The Stone Dogs

by S. M. Stirling

  "How y' feelin', sweet?" Myfwany said softly.

  "Pretty good," Yolande replied, and realized it was true, suddenly. The achey feeling was gone, and her body was rested and loose. She arched her back against the masseuse's fingers, sighing with contentment as her friend perched one hip on the table by her shoulder and began braiding her hair with swift deft motions.

  "Ever taken the big cats befo'?" Myfwany said.

  "Nnnno," Yolande replied. "Little harder there on the small of the back, Lele… No, just wildcat. Foxes, of course, an' wolves now and then. Plenty of deer. John has, though, lion an' tiger an' leopard, gun an' steel-huntin' both." Her people usually took game smaller than Cape buffalo on horseback, with javelins or lances, terrain permitting.

  Lele finished the massage, carefully rotating knees and ankles to ensure suppleness, and brought the clothes. Yolande turned to look over one shoulder; Myfwany was watching her dress with frank pleasure, still half-sitting on the table with one leg swinging. Draka had little body-modesty—the nudity taboo had been dying in her grandmother's day—but the feeling of being watched with desire was strange. I like it, Yolande decided. It was like being stroked all over with a heated mink glove, tingly and comforting and exciting at the same time.

  "Ready fo' some huntin'?" she asked, buckling the broad studded belt and bolstering her pistol. Automatically, her hands checked it; ejected the magazine, pressed a thumb on the last round to make sure it was feeding smoothly, worked the action, reloaded, snicked on the safety, and dropped it back into the holster, clipping the restraining strap across behind the hammer.

  "Ready fo' that, too," Myfwany said. "Where's that brothah of yours?"

  "C'mon, let's go roust him out; much longer and the sun will dry out the scent."

  They clattered down the stairs, jumping four or five at a time with exuberant grace. Out through her rooms and down the corridors, past the sleepy early-morning greetings of the House staff, up and about their sweeping and polishing. They passed through the library complex, a series of chambers grouped around an indoor pool, two stories under a glass-dome roof; galleries ran back from it, lined shoulder-high with books, statuary, paintings. This had always been one of her favorite indoor parts of the manor, for reading or music or screening a movie; last year they had gotten a Yankee wall-size crystal-sandwich unit, the first in the region.

  Off to one side a group of serfs was sitting about a table littered with papers, printout, coffee-cups, and trays: the senior Authorized Literates, managerial staff at their morning conference.

  "Hio, Marcello," Yolande said, waving them down as they made to rise. That still felt a little strange. "No, go on with yo' breakfasts, everybody."

  Marcello was Chief Librarian, a lean white-haired man in his sixties who had been a university professor before the War. Normally that meant Category 3m71, deportation to a destructive-labor camp, but her mother had thoughtfully snapped him up from a holding-pen while scouting out the estate on recovery-leave in '42. Yolande returned his smile; he had been an unofficial tutor of sorts when she was younger. Not that she was under house-staff direction anymore—no Draka child was once he turned thirteen and carried weapons— but there were fond memories. She nodded to the others she recognized: the paramedic from the infirmary, the schoolteacher—these days, even a plantation taught one child in five or so their letters—and the librarian's son and daughter, understudying as replacements in the usual way.

  "We're off huntin'," she said to the elderly Italian serf. "Tell the Lodge we'll be there in bout' half an hour, an' have somethin' sent to the armory, coffee an' a snack, will you?"

  "Gladly, Mistis," he said. "I'll see to it." His accent was odd, much crisper than the usual serf slur, and as much British as Draka in intonation; she remembered some of the neighbors saying he talked too much like a freeman for their taste. He hesitated, then continued:

  "Will, ah, any of the Family be at the funeral, Mistis?"

  Yolande scowled, then forced her features straight and her mood back to where she wished it. "No. I wouldn't think so, all things considered."

  Usually the Landholders of Claestum put in a brief appearance at such affairs, as a token of respect. The other serfs at the table exchanged glances, then returned their eyes to their plates and documents. Some estates would have hung an attempted murderer's body up in the Quarters for the birds to eat, as an example.

  "John's through here," she continued, as they came out an arched doorway and into a long arcade. Cool air and dew from the gardens to their right; they cut through, and into her brother's rooms. "Hio, Johnny?" she called.

