Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [68]
"I no longer care what you believe."
"Is he Komarran? Some damned Komarran?"
Goading her in the usual spot, and why not? It had worked before to bring her into line. It half-worked still. She had sworn to herself that she wasn't even going to bring up the subject of Tien's actions and inactions. Complaint was a tacit plea for help, for reform, for . . . continuation. Complaint was to attempt to shuffle off the responsibility for action onto another. To act was to obliterate the need for complaint. She would act, or not act. She would not whine. Still in that dead-level voice, she said, "I found out about your trade shares, Tien."
His mouth opened, and shut again. After a moment he said, "I can make it up. I know what went wrong now. I can make the losses up again."
"I don't think so. Where did you get that forty thousand marks, Tien." Her lack of inflection made it not a question.
"I . . ." She could watch it in his face, as he ratcheted over his choice of lies. He settled on a fairly simple one. "Part I saved, part I borrowed. You're not the only one who can scrimp, you know."
"From Administrator Soudha?"
He flinched at the name, but said ingenuously, "How did you know?"
"It doesn't matter, Tien. I'm not going to turn you in." She stared at him in weariness. "I take no part in you anymore."
He paced, agitated, back and forth across the kitchen, his face working. "I did it for you," he said at last.
Yes. Now he will attempt to make me feel guilty. All my fault. It was as familiar as the steps of some well-practiced, poisonous dance. She watched silently.
"All for you. You wanted money. I worked my tail off, but it was never enough for you, was it?" His voice rose, as he tried to lash himself into a relieving, self-righteous anger. It fell a little flat to her experienced ear. "You pushed me into taking a chance, with your endless nagging and worrying. So it didn't work, and now you want to punish me, is that it? You'd have been quick enough to make up to me if it had paid off."
He was very good at this, she had to admit, his accusations echoing her own dark doubts. She listened to his patterned litany with a sort of detached appreciation, like a torture victim, gone beyond pain unbeknownst, admiring the color of her own blood. Now he will attempt to make me feel sorry for him. But I'm done feeling sorry. I'm done feeling anything.
"Money money money, is that what this is all about? What is it that you want to buy so damned much, Kat?"
Your health, as you may recall. And Nikki's future. And mine.
As he paced, sputtering, his eye fell on the bright red skellytum, sitting in its basin on the kitchen table. "You don't love me. You only love yourself. Selfish, Kat! You love your damned potted plants more than you love me. Here, I'll prove it to you."
He snatched up the pot and pressed the control for the door to the balcony. It opened a little too slowly for his dramatic timing, but he strode through nonetheless, and whirled to face her. "Which shall it be to go over the railing, Kat? Your precious plant, or me? Choose!"
She neither spoke nor moved. Now he will attempt to terrify me with suicide gestures. This made, what, the fourth time around for that ploy? His trump card, which had always before ended the game in his favor.
He brandished the skellytum high. "Me, or it?" He watched her face, waiting for her to break. An almost clinical curiosity prompted her to say You, just to see how he would wriggle out of his challenge, but she kept silent still. When she did not speak, he hesitated in confusion for a moment, then launched the ancient absurd thing over the side.
Five floors up. She counted the seconds in her head, waiting for the crash from below. It came as more of a distant, sodden thump, mixed with the crack of exploding pottery.
"You ass, Tien. You didn't even look to see if there was anyone below."
With a look of sudden alarm that almost made her want to laugh, he peeked fearfully over the