured he could sleep there till he gets his life a little more in order."
"Mail box?" he repeated.
"I put a note on it," I said, "telling any messengers to shuttle deliveries over to Kylla's. And I cleaned out what was in it this morning."
"Theodora, you're telling me that Loden Broca is spending his nights in our parcel receipt?"
"Well, it's not a Taka hospitality suite, but it is weapon-proof, and we've both slept in worse places—"
He sat down on the divan in our parlor. "Great bumbling gods." He looked up. "Do we have any tah on hand?"
I went to get him a cup of the pink kind, because that's the most soothing, and he clearly hadn't had a good morning. I spooned it in, let it boil, and took him out the square tah holder with two empty cups. After he'd drunk a little, I said, "So how was the breakfast meeting?"
"Are you going to tell me the rest of this Loden Broca story?"
"I want to hear your story first."
"Gods. All right, I told them what you'd said."
"And?"
"They're a polite bunch. They couldn't attack the word of a Cormallon lady, so they agreed to table the entire matter till next year."
"Hallelujah!"
It wasn't an Ivoran word, but he recognized it. "Theodora, what are you going to do next year?"
"Let me fill you in on Loden," I said, and I did.
When I'd finished he said, "What an idiot he is."
"I know."
"I'd just as soon not even have him in our parcel receipt. But I suppose he took advantage of your soft barbarian heart."
"He did appeal to us for help, Ran."
"What of it? Let him appeal to the Mercians for help. And why didn't you have me paged at the Taka? I could've sent Sim back to you."
"More likely you'd have told me to let him appeal to the Mercians."
"Well, yes." Ran does not deny the obvious truths. "But I would have sent you Sim just the same."
"There wasn't time. Besides, why would you want me to wait for Sim when you've said we're not targets anymore? Are we in danger?"
He looked pained. I said, "Just what is Sim's purpose in life, anyway?"
"He's here on a holiday," Ran said. "Show him the capital."
We looked at each other. He sighed. "All right, what's done is done, I suppose. If anyone trails Loden to our house to pick him off, at least we've got Sim on hand to aid in the defense. —Mind you, that's if we look in the least degree of danger, Theodora. If the danger's only to Loden, he can deal with it himself."
"Well, naturally."
"I mean it. I don't want you taking any chances because his cute brown eyes are in jeopardy."
"Kylla said that about his eyes. I didn't."
"Yes, I recall now. You simply said they were remarkably fine."
I smiled. "Thank you for your understanding." I kissed him on the cheek.
Sim stuck his head in the door and said, "Do you have an extra pair of slippers? And did I see the Gossip Gazette somewhere this morning?"
I whispered to Ran, "He's adapting very well."
"And do we have any hard bread and jam?" asked Sim. "I'm very fond of bread and jam. Cherry would be best. Though I don't want to put you to any trouble."
The Cormallons had all gone home (except for Sim); our assignment for Jusik was officially over; and with Loden turning out to be a quiet guest, I had to agree with Ran that our attackers from Trade Square had probably lost interest when the case was canceled. He and Sim had gone to Ran's robemaker to get new suits for the two of them, and I'd pushed them out of the house gladly, looking forward to a few hours of peaceful reading.
Naturally the doorbells began to jingle. I checked the plate, saw it was Coalis, and let him in.
"You've interrupted Kesey's Poems,'" I said. "I may never get through that damned book."
"What a welcome, gracious lady." But he smiled; and I could see my way of greeting him pleased his na' telleth heart. "We should exchange volumes before I go. I'm car-
rying the Erotic Poems in my wallet, and / can't get through them."
"Importunate strangers keep interrupting you, too?"
"No, I just don't like the poems. Though I shouldn't prejudice you against them." He stooped to pass through the hanging that separates the parlor from hall, took off his sun hat, and whirled it expertly onto a table; narrowly missing a wildly expensive vase in the process.
He plopped himself down on a cushion and grinned up at me. "I'm glad you're home. Sit down, I've come to show you something."
I dragged a cushion over and sat beside him. He said, "Stereth asked me to come."
"He did?" It did take me a little by surprise, but then, I had no other good reason for him to visit.
"He wanted me to set your mind to rest on an issue." Coalis reached into the pocket of his inner robe, and pulled out a slim, worn book held together by a piece of string tied in an untangleable schoolboy knot.
"I hope that's not your volume of Kesey," I said, sensing it wasn't.
He slipped the string off and flipped forward, then backward a few pages. "Here," he said, and handed it to me.
Loden Broca Mercia had a page to himself. I whistled. "Six hundred tabals. That's a lot of money for a journeyman guard to owe."
"He wasn't very consistent in paying it back, either," Coalis pointed out.
I read the notations in green ink, payments of twenty to thirty tabals at a time. No wonder the boy had been living on scraps and tap water in that inn. Still, Coalis had a point; Loden often skipped a week or two, letting his interest rise dangerously. Even on his salary, he ought to have made higher payments at the very beginning. The figures were clear about that, particularly the figures done in black ink by a neater hand, near the bottom of the page. I said, "Is this true? He's up to twelve hundred tabals?"
