“You can’t say more?”
Dekkard grinned. “Could you?”
“Can’t blame a fellow for trying. Maybe some café when things settle down?”
“That sounds good.” As he walked toward the Gresynt, Dekkard worried about the not-quite-casual contact. As a Commerce councilor, Ulrich could have a number of reasons for trying to find out what was happening with the ironway, but why had Minz been so free with revealing the problems with the night heliographs? Or coal quality? Dekkard could understand the indirectness, especially given that both Minz and Dekkard were isolates, which meant that an empie couldn’t gain any hint about what either felt or if either might be lying, and that also meant that Minz could deny having passed the information … and that Dekkard could deny having received it. But Obreduur wasn’t on either the Military Affairs or Transportation Committee. So what was the purpose? Dekkard sighed. He’d have to tell Obreduur.
He did wait until he’d picked up the councilor and Ysella and pulled away from the Council Office Building. “One of Councilor Ulrich’s staffers asked me what was happening between Guldoran Ironway and the woodworkers. I just told him it was about workplace conditions. He’d have to know that anyway.”
“That’s a good answer. What tidbit did he give you before he asked?”
“Councilor Ulrich went to Siincleer to see the Resolute. There are issues about coal quality and about the new ship heliographs and their night capabilities.”
“Hmmm … interesting. Thank you.” Obreduur returned to reading the sheets of paper he held.
From that interaction, Dekkard surmised his actions and words had been at least satisfactory.
Since Ritter and Ritten Obreduur had no social engagements requiring transportation or security that evening, once Dekkard parked the Gresynt in the garage, he was free until the next morning.
He ate quickly in the staff room; then he returned to his room and changed out of his duty grays and into a conservative dark blue jacket and trousers with a pale blue shirt. The duty truncheon and gladius had to stay at the house, since they were allowed only when he was in a duty status. The throwing knives were at his belt, if concealed by the jacket, because knives were considered self-defense weapons, unlike swords, firearms, or large truncheons.
He would have preferred to run wearing something like the exercise fatigues he’d worn at the Institute, but appearing like that in the area where the councilor lived would have resulted in someone messaging the local patrol station and the subsequent appearance of a patrol steamer to investigate a “suspicious person,” as he’d learned the first few times he’d tried it.
So his routine was to take a long walk at a fast pace, and then return to the house and change into an old shirt and fatigue trousers and go down to the corner of the garage and go through a series of exercises and weight work, followed by practice with the throwing knives and then, after he cooled off, a warm shower, and a little time reading before he went to sleep.
He’d just come down the back stairs when he almost ran into Ysella.
“Heading out on your walk?” Her words and smile were pleasant. “Once you settle down, you won’t get away with that, you know?”
“Probably not.”
“Enjoy it while you can.”
“I intend to.” Although “enjoyment” was too strong a term, he did get a certain satisfaction out of walking, and he’d made a habit of varying his routes so that he knew most of the area within a four-mille radius of the Obreduur house.
Dekkard turned west onto the narrow sidewalk, walking along Altarama in the direction of Imperial Boulevard. He’d learned that there were more than enough people walking along the boulevard’s center gardens, especially in the late afternoon and evening, that no one paid much attention to a man who didn’t stand out, although the majority of walkers were young couples, those around Dekkard’s age, if not younger.
When he walked past the mansion of the chairman of Transoceanic, he briefly scanned the grounds beyond the chest-high gray brick wall, taking in the gardens flanking the drive to the entry portico. By the end of Summerfirst, the mansion would be closed, and the chairman and his family would have repaired to a cooler venue, somewhere like Gilthills or a mansion above the golden beaches of Point Larmat.
As usual, he saw no one outside on their grounds for the five long blocks before he neared the white gateposts, without gates, that marked the entry to East Quarter. Beyond the gateposts rose the white marble structures that lined Imperial Boulevard.
Dekkard walked past the gatepost on his right, its white-painted bricks rising from the edge of the sidewalk. He continued alongside the building that extended some thirty yards west, to where its front stopped, and five yards of white stone sidewalk filled the space between the structure and the curb, space already holding more than just a few handfuls of people.
There he paused, looking north toward the Imperador’s Palace and then south in the direction of the harbor. He decided to go south and walked to the edge of the boulevard, waiting for the young patroller on his raised stone pedestal between lanes to stop traffic.
A couple a few years younger than Dekkard stood less than a yard to his right, the younger woman wearing a fashionable net headscarf that concealed little, suggesting that the pair were unmarried, or recently married. Then the shrill shriek of the traffic patroller’s whistle signified that it was time to cross. Close to a dozen people strolled across the east side of the boulevard to the median and the narrow walled gardens it held.
Dekkard headed along the median toward the harbor, although the center gardens weren’t quite so well-tended there and the stores and the buildings flanking the boulevard were less impressive. The walls retaining the center garden were built so that every few yards there was a recessed area that created a built-in stone bench. Later in the evening, the majority would be taken, especially in full summer.
Dekkard began to walk faster.
