The Price of Desire (The HouseOf Light And Shadow Book 1) Page 36

  “I’m warning you.”

  “I’ve set the date for a week tomorrow—your birthday.”

  Kisten glared, and Ceres smiled benevolently.

  Kisten concluded that, on the subject of certain customs being barbaric, his lovely bride might have a point. He wondered again where she was, and felt a stab of irritation at whoever was hosting this recital for stealing her. Which was utterly irrational; as much as he might like to, he couldn’t expect Aria to lock herself indoors and await his pleasure. Especially when, he had to admit, he was never home.

  Still, he’d wanted to see her and he’d expected to see her and he was annoyed. He was also annoyed with his grandfather, and decided that he needed some fresh air. Standing abruptly, he crossed to the double doors and let himself outside.

  As he traversed the compound, he passed a group of native carters unloading bags of grain from a lorry and stacking them in one of the storehouses. They didn’t see him, and he didn’t draw attention to himself, but he listened. They were chatting in their own language, various dialects of which were common all over the continent. Upon arriving on Tarsonis, Kisten had been horrified to learn that almost no one in the administration spoke Tarsoni—of any dialect. Neither Governor Jhansi nor his predecessors had seen the need. Bronte was, after all, the lingua franca of the empire; the Tarsoni could learn to speak Bronte.

  The chief commissioner had been rather patronizing, imagining that Kisten was simply too stupid to realize that—to the chief commissioner’s mind—everyone could already communicate perfectly adequately. Learning a new language was, therefore, both unnecessary and a waste of valuable time. Kisten had been so incensed he’d had to leave the meeting.

  General Bihar, at least, had agreed with Kisten that the chief commissioner was an entitled ass. Command of one or more of the local dialects was a prerequisite for entry into the Blues at every level, and the general felt strongly that it should be a prerequisite for officer candidacy throughout the army. An officer needed to know his men, and any man who felt perfectly comfortable with the idea of his subordinates essentially speaking in code behind his back was not fit for command—at any level.

  Kisten had made a decent start, himself, having enlisted Finn as a tutor. Enjoying the reversal of roles more than he strictly should have, Finn nevertheless proved a patient and energetic helper. Moreover, the former street urchin possessed a uniquely colorful command of the vernacular.

  “So as the ship is about to crash,” one of the carters said, hoisting a bag of wheat onto his shoulder, “she stands up and cries, if I’m going to die, I want to die feeling like a woman!” Using his free hand, he gestured for emphasis. “The man gallantly strips his shirt off and says, here, iron this!”

  The men erupted into laughter, and Kisten melted back into the stand of trees. He’d grown angrier than ever, because they could have been talking about something far more sinister. They could have been plotting revolution right there in broad daylight, and no one would have known the difference.

  Kisten was still considering the logistical problem of implementing General Bihar’s proposed reforms—which duties should be cut back, to give the men the time for lessons and how should those lessons be evaluated?—when he arrived at the Hanafis’ bungalow.

  The late afternoon sun had burned off the mist, and now shone green through the trees. He could almost taste it, the air was so thick with green. Children ran screaming through the park, dashing in and out of the trees. One of them was hitting a poor dog with a stick, but the dog didn’t seem to mind. It was smiling and chuffing, in that way dogs did. The children’s voices echoed weirdly, muted as they were by the profusion of leaves.

  He stood still, watching, and thought to himself that this was one of those rare moments when even the homeliest thing looked beautiful. A thousand tricks of nature combined, seemingly at random, elevating even something as mundane as a military base to the almost divine. Five minutes later, the sun would just be sun and the leaves would just be leaves, the screaming would grate on his nerves and the heady scent of fresh cut grass would remind him of his allergies. The very magic of the experience lay in the fact that it couldn’t last.

  He turned and, summing himself up, rang the bell.

  While he waited for someone to notice him, Kisten took stock of the bungalow’s small front porch. It was neatly kept and painted a dull gray-blue. Someone had hung up a great many plants, all of which seemed to be flourishing. Kisten could name perhaps three plants, total. These appeared to have flowers on them, pink and purple and red. One of those mutant arboreal rodents poked its head out from between the leaves and began chattering at him. He glared back at it.

