Points of Departure

by Patricia C. Wrede

  Nerissa was unnerved. She knew that Verdialos had a mind like a shiribi puzzle and the persistence of a cat that knows where the leftover chicken is; but it was more comfortable not to be reminded of these things every time you looked at him.

  “Did Etriae do that?” she said.

  Verdialos smiled, which was even more unnerving. “Over my protests, she did,” he said. “She considered that the Serenity of the Order ought not to look as if his mother neglected him.”

  How did he so often come so close to what she was thinking? That talent ought to make him a splendid Serenity of the Order, if it didn’t drive everybody to distraction. There was no point in offering felicitations; he didn’t want to be Serenity, it was just another responsibility he would have to see safely fulfilled or bestowed before he and Etriae could die happily by whatever bizarre means they had agreed on when they were married. “So that’s where you’ve been!” said Nerissa.

  Verdialos stopped smiling. “Have you been fretting?” he said. “Surely you’ve enough to do?”

  “I missed you,” said Nerissa, who had not intended either to miss him or to say so. It’s the relief, she thought, that he isn’t going to go off and kill himself now that I’m all provided for.

  “I thought you might,” said Verdialos. He poked about in the pile of green linen and came up with a little book bound in poisonous purple velvet, locked with a minute brass lock. “When you’ve read this, you’ll need to come to see me again. But you won’t like it.”

  Except for the color and the lock, the book was just like all the blank books Nerissa used for her journal and her stories. Her parents kept a vast quantity of them in the attic; she and Deleon had pilfered them for five years, and Nerissa had been taking them for ten more, and you could hardly tell that any were gone. Nerissa thought that she might try asking her mother about them, even asking permission to use them. She could, after all, buy her own with her salary from the Green priests, if her mother said no. It had never occurred to either her or Deleon to ask permission. That it occurred to her now was almost solely, she thought, to Verdialos’s credit.

  “Where did you get that, Verdialos?”

  “Your brother gave it to me.”

  Nerissa put her hands in her lap, very carefully. Some of the most unpleasant moments of her recent life had also been to Verdialos’s credit. After a respite to put her off her guard, he appeared to be starting another offensive.

  “When?” she said.

  “In Wine, the year before last.”

  “Did he give it to you for me?”

  “He didn’t write what is in it,” said Verdialos, divining as usual what worried her. “He took it on his twelfth birthday and kept it for you. Then he asked me to keep it for you.”

  “It’s why he ran away,” said Nerissa. She was extremely cold. “Give it to me.”

  “You won’t—”

  “Of course I won’t like it. It’s why he left me. Now give—”

  “No,” said Verdialos. “His own book is why he left you.”

  Nerissa merely looked at him. Until he had said what he intended to say, he would not give her the book.

  “Do you remember your twelfth birthday?” said Verdialos.

  Nerissa thought about it. “I remember my fifteenth,” she said.

  “So you ought,” said Verdialos, unsmiling.

  “On the fourteenth,” said Nerissa, considering, “Jehane gave me a pen, and Cook made creamed turnips and Livia rushed from the table and was sick all over the new tile floor in the hallway.” It had been a long time since she thought about that. Now, suddenly, she giggled. “Somebody ought to put us in a play,” she said.

  “Bear it in mind,” said Verdialos. “Now, the thirteenth birthday?”

  “Jehane made a rhubarb pie and forgot to put in the sugar,” said Nerissa, and giggled again.

  “What did Jehane give you?”

  “Embroidery silks,” said Nerissa, gloomily.

  “And the year before?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “What about your eleventh, then?”

  “That was a bad one,” said Nerissa. “We were still looking for Deleon. It seemed wrong to celebrate. I think—yes. Jehane made me a cake that was supposed to look like Floradazul, but it looked a great deal more like a rock with green eyes. She used marbles for the eyes, and Isobel broke her tooth on one. Cook was furious. I don’t remember that anybody else noticed.”

  “Have any of your sisters mastered the domestic arts?”

