Against a Dark Background

by Iain M. Banks

  Sharrow hadn’t seen Geis since the ball in his father’s house at Siynscen over a year earlier. He’d called her numerous times since then, especially since she’d gone to university, but she’d always found ways of avoiding meeting him face-to-face. She told herself that this was for his own good; if he had become infatuated with her at the ball, then—given that she had no intention of taking things further—it was as well that he had time to forget about her and find somebody else. She still occasionally felt herself flush when she thought about that night.

  She didn’t regret having let Geis dance with her, and still did not believe she had done anything wrong, but to somebody watching it might have looked as though she was throwing herself at her cousin, and that really was embarrassing. As for the thought that it might have appeared she was only setting out to beguile him to thwart Breyguhn; that was worse.

  Lying there on the polished black rock of the sarcophagus, Sharrow rubbed at one leg, remembering that shock of cold pain two seasons earlier.

  She hadn’t seen Breyguhn since the northern winter and that mean-spirited attack in the skidder rink. Brey had gone to finishing school and her father had continued to gamble, working himself further and further into debt and despair; both of them were people she felt happy to ignore.

  She heard the voices as though part of a dream.

  It was Geis and Breyguhn.

  “. . . sure it won’t come to a war,” Geis was saying. “Everyone has too much to lose.”

  Breyguhn said something that ended with, “. . . dying?”

  Geis laughed quietly. “Of course,” he said. “Everybody is. You have to be a little afraid of it just to give your best.”

  The voices came from the left edge of the tomb, where the path came up from the overgrown little valley that lay between the hill the tomb stood on and the terrace bordering the house’s lawns and formal gardens. Sharrow rolled quietly over on her front.

  “But you…you should never act afraid of it,” Geis said.

  Sharrow heard what might have been a hand slapping stone.

  “This fellow; old Gorko. He might have had nightmares about dying every time he fell asleep for all we know, but he acted like he wasn’t scared of anything. He knew what he wanted and he went out to get it, and even though he knew it was dangerous he didn’t hesitate for a second.” There was a pause. “He was a great man. A very, very great man. We could learn a lot from him.”

  Another pause. Then, “Shall we sit? You look a bit tired.”

  “All right.”

  “Here; we’ll sit on this.”

  Sharrow heard something flap, then a rustle. She wondered whether she should make herself known, or creep over to the edge and look down on her cousin and half-sister. She lay there, undecided.

  “You’re so dashing these days,” Breyguhn said with a small laugh.

  “Ah.” Geis laughed too. “It’s the uniform.”

  “No it isn’t; I’m sure a slob in a uniform is still a slob.” (Sharrow gritted her teeth; she had said exactly that to Breyguhn a year ago. Breyguhn had disagreed, of course.)

  Geis laughed gently again. “Well,” he said. “There are chaps in the year who could certainly do with a lesson in grooming, I’ll give you that. Some fellows can look untidy the instant after their man’s dressed them to parade spec. Mind if I smoke?”

  “Of course not. Is that something else they do in the Navy?”

  “Well, it’s not a regulation,” Geis laughed.

  Sharrow heard a click, then smelled shoan smoke; the mild narcotic was banned in Yada and illegal in parts of Caltasp. She wasn’t a great fan of the stuff herself; it didn’t deliver much of a hit and it smelled overly sweet.

  “What is that?”

  “This? It’s shoan; from Speyr. Harmless stuff; gives you a bit of a buzz, you know.”

  “Could I try some?”

  “Well, I’m not sure your…”

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure that you’re old—”

  “You were going to say that Daddy wouldn’t approve, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, I was.”

  “Well, that doesn’t apply now, does it?”

  There was another pause, and what might have been a sigh or a sniff.

  “Brey…” Geis said.

  “Oh, give me that.”

  After a while Breyguhn coughed, then stopped.

  “You sure—” Geis said.

  Breyguhn coughed again. “Woo,” she said after a few moments.

  “You all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “Look, I haven’t really had a chance to say properly how sorry—”

  “Oh, Geis, stop it.”

