Sword of the Lamb

by M. K. Wren

  “From Rich.”

  She nodded, smiling to herself. “I wonder what the Shepherds call him. A holy man, no doubt, and they’d be right. Thank the God he can be here now. I don’t think I could call it properly done without him.”

  He drew her closer, savoring the calm of the night. “Nor could I.”

  “How long will he be staying?”

  “A week. Until my leave ends; my special dispensation from Confleet.”

  That last word seemed to create a silence, a shadow.

  “Alex, I . . .” She hesitated, then shook her head. “I can’t find the words for what I want to say. It’s Rich and you, and Confleet, and I know it’s breaking your heart. I want to stop the pain somehow, but I . . . can’t.”

  He stopped and looked down into her dark, somber eyes, his arm still resting on her shoulder.

  “I know, nor can I stop all your pain. Sharing only doubles the pain, really, and yet it makes it easier to bear. A paradox, that.”

  Her eyes didn’t leave his, nor did she smile, and the moon shadows moved softly across her face.

  “Too much,” she said after a long pause. “Too much is asked of you. Too much to accept; too much to tolerate. I wonder if you won’t reach a breaking point.”

  He felt himself going pale, something chill in the wind. “I won’t break.”

  “No. But you’re damned with a conscience and open eyes. A dangerous combination.”

  He took her hand and looked down at the ring he’d put on her finger only hours ago. Ruby and sapphire; Woolf and Eliseer. A life vow. And a hope; a desperate hope.

  “Three more years, Adrien. I should be able to survive that.”

  “And will it all be over then?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t think past that.”

  “No.” She pressed his hand to her cheek. “Forgive me, love. I’ve learned one lesson in life, but for the moment I forgot it. Joy must be taken in the present tense. We can remember the past and imagine the future, but we live here in the present. And Alex . . .” Tears brimmed in her eyes, and he couldn’t at first resolve them with the laughter, warm as sundrenched earth. “Alexand, my lord, this present is so full of joy for me, it spills over into both past and future.”

  He touched her cheek, wet with tears, and felt the tears in his own eyes. “And for me. Joy enough to see me through any future.”

  He made no conscious decision to kiss her; still, there was no surprise that it happened. He closed his eyes, hearing the soft wind in the trees, remembering and imagining, and holding this moment; holding the awareness of this linked-twin soul, of her whole being, mind and body.

  “Never doubt I love you, Adrien.”

  “I never have, Alexand. I never will.”

  The words existed like lights in the leaf-scented darkness, fading slowly, one by one. Then she laughed and drew away from him, but still held on to his hand.

  “Come. Rich is waiting for us.”

  Alexand found himself laughing as they started off down the path. “So, I must share you with my little brother.”

  “Well, I hope you don’t think you’re the only attraction in Concordia for me.”

  They emerged from the grove, still laughing, but at nothing more than an indefinable elation. He slowed as they moved across the grassy knoll toward the viewpoint pavilion, his attention caught by an unfamiliar pattern of lights.

  Shimmeras.

  A cluster of golden shimmeras floated inside the dome, and a small table had been brought in, replete with flowers and wine. And Rich was waiting, turning at the sound of their voices.

  Alexand quickened his step. “Rich has prepared a private celebration for us, Adrien.”

  “Ah, how beautiful!” She broke away from him, running ahead to greet Rich with a laughing embrace.

  There would be laughter for Rich, too, and nothing could mar or shadow this present. The lucent spring days would stretch themselves like cats in the sun, making a store of warm remembrances, and no grief, no pain, no dread could coexist with this laughter.

