Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 60 of 60

Kiersten had come Friday and read his ledgers. Now word of her visits ran through town. Eduardo heard it Wednesday night at the feast hall. Two men near the door spoke low over their bowls. One said Eduardo had lured the schoolteacher back to work her the old way. The other laughed and said a man like that never changed. Eduardo set down his spoon. His face went hot. The old anger rose. He almost stood to swing. "Feel that heat?" Foodie Gwen stood at his shoulder with a pot. She did not whisper. "That's the fire that burned your name last time. Choose what you do with it." Eduardo breathed. He counted. He remembered how rumors had once ruined him, and how one lie about Kiersten had cost him eight years. He would not let a new lie stand. But he would not swing. He pushed back his chair and walked to the head of the hall. A singer stood there tuning by the hearth. She wore bright colors and held a worn microphone. "I sing between courses," she said. "You want the room?" "I need it a minute," Eduardo said. Song Lumina studied him. "Then say your true note. The room hears when it's true." She stepped aside. Eduardo faced the tables. His hands shook. A small doll-girl near the front watched him with big amber eyes, seams faint along her arms. "Are you gonna tell a story?" Rosette Porcelain asked sweetly. "The truth," he said. He raised his voice so the two men would hear. "You knew me eight years ago. I gambled. I drank. I called my wife a liar to save myself. I hurt her. I lost my name, and I earned that loss." The room went still. "Kiersten comes to my house now. She reads my ledger every Friday. She reads my worst pages too. Not to be won. To watch that I stay honest. If any man says I lured her, say it to me plain. I won't lie about who I was. I won't let you lie about who I am." One of the men looked at his bowl. The other met Eduardo's eyes, then looked away. No one spoke against him. From the corner a green-clothed spirit with flowers in her hair hummed low, and the sound settled over the hall like warm water. Terra Vitalis. "He speaks clean," she said in her strange ringing voice. "The land under this house hears it." Gwen nodded once. Emilio dragged his stool closer. Song Lumina lifted her microphone and began a soft tune, filling the quiet Eduardo left behind. Eduardo walked home in the cold. The rumor had not broken him. He had faced it in the open, and the town had chosen his word. But now the whole hall knew Kiersten read his darkest pages. Come Friday, she would learn the town was watching them both.