The Science of Power

by Emerson, Ru

  Her smile didn’t reach haggard, dark eyes. “A—well, a little. But I woke late, in the cool hour, and there was no sleep in me. I had enough rest on that boat. I—” She shrugged, would-be casually, though her eyes remained haunted. “I thought instead.”

  “Ah.” He gripped the fingers of one hand with the other, alternating squeezing uncomfortable digits until they began to feel less like overstuffed sausages and more like part of his hands. “Good woman.” She managed a brief smile. “So—you come up with anything?”

  Silence. She came over and sat next to him on the edge of the bed. “No.” Her mouth drooped. His own kid. Damn Dupret, anyway, Chris thought angrily. “Chris, I am sorry.”

  “Well, hey.” Part of him wondered how long he could keep up the light tone, not show how scared spitless he really was. Probably until Dupret knocked the spit out of him. Like she didn’t know how scared he was, anyway. Chill, Cray, he ordered himself flatly. “I haven’t done any better so far with the thinking bit, have I? I mean, if we’d stayed in Rhadaz, instead of coming back south—” He caught his breath in a sharp gasp; Ariadne gripped his forearm and muscles protested wildly as her fingers dug in hard. Out in the hall, someone with heavy, booted feet was running. Maurice’s sharply angry voice, just outside the door, too muffled to make out what he said. Then silence. Chris swallowed past a very dry throat. “Um, listen. Please. I think—you’re probably ahead of me all the way, working things out, this whole ugly mess, but I gotta say something, all right?” He hesitated; it wasn’t going to be easy—not just telling her what he had in mind, but saying it out loud, where he could get it himself. God knew he didn’t want to get it. Ariadne eyed him sidelong, then caught hold of her lower lip with very even white teeth and nodded. Her glance strayed from him to the door, back again in sharp, nervous jolts. “Ah, Yeah. Your old man and his buddies are gonna come back sooner or later, want to know where Eddie and Dija went.” He half expected protest; she merely nodded again, gestured for him to go on. He swallowed. “They didn’t give us last night off on account of we looked tired, and they cared.”

  “No.” She got to her feet, wandered over to the small table next to the window, picked up a small pewter vase, and turned it in her hands.

  “All right. You know I’m not really going to tell them what they want to know, unless I got no choice, or—ah—or I can’t help myself.” Her eyes closed; her fingers seemed to have a life of their own, tracing the uneven lip of the vase over and over again. “And—um, they’re gonna do their best to push me to the point of ‘can’t help it,’ but not so far that I can’t still talk.”

  Ariadne slammed the vase onto the table; the sound echoed in the high-ceilinged, near empty room. “I know this! They—they hurt you, until you tell them what they want to know.” She spun around, crossed the room, and gripped his hands; her eyes were brilliant with unshed tears.

  Chris freed one hand, blotted her lashes with a gentle fingertip. “Ariadne, honestly, I’m sorry. If there was any way I could—”

  “No.” She clutched at him. “We said all that last night. There is no point to say it again. I am sorry, too, if it makes this easier somehow for you. Spend better the time, you and I both, to get us alive from this house.”

  Chris swallowed. “Thing is, sooner or later I’ll have to tell them something, you know? Guys like your old man don’t give up because they made a bruise somewhere and you whimpered.”

  “I know,” she whispered. Her color was high; her voice cracked.

  “Yeah—right. So—I don’t know much about this question and no-answer stuff, who’d want to? I do know that I have to decide the best time to slip them the lie.” She shook her head; frowned. “I can’t just tell Dupret some wild story about where Eddie is the minute his brutes waltz in here with the baseball bats, he’ll know it’s a lie. He’s gonna have to feel like—” Chris swallowed. His throat was suddenly very dry, and his stomach hurt. “Like he beat it out of me.”

  She swallowed; she’d gone pale under honey brown skin. “I—I see.”

  “Why I’m telling you all this:—please, Ariadne, look at me, will you? I swear I’m not gonna make myself into a martyr and leave you all alone, not if I can help it. I’ve had the get-pounded-on bit, couple times; I do not like being hit. I am not going to let your old man and Maurice half kill me before I give them some kind of information. Way I understand these things, anything I ever read about them, people with brains figure either they’re totally tough and they’ll die before they squawk, or they’re gonna give up a lie at the right moment. I’m not ready to die, Ari, I swear that. Not if I have to leave you here alone to deal with your old man. I won’t do that to you.”

