The Savior - eARC

by David Drake

  Finally, he released her and she pulled her hand away. “I must go. It’s a ways back to the Tabernacle compound and the night isn’t getting any younger.”

  “Will you think of me along the way?”

  “Oh, yes. I promise I will.”

  He stood up, moved in front of her. For a moment, she thought he was going to detain her and make another pass. If so, she would show him the other side of her: captain of the women’s auxiliary who knew how to kick a man in the nuts, even a priest. But instead, he pulled back the willow fronds to clear a portal for her from under the branches.

  “Thank you, Reis. Such a memorable evening this has turned out to be.”

  Athanaskew smiled. “Absolutely. Shall we part here, or should I accompany you into the dining room?”

  “Why don’t you accompany me back in,” she said, taking his arm. “That will be quite scandalous enough. We must give the rest of them something to talk about on the way home tonight.”

  2

  She did not sleep that night, of course, and hurried home, thinking not one moment about the priest Athanaskew. All of the evening and following day was taken up with marshaling her forces, bringing in any merchant beholden to her who might have information about Joab Dashian and Hiram Zilkovsky. She caught Marone just as he was about to leave for the long journey back to Treville.

  His wife and now eight children may not have seen him for three months or more, but he was needed here. She made sure to tell her adjutant and assistant Dillard to double Marone’s usual rate.

  She didn’t neglect House Jacobson business, either. She sent out buy orders on dakbellies; then, toward midday, she began to sell, following prices up.

  Finally, Mahaut allowed herself a one-watch nap. She fell asleep with her head on her desk. She was awakened by Dillard tapping gently on her shoulder.

  “Marone has returned,” he said. “He’s brought someone with him.”

  “All right, give me a moment, then send them in.” Mahaut rose, went to a water basin, and splashed her face. She combed through her hair with her wet fingers, trying to straighten it a bit. In a silvered glass, she checked her eye kohl, attempted to dab away a smear.

  Useless, she thought. Besides, it may be better if I look a bit of a fright.

  Marone entered with a small man, bald, his head covered with a rainbow of tattoos resembling a dont male’s plumage.

  “Gentlemen,” she said. “What do you have for me?”

  The tattooed man eyed the chair in front of Mahaut’s desk, but when Marone did not sit down, he didn’t, either.

  “This man is called Hagen,” Marone said. “He runs the whorehouse that the dungeon guards visit most often.”

  “I’m a manager for several interests,” the man put in. He had a thick Delta accent, probably straight from the working district of inner city Mims. “The Sign of the Axe is just one of my properties.”

  “And who owns these properties you manage?” Mahaut said, since clearly the man was eager to spill all and improve his status in her eyes. What he thought she could do for him, she did not know.

  “Multiple parties. A group of First sons. They call themselves a club. Men who hold high places, let me assure you, mistress.”

  Marone slapped the man across the back of his head. “She’s to be addressed as Land-heiress Jacobson, you slob.”

  Mahaut held up a hand. “That’s all right, Mr. Marone. I answer to many names. Families of the Esplanade, Mr. Hagen?”

  Hagen smiled a buttery smile and gave a slight bow. “That’s right, Land-heiress Jacobson. Could be fodder for a bit of blackmail, if you take my meaning.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “But it’s the dungeons we want to know about.”

  “Tell her,” Marone said.

  “There’s been talk,” Hagen said, the smile dropping from his face. “About a couple of ripe ones that’s been brought in not long ago.”

  “Ripe ones?”

  “Juicy. Kind of fruit them guards fancy, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” said Mahaut. “I think I do.” She motioned to the chair. “Sit down, Mr. Hagen,” she said. “Tell me more, please.”

  The smile again, but this one seemed much more genuine. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said, and took a seat.

  So that’s what he wants, she thought. A little respect, false or not. He’s as easily bought as the women that work for him, if you pay in the right currency.

