by David Drake
“What’s his name?”
“He’s an Athanaskew,” Sebastian replied. “Rake or Reis. Something like that.”
“He may know something about the Abbot’s mind on our problem.”
“I’d imagine a young man that pretty probably knows more than just the Abbot’s mind,” said Sebastian.
“Your wickedness will see you consigned to the lash one day, Sebastian.”
“If only, your grace.”
* * *
When Mahaut was introduced to the young priest, he looked her up and down in an intense, unaffected manner. Whatever favors he may or may not do for the Abbot, it was clear which way his own sexual interest lay. To get such looks was still amazing to her, even after several years of it happening. She’d been a tomboy growing up and, although healthy looking enough in appearance, had never flattered herself she was any raging beauty. But pencil the kohl around your eyes, have a maid bend your hair into the latest style, and then make your appearance under the right circumstances in the best light, and suddenly a man who would never have noticed you before was all attention. This had annoyed the warrior woman in her for a time, but then she’d realized her looks were a tool for survival and conquest like any other.
She bowed Zentrum’s respect to the young priest, and smiled. It only took a few leading questions about his work at the temple before his mouth was off and running.
“My duties are not very important now, Land-heiress. Mostly administrative. But I’m on interior staff, the place everyone wants to be, in direct contact with the Abbot. I’ve even been just outside the Inner Sanctum when my lord Abbot communes with Zentrum.”
“How fascinating! I don’t suppose you took a peek inside?”
He shook his head. “Yes, your grace, but I can’t tell you about that. I don’t want to break Edict. I do expect to be called into the chamber myself some day.” He straightened his shoulders. “My parents raised my brother and me for such things, you know. Three Athanaskews have been Abbots, and another two have been commander in chief of the Guardian Corps.”
“Ah, then your brother is Timon Athanaskew of the Guardians,” she said. “I’ve heard of him.”
From his best friend, who has mentioned several times that Timon and his brother don’t get along so well, she thought.
“Yes, he is my younger brother,” Athanaskew answered, a touch of stiffness in his voice. “Even though sometimes I think our parents got us mixed up in that regard. Perhaps I should have been the soldier and Timon the priest. He’s always been so zealous.”
“And you’re not? You’re a priest.”
“Priests? We are some of the least zealous you’ll meet.” He chuckled. “I’m committed to the priesthood and to Zentrum, of course. But I’ve seen a great deal of the inner workings of the Tabernacle, enough to know that all is not what it seems. Many things are more . . . complicated than Timon understands.”
“My dear, you have to tell me what you mean by that. I’m very curious.”
“Really, it’s a bit convoluted for a woman. I would not like to bore you.”
“Yes, we wouldn’t want that.” Mahaut smiled brightly. “But I am curious about you, Reis.”
“Oh, there’s lots I could tell you that might be of interest, but . . .” He looked around with the exaggerated air of a conspirator. “This is not the best place to discuss such matters.”
“How about on the veranda after dinner, when drinks are served? Do you chew or smoke, Law-heir Athanaskew?”
“No.”
“Neither do I,” she said. “It’s a warm evening.” She too took on a faux conspiratorial whisper. “We can justify our secret meeting by taking a stroll to cool off.”
“I’ll be there.”
“See you then,” she replied, “but at the moment I see Colonel Dupree’s lovely lady.”
Athanaskew followed the direction of her gaze. “She’s the one who isn’t his wife? The doxy?”
“She isn’t his wife,” Mahaut answered. “But then again his wife is pinned up in a velvet-covered room claiming that she hears the walls talk to her.”
“Evil spirits can possess even the better people, I’m afraid,” said Athanaskew. “But it is his duty to remain outwardly faithful to her if he does not wish to obtain a divorce.”
“Well, we aren’t at Thursday school, are we? I believe we can give both of them the benefit of the doubt on a night like tonight,” Mahaut said. “Besides, the lady is a friend of mine, and I happen to know she’s an old acquaintance of his from childhood and nothing more.”
“I see,” replied Athanaskew with a look of distaste. “That may be even worse, then.”
