Wrapt in Crystal

by Sharon Shinn

  “Kane’ll murder her!” the little pirate exclaimed from behind Drake’s left shoulder, and lunged forward. Drake stopped him with an outstretched arm.

  “No, he won’t. She’s all right.”

  “But—Salvador’s Holy Bones!—she’s so small and he’s a killer—”

  Drake absently noted the oath (the little man was originally from San Salvatori Circle) and shook his head. “She can take care of herself. She’s been spoiling for a fight all night.”

  Indeed, Lise was more than holding her own with the erstwhile suitor. Drake’s fear was that she wouldn’t have used up all her aggression by the time the tavernkeeper’s bouncers hustled over to throw them out. But he misjudged. Kane’s friend was the one who interfered, hurtling across the floor with two tough-looking allies in his wake.

  “Shit,” Drake muttered, edging over to position himself. “How many in your crew?”

  “Four. That’s all of them.”

  “Can you deflect them?”

  “Not from a fight.”

  Drake nodded, and launched himself forward. His attack caught the three reinforcements by surprise, and the weight of his body descending knocked two of them sideways. Within seconds it was a melee, a whirling configuration of fists and feet. Drake felt blows land against his face, ribs and stomach but he didn’t register any pain; clearly, adrenaline had kicked in. He jabbed sharply with an elbow, sending someone’s head askew, and kneed someone else in the groin. No one had pulled a knife yet, though Drake was ready to draw his if the brawl turned ugly. He batted someone’s head backward and felt a hard blow land on his head from behind.

  Distantly he heard shouting and thought that the bar guards had been called up, but a second later he realized that there were auxiliary fights going on at the tables around them. Someone must have taken a quixotic hand in their own squabble and been assaulted in turn. He heard the sound of glass crashing and wondered if it was the window or a row of crystal from the serving bar. A heavy shoe caught him sharply in the kidneys and he went down to one knee. After he caught his breath he dove forward at the nearest set of ankles, causing a chain reaction of upsets as his man pushed down another who dragged down a third when he fell. Drake scrambled to his feet and looked quickly around.

  Kane was long disposed of. Lise was wrestling now with someone Drake had never before laid eyes on, but she was winning. Kane’s friends and his ugly boss all had disappeared, and there seemed to be no point in continuing the fight. Dodging the flailing bodies, Drake made his way toward Lise and grabbed her opponent from behind in a neck-lock. The man gasped, released her and clawed at his throat.

  “You had enough yet?” Drake inquired of Lise.

  She was, predictably, laughing. Her skirt was ripped in a dozen places, but her face looked untouched and her heavy eyes were even darker with exhilaration. “Don’t tell me. You’re mad.”

  “I’m bored. Let’s get out of here.”

  Drake slackened his hold, and his quarry unexpectedly leapt for Lise the instant he got free. Drake’s reflexes were fractionally quicker than hers; he bashed the man’s head from the side and sent him reeling to the floor. The man glared up at him balefully, panting.

  “Don’t trust her,” he wheezed. “She’s a fuckin’ bitch.”

  “She’s a Moonchild,” Drake said, and stepped over the suddenly lax body. He took Lise’s arm in a stern grip and ushered her out of the bar.

  Back on the street, Drake felt the coolness of the night air and realized how late it was. “I think that’ll be it for me,” he said, guiding Lise back toward the outer perimeter of the spaceport, toward the section of town where they’d be most likely to find a cab at this hour. “You coming back with me? I’d advise it.”

  She flirted her big eyes at him. “What? You wouldn’t stay and protect me?”

  “You don’t need my protection.”

  She sighed and shook her head so that the fine dark hair rose in a mist about her face. “You know why I like you, Cowen?”

  “Couldn’t begin to guess.”

  “Because you don’t disapprove of me. Everyone else does.”

  “Really? Everyone?”

  “Well, everyone here. Raeburn thinks I’m too wild, and Leo agrees with him, though he won’t say so.”

  “Never yet met a Moonchild who wasn’t.”

  “Raeburn thinks I’m a troublemaker.”

  “Well, you are,” Drake said, grinning. “But you can get yourself out of trouble, too, so who cares?”

  “But you accept me for what I am.”

  “I like what you are,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. There’s fewer people like Raeburn in the Moonchild forces, and more people like me.”

  She was laughing up at him. “Really? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else quite like you.”

  He grinned. “Dime a dozen.”

  “I must be shopping in the wrong places.”

  “Well,” he said, “just keep looking.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Drake slept perhaps four hours before it was time to get up and prepare for the big day at the two temples. It had been an easy thing, the afternoon before, to secure Raeburn’s permission to borrow Lise for the day; he was eager to be perceived as a helpful man in the eyes of the Semay elite. Lise herself, as Drake had foreseen, was delighted with the assignment.

  She met him for breakfast, looking as cool and rested as if she had spent the better part of the night peacefully slumbering. She was dressed in a one-piece body suit, which would not hamper her when she wrestled and tumbled, and her sleek, lithe body looked magnificent.

  “This gonna be fun?” she asked him, as they slid into the car and headed toward the Fidele sanctuary.

  “I thought you thought everything was fun,” he replied.