  “Oh, all of them, except Jehane and me. Jehane wouldn’t be bothered. And I expect,” said Nerissa, with a touch of the old bitterness, “that Mama was tired by the time she got to me.”

  “And your twelfth birthday?”

  “I don’t think I can have had one. I don’t remember. Buds of 3313—oh. That was the month Marigand got married. They probably didn’t have time.”

  “You’re frowning,” said Verdialos.

  “It was odd,” said Nerissa slowly. “I thought Livia and Jehane were planning something. Livia liked me that year, I don’t know why. But whatever they were planning, they must have given it up.”

  “Your parents were supposed to give you this book on your twelfth birthday.”

  “But they couldn’t because Deleon had stolen it.”

  “Do you know what it is? Did Jehane ever say anything to you about it?”

  Nerissa no longer felt inclined to giggle, but the sting of all these reminiscences had still, somehow, been drawn. She felt as she did when she was rummaging among the scraps of old scrolls, finding the top of this page from one, the middle from another, the bottom from another that was not the standard size, and triumphantly piecing them together into a coherent account. “No,” she said. “Not Jehane. Isobel. She said that when one became a woman one received such a book, but I was backwards and would have to wait. I wonder what she knew.”

  “Possibly nothing,” said Verdialos; and held out the book.

  “I really don’t think I need it,” said Nerissa.

  “It is not a manual for schoolgirls,” said Verdialos. “It’s the story of your conception.”

  “Comfort for Acrilat,” said Nerissa, but she took it.

  “Come and see me tomorrow morning,” said Verdialos.

  “In Gorodain’s room?”

  “No,” said Verdialos. “This room will do very well.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Nerissa. “Was he a friend of yours?”

  “I don’t know,” said Verdialos. “Am I a friend of yours?”

  “I don’t think so. I think you’re waiting. I might manage it one day.”

  “Gorodain,” said Verdialos, “had ceased to wait, for he knew I would never manage it, being only a weak fool.” He smiled again. “But you know all about that,” he said.

  He went away, leaving the heap of linen lying half on the table and half on the floor. Nerissa turned the ugly little book over once, and then stuffed it ruthlessly into the pocket of her skirt. She would read it at home. She knew what was in it, or all that was in it that mattered. She knew they hated her; perhaps this would tell her why. Or, worse, would it tell her that they had not, to begin with, hated her at all, that she had done something to make them?

  She was copying her page for the third time when Calla put her head around the frame of the door. “Nerissa? A moment?”

  Calla had been about the place for a year or so; she was the only newcomer Verdialos had brought in since he encountered Nerissa on the banks of the Cat River on the morning of her fifteenth birthday. Nerissa envied her helplessly. She was small, slender, dark, and striking, with eyes like amber and an incredible fall of black hair from which any light struck gleams of red. She had a voice like silk, a piercing wit, and an absolute fearlessness that Nerissa envied above all. Nerissa did not know what she was doing in the House of Responsible Life.

  “Come in,” said Nerissa. “I’m only making a botch here.”

  “Verdialos asked me to tell
you,” said Calla, rather breathlessly. “The Desert Mouse is performing an Acrivannish play. He thought you and perhaps one of your sisters would like to go with him. We’ll open the first of Fruit, if nothing catastrophic happens.”

  “Oh, splendid! Which one?” Nerissa had never been to the theater in her life; but she and Deleon had read the old plays until the edges of the pages crumbled and their father threatened to burn the books if Nerissa and Deleon couldn’t show them some respect.

  “When Lilacs Strew the Air,” said Calla, her voice threaded with laughter.

  “I haven’t even read that one. Who wrote it?”

  Calla gave her a long, opaque look. “Somebody obscure,” she said.

  “I should love to go. I’ll ask Jehane. Thank you, Calla.”

  “How’s your cat?” said Calla, rather abruptly.

  “She’s graduated to rats,” said Nerissa.

