Eric Flint's Blog, page 249

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 40

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 40

Chapter 19

The presiding judge slammed his staff against the floor. The sudden noise brought the meeting to order. The judges, arbiters, regulators, courtiers, scribes and other various functionaries all took their seats in their sections that were carefully sorted by house, status, and rank.

Bang! “Several months ago this committee asked for a report to be generated pertaining to the proposed eradication of the casteless. The report is prepared and the meeting will come to order.” The staff came down again. Bang! Considering they’d been using the Chamber of Argument for hundreds of years, Senior Archivist Rada wondered how many times they’d had to replace the floor with all that staff banging. She’d have to look it up. “Honorable judges, representatives of the great houses, your scribes have been provided with a copy of the Order of Archivists’ report. Are there any questions pertaining to the report?”

Rada was in the scholar’s section far behind the presiding judge. She could see most of the chamber from here, and she glanced about fearfully, waiting to see who would condemn her first for submitting an incomplete and academically dubious report to this august body. Surely someone would realize how shoddy it was. There were Inquisitors standing in the aisles to keep order. Once a judge pointed out her errors, one of those Inquisitors would drag her away for execution. Sure, she could say that it was some nameless Inquisitor who’d forced her to leave out pertinent information, but who would believe her?

Several minutes passed as the judges flipped through their provided summaries. Rada was sweating and she couldn’t stop one leg from vibrating nervously, but nobody stood up to accuse her of fraud or treachery.

Since there was no shouting or cries for Rada to be dragged through the streets and lashed to the Inquisitor’s Dome to sunburn, wither, and die, the presiding judge was able to speak freely. “As you can see, there appear to be no real legal mandates pertaining to this topic. There is some confusion as to the origins of the idea that the untouchables were somehow protected and a few oral traditions, but nothing in the actual statutes can be found. The last time a full report was done on this subject was two generations ago, and the only references found in that report pertain to customs, not laws. The idea that some number of casteless must always exist appears to be a tradition formed by the great houses hundreds of years ago.”

“Our ancestors didn’t have to put up with so damned many of them. They breed like rabbits!” someone shouted from the judge’s gallery. Many laughed. Rada had flinched at the noise, certain that it would have been someone from the unpopular and neglected Historian’s Order calling attention to her lies, but it had only been a stupid joke. Besides, there weren’t that many Historians, and none of them were here.

“Indeed,” the presiding judge said. “Let us honor the wisdom of our ancestors, and be respectful of their traditions as we debate. However, since there are no legally binding covenants the committee is free to vote as they see fit. Before we begin, does anyone have any amendments they’d like to make before this report is entered into the permanent records of the Capitol?”

She could stand up now and speak. There was a mistake. A page had been left off the summary. There was some pertinent history that really mattered to the discussion. Saying there was an error would bring dishonor to her family, since her father had signed off on this report himself, but being blamed for a mistake was more honorable than committing fraud. She didn’t know what her father knew about the Inquisitor’s threats, but after he’d put her back on the assignment he’d made her swear that she would only use the contemporary records. Even he — the respected head of an order — was afraid. She could say something, anything. This is my last chance to tell the truth.

But Rada didn’t get to find out if she was that brave or not, because one of the Inquisitors patrolling the aisles had stopped directly next to her seat. She looked up, and he was staring right through her, his eyes nothing but black holes in his expressionless metal mask. He had a polished club in one hand, and was resting it in his other palm, fingers tapping an absent beat against the wood.

We’ll be watching.

Rada put her head down and kept it there. She never should have stolen this assignment from that drunken imbecile Gurman.

“Since there are no comments, the report will be entered into the official records and used as the basis for all future discussions on this topic. The debate will now commence. The staff recognizes Arbiter Artya Zati dar Zarger.”

When Rada looked up, the Inquisitor had continued down the aisle and a beautiful woman had gone to the podium. She had such a lovely voice that it was almost like she was reading a poem, rather than estimates of how much it would cost to round up and slaughter millions of untouchables.

Though Rada had never met a casteless and had been brought up thinking that they weren’t people at all, now that she knew where they came from, Rada discovered that the discussion was making her nauseous. She certainly didn’t buy into any religious nonsense about forgotten gods and their prophecies, but now that she knew the untouchables’ history, she knew the term non-people to be inaccurate. They were a filthy, degenerate, and evil lot, but still people, and now these judges were arguing their fate without all the facts.

From watching them, she doubted any of the judges would really care, even if they knew the truth behind the Law, since their only philosophy seemed to be one of selfishness. But that didn’t make Rada feel any better. I’m a dishonorable coward and a failure of a librarian.

The debate was heated and seemed to go on forever. Rada didn’t like being around people to begin with, so listening to them bloviate, lie, and call each other names was particularly difficult to deal with, but she forced herself to stay. She had to see what she’d caused. The scribes around her were enjoying this and rooting for different factions as if this was some sort of contest.

The judges spent hours yelling at each other. Some houses didn’t seem to mind their casteless so much, because their labors earned money for their Thakoors. Others hated them, but even they had to admit that destroying them would be expensive and time-consuming. Nobody would admit to liking the untouchables, but other than a few who railed against the casteless menace, it didn’t seem like the proposal would go anywhere.

Rada breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she’d be able to return to her library soon, without having helped eradicate a quarter of the world’s population.

A judge from Akershan had reached the podium. The staff recognized him and gave him the floor. Rada wasn’t sure what he was talking about at first, as she didn’t really keep up on current events, but he was complaining about a huge rebellion in his lands. The news must have been dire, because it even got the annoying scribes to shut up and pay attention.

“The false prophet’s army has burned the vital town of Hamilwa. Three Protectors were in the area. Three…Yet somehow he was able to sneak right past them to flee back into the mountains unharmed.”

“Such a failure is unacceptable!” shouted someone in the crowd.

“I’m not so sure it was a failure at all…” said the judge from Akershan. “It is said that the only way you can escape the Protectors’ wrath is if they aren’t that inclined toward catching you to begin with.”

A shudder went through the crowd of oohs and awes and many whispered how dare he? Rada didn’t understand people very well, but even she understood that a dire insult had just been given.

“What are you insinuating?” There was only a single individual sitting in the section set aside for honored guests and visiting dignitaries, and that man stood up, folded his arms, and glared at the speaker. She didn’t know who he was, but Rada was fairly certain he was even more out of place here than she was. He looked more like a younger version of the crippled, battered representatives of the warrior caste than any of the governing caste here, but he was sitting in an important section, indicating a very high status, at least equivalent to her father’s station. The audience seemed shocked to hear this one speak up. “Don’t dance around. Give your accusation or shut your idiot mouth.”

The presiding judge banged his staff on the floor. “Please, Lord Protector Devedas. Representatives of orders must not speak in the chamber unless questioned.”

“My apologies, your honor. I assumed I was being questioned when this honorless dog insinuated that some of my men are traitors. If that was his intent, my answer is no, and my inclination is to give him the back of my hand,” the Protector said.

The audience roared and the presiding judge did his best to punch a hole in the floor with this staff. “Order! Order!”

She had to admit the Protector was a rather handsome man, lean and muscular, with broad shoulders and narrow waist, and a strong, square jaw. Rada didn’t like people, but she could still appreciate natural beauty as well as any woman. However, unlike the pretty first-caste men she’d associated with, this one looked like he could murder the entire chamber and sleep well at night.

But the Akershan judge wasn’t deterred. “Is the idea of a traitor amongst the Protectors so outlandish? How quickly we forget what brought us to this debate to begin with! We must examine the possibility that your men allowed the criminals to escape. Everyone knows the Protector Order was already infiltrated by one in league with the rebels.”

“Who is this everyone who knows so much? Ashok had no connection to your rebels.”

“How would you know, Lord Protector? He went undetected among you for twenty years. A reasonable man would ask if there are more like him. Perhaps the Black Heart was able to corrupt other Protectors with his lies? There were rumors only a few years ago of one of your predecessors who fell into religious madness…Whatever happened to him? I believe his name was Ratul.”

Rada looked back to see the reaction. The Lord Protector seemed angry enough to strangle the judge on the spot. He’d already walked out of his section, into the aisle, and was heading toward the podium. The judge grew frightened and fled. An Inquisitor intercepted the Protector and put out one hand to stop him.

“If you want to keep that hand, remove it from me now.”

The Inquisitor slowly backed away.

“Lord Protector!” the presiding judge shouted. “I implore you to calm yourself. Your place is to enforce the Law, not to threaten its authors. I’m certain he’s very sorry for this inadvertent insult, and will issue an apology to your Order. Isn’t that correct?”

The Akershan judge had fled back to the far corner of his section, surely hoping to put as many of his friends’ bodies between himself and the Protector’s wounded pride as possible. “Yes, your honor. I didn’t intend to give any offense. That’s the truth!”

“Truth?” Devedas spat. Then he looked around the Chamber of Argument. Most would not meet his gaze. “I don’t think the residents of this honored chamber would recognize truth if it was crammed down their throats.”

“Lord Protector! That is enough!”

