Flood Tide

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Make it something elaborate," he said. "You know ... a small something along the lines of Cardinal Boregy's this summer ..."

  "Should we be ordering up an orange robe for you?"

  "Never!" said Quincannon.

  If the security chief had any religious beliefs, Kali had never heard him voice them. The Greelys were nominally Adventist, although her own mother, Isadora Duquesne, had dabbled in secret Janism.

  "Would you like me to lie and say this won't hurt?" The disinfectant was a paste made from plants and fish oil. Effective, but it did have that one drawback.

  "Smells awful."

  "So what happened?" she said as she began to spread it on his skin. "You been drinking in the wrong bars again?"

  "Hardly!" said Quincannon indignantly. "For the last few months I've been trying to sniff out who's behind those hijackings . . . you know, the lading and damage bills that don't match. Greely and Company isn't the only House who has been feeling the sting. —So I was down near East Dike, second level, talking to some other warehouses . . . and some damn bridge-bullies jumped me. Out after some money and a bit of fun."

  "They made the mistake of picking you."

  "Exactly."

  "So where are they now?" she asked, knowing full well the answer.

  "I gave 'em to the Det!" he grinned. "—And, do you know, not a one of them could swim."

  "This looks as if it happened several hours ago. Why didn't you have it attended earlier?"

  "It wasn't that bad and I had to report to your father. More than likely I was the last one to see him before he was killed. —Damn, I should have been there!"

  "So why didn't you tell that to the blackleg—about talking to Father?" She measured a long bandage into her hand and began carefully winding it around his shoulder. "It might help him."

  "I don't really know," said Quincannon. "Let's just say I didn't have much use for McVoy. Never did have much use for blacklegs in general."

  "Hmmn. But you were a blackleg once."

  "Maybe I didn't like the kind of company that I was keeping."

  "This house is better?"

  The key was still where Kali remembered— wrapped in a stiff piece of leather, hidden under the loose board beneath the leg of her bed. She couldn't keep from a little shiver as she took it up, remembering the illicit thrill of the first time she'd gotten nerve enough to use it . . . oh, there'd "been no doubt in Kali's mind that if her father had caught her he would have exploded—but that had been the fun!

  Child games. These were not. Knowing what she knew of Greely house secrets, she entertained her own suspicions; so immediately after depositing Miles Quincannon where he and the blackleg investigator could talk in mysterious private, she'd headed elsewhere: McVoy had said he wouldn't need to talk with her for at least an hour—more than enough time for her to do her own investigations. Her key, thank the Lord, was still in its hiding place.

  A trek to the downstairs hallway, then: the keyhole was hidden inside the mouth of a wooden gargoyle, part of a carving in the paneling. Twist it first to the right, then to left, with no little strength—and a lever elsewhere moved, counterweights dropped, and a section of wall a few feet from her pulled back on itself.

  Kali stepped through into the pitch dark between the walls of Greely House, a space only wide enough for one person. The air inside was warm and dry, washing over her face like a shower.

  She hadn't bothered with any kind of lamp. A shove at the lever from the inside to send the panel back again put the passage in total dark, but a hand on the wall was all the guide she needed ... a careful walk then, though she remembered the way, and the passage dead-ended a few feet beyond that destination.

  The passage brought her to a dark chamber that lay behind her father's study, complete with a pin-holed glass mirror, minute source of light. All anyone in the study might see was an oversized mirror in a frame that Marcus Greely had always claimed to be pre-Scouring. But an eye close to any of several pin-hole flaws in the aged silver backing could see the study quite nicely.

  An assailant coming from her vantage, from behind one of the bookcases, certainly solved the problem of the locked door. It also severely limited the number of possible suspects—uncomfortably limited them.

  Looking into the study Kali now saw several blacklegs conferring with a handful of staff in Greely livery. A small squat man bent over her father's body, carefully examining it with a magnifying glass . . .

  Then her heart all but stopped at the sound of a footstep behind her in the passage. She held her breath, her fingers clenched on the cold metal handle that would move the bookcase and allow her escape—by the entry to the study she was sure the killer must have taken.

