Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [48]
Faja kissed the top of Mira’s hair. ‘Without Insignia you will be strong.’
Mira inhaled her sorella’s thick scent, calmed by its familiarity. It had been this way when they were younger: Faja giving comfort to her just so.
‘It is not just for you that there are troubles, ‘bino. The city’s kranse stores are gone, burned down—whoof!—like that. These last weeks the Carabinere sirens bleat day and night. The miners are angry with the familia, but Franco Pellegrini does nothing to improve things for them. Nothing. And now ... he would take our birthright away.’ Her voice shook on the last word. She drew a quiet breath. ‘I must speak quickly to you of an important matter.’
Mira stared up at her. ‘What matter?’
Faja disappeared into the large pantry. Mira heard her heavy-footed tread down the stairs to the cellar. She returned with a bottle of aged wine. Mira knew its quality from the clear tawny colour.
‘Where are your servants?’ asked Mira.
Faja handed her the cup. ‘The Galiottos have been recalled by the Principe. He has heard that I am giving refuge to alien ragazze,’ she said.
Mira sat a little straighten How long had she been away at the Studium? Several years. She had not come back in that time. It had not seemed right to flaunt her learning in Faja’s face.
‘Do you know how I can afford to care for these un-familia?’ asked Faja.
‘Our gratis?’
‘Pfft. That does not scrape the skin of my expenses. I cannot beg the Principe to buy korm shell or uuli nutrients. No, I have only been able to do this through the grace of a patron.’
‘A patron?’ Mira was alert now and distracted from her own concerns. ‘Who?’
Faja took a generous swallow of her wine. ‘Marchella Pellegrini.’
Marchella Pellegrini? Franco’s estranged sorella! Mira knew the name—most familia did—though she had never met her.
Faja saw her puzzlement. ‘Some believe that Marchella should be head of the familia instead of Franco. If intelligence and courage stood for anything it would be so. But Ciprianos are the most intransigent of our clans. They think only of the men . . . the men…The men say they left Crux for the sake of our future. That is a lie, Mira! They left for the sake of their future: to keep their women restrained. Things had begun to change on Crux. The many wars had opened our eyes to other ways.’
Mira stared at her, open-mouthed. ‘No. That is not so. We left to arrest the dilution of our race. When our women were raped during the wars, it led to much interbreeding with our enemies. That is why they altered the terms of our fertility. To protect us.’
‘You sound like a Studium lecture, Mira. Have you not thought to look past the official canon?’
In truth she had not. In her time at the Studium her mind had been immersed in Latino poetry and ship schematics, and ways to avoid Lancia Silvio. ‘W-what other truths do you know?’
‘I—we believe that our clan leaders wish only to strengthen their patriarchy—that our race was never in danger of dilution.’
‘The Fedors would not have fallen for such a thing! Why did they volunteer to pilot the migration?’
‘Maybe they thought it would preserve the Inborn Talent, for we do not truly know why or how we are blessed.’
Worry, not hunger, churned Mira’s stomach now. ‘The Principe believes he can cut the gene from me and transfer it to his son.’
‘Franco wishes much for his son. It is Franco who should experience a transference—transference of command.’
Mira took a sharp breath. Faja spoke treason. ‘You must not say that,’ she begged her sorella. ‘You are the prudent one. The steadfast elder Baronessa Fedor. I am the loco; the eccentric.’
Faja swallowed the last drops from her glass of wine and poured another; her cheeks glowed brighter with her rising passion. ‘You are not the only one with dreams, Mira. Why do you think I have taken in these bambini?’
Without warning she parted the folds