Divine Right

by C. J. Cherryh

  She paused for breath and he said, "Don't you want to stay alive? Don't you want the baby to live? Don't you care about the mission? About making Karl happy? About not spending the rest of your life in a Merovingen dungeon for murdering the actual child, for the swap, for trying to overthrow the local government, for any number of—"

  Danielle Lambert closed her eyes. She didn't cry. She didn't say anything. She bounced the baby against her belly in silence. At last she said, "Chance, I'm not taking Hope back into that den of dope fiends until you promise me you'll do something."

  "What, Dani, would you like me to do?" The exasperation in his voice was coupled with honest enquiry. He had no idea what to do to make Dani's conscience easier, or her life bearable, or her fears liveable. He flat didn't know why an experienced professional would do something as stupid as bringing that baby here.

  Kidnapping wasn't a petty crime in Merovingen.

  "Something," she whispered almost inaudibly, then suddenly came toward him, holding out the baby for him to take. "Hold her. Hold her and look into her eyes and tell me you think we should give her back to that spoiled hop-head."

  He couldn't refuse to take the baby. It was warm and its bottom was moist and he wondered if it was wet. It was sleeping. She was sleeping. Through all that, and it slept still.

  "I'll do something," he promised. "You take the baby back to Boregy House before they have the blacklegs out looking for both of you."

  "No." She came forward to snatch the baby back.

  He let her, relieved. He looked past her, because he couldn't look her in the eye, and nothing in his office seemed familiar, suddenly.

  "Yes," he said- "I insist. I'll work on your problem. If you can't handle it, staying there, stay here. I asked you before. ..."

  She wasn't listening. She had her face down by the baby's, her nose against its nose, and she was crooning to it. He thought he heard the word Daddy.

  He wasn't going to ask. "Did you hear me, Danielle?"

  "I heard you." She raised her head. "You're a bastard, Chance Magruder. Before I take Hope back into that dope den, I want to know what you're going to do about the way they're treating her. And about Cassie. I sent Mike Chamoun over here hours ago, so don't tell me you weren't aware, or—"

  "Dani, you don't want to know what I'm doing. But I am doing something. Now, you're staying here after tonight. Tonight you stay at Boregy House, tell them you're coming back here in the morning. Cite the fact that you and Cassie aren't getting along. Say you'll oversee a College physician, but you don't want to—"

  "So Chamoun did come to you."

  "We're working on a solution that you can't be involved with, not in any way. And you've got to keep in mind that it's to Nev Hettek's benefit to keep Cassie prophesying fiery revolt. So we go carefully, agreed?"

  Her pause was too long, her assent hardly more than a sigh: "Agreed."

  "Dani, I'm worried about you. You're too personally involved in this. I—"

  "Personally involved?" She stepped back and her eyes widened. "How could I not be? Don't you understand what you made me do? This child is—"

  In his turn, he interrupted, before she could say "yours," or "ours," or anything that might be worse. It didn't matter. It was easier to tell himself so, as long as he didn't have to know the rest.

  "Go back to Boregy House. Tell them you'll be moving into the embassy tomorrow. Be nice to Vega. Make yourself very conspicuous this evening. You'll have to write up a regimen for Cassie and the baby, at the very least. ..."

  Dani Lambert was backing away from him, toward the door. "You still don't understand. The baby isn't addicted enough to pass muster, not by another physician. You're asking me to give my child drugs, or risk her being found out as an imposter, possibly killed-"

  "You're overreacting. Overstating." Postpartum blues. "Go back to Boregy House. Have dinner with the family. Let Vega know you're concerned, but not distraught. Put Cassie's welfare first, with him. And stay up late where everybody can see you, at least until after midnight."

  She knew better than to ask any more questions. She left him without another word, her whole body telling him that she'd never forgive him for this.

  Well, he could live with that. As long as she lived through this. As long as the switch held and they all lived through this.

  Damn, why couldn't Dani behave like the professional she was?

  For hours after, he kept seeing the indictment on her face. Finally, he gave up pretending he didn't care, and sent a messenger over to Boregy House asking if he might drop over to see Vega later that evening.

