by Kage Baker
"My most beloved daughter, I am overwhelmed with joy to behold you again!" he cried, opening paternal arms. I made my deepest curtsey and began:
"Dearest and most reverend father, it is with the utmost delight—" Our eyes met, and I froze. It was the Biscayan. He blinked. His smile twisted up into his beard, just as it used to. "—that I return again to your loving care," I concluded, and we embraced with seemly affection. I was as tall as he was. He took my arm, and we turned toward the house.
"And how did you find the Convent of the Sisters of Perpetual Study, my child?"
"Truly, Father, a right holy place, and the good sisters taught me so well that I am everlastingly in their debt. And in yours." I shot him an arch glance. He just laughed, patting my arm. The servants were nodding and smiling and trying to make eye contact. I wondered if I was supposed to tip them or something.
The Biscayan waved at them. "Well, here she is, my daughter the most chaste Dona Rosa. You have seen her. Perhaps you will go home now?" They edged out of the yard, still smiling. "Anything for some excitement in their lives," he told me sotto voce. "And here, my child, are the others of my household. This is your duenna, Doña Marguerita Figueroa. This is my housekeeper, Señora Isabel Sanchez. This is my secretary, Señor Diego Lopez."
They had been cast well. The duenna looked swarthily formidable, the housekeeper meek, and the secretary nearsighted. In reality they were a zoologist grade seven, a cultural anthropologist, and a systems technician first class.
"Doña Rosa, we welcome you," said the secretary. We all turned to stare at the servants, who got the hint and took off at last down the road into the evening.
"You know, I never connected the name?" said the Biscayan. "Little Mendoza, all grown up! So welcome back to Spain. How the hell are you?"
"Immortal," I said. "Glad to see you again. What happened, though, that you had to send a mortal with the transport? That startled me a bit. Regular driver busy?"
"Oh, Juan's all right. He is the regular driver, you see. We hire a lot of mortals, it's cheaper. Hey, everybody, I recruited this kid! Must have been, what, fifteen years ago? Small world, isn't it?"
"Right now, anyway," said my duenna. "Come on in, honey, and we'll celebrate. Three whole chickens have been killed in your honor."
"Plus there's lots to brief you on," said the housekeeper as we went in out of the night. "You'd heard the poor king of England died?"
"Yes, I heard that."
"So Bloody Mary's got the throne now, and there was the most awful debacle for the Protestants. Half the regents' council is in prison already." She led us into a room dark-lit by candles, where a table was nicely laid for five.
"Has she killed Lady Jane Payne yet?"
"Grey. Lady Jane Grey, the little Protestant claimant. No, but that's coming."
"Golly." This was surreal. I was so nervous, I was tracking a radius of two miles, but the house was warm and the chicken tasted wonderful. We did it justice, postponing my briefing until the second bottle of Canary had been opened. My new father lounged back from the table and lifted his glass.
"To your first assignment, Mendoza. All the best."
Everybody drank. Clearing my throat, I said:
"Thanks. You know, I never learned your real name."
"I guess you didn't, did you?" He looked amused. "My character's name is Don Ruy Anzolabejar, but I've used Joseph as my real name for a long time now. Ms. Figueroa is known among us as Nefer, Ms. Sanchez uses Eva, and Mr. Lopez has been Flavius for almost as long as I've been Joseph." He pointed to each with his wineglass. "Good servants to a good master. You, of course, are my only child from an early marriage, and I am a humble physician who's been knighted for certain discreet services to the Court. I inherited my fortune from an uncle who worked for the Holy Office a few years back."
"Convenient." I held out my glass, and Flavius topped up my wine.
"About the stuff you're supposed to be growing in the back area?" he said. "I have my matrices set up there, but I can move them in a couple of days."
"Am I growing things?" I looked at Joseph.
"You are, as a matter of fact," he said. "This time"—he popped open his chronophase and peered at it—"next year, we'll be in England on our various little missions. We have twelve months to get ready. You're supposed to come up with an exotic plant as a gift for an Englishman."
