Merovingen - Fever Season - BestLightNovel.com
You’re reading novel Merovingen - Fever Season Part 20 online at BestLightNovel.com. Please use the follow button to get notification about the latest chapter next time when you visit BestLightNovel.com. Use F11 button to read novel in full-screen(PC only). Drop by anytime you want to read free – fast – latest novel. It’s great if you could leave a comment, share your opinion about the new chapters, new novel with others on the internet. We’ll do our best to bring you the finest, latest novel everyday. Enjoy
Her eyes filled while she spoke, then released her tears down trembling cheeks. Richard wondered how many days she'd hidden behind her door, sharing her terror with none but her children. He guided her to the sofa where, once she was seated, the children immediately moved to her side. Richard asked what had happened, then offered her his hand- 202.JLyHM Abbey kerchief as the question brought forth more tears than words. The wise man of wealth and power knew better than to presume casualness in the homes of his inferiors; Richard stood at military rest while the young woman stumbled through her story.Their youngest had been fevered and Jordie had cast about looking for quick work to get the medicines that would see the child to health. He'd found something five nights ago."He must've known something," the woman said, her voice suddenly steady as she stared into Richard's eyes. "He come back here with the coin first. Said he'd got less for the work, getting the coin first and all, but it was enough for the medicine an' that was all that mattered.""Did he say where he was going, or who he'd be working for?" Richard asked, already certain that Jordie hadn't told his wife.She hesitated then hid her face behind the cotton square. **He said he'd be back by third watch, and he just said he loved me. . . . Oh, m'ser, Jordie'd always say he loved me an' not to worry-but he just said he loved me."Richard felt his blood go cold with karma. If he'd been his grandfather, who'd grown up working beside men like Jordie, he'd have taken the woman in his arms like a daughter and promised her that Jordie's vengeance was Kamat's vengeance. But Richard wasn't Hosni, and compa.s.sion pounded through his veins without ever breaking the surface.*'We'll look for him, m'sera," he said awkwardly."Not the blacklegs!" she hissed.So she knew enough to know that whatever Jordie had done that night, it hadn't been legal. And even if it had, there was no love and less trust between the workers and the enforcers of Merovingen."No, not the blacklegs," he a.s.sured her. "My own men. Kamat men. We'll find out what happened."He didn't offer her the false hope that they'd find Jordie and he was grateful that she didn't seem to look for it. He asked when she or the children had eaten last and was not surprised when she didn't answer. Ca.n.a.lside they had a phrase LIFE a.s.sURANCE.203.for people, events or days like this: Instant Karma, they called it. The upper cla.s.ses generally preferred the more discreet Hfetide. Jordie Slade's wife had crossed his destiny and there wasn't any use in fighting it."Gather enough for tonight. You'll stay at Kamat until this is over." He did not add that where karma was involved, nothing was ever over.The young woman seemed to sense that her own karmic stream had sluiced into a different channel.xWith whispered instructions to the children, she gathered her life with Jordie Slade into three st.u.r.dy baskets. They followed Richard down to the Calliste slip where he hailed a poleboat."Where're we going, Mama?" the youngest, a girl-child of about three, asked."We're going where it will be safer.""Does Daddy know?" the elder, also a girl-child one or two years older, asked in faintly distrustful tones, "Daddy would want us to be safe."Richard felt an unexpected twinge of admiration that she had rea.s.sured them without lying. "You'll be safer in Kamat. ... I, I don't know your name, m'sera.""Eleanora."Andromeda Kamat, dowager of the house, had been persuaded to spend the foul-aired autumn at one of Kamat's indigo estates some one-hundred-and-seventy kilometers down the coast. She'd left more than a month ago and taken with her the remnants of the Adami-twenty-odd dispirited former aristocrats who had dwelt cheek-by-jowl with his family since Hosni Kamat's purchase of their island.At the time Richard had rejoiced, seeing two of his nagging problems resolved: his fragile mother had been removed from Sword influence or observation and the Adami would finally have the chance to reverse their collective karma or disappear completely from Merovin geneologies. Now he had another reason: his mother would not return until the end of the week, and by then he'd have the remnants of the Slade family settled.204.Lytm Abbey The Adami had vacated a half-dozen cavernous apartments and it would be easier to install Eleanora and her children in one of them while his mother was away. Richard might have inherited the Kamat business, but Andromeda still ruled the house. His