  Might as well have the best alibi he could concoct tonight. Then he sent somebody to Tatiana to see if she'd join them. No use in leaving her out of the fun, or out in the cold where Anastasi might find a way to lay Ito's murder at her door.

  Then and only then was his mind clear enough that he began asking himself what Tom Mondragon wanted with a boat. Like so many other questions this summer in Merovingen, meditation led to no answers, only more questions.

  Dani Lambert was tucking her baby into bed beside Cassie Boregy when a knock came on the bedroom door.

  She put a hand to the small of her back when she straightened up. She wasn't going to be able to have another baby; her professional assessment was clear on that point.

  Now that she'd made a fool of herself, she felt empty, drained, clumsy and flushed, almost as if she'd been crying.

  But you didn't cry in her business. Not in either of her businesses.

  She went to the door and opened it.

  Mikhail Kalugin was standing there, a daft grin on his face and a big, ornate clock cradled in his arms, a pink bow upon it. "Is Cassie awake?" Mikhail, on tiptoe now, craned his neck to see beyond Dani.

  "It's time for them both to rest. I've given Cassie a mild sedative ..."

  "Mikhail," croaked Cassiopeia Boregy. "Is that you, Mikhail?"

  "Yes, Treasure, it's me. With a present, just the way I promised."

  "Cassie," Dani said, still blocking Kalugin's path. "You've got to rest."

  "See, Mikhail?" Cassie Boregy struggled up in her bed. "See what I told you?" She turned to Dani: "Get out of here, foreigner. Get out of here while I speak with my countryman!"

  "In a moment," Dani said. "May I see that beautiful clock, m'ser Kalugin? You make the finest clocks in Merovingen, so I've heard." Still, she barred his way, her feet planted firmly in the doorway.

  "Uh . . . Yes, surely. But don't disturb the bow. It's a gift for our wondrous mother . . . and her child, of course."

  Dani's suspicion wasn't based on anything concrete. It was a mixture of Cassie's earlier threats, current demeanor, and something . . . sneaky ... in Mikhail's face. He reminded her of a boy who'd just smuggled a frog into class.

  So she looked at the clock, at its fine ivory face and its carved hands. It was a large clock with a wooden case. And its second hand wasn't moving. She turned it around and heard Mikhail say, "No! Don't."

  So she did.

  She opened the back of the clock, where the workings were, and there it was. A packet of deathangel.

  She ripped it out of the cavity, tape and all, and then handed the clock back to Mikhail, shoving it against his chest.

  "M'ser, I'm disappointed in you," she said as severely as a schoolmarm. "If you'll come with me, I think m'ser Vega will want to speak to you. And to see what you've brought his daughter."

  She was afraid as she said that. She was more afraid than she'd ever been. This was the son and heir of Iosef Kalugin. She wasn't underestimating her peril. But she had to bull her way through this. The only way to do that was to be authoritative, pejorative, and assume that her instructions would be followed.

  She strode past Kalugin, who skittered out of her way, and started down the stairs. "Come along, m'ser," she said in a loud and angry voice.

  And, wonder of wonders, the clockmaker followed her, despite the muddled calls of Cassie Boregy, sedated in her bedroom with l
ittle Hope cradled by her side.

  Vega Boregy had given up on the evening being pleasant. It would be enough were it survivable.

  The Nev Hetteker doctor didn't realize, when she brought Mikhail Kalugin down to his study, for all the world like a teacher dragging a student by the ear to his principal, what a can of worms she'd opened thereby.

  No sooner had he smoothed things over with Mikhail, pretending that Mikhail had been ignorant of the orders surrounding Cassie's deathangel addiction, than Lambert announced her intention to leave in the morning.

  "I can't stay here, with my orders being subverted, my integrity questioned, and my foreign provenance becoming an issue. If I weren't bound by higher standards than I've seen in Merovingen, I'd tell you to get yourself another doctor, m'ser. But since I am, I'll offer this solution: I'll take up residence at the embassy, beginning tomorrow morning, where I'll be available to consult with whatever College physician you engage. I'll want to examine Cassie and the baby myself at least once a week: their health comes first. But under the circumstances, I can no longer live under your roof, although I thank you for your hospitality."

