No one followed them into the Scholastica, where Sister Marnya met with a low-level scholar from the Order. As she had explained the night before, no one who was placed in an information-gathering post was really a low-level scholar. They played the part of simple, know-nothing clerks and other ‘harmless’ positions, so they stayed anonymous and safe.
Bain and Jax roamed up and down the halls of the Scholastica while Lin and Marnya met with the scholar. As father and son, they asked questions and picked up more lesson disks for Bain and filled out forms on the computer for tests Bain didn't need to take. Jax always pushed a button at the end of each form that completely wiped out the false information they had just put into it. No one watching them, if anyone was watching them, would know that.
No one followed them from the Scholastica back to the spaceport and Sunsinger. They played the same game as they had earlier that morning, one pair walking ahead of the other, then stopping to look at something and falling behind. A few times, Bain and Jax went down a different aisle from the one the women took. That always made Bain a little nervous. What would happen if they reached the rendezvous point at the end of the aisle and Lin and Marnya never came out? He never learned the answer to that question, because Lin and Sister Marnya always showed up, either just ahead of Jax and Bain, or just behind them.
At the spaceport, they followed the same pathways their two parties had taken when they left Sunsinger, but in reverse. Bain and Jax went straight from the gate to the ship, while Lin and Marnya took a circuitous route. Bain contacted Ganfer through his collar link and the ship-brain had the hatch open and waiting for them when they arrived.
“Glad it's over?” Jax said when they had the hatch safely shut behind them.
“I don't know. It was fun—but it was boring sometimes—and it was scary sometimes, too.” Bain rubbed at his sweaty forehead, then looked at his palm. None of his false color had come out in his sweat. “How does this paint wash off?"
“It doesn't."
“What?” He stopped dead in his tracks and stared up at the big man.
Jax burst out laughing. He shook his head and didn't even try to speak, gasping and shaking as he fought to control his laughter. He beckoned, and Bain followed him up the access tube to the bridge. Jax went to his cubicle and dug through the case of powders and creams and pots and tins he used to create their disguises. For a few seconds he stood still, leaning over the box, getting his laughter under control. He brought out a thin black tube the size of his thumb and squeezed the end. The tip unfolded like a flower opening its petals and Jax tilted it so one tiny blue pill fell out into his palm before the tip closed again.
“Here, take this. It will cleanse your system of the specific tagged molecules that make up the dye.” Jax grinned when Bain gave the pill a distrustful look, but at least he didn't laugh again.
“Tagged? What does that mean?"
“It means the dye is made to penetrate your epidermis and bond to your skin cells,” Sister Marnya said, as she and Lin came through the hatch onto the bridge. “It won't wash or sweat out of your system until the scientifically designed release chemicals enter your system."
“Those are in the pills, I assume,” Lin said. She took it from Jax's hand and held it close to her eyes for a few seconds. Then she handed it to Bain and gave him a gentle shove toward the galley. “Take it. For your parents’ sake, if not mine."
“You don't like his new color?” Jax said, twisting his face into a sorrowful mask.
“Everyone should stay the way Fi'in made us. We should do the most we can with our bodies and brains and talents, but we shouldn't tamper.” Lin shook herself, as if physically ridding herself of an uncomfortable thought. She forced a smile. “Besides, he likes to fly around in the middle of the night, and if I can't see him coming, there's no telling who will get hurt."
Bain grinned and hurried to get water to wash down the pill. Lin had a point. There were still times when he would go up to the observation dome in the middle of the night, when he couldn't sleep, and listen to the music of space for hours. More than once when he came back down to his cubicle, he had nearly run into Lin in the darkness of the bridge. Only the white of her sleeping shirt and the paleness of their faces had helped them avoid collisions.
Colliding in free-fall was not a pleasant experience at all.
* * *
Chapter Nine
After that near encounter with the pickpocket, Jax decided Bain needed some self-defense lessons. Sunsinger wasn't scheduled to launch until morning, so they would have plenty of time in gravity for a good start on lessons.
