Chapter 14 The Closing Harbor #4
She folded her arms against the night wind. "Then your arithmetic was not as cold as you pretended."
Bertran looked out over the water. "Cold arithmetic is for men who command troops they do not know.
When the people have names, the numbers become worse, not better.
I sent him away because I knew I would turn back for him.
I sent Ysoria because she could keep him alive and because she would obey the route until circumstances changed.
I did not send you because you carried the papers and because, if I had ordered you away, you would have argued until the men behind us caught up. "
"A flattering assessment."
"An accurate one."
She was quiet.
He continued, "This is what you keep asking from me without saying it plainly.
You want me to judge danger honestly, but you also want an assurance that when the judgment becomes ugly I will make some exception for you.
I cannot promise that. If keeping you beside me will kill the others, I will send you away.
If saving you requires abandoning a document, I will abandon it.
If you refuse, we may quarrel while arrows fall around us, and I may still put you on a horse against your will if there is no better choice.
You should know that before you decide whatever it is you are deciding. "
Lucetta felt heat rise in her face despite the wind. "And what do you imagine I am deciding?"
"Whether the thing between us is worth naming."
There it was.
Not elegant. Not hidden in a compliment. Not softened by moonlight or danger.
She looked at him. "You make it sound like a disputed contract."
"That is the language in which you are least likely to lie to yourself."
"And what language prevents you from lying to yourself?"
He considered.
"Roads."
"Then speak in roads."
Bertran rested his forearms on the rail.
"A road can be good and still lead somewhere you cannot afford to go.
It can be dangerous and still be the only useful road.
You do not judge it by whether you like the view.
You judge distance, weather, horses, water, who follows you, what waits at the other end, and whether turning back will cost more than continuing.
I have spent years leaving before anyone could ask me to stay.
That made travel simple. It also meant every road ended in another employer.
Now when I think of leaving this company, I do not know where I would go that would not feel like retreat.
That is the truth I have. I cannot give you a household.
I cannot tell you where we will be in six months.
I cannot promise that the men we anger will forget us.
I have little land, uncertain wages, and a profession respectable men require while pretending not to respect it.
If you want a declaration that turns those facts into poetry, I do not possess it. "
Lucetta listened until he finished.
Then she said, "You think I want certainty because I work with documents.
I do not. Documents have cured me of certainty more thoroughly than roads have cured you.
What I want is distinction. I want to know which uncertainty belongs to the world and which uncertainty we manufacture because we are afraid to speak.
I cannot promise a household either. I do not even know whether any town would allow me to work as I wish without a father's name or husband's permission used as a door.
I have no dowry worth boasting of, no office I can inherit, and no desire to spend the rest of my life pretending my skill is a charming household habit.
If I choose you, I do not choose protection from uncertainty.
I choose another uncertainty, and I would prefer it at least to be honestly named. "
Bertran turned fully toward her.
"Then name it."
Lucetta had argued with merchants, clerks, monks, officers, widows, heirs, soldiers, and men who believed a woman's hesitation proved their superiority. She had read formulae by which people pledged estates, ships, money, obedience, labor, and marriages. None offered useful language now.
"I desire you," she said. "I trust you. I am angrier when you are in danger than reason permits.
I notice when you enter a room even when I am reading.
When I believed you might not come out of that alley, I could not think properly for three breaths, and I resent you for making three breaths matter.
I do not know whether that is love, because I distrust words that arrive before evidence.
But if we continue pretending it is nothing until some later day gives us permission, then we are not cautious. We are cowards."
Bertran's face changed very little.
His eyes did.
"That is a severe conclusion."
"Answer the substance."
He smiled then, slowly. "You have trained me too well."
His hand lifted, stopped before touching her face, and waited.
Lucetta closed the remaining distance herself.
The kiss was not the consequence of battle, nor a reward for recovering a key, nor an oath disguised as desire.
It was awkward for half a heartbeat because both of them had spent too long thinking about it.
Then it became simple. His hand rested at the side of her neck.
Lucetta caught the front of his coat and tasted salt from the wind.
When they parted, neither spoke immediately.
Bertran said at last, "Evidence?"
She laughed softly. "Insufficient. Further inquiry required."
"Dangerous method."
"You may withdraw."
"No."
That answer satisfied her more than any vow could have done.
They remained at the rail until the lamp behind them burned lower and Adelasia, passing on her way to the cabin, took one look at their faces and said nothing at all.
By morning Lucetta had four keys in the company's custody, a freight trail pointing west, a packet of records that might expose something far larger than inheritance, and no illusion that any of it belonged cleanly to her.
The Warden's Key remained with Orsino for the moment.
The Treasurer's Key remained with him as well, separated in different wrappings among his tools.
Bertran carried the Notary's Key. Lucetta kept the Shipmaster's Key only until they could divide custody again on shore.
She entered each transfer in her own memorandum and made Niccolò witness the wording before he departed to carry Corrado's report.
Four keys.
Three still beyond them.
The sea road west was open, but the documents had made it narrower rather than easier.
Provence was no longer a region on the edge of their inquiry.
It was where the accounts led. Somewhere beyond the ports and Rh?ne crossings were charitable claims, supply obligations, families who had profited, families who had merely served as intermediaries, and at least one old guarantee tied to Cazilhac revenues.
Lucetta closed the shipping abstract and tied it with fresh cord.
She did not yet know what Rainier de Cazilhac knew about his father's generation.
She did not know whether the name would lead to guilt, embarrassment, debt, or nothing more sinister than the ordinary entanglement of a wealthy house in Mediterranean commerce.
To decide before the records spoke would be to become the kind of investigator she despised.
But someone had twice used violence to reach evidence that ought to have been worthless if the old accounts meant nothing.
That fact required no interpretation.
Adelasia stood beside her as Stella Maris turned westward along the coast.
"You have the look," Adelasia said.
"What look?"
"The one you wear when a document has offended you personally."
Lucetta considered denying it.
Then she looked toward the western horizon.
"Good," she said. "Let it be offended in return."