Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [50]
‘You have your hands full there, ‘Stelle.’
‘Their mother was a Pagoin. She was killed in the Juanita mine collapse. Their father is still alive but he is filled with grief and refuses to see them.’
‘What happened at Juanita? I heard many different things.’
Istelle shrugged. ‘Some say it was deliberate, others say an accident. Faja believes the Principe does not insist on enough safety.’
Mira watched her rock the bambino. ‘It suits you,’ she said softly.
Istelle smiled. ‘I’ve been blessed, Mira. You know I was born wombless. That’s why my husband abandoned me. Yet I find myself with more love and more children to care for than I could have dreamed about.’
‘I think they are the ones who have been blessed, Istelle.’
Mira stayed with Istelle until a little before midnight when Faja came to find her.
‘Come while I finish,’ Faja said.
Mira followed in Faja’s shadow. ‘So many bambini now,’ she whispered.
Faja nodded. ‘It seems that more and more are being abandoned. It has become known that we will not turn them away. I suppose that is how the Principe heard.’ She pointed into Mira’s old room. ‘Djeserit—the miolaqua—asked for you.’
No sense of familiarity claimed her when she entered the room. Her Fenice four-poster bed and armoire had been removed to make room for the korm nest. The korm was roosting on it now, making soft crooning noises. Only the amber-tinted walls were the same.
‘Why do the Carabinere want you?’ Djeserit lay in a sack on a simple bed opposite the korm. The scent of lotion rose from the cloth—her skin was being moisturised as she rested.
Mira sighed. ‘They would take something of mine.’
‘But you cannot deny the Carabinere, Baronessa.’
Mira paused. She could not explain the nuances of her world to this ragazza. ‘Why do you ask?’
Djeserit turned her head away. ‘Baronessa Faja says you are very clever. How do you know if a man is…noble?’
The question took Mira by surprise, sparking memories she had tried to disregard—Trin Pellegrini kissing her on the beach, wanting her, then pushing her away.
She took some moments to let them pass before she answered. ‘How do you judge any person? Perhaps by knowing yourself.’
Djeserit tossed and turned in her lotion sack, discontented.
Mira wondered if she should pursue it further but Faja called her out into the dimness of the corridor. ‘The lodge is clean enough for you to sleep in—like old times, cara. Lock the door to it, though. I do not believe that our city is as safe as it was. I will contact the Pensare and in the morning we will take you to a safe place. The Carabinere will never know you have been here.’
On impulse Mira embraced her sorella, brushing the lines on Faja’s forehead with her lips. ‘Grazi.’
Faja drew back. ‘For what? Honouring my sorella? You have always come first in my life, Mira, when you were a bambina, after our mama and papa were gone.’ She cupped her thick, blunt-fingered hand gently against Mira’s face and then disappeared down the dark corridor.
Mira sighed. Faja had been mama to her, but who had been mama to Faja?
She made her way through the rear coldlock and followed the line of dismal teranu grass through the dry gardens to the lodge.
The small outhouse felt more familiar to her than her own bedroom. Nothing had changed inside: the same beds and a small organic cucina and bathroom that she and Faja had lived in when they had first been relocated to Loisa.
As the pressures altered to adjust to the influx of heat Mira chose the bed closest to the door—her bed—and fell quickly asleep.
* * * *
The exact same noise of pressure change woke her a few hours later. She lay there, breathing quietly The door. She had not locked it.
A soft curse and the door closed.
Warmer air surged around her. Someone was in there. Not Faja. Or Istelle. An intruder?
Mira’s heart beat wildly when a hand touched her ankle. She kicked and rolled away
The intruder, caught off guard, overbalanced and fell.
Was he conscious? He? Yes, she thought, it was a male’s odour—humanesque, familiar almost. She tapped on the light and groped