“If you think I have any shred of feeling left for you—you’re quite mistaken. It’s what I told you before: hurt him and you’ve got a lasting enemy in me. Other than that, I don’t give a damn what you do in your life, if you make him happy. It won’tmake him happy if you come running to me. Figure it out, Barb.”
Barb stared at him, then renewed her start for the door.
He snagged her arm. “If you don’t want to lose Toby for good and all, don’t everget between him and those kids. He’ll make a choice, believe me, if you put him to it. If he wants to leave here and go to the hospital over in Jackson, you smile and you go with him and you speak nicely and sympathetically to Jill and to Julie, if you have a brain in your head.”
“ Let go of me!”
He did. She massaged her arm in high theatrics and stalked out the door, with sharp, measured strides.
He delayed a moment, asking himself whether he had played that round correctly, but he thought he had. At least he’d told her the plain facts, if Barb had absorbed a single word he’d said. That was always the problem with Barb: somewhere in her head, between her eyes, her ears and her brain, there was some filter that only let through what supported her beliefs.
And right now he was probably the villain. He gave that phase about ten minutes, about as long as it took Toby to tell her something she didn’t want to hear, either. And she was here with no way but Toby’s boat for transport back to the island, so those two would have to work through itc though he wondered for a heartbeat or two if he couldn’t get her on a flight to Mogari, where she could pick up a routine air freight flight or a boat to Jackson, with the canned fish and the sacks of flour that went back and forth in trade.
No. If the relationship really, truly blew up today, somebody would have to escort her—namely him, and he wouldn’t get in the middle of Toby’s problem with her—no way in hell. They’d just have to patch it up and ship back together, speaking to each other or not.
So he composed himself and walked out into the hall, receiving a concerned look from Ramaso, who had watched the drama and had very little information.
“There’s been an accident on the Island, nadi-ji. One of Toby’s children-by-prior-contract is injured and the mother called with information. Nand’ Toby is greatly concerned. Barb-daja—” He hesitated just a heartbeat on a polite lie, and then decided the household needed pertinent facts. “—is disturbed by the notion he may take some sort of escape to void their contract.”
The old man was properly dismayed, and bowed. “One comprehends the distress, then, nandi. Are the injuries life-threatening?”
“No, which is to the relief of us all. You may pass the word on to staff,” he said, amazing himself, he was so completely cold-hearted about his brother’s distress and Barb’s outburst. “They should not accept any blame for the lady’s distress or her discord with nand’ Toby. Likely the decision will play itself out in his decision to stay for the rest of his visit or go to the bedside of his child, which will either please or distress Barb-daja, or him. In either case, it is not your fault, nor can I intervene with a solution. This one is theirs to work out.”
“And repercussions, nandi?”
“None are even possible, regarding this house, nadi-ji, Mospheira having no Guild and neither lady having connections with anyone who would take exception. But if Barb-daja disrespects the staff or other guests in any particular, cease service to her and immediately advise me of the situation. You are not obliged to bear with bad behavior or to carry out any unseemly order. This also extends to nand’ Toby, though from him one hardly expects a problem.”
“Yes, nandi,” the old man said with a deep bow. What the old man thought he very courteously didn’t express in wordsc but if there was one situation atevi did understand it was a marital conflict—to a degree that occasionally resorted to the Assassins’ Guild.
“Where is my aishid at the moment, Rama-ji?”
“Somewhere about the house—one believes, in their rooms. They are not unaware of the disturbance.”
“Inform them, nadi-ji. I wish to have a word with them.” He had the pocket com, but there were times when the deliberation of staff talking to staff and forewarnings being passed— served to calm a situation. Time for things to settle. Calm amid the storm. “And the young gentleman?”
“In his suite, too, nandi.”
Waiting for them. They must have heard about the delay and the family fight, and were just doing the sensible thing and staying out of it. Screaming in the halls in an atevi house—it didn’t happen. Nerves were on edge. His aishid was holding an emergency consultation. The kids had taken cover. Barb’s little scene wasn’t a situation he wanted to explain in detail, not until they had some outcome and he himself could say the dust had settled.
So he walked on down the hall to the study, didn’t knock, and walked in, quietly shutting the door again. Toby was still on the phone, Barb was standing, arms folded, head down, and not looking at either of them, beyond her darting glance to see who had come in. If looks could do meticulous murder, he thought, he’d be on the floor.
He wasn’t. And she couldn’t. So he waited, master of an offended atevi house and brother to one side of this phone conversation, which ran to, “Yes.” “No.” And “That’s good.” “Yes. That’s fine with me.” And: “Tell her I love her.”
Then: “Thanks so much, Jill. Thank you. I owe you.”
Jill said something at length that had Toby looking very sober, somewhat distressed.
“Do you think I need to come there?” Then another long answer. “Well, she’d stay on the boat.”
Barb broke her attitude, moved into Toby’s field of vision and signed a vigorous negative.
Toby made a sign for patience. Wait, that was.
Jill, meanwhile, was saying something he was listening toc something Toby wasn’t altogether happy with, but he wasn’t mad. He was upset. Emotionally upset.
Then: “Jill, I really appreciate you taking that attitude. I do. I know I wasn’t the best husband.”
And Barb threw up her hands and went for the door, banging it open to the dismay of two servants outside.
Bren didn’t stop her. He folded his arms and stood there. The servants quietly shut the door, restoring some dignity to the house.
Toby finished his conversation. “Thanks. Thanks, Jill. I do appreciate it. If you need me, call. You know how. I appreciate your attitude. And tell Julia, if she wants me, I will come. We’ll be here probably another five days if Bren doesn’t throw us out. So we’ll be in reach of a phone call.”
Bren was ready to shake his head no, he wouldn’t throw them out, but Toby didn’t look at him as he hung up. Toby just looked at the phone and looked at the floor and that went on for a full minute, Toby running whatever emotional math he had to run to get his nerves settled.
Bren didn’t move, having decided he didn’t need to ask questions of things Toby didn’t elect to say, and that he could amply read from one side of the conversation. He just waited.
Deep breath from Toby. Then: “She’s taking care of things there. Julie’s all in casts, going to be in the hospital another few days, no head trauma, thank God, nothing lasting.”
“That’s good. Very good. I’m glad. We’d fly you back there if you wanted to go.”
“Where’s Barb?”
“I think she went back to your rooms.”
Toby didn’t say a thing. Toby left, and not a moment after Toby had left the study and before the door had quite shut, Banichi and Jago came in, followed by Tano and Algini, all of them frowningc that was to say, allowing him to see that they were considerably disturbed.
He returned the forthrightness. “Toby’s daughter has had a fairly serious accident and lies in the hospital—a broken arm and leg. Toby’s former wife called. Barb-daja has taken this contact as a threat and behaved badly.”
“Need we take precautions?” Algini asked.