Heart on the Line: 5. Under the Water

[clare_dragonfly]

--
Don't let the water drag you down
--

“I still love you,” she said. She was standing outside the house, in a garden along the south side. Mark was inside, looking at her through a window, his arms folded.

His face softened at the words. “I still love you, too.” But he didn’t sound like he meant it. He sounded like he was saying it by rote, and it didn’t do anything for her.

He must have seen that she wasn’t convinced. He held his hand out to her. “Take yourself out of the political situation. Come inside. Be my wife and nothing else, but be my wife again.”

She shook her head. “Are those your conditions, Mark?”

He frowned, and now there was real pain in his eyes. “I’m not giving you conditions. I just want my wife back.”

“But not if I still insist on disagreeing with you about galactic trade. And I do, Mark. I can’t change that.”

His shoulders stiffened and he withdrew his hand. “Artona, love, it’s not your place. You don’t understand Caila politics.”

“I understand it well enough. What Adam and Michael say makes sense to me. What you and Jacob say makes none.” The other lords had left that morning, heading to their respective provinces to make their speaking tours. As far as she knew, Jacob and the other anti-galactics were still in Mark’s house. “I want to be with you, but only if we can keep our politics separate from our marriage. If you are comfortable disagreeing politically while agreeing in our relationship, we can live that way.”

He looked away and she knew she had lost him. He started to speak, but she interrupted him. “I’ll try again later. Perhaps this can still be resolved.”

She walked away.

--
I've never been, I've never been free
--

Captain Ran’s face broke into a wide, seamed smile when she saw Artona waiting at the spaceport. “Artona! Look at you in your vest, you’re a real Caila girl now. How’s marriage treating you?”

“It’s politics that’s the problem,” she said softly.

The two factions had been at an impasse for months. The anti-galactics had not been able to stop trade—in fact, the merchants were on their way now—but the pro-galactics had not been able to convince the people to either impeach their Lords Mayor or come to a final agreement about what to do about galactic trade. There were too many different options: stop it, keep it the same, buy less, sell more, explore the planet. For now nothing was changing, but Artona thought something would.

The captain nodded sympathetically and clapped her hand onto Artona’s shoulder. “Well, like I said, I’m available for the trip back to Halos if you’d like to make it.”

“I would,” said Artona.

Captain Ran was surprised, but she smoothed her features quickly. “All right, well, I’ve got to get this trading done, and then it’s still a three-month trip…”

“I want to go,” Artona whispered. She had to get away from this political nonsense, this thing that she wasn’t supposed to be part of. She had never signed up to be Lady of Caila. She had signed up to be Mark’s wife, and she wasn’t allowed to be that anymore.

Captain Ran frowned and took Artona's hand gently. "You can't just run away, you know. I mean... you can." She sighed. "But I don't think you'll be satisfied if you do. You'll never know if you could fix your marriage."

"I think I can fix my marriage." Artona straightened her spine. "I told you, it's the politics that's getting between us. I think I need to leave for a while and get my head out of it." She wasn't sure if she should mention that she hadn't even seen Mark for over a month; she kept trying to talk to him, but he kept turning away, not letting her in the house while she still disagreed with him politically. "I'll come back the next time you return to Halos. That gives me a definite deadline. I just... I want to see my family, get some things worked out. Then when I come back I'm sure something will have changed."

"My lady," came a surprised voice. She turned to see Gregory, the man who had recently become a merchant. He bowed to her. "What can I do for you?"

"Just conduct your trading as usual," she said hastily. "Get the best prices you can. I don't know how long we'll be able to keep trading." She turned to the captain, intending to explain the bow, but Captain Ran was smirking. "You knew who Mark was," she accused.

"Of course," said the captain. "Anyone who has anything to do with Caila knew who he was. Which just means me, of course, but I thought you would have known, and when you didn't..." She shrugged.

Artona shook her head, unable to keep herself from smiling. "Well, give them a good price, would you? Make it up to me."

"Sure." Captain Ran turned to the merchant, her grin returning, and began to tell him about what she'd brought on this trip. Artona turned away. She didn't need to listen to the bargaining. She just needed to get away from this planet.

--
And if I cried unto my mother
--

Artona rang the doorbell at her foster mother's house, feeling a little nervous. She'd had no opportunity to ansible ahead, and anyway, it would have been three months ago. And now it had been over a year since she'd left for Caila, over a year since she'd spoken to anyone she considered family. What would her reception be like?

Her worries were soothed immediately when her foster mother opened the door and without hesitation smothered her in a hug. "Oh, Artona, my lovely! You're back for a visit!"

Artona grinned and hugged her back. "A very short visit, I'm afraid. Captain Ran has to return in a few days for trading." At least, she hoped so. There had been no ansible messages waiting for the captain when they arrived at Halos spaceport, but who knew what could come in the meantime.