  “Some things are less fun than others.”

  “It’ll be interesting, at any rate,” he said. “Try to use polite language.”

  “Shit, how the fuck will I manage that?” she said amiably. He laughed.

  Benito had beaten them by a few minutes; he had already begun laying out paraphernalia in the chapel, where Deb escorted the new arrivals. The chapel seemed like a strange place to learn hand-to-hand combat, Drake thought, glancing up at the tapestry of Ava feeding the birds, but it was probably the only chamber in the temple big enough to accommodate them. The pews had been pushed back against the walls as far as they would go.

  There were only one or two Fideles waiting in the disordered benches when Drake and Lise joined Benito up near the pulpit. “This isn’t it, I hope,” Drake said.

  “No, the young woman who just brought you in told me that we will have about fifty participants.”

  “Fifty. That’s better than I expected,” Drake said.

  “How many Fideles are there total?” Lise wanted to know.

  “About three times that many,” Benito replied.

  Drake made introductions and was not surprised to see Benito’s weary face relax into a smile under Lise’s friendly greeting. The capitan did not seem wholly immune to the striking picture the Moonchild made in her form-fitting fighting garb. Drake wondered how the Fideles would react to Lise.

  But he need not have worried. As the ermanas began to trickle in, Lise left the men to introduce herself to small groups of the women, explaining what they were going to do and asking them if they could take off or tie back some of their more flowing garments. A few of the women left to return more suitably attired. Others began to lay aside their tunics or hitch up their wide skirts to free their feet and legs. It was the first time Drake had seen Lise interact with women, but he realized he should have known in advance that she could win over anyone if she tried. Lise liked people and she liked herself.

  Although he tried not to watch the doorway too closely, Drake noticed who came in and who didn’t, and he did not see Laura among those who were willing to learn to
fight.

  Eventually the whole crowd was assembled, and Lise rejoined the men at the front of the chapel. Benito stepped to the fore and began speaking without preamble.

  “There are three basic principles of self-defense,” he said. “Yell. Run. And fight back. In that order. You’re not trying to take this guy down yourselves. You’re just trying to stay alive. If somebody attacks you on the street, you need to forget everything you ever learned about being gentle and being polite. You need to make him give up his idea of hurting you.”

  Benito held up a small leather wristband implanted with a metal disk. “We don’t have enough of these to give everyone, but we can give you about ten. Pass them out to those who are going to be leaving the sanctuary. It’s a noisemaker—and it’s also an alarm. It will sound back at hombueno headquarters and give us a signal to home in on. If you’re attacked, hit this button, and we’ll be able to find you inside of fifteen minutes.”

  Fifteen minutes was plenty of time for a killer, Drake thought, but before he could say so, his ears went into overload shock. Benito had pressed the wristband button, and the most godawful wail filled the stone confines of the chapel. All the women clapped their hands over their ears and murmured protests. Benito disconnected the alarm.

  “I guarantee you, nobody’s gonna want to hang around long with that going off in his ear,” he said. “Most criminals prefer to operate in silence, and they certainly don’t want to draw attention to themselves. Admittedly, a cry for help in the barrios might not get you much help, but any kind of noise will discourage an attacker. So hit the button.”

  Benito laid aside the noisemaker and picked up a second piece of equipment. This was a small crystal mace, attached by a lead chain to another leather wristband. He held the two components in his hands before him.

  “Like I said,” he continued, “the thing to do is run when you get a chance. But if the noise doesn’t deter your attacker and if he’s still holding on to you, fight back. We’re going to show you a little bit about hitting and kicking and biting, but here’s another weapon that can come in useful. Technically it’s a small mace—in my department, they refer to it as an eye-crusher.” He swung the pointed crystal ball gently through the air in a simulated blow. “You can guess why. You swing this hard enough in the direction of someone’s eye, he’s not gonna be able to see you for a long, long time. We’ve attached the eye-crushers to the wristbands so that your attacker can’t get the mace away from you—and use it on your eyes. He grabs for it, you jerk your hand away, and it’s still yours. There’s only about ten of these, too, so you should only take one when you’re leaving the sanctuary.”

  He set down the pretty little weapon and surveyed the women watching him. “Any questions so far?”

  Drake watched the women as well. All of them were seated as close to the stage area as possible, and all of them watched with intent, serious faces. In the last pew, the one pushed up against the wall, he was only a little surprised to see the abada. He’d thought she might come, but he had not been sure. She caught his eyes on her, and she smiled.

  “Okay.” Benito gestured, and Lise stepped forward. “We’re gonna show you a few standard attacks and what you can do to parry them. This is Sergeant Lise Warren. She’s gonna pretend to be you. I’m the bad guy. Now pay attention.”

  They did; they all leaned forward, rapt and determined. Lise strolled slowly forward along the blue mats Benito had spread on the stone floor, until he leapt at her from behind the pulpit. She turned, slapped him across the face, drove her knee into his stomach and twisted free with a fierceness and suppleness that surprised even the capitan. The women in the audience laughed softly, half shocked and half amazed, and gave her a round of scattered applause. Lise reached out a hand to help Benito to his feet. She shook back her hair and grinned at him.