  The woman sat down after she'd made her speech, trembling and pale.

  The passion in her was fierce and Vega didn't understand that. He went to the marble mantlepiece in his study and stroked the stone.

  "We appreciate your feelings, your commitment, and we sympathize with your difficulties. We also think you're overwrought. Won't you reconsider?"

  He was relieved when she declined. Perhaps one less foreigner under his roof was the answer. Perhaps he was getting rid of the wrong foreigner. If not for young Chamoun, none of this would have happened. It was Chamoun whom Ito had introduced to deathangel and regressions, beginning all that had led them to this point in time.

  But he had a healthy granddaughter, no matter the whispers and doubts as to how that was possible. And he had a daughter being cleansed of drugs, which was a relief.

  Letting the College use Cassie to prophesy their paranoid rabble-rousing claptrap had never been his choice. Perhaps now it would stop.

  He told Lambert, "We're having rather an im-promtu late supper this evening. Quite a gathering, actually. We hope you'll join us."

  "Ah ... I don't know that I have the right clothes, seeing as you dress for dinner, but I'd be honored." The Nev Hetteker still had not recovered from her outburst.

  It showed some sense of decorum, that she was so abashed. Vega would be magnanimous. "We'll find you something of Cassie's, or perhaps Marina Kamat, who's joining us, will have something suitable. I'll send a runner. Meanwhile, get some rest, Doctor Lambert. If we work you to death, your kind Nev Hettek sponsors will take offense."

  The woman stood up, composed now and aware that she was being dismissed. As she reached the door, she asked, "Would you mind telling me who the other guests are?"

  "Surely: Your Ambassador, the Secretary, Richard Kamat and his sister, and Iosef Kalugin. Quite a stellar assemblage."

  The doctor stiffened, then relaxed, as if some names had been unpleasant to her ears, and others pleasant.

  Nev Hettekers had a roughness to them that Vega often mistook for guile. He was, truly, grateful to this woman. He was also aware that he would be giving her a chance to defend her actions to Mikhail Kalugin's father, Iosef. Perhaps she was, too.

  It wasn't often that foreigners dined at Boregy House—with the exception of his son-in-law, Michael, who had other plans this evening. At least, it hadn't been, until Doctor Lambert had come to stay with them.

  He was secretly pleased to see her go. Cassie hated her, and her presence had become a bone of contention with Ito, who refused to set foot in Boregy House until the Nev Hetteker was gone.

  Someday, things would change. But now, Vega must deal with parochial attitudes on every side. This was part of the price he paid for spearheading a merger between Nev Hettek and Merovingen.

  He wished he found it easier to accept the foreigners' ways: the woman's outrageous treatment of Mikhail Kalugin; Chance Magruder's casual message, in which he invited not only himself, but Tatiana Kalugin, to dinner at Boregy House.

  At least, he consoled himself as the woman left his study and he let the smile drop from his dry lips—at least he didn't have to sit through an entire evening with Mikhail as one of his dinner partners.

  That would have been simply too much to suffer.

  And, for one more night, upstairs, his daughter was sleeping peacefully, free of deathangel dreams.

  Considering his worst fears, this evening could rank as a celebration of nightmares that hadn't come to pass.

  He determined to make it so, and called the major domo to confer with him on the widening guest list and an augmented menu.

  * * *

  The night was pitch black; the stars were occluded by clouds.

  Kenner had to assume that Chamoun knew what he was doing. Instead of climbing the College walls, they'd walked right in, using identification belonging to somebody named Rog Takahashi, or some such.

  An older brother showing a younger brother his school. Evidently, it wasn't that unusual. Or it wasn't flagged, at any rate.

  The place was huge. The cloak he had on to conceal his weapons and shadow his features was hot. He kept up with Chamoun easily, yet the other man was breathing hard.

  Nerves. Nerves could get you killed in a situation like this. They climbed stairs and stairs and more stairs. They went down corridors and, at one point, across a suspension bridge, badly lit, open to the air.

  Then through another door where names were asked and aliases given.