  “Yes.” Ariadne blotted her eyes and swore under her breath. “I—thank you.”

  She didn’t believe it, he thought gloomily. Knows Dupret too well. “But—you’ll have to help me with this.”

  “Help?”

  “What I tell him—eventually, you remember what we worked out back on the train? In case he keeps us apart and asks you to see if our stories match?” She nodded. “You’ll have to back me up, keep cool, and don’t tell him anything different. But, um—” His mouth had gone dry. “He might keep us together, maybe think you’ll get upset enough to tell him what I won’t—”

  “Ah—ah, merde.” Ariadne tried to turn from him; he gripped her hands, pulled her close, and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’m sorry. But—it’s what he’d do, isn’t it?” Silence. She finally nodded. “Yeah. My luck. Yours, too. Ariadne, you’re gonna have to let me just handle this, don’t let him even begin to think you care what happens to me.”

  “Chris, I can’t—”

  “You can. You have to. They have to punch on me first to learn what they want to know. Eddie and I’ve been a team for a long time, anyone in this end of the world knows I’d never say where he is without pressure.”

  “Yes—all right, I know this.” She freed a hand, blotted her eyes against her sleeve. “You want me to swear—what? That I will not draw the knife? Or tell them where Dija and Eddie went when we separated at the train depot?”

  “I know you wouldn’t do that. Not to save your own skin. I want you to swear you won’t say any of that, do that, to save mine. Because, they get their hands on Dija and Eddie, and all four of us are dead. They got no reason to keep us alive, do they? Once they have all of us?” She paled even more, shook her head. Chris laid a hand against her cheek; she flinched, then laid her fingers on his. “Ariadne. What you did last night, downstairs, letting your old man know he had to go through you to get at me—I appreciate the thought, don’t get me wrong. But it’s dangerous, and not just for you. Dangerous, because—well, it gives your father a two-edged weapon against both of us. If he told Maurice to beat on you so’s I’d cooperate, I’d have to do just that.”

  “Oh.” She was quiet for some moments. “You don’t dare—”

  “Lady, I couldn’t do anything else,” he said flatly as she drew a harsh, shuddering breath. “Ariadne. The very first time I met you, Dupret’s handprint on your face and all, I swear I never saw anything so beautiful in my life. I wanted to kill him right then for daring to hit you. And I didn’t even have a clue there was so much terrific person behind that face, that”—he freed one hand, drew a salt-stiffened strand from across her shoulder, and let it trail through his fingers—“that gorgeous hair.”

  “Ah, merde,” she whispered, her face suddenly pale and stricken. “And what I saw was merely a companion of my father, fresh from a night of gambling and—”

  “Jeez,” he muttered, “don’t remind me, all right? I know what I looked like.”

  Ariadne shook her head. “No. Later, when I saw you properly, the eyes—such a color of blue, and then I remembered the look you had when you first saw my face—the shock in your eyes there, that any man would strike hard enough to show the mark.” She hesitated, gingerly laid a hand on his arm. “And—such very good shoulders, the muscle the
re, a woman could see that even through shirt.” She bit her lip. “I did not realize this at once, but I began to see it, a little here, more there: A man of physical strength, who did not think it weakness to side in any fashion with a woman whose father beat her and forced her to wed. It was—I never before knew there was such a thing.” She looked up at him. “I—I do what you ask in this. I swear it, my Chris.”

  “Good.” He swallowed sudden dread, kissed her hair. “So you don’t know a thing, all right? Not one single thing about what I planned for this trip. I didn’t tell you—because I didn’t trust you or I decided you’re a girl, why should you have to know anything? Decide what will work best for you, then stick to it. Whatever they say or do to me. Swear. You can’t do anything your old man’s gonna interpret as, he’ll get more information out of me if he pounds on you instead.”

  “I—I see.” Ariadne’s voice was a little too high.

  “We both know he’d pound on you, all right?” Chris paused; Ariadne, her cheekbones very red, nodded sharply. “Enough said. I would purely hate that. He pounds on you, I try to kill him, and we’re both dead. And if I have to talk before your old man kills me, Eddie and Dija are dead, too. That isn’t useful, to any of us. We don’t do it that way.”