"What's our objective over there, anyway?" I said, sipping my wine nonchalantly and trying to sound like all the spy novels I'd ever accessed.
"Black-faced sheep!" said Nefer with enthusiasm. She was the zoologist. "We're going after genetic material for the original breeds that won't be around much longer. Well, I'm going after them. You're going some place called, what was it, Joseph? Iden City?"
"Iden's Garden," he explained. "Country estate in Kent. Kind of a private botanical garden and zoo. This guy Iden is a retired gentleman who's nuts for collecting rarities. He's got some that are even rarer than he thinks. That's your game. We're bribing him to let us come in and take specimens. It would be a nice gesture if you came up with a suitable gift for the man. A showy new plant for his collection, maybe. Something splashy, exotic, impressive."
"Like?" I had another swallow of the wine. It was heady stuff.
"How should I know? You're the botanist."
"Oh." Light dawned. "Right. Improvise. Okay, I'll get going on it tomorrow."
"Good. You've got a year."
"But, really, is this Englishman just going to let a bunch of Spaniards come in and ransack his private garden in exchange for a new plant? Is that enough of a bribe? Won't the English hate us, because of all the burnings?"
"Relax." Joseph spread out his fingertips. "We're offering him a lot more than one potted palm, believe me. All will be goodwill and brotherly love where we are, you'll see. The fix is in, Mendoza. That's what a facilitator does. Our traveling arrangements are already made, I'll have you know."
"That was neat." Eva put down her glass in surprise. "The marriage negotiations haven't even started yet."
"Nah. The Court has seen this coming for years. You want to know something? When the couriers rode in with the news of Edward's death, back on the eighth? Within forty-eight hours, no less than three noblemen I personally know sold their estates: land, dogs, and all. The reason? They figure they'll be able to pick up much better places in England, cheap."
"No wonder the English will be sore." Flavius shook his head. "They don't like invaders, let me tell you."
"Ah, the lure of barbarian lands for the civilized entrepreneur." Joseph reached for a toothpick. "When Philip the passionate pilgrim sails, there'll be one hundred and one Spanish ships crossing the channel, kind of a marital Armada, with (get this) eight thousand predatory hidalgos on board, to say nothing of their cooks, confessors, catamites, and"—he placed a theatrical hand on his heart—"personal physicians. Of which I shall be one. Don Alvarado has asked me already if I'll accompany him on the great adventure. He's the one I fixed up with penicillin, remember? I said I'd be happy to go if I could take my household. He said, Why not? He's bringing his confectioner and Señora Moreno. The Emperor is making noises about no women being allowed on the voyage, but nobody's taking him seriously."
"I hope you're bringing more penicillin," snickered Flavius.
"Hey, this isn't the Armada that gets wrecked, is it?" asked Nefer in sudden alarm.
"They call me El Señorito Milagro," mused Joseph.
"No, no," Eva assured Nefer. "That's about thirty years down the line. You remember, Fire over England, Dame May Robson as Elizabeth?"
"Raymond Massey as Philip. With Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh." Nefer relaxed. "Okay."
"Isn't that the holo where they burn Atlanta?" Flavius grinned at her. He looked over at me. "I'll clean out that back area tomorrow," he promised. "Next week at the latest."
Actually it took him a month, and Joseph was obliged to throw a tantrum about it first. I needed the time to adapt, though, I r
eally did.
It was fortunate I was portraying a shy girl from a convent, because I hid upstairs the first day while our mortal servants came in to work. I could smell them through the floorboards. They were actually in the same building with us, in reach of fire and sharp objects and, and, and… Nefer finally hitched up her skirts and stomped upstairs after me, muttering under her breath.
"Will you come down, for hell's sake!" She swung open my door. "It's only the damn laundress and groom, anyway."
"He has an abscessed tooth, and it could start hurting at any time and send him into a killing frenzy," I informed her, looking up from my work. "And the female's in a highly volatile emotional state. Possibly premenstrual. She's also sustained several contusions and is in pain, which could prompt a psychotic episode."
