A PORTRAIT OF A LADY

We return to Iziz and another flashback. This one is a memory of the morning Shara Rash left her life behind and began her trip to the Northern Sea. The reasons she left may be clear to the reader but were not so plain to everyone, nor was the knowledge that she was truly gone when they first discovered her to be missing. ~ DK

…

Sanjay knew he shouldn't have enjoyed what happened last night as much as he had. And yet he woke that morning thinking of how it felt to have her struggling beneath him. He had only wanted to show her how much he still loved her even if she had been with Kira. She said she hadn't. He should have taken her word. She had never lied to him before.

Last night she had said she didn't want him. She had tried to shove him away. He wondered if it was the same thrill that the riders felt when they were taming their beasts, the hunt, the chase, the conquest. He remembered when she had finally submitted and stopped putting up a fight, the power he had felt and the excitement. He had broken her. He shouldn't have done it. And he never should have called her a whore.

He would make it up to her. He would get her something, maybe some earrings to match her necklace. He thought of the way the gems would look dripping from her earlobes, over her slender neck. And for now he would gently show her how sorry he was. He rolled over and reached for her in their bed. But she wasn't there.

He called out, "Shara?" But there was no answer. That in itself was not unexpected. She was probably just washing up in the refresher that adjoined their room.

The thought of her standing in the shower with the water sluicing down her naked body was enough to get him out of bed in a hurry. But he didn't hear the water running and when he reached it, the room was empty.

Alright, he frowned. So she had already gone down to breakfast. He glanced at the chrono on the night stand. Well that was understandable. He had slept late. Shara might even be out in the garden by now.

He took his time getting dressed and then walked down to the dining room for brunch. Sanjay's father it seemed had also risen late and was only now breaking his fast.

"Good morning," Sanjay greeted the patriarch, and asked directly. "Have you seen Shara?"

"I have not," Ommin Rash replied. "However I haven't been up for long. Doesn't Shara often like to see the sun rise from the garden porch? Perhaps she brought out a book and lost herself in the story."

Sanjay nodded noncommittally and reached for a piece of fruit. He didn't bite it however, just passing it from hand to hand, thinking.

"Is something wrong, Son?" his father asked, now distracted from the holonews he had been reading before.

"I er…" Sanjay took his seat and set the shura down on the table. "You might say that Shara and I had an…" what was it? Not an argument. "A misunderstanding last night. I had been trying to think of a way to make it up to her, to show her that we should forgive and forget. I was thinking of perhaps finding a coordinating piece of jewelry to go along with her necklace." He looked hopefully at his father but he didn't find any signs of encouragement.

Instead he was met with a frown. "And Shara has often enough occasion to wear her necklace that such a thing would come in useful?" Ommin asked delicately.

"Well… no." Sanjay dithered and then had an idea. "What if I was to invent an occasion? I could get her out of the house, take her to dinner and… a theatrical event or a concert!"

Ommin nodded, concealing a smile. His son was on the right track now. He would only interject if he thought it was necessary

"Or…" Sanjay picked up the fruit again and took a bite while letting the plan formulate in his mind. He swallowed before he continued. "Perhaps a longer trip is in order. I never took her on a honeymoon and our anniversary is coming up in a month."

"True."

"Something off world!"

Ommin nearly choked on the swallow of tea he had just taken. "Sanjay are you certain. The only time you've been off Onderon you were terribly ill for the duration of the flight."

Sanjay waved off his father's objection. "There are meds for that sort of thing." Or other methods of warding off the effects. He thought to himself.

"And there are healing waters on other worlds? Mineral springs that have the reputation of curing infertility?" Ommin prodded.

"I had thought of that as well." Sanjay nodded.

The older man reached out and patted his son's hand. "I think getting Shara away from… everything for a while might be just the ticket."

…

Sanjay remembered that conversation now as he watched the holo footage stream past. It had been over a year since his father's death and Sanjay still missed the man powerfully. He missed Ommin's advice and he missed having a presence other than his mother's in the large estate.

He had gone to visit the tomb alone just as he had promised himself that he would. And to his surprise there had been flowers arranged by the stone marker.

"What is this?" he asked a passing acolyte. "Who sent these?"

The boy blinked at him as if unused to being spoken to by the public. "Wh-who sent…" he stuttered.

"Who sent these flowers?" Sanjay repeated. "Surely one of the priests took the order and placed them here per someone's instructions." He was trying not to speak too harshly but still, to his greater annoyance, the boy cowered before him.

