Long Way Home – Recap of Part 1
Last week I gave you the first part of Chapter 1 of Long Way Home, a novel I started back in the early 1990’s.
In Long Way Home Part 1, we met the protagonist, Andris Rohansi, inside a saddling enclosure preparing for a mounted duel in the fictitious sport of ‘equindo’. His bodyguard Moëse had just told him that his wife, Florinda, wouldn’t coming to watch his performance. Instead, the lady had left by plane with her lover and several guests to fly to “Enforêt”.” (The author I used to be when I wrote this, never explained what ‘Enforêt’ was. The author I am today would have added something like, “That grand chalet in the Royal Forest had been passed from mother to daughter for five generations. Being invited to an Enforêt weekend remained one of the most sought-after favours in high society.” I would also put in some hints as to why the book title is Long Way Home. I might refer to the fact that Andris is an outsider brought in from his home on the other side of the world to fulfil a marriage contract.)
Andris was pissed off. Not only was his wife publicly snubbing him, but the Bryner Institute had requested and gained approval to embed his duelling helmet with technology that monitored for psi abilities. (Young author me didn’t explain what the Bryner Institute was or why they would want to monitor random athletes for psi abilities.) Andris wondered if his wife was behind the Bryner request, as part of an effort to get him labeled a “witch” so she could get rid of him. He was an outsider to this society, and she expected him to accept that her lover had been part of her life before he arrived.
As an aside, anyone who’s read my Modified Humans novels may notice that the name ‘Rohansi’ was first used in Long Way Home, and I appropriated it, as well as a variant of Andris (which becomes ‘Aundrey’) in the Modified Humans books.
Today I’m bringing you the next part of Long Way Home‘s first chapter. It explains the role Andris’s grandfather played in maneuvering him into his present situation.
Long Way Home Chapter 1 (continued, part 2)
“You pay me to keep you safe,” Moëse said, jarring him out of his thoughts. “In my professional opinion, it’s bloody dangerous for you to take on a duel in your present frame of mind. I recommend against it.”
He laughed, a humorless bark. “As if I’d back out now!”
She’d been on his staff for ten years. She’d known, of course, what his reaction would be, and shrugged. “The only person I can’t save you from, m’sir, is yourself.
“Faydrin was beginning to stamp and fret. Andris set his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. Without a word, Moëse passed up his helmet. It fit like the engineered marvel it was.
In contrast to the precision-moulded lining, the exterior was planed and angled like some elegant, fantastical creature’s carapace.
Neither of them commented on the Bryner payload that it contained.
“I assume I’m still expected at Thanksgiving dinner, so have my plane ready to fly to Enforêt tomorrow morning as planned,” he said to Moëse. “Not too early, though. No point in waking the lovebirds. And tell the pilot to chart a detour out to the Roi Soleil on the way. It’ll be as good a time as any to check out the old wreck.”
Her eyes narrowed at the suppressed savagery in his voice. “Of course, m’sir,” she murmured, and slid the shield over his arm. Straightening, Andris lowered the rigid mesh visor over his face and turned Faydrin towards the warm-up ring with a feeling that he was teetering on a shaky bridge that spanned a vast and dangerous precipice. If it weren’t for the fact that my baby girl is involved in this, I’d go, and gladly, he thought.
But Florinda would never let him take their daughter home to the mainland, and this was one child he was not leaving behind.
Silent as a shadow, Moëse paced him as far as the entry gate.
* * *
“You will do this thing,” Karolan Rohansi had told him with force that afternoon two years ago and half a world away. Andris still remembered his grandfather’s expression: fierce and intense, blue eyes alight with hungry fire, ready to scorch any opposition before it could find a voice. His white hair had been pulled away from his face in a severe braid that brushed his collar. The tendons in his neck stood out like whipcord. He hadn’t even changed out of his expensive business blues before coming to the arena. The horse Andris had been riding immediately smeared green slobber all over the front of his jacket. The old sonofabitch had barely noticed.
