Ryswyck

by L D Inman

  Barklay held out until the day before the service course ended. Then he checked the duty schedule, waited till a clear spot opened in the afternoon, and called Douglas in to report to him on the past week’s provisioning ahead of the farewell feast.

  When Douglas arrived, tablets in hand, Barklay stifled a visible motion of relief and said mildly, “Ah, good, Douglas. There you are. Shut the door, please.”

  Because he was looking for it, Barklay saw the minute hesitation in Douglas’s reaction; but Douglas closed the door obediently and approached him at his desk without hurry or anxiety.

  Douglas gave his report, and Barklay listened to it, asking questions occasionally to maintain his own interest. A few times he drew breath, ready to curtail the reporting and lean back in his chair; but each time he decided to hear the report through. With the passing moments, the anticipation simmered ever warmer in his loins. He didn’t look up; he didn’t need to. Douglas knew all the careful steps of this dance as well as he did.

  “I’ll instruct the comptroller to add to the budget from my discretionary fund,” Barklay said, “and notify Cameron and Ahrens. We really ought to—”

  A knock sounded on Barklay’s office door.

  Barklay and Douglas looked at one another in mutual consternation. No one—no one—approached Barklay’s office when the door was shut: that was one of the unspoken, and unbreakable, house rules. Either something was terribly, terribly wrong, or—

  “Yes?” Barklay called.

  To their further horror, the door opened and Commander Jarrow came inside. “Sir,” he said.

  “Yes, Commander?” Barklay’s tone was dry and deadly; Douglas twitched slightly, but Jarrow either didn’t recognize the note of danger, or he disregarded it.

  “Sir,” Jarrow said, “I have just received permission from Central Command to include in my lesson the classified data I applied for. But they want you to sign off on it.” He held up a tablet in his hand. “I thought perhaps I could send it off at once, and have it done.”

  “Very well,” Barklay said, coolly. “Douglas, I’ll hear the rest of your provisioning report at another time. You may go.”

  “Yes, sir.” Douglas bowed and moved with the same unhurry to the door. Once beyond Jarrow, he cast a significant glance at Barklay from behind him that clearly said I told you so, which Barklay magisterially ignored.

  Being alone with Jarrow was a very poor exchange for being alone with Douglas. Barklay and his loins were deeply annoyed, but he kept his smile in place. “May I?” He held out his hand, and Jarrow approached with the tablet.

  Jarrow’s notes included not just the classified file request, but the lesson plan as well. Barklay suppressed his simmering outrage and read it through. He had to admit, it was an appealing lesson, involving the use of weather pattern trends to calibrate defensive procedures. This was something which was second nature to Ilonians generally, but Jarrow’s lesson was creative rather than reactionary. His position with Central Command was well-deserved.

  “Impressive.” Barklay picked up his stylus to sign the release with a flourish. “Anything else?” he said, as he handed the tablet back. Looking up, he caught Jarrow glancing all around Barklay’s office, as if measuring the vectors between the furniture and the door where Douglas had just departed. Belatedly, Jarrow drew his gaze down to Barklay’s and accepted the tablet.

  “No, sir,” Jarrow said. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Commander. You may go.”

  He watched narrowly as Jarrow went out with a buoyant step. To add insult to injury, Jarrow closed the door casually behind him, without looking back.

  It took all his discipline to wait the few minutes it would take for Jarrow to clear the office area. Then he got up and pursued a direct course—steady, not storming—to Marag’s classroom office. As he passed through the cloister he could hear the rhythmic shouts of the junior officers overseeing training exercises in the quadrangle; it was just between classroom sessions.

  Marag was in his office when Barklay arrived, updating scoresheets. “Captain Marag,” Barklay said.

  Marag looked up, and whatever was in Barklay’s face brought his spine straight. He almost stood up altogether. “Yes, sir?”

  “You gave Commander Jarrow the full tour of Ryswyck, did you not?”

  “Yes, sir. I did.” Worry colored Marag’s voice.

  “Did you also explain to him that I’m not to be disturbed when my door is closed?”

