“But I could never give you anything. And I wanted to. When I went up to Gaohn to fight for you, gods, it was the first time I ever felt I was worth anything. When you wanted me to go with you-well, I followed you off like some boy out of Hermitage, didn’t I? Go off and fight our way up in the world like two teenaged kids? Didn’t know then the size of the farm you had picked out for me to take. Gods, what an ambition you’ve got! Give you a spacestation or two, shall I?”
“Gods, I wish you could.” For a moment Meetpoint was back in bed with them. The room felt cold. His arms tightened. He gave her what he had, and she still did not know whether it was out of duty or out of his own need; but at least it was a free gift, not something she demanded by being there. That was what she hoped they had won, after all these years, and this far removed from all the rules.
“You never were a recreation,” she said. “You were my sanctuary. The place I could go, the ear that would listen.”
“Gods help me, my other wives always knew who I was waiting for. Who I was always waiting for. They took it out on Tahy and Kara. I tried to stop that. Py, I spent thirty-odd years buying my other wives off our kids’ backs and it didn’t work.”
It was like a light going on, illuminating shadow-spots. Corners of the old house at Mahn she had never seen. The reason of so many things, so evident, and so elusive. “You never told me, rot it.”
“The times you were home-were too good. And you couldn’t stay. I knew that. I did what I could.”
Gods, I poisoned the whole house. All the other marriages. Ruined my kids-hurt Chanur in the long run, when my daughter turned on Khym and took our staunchest ally out. My doing. All of it mine.
He sighed, a motion of his huge frame against her. “I didn’t mean to say that. Gods blast, Py, I just fouled it up, is all.”
That was his life. That was why he walked on eggshells round those women, lost the kids. O gods. Lost Mahn alone, finally. And came back to Chanur like a beggar when I finally came home. Alienated his sisters. Everything. His sisters-for an outsider. They couldn’t forgive that. And the wives’ clans too. All for one wife. That’s crazy.
But, gods, what I’ve done-for a husband. I think I love this great fool. Isn’t that something? Love him like he was clan and kin. Like he was some part of me. It’s gotten all too close. He needs someone else for balance. Some sense of perspective. So do I. And I’m not interested. Handsomest man on Anuurn could walk in stark naked, I’d rather Khym. Always would. And he’d rather me. I never saw that part of it. I never saw that that was always what was wrong with us, and look what it did. We did so much damage, never meaning to; I did so much to him. Gods, I wish I could turn him over to the others.
They wouldn’t know how to treat him but they’d try. Even Tirun.
He wants so much to be one of them. That’s what he really wants. And they’d forget that. They’d forget because I can’t tell them any way I could make them understand what goes on in him.
Haral would. Haral might make a dent in Tirun, the old reprobate: gods, Khym, if you knew what good behavior Tirun’s been on-not laid a hand on you, has she? Because you’re mine. She’d go off and get drunk with you and take you home nice as milk, she would, because she’s onship and you’re offlimits and gods know she likes you, thinks you’re something special. I don’t know. She might be the real lady with you, you’re so much the gentleman. Funny what a crooked line we walk.
No, if you knew either side of Tirun, really knew her, you’d like her.
Geran and Chur-Gods. I wish you’d known them before this mess. So pretty. But deep water, both of them. And dark. You don’t ever pick a fight with either. But they’ve got a godsrotted broad sense of humor . . . never told you those stories. Not planetside. They don’t go down so much. Not comfortable around groundlings. That’s the awful thing: sometimes you want the land under your feet and the sun on your back, and then you’ve got to deal with the people that live there.