Lee chapter twelve

[maculategiraffe]

"Master? Who's Tatiana?"

Holden was taken aback by the question, which fit in so well with his thoughts that for a moment he wasn't sure he hadn't spoken them aloud. Was the kid reading his mind? How would he know about--

"Tatiana?" Yves repeated, puzzled. "You mean Lord Argounov's sister? What about her, Lee?"

"The one who bought Jess?" Bran asked, unsteadily, against Holden's shoulder.

Holden had it; back in Lee's room, he'd said something to Jer about her. She didn't bite our heads off when we used her title.

"Why do you ask, Lee?"

Lee was watching him intently. "You said to keep my ears open, master."

"Yes, I did," Holden agreed gently. "I'm glad you've been listening. But what makes you ask about Tatiana now?"

Lee looked down, confused. "I don't-- I'm sorry, master."

"Nothing to be sorry about, kid. I was just wondering."

"You--" Lee hesitated, then plunged on, "You and Jer were-- earlier, you were talking about her, and then, just now-- there was something, wasn't there? Should I not have seen, master?"

"Should you not have seen what, Lee?"

Lee looked faintly worried. "You were touching each other like-- you were somewhere else, master. Both of you. I thought maybe-- I'm sorry."

Like you were both somewhere else. This was going to be an interesting training process after all.

"You're right, Lee," he said quietly. "We were both remembering something. And it did have to do with Tatiana. And I don't mind that you saw-- but it's not always the best idea, you know, to blurt out everything you see. It can make people nervous. Or angry, if you show you know something that they'd rather you didn't."

Lee flushed. "I didn't mean to. I just-- I'm sorry, master, please--"

"Shhh," said Holden. "I'm not angry." He was starting to get an inkling of why Lee had shut down so completely with Dunaev. If the kid was that perceptive, and his master didn't like it, maybe the only way he could come up with to stop observing things his master didn't want observed was to stop looking or listening or moving altogether.

He looked up at Yves. "We're going to have to watch ourselves with him around."

"I've got no secrets," said Yves, and there was the faintest hint of reproach in his voice, inaudible to anyone who knew him less well than Holden. "Not from you."

"Not a secret," he answered, a little defensively. "You knew how we met Tatiana. Alix and Jer and me. When she came to Nikol's wedding. And you knew she was an abolitionist."

Yves just looked at him, until he felt himself flush.

"It's not much of a story or anything," he said. "Tatiana showed up all full of righteous indignation, wanting to educate us about what a sorry state we were all in. Nikol wasn't crazy about that idea, but he wanted to make his baby sister happy, and she was going to be there for a week, getting ready for the wedding and everything, so he lent her Alix as a personal attendant and lecture audience of one-- Alix being, I guess, the one he considered the least likely to contract revolutionary ideas, since she was in love with him and everything. When Alix could get away to talk to us, she said Tatiana was working on Nikol to free her, saying Alix was too intelligent to waste her life as a slave-- even dragged Laura into it, asked Nikol how he could consider himself faithful to Laura when he had Alix--"

"Gods," said Yves quietly.

"She was very young," said Holden. "Tatiana, I mean. She meant well. But--" He looked down at Bran's curly head. "She was-- persistent. She ended up staying two weeks instead of one. We barely saw Alix the whole time, and when we did get a chance to talk to her now and then, she was more and more upset. I-- well, I started having nightmares again." He twined a finger in Bran's hair. "Jer wasn't happy."

"What happened?" Yves asked.

"Nothing," said Holden, shrugging a little to emphasize the anticlimax. "She went back west and started writing letters to Alix apologizing for being less effective than she wished she could have been, and stuff like that. It wasn't until a year later that Laura gave her ultimatum and Alix and I moved out. I don't think there was any connection." He smiled a little. "But Tatiana did. That's funny, isn't it? After Nikol freed her, Alix got another letter, taking credit. We didn't think it was particularly funny at the time, of course." He bent to kiss the top of Bran's head. "Sweetheart? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," said Bran, and sat up, clearing his throat. "It's stupid to get upset."

"It's not stupid," said Holden firmly. "And she's going to have to apologize to you."

"Master, I don't--"

"He's right, Bran," Yves interrupted. "Master, I think you and your guests should all sit down and talk this over downstairs, with the mistress and Miss Valor there. Lay down some ground rules."

"Right." Holden reached for Yves' hand, and Yves clasped his in a firm, reassuring grip, the momentary tension between them gone. "I don't think I can go tell them that just yet, though. I'll lose my temper and push Robin down the stairs."

"I'll go." Yves stroked the back of his hand with a thumb before letting it go. "The mistress and I will get everyone into the sitting room. You come down when you're ready, master."

