Free Earth 2788 by Janet Edwards Page A

that.
Ardreath’s clan had been using me to get a bridging loan, while Ardreath had
been using me to get his clan to consent to him marrying Lolmack.
    I opened my
mouth to tell Ardreath to nuke off, then realized the implications of his last
sentence. “You’re not planning to start a new marriage with Lolmack then?”
    “That would be
impossible in the circumstances. I’m deeply unhappy about that, but …”
    Ardreath broke
off. Arden had glanced over his shoulder, and made an impatient beckoning
gesture. Ardreath hurried to join him, and Arden turned back to face Lolek.
    “The loan will
be repaid in full by tomorrow.”
    “With interest,
I hope,” said Lolek.
    Arden nodded. “With
interest.”
    He and Ardreath
hurried on to the portal, dialled it, and vanished. I wondered what Arden would
be saying to Ardreath now they were alone. Arden had trusted his son to tell
him the whole truth, and now his clan leader position might be in jeopardy. The
Eastreth clan council would be furious when they heard Ardreath had misled
them.
    Whether Arden
hung on to power or not, Ardreath would be in a lot of trouble, but I didn’t
care what happened to him any longer. My mind was totally focused on one thing.
Lolmack wasn’t with me, and he wasn’t with Ardreath either, so where the hell
was he?
    “Idiot girl!”
snapped Lolek.
    I turned to face
him, but I was still thinking about Lolmack.
    Lolek gave me a
withering look of contempt. “Aren’t you capable of following the simplest
instructions? We had the Eastreth clan totally defeated, we could have driven
them out of the alliance, but you had to open your stupid mouth and say
Ardreath probably didn’t see the blood. Now alliance council will use the
excuse that the Eastreth clan honestly misunderstood events to keep them in the
alliance and discard us instead.”
    He paused for a
second. “If there’s any way at all of staying in the alliance, our clan must
take it. If there are demands that we remove potential sources of future
conflict between us and clan Eastreth, we must agree to them. You understand
what that means, Lolia?”
    I nodded. Oh
yes, I understood exactly what he meant. This whole argument was centred on my
failed marriage. Removing a potential source of future conflict, meant removing
me. Lolek was saying he’d happily sacrifice me to safeguard the clan’s position
in the alliance.
    “You will return
to the doctor, and remain with her until we hear alliance council’s decision.”
Lolek dialled the portal and waved at me to go through.
    I stepped
through into the hotel foyer and found Lolena waiting for me. She didn’t say a
single word, and seemed to be trying not to look at me as she led me down the
corridor. Had Lolek warned her about the situation? Was she already making the
mental shift from thinking of me as family to thinking of me as a clanless
outsider? Would the rest of my family and friends discard me as lightly?
    Now I knew
exactly why I’d been isolated in a hotel suite rather than allowed to return to
the clan hall. The second Lolek heard about my marriage breakdown, he’d
considered the option of removing me from the clan. He knew it would be hard to
do that if I was staying at the clan hall with my friends and family around me,
but no one could contact me here. No one knew what had happened or where I was.
Lolek could make up any story he wanted to get people to accept his decision.
    Lolena dutifully
delivered me to the hotel suite and then left. I was alone with the nameless
doctor again.
     

Part
III
     
    The doctor gave me a look of
professional concern. “You’ve had a very stressful day, Lolia. You should try
to get some sleep.”
    Sleep? How could
I sleep at a moment like this? At a word from the alliance, my clan would
discard me. I’d lose my family. I’d lose my friends. I’d lose my job too,
because I worked for the clan business.
    How the chaos
could I survive alone, clanless, and with no income? I had a degree in