Chapter Twenty-Four
Ben rounded the corner of the house and came across the person he’d been trying to find since lunch.
Leda was seated with Astra beneath a shady tree watching Uri, Petta, Balak, Ceadron and Penn playing football. The sun shone brightly as Ben watched Balak and Ceadron tackle each other for possession of the ball. Penn shouted encouragement, and Petta cheered first one then the other. Eventually Ceadron and Balak tripped each other up, falling in a heap on the grass.
“They’re competitive,” remarked Ben sitting down beside Leda.
She turned, smiling at him.
“It’s something of a family trait.”
Ben pretended surprise.
“What Leda? Surely not you as well?”
“I’d have thought you noticed.”
Ben shook his head.
“Well I do have it on good authority that you like kicking hornets’ nests.”
Astra didn’t acknowledge the jib, but continued to watch the football game.
Leda’s brow wrinkled.
“Kicking hornets’ nests?”
Ben nodded.
“Yeah, you know: playing with fire.”
Leda continued to look blank.
“He means making trouble, Leda,” interposed Astra.
“Which reminds me: what are your feelings on skeletons, Leda?”
“Skeletons?” asked Leda in bewilderment.
Astra laughed.
Ben couldn’t quite believe it, but she laughed. For the first time Ben could see her as a person. Before, she had interested him, then, when he had learnt her story he had felt sorry for her. Yet he’d never really liked her. Her personality didn’t really allow thinking of her in terms of like or dislike. She was too shut off, too guarded and her façade unreal.
“I knew you’d come round to my way of thinking and see the funny side,” stated Ben, settling his back against the tree.
“It was not in the least funny at the time.”
Ben thought it over.
“I suppose it wasn’t, but I didn’t know what was at stake.”
Astra’s smile faded.
“And Leda was the only one who was brave enough to tell you.”
Leda had continued to look lost through their exchange, but at this last remark she shivered, wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her chin on top.
“Or stupid enough,” she sighed.
Astra was thoughtful for a moment before shaking her head.
“They needed to know what was really happening, Leda.”
“They are still in the dark about it, and the only person that could tell them anything is right here with us,” responded Leda glumly. “The only thing I accomplished was to put us all in danger, to separate Ben from his father, and make it necessary for us all to come here.”
“But we’re safe, Leda, and that is more than I would have believed possible,” countered Astra.
Leda studied her sister’s face closely.
“Safe? Are we?”
Leda looked pointedly to where Shin and his men sat watching them all from a distance.
“Even if we are safe, what about you?”
Astra looked vaguely surprised.
“What do you mean?”
Leda clicked her tongue impatiently.
“What about that not so friendly husband we’ve just found out you have?”
Ben watched stiffness creep into Astra’s form, and knew that she had closed up again. Leda’s questions had been too aggressive, too probing. Astra only had one reaction to fear, and that was to shut down. All her safety mechanisms came on line and she hid behind them, frozen. Ben was a little surprised that Leda didn’t know that her line of questioning would only scare Astra away. Or, maybe it wasn’t that she didn’t realise, but that she didn’t know how to go about it in a different way.
Leda was a tough cookie. She didn’t flinch from things that needed to be done, but was forthright, even aggressive, and blunt to a fault. She probably had no idea how to handle someone like Astra, who needed their secrets extracted with kid gloves, while they remained in blithe ignorance of the fact that they were giving any secrets away.
Ben doubted that he could get Astra to open up to him. He might have the technique, but she didn’t trust him enough to drop her guard. Still, with her manner of interrogation, Leda wasn’t going to get anywhere either.
Astra stood and strolled over to the ornamental pond putting an abrupt end to the conversation. Ben shifted closer to Leda, pulling gently on a lock of her hair to catch her wandering attention.
“You scared her.”
Leda’s eyes shifted, not quite meeting his gaze.
“That’s ridiculous: why would she be scared of me?”
“Not so much you,” mused Ben, “more the way you talked to her. When she’s scared, her shoulders stiffen and she goes very still.”
Leda’s eyes met his, he could see curiosity in her gaze.
“You seem to know — or at least think you know — a lot about my sister.”
“I know that, despite the admirable way she hides it, she is deeply afraid of confrontation. Her reaction to any sort of altercation is to detach herself from everything around her,” answered Ben. “It’s a safety mechanism, without it she would never have survived being Councillor Ladron’s subsidiary.”
Leda’s face remained frozen, and Ben could detect a glitter of anger in her eyes.
“You have known Astra for a week, and yet you think you know her better than I do?”
Ben shrugged slightly, surprised by the heat of her anger.
“Where I come from we have a saying: you can’t see the wood for the trees. It means that sometimes you’re too close to see something that’s staring you in the face.”
Leda turned away from him a little.
“What kind of psychobabble is that?” she asked scornfully. “And to think I was actually giving what you were saying some credence.”
