Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [46]
He stiffened. ‘That is Carabinere business.’
Despite his rebuff Istelle’s smile stayed warm. ‘I am very fond of the younger Baronessa. I don’t want to see her hurt.’
Trin was taken aback. The ‘esque woman seemed to have no grasp of a servant’s manners.
When he did not reply her smile faded a little, and she escorted him down the ancestor-crowded corridor to the cucina.
Faja Fedor was bent over a vat of stew. She glanced up, surprised. ‘An early visit from the Carabinere, Don Trinder? Hoping to find my sorella hiding in the pantry? Behind a jar of pimento, perhaps.’
‘I come from the fire,’ Trin said simply.
She frowned, mollified. ‘What news of it?’
‘Loisa has lost its grain stores but only a few lives.’
Faja sighed as if the news made her tired. ‘That is good news and bad. There will be food shortages now.’
‘How is the ginko?’ he asked.
She stabbed the stew with her ladle. ‘We do not use that word here.’
‘What is she, then?’
‘Her mama is a miolaqua and her father a Lostol. So in fact she is part ‘esque. Only she has many of her mama’s features.’ Faja eyed Trin closely. ‘Tell me why you would care, Don Trinder, when it was your men who did this to her?’
He shrugged to hide his embarrassment. Vespa Malocchi had bragged of menacing the ragazza. He had handled her a little, he said, because of his curiosity about her strange skin. But she had run from him. ‘What would you have me do? Shoot a Carabinere? Today they risked their lives to save your grain supplies.’
‘Their courage in the face of a fire does not give them rights over a ‘bino.’
‘Hardly a ‘bino, Baronessa,’ Trin argued. She could not be and stir such things in me. ‘Your words stray towards sedition. Little wonder that your sorella has acted improperly. What values have you taught her?’
Faja took a step closer to him, her head tilted to one side, her dark eyes fierce with intent. ‘Would you really take Mira’s Inborn Talent for your own? Would you steal from the genes of our ancestors?’
Trin retreated. The woman had a presence; ways of making him feel uncertain. The same as Mira had that night on the beach, and his tia Marchella at dinner. ‘A woman cannot be Pilot First. You know that as well as I.’
Faja swayed as if she had been slapped. ‘I do not think that you and I know the same things at all.’
Trin gave her a sharp, dismissive look. Faja’s aggression alarmed him—even the voracious Silvio sorellas knew how to curb their stronger opinions.
‘I have other matters to attend,’ he said curtly. Conscious of the Baronessa’s glare at his back, he walked to the end of the corridor where Istelle waited.
‘Djeserit has recovered now,’ Istelle whispered as she opened the coldlock. ‘Thank you.’
Though Trin did not reply, her words took some of the sting out of Faja Fedor’s boorish manner. He stepped outside the lock, wondering why he had come. What had he expected? Comfort? Respect? He stared at the waves of heat billowing from the redcrete. The viuzzas of Loisa were so barren and hostile compared to Dockside and Pell.
‘Don Pellegrini?’ The low, urgent voice came from the shadows of the portico.
He turned. ‘Si?’
A naked hand extended towards him. Trin recognised the mottled skin and took an involuntary step forward. What was the ragazza doing here? Waiting for him?
Djeserit’s fingers closed on his glove and she drew him along the side of the villa and down the edge of the dry-garden. Not a word passed between them until she opened the door of the oval outhouse that contained two beds, a table stand, a tiny cucina and a washroom.
‘What is this?’ Trin asked, stepping inside.
She shrugged—a curious full-body movement that brought her to the tips of her toes—and closed the door. ‘The Baronessas lived here when the villa was being built.’
Impulsively, Trin reached out and touched the healing gash on her forehead. ‘Are you improved?’
Djeserit smiled, her facial skin tightening until her eyes almost disappeared. Without warning she pushed the door shut and locked her arms around his