Warring States

by Susan R. Matthews

  “I can release him to the protection of a Bench officer without prejudice to Fleet’s interest,” the captain conceded. “Will you be wanting anything else?”

  A formal apology for the disrespect he’d shown when he’d had Koscuisko kidnapped, Jils supposed. He had said that he was sorry.

  “Quite all right, your Excellency, professional respect, not the time to indulge too nice a sense of prerogative. Thank you.” The point had been made, Jils had to admit. The Emandisan Home Defense Fleet had protested against the Fleet’s behavior, and Fleet had had to stop and consider and make concessions. They could afford to let Koscuisko go, now. “We’ll send you some fresh crew, Dame Ivers. The pilot is not going to want to be deprived.”

  Indeed not. Shona Ise-I’let and Andrej Koscuisko clearly had a lot to say to each other. If he’d been able to get off Brisinje days ago, when she’d arrived, maybe none of this would ever have happened. Oh, she would still have been attacked; and would still have killed her attacker, if she’d been lucky.

  “I knew his brother as well, Provost Marshal,” the captain said, his voice much more relaxed and genial now that the sticking point had been resolved. “No, not nearly as well as his fellow Security, but I’m curious. Would it be an imposition? I’d like to meet the man.”

  The Emandisan officer’s expression was frankly and honestly appreciative. “There’s a lot of balance to be restored with that family, your Excellency. I don’t think it would be unwelcome in the least. You honor the memory, in fact.”

  Well, this was certainly tidy. Padrake was looking at her with peculiar intensity, as though he was trying to decide whether she had made it all up; but he was clearly sensitive to the mutually felt desire to get clear of this awkwardness as soon as possible, and turned his attention to Irshah Parmin.

  “Very satisfactory solution,” Padrake said. “On behalf of the Ninth Judge and First Secretary Arik Tirom alike I thank you both, Captain, Provost Marshal, for your willingness to meet halfway. I’ll just go get my kit and be on my way. Got to get back, Specialist Ivers.”

  Yes. It was better if they didn’t try to say good-bye in private, he’d be delayed again. She’d forgotten how easy it was to exploit his presence for the comfort of her body. She thought the success with which they had revived their terminated relationship had surprised them both equally; a reprise of the quarrels they’d had years ago was not required to prove the wisdom of leaving well enough alone and going on, grateful for a brief but not to be repeated interlude.

  “Good speed, Specialist Delleroy. Show Vogel no mercy, he deserves none.” Where had he been, and what had he been doing? Bench specialists didn’t say good-bye. It was bad luck. “If you would like to come with me now, your Excellency, you can ask Koscuisko for yourself. About his relief of Writ.”

  Padrake had been on his way out; now he hesitated, and looked back over his shoulder at her. “And then you can see yourself to Infirmary, Specialist,” Padrake said. “You’ve wounds to see to, and the finest facilities in Fleet right here. Doctor — Lazarbee? Yes, thank you, your Excellency, Doctor Lazarbee. I appeal to you to see that Specialist Ivers does not escape this ship without a thorough going-over.”

  She swallowed back a snort of fond irritation. There were drawbacks to being with people who knew one a little too well. Karol would almost certainly have left her to report herself — and she would have done it, too.

  “As soon as I’ve spoken to Koscuisko, Specialist Delleroy,” Jils promised. Now get out, you tiresome person. “Captain, First Officer, Provost Marshal. Shall we all go?”

  The change of crew would leave the courier empty, but the data that she had on board was secured there. It was safe. She would go to Infirmary; she wouldn’t mind a status check. It had only been two days. She felt as though it had been just two hours, suddenly; but that was the way of it — the body waited until after the crisis had passed to relax and start to mend, and that was what really hurt. Mending.

  Well, six days between Brisinje and Chilleau to sleep, and then it would be back to the wars for her. A few hours to wait for fresh crew from Emandis Station, a visit to Infirmary; and then she would have nothing more to worry about beyond who had killed First Secretary Sindha Verlaine, and why.

