by Juliet Kemp
Jonas’ heart hurt. He couldn’t bear to listen.
“Maybe my family aren’t like your family,” he snapped. “Maybe my mother’s not like yours. Maybe I get to make a different decision from what you did, yeah?”
He stomped out of the room. Cato didn’t say anything; and Jonas didn’t dare turn around to see his expression.
k k
Marcia walked up from the Old Market along the narrow street that led to Reb’s house, half of it in shadow already as the afternoon sun dipped lower. In front of her, a man laden with packages was nagging at his child; behind her she could hear the infusion-seller who worked these streets with their padded kettle.
Reb’s door was shut, but not locked. Reb never locked her front door; she relied on wards, and she’d set them to admit Marcia.
The front room was empty, but there were noises from the workroom, so Marcia shut the front door behind her and settled down to wait. She had no doubt that Reb knew of her arrival. It was nice, just to sit down for a moment. She sat back in the battered armchair, watched people going by the window, and did her best not to think about anything.
By the time Reb unbolted the workroom door and poked her head around it, the room was darkening, and Marcia, with a start, realised that she should have lit the lamps.
“Nearly done,” Reb said. She looked satisfied, like she’d had a successful day. “Just tidying up now.”
“I’ll light the lamps,” Marcia said. She’d meant to put the kettle on for an infusion, too.
Reb bolted the workroom door and came straight over to Marcia to put her arms around her. Reb wasn’t usually all that demonstrative. Marcia felt a sudden surge of affection.
“How’s your day been?” Marcia asked, after they’d shared a kiss. She was tempted to move things straight through to the bedroom; but she should probably tell Reb about Selene, first.
“Not too bad,” Reb said. “Busy. Good busy.”
“You need to get anything sent out this evening?”
Reb shook her head. “No, most of these I’ll deliver in person, not by message, and I’d rather not do that at this time of night. Folks listen better in the daytime.”
She went over to the window and looked out, rolling her shoulders to stretch them out.
“How about you?” she asked Marcia over her shoulder. “What’ve you been up to, over there?”
“Talking to the Teren Lord Lieutenant, most recently,” Marcia said. She’d tried to think if there was a smooth way to raise this, and had come up with nothing. Blunt was the way to go, then. “You remember, she mentioned magic and my brother in front of my mother the other day? And I arranged to talk to her. As it happens, she’s got something of a magical problem, and she wants to talk to a sorcerer.”
Reb shifted round to stare at Marcia. “A magical problem?”
“Someone raised a demon, and now they – the Terens – can’t get rid of it.”
There was a twitch of something that Marcia couldn’t quite read in Reb’s face. “Usually they execute whoever raised it.”
“Apparently the sorcerer took off. Before the problem was discovered, I suppose.”
“And what does the Teren Lord Lieutenant want of a Marek sorcerer?”
“Help with getting rid of this demon, or spirit, or whatever it is, I believe. She wanted to talk to the cityangel.”
Reb’s eyebrows went up. “She knows of the cityangel?”
“Of course she does,” Marcia said. “It’s a well-known story, and half the city – more than half – believes it entirely. It’s only Marekhill idiots like me who think it’s a myth. In Teren they deal with spirits all the time, don’t they? Hence this demon, I assume.”
Reb pulled a face, but didn’t say anything.
“So of course Selene took it at face value. I said I might be able to find a sorcerer for her, but I didn’t want to name you – or to reveal just how few sorcerers there are right now – before speaking to you.”
Reb rubbed at her nose. “Ugh. I suppose, really, this should be a matter for the Group, since I’m trying to resurrect it.”
“I have difficulty envisaging Cato being appropriately polite to the Lord Lieutenant.”
“Me too,” Reb agreed. “But I can’t dragoon him into overseeing Marek-magic and then not bring him into this. It’s Marek that’s being asked, really, not an individual sorcerer, whatever the woman said. Especially if there’s any possibility of needing to involve Beckett. Though I have to say, I can’t see how there’s much we could do. We can hardly send Beckett off to deal with it, and I’ve no sorcery outside of Marek, nor has Cato.”
