THE THESSALY AFFAIR - CHAPTER TWO - THESSALY ĈEN
IV.
She looked at me, and I at her, and I don’t know who seemed more surprised. Barsina stood rigid like a statue, and a girl followed behind the Sarangarel’s girl and froze.
“Oh, you’re here!” Efan said. He smiled, the same warm Efan, but his eyes moved restlessly from me to her.
“I was in the servant’s quarters under the roof,” the young woman said. “Inspecting the condition of the beds. No one can work without a good night’s sleep.” Her eyes did not leave me, and they weren’t as friendly as last night.
Damn it, Dardana, I thought. Never can keep friends, can you?
“Very diligent!” he enthused. “Ah…may I present to you Dardana Fenek Inspektintino Mardoniosino. My…manumitted client.”
She took a breath. “Miss Mardoniosino.”
No one had ever called me that before. I opened my mouth to correct her, but for once Barsina’s gimlet eye silenced me. I was in enough trouble anyway,
There was a bundle of keys hanging at her girdle. The keys. Her keys as the wife, and I was standing in the concubine’s room.
My room.
I must have learned a dozen curtseys in crèche, but they never taught me this one. I improvised, making it citizen to citizen, but extra polite. I would probably have to kiss her inside her wrist. I felt like dying.
“Dardana, this is my fiancée, Miss Thessaly Ĉen.”
“Very pleased to meet you, Miss Ĉen.”
“Likewise, I am sure.” She pursed her lips. “You must call me Thessaly.”
“Thessaly.” I gave her another bob at the knees. “I am Dardana.”
“Dardana.”
“I mentioned a bit of a job for you, Dardana,” Efan said cheerfully. “My flat is rented furnished, but our…the personal effects need to be moved.”
“Of course. You are going…wherever…tomorrow?”
“First thing, I’m afraid, with the sunrise.”
“Barsina and I will move things then, if I can rent a truck.”
“I’ll leave money on the desk in the office here. Second floor.”
“Thank you.”
“The housekeeper’s girl will help you. She’s coming here to take charge,” he added. “I bought her contract.”
I gave him a look. “Good, she knows what you like in a house.”
Barsina shifted uneasily, and Thessaly noticed.
He looked from Thessaly to me to Thessaly again, and even darted a glance at Barsnjo.
“This is a lovely house, Efan,” I finally said. “And this…” I gestured around me.
“Your room, and Barsina’s.”
I nodded. “Lovely,” I echoed. “I like the street view. I like to see the world. But I need to stay at my office tonight. I have…casework to review.”
“Of course.”
“So…”
“I will show you out, Dardana,” the Ĉen girl said. “I know the way better.”
“Of course, thank you.”
I gave Efan a demure curtsey, and he looked a bit hurt, but I swept out, Barsina on my heels. Barsina and I, as well as Thessaly and her girl, left the women’s quarters without saying a word and descended from the third to the second to the first to the ground in an uncomfortable silence.
In the front hall, she put her hand on my arm and stopped, and there we all were, and something, anything, must now be said.
We looked at each other. I felt vomit crawling up my throat. She was beautiful, and a born citizen, and born wealthy, and born out of a woman’s womb instead of a glass and steel tank. Her black hair was braided perfectly, with just the right bit of bounce at the ends, and here I was looking like I had slept on a roof, and taken a lukewarm shower with a cigarette and a hard roll for breakfast.
“I suppose you are staying at La Stela Meridiano, then?” I guessed. The best hotel.
“I am. I suppose you would have stayed here…if not for me.”
There it was.
“Yes.”
She nodded. “You’re his concubine as well as his client.”
“It’s in my manumission. I’m contractually obliged.”
She scoffed. “I can tell by your face you love him.”
I did not bother denying it. “How about you?”
She looked away. “I knew him as a child. I’ve always admired him.” A smile turned the corner of her mouth. Vanished. “He hasn’t handled this terribly well. I want to love him. You will continue sleeping with him.” It wasn’t a question.
“If he will sleep with me,” I said slowly. Was I lying? I didn’t think I was. And what if he didn’t? What if it became too ridiculous, or she made a scene?
“I’m marrying him. I’m having children with him.” Defiant. She lifted her chin.
“I know.”
“Did he ever say he would have children with you? Marry you?”
“Children, yes. Marry? No. He didn’t think his family would permit it.”
“It won’t happen now.”
“I don’t want to take that from you.”
She looked me up and down. “Were you a citizen once?”
“No.”
“A tank-girl, then.”
“Yes.”
“I never thought of Efan as the sort who would…buy a woman’s contract, just to sleep with her. What were you? His housekeeper?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “I ran away. I lived in Aulis and started investigating cases, helping people, and lying low. That ended rather suddenly, and he saved me from death. He ended up with my contract, but he manumitted me. We’re…close.”
“What about you? What are you called? Barsina?”
“Yes, Miss. I was hers.”
This was nonsense, and Thessaly knew it. I was nothing. A little brown bug. A contract girl couldn’t own another contract. It had all been a lie. She looked from me to she, and knew our relationship. “Was. Now he owns your contract.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Thessaly sighed. “I don’t know how, but we must make the best of this.”
I thought of the money for the truck on the office desk. I wasn’t backtracking upstairs right now. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” I said. “For the money. For the truck.”
“I will be at La Stela tonight,” she said. She shifted the bunch of keys on her girdle and removed one. “This is yours, then.”
She put it in my hand and, turning her palm up, offered her wrist. I kissed it, and without many more words, we parted.