Ben chuckled.
“Don’t pull your punches do you, Leda?”
“Poor, Benji, can’t you keep up?” she returned dismissively. “I’m disappointed.”
Ben got to his feet and pulled Leda up after him. She leaned back against the movement warily.
“What are you doing?”
Ben placed a hand on the small of her back, propelling her forward.
“Seeing if I can keep up with you,” he responded, pushing her on to the lawn where Penn was desperately trying to keep Petta from taking the ball.
“Let’s see if you’re as good as your sister.”
“I’m better,” boasted Leda promptly, “but I’m wearing a dress, so…”
Ben clicked his tongue.
“Excuses, excuses! I’m disappointed, Leda.”
She pulled free of his grasp and, hitching up her dress, tucked the fabric out of her way with a few deft folds.
“You’re so dead, Benji,” she assured him easily. “I’m very competitive and have no mercy.”
“You’re also six inches shorter than me, babe.”
Leda smiled up at him softly for a moment, and then kicked his leg just behind the knee. Ben’s leg gave way and he found himself on his knees before her. She shook her hair back from her face.
“I forgot to mention that I also play dirty.”
Ben scrambled to his feet, and joined the fray. They were all surprisingly good considering that Astra had told him football was an ‘ancient’ game, played before the split.
Petta in particular impressed him. She was much smaller than everyone else, smaller even than Astra, but she was fast and stole the ball from him more than once.
After a while Balak and Ceadron called to Astra, inviting her to join the game. She shook her head, and Balak threatened to throw her in the pond. Astra surprised Ben by sticking out her tongue at her brother.
Balak nodded to Ceadron, and both began to advance on her menacingly. Astra stood her ground for a while remonstrating with him, but as th
ey came closer she turned on her heel and ran.
They cornered her in the rose garden and, one at each end, hauled her toward the fishpond. Balak murmured something to Astra that Ben didn’t hear and she started to squirm in their arms.
“Don’t you dare.”
Astra warned as Balak and Ceadron began to swing her back and forth.
“One…”
“Balak, let me go!”
“Two…”
“Cead, no!”
“Three!”
Astra was screaming before they let her go, and as she hit the water her scream changed in pitch and then abruptly ceased. Balak and Ceadron stood at the edge and laughed so hard they were bent double. Astra rose from the water spluttering, with duckweed clinging to her hair as tightly as her dress clung to her figure. She held out a hand to the men still laughing at the edge of the water.
“The least you can do is help me back out again.”
Both men leant forward to capture a hand, but as they did Astra launched herself toward them, grabbing their shirts and pulling them off balance. They landed head first in the water with ear splitting yells that were abruptly choked off.
“Seems like you're not the only one that plays dirty,” remarked Ben to Leda.
“Another family trait,” she returned with a smile.
------
Rem rounded the corner of the house just in time to see Astra, Balak and Ceadron laughing as they climbed out of the pool. His breathing was erratic, and his face deathly pale. He came to a halt and watched proceedings, his hands flexing involuntarily into fists. He was aware of Shin coming to stand at his side, and spoke to him without turning his head.
“I thought Kai had given in to temptation and was murdering her,” he explained. “Yet it seems that she is merely having a good time. She looks happy, doesn’t she?”
“That angers you?”
Rem flushed, shrugging his shoulders.
“In a way. Why is it that her arrival throws my world in to turmoil, but affects her not at all?”
Shin’s eyes shifted to the family laughing together as Petta tried to remove the pondweed from Astra's hair.
“Because she has no guilt.”
“What?”
Shin turned back to Rem.
“She has no guilt. She believes her actions in the circumstances were the right actions to make. That is what angers you and Kai. That is what you cannot pardon. In your mind she needs forgiveness, but in her mind she has nothing to be forgiven for.”
Rem’s shoulders slumped.
“Then, Kai was right.”
“About what?”
“He said that if she ever came back, it would be worse than when she was living with the Tula. I didn’t believe him. I thought that if she returned everything would be settled, that things would go back to how they were. That’s not possible, is it? It never was possible.”
“No, Rem, we can never go back, but we can always go forward. The future is unwritten, Rem. It waits for you to make of it that which you want it to be.”
Rem was silent.
“You really believe that? After all that’s happened, do you really still believe that we will ever be able to make a future for ourselves?”
“I do. It is wisdom that was passed on to me at a most difficult time in my life by a most trusted friend.”
Rem frowned.
“Who?”
“You need to ask, Rem? It was Kai.”
“Then Kai does not take his own council it would seem.”
Rem felt Shin’s eyes turn on him sharply.
“Kai is neck deep in this mess trying to protect you and his family from the other Head Families. It is easy for me to be objective and say forgive and forget: I have nothing to forgive her for. It’s different for you and Kai.” He patted the boy’s shoulder comfortingly. “And, if you will forgive me, it is different again for Kai over you.”
