Gaston nodded.
"I've been thinking," Kaldar said. "Before the Hand decimated the family, we had seven men within five years of my age. None of them were unmarried."
Gaston frowned at the moon. "No, except for Richard."
Yes, Richard. Bringing up his older brother's marriage was like worrying an old scab - it had healed over, but it still hurt. Richard's wife had left him, as their mother had left their father a decade before. Richard had never recovered. Come to think of it, neither had he.
Kaldar had arranged that marriage. He'd arranged most marriages within the family. Love was one thing. Getting two swamp clans to settle on the dowry and terms was another. At the time, he had no misgivings. Richard and Meline seemed perfect for each other. Both serious, both focused. In retrospect, they had been too alike.
"It's Memaw's fault," Gaston said. "She nags everyone into marriage. I remember my older brother complaining. The moment he turned twenty, she started after him with the guilt. 'Oh, I will die soon and won't get to see you have the little ones. If only you'd find yourself a nice girl, I could go to the funeral pyre happy.' She's like an ere-vaurg - once she gets her teeth into you, she won't let go until you give up."
"She never brought it up with me."
"Strange. You always had the prettiest girls." Gaston grinned. "Maybe she was scared, Uncle. If we had Kaldar number two and Kaldar number three around, nothing would stay put. You'd set something down and whoosh, it would be gone, and nobody would know what had happened to it."
Kaldar looked at the river. He had to give Audrey that one. Nobody had ever expected him to settle down. Not even his own family. He didn't inspire the family-man kind of confidence.
Thinking back, he remembered faces and names, men he used to know in the Mire. Men who were his friends. One by one, he'd stop seeing them around, and a year or two later, he'd find out they were married. They'd run into each other, they'd introduce their wives and watch him with more diligence than needed. He could imagine the conversation around the dinner table. Wives had little use for him - he was liable to get their husbands into trouble, and his former friends weren't too keen on letting him talk to their women too much.
Marriage was a trap. The moment the man said the words "I do" at the altar, he surrendered his freedom. He was no longer free to pursue other women. Staying out past the appointed hour required his wife's permission. Getting drunk with his friends resulted in a fight when he got home. He'd have to report where he went, when he would be back, who he would be with, and why he would choose to do something else rather than stay home and pick out fabric for new drapes. A married man was no longer carefree. He was a provider, a husband, and a father. His castle was no longer his. He was permitted to live there on someone else's terms. He already had Nancy Virai telling him where to go and what to do there. That was as much supervision as he cared to accept.
"Is Audrey doing okay?" Gaston asked.
"She's fine."
"Oh good. She came by asking for a knife. I think she's scared to sleep by herself."
"It's a harder thing for her than it is for us," Kaldar said. "George deals with death every day. He's come to terms with it. Jack has killed things in the woods since he could walk. He has a simple way of looking at it. You and I are from the Mire. Audrey has had very little experience with brutality. It wasn't a part of her life." And the last time she experienced it, it scarred her. She didn't seem like she was falling apart, but Audrey was an excellent actress.
Genius conman. Yes, there was the pot calling the kettle black.
There were nights when he was afraid to go to sleep by himself as well. He'd planned on making it easier on both of them tonight, but even the best of plans occasionally came crashing down.
"She's funny," Gaston said.
Kaldar looked at him.
"And pretty. And she doesn't buy any of the bullshit you're selling."
"I think it's time for you to go to bed."
Gaston grinned, his eyes shining. "Whatever you say, Uncle."
He started toward the stairway and turned, walking backward. "If you had a kid, would he be my cousin once or twice removed?"
"Keep walking."
Gaston laughed. A moment later, a quick staccato of footsteps announced his going down the stairs.
Kaldar looked back to the moon. It stared back at him, beautiful and indifferent. The moon was the same everywhere, here over some small river in the Broken or back in the Mire, hanging over the dark cypresses, serenaded by ere-vaurgs. He used to look at it like this from the balcony of the old Mar house. Thanks to the Hand, the family home lay abandoned now. None of them could ever return to it.
He missed the Mire but less than he'd expected. The family had built a new house on the edge of the Red Swamps in Adrianglia. The Red Swamps differed from the Mire, but it felt like home. He'd built his own house too, not too far from the family's, on the edge of a quiet river. It wasn't grand - the Mirror's pay wouldn't buy him a palace, and since the builder had wanted cash, the purchase had wiped out his accounts - but it was large and comfortable, and in the late afternoon, when the sun shone through the living-room windows, the polished floor and wooden walls seemed to glow.
He hadn't gotten around to putting furniture in it, except for a rocking chair on the porch. But he did own a house. At least that part she was wrong about.
Kaldar closed his eyes and pictured a woman in his kitchen. She laughed, turned, and he realized she was Audrey.
He couldn't have Audrey. He'd have to think up a different fantasy.
Audrey smiled at him from his kitchen.
They were perfectly in tune. Birds of a feather. She understood him. Oh yes, she understood him too well. She knew exactly how things would play out between them, and she had decided against it. And she was right. One hundred percent right. He was a scoundrel, and he would use her. Both of them would have the time of their lives while they did. But in the end, he wouldn't be caught, and she refused to try.
It was said that there was honor among thieves; there wasn't. But there was honor between him and Audrey. Well, aside from the theft of the cross, which she had taken rather badly. She could've led him on, she could've seduced him into her bed - not that it would have taken much. He'd climb a mountain to taste her again, and then, when he was comfortable and happy, she could've tried to trap him with guilt. Most men got married because they were comfortable where they were, and breaking free was too hard and too unpleasant. She didn't go that route. No, she told him up front that he wasn't good enough for her.