It was just after sunset when they got back to Dul Misishi. Zasha remained at the prow of the barque, conspiring with his cousin and the acolyte—Dezri and Nishal had elected to return to their own pyre—while Ram and Mana hung back at the stern. Zasha only spoke to Ram to warn him, as they disembarked, to be on the lookout for blackbands for the next few days.
He got back to the house to find Darun waiting up for him in the sitting room, holding a sleeping Zemni in her lap. “I figured I should get some practice in,” she said, when he raised an eyebrow. “Give your mom a break, maybe encourage her to hate me just a little less. How’d it go?”
“About like we expected.” There was, as usual, food left on the table, another of Jezrimin’s endless series of snack trays. This one had bread, dates, and goat-cheese. Ram hadn’t eaten in some time, and sat down next to his wife to help himself, sparing a second to kiss her on the cheek. “I gave them the speech, they gave me the evil eye for the whole thing, but at least they listened. So maybe even a little better than expected, I guess.”
“And after? How’d they react?”
There was wine on the table, too; he still didn’t much like it, but took a swig anyway. At this distance from Dul Karagi, it almost did something for him. “Etana—he was there—said I was being ‘needlessly belligerent,’ and ‘constituted an unacceptable security risk.’ Motion to eject me from the council, motion carried, and Mana and I spent hours hanging out by the barque while the grownups talked.”
“Give them a couple of days to get used to it.”
“Yeah.” That, too, was how they’d planned it. If the Karagenes really did have no choice but to accept Ram as Ensi—and he was pretty sure of that—he could afford a few tetrads for them to cool down and accept the inevitable. He looked down at Zemni, sleeping peacefully. “Speaking of getting used to things …?”
“Eh. I kind of see the appeal, but I kind of don’t? Sure, it’s relaxing, but they don’t do a whole lot. He’s a yelly, smelly little paperweight. If we just got a cat, it wouldn’t take half a kindling to learn to piss in the box.” Tirnun had recently acquired a kitten, after constant and shameless pressure from her five-bloom-old. Jezrimin wound up doing most of the cleanup.
“But you still want to be a mom?”
Darun shrugged. “It’s not like anybody else is ever going to think I’m beautiful again. Kids don’t know better. That’s a point for them.”
“Please don’t talk like that. Seriously, why do you want to be a mother now? You used to hate the idea.”
“I still don’t know if I want it, hubby, but there’s a lot I don’t want about this situation. I don’t want to hang out with your mom and the heifer for … how long do you think it will take?”
“Until it’s safe for you to join me at the pyre? Hard to say. Probably months. I don’t know when I’ll be able to be certain that they won’t try to use you as leverage.”
“See? That sucks, but I can handle it.”
“Of course. But you do know that being a mother isn’t something you can just ‘handle’ that way, don’t you?”
She shot him a sour look. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m a selfish bitch. And you’re right. I always have been, and I probably always will be. And now I’m an ugly selfish bitch. Fine. I’m still going to need something going on in my life when you’re gone.”
“Darun, that’s—“
“What am I going to do, go out partying? Nobody’s going to want me. I can’t sell with this face. I don’t want to be a handmaiden—it’s bad enough that Piridur’s going to have memories of you inside me—it’s all gone. All gone. This is the only life I can have now. I’m not stupid.”
“No, you’re not. You’re my wife, and I love you.”
“Love? Please, Ram. I’m the girl you lied about nailing so you’d look good. You’ve known me for less than six months. Now I’m useless—“
“You’re not useless! You just helped me—“
“But you were dumb enough to tie yourself to the sinking boat, so I said sure. And now you’re trying to make the most of it, because you’re dumb that way—“
“Because it’s my child—“
“And yet you won’t stop whining at me for doing the exact thing you want me to do, which makes no damn sense at all—“
“What do you want from me?”
“What I want from you, Rammash, is to lower your voice,” said Mother from behind him. “You will wake the baby, if not the rest of the house.”
Ram swallowed his temper, and twisted around on the couch; he hadn’t heard her coming down the hall. Mother was dressed in a green shift with a black mantle, and looked quite tired. “Darun, I will take the child, if you would like some time to yourself. Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome, Mother,” she said, offloading Zemni in a hurry. “See you later, Ram.” She didn’t look back at him before hustling off to bed.
