Page 8 of Mongrels United
Even now, his fingers tingled at the memory of the feel of her flesh against them.
Nash rolled over with a heavy curse and growl, and sat up. It was daylight at the moment, one of the periods when the day section in the Palatine drum matched the time on the rest of the ship.
Camilla’s hand rested against Nash’s back. “You’re restless. Would you like something for that?”
Nash glanced over his shoulder at the little green dispenser on the table next to the bed closest to Camilla’s thin and naked body. He’d reached out to her after Grady Read and her groundsman friend had left. It had been instinctive. Camilla was always happy to share an evening, and she had all the right pills to ensure the evening would be a success. She could distract him nicely.
And she had. Only now he could taste on the back of his tongue whatever she had given him ten minutes after she had arrived at the house. It wasn’t a pleasant taste. It didn’t make him think of warmth and promise.
“No, I don’t want anything,” he told Camilla.
“Then come back to bed. It’s still early.”
“I’ve slept enough.”
Her hand dropped lower. Curved around his hip. Her fingertips caressed his flesh there. “You don’t have to sleep.”
He stood, which dislodged her hand without him having to remove it. He bent and picked up his clothes from last night, then saw the blood on the arm of the shirt. Pietro’s, not his, but still….
He tossed the shirt into the recycle maw and set the printer to producing a fresh one, while he put on the rest of his clothes.
The bedroom was large and airy, which always pleased him. He’d set the walls to simple white, and added a few pieces of art which he’d found in the Aventine markets. The windows could open to catch the stray breezes formed by coriolis forces built by the rotation of the Palatine drum. Nowhere else on the ship was a breeze a positive, pleasant thing, but Nash had grown to enjoy them.
The windows were closed, though. Camilla must have shut them during the night. She was an Aventine resident by choice, not because she couldn’t afford to live in the Palatine.
Camilla propped her head on her hand, watching him. “You don’t have shirts printed in advance?” she asked. “How quaint of you.”
Nash was surprised, too. She had been sharing his bed, on and off, for several years and only now had noticed he didn’t have a massive pre-stocked wardrobe as she did? But then, she didn’t spend time with him because of the clothes he wore. She was the clothes horse. She was rich enough to indulge the habit. She also used her wealth to make sure the company she kept was the most influential on the ship.Thatwas why she spent time with Nash.
And why someone like Grady Read wouldn’t consider lingering in his company for even a second.
“What do you know about Grady Read?” Nash said, plucking the finished shirt from the tray and shaking it out. He used the movements of his arms to hide his grimace. Why had he asked that? Why had he askedCamillathat? She wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t fail to wonder why he was asking.
“Carpenter’s Chief of Staff?” Camilla sat up. “Oh, now,that’sa person I’d like to meet. Did you? Meet her?”
“Last night. She was at Dere Street for a moment—purely on personal business. She’s…unyielding.”
“That would be one way to describe her. You know who her father is, don’t you?”
Nash shook his head. Of course Camilla would know all about the woman. She knew all about everyone of influence on theEndurance. “Who is her father, then?”
“Avan.”
“The Teacher?” Now, thatwasa surprise. Avan Tesarik was known as the Teacher because of his habit of putting long sermon-like essays on the Forum. Hyson had read a few of them, and always intended to read more when he had time. Even though he disagreed with nearly everything Avan the Teacher said, Avan’s style of writing was always interesting. Thought-provoking. And perhaps that was the point. It was rare not to hear people arguing the many sides of Avan’s latest essay, when one landed. “If she’s read all her father’s essays, that would explain her…rigidness.”
“Oh, she’s done more than that,” Camilla replied airily. “Read is incredibly disciplined. Her father fully immersed her in his way of living from the moment she was given to him, so she didn’t have a choice. Now she’s probably the most ethical person on the ship after her father. She keeps Carpenter on the straight and narrow, too.”
“Ethics are just an overblown conscience,” Nash said sourly. “I need coffee,” he added and moved out into the main space of his apartment. It was a very large main space. A dozen slice apartments in the Wall district could fit into it. That was because the floor beneath this one, with the tavern’s public rooms and private rooms and the utility spaces which served them, was correspondingly large.
There were windows on two sides of the common room, all of them able to slide on their tracks and open the house up to the warmth and wind of a Palatine summer.
He moved over to the kitchenette area and set the printer to print a carafe of his favorite coffee blend, plus two mugs. Cream for Camilla.
Camilla followed him out into the room a few minutes later, wearing a diaphanous green robe which trailed the ground and did little to hide her body. “It’s more than a clean conscience for Avan.”
Had she known Nash was still thinking about Grady Read? He grunted non-commitally, hoping it would discourage her and make her drop the subject.
“Avan calls it the Enough ethic,” Camilla added.
