She turned to look at Arden. “An alliance council meeting should be a dignified affair. You will refrain from petty insults and deliberate provocation.”
“I apologize,” said Arden, “but you must surely understand my anger at this situation. Lolek has made false accusations in front of the entire alliance council, accusing my own son of second level assault on a woman, and producing a fake vid as evidence. Such behaviour cannot be tolerated in this alliance. The gutter clan must go!”
Marissa Breck Thane lifted her hand to stop him. “For the second time, and for the formal record, I warn you to refrain from further use of insults, particularly the word ‘gutter.’ You will follow the convention agreed by alliance council to deal with the issue of having a clan in the alliance that has no true clan name, and use the phrase ‘Lolek’s clan.’”
Arden reluctantly bowed his head in acceptance.
“Two years ago, you argued the case for admitting Lolek’s clan to this alliance,” continued Marissa Breck Thane. “They made vids, so their business interests were in line with those of the alliance, but given those vids were of a low class nature designed solely for the export market …”
There was a meaningful pause before she continued. “Alliance council had reservations but finally agreed to your request. The admission of Lolek’s clan has, on the whole, been advantageous to the alliance, opening up new export opportunities, but now you demand we expel them.”
She pulled a face. “You have said we must understand your anger at this situation. Equally, you must understand our displeasure. Marriages between members of alliance clans have broken down before, and the resulting issues have been resolved amicably even when complex business mergers and property transfers had been linked with the marriage contract. It has never been necessary to remove a clan from the alliance.”
“This case is very different,” said Arden. “Lolek’s accusations have pushed things beyond the point where an amicable resolution is possible. Clan Eastreth isn’t formally allied with the reactionary faction, but we agree with their protective attitudes to women. My son would not do something as dishonourable as assaulting any woman, let alone one who was, at that time, his own wife!”
“This alliance is formed around common business interests,” said Marissa Breck Thane in an icy voice. “Alliance council’s position on politics is strictly neutral. Your reference to reactionary attitudes to women is, at a minimum, inappropriate. Given reactionary views on women holding positions of authority in clans, it could even be regarded as insulting to the female members of alliance council.”
Her right forefinger twirled in the circular gesture that meant the same thing on every Betan world. The discussion was over. Arden’s expression was that of a man who knew he’d just made a big mistake.
“Let it be formally recorded that the Eastreth clan refuse to withdraw their demand for the expulsion of Lolek’s clan,” said Marissa Breck Thane. “Both clans have agreed to submit this entire issue to the judgement of alliance council rather than involve outside officials.”
That didn’t surprise me. The Eastreth clan would find a police investigation embarrassing, because they were highly respectable. My clan would find a police investigation embarrassing, because we weren’t respectable at all, and couldn’t afford to have officials nosing around some of our more questionable business affairs.
“We’ve heard more than enough accusations and denials,” continued Marissa Breck Thane, “so the witnesses will now take the stand and we will establish the true facts.”
Lolek caught my eye, and gestured at one of several large metal discs in the centre of the room. I walked between the chairs and went to stand on the disc, and was taken by surprise when a second, much smaller, metal disc hovered up to float in front of me.
“Put your right hand on the disc, Lolia,” said Lolek.
I put my hand on the disc, and the pulsing blue light of a scanner appeared. When I looked up again, I saw Ardreath was standing on a matching disc, facing me. I fought the urge to turn away, staring straight into his eyes instead. I’d done nothing wrong. He was the one who’d broken our marriage, not me.
Marissa Breck Thane took a moment to study both of us. “Alliance council will be basing its judgement on the Betan laws regarding assault. Given the relative sizes of the two participants, I think we can ignore the legal exemptions for brawls involving equally matched and willing parties.”
There was a ripple of laughter from the clan leaders.
Marissa Breck Thane nodded at Lolek. “You may establish the truth of your accusation.”
“Lolia, did Ardreath hit you?” asked Lolek.
I smiled coldly at Ardreath, and was pleased to see the panic in his eyes. I carefully chose my words to avoid the letter “b,” because that was always the most likely to trigger my stammer. “Yes, he hit me.”
“Scans show that Lolia is almost certainly telling the truth.” Marissa Breck Thane turned to Arden. “You may counter the accusation.”
Arden frowned. “Ardreath, did you hit the girl?”
Ardreath looked down at the blue light scanning his right hand. “I may have accidentally touched her.”
“And Ardreath’s statement is definitely not true,” said Marissa Breck Thane. “I would advise him to stop wasting alliance council’s time with lies, because such behaviour will count against both him and his clan.”
Ardreath took a deep breath. “Yes, all right, I lost my temper and hit Lolia, but Lolek’s accusation of second level assault was a lie. I didn’t do anything that would draw blood. That vid Lolek showed you, with Lolia’s face covered in blood, was a fake.”
“Now Ardreath is speaking the truth,” said Marissa Breck Thane. “Lolek, please respond to his point about the blood.”
“Of course,” said Lolek. “Lolia, did Ardreath’s jewel-encrusted ring cut your face and make it bleed?”
“Yes, it did,” I said.