  She soon had enough information to assure herself that the two “ripe ones” were, indeed, Hiram Zilkovsky and Joab Dashian.

  What she needed now was a plan for getting them out.

  “Suppose I was concerned that someone had it in mind to break these two out,” she said. “I hear the Tabernacle dungeon is completely impenetrable. It’s an old place, carved down into solid rock in the days of the giants.”

  “That it is, Land-heiress, that it is,” Hagen replied. “There’s only one way out, and that’s cut down to pieces to fit a charnel bag.”

  “That’s good,” Mahaut said. “I was worried we’d have to buy someone off to prevent an escape.”

  Hagen looked chagrined, even insulted, that she thought he’d let such a rich opportunity pass. “There’s ways, and then there’s ways,” he said. “If you know what I mean.”

  “Tell me,” Mahaut said.

  “Those men, they might be Guardian in name, but they’ll tell my girls things they would never tell another soul on pain of death. They’ll do things for the girls, too,” he said. “And the girls know to bring anything useful straight to me—if they value their hides.”

  “And you pay them a bonus for the information, no doubt?”

  Hagen sat back in the chair as if completely startled by a thought that had never occurred to him. “No, Land-heiress,” he said. “They’re just whores, you see, and whatever you gave them would go straight to—”

  “Something to consider in the future, Mr. Hagen,” she said, cutting him off. “What have you found out?”

  “I’d need some kind of…reassurance, Land-heiress.” He squirmed nervously, rubbed his plume tattoos where a bead of sweat had broken out. “Something up front is what I’m getting at.”

  Behind Hagen, Marone harrumphed. He rustled his clothes as if reaching for a knife or billlyclub.

  “Mind your place, you scumbucket,” he murmured.

  Mahaut considered. If she paid in barter chits, Hagen would hold out, feed her as little as possible and string her along for more.

  Besides, she thought, he’s already shown me how to buy him.

  “No, no, Marone, Mr. Hagen has a point,” Mahaut said. “After all, if he told us what he knows without getting paid first, we might refuse to pay. I’ll bet that’s happened to you before, hasn’t it, Mr. Hagen?”

  “Damn straight it has,” Hagen said in a low voice. “Land-heiress.”

  “On the other hand, we could pay you half or even everything you want up front, you could spill whatever it is you think you know, then we could take the funds back, slit your throat before you knew what cut you, and throw you to the carnadons by the lower docks. Nobody would notice another body being torn to bits in the shallows, would they?”

  Hagen gulped, but did not answer.

  “Or we could get it out of you with no price to pay at all,” she said. “I’m sure you know how it’s done? You’ve practiced it on your whores, haven’t you?” Mahaut sat back, considered Hagen. “First a bit of knocking about. But that wouldn’t work on you, would it, Mr. Hagen? You seem like the kind of man who might even make it through the branding. Might even be willing to sacrifice your balls and a few fingers.”

  Hagen’s already yellowish cast grew even paler and more sallow.

  “Of course, I’m not a barbarian,” Mahaut continued. “When you started begging for death, I’d surely grant your request.”

  “Mistress…Land-heiress Jacobson, please, I was merely inquiring—”

  Mahaut cut him off. “How about this, the
n: you have a lot of mouths to feed at the Sign of the Axe and your other establishments. I’m sure it’s not just your staff, either. There are certain…complications to a business such as yours.”

  Hagen let another small smile trickle across his lips. “Them brats do keep building up like pests. I suppose I should clean ’em out, but we keep ’em, back in the quarters behind the main hall, where their sniveling and crying after their mums won’t disturb the customers.”

  “I’m surprised you have such a soft heart, Mr. Hagen.”

  Hagen shook his head, as if he astonished himself as well. “I know it, I know it,” he replied. “Most would. But it happened to me when I was a snot-grubber back in Mims. Bastards tore me away from my mum and sold me to a beggar gang when I was five. At least, I put it around five in years or so.” He reached up, rubbed his temple, then, quickly, his eyes. “Had to be about that, on account of I remember her. My mum, I mean.”

