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1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 10

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 10

Chapter 6

Montrose had come heartily to the conclusion that he’d no time for His Lordship the Earl of Cork nor His Majesty Charles Stuart, at least on a personal level. Politically, he’d a lot more time for Cork than his king. Cork was a chancer and a businessman, and for him power was a means to very easily assessed ends. Even his well-known talent for grudge-bearing and vengeance-taking was a tool; a warning not to cross him. As plain as a bull’s stamping and snorting.

Whatever they’d come up with between them, Montrose sincerely hoped it came more from earl than king. The king’s father, God rest him, had been a pure bloody fool for episcopacy, having the fool notion that without bishops there’d be no king. So Scotland had to have bishops her kirk neither wanted nor needed and had done perfectly well without for the best part of fifty years. James VI had wanted his bishops, though, and forced them into the kirk in a series of steps, bit by bit. There were plenty of Scots who were still grumbling about that, and the least whiff of popery would have them rioting at the very least. More than one man of letters was ruminating aloud about the prospect of freedom of religion in a general spirit of anarchy, for if once the State did not control the most important aspect of a man’s life, his faith, control over the smaller parts must surely wither away.

Of course, to a man in Montrose’s position, with only the loosest leash on the kirk within his dominions, there was a certain attraction in getting the king out of religion. There were, after all, a lot more ways to control a preacher than with the force of law, and a laird in his dominions was a lot closer than a General Assembly of the kirk that might or might not be in session a long way away.

And yet here he was, cordially summoned to appear before His Majesty along with the Earl of Cork. There was only a short wait to be summoned into the royal presence, with its attendant stink of the sickroom barely covered with rosewater and pomanders. The king was laid in his bed, the sheets raised over him on some sort of frame. Whatever the king’s physicians were doing to help him heal of his injuries looked to have made little progress in the weeks since the coaching accident that had robbed him of his power to walk; the man had gone from the rude health he’d always been known to enjoy to a wasted, skeletal look.

“Your Majesty,” Montrose offered, making the proper bow.

“My dear Montrose,” Charles Stuart said, “you are already acquainted with Our most trusted counsellor, Cork.” The king paid no mind to the small flock of attendant courtiers and physicians. Not a one of them seemed inclined to be more than mere cyphers, at that, so Montrose respected their effacement. Cork, meanwhile, looked more than a little apprehensive. From a man that sure of his face in all surroundings, the look said much. Most of it on the subject of not having persuaded his king to a proper course of action. Charles must be recovering his health after all!

“I hope I find Your Majesty improving?” Montrose marvelled at his own ability to get the barbed comment out with a straight face. It wasn’t as if Cork wouldn’t have mocked another, and that savagely.

“By the Grace of God, a little better as each day passes,” Charles said, “although Our patience is often taxed, and that right heavily.” A significant look at Cork, with that one.

“His Lordship the Earl of Cork has explained to me that the matter of Your Majesty’s rule of Scotland is proving vexing, and that I might be of assistance. Is it, perhaps, that Your Majesty has summoned me to vouchsafe the manner of that assistance?”

A palpable wince from Cork. Montrose wasn’t sure whether to be amused or appalled; while Cork was a scheming, unprincipled bastard he was at least a clever scheming, unprincipled bastard whose plans weren’t entirely likely to result in disaster. As witness the fact that His Majesty was now abed with an assortment of broken bones healing and rumors abroad that he’d never walk again, if he even lived the year out. The bedridden tended to have short lives, and unhappy ones. This, with young Charles barely five years old. Regencies tended not to go well, in England or Scotland both.

His Majesty let the silence drag on a moment. “My Lord Montrose, We are minded to appoint you Lord Lieutenant of Scotland entire. Your loyalty to Us is well known and evidenced both now and in the other time.”

Montrose bowed again. “Your Majesty honors me beyond my humble worth,” he said — and thought but did not say: and ignores that I would have stood against him, at the start, and in the matter of prelacy and the Book of Common Prayer.

His Majesty waved the formal modesty aside. “Letters patent are being prepared in the matter. We are minded to give you broad discretion in the governance of Scotland. Our directions are these: keep the peace, silence dissent, and give no concessions in the matter of unrestrained presbyterianism to the Church of Scotland. We are determined that they will obey.”

Montrose nodded. Not quite what Cork had said he would urge on the king, not hardly at all. “Does Your Majesty have any mind to advance the part of the prelates from where it stands at present? Or to further uniformity of worship with the Church of England?” Montrose braced himself for the answer. He’d just been made the clear aiming-mark for every gripe and grumble at the king’s rule in Scotland; it remained to be seen whether Charles Stuart had heated the thing to a red glow before tossing it to his ungloved hands.

“For the time being, no. Our most trusted Cork has urged on us a Fabian strategy. Little by little, we shall edge them away from error and misfeasance. Let it be clear to those who would defy Our rule that we are patient, yet unyielding. We are confident that we can endure beyond troublesome presbyters, and in time discredit them one by one. They will assuredly hang separately if given no cause to hang together.”

Just hot enough to burn, then, Your Majesty. Montrose suppressed a smile at recognising the quotation. He’d been told it wasn’t original to Stearns, but the sentiment lost nothing for its lack of originality. “I shall need a broad power to act where those outside the Kirk seek to use it as excuse for their own particular schemes, Your Majesty.”

“You shall have it. Mind that We hope to hear only silence from north of the Tweed, in all things sacred and secular.”

“I shall give my utmost to oblige Your Majesty in that regard,” Montrose said, wondering how in the name of God he was expected to keep Campbell of Argyll quiet. The man was no staunch presbyterian, but anything that brought royal power closer to Scotland, where he was far and away the most powerful man for all he wasn’t technically the earl yet, was going to have the man causing trouble on general principles. And he’d surely have read the future history in which he was executed for treason for doing just that, for almost exactly those reasons. The only reason the man hadn’t spent the last few years in the Tower was the aforementioned power. Montrose had the sinking feeling that if he couldn’t get Campbell on his side quickly, he’d have to get working on the highlanders and just go straight to war. It would undoubtedly be a great saving of time if nothing else. And throughout he’d be sticking up for the blasted prelates, whom he’d no time for.

“We have the uttermost confidence in Your Lordship,” Charles Stuart said. “My Lord Cork, you have some matters to bring to Our dear friend Montrose’s attention?”

Cork harrumphed, and beckoned to one of the small cloud of clerks and attendants lurking in the shadowy side of the room, away from the window. “That I have.”

He took a leather portfolio from the clerk who’d stepped forward, and waved the man back to his spot. He opened the papers, licked a thumb and took a deep breath. “First and foremost, His Majesty is concerned regarding the various peers of Scotland and other, lesser notables currently serving overseas. They were given leave to take up arms in the Protestant cause in the Germanies, under Denmark, and, largely through want of objection on His Majesty’s part, under Sweden. It now appears that they are serving, whether formally or not, the armed forces of the new United States of Europe. His Majesty is concerned that in so doing they serve the anarchistic principle of freedom of religion, in peril of their souls and to the prejudice of the good order of His Majesty’s realm in the event of their return. His Majesty desires that you be in communication with all such of the rank of knight or greater to secure from them sureties that their services are purely in the Protestant cause, failing which they are to return to their home estates on penalty of fines in the first instance with the prospect of forfeiture for those persisting in their default.”

 

The Seer – Snippet 16

The Seer – Snippet 16

Chapter Five

“Must you go out again? Really?”

Amarta heard the whine in her own voice, but it was hardly fair that Dirina went out almost every night, while Amarta must stay and watch Pas. With snow deep on the ground, Amarta only went outside to the toilet, and the only people she ever saw were her sister and Pas.

Pas was trying to stand now, making a small, frustrated sound. He sat back heavily onto Amarta’s lap, frowning, staring across the lamp-lit room at his mother. Amarta wrapped her arms around him, burying her nose in his neck instead of looking at her sister.

As the peat in the stove smoldered and spat, sending an acrid smell into the room, Dirina pulled a dress over her pale underclothes.

“We need more fuel for the fire,” Dirina said flatly.

That was so; they did not even have enough to get through the night. By morning it would be wretchedly, bitingly cold.

“The tavern again,” Amarta said, half-question, half-accusation.

“I’ll be back soon.”

It was nearly the same conversation every night. But when Dirina came back she brought food and fuel, sometimes a few nals. Though as winter held stubbornly to the land, the nals chits became worth less and less, and the peat ran out faster and faster.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad, what her sister did at the tavern. Maybe it was one of those things that seemed worse than it was because Amarta was too young to understand. And just because Dirina’s hair was tangled when she came back, and she stank of men until morning when they could heat water to clean themselves, that didn’t mean that she didn’t like it. Did it?

