'Smells like another disaster,' he rumbled in my ear, voice deep from sleep.
It was a risky ploy, but this time it made me smile.
'You'll shut up and like it,' I replied, turning to kiss his grizzled cheek.
He gave me a squeeze and disengaged. 'Make me extra. I don't know when I'll get to eat this turn.'
'Your will is my purpose,' I said, with a flourish.
'That's the spirit, wife!'
Any reply I might have made was forestalled by a particularly violent eruption of oil from one of the pans, making me flinch and suck my breath in through my teeth.
'Watch that pan,' Rynn said helpfully as he slumped down on the settee. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and groaned. Waking up was a dreadful experience for him. It took him most of the turn to get over it.
I went back to my cooking. Voids, how did people find satisfaction in this?
'When do you have to go?'
'On the tenhour. They'll pick me up out front.'
'You have any idea how long?'
He made a negative grunt. It was a stupid question anyway; he would be as long as it took. He'd only received the message late last turn. The usual thing: Clan Caracassa requires your services. This time he was acting as an escort for a trainload of medical supplies heading for the Borderlands. That was as much as either of us knew. No doubt there would be several other Cadre on board. Maybe it would be a straight there-and-back job, or maybe it was a cover to move them to the front so they could be employed on some secret mission or another. We both knew the score. It wasn't our place to question.
In two turns' time I was also being sent away, and I hadn't even been told my destination yet. They just said I was needed. Clan Caracassa requires your services.
'I'll square it with the minder before I leave,' I said, and felt suddenly sad. It took some of the momentum out of my temporary drive towards good motherhood. The Clan provided somebody to look after Jai while we were away, of course; but I worried that his solitary, introverted nature was our fault. So much of his life was spent under the care of nannies and minders. Would he have been more vivacious, more playful, a happier child if his parents had always been around? Or would he have turned out this way no matter what?
'There's another one of your little notes here,' Rynn said, as I tipped a pile of diced mushrooms into some egg mixture. Perhaps it was just weariness, but I thought I heard a slightly disparaging edge to his voice.
I walked over and took it from his outstretched hand. 'Found it behind one of the cushions.' he said. He wasn't looking at me.
I returned to the stove and read it while watching the breakfast with half an eye. The content was fairly banaclass="underline" a short summary of what Jai had done at school the previous turn. But the real message was hidden inside. It was written in code. Our code, the secret language that existed between Jai and I. I had a dream last turn. I was in a battle. I was fighting the White-skins. There were explosions and shard-cannons. I was scared and I hid in a hole, but the White-skins were coming. Then a moth came, but the moth was you. And you said something, but it didn't mean anything. Then I realised you were talking in our code. And you said you were always with me, but you were being blown away by the wind and you couldn't stay, so in the end you weren't with me at all. I read the note again while the omelette stiffened in the pan. No telling how long ago he'd written it. I couldn't remember the last time I'd looked behind the cushions of the settee. But then, I did recall one morning when he'd woken up agitated and more distant than usual. He wouldn't talk about it then. Perhaps this was the reason.
He'd taught me the code on the condition of absolute secrecy. Of course I agreed to his terms. I was pleased that he wanted to share this with me alone. It made me feel special to be singled out this way, and proud that he had come up with something so clever. It was an impressively complex system for a twelve-year-old to devise.
Ever since, we had been leaving notes for each other around our chambers. Usually they were entirely pointless, phrases and poems and little stories that meant nothing out of context. As we got better, the notes got longer, and so did the coded messages beneath.
At first they were simple phrases, created only for the satisfaction of having the other decode them: How are you this turn?; My name is Jai, what's yours?; There is a hole in my shirt. Please fix it. Later, we actually started to make meaningful communications through the notes. He would write long letters about things he wouldn't say verbally. As if the medium of code had opened a channel through the defences he had erected around himself. There's a girl in my class I really like…
Rynn had asked about the notes, of course, but I told him they were just a game we were playing. He wasn't convinced. He pretended not to be bothered by it, but I could see he felt annoyed at being excluded. He felt he was being laughed at, perhaps.
It gave me a small and uncharitable sense of triumph to see his reaction. Cheap, but there all the same. Maybe if he'd been more understanding with Jai when he was ten, he wouldn't be shut out of our son's inner world now he was twelve.
It was only natural that Jai should choose me for his partner in this. I had always been the one who encouraged his inventiveness, whereas Rynn had barely praised him at all these past two years, since he failed the Cadre tests.
Jai came out of his bedroom as I was dishing out breakfast, arranging it so as to best conceal the burnt bits. Mushroom omelette, roasted sporebread, kebab of black bat, and a bowl of spicy stew. A jug of sugar water stood in the middle of the table, and three ceramic mugs. I'd done my best, but somehow the result still ended up far less impressive than it had in my imagination. Once again, I had decided that this perfect domestic wife act just wasn't for me.
'Ah! He emerges!' Rynn grinned. It was meant to be a bluff greeting, but Jai took it as a dig. It was the kind of misunderstanding that was becoming more and more frequent between them.
'It's not that late,' he said, looking at the brass clock on the wall.
'Come and sit down,' I told him, with a smile. The sight of him in his morning robe, dark hair in disarray, brought back a surge of that grateful warmth which had inspired me to cook in the first place.
He took his seat. Rynn had already begun to eat. He had quite an appetite, and he wasn't fussy. I loved that about him.
'Your father has to go away again,' I said as I sat down. Jai was loading up his plate. He paused, looked inquiringly at Rynn.
'That's right,' Rynn said, between forkfuls. Then he slapped Jai on the shoulder. 'But you're a young man now, eh? You'll cope.'
I caught the wince that crossed our son's face, before his expression fixed into the reassuringly grave frown of a boy acting a role beyond his years. 'Of course. It'll be, what, a few weeks? Voids, I'll be fine.'
'Don't curse.'
'Sorry.'
'I'm sure it won't be that long,' I said. 'One of us will be back pretty soon, I bet.'
He gave me a quick little smile. It's alright, Mother. But the smile didn't reach his eyes. He couldn't quite hide the disappointment.
I watched the two of them as they ate. Rynn oblivious, comfortable with the silence. He never spoke unless he had something to say. But Jai was all coiled up, wanting to speak but not daring to, knowing that he wouldn't be understood. He was palpably awkward around his father, and I suffered when I saw him that way almost as much as he did. He was so desperate for the approval that had been withdrawn from him, but he didn't know how to get it back. Just being near Rynn was torment, and yet being away from him was worse, because then there was no possibility at all of redemption.