  ###

  Nobody could afford to trust anybody — that was one of the rules of a Bench specialist’s life. The other side of the balance on that one, though, was that Bench specialists above all needed to be able to decide who they were going to trust amongst themselves. Erenja Rafenkel didn’t know Karol Vogel; she didn’t think she’d ever met the man. She trusted Capercoy and she trusted Balkney, as far as that went. Balkney trusted Vogel, and Balkney had more reason than most to be cautious about where he bestowed his trust.

  It was two days after Vogel had come down with Brisinje’s First Secretary to vouch for him; and Rafenkel was practicing her knives on the black beach of that obsidian lake, while Balkney retrieved knives and Vogel did nothing helpful whatever.

  She could see the floater from here, the observation station on the lake in which Nion and Ivers had fought. Tanifer and Rinpen were there, arguing Fontailloe against a deferred Selection. Zeman was observing, Nion was dead, Delleroy and Ivers were gone — so with Balkney and Vogel and Capercoy all here interfering with her concentration, the full complement of Bench specialists in Convocation was accounted for.

  “That’s interesting,” Capercoy said to Balkney as Rafenkel set up her array for her next round. “Because he told me that he’d heard it could only be Cintaro, in the end. He told the Fifth Judge that, too. She believed him.”

  There was more light in the observation float out on the lake than there was here on shore; Rafenkel doubted that anyone in that room would be able to see what any of them were doing very clearly. Capercoy stood with his back turned to the float even so. Capercoy’s body had the kind of roundness to it that combined youth and muscle; toothsome, the effect, or maybe she’d just been down here for too long.

  “Didn’t tell me anything,” Vogel said. “Of course I’ve been out of the country. But it does sound like something may be going in an interesting direction here. You say your Judge won’t have Chilleau or Fontailloe, Cape?”

  Delleroy had been busy, for a man who hadn’t joined them until Ivers had arrived. Much of his work had apparently been done before anyone came down here, from what they were beginning to piece together. Told Balkney that it was almost certain to be Chilleau. Told Capercoy that there was no question about the Fifth Judge’s eventual selection — what could he have hoped to gain? Division? Whose partisan was Delleroy, if it was not Brisinje’s?

  “She might have done before Delleroy got to her.” Capercoy sounded sour about it, too. “Inappropriate influence. Told her that in light of the questions about Chilleau it was her duty to take the wheel and guide the Bench through the stormy seas into calm waters. Persuasive man. He had me, too.”

  If she thought about it she could find it in her heart to be offended, Rafenkel thought. Delleroy hadn’t approached her with any inappropriate suggestions. Or had he? What was that he had been saying about who should be running the Bench? “If she won’t accept Fontailloe or Chilleau we have a problem,” Rafenkel said, just in case no one had noticed. “Because a lot of people feel it should be Chilleau. No matter what its First Secretary had proposed.”

  Vogel let his breath out in something that was halfway between a snort and a sigh. “Verlaine was a visionary,” Vogel said. “The frustrating thing about that is that he was ahead of his time, but only just. I had a lot of respect for Verlaine. Not that we didn’t have our differences.”

  “You know,” Balkney said to her, walking a set of knives from the target back to where she stood with her weapons laid out in array on a podium in front of her. “Vogel seems to have told me that Ivers didn’t do it. Vogel seems to have told Ivers that I didn’t do it. I haven’t heard Vogel say that he didn’t do it. Where have you been? Not out of the country. Not for all this time.�
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  “Well, not offing senior Bench officers, if that’s what you mean,” Vogel said scornfully. “But no. Not out of the country for quite all of this time. I thought I’d take a vacation, if you must know, and if Verlaine thought I was off on an errand so much the better, but he didn’t send me.”

  “Vogel’s got a woman in Gonebeyond,” Capercoy said to her. “Wanton red-headed wench, as I understand.” The way in which Capercoy chose to phrase his remark made her laugh; she missed her grouping. Balkney shook his head at her, sadly, and went to collect the knives for a do-over. She considered completing the partial grouping with him in it, but stayed her hand.

  “I’ll have you speak respectfully of Walton Agenis,” Vogel warned, his voice light but careful enough to put them all on notice. He was serious about this. “I’d heard Verlaine talk about Gonebeyond in the abstract. Have you ever been? Interesting things happening, out that way.”

