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The
Text
The
action of this scene — Cousin Stanoczk coming to the Matredonat
to call Andrej to his family at Chelatring Side —is completely
out the window in the current draft. I include it here because
I liked the interaction between Lek and Andrej's son Anton, and
there's a bit of background on the entire Andrej-Marana-Stanoczk
inter-relationship that might be interesting.
I
have to warn you, of course, that the actual plot mechanics are
almost entirely changed between here and the current draft (it's
not even wintertime, in the novel). Please read this scene as
a genuine interaction between Lek and Anton that could easily
have been in the current draft if not for space, pick up a few
odds and ends about the relationship between Cousin Stanoczk and
Andrej and Marana, make a minor note or two about the Malcontent
in general, and enjoy the scene. TOP
It
was raining, and had been raining since just past exercise this
morning. A shame, because his gentlemen were beginning to rather
enjoy riding; or at least they were coming to dislike it less and
less intensely, so that he had their company and their good-will
alike. Not that they ever withheld their dutiful companionship from
him; they never had. A man could tell, even so. There was a certain
involuntary stiffness of the body that could not be disguised or
explained away.
Since
it was raining, they were all indoors, and he could indulge in the
luxury of his son's presence while he was going over his work-papers.
No company was expected; the rains were setting in, and people either
had work to do or sense to go inside. There had been an unusual
trend in the current of the coastal waters, this past year-so he
had been told. They had enjoyed a good flood in the spring, but
the rains had never quite gone in some of the littoral regions,
so that the growing season had been risky in places. Grain went
to rot, when there was too much rain if the temperature stayed too
warm throughout. When the grain went to rot it had to be destroyed-or
processed into pharmaceuticals, which was much the same thing, for
traditional folk.
Andrej
Koscuisko sat at the huge old work-station in the master's library
of the Matredonat reviewing documentation, signing acknowledgments.
There was a full service of hot rhyti at his elbow, and a dish of
sweetcakes besides, with one of the innumerable "great-aunts" without
whom such a house could not function stationed at the wall to keep
an anxious eye on his appetite and the temperature of the rhyti
alike. Across the great room the fire sang in its niche, and sitting
on the knotted rug in front of the fire-niche his son turned pages
in one of his books, pointing out the images to Kerenko with an
intensity of concentration that made Andrej want to laugh. Kerenko
himself was lying on the rug, quite unselfconsciously, propping
himself up on one elbow as he bent his dark head together with Anton's
fair one over the leaves of Anton's riddle-book.
"I
have clothing made from straw." Anton's pronunciation of the Standard
was careful and precise, stumbling just a little over the sounds
that were most difficult for Aznir to reproduce in Standard. Flat
vowels in general. Semi-vowels in particular, which sometimes still
flipped in Andrej's own mouth so that their opposite came out. "My
dog likes to eat roasted-eels. My mother weaves the holy things
from bark, and my house is made of branches. Where do I live?"TOP
Roasted
eels were a difficult concept, for a little boy, because any intelligent
child would know quite well that eels were like unto fish, and Anton
knew as well as anyone that fish were not usually discussed with
family retainers who were as close to strangers as Andrej's Security
were. Even at that it was nothing compared to the difficulty that
a man could have with fish when he began to reach that terrible
testing ground, between his childhood and his first taste of the
ocean.
"If
your clothing is from plants, not animal skins, and your dog likes
roasted eels, I think you must live on the shore of some water,
somewhere. If your house is made of branches, instead of wood or
stone, maybe it doesn't get very cold there." Kerenko was thinking
hard. Or at least he was thinking out loud, leading Anton along
a reasoned path to a conclusion, and not being obvious enough about
it to insult the self-respect of an eight-year-old in the presence
of his father. "I read in a book once that the holy mother of the
Conner folk wears a bark dress, do you live in Conner?"
"No!"
The
playful force of the denial caught Andrej, trying not to listen
too obviously, off his guard. "Oh, I mean yes. You got it exactly
right. But I couldn't live in Conner, isn't there rain all of the
time? And wind?"
The
Matredonat was octaves old, settled in stone and chinked with age
over countless winters. The wind could blow all it liked; it could
not penetrate into this room, although it raged against the tall
narrow windows all along the western wall. The rain was captured
in the house's drains and funneled off into the great cisterns,
for the long dry days of summer when the water in the river could
not be drawn out for the harming of the life within it. Fishes.