  “So you don’t do that to the whores’ children?”

  “Swore I never would. We put ’em out when they can work for a real wage.”

  This was the first sign of humanity she’d seen in the man. Of course, he could be making a show to gain her sympathy, but she didn’t think so. She could check the truth of his statements with Marone later, in any case.

  “I respect your skill, Mr. Hagen. I really do. You’re in a hard business, and you manage to make a go of it. So…let’s do it this way,” she said. “I’ll have my factor give you the wholesaler’s discount on grain. A quarter off the market price. So long as you agree to bring all your trade to us.”

  “At that price, I’d be a fool to ever buy from another,” he said. “Terms for ten years?”

  “Five.”

  “Done,” he said. He chuckled. “Done and done.”

  “But I’m going to want a bit more from you than just information,” Mahaut said after a pause to let Hagen gloat at his good fortune.

  “More? What do you mean?” He looked up, suddenly suspicious.

  And then she told him what she wanted, and Hagen’s expression turned to worry and gloom.

  3

  Orash

  477 Post Tercium

  It seemed as if the soot from Landry’s forge had worked into every wrinkle, every crack or crevice, in Abel’s skin. He could bathe and scrub as much as he wanted, but there was always some bit of coal dust, smoky residue, something filthy that would not come off.

  He’d learned to live with this over the past few weeks, but now that he’d been called to Corps headquarters in the town square, he was acutely aware of his own unkempt appearance. He’d never been a stickler for regulations, but he’d also made sure never to look like the town simpleton. He really ought to have cut his hair this past week, but he’d just been too busy, and, in any case, half the headquarters staff had come down with pneumonia.

  This had prompted yet another direction to Landry’s work. Center had long said that in order to produce effective antibiotics, an industrial base was necessary.

  But Center wasn’t here.

  And all he needed them for was to save one man.

  He described the process to Landry as best he could remember it from Center’s longish lectures.

  “The problem is there are lots of slime molds that won’t work, and might kill you,” Abel told him. “At least that’s the way it was told to me by the hermit.”

  “The crazy hermit who lived in the Escarpment near the Treville Scout headquarters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “You should.”

  “Oh, I believe everything you’ve told me about penicillin. Just like I believed everything you told me about papyrus cartridges back in Cascade, and lo and behold, they came out just fine and very deadly. I just don’t believe in that hermit.”

  “I have no other explanation.”

  “Not those voices?”

  “What voices?

  “The ones I used to hear you talking to back in Bruneberg, back when we were both working late at the garrison. You probably thought you were alone.”

  Abel grinned. “If engineering hadn’t been your calling, Landry Hoster, I think you would have made a pretty good spy.”

  “Growing up on the streets of Mims, it pays to keep your ears open,” Landry replied. But he smiled, obviously pleased that he’d struck at the truth.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore, though,” Abel said. His own smile vanished. “The voices are gone.”

  “Oh.”

  “The penicillin, Landry,” he continued. “You have to find the way to kill off the other mold but keep the penicillin healthy. You’ll know you’ve got it when it turns from gray to bright blue-green.”

  “Like a Delta whore’s eyes?”

  “As you well know, those are usually brown.”

  Landry nodded his agreement.

  “So how do I get this magic slime? What’s the process?”

  Abel shook his head. “That’s the part I don’t know. And, like I said, the voices aren’t around to tell me.”

  * * *

  Abel tried at least to smooth back his unkempt hair before he saw von Hoff, but it was no use. He was waved through the outer office by master sergeant of the Corps Dionis. Von Hoff was pouring over a map when Abel entered.

  It wasn’t the map of Progar that Abel had become familiar with. No, this was a large map, four papyrus rolls long, of all the Land from the Schnee Mountains to the Braun Sea. Abel stood on the other side of the map table from von Hoff and waited for the general to notice him.