Ardreath gave me a startled look, which changed to one of pure apology. He’d been my husband for two years. Despite Lolek’s orders, I couldn’t stop myself from responding to his contrite expression.
“I’m sure Ardreath didn’t intend that to happen,” I added. “He turned round and left immediately afterwards, so he probably never saw the blood.”
“And that statement is also true,” said Marissa Breck Thane. “I believe we have now established the real facts. Does anyone have any additional questions for the witnesses?”
She waited a moment, glanced round the circle of clan leaders, and nodded. “The witnesses may stand down.”
I went back to stand behind Lolek’s chair. As I walked by him, he gave me a single harsh glare, before returning his attention to Marissa Breck Thane. She was on her feet now, looking solemnly around the circle of clan leaders.
“Lolek’s clan made an accusation of second level assault against a member of clan Eastreth. Clan Eastreth claimed the accusation was false and countered it with a demand for the expulsion of Lolek’s clan. The accusation has now been proved to be true, but it appears clan Eastreth had had genuine reason to believe it false.”
She paused. “In any other case involving such a misunderstanding, I would ask both clans to reconsider their positions at this point. In this case though, given the scale of ill feeling demonstrated, I feel alliance council has no choice but to debate whether the continued presence of both clan Eastreth and Lolek’s clan in our alliance is either desirable or possible.”
Marissa Breck Thane sighed. “Expelling either or both of these clans would be a serious matter, with significant business consequences for many alliance clans, so clan leaders will wish to consult with their clan councils before voting. Alliance council will therefore continue with the debate this evening, but votes will not be cast until tomorrow morning. It is obviously inappropriate for the leaders of the two clans concerned to be present during either the debate or the vote. They will be summoned in the morning to hear alliance council’s decision.”
<
br /> Lolek and Arden both stood up, bowed to the Breck clan leader, and then turned to leave. Lolek was closest to the door, so he went through it first, with Arden behind him. I followed after them, and found myself walking down the corridor next to Ardreath. I was startled to hear him whisper to me.
“I apologize for hitting you. I was under extreme stress, but it was still an indefensible action.”
I hesitated, and glanced at Lolek and Arden. They were deep in conversation with each other, speaking in low pitched angry voices, so I whispered back to Ardreath. “Our marriage doesn’t have to end like this. Perhaps it doesn’t have to end at all. A couple of days ago, the three of us were so happy. We could be like that again.”
Ardreath gave me a fleeting, sad smile, before his expression hardened into something cold and calculating. “You’ve always been such an endearingly naive child, Lolia. Many marriages are just about people and emotions, but some are heavily involved with finances and politics as well. Two years ago, my clan had badly underestimated the cost of a business expansion. Your clan was extremely wealthy and could give us the bridging loan we desperately needed. In return, we could negotiate your entry into our alliance.”
I stared at him. “You’re saying you only married me to get a loan for your clan?”
“Hush.” Ardreath pointed a warning finger at Arden and Lolek. “Our marriage benefited both our clans, and it was an attractive prospect personally as well. You’re an eye-catching girl, and Mack … He and I had already been together for a year at that point, but my father was totally opposed to our relationship. Understandably so. Mack wasn’t just clanless, but a convicted thief.”
Somehow those words angered me even more than the comment about marrying me to get a loan for his clan. “You know the truth about that theft conviction as well as I do. Mack was barely 15 years old back then, and trying to find a way to escape that ghastly orphanage on Janus.”
“Yes,” said Ardreath, “but my father and my clan council were naturally unhappy about Mack having a criminal record. I told them that you wouldn’t marry me unless you could marry Mack as well, and that no marriage would mean no bridging loan.”
He shrugged. “They gave in after that, and the arrangement worked very well for everyone concerned. My marriage to you and Mack was a slight social embarrassment for my clan, but the money compensated nicely for that until one of my clan’s vid series became a runaway success and solved our financial problems.”
He paused. “Then, yesterday’s … unfortunate event occurred. My clan council lost patience, and threatened me with being made clanless unless I divorced the pair of you. In those circumstances, I really had no choice but to end our marriage and distance myself from you both.”
I glared at Ardreath. I thought I’d been a fool not to work out that Lolek was using me as a pawn in his political games, but I’d been even more stupid than that. Ardreath’s clan had been using me to get a bridging loan, while Ardreath had been using me to get his clan to consent to him marrying Lolmack.
I opened my mouth to tell Ardreath to nuke off, then realized the implications of his last sentence. “You’re not planning to start a new marriage with Lolmack then?”
“That would be impossible in the circumstances. I’m deeply unhappy about that, but …”
Ardreath broke off. Arden had glanced over his shoulder, and made an impatient beckoning gesture. Ardreath hurried to join him, and Arden turned back to face Lolek.
“The loan will be repaid in full by tomorrow.”
“With interest, I hope,” said Lolek.
Arden nodded. “With interest.”
He and Ardreath hurried on to the portal, dialled it, and vanished. I wondered what Arden would be saying to Ardreath now they were alone. Arden had trusted his son to tell him the whole truth, and now his clan leader position might be in jeopardy. The Eastreth clan council would be furious when they heard Ardreath had misled them.