"Her husband beat her up last night, that's all." Nefer came into the room. "Believe me, she's used to pain. Does her work just fine anyway."
"She might suddenly snap."
"And do what? Chase us around with wet laundry? Mendoza, I know this is your first time out, but you can't let the monkeys get to you this way. They're just mortals. In fact, these are our very own hired mortals, security cleared and all. If you can't cope with them, you are surely going to have trouble when we go to Mass this evening."
"When we what?"
"Go to Mass." Nefer grinned. "Every day, rain or shine. Three miles' walk each way. Rainy days we get to use the coach. Don't tell me you weren't briefed on this. We're Spaniards, remember? And you really were one. You of all people ought to know the drill."
"Shit." I put my face in my hands. "They'll be all around us at Mass."
"That's right." She sat down on my bed. "Look, Mendoza. In the entire time I've been in the service, you know how many homicidal maniacs I've encountered? One. And he weighed seventy pounds. Mortals may prey on one another, but they're not all that much of a threat to us. Believe me, sooner than you think, you'll get used to being around them, and you'll find you can actually eat with them, have conversations with them, uh, sleep with them even—"
"You're kidding!" I sat bolt upright. Nefer may have blushed, but with her somewhat Moorish complexion it was hard to tell.
"I didn't mean like that. But… well, you know… that happens too, actually. Quite a bit, if you want the truth."
"You aren't serious! We were always told, Never Engage in Sexual Recreation Except with Another Operative!"
Nefer looked at the floor, looked at the ceiling, looked out the window. "Sexual recreation with other operatives," she said finally, to the wall, "is… sort of dull. And uncomfortable. Say, what are you working on?"
"My assignment. Uncomfortable how?"
"Just, you know, embarrassing. Is that the genetic code for some kind of plant?"
"It's maize. American maize." I displayed the screen proudly. "See? We're playing Spaniards, so we'd have access to strange-looking stuff from the New World, right? And the coloration and viral streaking on this variety are really spectacular. It'll knock that Englishman's eyes out. I can have the seeds ready by January."
"That's great."
"And it can't mess up the biosystem over there at all, because it doesn't grow well in England and it'll never catch on there as a major food source. It's not nourishing enough, for one thing."
"Is that right?"
"Yes. Maize is the biggest of the domesticated grains, but as a food source it's a dud because it's got this incomplete protein, see."
"You don't say."
I was going to tell her about amino acids, but her eyes were glazing over. I looked down at my calculations and sighed.
"I know everything there is to know about New World flora. God, I wish they'd sent me there."
"Oh, well, you'll go one of these days," Nefer reassured me. "I wouldn't mind a good look at a llama myself."
Specialists. One-track minds.
On that long, long daily walk to Mass, Nefer and I had quite a lot of conversations about sheep, as I recall. We became pretty good friends, but her interest in life was hoofed quadrupeds, and to hear her tell it, you could forget about the pyramids: the height of Egyptian achievement had been the domestication of the wild ass. In our endless trudges together I learned things about water buffalo I have since labored in vain to forget. I did my best to introduce her to the exciting world of four-lobed grains, but she kept getting that glassy look in her eyes.
Still, the walks had to be taken, because there was no question of our missing Mass. We made solid identities for ourselves in the neighborhood. We did not become well known, of course; that was not the Company way. Not one of his neighbors could have told you much about Don Ruy Anzolabejar, other than that his uncle had been connected somehow with the Inquisition, and certainly that magic word put a damper on gossip. It was known that Don Ruy traveled frequently to Court. But there were no stories about strange devices or supernatural lights in our windows at night, no indeed. No heretical talk about tolerance or enlightenment or sanitation. We made sure we were an utterly unremarkable Spanish family.
I spent more time on my knees that year than in the rest of my life to date.
I did get used to the presence of mortals. I could sit there at Mass among them, though bombarded by the smells of their humanity: dissatisfactions, diseases, passions, hormonal tides, digestive upsets, religious raptures. I learned to ignore the pathetic beauty of their children and the horror of their old age. And, once, there was a young man, a student by the cut and shabbiness of his clothes, who sat and stared at me with smoldering eyes. I stared back at him, wondering what on earth was the matter, until he mouthed a request at me across the church.