Rem looked up, startled by his friend’s words.
“What do you mean?”
Shin frowned thoughtfully.
“There are many things that you do not understand about your situation, Rem.” Shin raised his hand to stop Rem from speaking. “No, Rem, do not ask about it, I cannot tell you. If you wish for answers then you must appeal to Kai. Yet you must always believe that, however it may seem, Kai’s every action is for the good of his family and yours.”
Rem was silent for a moment.
“Even Aya?”
Shin smiled.
“How is it that you do not know that Kai would do anything to protect Dam’sel Aya and her family for no other reason than that she is precious to you?”
Rem nodded in recognition of this truth, and Shin continued.
“But she is also his Bonded mate, Rem. As such you may be doubly certain that he will allow no harm to befall her: she will be safe.”
Rem started and turned swiftly to Shin. Something about the way he had phrased his assurance struck him as odd.
“Harm? Why do you speak so pointedly of harm? What harm may befall Aya?”
“This is something you must ask Kai.”
“Shin…”
“No, Rem!” Shin’s voice was final. “There are things it is best that you remain unaware of.”
“Like why Kai and Aya were Bonded out of turn and before their time in the ‘Sequence of Marriage’?” asked Rem bitterly.
Shin settled his hand on his shoulder, a worried frown between his brows.
“All will be made clear in time, Rem, but until then…”
Rem shrugged his shoulder free.
“Until then I must have patience, correct?” Rem made a gesture to where Astra stood. “I will wait only for so long, Shin, best you know that now. I will not let any harm come to Aya.”
Rem bowed abruptly and left.
Shin’s words had pricked at a nebulous worry that had hovered on the edge of his consciousness for as long as he could remember. For so long Kai and Shin had been keeping secrets from him. In the past he had been content to let the past remain buried, but now Aya was back he felt an unexplainable fear for her safety.
Yet at the same time he was scared of the secret they kept from him. It would be so easy to back down and hide away from the unpleasantness of the truth.
He was ashamed by that desire to remain ignorant. For too long he had accepted that Kai and Shin would do what was best. He had gotten used to trusting them enough to fall in with their plans, without knowing exactly what he was getting himself in to.
That couldn’t keep happening.
He was a Headman. It was his purpose to protect his people, and he wouldn’t shirk that duty any longer.
------
Shin cursed roughly under his breath and wondered if his attempt to make things better had only made it worse.
He shouldn’t have broached the subject in the first place. Now he had placed fear and suspicion in Rem’s mind, and he knew only too well where that would lead.
Rem was young, but he was still a Headman. He had been taught all his life that it was his responsibility to defend his people. Shin was almost certain that he had inadvertently pushed Rem down a path that would cause much trouble.
Rem would want answers, and Kai would be very unwilling to be questioned. The damage that an argument between them could cause would be far reaching.
Due to his past, Rem was very sensitive to any kind of rejection. His loyalty to Kai was a fierce mix of admiration, brotherly love, and the need of someone vulnerable for someone strong. He didn’t see Kai’s faults the way that Shin did. Rem saw Kai more as a hero than a flesh and blood man; an ideal to aspire to.
Shin had grown up with Kai, he’d seen him at his worst. They’d been at school together, although Shin as a second son had not attended the same classes. He knew Kai’s weaknesses; he’d seen him angry, in the wrong, and frustrated.
Rem wouldn’t be able to understand why Kai had chosen to take the path he had. The boy would be angry, and that anger would prohi
bit him from seeing how necessary the deception had been.
Rem was, despite his hardy exterior, a very soft hearted person. He could be hurt very easily by those he trusted, and Shin knew better than anyone just how betrayed he would feel when the truth came to light.
Shin frowned, he hadn’t meant to scare Rem. More to the point, he certainly hadn’t meant to alert him to the great danger Aya was in. The threat surrounding his sister encompassed them all in a tricky web of half truths and hate, but Rem was the last person on earth that Kai wanted to know that.
However, perhaps there was still a way to sooth Rem’s ruffled feathers before he did something foolish.
“Gatto, come here.”
A blond soldier looked up from the card game that he and his friends were engaged in, and got to his feet.
“Yes, sir?”
“I will leave you in command for the moment.”
The young man bowed.
“Yes, sir!”
Shin made his way to the edge of the garden, he was sure Kai would be watching them all from the shade of the big tree. He stepped over the small hedge and, brushing the trailing branches of the tree to one side, entered the little bower that hid Kai from view. Without speaking, he sat down next to his friend.
The breeze shifted the leaves and Shin could hear the bubble of the water fountain in the middle of the fishpond. The faint song of one of the servant girls as she performed some unknown task floated on the breeze.
“Have you noticed it yet?” Shin asked after a time.
“I have a suspicion.”