  “I did. He surely didn’t—”

  “He just knocked and came in unbidden, bearing a non-urgent request.”

  Marag looked plainly horrified. “But I told him expressly, sir. Either he misunderstood me, or I didn’t make a deep enough impression.”

  Barklay wasn’t sure about that.

  “Either way,” Marag went on, “I’ve clearly failed to make sure he would know better than to disturb you. I am sorry, sir.”

  Barklay found the apology irrationally irritating. “Marag, there’s no reason for you to own the fault for Jarrow’s obtuseness. If you informed him, then the fault is his.”

  “But the responsibility is mine,” Marag said. He cast Barklay an apprehensive sidelong glance. “Jarrow didn’t…interrupt anything of import, did he?”

  “No; I was only hearing Douglas’s report on the provisioning for the farewell feast.” It was a pity he hadn’t chosen to summon Douglas for something more clearly confidential; if he had, he’d have been able to chastise Jarrow on the spot. As it was, he was going to have to trust to Ryswyck to school its interloper for him.

  Marag looked relieved. “Do you want me to speak to him about it, sir?” he said.

  Barklay shook his head. “No sense magnifying the proportion of the incident.” He glanced out the mullioned windows into the sun-dappled front quad, and added half to himself, “I may have to start locking my door.”

  Marag cast his gaze back down to his scoresheets, clearly unwilling to voice a criticism. Barklay decided to relieve him of the effort. “Or stop holding private conferences while Jarrow is on the premises.” Marag looked up at this, chagrin touching his lips. As a junior officer Marag had been too earnest to be the subject of Barklay’s particular attentions; he had grown into that earnestness since, and Barklay disliked wounding him, especially when he was right.

  “I am sorry, Marag,” he sighed. “I had no business losing my temper.”

  “All’s well, sir,” Marag said, and added dryly: “I’ll find a discreet way to handle Jarrow.”

  “Discreet,” Barklay said discontentedly, “would be good,” and left Marag to his work.

  ~*~

  The warm oranges and reds of a brilliant sunset were reflecting in glinting planes off the windows of the com tower as Douglas made his way across from the main block. He wasn’t due to relieve Speir for another few hours; but he felt the need of some quiet in the presence of someone who wouldn’t ask questions.

  The slow grinding sound of the lift as it bore him upward matched his mood. Speir looked up from the com officer’s desk as he emerged, and put aside her study notes, glancing at the clock.

  “Well, hello. I didn’t think it was…no, you’re early.”

  “I am early,” he confirmed with a sigh, and plunked himself down in the other available chair.

  “Come to enjoy the lovely sunset?”

  Douglas glanced out the windows at the streamers of light in the sky, now purpling against the blue depths. “So it is.” He imagined what that sun would look like setting over the Bay at home, and experienced an unwonted pang of outright homesickness.

  Speir studied him with her head cocked. “You look tired.”

  He offered a small groan of confession, by way of answer. His scrip lay at his feet where he’d dropped it, and for the moment he didn’t have the spirit to bend down and dig in it for his study notes.

  “Busy day in a busy week,” she said: a non-pressing invitation to comment.

  “Aye.” He let out a lo
ng sigh and relaxed a little. “I’m ready for the break. Taught sessions all morning…then I was with Barklay in the afternoon—” Speir had never asked him how his time with Barklay was spent, and she didn’t now. He decided not to mention Jarrow’s interruption: it would be hard to explain the anxiety of that moment. “Then,” he went on, “we had a meeting of the rota captains later, about the farewell feast.”

  “Have they chosen someone to replace Bell at the head of D Rota?”

  “Yes; Ahrens.”

  “Really?” Speir avoided making a face, but only just.

  Douglas snorted a half-laugh at her restraint. “He’s almost finished with his course of study; he’s been doing brilliant work in weapons systems. And he’s not on the match schedule for another month and a half. So the senior officers and Barklay decided to try him, with our consent. It’ll certainly make for interesting rota captains’ meetings.”

  “Yes, I can imagine. You think Cameron’ll try to show him the ropes?”