“All the time you spend in free-fall is a blessing,” Jax said, once he and Bain had retreated to the empty cargo hold for the lesson.
They had brought down the spare mattress from the unused cubicle to soften their landings. Bain was glad for that safety precaution, and wished the mattress was much thicker. It felt thin and lumpy under his buttocks and legs as he sat down to listen to Jax talk before the actual physical part of the lesson began.
“You know why that is?” the big man continued. He folded his legs and sat down next to Bain.
“Because ... you have to know what your body is doing all the time when you're in free-fall,” the boy guessed.
“Exactly. You have to know your body so well you can ignore it in the fight, so you can concentrate on where your enemy is and avoid what he'll try to do to you."
“What about fighting back?"
“Other forms of self-defense teach that. The Order and general bodyguard training consider that a waste of time and energy. Both the Order and bodyguards have one focus: to protect. If you change your strategy from defense to attack, you could be wasting valuable time and energy that should be used to get somebody out of the danger zone."
“Oh.” Bain hadn't thought of that before. He hadn't seen anything like that in any of the entertainment videos he had watched.
“It's a mental, emotional and spiritual attitude, Bain. It has to guide your whole life or else it's useless.” Jax smiled. He looked tired for the first time that day. For a moment, Bain wondered how old the man really was.
“Have you been a bodyguard a long time?” he asked before he really thought about the words on his lips.
“Sometimes, it feels like I've been doing this forever. For centuries. Other times.... “He shrugged. “The thing is, we—the Order—always move in defense. Never in offense. We never attack for ourselves, for our own protection, but always in the defense of others. We must never act for our own good, our own profit, but for the good of others. Unfortunately, there are a great many evil people in this universe. If you put yourself up as a shield between the innocent and defenseless, and the ones who want to hurt them, you find you can't really trust anyone until you get to know them."
“Sometimes you can't trust some people because you got to know them,” Bain said, thinking immediately of the Caderi.
“Hmm. Sounds like you learned a painful lesson already."
“Not really painful.” The boy considered a moment, then decided it would be all right to tell Jax about the visit to Erenon. “Lin has this friend. She said to only trust him while I could see him and never make promises to him. I don't know how she can be friends and laugh with him, and not trust him. He knows she doesn't trust him, but they still get along."
He went on to describe their short stay on Erenon, watching Caderi in the tavern and the market, the trip to the estate, and meeting Haddan Caderi.
“You're exactly right. Lin was smart to take you there while she could still keep you out of trouble.” Jax nodded slowly as he spoke. “I've heard about the Caderi clan. All of them make up in charming personality what they lack in moral strength. They're all likable rogues, working their magic so that some people don't really mind the nasty tricks pulled on them. For a while at least. However ... it sounds like the next generation won't be so charming. Haddan sounds like a much hungrier, fiercer man than his father."
“That's bad?”
Bain nearly whispered.
“It could be. Lin was right to refuse the father's offer. I shudder to think what the Caderi could do to the universe if they had Spacer blood and talents in them. They're limited by technology and the amount of trained pilots willing to go all the way to the Conclave and work for that loose alliance of planets. If they could use Knaught Points indiscriminately, it might lead to a war of actual ships, not just economics.” He shook his head and struggled back to his feet. “We'll worry about dire predictions and the tides of history another time. Right now, we have to teach you to defend yourself against knives as well as fists."
Bain sighed and let Jax help him stand. He just knew he wasn't going to like most of tonight's lesson.
He was right. He went to bed bruised and aching from too many falls into the too-thin mattress. And yet, there was something exciting about it. Bain found he looked forward to the next stop on a planet, when they would be in gravity long enough for his next lesson.
* * * *
Marnya didn't leave Sunsinger until they stopped on Parsifal, two stops later. Jax went out into the marketplace and looked around and listened and asked questions at the intervening stop. He came back with news and gossip and the latest rumors about what the Commonwealth Council was doing, as opposed to what the Council was really doing. Bain liked to listen to Jax and Marnya talk about what he learned. This was almost as good as the lectures Lin gave him sometimes, where she would only tell him half the story and make him figure out what had happened, or should have happened, or what should have been done differently to make history turn out better.