"That's what happens when you miss payments," said Coalis. "He's barely scratched the principal at all."
I closed the book and returned it to Coalis for him to re-string. This all served to confirm Loden's story. Though he'd lied about how much he owed, which was, I supposed,
understandable. It's hard to admit you've been that much of a fool.
I said, "Stereth asked you to show me this?"
"He said he wanted to limit the uncertainty in your life. He didn't tell me what he meant by that."
Who ever was sure what Stereth meant? "How well do you know the minister, anyway?"
"Me?" The question seemed to surprise him. "I told you, we met on a na' telleth retreat. I was impressed with his talent for concentration. We've been spending a fair amount of time together lately because of the partnership, but I suppose once I'm settled he'll have other things to be working on."
"So he's been helpful to you in the partnership. Worth bringing him in."
"Oh, definitely! I wouldn't have had any guidance at all in this, if not for Stereth." Coalis's face shone. "He's been wonderful."
"Does he talk to you much about… about before, when he was an outlaw leader?"
"I wish he would. He said those days are past."
I breathed a tiny sigh of relief at that. Not that Stereth was a gossip, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was good to hear.
Coalis was going on. "He shows me all kinds of things now, though."
"Oh? What kind of things?"
"All kinds. He's got a lot of friends, and he
introduced me to some of them. They were able to help me a lot in the business."
"I thought you were mainly handling the business as a one-man operation. Isn't that what Kade was doing?
"Well, yes, but you need to know what to do… you need people to run the operations end of things. I'm too small to do it all myself."
Too small? Oh— "You're talking about the beating-people-up, leg-breaking end of things."
"Well, it is part of the business, Theodora. Otherwise no one would pay us back. They don't have regular collateral."
"No, I understand the concept. So you… direct the operations now, is that it?"
"Not yet. So far I've just watched. It's very interesting.
"I'm sure," I said noncommittally, thinking, So this is why he reminds Stereth of Lex na'Valory.
"But Stereth's promised me a chance to direct."
"Well, that sounds… promising."
"I'll be supervising everything myself, once Stereth gets us on track."
"Really." I wondered how to change the subject. I said, "I guess Kade's death opened up a whole new world for you. Maybe missing the monastery wasn't the worst thing, after all. It seems more of a liberation."
He looked slightly shocked. "How can you say that, Theodora? The field of moneylending is an interesting one, but it's only an illusion. Like any other lender, I'll be teaching that fact to my clients. Not that it takes much deliberate teaching. I can assure you, practically all of them eventually realize that the money they wanted in the first place was not that important."
"I see. You'll be bringing na' telleth philosophy into ordinary life."
"Of course; that's where it belongs. Naturally I'd advance further in the monastery, but I intend to follow the path as well as I can."
"That's very, uh, admirable of you. I'm not far advanced in the na' telleth way, myself."
"You're only a barbarian," he said tolerantly. "And I'm sure you've learned more than you think. One can't help getting lessons in na' telleth-ri, just by living."
"You may have a point. I've been thinking a lot about 'the other side of the mirror' lately."
"Excellent," he said happily. "That's exactly what I mean. But don't be afraid of it. Look the skull in the face. That's the na' telleth way."
I laughed. "The barbarian way is to avoid."
"That way the skull finds you."
Look the skull in the face. Easier said than done. Coalis was reaching for his sun hat, gathering his robes together as he got to his feet. "I'm afraid I must hurry," he said, apologetically. "I'm expected at home. —Oh! Let's exchange books," he added, holding out his volume of Kesey. I gave him mine and took his. We stood at the front doorway for a moment and he smiled, an innocent smile for a sixteen-year-old nobly born loanshark monk. "I'm glad this business with Kade is over," he said suddenly. He turned to go out into the sunlight. Then he turned back and said, confiding, "I couldn't make head or tail of the Kesey. If you do, you must promise to explain it to me."
"I promise."
He tied his sun hat, took our front steps jauntily, and went off down the street under the row of spindly mir-andis trees.
It was a rather ordinary day, that day, the sixth of Kace. I did some chores that needed to be done, went through some records, thought about organizing the paper files and decided not to. When Ran and Sim came home, I listened to their lengthy descriptions and duly admired the sets of robes they'd ordered.
That night I lay in bed listening to one of the rare summer rainfalls. I'd been interested in what Coalis had had to say during his visit; somehow the story of Kade's dunk in the canal wasn't finished with me, whatever Ran might think. If I did pursue it, it would be on my own time, that much was clear.
Why pursue it? I couldn't presume to any claim to justice; I didn't even know Kade, and what I did know of him did not impress me. Was it just because I hated not knowing how stories come out? I had to admit that the thought that I would never know did offend my scholarly sense of neatness. Or was I just getting desperate for what Stereth called "certainty in my life"?
It would be good to have something to concentrate on, something outside myself. Lately I couldn't even concentrate on that damned book of poetry, even when I was alone and without any distractions. In fact, being alone and without any distractions was the worst of all.