  The door opened.

  He’d expected one of the slaves to answer but, instead, was greeted by the mistress of the house herself. She seemed rather taken aback. “Lord Governor! This is….” She trailed off, uncertain. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said, recovering herself somewhat.

  “Madam Hanafi.” He sketched a curt bow.

  “Deliah, please. Come in!” she exclaimed, opening the door. He found himself in a small, well-lit hall that was both airy and pleasant. Deliah bit her lip; now that she’d invited him in, she was evidently at a loss for what to do with him. “I’m afraid the Major isn’t at home.”

  I should hope not, thought Kisten irritably. He’d be a damned useless officer if he was lolling about at home, taking his ease with a gaggle of silly geese. Laughter filtered in from the other room, confirming Kisten’s general belief that all women were in fact silly geese. “I’ve been told,” he said, forcing himself into some semblance of pleasantry, “that Aria might be here?”

  “Oh…did you want her somewhere else?” Deliah’s eyes widened.

  Kisten had, he knew, something of a reputation. Deliah was, apparently, aware of it and laboring under the mistaken impression that Kisten had sufficient time and interest to catalogue Aria’s every movement. He wondered, with interest, what the Major had told her. Deliah also seemed concerned that Kisten might be upset with his consort for leaving the house. With her wide-set eyes and large nose, the woman actually looked like a goose. She was certainly built like one. God, he was in an even worse mood than he’d thought.

  “No, not at all,” he assured Deliah suavely. “I’m thrilled that Aria has made such delightful friends.” He wasn’t, but never mind. “As I find myself at liberty,” he continued, hoping he sounded friendly, “I thought I’d drop in and say hello. I hope I’m not imposing,” he added, not caring whether he was imposing at all. He favored her with a charming smile.

  “Oh.” She smiled back. “Oh! Please, come in and sit down.”

  She ushered him into a small salon bordered on three sides by windows. Various chairs and couches had been grouped in a loose circle and occupied by about half a dozen women. He saw Aria before she saw him. She was angled slightly away from the door and her concentration was on a lanky, sallow-faced girl clutching a tablet. The poet, he presumed. Aria’s eyes were alight with amusement, her cheeks slightly flushed. Her hair had been pulled back into a simple bun, her sheer veil doing nothing to disguise its luster. It framed her face, draping in soft folds over a shoulder covered in soft, cream-colored cotton. One of the other women said something, and she laughed. He loved the sound of her laughter.

  Hearing movement, Aria turned and their eyes met.

  “The Lord Governor,” Deliah announced, “is joining us for tea!”

  SIXTY-ONE

  No I’m not, Kisten thought. Deliah clapped her hands delightedly. “I’m sure he’d love to hear one of your lovely poems, Bell,” she said, addressing the girl with the tablet. Kisten wondered how he’d gotten himself into this mess, and how he might possibly get himself out of it.

  At this point however, it would be rude to simply collect Aria and leave. Her eyes searched his, becoming solemn, and her smile faltered slightly. She, too, was wondering if he was upset.

  Which, in her defense, he hadn’t imagine
d that he’d be here either. He smiled slightly, and she smiled back. He knew she felt self-conscious, sometimes, because she looked so different in her own eyes; but he continued to think, every time he saw her, that he’d never beheld anything so beautiful. Her nathuni glinted, catching the light. The diamond was tiny and delicate; just like her, he’d thought when he’d picked it out. Being a traditionalist, he felt of course that symbols of devotion to her husband enhanced a woman. Aria needed no enhancement, but seeing it filled him with a sense of possession that was very pleasant.

  “Good afternoon,” he said quietly.

  “My Lord.” Aria inclined her head slightly.

  Everyone introduced themselves in turn.

