brand new colony

It's later than usual when Divdan lets himself into their small apartment -- small by the standards they were used to on New Britain; for Arden's towering cities it's comfortable enough. Outside there's a warm, drizzling rain; his hair and clothes are wet, his face heavy and tired. He changes his shoes quietly by the door, and slips through the archway into the sitting room.

"Nomie?"

They've been in the Hall for weeks now, longer than they've ever stayed at a stretch. It's almost the first time they've had the opportunity -- Bredigan up and functioning after the first long wave of intense development, Lamwell keeping track of things at home -- but they all know that isn't the reason. It's as if they're afraid to look away. Even Melian is tense and subdued, keeping a watchful eye on his parents as if either of them might be the breaking point.

But Melian is in bed, and presumably asleep, in the corner they've screened off as his own, when Medraut comes in toward midnight. The door shuts quietly behind him, shutting out the yellow light from the hallway; he darts a quick look behind the partition, before slipping past into the bedroom.

At the end of the week Medraut takes Saigremort back to the capital, and after the most cursory of check-ins immediately leaves again for Til Tomeil. He's had time, on the flight back, to realize exactly what's just happened; and on the second and longer trip he has more than enough time to figure out what he's going to do about it.

Not that he ever has any real doubt.

It's late afternoon when he reaches, on foot, the little house on the outskirts where he and Lenomie have been based for a year now. He swings lightly up the steps, hesitates a moment, and then lets himself in.

The trip to Manassah is the first time she's ever been off-planet, and she spent the transit time anxiously pacing back at forth in the berth of their room on the ship. Medraut keeps telling her it's all right, but Lenomie is finding it hard to believe him on this front: she finally caved and let Divdan take her clothes shopping, in a last-minute fit of panic that all his comments about her grey dress might be true.

But the first night at his parents' house went well enough, it's true. She wore the pink gown Divdan bullied her into getting, and felt stupid and out of place, but at least nobody said anything about it and she didn't get soup on it or anything. Still, the meal was reserved, and she's used to Medraut's dry, stinging wit and Divdan's boisterous amusement -- and she's sure not used to scrubbing her skin raw and clean every day and leaving her hair down so it looks nice. Hell, she's not used to spending this many hours consecutive not mucking around in the engine of a skimmer or transport.

In the morning Medraut's old man hauls him off to look at something that Medraut swears is boring as hell, so Nomie's all right just to stay in their room. Which is where she still is, flipping restlessly through the tapes in the case on the wall, looking for something she can stick in the console until Medraut gets back. Honestly she's still nervous, but there's no real cure for that.

Of the things the average married woman has to discuss with her husband, Lenomie is willing to bet that 'while you were away the Queen decided I should overhaul the fleet maintenance crew and make sure everything is in good working order, and while I was by myself in town I met a horribly charming single writer who swept me off my feet and made me adore him and I want to know if I can sleep with him while you're away' is not near the top of the list. But she's fiercely of the opinion that there should be plenty of communication in her marriage, and the unhappiness she's been unable to define for the last year or so eases off when she's with Divdan.

So she makes him promise to come around in an hour or so, and meanwhile waits for Medraut's meeting in the Hall to be over. She's wearing the shapeless grey dress that constitutes dressing up for her, and her hair is pulled back and up in an uncharacteristically complicated style. Also she is biting off her nails. She's very practical and usually not nervous at all with Medraut, but this is different, honestly, and she's not sure how it's going to go.

If he were someone else, nursing this sort of infatuation -- his brother Geffreyn, for instance -- he might find excuses to go back to Til Tomeil and see her. But he's Medraut, and that means the more he looks forward to it the more severe he is with himself. He sticks to the schedule, and it's another two months before he heads out that way again, in the dry cool of early autumn.

Dry until he gets there, in a sudden pouring rainstorm, turning the streets to pure mud where they still aren't paved, which is most places. He stands disconsolately under the eaves of the stable, with his travel bag over his shoulder, trying to work up the nerve to make a dash across the street. It's not like he can get any wetter.