He enjoyed his self-defense lessons almost as much. By his second lesson, he learned to go limp when he started to fall, so he wouldn't twist his muscles with strain, or get bruised quite as badly. According to Jax, how a person fell was almost as important as avoiding the fall altogether.
On Parsifal, Marnya dressed up as a rich, elderly lady. She wore multi-layered skirts almost to her ankles and high boots, all in brown. She braided her long, glossy red hair and painted gray and silver streaks through it. Then she carefully painted her face to add wrinkles and sags and bags and shadows from age.
Bain dressed up in a tight, somewhat shabby suit of dark brown, with a matching cap he absolutely hated, and pretended to be her servant.
They went shopping. Bain thought he knew what it was like to spend large portions of time in the marketplace, looking over items in every single stall and booth he saw. Marnya changed his whole view on shopping, from a fun adventure to an exacting, scientifically ordered chore.
The first stall they saw when they entered the marketplace sold tiny, carved wooden figurines of soldiers and animals and little castles, and ships that sailed both water and space. Marnya picked up one figure after another, scrutinizing each one. She wore a grumpy expression, one eye closed and the other narrowed as if that would help her see the figurine better. She held each one only a dozen centimeters from her nose and turned it all around. Her lips stuck out in a dissatisfied pout and she sighed heavily from time to time.
They left without buying anything. Bain felt sorry for the merchant who sat waiting quietly, with increasing worry wrinkles on his face during Marnya's picky inspection.
The very next booth held tiny paintings in glass frames, the scenes ranging from farm landscapes, to children playing, to battle scenes from ancient history, to starscapes. Again, Marnya carefully and closely inspected the merchandise; twenty-four paintings—Bain kept count. Again, they left without buying anything.
It took four hours to work their way down the first aisle off the main thoroughfare. Bain wondered if he would ever be given anything to carry. That was the reason he accompanied Sister Marnya, after all.
He tried to look for Jax, but every time he turned his head, Sister Marnya saw. She scolded him to pay attention in a creaky voice. If Bain hadn't watched her when she spoke, he wouldn't have believed that voice came out of her mouth. Several times during those impossibly long, boring hours, he found himself studying her face, trying to see her real features underneath the make-up and the pouting lips and scowling brows.
“Well, that's enough for now.” Sister Marnya put down the silken, jade green blouse she had been inspecting at a weaver's booth. “Is there any decent establishment close by where we can find wholesome food and a clean place to sit while we eat?” she demanded of the merchant.
Bain decided later, the merchant was only too happy to give them directions to the food vendors’ aisle. The man stood up straight and smiled and sketched a map on the back of a piece of fine white linen, to help them find their way.
“I feel absolutely horrid,” Sister Marnya muttered as she and Bain hurried around a corner. For the moment, there was no one near them for at least five meters in any direction. “After being so sour all morning, I feel like I need bags of candy to make up for it.” She laughed, a soft, rippling sound that certainly didn't match her mannerisms and expression all morning. “Has it been bad for you, Bain?"
“No, Sister. Except a little boring,” he hurried to add. Something told Bain it wouldn't be smart to lie to a member of the Order, even about something so small and unimportant.
“Then why don't I let you buy us a sinfully sweet and decidedly un-nutritious lunch?” She winked at him.
A moment later, they reached another corner and stepped out into the aisle where the food vendors worked. Tables and chairs sat in clumps in the center of the aisle, on little raised platforms, under awnings. Sister Marnya schooled her face back into a sour, dissatisfied expression and waved for Bain to go to the stalls. She settled down at the nearest table and made a show of straightening her skirts before she sat.
Bain bought meat-filled pastries and vegetable dough puffs filled with cheese, and tall, paper cups filled with steaming sweet purple tea. The tea, he wisely had delivered to the table by the vendor. Bain doubted he could carry all that by himself, through the shifting crowds, without spilling the tea at the very least.