“And you wouldn’t get Cato out of Marek with a winkle-pin,” Marcia said.
“Or me, come to that.”
“You grew up in Teren, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Reb said, in a tone that didn’t suggest that she wanted to discuss the matter any further.
“Do you want to talk to her, then? I mean, if you’d rather not…”
“I’m a Mareker now,” Reb said, folding her arms. “It’s not like where I was born is written on my forehead, and it’s no business of hers anyway, Lord Lieutenant or not. In any case, what’s the alternative? Leave Cato to do it alone? And then have to pick up the pieces anyway?”
“She seemed moderately – concerned. If you don’t speak to her, there’s a fighting chance she’ll go looking for herself, which doesn’t seem like the best of ideas.”
“Angels and demons. No indeed. Well then.” Reb sighed. “I’ll speak to Cato.” She rolled her eyes. “I should have thought twice about this, shouldn’t I? Should have realised I’d have to be working with the bugger.” Her voice was light again though, poking gentle fun at herself.
“Let me know if you want me to arrange a meeting, once you and Cato have talked it over,” Marcia offered.
Reb shrugged a shoulder. “I’ll send a messenger. If this ambassador wants to deal with a Marek sorcerer, she can deal directly. Or she can go without, I don’t mind.”
She came away from the window, towards Marcia, and smiled at her. “Now. I think we’ve got a little while longer before we should both be elsewhere. Had you any ideas how you might want to spend that time?”
“Oh, I’m sure I can think of a few,” Marcia said, smiling back at her lover before pulling her in for a kiss. Sorcery and politics, and sorcerous politics, could all wait for a while.
EIGHT
What Jonas needed, he had eventually concluded, was to talk to Kia. Well, not so much talk to Kia, as convince her not to weigh in on his mother’s side regarding his future. The trouble was, the only way he could think of to do that was – well. Not exactly honourable.
But then, was it honourable for his mother to turn up with no warning and the blithe assumption that she knew best? She was his mother, so maybe she had a right to an opinion, but turning up early and unannounced, that was unfair.
Unfair enough to justify threatening Kia?
Maybe not. He was going to do it anyway. There was no way he could stand against both his mother and Kia; and he was determined to make his own damn decision on this, not be driven by someone else. Whoever they might be.
He waited until the embassy’s official opening hours were over before arriving on the doorstep. Xera, the embassy housekeeper and secretary, gave him a very hard stare when she opened the door, before she led him in and left him in the waiting room. How much did she know about what had happened at New-Year? Enough to be suspicious of him, evidently. He stared morosely at the Marek-style paintings and Salinas woven hangings that covered the walls. It was fair enough for Xera to be wary of him. Fair, but depressing.
“Jonas!” When Kia appeared in the waiting room door, she greeted him as he would expect of a former ship-mate – one who had looked after him as a child, even – but there was a wariness in her eyes too.
“My mother is here,” he said without further preamble, once they were safely in Kia’s office with the door shut.
; Jonas usually liked Kia’s office. It was a small room that resembled a captain’s cabin; panelled, cramped, and tidy, but with Marek-style chairs and a table. Today, though, it reminded him uncomfortably of sailing with his mother; of sleeping on a hammock in a room very like this one.
“Yes,” Kia said. “She visited me already. A delightful surprise, ne?” She sounded truthful, but Jonas was moderately certain that she was as nervous as he was, albeit for a slightly different reason.
“She wants me to return to Salina,” he said.
“No doubt,” Kia said. “You are her child. Of course she wants you shipboard. To take over the Lion in due course, perhaps, if you are suited.”
Once, that had been the pinnacle of his ambition. It was still tempting. But it would mean laying aside sorcery, forever. Perhaps it would be worth it. But here in Marek he’d found out that there might be other opportunities open to him. Maybe. If he wanted them.