Divdan has spent the morning writing, longhand in the featureless black book he's never without (bought in bulk whenever he has the excess funds to spare, and stashed under his bed, as he's fond of telling people, to keep it from falling down). He's not making very much progress. For one thing it's just not coming together; and for another he's been working on it for a week now, and at this point he's more than a little stir-crazy.

Finally he shuts the book with a bang, stands up, and goes to call Lenomie.

In the end it's a little more than a month before Medraut is back in Til Tomeil. This time he makes arrangements first, securing a bed in the cleaner of the two small hostels, and changes into clean clothes before he heads for the shop.

If pressed, he'll say that he's checking up on the sheep operation, but this is quite frankly a pretext.

Come morning, Nomie wakes in her cot in the shop with the first pale light of not-so-distant sun, yawning and pulling the wrinkled, ugly dress back into a semblance of order. Her hair is sticking up a dozen places and she looks sleep-bleary and fuzzy as she wanders down the hall to her own room, slipping inside silently and rifling through her closet. At first her hands hover over her usual work overalls, and then she glances over the man sleeping in the bed.

She bites her lip, makes a face, and straightens the dress instead, then goes to the tiny wedge of mirror on the wall to tie her hair up.

The sheep having been imported at non-trivial expense, they still have to reach Til Tomeil in good time, good health, and reasonably good order. Medraut didn't exactly volunteer to see the whole production safely down, but Gwalchmai can't be spared and Geffreyn refused point-blank, and while there is a long list of assignments he'd rather have had, at least it gets him out of town.

The fact is there's only so much time he can spend in Camallate before it starts getting him down. Even if it weren't for Arthur's carefully casual manner -- wish he wouldn't play dumb, he ain't any good at it -- or old Merdhin's hostile looks or Geff's continual complaints, the place itself unsettles him. It's too different from what he's used to, and at the same time too comfortable; he's not used to fitting in so seamlessly, and he resents it.

So he's willing enough to escort the woolly bastards to where they need to go, along with the supplies and the small knot of people with more expertise than self-sufficiency. By the time they get to Til Tomeil -- a forgettable town, far enough from the borderlands to be sleepy-quiet, not far enough to be particularly prosperous -- he's nearly relaxed.

Not entirely. His mother was born here, after all.

But enough that, safely inside the city limits, he leaves the party to sort themselves out and moves off to explore. He's only been here briefly before now, and if he's not going to head straight back to the capital he'd just as soon have a good look around.

Lenomie's arrangement with Medraut means that a lot of the time he's out in Bredigan working on his building project and she's out in Til Tomeil working on her sheep project, and they don't cross each other's paths real often in Camallate, though they have a permanent apartment in the royal hall.

She's in the city this week to pick up supplies and download more information to her holo console; then she'll stop by Bredigan briefly to coax Gadriet to Til Tomeil to look at one of the sheep she thinks has scrapie. She's staying in the hall, but she doesn't expect to be noticed especially--just because she's married to one of the Dragon's (infinite number of) nephews doesn't mean her social status is anything special.

So when someone sends her a notice that the Queen's got an engine problem and will she come look it over, she's almost nervous. She hasn't really talked to Queen LeGuin since her wedding, and she tries surreptitiously to straighten her hair and her vest as she goes down to the motor shed.

Lenomie is already in her pajamas, sitting cross-legged in the small, thin-mattressed bed she shares with Medraut and reading about sheep breeds on the holo, a tiny pair of reading glasses carefully set on her nose. Medraut isn't in yet, but she doesn't really expect him to be--he's nearly always late getting in, and it doesn't make a lot of difference either way, since they don't talk to each other much.

Unlike many of the residents of New Britain, she actually has a nine to five job at her mech-work shop, so she usually turns in by midnight. The rest of the hours of the day belong to the sheep--King LeGuin gave her the privilege of trying to jump-start the mutton-and-wool industry in Camallate, and she takes it very seriously, hence the holo.

She's humming Vivaldi's Four Seasons while she reads, tapping the holo screen to turn the pages every few minutes or so.