Citadels of Darkover

by Deborah J. Ross

  North considered this. He liked Loret. She was stuck-up, prissy, and insisted on following even stupid rules just because they were rules. She was also sharp-minded, sharp-tongued, quick to forgive, and fun to argue with over dinner. His best friend on Darkover, or anywhere, though both of them would probably rather die than admit it.

  “Find killer now, deal with drug deal later,” he said finally with a grudging nod.

  “Thank you,” Loret replied. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

  North snorted. “I’d like to see that.”

  Through a back street, they arrived at a wide wooden gate set into a stone wall. It wasn’t lost on North that this was a rear entrance, one for servants and deliveries. Loret pounded, and to her plain surprise, a young man opened the gate. He was perhaps nineteen, sharp-faced and foxy-featured, with a mop of red-blond hair.

  “Dorn?” Loret said. “Goodness! You’ve grown since I’ve seen you last.”

  “Loret,” said Dorn. His voice was quiet and subdued. “We got word from the guard about Jaelle. Are you here on a condolence call already?”

  “We’re here to find out who attacked her,” Loret said. “The weapon was Terran, so I also called on my friend David North. He used to investigate this sort of thing for the Terranan.” She turned to North. “Dorn is Jaelle’s sister, so he’s also my third cousin.”

  “Vai dom. I’m sorry for your loss,” North said. As a detective on the force back home, he’d rather put his foot through a meat grinder than be the one to tell families about the death of a loved one. It was a bit of a relief that it had already been taken care of.

  Dorn nodded an acknowledgment. Grief made his eyes look older and wiser.

  “Why are you answering the gate?” Loret asked.

  “Mother’s in an uproar, and she’s keeping the servants busy. Do you need to see her?”

  “Earlier is better than later,” Loret said.

  Dorn gestured them in. Beyond the gateway courtyard lay a tall, thin house with narrow windows and, North figured, a lot of tight spiral staircases. It was a house of secrets, a citadel made for locking in and keeping out. They twisted their way through narrow, windowless corridors to a small door. Dorn put his hand on the latch.

  “Will you find out who killed her?” he asked.

  “We’ll try our best,” North said. He’d learned long ago never to make promises.

  “Father’s not here. It’s shearing season, and he’s out at the warehouse, inspecting the new fleeces. He probably doesn’t even know yet. And Mother will want me to file a Declaration against the killer.” Dorn said sadly. “I’ll have to do it. Jaelle is—was—my sister. But I never learned much sword work.”

  “A Declaration?” North asked.

  “A Declaration of Intent to Murder,” Loret clarified. “Any member of the victim’s family has the right to try to kill the murderer, even if it’s a Terran, as long as they file with—”

  “Department Three,” North finished. “I remember now. Jesus.”

  “We’ll try to help, Dorn,” Loret said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Wait here.” Dorn slipped into the room. A rhythmic thumping thudded on the other side of the door. Loret waited patiently. North was wondering what it would be like to grow up in a house that was both big and confined. He’d lived in small apartments on Terra all his life, but at least he’d had a view of the street. This was living in a cave.

  “I haven’t seen Dorn since he was eleven or twelve,” Loret mused. “He’s a man now. Strange to think of him that way.”

  “This Declaration thing could really mess things up,” North observed.

  Loret nodded. “Even if the Empire and the Comyn smooth things over after we catch the killer, my cousins could start a fight all over again and stop the drug research anyway.”

  The thumping in the room ceased, then started up again. The door opened, and Dorn ushered them into the room with, Jesus yes, a window in it. The place was piled with cloth and bright skeins of yarn. In one corner sat a loom and a plump woman with red-brown hair pulled back in a butterfly clip. She worked the loom with hands and feet, zipping the shuttle back and forth with her hands and thumping the pedals with her feet, though her face carried the white, waxy look of someone who had just gotten the worst news imaginable and still didn’t know what to do with it. North, who had watched his nephew twist his way through overdose and death, sympathized.

