“ … can you get access … ?”
“ … nominal control of the off-world properties …”
“ … Galcen?”
“No choice. But …”
The talk went on like that for some time. Then, abruptly, both Perada and Tarveet stood and left the room by the inner door. Since he hadn’t been told to do otherwise, Jos followed.
They were going deeper into the manor house, through hallways and corridors that grew more elaborate as they went along. Plain flagstone flooring gave way to polished wood, and then to rugs—if such a homely term could be applied to the precious fabrics that covered the Tarveet family floors. Jos recognized the carpet underfoot as Ilarnan mille-fleur knotwork, exquisite and damn-near priceless—the ’Hammer had taken a couple of bales of the stuff off a Magebuilt cargo hauler a while back, and the sum Errec Ransome had named as its fair value had staggered everyone on board.
I’ve seen old spacehands retire rich on money like that. And Errec never would take his share of it.
The corridor ended in a set of heavy double doors, done in dark wood with enameled trim. The doors swung open, and Perada turned to Jos.
“Wait here,” she said, and turned away without pausing for a reply.
The doors closed again behind the Domina and Garen Tarveet, leaving Jos alone. As instructed, like a proper bodyguard, he waited. And waited, staring at the swirls of blue and cream and gold on the door panels, while the evening wore on. He would have checked his chronometer, or started pacing, or gone ahead and pushed open the doors in spite of his instructions, but all of those things were off limits in his current role.
Not that he wasn’t tempted.
You don’t know what’s going on in there. She could be in all sorts of trouble.
Right. Or maybe she and her pal are having dinner with his family, and the last thing she needs is for you to come charging in waving a blaster right in the middle of the salad course.
He’d about decided to open the doors anyway, and to hell with it, when a maidservant in livery approached and said, “Come with me.”
Jos shook his head. “My, uh …”—what was the right word?—“my employer told me to wait right here.”
The maidservant looked amused. Jos found out why a moment later, when she handed him a folded slip of cream-colored notepaper. He unfolded it and saw three sentences, written in a firm, round hand: You’re as suspicious as your friend Thulmotten. It’s all right. I’ll be with you later.—P.
He refolded the slip of paper and tucked it into his inside jacket pocket. “Lead on,” he said.
The maidservant started off down a service passage, narrower and darker than the elegant public rooms that it connected. Jos followed, feeling lighter of heart than he had for some time. The reference to the front page of Sverje’s coursebook had eased a worry that he hadn’t been aware of until it was gone: that the Tarveets or somebody in their employ had seized Perada and tried to fob off her bodyguard with a forged note.
The maidservant led him to a room containing a bed, a chair, and a dressing table—all good quality, but plain.
“You’ll be spending the night here,” she said, and closed the outer door behind her as she left.
Jos looked about the room. It was about the same size as his cabin aboard Warhammer, but not as well designed: all the furniture sat in the middle of the floor instead of tucking itself out of the way in nooks and alcoves, and wall space that could have housed useful built-ins was wasted on a window and two inner doors. One door, upon inspection, led to the refresher cubicle; the other proved to be locked from the other side. All in all, the setup was less than what he could have bought for himself in downtown Flatlands after a halfway decent run.
So this is what personal bodyguards rate by way of quarters, he thought. I believe I’ll stick to privateering.
He sat down in the chair and waited. According to his chronometer, an hour, Standard, passed by without incident. Then two hours. At last, when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to be called for or even fed, he turned off the lights and stretched out fully clothed on the bed.
Some time later, he woke to the sound of the inner door swinging open in the darkened room. He didn’t make any sudden moves, but had his blaster aimed before the door was all the way open. Then a familiar presence settled down on the mattress next to him. He slid the blaster back into its holster.
“Thank goodness that’s over,” Perada Rosselin said. “I thought I’d never get away.”
He put an arm around her and leaned his cheek against her hair. She smelled nice—no flowers or perfume or anything, just girl. “I was afraid you’d decided to spend the night with your friend instead.”
She gave a sleepy giggle. “Garen? He has clammy hands. And his mother’s a horror.”
With Perada curled up beside him, Jos could afford to feel magnanimous. “Don’t be too hard on the poor kid. He can’t help his mother—or his hands, either. When I was his age, I was even worse.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“Truth,” he said. “But I learned better.”
“You’ll have to show me what you’ve learned some time.” She yawned. “But not tonight, I think. I’m so tired I’m falling over when I try to stand up. If you don’t mind just keeping me company—?”
“We’ll keep each other company,” said Jos. And wondered, as he drifted off to sleep a few minutes later with her head pillowed on his shoulder, if he hadn’t already grown too used to Perada Rosselin for his own good.
PERADA ROSSELIN: GALCEN
(GALCENIAN DATING 963 A.F.; ENTIBORAN REGNAL YEAR 27 VERATINA)
MAIL DELIVERY at school came once a day, in late afternoon after all the classwork was done. It didn’t matter whether the news from home came as voice chip or compressed-text, as printout flimsy or calligraphed parchment; everything came first to Mistress Delaven’s office and passed under Mistress Delaven’s eye. What Zeri Delaven judged safe and fitting, she distributed. The rest—or so dormitory rumor had it—she kept, and presented years later to the departing student in one fat, long-outdated bundle.
