Glorious Angels

by Justina Robson

  ‘Not yet.’ It began to rain suddenly again. ‘I only just got here yesterday but…’

  ‘But?’ Water dripped down his collar but he waited.

  ‘Some of the people here, on the science team that I knew from before…’ She paused and looked uncomfortable, rain running down all the contours of her upturned face. ‘They’re not right. It’s as if… they don’t know what they’re doing. Like, they seem to, until you ask a question that’s specific. Maybe they’ve been out here too long?’ Her face said she didn’t really think so.

  ‘That’s what you believe?’ he pushed and saw her expression drop to a grim, unhappy weight as she shook her head and curls bounced and fell down into sinking waves, darkening.

  ‘What’s your theory then, Professor?’

  There was nobody near them and the rain was heavy enough now that it made its own susurrus on the mud and leaves that hid words.

  ‘I can’t say for sure but I made a test. It’s on the slate. Ask ’Lane. Make her read it for you.’ She didn’t wait for more but set off through the downpour alone, her cloth wrapped item still held to her chest to keep it dry.

  Borze scowled and water ran down his nose from his brow. The rain was so heavy there was no point trying to avoid it. He walked steadily back to the portal site, accepting the guard of four men who came to escort him there with clipped efficiency, exchanging a few words with each until he was reunited with Gau Tam who looked mutinous but was, at least, quite dry under the awning.

  ‘You look like you swallowed a bug,’ Tam said, pleased to find he wasn’t the only one fed up.

  ‘Might have done,’ Borze nodded. ‘Find anything?’ He glanced at the curling record stacks – plain people’s writing tools, for those without mage powers to work slates.

  ‘Defence took a large set of soldiers out to another site as part of the special weapons’ unit. It’s north of here, away from the treelines. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Have them recalled to Glimshard,’ Borze said, knowing quite well how that would play out. ‘It’s time we returned, or you won’t have time to get dressed and fuss your hair.’

  ‘How handy that you don’t need to,’ Gau Tam replied, nearly leaping out of the chair in his eagerness to quit the place. He met Borze’s grin with a superior look. ‘Just tell them the smell is a new aftershave.’

  Borze tried to smile but the slate in his chest pocket felt heavy and strange and it dragged his mouth down. He made departing manoeuvres with Barsan’s second and collected his horse from its leaky stable.

  ‘You know what’s funny?’ Gau Tam said beside him as he led the beast. He looked up at Tam riding correctly, even in the sheeting rain. ‘The horses never batted an eyelash during the whole thing, and the officers said they’re never taken. I asked why there aren’t any left here. He told me they sent them all back through the portal because they were going lame with hoofrot. I suppose a lot of the men decided they’d be better on the Steppe than risk coming back here, took them as peace offerings to the Circle.’

  Borze nodded and braced himself for the horrible sensation of being dissolved. For a moment he almost thought it might be preferable to remain that way but the machine set him on his feet into dry, dusky plains air, cooler but infinitely gentler. With the city gleaming before him in all its best decorated majesty he changed his mind. A runner, tabarded, tiny, like a little pixie in her shoes, almost hurled herself into the horse’s shoulder before he had a chance to mount up.

  ‘Sir!’ she said, her eyes glittering with peculiar excitement. ‘The Empress wishes you to attend her immediately, before the ball.’

  He nodded, feeling his expectations sink yet further until they might as well have been in a mud pit too. ‘I will be there as soon as I am able to change out of these clothes.’

  ‘She has had your uniforms transported to the palace. You are to go directly.’

  He heard Tam snicker as he kicked the horse into a canter and left him behind.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ZHARAZIN

  Zharazin woke up in an unfamiliar room. Windowed doors were open on to a terrace from which he saw only sky at his pillow position. Gauze curtains lifted on the breeze. He heard paper rustle and turned over. Tralane Huntingore smiled down at him from her seated position. She was wearing a red wrap and breadcrumbs from the roll she was eating with one hand while the other held the day’s fresh broadsheet roughly folded up. She was on page two, he noted. He wondered what the time was although he didn’t want to find that out too soon as it would probably mean he had to get up and stop looking at her heavy dark brown hair with its slight coil curls cascading in luxurious half circles over her breasts.

