The Devil and Deep Space (11 page)

“I have not seen Andrej for more than nine years, Ferinc. Nine years. And yet he is the master of this house, lord of the Matredonat, and all that is in it.”

Master of her body, at least in principle. That was the traditional understanding of her position here, at any rate.

“It will probably be a little awkward. Yes.” He had his arms around her now, and the trusting warmth of her body against his was familiar and comforting. She was tall for a Dolgorukij woman. But he was taller. He was not Dolgorukij, either. “Nothing I have ever heard of thy lord would make him out to be a man to impose himself on a lady’s privacy. He is probably as nervous as you are; consider, you know I’m right.”

She raised her head and looked up at him sharply. It couldn’t be that she had misunderstood him; they were speaking of Koscuisko in his capacity as a normal social creature. Not as Inquisitor. “But I’m not a lady, Ferinc, I’m a gentlewoman of yes–all–right–passable breeding — but poor judgment — who bespoke a child from a betrothed man before his sacred wife had been bred to his body. There are far simpler ways to say just what I am. You know them.”

Willful misunderstanding was to be his tactic, Ferinc decided. “Yes. Among them beautiful. Devoted. Precious beyond price. The hearth–mistress of the Matredonat — ”

No, none of those were the words she had had in mind, and she pushed him away from her with a smile. “ ‘In the mouth of the Malcontent, excrement is honey.’ You will be gone for how long, Cousin?”

Not so quickly as that, Ferinc decided, and closed the distance between them to embrace her. “Would I dare to kiss you,” he asked; and did so, carefully, gently, thoroughly, “if that were true? Be fair, Marana.”

She made a face at him, her hands at the back of his head, smoothing the long hair that fell unbraided down his back. “Lefrols, then, and it is very much the same thing if you would like to know my opinion. Answer the question.”

“Three weeks, maybe longer, Respected Lady. I don’t know for certain. I won’t know until Cousin Stanoczk tells me, and he hasn’t yet.” Koscuisko would be home for at least that long. Anton would be reconciled to Ferinc’s temporary absence after a day or two, and then six weeks would seem no longer than three to him. Marana was not likely to be as understanding, but there was nothing that Ferinc could do about that.

He was not going to Dubrovnije. But that was nobody’s business but the Malcontent’s. He would have to send for a wheat–fish for Anton Andreievitch.

“Think of me while you are gone, Cousin.” Marana stepped away from him and back into her status; one almost saw the power descend upon her shoulders like a shawl. “Yes. I’m nervous. It’s beastly of you to leave me now. But one does not expect decency from Malcontents.”

She was not actually angry at him. If she knew what duty called him away from her, she would be. She would be more than angry. She would be horrified and betrayed, and would quite possibly refuse to so much as see him again, ever again.

She was right about one thing at least, though. It was nobody’s business but the Malcontent’s. It could be true that Mergau Noycannir at Chilleau Judiciary had no good reason to know Andrej Koscuisko’s exact whereabouts: but the Saint had accepted the bargain she’d offered, and would fulfill its side of the contract. It was one way to be sure that they knew what she was up to, after all.

“The peace of the Malcontent be with you, Respected Lady. I will think of you. Depend upon it.”

She was to be Koscuisko’s wife, though she didn’t know it yet. Ferinc was not sure she would still be his lover when he returned. “The Holy Mother has ordained that women need not bless your divine Patron. So I will say only good–bye, Ferinc.”

It was in the hands of the Holy Mother. In whom he did not believe, but it would be imprudent to remind his Patron’s goddess of that. “I’ll be back to see you in a few weeks, Respected Lady. You have the home advantage with your lord; he is almost a stranger here. You will manage beautifully.”

Women were absolved from blessing the name of the Malcontent; Malcontents, from begging leave, as from most — if not all — of the otherwise common rites of ordinary life. Ferinc left Marana in the nursery and went down the hall to make his way out to the motor stables. There was a ground-car waiting.

Marana, in the embrace of her lord, soon to become her husband as well as her master. Marana, in Koscuisko’s bed —

He had to get out to the airfield in time to find his covert. He would simply have to submit the whole problem to Cousin Stanoczk, the next chance that he got to be reconciled.