Yes, indeed.TOP
"Oh,
but you put on your rain-hat. And your cape is many layers of straw,
so you stay dry. What's the next one, shall we go on?"
He
had to complete his documentation before he could indulge himself
in keeping his child company. It was very good of Kerenko to amuse
Anton, because that way he could at least have the pleasure of listening
to his son's voice while he worked. Anton's tutor would not be too
stern with them; the exercises Kerenko and Anton were doing were
part of the standard curriculum, an important teaching tool in the
process of learning how to reason. How to think. How to consider
the implications of a house made of branches, a dog who got roasted
eels to eat, and an icon dressed in fabric made of woven bark, and
speculate on how the elements might all come together in a specific
place for a specific reason.
"You
do it, you do it. It's my turn. Come on."
Marana
was away in her own offices working on the kitchen schedule, consulting
with the kitchen-master on what decisions had to be made for the
next three weeks' worth of feeding a household this size. Stildyne
had taken Taller and Smath and gone off with some of the House security,
and Andrej was not certain but that had been rather hard of Stildyne,
when it was so pleasant to lie on the rug and drink rhyti and listen
to the rain outside against the windows instead of working. Ivish
and Pyotr and Kerenko had been left to him. Ivish had found a text
to read, over beneath one of the windows, while Pyotr was studying
a schematic of the Matredonat with rapt fascination. There was something
about his house that strained Pyotr's credulity to the limit; but
Andrej had yet to identify what it was.
"All
right, all right. My turn. Where are we? Oh. Yes. I have fine boots
made with white fur inside and black fur outside. My dog likes to
eat long strips of dried flesh, with grease smeared on them."TOP
Kerenko
read slowly and carefully, so that Anton could follow the Standard
of it in the text without difficulty. Andrej thought he knew this
one. The long strips of dried flesh smeared with grease were a dead
giveaway-but he was supposed to be concentrating. He thought he
could hear people approaching, through the door at the far end of
the room; he knew there were people approaching one way or the other,
because he could see Pyotr's subtle in-gathering over the schematic,
readying himself for whatever threat should come.
"My
mother sews fine jackets with bone fastenings, and my house is made
out of staves and skins. Where do I live?"
There
were all sorts of people coming. Marana, looking a little annoyed,
he thought. Someone behind her. Anton's nurse, bringing up the rear,
and Andrej did not like to see Anton's nurse, because Anton's nurse
could only be here to carry Anton away from him. Of course he could
not protest, about that. He was expected to be working on crop indices
and leading economic indicators in grain and related markets, not
listening to his child work riddles with Kerenko.
"I'm
sorry, Andrej," Marana said. "This has come to the door, and since
it's raining-well, I had to let it in. It is your cousin Yemanichk,
with a message from your father."
Stepping
to one side as she spoke, Marana gestured in the direction of the
man behind her, while the nurse hurried ahead into the room to sweep
Anton up off of the rug and out of the room through a door at the
other end of the room. Kerenko was standing up, taking his abandonment
in good part; Andrej stared at the stranger, for a long moment,
before he recognized him all at once.TOP
"Stanoczk!"
That
was right, she had said cousin Yemanichk, he should have guessed
it would have to be Stanoczk. Stoshi looked different, that was
all, but he should have recognized him at once from the ribbon looped
around his neck and the impudent grin that had always characterized
him.
"Only
if you say so, cousin. Respected and most senior of all cousins.
Drushik, let me embrace you, you've got thin."
Marana
had never cared for Stanoczk, but that was only traditional. There
was a long-standing and hereditary antipathy between women and the
slaves of the Malcontent whether male or female. It dated all the
way back to the first slanders that hinted that St. Andrej Malcontent
had been capable of suggesting the shockingly heretical notion that
at one point in history the Holy Mother might have had a consort
not far removed from the Canopy itself in power and prestige. The
relationship between women in general and the Malcontent had never
recovered from the impious hint that the Holy Mother might even
once have been male. No amount of denial, reconciliation, persecution,
or martyrdom had ever erased the specifically feminine resentment
of that rumored blasphemy.
