The White Rose

Chapter Ten: BOMANZ'S STORY

Croaker:

Jasmine's squeal rattled the windows and doors. "Bomanz! You come down here! Come down right now, you hear me?"

Bomanz sighed. A man couldn't get five minutes alone. What the hell did he get married for? Why did any man? You spent the rest of your life doing hard time, doing what other people wanted, not what you wanted.

"Bomanz!"

"I'm coming, dammit! Damned woman can't blow her nose without me there to hold her hand," he added sotto voce. He did a lot of talking under his breath. He had feelings to vent, and peace to maintain. He compromised. Always, he compromised.

He stamped downstairs, each footfall a declaration of irritation. He mocked himself as he went: You know you're getting old when everything aggravates you.

"What do you want? Where are you?"

"In the shop." There was an odd note in her voice. Suppressed excitement, he decided. He entered the shop warily.

"Surprise!"

His world came alive. Grouchiness deserted him. "Stance!" He flung himself at his son. Powerful arms crushed him. "Here already? We didn't expect you till next week."

"I got away early. You're getting pudgy, Pop." Stancil opened his arms to include Jasmine in a three-way hug.

"That's your mother's cooking. Times are good. We're eating regular. Tokar's been…" He glimpsed a faded, ugly shadow. "So how are you? Back up. Let me look at you. You were still a boy when you left."

And Jasmine: "Doesn't he look great? So tall and healthy. And such nice clothes." Mock concern. "You haven't been up to any funny business, have you?"

"Mother! What could a junior instructor get up to?" He met his father's eye, smiled a smile that said "Same old Mom."

Stancil was four inches taller than his father, in his middle twenties, and looked athletic despite his profession. More like an adventurer than a would-be don, Bomanz thought. Of course, times changed. It had been eons since his own university days. Maybe standards had changed.

He recalled the laughter and pranks and all-night, dreadfully serious debates on the meaning of it all, and was bitten by an imp of nostalgia. What had become of that mentally quick, foxy young Bomanz? Some silent, unseen Guardsman of the mind had interred him in a barrow in the back of his brain, and there he lay dreaming, while a bald, jowly, potbellied gnome gradually usurped him… They steal our yesterdays and leave us no youth but that of our children…

"Well, come on. Tell us about your studies." Get out of that self-pitying mindset, Bomanz, you old fool. "Four years and nothing but letters about doing laundry and debates at the Stranded Dolphin. Stranded he would be in Oar. Before I die I want to see the sea. I never have." Old fool. Dream out loud and that's the best you can do? Would they really laugh if you told them the youth is still alive in there somewhere?

"His mind wanders," Jasmine explained.

"Who are you calling senile?" Bomanz snapped.

"Pop. Mom. Give me a break. I just got here."

Bpmanz gobbled air. "He's right. Peace. Truce. Armistice. You referee, Stance. Two old warhorses like us are set in their ways."

Jasmine said, "Stance promised me a surprise before you came down."

"Well?" Bomanz asked.

"I'm engaged. To be married."

How can this be? This is my son. My baby. I was changing his diapers last week… Time, thou unspeakable assassin, I feel thy cold breath. I hear thine iron-shod hooves…

"Hmph. Young fool. Sorry. Tell us about her, since you won't tell us about anything else."

"I would if I could get a word in."

"Bomanz, be quiet. Tell us about her, Stance."

"You probably know something already. She's Tokar's sister, Glory."

Bomanz's stomach plunged to the level of his heels. Tokar's sister. Tokar, who might be a Resurrectionist.

"What's the matter now, Pop?"

"Tokar's sister, eh? What do you know about that family?"

"What's wrong with them?"

"I didn't say anything was. I asked you what you know about them."

"Enough to know I want to marry Glory. Enough to know Tokar is my best friend."

"Enough to know if they're Resurrectionists?"

Silence slammed into the shop. Bomanz stared at his son. Stancil stared back. Twice he started to respond, changed his mind. Tension rasped the air. "Pop…"

"That's what Besand thinks. The Guard is watching Tokar. And me, now. It's the time of the comet, Stance. The tenth passage. Besand smells some big Resurrectionist plot. He's making life hard. This thing about Tokar will make it worse."