  The sharp-eyed Braxi was, of course, the infamous Lei of the Egg Incident. She was sitting next to Aria. Deliah resumed her place on a small loveseat, taking up most of the available space. Two other overweight, middle-aged women had graced this recital-turned-tea: Sachi and Pasha, both of whom were married to officers of middle rank and both of whom were Bronte. There was the poet, of course, Bell, seated between Aria’s erstwhile traveling companions.

  Alice was dressed simply in blue and looked frightened. Kisten wondered, as he had before, if this had all been too much, too quickly. Something should be done to find out but the truth was, he forgot that Alice even existed once she was out of his sight and he had far more important concerns than the emotional problems of teenaged girls. Deliah was a competent enough guardian; he’d just have to let her do her job.

  And then there was Naomi. She batted her eyelashes at him in what she no doubt imagined was a coy fashion, and he felt vaguely repelled. She was, thank God, sitting on the opposite side of the room. Even if he’d found her physically attractive, which he did not, her casual disregard of Aria’s feelings was—in a word—classless. He’d flirted with married women often enough, but never in front of their husbands; and never when that husband was a friend. Then again, men shared a loyalty toward one another that women often did not.

  Another thing men had, despite what women might think, was common sense. A certain kind of woman imagined that if she displayed her charms for a man and he failed to respond, then he simply hadn’t noticed. Or was homosexual. Men are backwards, she’d confide to her friends with a condescending wink, not realizing that no man was that backwards. In truth, the poor sod was probably trying to save his would-be lover embarrassment by, as his father would say, rising above it.

  Seating himself in a deep, overstuffed chair, he allowed himself to be plied with coffee and biscuits and tried to focus his attention elsewhere. Deliah evidently believed that all men took enough cream and sugar to bake a cake, and the almond apricot biscuits were inedible. He complimented her on her hospitality, and wondered again when he could leave.

  “Should I read The Ballad of Fido the Faithful again?” asked Bell.

  “No darling,” Deliah said indulgently, “I’m sure that Fido has delighted us long enough. Perhaps His Lordship would care to hear one of your other poems? Perhaps one of your poems about—which battle was it, now?”

  Aria hid her smile behind the rim of her cup.

  “You know,” Deliah prompted, “the one where you compare blood to vomit?”

  “Oh!” Pasha cried, rolling her eyes as she indulged in a dramatic show of distaste, “no more blood. No more battles! We get quite enough of that as it is, living as we do in this heathen hellhole of a place. When it isn’t floods it’s mosquitoes, and when it isn’t mosquitoes it’s mud as deep as my knees. And oh, God, the natives! When they’re not running around with guns and swords—swords!—and heaven knows what else trying to kill each other, or us, they’re trying to ruin our children.” She turned her round, dark face on Kisten. “Something has to be done about it.” She pouted.

  “Our husbands have worse,” Sachi corrected softly.

  “Speak for yourself,” Pasha replied. “The educational situation is terrible, and both of the children are speaking to me in—Tarsoni.” She said the word in hushed tones, as though she’d said plague. To Kisten, who spoke three languages and was working on a fourth, this hardly sounded like the knell of disaster. Which clearly, to Pasha—and, he suspected, to many of the women in the cantonment—it was.

  Here, much like on Charon II, people feared that looming specter of going native. They seemed to take it as a given that merely acknowledging the existence of other cultures would make these children reject their own. Which didn’t display much confidence in the desirability of Bronte life.

  “That awful amah,” she continued, “has taught them several words. And so have the gardener’s children!”

  “My husband encourages it,” Sachi commented.

  Pasha fixed her with a dolorous stare. “Mark my words,” she said portentously, adopting the tone of a much-maligned prophet, “the next thing you know, they’ll all be bowing down to foreign gods. It’s one or two words today—and foreign gods tomorrow. That’s why even some of the men—grown men!” She shivered in distaste. “This mixing isn’t natural.”

  Kisten was sorely tempted to say something, and didn’t.

  “Why do they use swords?” It was Naomi who spoke, changing the topic.