His
cousin Stanoczk was as tall as he was, and built along the same
lines. When they had been children they had gotten into mischief,
more than once, taking each others' place, so that Andrej would
take Stoshi's part in the sung-praise of the daily service in chapel
while Stanoczk discoursed earnestly with visiting scholars about
the battle of Kozabrun. Of course it was only Stoshi who had been
beaten for the trick; Stoshi's family had not shared the progressive
ideas that Andrej's own father had maintained in the delicate area
of discipline for children.TOP
Perhaps
it had been foreordained that Stanoczk would elect the Malcontent,
even so long ago.
"I
may have gotten thin, but you are very damp. Have you no better
sense than to have come out in such weather? Grandmother. Brandy.
And sweet-cakes."
Marana
had settled herself at the work-table, folding her hands in a resigned
manner. Giving Stanoczk one last affectionate hug, Andrej guided
him to the table. Stoshi hesitated, and rolled his eyes in Marana's
direction as if in petition; she smiled, as though she could not
be truly disapproving. Then he relaxed, and sat down.
"At
the direction of your father, dutiful son of the Holy Mother, generous
patron of the least of her children, and prince of all the Koscuisko
princes, I would swim to the Matredonat, cousin. -If I knew how
to swim."
Once
they had gotten past the cheerful irresponsibilities of childhood
it had become more difficult to pass for one another. Those people
around them upon whom they'd played such jokes had all learned,
over time, to know that if the boy had dark eyes he was not Andrej
Ulexeievitch, and that he was not Andrej Ulexeievitch unless his
eyes were as pale as mercury. When Stanoczk's voice had dropped
into his shoes the last of the joke had been lost; they did not
even sound alike, after that, although it was only the pitch of
the voice that separated them, and not any other obvious mark or
habit of speech.
But
Stanoczk belonged to the Malcontent.
Andrej
had no interest in being mistaken for him now.TOP
He
knew without asking that Stanoczk had no particular desire to be
taken for the Chief Medical Officer of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship
Ragnarok, with all that the post so lamentably entailed.
"You
have a message," Marana prompted, a note of suspicion in her voice.
But smiling.
"Indeed
I do, Respected Lady." He had called Marana other things, when they'd
been children. He had withdrawn into his persona now, however, more
of a messenger, less of cousin Stanoczk. "Here I have brought a
document in your father's own hand, Drushik. It is this, and I am
sorry, but there is reason to ask you to Chelatring Side."
The
great-aunt brought a flask of cortac brandy, with a plate of sweets
to keep it company. Stanoczk signaled his thanks with a nod and
a smile, and took three pastries in as many bites, hungrily.
"Of
course I am to go to Chelatring Side," Andrej protested. "It has
been decided. Once the Cloak lies in the Mountains, that is to say,
several weeks yet, I believe."
He
knew. He was to spend the greater part of his leave here, at the
Matredonat, with Marana. With his child. And the longer he spent
here at the Matredonat with his child the more difficult it became
to believe that he would chose to die and be free of the black sin
that defined his life rather than weaken and submit for the pleasure
that he had in Anton Andreievitch.TOP
Shaking
his head in rejection, Stanoczk took a mouthful of rhyti to clear
his throat of crumbs. "There is a change. The Autocrat's Proxy goes
to Chelatring Side, cousin Drushik, there are political matters
and Selection issues, and your father asks that you will come. He
says that he will not expect you to stay." Stanoczk's glance was
suddenly quite sharp, and keen, and penetrating. "They are both
of them much changed, had you noticed? Because of Burkhayden. Perhaps
you should have had yourself attacked years and years ago."
Andrej
knew what Stanoczk was saying; it was only by way of a mild joke.
But it wasn't funny. He had been attacked, of course; it happened
periodically. His parents had had nothing to trouble themselves
about for as long as it had been because it was Security who had
suffered for the attacks, and not himself.
"What
is the Selection to do with my lord, or he to do with the Autocrat's
Proxy?" Marana wondered, aloud. Andrej was grateful to her; she
understood what Anton meant to him. At least he thought she did.
He
also thought he knew the answer even before Stanoczk spoke. "Our
mutual master, our cousin Andrej, is not just the inheriting son
of the Koscuisko prince, Respected Lady. He has been a senior officer
in the Jurisdiction's Fleet these nearly ten years, Standard, and
the Second Judge-for one-has always honored his interests with particular
attention."