She was oddly sanguine about the political situation back on Caila. Whatever was going on, trade hadn't been stopped yet, and Artona had spent much of the three-month trip sitting in her own room and thinking. Maybe what happened politically wasn't her problem after all. She'd gone there for Mark. As long as the situation was resolved somehow, they could go back to being a couple.

Her foster mother let go and ushered her inside. "It's such a long trip. Are you sure... well, obviously you've already made it, but isn't it a long time to be away from your husband? I remember how excited you were to go and finally be with him."

Artona nodded and looked at the ground. "It's a long story."

"I understand completely, my dear." Her foster mother pointed to the couch. "You just sit and I'll make us some tea."

The comforting warmth (though Halos seemed positively hot after Caila) of a cup of tea in her hands, the familiar smell wafting to her nose, and the incredible coziness of her foster mother's couch beneath her, Artona felt herself finally relaxing in she didn't know how long. Three months, at least, another six before that for the trade arguments, maybe even longer than that... Had she ever truly relaxed, even in Mark's arms? Perhaps a few times at night. But the politics of Caila, her new role in its government, had kept her tense and alert at all times.

She told her foster mother the whole story, starting with getting off the Kirin at the spaceport and discovering who Mark really was to Caila. How she'd tried to embrace her role. How the fighting had broken out.

Her foster mother just listened. Maybe that was why Artona had come home. Just to have someone who would listen, and let her work things out, and not try to give her advice.

"I've been thinking a lot on the trip here," she finally said. "Maybe the political situation shouldn't matter to me."

"But it does," said her foster mother gently. "Because even though you didn't choose the role, you found yourself in it, and you really do care about those people."

Artona looked up from her teacup and into her foster mother's face. "Did you know who Mark was before I left?"

She shook her head. "I knew Caila had a strange political situation, but I never thought you'd be caught up in it. I might have tried harder to stop you, had I known."

"I might not have left at all, had I known." But it was too late to escape from it now. Unless she were to leave Mark and stay here on Halos, go back to her old career... A dead weight settled in her heart at the thought. She'd been honest with Mark all those times she'd told him she still loved him. She had to keep trying, no matter how long it took.

Her foster mother set her teacup on the table and stood. "Come on, dear, let's make up your old room. It's still empty. You can stay as long as you need."

Artona knew that meant that if she needed to, she could stay even after Captain Ran returned to Halos. She nodded and stood up. A night's sleep in the bed where she'd spent her teenage years would do her good.

--
Won't you take me back, take me back and see?
--

Three days later, she went down to breakfast and a message from her foster mother. "That captain called," she said. "If you want to go back to Caila, she's leaving at noon today, with or without you."

Artona nodded and looked at her plate. Captain Ran probably would wait for her, if necessary. She wanted Artona to go back. Her foster mother wanted her to stay.

She wouldn't keep the captain waiting.

When she looked up again, her foster mother was standing still with her arms relaxed at her sides. Her plump face was lined. "You are going back."

"Yes. I think I have to."

Her foster mother reached out and covered Artona's hand with hers. "Remember, if it doesn't work out, or even if you just want to come back for a visit, you'll always have a room here."

"Thank you, Mama." Impulsively, Artona stood and kissed her foster mother on the cheek--not the sort of display of affection they normally utilized. "We do want children. We'll bring them back to visit you when they're old enough to travel."

That transformed her face from melancholy to delighted. "Grandbabies! Oh, my Artona, I'll hold you to that promise."

--
Aloud I pray, for calmer seas
--

"Thought I'd see you back here." Captain Ran smiled and shook Artona's hand. "You're not one to give up."

Artona smiled. "You're a good judge of character."

"A merchant has to be. Has to know who to trust and who to not trust." Captain Ran took a tablet out of her pocket and looked at it, running her finger down it to scroll--not something Artona had seen her do before.

"What's that?"

"Manifest," said the captain shortly. "Just checking things over. It's a little different this time."

"Oh? How so?"

"They've given up on the wool and cut down on the citrus and other foods."

Artona nodded, pleased. That was one of the steps she'd recommended for decreasing their reliance on galactic trade. Maybe some progress was being made while she was gone.

"And they've added orders for laser shooters and quite a bit of plastic shielding," added the captain. "Expensive stuff. Good for me, but I hope they can afford it, and I'm not sure what it means for Caila."

Artona's eyes widened so quickly she thought they would pop out of her head and roll all the way to Caila. Weaponry? High-tech weaponry that wouldn't fit in with anything else one saw on Caila? That didn't make any sense at all. Had it come to all-out war between the factions? If so, the pro-galactics must have gotten control of at least one ansible, because the anti-galactics would never have ordered such things. But she'd always thought of them as reasonable, not the sort to kill their enemies over a political disagreement. Her stomach churned.

"When we arrive on Caila," she said, "will you let me speak to the merchants first? And whoever else meets us there?" Jared knew where she had gone; he would expect her back, and might want to bring her up to date.

"Of course," said the Captain. "You're the Lady."

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