  “I just wanted to say—”

  “Don’t! Don’t!” Breyguhn sobbed, and then there was another rustling sound and Breyguhn said something else but suddenly it sounded muffled.

  “There there,” Geis said gently, so quietly Sharrow could hardly hear.

  “Oh, Geis,” Breyguhn said. “You’ve always…I’ve…Ever…” She broke down, sobbing. The sobs became muffled again.

  “Brey, Brey…” Geis said softly.

  There was silence, then some sounds that Sharrow wasn’t sure were from Geis and Breyguhn or from the grass and bushes around her, moving in the breeze. Then a noise like a moan.

  “Brey,” Geis said, something chiding in his voice.

  “Oh, Geis, please; please…I want to…so much…”

  What? thought Sharrow. She pulled herself to the edge of the sarcophagus, where she could see the valley path and the bushes on the side of the hill. She glanced over the edge of the tomb.

  Geis and Breyguhn were embracing and kissing, both kneeling on Geis’s Alliance Navy uniform cape, spread out on the grass at the side of the tomb. As Sharrow watched, Breyguhn’s hands pulled Geis’s shirt out of his trousers and then disappeared inside them. One of Geis’s hands moved to Breyguhn’s skirted leg and slid slowly upward as he laid her down on the cape.

  Sharrow stared amazed at Breyguhn’s face for a second, then pulled herself away when she realized Brey only had to open her eyes to see her looking down at her.

  Sharrow lay near the edge of the black cube, listening to Breyguhn and Geis as their breathing became heavier and more labored; she heard the rustling noise of clothes being moved over skin and other clothes. The breathing became louder still and started to sound like moans. Breyguhn shouted out at one point, and Geis mumbled something, but Brey whispered quickly, and soon they were moaning together again and Sharrow lay there, feeling herself blush despite herself, her eyes wide, her mouth closed round her right wrist, teeth biting her own flesh so that she wouldn’t laugh or cry out and let them know she was there.

  “Sharrow!” Geis shouted.

  Sharrow froze, skin pimpling. The black surface of the sarcophagus roof seemed suddenly very cold.

  Had he seen her? How could he have known…?

  Then she realized, and relaxed.

  She smiled, feeling smug, then frowned, unsure whether it was a compliment or an insult.

  She listened to Geis breathing hard as he said, “Brey; Brey; I’m sorry…I’m so sorry. I don’t know what—”

  Breyguhn howled. Sharrow’s flesh crawled. Breyguhn sobbed something but she couldn’t make out what it was. There was some more rustling; hurried and urgent.

  “Brey; please. I meant—”

  “Leave me alone!” shrieked Breyguhn, and then Sharrow heard footsteps on the grassed path, and one last moan from Geis. Breyguhn appeared where Sharrow could see her, forcing her way through the bushes growing over the path; Sharrow started to edge away from the side of the tomb in case Brey turned and saw her, but Breyguhn didn’t look back; she disappeared sobbing into the undergrowth, heading toward the house.

  Sharrow lay there for another ten minutes, not daring to move. She listened to Geis dressing, then smelled another shoan cheroot. She thought she heard Geis sit down again and give a small laugh.


  Eventually she heard him rise, and then saw him too head back down the path.

  She lay there a while longer before she dropped down where they had been. The flattened grass by the side of the tomb looked sordid somehow, she thought. You could tell exactly what had gone on here just by looking at it. She smiled to herself, and stooped to pick up a half-smoked shoan stub. She sniffed it, considering keeping it for later. Then she thought of Geis’s lips on it, and Breyguhn’s, and of his lips on hers…

  “Yuk,” she said to herself, and let the stub drop to the grass.

  She slipped her formal gray shoes back on and draped the ash-colored coat over her shoulders. She took a slightly circuitous route back to the house, where the reception following her father’s funeral was going quietly ahead without her.

  “Oh, cheer up, Cenuij,” Zefla said. She poured him some more wine.

  “I will not cheer up,” he said, slurring his words.

  They had gone back out to The Pulled Nail that evening; Cenuij had left the festivities at the castle as soon as decently possible and joined them.