Amarta didn’t really want to know.

“Why don’t they bring me questions any more, Diri?”

Dirina’s fingers were on the door handle. She paused. “I don’t know.”

Amarta didn’t quite believe that. “Because it’s so cold, maybe.”

“That must be it.”

The winter had been far colder than anyone expected. Even the king’s red-and-black clad soldiers had gone, given up their search for the missing tax collector, a short man with a husky voice who had come during harvest, taken taxes, and left, apparently failing to return to the capital with his collectings. The soldiers seemed ready to stay until they had questioned everyone in the village over and over.

Then the snow had begun to fall in earnest. When it was four feet deep, the soldiers had left. The spring, now that it was here, did not seem that much different from the winter.

“When the weather warms…” Dirina said, hand still paused on the door.

“Please don’t go.”

Her sister’s eyes widened in alarm. Amarta felt a sudden, sick guilt. “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t see anything. I just…”

Her sister’s mouth twitched into a weak, fearful smile that settled the guilt deep in Amarta’s stomach.

“Do they talk about me?”

“Who?”

“At the tavern. What do they say about me?”

“Nothing. They talk about the tax collector and how the king’s soldiers drank all the best wine. How Grandmother Malwa laughs too loud in the night and returns to the wrong house when she comes back from the toilet.”

But Amarta had seen the villagers scowl at her and had heard the whispers: “Magic, that’s what.”

The poor harvest. The wretched cold that would not break. They blamed it on her.

But it was no kind of magic, what she did. Only a way of looking at things and people.

Not magic. Magic brought destruction. Everyone knew that.

Dirina sighed, walked over, stroked Amarta’s head. “When the cold breaks, and the ice melts, people will warm to us. You’ll see, Ama.”

Amarta nodded, though she didn’t believe it.

Then Dirina left, pulling the door tight behind.

So cold. Amarta put one of the final pieces of peat into the stove.

The three of them had gone to winter festival, stood warming by the huge fire in the central square, listening to the music. While she looked around for a friendly face, Amarta recalled the saying that, in winter, no one could afford to be stingy, because who knew when you yourself might need something in the dead-cold times? But everyone kept distant from them; they had not been born here, so perhaps they did not matter.

It was hard to imagine that spring festival would be any different.

She remembered the last village, the forgiveness rite at spring festival, with the run up the cliff, flat stones in hand — as many as you needed — each one scratched or char-marked with the first letter of the name of those who had wronged you the previous year. Then, all at once, together, everyone would hurl their rocks as far as they would fly, so that they could go into the new year free of grudges and wrongs, all forgiven.

She had laughed with delight, looking around at the others, eager to see who might now be her friend again, but no one had returned a smile.

There had been no friends then. There would be none now. At this spring festival there would be no welcome, let alone forgiveness for the outsider who knew too much.

It was so very unjust — she had only answered the questions they had asked. How could they resent her for that? Surely, once they understood how little she really knew about them, they would forgive. At spring festival this year, she resolved, she would tell them everything. She imagined that moment, how she would stand up and speak up, and she would say —

The light of the fire went very bright.

There would be no spring festival this year, not for her.

A vivid image cut through her imaginings like a howl etched across the night’s deep quiet.

The hunter stood in the shadows, face wrapped against the chill, eyes dark, watching her, waiting for her to come near.

Only once before had vision come on her this way, unbidden and overwhelming, and that was the morning her parents had died.

Tangled in a blanket, nearly smothered, unable to move, she fought and struggled to cry out. A thick wad of blanket went into her mouth, tight, impossible to push away, her cries no more than muffled grunts.

Amarta launched to her feet, heart pounding, and pulled on her cloak. She bundled the sleeping Pas. He whined about being woken, then about being wrapped too much, hands pushing at the blankets. She said something, forgotten the moment it left her mouth, and he stopped, perhaps sensing the urgency of her tone. She held him tight and was out the door.

A breezy, frozen night faced her, a three-quarter moon shining half around a cloud, making the drifts of snow glow white. The air bit her face with cold, snuck under her cloak, crawling around her neck.

A small sound in the dark. An animal in the brush. A mole, or a rabbit. Surely too small to be a man, but she froze anyway.

Suddenly she was unsure. Should she go back inside and wait for Dirina? Must she rush? Even if the vision was true, this could hardly happen so soon, not with the ground frozen and deep in snow. No one would travel in this.

But the last time she had waited to act, her parents had died. She had foreseen it clearly, and still her parents had died.

She pushed herself to a fast walk, trading silence for speed with every crunching footfall.

Someone was coming. She could feel it. Every shadow seemed a threat.

When she reached the tavern, she pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside, shudderingly grateful to be out of the bitter chill.

The small room was lit with lamps and smelled warmly of people, the yeasty smell of ale, the spice of woodsmoke. Every scent told her that all was well with the world.

For a moment she simply stood there, relishing the warmth, inhaling the scent of food, listening to the reassuring sounds of conversation.

“I’m not paying more,” an old man was saying, “I’ll tell you that. Not to make up for the collector’s theft.”

“Oh, you’ll pay,” a woman near him said, slapping the back of one hand with the palm of the other, a gesture that said hard currency, not trade or favors. “Get fixed with that. If they give you a choice between pay and your fingers, you’ll find a way.”

“Shit will sprout wings and fly.”

“Brave words for a man with all his fingers.”

The man loudly exhaled. “We don’t earn more, they just take more. It’s not right.”

“If the king knew…” said a young man.

“Maybe you should go tell him, boy,” the woman said.

“I could do. Would he listen, do you think, If I went –”

A laugh. “No. He wants your coin, boy, not your –”

The room fell silent as Amarta was finally noticed. In moments the only sound was the hissing of the central fire pit. Some who turned their heads to look at her she recognized from their shack, as those whose futures she had foreseen when the weather was better.

From their looks she could see that they remembered her, too.

“I don’t –” she began. Know anything about you, she ached to say. So many people, so many possible futures, things that might never even come to pass — how could anyone expect her to remember it all?

Or maybe they thought she was foreseeing now, as she stood here with her feet and fingers aching from the cold, Pas whimpering in her arms.

“What do you want, girl?” asked the unsmiling innkeeper, walking to stand in front of her.

“Dirina.”

“Upstairs,” he said. “Busy. Go home.”

“I need her.”

“Not now, you don’t. Go home.”

Behind her someone opened the door and stepped inside, bringing in gusts of cold air. Sudden terror made Amarta pull away from the figure, clutching Pas tighter, but it was only the village healer, an old woman, not the monster from her vision.

The woman’s lined face twisted downward. “What’s she doing here?”

“Just leaving,” the innkeeper said, a hand on Amarta’s shoulder. “Come on now, girl, people got to eat and you don’t belong.”

Then Amarta was outside in the chill again, the door shut tight behind her. Pas inhaled the frigid air, a deep, deep inhale, and then gave a shrill wail into the night.

Amarta wanted to cry, too. She rocked him instead, face near his, murmuring. He quieted, staring up at her with a petulant expression.

A mistake to come here. She would return to the shack, where, if her visions were to be believed, she would not live much longer. When Dirina came home, she would tell her what she had seen and they would figure out what to do together. Surely there would be at least that much time.

She thought of her mother.

There might not be.

Before she could reconsider, she pushed open the door again and stepped inside. Pas had stopped crying, but once inside he began again and everyone turned to glower at them both.

Amarta trembled.

“Hey, now,” the innkeeper said sharply, moving forward, his hands out. “You can’t –”

“Dirina,” Amarta pleaded.

“Can’t come in here, I said, girl. Now –”

“Dirina,” Amarta cried out defiantly, raising her voice over Pas’s howl.

“Out,” he shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders, hard enough to hurt, turning her and propelling her toward the half-open door. She leaned back against him, resisting.

“Dirina!” she yelled as loud as she could.

And then she was again out in the night, the door shut, the bolt slamming down.

Pas was wailing in earnest now. She turned away from the inn, stumbling back down the path to the shack, tears of frustration and shame blurring her vision.

If the villagers hadn’t liked her before, they would like her less now. A false hope in any case, that they might ever. But what if she had ruined Dirina’s work as well? What would they do for food and heat?

Maybe there was no changing the future for yourself. She’d foreseen her parents’ death but had not been able to prevent it. Maybe that was how it worked.

Or, she realized suddenly, she could leave by herself. Tonight. Go off into the mountain roads alone. Surely the villagers would accept Dirina and Pas if Amarta were gone.

She wondered at what would find her first. Cougars. Wolves. The cold.

The shadow hunter.

