The Eternal Flame

27

Tamara waited in the visiting room, harnessed to a bench, fidgeting with the three seasoned loaves she’d brought. Patches of red moss glowed from the walls, but the hue looked strange to her, as if it belonged to a different species than the one she was accustomed to. The prison had been built in the middle of a disused engine feed; for most of her life she’d been aware of its existence without ever knowing exactly where it was.

The guard brought Erminio into the room, then withdrew. “Has he gone to fetch Tamaro?” she asked her father.

“Tamaro isn’t coming. He doesn’t need to see you.”

Need? “It’s his choice,” she said. “I thought it would be so boring here that he’d welcome a visit from anyone, but if he’s found a better way to pass the time, good for him.”

She offered one of the loaves to Erminio. He hesitated, then accepted it.

“How Tamaro spends his time isn’t your concern,” Erminio said. “He has someone else to visit him.”

Tamara understood what he was implying. The news took her by surprise, but she did her best not to show it. “As I said, good for him.”

Erminio finished the loaf, then leaned back in his harness and stretched his arms languidly. “I hope you haven’t come to beg for your entitlement back. There’s no chance of that now: it’s well and truly spoken for.”

Tamara buzzed with derision. “What, she’s given birth already?”

Erminio said, “Hardly. But Tamaro’s made a formal agreement. With a co-stead and future children involved, you’ll never get the transfer rescinded.”

“I never expected to,” Tamara said angrily. “I keep my promises.”

“You’ll still be looked after,” Erminio declared magnanimously, as if this were somehow his doing.

Tamara said, “I know the terms of the transfer; I dictated them myself. If Tamaro was here I expect he’d be thanking me for them, but I don’t know why you’ve raised the subject. You’ll be looked after, too.”

“So why did you come here?” Erminio asked coolly. “You survived your trip, so you’ve come to gloat?”

“I’m not sure why I bothered,” Tamara replied. “You’re still my family, I thought I owed you something.”

“There is no family,” Erminio said. “You’ve destroyed it. Tamaro has done the only honorable thing he can, in the circumstances: he’ll salvage the life of a blameless woman who’s lost her co. But the flesh you inherited was wasted on you. You think you’re vindicated, because you gambled with your life and won. But who’ll raise your children now? It would have been better if you’d died in the void.”

“I think I should go. Give Tamaro my regards.” She took hold of the rope behind her and began to pull herself out of the harness.

“Don’t bother coming back,” Erminio said. “I have more than enough visitors to keep me entertained. A lot of people want to show their support. They know our punishment was an injustice.”

Tamara dragged herself out of the room. “That was quick,” the guard said.

“My father’s a great communicator,” Tamara replied. “It never takes him long to get his message across.”

The guard regarded her with weary amusement. “It took him a bell and a half yesterday.”

On her way back to the summit she couldn’t stop thinking about Erminio’s claim to have supporters. When she’d asked for leniency for her kidnappers, she’d hoped that would deprive them of any trace of sympathy. One year an injustice? The Council took autonomy seriously; the sentence could have been six times longer, if she’d called for that.

Imprisoned and disgraced, Tamaro had still found a co-stead in no time at all. The Council had judged her father to be the instigator of the crime, but apparently he still had friends. Everyone she knew had told her to her face that they were outraged by what had happened to her, but she understood that she’d be fooling herself if she took that sentiment to be universal. Three generations away from the old world and its barbarities, there were still people who believed that a woman’s life was a kind of tenancy, devoted to protecting—and in due course, meekly vacating—a body that was never really her own.