Perada Rosselin didn’t know if she believed the story or not. After almost six months of schooling, she could speak and understand enough Galcenian to follow the classroom lessons—the teachers always talked slowly and explained everything at least twice—but the conversation of her fellow-students still at times confused her.
And you can’t ask anyone for help, she thought. That lesson, at least, she’d guessed at without having to be told. Or they’ll know for sure that you don’t know.
But today it didn’t matter. She had a letter from Dadda: real ink on real paper, in a stiff white envelope sealed with his university ring. The letter had come from Entibor on the diplomatic courier—Mistress Delaven had said so—and the Entiboran ambassador had put it into the Galcenian Planetary Post, and the GPP had carried it by aircar, hovertruck, and speederbike to the mailbox in Mistress Delaven’s office, and Mistress Delaven had given it to her.
Perada clipped the envelope onto the back of her text reader and hurried for the big dormitory room she shared with three other primary-class girls. She didn’t like any of them—they were all Galcenian, and the way they spoke to each other, a quick slide and patter of words with all the important syllables missing, wasn’t anything like the way her teachers said that the language was supposed to go.
She didn’t think the other girls liked her, either.
As soon as she reached her desk, she tore open the envelope. When she saw the writing inside, she felt a sharp sting of anger: more Galcenian! But the seal and the writing were Dadda’s, so—slowly and clumsily—she began to read:
My dearest babba:
Mistress Delaven said that I should write to you in Galcenian to help you learn faster, and I think that she is right. Besides, I need the practice myself. If I make any mistakes, I know that you will tell me, since you speak the language every day with your friends.
But that is not what I am writing to tell you. The real news is that when spring comes in Felshang this year, you will have a new baby sister. Gersten Kiel is her gene-sire, as he was yours, so she will probably look a iot like you once she is grown. We are all very happy, and your mother is well. I hope that you—
She never got to read the rest of the letter. The door slid open and two of her roommates came in—the worst two, as bad luck would have it. Elli Oldigaard was the oldest of the four girls who shared the room, a second-year student whose father did something important with other people’s money in Galcen Prime, and Gryl was Elli’s most dedicated follower.
Perada tried to tuck the sheet of notepaper out of sight underneath her text reader, but it was too late. Elli had spotted it.
“Oooh, look who’s got mail!”
Elli’s long fingers darted out and snatched up the letter. Her dark eyes flicked over the lines of writing.
“Oooh!” she said again. Perada wanted to hit her. “Somebody’s mamma is going to have a baby!”
“You give that back!”
Perada grabbed for the note. Elli danced back out of reach, laughing.
“You didn’t share, so it’s mine.”
“It’s mine! My dadda sent it to me!”
“He’s not your father,” Elli said—the older girl was speaking clearly, so Perada knew she was meant to understand. “The letter says he isn’t.”
“He is so!”
Elli shook her head. “Is not. It said right there in the letter: your father is somebody called Gersten Kiel.”
Perada felt tears of frustration coming to her eyes. Galcenians were stupid. “It did not say that. Gersten Kiel isn’t my dadda, he’s my gene-sire, my—”
She was speaking Entiboran now, because Galcenian didn’t have the right words to say it—if the words had been the right ones, Elli would have understood when Dadda used them. She gave up trying to explain and made another grab for the note. Elli tossed the sheet of paper to Gryl, saying something as she did so in that too-fast, too-mixed-up kind of Galcenian that the other girls spoke with each other, and Gryl threw the letter down the waste-recycling chute.
Perada slapped Elli across the face.
Elli screamed.
Gryl shouted, “I’m going to tell! I’m going to tell!”
“I don’t care!” Perada shouted back at her, and ran out of the room.
She was all the way down the hall and halfway down the main stairs—not knowing where she was heading or what she was going to do when she got there—when she ran headfirst into Mistress Delaven coming up.
“Now,” said Zeri Delaven in a dreadful voice. “What has disturbed the tranquillity upstairs?”
It was no use keeping secrets from Mistress Delaven. The students said she read minds, and Perada believed them. She told the whole story—letter, waste chute, slap, and all.
“I see,” said Zeri Delaven. Perada couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Come with me.”
Perada followed Mistress Delaven to the small room near the school office where students waited for interviews, and sometimes for discipline. The door slid open when Mistress Delaven touched the lockplate.
“Stay here for now,” Zeri Delaven said. “I need to have a word with Gryl and Elli.”
Perada went into the room and the door slid shut behind her. The soundproofing was thick; she couldn’t hear if Mistress Delaven, on the other side of the door, went away or not.
The waiting room held only a couple of desks and, today at least, one boy. He was about Perada’s age, or a few months older, and he looked as if he’d been crying. He was new, Perada thought; at least, she’d never seen him before—and it was usually the new students who cried.
For a long time she didn’t say anything. But Zeri Delaven didn’t come back, and the quiet room was lonely even if it did have somebody else sitting in it.
“Did you just come here?” she asked finally—in Galcenian.