  PHOENIX MEMFILES: DEPT HUMAN SCIENCES:

  BASIC SCHOOL (HS/BS)

  SUBFILE: BASIC SCHOOL 16 JANUAR 3252

  GUEST LECTURER: RICHARD LAMB

  SUBJECT: POST-DISASTERS HISTORY

  WARS OF CONFEDERATION (2876–2903)

  DOC LOC #819/219–1253/1812–1648–1613252

  Motivation in itself never explains great historical figures—context and blind luck are inevitably major factors in “greatness”—but it’s always interesting to consider. Lord Patric Eyre Ballarat in the period just before the Wars of Confederation (which began in 2876 and continued until 2903), had personal reasons for calling the “outlanders” enemies, particularly those who had turned to piracy. The House of Ballarat held franchises for the large marine vessels that carried most of the Holy Confederation’s trade and suffered most directly from the depredations of pirates. It’s possible that he also believed the “heathen” should be Mezionized. Certainly, if that weren’t a sincere conviction, he was careful not to let it be known. Like Even Pilgram, Ballarat recognized the efficacy of a spiritual-political union, and he had his Colona in the person of Bishop Almbert, Eparch of the Cathedron in Sidny, which was then the largest city in Conta Austrail, in some ways equivalent to Concordia today, although the comparison falls short in many areas. To be sure, the Holy Confederation’s Council of Lords—which is analogous to our Court of Lords—met there, but the entire administration complex of the Council would fit into the Hall of the Directorate alone with ample room for Almbert’s Cathedron. The Council was a very loosely organized body with little real power. Power in the Holy Confederation was vested in the Houses, and individual Lords maintained allegiance to the Confederation only to the degree that it served their needs.

  Patric Ballarat is the first prominent historical figure about whom we have a great deal of personal knowledge. We know what he looked like from numerous two-dimensional, monochrome “photograms” that have been preserved for us: a sturdy, broad-shouldered man with thick, dark hair and an unusually—even for the period—full beard. After he became First Commander of the Armed Forces of the Holy Confederation, he is always shown in that uniform, even long after the Wars when he had retired to his Tasman estate. What is never fully evident in the photograms is that he was slightly below average height at no more than 165 centimeters. This obviously didn’t prove to be a disadvantage to him. A few audio recordings have survived, too, most of them orations before the Council, as well as an especially stirring address to his officers on the eve of the Battle of Capeton, and, although the recordings are primitive by our standards, they still give us a measure of the forcefulness of the man and explain to a great degree his success in mobilizing the Holy Confederation to its extraordinary conquests.

  Something of his forcefulness also comes through in his Autobiography. In the first volume he outlines—a little tediously—his House’s history and his childhood, but the pace picks up as he goes on to describe his ascendancy to First Lordship of his House despite the fact that his father, although chronically ill, was still alive, and despite the opposition of his brothers, Hugh and Bryan. His marriage to Lady Noret Tadema, whose father was First Lord of the most powerful of the landed Houses, is recorded, as well as the births and histories of their two sons and two daughters, at least up to the time of his self-exile after the Wars. Ballarat was a remarkably good writer, and exceptionally well educated in comparison to most of his Lordly peers, and there we find a key factor in his motivation. His consuming interest was history, and he had what was often termed an obsession for the histories of the Roman and Brittish empires. The information available to him then was comparatively scant, but he devoured it all, and there is little doubt—in fact, in his Autobiography he spells it out very clearly—that his fundamental ambition was to
make of the Holy Confederation an empire.

  His imperial vision was not at the outset appealing to most of the Holy Confederation Lords. Here Ballarat found himself at odds with feudalism. The centralized government he proposed antagonized the more conservative Lords, who jealously guarded their power and prerogatives, and feared surrendering any part of them to a centralized power. But Ballarat was convinced that if the Confederation didn’t move into an imperial phase, it would disintegrate into isolated feudal holds and revert to a pre-Pilgram state in spite of the technological advances made in the intervening three centuries, and it would then be at the mercy of the emerging powers and alliances outside Conta Austrail.