"They were delivered anonymously, Young Man." A voice came from behind him and Sanjay spun to see the priest coming to join them and the acolyte scurrying off to go about his duties.

"But there must have been something, a note?"

"I am sorry." The priest reached out and touched the petals of one pale blue bloom. "The delivery droid only gave us instructions to place the arrangement before this marker. He was your father?"

"Yes," Sanjay himself couldn't bring himself to touch the flowers. They reminded him too much of her. They were exactly the varieties that Shara had insisted be planted in her garden. She and father had spoken about them when they were delivered and she had carefully tended each new cutting. "Sh… He… he would have loved these."

"Then you already have an idea who sent them?" The priest nodded knowingly.

"Yes… yes, I…. Excuse me." He ran home from the temple and activated the holo projector hoping for some mindless chatter in the quiet estate. But he was in for a shock.

He wondered what his father would have to say about the most recent news to reach them from the far north. Shara had given birth to a son. It was a thing Sanjay had never been able to give her and from the look on her face in the images, he knew that if only he had it would have been Sanjay that she was beaming at that way.

In the images the new parents were bringing the child on board a ship for his first voyage. Terribly reckless thing to do, in Sanjay's opinion. He actually reached out toward the projection as Shara walked up the railless gang plank with the bundle in her arms. But of course she was as stable on her feet as she had ever been standing on the back of a dalgos, racing around a show track.

Sanjay listened as the holonews anchor told about the troubled pregnancy. There was a pre-term labor scare while the idiotic father was away on some voyage. "I would have never left your side, Shara." He told her. And then the labor had to be induced with drugs. "No. I would have had you airlifted to a proper med center! I would never have left you to the mercy of those northern quacks!"

The commentator left off and the sound from the actual event picked up. The crew of the ship seemed to be singing some sort of sea shanty. Sanjay couldn't understand it. It was in the old language. Shara had sung to him in the old language. How he wished that he could hear her voice now.

His wish was granted with the sound of her laughter and a single teasingly offended word, "Lyrics!"

The crew members laughed and Sanjay heard a few of them shout out that they would write a new version that was more appropriate for the first mate of the Captain's Lady. Whatever that meant. Shara seemed happily satisfied.

Then the older Blackwell brother, Marlon seemed to be asking permission to hold his nephew. His nephew. Lana Flint's nephew. He should have been Melaana's nephew. Melaana wanted nieces and nephews. She had given up her wing of the house for the future nursery. That wing stood empty now…

"Unifras and all the gods of the Galaxy!" Sanjay exclaimed then. Marlon Blackwell was swinging the baby over the rail as if he were going to throw the child to the chirns.

Jamos ran forward and retrieved his son. At least the man had that much sense. What could that… that… Poodoo be thinking, treating Shara's child like that?

Shara's child…

Not my child…

She will never have my child.

Sanjay shut off the projector. His hopes and dreams were over. What did he have left to live for? He thought of his failed attempts to find a teacher to instruct him in art. There were plenty who were willing to take his credits but they all wanted to turn him into something he was not. Maybe mother had ordered them not to let him practice recreating images of Shara.

Mother. Mother and her great plans. She arranged for him to meet other women. Oh yes. She paraded plenty of them before him, suitable candidates for the position of Lady of the house of Rash and possibly something more prestigious to come. That is, if mother had her way.

Sanjay wanted none of it. He didn't want another marriage. He didn't want a crown. He only wanted Shara and her child, their child. That ship had sailed.

He shuffled aimlessly off from the holo table and found himself heading in the direction of his mother's quarters. He wasn't sure what he wanted to tell her. That she got her stupid, kriffing wish? There was no chance of Shara coming back to him now.

But mother was nowhere to be found. Sanjay entered her bedchamber hesitantly. And then continued across to her private changing room and refresher.

There was a dressing table and the surface of it, apart from makeups and creams and powders were medication bottles and styms. Sanjay sat on the padded stool and looked at himself in the mirror. Wouldn't that be the cruelest joke? What if he just finished it all right here with Sanda Rash's own private apothecary. Surely one of these bottles contained something that would put an end to it all, to all the pain. Dxun, surely any of them in the proper quantity would do the job.

He lifted a bottle and studied the tiny print on the label. He read, "For the treatment of the advanced symptoms of… Fartrad's Disease?"