Stancil sucked spittle between his teeth. He sighed. "Maybe it was a mistake, coming home. I won't get anything done wasting time ducking Besand and fighting with you."

"No, Stance," Jasmine said. "Your father won't start anything. Bo, you weren't starting a fight. You're not going to start one."

"Uhm." My son engaged to a Resurrectionist? He turned away, took a deep breath, quietly berated himself. Jumping to conclusions. On word no better than Besand's. "Son, I'm sorry. He's been riding me." He glanced at Jasmine. Besand wasn't his only persecutor.

"Thanks, Pop. How's the research coming?"

Jasmine grumbled and muttered. Bomanz said, "This conversation is crazy. We're all asking questions and nobody is answering."

"Give me some money, Bo," Jasmine said.

"What for?"

"You two won't say hello before you start your plotting. I might as well go marketing."

Bomanz waited. She eschewed her arsenal of pointed remarks about Woman's lot. He shrugged, dribbled coins into her palm. "Let's go upstairs, Stance."

"She's mellowed," Stancil said as they entered the attic room.

"I hadn't noticed."

"So have you. But the house hasn't changed."

Bomanz lighted the lamp. "Cluttered as ever," he admitted. He grabbed his hiding spear. "Got to make a new one of these. It's getting worn." He spread his chart on the little table.

"Not much improvement, Pop."

"Get rid of Besand." He tapped the sixth barrow. "Right there. The only thing standing in my way."

"That route the only option, Pop? Could you get the top two? Or even one. That would leave you a fifty-fifty chance of guessing the other two."

"I don't guess. This isn't a card game. You can't deal a new hand if you play your first one wrong."

Stancil took the one chair, stared at the chart. He drummed the tabletop with his fingers. Bomanz fidgeted.

A week passed. The family settled into new rhythms, including living with the Monitor's intensified surveillance.

Bomanz was cleaning a weapon from the TelleKurre site. A trove, that was. A veritable trove. A mass burial, with weapons and armor almost perfectly preserved. Stancil entered the shop. Bomanz looked up. "Rough night?"

"Not bad. He's ready to give up. Only came round once."

"Men fu or Besand?"

"Men fu. Besand was there a half dozen times."

They were working shifts. Men fu was the public excuse.

In reality, Bomanz hoped to wear Besand down before the comet's return. It was not working.

"Your mother has breakfast ready." Bomanz began assembling his pack.

"Wait up, Pop. I'll go too."

"You need to rest."

"That's all right. I feel like digging."

"Okay." Something was bothering the boy. Maybe he was ready to talk.

They'd never done much of that. Their pre-university relationship had been one of confrontation, with Stance always on the defensive… He had grown, these four years, but the boy was still there inside. He was not yet ready to face his father man-to-man. And Bomanz had not grown enough to forget that Stancil was his little boy. Those growths sometimes never come. One day the son is looking back at his own son, wondering what happened.

Bomanz resumed rubbing flakes off a mace. He sneered at himself. Thinking about relationships. This isn't like you, you old coot.

"Hey, Pop," Stance called from the kitchen. "Almost forgot. I spotted the comet last night."

A claw reached in and grabbed a handful of Bomanz's guts. The comet! Couldn't be. Not already. He was not ready for it.

"Nervy little bastard," Bomanz spat. He and Stancil knelt in the brush, watching Men fu toss artifacts from their diggings.

"I ought to break his leg."

"Wait here a minute. I'll circle around and cut him off when he runs."

Bomanz snorted. "Not worth the trouble."

"It's worth it to me, Pop. Just to keep the balance."

"All right." Bomanz watched Men fu pop up to look around, ugly little head jerking like that of a nervous pigeon.

He dropped back into the excavation. Bomanz stalked forward. He drew close enough to hear the thief talking to himself.

"Oh. Lovely. Lovely. A stone fortune. Stone fortune. That fat little ape don't deserve it. All the time sucking up to Besand. That creep."

"Fat little ape? You asked for it." Bomanz shed his pack and tools, got a firm grip on his spade.

