Choices (22 page)

Matilda, at the head of the table, decided
the time had come to intervene. “If they ‘use that thing,’ ” she
quoted Raquel, ignoring Cassandra’s melodramatic words, “we will
need all the help we can get. Even you, Amalie. Whether you wish to
leave or not, if there’s another Eris uprising, your place is here,
as overseer of our cell.” She watched me unblinking, her face
impassive.

I stared back, unable to tell if she was glad
of an excuse to keep me here or resentful of the need for me. But
the weather was still wintry, and I had no place to go except
Eclipsia City. Now that most people were friendly again, it was
easier to stay here while I could. “I’m not planning to leave,” I
said. “Whether or not I see this ‘Eris,’ I will of course continue
to observe when the cell resumes work.”

Matilda nodded approval at my promise and we
left the table without further conversation, for which I was
grateful. Ever since Alicia and I had fought I had been having
headaches, minor at first, but increasingly painful, until after
ten days I had no respite from the pain, not even asleep, when I
could sleep. I had never suffered from headaches before, and I
became convinced I was punishing myself. It would have been
convenient to blame the others, but I knew they would have seen
such petty revenge as contemptible.

That night the pain was so bad I couldn’t lie
in bed, but paced in my room. Just as I was on the verge of
pounding my head against the wall, if only for the sake of variety,
there was a terrific crack in my mind, as if my skull had come
apart like an eggshell around a hatchling. I thought something had
broken, that my
crypta
was killing me, not having found
the expected refuge at La Sapienza. The relief was exquisite. I was
dying, I decided. Free from pain, I would float out of my body to
blessed oblivion.

Amalie
, Dominic said.
You must
speak to me, Amalie
. He was there, in the place where the pain
had been.

My love
, I said, unable to express
my gratitude, too near the end of my strength to feel surprise.
Kiss me goodbye
.

He did as I asked. He glued his lips to mine
in communion and plunged his tongue deep into my throat. He cupped
my head in his hands and held me in the kiss, so that I stopped
breathing entirely and began to pass out.
Goodbye
, I
thought to him with the last of my consciousness.

Dominic let go of me and I fell to my knees,
gulping in huge lungs-full of air.
What does that mean,
“goodbye”?
Dominic asked.
Why will you not talk to me?
What has been happening to you?

When I had my breath back, still reveling in
the release from pain, I said,
Goodbye means it’s over. I’m
going back to Eclipsia City, to the Terrans and my old job, if
they’ll have me
.

Dominic recoiled as if I had knifed him in
the guts. I could feel the hurt bleeding out of his mind.
What
have I done?
he said at last.
What have I done to you that
you would say that?

I hadn’t realized he would see it this way.
Nothing
, I said.
It’s what I’ve done
. I told him
about the fight with Alicia, about her losing her child and how it
had been damaged by her prolonged stay at La Sapienza while
pregnant.

That is serious
, Dominic said.
It is a great loss, their first child. Do you know if she can
have more?

The fact that Dominic saw my act of violence
as so consequential exacerbated my feelings of guilt and defensive
hostility.
Yes. She can have more. Why do you care?

Why do I care?
Why
do I care?
Dominic bellowed into my brain, angrier than I had
ever known him. I had finally exhausted his careful patience by my
casual disregard for our connection.
Because
, he said,
because you’re my—

Once again, he stopped at the word. If I had
not been so caught up in my own problems, I should long since have
realized he saw me as his betrothed. He had come to accept
responsibility for me, for my good deeds and my bad, and was ready
to help me deal with the repercussions without judging me, as I
would have done for him.

Still he dared not say the word, could not
allow himself even to think it to me, at first for fear I would
reject him. He knew my thoughts well enough on the subject; they
were inescapable. I had rarely hidden my ruminations, and he knew
my Terran life had scared me off the idea of marriage, to him or
anyone. Months ago, when he had talked me into staying here, he had
almost let it slip. I had figured that much out from our communion,
that his question had been: did I wish to be a sibyl or ‘Gravina
Aranyi, until he had caught himself in time and had changed the
second option to cell nucleus.