  The lounging room was empty, with only the sound of moving water and music playing. A Cerraldson piece, quiet and crystal-eerie, the Conquest Cantata. Yolande had never liked it, it always made her think of the way serf-women cried at gravesides, which was odd since the sound wasn't anything like that. But somehow there was laughter in it, too… The outer room of John's suite was larger than hers, since he used it for entertaining, and surfaced on three sides with screens of Coromandel sandalwood inset in jade, mother of pearl, ivory, and lapis; they could be folded back to reveal the cabinets, chiller, and displays. The furniture scattered around the lavender-marble floor was mostly Oriental as well; there were a few head-high jade pieces, Turkestan rugs, and a familar bronze Buddha in the ornamental fishpond that ran through the glass wall into the garden beyond.

  " Slug-a-bed!" Yolande said indignantly. "An' there he was, goin' on about how we should make an early start. Come on, Myfwany, we'll tip him out an' throw him in with those ugly carp."

  There was a colonnade through the garden, which was mostly pools and and lilies. "Ah, 'Landa, maybe we should call ahead—" Myfwany said as they pushed through carved teak doors and down a hallway.

  "Johnnnny!" Yolande chorused, clapping her hands as they turned past the den into the bedroom. "C'mon, yo' big baby, sun's shin in' and we got an appointment with a kitty-cat! Oh."

  John Ingolfsson was sitting half-dressed in one of the big black-leather lounging chairs. Colette was kneeling across his lap, and wearing nothing but anklets sewn with silver bells. They chimed softly as her feet moved. Her owner's mouth was on her breasts, and her hands kneaded his shoulders; the tousled blond hair fell backward to her heels as she bent, shuddering.

  She gave a sharp cry of protest and opened her eyes as John raised his head and looked at his sister with an ironical lift of eyebrows.

  "Yo'might knock, sprout," he said dryly, lifting the wench aside and setting her on her feet as he rose. "Or even, iff'n it isn't askin' too much, use the House interphone."

  Yolande tossed her head, snorted and set her hands on her hips. "All afternoon, all night an' yo' still can't think of anythin' else?"

  She eyed the huge circular bed. John's other two regular wenches, Su-ling and Bea, were there in the tangled sheets. Bea was sitting, yawning and rubbing her face, smiling and making the slight courtesy-bow to the two Oraka girls. She was a big black woman, Junoesque, older than John, a present from relatives in the southlands given when he turned twelve. Yolande nodded back. She had always rather liked Bea; the wench was unassuming and cheerful and unsulky about turning her hand to ordinary work. Su-ling made a muffled sound and burrowed back into the sheets. Well, who could blame her…

  "Should see what we'uns had to make do with in those border camps," John said. He stretched, naked to the waist, showing the classic V-shape of his torso. Smooth curves of rounded muscle hard as tile moved under tanned skin, like a statue in oiled beechwood. Not heavy or gross, the way an over-muscled serf who could lift boulders might be; graceful us a racehorse in motion. She felt a glow of pride. Even by Citizen standards, he was beautiful.

  "Men," Yolande continued. "Hmmmph. It's a wonder we let yo' vote."

  Colette was standing panting and ignored, sweat sheening her long taut dancer's body. Yolande caught a glare of resentment from the huge violet eyes, frowned absently at her. The serf glanced deliberately from Myfw
any to Yolande and back, smiled ironically and made the full obeisance from the waist, palms to eyes and fingers to brow. The Draka girl gritted her teeth. The wench needed a good switching; John spoiled her.

  "Colette did sort of distract me," he was saying mildly. "Meet you in the armory in, oh, no mo' than five minutes."

  "Sho'ly, John," Myfwany said, touching Yolande on the arm. She giggled as they left the bedroom, flapping one hand up and down in a burnt-finger gesture. "Oh, hoo, hoo, quite a sight!" she said.

  Yolande blinked surprise at her. "Who, Colette?" she asked. "Needs a belt taken to her rump."

  "That might be interestin', but I was thinkin' of yo' brother, sweet, in an aesthetic sort of way," Myfwany said, twitching at the other's braid. "Yo' a good-lookin' family."

  "I'll tell him yo' thinks so," she said, grinning slyly. "I mean, seein' as Mandy's makin' moon-eyes at him already…"

  Myfwany laughed and slapped her, shoulder. "Don't yo' dare; swelled heads runs in yo' family, too."

