Chapter Nineteen
Abrupt though his manner had been, Healer Pearson appeared to know what he was talking about, as after a day or so I began to feel a great deal better. I hadn’t realized how tired I had felt, how constant the nausea had gotten, how much my head had hurt.
I didn’t suggest we return to the roster. I wanted to, now that I was feeling a little better, but I didn’t want Pearson to feel forced to take us off. If he did, he would then send a report to the Triple S council to inform them why the removal was necessary. While the removal was quick, I had no doubt that resuming our duties would be a much longer process, because we would have to convince Pearson I was well again, wait for him to write another report and send it to the council, then wait for the council to actually read it, make a decision and send word back that we could work. That could take ages.
I sipped on a cup of tea the healer had recommended. I had to give him this, he recommended good tea. It smelled nice and was soothing on the stomach.
“You have a letter from Morgan Williams,” Taro called from the foyer.
I was in the kitchen. It was so childish to shout from the kitchen to the foyer. I did it anyway. “Who’s Williams?”
“The chap who owns the bordellos.”
Oh, that was right.
Firth, who had been silently buttering some toast as a prelude to escaping my presence, raised her eyebrows at me in an expression of disapproval. “You are keeping company with the owner of a bordello now, are you?”
My first impulse was to exult over the quality of his services. Since that would be a lie in which I could be too easily caught, I said, “I am.”
Taro entered the kitchen at this time, handing me the correspondence.
“Do you really think that’s appropriate?” Firth demanded.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Taro asked.
“He lives off the profits of people selling their bodies for money!”
“It’s perfectly legal.”
“Unfortunately, a great many immoral acts are perfectly legal. That does not mean those acts should be condoned or executed.”
This was not a discussion worth having. I opened the envelope and found within it an invitation to dinner. This created a sort of conflict within me. The dinner at Fines’s home had been interesting enough, but I’d felt very out of place there. However, it would clearly irritate Firth if Taro and I accepted the invitation, and given how much Firth was aggravating me, I thought it was time to return the favor. I handed the letter to Taro. “I’d like to go.”
He read it quickly and smirked. “Should be interesting.”
Firth huffed. “If you aren’t going to have any respect for yourselves, you might show some consideration for the rest of us. What you two do reflects badly on all of us.”
“What the two of us do also reflects very well on all of you,” Taro retorted, and I thought it timely that Firth be reminded of all the exceptional things Taro had done.
Firth clearly disagreed. “Arrogance does not become you.”
“On the contrary, it’s one of my most endearing qualities. Ask anyone.”
“Dunleavy,” Firth said to me, attempting to cut Taro out of the conversation, going so far as to put her back to him. Which was really odd, as he was standing right there. “You have never been foolish. You know this is an inappropriate course of action. Why are you pursuing this?”
Really, I had to frown at her, she was overreacting so very much. “It’s dinner,” I said. “I was introduced to this man by respectable people and found him amiable. I’m not going to let people who have never met him shape my opinion of him.”
Firth stared at me. “What happened to you while you were away? You were so decent before you left.”
“And you weren’t nearly so judgmental.” I’d really liked her before we’d left. She’d made me laugh. She’d been able to make Taro blush. Anyone who could do that was someone to admire. This new—or old but previously unrevealed—side to her nature was really disappointing.
“I’m only saying what all the others are thinking.”
Was she? That was even more disappointing. It still wasn’t going to change my mind. “I’ll send an acceptance when we get back,” I told Taro, for Firth’s benefit.
Firth left. Success.
Taro took the mug from my hand, sniffed at its contents and gave it back.
Then I smelled the mug. The tea smelled normal.
“Aside from annoying Firth,” he said “which is a motive I can commend given her behavior, you don’t really want to accept Williams’s invitation, do you?”
“There’s no reason not to.”
“Really,” he said with flat skepticism.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Just that you aren’t the sort to approve of someone like Williams.”
I found that insulting. “And you’re the sort who would approve?”
“I’m not saying I approve, just that I don’t disapprove.”
“But you feel I do disapprove.” Because I, apparently, was judgmental and rigid and would therefore look down on people because of issues that were none of my business.
