Quatrain (24 page)

“I am gratified that that has appeared to be the case,” he said.

Footsteps on the nearby sidewalk sounded shockingly loud; a woman’s laugh floated toward them in the still air. Kerk and Jalci leapt apart as if an axe had sliced down between them, but they were still staring at each other as a cluster of blueskin women clattered by, hurrying toward the Centrifuge.

“More reminders that we are not alone in the world,” Jalci said. She sounded as if she was smiling, but she also sounded as if it took some effort.

“And that we both have other places to be,” Kerk said. “Time, indeed, to go home.”

For the first time since he had known her, they departed in separate ringcars, Jalci cheerily waving good-bye as she sent her vehicle lunging into the thin late-evening traffic. Kerk drove more slowly, keeping to the bottom lane, terrified of miscalculating speed or distance or reaction time and causing a pileup in the tunnels. He had already made a seriously dangerous mistake in judgment; it seemed only too possible that he would err again.

W
hen Kerk returned to the Lost City three days later, he was completely in command of himself again and not even worried about the little thrill he might feel the first time he laid eyes on Jalci. He knew, if she did not, that their relationship—however exciting it might be—could never progress beyond its current stage. He would not be tempted into more light flirtations; he would not let her take his hand or joke about marriage or continue to toy with the heart of a gulden man. He would be rational; he would be cool; he would treat her with the same courteous remoteness he offered to the lady Del.

He would do none of those things, for she was not there.

She was visiting with her mother, who had come to the city unexpectedly, Del told him. She might not be back at the charity bank for four or five days. Kerk nodded, as if the information was of limited interest to him, and then he inquired after his mother. When Del reported that she had no news, he nodded again. It was hard to know which of Del’s announcements had disappointed him more.

At the gym, he put the boys through a particularly grueling training session. At home that evening, he invited Makk to a game of choisin, and they played till late that night, ending in a draw. At work over the next few days, Kerk attacked his assignments with such absorption that Brolt twice had to remind him to go home when it was almost the dinner hour. But in this way, the time passed; the days seemed full instead of empty.

When Kerk made his way back to Del’s office three days later, he had convinced himself that Jalci would not be there. No doubt her mother was still in town, requiring Jalci’s attendance, reminding Jalci of all the reasons she should not make alliances with gulden men.

So it was something of a shock to see Jalci’s face the minute he stepped inside Del’s office. He thought he was successful at hiding his leap of happiness, which was powerful enough to skew his balance for a moment. He was pretty sure he kept his voice cool as he said, “Del told me your mother was in town. Has she found a husband for you yet?”

She laughed, but he thought the sound was forced. “No, but not for lack of trying. She went home this morning, discouraged by her lack of success.”

“No doubt she’ll be back soon with the same agenda.”

“No doubt.”

After this exchange of pleasantries, Kerk turned and gave Del a brief nod. “Good afternoon, lady Del. Do you have news of my mother for me?”

“I do,” she said.

The unadorned, unexpected reply froze him where he stood, but he managed to keep the neutral expression on his face. “I am glad to hear it,” he replied. “Can you give me details? Is she alive? Will she see me?”

“She will see you, and she is here,” Del replied. “She is waiting for you in the park out back.”

The “park” was a square of badly tended grass and a few haphazard trees interspersed with crumbling stone benches. Though recent nights had been freezing, the autumn afternoon was invitingly warm, perfect for sitting outside for an hour.

“I will go to her, then,” he said.

“Kerk,” Jalci said, her voice laced with concern. “Wait.”

He glanced at her, still letting nothing show in his expression. Not hope, not joy, not wild excitement. Not fear. “I have already waited,” he said.

“Can I come with you?”

She was trying to warn him without speaking a word. He kept his eyes on hers but shook his head. “I am prepared,” he said to reassure her. “I do not need assistance to take this meeting.”

Del pointed vaguely behind her. “Out back,” she repeated.