  Undoubtedly, that consideration impelled him more than pique at the depredations of outlander pirates and competing merchant fleets, and more than concern for the souls of heathen. In fact, in his first efforts to interest the Lords of the Council in an imperial future, he said nothing about the unredeemed heathen, but spoke heatedly of the Sangpor League in Indonasia, which under the leadership of the King Madang Sambor was demonstrating its burgeoning power and confidence by wresting the established Sinasian and Indasian trade routes from the ships of the House of Ballarat. Other Houses whose fortunes were adversely affected by the loss of those routes—as well as the cargos sunk in armed disputes over them—joined Ballarat in demanding action from the Council, but the assembled Lords could only agree to make financial contributions to the House of Ballarat for the building and better arming of more ships.

  But Lord Patric was only thirty then and not yet First Lord of the House. Five years later he had remedied that and undoubtedly learned more about politics. He had also found an ally in Bishop Almbert, for whom the idea of spreading the light of Mezionism to the rest of the planet—as well as spreading the power base of the Church—had great appeal. The formation of the Allienza Salvador in Sudamerika and the growing power of the Sudafrikan Union under the leadership of Tsane Valstaad, as well as continually increasing losses of cargos, markets, and sources of raw materials, made Ballarat’s later appeals to the Lords more convincing, especially with Almbert to bolster them with fiery sermons urging the faithful to join the sacred crusade to bring light to the unenlightened. And finally the King Madang Sambor made the fatal error of launching an assault on the city and Home Estate of the House of Darwin.

  Under this spur, the Council was induced to accept the Articles of Union proposed by Ballarat, which among other things established the first Directorate, a body empowered to make decisions without the approval of the Council, to levy taxes on all Houses, and to create an armed force that, although it was funded and its manpower provided by the Houses, would be essentially independent of them. A few Lords rebelled at that wholesale surrender of their powers, but the weight of opinion was with Ballarat, and what had come to be called the Unionist movement held sway. With an empire to be gained—and a holy imperative to be served—to niggle at surrendering individual House prerogatives became tantamount to treason and heresy.

  Patric Ballarat was, inevitably, voted Chairman of the newly formed Directorate and First Commander of the Armed Forces of the Holy Confederation. He mobilized in a remarkably short time an army augmented by naval and airborne forces that numbered half a million men. His troops swept through the Sangpor League holds, taking the cities of Timor, Jakarth, Tai, Bangkor, and Rangor. Almbert’s priest-soldiers—and so they were actually called—followed in their wake, accompanied by the Lords chosen by Ballarat to hold and administer the conquered lands.

  This victory spurred the Holy Confederation to even more extraordinary feats of production and mobilization. Ballarat struck into Sinasia, where he met little resistance in the independent domains of Kangcho, Sankeen, and Kashgar, and was delayed only for a period of two months while he laid siege to Paykeen. Meanwhile, a secondary force commanded by his brother Bryan met organized resistance from the Shogan Lords of Hokido, but occupied the city of Sappuro within twenty days, then advanced into eastern Ruskasia. There Bryan didn’t meet resistance so much as huge, uninhabited stretches of land, but managed to find and subdue the holds of Okhotst and Yakutsk before Ballarat ordered him to seek more promising areas of conquest on the western coast of Noramerika.

  Ballarat continued his westward thrust into Indasia, where the independent domain of Ceylonia after less than a year fell to his armies, and the loose alliance of the rulers of Calcut, Bangalor, and Poona laid down their swords and bows—their only weapons against the Holy Confederation’s explosive-charged artillery and similarly armed airships—even before Ballarat’s soldiers reached the cities, celebrating their entry with festivals. However, the nomadic tribes of Shek Mashet’s Gulf of Persias alliance offered no such welcome, and Ballarat pursued those desert ghosts across dune and mountain for three years before Mashet came to terms. He did not in fact actually surrender, but simply agreed to let Ballarat occupy the city of Hamadan, which was the only established site that might have been called his headquarters, and in exchange the nomads were left alone in their desert fastnesses. The occupation of Hamadan was hailed as another victory in Conta Austrail, but it should be noted that this was the only occupied domain where Almbert’s priest-soldiers didn’t follow the real soldiers.