  A moment later came a flood of lanternlight, a figure shadowed behind the lamp.

  "Well."

  She knew the voice. The lamp moved, showing her the face of the blackleg investigator, McVoy: in his other hand he held up a key. A rather formidable looking pistol protruded from his belt.

  "You're good," she said, still shaking. "I didn't even hear the hall panel open."

  "Thank you, sera Duquesne. Truth be told I've been in and out of here near on a half-hour. This place is fascinating. I got very curious when I heard you arrive. —Now, may I ask what you are doing here?"

  A muffled thump!: the passageway carried it like an echo chamber.

  "Where?" she gasped. "What was that?"

  "Above, to the right! Follow me."

  She expected a return to the hall panel. Instead McVoy went past her toward the dead-end wall. Playing his light across it several times: "Here?" he mumbled, then finally: "No, here!" His hand vanished into the darkness near the floorboard. Kali could only stand and stare as the supposedly solid wall she had been sure of since childhood swung open on hidden hinges to reveal an ascending staircase.

  Passages within hidden passages.

  "You coming?" McVoy said over his shoulder.

  "How did you know this was here?"

  "Quincannon told me."

  The stairs led up to another narrow passageway behind the walls. Kali had climbed but a few steps before she smelled a strong odor of sulphur and cordite—and realized the nature of the thump! that had echoed through the passages.

  "Whoever's doing the shooting," McVoy said, "is on the other side of that wall."

  It took McVoy a little longer this time to find the lever. When the panel opened, Kali recognized the sitting room in Simon's quarters. Draped across the couch was Simon—and there was no doubt he was dead: his head lay at such an impossible angle that his neck had to be broken.

  McVoy walked in, set down his lamp, and probed for a pulse at Simon's neck, but Kali knew he wouldn't find one. She let her gaze trail around the room. On the floor near the wall she saw Simon's gun, and she went to pick it up, finding the barrel still warm to the touch—a small-caliber pistol, it was, small enough to hide in his hand, or in the small of his back as Simon had preferred.

  "I'd leave that where it is, sera Duquesne," said McVoy.

  Kali looked up. The blackleg had his own pistol aimed point-blank at her.

  "So, you've decided that I'm the one you're looking for?" Heart thumping, Kali gauged the distance between them, wondering if she could possibly deflect the gun from its aim, get off a shot of her own with Simon's gun . . .

  Or, granted that blacklegs were notoriously corruptible . . .

  McVoy didn't answer. He stood there, a shadowed statue, the barrel of his gun unmoving.

  "You going to shoot?" she asked. "Or is it something else you want?"

  "It's not you he wants, little one," said Quincan-non's voice from her left, and Miles Quincannon stepped from the curtained alcove into the light. Blood dripped from the bandage Kali had wound around Quincannon's arm.

  "You?" McVoy gestured with the gun toward the body.

  "Aye."

  "Then—" The gun found a new target. "Be so good as to not make any sudden moves."

  "I th
ink not." Quincannon shrugged—then pivoted on one foot and hurled himself toward McVoy. The blackleg investigator fired twice. The first shot went wild, smashing into the couch above Simon's body. The second caught Quincannon square in the stomach.

  "Now why did he have to do that?" McVoy asked plaintively, the barrel still aimed at Quincannon, where he lay in a pool of blood.

  "Why don't you lie? Say that it's not bad and I'll get better?" asked Quincannon. A coughing fit followed. Then blood.

  "You wouldn't listen. You never do." Kali helped the old man stretch out on the floor, and rolled up a blanket as a pillow.

  "Damn fool," McVoy said.

  "I was talking to her," Quincannon said. Another cough. More blood. "—You can put it down to sheer flamin' stubbornness, little one. Now I suppose you'll be wanting to know about your brother."

  "Only if you feel like talking," she said, knowing Quincannon had at most a few minutes left. She took his left hand in both of hers and squeezed it, wanting—

  —wanting no secrets, no confidences. But Quincannon said:

  "I suppose I should say it was karma . . . 'cept I don't know that much about balances and karma and all that. —Truth is, I didn't want to run and I've never liked a hanging ..."