Honored
his interests, was it? Hounded him from Expiation to Atonement,
from special assignment to special assignment, from the black horrors
of the Domitt Prison to the cumulatively corrosive cruelties of
Captain Griers Verigson Lowden, late of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship
Ragnarok. "Honored his interests" was not even a joke. But
Stanoczk was still talking.TOP
"And
his rank, not to speak of the attention, make him much more interesting
politically than he would be as merely the heir to a measureless
fortune, vast estates, and the power of the entire Koscuisko familial
corporation, Respected Lady. It is the Chief Medical Officer of
the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok that is invited to Chelatring
Side to meet with the Autocrat's Proxy, and not exactly the son
of the Koscuisko prince. But I have here for you also a message."
Addressing
this last specifically to Marana, Stanoczk opened the front of his
jacket and withdrew a documents-case with the seal of the Malcontent
etched deep in its dull gray surface. Opening it with a peculiar
gesture-the secures, Andrej guessed-Stanoczk lifted out a folded
sheet of handtext, carefully, and placed it on the table in front
of Marana. "And my instructions, Respected Lady, are to ensure that
you yourself receive it. Here is one for you also, Drushik."
His
note was only what Stanoczk had already told him, although it was
unusual that his father had pledged to release him after the Autocrat
had gone home. Less than ten days. More time to have with Anton.
Refolding the document, tucking it away into his sleeve, Andrej
looked to Marana for her news; and found her staring at the opened
paper before her, pale, her eyes a little wide with disbelief.
"It
is the end of the world," Marana said. "Oh, Andrej. It is the Day
of Balance. Your father uses the familial form. He asks if I would
condescend to receive him, at some time, here, at the Matredonat."
For
a long moment Andrej could only stare in turn. After what he had
done, his father addressed Marana with the familial pronoun? After
his open rejection of the bride to whom his father had contracted
him, his father wanted to make his morning-visit, after so many
years of declining to extend his hand over his acknowledged grandson
at the Matredonat?
Then
his father had been more deeply troubled by the events at Burkhayden
than Andrej had imagined.TOP
It
almost made him feel guilty to have been so close to killed, since
the force of the news of that event had proved so catastrophic as
to redefine each propriety in his father's relationship with him.
"It
is past time," Andrej said, finally, firmly. That was an obvious
truth; as true as the fact that he had believed that the Romilaf
River would flow from the ocean back up the rapids and into the
peaks before his father would write, and in his own hand, using
the familial forms, and ask to be received at the Matredonat. "They
have let all of those years go by. And they were not even exiled
in disgrace. It is well past time. Thank you, Stanoczk."
In
return for such gifts he would even go to Chelatring Side with a
good grace.
After
all, the sooner he went to stand beside his father before the Autocrat's
Proxy the sooner he could return to his son, here, and listen to
him puzzle over boots and bark and roasted eels.
In
the current draft this leave-taking scene came out a bit differently
and is from somebody else's point of view, so I thought I'd go
ahead and show it from Andrej's point of view here. The emotion
of the event isn't much different in the current draft, but the
current draft doesn't display this particular angle.TOP
Andrej
dismounted, and lifted Anton down from his saddle with his own hands.
Yanosh-Anton's groom-was here, of course, but there would be plenty
of time for Yanosh to lift Anton down from his elegant little yowe.
Anton was pale, but faced him with a brave smile that only reminded
Andrej of how much he had lost, how much time he had wasted. How
much Fleet had taken from him. "I need to go to visit at Chelatring
Side, son Anton. I will only be a few days." He had tried to make
his apologies last night, at Anton's bedtime. He had not allowed
for the stubbornness Anton was apparently capable of-determination
that Andrej had found himself unable to shake. How could it be so
important to get up, to ride out, just to wave good-bye? In the
end it didn't matter. Marana had been stubborn all of her life.
He should have expected that Anton would have his way, with such
a mother.
"You
will come back, your Excellency?"
The
yawn in Anton's voice did not disguise the dread that had inspired
the question. Andrej had called his own parents Excellency, all
his life; had his father ever wondered why he could not be "papa,"
the privilege of men with sons of lower rank? Truly it was a hard
price to pay, even in return for the position that he had been born
to.