  “Very good,” the hombueno said wryly, glancing at her as he straightened. “Did everyone see what she did?”

  They repeated the exercise, from different attack vantages and in slower motion, Benito usually, but Lise sometimes, explaining how she was getting free. A few of the ermanas cautiously raised their hands to ask questions. The two instructors went over the same points two or three times, until Benito was satisfied that the women understood the theory.

  “Now,” he said, “divide yourselves into three groups, and we’ll get in a little practice.” He hesitated, glanced at Lise, and went on. “Those of you who are more comfortable learning from a woman, go to this side of the chapel, and the sergeant will instruct you.”

  Drake had feared that everyone would make a beeline for Lise, but actually they came up with three fairly equitable groups. He came forward for the first time when Benito assigned him to a company of women, and gave them all his most disarming smile.

  “Okay,” he said, “who wants to be attacked first?”

  They spent the rest of the morning teaching the ermanas how to fight and how to fall, but it was clear very quickly that one session was not going to be enough to impart everything the women needed to know. But they could not stay longer; they had just as much teaching to do in the Triumphante temple. Drake was glad when one of the women in Lise’s group spoke up after Benito had called a halt and began to gather up his equipment.

  “Would it be possible for you to come back tomorrow?” the ermana asked the Moonchild somewhat shyly. “Or the next day? I think I could use more practice.”

  “Sure,” Lise said without a moment’s hesitation. “When’s best?”

  “Morning,” the woman said, and a few others echoed her.

  “I’ll be here.”

  Benito glanced at her and his own group of women. “I’ll come, too,” he said.

  Drake lifted a hand to his students. “I don’t think I can.”

  “That’s okay,” Lise said. “We can take care of your people.” And she smiled at the ermanas and one or two smiled back. Risking a quick look at Benito, Drake saw the capitan smiling as well. He thought, They don’t need me, anyway. But the thought, which should have given him a measure of relief, made him feel strange and lonely instead.

  * * *

  * * *

  The afternoon session at the Triumphante temple went much the same way, except that the mood was lighter and there were more people in each of the three groups. Jovieve attended, even though she was never out alone at night, and she took her instruction from Lise. The senya grande also provided light snacks for the instructors and the amicas, and the whole session ended with something of a party air.

  “What a charmer,” Jovieve said after they had distributed the weapons and rolled up the mats again. She nodded toward Lise, standing at ease before Benito and laughing at something he’d said. Drake found it hard to imagine Benito saying anything amusing. Maybe she was laughing at one of her own jokes. “Your Lise.”

  “I thought you would like her,” he said, smiling down at Jovieve. She had piled her hair up on her head to keep it out of the way, but it had come loose during her exertions and she was in a state of attractive dishabille. “She has the Triumphante spirit.”

  “She is quite indomitable. Are all your female Moonchildren like that?”

  He considered. “Well, allowing for personality differences, of course—they’re all pretty confident, competent and fast on their feet. They’re just as good as the men at the fighting and the action, but they’re about five times more graceful, and it’s a treat to watch them.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Now I understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “Why you aren’t in love with her. Having met her today, I find it hard to believe she could be so easily resistible.”

  He was confused but could not help smiling. “What are you driving at?”

  “Because she is so familiar to you. That’s why you aren’t in love with her. She isn’t unique. You want something more exotic.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t kno
w why you’re so obsessed with my love life.”

  “Because to understand a man’s heart is to understand the man,” she said softly. “And I would like to understand you.”

  “I’m not that hard to figure out,” he said, slightly uncomfortable.

  “Aren’t you?” she said, and made no other reply.

  Benito and Lise were making their way over to them, and Benito immediately addressed the senya grande. “Thanks for allowing us to come,” he said. “I’ve left the alarms and the eye-crushers with Lusalma. Some of the women asked if we could come back. Do you have any objection?”

  “None at all, Capitan,” she said immediately, giving him her wide smile. “Mi casa es su casa.”

  “My house is yours,” Drake translated aloud.

  “I wish,” Lise said enviously, glancing at the high ceiling. They were in the room where Drake had met Alejandro Ruiso at Jovieve’s party. “I’m about ready to join just for the amenities.”

  “There is a little work involved, too,” Benito told her.

  “I’m not afraid of work. Anyway, I think I’d be good at it.”

  “There’s the little matter of religious beliefs,” Drake said.

  “Ava me ama,” Lise retorted, and the other three laughed.

  “Indeed, Ava does love you,” Jovieve said, “and thanks you in her way for coming to us today. I thank you as well.”

  “Glad to,” Lise said breezily. “Be seeing you, then.”

  Jovieve blessed them each with the ritual benediction, and Benito and Lise moved off together, chatting again. Jovieve had kept her hold on Drake’s fingers when she kissed them, and now she held him back.

  “Will you be returning with them?” she asked.

  “If I have time. But I’m afraid to lose another day.”

  She nodded. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Not that I can think of. I’ll let you know.”

  She nodded again and released him. It seemed to him that the expression on her face was sad as she watched him, though she smiled. He felt unexpectedly depressed as he left her, following in the wake of the other two who were still deep in private conversation.