The Crystal City Page 0,132

anyone's likely to spoil him, it's you."

"That's my plan, more or less," said Alvin.

"Don't want him to be spoiled, but you plan to spoil him."

"Can't help it. Only way to save this boy is to have another child to divide up my doting."

"I'll do my best," said Margaret.

"Do you mind, not traveling now, not being in the world of affairs?"

"I don't look beyond this town now," said Margaret. "I try to forget that the world outside is maneuvering itself toward war. I pretend that somehow it will stay beyond the borders of our little county."

"Not so little. Very and Abe got us good boundaries. Lots of room to grow."

"I'm more concerned about how much our people grow inside them."

"Can't make them," said Alvin.

"I know."

Vigor was done with breakfast, and now Alvin cracked the boiled eggs and sliced them onto a plate for his and Margaret's breakfast.

"Mayor of the fastest-growing city in Noisy River, and you have to fix your own breakfast."

"I'm fixing your breakfast, and that's all the difference."

"My but we're in love," said Margaret.

Old pain and ancient loneliness hung in the air between them.

"Alvin," said Margaret. "I always tried to do what was best."

"I know," said Alvin.

"And sometimes what was best was not to tell you all that I knew."

Alvin said nothing.

"You never would have gone to Barcy," she said. "We never would have had all these people, the core of this City of Makers."

"Might have gone to Barcy all the same," said Alvin.

"But you would never have gone near Rien."

"You sure that saving her was what spread the fever?"

"In all the paths where you never met her, she died without a single other soul catching the disease."

Alvin smiled a wan smile and stuffed an entire egg into his mouth. "At least I've got good manners," he said, spraying bits of yolk onto the table.

"Yes, I can see that all those lessons I gave you have paid off. I can't take you out in company."

"Guess we'll just have to stay in."

"You'll never listen to me again, will you?" she said.

"I'm listening right now."

"But you'll never do something just because I tell you that you ought to."

"Have you changed?" asked Alvin. "Or do you still think you're the one best able to decide whether I should know the consequences of my deeds?"

"I've already promised a dozen times over."

"But I don't believe you," said Alvin. "I believe you mean it now, but in the moment, when you're deciding what to tell me and what not to tell, I think you'll hold back the things I most want to know, if you're afraid that knowing will cause me harm."

"You're not the most important thing in the world to me now, you know," said Margaret.

"Am so," said Alvin.

"The baby is."

"The baby's just little and he can't get into much trouble yet."

"You did."

"You got the habit of looking out for me too deep set. I can't trust you to let me decide for myself."

"Yes you can," said Margaret. "Besides, you don't need me to tell you everything now."

"I can't control what the crystal ball shows me. It's not like your knack."

"It's better."

"I think the blood and water make more of a mirror than a window."

"I think it shows good people how to do good, and bad people how to do bad. You won't come asking me what to do, when you can see what's good and right in the walls of the house you're building."

"Don't know if we should rightly call it a house," said Alvin.

"It's not a chapel-nobody's going to preach."

"A factory, maybe," said Alvin. "Or a house of mirrors, like in that carnival in New Amsterdam."

"Then it's a house after all," said Margaret. "And I was right."

"Didn't say you weren't right," said Alvin. "Just said I'd like to have chosen for myself."

"You'd rather have chosen wrong, knowing, than chosen right, not knowing."

"Well, when you put it that way, it makes me sound like a dunce on purpose."

"Indeedy," said Margaret.

"Do I have to be mayor?" said Alvin. "I'd rather just spend my time building the ... crystal."

"They all look to you, anyway, whether you have the title or not. You're the one who looks out for them, who watches the borders. You're the one who causes the slave-catchers who come near here to keep losing their way. You're the one who figured out that draining the swamp would stop the malaria."

"It was Measure who suggested it," said Alvin.

"You're the one who watches over everybody like a mother hen."

"Then let me run for mother