Before long, he was nearing the Circle of Commerce, at which the center gardens ended. South of Commerce Circle, the boulevard lanes rejoined each other without a median, and the traffic worsened. The circle was also best avoided later in the evening, when ladies of questionable reputation frequented the area, often accompanied or watched by their sponsors or handlers. Such women were seldom the problem, unless they were low-level empies, but sometimes their handlers could be.
Dekkard was about to turn and head back up the boulevard when, ahead, he saw an older man wearing a pale blue linen suit of a good cut and decided to follow, wondering why the other man continued toward a dubious area. As he neared the man, he saw that the fabric was shiny in places and that the man limped slightly. Then, abruptly, the man staggered, almost as if dazed, and struggled toward the nearest stone bench.
Emp attack. With that thought, Dekkard ran toward the older man, only to see another figure, that of a slender woman wearing the telltale slit skirt of those in the so-called pleasure trade, moving toward the man.
Dekkard had no idea whether she was the empie or where her handler or sponsor might be, but anyone could have been concealed behind the topiary in the center gardens.
The woman saw Dekkard and looked hard at him, a fairly good indication that she was the empie, concentrating on projecting some strong emotion. But when he kept moving toward her, she immediately turned and hurried away.
Dekkard kept looking around, but no one else was that close. When he neared the man on the bench, the older man glared at Dekkard. “You spoiled everything.”
“I just saw you stagger…”
The man offered a lecherous grin. “They stagger you with pleasure … take your marks … except I never have much … just enough that they leave me alone.”
Dekkard hadn’t heard of that aspect of the so-called pleasure trade, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. “I was just trying to help.”
“You damned chill … your type thinks you’re so good … just leave me alone … I don’t need your so-called assi
stance.”
Dekkard immediately stepped back. “I beg your pardon. I meant no offense.”
“Just go…” said the man. “Man’s got to find pleasure where he can.”
Dekkard looked at the man closely, and, for an instant, he saw, or thought he saw, a much younger and prouder face, followed by the image of the same face, as if it were composed of thousands of tiny lights. Both images vanished, and Dekkard found himself looking directly at the old man’s lined and weathered face, with sad, but still angry and bloodshot, eyes.
Puzzled by the momentary images he’d seen and not wanting to intrude further, Dekkard stepped away, turned, and headed back north, glancing up at the night sky. The high haze was so thick that he could see only a few scattered stars, just the very brightest.
6
FOR Dekkard especially, Quindi was singularly uneventful. No information arrived from the Sanitation Guild, nor was there any additional material involving the Woodcrafters Guild and Guldoran Ironway. The usual number of petitions and letters arrived, and with Obreduur meeting much of the day with other councilors, and Macri and Roostof engaged in something involving the Kraffeist matter, Dekkard and Ysella managed to get caught up on their correspondence duties, which likely left Anna and Margrit behind on their typing those responses for the councilor’s approval and signature.
Dekkard and Ysella’s last duty of the work week was to escort the Obreduur family to Trinitarian services on Quindi evening. Not surprisingly, a steady lukewarm rain was dropping out of the grayish-green clouds when Dekkard eased the Gresynt under the roof of the side portico at a third before the sixth bell of the afternoon. Ysella stood beside the front passenger door, while Dekkard opened both rear doors on the side closest to the house. Gustoff and Nellara were the first to enter, taking the middle passenger seats, followed by their parents, who took the rear seats. Although the larger Gresynt was rated as an eight-seater, it was only a comfortable fit for six, and trips involving the entire family the previous summer, before Axeli had departed for the Military Institute, had resulted in a few tense conversations among the three siblings.
Once everyone was settled, Dekkard eased the Gresynt out into the rain, down the drive, and out onto Altarama, going east toward the East Quarter Trinitarian Chapel, some eight blocks east of the house and a block south of Altarama. He wondered how long the two siblings would remain silent. Only a fraction of a sixth passed before the silence lifted.
“… don’t see why we need to study Idylls of the Imperador … just a bunch of bad verse about Laureous the Great…” Nellara’s voice contained more than a hint of dismissal.
“… have to study it because each narrative poem shows the view and feeling of one of those in power around him…”
“Gustoff … stop using that condescending tone … I hate it…”
“You wanted to know…”
“Not that way…”
Dekkard smiled wryly and tried to concentrate on his driving.
Less than a sixth passed before he drove under the covered entry to the East Quarter chapel, modest in the fashion demanded by established wealth, with walls of polished gray stone set ashlar fashion. The side windows were essentially long rectangles with a triangle at top and bottom, thus making them extended hexagons composed of triangular gold-tinted individual glass panes so that when the sun did shine a golden light suffused the nave.
Ysella accompanied the family, while Dekkard continued on to the parking area. There he shut down the steamer, and, under a small umbrella, hurried back to the chapel to rejoin the family. The Obreduur family pew was toward the rear, since the councilor had only been a parishioner for a mere eleven years, and many of the worshippers were from families that had belonged to the parish for more than two generations.
Dekkard slipped into the pew at the end away from the center of the nave, still before the services began. He could hear the prelude played on the harmonium, one of the newer versions where a steam engine, similar to that of the Gresynt, but smaller, and located below the main level of the chapel, powered the wind pump that fed the organ pipes. He didn’t recognize the music, but there were many pieces he didn’t.