  • • •

  Nerissa had to break the lock on the book. It did not give her very much trouble. She did wonder who had been negligent, Verdialos or Deleon. Or was this another of Verdialos’s little plans? Was there some benefit to her pursuit of a beautiful death in breaking that lock? Nerissa laid aside the ripped velvet and dangling threads of the book’s cover, and began to read.

  The account was not long. Her mother had written three pages, her father three lines. Their feelings she knew already; the reasons for them caused her to make a number of violent resolutions. It was all very well to blame Acrilat for such things; but Acrilat needed a chink to get in by; and the chinks in the minds of every member of this family must be the size of barn doors. How could people who had known each other for more than twenty years and had once, presumably, been fond, behave so to one another? How could they make their bed a battlefield and all the small facts of their history only arrows to shoot at one another’s eyes? She would never marry. Never. She would have nine cats and a good library, and raise kittens. Granny Carry, who had given her Floradazul, could advise her on the fine points, if there were any. Perhaps Jehane would like to come live with her also. It would be employment, certainly, though it might not offer advancement.

  Floradazul jumped onto the bed and sniffed at the broken book.

  “Hello, O vessel of death,” said Nerissa.

  The calmness of her voice pleased her very much. Her cat laid her ears back, climbed onto Nerissa’s knee, and began washing Nerissa’s thumb.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Nerissa, rubbing her between the ears. “It’s very likely poisonous.”

  • • •

  “Did you read it?” said Verdialos. They sat in his small green room, drinking tea. The room smelled of lemon oil, which meant Etriae had been here; of old leather, from all the books; and of the tea, Prince Fyun’s Folly, which Verdialos had given Nerissa ever since he discovered that the name made her grin. The tea itself had a dim and peculiar taste, and was the color of Calla’s eyes, but it smelled pleasant. Overpowering this familiar blend was the strong, prickly odor of dust. Etriae must have been in a hurry.

  Verdialos was looking at her, rather as if she had turned out to be, not the leftover chicken, but only the sauce from it, too full of sea-grass flavor to please his taste. “It’s comforting, isn’t it,” said Nerissa, “to have been right all your life?”

  Verdialos opened his eyes very wide; therefore he had not expected her to say this. He considered her unnervingly for several seconds. Then he said, “I wouldn’t know.” She had not in all their acquaintance heard such a tone in his voice. He usually talked as if he were thinking about something else, or had just run a mile, or were getting a cold. He spoke with very little breath, very little emphasis and very little warmth. She had heard him speak loudly and sharply, but she had never heard him speak as if he were paying no attention to anything else on the entirety of the sweet brown earth, except herself.

  She was going to cry. She had not cried when Deleon ran away; she had not cried when her nephew died; she had not cried when her cat died; she had never cried when her parents put aside her dearest wishes as irrelevant importunities, or any of the times Isobel pinched and Livia carped and Gillo and Givanni laughed at her.

  “Oh, Verdialos,” said Nerissa, her voice loitering on the threshold between laughter and tears, “I wouldn’t know either.”

  “What a mercy for you,” said Verdialos. “We shall make you happy yet.” He reached across the desk in a gesture very unlike him, and laid his hand palm up on top of the newest list of runaways. Nerissa leaned her forehead on his wrist and cried all over it.

  She was just beginning to run dry when Verdialos said, “Floradazul!”

  Nerissa lifted her head and looked into the bright yellow eyes of the black cat. Floradazul had brought her an extremely large mouse; oh, heavens, no, it was a half-grown rabbit.

  “You drop that,” said Nerissa wetly.

  Floradazul obeyed her. Nerissa scooped the cat up, and Verdialos examined the rabbit. “It’s not hurt,” he said.

  “Jehane hates it when she kills rabbits,” said Nerissa.

  She rubbed her cheek against Floradazul’s flat, dusty head, and into her thoughts there stole the odd sideways perceptions, dimly seen, sharply scented, clearly heard, attuned to small, swift, sudden things, of the feline mind. Before she caught the rabbit, Floradazul had been ranging all over Liavek, and had sat for some time watching a linnet that, maddeningly, perched on a signpost and would neither alight on the ground nor fly away. Nerissa was still very unskilled at interpreting what she saw through the cat’s eyes. The Magician had told her that she might never see much that was meaningful. That was what you got for creating a magical artifact that was a means and not an end.