The boy looked at her and swallowed hard. His face was blotchy and his eyes looked puffed—yes, Perada decided, he had definitely been crying.
“Today,” he said. The words came out slowly, with long spaces of thought between them. “From Pleyver. And I can’t. Understand. Anyone!”
His accent, Perada thought happily, was even worse than hers. But there’s two of us. And if we stick together, Elli will have to leave us alone.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll help you.”
VII. GALCENIAN DATING 974 A.F.
ENTIBORAN REGNAL YEAR 38 VERATINA
JOS METADI opened his eyes. The ceiling seemed too far away, and it took him a few seconds to orient himself. He wasn’t on his ship or in some portside flophouse—the high overhead that had at first startled him told him as much.
That’s right. Perada’s buddy Tarveet and his family’s little place in the country.
He rolled onto his side. From the new position, he could see that the morning had dawned a wet and sullen gray. He felt like he’d slept in his ctothes—which turned out to have been the case—and his face felt scratchy.
Wonderful. Wrinkled clothes and a face full of stubble. And I’m supposed to convince the locals that I’m the Domina’s professional bodyguard.
Thinking of the Domina caused Jos to look for the first time at the place beside him on the bed. Perada was gone. He felt a wrench of dislocation that was almost physical.
You knew it would be like this, he told himself. The reminder didn’t help. He grunted and rolled out of bed. No point in lying here.
He stretched and ran his fingers through his tangled hair. A quick look around the room showed him that nothing obvious had changed since the previous night. The inner door was locked again on the far side. The refresher cubicle, fortunately, was not; he had a long, luxury-loving shower underneath what seemed like an unlimited supply of hot water, and felt somewhat less out-of-focus as a result.
He put his old clothes back on for lack of anything better. Then—seeing no point in another several hours of idle waiting—he slid open the room’s outer door.
A stack of trunks and boxes filled most of the service hallway. Shipping labels on the boxes declared them to be the property of The Royal Party of Entibor, and enjoined the recipient to Hold For Arrival. A quick look at the routing codes told Jos that the boxes had been sent from Innish-Kyl on the same day that Warhammer had left.
Whoever posted these, he thought, knew that we’d be coming next to Pleyver.
Years of working the dubious side of the spacelanes had given Jos a deep-rooted mistrust of mysterious packages that appeared at convenient times. He pulled the top sheet off the bed, twisted it, and tied it to the handle of the uppermost case. Then, standing around the corner of the open door, he gave a quick jerk to the improvised rope. The case fell from the stack onto the floor.
As far as he could tell, nothing else happened. No explosion, no noxious fumes. So far, so good.
Feeling a bit foolish, he dragged the case over to the window where the light was better. If his hosts had wanted to kill him—or Perada—they’d had a dozen chances already. And they weren’t likely to pick a method that would require them to replace all the wall hangings afterward. But feeling foolish didn’t stop him from rigging a remote-release on the box’s catch, or from taking shelter behind the far side of the bed while he used it.
The top of the case cracked open—nothing more. Nevertheless, he waited for several minutes before walking over and lifting the lid. Inside the box he found a layer of women’s clothing, with a card and a sealed envelope lying on the top.
He picked up the card. It was small and rectangular, cut from thick, heavy stock, with an elaborate crest in raised gold. Underneath the crest was a handwritten note, in Galcenian:
You are wise, Captain, to take precautions. Few things are what they seem. The young Domina’s continued safety is of the utmost importance. I congratulate you on the care you have taken thus far, and wish you every success in the future. Aw
aiting your arrival at Entibor,
I remain, your servant, &c.—
Beneath the note, by way of signature, was an elaborate swirl of Entiboran script—initials, it looked like, worked into some kind of design. Jos frowned. As a privateer and sometime trader, he had first-glance recognition of any number of seals, sigils, chops, and trademarks, and casual knowledge of a great many others. None of them matched the one he was looking at.
He laid the note aside with a sense of unease. Whoever had sent the Domina’s belongings to Pleyver must have known in advance that she would come here, and that he would be coming with her. Jos didn’t like the idea of somebody being able to predict his movements with that much accuracy. He made his own living by knowing where the Mageworlds ships would be, and when, and had no desire to play the victim in someone else’s ambush.
I’ll have to talk to Errec about this, he thought. See if he’s noticed anything funny going on.
He picked up the envelope. It was thick, as if it contained many sheets, and the same hand that had written the note had inscribed on the front: “To: Perada Rosselin, Dom. Ent., F.C., S.B.” A line of Entiboran script, written with the same firm elegance, ran beneath the address, and the unfamiliar sigil-signature was sketched across the seal on the other side.
He heard the faint creak of the inner door swinging open, and looked up. Perada had come back from wherever she had vanished to while he was asleep. She wore a widesleeved white bathrobe, and she looked like she’d washed her hair and put it into braids while it was wet.
“Good morning, Captain,” she said. She craned her neck a little to get a better view of the letter in his hand. “What do we have there?”
Jos nodded toward the partially open box. “Looks like you don’t have to go shopping in Flatlands,” he said. “Somebody knew that you were coming.”
The Gathering Flame Page 11