  He drank from his goblet. “I can’t believe that dunder-brained bumpkin survived,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “Climbed up the wall. You’d have thought any self-respecting stom would have plucked him off like a blister-fruit, but the brainless little shit survived!” He drank deeply from the goblet again. “Fucking ridiculous!” he said.

  “What was that last comment?” Sharrow said, coming back into the private room they’d hired and sitting down at the table. “A self-critical assessment of your recent ideas, Cenuij?”

  He looked at her, eyes watery. He pointed at her with the hand holding the goblet. “That…” he said, narrowing his eyes. He looked at her for a moment. Then he sighed and shook his head sadly. “That is actually almost a fair comment,” he conceded, putting the goblet down and placing his head on his hands. He stared at the table surface.

  “Hey,” Zefla said, patting his back. “You’ve tried, Cen. Twice.”

  “Twice!” Cenuij said, holding his opened hands out and staring at the ceiling as though appealing to it. “Prophet’s blood, twice!”

  “Not to worry,” Zefla said.

  “We’ll think of something else,” Miz said, rocking back in his chair.

  “It’ll be all right in the end,” Dloan agreed, nodding.

  Cenuij fixed Zefla, Miz and Dloan in turn with a bleary look. “Sorry, could you all be a bit more vague? I hate being bombarded with details.”

  Miz grinned and shook his head. Dloan was expressionless.

  “Oh, Cenuij…” Zefla said, putting her arm round him.

  “ ‘Oh, Cenuij,’ ” he muttered, trying to imitate her. He shrugged her arm off and stood up. “Call of nature,” he said, heading wavily for the door.

  As he opened the door, the noise of the inn’s main bar—where people were dutifully celebrating the fact the King was still alive—swelled to a roar, then sank back to a murmur again as the door swung to.

  Miz shrugged. He reached into his jerkin and took out an inhalant tube. “Well, I was saving this until we’d got the damn book, but—”

  “Yeah,” Zefla said, face brightening dramatically. “But what the hell, eh?”

  Miz cracked the inhalant. They each took a few breaths.

  “Anyway,” Sharrow said, after she’d let her breath out. “Maybe this vault isn’t as impregnable as Cenuij thinks.”

  “Yeah,” Miz said, coughing. “Fucking hell; we took out the one they kept the C.A. in; compared to that anything else should be easy.”

  “Just getting the equipment might be a problem,” Dloan said.

  “Think team,” Zefla said, grinning broadly. She handed the tube back to Miz, who was looking at the door of the room and frowning deeply. “What’s the matter?” she asked him.

  He nodded toward the door as his hand went to his pocket. “Gone very quiet down there all of a sudden,” he said.

  The others listened. The background buzz of noise from the bar below had disappeared.

  Miz rocked forward in his seat and took out his gun. “Personal experience,” he said, getting up and padding to the door, “has taught me it’s a very bad sign when Pharpechian bars go this quiet.” He looked at Dloan and nodded sideways to the door. “You go and check it out, Dlo.”

  Dloan got up silently.

  Miz grinned. “Hey, I was only kidding…”

  Dloan held up one hand. “No; I’ll go,” he said.

  Miz looked up at the expression on the big man’s face. “Yeah,” he said. “You go.”

  As Dloan opened the door, there was a scream from downstairs, then a terrible wailing and crying. Sharrow looked round the others. Dloan went out. Miz watched him walk along to the stairs leading down to the bar. The wailing got louder. He closed the door.

  “What the hell’s that?” Zefla breathed.

  “Cenuij just told a joke?” Sharrow suggested. She reached into her jacket pocket and took out the HandCannon.

  The wailing kept going. Dloan came back unharmed after a couple of minutes, closing the door behind him and sitting in his seat.

  “Well?” Sharrow said.

  Dloan looked at her. “The King is dead,” he told her.

  “What?” Miz said, coming over to the table.

  Dloan explained it as he’d heard it.

  The King had been demonstrating to the banquet guests how he’d escaped from the stom that evening. He’d climbed all the way up a large tapestry hanging against one wall of the banqueting hall and stood on the rafters, waving his wine goblet around as he described his strength, dexterity, bravery, and sureness of foot. He had slipped and fallen, hit the heavy banqueting table with his head and spattered a surprisingly large amount of brains over the tenth course, a sweet.