Sanjay didn't know much about the condition but he had the vague memory of hearing somewhere that it was painful and debilitating and… genetic. He dropped the bottle and stumbled off the stool, retreating until his back was against the opposite wall. His hand covered his mouth but he could still see his eyes in the reflection of the mirror. That was another inherited trait from his mother. Did she pass this on to him as well?

Could he have, would he have passed it on to his own children if he and Shara had managed to have a baby? He was suddenly relieved that they haddn't. Shara had a healthy child. She was happy.

Why hadn't his mother told him? He saw her reflection join his in the mirror. "Oh there you are. Why in Dxun are you in here?" She asked.

Sanjay pointed at the collection of medicines on the counter. He couldn't form words to speak the question.

"So you know my secret." Sanda sighed, resignedly and sat on the stool looking up at her son. "Yes, I have Fartrad's Disease. I never wanted to worry you and Melaana with my suffering. The medications slow the progression but the pain is still… bothersome." That was an understatement. It must be.

Sanjay found his tongue. "But the disease is genetic. I might have it. I might have passed it onto my children."

"You and Melaana both were carriers," she explained. "Why do you think I've been so careful about who the two of you chose for mates? Shara wasn't if that's what you're worried about. I had her tested after your foolish elopement. I would have pushed for the annulment much sooner if I had thought she might give us an heir who was… like me."

It sounded for a moment as if she was actually concerned about someone other than herself. But then if she had suffered as her diagnosis implied, how could she ever want another being to have to go through that same agony? Sanjay had long suspected that his mother had some sort of medical condition. He knew she drank to escape something. That had started long before Melaana's death. He had never imagined it was something quite so… well… terminal.

He had a thousand questions just then but as she seemed ready to talk about it without him asking he kept his mouth shut and listened intently.

"I was already old enough to be showing signs of the disease before my parents realized that might be the cause and at first they denied it. Perhaps it was something else. Maybe it was only growing pains. By the time they had me tested, I was hurting almost all the time. We weren't poor. There were enough credits for them to pay for the treatments I needed and I finally found some relief.

"I was old enough that they should have been thinking of a marriage alliance for me. They said they didn't want me to have to face the kind of rejection that learning of my affliction was sure to bring."

Who were these people who had treated her so abominably? Sanjay was almost glad that he had never met his grandparents on that side of the family. He knelt and took his mother's hand as she continued.

"I knew I had to take matters into my own hands. People had told me that I was pretty." She blushed demurely. "I entered a beauty contest knowing that the winner would take a trip to the capitol and ride in a speeder in a parade. It sounded so grand. And then I won. And your father was the driver of that speeder. He was already a lord in his own right and I told him a bit of my story. He… had compassion on me. He was tested for the disease to make sure he wasn't a carrier and to make sure that…" Sanda stroked her son's cheek lovingly. "You wouldn't suffer.

"Of course he was a good deal older than me. With my condition however there was every chance that he might outlive me. I've been blessed, Sanjay, to find treatments to extend my life this far.

"We made our marriage work, your father and I, and I gave him a son to carry on his name." She gazed proudly at the man before her. Sanjay rarely saw that expression in her lovely eyes.

"We'll find you someone, my dear, never you fear. Mother will find you a bride, from a suitable family, with no nasty afflictions to pass on to your little ones."

"Yes, Mother." He nodded dutifully and got to his feet, knowing that the audience was nearing its completion.

"Don't you have an art lesson or something to prepare for?" She asked turning to her mirror and patting her hair. She seemed to have already mentally dismissed him as she began to rearrange the bottles on the counter that he had moved out of their original place. Or perhaps she was checking to make sure that they were all still there.

Did he have a lesson? He couldn't remember. No, he didn't. He had told his most recent teacher to get out after the imbecile had insisted that they go to the harbor and draw boats. But he didn't want to tell his mother that. He'd find another teacher before she knew that he'd stopped sending credits to the last.

He said simply, "Yes, Mother." and took his leave from her chambers.

He did need to find another teacher, someone who could teach him what he really wanted to learn. But what did he want to learn? Sanjay thought of the picture he had seen on the wall of the Rupingwood's small house near the market. Shara and her mother had been so perfectly captured. That's what he wanted to paint. He wished for a moment that he could ask the artist of that painting how he had managed to get the look in their eyes so true to life.

What if he could? What if he could find the artist who had painted that picture and convince him to come and be his instructor? Credits were no object. Sanjay was sure he could entice the man away from whatever other projects he might be wasting his time on. If only Sanjay knew who he was or how to contact him.

…

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