He nodded and left the room, almost blindly blundering down hallways to the creaking door that led to the park. The stunted trees were almost completely bare, the grass was ragged and brown, and three of the four benches were empty.

On the fourth one sat a gulden woman, facing the door, watching for him. She didn’t move when he stepped through the door, didn’t leap to her feet, didn’t cover her mouth with her hands to press back almost uncontainable joy. He stood still for a moment, allowing her to study him, studying her in turn. The shape of her face was as he remembered, though softened by time; the thick brown hair was shorter. She was dressed in plain, unremarkable clothes instead of the deep blues and rich reds she had worn on Gold Mountain, and her hands were folded tightly in her lap.

He would have picked her out from a hundred gulden women, from a thousand. If he closed his eyes when she began to speak, he would sway toward her voice like a child toward safety.

But he would not close his eyes.

Slowly he crossed the final twenty yards to her side, reminding himself to breathe. He came to a halt in front of her and inclined his head in the most respectful of bows.

“I believe you are the lady Bree,” he said, and he was proud to hear that his voice did not tremble. “I am your son.”

“Kerk,” she said. “Take a seat beside me and we will talk.”

He perched next to her on the bench, and for a moment they merely stared at each other. On her face he read rough work and harsh disappointments, minor triumphs, fierce dignity, and a hard-won peace. He had no idea what she read on his.

“The lady Del tells me you have been looking for me over the past several weeks,” she said.

“In my heart I have been looking for you for seventeen years,” he replied.

“I have not been eager to be found,” she said.

“Perhaps the lady Del has assured you that I am a good man who will offer you no harm.”

“Perhaps she has said that, but it is not an assurance that can be offered about any gulden man.”

“I believe it can,” he said quietly, “though perhaps not about any of the men you have known.”

“Does your father know you have been looking for me?”

“My father is dead,” he said. He was certain Del had shared this information, along with the news that Kerk could be trusted, or Bree would not be sitting here right now. Still, the words needed to be said; no doubt she could not hear them often enough to be satisfied.

“I am glad to hear it,” she replied.

There was a moment of silence. “So tell me what you will of your life in the city,” he said. “It could not have been easy for you to come here with no family to help you—”

“With every hand turned against me, and a baby at my breast,” she interrupted. “No, it was not easy. There were days neither of us had food, nights we slept on benches like this one because there was no other bed. There were weeks I had nothing but rage in my stomach and despair in my heart. But I never once wished myself back on Gold Mountain, living the life I had left behind.”

He gestured. “You look as if you have found your place here. You look fed and cared for and out of danger.”

“I found work and a place to live and a gradual measure of safety,” she said. “I cling to these things like a miser clings to his money.”

“No one is asking you to give them up.”

“Your very presence here asks something of me.”

“I already have what I have wanted for so long. My mother beside me, her face before me, her voice in my ear.”

The expression on her face, which had been briefly roused to belligerence, smoothed again to blankness. “What of your own life, once I was gone?” she asked.

“My father married a woman named Tess Dushay,” he said.

His mother frowned. “I think I knew her,” she said. “A pleasant woman, younger than me. Did she treat you with kindness?”

“Unfailingly.”

“And when your father died?”

“Tess went to Brolt Barzhan as his bride and I was raised in their household alongside their children. I am not his son, but Brolt Barzhan has told me I will always be treated as if I am his by blood.”

“So you have found your place as well,” she said.

He nodded. “And now that place appears to be in the city. My stepfather has moved his family from Geldricht, and I believe this is where he intends us all to stay.”

The look she gave him bolted him to the bench. Her dark-green eyes had always been brimming with emotions she was afraid to express, but now she looked ready to speak. “Do not think,” she said, “that you and I will meet fondly and often now that we have both found homes in the city.”

She was using the most precise language the circuitous goldtongue would allow; it was clear she did not want him to misunderstand her. “I have formed no expectations at all,” he said quietly. “But I did hope, having found you once, that I would not lose you again.”