###

Andrej Koscuisko stood behind Lek as the courier made its final approach to Jelchick Field.

The
Magdalenja
had made atmosphere, dropped out of space into stratosphere, several hours ago; it had shed the thermal load acquired in its re–entry over long, slow, high–altitude orbit, and it was ready to make planetfall in fact.

“We have for the final approach your clearance codes,
Magdalenja
. Stand by.”

The Standard was precise and uninflected, but the syntax was Dolgorukij. Andrej watched the long hills, the great broad course of the river Trijan, the black–green slopes of the spacious game preserve with its old forest scroll beneath the hull of the courier: home.

There were veserts upon veserts of fields in grain, still green and silvery in the sun; it was yet midway into the growing season, and Jan Seed–of–Life had only begun to show the long black beard that marked him for a man and ripe for slaughter. Well, for harvest, but harvest was slaughter, and tradition required it be approached with reverence and care.

“Thank you, Jelchick. Final approach. Beacon scan initiated.”

In all of the years that he had known Lek Kerenko, Andrej didn’t think he had even once noticed that he had an accent. The blood of his ancestors in the fields below reached out to him, cried out to him — corrupted him. Lek sounded Sarvaw to him, and Andrej shuddered to hear it. If he could think such a thing — he, who owed so much to Lek for openhearted charity — if he could think the word with scorn, how could he hope to keep Lek from shame at the Matredonat?

The courier slowed perceptibly moment by moment, falling fast. Jelchick Field took a sudden approach, but it had been the most suitable airfield — the one closest to home. Andrej was not going to Rogubarachno, the ancient house in the plains of Refour where he had been born; only later would he travel to Chelatring Side in the mountains, to attend to political business with his family.

They were for the Matredonat, an estate that belonged to him personally in his capacity as the son of the Koscuisko prince, the place where he kept Marana and his child. They were going there first. It had been negotiated. It had been agreed. So why were there riders in array at the very edge of the airfield, a hunting party, and one rider on horseback sitting apart from the rest?

“Send a security query, Chief,” Andrej suggested. He would not send the question himself. Let Stildyne do it. “Find us out who those people are. The airfield is secured. I want to know.” He needed all the advance warning he could get, if they were who he suspected they might be.

Stildyne stepped away from beside Andrej without comment as Lek drew the courier into its final descent. Andrej could see the emergency equipment drawn up alongside the end of the travel–path, could hear Lek talking to the traffic control center; but had eyes only for those people well out of range of the courier’s engines, waiting.

If he did not take care, Andrej told himself, he would convince himself that he recognized that one tall rider. And that was clearly impossible. He had not so much as seen his father in almost nine years.

Stildyne had returned. “Says it’s the landlord, your Excellency,” Stildyne said. “At least that’s what I think they said.”

“ ‘Master of field and grain, river and mountain’? Is that what they said?”

Stildyne didn’t so much nod, but merely lowered his head in confirmation. “So what does it mean, sir?”

Closing his eyes for one brief moment of frustrated fury Andrej swore. “All Saints in debauch. My father, Chief. Probably my mother. Doubtless at least the youngest of my brothers, but it was not what we had planned. I’m not prepared for this.”

It was far too late to tell Lek to abort the landing, and break space again. Nor would it have been fair if he’d let himself be forced so far as that. He wanted to meet his son.

“His Excellency presents his compliments,” Stildyne said, as if it was a question. “And regrets that an unfortunate desire to see you all in Hell prevents his meeting with you at this particular time or any in the foreseeable near future?”

As angry as Andrej was, he had to laugh. “Someone has corrupted you, Chief. You sound like a house–master in a bad mood. No. There is to be no help for it, and everybody knows that the prince my father left me with no choice when he elected to attend this event. I will have to go and kneel and beg for blessing.”

The courier had come to a complete halt, the ventilators equalizing atmosphere. Andrej took a deep breath to calm himself. He almost believed that he could smell the hot dust of the grain–lands in the summer. “When we approach them, hold the team at the same remove as my father’s house–master will be standing, with my father’s mount.”

“We brought smoke, your Excellency.” Lek surprised Andrej by speaking up, and Murat beside him took up the skein, in braid.

“We wouldn’t even use irritant fog. Just smoke.”

