“There’s a small etheline burner in the kitchen. Mother insisted on it, and it does come in handy.” Allyson was wiping her hands on the towel by the pump handle.
Straight black hair, but twisted up at her neck, dark blue eyes, and a warm smile—Allyson was nice-looking, and I enjoyed being around her, but more as if she were an older sister. She was just so much taller, and older, in so many ways, than I was.
“Do you really know what’s going on at your house?”
“No. It could be like two years ago, when that oil merchant was caught cheating on his revenue payments and threatened to have us all boiled in flynyx oil. We had some soldiers then.”
Allyson touched my shoulder. I jumped.
“Sorry. You looked upset.”
“I am. My mother left for Inequital this morning, and she was worried. Very worried, and she’s
never
worried.”
“What does she do? Nobody knows, for all the years you Olons have lived here. That house was, what, your grandfather’s?”
“Right. It was Grandfather’s, but I never met him.”
Allyson motioned toward the locker door. She was wearing some kind of scent, like flowers, and it smelled good on her. “The cider should be ready, and you could use some. What about your mother, though?”
That was another thing I liked about Allyson. She didn’t play the verbal games so many girls did. Not with me, at least. She just said what she had in mind.
“I really don’t know. She travels a lot, and she’s published some monographs. She doesn’t talk about it.” Even in the courtyard between the locker and the main house it was cold. I stopped and let Allyson handle the door latch. It was her door, and she was wearing gloves. I’d left mine at home.
The courtyard was cold, but because the Davniadses had left more of the woods around their place, the wind was less. Except for the drive, you would scarcely have known a house was there.
“You don’t know what your own mother does?”
“I’ve asked. She’s never answered, and when she doesn’t want to answer, she doesn’t. Period. Besides, you know that.”
Allyson shook her head, as she made sure the latch was secure. “I know, but I was hoping …”
We walked quickly up the dozen steps to the rear door that led to the kitchen. The warmth of the house felt good, but I wondered how long the stored energy would last. That was the problem with solar heat, especially when it was cloudy for days on end. Thank Verlyt that Bremarlyn had lots of sun.
“Allyson? Sammis? The cider is set up in the side room, and there’s a fire in the grate. I’m resting up here, but I’ll be down later.”
So we hung up our cloaks in the back closet, and I followed Allyson up to the side room, where I found the explanation for at least some of the warmth. The Davniadses had a small wood-burning stove grate instead of a solar storage drum or a fireplace. A small table was set with two cups and two plates. In the center was a serving platter with cheeses,
three or four crumb rolls, and several slices of chyst, in addition to the wedge set by one cup.
“Wood-burning?”
“Father insisted on some room that could be heated during storms if we lost the electric power link. There’s one upstairs as well. Mother is probably having her cider there.”
I took the chair by the chyst cider, and Allyson sat down across from me. For the first time in hours, my ears felt comfortable. I unbuttoned the collar of my tunic, sipping the warm cider slowly and realizing just how cold it had been outside.
“That’s snow.” Her voice was softer. Her hands cradled the cup as she looked out through the double glass of the two wide windows.
Outside, the snow drove by the window, almost like white rain, it was so heavy.
“Verlyt! I’d better get home. No one knows where I am!”
“Sammis. Wait a bit. You said yourself that no one’s likely to be home. And a few minutes more won’t make that much difference. You need to warm up and have something else to eat.”
Still on the edge of my chair, I reached for one of the crumb rolls, forcing myself to eat it slowly, with an occasional sip of cider. Nothing seemed to make sense—not the snow, for we seldom had snow in Bremarlyn; nor the cold, which was more like Southpoint; nor the soldiers. Especially not the soldiers.
“The soldiers again?”
I nodded, since my mouth was full.
“It doesn’t make much sense.” Allyson paused. “Could your mother be one of the Hands?”
“ … ouughchchouupphh …” I had all I could do to keep from choking on the spot. My mother, my well-educated and scholarly mother, an Imperial Hand? One of the emperor’s unknown but highly trusted agents?
“Well … it does make sense, Sammis. She travels, and no one, not even her family, knows where. She is brilliant and well-educated. She is in fantastic shape, and no one in Inequital or anywhere else would know anything about her.”
All of what Allyson said was true, but the whole idea was ridiculous. My well-tailored and devoted mother? With her flynyx coat?
“No, that’s ridiculous …”
“Then why the soldiers?”
“You might as well ask ‘Why the snow?’, Allyson.” I shrugged. “It’s got to be tied up with the Mithradan mess … but without power we can’t even hear the news.”
“You don’t have batteries?”
“Do you?”
“No … Father says they’re too expensive.”
I grinned. “Sounds like mine.” I knew I needed something to eat. The midday meal at the Academy had been yellow fish stew, which tasted worse than it sounded. But I wanted to gulp the rolls and cheese down and start home. My guts were tightening just thinking about Allyson’s suggestion, which made far too much sense. And I was afraid that the soldiers around my home meant nothing good. Nothing at all good.
“Now I’ve got you worried, don’t I?”
“Just a little …”
Her hand touched mine, covered it, and I sat there, enjoying her touch and still worrying.
“Let me come with you.”
I shook my head. “No. If there’s no problem, then there’s no reason for you to freeze. If there is a problem, I wouldn’t want you involved.”
She nodded, understanding what I meant. The roundups after the Eastron cleanup had been thorough, very thorough.
