Hour of Judgement

by Susan R. Matthews

  The on-site staff were used to this. There were too few of them, and none with the generalist’s skills Andrej had gained in eight years as a Ship’s Surgeon. None with his peculiar specialty skills, and they had ceded seniority to him almost without his noticing, as glad as these waiting folk to have his help to accomplish their task. He was in charge of day-clinic here and now.

  His gentlemen broke away from post behind him as Andrej crossed the room, going to their own stations. They’d been requisitioned early on to help the physician’s aides; they had good triage skills. He was going to owe them a holiday when this was over — but not at the service-house. That was unthinkable.

  At an off-license house, perhaps, which would mean scavenging in Port Burkhayden for food and drink to make a party. He would see if he could find a skilled provisioner to the task.

  There was a signal for him from the records-desk, the keeper on duty coughing into his hand politely — as a young woman rose to her feet from a chair near the desk. Quite a young woman, and the look on her face was so appealing — open and vulnerable. Something in her hands, what had she brought him, and why did she gaze at him with so much tense reluctant longing?

  “His Excellency asked after this preparation,” she said; and Andrej recognized her at last, the little girl from the gardener’s house. The daughter of the house, the young lady Tavart, bearing for him a pot of ointment. Of salve. “I hope that this may serve? It’s the first time I’ve tried it, I’m not sure it’s quite right but I didn’t want to delay any longer.”

  She held the ointment-pot out to him, her hands shaking almost imperceptibly. Andrej raised his hands in turn to receive her gift, but his hands were full, and he gestured helplessly, feeling as awkward as if he had been so young as she was all over again. Had he ever been so young? In his life, ever?

  “Oh, but my apologies, Miss Tavart.” He thought she was a “miss” yet, an unmarried woman in her mother’s household. “If you would be so good as to come through. I find myself at a disadvantage.”

  Through to the treatment room, where he could disembarrass himself of his fast-meal and take the ointment-pot into his hand, tipping the lid off with a careful twist. The creamy fat inside was rosy with the pale ghost of the color of jellericia flowers, and the fragrance — though subtle — was distinct.

  It was unusual, so soft, and yet so penetrating — strong enough for all its delicacy to penetrate the insulted brain of a beaten woman and carry its message of comfort, its memory of home, to her dreaming mind. Something to encourage her to return to the world, if only for the fact of such a perfume.

  “It is precisely the thing, Miss Tavart. Is it that I shall call you ‘miss’?”

  She blushed, and Andrej wondered if he was being irresponsible. He was flirting. No. He was not. A man had no business flirting with such a young woman. Let her cleave to her gardener. They were not suited in station, but neither were she and Andrej suited in station, and at least her gardener was of an age. And seemed to be a decent hardworking young man, while for himself though just at present Andrej was hardworking he could not in honesty believe that “decent” could describe him.

  “My name is Sylyphe, sir. I’ve brought these other things, as well — ”

  She had a carrying-sack with her, and opened it now, setting it on the level to draw her treasures forth. They were alone together in the treatment room, though the door was open. Andrej stood beside her to see what she had brought, straightening up as he noticed himself leaning rather more closely than he ought.

  “Hanner has been called away, and I don’t have his . . . his knowledge. He said to wash the spent blooms in alcohol to take the last of the scent.”

  A flask of rose-pale water, but when she unstoppered it a delicious fragrance of jellericia filled the room. It addled him, all of a sudden. The fragrance was as clean and as pure as a maiden’s first love; and she was a maiden, clean and pure, who carried within her the awesome divinity of her still-only-potential womanhood. To be the man to dance with her, to lead her across the threshold between childhood and grown age, to be the man to see her first come into the pride and power that was her birthright as a woman —

  She passed the vial to him, and their hands touched. Her fingers were cool, as delicate as the spear-shaped leaves that clustered around winter-blooming yellow-trumpets in the snow. She seemed to recoil back from the contact, startled; the same touch grounded Andrej, in some sense, recalled him to the understanding of who and where he was. This was a child that stared at him with such dark lustrous eyes, her blushing mouth half-open. She was perfect, tempting, all points delicious, but she was a child — or at least too young to be a woman to him.

