Divine Right

by C. J. Cherryh

  Everyone had an idea how to improve the city, but the Samurai were already doing something. They'd put a stop to the uncontrolled smuggling. Tradestuffs moved as their shippers intended; silver on the barrelhead reached the right pockets. Vega Boregy had greased the financial skids, but it had been Anastasi Kalugin who'd wrung the biggest coup from his father's hands: Samurai countersigned each bill of lading as it passed through the counting hall, and they had free access to sealed goods awaiting shipment.

  "Heard that you're ready to hire another two dozen?"

  "First of the month. We're expanding to the regular warehouses. A House will contract for however many men it wants, piece-wise or weekly. But the Samurai directors will make the rosters and sign the pay chits."

  The barkeep nodded. He could make a profit with that tidbit, or pass it along gratis to those of his acquaintance who had earned the privilege. Men and women who wouldn't have joined the blacklegs on a bet were willing to wear Samurai blue.

  A gust of wind blew over from Grand. The Bell's faded signboard creaked on its hinges. The summer smocks the Samurai wore filled up with air. Richard tightened his lips. Marina had come to him with a handful of designs before the need for a uniform had entered his mind.

  Don't make them look like thugs or servants, she'd urged. Give them their own clothes better than they thought they could be. So they 're proud to wear it, and they 're wearing it for themselves.

  The idea made sense, or at least it had made as much sense as any Richard himself was likely to come up with. Mostly he'd been glad to get Marina doing something useful with her time. His family's rising public fortunes were undermined by domestic turmoil. No sooner had his mother, Andromeda, recovered from her second bout of deathangel addiction than his sister had gone melancholy. Carrying Tom Mondragon's child under her ribs was turning out to be less than the idyll Marina expected. She had the appetite of a storm-tossed landlubber, but, mostly, she didn't have Tom.

  Richard knew more about Marina's love affair than she would guess or he would ever admit. Mondragon wasn't the confiding sort, but he was human and Richard had enough readings to plot a general course. Tom was taking his impending fatherhood hard. Mondragon didn't love Marina, but there was another woman—Richard didn't know her name—who'd cracked the Nev Hetteker's facade and left him vulnerable where he'd thought he was dead past mourning.

  Marina, on the other hand, blamed Tom for supplying Andromeda with enough deathangel for three incarnations. She hated Tom almost as much as she still loved him.

  Richard figured he'd have to send the baby away for its own good, with or without his sister. Still, Marina had been right. She'd made the Samurai recognizable and familiar. Merovingen-above or below didn't give its trust easily, but they didn't distrust the Samurai, and he owed his sister for that. . . .

  "Kamat wool?"

  It was the second, if not the third, time the barkeep had asked his question. Richard physically shook his sister's image from his mind and scanned the customs docks for something that looked like bales of wool.

  He found it unloading from a motor cart. The gusts had become a stiff breeze; the stevedores were hard-pressed to get the pallet from the deck to the dock. Two of the Samurai came forward to help after taming their smocks with knotted ropes. The pallet was safely stowed on a customs cart. The Samurai returned their rope belts to their pockets.

  There was hardly a canaler in Merovingen who didn't keep his pants up or his shirt down with a length of sheet rope. Angel knew it was a practical solution to the problem but not the image Richard wished his Samurai to project. "Sashes," he murmured, unaware of his own voice. "A wide red sash ..."

  The barkeep stroked his wiry, tan beard. The Ramsey Bell had been in his family for generations, always catering to the particular needs of the Customs House workers. He prospered as his clientele prospered, and he was genuinely protective of them. He knew his regulars as well as their families and competitors did, perhaps better since his needs were always simple and well-defined. He was a sponge taking everything in, yet rarely giving anything away.

  This would be a rare day.

  "I think not, m'ser." He spoke softly though they were still alone and there was no one around to overhear. "There's more to be done with leather of a certain width and texture." He meant to sound mysterious, yet buyable, and he succeeded.

  "Of what texture?" Richard took the bait.