“Oh, dear.” Sister Marnya closed her eyes after the first bite of her pastry and slid down a little in her seat.
“Is something wrong? Is it burned? Doesn't it taste good?” Bain looked down at the crumbs that remained in his hand. He had practically inhaled his first two pastries. They had melted in his mouth, rich with beef juices and tubers and sweet grains and spices in the thick gravy.
“It's delicious.” She opened her eyes, which sparkled with laughter. “There's absolutely nothing I can complain about without sounding like a raving lunatic.” She took another bite, tiny compared to Bain's ravenous gulps that destroyed his pastries. Another sigh escaped her. “I'm afraid we're going to have to buy out that particular stall and take everything back to the ship for Lin and Jax."
“That sounds good to me.” Bain picked up the paper dish of vegetable puffs and leaned back in his chair. He would eat these slower; he had to; they steamed, fresh from the oven.
After lunch, Sister Marnya reverted to her cranky, demanding, rich old woman role and demanded directions to the Scholastica from five different people. Bain knew she had heard the directions from the first woman they asked, but Sister Marnya took every turn the exact opposite from what she was told. The next four people only made the situation worse. Bain didn't know whether to laugh or cry when a whole hour went by and they were further from the Scholastic than when they started. He knew this was all part of the role Sister Marnya played. Maybe as the little servant boy he played, he was allowed to cry? Or at least sit down and complain about his aching feet?
When they finally reached the Scholastica, Sister Marnya marched up the steps and through the lobby and nearly pushed aside the young scholar on duty at the information desk. She marched down one hallway, turned at the first corner and marched until she reached the end of the hall. Bain nearly had to run to keep up with her.
“Where's Scholar Daylor?” Sister Marnya demanded, her voice cracking and skidding up to high notes with every syllable.
&
nbsp; “Daylor?” A pale-faced woman in her late twenties stood in the doorway, looking at them with what Bain thought was a frightened expression on her face. She shook her head, making her lank, dusty brown hair fly. “Daylor isn't here anymore.” Her expression softened to sadness. “He died two moons ago."
“Died?” Sister Marnya's shock wasn't faked or forced. Bain could tell. He could almost feel the sorrow cutting cold through her body and voice. “How?"
“I'm not allowed to say. I'm sorry,” the young woman whispered. Then she shuffled backwards through the doorway and vanished into the shadows of the room behind her.
“Bain.” Her voice softened to a whisper. “Let's go.” Sister Marnya turned around and reached out a hand. Bain was glad to be there for her to lean on as they nearly tiptoed back down the halls to the reception area.
Sister Marnya sat down on a bench against the wall, furthest from the information desk. Her shoulders slumped and her hands shook a little as she pressed them together. She swallowed hard a few times and took three deep, long breaths.
“I need you to run an errand, Bain,” she whispered after a few moments. The other four people in the room, all men, were gathered around the pretty young scholar at the information desk, asking questions.
Sister Marnya reached inside the collar of her dress and drew out a silver chain. A tiny silver infinity symbol hung from it, no bigger than the tip of Bain's pinkie finger. A ruby chip sat in one loop, a chip of sapphire in the other, with an emerald in the crossbar. She slid it off over her head and handed it to him.
“Take this and go down that hallway on the other side of the information desk. Follow the hall, taking all right turns until you get to the office of Head Scholar Brother Paigosh. Show him the chain, let him examine it if he wants, and then ask him what happened to Daylor. He won't write it down, so be careful to remember every word he says. Say nothing to anyone and leave, going straight back to Sunsinger. Understand?"
For a moment, Bain wanted to ask what she would do, where she would go. Then he knew that didn't matter. Jax was somewhere outside, waiting. Sister Marnya would know what to do to get his attention and Jax would get her back to the ship. What was important was doing what Sister Marnya told him.
The Lady And the Order [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 4] Page 10