Whether Arden hung on to power or not, Ardreath would be in a lot of trouble, but I didn’t care what happened to him any longer. My mind was totally focused on one thing. Lolmack wasn’t with me, and he wasn’t with Ardreath either, so where the hell was he?
“Idiot girl!” snapped Lolek.
I turned to face him, but I was still thinking about Lolmack.
Lolek gave me a withering look of contempt. “Aren’t you capable of following the simplest instructions? We had the Eastreth clan totally defeated, we could have driven them out of the alliance, but you had to open your stupid mouth and say Ardreath probably didn’t see the blood. Now alliance council will use the excuse that the Eastreth clan honestly misunderstood events to keep them in the alliance and discard us instead.”
He paused for a second. “If there’s any way at all of staying in the alliance, our clan must take it. If there are demands that we remove potential sources of future conflict between us and clan Eastreth, we must agree to them. You understand what that means, Lolia?”
I nodded. Oh yes, I understood exactly what he meant. This whole argument was centred on my failed marriage. Removing a potential source of future conflict, meant removing me. Lolek was saying he’d happily sacrifice me to safeguard the clan’s position in the alliance.
“You will return to the doctor, and remain with her until we hear alliance council’s decision.” Lolek dialled the portal and waved at me to go through.
I stepped through into the hotel foyer and found Lolena waiting for me. She didn’t say a single word, and seemed to be trying not to look at me as she led me down the corridor. Had Lolek warned her about the situation? Was she already making the mental shift from thinking of me as family to thinking of me as a clanless outsider? Would the rest of my family and friends discard me as lightly?
Now I knew exactly why I’d been isolated in a hotel suite rather than allowed to return to the clan hall. The second Lolek heard about my marriage breakdown, he’d considered the option of removing me from the clan. He knew it would be hard to do that if I was staying at the clan hall with my friends and family around me, but no one could contact me here. No one knew what had happened or where I was. Lolek could make up any story he wanted to get people to accept his decision.
Lolena dutifully delivered me to the hotel suite and then left. I was alone with the nameless doctor again.
Part III
The doctor gave me a look of professional concern. “You’ve had a very stressful day, Lolia. You should try to get some sleep.”
Sleep? How could I sleep at a moment like this? At a word from the alliance, my clan would discard me. I’d lose my family. I’d lose my friends. I’d lose my job too, because I worked for the clan business.
How the chaos could I survive alone, clanless, and with no income? I had a degree in Art of Language from University Artemis, and I was a good vid script writer, but most of the Artemis clans who made vids were members of the Breck alliance. Their clan leaders had been in the alliance council meeting, where I was the centre of a storm that threatened the unity of the alliance. They’d never give me a job after that.
In fact, getting any sort of job would be desperately hard. In Beta sector almost every business was owned by a clan. They all employed their own clan members in preference to anyone else, second choice was members of clans in their alliance, and then members of other respectable clans. The clanless were only employed as a last resort, because everyone assumed they must have done something dreadful to be disowned by their clan.
I’d never had to worry about money before. I wasn’t just paid a generous amount as a script writer; I could ask for help from the clan funds as well if there was any unexpected emergency. Now though …
All I had was my share of the money that Ardreath, Lolmack, and I had in our joint credit account. That might last for two or three months if I was very careful, but what would I do after that? I was vaguely aware that it was possible to get a subsistence grant if you had no other income, but I didn’t know how much it was or how you claimed it.
I remembered Lolmack’s stories of the orphanage on Janus. My guess was that subsistence grants would be exactly like that orphanage, the absolute grudging minimum provision given with as much humiliation and bullying as possible, because things like subsistence grants and orphanages were only for the clanless. Any clan with a shred of pride cared for its own members rather than let them ask for help elsewhere.
“Take this.” The doctor held out a glass of water and a tablet. “It will help you sleep.”
I didn’t need to sleep. What I needed was my lookup, and there was an obvious way to get it. “I’d rather have some juice. I think there was a carton left earlier. I’ll get it.”
I found the carton, collected two glasses from the food dispenser, and filled them both with juice. I carefully put my tablet in my mouth between my teeth and my cheek, drank from one of the glasses, and swallowed the juice but not the tablet.
The doctor smiled, apparently totally satisfied. “You’d better go and lie down now. Which bedroom would you like?”
I yawned, covering my mouth with my hand for a moment. “Do they both have this dreadfully old-fashioned glittery decor?”
The doctor went over to open a bedroom door and look inside. “This one has, but it’s a very nice shade of delicate pink.”
The tablet was in the palm of my hand now. “I hate pink. What’s the other one like?”
The doctor went to check the second room. I dunked the tablet into the untouched glass of juice, and rubbed it between my fingers. I felt it soften, but it stubbornly refused to dissolve.
“Blue,” the doctor reported.
“I prefer blue.” I yawned again. “Can you put my bags in that one please?”
The doctor collected the key fob that controlled the set of hover luggage, clicked it, and the bags floated into the air and followed her into the bedroom. I had another desperate attempt to make the tablet dissolve in the juice, and this time I succeeded. I peered into the depths of the juice. Fortunately it was bright red, so any remaining fragments of tablet were invisible.