But then, if she died, perhaps she could see her mother in the Beyond. Tell her she was sorry. Maybe her mother would throw a stone for her over whatever cliffs the afterlife might have.

She wiped her nose as she walked, clutching Pas to her chest as he cried softly. So intent was she on the snow-crusted path in front of her, on swallowing her tears, that only when Dirina was right by her side did she hear her sister call her name.

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 22

Come The Revolution – Snippet 22

*****

It took about two hours, but afterwards I was pretty sure I had everything of value from them, including as much as they knew about Stal’s organization. Under the influence of the nortostecine Bela told me why he and Pablo came after me in the first place. A Resistance cell in the Human slum called Sookagrad had a price on my head for “Treason Against Humanity.” Long story, but suffice it to say they had most of their facts screwed up, and I’m a much nicer guy than they gave me credit for.

But Bela and Pablo weren’t going to turn me over to them. Nicolai Stal, the guy they wanted to impress, was sitting in the back yard of about every law enforcement and military intelligence outfit in the Cottohazz, and in addition had to arm wrestle with a local merchants’ and citizens’ association. Stal couldn’t lean on anyone very hard because the citizen’s association was backed up by an armed Human separatist resistance cell, the same one that had a price on my head. Politics always gets in the way of business.

Stal wanted to resolve his troubles with the Resistance: either patch things up or eliminate them. Bela figured I’d be the ticket to get either of those jobs accomplished. Stal could offer to hand me over, and either do so as an act of good will if he thought it could smooth over some of the rough spots in the relationship, or he could use the transfer of me to them as a ruse to draw them out and kill them.

That was Bela’s idea, and it showed some surprisingly nuanced strategic thinking.

So why did I bother with interrogating Bela and Pablo? It was always good to know what was going on, and at some point I still might have to make a deal with the Munies. Anything of value I could share with them might help grease the wheels of our future relationship. Grease is good.

Once the drug wore completely off, Pablo began crying, a fairly common post-interrogation reaction. Maybe he was crying because of what Stal would do to them once he found out they’d spilled everything they knew about his organization. Maybe he was crying because he figured my best option was to put a flechette in his brain. Hard telling.

“No cry, Pablo,” Bela told him, an order rather than an offer of comfort. Bela’s voice sounded shaky as well, but the kid kept up the façade. Sometimes that’s all you have left. I’ll say this: the kid had guts and brains, maybe more of the former than the latter. I walked around in front of them.

“Look, you two, let’s get something straight. I should probably kill you but I’m not going to. I’m twenty-two and zero. That means I killed twenty-two people in my last life but not one so far in this one. You two aren’t really important enough to make me break my streak, and you won’t be unless you get in my way again.

“I’ve got some business to take care of here in Prahaa-Riz and then I’m leaving town. I’m going to leave you tied up for a while but I’ll cut you loose before I go.”

“How we know that?” Bela asked.

“What choice do you have? But look at it this way: as long as you’re alive there’s a chance you’ll try to escape or do something stupid that could screw up my plans, so if I was going to kill you anyway, believe me, you’d already be in a couple big plastic bags in the back room. So shut up and count your blessings.”

I left them with that cheery thought and went into the fabricator room to check on the body armor I was running out. I didn’t have a lightweight suit here; both sets were at the valley house. I wasn’t expecting any trouble but it pays to be safe and so I’d started the fabricator cranking out a new set before I commed The’On.

The shirt was done but the pants were still printing. I ran the vacuum over the shirt and dropped it in the component washer. I’d chosen a lightweight suite designed to be worn under my street clothes, but also one that would print fairly quickly, because I didn’t want to hang around here forever. This version would stop a knife and slow down a flechette, provided it wasn’t a milspeck high velocity smarthead.

I activated a smart wall in the fabricator room and brought up the software order again just to look at it. A one-time license for body armor, two-part covering torso and limbs, tailored to my laser body scan: three hundred and seventy-five cottos, about half of which was the software royalty and the rest was to the distributor, for marketing and product support. This was a fairly low-tech model, moderate protection; a really nice set could run you a couple thousand, not counting the raw material cost to feed your fabricator, and the electricity to run it, but that wasn’t much.

Stal was on to something. His racket wasn’t just a revenue stream; it was a worm in the heart of the Cottohazz, the whole crooked set-up. The economy ran on decentralized fabrication so anybody can have anything — provided they can pay the design software royalties — with the intellectual property laws rigged so no one could ever get ahead of the Varoki in technology. Anytime anyone needed almost anything anywhere in the Cottohazz, all they had to do was punch up the software and fabricate it themselves, and every time they did the guys on top dipped their beaks. Folks who couldn’t afford a fabricator of their own, or wanted something bigger than their fabricator could handle, bought from a store, but most of what they bought was fabricated in the back room and it amounted to the same thing.

Except in Nicolai Stal’s neighborhood.

I wondered how he pulled it off. There were two potential ways around the system. One was to disable the purge code which disabled the software in your fabricator after you’d made the items covered by your end user license. The other was to hack the user license itself and change the iteration number. Pay for one item and then convince the software you’d paid for a hundred. Or a million.

But it’s not as if that hadn’t occurred to the trading houses, and trying to crack that code from the outside was a sucker play. No, Stal must have people on the inside working with him, and that was extremely interesting. The one time I’d tried a really big data mining operation back on Peezgtaan, that’s how we’d made it work. After this current emergency was tamped down, I was going to have to figure out a way to meet this Nicolai Stal, some way which would not involve me getting killed.

Before I plunged down into the heart of Prahaa-Riz, I wanted to take a look around and I was tired of vid feed. I opened the clear sliding doors to the balcony and went out. Right away I caught the trace smell of smoke — not clean wood smoke, but burning garbage, plastic, and something sweet, maybe flesh. Sakkatto City stretched out before me in the late afternoon sunlight, large columns of smoke rising from a dozen or more sites out in the slums and more little smoldering fires than I could count, all adding to a low clinging haze. Maybe because of the elevation I could just see more than before, or seeing it live had more impact than vid, but it looked worse to me, not better.

The arcologies appeared untouched, rising like arcane monoliths from the clutter of the slums — untouched, unmoving, unseeing — but the slums looked unsettled. Among the flickering fires and through an irregular curtain of smoke I saw snatches of movement, flashing emergency vehicle lights, a waving banner, a sparkling reflection from a riot shield–movement devoid of clear meaning but fraught with implication.

I ran my hand along the railing, still slick with fire retardant. I looked down to the slums directly below Prahaa-Riz, over a kilometer below me, and I remembered the feeling of vaulting over the railing of a burglarized apartment in Crack City, fifteen years earlier, and riding the canyon thermals down on a parawing, with a rucksack full of treasure — whatever the treasure had been that night. Did I have a parawing in the apartment? I didn’t think so, but I could whip one up using the fabricator. The problem with a parawing is you have to come down sometime, and no matter where I came down, everything was still going to be . . . that.

No, my Peter Pan days were over. If I was going to fly out of here, it would be by a short-hop turbo-shuttle, and I had a couple people I needed to take with me on that flight. I owed it to them.

 

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 44

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 44

Chapter 21

Thwack!

“Excellent,” Ashok told Jagdish. “You almost hit me. Good work.”

The risaldar stumbled away, one hand pressed to his bruised ribs. He caught himself on the prison wall and held himself there, trying to catch his breath. If they’d been using real blades, Jagdish would be dead, and they both knew it. “That was good?” he gasped.

“Well…Better.” Ashok respected Jagdish. Ratul had taught them there were two types who could become great swordsmen, tigers and hounds. Tigers were naturally gifted, fast, graceful, and everything came easily to them, but tigers were proud, so were resistant to learning. Hounds were not born lucky, but they simply would not quit, and they just kept grunting along until the job was done. Jagdish was a hound. It was too bad Vadal hadn’t obligated him, because he would’ve made a good Protector. Jagdish’s skills had improved greatly over the last few months they’d been training together, and if he’d done this well during their knife fight Ashok might have gotten injured.

Jagdish pushed himself off the wall, lifted his shirt, and grimaced at the spreading bruise. “Damn! That hurts.”

“My swordmaster told me it has to hurt, or you can’t learn.” Ratul may have lost his mind and descended into the madness of religious fervor, but he had been an excellent teacher before that — among the best there had ever been. “A balance must be struck between severe injury — which makes you unable to train further — and the tag and slap games those who play at combat mistake for training. So, as my master used to ask, is it squirting blood or is a bone sticking out?”

“No.”

“Then we can continue.”

“If it wasn’t for this bum leg, I could take you,” Jagdish lied. They both knew his leg was completely healed at this point, and besides, Ashok routinely defeated everyone, so it wasn’t like Jagdish needed an excuse. “At this rate, by the time I’m ready to retire and you’re about to die of old age, I’ll be ready to duel you.”