Although Dekkard had been raised as a Solidan, which was understandable since his parents were Solidans who had left Argental to pursue artistic aspirations in Guldor, he found himself less religious than they were, or than Obreduur and his family appeared to be.
Then the music ended, and Presider Eschbach stepped forward to the center of the sanctuary, a simple raised platform with a lectern on each side. The wall behind the sanctuary was dominated by a golden-edged tapestry hung from a shimmering brass rod that extended almost the full width of the sanctuary. Against a pale green background three golden orbs formed an arc. Within the orb on the left was a silver-edged green maple leaf, while the middle and highest orb held a silver-edged ray of golden sunlight splitting a green waterspout, and the orb on the right portrayed the outline of an antique four-masted ship englobed in the reddish-gold light of sunset on a calm sea. With each season the tapestry was changed, but all that varied was the background color, which turned to a rich green for summer, a pale golden red for autumn, and an ice blue for winter.
In that moment of silence, everyone rose.
Then the presider’s deep voice filled the chapel. “Let us offer thanks to the Almighty for the day that has been and for the nights and days to come, through his love, power, and mercy.”
“Thanks be to the Almighty, for his love, power, and mercy.”
The presider lowered his hands, and the congregation seated itself.
Then the choir, in the loft in the back and above the congregation, began the anthem.
“Praised be our Creator, our Definer, and Endower,
Almighty enduring truth whose love, mercy and power…”
After the far-too-long anthem, at least in Dekkard’s not unbiased opinion, the presider began the Acknowledgment.
“Our days are but fleeting threads in the fabric of time, our rocks of solidity but grains of sand on the beaches of eternity, washed hither and thither by the storms of fate and chance. This we acknowledge. Our vaunted knowledge is but a single flickering candle in the darkness of the Great Night. This we acknowledge…”
As he soundlessly lip-synched the words of the Acknowledgment, Dekkard glanced at Nellara, who was either whispering or lip-synching herself, her face almost blank, and her thoughts certainly elsewhere. He managed not to let a smile disrupt his miming.
Following the Acknowledgment, the presider moved to the lectern on the right and began his homily.
“We all know that the Almighty is a Trinity of Love, Power, and Mercy who stands firm against doubt and evil, against the unbelievers whose facts explain only the material world on which we live, a world whose apparent solidity is but an illusion against the vastness of the universe that is the Almighty. We look at the Palace of the Imperador and feel reassured by its solidity, an existence over twenty-three imperadors since Laureous the Great … but nothing lasts forever … except the Almighty…”
Presider Eschbach continued in that vein for almost four sixths. Dekkard wouldn’t exactly have called it inspired pontification … just redundant reiteration. Following the homily, the choir sang “The Golden Triad,” after which the graying presider offered the closing benediction.
Dekkard forced himself to wait until the organist had played several bars of the departure music; then he hurried from the chapel through the continuing rain to get the Gresynt. Not for the first time since he’d come to Machtarn, he was thankful that the Imperial capital didn’t suffer from the gray-black rains that fell around Oersynt and the more industrial cities.
When Dekkard pulled into the covered area, Gustoff opened the middle door for his sister even before Dekkard could get out. So Dekkard just opened the rear door for their parents, then closed it, and took his place behind the wheel.
No one spoke until the Gresynt was on Altarama headed back to the house.
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“… facts explain more than just our world…” murmured Nellara.
“… wasn’t what he meant. He was talking about what lies beyond the material,” replied Gustoff.
“The whole universe is material.”
“Have it your way,” said Gustoff half dismissively.
“That is enough discussion of religion,” said Obreduur firmly. “You both know there’s no point to trying to change what people believe by arguing. That includes family. And at least use facts. They might have an effect.”
Do facts ever have an impact? Dekkard wondered.
“Yes, sir,” said Gustoff.
“Yes, Father,” replied Nellara sweetly.
Dekkard concentrated on the road, which was necessary because the windscreen wipers weren’t as effective as he would have liked in the heavy downpour.
Given the continuing intensity of the rain on Quindi evening, once Dekkard unloaded the family under the covered portico and returned the Gresynt to the garage and wiped it down, he didn’t go out again.
Instead, he went to his room, and took out paper and the pen that his parents had pressed on him when he’d left home for the Military Institute. A bell later, he finished the three-page epistle to his parents, which addressed the guilt he’d been feeling because it had been two weeks since he last wrote. He sealed it, put a stamp on the envelope, and set it aside, knowing that the fastest way for them to receive it was by posting it in the box at the Council Office Building on Unadi morning.
With a smile of relief, he picked up another book he’d borrowed, with permission, from the councilor’s small library—a novel entitled The Son of Gold, ostensibly the story of a never-acknowledged bastard son of Laureous the Great.
It should be interesting, one way or another.
7
DEKKARD slept comparatively late on Findi morning, late being a little before the first bell of morning. As he sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, his bare feet on the heavily varnished white oak that floored all the staff rooms and halls, he couldn’t help thinking that, at times, the week felt too long. After five workdays, Dekkard felt that the one offday sometimes wasn’t enough to recover, not so much physically, but emotionally.
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