mother would have asked questions he was not ready to answer; questions his sister would never think to-ask."1 would earn my way," Eleanora said, hesitating at the threshold, daunted by the ornate door with its wrought-iron straps and grill-work.Richard repressed a sigh. "We can speak of that later . . . when all this is settled. But first I'll see you and the children fed and rested."He pulled the bell-rope then opened the doors himself. In the absence of the Adami, Kamat was understaffed. Andromeda had charged her daughter with the hiring-thinking it would take her mind off the Nikolaev disaster. It hadn't. Andromeda would return to find they still needed new servants-from chars and porters up through butlers and cooks. Richard could easily say that Eleanora-if she could cook or sew-was a G.o.d-send, except that karma seldom involved itself in domestic service."Wait here," he instructed, indicating the scrollback chairs fining one wall of the vestibule. "My sister will know which apartments are ready. I'll be back after 1 speak with her and take you down to the kitchen."Looking very young and completely lost, Eleanora nodded silently then took a firm grip on each of her children before perching at the very edge of the least comfortable-looking chair. Richard understood the futility of suggesting she relax, and hurried up the stairway to the drawing room where Marina was most apt to spend her afternoons.He saw the pile of crumpled paper and heard her muttering as he slipped, unannounced of course, into the room. Three piebald kittens were noisily scattering the paper beyond even Marina's usual carelessness; a fourth was trying to climb a dark blond plait. Marina did not seem to notice any of that or her brother from the depths of the day bed in which she reclined.LIFE a.s.sURANCE.205."Having fun, Ree?" Richard asked innocently.The kittens and Marina all jumped with surprise. The kittens slipped and fell in their attempts to find hiding places; Marirja took a sheet of paper from her writing board and stuffed it between the cus.h.i.+ons beside her."1 don't know how mother manages," Marina said rather more quickly than was necessary. "There must be honest people in this city looking for work-but I can't find them. And if I'd known that I'd never have promised to hold a reception for her when she returned. She never seemed this overwhelmed. Well, she had the Adami, of course, but she had to write everything herself. A buffet for sixty people- what's sixty people?-and I've been writing invitations, menus and shopping lists all day. And I'm nowhere near finished ..."Richard ignored the details. He heard only the rapid rise and fall of her voice and her determination that he not notice the sc.r.a.p she'd hidden away. So Marina had her little adventures going again. At any other time, Richard would have looked less charitably on his sister's penchant for schoolgirl romances and intrigues, but she had been shaken by the Nikolaev affair and he was glad to see her interested in anything again. He scooped up one of the kittens and sat at the foot of the day bed."There's been a problem with one of the workers. I've brought his family here to Kamat."Marina's eyes brightened. She fancied herself more kindred to the workers than to the privileged elite of Merovingen society. She affected worn clothing which Eleanora Slade would likely have given to the rag-collector but, to her credit, Marina did keep herself informed about the ups and downs of the workers' lives. A House-gift of silver commefnorated each birth, marriage and death without fail."Which one? Bolger? His wife was doing poorly ...""No, Jordie Slade's gone missing and-call it a hunch, or karma-rdon't feel good about it. I went to check on him after lunch and, well, I thought it would be just as well to 206.LVKH Abbey bring them here. There's his wife, Eleanora, and two children-I forgot to ask their names."His sister chewed on the tip of her pen. "She isn't a cook, is she? Angel knows we need a cook.""I didn't think to ask that either-I mean, it's not certain she's staying very long. There could be any number of good reasons why Jordie's gone.""But you don't think so, do you, d.i.c.kon?"Richard pushed his hair back from his forehead and shrugged noncommittally. Like almost every other member of his cla.s.s, he'd been exposed to orthodox Revenantist teaching during his impressionable years; like almost every one else, the surface of his life seemed relatively undisturbed by religion or philosophy. But Revenantism flowed deep and he was dwelling on karma today more than he had in the previous ten years combined. Not even his father's untimely death had seemed so laden with destiny.Marina shoved the writing board to the carpet and swiveled the length of the day bed to take her brother's hand between her own. "Lifetide?"Richard met her eyes and saw the excitement, verging on envy, in them. Marina lived for lifetide, yearned for a manifestation of uncontrollable destiny in what she considered an unrelentingly boring life and mourned the fact thatv