“The woman has asked for you specifically,” he said. “You will be your usual charming self, but you will not — do you hear me, Andris? — not sleep with her until a marriage contract has been drafted, signed and enacted. She wants a baby and I won’t have you providing for free what she’s prepared to pay for. She views your proven fertility as an asset.” He snorted. “I never thought I’d be happy that everyone seems to know who that Van Gelt brat’s father really is. But even more important, you’re one of us. M’Dame d’Isford is willing to pay handsomely for our engineered, fertile genes.” He chuckled without humor. “Lucky for us those yokels on Alterness Isle are all so obsessed with fertility.”
Maybe, Andris thought sarcastically, because they have such problems with it. After leaving Sol-Terra, humanity had quickly discovered that its fertility on colony planets was not what it had been on the motherworld. Where possible, genetic intervention had become standard practice for new colonies during the later years of the Confederacy. But if you came to a world as a war refugee rather than a Settlement Board colonist…
Andris stared angrily into the old man’s eyes and thought, how much longer am I going to allow you to run my life? Karolan Rohansi wasn’t a big man — age had melted his muscles to stringiness — but everything about him was hard and unyielding: his posture, his expression, his eyes… eyes like chips of hot sky, the kind of eyes that saw everything and condemned much and surrendered very little about the man who lived behind them.
“Blurrygems!” Karolan’s voice rasped at him like aged gravel. “She’s willing to sign over exclusive rights to all the blurrygems her district exports — that’s over 40% of the Island’s production! Do you know what that means? A huge jump on our spacetime program. T-zero transmission within our grasp. Not to mention all the jewellers and the dope-heads who’ll be overjoyed. So blot that rebellious look from your eyes and enchant the lady. I guarantee it won’t be hard. She’s quite lovely.”
Andris’s jaw was tight. He leaned from the saddle till his face was inches from Grandfather’s. “Let me get this straight. You want me to marry this…”
“Florinda d’Isford.””And move with her to Alterness Isle.”
“And breed her a houseful of healthy children.” His lip curled. “You can, of course, take your horses with you.”
“God! Is that all you think I care about?”
“Don’t even think of starting an argument.” The old man was purring now, not a good sign. His lips smiled but his eyes darkened from blue to black. “It so happens that m’Dame d’Isford is watching us from the viewing lounge at your back, and you are not going to throw a tantrum now.”
“Stop treating me like a God damned kid!”
“Then stop acting like one!”
“Listen, old man…!”
Something in his grandfather’s face stopped him. A kind of freezing over, and when he leaned in close, Andris held his breath.
“The choice, of course, is yours,” his grandfather said, low. “But remember that little girl. She’s — what? eight years old now? I’d be heartbroken if an accident were to befall her at that tender age.”
It was worse than a blow to the gut. Andris watched in a daze as the old bastard walked away from him towards the viewing lounge at the arena’s far end. There were people there, shadows beyond the glass. Karolan Rohansi waved at them. Arena sand slopped into his street shoes at every step.
Andris let his breath go. Surely he didn’t mean it. Karolan could be a real bugger some days. He hadn’t controlled Third Tower for over forty years by shrinking from the use of threats, especially if he judged that they would get him what he wanted. But to threaten his own grandchild… Surely he didn’t mean it.
The trouble was, Andris wasn’t sure. That was true horror, that he wasn’t sure. Karolan Rohansi had kept him from marrying the child’s mother; had squashed the newsnetters’ gossip about Andris’s connection to her; had quietly scared an awful lot of people. He was not a man you messed with.He turned, now, and grinned at Andris as if nothing were amiss, and gestured grandly at the wide, empty arena. As if the whole conversation had revolved around a bit of impromtu entertainment.
Fuck that, Andris thought, and nudged his mount towards the wide stretch of glass to have a look for himself at this m’Dame Florinda What’s-Her-Name.
Because Grandfather had been coveting Alterness’s blurrygems for a very long time. And he was not in the habit of making empty threats.
— To Be Continued —