“I’m just saying I thought you’d be uncomfortable with the idea.”
“All out of nowhere, without my having said anything about anything to make you think that way.”
“I’m not trying to start an argument.”
“Is there some reason why you don’t want me to accept this invitation?”
He held up his hands in a mocking gesture of surrender. “Far be it from me to have reasons.” He backed out of the kitchen.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was probably insulting to someone.
Really, I didn’t know what was wrong with him lately. He was so touchy. He was almost never in a good mood. I hated to even think this, it was so shallow, but he hadn’t been much fun lately.
“Not one more step!” I heard LaMonte roar, and I ran from the kitchen to the front door, from where I’d heard the shout. LaMonte shouting was such an unanticipated event that I envisioned something catastrophic occurring.
At first, all I saw was LaMonte glaring at a strange woman standing in the threshold of the residence. Then I saw the crowd of strangers behind her. I thought of the time a furious, frustrated crowd had nearly torn down the residence during the Harsh Summer. Then, they had felt the Pairs weren’t doing enough to calm the violent, unseasonable weather. What had them so enraged this time?
“Kafar told us,” the woman claimed with the air of someone who was repeating herself. She was wearing a dark dress that hung close to her arms and legs, and a dark leather apron. I could smell her from where I stood. Not necessarily a bad smell, just kind of astringent. “Why won’t you heal us?”
Oh, hell. That was right. Kafar. The man Taro had completely failed to heal, because Taro couldn’t do that sort of thing. I should have expected that to come back on us in some way.
“Sources are not healers, you ridiculous woman,” LaMonte said, and I had a feeling he was repeating himself, too. He held his head high so it was easier to peer down his nose at the interloper, who was about his height. “Clear off before the Runners come and arrest you.”
“You have to heal us! It’s your duty!”
“It’s our duty to protect the city. That is all.”
That was, I thought, a rather warped way to interpret our obligations. What was the point of preserving a city if one didn’t preserve the people who lived there? Not that we could do anything for individuals.
It was quite a crowd, several dozens of men, women and even children, all wearing dark, practical clothing. They covered the driveway and were obstructing traffic on the street. This couldn’t end well. I stood beside LaMonte. “Source Karish wasn’t able to help Kafar,” I told the woman.
“Hush, Dunleavy,” LaMonte hissed. “I’m handling this.”
Don’t hush me. “Source Karish can’t help you.”
The woman squinted at me. She was pale and sweating, and the lines about her eyes made me wonder if she had a headache. “You his Shield?”
“Aye.”
“Fetch him.”
Really, how dare she give me orders?
But I could see that all the people behind her were as pale and shiny as she, and at least a handful of them looked an alarming shade of green. One man was holding a young boy, about five years old, I guessed, in his arms. The child was exhausted, his head lying against the man’s shoulder, too tired to fuss about his discomfort. The sight of him made me ashamed of my impatience.
It did not, unfortunately, change reality. “I am truly sorry, but Source Karish wasn’t able to do anything for Kafar.”
“Kafar is healed,” she announced. “He told us. He sent us here.”
There had to be a saying somewhere about how being kind could swing back to punch you in the face.
“He was reckless to make such a claim,” LaMonte interjected. “You have no right to be here. Leave.”
Not the best way to get the goal accomplished, I thought.
And as if in confirmation of that opinion, the woman looked back at her supporters, and almost as one they all took a step forward. I could almost feel the air they pushed before them. Their rigid determination sent a shiver down my spine. “All right!” I said quickly. “I’ll find Source Karish. Please stay calm.”
“What are you doing?” LaMonte demanded in a sharp whisper.
“Preventing a riot,” I whispered back.
I found Taro in his suite, reading a letter. It appeared to be a good letter. He was smiling and his eyes were sparkling. I wished I didn’t have to be the one to drive that expression off his face. “We’ve got a problem.”
“I love my cousin,” he declared with a grin. “She’s driving Her Grace insane.”
