Trust a House-head at once to find and bridge the gap between a father and a daughter seen once, a baby, in her twenty years. A daughter the image of the mother that I lost, ten years before she died.
And she spoke so calmly. Too calmly. It steadied me, to smother the gulp. To manage, “This is a blessing unlooked-for. The Mother has smiled on us.”
It seemed enough for Tez. Her stance unlocked. She even managed the beginnings of a smile. “Father . . .”
Father. The elision, the absence in her life. The unmentionable scandal. The loss, the bleeding lacuna, that I had blanked out of mine.
“I—uh—uh—”
“Tez is quartered in our house,” said Tellurith. This smile would have thawed the Iskans. “We can talk properly when we all finish work.”
When the River runs back to Cataract. She meant it was temporary lodging until Tez was provisioned and chose work, and she—or I—made it her living place. And a graceful solution to the clash of clutching a full bedpan and greeting—or Mother avert, trying to embrace—a daughter. While still feeling hit over the head.
* * *
Settling. Week 8.
Meditations. Alkhes-Assandar
I will never, never, never understand these people. In or out of Amberlight.
Do Sarth justice, he’s run this hospital like a veteran orderly, never flinched, not with three brats puking on him at once. To have him come back down those stairs looking like—like—
I dropped the cauldron-stick in the muck and grabbed him and said, “Sit down.”
An earthquake, that Sarth should show so much. A cataclysm, that he sat down, plump on the wood-heap. That he did what I said.
In seven weeks I’ve learnt a little. If they show it, and you have to notice, you never, ever ask these men what’s wrong.
I stirred splashes out of the cauldron and muttered, “Sorry about that.”
That got a jerk. A blink. I never thought I’d be sorry to see him so, so . . . That he’s beautiful makes it worse. If you can call beautiful a nursing orderly at shift end, with his week-worn gear stinking like a latrine and circles under his eyes and his hair in witch-knots all over his face.
He shook his head. Shook it again. I forgot all about tower manners and blurted, “Sarth, what’s wrong?”
He looked at me then. Those eyes . . . I dropped the stick and put both hands on him.
“Nothing’s wrong.” It was still wobbling like an over-galloped horse. “I just—she just—my daughter just arrived.”
That time, I nearly sat down.
And did bite my tongue on, What daughter? She said that was the tragedy. Tellurith said you had only sons!
I can bottle it up, but I still can’t ask politely. The best I could manage was, “Uh—Sarth?”
If you lean, it steadies him. He only wobbles when you try to prop him up.
“Khira’s daughter. My third wife. She was,” a deep breath, “captain on the Wasp.”
Forget that name? When she and her hell-hounds cost me three good war-galleys, not to mention the men? And what in the River-lord’s hell did that matter now?
“Sarth . . . I’m sorry, but I don’t understand!”
It got his attention back. It even, can you believe it, produced a breath of a laugh.
“I beg your pardon.” Who else, here, would say that? Or omit, Of course, you’re outlander. “She. Khira. Children go to—the mother. They belong to—her house.”
“But you sired her! You had a goddamn daughter, why didn’t that count—oh,” I said, and grabbed him. “Oh, damn. Oh, gods.”
In a minute he had breath enough to move. To manage, “It’s all right.”
It was not all right. It never would be all right. But there comes a time when it’s kinder to cut an arrowhead out.
“If you had a daughter,” I said deliberately, “Tellurith’s children don’t matter. You can’t be cursed.”
“Not in the House!”
Time was, if he’d spoken like that, I’d have kicked in his throat.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But surely, wherever she was—”
He shook his head. Got up. Found the stirring stick. Prodding clothes, said quietly—oh, how quietly—“The only children that matter are those by your first wife. The children of her own House.”
I had the wit—gods be thanked, I did have the wit not to say, Well at least she’s here, alive, we can be grateful something survived. I levered the stick away from him and said, “They probably need you upstairs. I’ll see to this.”
* * *
How can a man get a child and lose her? Have her taken out of his life, neat as a haircut, for twenty living years? How can she not count as his daughter, just because she lives in another house? In another part of the same House?
I never had a daughter. A son by a—camp-follower. Back in Verrain, working the caravans, I was still a boy myself. She swore it was mine, it had black hair. I gave her two fistfuls of pay tokens—unminted gold—and said, “All right, he’s mine, goodbye.” She was a camp-follower, she understood.
I wonder, did he die of fever or strangle-cough or all the other multitudinous children’s ills I’ve seen in Iskarda?
With Cherisa, the question never arose.
The River-lord witness, she was beautiful. And well-dowered, a fine Dhasdeini merchant’s daughter, a trader to the colonies, climbing the noble ladder faster than I was myself. Antastes’ newest corps commander, risen from guard officer, surely going higher, heavens, sir, marry my daughter, I’ll be proud.
For the ceremony, even the Emperor came.
So I settled her in a corps commander’s house, and went blithely off to campaign in Quetzistan, all set to dream of white fingers and pearl-painted toenails and nubile breasts and hair like a black waterfall, just waiting for me to come home.
While she never waited at all.
Kuris and I had a duel over it. I put the point in his shoulder and disabled him for a season. He was a valued officer.
And she divorced me within the year.
Not for Kuris. Or any of the others, for all I know. Sir, her father said, at the settling up, it’s not what she expected. A husband who’s never home.
I thought, It’s the price of war. It can be paid. What war leaves a mess like this?
* * *
By some mercy, this evening our off-duty shift matched a gap in House business. So when I reached the kitchen, leg-weary and brain-wrecked but clean of stench and filth for once, the person stirring the supper pot was Tellurith.
“Tel!” I pounced. “Quick, explain about Sarth . . .”
And knew better before I finished. And had no time to groan, before she took me by the wrist and tugged.
I had the wit not to let I’m sorry off my tongue.
She pushed back my hair. Not looking. But she likes to do that, and at least, this time, it was clean. I leant against the hearth-stool and side-eyed her profile, and kept quiet.
“I tried not to hate her,” she said.
From a thousand miles away. From a world I would never, ever enter. Never know.
I got up on my knees and put both arms