Mother promptly took the seat she’d left. “She’s calling you ‘Mother’ now?” Darun had always pointedly addressed his mother by her name before, when she spoke to her at all.
“I do not mind. She cannot remember having a mother, and I have never properly had a daughter. It has been a learning experience for both of us.” She gave Ram a significant look. “We all have much to learn, and little time to learn it.”
“Right.” He’d forgotten about the food; now he spread more cheese on the bread. He was still hungry, and Mother was talking to him again, even if he didn’t care for the subject.
There were still several cups on the table; Mother poured herself a small glass of the wine. “I realize I have not done very well myself. I am sorry, Rammash. To be mother to a handmaiden is difficult enough. I have had no notion how to mother an ensi.”
“You’ve done fine.”
“Son of mine, have I ever before shown a fondness for patronizing? I have done poorly, and we both know it. And you have been a poor husband, because you hurried into it. But I have no fair standing for criticism on that score.” Ram had a mouth full of cheese, and could only look at her curiously. “You were born six and a half months after our wedding,” she said with a wistful smile.
“Oh.”
“That was not such a profound sentiment that you couldn’t have waited to swallow your food before uttering it.” She sighed. “You have behaved stupidly, my son. Very, very stupidly. This is normal. You are sixteen. If you acted wisely, I would worry.”
“… thank you?”
Mother rolled her eyes. “It’s only fair to tell you that I would be less frustrated with your choice of brides if I hadn’t made a similarly rash choice. It can be difficult, to see your children replicating your mistakes.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Mistakes?” Ram said indignantly.
She laughed. “You are right. Indiscretions, I should say. Your father is an indiscreet man, and he taught me indiscretions, and I was very happy, then and now. We have paid the full and painful price for it, and I would pay it all again. Very likely you would say the same for your wife, if not at this exact moment.”
“Even now,” he said, though he was fairly sure he was lying.
Mother set her cup down, still half-full. “But if we are speaking of your marriage … I know I have told you before why it is that our species gives men a monopoly on the practice of politics.”
“Women are better at it, but men can’t stand to be beaten all the time,” Ram recited. “Otherwise we’d leave it to you. I know. So, what? Are you saying you'll take care of it when my wife starts calling herself trash?”
“Your mistake is in thinking that it must be ‘taken care of’ at all—a typical male error. A woman’s thoughts are her own, and she will change them at her leisure, not your convenience. Certainly she would not ask for your help, of all people.”
“Why not? I’m closer to her than anybody else here, and she knows I’m on her side.”
“You are also her husband, and she is young, at the age when a girl longs to be perfect and desirable—something Darun can never have again. She must feel the loss more sharply for falling from such a great height, and she has only newly won you. Now you are among the most powerful men in the world. How can she hope to hold you?” She glanced down at the baby, still sleeping in her lap.
Ram steadfastly ignored the hint. “I’m not going to leave her, she knows that!”
“Does she? In one sense, possibly. There are different kinds of knowing, Rammash, and she has not known you long. She does not want or need for you to know her fear, her weakness, now. That would only complete her humiliation. I would advise you to help her when she asks and as you can, and otherwise mind your business.”
Ram held up his hands. “Okay. Okay. I think I can understand that. I’ll probably be leaving soon anyhow, and leaving her behind. I don’t know how we’ll deal with that.”
“I would suggest you contrive to come back, from time to time. Or at least send regular letters. Gifts would not hurt either, if you could arrange to afford them.”
“Yeah.” This conversation called for another glass, he thought. “You will look out for her, while I’m away, won’t you? I know she’s not your favorite person.”
“She could be the worst woman in the world—which she is not—and I would still have a compelling interest in the well-being of the woman who will bear my grandchild.”
“Thank you.”
“The more so because I suspect I will be doing much of the work of raising that grandchild.”
“If Auntie Tir doesn’t beat you to it. But Darun might surprise you.” He’d have argued more forcefully, for loyalty’s sake, if he’d thought he’d have a prayer of winning the argument.
“We will hope.” She popped a date in her mouth, and took her time eating it. Mother had always been very fond of dates. “Now, as for my present work: I am still mother to an ensi. Are you prepared?”