  “I think if she does, Ahrens will wind up in the arena sooner than planned.”

  They both chuckled.

  “Speaking of the arena,” Speir said— “the word is that Rose and Corda have taken up with one another.”

  “I heard that too.” Douglas let his unfocused gaze absorb the fading of the color in the sky. “Sometimes it happens that way.”

  “You think it’ll last?”

  He shrugged. “May be. It was a long time Rose had, to spend at Corda’s bedside. Even if they don’t wind up making fast together, they’ll always have a bond.”

  “Mm,” Speir said, thoughtful.

  The transmission request light came up, and Speir sat up in her chair and attended to the request. When that was put through, she called up the afternoon’s queue of recorded messages from the com-deck stations on campus and cleared them for secure dispatch. Douglas watched her deft movements coordinating the transmissions and felt himself rested already. Any moment now, he would get out his notes for the final lesson tomorrow, and go over them quietly while Speir worked.

  Another transmission request came up. Speir clicked open the audio. “Speir.”

  “Lieutenant Speir,” came Jarrow’s precise voice, “Commander Jarrow here. Would you open me a direct line to Central One?”

  “Certainly I will, sir,” Speir said. “Shall I use the top-security code for the line?”

  “No, I’ll use my own code after the connection is made.”

  “Right, sir.”

  “I am much obliged,” Jarrow said: he seemed to be learning the gestures of Ryswyck well enough.

  “My pleasure, sir. Connection should be complete in five minutes.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  His restfulness vanished, Douglas watched as Speir tapped in the connection request and spoke into the audio receiver once more. “Ryswyck Tower One to Central One, requesting open line for private security code.”

  She waited; after a minute the response came back. “Go ahead, Ryswyck One. You’re clear to connect.” Speir switched the transmission to Jarrow’s com-deck, tapped in the gateway code, and turned away from the screens with a sigh.

  “Well!” she said. “You don’t open a line to the Lord High Commander every day…Douglas? You all right?”

  “What does Jarrow want with Lord Selkirk?” Douglas’s voice sounded almost querulous in his own ears. He reined himself in with an effort.

  “Well, he worked with him before coming here, didn’t he?” Speir said reasonably. “Perhaps they’ve got an ongoing mission to discuss.”

  Oh, they did that, all right. Douglas huddled into himself miserably. He knew Jarrow wasn’t a fool; it was all but certain that he’d walked in uninvited on purpose, and if Barklay’d had nothing to hide he would have castigated Jarrow for his breach of courtesy at once. But though he’d listened carefully for the rest of the afternoon, Douglas had been unable to hear that Barklay had reprimanded Jarrow at all, though he’d conducted a rather stormy private conversation with Marag between class meetings. This, Douglas thought, was playing right into Jarrow’s hands, never mind the sheer folly of seeking a favor from Douglas behind an unlocked door. It was as if Barklay wanted to be caught. And when it happened, it wouldn’t just be a juicy tale of sexual dalliance across ranks. Whole phrases printed themselves across Douglas’s imagination: fomenting a culture of incestuous cultism…rampant unregulated supervision…sad lack of military discipline…predation and prurience masquerading as courtly honor….

  If Barklay loved Ryswyck, Douglas thought, why would he put it at such a risk? Next time he was called in, Douglas might have to disobey Barklay for Barklay’s, and Ryswyck’s, good. He didn’t want to do it, and he had no idea what Barklay would do if Douglas so offended him—demote him? expel him? No, probably not, but it’d put a heavy strain on their relationship at the least, and Douglas hated the thought of that as much as anything else.

  “…Douglas?”

  His vision cleared and focused on Speir sitting before him, looking concerned. When their eyes met, she turned her hands palm up with a rueful, maternal little smile. She was clearly asking for his confidence, but he didn’t know what to give her or how to give it. He made a restive frown of query.