“You’ve watched for all this time, yet you only have a suspicion?”
Kai turned to face him.
“Then I’m right?”
Shin nodded.
“So, who is he?”
“I don’t know, but he’s not their brother as they told us he was.”
Kai frowned.
“You’re certain?”
Shin nodded.
“He doesn’t know their customs or ours. His way of talking is strange, and often they have to explain things to him. Also his treatment of his ‘family’ is odd especially in regard to Leda.”
“The older girl is Leda?” asked Kai.
“Yes. He treats her differently from Dam’sel Aya and Dam’sel Petta, more like a lover than a brother.”
“Then perhaps that is what they are.”
“So why lie?”
“Perhaps she thought that, while we might accept her Tula keepers on the grounds that they had protected her, we would not accept him. What did you speak of with Rem?”
Shin shifted uncomfortably, looking away at a red leafed Acer, and studying it with total absorption. Although Kai said no more, Shin could feel his gaze upon him, demanding wordlessly that his question be answered.
“He has to be told, Kai.”
He hadn’t meant to blurt it out in such a hasty and ill thought out fashion. It was none of his business how Kai chose to handle his Brother of Bond. He was meddling in things he had no right to.
“When the time is right I will tell him, not before.”
“And what if he will not wait until you are ready, until you think the time is right?”
For a moment silence hung between them.
“What have you said to him, Shin?”
“I told him you would see Aya came to no harm. He demanded to know what danger she was in that she might come to harm.”
Kai did not respond, and when Shin turned, it was to see that Kai had closed his eyes as if somehow the action would make Shin’s words untrue.
“I’m sorry, I should never...”
“It doesn’t matter; that we have managed to keep the secret this long is more than I had anticipated.”
“Yet you wish to keep it longer?”
“I would keep the events of the past buried for eternity if it was possible, but to tell him now? With his sister just returned and stirring trouble among the Head Families? With the Head Families no doubt searching for a way to depose the Houses of Sen and Singh? I will fight with all I have to continue to keep it secret for just a little longer.”
“The longer you wait, the more it will hurt him.”
“He is a sixteen year old boy, Shin. How do you suppose he will feel when he learns the truth? His whole life he has been an outcast with only me to depend on. With all that is happening, he needs me the most now. If I tell him, he will have no one to turn to. He’s just a boy. How can he fight this on his own?”
Kai’s voice was flat, and Shin realised that he had probably had this argument many times before. The pros and cons of telling Rem everything had been stacked against revelation before, now it was impossible.
Shin sighed stretching his legs out before him and crossing them at the ankle.
“Then what will you do?” he asked. “Rem may be a boy, but he will soon be a man. How will you keep this from him if he demands to know the truth?”
“Because, no matter what Rem says, he has respect for me. He will obey my decision for as long as I ask him to.”
“And the other matter concerning Benji?”
Kai got to his feet, and gazed over at his wife and her companions. Ben was tackling Leda for possession of the ball, tripping her so that she fell against him.
“The other matter you may leave to me,” he replied. “I want your word on one thing.”
Shin nodded.
“What do you want of me?”
For a moment Kai’s eyes remained on Ben, and then shifted to his wife.
“You will not, by word or action, alert Aya to the fact that you have guessed her secret.”
Shin glanced warily from Aya to Kai.
“You have my promise.”
“Good, then I must leave.”
Shin nodded and moved to cross the hedge, but he hesitated at the last moment.
“Kai!”
He turned, and Shin tried to formulate his thoughts into a coherent sentence.
“Kai… it cannot be that you mean to entrap her with this information, can it?”
A smile that had very little to do with amusement curved his friend’s mouth.
“How well you know me, Shin.”
“Please reconsider, Kai. She is your Bonded mate; you cannot be rid of her, and if you do this you will only make things worse.”
“What would you suggest I do, Shin? She comes back to seek shelter with us, only to lie to us about her ‘family’, and expose us to the censure of the Headmen. Would you have me ignore her betrayal purely because she is my wife?”
“Yes! Do that. Do anything but that which you plan,” exclaimed Shin. “She is Rem’s sister. Your wife. The whole purpose of your Bonding was to bring peace, and yet you are determined to cause as much difficulty as is possible between you. Why not bend your considerable intelligence to making your marriage work instead?”
Kai was silent for a moment.
“All she has to do is tell the truth, Shin, and all will be well. Never fear, I will honour the Bonding vows I took. I will stand with her before the Headmen, but I will not give my trust to her when she has proved herself a liar, that would make me a fool.”
Kai took a few steps toward him, until they stood close enough for Shin to hear the veiled threat behind his next softly spoken words.
“Remember your promise to me, Shin. I will forgive you almost anything, but do not stand as a buffer between me and my wife.”
Shin bowed. Kai was correct: he had no right to meddle in such things, and he was rather ashamed that he had needed reminding.