“No, it isn’t. The judges sit here in the shade, fat and comfortable, as you casually propose a slaughter beyond imagining. I’ve traveled Lok from one end to the other, seen every great house, and I can assure you, though the casteless are individually weak, they are many, and when the warriors do as they’re told, all of the untouchables will rise up. Unlike most of you, I’ve seen bloodshed, and far too much to take such delight in it. All of you, pronouncing judgment about things you barely understand, spending lives like they’re banknotes, and questioning the integrity of those who’ve sacrificed more than you can imagine…” Devedas picked out one particular chief judge wearing Vadal colors to glare at. “Even while criminals lurk among you like rats –”

“Protector!” the presiding judge snapped. “You are dismissed.”

Devedas gave a very stiff bow toward the presiding judge, then he turned and strode from the room. The Inquisitors at the door rushed to get out of his way.

The instant he was gone the Chamber of Argument lived up to its name, descending into shouting and general mayhem.

“How dare you insult the Protectors?”

“He protests too much! Investigate the Order for treachery!”

“If the rebels can corrupt even our finest, then surely all the casteless must be destroyed!”

One of the men sitting next to Rada was giggling, then he leaned over and whispered to another scribe. “That southerner sounds like a grunting ape compared to Mindarin the Eloquent. I bet the Order is regretting promoting Devedas to the Capitol now!”

“That fool has no idea how to behave in polite society,” his friend agreed. Apparently the polite thing to do was lie and insinuate horrible things with impunity, all while never expecting any repercussions. “With a traitor in their midst, the last thing the Protectors need is more shame. Their support will vanish.”

This place was unclean. It really made Rada want to return to the quiet of her library.

The arguments calmed down and the regular debate resumed, but Rada had heard enough, so she slipped out. Inquisitors watched her the whole way, or at least she felt like they did. She didn’t think anything was going to be decided about the casteless right now, but worse, she’d helped lay a flawed foundation. She had no idea what horrible decisions might be made in the future because of her cowardice.

There was only one thing Rada came away from the Chamber of Argument certain of. There was no way that angry Protector who’d boldly stated the obvious truth could be in league with the Inquisitor who’d forced her to lie.

 

The Seer – Snippet 11

The Seer – Snippet 11

Chapter Three

“You’re going out?” Amarta asked her sister. “Tonight? In this cold?”

Winter had come to the village of Botaros and settled in for what was now the fourth day of a hard freeze, with midwinter still more than a ten-day away.

Dirina was changing her clothes. Putting on her good ones, Amarta saw in the dim light. Her best frock. Not so frayed, less stained, fewer mended rips.

“I won’t be long.”

Her sister went out more and more often.

As the nights grew colder, they had drawn the cot close to the stove. Amarta sat with Pas lying by her side, thickly bundled. His eyes opened and Amarta tucked the blanket around his neck to keep him warm.

How had it all gone so fast, the coins the large man in his fine cloak had left them? They’d gone to food and peat moss, of course. Repairs for the roof and cracks that were everywhere. They had one remaining falcon, saved against need, but Amarta didn’t think it would last long.

And the gold souver, so beautiful and heavy, that she’d gotten to hold for a few moments before they’d spent it, that, too, was gone. The landlord had raised his eyebrows a long moment when he saw it, his mouth falling open, but then he had shut his mouth and taken the souver, giving them five months ahead on the rent without any haggling at all.

Since that night, no one had come to ask Amarta questions. Now Dirina went out at night.

“I could come with you,” Amarta said, scrambling to her feet, looking around for her blue trimmed cloak. “I’ll carry Pas. I’ll bundle him good and –”

“No,” her sister said. “Another time, maybe.” She walked by Amarta, petting her head in passing. She moved around the room, readying herself.

“Where do you go?”

Her sister stopped. She looked at Amarta. Amarta sat down again, her gaze dropping to a seashell she had been holding.

The village tavern, Amarta guessed, as she turned the shell over in her hands. Whatever it was Dirina did there, she somehow managed to bring back food and fuel for them. Not much, but enough to keep them going.

A treasure, the shell was. When had her mother given her this? It seemed to Amarta the least she could do, to recall the last thing her mother had given her.

“I’ll only be a little while,” Dirina said softly.

Spring festival of her fifth year, Amarta was pretty sure. A festival gift. It made her want to cry, thinking of her mother.

No, she would wait until Dirina was gone to cry.

Dirina belted her dress with a cord, cinching it tight around her waist, then began to brush out her dark hair, gathering it in a length of blue cloth that matched the hem on Amarta’s cloak. Dirina’s bangs escaped the tie, falling across her face in slight curls. With the ends of the blue fabric she tied a bow behind her head.

Blue. Like the blue lines of the shell. Like the dress her mother used to wear, blue as a hot summer’s sky. They had cut that dress up, over and over across the years, reused every piece of it, sewn strips of it onto the bottom of Amarta’s cloak, taken more lengths yet to tie their hair with. They still had a few of those ties left. A bit of beauty against the undyed brown of everything else they wore.

The shell. The scraps of blue dress. But for memory, it was all they had left of her.

There had been a song, too, but it was gone. Sometimes, as Amarta was falling asleep, she almost remembered it. Her mother would sing about the ocean. Like a lake, her mother had said between verses. So big you couldn’t see the other side. One day, she had promised, they would go and see it together.

But they never had. Because of Amarta.

With a thoughtful pout, Pas reached out a hand to try to take the shell from Amarta’s hand. She gave him her other thumb instead, and he clutched it tightly.

“What do you do there?” Amarta asked.

“Not much. We talk.” Her sister fastened her fraying cloak around her shoulders, tying it snug.

Amarta looked up eagerly. “Do you mean like telling stories? Like what I do, but for fun instead of — ?” Instead of causing trouble with tales of futures that might be.

“Yes, like that.” Dirina walked to the door.

“At winter festival,” Amarta said, not wanting her to leave. “Will we join in?”

“Yes. Probably. You watch Pas. I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll wait up for you.”

“No, you should sleep. You should –” Dirina exhaled, fell silent, then nodded once, and opened the door. White flurries swirled in the night breeze. Then she left, yanking the door shut behind her.

In the silence that followed, Amarta found that her tears for her dead mother would not come after all. Pas had fallen asleep again, and she gently pulled her finger out of his slacking grip.

The pile of peat by the stove was small, too small. Amarta decided to wait until Dirina returned to burn any more. She was not so cold as all that, not yet.

Again she turned her attention to the shell. As she rubbed the blue and white ridges she wondered if some part of her mother’s spirit lived on, in the shell. If she believed it to be true, might it become so?

She would believe it, then. She would keep the shell close to her, always. Perhaps if she slept with it in hand, she would dream of the song her mother used to sing to her. And then, when the weather warmed, she could tie the shell to hang in the window, letting it dangle in the sweet breezes, so that if her mother’s spirit was in it, she would see the warm blue sky, hear the birds, smell the earth. Each solstice and equinox, Amarta resolved, she would take her mother’s shell in hand, and think of her, remembering everything she could about her. Surely, she could do that much.

The flash of vision came and went so fast that she barely realized it had happened.

Thick fingers held her shell, turning it over and over. A man’s voice. A thoughtful sound.

Her shell. Someone had taken it from her. A sick feeling came over her. She enveloped the shell in her hand, wrapping it tightly, as if to protect it.

For a moment she had a sense, almost a taste, of the man whose fingers she had barely seen, then it was gone. Someone she had once met? A long-ago memory of some possible future vision?

Or maybe it wasn’t memory or vision at all, but only a snatch of dream.

It wasn’t fair, she thought, pressing the shell to her cheek as if it were her mother’s touch. The shell was all that she had left of her.

No, she decided, whatever it was that she had just seen, vision or memory — and whoever the man was — she would not let him take it.

Her throat tightened, and she gripped the shell tightly until the stove ran hungry and the room went dark.

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 05

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 05

Chapter 3

Romford

Northeast of London

“That’s Romford?” Darryl stood up in the wagon bed for a better look, and then wished he hadn’t. There was the usual haze that hung over every town in these pre-clean-air-act days, perhaps a little thicker than the ordinary, and the wind had backed easterly. A gust brought a billow of the small town’s haze and even at most of a mile it made his eyes water. “What’re they doin’ there, burnin’ turds?” He sat down again, trying manfully not to retch. Even in an age when the concept of below-ground sewerage drew blank looks from most, the place reeked.

“Famous for leatherworking,” Towson said, “and the tanner’s trade uses stuff to make a man puke. Nightsoil’s the least of it, and you don’t want to know what the scrapings bins smell like when they’re near full. Be thankful it ain’t high summer, mate.”

“We’ll be upwind soon enough,” Hamilton added. He’d sampled the wagon’s suspension briefly and announced he’d rather walk, and wasn’t horseman enough nor light enough to inflict himself on any of their elderly nags. He’d set a stoical pace that he looked like he could keep up around the clock for a week, and given the impression he really wasn’t much more than idling. Darryl himself had no idea what his endurance for a long walk might be like, and announced he wasn’t going to test it until they either had to or he could do it without risking anything. Oddly, that had got him more of an admiring look from Vicky than anything he’d ever done in the way of more traditional showing off. Okay, turns out she likes smart. He’d spent some uneasy time mulling that before he decided he’d just have to do the best he could and hope.

“There’s a left just here,” Alex Mackay called back. He was standing in his stirrups and using his spotting scope to check the country away to the left. “Looks like it might could take us to the Cambridge road, too.”