“You support her, then?” Jonas asked.
Kia’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not my business, is it?”
Jonas sat back. “No. But Mother will put pressure on you to put pressure on me, and we both know it.”
Kia didn’t move or say anything, just looked at him. Jonas swallowed, and made himself go on. No point in easing around this, was there?
“What I think is, it would be a shame for Mother to find out that you let a Marek sorcerer into the embassy. To do magic right here.”
Kia’s head tilted. “Whereas I think it would be a shame if she learnt that you were staying here to study with a Marek sorcerer.”
Jonas did his best not to react. How could she know that?
“I doubt Captain t’Riseri knows you’re a sorcerer.”
They stared at each other.
“So. We both have things we don’t want to share with my mother, or with the rest of Salina,” Jonas said, finally. “Perhaps we can come to some agreement.”
Kia leant back in her chair, and regarded him narrowly. “Perhaps we can,” she echoed.
“How about, neither of us will mention New-Year, and you will not mention that I am studying with Cato.”
“Seems unbalanced,” Kia said. “The matters of New-Year, well, they don’t reflect on either of us very well, do they? It is in both of our interests not to mention them. Your association with the sorcerer Cato, on the other hand, is a separate matter.”
Because Jonas couldn’t reveal Kia’s part in the matters of New-Year without dropping himself in it at the same time. He controlled – just barely – an involuntary grimace.
“I was under pressure at New-Year,” he tried. “I was acting under the impression, the correct impression, that you were happy with what was going on. I was following the lead of my elders.”
“Your mother is hardly going to buy that,” Kia said. “And I’m surprised you can even say it with a straight face. You were brought up to think for yourself, Jonas, and well you know it. If you try that on your mother she’ll hang you out to dry.”
He was brought up to think for himself, and yet his mother was here trying to push him to her preferences. It was unjust, was what it was.
“What then do you suggest, to balance the deal?” he asked, sullenly.
There was a pause. Kia tapped her fingers together.
“A favour,” she said, eventually.
“What sort of favour?”
“An unspecified favour, to be collected at a later date.”
“An open deal?” Jonas demanded. “And why should I agree to that?”
“To be mutually agreed at a later date,” Kia said. “I will swear on the Lion t’Riseri to deal fairly with you, when it is needed, if you swear the same.”
That was the most binding oath a Salinas could make; though neither of them truly had a ship, these days, the Lion was for both of them the closest they had. And that they shared a ship made the oath stronger.
And – when it came down to it, he did trust Kia.
“Very well,” he agreed. “A mutually agreed debt, to be dealt fairly at your request, sworn by the Lion.” He paused. “Within the year. I do not wish to be permanently bound by this.”
Kia nodded, and put out both her hands, to shake on the arrangement.
“By the Lion,” they both said, as they clasped hands.
Kia let go, then sat back and looked at him, her expression curious.
“Do you wish to stay here?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested. “In Marek?”
“For now,” Jonas said, automatically evading the question.
Kia shook her head. “For now, of course. For longer. Do you intend to become a sorcerer?”
Jonas winced. His study with Cato made it an obvious question, yet somehow it still stung, hearing it from another Salinas. “I don’t know,” he hedged.
Kia’s eyebrows went up.
“I don’t!” He hesitated; but Kia already knew most of this. He might as well let it out. “I have some kind of ability.” He saw Kia’s almost imperceptible wince. “I know. I am not so keen on the idea either,” well, that held some truth, if not the whole truth, “but how am I not to find out what I can do? And how can I risk it emerging without any ability to control it?”
Kia nodded slowly. “Can you – burn it out?”
“Maybe,” Jonas said. “Cato offered, but he warned me against it.”
“You cannot sail if you are a sorcerer,” Kia said, gently.