I slowly chewed a second slice of cheese, not tasting it. I swallowed and felt it settle like ice in my stomach. Even a sip of cider didn’t seem to warm the cold weight there. So I stood up.
Allyson did also. “Please be careful.”
“I’ll try.” I tried to grin, but it was forced.
“Before you go … let me show you something.”
Show me something? Allyson displayed concern, but not the almost romantic implications of her statement.
She blushed as I considered her words.
“That sounds … different … from what I meant … just follow me …” She went from the side room into the kitchen and then opened a narrow doorway leading downward into a lower level of the house, toward the old servant’s quarters, not that very many of the gentry had servants any longer, as we had Shaera. But the stairway was clean, as was the hallway. At the end was a heavy door to the outside, which opened onto the rear hillside underneath the veranda.
I’d seen the door from the lawn before, and wondered where it went. Now I was seeing it from the inside. Although the lower level was not heated, it wasn’t that cold, and I could feel the residual warmth from above and from the main solar tap.
Allyson stepped back from the outside doorway and eased open one of the hallway doors into a small room with a single bed—one covered mattress on a simple wooden frame—and a lamp. The room had no
window, and the walls were a clean but old cream plaster.
“There are quilts on the foot of the bed … here … and I’ll leave the door unbolted. There is still a lock, but the key will be under the rock on the right.”
“Why?” I whispered, knowing I didn’t have to, but figuring that this invitation did not exactly have familial approval.
“If no one knows you’re here, then they can’t say you are, and Mother always has to tell everything. This way, if there’s something wrong, you can at least have a place where you won’t freeze. I’ll see if I can find some warmer clothes and some food.”
We both knew what she was saying. If the soldiers were not a protective detail, then anyone who helped me was in danger of losing everything as well. Even in making shelter available in a hidden fashion Allyson was risking a lot.
It would be only a while before her father arrived home, and he certainly, knowing Jerz Davniads, would ask the soldiers what was happening.
“I should be going …”
“I know.”
Neither one of us said anything as we climbed back up the old stairs to the kitchen. As I pulled on my cloak, Allyson handed me a pair of faded leather gloves.
“You’ll need them. Bring them back when you can.”
I nodded, still having to look up at her.
Creaakkkk
…
whssllllsss …
The wind nearly tore the kitchen door from my hands as I stepped out into the chill. The afternoon looked more like twilight. The tiny white flakes fell as thick as a summer thundershower.
Not looking back, I plunged into the storm and down the back lawn, where the snow was almost ankle deep, nearly falling several times before I reached the trees and the narrow path that wound along the hillsides toward our house.
Chhichiii
…
A grossjay jabbered from the evergreen branches, his call the only sound above the hissing of the snow and the whining of the wind.
By the time I was five rods into the woods, I could not even tell, looking over my shoulder, that there was a house uphill from where I walked. The path seemed longer than usual; my ears were numb; and my toes tingled by the time I reached the gate in the old stone wall. The wooden gate itself had been removed when my father was a boy. Only a gap in the stonework remained. The wall marked the boundary between our lands and the Davniadses’, and on the other side were the
remnants of Grandfather’s orchards, mostly chyst, but some pearapple.
A hint of an acrid odor in the air tugged at my nose, and I stopped short of the gate, knowing that to return through the wall led to more than I really wanted to handle. Edging up the gap, I studied the path, but there were no prints in the snow, no sign of anyone this far down in the orchards.
The house was still a good hundred rods or more uphill, and the straggling remnants of the old orchards ran to within twenty rods of the back terrace.
After I went through the wall, my steps were even more deliberate, and I left the path, walking instead from tree to tree, pausing and looking uphill. The acrid odor got stronger and stronger, but I could see nothing through the trees—not until I was almost to the top end of the orchard.
The light from the fire lit up the entire house, and the row of soldiers formed a cordon around it. None of them were looking out into the storm, but at the burning house. All of them had weapons leveled.
I scuttled up into the lower branches of a pearapple, trying to sort it .out, trying to keep my guts from turning inside out.
Why were they burning the house? And who were they?
I watched for a time, conscious of the cold creeping through me, as the flames continued to leap into the storm. Despite the fire and the cold, none of the soldiers relaxed in their scrutiny of the house.
One figure, presumably an officer, walked the outer perimeter. The second time he passed within a few rods of the tree where I was huddled on the back side of the trunk, peering around at the destruction. That was when I saw the shoulder patch, saw and recognized the emblem of the ConFed Marines, the same marines who were the shock troops in the Eastron occupation. The same marines whose intelligence service had handled rounding up the Eastron sympathizers.
Why were they burning my house? Why did they keep studying it as if something were hidden inside?
CCCRRRUMMMPPPP!
I had to hang on to the tree as it shook with the force of the explosion.
All of the marines were flattened on the snow. Some moved, as the fire burned even higher, sending billows of black smoke up into evening. Others looked as though they would never move.
Although I did not know what had caused the explosion—certainly it had not been expected by the marines—none of those who survived were likely to be favorably inclined toward anyone or anything associated with the house. Slipping down from the tree, I managed to stagger on
unsteady feet through the still-heavy snow toward the path to the Davniadses’.
By now, the powdery stuff reached well over my ankles and showed no signs of stopping. Between the oncoming night and the clouds, the darkness made each step uncertain.
I kept looking back, but by the time I reached the wall I could see only a dim glow through the branches and the snow. The wind had not died down, but increased and whipped the edges of my cloak.