“Take it, then,” Darryl said, “If we get lost, the king’s guys won’t be able to find us either, right?”

That earned a round of chuckles.

“I like your thinking, Darryl,” Leebrick said, “and comes to worst we can always just use farm tracks and cut across fields. I’ve slogged enough military carts through the shite to know how it’s done, and Mister Cromwell’s a farmer so he’ll know better than any of us the tricks of it. After that it’s just compass work to find our way. And your up-time compasses are excellent pieces. The trick you have of making such good ones so cheaply is a fine one.”

He pulled the instrument Harry Lefferts had given him out of his pocket and flipped the cover open. It was down-time made. There had been some guys in Magdeburg making small quantities of Bakelite for things like this when Darryl left, and doubtless there were more guys at it now with the coal gasworks there turning out coal tar by the bargeload. Getting a compact, durable compass of that size and accuracy down-time meant paying an instrument maker for the results of a lot of hard, skilled work. Harry had been able to bring enough for his whole crew to have a spare and a few to give as presents. They were, after all, not just useful for travelling. Leebrick was inordinately pleased with his — liquid compasses were unknown in the 17th century, even as simple a thing as a notch-and-wire sight was the province of expensive surveyors’ instruments, and getting a compass that didn’t have a sundial gnomon getting in the way of using it for navigation was a lost cause. On some level he knew it was a lot cheaper than it had any right to be, and a perfectly reasonable small, practical present from someone he had helped. Mostly, he kept taking bearings with it because the novelty had yet to quite wear off. Darryl suspected that, up time, he’d have been one of those guys who had to have the new gadget the minute it came out. What he was going to be like when he got to the USE where things like that were increasingly common and getting cheaper all the time was anyone’s guess, but Darryl could see, somewhere in Leebrick’s future, a headline like Englishman Found Dead Under Huge Pile Of Gadgets: Starved Self To Buy More Toys.

Two hours later and Darryl was wishing Harry’s presents had included a lot more rope — on principle, they didn’t have enough, too much was just plain impossible — and some decent winching gear. Hell, a tracked bridge-laying tank would’ve been ideal, there was bound to be some clever guy working on something like that back in Magdeburg. As it was, the river that Romford stood on was still in their way even after skirting the place; they needed to get across to cut over to the road that led north to Cambridge. It wasn’t a big river — they had the horses walked over, laden with most of the wagon’s freight, in fifteen minutes, and penned up in a nearby field alongside some cows that nobody seemed to be minding for the moment. While the horses goofed off in best equine style — ambling about, taking a moment to roll, sampling the local weeds — it was left to the humans to figure out getting the wagon over without wrecking the thing. The horses could always be brought back when there was heavy pulling to do. And, of course, there was a late lunch to have.

“This,” Cromwell said, “is going to be a right pig.”

“It’s the steep banks that do it,” Leebrick said. “We could do with fascines for this, but that’d leave too much trace.”

Hamilton emerged from under the wagon. “We should be able to get the axles off and then it’s just britches’ arse power to get it over the stream.”

“I was afraid of that,” Darryl put in. “I ain’t afraid of hard work, I’m a miner. Don’t mean I have to like it.”

“The man that does is a bloody fool,” Towson said, “but standing about griping about the business won’t get anything done. Who’s going under to get the axles off?”

“Best be Darryl, I think,” Hamilton said, “I think Captain Lefferts has done some fettling under here, nothing you can see from above, but the ironmongery’s … odd-looking.”

“Yeah?” That was definitely worth a look. When he got under the wagon, he had a low whistle to let out. You could certainly not see any difference from up above, but under the cart the usual blacksmiths’ work — ranging from nearly as good as a twentieth century machine shop to brutal and slapdash, but usually massively overbuilt — had been replaced with machined parts. Bearings, bolts, axle bushings, all were distinctly modern with thin timbers screwed in place to hide anything that wasn’t immediately obvious. The suspension was 17th-century design — not much more than some metal hanging straps, and those only enough to give a bit of flex over rough ground — but the steel was machined, up-time style. Whether Harry had brought a kit of parts on the off chance or a small set of portable machine shop tools, Darryl had no idea, but it was a hell of a feat of forward planning. It looked like a seventeenth century English common carrier’s wagon, standard issue, but it was a hell of a lot lighter and more reliable.

“You coulda told me, Harry,” he complained under his breath, and then, louder, “gonna need some light under here, and the small red toolbox, the one with my socket set in it. I’ll yell out when I need stuff lifted.” If Harry hadn’t had his guys alter this thing to be taken apart easily, Darryl was going to have a quiet word with that boy about tricks and the missing of same.

It turned out to be even easier than his first guess. The bed came off in one piece and was an easy, if cumbersome, lift between four guys. The frame and tongue came off in three parts after a few seconds of swearing at each lock-nut, and the wheels turned out to have metal bushings around the axle and be suspiciously heavy for plain wood. If there weren’t steel reinforcing rods in there somewhere, Darryl would be very surprised. And the axles were split, the split cunningly hidden in a turned wooden sleeve that kind of looked like a repair to the axle-tree from a distance. Each side could rotate independently on, yes, sturdy roller bearings rather than the standard-issue bit-of-wood-between-two-pegs-with-a-ladle-of-tallow. There was even a block of wood fitted in each, bearing on a discreet metal sleeve, that provided an authentic squealing noise to hide the fact that the axles had proper bearings. Darryl had just assumed that one of Harry’s guys had thrown some extra grease in there to make sure the thing wasn’t quite as bad as it looked. Turned out Harry’d had a whole bunch extra done, out of sight.

“Harry’s getting to be a real sneaky son of a bitch, ain’t he?” Darryl remarked to Gayle as he was loading his tools on the wagon when they were over. “You’d never know but that weren’t a perfectly ordinary wagon.”

Gayle grinned. “She might not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts?”

“Something like that. We get time, and if it looks like we’re going a long way in that thing, I can think of a few improvements. I think Harry tried too hard to be sneaky. He missed a few places he could’ve got away with some more things. We find a good carpenter’s shop, maybe get some parts from a blacksmith, we can put some four-bar suspension links in there, which wouldn’t look much different to what the frame’s made like already. Some leaf springs, we could get a real smooth ride, even better wheel wear than we’re getting, and a lot more speed if we could just find some better horses. Be pretty obvious if we had to take off fast — it’ll go faster and smoother than any wagon got any right to, but by that time we’re not gonna be worryin’ about sneaky.”

 

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 39

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 39

His guards were watching from the walls. They’d seen the limp and the giant scar on Jagdish’s arm. They’d heard the versions of the story that had filtered down from the Bidaya’s party guests, and now they were curious to see if their new commander was crazy enough to fight the Black Heart again…

I wonder what times they are betting on?

Jagdish was alone in the yard. There was a dark spot in the dirt in front of him where Nadan Somsak had bled that very morning. Surprisingly, the Black Heart hadn’t killed the foul brute. He’d simply drawn and struck him once, fast as lightning, right through the cheek. Nadan Somsak was returning to his mountains without a tongue. Jagdish wondered if Nadan had a wife. Would she be happier that he could no longer speak? Would Pakpa still love him if he came home missing any body parts? If Ashok cut off his ears, then at least he would be able to get some sleep.

Jagdish smiled.

The gate opened and the fallen Protector entered. He pulled back his matted hair, looked around, and seemed a bit surprised to see someone wearing a guard’s uniform waiting for him, because the prison guards had seen enough of his duels to know better. As Ashok approached, Jagdish put the marvelous little clock back inside his armor.

“I am Risaldar Jagdish, new commander of the Cold Stream Prison garrison.”

Ashok bowed. Jagdish hadn’t thought through the etiquette. The prisoner was technically a casteless which meant he deserved no respect, but he was also a bearer which meant he deserved great respect. The prisoner must have realized why Jagdish was standing there so awkwardly, because he said, “I’m a legal anomaly, but I’m not worthy of your respect. I was born an untouchable and I’m a criminal.”

Jagdish gave him a small bow anyway.

Ashok seemed confused. “There’s no need to be respectful to me.”

“Well, I honestly hadn’t thought of it that way.” Jagdish shrugged. “You beat a dozen warriors in a knife fight. If that’s not worthy of respect, then I don’t know what is.”

“A curious way of looking at things. Fighting is what I do. You wouldn’t praise an ox for pulling a plow. How may I be of service, Risaldar?”

Jagdish mouth was suddenly very dry. “I wish to duel.”

Ashok tilted his head to the side, curious. “I’m only a casteless, and you’re a warrior, but may I speak freely?”

It was an odd request, as Jagdish was having a very hard time thinking of the most terrifying combatant in the world as an inferior. “You may.”

“Why?”

“I wish to prove myself to Angruvadal and earn my family’s place in the first caste.”

“You have a family? Children?”

“A wife.”

“She’ll miss you if you die?”

“Yes.”

“Then walk away, Risaldar,” Ashok warned. “There’s nothing to be gained by dying here. I remember you. You were there the night of my crime and you were the best among them.”

“No. I was second to Sankhamur.”

“In experience, perhaps, but in integrity, you alone questioned Bidaya’s dishonorable commands, and you alone had the wisdom to not try to fight against an ancestor blade. How many of you died?”