“Keep winding your little clock, but I don’t think time will save you. The judges may move like snails, but they’re not that slow.” It had been fall when he’d faced Bidaya, and winter was just starting. He’d been imprisoned here for over a year now. Even by Capitol standards, he must have given the judges something interesting to argue about. “Justice isn’t swift, but it is by definition, correct. My corpse will be decorating the Inquisitor’s Dome long before either of us can grow old.”

Jagdish picked his wooden sword out of the dirt. “Then I’d better work harder.”

“A wise answer.”

“How in the ocean’s name are you this good? I’ve trained my whole life.”

Ashok shrugged. Fighting had always come easily to him. “Strike your opponent while avoiding their strikes. Hit them before they hit you. If they put something in your way, move it, then hit them. They’re easier to hit if you knock them down first. There is no showmanship, no flash, only hitting and not being hit. Don’t make it complicated.”

“Yes, yes, I got the fundamental philosophy the first hundred times you said it, but I was the best in my class, from the house with the greatest warrior tradition in Lok, and this is ridiculous. All of the legends about Protectors are true!”

“Warriors train to fight other warriors. Protectors fight everything.” That was only part of it, but he’d made a solemn vow to never speak of the Heart of the Mountain. The truth of it was, ever since touching the Heart, the movements of regular fighters seemed sluggish in comparison. It wasn’t fair, but anyone who got into fair fights could expect to lose half the time.

“It’s like you know what I’m going to do before I do it, every single time!”

“I don’t have to have Angruvadal in my hand to feel its influence. Every fight it has ever experienced, I’ve experienced. It makes you predictable.”

“Then perhaps I should be unpredictable!” Jagdish must have picked up a handful of dirt when he’d retrieved his sword, because he threw it at Ashok’s eyes.

With Angruvadal helping, he could pick out every grain of sand suspended in the air. Borrowed lifetimes of experience enabled him to respond without thought. Ashok simply closed his eyes and felt the stinging bits bounce off his skin as he swayed to the side. He felt the wooden sword pass through the ragged remains of his shirt as he calculated all the angles and the most efficient way to respond to Jagdish’s lunge. Time returned to normal and Ashok was already turning, bringing his own blunt practice blade up, and he struck Jagdish in the armpit with a push-cut that was hard enough to break skin and toss the young warrior on his back.

Jagdish landed hard and swearing. The guards watching along the wall had a good laugh at their commander’s misfortune. He was enough of a man to let them watch, and they’d gained respect for their leader seeing him try to beat the unbeatable, without fail, every single day. So the laughter was all in good fun. Soldiers fought harder when they knew their leader had guts. “Are you all right down there, sir?”

“Get back to work!” Jagdish shouted at them.

“Come on, Risaldar! You think in a thousand years nobody ever thought to throw sand in a bearer’s eyes?” Ashok tapped two fingers to the side of his head. “I’ve got the memories of someone who fought a duel where both combatants stood on the back of an elephant in here!”

Jagdish groaned as he sat up. There was a dark spot of blood showing through the side of his shirt. “I’ll have Wat fetch us some elephants for tomorrow then. That’ll give the men a good show.”

Ashok extended one hand to help him up. It was an unconscious movement, something an equal would do for a friend. Ashok realized too late that he’d just broken the Law, but the warrior didn’t seem to notice and he took Ashok’s hand anyway. Jagdish might have hesitated to accept the help before, but when you fight against a man every single day, it became easy to forget the caste of their birth. Ashok hauled him to his feet.

Jagdish leaned his practice sword against the stone wall. “I’m done.”

“Calling it a day already?”

“I don’t think I have a choice.” He pointed at the highest guard tower, where one of the men was waving a flag. Red was for potential danger, green was for regular business, and blue was for high-status visitors. This flag was blue. “They must be flying heraldry. Someone important is coming to visit. Damn it, I wasn’t told of any inspections.”

“Perhaps it’s a judge, finally come to condemn me,” Ashok said hopefully.

“Don’t say that,” Jagdish said as he picked up a towel and wipe the sweat from his face. “I’d miss our practice sessions.”

“Don’t worry, Risaldar. After they execute me, you could still try to become Angruvadal’s bearer.”

Jagdish paused. The idea of becoming a house’s bearer wasn’t something any honorable warrior took lightly. “Do you truly believe I’m worthy?” he asked earnestly.

Ashok thought that over. It was a curious thing for an honest whole man to ask a vile criminal about worthiness. “I only know of one man who may be more deserving, but it is Angruvadal’s decision to make, and no one can truly understand how black steel thinks. However, I’ll put in a word with my sword and ask it to not mangle you too badly if it finds you unworthy.”

Jagdish paused, thoughtful. “Does that work?”

“I don’t know. There’s only one way to find out, but I won’t be around to see if it cuts your hands off or not.”

“Maybe I won’t miss these practice sessions that much after all…” Jagdish muttered as he limped toward his office. “Wat! Return the prisoner to his cell.”

Ashok enjoyed the bright winter sun on his face until he was put back in his hole.

 

The Seer – Snippet 15

The Seer – Snippet 15

But it was too late for regrets. He would simply have to be careful what he told him. And get the man under contract.

Bolah had arranged their meeting at the Frosted Rose, an expensive eatery near the palace where lamps were kept dim to cater to merchants and aristocrats who found it prudent to conduct business away from House and palace.

Innel had dressed in the simple, nondescript garb that a merchant might wear. Nalas was at another table in a similar outfit. After a sip of sunken ale, a fermented drink he didn’t much like involving roots and fungus that was currently popular, he went to the toilet at the back of the inn. Nalas followed, and stood outside to discourage anyone else.

Inside, Innel opened a small vent above his head. He tapped the ceiling in a pattern of knocks based on a well-known ballad.

“Yes?” came a male voice.

“Identify yourself.”

“I am called Tayre. Bolah sent me. In what way can I assist you, ser?”

The tone was not what he had expected. Mild, nearly deferring. Perhaps the tone of a servant.

“She speaks highly of you,” Innel said with some doubt. “That you are without peer across the empire.”

A thoughtful sound. “That seems likely.” Was that disappointment in his tone?

Again, not the response Innel expected. “What you can do for me?”

“What do you need done?”

Innel hesitated. Every person who knew was a vulnerability. “There is a girl. I want her brought to me. Fast and quietly.”

“In what condition?”

“Intact. Alive and well. She is traveling with a woman and a baby. I want them, too, but the girl is my first concern.” He recalled how she had looked at her sister and cradled the baby. There were deep, isolated rooms in the palace dungeons that would house them all. He would clear one. “A bonus for the woman and baby.”

“What do you want with the girl?”

“Does it matter?”

“It might,” the man said. “I can’t know until you tell me.”

“I have questions for her that I don’t want anyone else asking.”

“Are others pursuing her?”

“No,” he said firmly, willing it to be so.

“Will you describe her?”

Again he hesitated. But really, what choice did he have? He could not fetch her himself.

Once he married Cern, once she was crowned, his position would be secure.

If he had the girl, that was.

“Perhaps twelve springs old,” Innel said. “Amarta al Botaros, or at least she was in Botaros last autumn.” Had so much time really passed since then? “Brown hair, past her shoulders. A roundish face, light green eyes, short nose. Her sister is perhaps twenty, with an infant in arms. A boy, I think. Botaros is a mountain village, southeast, off the Sennant River.”

“I know it.”

“How long will it take you, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“What? No estimate?”

“Please understand,” Tayre said, “that when you contract with me, you purchase my ability to deliver what is possible and no more.”

Innel gave a soft laugh. “What does that mean?”

“It means that I deliver what you want, if it is in my capability.”

“That’s all you offer?”

“That is all I offer.”

Innel waited for more, but he was silent. No explanations, no promises. For a moment anger sparked in Innel. Was he being toyed with?

No, he was not, he realized. Innel was overly accustomed to the arrogant, blustery talk that made up most of palace conversation. This man was not from the palace. Not from anywhere nearby, either, he guessed. This was simply confidence. “I see,” he said slowly. “When can you begin?”

Spring weather had yet to arrive in force. Snow and ice still clung to the mountain peaks.

“As soon as we come to terms,” Tayre answered. “I will go to Botaros and track her. One hundred souver touches now, against expenses, one hundred more when I deliver her. Another hundred for the sister and baby. All alive.”

Expensive, but not nearly as dear as Innel had expected.

“And.”

“And?”

“Unrestricted passage through Arun.”

Arun, not Arunkel. Not quite an insult, but far from the patriotism Innel was accustomed to. “I can’t even promise myself that.”