  “No,” Ariadne replied faintly. Her grip on his fingers was momentarily crashing. He freed his hand, kissed her knuckles.

  “Now, you said you thought your women’s group, your society, or whatever, that they could get us out of here. I know Eddie’s out there, somewhere, doing everything he can to rescue us.” Fat chance; Chris doubted there was any leverage, however magic-skilled women in French Jamaica or a Rhadazi ex-thief outside of it were. No point in telling Ariadne that, though. “So, all I plan on doing is giving your old man a reasonable-sounding lie, at the right moment when he’s likely to believe me, because I look like they’ve hurt me enough or I’m so wuss, I can’t take being pounded. Coward enough,” he added, as Ariadne’s brow creased. “I think what I came up with is something he’ll have to check on before he kills us. If I do this right, I can buy us some time. It’s—hell, it’s not much, but at least it’s something. All we have, unless you got a better idea.”

  Ariadne shook her head; she sought his fingers once more and gripped them hard. “I—I do not—” She shook her head again, and swore under her breath. “All right. All those hours, while you slept, and I tried to find a plan—you are right, there is so little here, and all depends on Lucette and the Anlu—the women. I—maintain, you said. I try to do that, to give them no purchase, one of us against the other. I do understand what you say, you make us time. And I know him; he is that sort of cautious. He will not dare—dare to murder us, unless he is certain all is as he wants it, that he has you and me, and Eddie as well, and even Dija. So, I—will try.”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “Best I can ask. But honest, I won’t let things get too rough.” Jeez. I hope I won’t. Probably the French resistance fighters who got mangled by the Gestapo thought the same thing. Terrific. Had to get hooked on history, huh? Chill, Cray!

  “Please—please, do not.” She didn’t believe it, either, he thought. Wisely, she didn’t say as much. He was quiet for a moment, watching the top of her head. She nodded finally. “Yes, all right. You buy us the time. And then we somehow get out of this, my Chris.”

  “We will.” She sounded so calm, he thought, and wondered at that. But then, so did he.

  Ariadne started violently and swore under her breath; more conversation out in the hall, this too low-voiced for her to understand. A moment later, they heard the locks clatter, and the door was thrown open. Chris caught his breath, pulled himself to his feet, and tried to press an extremely reluctant Ariadne behind him.

  Marie stood in the opening, a tray in her hands, Maurice blocking the whole doorway behind her. Jeez, Chris thought disgustedly. Only breakfast, delivered hot to your doorway; toast and anticlimax, anyone? The servant cast a furtive glance at Ariadne, eyed Chris warily, then carried the tray over to the table, set it down, picked up the dinner tray, and left. Ariadne stood very still, her chin up and hard, challenging eyes on Maurice as the bodyguard backed out to let Marie pass; he cast her a teeth-only grin, then pulled the door shut behind Marie, but before the door could fully close, it slammed into the wall once more. Lucette swore at Maurice as she strode impatiently into the room. She wore lavender silk; her long blonde hair was pulled back into a plain plait tied in purple ribbons; no ornament, save Ariadne’s rose. She stopped only when another step would have taken her right into a rigidly furious Ariadne.

  “There was a small silver box in this room,” Lucette said crisply; she brought her chin up. Her hands were clasped at her breast, Ariadne’s token between them; her eyes flicked toward the massive, motionless Maurice, back again; her index fingers crossed briefly. The bit of silver flashed brilliant blue, faded once more to a mere silver rose. Her voice remained haughty, and she seemed unaware of anything save Ariadne. “Silver, with fleur-de-lis upon the lid.”

  “I know that box,” Ariadne said flatly. She had to tip her head back to meet her former servant’s eyes. “So?”

  “I want it.”

  “I do not have it.”

  “Liar,” Lucette snapped.

  Ariadne managed a tight laugh. “Salope! Whore! That box was my mother’s, a gift of my beloved father, and so it is mine! Do you think it becomes yours, merely for sleeping with Henri Dupret?”

  “It is not yours! That last morning, Henri told me what things to send to the Parrot, what others to retain here, that box was never to have left this house!”