“Eventually, six of us succumbed to our injuries.”

“My apologies for your brothers, but it would have been all of you, and perhaps some of the bystanders, if you hadn’t shaken me from my anger and reminded me of what was right. Then, despite your misgivings, you still followed your Thakoor’s command. Obeying such a command is one of the most difficult things for a warrior to do.”

Jagdish hoped that his men couldn’t hear him from the walls. “I was shamed by that defeat.”

“You fought well. There was no shame there.”

“If I wasn’t good enough, then I should have died. I’ve been mocked by my betters ever since. They say that if I had been stronger, then our Thakoor would still be alive and our house wouldn’t be vulnerable. Enemies harass our borders because of our weakness, which means my brothers are out there fighting and dying, and I’m not even allowed to help. This assignment is my punishment. They want me to have to look every day at the face of the man who ruined me.”

“I may have broken your leg, but it’s obvious I didn’t break your spirit. The Law says a warrior’s life belongs to his superiors, but your superiors are willing to spend your life stupidly. Anyone who mocks you is a fool, and would have done no better in your place. The next one who tells you that, tell him to come and see me.”

Jagdish actually laughed. “That’ll go over well.”

“If they’re so very brave, then I’m easy enough to find.”

“True, but it is simpler to insult my courage than it is to test their own. My purpose in life is to fight, serve my house, and prove myself in combat. I can’t do that if I’m wasting away the rest of my days babysitting hostages and criminals. I don’t see much choice but to fight you. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

“And maybe I’ll be unlucky and kill another good warrior who deserves better. I’m tired of killing. If you wish to take Angruvadal, then I’m required to wield it, and when Angruvadal is drawn, mercy cannot be promised. I’m legally obligated to do my best against everyone who tests me, and I know you’re good enough that I’ll actually have to try.”

“Thank you.” For an unstoppable killing machine, Black Hearted Ashok seemed to be a very reasonable man.

Ashok appeared to mull something over for a moment. “So we can agree. You don’t want to die, and I don’t want to kill you. I have an idea, Risaldar. You’re good, but you’re not good enough to beat me today. I mean no offense.”

“If I was offended, I’d suppose we’d just have to duel about it.”

“True.” Ashok said thoughtfully, as if Jagdish had brought up some brilliant legal point. “But here is my proposition. I’ve nothing better to do, and I’m obligated to remain here until judgment is pronounced. While I await execution, I can teach you. Eventually you could be good enough to beat me, and then we can have a proper duel.”

Of the many possible outcomes of Jagdish’s challenge, he’d not expected that. But if he could learn even a fraction of Ashok’s skills, surely he could redeem himself among his caste. “Hmmm…Interesting. I’m listening.”

“I have no status. You’re the commander of this prison. There’s no reason you can’t order me to spar against you with practice swords. I’d have no choice but to obey. Let the city know that Risaldar Jagdish has so little fear that he trains against a monster. Let’s see if any of those high-status warriors have the spine to do that.”

“What kind of madman is brave enough to spar against such a fearsome killer? I like it. Let those soft-palmed fops lord it over me in their estates, because in their hearts they’ll know that Jagdish is braver than they are. Ha! I like this plan.” Jagdish turned and shouted at the guards along the wall, who were nervously waiting to see if their commander was going to get butchered or not. “You! Go to the armory and bring back two wooden swords.”

There were a lot of confused looks shared, but one of the nayaks ran off to fetch some practice weapons as directed. He doubted any of the men would win the betting pool today.

“I must caution you, Risaldar. I am trained in the ways of the Protector Order, and our methods are unforgiving at best. It isn’t uncommon for our acolytes to die during training.”

“I’m no mere student, Prisoner. I’m a four-year veteran who has seen a house war and more border skirmishes than you have fingers.”

Ashok smiled as if Jagdish had just told a very amusing anecdote. “Of course, Risaldar. I’m sure this will prove enlightening.”

“Very well. We will meet here every day…” Jagdish pulled out the pocket watch. He opened the lid and pointed at the slowly moving needle. “At this time.”

Ashok glanced down at the watch. “What does that mean?”

There were a lot of little marks. “I don’t rightly know.”

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 04

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 04

Chapter 2

The Tower of London

London, England

“Well, they certainly made a mess.”

“My Lord, those responsible –” Captain Holderness said, visibly sweating despite the cool of the spring morning.

Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, made a chopping gesture. For silence, certainly, but a nervous man who had just had the biggest breakout from Europe’s supposedly most secure prison happen on his watch, well, he could see the stroke of a headsman’s axe in the gesture. “Those responsible are already making their way to whatever refuge they have chosen. This was long in the planning and I don’t doubt Strafford — Wentworth, we must now call him, since his impeachment — laid his plans deeply enough that he ensured he was ready to break out of this place if he was ever put there. The weasel always has a back entrance to his burrow, mark you well, the weasel always has a back entrance.”

“My Lord, the Americans, Cromwell –”

“Are Wentworth’s bargaining counters. Do not let me learn you have said otherwise in the matter, sir. Do not let me learn it. We have our traitor, and he has compounded his treason with misprision and flight. That is the truth of the matter, whatever else you may have heard or inferred from a too-hasty consideration of the evidence before you.”

Of course, the earl himself had been here only minutes, himself, and now stood before the wholly-slighted St. Stephen’s tower looking at the havoc wrought on the medieval structure by the explosions. If he was condemning other interpretations as “hasty” it was for form’s sake.

“As you say, M’Lord,” Holderness agreed, hastily.

“Cromwell will have been taken as a weapon to use against the rightful power in England. The man would have been Wentworth’s competition in the other history, so for certain sure that was why he was locked up so readily. Now that Wentworth is exposed and scotched, well, the devil will use what tools come to hand. The Americans, there to gain him entree at the Swede’s court, no doubt. Or possibly as hostages to win him favor with Richelieu. We shall see where he appears next.” Boyne sighed. “Nevertheless, the stable door is open, the horse is bolted, we should at least try and chase the beast.”

****

The next day, Boyle greeted James Graham, 5th Earl of Montrose, at his London town house. Like so many such meetings since the Ring of Fire, they exchanged a look. Any man of notability in these times had something of a record of what he would have done in the future that never was, and whether a man believed in the truth of those histories that had poured out of Thuringia over the past three years, they were always present in mind.

Montrose had tried, in the civil war that would have been, to fight at first for royal power against the Scots churches, episcopal and presbyterian alike, and for all his military successes, had made no progress in getting the divines to stick to spiritual matters. He’d fought for the covenanters against the bishops to break their power, and switched sides to the royalists to keep the presbyters from securing more political power. He’d led highland regiments to great effect, during the times when he could keep the prospect of plunder in front of them, and led disciplined Irish mercenaries when the highlanders failed him.

Here and now, he was a handsome man in his early twenties, hereditary chief of Clan Graham and, after a shaky start — acceding to the earldom at the age of fourteen was hardly an auspicious start — now a serious figure in Scots politics. And, if he’d read his own future biography, he had his mind concentrated wonderfully by the knowledge that his eventual fate had been to be hung, drawn and quartered by the king’s enemies, his head on a spike for ten years.

If that weighed heavily on his mind on this bright afternoon in London, however, he gave no sign. “Things have changed mightily since I received your invitation to visit, my lord Cork,” he said. The faintest hint of a smile was about his lips as he spoke.

“If all this were happening to some other nation, My Lord Montrose, I’d laugh heartily at their misfortune. And I take no pleasure in having the king’s confidence in times like these, I assure you.”

There was a bitter truth. Charles’s own folly had put him firmly in Boyle’s hands, given England an eminence grise to match the one that had been an easy target for the pamphleteers of France’s enemies for so long, and Boyle found himself frantically working to keep a fracturing nation together rather than advancing his own wealth and power. It would take all the cunning at his disposal not to end up with his own head on a spike. Even with Cromwell in the Tower, there had been more than enough discontented gentry to foment rebellion. With Cromwell now out and given the cause for a grudge that would awe even Boyle’s own feud-happy Irishmen, it was time to try attacking the problem from the other end.

Boyle had seen that in the beginning of the civil wars that would have ravaged England, Scotland and Ireland had been plagued by enough factions that none could convincingly end the conflict and secure a settlement by force in the beginning. It took twenty years for enough blood to be let to exhaust them all to the point that reason and the settlement of the restoration could prevail. If there was anything left to the royal power at this time, Boyle was resolved to use it to nip that in the bud before it bloomed into civil strife.

“Nor would any man with more wit than a rabbit, my lord,” Montrose said, “and I’ve no truck with those that say you press your own advantage on the king’s misfortune.”

“Nor should you. And I’m not surprised that plenty are saying that. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve always striven to do well by myself, ever since I went to Dublin with the wealth I could carry and my sword and dagger to keep it with, but what price mere baubles and rich lands if the nation is crumbling about them?”

“Quite, quite,” Montrose said, “but how can I be of service to His Majesty in the matter? I’ll confess I was surprised to receive his summons from my estates. It’s said I was destined to take against the king for some of that future, and it has gone passing hard for such as me lately.”

