Elizabeth Moon - Change of Command

“Prima?” She looked up, to see Simplicity in the doorway. “Hazel’s here, Mama . . . Prima . . .”

Simplicity had never learned not to call her Mama . Prima wished again that Mitch had not made such a fuss about it, but he had, and she’d had to send the child to the servant’s hall even before she was out of the virgin’s bower. It occurred to Prima that now she could reverse that decision.

“It’s all right to call me Mama here, Simplicity,” she said softly. The girl’s expression relaxed.

“Mama! But the Ranger—”

“Isn’t here. You may say Mama.”

Simplicity ran over, just like the small child she was inside, and hugged Prima clumsily. “Love you, Mama.”

“I love you, Simplicity,” Prima said, greatly daring. She patted the girl on the shoulder. “There now. Go to the kitchen and bring us some lemonade.”

“Yes, Mama.” Simplicity had always been biddable and sweet; Prima could not help wishing Mitch had appreciated that sweetness more.

Hazel tapped at the doorframe. “Prima?”

“Yes.” Prima pushed the needle through her work, and laid it aside. “Come in, have a seat. What is the news?”

Hazel looked at her. “You could turn on a vid.”

“Full of nonsense,” Prima said. “All that arguing, and bad language, too.” She didn’t mention the other things she had found there by accident. Men and women with no clothes on, doing things she had never imagined they could do.

“Lord Thornbuckle’s funeral was today,” Hazel said.

Prima knew that. Everyone knew that. Even with the vid turned off, there was no way to avoid knowing that the Speaker of the Table of Ministers, whose daughter had started all the troubles, had died and was being—not buried, because they didn’t do that here, but . . . but whatever they called it, today.

It was all his fault, really. Prima wanted to believe that, wanted to believe that if that one arrogant blond man had not been so bad a father that his daughter had fallen into captivity, then she would still be Prima Bowie, first wife of a Ranger, safe and happy in the household she had known—had helped make—since her wedding.

That was a comfortable thought. All his fault, and Mitch the innocent dupe of heathens. Herself an innocent victim. The children . . . Prima sighed. Try as she might, she could not convince herself—quite—that it was all Lord Thornbuckle’s fault. Or even his daughter’s, though she loathed the tall yellow-haired woman.

“Prima—” Hazel was leaning forward. “I’m sorry, but—I really need to talk to you about your plans.”

“My plans?” Prima stiffened, her fingers pausing for a moment in their busy work. “What do you mean?”

“Everyone wants to know what you are going to do—about the children’s schooling, about supporting yourself—”

“Supporting myself!” Prima fastened on that; she was not about to discuss sending the children out to one of the heathen schools. “But the Serranos promised protection—”

“Protection, yes. But there are hundreds of you, all told—they can’t afford to support all of you, not like this—”

Like this, in a warren of indoor rooms in a tall building, with windows that looked out on more tall buildings. Prima would have given anything for a bit of ground to walk on, sky to look at.

“And there are laws about the children, about schooling.”

That she could answer. “I am not sending my children to some heathen school to be taught vileness—”

“There are religious schools,” Hazel said. “I brought you a cube—”

A cube. Which she could access only with a cube reader. A machine. Machines, the parsons had always said, would make women lazy.

“I need to change my name,” she said abruptly. Hazel looked surprised. “I’m not Mitch’s Prima anymore,” she said. “Ruth Ann was my birth name, and I should be Ruth Ann again.”

“Ruth Ann,” Hazel said softly, tasting it in her mouth. “It’s a pretty name.”

“It sounds strange to me; no one’s called me that since my parents, years ago.”

“Didn’t they keep calling you—?”

“No, it wouldn’t have been fitting. I was Prima Pardue from the day I married Mitch, and Prima Bowie from the day he became Ranger.” She fidgeted a bit, wishing she didn’t have to ask what she wanted to know. “Hazel . . . I never see anyone like Simplicity, even on the vid, when I do watch it. Surely your people have children that turn out . . . not quite . . . right?”

“Not many,” Hazel said. She flushed; Prima knew something forbidden was in her mind. “I know you don’t like to hear it, but—people do tests and medical treatment even before babies are born, to be sure nothing is wrong with them. Then, if something happens during pregnancy or birth, they fix it.”

“Fix it.” Like a door? But people weren’t doors and shutters and shoes and . . . “How can you fix a mind?” she asked, greatly daring.

“I don’t know.” Hazel’s flush faded. “I’m still young; I haven’t finished my schooling, and I never studied any medicine.”

“Could they fix . . . Simplicity . . . now?”

“I don’t think so,” Hazel said. “I can ask. But I think they have to be younger.” She cocked her head. “But Prima—Ruth, I mean—there’s no need to ‘fix’ Simplicity. She’s a sweet, loving person the way she is.”

“Your people don’t value sweetness,” Prima said. “They value intelligence.”

Hazel paused, looking thoughtful. “There are many places in the Familias where that’s true, but there are also many places that will value Simplicity for her gentleness, her kindness. I think you misjudge us. If you want to find a place—”

“No. I don’t want to send her away! That’s what Mitch said!” That’s what Mitch had done. It still hurt her, that Simplicity had had to endure months in that nursery away from the home she loved.

“I didn’t mean send her away. I meant go with her to a place where she’d be welcome.”

“I can’t go anywhere without my—without Ensign Serrano’s permission.”

“You could tell him what you want.”

“Hazel—you know I can’t do that. He’s my—well, not husband, the way he should be, but he’s our protector. It is for him to decide what to do with us.”

“That’s not how it works, here,” Hazel said. Prima had heard that before, but it was hard to believe. Ensign Serrano was her protector, on the guarantee of his grandmother; he had the right to decide where they would live, and how. “He’d probably be delighted if you found a place where you and the others could be happy.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” Prima said. “I don’t know where to start.”

“You could ask Professor Meyerson.”

“Waltraude?” This had not occurred to Prima; she knew that Meyerson claimed expertise in Texan history—though a very strange version of it, from Prima’s viewpoint—but what could she know about other worlds?

“She’s a professor—finding things out is what she does best.”

“Could you explain it?” Prima asked. She was much more comfortable with Hazel, even Hazel in men’s pants, than with Waltraude in a dress. Waltraude looked at them all as if they were carrots and beets and potatoes on the kitchen table—as if she were considering how they would fit in a stew.

“If she comes back in time. Prima—one thing I came to tell you—I’m leaving later today. I should be on my way to the ship now—clearing customs is going to take longer than usual. I’m going back to my family.”

“Oh.” She had known, in a way, that Hazel would leave, as the former captive women had left. Those women—she still worried about them, but they had all insisted on going, some to restorative surgery, others with voice synthesizers, back to their families if they had any, or a life of independence that Prima could not imagine wanting. “I’ll miss you, Hazel,” Prima said, feeling the hot tears rise.