The Pearl Crucible - A Dardana Fenek Mystery - MULLINAX (Part 1)

(Chapter 12, part 1)

We let ourselves into the door at the bottom of the stairwell, the lock creaking as I twisted the key; I had my cosh out in case someone was lurking inside who wanted under our skirts: it’s happened before.

I had better have worried about Barsina.

“Miss, this is terrible,” she said. “This cannot be worse.”

“It could be worse,” I disagreed.

“Miss Testaferrato could have denounced you,” she said. “That would have been worse. Or if she had her own men with her, she could have seized you. Mist’ Gatto wished to appear civil.”

“O, My grandma was an Io,” I said, more cheerfully than I felt as we slowly ascended the dark stairs, lit here and there by a sickly pale yellow bulb.

“Miss,” she said severely, “your genes won’t hide secrets. A test will relieve Ensign-Captain of all doubt if she requires his assistance. But Mist’ Gatto will simply detain you and bother with no tests if he can.”

I held onto the rail and swung the cosh in the dark, irritated. “All I need to do,” I said, “is avoid her.”

“Miss, she is here to find you! And how will you avoid him? He will come tomorrow!”

“What do you want me to do?” I demanded.

“Leave!” She turned and clutched my sleeve. “Go to Calypso or Argoshaan!”

“Start over, you mean?”

She looked at me angrily. “Would Miss be tortured and then hanged off a tree branch? Will Miss prefer I return to whoring for Mama Solene?”

“I’ve worked hard to build my consulting practice,” I said. "Men have tried to push me out. Men like Caruano Gatto. And thank you for making me look like a runaway-catcher. I’ve only done that a couple of times when we were hard up, and I don’t like it, and I don’t like him thinking that’s part of my trade.”

“‘Him,’” she said. “Fft. It was the best idea I could come up with, Miss.” She turned and continued around the landing and up. “I couldn’t know Mist’ Caruano Gatto had been hired to catch you. Miss had no idea what to say, did Miss?”

“Miss should not have gone with Ensign-Captain, and I’m the fool,” I said angrily. “You needn’t tell me. I’m already aware. I suppose it’s something to know from where the danger’s aimed, and she already knew I was in Aulis.”

The stairwell was airless, and we were sweating at the top. In my office, I sagged at my desk, and Barsina, silent after her outburst, brought me cold water from a pitcher in the icebox. I put my sandals by the door, properly (how I hate that word) neat as neat next to hers, even though I wanted to throw them across the room. We’d walked all day and talked to one dangerous woman after another, had a nice dinner—and gotten to face death eye to eye.

Caruano Gatto was going to be rid of my competition if he liked. He knew full well where to find me. He’d been in my office and sat in that chair across from me not long ago. “You need to bugger off, Fenek,” he’d said. “It’s not a job for a woman, and you’re embarrassing us.”

I’d been pretty lippy to him then. Something about him having plenty to be embarrassed about. It would be the same to him if I was bundled out of the city in the boot of a ground-car and me never coming back, either.

I knew what would happen to Barsina. Tesataferrato had already seen Mama Solene, for whatever reason. Since I had no right to Barsina—because they claimed I’m not a citizen—Barsina would go right back to Mama Solene, working nights and sleeping days until she was manumitted when she reached fifty—if she lived so long—the last decade or so of it working in some sordid wharfside mat-and-girlery with her looks gone.

I organized and reorganized my desk, fuming. I could hardly think. Barsina was right. We had to go. Aulis was big, but I couldn’t hide forever, not with Caruano Gatto after me. But I couldn’t go. Couldn’t. Couldn’t couldn’t. I had to finish the case. That is how I am.

Graphite stylus, ink stylus, notepaper. Nice—and—even. Adjust the terminal screen—

Barsina touched my shoulder, and I looked up. She bent over to kiss me. “Please,” she whispered, but I looked away. She went in our room.

She’d laid her notebook on the desk, straight as straight, and I picked it up and paged through it, reading her notes. Clouds of connections, lines here and there in my mind, aristoi looming. Who gained? Why kill him?

She came out of our room in her night-wrap, with mine over her arm, and I let her get me ready for bed. Or for the roof, I suppose. The room was unpleasant tonight, and my little electric fan did no good.

We went to the fifth floor and up the ladder to the roof hatch. The concrete roof was still hot, and we laid the blanket out on it and our pillows and lay there sweating. Barsina lay down with me, and looked me right in the eyes.

“I don’t want you to die,” she said.

“I don’t want you to go back to Mama Solene’s.”

“Then we need to run.”

“Irodiada, I’m tired of running and hiding,” I said.

“Ishara,” she corrected. “Better than dying.”

“I’m on a case,” I said. “I have to finish it. I can’t leave it unfinished, Barsnjo. Can you leave things unfinished?”

She sighed. “Do you expect him to protect you?”

I knew who she meant. “No. How can he?”

I thought about that firm arm and that wool coat sleeve and that wine cup I should have filled. The urgent need to do the proper thing.

“Does Miss like him?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.—Does Miss like him?”

“He’s—” I stopped. “He’s the right sort, isn’t he? In another life.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“I could have … He’d be a good Sir.”

“So he seems.”

“That’s not my life anymore,” I said. “I ran off. I did the impossible. I’m broken. I’m not right. And he certainly doesn’t own my contract.” I made my hands into fists. “I’m no one’s girl any longer.”

“You’re my Miss.”

“I’m not a citizen. I’m not anyone’s Miss.”

“You’re my Miss,” she said firmly and kissed me. I rolled on my side, and smelled her breath, and kissed her neck and the metal there.

You’ll forgive me for being private about the next bit, because that’s ours, it’s not work, and I don’t owe it to you. This is no yellow novel.

So.

Afterward, head to head on the pillows, we saw orange light flicker beyond the hills at the Kosmohaveno. You couldn’t hear it in Aulis because of the distance and the hills, but I knew it must be roaring. Out there in the night, a rocket launched, heading for the Station, piercing a leaden and dispiriting layer of cloud between us and the stars, a layer that wrapped the heat on us, sullen and sodden, and made us restless and unhappy until nearly morning.

( … This way to Chapter Eleven part 3 … ) ( … This way to Chapter Twelve part 2 … )