“I will accept as sufficient a writ that neither you nor those under your command will detain me in any way.”

“Not if you break laws.”

Now there was open amusement in the other’s voice. “Have you heard the saying that one can break the king’s laws by sneezing, Captain?”

“Liberty and immunity? I can’t give you that.”

“I think in your future capacity as Royal Consort you can.”

“Not indefinitely.”

“Ten years.”

“Five.”

“I see Bolah has failed to explain me; I do not bargain. Those are my terms. Do you decline the contract?”

There was something about the soft tone of voice that blunted words that would otherwise have been insulting. It was just the sort of clever trick his brother might have used. He reminded himself what Bolah had said, that there were others far less expensive and nearly as good.

Nearly.

No. He did not have time for mistakes. “What would you do with such free passage if you had it?”

“I have no specific plans.”

“I can’t promise such liberty without knowing.”

“Nothing to undermine your monarch’s agenda. Whoever it happens to be.”

“Or mine.”

A short chuckle. “No, Captain. I can’t afford to be caught between you and your sovereign. Choose one.”

Innel started to answer, stopped. As long as the girl was free to give accurate predictions to anyone else, his plans could be severely and rapidly undermined. At the same time, those plans depended on his unquestioned loyalty to the king and, if things went well, to Cern.

One answer put Innel in danger. The other was treason. Bolah was right. The man was good.

“To protect the crown, then,” Innel said, “you should first direct your loyalty to me.”

Treason it was.

“As you say, Captain. Do we have a contract?”

“I want to see what I’m buying.”

“Seeing me won’t reassure you.”

“You assume a lot about me for someone who doesn’t know me.”

“What makes you think I don’t know you?”

That caught Innel off guard. After a moment’s reflection, he decided the man was making a point rather than a threat.

“Also, consider this,” Tayre said. “As I go about your business, if I should be caught and brought before you and your monarch, you may disavow me with veracity. There are those who can tell lie from truth, just by hearing it spoken.”

“I have yet to meet such a person,” Innel said. It was one of a long list of abilities that mages were reputed to have.

“They don’t typically announce themselves.”

“Are you a mage, Tayre?”

A single laugh. “If I were, I would charge more. Perhaps I would even bargain. Hire my reputation, Captain, not my appearance.”

Innel preferred his contracts sealed with a formal handclasp as well as words. It was said that one could judge how well a person would fulfill their commitment by the hands and eyes in the moment of binding. Innel fancied that he had that skill. Furthermore, he was curious about what Tayre looked like, curious if he would be disappointed. But the man was right in his points, and curiosity was not reason enough. It was, as always, a balance of risks.

“I accept your terms,” Innel said, initiating the litany that sealed the bond.

“Our contract is made,” Tayre replied, completing the verbal binding.

As Innel listened to the man’s soft steps fade across the roof, he wondered which of the dungeon rooms would attract the least attention.

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 09

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 09

And then all the material on how Scotland ought, in the future when her soldiers came home from the wars, be best served by a united government that settled secular affairs securely and left the divines alone. That he was entirely silent on how the divines would be involved in secular affairs was surely just an oversight, a matter he had chosen not to deal with at that time. The fact that he had said nothing about whom the government of Scotland might be united under, well, only a fool would see that he was not taking it entirely as read that that meant a United Kingdom under the House of Stuart. To suggest otherwise, well, that would be to accuse Reay of rankest treason. Only the rankest traitor would compass his words in that way, surely?

Mackay smiled. Donald Mackay, Lord Reay and chief of Clan Mackay might act the bluff soldier, but he was chief of one of Scotland’s greater clans — even in numbers; in quality there was none finer than Clan Mackay — and as such bore a heavy weight of political responsibility. Under such a weight, a man grew cunning or failed, and Reay hadn’t failed yet. He and several of his sons were now senior commanders under Gustavus Adolphus, their estates in Caithness and Sutherland doing well by all accounts and, in the event of clan strife, able to be defended by several thousand veteran soldiers with the latest in modern arms and tactics.

The Ring of Fire had been an opportunity that the Mackays had been well placed to grasp — not least because it was a Mackay who was the first of Gustav Adolf’s soldiers who’d encountered the Americans. Robert Mackay’s own son Alex, in fact. Who’d found himself a bride into the bargain, now a baroness of Sweden, which was a weight off Robert’s mind. It would not do for a man to leave his legitimate issue short to support his bastard, so seeing young Alex make his own way in the world with great success was a fine thing. And it meant that the fast friendship between Alex and his other sons would never be troubled by vexatious disputes over property. The boy even had his own retainers, when those lads finished their terms of service with the USE. He’d be a credit and an asset to the clan, and none would give him grief over his bastard birth. Not lightly, anyway. Julie’s rifle was a thing of legend from one end of Europe to another, and a man who could treat your death as so minor a matter as to leave it to his wife was nobody’s whipping-boy. As he’d pointed out to several idiots who’d made snide remarks.

How the Mackays would have fared if their patron had died at Lutzen was a detail Grantville hadn’t brought back, although Donald had backed the losing side in the civil war that would have happened. It looked as though he was minded not to make that mistake again. Or the first time, if a fellow wanted to be particular about it. So, Reay was sending oblique communications. Assuming that your opponent had the intelligence to read your mail was a good one, so you’d to couch it in terms you’d both understand that could be explained away as innocent. Using a cipher was a dead giveaway, of course. There’d be room and time to clear up misunderstandings later, at need. Unless Mackay missed his guess, this fellow Lennox who’d be coming over to Scotland soon, was one of his son’s hard crew of borderer cavalry. A reliable fellow, to hear Alex speak of it.

Lennox would no doubt have been been briefed in full by Lord Reay. Though he was not a Mackay clansman by birth, but a border reiver who’d decided to take up respectable soldiering, Lennox had come to enjoy the security of a clan loyalty.

For the time being, though, Lord Reay wrote of curbing the secular power of the divines and uniting Scotland’s leadership. So. Who was most likely the target, here? The trick with Scots politics, of course, was to stand back and squint a little, to get the broad strokes of the picture. Once you started in on the details of clan and family feuding, litigation and lesser disputes, you’d never be stopping. You had two main lots, though: the presbyterians who disagreed with James VI’s dictum no bishop, no king — they were quite happy to do without bishops and treated monarchy as a separate matter — and the episcopalians, who supported bishops in order to support the king. There weren’t many in Scotland, other than the bishops themselves, who regarded episcopacy as a good idea in and of itself. Of course, there were plenty of smaller factions looking for more independence for the various independents, but mostly it was the adherents of the covenant of 1580 against the episcopalians. Call it covenant against royalist, but it was more shaded than that.

And then you had the highland-lowland rivalry, what with the highlanders still counting plenty of papists among their number. The chances of actually extirpating the old religion in the wilder places were remote at best, whatever the Covenant might say on the matter. And when you got right to it, more than a few of the greater lords of the Scots peerage, Reay of the Mackays included, counted thousands of highlanders among their people, and if put to it could raise fine private armies of savage light troops more than willing to wreak plentiful havoc for the promise of plunder. Of course, that’d have the lowlanders taking up arms against the prospect of thieving, drunken highland savages let loose in their midst.

Mackay shook his head ruefully. He was letting himself get drawn in. Covenant and Episcopal parties. Stick with that. It was a matter on which everyone had a mind which side he was on, and there were real political consequences to it. Not quite crown against parliament the way the English did it, but close enough. Lord Reay — and who else? A question for another time, that — was looking to add a third faction to the mix. Taking over one or another of the first two or recruiting from both to get bigger than either? From the hints Reay had scattered through his letter, he was looking to unite a new faction behind the idea of loyalty to Scotland first and only. Which was interesting, but any fool could see there was a reason Scotland had ended up the subordinate kingdom after the Union of the Crowns in the person of James the Sixth and First. It wasn’t simply the inability of Scotsmen in the mass to agree on anything no matter how trivial, although that had certainly contributed heavily. It was the plain fact that Scotland, as a country, had no resources save the flower of her manhood with which to make her way in the world. Three quarters of the country was good for hard-scrabble herding and little else. There were mines here and there, but precious few of those, no great ports, no towns with long traditions of manufacture. If you couldn’t butcher it or sell its wool, Scotland produced very little of it.

There might be a hint in the shape of the digression Reay had made about the value of the Wietze oil-fields, where they were mining the oil that made the fuel for the wonderful machines Grantville designed and Magdeburg built. Was there a source of that under Scotland? If so, there was something reduced the matter to the irreducible. Or irreducible when it came to Scotland, say. The factions. Who to talk to about that? Mackay decided it was time to make some notes, and rang for his secretary.