  The armory was a single long room on the lower level, a twenty-by-ten rectangle smelling of metal and gun-oil, and of coffee and hot breads and fruit from the trays on the central table. The kitchen-wench had put it down and scuttled out; ordinary serfs were not allowed past the blank steel door with its old combination-lock and new palm-recognition screen. There were no windows, only a row of glowsticks along the ceiling. Military-model assault rifles along the left wall, a light machine-gun, machine-pistols, helmets, body-armor, ammunition, communications gear and nightsight goggles. Benches at the rear held the tools of a repair shop. Ismet sat there: a big balding ex-Janissary, the plantation's gunsmith and one of the four licensed armed serfs on Claestum, although he was technically State property, rented rather than owned.

  The hunting gear was on the other wall. Broad-headed boar spears, javelins, crossbows, shotguns. And rifles of the type Draka thought suitable for game when cold steel was impractical, double-barreled models.

  "Here," Yolande said. "This is my other Beaufort style… unless yo'd like somethin' heavier?"

  "No, 8.5mm's fine fo' cat, I think," Myfwany said, popping a roll of melon and prosciutto into her mouth and dusting her hands together. She accepted the weapon and looked it over with an approving nod, thumbing the catch that released the breech; it folded open to reveal the empty chambers. The barrels were damascened, the side-plates inlaid with hunting scenes in gold and silver wire, the rosewood stock set with figures in ivory and electrum.

  "Nice piece of work, really nice. Sherrinford of Archona?"

  "Mmmm, yes," Yolande said, taking down her other rifle. They were part of a matched set, and Sherrinford worked only by appointment; you had to be born a client. Over-and-under style, like a vertical figure-8; her parents thought that made for better aim than the more usual side-by-side. She watched as her friend snapped the weapon closed and swung it up to dry-fire a few times. How graceful she is.

  Her brother finished taking down three bandoliers. "I'm usin' the 9mm, but 8.5's fine as long as yo've got the right cartridge. A big male leopard can go full manweight, an' we're talkin' close bush country here. These're 180-grain hollowpoint express, ought to do it. There's a range with backstop at the lodge, Myfwany, so yo' can shoot-in on that gun."

  "Lovely," Myfwany said.

  The balloon tires of the open-topped Shangaan hummed on the pavement as they wound east from the manor. The road was like the broad-base terraces on the hills, and the stock-dams that starred the countryside with ponds: a legacy of the Land Settlement Directorate and the period when the estate had been gazetted, right after the War. The labor-camps were long gone, and the work of the engineers had had time to mellow into the Tuscan countryside. Babylonica willows trailed their fierce green osiers into the water, and huge white-coated cattle dreamed beneath them with the mist curling around their bellies. Roadside poplars cast dappled shade, and the low stone walls of the terraces were overgrown with Virginia creeper.

  "I like this time of year," Yolande said. "It's… like waking up on a holiday mornin'."

  She inhaled deeply; the air was still a little cool as the sun rose over the Monti del Chianti to the east. The olives shone silver-gray, and the vineyards curved in snaking contour rows of black root and green shoots along the sides of the hills; the shaggy bush-rose hedges were in bloom, kilometer upon kilometer of tiny white flowers against the lacy thornstalks. Their scent tinted the air, joining smells of dust, dew, the blue genista and red poppies that starred the long silky grass by the roadside verge, the scarlet cornflowers spangled through the undulating fields of wheat and clover. The air was loud with wings and birdsong, plovers and wood doves, hoopoes and rollers. The white storks were making their annual migration southward, and the sky was never empty of them in this season.

  "It's beautiful any time of year," John said; he was at the rear of the fan tail-shaped passenger section of the steamer. Yolande looked up; his voice was completely serious, different from the bantering tone he usually used with his youngest sister. "Yo love this place, don't yo', John?" she said.

  He smiled, shrugged, looked away. "Yes," he replied musingly. "Yes, I do. All of it."

  They were passing through the lower portion of the estate, as close to flat as any part of Claestum, planted in fruit orchard, dairy pasture, and truck gardens. A score of three-mule plow teams were at work, sixteen-hand giants with silvery coats and Roman noses, leaning into the traces with an immemorial patience. The earth behind the disk-tillers was a deep chocolate color, reddish-brown, smelling as good as new bread. The work gangs were there already, unloading flats of seedlings from steam drags, pitchforking down the huge piles of pale-gold wheat straw used for mulch, spreading manure and sewage-sludge from the methane plant, or wrestling with lengths of extruded-aluminum irrigation pipe. Some of them looked up and waved their conical straw hats as the car passed; the mounted foremen bowed in the saddle.

