Commitment Hour (27 page)

EIGHTEEN

A Chicken Foot for Zephram

Rashid carried Dorr’s body into the Council Hall where the last rites would have some privacy. He said he didn’t worry about touching the corpse; his armor would protect him.

Hakoore and Leeta went to conduct the rites together. From the look on their faces, they didn’t want spectators. Rashid, Steck and I quietly slipped out the side door.

The sunlight outside was bright enough to make your eyes tear up.

Steck let out a long breath. “Shit,” she said.
 

“Shit indeed,” Rashid nodded. “Hands up, anyone who believed that woman’s confession.”
 

“What do you mean?” I asked.
 

“There was no reason for her to do it,” Rashid replied. “She wasn’t backed into a corner; no one even suspected her. And she didn’t sound like someone driven to come clean out of remorse.”

“Maybe she was proud of doing it,” Steck said.
 

“Why?” Rashid asked. “Because Bonnakkut was obnoxious? People need more motive than that.”

“She said Bonnakkut was threatening her,” I said. “He wanted her to…”

I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

“What did he want?” Rashid asked. “Dorr tried to suggest it was something sexual. Is that really likely? Considering how he reacted the night before, do you think Bonnakkut would lust after a Neut?”

“Sexual attacks aren’t about lust,” Steck answered. “They’re about rage and frustration. Bonnakkut was enraged over my presence, and frustrated he couldn’t do anything about it. With me out of his reach, maybe he settled for venting his anger on another Neut…
raping
another Neut…”

“I won’t say it’s impossible,” Rashid replied, “but it’s strange. Why this irresistible urge to molest Dorr at…what was it, seven thirty in the morning? Couldn’t he wait till nightfall when there’d be less chance of getting caught? And couldn’t he pick a better place than that path? I assume people use the path all the time, right, Fullin?”

“Only my…” I stopped. “Actually, yes, a lot of people use the path.”

“See?” Rashid asked. “Too many things that don’t add up. So you have to ask, why would Dorr lie? Is there anyone in town she’d die to protect? Someone who might be the real murderer?”

He was looking at me. I gave what I hoped would look like a careless shrug. “Maybe her grandfather…but I can’t imagine he killed Bonnakkut. Hakoore can barely walk on his own, let alone kill a top warrior and run away before anyone came on the scene.”

“He gives that impression,” Rashid admitted, “although it’s wrong to take anything for granted. Still, even if Hakoore can secretly sprint like an ostrich, this isn’t his kind of crime. He strikes me as subtle. He’d try to make it look like an accident, or blame it on someone he didn’t like. Who else could Dorr be protecting? Did she have a lover?”

“Not Dorr,” I answered quickly.

Rashid looked at me with curiosity.

“Hakoore kept her on too short a rope,” I explained. “He wanted her all to herself.”

“Lovers usually find a way,” Rashid said. “But if you don’t know of anyone…”

Above our heads, a bell rang from the Council Hall steeple. It was a high soprano chime, the smallest bell of the four that hung in the tower.

“What’s that?” Rashid asked.

“An alert,” I answered. “One hour till Master Crow and Mistress Gull arrive…assuming they haven’t been scared off by everything that’s happened today.”

Rashid and Steck met each other’s gaze. “Maybe we’d better get going,” the Spark Lord said.

“Going?” I repeated. “I thought this is what you came for.”

“We’ll watch from someplace with a better view,” Rashid replied. “Maybe Beacon Point. That way we can see where Master Crow and Mistress Gull come from.”

I stared at them suspiciously. “Are you two up to something?”

“How often do I have to say we aren’t going to interfere?” Rashid asked. “Go. Get ready. Have a good Commitment.”

I could have argued; but the truth was I had other things on my mind, and I needed time to myself. “All right,” I said. “You’ll still be here when I get back?”

“What kind of a mother would she be,” Rashid asked, “if she didn’t want to know how her son Committed? I must admit I’m curious myself.”

“That makes three of us,” I told him.

“Good,” Rashid said, “keep us guessing. Now kiss your mom, and we’ll be off.”

Steck elbowed him. She and I settled for shaking hands.

I avoided the square—it would only be full of people babbling about Dorr and Bonnakkut. Instead, I took the route Steck must have taken herself when she left from the side door of the Council Hall and went to Zephram’s house.