  Balkney brought Rafenkel back her knives. “Concentrate this time,” Balkney said. Between your shoulderblades, Rafenkel thought, but she didn’t say it.

  “Well, that’s nice,” she said instead. “What does it have to do with the selection?” Two days, and Tanifer couldn’t see his way clear to give up. It couldn’t be Fontailloe. Even if there hadn’t been history against it, Chilleau with a seasoned Judge and a new administration was to be preferred to Fontailloe with a seasoned administration and a new Judge.

  “Someone’s manipulating judicial documents,” Vogel said. “You’ve heard the rumors, I’m sure. Manipulating judicial documents is only the first step toward manipulating Bench policy, even authority. I’d have stayed in Gonebeyond and been happy if Fleet had taken Verlaine out, but I don’t think Fleet did it.”

  That meant Vogel thought Ivers did it? No. Not Ivers, not Balkney. “We’re just not getting a piece, somewhere,” Balkney said, stepping well clear of Rafenkel’s line of fire. “Frustrating. I’m having that just-out-of-reach-solution feeling. I hate that.”

  “Analysis,” Capercoy suggested. “Speculation only. Verlaine was killed to prevent him from implementing his proposed reforms, assumption one.”

  “Or that’s just the obvious motive and it had nothing to do with Verlaine’s reforms,” Rafenkel said, weighing the knife in her hand. “The immediate effect is to put the selection on hold. Verlaine’s reforms may still be adopted by the new First Judge, whoever she is. Verlaine’s murder cripples Chilleau.”

  “With Cintaro the benefiting party,” Capercoy agreed. “But Cintaro had made up her mind to not winning.”

  “You said that Delleroy talked to her,” Vogel reminded Capercoy. “In what context was that?”

  Capercoy was silent, thinking.

  Rafenkel threw the knife. One. Good hit.

  “Setting up Convocation.” Capercoy spoke slowly, clearly concentrating. “She didn’t have much of a mind about it before, willing to step into the breach but not about to defy the majority call. It could have been a subtle long-term plot, of course.”

  Balkney apparently didn’t think so. “Cintaro wouldn’t have been able to predict the convocation. If Cintaro had done it, she’d have laid claim to the title by default a lot sooner than this. Fleet’s done its best to milk the Bench dry for privileges and tax revenues, but they’d have made their move if it had been a Fleet plot. Same reasoning.”

  This was the sort of random-fire exercise that could lead to breakthroughs or a dead wall. Rafenkel knew which one she felt they were heading for. “What else had been going on around there? Apart from the obvious. Verlaine’s reforms were a threat. But he would have had to negotiate them.”

  “No, Bench specialists would have had to negotiate them,” Balkney countered. “As always. It doesn’t matter what the Judge gets up to, it’s the Bench specialist who gets stuck with the work. That’s the way of things.”

  Rafenkel’s knife went wide of target again. Vogel made a show of moving carefully up-range; she ignored him. “Bench specialist privileged model,” Rafenkel said, almost to herself. She hadn’t thought about it, not like this. “What would we usually do? Step in, wouldn’t we? Help the new incumbent out until he had his feet underneath him?”

  “But Jils couldn’t do it,” Vogel said. “Especially after she discovered the body, she was the obvious suspect. And I was out of the country. Jils had a murder to solve. Chilleau would need help from someone else.”

  “Help or annexation.” Capercoy sounded as though he wanted to be sick to his stomach. “Delleroy’s due to move on, he’s been here five years. Brisinje is quiet. Vogel was gone, and Ivers had worked with Delleroy before.”

  It was a huge and horrible accusation. And there was not a shred of evidence to support it. None. “So he’s been preaching confederation because he’s sure it’ll fail?” Rafenkel asked, dubiously. “And doing it wrong, because I’m convinced?”

  “Working with Cintaro so he can be the man to manage that,” Balkney said. “The man of the hour. But it’s all supposition. Doesn’t change our immediate task.”

  He was looking at something. Turning her head, Rafenkel saw the debating party on its way out across the lighted causeway between the observation float and the shore. Since Nion’s death they had all gone into the observation float together and left it as a group.