  She tried to read the sign. All the information was there, but it had meant nothing to Floradazul. The Desert Mouse. That was Calla’s theater. If she could read the sign, she could check its correctness with Calla. An Acrivannish play by Deleon Benedicti. Nerissa had never heard of him. And then, of course, she knew that she had. Her missing brother was writing plays for Calla’s theater. Did Verdialos know, or was this some charming scheme of Calla’s? Calla was clever, but Verdialos was a match for her. Whosever idea this had been to start with, Verdialos must know; he was far too careful not to find out exactly what play Calla wanted him to take Nerissa to. He had decided that it was time for her to meet Deleon again.

  I’ll meet him, I will, thought Nerissa. And I’ll bring my sister, oh, yes, Verdialos. I’ll bring every sister I have, and every brother, and Mama and Papa too, if I have to lie away my hope of holiness. Let him hide for nine years, to this favor he must come. See if you laugh at that.

  Verdialos was looking at her. They still needed to talk about the little purple book. “I’ll wash my face,” said Nerissa, “and you wash your arm. And Calla is going to have to copy that list again. She’ll be furious.”

  “Calla will laugh,” said Verdialos.

  His voice was a little odd. Nerissa looked at him steadily over the head of Floradazul, who was purring like the incoming tide. If he knew what she was thinking, he was still not bold enough to say so; or his plan did not require it. “I hope she will,” said Nerissa.

  • • •

  In Thrae’s cluttered study, the company of the Desert Mouse was arguing with itself. They had seventeen days until the play opened. Thrae refused to cast any of the characters until Deleon finished the play; they could not, of course, rehearse until the characters were cast, and they were used to thirty days of rehearsal before even the most mediocre and familiar of comedies. They had all, over Deleon’s protests, read what he had written, and they all agreed that this play, however rewarding, was going to be difficult. Naril, their magician, was worried because most of the special effects came at the end and thus had not yet been determined. Malion, who was even older than Thrae and normally kind and circumspect to a fault, thought that they should cobble together a quick production of How They Came to Eel Island, something they did every two years, a
nd save Deleon’s play for the month of Wine or even, perhaps, Fog. Sinati, who cherished hopes of the lead in Deleon’s play, had raised a howl of protest, which instantly ensured that, whatever they thought, both Naril, who was presently her lover, and Lynno, whom Naril had displaced, would agree with her. Calla, reasonable as always, thought Thrae should cast the characters so that they could begin rehearsals. Aelim said blandly that he couldn’t see what the fuss was about; if they couldn’t conquer a three-act tragedy in a tenday, perhaps they should all go make paper for a living. Naril, whose mother did just that and who had never fathomed Aelim’s sense of humor, became rather heated at this, and Deleon deemed it time to intervene.

  “I’ll have the play finished by tomorrow,” he said.

  He felt Aelim looking at him, but kept his own eyes steadfastly on the lined, elegant face of Thrae.

  She raised both eyebrows at him and said, “You must take what time you need, Deleon; we’ll contrive.”

  “That’s all the time I need,” said Deleon.

  “How many extra players do you think you’ll want?” said Calla, and surprised Deleon into looking at her. She was slouched in the chair they sat in when they came to be scolded, wearing the mended red trousers and a green tunic embroidered with red snakes. Her expression conveyed a clear warning, but her question was not calculated to help him back out of the wrong street he had just taken.

  “How many can we afford?” he said to Thrae.

  “That’s not the question,” said Thrae, briskly.

  That was precisely the question. It was infuriating of them to be so kind and tolerant in just the wrong way and at exactly the wrong time. “Three,” said Deleon, knowing he was doomed.

  The crease cleared from between Calla’s eyebrows, and the worried twist went out of Thrae’s mouth. Lovely, thought Deleon. Now they can sleep tonight.