  "You, Quincannon?"

  "Couple of months back your brother got me involved in some money-making schemes of his . . . supplies from the family warehouses. Spiting your father was Simon's reason. Me, I enjoyed the money . . . only your father tumbled to it . . . something he heard tonight at that meeting with Kamat must've been the stick that sank the boat. He called me into the study . . . fired me outright, he did. Only reward for so many years of service was ... he wasn't going to call the blacklegs on me. They were for none other than his darling firstborn, Simon.

  "We ended up shouting at each other. Then I hit him a good one and walked out. I guess Simon must have heard the whole thing up the passages. Probably having the time of his life."

  The rest of the story was fairly easy for Kali to fit together: Simon coming downstairs, watching the whole thing from behind the mirror . . . and when he saw Quincannon walk out, seeing his sudden chance to be head of Greely House.

  "He—" Quincannon began again, and coughed up blood.

  "Don't talk," she said, pressing Quincannon's hand. "Don't try to talk ... I can guess the rest."

  But Quincannon was able to say: "Simon had the nerve to pin it square on me—damn if that wasn't what he was doing. He stole the seal, called the blacklegs . . . had the whole frame pat . . . had the face to tell me plain what he'd done ..." Quincannon started spitting up blood. Kali felt the old man's hand stiffen and then go limp.

  The rain had stopped, leaving a cold breeze behind it. Kali leaned over the railing of her bedroom's balcony.

  She hadn't slept. . . had had neither the time nor the inclination. Along the canal skiffs were working their way through their daily rounds. In the east the clouds were beginning to clear.

  It had been McVoy who had pointed out the obvious to the staff. With both Marcus and Simon Greely dead, Kali Duquesne was now Househead of Greely House. To her cousins' certain dismay.

  Which meant. . . security problems. Old debts to pay. And collect. Which meant there was a need for Simon's pistol, tucked in the pocket of her robe.

  The passages . . . Quincannon dead, Simon dead— and dear, miserly, murdering Father, of course.

  So Simon had double-dealt Quincannon. And her. But now she had no shortage of funds without the income from Simon's petty chicanery—and silences were already assured, Simon's most importantly, the damned, double-dealing, greedy fool.

  So the pilferages could stop now.

  Quincannon she did regret—a Househead in Greely needed a man of his talents.

  She watched the blacklegs below, on waterside, the inspector instructing the swarm of Signeury clerks in duties doubtless under-rewarded as his own. McVoy was a fine, good-looking man, a man of certain qualities—and sudden, bloody instincts.

  A man already in possession of too many Greely secrets. . . and well knowing his delicate position. . .

  McVoy . . .

  Indeed, McVoy.

  MARRIAGE

  by Lynn Abbey

  House Kamat of Merovingen was making a marriage. Pity the residents of Kamat: the family, clients, and tenants alike.

  Preparations had been underway for a month. Two gangs of carpenters hammered on the exterior, closely followed by painters trimming up in the traditionally lucky reds and golds. A veritable army of occupation descended upon the kitchen suite to prepare a feast for five hundred of Merovingen's finest—and this not counting those assembling to construct the penny-cake for the marriage largesse, nor the men installing hydraulics to get the two-meter-high confection from the kitchen to the mid-door where it would be divided among the ordinary folk.

  M'sera Andromeda Kamat, mother of the bride, designed the marriage costumes herself. Rumor proclaimed that twenty meters of the finest First-Bath lace went into the bridal costume alone; a rumor m'ser Richard Kamat could confirm, if he had time to study the receipts landing daily on his desk. The invitations had been calligraphed in midnight-blue ink, of course, on parchment culled and cured from the family's sheep flocks. Incoming gifts' had already forced the family to abandon the afternoon parlor on the mid-level; by the Big Day, the upstairs sitting room would be useless as well.