  Andrej capped the flask. “Very well done indeed, Miss Sylyphe. And what else is it that you have brought us? I am overwhelmed with this surfeit of bounty.”

  Miss Sylyphe, yes, that was the way to do it. She dropped her gaze to her carry-pouch, confused, but composing herself with admirable poise. She was to be a formidable woman, when she came into her majority. Was the gardener man enough to partner her?

  Why should he wonder about the gardener, when this child of privilege would surely find her match amongst men as privileged as she?

  “There was half-a-flat of jellericia coming into bloom already, your Excellency. The flowers lose their fragrance; it was too late to use them for the ointment, but they do still smell a bit, don’t they? And they look nice. I thought — ”

  Call me Andrej, Andrej thought. You are not angry with me, surely, why should you be so cold as to say "Excellency?" No, you must call me Andrej, all of my friends do. As if he had any. As if anyone had called him Andrej in the past eight years. Call me Andrej, come back later, we can talk more freely when the day is done and we can be alone together.

  She held out a lush bouquet of jellericia, its dark green foliage begemmed with tiny crimson flowers. He could see what she meant, if he looked carefully. The blossoms were a little worn, in fact, and the fragrance scarce discernible.

  “I applaud your instinct, Miss Sylyphe.” And he could do so honestly, without ulterior motives. “This will indeed make a pleasing decoration. Of those out there it may be there is more than one, that remembers what these look like.”

  When she smiled she was all child, and he was safe from himself. “If the ointment is all right I can have more of it in three days’ time, your Excellency. Hanner showed me what needs to be done to force the next flat.”

  Andrej hefted the pot of ointment, now all adult once again. There was enough here for several days’ treatment of the woman from the service house. “If you could let me have as much again in so much time, yes, that would do very well. Thank you, Miss Sylyphe. I am to you indebted, and still now I must ask that you excuse me to the work of the day.”

  Now he could take her arm and turn her toward the door, and cosset her like an uncle his favorite niece. Now he could be an uncle to her, and not a man of whom her mother would be right to be suspicious. It was a relief. Because he had been so tempted.

  “Of course, your Excellency. Thank you, sir.” And once he was well settled as an uncle she found her own voice as a niece. Was it his imagination, or was there a suspicion of regret in her tone? “And a very good day to you, your Excellency.”

  “The best of good days,” Andrej agreed heartily. He was not a man. He was the adult male relative of her mother, and that was something else entirely. “My respects to your lady mother, Miss Sylyphe, and my very great appreciation for your hard work. Perhaps I will see you again in three days’ time.”

  And perhaps he would be very sure to have people with him when he did so. There was only so much a man could be expected to take.

  She nodded, blushing, and walked away through the wait-room without more words. Andrej watched her go, trying not to notice what a sweet soft cushion there was to her hips, nor how nicely she carried her back and shoulders.

  Well.

  “My apologies for the delay, gentles, if I mi
ght have the first patient. Please.”

  That had been a pleasant start to a man’s morning, and by the grace of the Holy Mother he had neither disgraced himself nor soiled the innocence of that woman-child by taking advantage.

  Now he had better concentrate on work.

  ###

  Fleet Captain Lowden stepped across the cracked flooring that paved the threshold to the hospital’s wait-room with precision born of distaste. What a depressing place this was, this public-funded; and yet his errant Ship’s Surgeon took to even so pathetic a clinic like debris to an intake pump. Drawn in so strongly that a man could almost hear the suction.

  “Captain Lowden. A surprise, sir.”

  Alerted by the orderlies Koscuisko came out of a treatment room to greet him. Koscuisko’s smock was soiled and his face was haggard, but there was amusement in his expression that Lowden could identify — if not appreciate. “Just in to port, your Excellency?”

  Wiping his hands on a bit of sterile toweling. The orderlies were showing Koscuisko’s patient out of the treatment room; a young woman, infant in arms. She only glanced in their direction. Her eyes were all on Koscuisko’s back when she did.