  He answered her. “The basic science behind laser-powered guns has been around for centuries but, until recently, we’ve had difficulty translating it from the kind of large-bore mounted cannon used on ships to sidearms. The smaller cartridge took about ninety seconds to recharge, which wasn’t a problem with rifles but was a serious problem when it came to actual combat. Generally, the rebel coalition and other groups who purchase on the black market can only afford, or only have access to, the older guns and so they use other weapons—like swords—to compensate.”

  “That’s fascinating,” Naomi breathed. “Tell us about your gun.”

  Deliah choked on her coffee.

  “Don’t you want to hear my poem?” Bell asked, a plaintive note to her voice.

  “We’d love to hear your poem,” Deliah managed.

  “First,” Pasha announced, “there’s something I want to address.” She turned her small, glittering eyes on Kisten; they looked like marbles pressed into raw bread dough. “Soap,” she said feelingly.

  “Pardon?” Kisten blinked, taken aback.

  “Actually,” Deliah began, tone thoughtful, “since you’re here, Lord Governor, I’d like to discuss something as well.”

  Kisten waited. Aria, he noted, remained uncharacteristically silent but seemed to be enjoying the interchange. She was still smiling slightly, that small, secret smile he’d come to recognize.

  Pasha began declaiming, voice strident. “The soap situation is terrible. We used to receive shipments of lavender scented soap, but ever since the governor died we’ve been getting just any old thing! Last month it was some ghastly green thing that smelled like deodorant and the month before that—”

  “I think it’s whatever’s cheapest,” Sachi added helpfully.

  “It’s terrible!”

  Deliah nodded, forced to agree. “And as for other niceties, like hair oil and hand cream—fat chance!” She wrinkled up her nose in disgust. “Someone needs to explain to those idiots in the customs office that we’re trying to moisturize, not smuggle in bomb-making equipment.” She smiled, a little sheepishly. “You must forgive us but, you see, it’s not often that we’re given an opportunity to voice our concerns—and directly to the governor!”

  “Of course,” Kisten said mildly. Next they’d be telling him that they thought the battlements looked ugly. Women. He supposed that, having lived such sheltered lives, they had no notion of what constituted a real problem and perhaps this was one, to them.

  He was reminded, once again and rather forcefully, of why he’d always made a point of avoiding serious attachments. It wasn’t that Kisten disliked women; he didn’t. He simply couldn’t relate to them—nor they to him. He knew a great many men who, after fighting the good fight for ten hours or so, donned suitable attire and spent the
evening entertaining ladies with lighthearted nonsense. They honestly seemed to enjoy themselves, too, pretending as though nothing went through their heads but the color of their uniforms and who was hosting what party.

  A certain degree of suaveness was expected of a naval commander as well, but social engagements were much easier to avoid. The civil service was made for men like Setji Tata; who would, undoubtedly, enjoy this conversation far more. He made a mental note to ask the Financial Commissioner for a progress report on his examination of the previous administration’s records. Already, Setji—who was, if not honest, then too self-interested to lie—had uncovered a level of graft surprising even to Kisten.

  “My Lord Governor?”

  Deliah had been talking to him. “You’ll have to excuse me, madam,” he said, “I was momentarily transported by your biscuit.” To Hell. He wondered what exactly she’d put in those things.

  “I was remarking on the fact that we have two lovely young women staying under our roof. Two eligible young women.” That disingenuous smile was back. “There are so many eligible young men.” She sighed. Eligible young men were the reason—the only reason—so many young women came to the colonies.

  Deliah herself had come as part of the “fishing fleet,” according to her husband, the horde of hopeful would-be brides that arrived in every colony every spring. They found husbands, many of them—chronic loneliness forced otherwise intelligent men into desperate action—but once the thrill of the hunt was over they also found themselves trapped in remote rural postings with nothing to do.

  Even the most advanced colonies boasted few of the comforts that Bronte women took for granted, and sometimes the price of desire proved too high. Some, like Deliah, made the best of things and even learned to love their new homes; others, like Pasha, grew to resent the men they believed had ruined their lives. Some went home, leaving their husbands behind. Ultimatums were issued, tears were shed, and local mistresses were taken.