  ‘Well well,’ she said, letting the hand holding the roll fall on to the coverlet. ‘You sleep very soundly for a man with so much in his mind.’

  ‘Must have been tired,’ he said, surprised by the soft burr in his voice and the slight tenderness in his throat. He hoped he wasn’t getting sick.

  ‘Must have been,’ she replied and gave him a look of amusement and warmth – a combination that took his breath away. He recalled the night before and stretched, finding sore muscles and a growling stomach. ‘That was a great dinner by the way.’

  ‘Oh…’ She waved her roll at him, ‘you must be invited to these things all the time.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said honestly. ‘But none of them were even half so good.’ Part of his mind used to calculating tried to slide away and quickly plan his day’s movements, but he silenced it and got up on his elbow, just enough to reach out and bite into the roll held so carelessly at her thigh. Pastry crumbs scattered everywhere. He slumped back, chewing and saw her watching him with that little smile.

  ‘I hope breakfast won’t disappoint you then.’ She jammed the roll to her own mouth and refolded the newssheet.

  ‘Is this it?’ He swallowed and watched her chew in turn before she put the last bite of the roll between her teeth and leant down to him, tossing the paper aside, the wrap falling open.

  ‘Mmn hmm,’ she said around her part of the mouthful as he took his, lips brushing hers. Her large dark eyes dared him.

  He reached up and slipped the wrap from her shoulders.

  TRALANE

  ‘I’ve brought you tea and a catalogue. You can’t wait, you have to choose from whatever’s left.’ Minnabar’s voice snapped Tralane from her doze and sat her bolt upright but she didn’t have time to focus before Minna added, ‘Oh gods, my eyes! Look, I’m leaving it here on the side. But look at it. You’ve got about twenty minutes before they close up to start the adjustments and ironing service. Seriously.’ The tone was one of utter social despair. Tralane looked about for a shoe to throw but the door was already closing and although there were a few about none were close enough.

  She looked at Mazhd, sprawled and only half covered where he’d fallen asleep starfished at her side. Was she meant to believe his story? For now she didn’t mind much, she thought, and if only it could all stay here in her room and never have to be revealed in daylight then she’d never mind it either way. She looked long enough to burn him into her retinas and then she reached out for the catalogue and swatted him lightly with it.

  ‘Hey, you. You’re good at social stuff. Help me find something to wear.’

  He rolled over and sat up, the sheets and cover falling down to his narrow, tight waist and revealing all the muscle she’d had so much fun discovering the night before. He raised an eyebrow and reached out to twitch the catalogue from her hand. ‘Chalice and Pearl. Sparing no expense, then?’

  Tralane said nothing. It hadn’t occurred to her that Minnabar would consider the prices and, obviously, she hadn’t. Leaving it so late meant there was no time to fuss. She wondered if her old wardrobe would have anything to offer but a mental inventory said that there was nothing that fitted and was not out of date by several years. ‘I hate dressing for impressions. My daughter loves it. Her idea.’ Inwardly she quaked at the idea of the price. For one night. Fo
r pity’s sake! She thought to look at the time then, and groaned. It was already after noon. She had to find more crystals before dusk and by the look of the weather that could prove an interesting task. Alide’s threats hung on her worse than the money issue. It was negligible in comparison. Maybe she could sell something later.

  Mazhd slapped the catalogue back at her. ‘I can’t believe you’d give the choice to someone else.’ His finger held it open at a particular page. She took it and saw red velvet twisted and pulled and sculpted around an hourglass model. There was a lot of bodice and bone, gold heavy cord lacing and cream bursting unexpectedly from one side of a fishtail hem. Long gloves and a demimask decorated with diamante eyeholes dangled carelessly from the model’s fingers, as though she had just stepped out to a balcony for some fresh air and was turned to assess her many suitors.

  ‘You like them over the top, then.’

  ‘It’s suitable and it’s in stock in your size.’