  “Yeah!” Zefla said, not too loudly, and then immediately covered her hand with her mouth. She looked round guiltily.

  Miz took a last suck on the inhalant. “The King is dead,” he said, passing the tube to Zefla.

  “At least this might cheer Cenuij up,” Sharrow said.

  Miz looked at the door. “Yeah, where’s he got—?”

  Cenuij opened the door and came in. He locked the door and crossed to and opened the window, then kicked a nearby stool underneath it; he climbed up on the stool and looked out. He turned back and smiled unconvincingly at them.

  They were all staring at him.

  “Cenuij?” Zefla said. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” he said, voice hoarse. There was a sheen of sweat on his face. He nodded at the window. “Let’s go.”

  “What?” Miz said, putting his gun away in his jerkin.

  “Don’t put that away, we might need it,” Cenuij said. “Come on, let’s go. Just leave the money on the table.”

  “Cenuij,” Sharrow said. “Have you heard? The King is dead.”

  He nodded quickly, looking exasperated. “Yes, yes, I know,” he said. He nodded at the door he’d locked. “But a load of monks just turned up and asked for lodgings here.”

  “So?” Sharrow said.

  Cenuij swallowed. “They’re Huhsz.”

  15

  Escape Clause

  Miz dumped a load of coins on the table and went out along the landing to check Cenuij was right. Zefla lifted the two remaining bottles of trax spirit. Sharrow shoved the inhalant tube into a pocket; she was surprised to find that her hands were shaking. Cenuij was persuaded that the drop from the window was a little too great; Dloan checked along the corridor outside and found some back stairs.

  Miz came back from looking down into the hall of the inn.

  “Yeah,” he whispered. “It’s the Huhsz.”

  A minute later they were gone, quitting the inn’s rear courtyard and heading out onto a small track that looped round through a field to the road for the town.

  They had hired torch-carriers to escort them from the town to the inn, but didn’t want to wait for the youths to rouse themselves from the inn�
�s kitchens, or attract the Huhsz’s attention with lights. They’d all brought night-glasses with them except for Zefla, who held onto Dloan’s hand as they walked quickly up the road. They looked back to see a tall carriage surrounded by dark figures being maneuvered through the archway into the inn’s main courtyard.

  “Sons of bitches,” Miz breathed. “I saw ten; how about you?” he asked Cenuij.

  “Twenty; maybe more,” Cenuij said.

  “Shit,” Miz said. He looked at Sharrow, a pale ghost striding alongside, unknowingly disguising her limp as she did so. “Now what?”

  “Forget the book,” she said. “We run.”

  “I have a better idea,” Cenuij said. He smiled at Sharrow as she looked back at him. “We hobble the Huhsz first, then we run.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “A word in the right ears in the castle ought to do it,” Cenuij said. “I’ll tell the arch-impietist I’ve heard the Huhsz are here and that they’re God-worshipping republicans. That should put the fear of God into the Pharpechian religious authorities. Especially at the moment.”

  “Well, don’t take too long,” Sharrow said. “We’re going to get the fastest mounts we can find and set off for the railway.”

  “It might be best if we didn’t split up,” Zefla said. “What if Cenuij is expected to stay in the castle, to join in the mourning or something?”

  “Yes,” Sharrow said, looking at Cenuij. “What if?”

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “You arrange the transport; I’ll delay the Huhsz and get out in time.”

  “Fate, feels like free-fall.”

  Geis smiled. “Watch,” he said. He took a pen from the pocket of his Navy dress jacket, held it in front of him, then let it go. The pen fell slowly toward the floor of the elevator. Geis retrieved the pen when it was about level with his polished knee-boots and put it back in his pocket.

  Sharrow jumped lightly and floated toward the ceiling, then pressed herself back down with her fingers, laughing.

  “You’re not supposed to do that,” Geis said, grinning as he watched her pull her dress down from where it had ridden up her legs.