What was my problem, anyway? Why couldn't I just tell Ran the idea of carrying our child scared me? But I was a product of the Athenan University. I had no evidence to offer, just nerves, and that was insufficient reason to avoid something that had to be done. (He'll lose respect for you, Theodora. —Oh, shut up.) I'd known our marriage would be complicated when I agreed to come back, but somehow I thought we could just dance around this issue.
A bad assumption for a scholar.
Ran was lying next to me, propped on one arm, looking through some papers. Minutes of the council meeting. I'd been quite interested in them till I found there was no mention of the "Theodora problem" in there; the issue had been debated "off the record." Out of respect for my privacy, no doubt, but I'd have liked to have gotten hold of a transcript so I could arm myself for the future.
I heard the papers being put down. He stretched. "You're quiet tonight. And you don't even have a book in your hand."
"I'm thinking."
"Oh?"
Perfect opportunity to bring it up— "I was thinking I'd better get my hair cut. It keeps falling in my face, unless I pin it back with ten thousand pins."
Ten Thousand Pins. The Biography of Theodora of Py-rene and Her Basic Lack of Organization. Ran rolled over a little closer. "Don't get it cut. This is the longest it's ever been."
What is this thing men have about long hair? I said, "Desire is a reflex, physical appearance an illusion."
"You've been talking to Coalis again," he said simply, making a connection that impressed me.
"He was here today. Showed me Kade's loan book, which confirmed Loden's story."
"Let's leave Loden in the mail box for tonight. Don't get your hair cut."
"It's more convenient short, I won't need to do anything with it. Have you ever noticed how in plays the hero pulls out a single pin and the heroine's hair tumbles down in a sensuous mass, just before they make passionate love? If that was me we'd be searching and pulling out pins for the next twenty minutes."
"But Theodora. I rather like searching for pins." He'd rolled over and was looking down me with all sincerity. "Let's count backward," he said. "Nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine." He slipped one out. "Nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-eight. You know, if you're going to laugh at me, we'll never get this done."
It was still raining near midnight. I lay awake, wishing for fire, flood, or earthquake; something solid and awful in the outside world that I could concentrate on. Something other than myself.
Look the skull in the face. Easy for you, Coalis.
I got out of bed and wandered into the upstairs study, bringing the leather pouch I keep behind my pillow. I sat on the carpet, opened the pouch, and took out the deck of cards Ran inherited from his grandmother.
Maybe this was a waste of time. I'd run the deck when we took on Jusik's case, and it had given straight business answers to a business question. The pack was tuned to Ran's concerns and safety; when it came to answering my personal doubts, the odds were that it would be less than helpful.
But if Coalis could look things in the face, so could I. I shuffled quickly, before I could change my mind, and started laying out cards.
The Band of Brothers. The card showed a table of six men drinking themselves into quite a happy state of inebriation. I kept my finger on the card and watched it dissolve into a room I'd never seen, a room with a huge thick glass window showing blue sky, a mahogany table, and over a dozen men wearing respectable robes sitting around a curved bench with cushions. Ran was by the window. The Taka Hospitality Building, I thought. Ran was answering something, giving short replies while one man after another made exc
ited comments. Damn, if only the deck gave me sound as well as visual! Finally a short man with a rainbow holiday tunic under his street robe stood up and gestured wildly. Ran strode from the window, eyes blazing, spitting out words, and ended by smashing his fist on the table. The short man drew back, and everyone stopped talking. Heavens—I'd never seen Ran hit his fist on a table in his life.
I took my finger off the card when I shifted position, wondering if there was any way in the world I could get a transcript from the Net. The card turned back into the Band of Brothers, ink and color, vine leaves under the table.
An interesting window, in its way. Still, this wasn't what I was looking for, it was just a slice of an old reality. I needed better data.
A wild and grim impulse came over me. Enough of this shilly-shallying. I shuffled the card back into the pack, placed it on the floor, stood up, and went into the bathroom. There I took the beveled mirror from its hook over the sink and carried it back to the study. I laid it on the carpet, facedown.
I was looking at the plain wooden backing with its twist of wire stretching across. Once or twice in the past I'd experienced a deeper and stranger kind of card-reading; scarier, more symbolic, not just a window into normal reality. I tried to keep away from that kind of thing, generally… could I call it up now? I crossed to Ran's desk and took out an old brush-pen, and brought the inkstone he used as a paperweight to the bathroom sink to grind and wet it. When the ink seemed sufficient, I knelt down by the mirror, dipped the brush, and drew a skull-shape over the back.
It wasn't hard. The old waterstains on the wood seemed to suggest a skull before I even began, though I tried not to think about that too closely. When I completed it, I carried the pen back to the sink to wash so I wouldn't get ink on Ran's desk. I left it there to dry.
All responsibilities taken care of, I sat cross-legged by the mirror. I picked up the cards and shuffled them over it, trying to disengage my mind from the circle of daily tasks that keeps us all nose-to-the-ground until we die. It was death I was looking for… a sighting from a distance, nothing nearer, and with luck even that might be a phantom.