Men fu came up out of the pit, his arms filled. His eyes grew huge. His mouth worked soundlessly.

Bomanz wound up. "Now Bo, don't be…"

Bomanz swung. Men fu danced, took the blow on his hip, squawked, dropped his burden, flailed the air, and toppled into the pit. He scrambled out the far side, squealing like a wounded hog. Bomanz wobbled after him, landed a mighty stroke across his behind. Men fu ran. Bomanz charged after him, spade high, yelling, "Stand still, you thieving son-of-a-bitch! Take it like a man."

He took a last mighty swing. It missed. It flung him around. He fell, bounced back up, continued the chase sans avenging spade.

Stancil threw himself into Men fu's way. The thief put his head down and bulled through. Bomanz ploughed into Stancil. Father and son rolled in a tangle of limbs.

Bomanz gasped, "What the hell? He's gone now." He sprawled on his back, panted. Stancil started laughing. "What's so damned funny?"

"The look on his face."

Bomanz sniggered. "You weren't much help." They guffawed. Finally, Bomanz gasped, "I'd better find my spade."

Stancil helped his father stand. "Pop, I wish you could have seen yourself."

"Glad I didn't. Lucky I didn't have a stroke." He lapsed into a fit of giggles.

"You all right, Pop?"

"Sure. Just can't laugh and catch my breath at the same time. Oh. Oh, my. I won't be able to move again if I sit down."

"Let's go dig. That'll keep you loose. You dropped the spade around here, didn't you?"

"There it is."

The giggles haunted Bomanz all morning. He would recall Men fu's flailing retreat and his self-control would go.

"Pop?" Stancil was working the far side of the pit. "Look here. This may be why he didn't notice you coming."

Bomanz limped over, watched Stancil brush loose soil off a perfectly preserved breastplate. It was as black and shiny as rubbed ebony. An ornate ornament in silver bossed its center. "Uhm." Bomanz popped out of the pit. "Nobody around. That half-man, half-beast design. That's Shapeshifter."

"He led the TelleKurre."

"He wouldn't be buried here, though."

"It's his armor, Pop."

"I can see that, dammit." He popped up like a curious groundhog. No one in sight. "Sit up here and keep watch. I'll dig it out."

"You sit, Pop."

"You were up all night."

"I'm a lot younger than you are."

"I'm feeling just fine, thank you."

"What color is the sky, Pop?"

"Blue. What kind of question…"

"Hallelujah. We agree on something. You're the most contrary old goat…"

"Stancil!"

"Sorry, Pop. We'll take turns. Flip a coin to see who goes first."

Bomanz lost. He settled down with his pack as a backrest. "Going to have to spread the dig out. Going straight down like this, it'll cave in first heavy rain."

"Yeah. Be a lot of mud. Ought to think about a drainage trench. Hey, Pop, there's nobody in this thing. Looks like the rest of his armor, too." Stancil had recovered a gauntlet and uncovered part of a greave.

"Yeah? I hate to turn it in."

"Turn it in? Why? Tokar could get a fortune for it."

"Maybe so. But what if friend Men fu did spot it? He'll tell Besand out of spite. We've got to stay on his good side. We don't need this stuff."

"Not to mention he might have planted it."

"What?"

"It shouldn't be here, right? And no body inside the armor. And the soil is loose."

Bomanz grunted. Besand was capable of a frame. "Leave everything the way it is. I'll go get him."

"Sour-faced old fart," Stancil muttered as the Monitor departed. "I bet he did plant it."

"No sense cussing. We can't do anything." Bomanz settled against his pack.

"What're you doing?"

"Loafing. I don't feel like digging anymore." He ached all over. It had been a busy morning.

"We should get what we can while the weather is good."

"Go ahead."

"Pop…" Stancil thought better of it. "How come you and Mom fight all the time?"