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 21

Come The Revolution – Snippet 21

Chapter Thirteen

It probably frightened Lefty and Pablo to wake up gagged and strapped securely into chairs, and with a tiny comm jammer taped to the back of their necks, but I can’t say I had much sympathy for their predicament.

I’d showered and changed while the atmosphere filtration system scrubbed the gas out of the air in the living room. Our security system had an option for lethal gas but it was a lot more trouble to work with. After all, you can’t just pump lethal gas through an exhaust duct into the outside air when you’re done with it. How environmentally sensitive would that be? So I used a non-lethal gas which promised to knock them out for two hours and leave them weak but clear-headed for at least as long afterwards. I’d never used it before but it performed exactly as advertised.

While I waited for them to come to, I got my re-transmitters up and running and then commed The’On. I was a little surprised he answered right away.

“Hey, pal, how’s the head?” I asked.

Sasha! It is so good to hear from you. Where are you? Are you safe?

“Yeah, I’m fine. No telling how secure this link is so I won’t tell you where I am.”

Of course. I was not thinking. We were all very worried. And thank you for saving my life yesterday — twice. The vid of you telling the large angry fisherman you would not let me drown, that I was your friend, has made you something of an instant celebrity here in Kootrin. Have you heard from the others?

“I know Gaisaana-la and ah-Quan are alive, or at least they were yesterday. I’m going to try to contact them next. I haven’t heard from Borro.”

Borro is alive. I received a comm from him earlier. He is still in the city but trying to reach us.

“Well that’s some good news. Listen, the situation’s pretty bad here in Sakkatto and my gut tells me it’s going to get worse. Everyone is losing control. I know you’re banged up, but you’re the only conduit I can think of to the Cottohazz Executive Council. You need to talk your bosses into some emergency abatement, and quickly.”

In Bakaa? A frontier world like K’tok is one thing, Sasha, but Bakaa is the single most powerful political entity in the Varoki circle. The Cottohazz Wat is itself in uBakai territory, as are the executive offices.

“More reason to get on top of this,” I said. “Face it, Pal, when it comes to crises, your Executive Council has a long history of closing the airlock after all the atmosphere’s gone. This one’s real trouble. I’m not screwing around. You need to break tradition and get out ahead of it, quick.”

There was a silence on the line for a couple seconds before he answered.

You may be right. I will speak to my superiors. Politically it will be very complicated.

“Sure it is, but you’re my go-to guy for complicated politics. Speaking of which, I ran into an old friend of yours yesterday, guy by the name of e-Loyolaan.”

The head of CSJ? Sasha, I assure you Yignatu e-Loyolaan is no friend of mine.

“Yeah, he mentioned that, but I get the feeling he thinks of you as a worthy adversary, something like that. It felt like he was sounding me out, maybe trying to open a direct line to you. Any chance you two can find some common ground in sorting this whole mess out?”

I shudder at the thought, but for your sake I will explore the possibility.

“Last thing, have you seen any vid of Gaant’s speech, the one he gave right before the shit hit the fan?”

I have not had much time to watch, but I believe I saw a segment of it. Why? Do you believe it has been altered? I am afraid my own memory of it is incomplete.

“Not altered. The thing is, I don’t see how a recording can even exist, since the jammers didn’t go down until after he was done talking. I mean, that was the whole point of the jammers, right?”

After? Really? If you are correct then the only explanation is a bio-recorder, a mostly non-metallic implanted e-synaptic memory system. They are rare but sometimes worn by vid feeders to protect their proprietary content until they can edit and post it with their embedded commentary. Some intelligence operatives are fitted with them as well.

“Bio-recorder, huh? Okay, good to know.

“So I’m going to switch to one of my travel cover IDs and try to make it across the border. With any luck I’ll see you before too long. Tell Marr and Tweezaa for me, will you? I can’t chance too many comms without blowing the encryption ciphers, and I don’t know how long I’m going to have to stay down in the weeds. Besides, I think I’m still on Marr’s shit list.”

I will give them your love. Take care of yourself, my friend. I hope to see you soon.

I broke the connection and leaned back in my chair, letting the news video play across the smart wall opposite me. The Munies were stretched very thin, were spending a lot of time and energy racing from one flash point to another, and their faces in the vids showed the effects of fatigue and stress. Some of them had been at this for thirty hours without a break except for food and stimulants. The strain was showing in their actions, which were becoming more “proactive,” a polite word for preemptively violent, often lethally so.

Behind me I heard a chair creak. I turned and saw both my guests were conscious. As I had tape across their mouths, the only sound they made was the rustle of cloth on cushion as they struggled against the broad tape which confined them to their chairs.

I rose and walked toward them.

“Time to talk, boys.”

Pablo struggled even harder, rocking the chair from side to side until it fell over, and then he desperately flopped back and forth. Lefty’s eyes just got large and he cowered back in his chair, or as much as the tapes let him.

I had already prepped two auto-injectors and now I took them from the pocket of my slacks. I shot Lefty in the neck with one and then leaned down and did the same for Pablo. I tipped him and his chair upright next to Lefty, which wasn’t easy with only one good arm, but I managed. After allowing five minutes for the drug to work, I pulled the tape off their mouths.

I always had pretty good results with the interrogation drug I used, nortostecine. It didn’t force people to talk and it didn’t make them terrified. Instead, it overrode all their fear and inhibitions. It made them relaxed and chatty, and it erased any concern about consequences. No matter what they said, they could not imagine anything bad would happen, which removed their motivation to lie. Its only downside was it made the subject’s attention wander.

I liked nortostecine because it was a lot less traumatic than most interrogation drugs. Bizarre as it probably sounds given my history, I had developed an aversion to traumatizing people. It started before I died and had gained increased traction in the two years since my resurrection. That’s the real reason I left most of the field work to the kids, and for over six months had managed to come up with one excuse after another for not carrying a sidearm. There they sat over in my gun safe.

“Nicolai Stal going to take your ass!” Lefty blurted out as soon as the tape was off.

“Is he? But you don’t really work for him, do you?”

“No. . . but would, as soon as turn you over. Now you ruin everything.”

“Yeah, sorry. So why did he want me? Or was this all your idea to begin with?”

“Nicolai Stal kill you,” Pablo said, his first contribution to the conversation.

“We’re already past that Pablo. Now, what were you saying, Lefty?”

“Lefty? Name is not Lefty, is Bela Ripnick. Why for you have electric locks and gas in apartment?”

“Bela, don’t you think the head of security for the highest-profile non-governmental target in the entire Cottohazz might have extra security in the apartment he shares with that target?”

“Well, yes, makes sense. . . . What you ask me before?”

I pulled over a chair and sat down. This could take some time.

 

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 43

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 43

“Wine?” He poured her a glass. Up close, he was older than she’d expected, probably ten years her senior. Devedas had a kind smile, but it was offset by the massive scar that crossed his face. He caught her looking and touched the white line with his fingers. “This? I received it in a duel. Needless to say, I lost.”

“I didn’t mean to stare.”

“It is kind of hard to miss. This is my little reminder that one shouldn’t try to take something that isn’t his, but that was a long time ago.”

There was no way this man could have ever stolen anything. “I’m sure you’ve won many duels since,” Rada said, and then realized how stupid that sounded.

“A few, but as a swordsman gets older he understands there are some fights he’s not meant to win…Now, your identity is safe and your visit is only known to people who I trust. Not even the strongest wizards can spy within these walls. You can speak freely here.”

Earlier it had been easy to think about lying to the Protectors about her own crimes, but with those piercing eyes looking through her, such an omission had suddenly become very difficult. “I recently provided a report to the judges concerning the legal history of the untouchables.”

“I was there that day.” His expression suggested he’d enjoyed it as much as she had.

“That’s when I saw you and knew you’d help,” she exclaimed, and wished that she hadn’t, because that sounded childish. “I mean, you were actually honest.”

“That isn’t necessarily a positive trait in the Capitol. I brought shame to my Order and discovered I lack the temperament for court. Other Protectors will be handling those duties on my behalf from now on.” Devedas shook his head, as if the whole thing was rather amusing. “What can I help you with?”

Rada’s mouth was suddenly very dry. She drank more of the wine without even tasting it. “The report…There was a problem.” For someone as devoted to the ideals of the library as Rada was, this was like admitting to the foulest deed possible. Feeding babies to demons would have been better. “The report was inaccurate.”

Devedas blinked slowly. “And?”

“On purpose. It wasn’t my fault. I was forced to leave things off. But only because I was threatened! They’d kill me if I didn’t.”