  Dorn announced North and Loret to Lady Castamir, then touched Loret’s hand and fled.

  “Vai domna,” Loret said formally.

  The woman thumped the loom one more time, then stopped. Her shoulders were tight.

  “Cousin Loret,” she said, staring at the wall with her back to Loret and North. “You’re here to deliver the bad news officially?”

  “I’m so sorry, Cousin Cora,” Loret said. “I’m not—”

  “Is it true she was murdered by a Terranan?” Cora interrupted.

  “We’ve only begun investigating,” Loret said carefully. “The weapon was Terranan, but we don’t know who pulled the trigger.”

  Cora refused to turn around. “And you brought one of the barbarians into our house under these circumstances?” she said to the wall.

  Normally, North would have bristled a little, but he’d been on Darkover for quite a while now and he had become used to being called a barbarian, even by people who weren’t justifiably upset. “Domna,” he said, “we want to find out who did this to her. To you. We know questions hurt, but the longer we delay, the harder it’ll be to catch the bastard.”

  Cora remained silent, still facing the wall. North met Loret’s eyes for a moment, then she asked, “Can you think of who might have done this? Did she or your family have any enemies? Anyone who would want to hurt her?”

  “We have no enemies.” Cora picked up the shuttle and turned it over in her fingers. “We aren’t high lords and lofty ladies here. My husband is a wool merchant, and I weave to keep our household together. We have no real fortune or status among the Comyn. We’re barely worth noticing. Even you don’t acknowledge us.”

  Loret stiffened as the barb struck home. North hurried on before she could speak. “When did you last see Jaelle?”

  “This afternoon. I needed some errands run and she volunteered to go. The market for vegetables, the buttery for cheese. Straight there, straight back. She was a good girl.” Cora’s voice took on a hard edge that said she was pushing tears away. “Always a good girl.”

  “She was fifteen, is that right?” North said.

  A nod, still staring at the wall.

  “I noticed her hair was in braids instead of held with a clip. Was there a reason for that?”

  “She was a good girl,” Cora repeated, louder. “There was no hint of scandal about her.”

  “I’m not here to judge, domna,” North said. “I’m here to find her killer. Anything you can tell me—”

  Cora slammed the shuttle through the loom and crashed down on the pedals. The loom leaped and snapped. “There was nothing!” she snarled. “Now get out! Out!”

  North and Loret quickly withdrew, and this time a servant took them to the back gate. For a moment they stood outside in the gathering darkness. North looked up at the spindly rooftops of the house. These people owned a place big enough for a dozen apartments and had servants to show visitors in, but they didn’t count as rich because they had to work. Wealth was a point of view, he supposed.

  “I’m not a detective,” Loret said. “I don’t know what to do now.”

  “There’s more to the story, that’s obvious,” North said. “I didn’t say a thing about Jaelle’s virtue, but Mom assumed I was thinking about it. They’re your family. Any rumors?”

  “Like I said, I barely know them.”

  “But Cora felt you should.”

  Loret spread her hands. “Cora’s branch of the family has no wealth, no laran, no connections, and no power, so they’re largely ignored. Their only hope to climb is for one o
f their children to marry up, and now Jaelle is dead. It’s hard enough to find a higher match for a low-status girl. For a boy, it’s worse. Not only that, murder will create a scandal, and keep matches for Dorn away.”

  “Even though Jaelle and her family are the victims,” North said. “Not surprised. I’ve seen it before. Still, they’re hiding something. If they have no power, why would anyone want to kill their daughter?”

  “Maybe it was an accident,” Loret said. “We’re looking for something nefarious, when it might be just an innocent mistake.”

  “An accident with a Compact-busting blaster?” North snorted. “Doesn’t seem likely. There’s more here. I can smell it.”

  “The citadels of the Comyn are more than physical,” Loret agreed. “The physical ones keep invaders out, the metaphorical ones keep secrets in. What do we do next?”

  “We need to find out who owns this blaster. Then we—”

  Before North could finish, the bolt shot on the other side of the gate and it cracked open. North tensed.