I was in full support of anything that tormented Taro’s mother, and I wanted to hear all about it, but it would have to be later. “I’m serious. Kafar told a whole bunch of people you healed him, and they’re all here.” I was surprised he hadn’t heard the noise in the street, even if his suite was on the other side of the building.
He folded up the letter. “I didn’t heal him. I told him that.”
“Apparently he’s better and he’s telling people you’re responsible. That crowd expects you to treat them. And there was a point when I thought they were going to push their way in whether we liked it or not.”
“We?”
“LaMonte and I.”
“Chris. Oh, that’s just lovely.” He sighed as he rubbed his face. “What should we do?”
“We?” I squeaked. “I have no idea.”
“Of course you do.”
“I really, really don’t.” All the options were bad. I didn’t know if we could get them to leave if we refused to try to help them, and they might turn into a mob. We could wait until Runners could be fetched to send them away, but the crowd would only return and we’d find ourselves in the same spot. Or Taro could pretend to try to heal them, and if they, like Kafar, thought they had actually been healed, we could find ourselves with a new, even bigger crowd. There was just no winning.
Taro swore and jumped up. I followed him downstairs, where Firth and Beatrice had joined LaMonte at the front door. Lovely. All my favorite people, all in the same place.
“Explain this, Dunleavy,” Firth ordered.
I contemplated the various hand gestures that might be appropriate in the circumstances. “LaMonte knows.”
“No, LaMonte doesn’t know,” the man in question stated. “LaMonte hasn’t been graced with adequate explanations himself.”
Taro ignored all of us. He could be good at that. “Who’s in charge here?”
It was almost entertaining the way the crowd eased back from the woman who’d been doing all the talking. She didn’t seem surprised by their actions. “Kafar said you healed him,” she said.
“He’s mistaken.”
“He’s better.”
“That’s wonderful, but it’s not because of anything I did. However,” he added quickly, for she had opened her mouth to object. “I will do what I did with him. I will do my best for you, and for everyone here, on the condition that not one of you mentions this to anyone else.”
“Pure idiocy,” LaMonte muttered.
I kind of agreed with him. I hated it when that happened.
“Do you accept those conditions?” Taro asked.
“Aye,” the woman answered.
“And the others?”
“They’ll hold to it. I’ll make sure.”
He suddenly seemed to gain in height as he said, “You’d better. You’ll be held responsible if they don’t.”
I was impressed by his delivery. He sounded sure, serious and authoritative. One would almost assume he had the means to punish people who failed to do as he wished.
“Get everyone lined up in an orderly fashion. For gods’ sake, get them out of the street. Send them in one at a time.”
“So you can do what, exactly?” LaMonte demanded.
“Demonstrate that I’m unable to heal them.”
“One at a time?” Firth felt compelled to toss in a coin, too. “That’ll take all day.”
At least.
“It will cause great disruption for all of us,” Firth complained. “Can you never think of anyone other than yourselves?”
I thought the fact that Taro wasn’t telling everyone to clear off demonstrated great thought for others.
“I take it, then, Claire, that you won’t be assisting in serving refreshments while they wait?” Taro asked.
Firth glared at him and stomped off. Beatrice wandered off after her. I had the feeling he really didn’t care one way or the other.
“You can’t use our residence for this purpose,” said LaMonte. “I forbid it.”
Taro laughed.
I wondered whether LaMonte’s deep red flush was due to anger or to humiliation.
“I really don’t think we have the option of saying no, LaMonte.” For what I believed was the first time in our acquaintance, I was trying to soothe LaMonte. The world had to be ending. “They don’t look like they’re prepared to leave quietly. It could have gotten messy.”
LaMonte snorted, but he didn’t actually dispute my common sense. He wasn’t prepared to help, though, either, and I was disappointed when he walked off. It would have been nice to have some assistance in dealing with all these people.
“Who first?” Taro asked the woman.
And thus began what turned into a very long, hard day. Taro took them to the private dining room, as we hoped that would be less disturbing to the other Pairs than to have dozens and dozens of strangers traipsing up and down the stairs all day. Not that everyone in the house didn’t find a reason and a chance to complain anyway.