“Oh.” He sensed her hesitation. “Listen, you might have broken the Law, but I’m not going to judge you now. The Law allows leniency for crimes committed under duress. The important thing is that you’re trying to correct your mistake. You’re safe. I won’t allow anyone to hurt you.”

It was so easy to believe him that Rada told of the events in the archives.

Devedas listened intently the entire time, and his expression darkened when she spoke of the Inquisitor. When she was done he seemed to weigh his words very carefully. “That is troubling. I’ll do my best to find this man, but you have no evidence this wizard was actually from another order, let alone one as important as the Inquisition, and you can’t take a criminal at his word.”

She certainly hoped he was right about that, but the sabotage worried her. “But what of the conspiracy? The missing pages?”

“The Order of Inquisition is powerful, and frankly, currently better favored in this city than either of our orders. You can’t expect me to accuse the Inquisition of wrongdoing on just your word.”

That stung. “Then I didn’t need to dress up and make a fool of myself to come here.”

“I’m not disparaging you. It was wise to be discreet. Besides, I think you look lovely,” Devedas said, obviously trying to put her at ease, and just for a moment his smile was so damned charming that Rada could see how rumors got started. “This isn’t the first time the threat of violence has been used to sway the making of law. What is it they forced you to leave out?”

“It was some ancient history about the beginning of the castes. References to the origins of the untouchables were struck from all of our newer records.” The whole thing sounded insane to put it into words. Her father had often told her that good information was the foundation of good law, but someone was trying to sabotage that foundation. She found the whole thing incredibly offensive.

“I think those advocating for their slaughter are fools. I can reassure you that I honestly don’t think anything will change.”

“I hope you’re right.”

It was surprising how Devedas could go from charming to somber so quickly. “I don’t hope. I fight. I think about logistics. There are whole regions of Lok where the majority of the residents are casteless. Some houses depend on their labor to feed themselves. Our nation would rip itself apart. Most of the judges aren’t foolish enough to do something like that, but if they are…” Devedas shrugged.

“We can’t allow them to hurt the untouchables.”

“That isn’t our decision to make. The council will decide, laws will be written, and then we’ll follow them.”

“You don’t understand, Lord Protector. The Law only exists because of the casteless!”

Devedas laughed. “The most perfect system of governance in the history of the world exists because of the casteless?”

“I have proof.” Rada took out her glasses case and reached beneath the padding for the folded scrap of paper she’d hidden there. She regretted not wearing gloves, and as delicately as possible extracted the damaged treasure. “This was the page I was reading when I was attacked.” She wanted to be clear that she would never willingly damage a library book. “I accidentally tore it out when that man grabbed me.” She placed it on the table and steered it toward Devedas. He stared at it. “Oh, I’m sorry. Can you read?”

“All Protectors are literate…”

“I meant no offense, just that most warriors…”

“Actually, I was born into the first caste. When I’m not traveling the countryside cracking skulls like a barbarian, I enjoy books.” He read the scrap. Rada bit her lip, hoping he would believe her. She didn’t have her glasses on, but she’d memorized what it said.

The Lord Protector finished and was quiet for a very long time. “How old is this?”

“The original is from the dawn of the Age of Law. This was a copy transcribed hundreds of years after.”

“You believe this to be accurate?”

“Of course. That’s one of the duties of my Order. To preserve the words of older documents we often make new ones. Now we use the press, but this is how it was done for generations. We pride ourselves on our accuracy. I’d have more evidence, but this is exactly the sort of thing that’s been stolen. I’ve been afraid to return to the restricted collection to search for more.” She’d seen that her father had posted more guards around the library, so hopefully the saboteurs had been scared off, but she suspected their work was already done.

Devedas was deep in thought. He finished off his wine and set the cup down far too hard. “The idea of a conspiracy offends me. I will personally oversee this investigation.”

“If they find out I told you –”

“Protectors of the Law aren’t known for our discretion. We’re usually more direct in our investigations, but you have my word that I will do my best.” Devedas reached out and placed one rough hand on top of hers. Rada was surprised that she was suddenly feeling very flushed. Even with the scar the Lord Protector was perhaps the most handsome man she’d ever seen. He let go of her hand and stood up. “You’ll be safe. I’ll have my men escort you back to your estate.”

Rada surprised herself by exclaiming. “Wait!”

Devedas paused. “What?”

She didn’t want to leave yet. “My disguise, the rumors,” Rada blurted. She had no idea what she was doing, maybe Daksha was right, and it was time to have some experiences worth writing about. For once she was doing something extremely important, she actually felt pretty, and that made her bold. And on the spot Rada decided that damn it, she was going to seduce this Protector. “Maybe it would be safer if I returned to my estate in the morning instead?”

“I see.” Devedas smiled.

It turned out that some rumors were true.

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 20

Come The Revolution – Snippet 20

“Nothing stupid,” I agreed.

They had ground transportation waiting, a beat-up old manual-drive ground car parked in the public garage inside one of the south road access ways for Katammu-Arc. Lefty drove and we all crammed ourselves into the single broad seat. I had the feeling the original plan involved me riding in the baggage locker, but times change.

We emerged from the base of Katammu-Arc into drifting smoke and the stuttering sound of distant automatic weapons fire. My stomach churned in fear. Not your typical day in downtown Sakkatto, even in the slums. The city outside the arcologies was mostly made up of improvised structures with winding streets, some of them too narrow even for Lefty’s little clunker.

Some of the buildings were almost substantial: one- or two-story cast foamstone, with the exterior clearly showing the pattern of the improvised mold used to cast it, usually wood planking with gaps between the wood so the foamstone had oozed out a bit in the seams before hardening. A lot more of the structures were discarded metal cargo containers of varying sizes and colors, some with windows and doors cut into the sides, others with flexible plastic or composite sheeting flapping across the original entrance.

Most of the space in between these was filled with shacks, lean-tos, and improvised tents, all of them looking like they wouldn’t survive a good strong wind. Building materials were almost all metal, plastic, or composites. No wood — wood was fuel. Thin grayish smoke curled up from cooking fires, from a distance looking like the dirty plumes of a hundred cigarettes.

The ground was covered with garbage and the smell was about as strong as you’d guess. I didn’t imagine there was regular trash pickup. In terms of filth and general dilapidation, it was worse than the Human Quarter back in Crack City on Peezgtaan, where I’d grown up, and that was really saying something.

I saw evidence of recent violence: structures gutted by fire, merchandise looted from stores and discarded in the street, and lots of flashing Munie hard posters stuck up on building fronts telling people the curfew hours and which areas were under interdiction, all of which lent a grim post-apocalyptic feel to the landscape, made all the more surreal by our having been in the clean and orderly interior of Katammu-Arc only minutes earlier.

Once we had to double back and go around an area completely cordoned off by barricades manned by armed Varoki civilians. The unarmed Varoki we passed looked sullen and ready for a fight. A couple times groups of them started to crowd around the car but Pablo showed them his gauss pistol and they backed off. The farther we went, the more nervous I got, and I could smell both Lefty and Pablo sweating to either side of me, and it wasn’t that hot a day.

We passed five Munie checkpoints and I kept the fisherman hat low on my face when we did. Even if Varoki weren’t good at telling one Human from another by sight, the Munies’ facial recognition programs would ID me and bring up the summons flag, but I needn’t have bothered. As soon as they saw the car held Humans, they waved us through. Humans weren’t the problem today. That was the oddest part of the entire trip.

We drove through a landscape, altered and made unfamiliar, even to Lefty and Pablo, by the growing evidence of mass violence and the responses to it. The situation must have deteriorated just in the time they were inside Katammu-Arc dealing with me. I could tell they were as spooked as I was, although none of us let it show in our faces. We were tough guys, right?

The two-kilometer drive took almost an hour and there were several times I didn’t think we were going to make it, but we did. I was right about one thing: I’d have never made it on foot.

Prahaa-Riz arcology looked desolate from the outside, with much of its foliage burned away and many broken windows, particularly on the lower levels. We parked west of the arc and walked to the maintenance access bay I had an illegal key for. I’d set this up as an emergency escape route, not a way in, but doors swing both ways. The streets were wet and slick with black soot and flame-retardant foam from fighting the exterior fires, but all the streets were nearly deserted, at least on that side.

Once inside we stayed away from the public spaces, instead following the arcology’s circulatory system of air and power and fluid pipelines, making our way up through service elevators and maintenance access ways. We saw some damage, but not a lot and most of it was already repaired. A couple Varoki techs we passed looked at us funny but the gauss pistols discouraged their curiosity. I was half-surprised we didn’t see any Munies, but they apparently had their hands full in the public spaces of the arc.