  “Oh, it’s been the odd hour, Andrej. We weren’t expected for another day or two, yes, I know.”

  Or else Danzilar would be all ready for his party, and they could get that over with and leave. Yes. But also Koscuisko should have been at the landing field to greet his superior officer, and Koscuisko hadn’t been. Lowden could excuse that, but he wasn’t going to let it pass unremarked upon.

  “Were we not.” Koscuisko was tired; it took him that extra fraction of an eighth to realize that he was being called to account. And still it was clear to Lowden at least that Koscuisko had genuinely lost track of the time. “I must then beg your pardon, Captain, not to have joined the welcoming party. No disrespect was intended.”

  Once he did realize, however, Koscuisko accepted the rebuke with grace and dignity, not stooping to insist on tiresome details that would explain and excuse his failure. On the one hand it was appropriate that Koscuisko bend his neck in submission to his superior officer. On the other hand Koscuisko’s very humility only emphasized how little Koscuisko cared.

  That was all right.

  Lowden had never required Koscuisko to care. Merely to obey.

  “I’ve been reviewing the discrepancy lists with the Danzilar prince’s people, Andrej, and there seems to be a problem with drugs-stores. And I wonder if that problem has your name on it.” He had time. He had four more years to break Koscuisko to his will. Koscuisko was well humbled already. Inside of a few months Koscuisko would be his, body and soul; and all it would take was enough bodies for the torture, and no time in between.

  Koscuisko bowed, only barely not grinning. “I felt it my right and due prerogative, Captain. Have I my authority exceeded? Because I the Lieutenant outrank, after all.”

  And Lieutenant Wyrlann’s self-indulgence, also noted in the discrepancies lists, cost the Bench almost as much as what the allowance for the medication Koscuisko had issued over the past few days amounted to. It was an interesting approach. Lowden smiled in acknowledgement of the creativity it displayed.

  “I’ll take that into consideration, Andrej. Now that we are here I’ll expect you to return to your Command, of course.” And stop playing doctor with this roomful of stinking unwashed Nurail. He would provide Koscuisko with other playthings soon enough.

  “Of course, Captain. But. If I may be permitted. I have these gentlemen been working hard, I owe them — and myself, with your permission — a holiday. Perhaps I may have your leave to the service-house to go, before this team which has been so overburdened is relieved.”

  Lowden thought about it.

  Koscuisko was tired.

  Koscuisko had few opportunities to go to service houses, and Lowden liked it that way, because the less frequently Koscuisko enjoyed human intimacies in a perfectly bland and pathetically mundane manner the keener the tension Koscuisko had stored up within him to focus on his work in Secured Medical. But a man could not be kept from women too strictly; a certain degree of access was required to maintain Koscuisko’s bodily health. Captain Lowden was a firm believer in preventive medicine.

  “Very well, Andrej. You’ll have to take your kit with you, of course.” Lowden called up one of his Security with a beckoning gesture of his hand. “I’m not sure how it happened, exactly, but you seem to have left the ship without it.”

  Koscuisko’s field interrogations kit. Had he known Koscuisko would be asking leave to go to the service house he would have left it under guard at Center House, but that was academic now. Koscuisko had not gotten the full benefit of the joke Lowden had set up for him, after all. Vogel had mined the punch line. Koscuisko could just hang on to his field interrogations kit.

  Koscuisko grimaced, but bowed. Koscuisko knew perfectly well that Lowden was his master. “Of course, Captain. Even as you say. And to report in the morning, then?”

  It always gratified Lowden to see how clearly Koscuisko understood his position. Koscuisko’s submissiveness sweetened Lowden’s mood now.

  “Mid-meal, Andrej,” he corrected genially, extending Koscuisko’s holiday to midday. “I’ll see you at table.”

  Koscuisko could go to the service house, but Koscuisko would brood; and carry the field interrogations kit with him, to serve as a constant, unwelcome, reminder of what his duty was.