At our last “visit” he had sensed my grudging
change of heart, what I could not fully admit even to myself, my
resentment at his desire to keep me as his companion without
marriage, and he had become more confident. If I was angry that he
could not, or would not, marry me, then, it followed, I might wish
to marry him.

But as we both knew, it was unlikely he would
be allowed to marry me properly, to make me—a Terran—‘Gravina
Aranyi, his equal in rank, mother to his heir. ‘Graven Assembly had
never approved such a thing. For Dominic, to whom honorable
behavior came as naturally as ogling good-looking cadets, proposing
a marriage that was not possible was immoral and inexcusable, the
act of a man without principles. For me, hearing the words would
have been a badly-needed boost of confidence, even knowing it was
only an impractical wish.

With no insight, I reacted as I always
did—with unconsidered, self-protective belligerence.
Because
I’m your what?
I screamed.
What am I?

We were both shouting into each other’s mind,
the pain of my headache forgotten, replaced by the boom of
Dominic’s angry bass roar, my higher voice making his head
reverberate with shrill waves of sound.

Dominic, with great effort, calmed himself.
He could still shield his thoughts from me better than I could mine
from him.
You’re my beloved
, he said.
I love you. And
you owe Tomasz and Alicia restitution. Someone must pay Tomasz
compensation
. There was that word again that Edwige had used.
Both Dominic and Edwige seemed obsessed with this idea.

What is this “restitution?”
I asked.
Why is it not enough that I have apologized?

Oh, Amalie
, Dominic said.
Don’t
you see? Tomasz and Alicia suffered a loss. It was not entirely
your fault, but it was by your actions. It is not like an insult,
where sometimes an apology will smooth things over, but like a
death, which requires compensation. And since you have no family to
pay for your act, I will pay
.

Why should you pay?
I asked,
chastened.
Why can’t I pay?

Dominic’s mood lightened as my Terran
ignorance softened the rebuff.
A woman cannot pay restitution.
That is for men. If an Eclipsian woman were responsible, her family
would pay. I will act as your family, so that you are not in debt
to Tomasz for the rest of your life
.

But then I will be in your debt
, I
said, regaining some composure.
I have credits. Name your
price
.

Dominic was ready to explode again until he
saw, just in time, that I was teasing.
We do not pay money for
such a loss. We make a gesture of restitution
.

So I won’t owe them my firstborn?
I
asked.

No, not for a damaged two-months unborn
thing
. Dominic answered my stupid, joking question seriously.
No, I will offer to be godparent to their first child, son or
daughter. If Tomasz is gracious enough to accept, the matter will
be closed
.

How unfair it was, I thought, that Dominic
had incurred this tiresome obligation because of my reckless act,
committed in the weakness of early morning and under the goading of
Alicia’s assault. Well, whether or not all this fuss was justified,
at least he wasn’t being forced into anything too terrible. I had
no idea what a heavy responsibility Dominic had undertaken, that he
had pledged himself to make a valuable gift to the child—land,
livestock or goods—and to provide for it well into adulthood,
should Tomasz and Alicia die or become unable to care for it.
Thankful that the problem was solved, I made an attempt to be
courteous.
That is kind of you, my love
.

Yes
, Dominic said.
I have a
reputation for compassion to uphold. Now, what is all this nonsense
about “goodbye” and going back to Eclipsia City?

His question snapped me back to my original
problem.
I can’t be a sibyl
, I said, almost sorry that I
was still alive, that my headaches had not killed me and that I had
to confess the humiliating truth after boasting of my perseverance.
You should be happy. Edwige herself told me I should
leave
. I deliberately twisted what she’d said so that Dominic
would think the worst.

