Islands in the Sky

2.11

“This is too sudden,” Cassa said, thinking about the wedding again. That suddenness was the main source of her irritation. “The wedding. You could have warned me a little sooner.”

It had only been a week.

“And have you flee?” her grandmother said. “Or murder your intended? Or start a war with his family? Or another family, because you though that might help?”

“I wouldn’t…”

“You might. You are my granddaughter, after all.”

“You say I’m my mother’s daughter too.”

That meant weak, and forgiving, and gentle. All the things that neither Konstantin nor her grandmother approved of in her.

“I do,” her grandmother said.

Cassa sighed. She looked out the window, and across a span of empty sky, to a section of the city on the next island over. That island was smoky and built-over and crowded. Cassa could see a street, and a market, with people moving around. There were ropes hanging down the side of the island too, into the sky between her and it. Egg-gatherers, she assumed, collecting eggs from the birds that nested on the cliffs on the sides of the larger islands. Egg-gatherers or sewer-pipe repairers, one or the other.

“I do not want to marry,” Cassa said. “It weakens me.”

“You do not want to marry a man.”

“I don’t want to marry anyone. But yes, a man especially weakens me. I saw my mother, and how my father was.”

“As did I. And I took care of it. And I would do the same for you, if need be.”

Cassa looked back at her grandmother. That had been said calmly, but coldly. Her grandmother had her father murdered, some ten years ago now. Her father had become difficult, although Cassa wasn’t exactly sure how. Demanding too much, she assumed. Demanding more of a place in the family’s decision-making, because the customs of his family were different to those of the Middletowers. He may have lifted his hand against her mother, too, which would have been a mistake. Whatever the reason, her grandmother had her father killed, and the one time Cassa had asked about it, her grandmother had said it was done, and it was right, and that the only thing more important than the family’s business was the family.

And that one day Cassa might have to do the same.

“You would for me?” Cassa said.

“Of course child.”

“Oh,” Cassa said, and then looked back to the window. She watched the people on ropes, and decided they were egg-gatherers after all. They were spread across too wide a span of cliff to be working on a pipe.

“I know what you want to do,” her grandmother said.

“Not marry?”

“Or marry a noblewoman.”

Cassa looked at her grandmother for a while, then shrugged.

“You could marry a noblewoman,” her grandmother said. “But there is none suitable, right now. So you cannot.”

“None suitable,” Cassa said. “Meaning none useful?”

“Exactly. There is none useful to us, none we need, none whose interests don’t compete with ours, and whose territory doesn’t abut ours, and who isn’t already aligned with one of the more fervent of our rivals.”

“I know this,” Cassa said, reluctantly.

“There is only the son of the Cloudviews.”

“Perhaps so,” Cassa said. “But he is so skinny.”

“So are you.”

“He is stupid.”

“Then surely it shall be easier to have him do your will.”

“He is dull. He is terribly, terribly dull.”

“You do not have to spend time with him, merely marry him.”

Cassa stood there, miserable. She wanted to say more, but couldn’t find the words to explain why she was so upset.

Her grandmother looked at her, and seemed sympathetic. “This is the way of it, child,” she said, almost gently. “It is the way of it for those such as you and I. We work with what we are given. We do what we can. We do our best. We find contentment when we can.”

Cassa nodded, sadly.

“I am fond of you, child,” her grandmother said. “But I have decided.”

Cassa turned from the window.

“I have decided,” her grandmother said. “And now I have spoken, too. We are done here, now. Go and make ready. You are to be wed today, and wasting time with an old woman will not keep your from your husband.”

Cassa stood there, and looked at her grandmother, and didn’t move.

“Go,” her grandmother said, more gently. “Please, child. Do this for me.”