  Family and factotums steadily filled the guest rooms, while everyone awaited, with some trepidation, the arrival of Great Uncle Bosnou who, as the oldest surviving Kamat, would perform the traditional contract ceremony. The last time Bosnou came to Merovingen—for Richard's birth some twenty-seven years ago—he brought the entire stancia with him . . . and three dozen sheep for roasting.

  The memory of that event had made invitations to the contract ceremony prized possessions throughout the city.

  At Fowler's, a respectable dive in the Kamat Gut, touts were making book on the activities Upstairs. The odds on the ceremony itself were even and hadn't moved in two weeks. Kamat would get this contract signed on schedule if the Det were in high flood and the shaarh themselves were scouring the sky. The action was on the bride and the likelihood that she would stand before the podium with her firstborn in her arms or in her belly. Odds were posted three times a day—after Marina's meal tray returned to the kitchen.

  Marina would have thrown a snit had she known of Fowler's much-erased slate, but of that, at least, she remained ignorant. For ten days she had been confined to bed with her feet up, surrounded by solicitous servants, most of whom had at least a month's wages in escrow at Fowler's. It was not, however, below-stairs money that kept Marina cushioned from gravity's tug; those orders came from Richard Kamat himself.

  "It's not too late, Tom."

  "It was too late when it happened, Richard," Thomas Mondragon replied from the sofa where he reclined with a glass of Kamat's finest brandy dandling in his elegant fingers. "I told you that first off."

  "A lot can happen in a year; a lot has happened in a year."

  "But nothing has happened since you asked me last week. I'm content to see the late Raj Tai, now Rigel Takahashi, take my place at your lovely sister's side."

  Richard ignored the sarcasm. It had been a good three months since he'd had a kind word for his younger sister. If anything, Richard was harsher in his judgment than Mondragon. Richard knew how much of her behavior was theatrics. He knew what the theatrics were supposed to accomplish; and he knew, even as he put the proposal before Tom for the final time, that his own priorities forced him to dance to Marina's tune.

  "Knowing the price?"

  "Yes, Richard, even knowing the price—which you and I both damn well know isn't two tin pennies. Raj hasn't got your head for politics—" That was a barb that stung, although Richard was just good enough at politics to keep it from showing. "You've taken one heavy load off Elder Takahashi's back. Raj'll do your House proud as a physician ... he might even be happy doing it."


  Storm winds lashed the spire where Richard conducted Kamat's business. Logs shifting in the fireplace sent sparks up the chimney. The walls creaked. Richard was used to the precarious swaying of highest Merovingen; Tom was not. For once, the ice-blooded assassin was visibly uncomfortable. He clenched his glass and brandy sloshed onto his dark twill breeches. Richard almost smiled.

  "I suppose you're right. Happiness isn't part of an heir's education, is it?"

  Tom's expression was as sour as quinine. "You speak for yourself."

  "Has it occurred to you, Tom Mondragon, that you just might survive? You might outlive your enemies' interest in you. Not even the Sword of God's going to chase you forever."

  "You don't know the Sword."

  "If they're like you, I do. It's not a revolution, it's excitement, conspiracy, danger . . . and the lucky ones die before the game ends. You haven't been lucky, Tom; you're going to survive and if you're not careful, you're going to be lonely and bored."

  "I'm not going to sign that contract."

  "You're going to have to sign something someday."

  "Thanks for the advice. Can I leave now?" Tom set the glass on the table and dried his hand on his breeches. He was halfway to the door.

  "You'll stand Angel for the kid." It wasn't a question.

  Tom's face was hard and angry when he turned. "You don't know when to give up, Richard. I've got no sentiment; it rotted away years ago."

  "You've got no friends, either. There may still be a handful of innocents who believe you're some distant Boregy kin, but there's no one who doesn't know you're out of Boregy and into Kamat."

  "I feel safest when there's nothing binding me."

  "When the Det rises, there's nothing too precious to put on the dike."

  "Another Merovingen homily?"

  Mindful of the continuing rains and the monthly tide cycle, Richard shook his head. "You don't know the Det."

  "I'll take my chances."

  "But you will stand Angel?"