  The barkeep stepped back so Richard could see him from the hips up. He unclasped his belt. The only remarkable thing Richard noticed was its length: it was too long by half and whippy as a snake. With well-practiced gestures, the barkeep laid the tongue across his left wrist, then, moving too fast for Richard to follow, he whirled the leather along his arm from elbow to wrist. Grinning proudly, he flourished his arm. The hook of the steel clasp extended a knuckle's length from his armored fist. The whole procedure, from waistband to flourish, had taken less than ten seconds.

  But Richard was slow to grasp the significance of what he had been shown.

  "Got it from a Chat merchanter, all decked out in silk and uncommonly fearful of it bein' cut to ribbons. How many's the time yer out alone and yer apt to be rousted? Maybe he'd got a knife. Maybe there's two of 'em. An' yer not the sort who wears a sword for temptation. If ye've got enough time to sneeze, you can get yer off arm out there in front. Thicker'n any glove. Parry hard, maybe nick his knuckles with the buckle or snag his knife altogether ..." The barkeep crouched down, warding with his left arm and feinting with his empty right hand. "S'easy enough, with a little practice."

  Somewhere on Yucel there was a salle d 'armes that taught two-weapon work. Not a particularly respected salle. Richard's tutor had always stressed the wisdom of doing one thing with great competence rather than two with less. And he had never, personally, been rousted.

  "Works on dogs, and rats. Skits, too."

  There was something about the indigenous skit that invariably brought a grimace to a human face. Maybe it was the subtle alienness of the beasts. Most other natives were either basically familiar or utterly strange, but the skit, shelled like a crab, tailed like a rat, and adaptable enough to eat anything brought out the xenophobia. Earth genes just reared back and said unclean on a primal level. Nobody wanted to tough one.

  Richard wiped one hand against his trousers. The red sash had been a fleeting thought at best; no match for the mental imagery the barkeep had aroused. The barkeep, sensing that the deal was clinched, straightened his arm. His open palm caught the falling coils of leather. Richard reached out to feel the goods for himself.

  "Don't suppose you'd let me have it as a model?" The other man shook his head. "Shirt'd be filthy by noon."

  "A lune would buy a new shirt."

  "But not a new belt, m'ser."

  "A lune would buy two or three."

  The barkeep's eyes glazed with swift calculations. "A lune would indeed buy two . . . after tomorrow morning, if there's a job in it for a friend of mine." He hadn't selected the friend any more than he'd bought the unworked leather, but neither would be a problem.

  "If your man's fit. If he can read and cipher, and carry himself right, there's a slip behind East Dike— you'll know it by the Red Turban signboard. There's a hall at the end. Send your man there Monday next and he'll get a fair deal."

  Four days to winnow through his relatives and acquaintances. "Done," the barkeep extended his hand as soon as he'd refastened the belt around his waist. "How many?"

  "Fifty to start."

  The barkeep's eyes widened. "I'll need a mite more time . . . and a show of earnest."

  Richard nodded. "Two weeks, and a tenner?" He showed the bright gold coin.

  Not for the first time, nor the last, the barkeep marveled at the casual way the hightowners handled their money. The Ramsey Bell was worth a tidy, golden sum, but his liquid capital was all in copper and'silver.

  He'd not rest easy until the coin had passed safely through his hands.

  The outer door ba
nged open and stayed that way. The barkeep secreted the tenner in his breeches and removed all hints of excitement from his demeanor. Richard did the same as Grev Martushev tossed a satchel on one of the window tables. A fringe of lead seals jangled against the wood, telling Richard, and the barkeep, that the bag held diplomatic, and likely secret, correspondence.

  If showing a pocketful of gold was risky, leaving a sealed diplomatic pouch untended was pure provocation—and very much Martushev's style.

  "Just the man I was looking for—" Grev advanced on Richard with a theatrical grin and an extended arm.

  Richard felt his pulse quicken. No one could have, or should have, expected to find him here. Years of practice under his mother's socially exacting eye paid off. His smile was as natural, or unnatural, as Martushev's. Martushev and Kamat had been rivals since his grandfather, Hosni, had bought a Merovingen island from the bankrupt Adami clan. As with all such rivalries, they knew each other better than they knew most of their friends. But familiarity didn't make for comfort. It took all Richard's will and poise not to draw back as Grev surrounded him with a back-slapping handshake.