  “Cintaro’s determined,” Capercoy said, one last time. Just in case they’d gotten distracted, Rafenkel supposed. “I don’t know whether Delleroy could manage that. Maybe he can. But it’ll come to shooting.”

  As ideas went, the suggestion that Padrake Delleroy, and perhaps some others who had been heard to speak to the issue of privilege and Bench specialists, was responsible for the death of Sindha Verlaine was new and terrible and too convincing to be summarily dismissed. But Balkney was right. They still had a primary mission that was independent of who had murdered Verlaine and why. They still owed Jurisdiction space a solution to the problem of Selection, the best solution they could find.

  Delleroy would be back inside of three days. With Zeman and Tanifer and Rinpen out of debate, they could all gather in the kitchen. Vogel could regale them with stories of the Langsarik fleet in Gonebeyond. They could criticize each other’s eating habits, and keep an eye out for pointed daggers falling from the ceiling or chairs splintering into spears or hand-harpoons appearing in the starchies where they had no business being.

  “Let’s eat,” Rafenkel suggested. She took the knives Vogel returned to her and wrapped them up in their case for safe-keeping. Three days from now, and Padrake Delleroy might have some questions to answer.

  ###

  In the particular Emandisan sub-culture in which Shona had been raised, the dead weren’t much spoken of except as they served as anchors or reference-points in history and kinship; in your great-grandfather’s time, or she’s your sister’s daughter-in-law. When a man needed the companionship and the advice of his dead, he went to the orchard and sat down beneath a tree and meditated.

  Shona himself hadn’t had that opportunity, no; the first years of his life had been spent in poverty and isolation. He could see, now that he was a man, how kith and kin and complete strangers had taken what quiet steps they could to better, soften, smooth the family’s plight — even at risk of sanctions themselves, on occasion.

  He had not been allowed to enter the family orchard until he had carried Joslire’s ashes there and held the container while his grandmother had parceled Joslire out amongst the trees. To fruit, they needed minerals and organic compounds found in the remains of dead animals, and all of the trees had fruited in the following year.

  It had been an additional sum of money, quite a substantial one, because the fruit from a family’s orchard was held to impart some of the strength of the family itself, and sold at a premium comparable to proprietary pharmaceutical drugs. It had been just one more wonder in a year full of wonders, because before the year was out the government had fallen and the orchard walls had been restored at the administration’s expense.

  He’d
been too young to understand what they meant to do to his brother when they had arrested Joslire. At that time he had been more immediately affected by the execution of his other brothers, his father, his uncles; later he’d understood that a clean killing had been merciful, compared to the imposition of the Bond. He remembered rather little about Joslire. Joslire had been away from home for most of Shona’s life anyway; the discipline of the knife-fighter did not account for family ties.

  But these people remembered his brother. It was more than just the chance to meet Andrej Koscuisko at last; more even than finding in Koscuisko no shimmering madman with an obscene appetite and the curse of the truth-sense upon him, no demonic spiritual entity whose glance could wither babies in their mother’s womb, but an ordinary officer — perhaps an extraordinary officer, but an ordinary man — who felt his emotions keenly, and who had loved Shona’s brother so much that he was prepared to love Shona as well for Joslire’s sake. More than that.

  There were people here who wanted to talk to him about Joslire. Officers; crew. The captain, the First Officer, the chief of Security. One of the bond-involuntaries on board had known Joslire and the others had heard about him. The medical technicians in Infirmary, where he had gone with Specialist Ivers at her suggestion possibly for just that reason, remembered Joslire. Some of it to be sure was just the natural instinct of good-hearted people to fondly reminisce about the dead, but that fond reminiscence was exactly what was left unspoken and private, among Emandisan.

  When the time came to leave Shona was anxious to get away. He needed to be by himself for a little while to rest and store up all of the things he had been told, so that he could tell them in the orchard where his child could hear when his child was old enough. The provost marshal and the Port Authority’s representatives had commended him to his duty and left; Koscuisko, Ivers, the new crew, they were all on board of the courier, and free of Scylla’s maintenance atmosphere at last.