“I can learn to control it, and then I can not use it, and then I can sail,” Jonas said, and wondered as he said it whether that was still what he wanted. And yet – he couldn’t quite get himself around the idea of not sailing, either. That he would sail, once he was old enough, had been a truth of his life for his entire childhood. Even once his ability had got in the way; of course he would resolve that, and sail. And now?
“I suppose,” Kia said, tapping her fingers against her lips. “And yet, an ability is a hard thing to abandon.”
“The sea is hard to abandon,” Jonas said, with absolute honesty.
Kia sighed. “Indeed so.”
Of course. Kia no longer sailed, either.
“Would you prefer to go back?” he asked.
Kia pursed her lips. “I know Marek now better than any other Salinas. Yes, of course I would rather sail. But I am needed here.”
“Someone is needed here. You learnt; someone else could, too, ne?” Jonas said.
“I don’t see anyone else lining up for the job,” Kia said, tartly.
“Well, why would they, when you’re here?” Jonas said.
“You mean I should just resign? Well, it’s an idea. But what if no one came forward even then? What if there was no one here to negotiate with these damned Houses, and keep track of the independent traders, and to keep abreast of the politics of this wretched city?”
Kia’s voice rose a little, and Jonas blinked. He felt a little insulted on Marek’s behalf. There was nowhere else quite like Marek, he knew that, and… When did he start feeling that way?
Kia sighed, and let her voice drop again. “Well, I don’t think about it so much. I am here, and I am needed, and I act for Salina. So it goes. But if your mother brought a replacement for me, I would be more than delighted. Hasn’t happened yet.”
Jonas wasn’t sure what to say. Kia shook her head and flipped a hand at him. “In any case. It is, I think, time for you to go, ne? We have made our bargain. And I will see you again when Captain t’Riseri summons us both to dinner.”
Underneath, as Jonas walked back down the steps and into the street, he wondered: if his mother thought he didn’t want to leave Marek, and that Kia did, would she think of the alternative solution to that particular problem? He wasn’t old enough, of course. Not to be the ambassador. But to learn…
He didn’t want that, not at all. But could he avoid it, if his mother thought of it, without admitting the truth of his presence here?
Shit.
k k
What with one thing and another, Reb hadn
’t yet got around to talking to Cato – shouting at Cato – about Jonas. Now she had this business of the Lord Lieutenant to deal with as well.
She’d much rather have still been spending time with Marcia this evening; but Marcia had left for some House responsibility or other. Cato kept late hours. Reb wasn’t about to try sending a message again; he wouldn’t respond, and she’d have to go over, and look like a fool into the bargain. She might as well just go there now.
Knowing it was the sensible choice didn’t prevent her irritation rising as she made her way to Cato’s door. That part of the squats wasn’t, in the general way, entirely safe for people who didn’t live there; but Reb was known to be a sorcerer, and no one would dream of messing with a sorcerer, for fear of ending up floating down the river with your insides tied in a knot. Reb, in general, didn’t believe in using one’s power against others unless absolutely necessary – and Beckett didn’t much hold with it, come to that – but she had more sense than to make that widely known.
She was tempted to barge straight through Cato’s door once she got there, but resisted the urge. Taking his wards down would be an unwarranted act of aggression, she told herself firmly, and wouldn’t set them off on the right foot.
She contented herself with banging so hard on the door that she bruised a knuckle.
“What the hell?” she heard from inside.
There was a certain amount of clattering, and Cato opened the door a crack to peer through it.
“Oh. It’s you.” He stepped back and made a gesture, and Reb felt the wards fall. “Come in, I suppose.”
“Nice to see you too,” Reb said.
“Oh, come on, I can tell just from looking at you that you’re here to complain about something,” Cato said, rolling his eyes in disgust and closing the door behind her.
The room was untidy as ever, but the collection of things on his worktable suggested that he’d been in the middle of something. Cato might never pick up anything else, but he kept his magical things in perfect order.
“Sorry if I interrupted you,” Reb said, grudging every word; but some magics were hard to set up.
