The Sword of the Lady (10 page)

Aloud: ″After the Protector′s War Rudi and I spent time with each other′s peoples every year as part of the peace settlement, so we were raised together a lot of the time. We′re, umm, very good friends.″

″Extraordinary,″ the Bossman said. ″My mother used to read me stories like that—Richard the Lionheart, Robin Hood . . .″

″I always sympathized with the Sheriff of Nottingham, myself, my lord,″ Odard said. He raised his hands with a charming grin. ″After all, he was on the side of law and order.″

″Rudi′s a . . . very able man, too,″ Mathilda said. ″I′m sure he′ll get your wagons back, your Majesty.″

The glitter came back. ″He′d better.″

The bossman moved away, and Kate began chattering about something inconsequential. Mathilda smiled and nodded, keeping mental track in case she should say something, without really listening—another skill she′d learned at court.

The problem is that I sort of recognize the way he looked at me—besides the mad whimsy that might order me killed on an impulse. Lord Piotr de Chehalis did too, once—and his interest in a woman starts at the eyebrows and stops above the knees,
she thought, remembering a polite discussion of the latest ballad of courtly love that had turned into a brief wrestling match in an alcove.

Which she′d done via a ringing slap across the chops that left him bleeding from lips cut against his own teeth, no maidenly restraint
there
. She wasn′t as strong as the burly blond noble, but she′d trained to the sword all her life and there had been plenty of power behind the blow. He′d taken it in silence, bowed, turned and left, not being suicidal enough to draw on her or strike back even when drunk—that had been in Castle Todenangst, the heart of House Arminger′s power.

And besides the Protector′s Guard ready to come at the first call, Tiphaine d′Ath had been in the next room. The Grand Constable would have cut him to pleading, sobbing ribbons on the dueling field and then stood watching him bleed to death by inches, her head cocked slightly to one side and that chilly little smile on her lips. The thought made Mathilda shiver a little even now. Even with nothing said those iceberg-colored eyes had narrowed a little and followed Piotr as he stalked out. Pursing her lips while her left hand′s fingers moved like graceful cables of living steel on the long hilt of her sword, and her right turned a hothouse rose beneath her nose.

Tiphaine
liked
killing people who annoyed her, men particularly; and she′d been as protective of Mathilda as a mother cat with a kitten as far back as the heir to the throne of Portland could remember. It was rather like having a friendly tiger running tame in the house; you could forget the nature of the beast except that every now and then the claws slid free for a moment.

But the only rescue she was likely to get was one she or her friends came up with themselves.

″At least I′m not hanging up by my thumbs,″ Ingolf Vogeler said to himself, looking up at the gray cracked concrete of the cell′s roof and breathing the smells of iron and old sweat and piss and less pleasant things. ″Or being hammered with lead-lined hoses. Or being strung up
and
hammered. Yet. Rudi′s got a couple more days before the month is up.″

It was too dark now to read the graffiti. He′d spent several days tracing the opinions of a generation of prisoners about the Heasleroads, father and son. The standard of literacy had gone down but the sentiments were pretty uniform—and he agreed with every one of them. He′d been tempted to add his own, at length. He′d been born a Sheriff′s son back home in the Free Republic of Richland and sat through schooling every winter until he was fourteen or so, his family being masters of broad acres and able to spare his labor without hardship.

But it was always
possible
that it would make things worse. Venting was a luxury he could only afford if he gave up every scrap of hope, and he couldn′t do that. For Mary′s sake if not his own, and for the others.

″Here′s my plan!″
someone screamed in a cell down the row.
″Just listen! First we catch the rats and train them and then—″

″Shut up!″ half a dozen others bellowed, until the madman drifted off into grumbles and then snores.

″Fucking politicals!″ one of the other voices yelled, and gave the bars of his cell a rattling kick before he lay down again. ″Fucking loonies, every goddamned one of you!″

The common prisoners were genuinely angry. Sleep was the only real escape from the State Prison, at least for the hard-cases who made it to this pen inside the perimeter wall of Des Moines′ inner citadel. The other ways out led to places that were even worse. The main punishment for of fenses against the—permanent—Emergency Regulations was life at hard labor. Which only meant four or five years in the salvage gangs or quarries or in the mines grubbing out coal, or a miserable decade if you were rented out as a part of a convict chain gang. The Heasleroads thought capital punishment was wasteful, save in exceptional cases. And far too merciful.

The close confinement here was a compliment, in a way; it meant they were taking his capacity to do harm seriously, even if they didn′t believe it had been a Cutter spy who′d betrayed him and Vogeler′s Villains when they were nearly back to the Mississippi with the plunder of Boston′s galleries. Here the Church Universal and Triumphant was a barely noticed oddity somewhere far, far out west, beyond Nebraska and the ranchers and the Sioux. He′d learned better, painfully . . .

″Back in goddamned Iowa,″ he muttered, with a quirk of the lips. ″Nothing′s gone right since I took that Boston job from Tony H.″

He sighed, remembering one place near Boston. It had a four-story internal courtyard with a mosaic floor and a marble throne in it, still dimly lit by the great pyramidal glass roof at the top, unbroken by some miracle. The galleries around it had held some things that had riveted him, even in that place of hideous peril; paintings, carved wood, a curious statue with its hand upraised in blessing and an infinite compassion in the ancient stone face. Treasures and wonders beyond knowing lying doomed behind dusty glass, looming up out of the darkness as their lanterns passed, then fading into oblivion. They′d had a list to salvage, but it was a fraction of that one single treasure house.

And if we′re lucky, the stuff we
did
get is still in those steel boxes on the wagons.