“Results matter, my lord, results. His Majesty, and I can’t say for sure as I had not his confidence at the time, was likely of the hope that a man who’d died for the king in one time might be inclined to measure his loyalty better in another. And I’m of like mind, my lord Montrose, for a strong king can guard his subjects better than a weak one.”

“That’s right enough. How, then, to make a strong king of a weak one?”

Boyle smiled. The question itself could be counted treasonous, assuming as it did that Charles Stuart was a weak king. But then, there were village idiots who could see that not all was well with His Majesty’s rule. Only able to stay in power through foreign subsidy and foreign troops on the streets of London, he was now bedridden with his injuries, unlikely to ever be more than a halting cripple. It was taking all Boyle’s political skill not to look like the very epitome of the evil counsellor. He’d read of the famous dictum a future Cromwell would utter, of putting a sword in the tenth man’s hand when nine in ten subjects would disagree with his policy, but Boyle had seen armed men swarmed under by sufficiently angry mobs at odds less than that. The trick was getting the nine to think the tenth man’s sword was there for their protection and benefit, and if they could be brought to think that the unpopular policy was imposed by someone who had their best interests at heart, so much the better.

“My Lord, we are faced with factions and parties within and foreign conspiracy without. Wentworth, rot him, cozened the king into taking French gold in return for provoking Gustav Adolf and his Americans. Offered them further insult by imprisoning their embassy. Failed to keep them secure once imprisoned, so now their agents are loose within the realm. Factions within, conspiracy without. The foreign troubles, His Majesty may, with good advice, attend to himself. The factions within, we must repair ourselves so the kingdoms seem strong behind the king.”

Montrose gave Boyle a level, measuring stare. As an assessment of the situation, that mixed truth with bare-faced lies in about equal measure to offer a compromise everyone could accept without taking a portion of blame down with the bitter medicine. Good politics, in other words.

“His Majesty will have to make some concessions on episcopal power, if only to make the presbyterians less strident. Power outside the kirk, mind you. If we can stop the presbyters’ and bishops’ power at the walls of their churchyards, I think something can be done. And there’s precedent for it, now, with half of Europe crying freedom of religion. Do we only stop the mouths of the divines in politics, three parts of our factions become nothing.”

Boyle rocked a hand. “My learning on the estates of the Scots parliament is a mean thing at best, but I recall one of the estates is the bishops?”

“Aye, but if we get them to maintain the fiction that they’re there as larger landowners as much as lords spiritual, and promise not to try and impose overmuch on the presbyterians for the time being, I know at least some of them will shut up.”

“If I can secure that from His Majesty?” Boyle was pretty certain of that. Charles Stuart was no longer quite so melancholy as to sign and seal anything in front of him so as not to be troubled in his grief and pain, but he would still give way to any sufficiently persistent attempt at persuasion. Boyle would have found the experience a heady one, wielding the power of the king without trammels, were he not mindful of what tended to happen to men in that position.

“If you can, then there is much I might do to get Scotland united behind His Majesty. Argyll’s the rub, though, I’ll warn you. The man’s only still at liberty by being the most powerful man in Scotland and he’ll not consent to anything that makes him a second-rate power in a united kingdom. Not easily, at any rate.”

“Argyll’s the man I want you to work on, then. We can promise him much if we can only keep the kingdoms together, united or not. If we fall to squabbling now, with the USE looking greedily across the North Sea, he’ll be but a pilchard in that ocean, warn him of that. We can discuss the details later, but now I know your mind I can seek to persuade His Majesty on the subject of the bishops.”

Montrose wished him luck he’d not need, and took his leave.

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 16

Come The Revolution – Snippet 16

“No chance. They only managed to get me back because I expired about twenty meters from a starship cold sleep capsule. They deoxygenated and froze me before morbidity set it. Once you start to rot, I guess that’s it. ”

“That is comforting,” he said, leaning all the way back in his chair and folding his hands in his lap. “Please understand I do not share the distaste for Humans many Varoki seem to feel these days. All loyal members of the Cottohazz are of equal value to me. But given Human propensity for . . . creative forms of interaction with law and government, there are already more than enough of you to keep me busy.”

“Just think of us as job security,” I said.

Ten minutes ago I’d never have considered saying anything as flippant as that to the head of the Provost Corps. A lot had changed in ten minutes. Was he my pal? No way. Did I think he was any less dangerous? No, maybe even more so. But I knew that whatever drove him, it wasn’t personal insecurity. He wasn’t the sort of guy to take a joke personally. I wasn’t sure he took anything personally.

“You should know,” he said, “that the Sakkatto municipal police have issued a material witness summons for you, which will mean your cross-border travel privileges have been suspended.”

Shit! I was stuck. Marr was going to go crazy.

“Are you sure?” I said. “I just talked to them a couple hours ago.”

He tilted his head to the side, the Varoki equivalent of a shrug.

“So, are you turning me over to them?” I asked.

“No. The CSJ tries not to interfere in the internal affairs of member polities, so we have no interest in detaining you. Until they are finished with you, however, I do not think you will be able to rejoin your party in Kootrin, and the inquiry into this affair may go on for some time.”

“But they’ll probably be waiting for me outside,” I said.

“Possibly. But the public safety situation has deteriorated further in the past hour and I suspect the police have more pressing calls on their manpower. Shortly before this meeting we intercepted an order for all investigative personnel to report for riot control duty. I also understand that over seven hundred such material witness summons were issued at first, and more are expected soon. They may consider you of particular interest and assign a higher priority to locating you, but that suggests a capacity for nuance which I have never known the Sakkatto police to display.”

E-Loyolaan rose to his feet and e-Tomai jumped up as well.

“I have other work, Mister Naradnyo, but it was very informative to finally meet and speak with you. Carry on, Captain.”

*****

But there wasn’t much left to carry on about. E-Tomai went on for a while, but it was all pretty routine stuff and soon I was on my way out, wondering what the hell had just happened. What did they get from me of value? Nothing I could see. Why had they even wanted to talk to me if they didn’t have any tough questions to ask?

An answer came to me, although it seemed highly improbable: that the commandant of the CSJ wanted to sit down and talk to me face to face, to size me up. Why I would even show up on that guy’s radar was a different question, and that led to other questions about where his radar was pointed and why.

Then another thought came to me: that the interview wasn’t about me at all. Maybe it was really about The’On. My friend was a roving ambassador or executive, depending on what was needed when and where, part of the Cottohazz Corps of Counselors. From the way he talked in unguarded moments, his outfit locked horns with the CSJ over policy fairly frequently. Maybe this was e-Loyolaan’s way of trying to open a back door to someone in the opposition.

And maybe it wasn’t just one thing. Maybe e-Loyolaan had more than one ball in the air at the same time. He struck me as someone who usually did.

At the main entrance of the CSJ complex I looked around outside and didn’t see anyone waiting to snag me. I did see five uniformed Munies packing assault rifles race by at a dead run, people scrambling to get out of their way. I needed to find a cash station and load up, so I could move quickly and stay off the grid if I had to. Cash made that easier. But first I needed to comm. Marr.

“How’s The’On?” I asked as soon as she opened the connection.

He’s conscious and responsive. The doctor says he should recover completely. Where are you?

“The CSJ lobby. They cut me loose but I wanted to call as soon as I got past their jammers.”

When will you be able to get here?

“Yeah, there’s a problem with that.”

She was silent for a moment and if electromagnetic radiation can get cold, it would have.

What do you mean, a problem?

“Municipal cops have lifted my cross-border privileges.”

They said they were done with you!

“Well, now it looks as if they’re done being done with me.”

We should have waited for you.

“No, you –”

We should have waited! Damn you, Sasha, you knew this was going to happen!

I hadn’t known, but for the moment arguing was pointless. I could tell her I was going to do everything I could to find a way to duck the border crossing guards, but saying that over an open channel was an invitation to a conspiracy charge for both of us. Once she calmed down maybe she’d figure that out.

If you get killed, I will never forgive you. Do you understand me?

“Yes.”

She broke the connection and so I commed Iris Tenryu.

Hey, Boss, I was wondering when you were going to shake loose.

“I’m not loose. Munies need some testimony or something. What’s the setup like there?”

It’ll hold for a couple days, until the bad guys think through where we are and what to do about it. Then we’ll probably have to get creative. Local cops and military are cooperating. None of them can find their asses with both hands, but they mean well. I’m trying to get the rest of our people across the border. We’re going to bunker up at The’On’s estate and wait for this shit storm to blow itself out.

I had no idea where Iris got her mouth — maybe too many Hong Kong gangster holovids dubbed into English. Marr said she talked just like me, but I don’t think Marr had a very discriminating ear in matters of the criminal argot. That’s actually what Marr called it, “the criminal argot,” which was unfair to Iris, who to the best of my knowledge never broke the law, at least before she came to work for us.

“Okay,” I said. “You’re in the driver’s seat. Try to stay low, but if they find you, make ’em sorry they did.”

I’ll make ’em cry, Boss.

I powered my commlink all the way down to where it couldn’t be tracked and I started to work through whether or not to go underground.