"I
will come back. You may depend upon it." In the long term of course
he would not be coming back, not in any sense that really mattered.
There was nothing that he could do to change the ultimate departure;
all he had to speak to this time was the next few days, and to that
he could speak honestly. "Now, kiss me, and go with Yanosh."
It
was Anton's duty to kiss his father, there need be no special message
in that. It was the desperate vise of Anton's thin arms around his
neck that caused the real ache in Andrej's heart. "I will await
your return, sir."TOP
He
was Andrej Koscuisko, a man who-it was widely accepted-knew more
about pain than most of even his peers in Inquisition. He should
have more respect for the lives that he had taken than to stoop
to so much as acknowledge their common grief. It was one he had
himself created, for so many-real and permanent, and not of a mere
handful of days.
Yanosh
led Anton away by the hand, and Marana was standing beside him.
"We both will await you. Sir. But it will not be so easy if you
mean-what you have told me." So much she had forgiven him, so much
she had granted him of comfort and compassion. The one thing alone
she would not forgive him, and it was for Anton's sake that she
would not forgive it, so he could not fault her.
"I
will not have the courage to hold to it. If I had guessed how easy
it would become to sell myself, all over again, I would never have
risked so foolish a thing as to have come here." They'd been over
this ground before; they both knew that there was no solution. She
wanted him alive, for Anton's sake. He was determined that since
Anton's father had not had the moral courage to understand freedom
of choice when he had first come to know the obscenity within him
that at least he could give Anton a father who had come to make
a moral choice, whatever the consequences. "It is to be two days,
three days. I hope I may be welcome once again, Respected Lady."
He
could not ask her not to be angry. There was no sense of proportion
in a mother's heart, when her child was at issue. "Welcome to Anton
ever and always. I will not close my door against you myself."
Nothing
left to say. He could not ask for anything more. Nothing left to
do except to kiss her mouth and go.TOP
He
hated going.
He
did not want to die.
And
yet who of the many who had died so horribly beneath his hand had
had any less real and convincing reasons, to wish to live?
In
the draft that my editor is working on right now, something similar
to this scene takes place in a different context between Andrej
and Jils Ivers much earlier in the story, and some of the information
in this scene is completely out of context (sorry). I'm including
it here for your Reading Enjoyment not in order to create confusion
(for which I apologize in advance) but in the hopes that the additional
Jils/Andrej interaction may be interesting to you. I don't think
it's giving away any secrets to remark that Jils Ivers and Garol
Vogel will continue to have a not insignificant amount to do with
Andrej's future as the story moves on in future novels.TOP
Straightening
from a formal bow to the retreating back of the Autocrat's Proxy,
Andrej Koscuisko turned toward Jils Ivers with an expression which
she could not quite interpret. It made her uncomfortable. Almost
she wished to step back, to retreat; but that was ridiculous, and
she knew it. She was more than a match for him physically, and if
there was no one at Chelatring Side who was quite a match for the
empathic intelligence that was one of Andrej Koscuisko's most effective
weapons she could at least hold her own; or had been able to, at
one time.
It
was just that she had come to him as the enemy, before.
Reaching
for her hand, Koscuisko made her an ironic little salute. The expression
on his face had not gotten any more reassuring. "Specialist Ivers.
Forgive me if I do not pretend that it is good to see you again."
She didn't know what to do about being led about by the hand, with
such grave courtesy; and the son of a Judicial assessor knew it,
too, she affirmed to herself, with wry humor. "You do not take rhyti,
if I remember?"
It
was a mark of respect here in this milieu to lead her by the hand,
to keep her arm trapped between his body and his elbow with his
hand laid will-she nill-she on his forearm. To pull away from him
or put any visible space between them would communicate disrespect-rejection
of the honor offered-a message that she considered his rank too
far beneath her status as a guest.
"Thank
you, your Excellency, no. Kilpurs, perhaps?" Very well, she would
not make any scenes. But she lifted her hand, fractionally, so that
he would know how she felt about it.
Koscuisko
raised an eyebrow at the beverage-tables with the towering chimneys
of the old-fashioned warmers lining the inside wall near the formal
chair of the Autocrat's Proxy. "It may prove to be so. What do you
say, great-aunt, may we have kilpurs? And rhyti. Would it be kilpurs
with a sourslice, Miss Ivers?"