“I was married to your father for ten years,” she said, as if he had asked her a question and this was the answer. “Out of those ten years, there might have been a dozen weeks when he did not bother to strike my face or beat my back or abuse my body in whatever fashion pleased him. My mother did not understand why I complained to her—this was how she had been treated for the entire time of her marriage. When I begged my father for assistance, he carried me back to my husband’s house and took his turn beside your father, raining blows upon my head. I had no happiness at all in those ten years except what I took from being with my children. When my son was first laid in my arms, I thought I understood why I had been forced to suffer so much. I thought that every joy must have a price, and my price was so steep because my joy was without bounds.”

He was too moved to know how to answer, but she gave him no time to construct a reply. “When my daughter was laid in my arms,” she continued, “I thought my heart would shatter into pieces. So much love I had for her! And at the same time, so much fear. She was so tiny and so delicate. How could I raise her to be strong enough to endure what I had endured? How could I be cruel enough to prepare her for a world that offered her no hope of anything except violence and pain? How could I love her, and feed her, and comb her yellow hair, and someday turn her over to a gulden man?”

“You left because my father hurt her,” Kerk said.

Her voice was hammered steel. “I left because
you
hurt her,” she said.

He felt his entire body chill with shock.

“
You
came to the nursery where she lay,” she continued in an implacable voice. “
You
stood over her, pinching her face and her little fingers, making her shriek, bruising that beautiful skin. I came running into the room to see what was making her scream, and I found
you
torturing your baby sister. Who knows what you would have done to her if I had not heard her crying? I left Gold Mountain because of
you
.”

Kerk could not speak. Horror had paralyzed him; revulsion had stopped his heart.

“I left a week later, knowing both of us could die upon the journey,” she said. “But that risk seemed smaller than raising my child in a house full of gulden men.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He could barely get the words past his strangled throat. “I have no memory of such behavior. I just remember a small girl, and my father’s anger, and the desperation on your face. It is as if I’m watching a scene filled with other people, but I am nowhere in it. If I did such things—”

“I never loved you after that day,” she said flatly. “I have not wondered once what became of you. I do not care now. I am only here to tell you to stop looking for me. There is nothing either of us has to give that the other one would want.”

“I would want forgiveness,” he said, barely breathing the words. “But there is nothing else I would ask of you.”

Bree Socast came to her feet. “I do not have even that much to offer,” she said. “Your search has ended. Let me go.”

She didn’t wait for an answer; she just walked away. Kerk thought she headed in the direction of the Centrifuge, not bothering to stop first in the main building and speak a farewell to Del. He couldn’t be sure; he wasn’t watching. He had buried his face in his hands and was trying with all his energy to keep his body from disintegrating into poisonous molecules of pain. He thought it was possible he would die of a broken heart on that very bench.

A shadow, a rustle, a warm shape settling beside him. He didn’t have the strength to look up or strike out, and he certainly didn’t have the ability to speak. But it was no surprise at all to hear Jalci’s voice, subdued and wracked with pity.

“Oh, Kerk, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “What did she say to you?”

He shook his head to indicate he could not answer. A gulden man did not show weakness to a woman; he did not turn to a woman for help. A gulden man must display strength at all times. He could not break down; he could not weep.

Kerk kept his face nestled in his hands and let the tears wash through his fingers. His breath was ragged and insufficient. He was showing weakness before an indigo woman and he couldn’t stop himself and he didn’t care.

She shifted beside him on the bench and put her arms around him, rocking him against her and brushing her lips against his exposed cheek. “She was so strange, when she spoke to us in Del’s office,” Jalci whispered in bluetongue. “So
cold
. I knew she was not interested in a reunion with you, but she must have done something worse than simply reject you. Kerk, what did she say? Tell me. You know I won’t stop asking until you tell me everything.”