I leaned against a wall, temporarily dizzy and weak in the knees. The sun blasting through the windows at a flat angle made it late afternoon. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I’d fallen three or four stories into a river where I’d almost drowned, my right arm was crippled, and I was pumped full of pain killers. My leg muscles told me they’d given up their last reserves of energy and from here on out I was on my own. I needed to get a room in a hostel, get something to eat, rest. Otherwise I’d be in no shape to do anything. I looked up at the big rotating CSJ starburst symbol with its three letters in the center:

Knowledge, Resolve, Obedience.

Not Justice, I noticed.

Or Truth, for that matter.

 

The Seer – Snippet 10

The Seer – Snippet 10

And yet, near eighty he was. As the king aged, with only the one heir, who stubbornly refused to be wed — let alone impregnated — good wishes for the king’s health took on new tension. Everyone wanted to know who followed Cern on the succession list. Restarn would not say.

Traditionally, this list lived in a strongbox under the monarch’s bed and was thrice-sealed. A key, a press-trap, and one final means, unspecified, but quietly said to be mage-lock. If the monarch should die before Cern was queen and no mage came forward to liberate the succession list, there would be chaos among the king’s siblings and their offspring, and pushback from the Great Houses and the Cohort children.

The other Cohort children. Not the mutts.

How well Innel was now passing the king’s tests was not at all clear to him. The king showed neither approval nor disapproval, quite unlike the trials of Cohort childhood, when Innel’s mistakes were made clear with beatings and missed meals.

Now that he considered that from the vantage of an adult perspective, he was not at all sure he liked this better. There was a lot to be said for clarity.

#

One day, without warning, Restarn tossed him a captaincy. That seemed an answer of sorts.

Best of all, it came with an increase in pay. Since the trip to Botaros, he had been chronically short of funds.

Botaros. The girl who had set him on this course. A frayed, dangling thread, one he needed to cut before it unraveled the entire garment.

At least the king hadn’t charged him rent on the horse.

Again he went to see Cern. This time he was let into the antechamber.

“She liked the book,” Sachare told him.

“Excellent. Let me see her.”

“She still says no.”

With a bit of a flourish, he held out his hand and opened his fingers, revealing a dark square. Sachare took it, sniffed it.

“She can get candy any time she likes, Innel.”

“Not from me, she can’t.”

At that Sachare chuckled a little, put the piece in her pocket, and dismissed him.

Gentle persistence, he told himself as he walked away, knowing that his repeated rejection here was the subject of palace gossip.

So be it.

As winter froze the world outside the palace, Mulack, Dil, and, to his surprise, even Sutarnan came to see him, offering pleasantries that implied support, should things go well. As if the bloody, brutal Cohort fights across the years were merely playful roughhousing.

But Innel knew better than to reveal his grudges. If he succeeded with Cern, there would be time later to address those who had supported his cause only when the winds were in his favor. And if he failed, it wouldn’t matter. He could be tossed onto the street with nothing.

Or worse yet, with his mother and sister.

One morning, these dark possibilities churning in the back of his mind while he struggled with an accounting error he’d been set to resolve, there was a pounding on the door to his small room. A set of servants streamed in, directed by the Seneschal’s second. Over Innel’s objections, they picked up everything of his that they could carry. While he watched in wordless astonishment, they marched his belongings down the hallway.

He followed them, up a floor and toward the royal wing, to a double-room apartment. Stunned, he stood in the hallway, watching them array his belongings, the accounting book still under his arm.

Sutarnan stepped to his side. “Congratulations, Captain. Let’s celebrate your new quarters tonight.”

How did Sutarnan know about Innel’s new rooms before he did?

He had been too busy; he had neglected his various contacts. Sutarnan knew because he had neglected no one.

The double room, it turned out, was not entirely for Innel; the second section had six cots laid out, and, as he watched, a set of guards were making themselves at home.

“What is this?” he demanded, struggling to regain some semblance of control.

“King’s orders, sir,” said Nalas, putting his things by the cot nearest the door.

Innel puzzled over this. Guards to protect him? From what? Jealous cohort brothers? In case he might want to leave the palace again on some wild midnight ride?

That evening, Sutarnan came with a vintner’s matrass of sweet red wine. Innel barked a loud laugh at the offering, watching as the grin fled the other man’s face in rare uncertainty.

He clasped Sutarnan’s shoulders enthusiastically.

“Friends, always,” he told him with just enough mockery to keep Sutarnan on edge for the entirety of the two hours they spent drinking together. He pressed Sutarnan to talk about old times, specifically to recount various events in which Sutarnan had been the agent of Innel and his brother’s difficulties. Sutarnan had left uneasy, a result Innel found both petty and satisfying.

The wine, also, had been very good.

The next day he went to the king’s Seneschal and named Srel as his captain’s clerk.

“I will have to confirm this with the king,” the Seneschal said.

“No, you won’t. And Srel will need a raise in pay appropriate to his new position.”

At this the Seneschal’s mouth worked tightly, as if he were sucking on a dirty rock. After a moment he nodded slowly and turned away. This told Innel more than all the rumors put together.

So what was he now? Consort-apparent? He’d never heard of such a thing in his studies of monarchical history, but it seemed so.

Except that Cern still wouldn’t speak to him.

He continued his diligent attention to her, sitting near her at meals, coming to her suite daily, where he instead spoke with Sachare.

Cern would come around, he told himself. In time. Patience.

Innel ran the garrison every day, his guards following in his wake. It was important to make sure that those who carried weapons regularly in the palace grounds didn’t forget he was still one of them.

Today at the fields, a game of two-head was just beginning, the teams marked by colored bands tied around foreheads. A small audience of off-duties had gathered to watch. The two teams tossed their respective balls to each other to warm up, one black, one red.

“Who do you favor, ser?” Nalas asked him.

At this, Innel considered what he knew about the players on the field. Overhearing, they paused, looked back at him, as did the off-duty soldiers gathered around. Those who had been talking stopped to look his way.

As some thirty people suddenly fell silent and waited on his next words, Innel felt odd. He did not know what to make of this.

And then he did. The guard suddenly made sense.

Not protection. Not to keep him at the palace. It was the king’s way of setting him apart. Cern might not yet have chosen him, but the king had.

Other things now made sense as well. The apartment. The many new tasks.

The king was not testing him. Or at least not only testing. Rather he was putting Innel in the position of consort. If not by title and not by Cern’s decision, by practical measure.

A tactical error where Cern was concerned, Innel knew. He wondered how Restarn could know his own daughter so poorly. No surprise that Cern’s demeanor had chilled further. She now looked past him as if he didn’t exist at all.

During meals he approached as near to her as Sachare would allow, letting himself look pained and frustrated as Cern turned away. He must seem just the right amount of concerned.

It was never far from his mind that Cern could still say no. The king could hardly keep him in this exalted yet nebulous position if she did. Innel would be no more than a mutt wandering the palace halls. Out of place, out of support. A frog in the open sea, amidst sharks.

He must get back into her good graces.

Deep winter hit the capital all at once in a heavy snow storm with freezing rains that coated the entire hill in slick ice, delaying delivery of the massive amount of food the palace consumed daily, ending up ripping to shreds a delicately crafted deal between Helata, Nital, and Murice to build a new fleet. The three Great Houses refused to clasp hands over the deal, and hard looks followed between their scions in the palace.

Had they been able to predict this sudden storm, the contract could have been formalized earlier, rather than as it was now, taking months more to soothe the three sides and get them back to the table. Even a day’s warning could have saved the contract, not to mention preserved the kitchens’ larders and hence meals for thousands.

But who could have known?

His thoughts returned to a candle lit hovel in a snow-clad village where there was a girl who could indeed predict the future.

He must act to bring the girl close by, where he could get his own answers and keep a watch on her and what she said to who. Bring the sister and baby as well to ensure her cooperation.

He could not leave and collect her himself, keenly watched as he was now. He would need someone else to do it for him. Someone competent and exceedingly discreet. That would take resources he did not yet have.

But would, when Cern came around.

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 15

Come The Revolution – Snippet 15

Chapter Ten

E-Tomai rose from behind his desk when I entered. His face was slightly flushed and his ears lay flat against the sides of his head, so when he said he was happy to see me again, I didn’t believe him. He offered his hand in a Human handshake, though, and I took it.

“I hope you will not mind if my superior joins us,” e-Tomai said once we were seated. “He is visiting and is naturally interested in today’s unfortunate events.”

I didn’t mind, and I realized that was probably why e-Tomai was uneasy. Something to remember when trying to read people: it’s not always about you. The door behind me opened and e-Tomai sprang to his feet. I’m not sure I normally would have risen myself but those massive vault doors made me at least open to the idea of respect for authority.

The older Varoki standing in the doorway wore a plain black and red uniform, the front adorned only by the silver starburst CSJ badge and two dull metal chest gorgets trimmed in red gold, the rank insignia of a field marshal lieutenant. I felt a little of the blood drain from my own face. E-Tomai had called him his superior. He wasn’t kidding. There was only one field marshal lieutenant in the Provost Corps: its commandant.

The officer’s face gave nothing away, ears relaxed, skin all but colorless. His head and hands had lost much of their iridescence with age, or perhaps exposure to sun and the elements. He had not acquired the thick midriff common to almost all older Varoki, but he also did not have a lot of muscle mass on his upper body. He had the lean build of an ascetic, not an athlete.