  ‘What about this one?’ She pointed to a plain black and grey up and down kind of dress which fitted her criteria for comfort, practicality and, above all, near-invisibility. It had full sleeves, went nearly to the ankle and could be worn with flight boots.

  ‘You’re going to a ball, not cleaning out a shed.’ He smiled at her, alarmingly shameless and happy – so much so it quite threw her off her stride. ‘Although I’ve seen you in your shed gear and I’d choose that any time.’

  He meant flight leathers, she thought. Well, it could come to that, knowing her luck. She must check the weather and prepare the Flit. Probably she should check up on Isabeau and find out what Minnabar was doing – it wasn’t like her to be around the house alone this late in the day. Then she looked back at him and remembered why she was so late. She’d always despised men who buffed themselves to the eyeballs, waxing, oiling, curling, straightening. But looking at his silky belly and the way it narrowed in flat planes of perfect amber to his hipline, broken only by the dark trail of hair that vanished tantalisingly under her ancient coverlet changed her mind. No, she must not. She looked again at her dress choice and felt a pang for the Tralane of two days ago who would never have cared about what she looked like. She flicked to the red dress. It shouted brazenly every ridiculous notion of feminine erotic power. A brilliant woman might wear it but it had nothing to say about first-class minds. She looked at the grey and black shift – it spoke seriously and quietly about thorough professional balance, strategy and composure. It was bland. But I am bland, she thought. I am not out for men, I’ve got enough trouble. I just want to go, see this Karoo, shake hands with the Dean of the University to remind her I still exist, and get out without seeing that bloody Minister.

  She glanced back at Mazhd, who was grinning mercilessly at her. He would look amazing of course. And that thought suddenly reminded her that he was associated with a lot of women in various high positions, not only at the palace but elsewhere, possibly needing to keep a good face with most of them whether they were actively soliciting him or not. And suddenly that depressed her.

  ‘Lane?’ he said, seeing her expression falter.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, of course,’ she said. ‘The red one. Are you um… Are you going tonight alone?’

  ‘After I’ve finished what I have to do,’ he said. ‘I’ll be a little late most likely, but I will be there.’

  She scoured his tone for any signs of caution, backing off or hesitancy but found nothing. ‘I don’t have an escort – what?’

  His snort had cut her off. ‘Of course you don’t. That would require forethought.’

  She scowled but attempting irritation for her transparent lack of care seemed pointlessly after-the-fact. ‘All the most interesting women go alone.’

  ‘I’m free if you change your mind.’ He sat up and ran his hands through his hair, flicking the heavy unbound mane of it down his back as he looked around for his clothes.

  ‘Well, but you might be late.’

  ‘You’ll be late,’ he said confidently, getting up naked and walking around, poking at the bedclothes and slowly gathering the bits and pieces of his understated, elegant tailoring. She watched him disappear into them sadly. A night on the floor didn’t seem to have done them any harm. Within minutes he was cutting a dashing, powerful figure about forty times more credible than anything she could achieve in forty days.

  ‘I’m missing a sock,’ he said finally, breaking her reverie.

  She cast her mind back and then looked up. ‘On the light fitting.’

  ‘Of course.’ He stood on the bed to retrieve it and a little shower of dust came down with the sock, making him sneeze.

  Tralane just sat, realising how incredibly comfortable she felt around him. Just as if he was Carlyn. More so for some reason, despite the fact she didn’t and couldn’t trust him and that he was the infomancers’ man. ‘Well I’m sure you must have a lot to do before then.’ She got up after a moment of wondering if she really was ready to pad about naked herself and located clean-enough clothing to wear; grey cotton undergarments that were once white, and ancient close-fitted silk flight-liners that covered her from ankle to neck in yellowed bands and made her look a little bit like an exotic grub.

  ‘I will be very busy.’ He checked his pockets and smiled, seeming to find everything in order. ‘You’re going flying?’ His look was hard to read. Envy, she thought smugly, and something she wasn’t sure about.