  "Y' know," he continued, and shifted the rifle in the crook of his arm, "we say 'Claestum,' and think we've summed it up. It all depends who's doin' the lookin'. A League accountant looks at the entry in her ledgers and sees forty-five hundred hectares, yieldin' so-and-so many tonnes of wheat and fodder, x hundred hectoliters of wine and y of olive oil per year. Security's District Officer down't' Siena calls up the specs on a thousand-odd serfs an' checks fo' reported disorders. An ecologist from the Conservancy people thinks in terms or" —a flight of bustards soared up from a sloping grainfield and glided down to a hedgerow—"that sort of thing."

  "Ma and Pa?" Yolande said. Damn, can't get to know your own brother until you grow up, she thought.

  "They see it as something they made," he replied. "Almost as somethin' they fought and broke. I can understand it; every time they look out they can say, 'we planted these trees,' or 'it took five years of green-manurin' to get those upper fields in decent tilth.' Pa told me once it was like breakin' a horse; yo' had to love the beast or you'd kill it in sheer exasperation."

  "And yo', Johnny?" she continued softly, careful not to break the mood.

  "It's… home," he said. "Some people need that feelin' of creation. I don't. I love… it all; sights and smells and sounds, the people an' the animals and the plants and… oh, the way the sun comes over the east tower every mornin', the church-bell soundin'— Shit, I'm no poet, sprout; yo're the only one in the family with ambitions in that direction."

  He smiled ruefully. "I suspect I love this place mo' than any individual, which may say somethin' about yours truly. At least, a community an' place is longer-lived than a person. I won't change anythin' much, when it's mine. A bit of tidyin'-up here and there, maybe bring in a herd of eland, it'd do well…"

  "Mr. Ingolfsson?" Myfwany asked.

  "John," he said.

  "Thanks, John… I was wonderin', don't mean to pry, but if yo' like it here so much, why did yo' volunteer fo' officer trainin'?" Everyone started equal in the Citizen Force, three years minimum and a month a year until forty, but not everyone want
ed to prolong their spell in uniform.

  "Payback," John said, opening a thermos of caffe latte and passing it around. Myfwany made an inquiring sound as she accepted a cup of the coffee.

  "I pay my debts," he amplified. The road was winding upwards again, through fig orchards and rocky sheep-pasture dotted with sweet chestnut trees.

  "Down at that school, they're probably fillin' y'all up with yo' debt to the Race and the State." He shrugged. "True enough. I likes to think of it on a mo' personal level. A plantation can feel like a world to its own self, but it isn't. It only exists as part of the Domination. The Race makes possible the only way of life I know, the only world I feel at home in, the only contentment I can ever have."

  He laughed. "Not least, by controllin' change. It must be powerful lonely to be a Yankee; by the time one of them is middle-aged, everythin' they grew up with is gone. Like havin' the earth always dissolvin' away beneath yo' feet. Cut off from yo' ancestors an' yo' descendants both. Here, barrin' catastrophe, I can be reasonable sure that in a thousand years, what I value will still exist."

  "It's here because Ma and Pa an' others like them fought fo' it, bled fo' it. A decade of my life is cheap payment. I wouldn't deserve this unless I was ready to die fo' it, to kill fo' it." He blinked back to the present, and the gray eyes turned warm as he smiled at his sister. "It'll always be here fo' yo', too, sprout, when yo' come back from that space-travellin'."

  The lodge was pre-War Italian work, only slightly modified; the plantations fronting the hill nature-reserve maintained it jointly, part of their contract with the Conservancy Directorate to manage the forest. Vine-grown, it nestled back into the shadow of the hill, flanked by outbuildings and stables and a few paddocks surrounded by stone walls. The huntsmen were waiting in the forecourt, with the horses and dogs, beside a spring-fed pool. A dozen liondogs, the type the Draka had bred to hunt the big cats in the old African provinces: black-coated, with thick ruffs around their necks and down their spines. Massive beasts, over a meter at the shoulder and heavier than a man, thick-boned, with broad blunt muzzles and canines that showed over the lower lip. They rose and milled as the car stopped, straw-yellow eyes bright with anticipation, until a word from the handlers set them sinking back on their haunches in disciplined silence.