“As prepared as I can be, Mother. I don’t know what Dul Karagi is like these days, but I’ll have Imbri along for advice, and Bal and the girls watching my back.”
“Imbri seems a reasonable young woman,” she said with a nod, “and your sister will not betray you. But you have left out the most important person. Where do you stand with the God?”
“Oh. I … I really don’t know.”
“I think you would do well to find out. Quickly. You are preparing to do his service, after all.” Her frown deepened. “I hope you at least don’t share your father’s opinions.”
“I used to,” he admitted, as he drained his cup. “I was pretty mad for a while there. But I’m over that.” Since Imbri took me out to the rookery. Not much point blaming Haranduluz, if we did all this to ourselves.
“Then are you prepared to do the God’s will?”
“That depends what he wants, Mother. I’ve never been able to find out, have you?”
“I am not in a position to ask. You are.”
Was he? Probably not. He didn’t have any clear memory of previous priests speaking with Haranduluz—but it suddenly came to him that he hadn’t really been physically close to the pyre since Shimrun died. And Shimrun had said, in their first blind meeting in the dark, that he had an easier time trusting the God than most people. There might be more to learn.
“I’m not. But I might be, when I get back home. I’ve asked Haranduluz for help before, and it seemed to work. But I don’t know. I just don’t. I can say I’m willing to listen.”
“Hmm.” She looked over her son’s face—skeptically, he thought—but said nothing more.
“Are you going to be able to manage things here? I know my wife is hard to deal with. Even for me, sometimes.”
“Especially for you. She likes to keep you off-balance; it would never do for you to take her for granted. But we will do quite well. I think I will resume the veil tomorrow. There is no more need for the fiction of bond-service, is there?”
Ram smiled, and gave his mother a hug. “I don’t think so. As long as you stay safe.”
“Worry for my sanity, not my health, if you worry for me at all. You are facing greater obstacles than I.”
“Don’t I know it.” He gave her a hug, and got up. “Thank you, Mother. I think I’ll go see my wife now.”
“An excellent idea,” she said, choosing another date. She paused, and frowned up at him; he had stopped at the back of the couch. “Yes?”
“Are you happy to have your first grandchild on the way, Mother?”
She pursed her lips. “That is a difficult question to answer.”
“It was for me, too. But I’ve decided I am. I’m happy. I don’t know how this kid is going to turn out, with an indwelt dad. I’m not going to be around to see him grow up.” Mother looked away. “He’s going to have a difficult life, with no father. It’ll be hard for all of you. I don’t even know what kind of world this child will grow up in. But I’m glad that something of me is going to be left behind when I’m gone.
“Do you think that’s selfish, Mother?”
She took a long time to answer, and still didn’t look at him. “I think it is human, Rammash. It is very human. You are expected to be a priest, not a god.”
“Well, that’s something. Good night.” He leaned down to kiss the top of her head, squeezed her shoulder, and headed down the hall to his room.
Darun was still awake, curled up in their bed and staring at the wall, her eyes reflecting the last light off the temple. She didn’t look up as he came in. First things first: “Hey.” He put a hand on her hip. “I’m sorry. That got out of hand.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m glad you’re going to have my child, I really am. I’ll try to be a good father.”
“For two blooms.”
“For two blooms,” he agreed, and kicked off his shoes. “Let’s take what we can get, right?”
“Hmph.”
He lay down, taking care not to touch her. Mother was right: he had no idea how to talk to his wife right now. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Darun didn’t answer. After giving it some thought, Ram put his hand gently back down on her hip. She didn’t move it, didn’t even acknowledge it was there, but Ram didn’t take it away. So they just lay there together, still and silent.
At some point—he might have dozed off, but he wasn’t sure—he realized it was totally dark, and she’d slipped out from under his hand, and was nestled in his arms with her head on his chest. She was trembling softly, and he started to ask if there was something wrong. Then he thought better of it, and moved his hand up to run his fingers through her hair. When the trembling had stopped, he reached out, found her hand—her scarred hand—and started kissing the fingers one by one. She pulled the hand away quickly, and laid it on his chest, not quite pushing him away. He took the hint, and drew her closer to hold her until they both fell asleep.