  ‘I go every week,’ she lied easily. ‘And I have experiments to run that need to be done up there. Most of them are just for the weather service.’ This last part was true, and had been neglected lately, pushed to the back of her mind thanks to everything else. She closed her eyes briefly and felt the weight of all she had been ignoring for a moment, only because she was under this stupid blackmail. And then there was the dig, and the ‘war’. All tied up together. She was a fool to think of romance at a time like this.

  She found Mazhd looking knowingly at her. ‘Difficult times,’ he said, and she remembered his mouth all over her and felt sick and weak with the notion she might never see it in any of those places again. ‘Where shall I meet you?’

  ‘I will be outside in a carriage at nine thirty,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait. But I do have business there so if the eleven bell goes I must go with it.’

  Eleven was insanely late. She could easily make it before that. ‘Thank you. You should probably eat.’

  He grinned and eyed her up and down, then bent his head and kissed her on the lips – a lingering, gentle kiss of unexpected sweetness. ‘No, that’s all right. I had a very big breakfast.’

  She showed him out and watched him walk down to the street with a keen sense of unreality. In his long duster raincoat with his hair free he looked darkly sinister, like a knife just taken out and sharpened. Some tether glued to her insides tugged as he stepped on to the paving and she felt it tug more and harder as he got further away, strolling briskly towards whatever appointment he had to keep. She had to rub her belly to get the sensation to stop.

  Inside the house, she took the catalogue to the kitchen and found both girls waiting for her at the table. She sat down. They stared at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Mooooom!’ Minnabar moaned, sliding her arms out between the breakfast plates and stretching across the table as if being tortured, her expression suffering.

  Isabeau poured tea very precisely and pushed it towards Tralane in a manner clearly indicating that this was her part of a deal and now it was time for Lane to deliver the other part of the bargain. ‘You know who he is, right? I mean…’

  Tralane took the tea with a withering look at both of them. ‘I know I’ve spent most of my life up to the elbows in clockwork and engines but yes, I do know who Zharazin Mazhd is, thank you very much.’ She tried not to simper, still full of his attentions, and it was surprisingly hard.

  Minnabar looked up at her from her place on the table like a mournful dog, ‘We thought he might be investigating you, because of the pamphlet, you know?’

&nb
sp; She almost choked on the tea. It went everywhere. As she was spluttering and looking around for a cloth, Isabeau added, ‘The bank sent a letter. Someone put five hundred credit into your account. Gigawatt Enterprise. They want authority to pay off your outstanding debts with it.’

  Tralane scowled at Isabeau, ‘What are you doing reading my mail?’

  ‘We wanted to pay for all our dresses, but the account was blocked,’ Isabeau said drily as if this entitled them to any kind of actions. ‘So choose yours and then we’ll be out of your hair, well, figuratively anyway.’

  ‘So who’s this Gigawatt?’ Minnabar asked, bored, tracing pictures among crumbs with her finger.

  ‘Where’s the dress order?’ Tralane countered, knowing that Gigawatt Enterprises was Alide’s idea of a joke. The money was from the Ministry and it covered her ‘expenses’ in procuring the crystal. Taking it galled her. Blood money. Once she did there was no more moral high ground to stand on. She was simply an employee. ‘And he is not here about the pamphlet.’ She hoped. The notion made her scowl. She didn’t need to look at statements to know that she couldn’t afford to turn that money down, but the alternatives looked bleak. Going to the ball in an old frock was minor stuff compared to losing her home and her daughters. In truth for all her feelings about it she found she didn’t dare defy Alide beyond caustic remarks. It was shaming enough that Mazhd knew about the blackmail but what he could do she didn’t know either. He was a trader and whatever power he had belonged to his mistress. Tralane had nothing to offer Shrazade that she didn’t already know. She had the gun, and that was it.

  Minnabar handed her the order paper for the dresses, not counting hers. She looked at the total and at the time and signed it, adding her own. ‘As soon as I’m dressed I’ll clear this and then I’m going for a flight. I won’t be back until late so who’s picking you two up?’

  ‘I’m going with Night,’ Isabeau said. ‘I have to be at her place by six.’

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ Minnabar said, cheek laid on the table, following the wood grain with her finger. ‘I just can’t decide. Is Mazhd picking you up?’