Uprising, page 26
‘That’s what I see.” Salomen rolled up a shirt and slammed it into the bag with such force that it was a wonder her fist didn’t come through the bottom. “It’s not a matter of thinking. It’s a matter of looking at the evidence. What was it Anjuli Eroles called you? A master manipulator? It’s curious, how that mastery isn’t enough when it comes to something that matters to me.”
“Salomen, please.” She stepped back as Salomen came around to the front of the organizer and bent to open a door. “I hate that I hurt you. But I’m asking you, please don’t let this be personal. It’s not—”
“How is this not personal?” Salomen shouted. Holding a folded shawl in one hand, she furiously pointed the other in the direction of the council room. “You just went on record opposing me. My bondmate! My divine tyree, the one person on this planet who feels what I feel. You know how important this is to me and you won’t lift a finger to help. Well, keep your fingers and the rest of you to yourself. I’m going home.”
Shoving past Tal, she rounded the corner of the organizer and pushed the shawl into the bag. The other clothes followed with more speed than care.
Tal had anticipated this much of the outcome and cleared her schedule in preparation. “All right. I’d rather we went together, but I still have two more meetings I couldn’t get out of. I can be there by mid-one, though.”
Salomen shook her head. “Don’t bother. You’re not invited.”
“What?”
“I don’t want you there.” She picked up the book Tal had knocked off and threw it in the bag, then flipped the top flap in place and slapped down the tabs. Shouldering the bag, she straightened and met Tal’s eyes. “You’re toxic to me right now. I don’t want to hear explanations and reasons. I just want out of Blacksun.”
“You’re kicking me out?” Tal was too shocked to think.
“More like I’ve come to a sudden appreciation of having multiple homes to choose from. I’m choosing Hol-Opah for the next few days. You can stay here with your politics and your strategies to keep you company.”
Salomen was out the door before Tal could respond. The next few days, she had said. Of course it was more than one night. She didn’t even need to pack for a single night; Hol-Opah had everything she needed.
Slowly, Tal sank onto the bed. In the ringing silence of the empty room, she remembered Salomen’s first day here and how ridiculously bad she had been at packing. She had brought two enormous bags stuffed with so much clothing that Tal had teased her, saying she must have thought they were going to Last Port rather than a twenty-tick transport ride from Hol-Opah.
Now she was packed and gone before Tal could even grasp the deeper reason behind that searing sense of betrayal.
“Your packing has certainly improved,” she muttered, and dropped her face into her hands.
35
Solace
Under normal circumstances, Salomen loved the flight from the State House to Hol-Opah. By now she knew every field, stream, holding, and nearly every tree along the way.
Today she saw none of them, staring blindly out the transport window until the Silverrun River passed beneath. As always, she breathed more easily the instant they crossed it, an instinctive reaction to being home.
Up ahead, the holding’s large, round main house and its outbuildings—now including the bunkhouse—occupied a hilltop near the center of Opah land. She had spent her childhood running up and down that hill, playing and later working in the fields that surrounded it. The Snowmount Range dominated the view to the west and north, while the tree-lined Silverrun River made up the southern and eastern borders of their land.
Salomen barely waited for the transport to touch down behind their house before opening the door, getting to it even before Ronlin. With the bag bumping against her side, she ran down the ramp, across the yard, and up the six steps to the back deck, where her father stood waiting.
“Nikin called to say he saw you fly over,” Shikal said as she came up the steps. “He’s in the herdgrass field. I was just sitting down with my mid-morning shannel. Would you like—?” He stopped speaking when she dropped her bag and looked at him. “Oh, Salomen. Come here.”
She met his raised hands and rested their foreheads together. The love and sympathy pouring through his skin nearly broke her tenuous control, and she closed her eyes, breathing in his familiar scent. How was it that she was the head of this family, the Bondlancer of Alsea, yet still found so much comfort in her father’s touch? She was supposed to be a rock, the one that others leaned on.
“It’s not been a good day,” she said quietly.
“Today was the High Council vote, wasn’t it? That’s why you look so beautiful. I’ve always loved that half cape on you. So much like your mother.”
She straightened and brought their clasped hands down. “I wish she had been there. It might have gone better.”
“She always said you were a natural. I doubt she could do any more than you.” He tilted his head, gray hair brushing his shoulders, and looked her over with sharp eyes that had lost nothing to age. “The vote went the way Andira said it would?”
“Worse. The Prime Producer voted against me.” She scooped up her bag and gestured toward the door, closing down any further inquiries. “You said something about shannel?”
He preceded her into their dining room, full of light from the floor-to-ceiling windows facing west and north. For most of Salomen’s life, her family had gathered around the long table for meals, but her mother had Returned and her younger brother Herot was in prison. With Nikin in the fields, Jaros in school, and Salomen in Blacksun, this table was too big for Shikal to sit at alone.
Unwilling to face her empty upstairs bedroom, Salomen crossed the room to drop her bag at the foot of the wooden staircase and followed Shikal into the kitchen.
