She arrived at her assigned quarters still thinking this over. She had unpacked her duffel and was looking up references on the cube reader when the doorchime sounded. When she opened the door, she was facing an elderly woman she had never seen before in her life, a civilian woman who carried herself with the confidence of an admiral—or a very rich and powerful person.
“You don’t look like a desperate schemer,” the old woman said. Her night-black hair was streaked with silver, bushing out into a stormy mass, and with her brilliantly colored flowing clothes, she looked like a figure out of legend. Granna Owl, or the Moonborn Mage or something like that. “I’m Marta Katerina Saenz, by the way. My niece Raffaele went to school with Brun Meager. May I come in?”
“Of course.” Esmay backed up a step, and the woman came in.
“You are, I presume, Lieutenant Esmay Suiza, just returned from leave on Altiplano?”
“Yes . . . Sera.”
Marta Saenz looked her up and down, very much as her own great-grandmother had done. “You also don’t look like a fool.”
Esmay said nothing as the old woman stalked about the room, her full sleeves fluttering slightly. She came to rest with her back to the door, and cocked her head at Esmay.
“No answer? Indirect questions don’t work? Then I’ll ask outright—are you a heartless schemer, glad to make profit out of another woman’s shame and misery?”
“No,” Esmay said, with as little heat as she could manage. Then, belatedly, “No, Sera.”
“You aren’t glad the Speaker’s daughter was captured?”
“Of course not,” Esmay said. “I know that’s what people think, but it’s not true—”
The old woman had dark eyes, wise eyes. “When you have called someone—what was it? oh, yes—a ‘stupid, selfish, sex-crazed hedonist with no more morals than a mare in heat,’ people are going to get the idea you don’t like her.”
“I didn’t like her,” Esmay said. “But I didn’t want this to happen to her.” She wanted to say What kind of person do you think I am? but people had been thinking she was bad for so long she didn’t dare.
“Ah. And did you think she was morally lacking?”
“Yes . . . though that still doesn’t mean—”
“I honor your clear vision, young woman, which can so easily find where others are lacking. I wonder, have you ever turned that clear vision on yourself?”
Esmay took a deep breath. “I am stubborn, priggish, rigid, and about as tactful as a rock to the head.”
“Um. So you’re not casting yourself as the faultless saint in this drama?”
“Saint? No! Of course not!”
“Ah. So when you decided she was lacking in moral fiber, you were comparing her to an objective standard—?”
“Yes,” Esmay said, more slowly. She wasn’t even sure why she was answering this person. She had been over this so often, without convincing anyone.
The old woman nodded, as if to some unheard comment. “If I were simply going by Brun’s past behavior, I’d say there’s a man at the bottom of this.”
Esmay felt her face heating. Was she really that transparent? The old woman nodded again.
“I thought as much. And who, pray tell, is the young man on whom Brun set her sights, and whom you think you love?”
“I do love—” got out before Esmay could stop it. She felt her face getting hotter. “Barin Serrano,” she said, aware of being outmaneuvered, outgunned, and in all ways outclassed.
“Oh, my.” That was all the old lady said, though she blinked and pursed her lips. Then she smiled. “I have known Brun since she was a cute spoiled toddler they called Bubbles—”
“Bubbles?” Esmay could not put that name with what she knew of Brun. “Her?”
“Stupid nickname—gave the girl a lot of trouble, because she thought she had to live up to it. But anyway, I’ve known her that long, and you are right that she was as badly spoiled as it’s possible for a person of her abilities to be. My niece Raffaele was one of her close friends—and Raffa, like you, was one for getting other people out of scrapes. She got Brun out of a lot of them.”
Where was this leading? Esmay wasn’t sure she was following whatever chain of logic the old woman was forging; she was still too shaken at having admitted—to a stranger—that she loved Barin Serrano. She was hardly aware that the emotional atmosphere had changed, that the old woman wasn’t as hostile as she had been.
“Tell me that Brun Meager has no morals, and I find myself defending her. But tell me that she cast covetous eyes on your young man, and I am not only willing to believe it, but not even mildly surprised. She’s been that way since she first discovered boys.”
Was that supposed to excuse her? Esmay felt the familiar stubborn resentment. The old woman paused; Esmay said nothing.
“If you’re thinking that making a habit of stealing other women’s men is even worse than happening to fall in love with one of them, which is what your face looks like, that’s true. She collects them like charms on a bracelet, with reprehensible lack of concern for anyone’s feelings. Or she did. Raffa said she’d been more . . . er . . . discreet in the past few years. Apparently someone she took a fancy to refused to have a fling with her.”
“Barin . . . didn’t,” Esmay said. Then, realizing how many ways that could be taken wrong, she tried to explain. “I mean, he wasn’t the one, but he also didn’t. He said . . .” Her voice failed her. After a miserable pause, during which she wished she could evaporate, the old lady continued.
“But what you should know is that while Brun’s moral qualities are certainly immature, the girl had the right instincts about many things. She’s been wild, heedless, rebellious—but she’s not wittingly cruel.”
“She said things to me, too.” That sounded almost childish, and again Esmay wished she could just not be there.
“In the heat of an argument, yes. She would. Both of you sound rather like fishwives in the tape.” The old lady picked up and put down a datawand and a memo pad. “Suppose you tell me how you met her, and what happened then?”
Esmay could see no reason for doing so, but she felt too exhausted to protest. Dully, she recounted the story of her first sight of Brun arguing with her father, and what followed, up to the point where Barin arrived.
“Let me see if I have this right. Brun admired you, wanted to be your friend, but you found her pushy and uncomfortable.”
“Sort of. I’d seen her throw that tantrum with her father—”
“That sounds like her—and like her father, for that matter. Stubborn as granite, all that family. Back when her father was a boy, he had almost that same argument with his father. But since he was only ten years old, it was easier to deal with. So, from the first, Brun impressed you as spoiled and difficult, and you wanted no part of her.”
“Not exactly,” Esmay said. “If I hadn’t been so busy, taking double courses, I might’ve had time to talk to her. She kept wanting to go off somewhere and have a party, when I had to study. But that doesn’t mean I wanted her to get hurt.”
“And knowing Brun, she would’ve counted on her charm—she probably couldn’t figure out why you weren’t being friendlier. A natural ally, she would have thought—ran away from a repressive home and made a career for herself, and her family isn’t interfering.”
“I suppose . . .” Esmay said. Had that been what Brun was thinking? It had not occurred to her that Brun could ever think of them as having much in common.
“And then, on top of that, she made a play for your man. I wonder if she was serious about that, or if she just thought he could help her get to you?”
“She asked him to sleep with her,” Esmay said, angry again.