I wasn’t sure what I’d find at the apartment. Our address was public knowledge and I half expected to find it vandalized and looted, although someone would have needed a pretty high-powered pulse laser to cut through the armored door and walls. In any case, the upper levels had come through in pretty good shape. Lots of well-off Varoki lived here and the Munies had protected it, contained the trouble down below.

We had to go through all those layers of security to get it. I doubt that Lefty or Pablo had seen anything like it, even at Munie lockups.

The apartment impressed Lefty and Pablo at first; then it sort of pissed them off. They knew some Varoki lived this well, but the idea that Humans did seemed more unfair, rather than less. That’s Human nature for you. Actually, this was very austere by e-Varokiim standards, but telling them that wouldn’t make them feel any better.

I moved the couch to show them the floor safe and then pointed out the gun safe in the corner. It was all transparent composites so it doubled as a display case. I had a neuro pistol, a couple very nice gauss pistols — one of them a big Zaschaan model with custom grips — as well as two old-style slug throwers: a little LeMatt 5mm and the Hawker 10mm I used to carry and which Marr had used to save my life after I was already dead. Long story.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” I said. “One of you guys want to check out the john before I do?”

Lefty did the honors, leaving Pablo with his nose almost pressed against the clear composite gun safe. The master bath was through Marr’s and my bedroom, and I imagine the bathroom itself was about as big as this kid’s apartment, which he probably shared with someone, maybe several someones. He checked the shelves and drawers and cabinets, looked for control surfaces, and then just stood looking around for a while, fingering his ear.

“You trying to grow that ear back?”

He scowled at me and dropped his hand to his side.

“Leave doors open, wise-guy, so we see when you get done.”

He left and I turned on the shower, waited a minute or two, and then went to the sink.

“Yanni,” I said, which was Marr’s and my security code for the apartment system. It was sort of a joke between us and usually brought a smile, but given our last conversation it made me feel blue instead, and lonely. A verification square appeared on the mirror and I pressed my left palm against it. The smart wall changed from a mirror surface to the default security screen: a layout of the apartment with thermal tags for the three occupants — me in the john and the two punks in the living room. I brought up the control interface and then closed and sealed all the doors to the living room. As the doors snicked shut I briefly heard Lefty and Pablo yell in anger and alarm. I pumped the living room full of gas and then took my shower.

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 08

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 08

Chapter 5

“It comes to something that a man may easier read shite than take one,” Robert Mackay muttered. Getting from the commode back to the bed was no joke, but when a man broke his back, that was what he’d to put up with. There was probably a bloody theologian somewhere blethering something about God’s plan out his arse, and be damned to the prating pederast. All the pain and indignity of being helped to the pot, all the indignity and pain of being helped back, and then the fucking paperwork was still waiting.

“Will ye haud ye’re noise, ye auld fool? If you’d bided on that bluidy mare ye’d no be led theer greetin’ yer wame in ma lugs, forbye. And will ye bide readin’ an’ no mither me? F’puir auld Meg? So’s I can clean, here?”

Mackay sighed. She’d a sharp tongue on her, but she spoke sense. Of the nurses he’d hired to mind him while he was waiting to be measured for his last overcoat, this one was the only one who’d not gotten on his nerves beyond all enduring. Largely by trying her damnedest to get on his nerves, as far as he could tell, which made a change from irritating servility or slovenly dullard idleness. And she’d a half-sister who was a grand nurse for the wee boy, and a fair portion of her family had served here in the Edinburgh house over the years. Her closest relative was one of the hostlers down in the mews, if Mackay recalled aright. Of course, it’d been years since he’d been anywhere near the stables. A carriage for long trips, a litter for short ones. And so much arse and elbow he tried to avoid it if he could.

Which meant he was sat here, a fowl on the water for crap like his chief had sent him. Clan loyalties cut through Scots politics like fault lines, which was to say they only really mattered during quakes. Or if you were mining for something, which Reay definitely was. Oh, he could dress it up all he pleased, but he was after something that Charles Stuart would not like. Of course, what Charles Stuart did not like and what he could do anything about were two different things. The man hadn’t called a parliament in years. Mackay couldn’t recall precisely how long, but it couldn’t be much less than ten years. Without taxes and levies, the House of Stuart was governing from its prerogatives. For a certainty, something had come in from the deal with the French, but how much of that remained in the Stuart’s coffers was a vexed question. Not much, if the reports on his spending on all those mercenaries were right. And there was replacing the navy ships the French had gotten shot to pieces. That had to cost right enough, and a necessity since Stuart seemed dead set on offending the United States of Europe.

“Something’s no’ so much shite, I reckon.”

“Aye? And what’d ye ken, fishwifie?”

“Och, fishwifie, is it, y’aud de’il? I ken ye’re grinnin’ like ye’ve been thievin’ frae bairns.”

“Aye, just that that idiot Stuart –”

“Papist — “Meg put in, as though she didn’t even notice she was doing it.

“– who may have some papist sympathies or at least be willing to tolerate them — is fire and flame for making himself a nuisance to the USE — ”

“Papists.”

“Aye? And wha’ wad oor wee fishwifie ken?”

“They have a cardinal. Papists ha’ cardinals. This is aye weel known.”

Mackay looked at her. He could tell when she was quoting the blithering idiot of a preacher at her dementedly independent kirk, because she lost her own accent and used his. And the blithering eejit claimed to be a good Scots presbyterian, like he knew any more of scripture than a hungry dog that’d ate a testament. “I’ll remind ye, Meg, that yon bampot ye set store by disnae ken good sense fra’ a pint o’ pish on the subject o’ European politics or any religion he cannae get fra’ the bottom o’ a bottle.”

“Och, you tak’ that back, ye auld thief! The reverend is a pious man –”

“Haud yer tongue!” Mackay bellowed. He’d had to learn to put up with a lot since he’d broken his back, compensations like the grandson his bastard son had presented him with notwithstanding. But he wasn’t listening to some rabble of a half-educated excuse for a minister described as a pious man when the nearest he got to piety was sobering up on Sundays, the better to rant a meagre collection-plate out of an ignorant congregation of waiting-women and idlers. After hearing one too many quotes from the man, Mackay had made inquiries. The man was technically no more than a deacon putting on airs as a curate, for all he insisted he was a lecturer after the Puritan style. Even the rest of the congregationalist mutton-heads in the kirk he preached at knew better than to let him make himself out an elder. He was permitted to preach before the main services to a mostly-empty room. Mackay had been amused to discover that there were waiting-women there anyway, there being idiots willing to pay a penny to show that they were pious enough to make sure of their place at worship and rich enough to pay for it done. Which was how the place was on Meg’s regular Sunday-morning round of services, finishing up at St. Giles’s for a Leith warehouse-owner who never turned up anyway. Apparently he thought paying Meg to sit in for him on her creepie-stool and listen to the Word on his behalf would be enough to get him in to heaven. Whatever, the idiot at the independent kirk could spout all the shite he liked but Mackay wasn’t going to listen to it quietly.

He glared at Meg, who’d adopted the dropped-jaw, shocked stare of the rarely-contradicted. “The USE is not papist. It’s not Calvinist. It’s not Lutheran, for a’ that Gustavus Adolphus is a Lutheran and a pious one from what I hear. And there’s nothing so much wrong with Lutherans, not at all. The worst ye can say is they’re wrong in the matter of religion. And they’re folk for a’ that, ye daft hen. As for the papists, aye, they’ve a cardinal for the USE. Because there’s papists in the USE. And they’re let be as they should be, to be wrong in their ain way. Or would ye seek tae save ’em against their will? Do mair than witness? Get yersel’ tae heaven through good works, will ye? Like these blethering meddlers in the kirk that want tae rule as well as minister?”

He kept up his glare. Meg sat down heavily on a chair. Mackay was secretly gratified. He’d had a stare that could quell the unruliest private soldier in his day, and it was pleasing to see that being crippled hadn’t taken the edge off it.

“Didnae think o’ that, did ye? No? Now take yon pot o’ shite oot o’ here, and mind it’ll do ye more good than anything ye hear from a whole regiment o’ divines if ye don’t mind the truth o’ religion, which is to save yer ain soul, no’ rule the world. Out!”

Meg left in a hurry. Mackay sighed. He’d either got her to shut up with the constant refrain of no popery that was the only bit of her goading he didn’t find refreshing, or he’d lost the first nurse he’d been able to stand at any price.

Still, yelling at her had given him a few thoughts to reply to Reay with. His chief had been careful to couch his letter in terms praising the merits of the freedom of religion the USE was now practising, and how harmful enforcement of cuius regio, eius religio had proven in the Germanies. It was surely, purely a coincidence that the packet had included some information on the course of the wars of religion from future scholars, and that the pages concerning the Bishops’ Wars were right at the front.