As with most traditional rural homes, their food preparation was done in a separate dome. Hol-Opah’s was attached to the main house on its northeast side and featured a sturdy table near the doorway, used as a staging area for meals. Currently it was set with a pot of shannel, a single cup and plate, and a loaf of bread.
“Sit down, I’ll get my own cup.” She started across the kitchen.
“You’d think I was a hundred and ten,” he grumbled, but there was no heat in it. “Get a plate, too. I’ll cut you a slice.”
They said nothing else as she took her seat and poured the shannel, while he cut the bread and sweetened both slices with grainstem powder. With the familiarity of home soaking into her bones, Salomen soon relaxed enough to tell the story of her awful morning, including the way she had left things with Andira.
Her father listened without comment until she was done. Then he pushed away his empty cup and said, “You called the Prime Warrior a coward?”
“That’s not what I thought your first question would be.”
He waved that aside. “I miss Nashta every day, but there are days when I miss her more than usual. She would have loved to see our daughter stare down the Prime Warrior and call him a coward to his face. I doubt Ehron ever expected that from the Bondlancer.” A smile creased his weathered cheeks. “But if he knew you, he would have.”
“You’re proud of that? It wasn’t my most shining moment.”
“Oh, no doubt you’ve burned up some good will and you’ll have to bend your neck if you ever need anything from him, but perhaps a good dose of truth might open his eyes. He’s new in the position. His mind can be changed.”
“I doubt that,” she muttered, reaching for the bread knife.
“Now, about Andira.”
She stopped, then drew back her hand and waited.
“Your first disagreement, yes?”
“Disagreement? Hardly. You do remember that we started out on opposite sides of the negotiation table?”
That was waved aside as well. “Is this your first disagreement since she began courting you?”
“You keep using that word. It’s not a disagreement, Father. I told her she’s not welcome here. I think that qualifies as an actual fight, and yes, it’s our first serious one. We’ve had our tempestuous times, but I’ve never been this angry. I could hardly look at her.”
He nodded. “I had to make it up to Nashta with a new pair of gloves.”
“You—what? You and Mother never fought.” She blinked at the loud laugh that burst from him. “You didn’t! I would have felt it.”
“Not when you were a child. By the time your empathy was developing, we were mostly past that part of our lives. And after, we kept things out in the fields and never brought them home. But that first one . . .” He shook his head with a fond smile. “She did have a temper.”
She frowned as he rose from his chair. “What are you—”
“Stay here. I want to show you something.”
He was back in a tick, offering an unprepossessing pair of gloves. “Here they are.”
She had expected them to be stiff, given their obvious age and the number of stains, but the leather was still supple. Subtle differences in thread width and color were evidence of many repairs. These gloves had been used and loved for a very long time.
“We hadn’t been bonded for five moons, I think. Nikin was still two cycles in the future, and I was a poor producer who had bonded my way into the second-largest holding in the district. I had some misplaced pride and a need to prove myself.”
This was a story she had never heard, not to mention an implausible view of him. Her father, prideful?
“I loved Nashta fiercely, but I wasn’t good at letting her love me. Deep in my heart, there was always a doubt. I didn’t know why she chose me when she could have had anyone she wanted. So I picked and pushed, and one day I pushed too hard. She laid me out with some well-chosen words, stripped my pride down to the base metal, and then jumped in the skimmer and let me walk six lengths home.”
Salomen had to laugh. That did sound like her mother.
“Did I mention it started to rain? Hard. And hailstones the size of marmello pits.”
“Did she take pity on you?”
“Have you forgotten where you got your temper? She was in the bath when I came home. I went up the stairs and found her half-buried in suds, and her first words were, ‘Stop dripping on our floor and get your freezing ass in here with me.’”
Salomen dropped her head back and let go of a full, belly-shaking laugh. “Gah! My brain can’t hold the images!”
“Of course I got in fully clothed.”
“You did not.” She wiped her eyes.
“I did. Stepped right in and kissed her, because she said ‘our floor,’ not ‘my floor,’ and I finally understood what she’d been telling me since our bonding ceremony. We were a team. This was our house. And I was an ass.” He pointed at the gloves. “So I went out the next day and used our cinteks to buy her the nicest pair of gloves that could be had in Granelle, because she wouldn’t have done that for herself. I tied them up in paper and binding twine and left them on her pillow. She cried when she opened that gift.”
Salomen’s amusement dried up instantly. “Why?”
“She said it was the worst-wrapped gift she’d ever seen, and the most beautiful expression of love, because only someone who loved her would have made up after a fight with gloves. Others would have offered flowers or an expensive meal at a restaurant. I gave her something she could use and look at every day. And she did. She made those gloves last until Nikin’s twelfth birth anniversary.”
Salomen caressed the soft leather, noting every stain. “Then she wore them when I started working with her. I never paid any attention.”
“By that time, they weren’t much to look at. You wanted gloves like Nikin’s.”
“Oh, yes, the yellow ones!” She chuckled. “Those were ugly as the south end of a northbound fanten.”
“That they were, but you would not rest until you had a pair.”