  “Who is that?” Loret called.

  Dorn slipped through the gate. “I’m glad I caught you,” he said. “I don’t have much time.”

  North, already on alert, asked, “What’s up? I mean, vai dom.”

  Dorn cast a glance back at the house. “Mother is grieving badly. We both are. She blames the Terranan for Jaelle’s death.”

  “And do you?” Loret asked.

  He looked away. North noticed the tear tracks on his face. “I don’t know. My sister is dead, my father doesn’t even know yet, and I’ll have to file a Declaration. When Jaelle’s body arrives, we’ll have to arrange for a proper funeral. For my little sister.”

  “I’m very sorry,” North repeated. There was nothing else to say.

  “Did you have something to tell us?” Loret prompted.

  Dorn glanced at the house again. “A couple days ago, I overheard Jaelle talking to one of her friends.”

  North’s hands twitched. “And?”

  He took a heavy breath. “She’d met a man of some kind.”

  “Who?” Loret asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t overhear much. She met him in Thendara, and he’s...he’s a...”

  North realized his fingers ached from clenching, and he forced himself to relax. “A...?”

  “A Terranan.” The word burst from Dorn like a cork from a bottle. Once it was released, more words flowed. “She said she’d met him near the spaceport and he was older and she was in love. Or so she said.”

  The hair on North’s neck went up. Loret gave him a sharp glance, and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was. “How much older?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dorn repeated. “I think Mother suspects something. I think she didn’t want Jaelle running off with a barbarian, so she held off declaring Jaelle a woman.”

  “Does this barbarian have a name?” North interjected. “A description? Anything at all?”

  “Jaelle called him my space man. That’s everything else I know.” Dorn lowered his voice, though they were alone at the gate. “Do you think he killed her?”

  North touched the hard outline of the blaster in his pocket. “I think we need to find the space man.”

  “Find him, Cousin Loret,” Dorn said, and his voice was angry now. “Find him and make sure the Comyn execute him. He killed my sister.”

  And he left.

  “Jealous lover?” Loret asked when Dorn was gone. “Lovers’ quarrel?”

  “These Castamirs have no real status,” North replied, saying thoughts aloud as they came to him, “so how much trouble will this really cause between Darkover and Terra?”

  “A lot,” Loret said. “The Comyn will close ranks against Terra. In their—our—view, even the lowest Comyn outranks the highest Terran. Lord Regis will have no choice but to respond. And if Cora makes Dorn file a Declaration, things will become even worse.”

  North caught the switch from their to our. Something occurred to him and he glanced at her. “Do you catch flak for being friends with me?”

  “You mean trouble?” She pursed her lips. “There are...some who think being friends with a Terranan barbarian is a form of treason. And some who think a woman can’t be friends with a man unless something untoward is going on.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I prefer the Terran response,” she said. “They can shove it up their asses.”

  North snorted a laugh. “Is a Terran rubbing off on a real, live Darkovan, domna?”

  Loret linked arms with him. “In the same way a Darkovan is rubbing off on a real live Terran, sir. And speaking of such things, let’s find the owner of that blaster.”

  ~o0o~

  It was always a shock for North to go from wood-and-stone Thendara to the metal-and-plastic spaceport. But it was more than just buildings. Thendara lived and breathed. More and more lately, the spaceport lacked a soul. The people of Terra stayed inside as much as possible, glued to screens and VR displays, while the people of Thendara took every chance they could to go outdoors and talk to each other. It was also a jerk to switch from casta to Terran Standard.

  The spaceport was more like a small city. An outer ring of shops catered to military and travelers, and also to Darkovans who wanted something exotic or who flirted with the forbidden. Next came an inner ring of bland, efficient apartments and homes. And in the center, a spire of headquarters and offices pierced the sky. As skyscrapers went, it was unimpressive, barely a hundred feet high. But on a place like Darkover, it became a citadel that dominated the landscape. It was to this building that North and Loret made their way. Outside, security was all but nonexistent. Terrans didn’t worry about attacks from Darkover. If the ordinary populace attacked, it would be with primitive swords and shields, no match for even a single blaster, let alone a city chock full of them. And if the telepathic Comyn declared war on the spaceport...well, that attack would end faster than a wino could empty a bottle. So there was no need for border patrols or security in the outer rings. The inner spire, however, still required IDs and cred checks, something that always annoyed North.