Dominic was cautious now.
That’s why you
wouldn’t let me in to you. I’ve been trying to initiate communion
with you for a week. I knew something was wrong, but you blocked me
until I thought—

Would that make my head ache?
I
asked, intrigued despite my misery.

Probably
, Dominic said,
uninterested.
But why? Why won’t you talk to me? I’m sorry I
had to break through like that
, he added, more in
self-justification than apology,
but when something has
happened to you, you must not shut yourself off from me
.

Because
, I said, tired of the
predicament,
there’s nothing to talk about. I’ve been told I
can stay here as a low-level signal watcher and cell overseer, or I
can marry the first man desperate enough for an heir who wins the
race to La Sapienza to claim me as his overage but possibly still
fertile bride.
I spoke as offensively as I could, hoping to
provoke some sort of response.
So I’m going back to the evils I
know. To the Terran Protectorate Headquarters in the city. To being
an information manager
.

Dominic’s fright was terrifying to me,
feeling it from inside his mind in our communion. I have always
been able to induce violent emotions in him, did not yet know my
own power. And never before could I have experienced real,
paralyzing fear from the perspective of a man like him, for whom it
is a rare affliction and therefore all the more debilitating when
it occurs.
No, Amalie
, he said.
You don’t have to do
any of those things
.

Yes, I do
, I said, laughing to ward
off the dread I was catching from him.
I have to do one of
those things. And I’m certainly not going to do the first
two
.

I could sense his mind searching frantically
for a solution. What about this? he said.
Come with me to
Aranyi, to my home, to visit my sister and my brother-in-law
.
I knew he was making this up as he spoke, that although he had a
sister and a brother-in-law, they had no desire to meet me, would
not welcome a Terran seminary reject as an acquaintance.

No, Dominic
, I said.
What would
that accomplish?

Please, Amalie
, he said. It was no
triumph, I discovered, to make the man you loved desperate, to have
him beg you to do something you knew was a bad idea, to have him
plead with you to do what could only postpone the inevitable.
It’s not inevitable
, Dominic said, reading my thoughts,
painful as they were to him.
Please, come to Aranyi before you
make any decision
.

Dominic and I stood linked in communion, each
of us lost in a separate, depressing universe. If I went with him
it would delay my job search. That would only lower my value in the
market, yet I wanted to put it off as long as possible. I was like
a child at the end of summer, wishing for a teachers’ strike or for
the school to burn down, unconcerned at the long-term
consequences.

All right
, I said. I heard how
ill-mannered that sounded and made an attempt at Eclipsian
civility.
I would be honored to visit your sister and your
brother-in-law
. I wasn’t lying, at any rate. Anyone would be
honored by an invitation to the ancestral home of a Margrave, lord
of one of the Twelve ‘Graven Realms, although the house itself was
a forbidding thought.
Between Andrade and Aranyi
, Edwige
had said. A rock and a hard place. Aranyi Fortress was both,
situated as it was in the foothills of those same icy northern
mountains I had flown over in my brief work with the
crypta
cell. I could barely imagine the dismal stone
building, the primitive amenities, the isolation. Life there could
not be comfortable.

Astarte and Isis be praised
, Dominic
said at my unenthusiastic acceptance, invoking female deities
rarely called upon by men.
I will come for you as soon as it
thaws and we can travel
.

I will be ready
, I said. I had been
offered a reprieve, a chance to remain Eclipsian Amalie a little
longer; I could defer, for a while, the joyless prospect I faced,
returning to the Terran world I had hated. I intended to savor my
last days of freedom, even if it meant taking whore’s baths and
using an outhouse.

Dominic and I parted without further words,
with no mental touches or caresses. We had been traumatized by
events and the frightening words we had uttered. But the thought
was in both our minds, tantalizing as the promise of a long-awaited
holiday, that soon we could be together body to body, not only mind
to mind. A short period of abstinence would only add to the
eventual pleasure. I slept deeply that night, free from pain, and
woke with a rare sense of optimism.