  Von Hoff nodded and looked at Abel wordlessly for a long moment. Finally, he spoke. “You and Hoster were hard at work in your foundry, and I didn’t want to disturb you. But we heard something from down south, and then we got confirmation.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Headquarters received messages by flitterdak, three in all. Those animals looked ragged after their passages, let me tell you. They died soon afterwards, and their mates went on quite a keen.”

  The flitterdaks that were used as capsule bearers were a species that mated for life. They made the trip desperately seeking to be reunited with their mates. But a flitterdak that died near its mate inevitably led to an elaborate, and very loud, mourning ritual by its partner.

  Center had speculated that this was to inform other mateless flitters that the partner was soon to be available.

  “Those message all confirmed one another,” von Hoff continued. “The Blaskoye have massed for a large attack.”

  “Where?”

  “Near Treville.”

  “Treville? But the Treville Regulars are the best fighting force in the Land apart from the Guardians,” said Abel. “They know Treville will beat them back.”

  “Perhaps,” von Hoff said.

  “No ‘perhaps’ about it.”

  Von Hoff nodded, but there was a grim cast to his face. “If the Redlanders find a way or fight their way through, they become a direct threat to Lindron. A deadly threat when the capital’s defenders are three hundred leagues north.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Perhaps three weeks. They are still gathering the clans and tribes. At most a month.”

  “It will be a race, but we can win.”

  “Yes,” von Hoff said with a smile. “But I have another task for you.”

  “What is that, sir?”

  “You and the reserves will return to Cascade. Gather your Regulars there and march south as quickly as you can. I’ll dash with the main body to Lindron and secure the city. When the Blaskoye attack, you come down, I will be the anvil and you will be the hammer.”

  “But, General, aren’t you forgetting something?” said Abel. How could something so obvious have escaped von Hoff’s notice. “There’s also Treville.”

  Von Hoff blanched. Abel had never seen his commander look so reluctant to speak.

  “General von Hoff?”

  “There was another part to the message,” vo
n Hoff said in a low voice. “It concerned Treville.”

  Abel felt his heart skip a beat. “What did it say?”

  Von Hoff shook his head. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Colonel, but Treville is in disarray at the moment.”

  “What?” His voice was thick when he next spoke. “Has something happened to my father?”

  “He’s disappeared, Abel. So has the prelate.”

  “Zilkovsky?”

  “I’m afraid so. The Tabernacle inquisitors are trying to piece together what has happened. Until they do, Treville and the Treville Regulars are not to be trusted. They are not to be used in battle.”

  “We’ll be giving up half our strength!”

  “Don’t you think I know this, Dashian?” von Hoff cried out. His face showed the anguish Abel felt. “That’s part of the reason I’m flying like an arrow to Lindron. I hope to get to the Tabernacle and overturn this insane directive. I promise you, heads will roll when I get there. It’s madness. It can’t possibly come from Zentrum himself.”

  Oh, but it can, Abel thought.

  Treville was the strong wall, the lurking force, that protected Lindron from eastern invasion. For nearly forty years, Joab Dashian had seen to it that Treville stood strong.

  His father had always claimed that any competent man could do the same.

  Nobody believed that.

  If Joab Dashian had been removed—

  Possibly assassinated, Abel forced himself to think.

  —the eastern door had been thrown open for the Blaskoye.

  Zentrum had been denied his Blood Wind from the north. But he was going to have it from the east.

  Abel had a feeling von Hoff was not going to receive the reception in Lindron that he expected.

  Be careful, my old friend. The head that rolls may be your own.

  Everything was about to change. Zentrum was making his move.

  Which meant it was time for Abel to make his own. Von Hoff was giving him an army to do it with.

  The hammer to von Hoff’s anvil?

  To cold hell with that. He fingered the hilt of his saber (which he’d at least remembered to wear).