  Down more corridors. Up more stairs. Here the smell of incense was heavy and you could hear singing, or chanting, and the smoke of candles stung your eyes.

  Kenner checked his weapons. He wasn't to use his pistol unless it was absolutely necessary. He had the weapon of choice, a Nippon-style dagger made of fine steel refolded five hundred times. Whoever had owned it, hadn't given it up without a fight.

  But it was good for this mission. Suspicion was obviously going to land somewhere, upon someone, that Chamoun had targeted for the privilege. Or that Magruder had.

  They passed unremarked through a group of men in robes. Like certain buildings in Nev Hettek, if you were this far inside, you belonged here. No one questioned you. No one stared.

  Their feet made hardly a sound in rope-soled sandals.

  When Chamoun stopped and knocked loudly on a stout door, it startled Kenner, flooding his system with adrenaline.

  "Ready?" Chamoun said, his teeth gleaming white as he smiled in his hood.

  This guy was still a little drunk, and filled with wrath. You usually didn't take somebody this involved on a kill. But Kenner was under orders.

  The door opened, and a man stood there. The man was old and fat and jeweled. He was in a velvet robe and he frowned. "Yes?"

  "Cardinal Ito," said Chamoun. That was all.

  It was the confirmation Kenner had been waiting for.

  He moved forward, the blade in his hand, and slit the old man's throat in his own doorway. The move was one that mimicked an embrace.

  Once the throat was slit, Kenner didn't care how long the killing was going to take. He just didn't want his victim to cry out.

  Ito obligingly stepped back one pace, two. Kenner followed. Chamoun was hissing at him to watch the blood on the floor.

  Blood streamed down Ito's vestments. His mouth opened and closed. He clutched his throat and turned, and that was Kenner's first, best chance in the distended time of the murder cycle.

  He reached up, grabbed Ito by the hair, and slashed across the back of the old man's neck. He felt the bone grate against the blade, snap as he pulled back on the hair he held.

  He pushed the corpse forward with his knee in its back, and retreated, looking critically at the trail of blood. Nearly all was within the room. He dropped the incriminating weapon from his gloved hand, just inside the doorway.

  The little bit of
blood on the threshold should be covered by the door when Chamoun shut it.

  They walked down the hallway, silent but for Chamoun's breathing, and turned a corner. Then another. Then another.

  Suddenly Chamoun grabbed him by the elbow and jerked him into an alcove. In it was a door.

  They opened it, and hot night air caressed Kenner's flushed face.

  Now it was he, not Chamoun, who was breathing hard. He blinked into the night. Out there was freedom, another spidery bridge, a canal below.

  Safety.

  He didn't wait for Chamoun to urge him to hurry.

  Behind them, all was silent, all was peaceful.

  As they crossed the bridge, they dropped their robes into the canal. From the College, the bells tolled midnight.

  SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION (REPRISED)

  C.J. Cherryh

  The black boat glided under the jaws of the College water-gate, and the shadow passed over Richard Kamat like doom—shadow despite the glow of a garde-porte grating in the shape of the Wheel of Life.

  A man didn't like to wake to a message like that— a knock in the night and a visitor who frightened his way past the servant at Kamat's water-gate; a black-cloaked visitor who said simply, "M'ser Kamat, have you a cloak with a hood? I advise you wear it."

  The door opened, filled with shadow-figures against a'gold glare of lamplight as the boat glided in, bumped gently into the buffers and the boatman/priest jumped ashore in a swirl of black cloth. Richard stood up cautiously, feeling the wobble in his knees—expecting he was not sure what, except the messenger assured him it was only secrecy the cardinal had in mind.

  "M'ser." The attendants were courteous, deferential. Richard walked up into the light, into the musty, incense-laden air of the Ecclesiastical Wing of the College, followed the lead of the servants, wondering if he was going to leave this place—or what would become of Kamat if he didn't, or what his chances had been of declining this invitation. It was too late for what-ifs.

  They climbed the stairs to a residential floor. They passed solemn statuary, intricate murals, ornate columns. The servants opened a door for him, and let him into a room where Cardinal Exeter waited behind a desk.