Along the path where Bonnakkut died.

Of course, I had lied to Rashid; the trail wasn’t frequently used. It only went to Zephram’s; no one walked that way except people going to visit him.

Why would Bonnakkut have been out there?

Dorr said the First Warrior had been following her. Rashid thought her whole confession was a lie, but suppose it wasn’t.

That only changed the question: why had Doit been heading for Zephram’s?

I thought back to the days when I was fourteen, and she was forever lingering outside the house. Especially at times when she knew I would be heading to the marsh for practice.

Suppose she wasn’t waiting for a glimpse of me, or to tag along and eavesdrop on my playing.

Suppose she had been waiting for me to leave.

And in the past few years, when I had been living with Cappie down by the waterfront, Dorr could visit Zephram almost any time. No one would notice, if the two of them were discreet.

Dorr could move so quietly when she wanted to.

When she was dying, she’d said, “Your father would never forgive me if I hurt you…your violinist’s hands.” And to Steck: “Take good care of him. You’ve always been…”

You’ve always been what? Zephram’s true love?

Had Dorr killed herself because she thought Zephram would leave her for Steck?

I didn’t know; but I urgently needed to confront my foster father.

Zephram sat at the table where we had breakfast. Tears dampened his cheeks.

“You know about Dorr?” I asked.

He nodded. “I was taking Waggett down to the square when I heard.”

“Where’s Waggett now?”

“Cappie was in the square too; I left him with her. He knew something was wrong. Maybe I was even crying, I don’t know. It scared him. So I thought it was better…”

“Cappie will take care of him,” I said. “What about you?”

He shrugged dully.

“So you and Dorr…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Yes. Me and Dorr.”

Neither of us said anything for a while.

“How long?” I asked.

“Years,” he said. “Since before she Committed.” He gave a sad laugh. “It’s pathetic, isn’t it? An old man and a young woman.”

“A young Neut.”

“Stop right there, Fullin. I don’t want you sneering at Neuts. Not today.”

I didn’t fight him. “Which of you started it?”

“No one ever starts these things,” he said. “Dorr always liked talking to me about life in the South. Even as a young teenager, she probably intended to run away once she Committed: to get out of that house. By the time she was nineteen, she was coming here almost every day. We both pretended she was just picking my brains about being a merchant in Feliss City, but…then it went beyond that. Dorr was the first person in Tober Cove who actually wanted to hear the things I knew about business, and I was the only person who could speak three words to her without worrying what Hakoore would think.”

“And what
did
Hakoore think?” I asked. “Did he know about you two?”

“He knew. She made sure he knew. Dorr loved getting under her grandfather’s skin. And he wasn’t as upset as she thought he’d be. It’s easy to picture Hakoore as heartlessly rigid, but he lost his own daughter to madness, and when it came to his granddaughter…even as he lectured Dorr about ‘godless outsiders’ I think he was secretly pleased she wasn’t as lonely and isolated as her mother. Close to Commitment Day, he even suggested he might allow a marriage…”

“Oh gods!” I groaned, “how brainless could he get?” I wanted to bury my face in my hands. “Accepting Dorr’s relationship with you? Suggesting you get married . . .”

“What’s wrong with that?” Zephram protested.

“Dorr didn’t want to get married!” I snapped at him. “She wanted to get out! Out of the cove, away from Hakoore. Marrying you would just be another tie to keep her here. It was a threat, not a concession. Hakoore practically held a knife to her throat and
forced
her to raise the stakes. To Commit Neut.”

“No,” Zephram murmured. “Dorr did that to please me.”

“To please
you?
” I repeated. “Don’t tell me you gave Dorr the happy story about your Neut friend down south! You couldn’t be that stupid…not after the trouble with Steck.”

“I never talked to Dorr about Neuts,” Zephram replied. “Not before she Committed. But Dorr was five when Steck…made her choice. Dorr was old enough to remember some of what happened, and young enough to have it all confused. She got the idea…”

He waved his hand as if groping for the right words.

“That you had been Steck’s lover after she turned Neut?” I suggested. “That you liked Neuts?”