“Lay down a good field,” Smath added. “Run for it. Evasive action. Just to keep in practice, sir. Just say the word.”

They were so good to him. Or perhaps they simply preferred not to start a vacation with their officer of assignment in a filthy temper: so one way or another he owed it to them to face up to the coming ordeal like a man, and get it over with.

“Thank you, gentles, but the word must be ‘no.’ I will go and speak to my father. You may watch if you like. You will not see many Dolgorukij so tall as he is.”

Meeka had inherited all of their father’s height, and their father’s beautiful great black beard as well. Neither Lo nor Iosev nor Andrej himself stood any more near such height than the shoulder to the head. There was no telling about Nikosha, who had been a child; but even so, Nikosha seemed to take after their mother for his frame and his physique.

The ground crew had arrived. Andrej could hear Taller making the required polite conversation. A moment or two, and the passenger ramp descended, opening the side of the courier to the sight of late morning and the faint but unmistakable fragrance of sirav in bloom.

The perfume of the weeds of the country seized Andrej’s brain like a drug. He could not bear to stay inside the courier breathing Standard air for one moment longer. He had to get out. Even though it meant he would have to go and confront his father, he had to get out and breathe the air, feel the pull of his own earth, the caress of the warmth of his own sun.

Nine years.

He had spent years at school on Mayon before he had gone to Fleet; he had had difficulty with Mayon’s gravity as well. Off. Ever so slightly off. It had taken weeks for the uneasiness in his stomach to settle, but he had been away from home too long, and now he felt the land–sickness in his stomach all over again.

It was probably just nerves.

Out there in the near distance the hunting party was moving in bits and pieces, reacting to the appearance of the courier’s passengers and crew. It would be over all the sooner, and the more quickly, he engaged; therefore Andrej waited until Murat had finished his post–flight checks and spoke.

“If you please, Mister Stildyne.”

He was an officer under escort, his uniform a stark contrast to the hunting costume that his father wore. Men in their family did not wear black boots in the summertime, nor boots of hard leather of any color unless they were at court or at war. The blouse of the trousers was not creased unless one’s housekeeper were clumsy, stupid, incompetent, or insolent; no man of rank would fail to wear a broad belt over his jacket, from which to hang a pouch of this or a string of that. All in all, he was quite possibly as alien to them as Andrej’s father and his people were to Security 5.l.

Climbing into the waiting ground–car Andrej nodded to Taller, who had taken the driver’s seat. Taller knew quite well that they were taking a detour on their way to traffic control. Once Smath had hopped on board with the last of the luggage Taller headed out for the far side of the airfield, where the hunting party was gathered just to the near side of the security fence.

When the distance had shrunk to eighty paces or so Andrej stopped Taller with a gesture, and Taller secured the vehicle’s drive before joining the rest of the team on the ground.

His people formed up in the standard square around him with the efficiency of long practice and the ease of clear, if unspoken, communication. Andrej started through the long grass toward the hunting party, and three riders came down from the little rise that the hunting party had invested to meet him partway.

When they had closed one quarter of the distance Andrej’s father dismounted. So of course the escort dismounted as well, one of them taking the reins of Andrej’s father’s horse.

One half of the distance, and the two men who had accompanied Andrej’s father stopped. Andrej didn’t hear any word from Stildyne, but his people stopped too, Taller and Lek each taking a step to either side to give Andrej clear passage between them.

When Andrej was close enough to see his father’s face, close enough to meet an outstretched hand, he stopped and stood and waited for his father’s word. Looking up into his father’s worried blue eyes Andrej wondered what there was that he could say, what there was that he could do. He knew the obvious answer: he was to kneel and beg his father’s blessing. But it was not as simple as that.

This man was his father, and loved him, drinking in his face with an expression of fond thirst.

And yet Andrej’s knees could not be convinced that they should bend. His father, yes, but also the man who had sent him into Hell nine years ago and demanded that he abide there, the man who — once all had been said and done at the Domitt Prison — had rebuked him for unfilial behavior in having challenged Chilleau Judiciary in so public a forum. The man whose acceptance of Chilleau’s persuasions had left Andrej with no other escape from a servitude more horrible than even that which he had endured under Captain Lowden’s command than to submit himself to Fleet for four years more.