"Take Lee with you," said Holden. "Lee, I want you to lie down and rest in your own room for a little while. There's been too much excitement around here. Try to keep him out of the way of any projectiles," he added to Yves, "until we can negotiate a ceasefire."

When Yves had led Lee from the room, Bran got up, pushing a stray tear from his cheek with his fist, put the little wooden charm back in his top drawer, and started folding the clothes that lay on the bed.

Holden watched him. "Okay, what's with the face?"

Bran didn't look at him. "I just wish you wouldn't make her apologize to me, master. It's not-- important."

"That you feel safe in your own home? It's important to me."

"I do feel safe." Bran stacked the tunics and put them back in a drawer. "It's not like she hurt me."

"That's not the point, Bran." Holden reached out and grasped Bran's wrist, pulling him back down on the bed. "This is your room. These are your things. It's not too much to ask that people not touch them without permission. Or throw them at you."

"But it's not important, master," said Bran. "Not like-- doing this story." He looked at the door. "Changing the way things are. That's the important thing. Not-- my feelings."

Holden took Bran's chin and turned his face back towards his own, studying his expression. "Like how your feelings weren't as important as making sure Lee had a good home with the person you very sweetly think is the best of all possible masters?"

Bran smiled a little sheepishly, but said nothing. Holden cupped the finely sculpted cheek in his palm. "You like being the strong one, don't you?"

Unable to move his head, Bran lowered his eyes instead to somewhere just below Holden's chin. "For a change."

"For a what?" Holden shook his head. "Bran, look at me. You must know you're the one who makes this crazy arrangement of ours work. If I'd brought home any other eighteen-year-old and tried to make Yves and Jer get along with him-- can you imagine the trainwreck? Jockeying for favor, backbiting, resentment, wearing me out with carrying tales and begging for protection-- I can't imagine any other kid your age being strong enough and brave enough to make it work the way you have."

"Yves and Jer were always really nice to me," Bran protested. "They're the ones who--"

"They were willing to put up with you for my sake," said Holden, "but nobody but you could have made them love you-- and they do, you know. Almost as much as I do. Speaking of which, who was the strong one for two years while I was so damn scared to believe you really loved me that I was fending you off for all I was worth? How much strength did it take to hang on for that long without starting to hate me? To still be there to hear it when I was finally willing to admit you were the apple of my ridiculous eye?"

Bran smiled a little, eyes back on Holden's. "That wasn't hard. To keep loving you."

"Not for you, maybe." Holden bent his head and kissed Bran's palm. "So-- yeah. If you've finally noticed you're the strong one, all I can say is it's about damn time."

"Then why are you all worried about me?" Bran insisted. "Why make Miss Robin apologize to me?"

"For heaven's sake, Bran, I'm not making her apologize because I think you need her to kiss it all better. I'm making her apologize because if she's going to be in my house, I need to know she's capable of observing basic courtesies. You might be too tough to care, but what if she throws something at Lee next?"

Bran thought this over. "Oh."

"Yes, oh," said Holden, shaking his head. "Come on, kid. Let's go downstairs and see if we can get Robin to say "oh."





It felt oddly formal to have assembled the entire household in the sitting room, as if for a party or a tribunal. Yves and Jer stood quietly against the wall, while Bran knelt at Holden's feet as he sat on the couch with a blessedly cool and collected Alix beside him. Greta sat on Alix's other side, while Robin sat flanked by Valor and Denys, stiffly as if she were facing a firing squad.

"We'd like to make you welcome," Alix said courteously, addressing both Robin and Denys. "You're our daughter's friends, and we do admire what you're trying to do. But this is our home, and as our guests, you are going to have to abide by our rules. If your principles won't allow you to do that, then we can't offer you our hospitality. It's really that simple."

"Yes, ma'am," said Denys apologetically, as if he'd been the one to misbehave. Robin, meanwhile, looked like she'd bitten a lemon.

"What rules?" she asked tightly.

"You will ask, and wait to receive, permission before entering anyone's room or touching their property," said Holden, as Alix slipped her hand into his. "You will respect our habits of speech even if you don't agree with them. You will defer to Alix's and my judgment concerning the people under our care. And if you ever, under any circumstances, lift a hand or make a move to frighten or upset one of my slaves again, I will not be held responsible for what happens to you next. Is that perfectly clear."

"Yes, sir," said Denys promptly.

Robin said nothing.

"I said," Holden emphasized between his teeth, "is that clear."

"Yes," said Robin finally. "It's clear."

"Good," Holden said. "Now I want you to apologize to Bran for throwing his things around."

Robin's eyes narrowed.

