been more brilliant, more brittle, its peak a moment of realization, a knowledge of self and other and the whole blazing, brilliant universe beyond. In Sula he found the confirmation of his own existence, the answer to every metaphysical quest.
Martinez failed to find this with Terza, and furthermore he knew perfectly well that it wasn’t Terza’s fault. At a loss for any other options, he strove simply to please her, and it pleased her to be pleased.
The problem, Martinez thought as he paid the cab, was that he simply didn’t know on what footing the marriage stood. He couldn’t be certain if it was a business arrangement, a piece of practical politics, a folly, or a farce. He couldn’t tell if he and Terza were a man and woman bought and sold, or simply two inexperienced people trying to make the best of what fate had handed them, aware that at any moment fate could declare the whole arrangement nothing more than a joke.
Martinez opened the door to the Shelley Palace and saw PJ standing irresolute in the hall, and he thought, at least my marriage isn’tthat.
“Oh,” PJ said, his eyes widening. “I was thinking of, um…”
“Taking a walk?” Martinez finished. “You don’t want to. It’ll rain soon.”
“Ah.” PJ’s long face was glum. “I suppose I should have looked.” He returned his walking stick to the rack.
One of the maidservants arrived to take Martinez’s uniform cap. “Shall I tell Lady Walpurga you’ve arrived?” she asked.
“Not just yet,” PJ said, and turned to Martinez. “Let me give you a drink. Take the chill off.”
“Why not?”
Martinez followed PJ into the south parlor, where he saw a glass already set out on a table, the sign that this was not PJ’s first drink of the day.
“Terza’s well, I hope?” PJ asked as he made a swoop for the mig brandy.
“She’s very well, thank you.”
“Would you like some of this,” holding up the brandy, “or…”
“That will be fine, thanks.”
They clinked glasses. Rain began to spatter the broad windows, and outside Martinez saw people leaning into the downpour and sprinting to their destinations.
PJ cleared his throat. “I thought I should let you know,” he said, “that I’ve decided to stay.”
“Stay?” Martinez repeated. “You mean on Zanshaa?”
“Yes. I’ve spoken to Lord Pierre and, ah—well, I’ll be staying here to look after Ngeni interests while everyone’s away.”
Martinez paused with the brandy partway to his lips, then lowered the glass. “Have you thought this out?” he asked.
PJ gazed at Martinez with his sad brown eyes. “Yes, of course. My marriage to Walpurga is…” He shrugged. “Well, it’s an embarrassment, why not admit it? This way Walpurga and I can part and…” Again he shrugged. “And no one can criticize, you see?”
“I see,” Martinez said. He swirled his brandy as he considered PJ’s decision. “But Lord Pierre is a loyalist convocate,” he said, “and the Naxids must have him on their list of people they’d very much like to…” He searched for an appropriate euphemism. “Interview.And I can be reasonably certain that I’m also on the list, and now you’re related tome as well.” He looked at PJ carefully. “I don’t really think you’d be safe.”
PJ flapped away the danger with his hand. “Pierre thinks I’ll be all right. I’m only a cousin, after all. And it’s not as if Iknow anything…”
“There may be a great deal of discomfort before the Naxids find that out. And besides, you could be held hostage.”
PJ put down his glass and straightened his jacket. “As if anyone in the empire would alter their course of action on the chance thatI might be killed.”
Martinez had to concede that PJ probably had scored a point.
“Gareth,” PJ said, “it’s the only way I can help. It’swar, it’s critical that I do…something.If all I can accomplish in the war is to look after some property and some farms and pensioned-off servants while Pierre is away, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Martinez narrowed his eyes. “You haven’t volunteered for anything else, have you?”
PJ blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t volunteered to work for the Legion, or the Intelligence Section, or some similar outfit?”
PJ seemed genuinely surprised, but then turned thoughtful. “You think they’d take me?”
I hope not, Martinez thought. “I shouldn’t think so,” he said.
PJ reached for his glass and took a long, morose drink. “No. I’ll just be living in a wing of the palace while the rest of it’s closed up, and making sure that my old nurse and a few hundred other folk are looked after.”
To Martinez, it seemed as if PJ was genuinely determined. “Well,” he said, raising his glass, “here’s luck to you.”
“Thank you, Gareth.”
As Martinez touched his lips with his glass, the front door boomed open and a gust of wind riffled papers on the side table. Martinez glanced through the pocket door to see Roland in the hall wiping rain water from his jacket.
“Damn it!” Roland called. “I wish I’d thought to take my overcoat. It was sunny when I left. Is that brandy?”
He strode into the parlor, water droplets clinging to his hair, poured himself mig brandy, and took a deep drink.
“Sempronia’s married,” he said. “I just came from the ceremony, such as it was.”
“I thought we weren’t speaking to Sempronia,” Martinez said.
“We’re not.” Roland took another drink. “But I was required to sign the papers permitting the whole thing to take place. Which Ihad to do, because Proney was threatening either to travel with Shankaracharya as his mistress, or to join the Fleet as a common recruit and serve as his orderly.”
Martinez concealed a smile. “She hasn’t lost her spirit, I see.”
“No. She has her young man thoroughly under her thumb, from what I could see.” There was a cynical glimmer in Roland’s eye. “In ten years, she’ll look brilliant and he’ll look fifty.”
Martinez looked at his brother. “Now you’re the only one of us unmarried,” he said. “And you’re the oldest. It hardly seems fair.”
Roland smiled into his brandy glass. “I haven’t found the right woman.”
“Why not?” Martinez said. “I’m surprised you didn’t try to marry Terza yourself.”
PJ, with his recent marital wounds, seemed uncomfortable at a question concerning the rational organization of matrimony.
Roland waved a hand. “I prefer to keep my arrangements with Lord Chen on a business basis,” he said, then shrugged. “Besides, I’d make Terza unhappy, and you won’t.”
Martinez gazed at Roland in pure curiosity. “How do you know that?”
Roland patted Martinez on the shoulder. “Because you’re a decent person who gives everything his best,” he said, “and I’m a cad who would put Terza aside the second I’d fathered an heir on her and could find a better match.”
Martinez found himself absolutely at a loss for a reply. Roland finished his brandy and smiled.
“Shall we call Walpurga and have our supper?” he said. “Signing away a sister makes me hungry.”
Supper was in the smaller family dining room, a place with yellow silk wallpaper and elaborately carved furniture inlaid with bits of white shell. PJ and Walpurga dined in amity, though without any expressions of affection beyond Walpurga’s offhand, “Pass the sauce, dearest.” Roland discoursed on political events. Martinez, when asked, said that he found marriage surprisingly congenial, something he would have said even if it weren’t true.
When Martinez returned to the hotel he found Terza lying on the bed still in the light trousers and silk jacket she’d worn to her tropical destination, curled around a calla lily she’d plucked from one of her arrangements. There was a satisfied, rather secretive smile on her face.
Martinez paused in the doorway and absorbed this sight. “What are you thinking of?” Martinez asked.