  "You're a lucky man, then, m'ser. I hadn't expected to stay this long myself." Richard shrugged off the forced camaraderie.

  "Uncle Sorghus had to go out at midnight to put his seal on a detention writ."

  Grev let his arm fall, but the smile remained on his face, and Richard grew distinctly nervous. All the reasons he could imagine for that grin added up to bad news for Kamat. He held his peace and let Martushev play his next card.

  "Seems your blue boys were on the ball. Caught some lowlife fingering the goods from a Falkenaer tramp-ship. Don't mind telling you that we'd be in a world of hurt if what's under those seals had fallen into the wrong hands—"

  Martushev hadn't subscribed to the Samurai prospectus. They hadn't said that they expected it to be filled with Kamat stooges—they weren't foolish enough to imply something that might offend the Boregy bankers—but they'd implied enough. Even now, Grev's arched brow and narrowed eyes implied equal amounts of surprise that the satchel had been returned intact and disdain for the same lily-pure reason.

  "The mandate was completely impartial—if you bothered to read through the prospectus."

  Martushev shrugged. "Too much risk for the return. Have to reconsider now. That's what I was looking to tell you. It's hard to ignore success and it seems as if you've cleaned up the Customs House. If you're interested in private work, it begins to look as if blue might be more trustworthy than black."

  The same restraint that controlled Richard's suspicions now blocked all expression of his elation. Where Martushev led, Takezawa and Khan followed, and behind them a raft of families so well-established that their mercantile roots were almost forgotten. Families that didn't need to be impressed by a Boregy countersignature. It was more than he'd dared to hope, and more than enough to offset the minor concern that Kamat's rivals intended only to hire Samurai, not underwrite them. Almost enough to keep him from wondering if Martushev knew that he and Anastasi Kalugin were plotting ways to disperse the Samurai throughout the city. Wondering which Kalugin Martushev would line up behind after Iosef. Publicly they supported Mischa the Clockmaker. Then again, publ-ically so did Kamat.

  With a final smile, Grev Martushev returned to his table and his satchel. Richard went to the other window table where his old friends were gathering. If the Samurai leaked secrets, they would leak from the top. The organization had been his idea, and he had signed the prospectus, but Richard Kamat had no delusions about his status. Boregy was wilier and cagier than he, but at least Kamat and Boregy were playing by the same rules toward the same goals. His other partners were not bound by rules at all.

  Kamat knew what Anastasi Kalugin's goals were. All of Merovingen, from Iosef on down, knew that. The goal was the only thing Anastasi didn't keep secret. The youngest Kalugin stored a few of his secrets in the Samurai; not even Vega knew the full extent of Anastasi's involvement—and certainly not the extent of his alliance with Tom Mondragon.

  Richard caught himself frowning again. The idea for the Samurai had come to him when he'd realized the municipal blacklegs were no longer working in the interest of Merovingen and its merchants. He hadn't wondered why Anastasi was so helpful until Tom had laid it out for him late one night in a subtle exchange for a two sol advance.

  You 're his karma, Mondragon explained, mentor to Richard's student. Anastasi needed you. He needed something to use against his sister. Something so legit that neither Iosef nor Tatiana could stop it even if they figured out what it could do for him. And you brought him the Samurai. Nothing you want goes against what he wants. Nothing he needs interferes with trade as usual for you and your friends. Everybody profits-except those who counted on you merchant princes not looking up until it was too late.

  Too late for what? Richard had asked, but Tom's expansiveness vanished as suddenly as it had appeared and the conversation ended. At the moment other questions were gathering in Richard's mind. Anastasi needed Samurai because his blacklegs couldn't operate in the city where his sister controlled law and enforcement. But Anastasi had the makings of a fair army in the outlands where Merovingen had its colonies . . . Untrue—Merovingen didn't have anything. Kalugin had estates; Kamat had estates; Martushev had estates— and Anastasi's blacklegs were the muscle the Houses relied upon to keep things that way.