"Oh,
if at all possible," she agreed. She hadn't had kilpers at all since
she'd left her shuttle in Ardibell Station to make her way here.
There was no sense spitting at such small, but significant, creature
comforts, when offered. "Sourslice. And I'll have a wafer, if there
are any."TOP
The
elderly servant, the "great-aunt," passed her an eggshell-thin dish
with all of the adjuncts she could possible desire to accompany
a glass of kilpurs arranged in careful order on its surface. There
was an unanticipated side-benefit to all this, Jils decided. She
didn't have to manage her resentment at being led by the hand if
they both happened to have their hands full of glassware. "His Excellency
has something on his mind?"
Koscuisko
sighed, if very gently. "Neither of us is comfortable with our respective
positions. I do not want to be here. I am not interested in whatever
you have been sent to say. And yet we should probably pretend to
dance amicably tonight, after dinner, since people will be watching,
they have warned us. Have you ever the Dolgorukij formal-dances
studied?"
He
was being absolutely up-front with her; she found no trace of reservation
or artificiality in his body language or his voice. "Somewhat."
The idea have rise to a certain degree of apprehension; Dolgorukij
formal-dances started with quiet sedate parades of one sort or another
at one end of the spectrum, it was true, but developed very rapidly
into sometimes challengingly athletic contests. "If they're to be
darshan, you Excellency, it will be no problem. Because I won't
be able to talk. So there need to be no conversation, in that case."
She couldn't imagine anyone having the breath with which to carry
out a conversation, in the middle of a darshan.
Koscuisko
agreed with her, too, to judge by his quick smile. "Walk with me,
Specialist, come over to the wall. Should we not understand each
other?"
The
other wall, he meant, the one with the rows of windows alternating
with the warlike artifacts of Chelatring Side's military past and
portraits of Koscuisko's ancestors. She wanted to keep him talking;
if there was no conversation she had no hope of communicating with
him.TOP
"His
Excellency would prefer which Judge, in the Second Judge's stead?"
she asked, walking with him as he had asked, careful to keep her
voice neutral. Koscuisko frowned at his rhyti in a gesture that
she recognized before raising his head to gaze into the painted
eyes of Chuvishka Kospodar and answer as if at a recitation.
"I
am an officer under Jurisdiction, Miss Ivers, you know that I have
no opinion. -Anyone, except the Second Judge, whom I never expect
to forgive for the Domitt Prison. You need not be concerned, Specialist,
it is not likely that my feelings in this matter will make of a
difference the slightest."
He'd
been speaking Aznir Dolgorukij for weeks, now, at home. His Standard
syntax was much closer to that of his milk-tongue than the precise
Standard language she remembered him using. "The First Secretary
is concerned, sir. Not that your personal convictions will damage
the Second Judge's position, no." Not very well put. But Koscuisko
showed every sign of taking her meaning as she had intended it.
Encouraged,
she went on. "You may not care to believe this, your Excellency,
but I believe the First Secretary realizes his previous attempts
to influence his Excellency were a mistake. He has convinced me
that he regrets them, sir."TOP
He
didn't look much like his notorious ancestor; but they were all
notorious. There was a shared semblance between Koscuisko and the
pictures on the wall, but it was a faint odor of fire and blood,
and the vaguest hint of the edge of a knife that carried the common
line forward. Koscuisko had stilled into himself in a peculiar manner,
his hands quiet, his eyes lowered, not moving, not speaking. He
was listening to her. No, he was listening to her carefully, as
if testing her assertions against the internal edits with which
he was credited-Andrej Koscuisko's reputed 'truth sense." As if
there was such a thing. And if there was such a thing, she fervently
hoped that it was working, here and now.
"Where
is the good in coming to say so after so much has passed? I do not
say suffered, it is others who had to do that on my account, because
of your First Secretary. Now that I have put myself out of his reach-"
Did
she hear a word there, an unspoken word, formed in Koscuisko's mind,
caught and cast aside before it was uttered?
"-he
sends to say that he was wrong to have pursued me to such an end.
It does not convince."