My shock and amusement reverberated loud enough to alert Nefer, who came out of her reverie on bison long enough to look around at the boy and glare at him in a proper duenna way. He averted his eyes at once and slunk out right after Communion. Too silly to be disgusting, but the incident stuck in my mind somehow.
I remember that the weather was hell. The clear and windless night I arrived had been a rare one: most days the wind came roaring across the miles of wheatfields and filled the sky with dust. White haze hid the mountains and hung like a mirror in the air. I developed a permanent squint, which has done nothing for my looks, to keep that furnace glare out of my skull. When summer was over, the wind did not lessen; it only turned cold.
Sometimes, though… I remember the sound that that wind made, coming over those fields of wheat. It was like the sea. I used to walk far, far across the open land, till the house was almost out of sight behind me, and stand there in the high wheat only listening. The wind would begin in one place and come across to me, sighing like voices, silvering the tops of the grain.
Then harvest came and men with scythes came and cut it all down. There was sweet-smelling stubble for a while, but the wind did not sing coming across it, and the autumn fogs were thick with dust.
The news that winter was that things were already beginning to sour for Mary in England. She had announced her betrothal to Philip, our prince; the English, as everyone had predicted, were furious. Rebellion was working all through the country, and popular sentiment lay not with poor little Lady Jane, the previous Protestant candidate, but with Elizabeth.
Unlikely Elizabeth. For years she'd been a zero politically; no ambitious nobles tried to use her to further their careers, since it was rumored she was a tawdry sexpot like her mother the Great Whore. Suddenly nobody remembered those nasty innuendos: the same people who used to call her the Little Whore now saw her as a virtuous Protestant princess, the Reformation's only hope in England. Elizabeth smiled her cold smile and demurred graciously—she knew what was likely to happen to people who rocked the throne. All the same, Mary didn't trust her not to become the focus of a coup attempt. Just before Christmas she had Elizabeth sent away to a remote country estate where, it was said, the princess was beginning to show signs of heavy metal poisoning…
After Christmas came interminable rains that turned the roads
to clay. No excuse for us to stay home from Mass; we took the wagon, and still had to slop back and forth from the door, holding our skirts up out of the mud. Only Joseph went out anywhere else, tending his little plots and plans at Court. The rest of us mostly huddled around the fire in the kitchen, accessing novels or holos or staring out the windows at the landscape.
A day came when a man led a horse to the edge of the nearest field. He hitched it to the traces of a plow. Man and horse began to move, and the earth crested and broke dark beneath them like a wave. Away down the plain they went, cutting a long stripe on the land, turned at some point and came back, and at length doubled back again, and so down once more.
All day I watched. By nightfall the field had a weave on it like the fabric of my overskirt. The next day, men came and walked the long lines, casting seed into the furrows. The next day, the field was alive with birds, and the next day, it rained. That was the day I set out my maize seedlings in the earth I'd prepared for them, closed around by the garden wall. There was no more chance of frost now, anyone could have told from the feel and the smell of the air. The earth was black and wet. Bright green as flames were the little blades of corn.
Late in February, Joseph came back from Madrid with the news: open rebellion had finally broken out in England and been promptly squashed. As a further punitive measure, Mary had Lady Jane Grey (still on ice from the previous coup) summarily executed.
"Well, there," I remarked from where I shivered by the fire, trying to make sense of Tirant lo Blanc. "I knew she died sometime."
Eva flashed an access code at me. "Lady Jane, Helena Bonham-Carter, Cary Elwes, Patrick Stewart."
"Real pointless business, too." Joseph poured himself a sherry. "Mary'd much rather have disposed of her sister, but Elizabeth's too popular with the people. She's got her locked up in London now, letting the poisoners have another shot at her. When that doesn't work, she'll try sending her to the Tower, to see if the English will stand for it."