Every person was asked to sit in a chair. Taro put a palm on his or her shoulder. He didn’t spend nearly as long with any of them as he had spent with Kafar, but he did make an honest effort at channeling. After, of course, explaining that he couldn’t heal them, and he was merely humoring them.
No one seemed to believe him, which I found odd. They were trusting him to heal them, yet they thought he was a liar.
As a whole, they were a quiet, timid group. Even the bold spokeswoman seemed to lower her voice and her eyes once she was in the residence, moving from place to place only as instructed and asking no further questions. The one exception was a pretty young man who flirted with Taro with disturbing skill. He was also clearly terrified. I would have thought less of Taro had he not flirted back, a manner of making him feel better.
It was difficult working with these people. They were so desperate, so hopeful that Taro was providing some miracle cure. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t able to do anything.
I wanted to ask them about this illness, about which I was receiving so many conflicting reports. Were people dying of it, or were they not? Was it contagious or was it not? Did they know of the suspicions that it was a problem with the water? And even if it were, what could they do about it? People had to use water. But even I wasn’t so tactless as to treat them to an inquisition while they were pursuing a fool’s path to a fake cure.
Why weren’t the healers handling this, anyway?
Dare I ask Cree?
There were so many of them—that was the frightening thing. And I was under no illusion that these were all the ill people in the riverfront areas. These were just the most desperate of what was probably a much larger group.
The sun was dipping down by the time we escorted the last visitor to the front door. I had a blistering headache. It was an easy form of Shielding, but I’d never done it for hours at a stretch.
It was a relief to finally close the front door of the residence. I was tired and desperately wanted to lie down. But the sight that greeted us in the foyer stopped me cold.
On the table was a vase, an odd-looking vase of an earthy reddish brown color and a rectangular shape. In the vase were flowers with which I was unfamiliar, their blossoms an eye-piercing yellow. There was a small, dark, round cake balanced right in there among the blossoms, which was just bizarre. And hanging from the rim of the vase, a pair of earrings, short lengths of gold with small pearls at the end.
There was a small card leaning against the base of the vase, the script informing us that this floral thing was for me and from Doran. There was no other information on the card. “What the hell is this?”
“An expression of intent,” Taro said with a scowl.
“Intent to what?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
“An intent to engage in negotiations for a contract of marriage,” he explained, almost spitting out the words.
Marriage? Was Doran insane? Why would he do that? Even if we had ever had a relationship close enough to suggest marriage, I had no property and no powerful connections. It was unnecessary and ridiculous.
“Flowers signify personal affection,” Taro continued. “ The color of the vase represents stability, the earrings represent financial security and the cake represents fertility.”
There was so much wrong with all of that. “Why would he send me something like this?”
“Excellent question,” Taro said shortly.
“Don’t you dare,” I warned him. “I told him that I wasn’t interested in anything like that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m damn well sure.”
Taro didn’t answer. He just stormed off. I had no interest in calling him back, as he was acting like an idiot.
So was Doran. Really, the flower arrangement was quite hideous. Why did he send it? I didn’t believe for a moment that he was suggesting marriage or anything like it, because that was just insane. So what was he playing at?
“If you don’t want to start negotiations, you send it back.”
I looked up. Benedict was leaning against the wall near the entrance to the kitchen, a cup of what smelled like tea in her hand. “Throwing it away isn’t sufficient?” I’d planned on sending the vase and the earrings back, of course, but that seemed troublesome for the cake and the flowers.
She shook her head. “You have to send it back in its entirety. Anything less denotes acceptance of the gesture.”
That struck me as a deceitful way to handle things, and I was disappointed in Doran for engaging in that kind of behavior. He knew many of these little customs were outside my circle of knowledge. What if I had been alone when the flowers had arrived, and I’d thought the arrangement was nothing significant? I would have taken the arrangement to my suite, and no one would have seen it to warn me of its meaning. I would have sent back the earrings, possibly the vase, and kept the flowers, thereby accidentally committing myself to something.
I sighed and grabbed the ugly arrangement, leaving the residence to find the nearest messenger port. Really, men did the stupidest things sometimes.