Skeptical,
yes, but something else as well, something that she did not quite
understand. Something that frightened her, and she was a Bench Intelligence
Specialist, she had almost forgotten how to so much as spell the
word fear. At least that was what her publicity said.
"He
will demonstrate his sincerity by staying well clear, your Excellency.
There is another issue that he wishes me to discuss with you, and
from an independent viewpoint I'd have to call it a fairly critical
issue, sir."
She
couldn't quite tell if he was paying attention to her. He was looking
up out the nearest window; there was nothing to see, there, but
cloud and wall and rock. "You were sent to my family to discuss
with them Burkhayden, Specialist?"TOP
Surely
he knew that she had been. "At which time I had the pleasure of
meeting your parents. Sir." And facing for the first time the true
weight of traditional Dolgorukij culture. "I hope I didn't say anything
that his Excellency might have preferred I not."
She
didn't think she had. She'd been very circumspect about the entire
issue of the gardener, as an example.
"It
would have profited had I met your Garol Vogel years ago. Instead
of permitting these Security to resist the very natural instincts
of decent people to destroy the evil that they find among them."
What was this about? He sounded almost amused. "Because there has
been such a change in my father and my mother, since I have to home
returned. I never hoped for my mother's blessing and my father's
embrace, Specialist, and yet have had both. You seem to have done
me a very great service, in your errand."
There
was that. She had found the Koscuisko prince as stunned by the news
as if it had not occurred to him that the post to which he had so
determinedly sent his son could be physically dangerous. There had
only been the few hours in which Koscuisko's life had been in actual
jeopardy; the simple fact of there having been an issue in the first
place seemed to have done the trick, then, as far as Koscuisko's
parents were concerned.
He
had his back to the wall, now, facing her with the window to one
side of him and a set of ancient battle-armor on the other. He looked
amused, and even relaxed-a little.
"Your
Excellency." No time like the present to get her brief on Record,
formally or informally. "First Secretary Verlaine believes that
there may be some question of a potential irregularity on board
of the officer's Command of assignment. If his Excellency should
chose to request waiver, and renegotiate with Fleet, the First Secretary
will not attempt to influence the outcome in any way. And if it
should happen that the Second Judge is Selected, the First Secretary
is willing to void his Excellency's continuation of service, at
his Excellency's pleasure."TOP
She
was extrapolating a bit from Verlaine's actual statements, true.
But she was not extrapolating too far. She was a Bench Intelligence
Specialist; she knew how to extrapolate-and she was comfortable
that Verlaine would conform, should Koscuisko take her at her word.
"It is understood that his Excellency might not have decided to
request an extension of service had an abuse of influence not occurred."
Actually
what Verlaine had said to her had been strong enough, coming from
him. Koscuisko would know exactly what she meant, whether or not
Koscuisko decided to believe her.
"Potential
irregularities on board of the Ragnarok, Specialist?" He was looking
across the room, to where his Chief of Security was waiting for
him. "You would perhaps explain. You would like to sit down?"
She
was more comfortable on her feet, where she could get a better look
at him. "Thank you, no, sir. Had his Excellency left the ship before
the training accident occurred?"
The
great hall was emptying out, at this end. People were giving them
plenty of room; privacy was the deepest sign of respect an Aznir
Dolgorukij could bestow, in a place like Chelatring Side. Koscuisko
frowned at something that he saw at the far end of the hall, but
seemed to shake his attention back to her question. "Why do you
ask?"
"His
Excellency might not know. The Brevet Captain is dead." Might not
be involved. Why should he be involved? As far as she could tell
there was no plot on board of Ragnarok, although there was almost
unquestionably a plot that involved the Ragnarok. TOP
Koscuisko's
swift response rather surprised her.
"Brevet
Captain Cowil Brem, I believe you mean. I hope you mean. The Brevet
Captain ap Rhiannon is an interesting beast, I would be sorry to
hear if she were dead."
Very
well, he'd been on board, or at least he knew that much about what
had happened. She should have known that ap Rhiannon would intrigue
him. ap Rhiannon was a new sort of life form, from a physician's
point of view, the product of a program of upbringing so unique
that a crèche-bred child could hardly be said to resemble any other
hominids under Jurisdiction in affect and motivation. And a good
thing, too.
"Cowil
Brem, your Excellency. There has been an audit team posted, and
preliminary Findings. There are also some troubling discrepancies."