  Even if the full terms of Mashet’s “surrender” had been known in Conta Austrail, it’s unlikely anyone would have been daunted. The Holy Confederation was enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, with the expenditures of war financed by its spoils, and the citizens of the Holy Confederation in every class benefiting from both. Even the loss of life was ameliorated by soldiers conscripted from domains subjected in the campaign, and those conscriptions were often voluntary. Ballarat chose the Lords who occupied the defeated territories carefully and laid stringent rules for fair treatment of their new subjects; he didn’t want revolt biting at the heels of his imperial campaign, and it’s a credit to him and his administrators that there were only three such revolts—and they were disorganized and short lived—in the whole of his twenty-seven-year campaign.

  CHAPTER V

  July 3253

  1.

  The city of lights. A smudge of white coalescing out of darkness, expanding in a slow, silent explosion until the window was filled with light.

  Limbo, this voyage. Sometimes he had to remind himself to breathe, and sometimes he wondered if his heart would forget to beat. The pilot assumed he was asleep—Alexand huddled in the rear seat of the Scout, wrapped in a night-black cloak, whispering through a black night.

  Strange, he’d traveled half a world away, and the smell was still with him; the odor of seared flesh and dust. He carried it in his very pores.

  Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

  Clean from my hands . . .

  Lector Theron . . . Theron Rovere. . . .

  Alexand thought he was laughing until he felt the tears coursing through the dust on his cheeks; the dust from the labyrinths of the Kasai Orongo mines. Half a world away.

  The words of the ancient poet/dramatist in their elegantly metered phrases—he had first heard them on the lips of Theron Rovere. In his childhood. When was that? And had it ever really been?

  Lector Theron, will you never leave me in peace?

  A million words he must have spoken in those apocryphal years; they kept floating up from the deeps of memory.

  . . . No, this my hand will rather

  The multitudinous seas incarnadine. . . .

  “Captain Woolf? We’re here, sir.” Sargent Finley craned his head around, his voice hushed; a tone for waking the sleeping.

  Alexand moved tentatively. “Thank you, Sargent.” He squinted out at the glare of light washing the landing field, listening to the dull slap of Finley’s booted feet as he came around to open the hatch for him.

  A sharp, biting wind; winter. Two hours ago, the tropic summer of Sahrafrika. Now, as he felt the pavement under his
unsteady feet, cold cutting to the bone.

  “Your ’car is over there, sir.” Finley pointed toward the dark maw of a hangar. Waiting in front of it was the Faetonlimo with the DeKoven Woolf crest on the side. Hilding was approaching. Alexand watched him, finding the pattern of his scarlet cloak blowing in the bitter wind unutterably fascinating.

  “Captain . . .” Finley still wore the grime of the dust, too, his face patterned with the clean areas that had been covered by goggles and filter mask.

  “Yes. Finley.”

  “I—I hope it isn’t bad news, sir.”

  Alexand looked at him dazedly. A Confleet officer wasn’t called from the field of battle on an emergency leave for good news. Battle. The word jangled out of tune in his mind.

  “Thank you, Sargent.” He touched his right hand to his left shoulder in answer to Finley’s salute, then moved away toward the dark, fluttering pattern of Hilding.

  “My lord . . .”

  Alexand didn’t break step; now they were twin patterns of dark against light, scarlet and black.

  “What time is it, Hilding?”

  A pause. “Nearly midnight, my lord.”

  It had been 15:00 on a glaring hot afternoon when he left the Kasai Orongo mines, yet that had been only two hours ago. Not that it mattered.

  Hilding maintained a polite silence as the ’car spun across the light-webbed sea of Concordia. But he was waiting.

  Alexand stared at the back of his head, feeling the waiting. “Hilding, is it Rich?”

  A sigh of hesitation, then he nodded. “Yes, my lord. Ser Rich . . . came home tonight.”

  Ser Rich.

  The VisLord Richard DeKoven Woolf should be addressed as Lord Richard now, but that oversight was a token of affection, not disrespect.

  Ser Rich came home.