The keepers had solidly boarded the doors and windows to preserve their charges, before they went off to meet their deaths. He′d admired that at the time, and the more so as he saw what was within. There had been this wall of stained glass like nothing he′d seen in all his life, far too large and fragile to take . . .

I got to see that. It came all the way from Europe! And I met Mary.
That
was better than right. Hmmm. Unless meeting the one woman you want to settle down with just makes
this
worse? Giving you more to regret, you betcha.

He′d set up an exercise program when they put him in this cell, which for a wonder he had to himself—except for the miniature inmates in the cornshuck mattress. The sit-ups and chin-ups and push-ups and running in place ought to have left him tired enough to sleep easily, but the stinks and snores from the other cells kept him wakeful.

Now he lay on his back with his hands behind his head, a tall powerfully built man just short of thirty, with a pleasant battered face and a nose that had healed a little crooked long ago after an encounter with the blunt end of a Sioux tomahawk, brown hair and short-cropped beard, and dark blue eyes now half closed. He was barefoot, and his trousers and undershirt were getting a little gamy, but he′d known worse conditions—as a hired soldier in a free company, and then as a salvager leading a gang working the dead cities.

Memories drifted through his mind on the verge of sleep. His home, Readstown, the day he′d left with the volunteers who were going to fight the short glorious war against the Sioux, turning to watch petals from the blossoming apple orchards blowing like frothing white mist down towards the river. Mountain-tall towers in Chicago, scorched and leaning against each other like drunken giants long asleep, with their feet in swirls of lake water running in whitecaps through rivers that had once been streets. Dawn breaking up like thunder out of the Atlantic—he′d been one of the few men from the civilized lands to see that, since the Change. That weird little village on Nantucket, and the even weirder . . . place . . . that shared the island with those refugees out of time. Mary′s one bright blue eye laughing at him, as she reached for him with long-fingered slender hands.

He awoke with a shudder; he′d been back
there
for a moment. His chest heaved under a film of sweat, and he called up something they′d taught him in the Valley of the Sun this last winter, in the Monastery of Chenrezi—a mandala, and a chant. The patterned figure began to turn, drawing his mind into its depths, and heart and breath slowed.

Heels beat a staccato on the concrete, hobnails grating. A bright Cole-man lantern showed, and then the man carrying it as he turned the corner. None of the other occupants complained, even if they felt inclined; the man wore the harness and uniform of the State Police, not the turnkeys. They were the Bossman′s personal retainers, and widely—and justly—feared. And this one had Captain′s bars on the shoulders of his plain mail shirt; he carried a cloth-wrapped bundle as well.

Edgar Denson, by God!
Ingolf thought, with a sudden prickle.
Come to kill me in person? Possibly. Though he′d probably have brought a crossbow if he had that in mind
.

The State Policeman kicked a three-legged stool over and sat, one foot sweeping the scabbard of his shete aside as he did. The distance was close enough for easy conversation—but just beyond reach if Ingolf lunged against the bars. He was bigger than the policeman, and at least ten years younger, since Denson had to be with a couple of years either side of forty.

″You know, you′re a pain in the ass,″ Denson said conversationally, leaning forward with his palms on his knees. ″Ordinarily I′d think you should have been ′killed while resisting arrest.′ Or ′while trying to escape.′″

Urrrk!
Ingolf thought.

That was
not
what you wanted to hear from a high officer of the all-powerful secret police and general Brute Squad.

″Anthony Heasleroad would have been sort of annoyed if you′d killed me before anyone asked questions,″ Ingolf pointed out, his voice carefully neutral. ″He wanted to find out what happened to four wagons full of salvaged artwork.″

There was a flicker of respect in the other man′s cold gray eyes, and he ran a hand over his close-cropped graying blond hair.

″Yeah, there is that . . . especially since he really believes you about his man Kuttner being a spy and finking you out to the Cutters.″

″He
does
?″ Ingolf said, keeping his voice from squeaking by an effort of will.

″Yeah. You know, a lot of people think Tony is just a stupid, crazy spoiled brat. They′re only about half right, and only about half the time.″

″If he believes Kuttner was a spy and ratted me and my Villains out,
why am I here
?″ Ingolf ground out, clutching at the bars to burn the rage out of his muscles. ″Why aren′t the
Cutters
in here?″

Denson grinned, a remarkably evil expression. ″I didn′t say he wasn′t crazy. I didn′t say he wasn′t a spoiled brat. I just said he wasn′t stupid . . . when he bothers to think.″

″What would he say if he heard you voicing that opinion?″ Ingolf asked, forcing calm on himself.

Because it
might
be the sort of confidence you get killed for hearing.

″He′d laugh, like he did when I told him to his face. He thinks it′s funny. It is, when you look at it right. I need him just as much as he needs me, and the way I need him means I do all the work and he gets all the fun. I′ve told him that, too.″

″Must be a refreshing change, someone telling him what they really think.″

″Hell, he′s had people lying to him to get stuff all his life, and like I said, he′s
not
stupid. He′s gotten pretty good sensing it. And then there are all the people who swear they think he′s a devil of a good fellow, and he knows better than to believe
that
. . . So he realized Kuttner was stringing him; he just didn′t realize it was more than the usual get-on-the-gravy-train stuff.″

A slight wince. ″And it makes me and the Staties look bad;
we
didn′t figure him for a plant, either.″

For a moment Ingolf wondered what it must be like to
be
Bossman Anthony Heasleroad, Governor and President Pro Tem, the wealthiest and most powerful man on the North American continent. He felt one corner of his mouth quirk up involuntarily in an emotion uncomfortably hanging somewhere between pity and schadenfreude.