  “They know who I am on sight,” he groused as the guard scanned their thumbprints and let them through the checkpoint into the main building. “But they still want my damn thumb.”

  “Rules are rules,” Loret said, offering up her own thumb with smile. “Who are we seeing again?”

  “Sammy. Third floor.”

  “Good. We can take the stairs like civilized people instead of huddling inside that awful elevator.”

  “What about efficiency?” North said as they hit the stairwell. “Kinda foolish to climb eight flights five times a day.”

  “There’s efficiency, and there’s deficiency,” Loret replied. “You Terrans complain you need more exercise, then lazily avoid stairs.”

  They bickered more about it as they climbed, a relatively new habit North was enjoying. It was just nice to have someone to bicker with. Outside Sammy’s office, North paused and said, “I know what you’re doing.”

  “Doing?”

  “You’re distracting me from thinking about the research into kireseth pollen.”

  “Ah. I was hoping it wasn’t obvious, but you’re the detective.” She drew him away from the door by the elbow. Other people, most of them in black Terran uniforms with stars blazing across their sleeves, passed them in the utilitarian hallway. North and Loret ignored them, but kept their voices down. “How do you feel about all this, North?”

  He started to answer, then paused and grimaced. Saying the word kireseth aloud a moment ago had awoken echoes of the addiction again. Almost everyone in North’s POS family had been an alcoholic or an addict, and North grown up swearing he would never touch a drop or flick a needle. He had remained pure to that promise despite all the odds—until Ferrick Alton had poured Kira Ann down North’s throat and addicted him in a single dose. The horrific sweetness of that memory still followed him. In the end, Ferrick had been
handed over to the Keepers for justice. They had scoured his mind clean of all thought and memory so he could spend his remaining days as a simple-minded stable worker. He’d been stopped and punished. But North had been left to deal with the aftermath, with the shakes and sweats and screams that Terran doctors and Darkovan healers could barely lessen, and the lingering hunger that still dogged him, probably would for the rest of his life. North had saved two planets from addicted slavery, and he’d sacrificed everything he had to do it. The thought of watching another fool poke the kireseth bear awoke both fear and rage in his gut. Since he’d left the alley, he’d kept all this at arm’s length by focusing on Jaelle’s killer, but Loret had brought the problem snarling back to him. A glance at her expression told him she understood every one of his thoughts, and that without touching the matrix chained at her neck. His poker face needed some work.

  “The research has nothing to do with you,” Loret said quietly. “It’s not your fault, it’s not your responsibility, it’s not your worry.”

  “They’re coming for me,” he blurted out.

  “Who is?”

  “The Kira Ann dealers.” He waved vaguely. “Ferrick Alton. I shoot awake at night with that damned Alton face leering over me, and he’s pulling my mouth open like a dog’s, and he’s pouring his poison into it, and I can’t move or stop him.” Cold anxiety gripped his stomach. North was panting now, and sweat gathered at his hairline. “I expect him around every corner or down every street. It never stops.”

  Loret made an expression North couldn’t read this time. “You never told me this.”

  “I’ve never told anyone,” North said. “Too hard to say aloud. But now this investigation...” He trailed off.

  “We know of this on Darkover. We call it estres bella. War stress. Your body can’t let go of the terrible thing that happened to you, which forces your mind to relive it. We could talk to Lord Regis, or maybe a Keeper who could—”

  North’s communicator chittered loudly in the hard hallway. He held up a finger and checked the readout. Loret, ever nosy, peered over his shoulder, and her eyes widened. Dan Lawton.

  “Why is the Legate calling you?” she asked in a hushed voice, as if Lawton might overhear.