“You are Mister Naradnyo,” he said. “I am Field Marshal Lieutenant e-Loyolaan. Please proceed, Captain.” He crossed the room and took a chair where e-Tomai and I could both see him. If he really wanted to spook one of us he would have sat where that person couldn’t see him, so that was something.

“Mister Naradnyo,” Captain e-Tomai began, “as you know, we have a very serious situation developing as a result of the Prahaa-Riz disturbance. It has been only about four hours and we are still trying to assess the cause and extent of the riot. Any light you could shed on the incident would be most appreciated.”

“Whatever vid you’ve seen on the float, I didn’t have anything to do with starting that,” I said.

Captain e-Tomai exchanged a glance with his boss, e-Loyolaan, before answering. “We have already reached the same tentative conclusion. We have also studied the audio and video feed from your commlink and that of two other witnesses, so we have a fair idea of the sequence of physical events. We are more interested in your impressions.”

Impressions? I thought about that for a couple seconds.

“What, you mean like my gut feeling? Some staffer panicked. Gaant caught everyone by surprise, first with the jammers going down and then when the crowd started in. The staffer over-reacted, and then everything came apart. I don’t think Gaant intended it to play out that way.”

“You say it caught everyone by surprise,” he said. “Does that include you?”

I noticed e-Loyolaan studying me pretty hard, probably wishing I had big ears to help him tell if I was nervous.

“Good question,” I answered. “It sort of did, but in retrospect it shouldn’t have.”

And then I told them about the whole scene out in the atrium, the creepy mob of Gaant’s followers, and what he’d said to pull me into the meeting, that the guys on the other side of the table would be surprised at what happened. At the time I’d thought his little speech about what a bunch of no-good greedy bastards they were was the surprise he had in mind, but he’d meant the whole business of taking control of the meeting, making it public.

“And you believe that is all Mister Gaant intended?” he asked. “To simply make the meeting public?”

I shrugged. “You want impressions and I’ll give them to you, but remember, I hardly knew the guy. I only met him a half-dozen times before today. If I had to guess, I’d say yeah, he just meant to embarrass all those guys, shame them, and maybe stir the public up against them. I think he has this big bunch of followers and he figured to make it even bigger, make some sort of play for political leadership. But what his long-term plans were is anybody’s guess. Now that he’s dead I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

“Oh, Mister Gaant is not dead,” Field Marshal Lieutenant e-Loyolaan said, his first comment in the interview.

“Not dead? I saw him . . .” I stopped. What had I seen? He fell, he hit his head, the crowd moved his body back out of the way, and they said he was dead.

“So, just unconscious?” I asked.

E-Loyolaan nodded to e-Tomai and the captain continued. “We located him in the South Tower trauma/med facility. The last report was that he was stable but comatose and under guard by the municipal police, charged with incitement to riot. Communication with Prahaa-Riz has been temporarily interrupted.”

“Yeah, the three officers I talked to in Katammu-Arc said their tacticals were going to clear South Tower. If so, they shut down the comms themselves–standard procedure. But you guys know that, right?”

They exchanged a look and then e-Tomai nodded.

I wasn’t sure if Gaant being alive was a good thing or a bad thing. Alive and in police custody he was a living symbol for his followers, and a target for action. Dead he was a martyr, and you can’t negotiate with a dead man. I looked at e-Loyolaan, who was studying me again. He cocked his head slightly to the side.

“I do not know either, Mister Naradnyo,” he said.

“Know what?”

“Whether we are better off with him alive or dead.”

So this guy was a mind reader too? Or was I just getting that obvious?

“We received word that the Honorable e-Lotonaa, your wife, and the e-Traak heiress have crossed the uKootrin frontier,” e-Loyolaan said. “Do we have you to thank for that?”

Here it comes, I thought.

“Just doing my job,” I answered, and to my surprise he nodded.

“Yes, your duty. I understand. And it was the only sensible course of action. I want to thank you for saving e-Lotonaa’s life at Prahaa-Riz and in the water afterwards. You call him The’On, I am told, short for The Honorable. I do not imagine he enjoys that, and yet he seems to tolerate it from you.”

“I didn’t know you two were friends,” I said.

“Not friends. We are opponents on many matters of policy. But whatever our differences, e-Lotonaa wishes the best for the Cottohazz, as do I, and I respect him for that. I respect and value him, regardless of our disagreements.”

He said nothing after that, just looked at me. The silence stretched out, but I did not get the sense he was trying to stare me down. He was probably thinking, but I honestly couldn’t say for sure. Most people look away from you while they’re thinking, so they won’t make you uncomfortable, but he was not most people.

“What was it like to be dead?” he finally asked.

Not the question I was expecting.

“I liked it,” I said. “You will too.”

He leaned back slightly, almost imperceptibly, in his chair and an expression flickered across his face just for an instant, a hint of fear, and then it was gone.

“Were you disappointed to come back?” he asked.

“Little bit. But I had somebody worth coming back to. It makes a difference.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Many say your soul must have left you while you were dead, and that only your body was reanimated. Are you now a soulless creature, Sasha Naradnyo?”

“No more so than ever.”

He actually smiled at that and seemed to relax a little.

“Will we soon be seeing mass resurrections of long-dead Humans?”

 

The Seer – Snippet 09

The Seer – Snippet 09

Her expression shifted, mouth went slack, eyes unfocused. There it went, the storm. He waited a moment to be certain, then with a nod at his mother, who stood as if frozen, he left.

Outside the three guards waited.

“What in the seven hells was that about?” He stepped up close to Nalas, pushed him sharply with both hands, harder than he intended. Nalas stumbled back, tensed, and Innel found himself unreasonably hoping for a fight.

Nalas raised his hands in appeasement.

“His Majesty’s orders.”

At this Innel forced himself to calm. He wanted to hit something, but a fight here and now over this would be foolish.

“All right,” he said, breathing deeply. “Why?”

“Protecting you?” Nalas replied, a tinge of wry apology in his tone.

“From Cahlen?” Innel said, incredulous. “But she’s harmless.”

Nalas gave a shrug that said he didn’t disagree.

The king was guarding him? From what?

While he was formulating what he might sensibly ask Nalas, knowing that every word would get back to Restarn, Cahlen emerged. Behind her his mother’s face flashed a moment in the doorway and then vanished, the door slamming shut. She wanted nothing to do with this.

Well, neither did he.

As two guards stepped to intercept Cahlen, Nalas stepped back, a hand on the hilt of his sword.

Innel could see this playing out very badly indeed. He stepped into the middle of this, a hand to stop Nalas from drawing his blade.

Oblivious, Cahlen walked directly to Innel. To the other two guards, he held up a closed fist in an abrupt motion. Everyone stopped but his sister.

“Cahlen,” he said sharply, to get her attention.

Innel could imagine the stories that would follow this: not only had Innel slain his brother, but the very day the king let him walk away from that, he had tried to kill his own sister in the hallway outside his mother’s apartment.

It wouldn’t matter that the king had ordered these guards, or that Innel had not drawn a blade; rumor had a way of following blood.

Untrained, unarmed, and half his weight, Cahlen was scarcely more dangerous to him than one of her messenger birds. But the guards were plenty dangerous; if she were seized by another tantrum now and came at him, they would take her down and hurt her, regardless of what Innel said or did.

He searched her face as she came close. Was she still angry?

Close enough to hit. Close enough to kiss. She did neither, standing scant inches from him, looking up at him, blinking rapidly.

“Cahlen?” he asked gently.

“Brother.” She gulped for air. She seemed upset, almost about to weep. He had not seen her cry since she was a baby. But this was not a typical day.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I need to fix the East tower dovecote,” she said, voice low. “The birds are too crowded. They don’t fly well. Will you ask for me? The king, the ministers, whoever it is that you must ask.”

When Innel and Pohut, five and seven, had been taken into the Cohort, the group had numbered nearly forty children, ten of them girls. Cahlen had been brought in two years later, but in weeks was sent back to live with their mother. Between the strange moods, insensible responses, and a tendency to become overly violent when confused, she was deemed unsuited.

Over the years Cahlen showed a strong talent with animals. Now she was an assistant bird-keeper, living in the tower-shaped dovecote, breeding doves, training them to carry messages back to the palace.

In this moment, her fury at their brother’s death mysteriously dissipated, all she demanded from him was a favor.

“I will,” he told her earnestly.

With that she turned wordlessly away, walking down the hall, only a small limp in her step to indicate anything had transpired besides conversation. As she went, she brushed her hand through her thick, short mass of hair. A bit of birdseed dropped onto the wooden flooring.

#

And now to Cern.

He waited a few days to let her fury ease, then visited her suites. Sachare came into the hallway to meet him.

Most of the girls of the Cohort had left early, somewhat less motivated by the often brutal competitions that so often comprised so much of Cohort life. Of those who had finished, Taba was now a navy ship’s captain and Larmna had been put in charge of House Nital’s amardide forests in the Kathorn province. Sachare had become Cern’s chamberlain.

His cohort sister was a tall woman, her hands tucked into the pockets of her red robes trimmed in dark pinks and gold, marking her as one of the princess’s staff. A magenta sapphire glinted in her right ear. Cern’s color.

“No,” Sachare said, simply and clearly.