“I had no taste then.”
“You do now.” He nodded toward the gloves. “Keep them.”
“No, Father, I cannot—”
“It’s not often a man can give the same gift twice,” he said gently. “With just as much love.”
She swallowed down the tightness in her throat and held the gloves against her chest. “Thank you. This means . . . everything. She wore these every day.”
He nodded. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Andira loves you like that. She would lay down her life for you. She already proved that.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“This is just your first fight. It won’t be your last. It won’t end the world or your relationship. Give yourself time to work through your anger. It’s all right to need time. I had six lengths of walking in the rain to work through mine, and your mother—well, she had a free hantick and a lovely soak in the tub.”
“She had the better end of the deal.” Salomen smiled down at her gloves.
“Not really. She had to teach a prideful young man how to accept love. I think in this case, you’re the one who needs to accept it.”
Caught by surprise, she could only stare as he pushed back his chair and came to her side of the table. Stooping down, he dropped a kiss on her cheek and walked out of the kitchen.
36
Unexpected guest
“Bondlancer Opah, I’m sorry to disturb you.” It was Guard Demerah, standing at the top of the back steps. Salomen hadn’t heard her approach, so lost in thought was she.
“Yes?”
“You have a guest arriving by transport. Lancer Tal already cleared it. She, er, she said the guest’s identity should be a surprise. But if you want to know . . .”
The implication was clear. Demerah was not sworn to Andira, but orders from the Lancer did carry weight. She was trying to juggle her loyalties, and Salomen’s first thought was to demand the guest’s name and settle the issue that way. But that would put Demerah in the difficult position of having gone against Andira’s orders.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll wait for the surprise.”
Demerah thumped a fist to her chest and made her way back down the steps.
Salomen had been out on the back deck for a hantick, steadily working her way through a bottle of her father’s good spirits. She normally went into the fields when she was home, but both Shikal and Nikin had forbidden it when they gathered in the dining room for midmeal.
“Remember, we promoted Jeshen to pick up what you couldn’t do,” Nikin had said, waving a fork at her. “If you keep running out there, you’re going to give him a complex.”
“Jeshen is prone to complexes,” Shikal agreed.
That was utter dokshin. Jeshen was one of the most unflappable men in the district, a fact she pointed out to them with absolutely no effect.
Defeated, she had come out here and dragged one of the chairs to the edge of the deck. With her feet up on the bottom railing—now in sandals; she had changed out of her formal clothing before midmeal—she gazed at the Snowmount Range and sipped the dark blue spirits. In her lap were her mother’s gloves, a gift she could not stop touching.
She had tried them on after her father left the kitchen. They fit perfectly.
The sky overhead was a faultless blue, but up near the Snowmounts, clouds were gathering and building rapidly into the towering columns that meant one of two things: thunderstorms or a summer windstorm. She hoped it was the former, but had a feeling it might be the latter.
Heat made the air hazy and brought with it the heady scent of cut grainstems; their western neighbors were harvesting today. Salomen bet they were eyeing these clouds and swearing themselves purple.
A new sound rose over the drone of insects, signifying a transport approaching from the east. With a sudden unreasoning irritation, she refused to look until it slowed to a hover. Only then did she turn her head to see who Andira had sent out.
The black-and-silver transport was a familiar model. Andira had one like it, as did all the caste Primes. It was an armored four-seater designed for security and comfort, and Salomen had no idea who was flying it. She stood up, set her drink and gloves on the top rail, and walked over to the steps as the transport settled on the ground.
While the engines were still spinning down, the pilot’s door opened and an unmistakable figure stepped out. Tall and lean, her hair in its usual braid, Lhyn Rivers pointed back at the transport and called out, “What do you think of my new toy?”
All annoyance vanished as Salomen trotted down the steps. “When did you get that?”
“Today. It’s been on order since our bonding ceremony. Something about shifting funds from west to east?”
Salomen met her in a two-handed palm touch, smiling at the idiom. “East to west, and don’t tell me you didn’t know that. Who shifted funds for you?”
“The Council, believe it or not. When they were worried that Ekatya and I might be targets because of our tyree bond, they allocated funds for protection.” Lhyn pulled her to the open transport door. “Then there was some confusion about who got the contract, and I don’t know what happened after that. But the end result is, we’re not targets and I still get this plush ride.”
Salomen ducked her head inside. “It smells new.”
“It smells fabulous. I’ve never had anything this nice before! If I’d known all I had to do to get one of these was bond with Ekatya, I’d have set that date the day after we got here.”
Running her hand over the luxurious material of the pilot’s seat, Salomen said, “No, you wouldn’t. You had to get the trial behind you first. This is even softer than Andira’s; she’s going to be jealous.”
“I think she’s mostly relieved that I’m not flying rented rattlebuckets any longer.”
Salomen backed out and straightened. “You talked to her.”
“She talked to Ekatya first.”
“Of course she did,” Salomen muttered.
“—and then came to me and said she thought you needed a friend,” Lhyn continued. “So I flew out to see if you wanted a proper Gaian warmron.”