  There would be some salvage value to his joke after all, and Lowden carried that pleasing knowledge with him as he left the hospital for Center House.

  ###

  It was cold in the curfew-darkened streets of Port Burkhayden, a cold that chilled to the bone even in the absence of wind. There was a little rain, but only a little one, so that Andrej could not decide whether it was soft mist or a very low cloud — or the spume from the sea-spray, come up from the marsh to plaster itself greedily against glass and window and leach as much warmth as it could suck from frame and sash.

  Captain Lowden doubtless expected them to go to the service house, but what Captain Lowden didn’t know wouldn’t harm Andrej — at least not tonight. He had not so much as told the Port Authority where he was going, though he had no doubt they could find him if they had to. Stildyne was going to be angry with him about that. He would work it out with Stildyne somehow. In the morning. Later.

  The local escort Andrej had recruited at the hospital brought them through black narrow streets to a secret part of town, hidden away behind warehouse walls and traffic diverters, to a dark house standing in the middle of a lot that seemed surprisingly large to Andrej for the middle of the city. Dark house, narrow gate, overgrown path, overgrown garden; and though there was no wind, the trees in the half-wild garden seemed to creak and clatter at him in a manner that Andrej did not find in the least welcoming.

  Once inside, though, once through the heavy weathered wooden door cracked reluctantly open only so far as necessary to let them in, once safely within the house it was quite different. Dark, yes, because most of Port Burkhayden was without power yet again tonight, and only a few public utilities — the public-funded hospital, the service house, Center House itself — were on auxiliary power. Dark but welcoming even so, because it was warm inside, friendly with occasional lights powered on reservoir and candles.

  Andrej stood bemused in the great foyer while their guide, one of the physician’s assistants from the hospital, went forward to complete final arrangements with the management. Candlelight. Candlelight was more practical than not in any service-house, but especially in an off-license house, where the women were by and large of a wider range in age and looks than one might find at the more elite establishments. At an off-license house at least they were all volunteers, or as much volunteer as a man could fantasize any woman to be whom necessity had forced to tender the privilege of her flesh as a commodity for lease.

  A girl came out of a side door with a hand-held beam and invited them to follow her with
a wordless gesture and a very pretty bow for Andrej himself. She was a pretty little thing all in all, and would be a woman some year doubtless, though she was surely no older than the daughter of the House Tavart — and he was not even going to speculate about that. A man did not have to do with children. No matter how prettily their petals trembled on the border between innocence and experience. No.

  They sat all together in a common dining hall and took their meal: Andrej, his Security, their guide, the lady of the house, some girls. Well, some of the house’s women. It was a species of pleasure in and of itself to sit in near-darkness and have his supper, while his gentlemen — knowing that it was a holiday, having been strictly instructed that they were on holiday and not on duty — relaxed by degrees, to disport themselves with ladies.

  And Pyotr, being black, was very exotic, and liked two at a time, and could give good account of himself as well — at least from report. And Hirsel was generally open to affectionate play from any direction, and the female direction was fully as enticing to him as any other.

  Godsalt could usually be prevailed upon to make a woman with dark hair feel appreciated, which was just as well since there were more dark-haired ladies present than otherwise. Garrity was celibate, within the requirements of the community of bond-involuntaries, and would happily sleep alone, which only left all the more for Robert.

  Robert liked ladies in more than a casual sense. He really liked women, and from all Andrej had been able to determine women by and large returned his genial if impertinent interest with charitable forbearance —

  When Godsalt threw a pinch of bread at his senior fellow Pyotr, and Pyotr in retaliation sent an only half-cleaned fruit-pit into Godsalt’s glass of drinking-spirit to splash half of the liquid into Godsalt’s plate, Andrej decided it was time he went upstairs.

  The lady of the house rose and withdrew at the same time, pausing only to nominate one of the girls to show “the officer” up to his room. It was one of the girls who carried serving-dishes back and forth; she did not mean for Andrej to take his guide to partner — Andrej was secure in that. But it was clearly high time he withdrew and left his gentlemen to their holiday.