"They're not his things," she said coldly. "They're yours. Slaves have no legal right to own property. You can pretend they're his all you want-- and you can pretend he's your lover, too, but what kind of love is it if he has no choice?"

"Robin," said Denys softly.

"I had a choice," said Bran unexpectedly, from the floor at Holden's feet.

"You've got them good and brainwashed, don't you?" Robin's voice was rising on a note of ugly, hopeless frustration. "Slavery's really not so bad with such a good, kind master, is it, Bran? Is it, Yves? Not when you love your master. Or your mistress, right, Greta? When everything's all nice and safe, so it doesn't matter that you don't get to make any of your own decisions, that nothing in your life is really yours, it can all be taken away at somebody else's whim. Who needs to be free when you can be a happy--"

"Shut the fuck up," said Jer evenly.

There was a moment of dead silence before Robin managed a, "What?"

"You heard me." Jer shook off Yves' restraining hand almost violently as he stepped away from the wall and faced Robin. "Who the fuck do you think you are? Make our own decisions? What kind of decisions do you make, little girl? What angle lens to use on your camera?"

"I decide who I--"

"Who you fuck?" Jer's eyes were bright, his color high. "That what you were going to say? Good for you. How about whether you'd rather belong to someone who likes to hurt you or someone who doesn't even care enough to do that? How about whether it's better to live with someone who beats and starves and rapes you or to die trying to get away? How about when to kill yourself so you don't miss too many of the good days you might have left before somebody notices you fucked up and tortures you to death? You ever have to decide any of that?"

"Jer--" Valor began, but no one looked at her.

"Because if you had," Jer continued to Robin, who was frozen, staring up at him, "then maybe I could see you having the cast-iron balls to strut in here and start shooting your mouth off. Or maybe, if you had, you might show a little fucking respect for people who have to decide whether it's going to hurt more to keep their mouths shut than to get punished for telling you a thing or two about yourself, you priss-faced, holier-than-thou little shit. And one more thing," he added as Holden started to speak and Alix, watching Jer, laid a hand on his arm to silence him. "If I got the whim, I could rip that camera off your neck and smash it. But just because you could lose it, that doesn't mean it's not really yours. Does it. Miss Robin."

In the next moments, Holden couldn't hear anyone breathing in the room except Jer, who sounded as if he'd been running. Alix's eyes met Holden's a moment before she rose and went to Jer, clasped his arm, and led him back to the couch, placing him between herself and Holden; Holden put a hand on the taut back. Jer wouldn't look at either him or Alix, but after a moment, Bran climbed without warning or invitation into Jer's lap, and Jer let out a short, choked laugh and put his arms around the younger man's body, hugging him hard and laying his cheek against Bran's hair.

"Thank you, Jer," said Alix calmly. "Robin, please leave. Now."

"Alix," Valor protested, but faintly. "She doesn't--"

"Valor, dear heart," said Alix, "I'm afraid this isn't open to discussion. You're welcome at home any time, but Robin is not. Denys," she added, "I think it would be best if you left now, too. Call us if you want to arrange another, more convenient time to come over. You have our card. And of course you and Robin are welcome to use the pictures she's already taken."

"Wait," said Robin.

Alix looked at her.

"I--" Robin stammered, suddenly looking and sounding much younger. "I'm sorry."

"Are you." Alix didn't sound particularly interested.

"Yes." She cleared her throat. "Bran, I'm sorry I-- threw your-- thing."

Bran made a small sound against Jer's shoulder that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

"I'm sorry," Robin said again, looking at Jer.

There was another pause, longer, while Alix examined Robin.

"Denys has our card," she said finally. "Call tomorrow. We'll talk."

Robin nodded meekly and rose a second before Denys. Valor got up, too.

"You don't have to come," Robin told her quietly. "I'll crash with Denys. You stay with your--"

Valor nodded. "I'll walk you out."

"I'm really sorry," Robin said again to the room in general before she left, followed by Valor and then by Denys, who gave one lingering glance backwards but seemed at a loss what he should say or do.

It was a few moments after they left before anyone said anything else.

"If you're going to punish me," Jer said finally to the top of Bran's head, "please get it over with while I'm still all pumped up on righteous indignation."

"Don't be an idiot," said Holden, his hand running into Alix's on Jer's back. "That was fantastic."

Jer laughed a little shakily as Alix added quietly, "I couldn't have said it better myself."

"I knew there was some reason I put up with belonging to you two," said Jer, as Greta reached over Alix to put a hand on his knee, and Yves came to lean over the back of the couch and put hands on his shoulders. "All right, all right, I'm fine. No need to gather around my sickbed."

Bran giggled, and Jer hugged him again, burying his face in the boy's curly hair.

"Bitch," he said, muffled. "Nobody talks that way to my family."