  “It did not,” Ariadne snarled.

  “Liar! You took it! And you had no right to that box, or the gems within it; Henri has promised them to me!” Ariadne shrugged broadly and laughed; Lucette swore under her breath and brought up a hand as if to slap her, but when Chris stepped between the two women, she said quietly and forcefully, “Hold, I do not harm her, m’sieu. Madame, Aleyza comes for tea today, once he and Maurice are gone. Later I tell you more. A—apologies.” Her open palm cracked across Ariadne’s face; Ariadne gasped and swore in furious French. “Swear all you want, petite garce! You hid that box, before this man could wed you and take you away! You will tell me where, now!”

  “Find it yourself, filthy strumpet!” Ariadne hissed. Out in the hallway, Maurice chuckled.

  “Miss Lucette—this amuses me but there is otherwise no point, you and I know that Miss Ariadne will not willingly tell you anything. Let them eat now. Later, she will gladly say whatever you wish to know—after I have had the opportunity to persuade her.” Lucette snarled something Chris couldn’t translate, spun on one heel, and strode from the room. Maurice was still laughing unpleasantly as he closed the door and locked it.

  “What was that all about?” Chris asked. Ariadne drew him over to the table, pulled the cover from the tray. Her face was very pale all of a sudden.

  “Sit, eat.”

  “Yeah, right.” The food was plain—servant stuff for the nobleman’s daughter and in her father’s house, he thought angrily: like this room, barren of ornament or anything but the basics, however it might once have looked. The tray held nothing but dark, coarse bread and some sugary, dark red jam to spoon onto it—no knife of any kind, or course—and a steaming teapot. Two thick pottery mugs. “Think this is all right? Never mind,” he added gloomily as he tore off a corner of the bread and ate it. “What’s the point?”

  “It should be all right,” Ariadne said cautiously. She pulled the teapot toward her, removed the lid and sniffed, drew out her feather charm. “Safe,” she said, then leaned toward him. “The box; that was a trick of Lucette, to come in here and to show Maurice she is no friend of mine.”

  “Sure about that?” he mumbled around his bread.

  “Her hands about the rose and how she moved them, each movement of hands means something. What the rose did when she spoke, did you not see that?” Chris nodded.
“Maurice has never trusted anyone, save my father; my father trusts few, save Maurice and—a little—Lucette. She needs this much trust from stupid Maurice—a little only. Access to this door, late today.”

  “I—you say so,” Chris said dubiously.

  “Truly. What she said when Maurice could not hear—you understood her?” He nodded, tore off a bit of bread, and chewed. The sugary stuff was almost too sweet, even for him. He couldn’t begin to guess what kind of fruit it was made from. “She used the box as excuse to give me the message. She knows my father would never have allowed that box removed from this house, or permitted it to be packed, even if he had thought that day he would retrieve all my things from the Parrot, once you and I were—were dead.”

  “Right.”

  “No, listen: The box holds a bracelet of antique silver and Incan emeralds; it is worth nearly as much as all his holdings in French Jamaica. He would never dare chance it out of his front door.” Chris swallowed bread, washed it down with tea, eyed her in patent disbelief. “I swear it.”

  “You know that. But does she?”

  Ariadne laughed grimly, and poured tea for herself. “Lucette knows that I did not secret the box in this house; when she packed the satchel I took with me the morning the papa said the words over us, she slipped a note inside the silver box, and the box itself into the pocket of my green faiscance dress. I found it when I chose what garment to wear when I greeted your aunt Jen.” She poured more tea for them both, shoved his cup across the table. “Eat, drink.”

  “Right.” His stomach hurt, and his throat was almost too tight to let him swallow. “Uh—how’s your face?”

  She shrugged, drank tea. “Lucette could never hit anyone hard enough to hurt, even if she wished; she created noise enough to convince Maurice, which is all that matters.” She looked at him over the rim of the cup. “I wish—” she shook her head, didn’t finish. Chris picked up his cup, sipped gingerly. Herbs, something that tasted a little like pineapple. You should be so lucky, Dupret put arsenic in the tea. Dupret would never kill him so easily; the man wanted information, and he was the kind of guy who’d want someone like Chris to know what was coming—and to feel it when it did.