Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [34]
‘What if I have no wish to be Pilot First? What if I do not want to have her genes mingled with mine?’
Franco didn’t speak, nor did he break eye contact, his gaze as remorseless as the Araldis plains.
Trin wavered first. He reached for a glass and poured the rest of the decanter into it. Quick, fierce sips relieved the pain of his insecurity.
Thankfully, Jilda’s thin voice wavered into the angry space between them. ‘Trinder, are you in there?’
‘Si, mama,’ he managed. He stepped out of the bar into the familia dining room. Jilda saw his shaken expression and went to him, wrapping him in her arms and her wine-perfume. Trin stood stiff in the embrace.
Behind his mother a woman in a worn ochre fellala gave him an amused smile.
Jilda relinquished her hold. ‘Trinder, you remember your tia Marchella? She does not visit Pell very often nowadays.’
Trin took in Marchella’s intelligent face and ragged, unbound hair. She was not that much older than him but her manner was weary and aged. She drew on her rolled tobacco and held his gaze. Familia women were not permitted to smoke but his tia, as he’d heard many times over, lived outside such customs.
‘Bonjourno, Trinder,’ she said. ‘They tell me you are gifted in the art of dalliance—just like your father.’
Jilda clicked her tongue in a disapproving manner and beckoned them to their places at the table. ‘Marchella, you trouble-make still. How is it that you never learned manners? Franco is a Pellegrini and Principe. Of course women will want him. And his son.’
Trin couldn’t drag his stare from Marchella as she moved to her allotted place at the table. Does she know about Luna?
‘I have manners, Jilda. What I did not learn is the art of submission,’ she said.
Before Jilda could reply, Franco joined them. He sat at the head of the table, offering no customary familia embrace for his sibling.
Tina Galiotto moved silently around them, removing Franco’s and Trin’s slippers and unfolding napkins onto their laps.
Marchella refused her help and performed the rituals herself. ‘Yes. Infidelity is one of those traditions that our men adopted when they stole our choice to have children.’ Marchella stared directly at Jilda. ‘Tell me, Jilda, do you have amicos?’
Jilda’s hands fluttered in protest.
Franco jolted from his seat and leaned across the table as if he might slap Marchella’s face. ‘I will not have such filthy conversation in my house: conduct yourself properly or leave. What did you come here for anyway mia sorella?’
‘I want to know, Franco: why do you continue to hoard the best of everything for your Enclave?’ she asked. ‘On the plains, the miners live and work in dangerous conditions. It is not necessary.’
Trin sat straight in his chair, distracted from his own troubles by Marchella’s temerity. The woman was like an island stoat with a fleshy fish in its teeth.
‘This is not a suitable discussion for dinner.’ Franco bestowed another warning glare on her. ‘A young world like Araldis cannot afford the widespread luxuries of the established OLOSS planets.’
‘It is not about luxury, Franco. It is about your greed.’
It was true, Trin knew, that the mines ran on archaic technology—rubber conveyors and primitive mechanical crushers. Even the screens were metal. But he did not think Marchella was speaking of those things.
‘Your feudalism stops our world from progressing. You keep Araldis in check as if it were one of your women.’
‘What would you know about acting like a woman, mia sorella? You choose manliness over your true sex. That is the truth.’
‘At least that way I have a choice. That way no man can force me to bear his bambini.’
Franco hit her then, in front of Jilda, Trin and the Galiotto servants.
Marchella fell from her chair, stifling a cry.
Trin found himself half out of his seat. He looked to his mother but she did nothing except call for a dressing for Marchella’s bleeding mouth. The Principessa had seen this before and she seemed almost pleased that Franco had asserted his right.
Yet Trin had never heard Cipriano traditions so vehemently and shockingly challenged