He hadn’t expected Cern to let him in easily, and it was no surprise to have Sachare sent to stand in his way, but he had thought to get into the antechamber, at least. Not to have the conversation in the hallway, in front of a tencount of royal guards who had no reason to keep it to themselves.

“Her words or yours?” he asked.

“Mine are less polite.”

“Oh?” He stepped toward her, too close, just short of what might have been considered threatening, a line his cohort brothers and sisters knew well. “What would yours be?”

From her changing expression, he could see that she was weighing various answers. She shook her head.

“Again: no.”

“He was a traitor, Sachare.”

“So we’ve heard.” A small, bitter smile. “In any case, it’s not me you have to convince.”

“Then let me in.”

“She hasn’t given a new answer since I told you a moment ago.”

“I can change her mind. You know that.”

“You may not enter, Innel.”

That was clear enough. Cern would need more time.

Still he hesitated, wondering if he should give Sachare the gift he’d brought for Cern, a small book he’d been holding in reserve for such a need. Full-color drawings of birds of prey, their silhouettes, descriptions of their calls and hunting habits. The sort of thing that would appeal to the princess. Expensive.

“He was a good man,” Sachare said softly.

This caught Innel off guard. He looked away, the words echoing in his head. When he had his feelings again in hand, he looked back, meeting her stare. “So am I.”

“As you say.” A hard tone.

He held out the book to Sachare. “Give her this for me.”

Wordlessly she took it from him and returned to the princess’s rooms, the sound of the door shutting behind her echoing in the corridor. Her guards watched him silently.

A gentle touch, his brother would have said of Cern now, so furious. Close but not too close.

Like the rope game they’d all played in the Cohort, each holding an end to try to pull each other off-stance with sudden yanks and misdirection.

Hold solid to the rope. Keep the line alive, not too slack, not too tight.

And never look away.

#

Weeks went by. Cern kept a stony silence. When he approached she looked away, rebuffing him openly, and he knew better than to come close enough that she might signal her guards to intercept.

Appearances mattered. When rejected, he made sure to seem pained and conflicted, like a hurt lover pretending not to care. He set his gaze to linger on her when she was carefully not looking in his direction. He passed by her suites daily, slowing as he did.

When he and his brother used to fish together, they would find the underwater creature’s location from the eddies and ripples it caused across the surface. The palace was like a lake; even if Cern did not see his longing looks directly, the ripples would get back to her. He had to be patient.

But he did not feel patient. He lay awake past the midnight bells, mind circling around what he had done that day to draw her back to him, wondering if it was too much or too little.

Somehow he had to convince her that what he had done in Botaros made sense. The king would only wait so long before looking again at his second-best choices in the Cohort. He had given Innel an opening. He wanted Innel to win.

Innel needed to get Cern to choose him. Nothing could be more important.

Almost nothing. One afternoon, a casual comment from Restarn made it clear that Innel was expected to attend the next day’s trade council. Innel studied the trade ledgers deep into the night to arrive well-prepared, because the king did not make casual comments.

A few days later, he was woken at dawn by the unsmiling seneschal who explained that Innel would oversee the rebuild of the burnt stable auxiliary. Yes, starting now. In his spare time, the Seneschal added, Innel would provide the king an analysis of the ministerial council’s resolution on a stack of tangled and conflicting House petitions.

Without delay.

Still being tested, then. He thought he’d proved himself worthy already to the king, again and again, but apparently not.

So be it; he applied himself to every task, working as hard as ever. Before he quite realized it, he was spending hours a day with the king. At meals, answering challenges like Cohort drills, then pulled in for fast minutes between appointments to suggest courses of action. Even attending the king at his bath, where he couldn’t help but notice that the man was hale and healthy for near eighty.

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 03

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 03

Spotting the smile on Oliver Cromwell’s face, Gayle asked him: “And what’s so funny?” The expression on her face, however, removed the crossness of the words themselves. Now that she and Oliver had been able to spend a little time together in person, the very peculiar quasi-romance that had developed over months of nothing but conversations on walkie-talkies seemed to be . . .

Coming along quite nicely, she thought. Still very early days, of course.

“Actually, I think your Harry Lefferts is something of a genius at this work.” Cromwell nodded toward the beat-up old wagon and the four nags that drew it. “This won’t draw any attention at all. Not anywhere in the English countryside, and certainly not in the Fens.”

Alex Mackay swung into the saddle of one of the other horses. Gayle thought there was something vaguely comical about the motion. He went into the saddle with all the ease and grace you’d expect from an experienced cavalry officer. Much the way a champion motocross racer might climb onto a tricycle.

Those other horses weren’t quite nags. But she hoped they didn’t pass a glue factory along the way, or the horses would head for it unerringly.

“All right, all right. Oliver — you too, Darryl — give me a hand loading the radio gear into this heap, will you?”

To Gayle’s gratification, “give me a hand” meant that Oliver took one end of the heavy damn thing and Darryl took the other. To her was left the proper chore of giving orders.

“But be careful putting it into the wagon. Be very careful.”

Cromwell grunted, as he helped lift the thing up to the wagon’s bed. “Fragile, is it? You wouldn’t think so.”

“I’m not worried about the radio.”

Cromwell smiled. Darryl kept his mouth shut. The blisters had faded to a dull ache over the last half hour of rowing that had brought them to this little village by the ford, but lifting the radio crate up into the wagon had popped everything open. He wandered off, fishing quietly in his pockets for a handkerchief to clean off the gunk. It didn’t look like it’d be worth unpacking everything to get the aid kit out just yet. He could wait until they got to wherever they were stopping for the night. Get some boiled water, too.

“Darryl McCarthy, you are an idiot,” Vicky said.

He turned round and saw she was watching him. “Isn’t much,” he said, shrugging. “Just some blisters. It can wait until we stop.”

“Infection? Does that up-time word not ring any bells? You spent long enough locked up with the Simpsons, did Rita not teach you anything?” If Vicky had a fault, it was that she had the native Londoner’s love of sarcasm in double measures. Heaping helpings, in fact. She grabbed Darryl by the collar. “Come on, they’ll have salt and hot water and clean rags at the inn here. You’ll sit still while I clean those hands before we ride, it shan’t take a quarter hour. And you’ll not ride well with sore hands. The reins will hurt you and you’ll hurt the poor horse most likely.”

Darryl grinned, trying to put as good a face as possible on getting mother-henned. “Wouldn’t want to hurt those poor horses. They’re very poor horses. So poor they’re like to keel over dead if we’re not real careful.”

“Quite,” she said, steering him into the back door of the inn.

Vicky worked quickly, as she’d promised. A penny had got them all the boiled water and rags and salt they needed, and more than Darryl had wanted on account of that stuff stung, dammit. They were out and Hamilton and Cromwell were conferring.

“Back into town would be a poor move, I think,” Hamilton was saying. “If the hue and cry has gone up, we’ll be heading right into it.”

Cromwell made a face. “I know the way on the North Road, and the Cambridge road. I’ve never been far into Essex. If you can be sure of taking us to Cambridge, I know the way from there.”

Hamilton shrugged. “I’ve been as far as Colchester a couple of times, and I think there’s a road to Cambridge from Romford, which we’ll pass through on the way. Just a lot of simple travellers, heading out to the fens.”

Cromwell chuckled. “Aye, such simple folk. Five plain soldiers, three up-timers as the word seems to be, and one gentleman farmer who’s not seen his farm these eighteen months past. If Romford is a town of any size, we should skirt it, not be seen there. As we change our road, best we not be seen, eh?”

“I think you’ve the right of it. Your wounds all bound up, Darryl?”

Darryl grinned back. So much for hoping nobody noticed. “Not a job I’d ever done, so I got blisters, and Vicky wouldn’t take no for an answer.” He shrugged. “Probably as well I was going to leave it until we stopped, but maybe I’d’ve picked up an infection.”

“Aye, cuts on your hands, they give you lockjaw. Especially in the web of your thumb. So my mother told me, and I never had cause to doubt it. Perhaps it’s the dirt in the cuts, did I understand that right?” Cromwell was looking over at Gayle.

“Sure. It’s tetanus, and that lives in the soil pretty much everywhere. A cut on your hands will let it get into your system if you’re working with the soil, which is where the superstition comes from.” She caught sight of the look on Cromwell’s face. “Not superstition in that sense, silly. Just something that people believe that isn’t so.”

“Ah.” They’d all noticed, in contact with the man during their stay in the tower, that he could be a little touchy on theological matters. Gayle had learned that he’d come to the Puritan faith, and even to serious religious belief, late in life — only a few years previously, as it happened — and he still had all of the recent convert’s zeal. Getting captured and thrown in the tower for something that he hadn’t done yet and never would hadn’t helped steady him down any, either. The associations he’d picked up for the word superstition tended toward fervent denunciations of the Catholic church.

“This is science, as you call it?” he asked.

“Yup,” Gayle nodded.

“Had a tetanus shot before the Ring of Fire,” Darryl added, “on account of if you’re out hunting a cut can get you lockjaw, and a miner always has a few scrapes and cuts. So I figured the few dollars a vaccine’d cost was worth it.”

“How do these vaccines work, then?” Cromwell asked as he mounted his horse, “I think that might make a pleasant conversation as we ride.”