  “Sorry,” she said, taking her gaze away. “That was a shorthand tradition I started with my father. I forgot myself for a moment.” Douglas still said nothing, but she glanced back at his face, and what she saw there must have been sufficiently encouraging, because she went on. “We used to trade worries, from time to time. One of us would hold the worry for the other, and then they’d have their hands free to do whatever they needed to do. We used to ask one another to give up a fear or a grief for the other one to carry…and then we stopped needing to ask.” She offered her hands again, demonstrating. “And then he would pretend to put it in my hands. Or the other way around, though I’ve had fewer griefs than he over the years, of course.”

  “Because of his illness?” Douglas asked, tentatively. He was hesitant to mention Speir’s mother.

  “Oh, no. He was only diagnosed three years ago. No, he had bad spells occasionally…he was in naval intelligence, you see, and was caught behind enemy lines on a mission. My mother told me that he wasn’t the same when he came back. I think he escaped, but he won’t talk about it even enough to mention that much. I don’t know anything about what the Berenians did to him when he was their prisoner. But—” Speir screwed up her mouth for a moment, as if to take refuge in thought— “when he had his bad spells, he’d get fretful and clumsy, and say that he was no good and we ought to leave him. My mother used to be firm with him when he got like that. She’d say don’t be ridiculous, we’re not going anywhere; and then after a while the spell would pass, and he’d be all right again. After she was gone, we had to manage another way. So we started carrying things for one another, and it developed over the years.”

  Speir’s voice and manner were very matter-of-fact, as if it were nothing much that her family had sacrificed most of their life and well-being for Ilona’s future. He suspected that she had cultivated the detachment precisely to avoid the maudlin sympathy of casual acquaintances, whenever she couldn’t evade discussing it altogether. No doubt it kept her own grief at bay as well. It threw a new light on her wholehearted drive to serve; and her implicit offer to him made him ashamed of his own predicament.

  “Then… you don’t have to say what the worry is, to give it over?” Douglas asked.

  She gave him a sympathetic look, which chastened him further. “It works better when you tell a little bit at least. But my father couldn’t, sometimes. So I carried whatever I could carry without knowing.”

  Douglas stared at her, trying to imagine it. “Does it really work?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s just a redivision of labor. One person does the worrying, or takes the edge off a grief or a fear, and the other person does whatever they would otherwise be crippled from doing. A Ryswyckian ought to grasp it pretty easily.” Her grin
gently teased him.

  He took a breath, let it out. “I’m worried about Barklay.”

  Her gaze on his face was calm and clinical, and restored some of his equilibrium. “His relations with Central Command are not good, I gather.”

  “No,” Douglas said. “They’re not.”

  “Is there something you’re needing to do about it?”

  “Not…not just at the moment.” Douglas swallowed. “But it might come to…I wish he wouldn’t cross Jarrow. It’s bad for Ryswyck if he does.”

  “All the more reason why you should share that particular burden, you know, Douglas.”

  “Yes,” he sighed.

  “So then?” Speir turned up her hands once more and waited.

  Douglas shut his eyes briefly and took up his courage. “All right. You may carry my worry about Barklay.”

  “I thank you for the commission,” she said, with a grace that pricked a genuine smile to his lips. Then she turned, picked up the com officer’s tablet, and handed it over. “And in return I give you my com-deck and your briefing. It’s time for me to end my shift and hit the training room.”

  He hadn’t noted the passage of time. “So it is.”

  Speir packed up her scrip, tidied the com-officer’s desk, and departed, giving his head an affectionate pat as she passed behind him. The lift rattled cheerfully up to bear her away.

  Douglas got up wearily and stretched himself before taking over her chair and com-deck. His shift passed without event, and Glenna came to relieve him. Douglas crossed the field in the quiet dark, caressed by the song of crickets, which ebbed around him like an aroma, nearer and farther as he passed.

  He half expected Barklay to recall him to finish their business when there was less chance of being interrupted; but Barklay’s office was dark behind its windows, and there was no message waiting in his room. It didn’t matter; he would have figured out what to do. He felt oddly empty without the grip of worry. Redivision of labor, he thought. Some fundamental change had emerged within him and in the world around him: too large, too obvious, perhaps, for him to form into a wieldy concept.