  And Mondragon sweated, bare-backed in the sun, bracing up the stern-wall of a rotting boat—an old river craft.

  Were Merovingen's merchants dangerously naive? Were they inattentive to the realities of their city and their world? In four short months Richard's world had turned upside down. He knew secrets his father, he was certain, had never suspected, and he lived in constant fear that his House's face was rising faster than its substance. The Vega Boregys and Tom Mondragons of the world were at home on thin ice. Richard Kamat wasn't. There were days when he reveled in the excitement, but mostly he fretted in silence.

  Gavin Yakunin and Franck Wex, men who had been Richard's friends and peers since childhood, came into the Bell. They greeted him with cheer and the events of their days. Richard caught himself recoiling from them, cloaking his thoughts behind politeness as he had with Martushev. He nodded and laughed on cue, and said nothing of the thoughts swirling in his mind. His stomach churned acid. When the barkeep set the steaming plate on the table in front of him, his mouth was as sour as the canalside air. Gavin and Franck were still children doing chores, unaware of the larger picture through which they moved. They were no longer his peers; he wasn't certain if they were still his friends.

  There was nothing left for Kamat at the Ramsey Bell. Nothing for Richard Kamat. He might as well make it official and give his young cousin Gregory his old duties, his. old friends. The young man had been itching for status since his graduation, and Richard had been dragging his feet. Gregory wasn't ready, but neither were Gavin or Franck, or Grev for that matter. Nor had Richard himself been ready.

  The Houses train their children, but no Househead expects to die. He didn't want Gregory to know what he knew. He wanted to keep him young, innocent. . . and ignorant. Just the way his grandfather had kept his father and Uncle Patrik. Just the way his father had kept him.

  He turned on the ghost of Nikolai Kamat in his mind. I'd never have been ready. And if you'd lived to a ripe old age, House Kamat would have turned to dust in my hands. We'd have been like the Adami, selling out to the highest bidder, the next wave. But now I've got a chance . . .

  "He's put out to sea!" Gavin joked, prodding Richard in the shoulder just enough to dispel the ghost. "Next his hair'll turn white and his stomach'll be too weak for wine."

  Richard came into focus. He laughed heartily at his own expense, then put a stop to the merriment. "It's not the wine in ser Vega Boregy's office that puts your stomach to flight." His tone was as bantering as Gavin's had been, but even that served to emphasize the gulf between them: Vega Boregy didn't see the heirs in his
office. Richard pushed away from the table with a good show of reluctance. "But there's no helping it."

  There was nothing formal about his leave-taking, nothing to say that he would never return to the Ramsey Bell, yet there was something in the farewells he exchanged with his old friends. The room fell quiet.

  "Good luck, ser Kamat," Grev Martushev saluted. "You'll need it wherever you're headed."

  Their eyes met as if by mistake and swiftly parted. Richard stepped out onto the plank walk and suppressed a Shiver in the gusty, fetid air. Karma—or the promise of karma. He wondered if Martushev had felt its cold fingers on his spine. Worse for Grev, Richard decided, if he hadn't, because something had been passed between them, and something would someday be claimed.

  Richard emptied his lungs hoping to empty his mind of karma and Martushev's green-gold eyes. He got rid of the man, but not the dogma. Philosophy clung to him like the air as he made his way from island to island, and the air, despite the wind, was thick enough to slice with a knife. Richard forced his thoughts toward the weather. The air was pregnant with a storm, but the winds were wrong, and the temperature, and the sun in the sky. Not even a storm could visit Merovingen before its time.

  Karma.

  The best route from Ramseyhead to Boregy—not counting a poleboat through the Grand—went right past Kamat's high door. As he saw his Househead coming and had the door open before Richard was off Wayfarer's Bridge.

  "You're back early, m'ser—"

  "No, not back at all. Just passing by."

  "Shall I summon a boat?"

  "No, walking's fine."

  Which was a lie. Richard's clothes were limp from the humidity; his face was blotchy with sweat. He should go inside, should change his shirt at least before meeting with Boregy, but if he went inside he wasn't sure he'd come back out until the storm, had passed.