Zephram ran his fingers through his hair; the hair was damp, soaked with sweat. He said, “Maybe I
should
have talked to her about Neuts before she Committed. But I wanted to stay clear of the topic—to avoid influencing Dorr like I influenced Steck. Once or twice, Dorr even brought the subject up…and I avoided it. It seemed like the right thing.”

Sometimes there is no right thing
, I thought to myself. Aloud, I said, “And when she Committed Neut?”

“I stayed with her,” my father replied. “Of course I did. She was the same person. And I wasn’t about to abandon her when she…for my sake…”

“Okay, sure.” I didn’t want to hurt him by pursuing my thoughts aloud, but I wondered about Dorr. Had she really thought Zephram would prefer her as Neut? Or had she Committed Neut to horrify her grandfather, then invented a second story to tell Zephram? Maybe she was afraid Zephram would turn her away unless he thought it was his own fault.

No way to know. Dorr was dead. Poor cryptic Dorr, who spent twenty-five years trying to do something crazy enough to break herself free of her grandfather.

I suppose it wasn’t coincidence she had fallen in love with a man the same age as Hakoore.

“So about Dorr and Bonnakkut,” I said. “Did she really kill him?”

Zephram nodded.

“Do you know that for sure?” I asked. “Rashid thinks her confession doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s right; her confession was a lie. But she did kill him. I was there.”

“What happened?”

He told me the story with his eyes closed, as if he was seeing it all in his mind…or perhaps because he didn’t want to look at me or the rest of the world for a while.

Everything had started, of course, at the gathering where Tober Cove welcomed Rashid. Zephram had sat on the grass with Waggett in his lap, both of them calm and content in the early morning sunshine. The day ahead would be so pleasant—sending me off with Mistress Gull at noon, then feasting cheerfully with the adults of the village until the children returned at nightfall. Zephram could meet a Spark Lord, spend time with Dorr…

Then Rashid’s Bozzle appeared on the Council Hall steps.

The long-lost Steck had returned.

As soon as the gathering broke up, Zephram headed for his house—running away, really, though Steck would know where to find him. Since he was carrying Waggett, and since he was over sixty, Zephram only got partway home before Steck caught up with him…on that path through the woods where everything happened.

They talked. Awkwardly. About each other. About me.

Then Bonnakkut arrived, gun in hand. He had kept an eye on Steck, thinking the time might come when she strayed from the protection of Rashid’s “force field.” Our First Warrior hadn’t seen Steck sneak out the side of the Council Hall, but he guessed where she would go: to find her old lover. (Bonnakkut was five when Steck was banished; like Dorr, he remembered. I suppose the day of Steck’s exile was the high point in Bonnakkut’s life: a Neut in the village and a chance to throw stones.)

If Bonnakkut had pulled the trigger as soon as he arrived, Steck would have died. Our proud First Warrior would have dragged her corpse back by the hair and proclaimed his triumph from the Council Hall steps. But fortunately for my mother, Bonnakkut couldn’t resist the chance to gloat while holding Steck and Zephram at gunpoint.

Enter Dorr.

How did Dorr feel, now that Zephram’s old lover had returned? Zephram couldn’t tell me. “She didn’t seem upset,” he said. “It was almost as if she was
liberated.
As if she could pass me to Steck and start her own life.”

I thought about Dorr as I had seen her when I went to fetch Hakoore for last rites. Dorr trying to restyle her hair. Kissing me twice out of sheer mischief. If she believed she was free of Zephram, her last tie to Tober Cove finally cut…but maybe it was just giddiness after the murder—and before the suicide she was already contemplating.

But that came later in the morning. Before the murder, Dorr was simply walking through the woods because she wanted to visit Zephram—presumably to talk with him about Steck’s return. She must have heard Bonnakkut’s taunts and threats while still some distance away. Quietly, she stole forward until she could see everything: the gun…my father and Steck in danger of being shot…

Dorr drew her knife and used it. Bonnakkut had his back to her; he was dead before he knew she was there.

“And then she ran off,” Zephram said. “She called to Steck and me, ‘Be happy together,’ and ran into the woods. I thought she might be heading down-peninsula, just like that. But apparently she decided she had to invent a story; she decided she had to protect me.” He shook his head. “I never understood her, Fullin. Not really. I don’t know why she stayed with me, and I don’t know why she left.”

He bowed his head and covered his eyes.