Bomanz let his thoughts drift. The truth was elusive. Stance would not remember the good years. "I guess because people change and we don't want them to." He could find no better words. "You start out with a woman; she's magical and mysterious and marvelous, the way they sing it. Then you get to know each other. The excitement goes away. It gets comfortable. Then even that fades. She starts to sag and turn grey and get lined and you feel cheated. You remember the fey, shy one you met and talked with till her father threatened to plant a boot in your ass. You resent this stranger. So you take a poke. I guess it's the same for your mother. Inside, I'm still twenty. Stance. Only if I pass a mirror, or if my body won't do what I want, do I realize that I'm an old man. I don't see the potbelly and the varicose veins and the grey hair where I've got any left. She has to live with it.

"Every time I see a mirror I'm amazed. I end up wondering who's taken over the outside of me. A disgusting old goat, from the look of him. The kind I used to snicker at when I was twenty. He scares me, Stance. He looks like a dying man. I'm trapped inside him, and I'm not ready to go."

Stancil sat down. His father never talked about his feelings. "Does it have to be that way?"

Maybe not, but it always is… "Thinking about Glory, Stance? I don't know. You can't get out of getting old. You can't get out of having a relationship change."

"Maybe none of it has to be. If we manage this…"

"Don't tell me about maybes, Stance. I've been living on maybes for thirty years." His ulcer took a sample nibble from his gut. "Maybe Besand is right. For the wrong reasons."

"Pop! What are you talking about? You've given your whole life to this."

"What I'm saying, Stance, is that I'm scared. It's one thing to chase a dream. It's another to catch it. You never get what you expect. I have a premonition of disaster. The dream might be stillborn."

Stancil's expression ran through a series of changes. "But you've got to…"

"I don't have to do anything but be Bomanz the antiquary. Your mother and I don't have much longer. This dig should yield enough to keep us."

"If you went ahead, you'd have a lot more years and a lot more…"

"I'm scared, Stance. Of going either way. That happens when you get older. Change is threatening."

"Pop…"

"I'm talking about the death of dreams, son. About losing the big, wild make-believes that keep you going. The impossible dreams. That kind of jolly pretend is dead. For me. All I can see is rotten teeth in a killer's smile."

Stancil hoisted himself out of the pit. He plucked a strand of sweetgrass, sucked it while gazing into the sky. "Pop, how did you feel right before you married Mom?"

"Numb."

Stancil laughed. "Okay, how about when you went to ask her father? On the way there?"

"I thought I was going to dribble down my leg. You never met your grandfather. He's the one who got them started telling troll stories."

"Something like you feel now?"

"Something. Yes. But it's not the same. I was younger, and I had a reward to look forward to."

"And you don't now? Aren't the stakes bigger?"

"Both ways. Win or lose."

"Know what? You're having what they call a crisis of self-confidence. That's all. Couple of days and you'll be raring to go again."

That evening, after Stancil had gone out, Bomanz told Jasmine, "That's a wise boy we've got. We talked today. Really talked, for the first time. He surprised me." "Why? He's your son, isn't he?"

The dream came stronger than ever before, more quickly than ever. It wakened Bomanz twice in one night. He gave up trying to sleep. He went and sat on the front stoop, taking in the moonlight. The night was bright. He could make out rude buildings along the dirty street.

Some town, he thought, remembering the glories of Oar. The Guard, us antiquaries, and a few people who scratch a living serving us and the pilgrims. Hardly any of those anymore, even with the Domination fashionable. The Barrowland is so disreputable nobody wants to look at it.

He heard footsteps. A shadow approached. "Bo?"

"Besand?"

"Uhm." The Monitor settled on the next step down. "What're you doing?"

"Couldn't sleep. Been thinking about how the Barrowland has gotten so blighted even self-respecting Resurrectionists don't come here anymore. You? You're not taking the night patrol yourself, are you?"

"Couldn't sleep either. That damned comet."

Bomanz searched the sky.

"Can't see it from here. Have to go around back. You're right. Nobody knows we're here anymore. Us or those things in the ground over there. I don't know what's worse. Neglect or plain stupidity."

"Uhm?" Something was gnawing at the Monitor.

"Bo, they're not replacing me because I'm old or incompetent, though I guess I'm enough of both. They're moving me out so somebody's nephew can have a post. An exile for a black sheep. That hurts, Bo. That really hurts. They've forgotten what this place is. They're telling me I wasted my whole life doing a job any idiot can sleep his way through."