He
had shifted his gaze to look long into the hall, the moment she'd
said "findings." What was he looking for? What was he looking at?
"Such as, Specialist?"
She
could put him off; he had no special right to privileged information,
just because he had struggled so-with ultimate success-against First
Secretary Verlaine for so many years. If she did not put him off
she would have to be responsible for the consequences. He was no
Bench Intelligence Specialist, perhaps. But he was Andrej Koscuisko,
and when it came to quickness of comprehension there did not seem
to be much of a difference.
She
missed Garol.
And
she wasn't going to think about that.TOP
"It
starts with the existence of a Warrant without Recorded findings.
The dispatch of a prisoner transport to take custody of prisoners
at Tenchenchuo-"
He
had started to smile, around the eyes, as if he knew the joke of
that already. How could he know? She had only just received the
most recent word, this morning.
Declining
to be distracted, she continued. "-when there were no prisoners
at Tenchenchuo to take custody of." She did not need to mention
Mergau Noycannir, not to him. Or not just yet. There was no way
of knowing where Noycannir might have gone, no reason to suspect
she might try to come to Azanry. It was Noycannir's personal involvement
with Admiral Danil Sunnigan that gave the set of sequences their
really questionable odor, however.
"So
far you have told me only that there seems to be a plot against
the Ragnarok. There are no particular irregularities about plots,
Specialist, not in today's Fleet."
He
was telling the plain truth. He should not. It was painful enough
that Fleet was as corrupt as it had become. It only made it worse,
to talk about it.
"Excellency,
the Ragnarok has left Tenchenchuo space, and there are no orders
on Record, anywhere. The Ragnarok has further taken the Recife
vector-"
"For
the Fleet Audit Appeals Authority at Taisheki," Koscuisko nodded
appreciatively. "A reasonable move. In light of the conspiracy that
you say may exist?"TOP
He
would not say that he approved, not in so many words. He didn't
have to. There was the glitter of the long teeth of a wolf, behind
his smile, and that said more than enough.
"Major
troop movement without leave is an irregularity. Failure to surrender
troops under Warrant is almost-mutiny."
She
hated the very sound of the word. Yet Koscuisko only smiled, and
the wolf was grinning behind his smile, very horribly.
"Unless
there are good reasons, of course. Necessary and sufficient reasons.
You are telling me that First Secretary Verlaine fears for the loyalty
of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, and wishes me to feel clear
not to go back to such a questionable position."
He
certainly wasn't responding as she had expected. Perhaps that had
been a mistake-to have expected anything, where Koscuisko was concerned.
She couldn't help but wonder what it was that made him so discreetly
cheerful about the troubling news that she had brought.
"If
his Excellency chose not to return to Ragnarok while there
are unanswered questions about the status of the Command, the First
Secretary pledges not to try to touch his Excellency's life for
his own ends. -Or for that of Judge or Jurisdiction," she qualified
her statement, quickly, too aware of how easily Verlaine had rationalized
his struggles of will with Andrej Koscuisko as a matter of policy,
over the years, rather than personal pride. Vainglory.
Lifting
his hand, Koscuisko gestured for a servant-a "great-aunt"-to come
and take his empty glass of rhyti away. "If there were mutiny on
the Ragnarok, Specialist Ivers-and I emphasize if-I would not wish
to miss it," Koscuisko said. "No, please finish your kilpurs, and
excuse me. I need to speak to my cousin Stanoczk."TOP
"His
Excellency is surely aware of the problems with such a joke-" He
should not have said it, since he could not have meant it. He had
said it because he meant it. If there was mutiny on the Ragnarok
he would not want to be left out. She could not think how to assimilate
so shocking a statement, and sat down on the padded seat of one
of the wooden chairs that had been placed beneath the windows, one
by one.
"Miss
Ivers." He looked her in the face, in the eye, steadily, with candor
but without challenge. "You have been honest with me. I will be
honest with you. There can have been no mutiny on board of Ragnarok,
I am certain of it. But if there were to be-it is my Command of
assignment, after all. I have become accustomed to its ventilation
and even the Engineer. A man could do much worse than die with such
souls as comprise that Command. In fact it is not impossible that
it would be an honor."
—
End —
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