"The world is full of fools."

"Fools die."

"Eh?"

"They laugh when I talk about the comet or about Resurrectionists striking this summer. They can't believe that I believe. They don't believe there's anything under those mounds. Not anything still alive."

"Bring them out here. Walk them through the Barrowland after dark."

"I tried. They told me to quit whining if I wanted a pension."

"You've done all you can, then. It's on their heads."

"I took an oath, Bo. I was serious about it then, and I'm serious now. This job is all I have. You've got Jasmine and Stance. I might as well have been a monk. Now they're discarding me for some young…" He began making strange noises.

Sobs? Bomanz thought. From the Monitor? From this man with a heart of flint and all the mercy of a shark? He took Besand's elbow. "Let's go look at the comet. I haven't seen it yet."

Besand got hold of himself. "You haven't? That's hard to believe."

"Why? I haven't been up late. Stancil has done the night work."

"Never mind. Slipping into my antagonistic character again. We should've been lawyers, you and I. We've got the argumentative turn of mind."

"You could be right. Spent a lot of time lately wondering what I'm doing out here."

"What are you doing here, Bo?"

"I was going to get rich. I was going to study the old books, open a few rich graves, go back to Oar and buy into my uncle's drayage business." Idly, Bomanz wondered how much of his faked past Besand accepted. He had lived it so long that he now remembered some fraudulent anecdotes as factual unless he thought hard.

"What happened?"

"Laziness. Plain old-fashioned laziness. I found out there's a big difference between dreaming and getting in there and doing. It was easier to dig just enough to get by and spend the rest of the time loafing." Bomanz made a sour face. He was striking near the truth. His researches were, in fact, partly an excuse for not competing. He simply did not have the drive of a Tokar.

"You haven't had too bad a life. One or two hard winters when Stancil was a pup. But we all went through those. A helping hand here or there and we all survived. There she is." Besand indicated the sky over the Barrowland.

Bomanz gasped. It was exactly what he had seen in his dreams. "Showy, isn't it?"

"Wait till it gets close. It'll fill half the sky."

"Pretty, too."

"Stunning, I'd say. But also a harbinger. An ill omen. The old writers say it'll keep returning till the Dominator is freed."

"I've lived with that stuff most of my life, Besand, and even I find it hard to believe there's anything to it. Wait! I get that spooky feeling around the Barrowland, too. But I just can't believe those creatures could rise again after four hundred years in the ground."

"Bo, maybe you are honest. If you are, take a hint. When I leave, you leave. Take the TelleKurre stuff and head for Oar."

"You're starting to sound like Stance."

"I mean it. Some idiot unbeliever kid takes over here, all Hell is going to break loose. Literally. Get out while you can."

"You could be right. I'm thinking about going back. But what would I do? I don't know Oar anymore. The way Stance tells it, I'd get lost.-Hell, this is home now. I never really realized that. This dump is home."

"I know what you mean."

Bomanz looked at that great silver blade in the sky. Soon now…

"What's going on out there? Who is that?" came from Bomanz's back door. "You clear off, hear? I'll have the Guard after you."

"It's me, Jasmine."

Besand laughed. "And the Monitor, mistress. The Guard is here already."

"Bo, what're you doing?"

"Talking. Looking at the stars."

"I'll be getting along," Besand said. "See you tomorrow."

From his tone Bomanz knew tomorrow would be a day of normal harassments.

"Take care." He settled on the dewy back step, let the cool night wash over him. Birds called in the Old Forest, their voices lonely. A cricket chirruped optimistically. Humid air barely stirred the remnants of his hair. Jasmine came out and sat beside him. "Couldn't sleep," he told her.

"Me either."

"Must be going around." He glanced at the comet, was startled by an instant of deja vu. "Remember the summer we came here? When we stayed up to see the comet? It was a night like this."

She took his hand, entwined her fingers with his. "You're reading my mind. Our first month anniversary. Those were fool kids, those two."

"They still are, inside."