Mahaut touched his arm lightly. “Remember, the veranda.” She left the priest and made her way across the room to speak with Hecate Li, the companion of the House Dupree colonel. They’d met at the Lindron shooting range and had taken an instant liking to one another.
Mahaut reflected that she didn’t want to think badly of Reis Athanaskew, at least not yet. It was too easy for a bad opinion to show through. There were some consummate liars in Lindron society, but she knew she was not really one of them. She would never wholly lose that straightforward woman she’d been. But being shot, almost killed, abused, and then killing her own husband had worked a good measure of survivor’s deviousness into her personality.
Mahaut and Hecate Li spoke together until called away to eat. Mahaut then spent her dinner speaking with a Weatherby cousin who seemed unable to help himself and told her all about a scheme to corner the dried dakmeat market his house was undertaking.
“If and when the Blaskoye ride in, the garrison and everyone else in town will be desperate for rations that don’t spoil.”
Mahaut filed the information away. It had been a long time since war had come to Lindron. She knew full well that the garrison, weakened by the absence of the main body of the Corps, but still the strongest armed force in the city, would simply go and take what they needed from Manstein’s warehouses, well-guarded or not. And in any case, she knew that House Jacobson and House Manstein had a joint storage unit near the River entirely filled with dried dakmeat and rice. She had no intention of being caught under siege lacking provisions.
She could, however, make a tidy sum riding up dakbellies promissories at the commodities exchange, selling futures at a huge markup, then releasing enough of her provisions to throw Weatherby’s move to corner into disarray as the market collapsed around it. She could even offer up the substantial supply of wagons and drayage she’d accumulated in anticipation of half the population attempting to flee the city. The other house factors, looking for a hedge as dakbellies fell, would be desperate for somewhere to sink their chits in anticipation of general panic.
If she wanted to be particularly nasty, she could secretly send out a large dakbelly buy this very night to run up the morning bids and cause Weatherby to sink even more chits into the venture.
She felt sorry for the talkative Weatherby son. He seemed a decent sort, and he spent even more time talking about his children than he did about the dakmeat scheme. Perhaps she wouldn’t utterly ruin him after all—just cause him and House Weatherby to suffer a bit.
On her other side was Nikolai Belov of Eisenach. Throughout dinner, he maintained a stony silence toward her. Mahaut slipped away after the dessert wine was poured, a Delta red, cloyingly sweet. She soon located Athanaskew on the veranda. He’d been waiting for her. Friedman, her bodyguard, stood discreetly in a doorway, out of earshot and shadowed and mostly out of sight.
“We meet again, Law-heir Athanaskew.”
“Call me Reis, forever and always.”
“All right, Reis,” Mahaut replied. “I’m longing to walk after that dinner. Accompany me for a stroll?”
“Honored.”
They stepped off the veranda and into a small but elaborately sculpted hedge garden whose centerpiece was an ancient riverwillow. The willow’s trailing branches formed a curtain of enclosure around a bench, which
was placed next to the trunk. A small oil lamp sat on a pedestal next to the bench, giving the interior of the fronds a warm glow. After a turn around the perimeter of the tree, they pushed the willow fronds aside and took a seat on the bench.
“So, what was the dangerous information about yourself that you couldn’t tell me inside, Reis Athanaskew? I was so full of curiosity all through dinner that I had trouble carrying on understandable conversation.”
“I’m sure you had no such trouble, Land-heiress,” said the priest.
“I am Mahaut.”
“Mahaut,” he said, as if savoring the words. “I noticed Sherm Weatherby slobbering all over you. I was jealous of him for having your company.”
“Land-heir Weatherby seems a very nice man.”
“But not your sort.”
“In what way do you mean?”
The priest began to speak again, then quickly turned away from her.
“Is that a blush I see, Reis?” Mahaut said. “Come, tell me the truth: Why would your brother have made a better priest than you? From what you tell me, you have to be practical to be a priest after you attain a certain status.”
“I have always had high status, of course. I wouldn’t know about the lower orders,” Athanaskew said. “But yes, I’ve seen and done things that those outside might think unpriestly.”
“Do tell.”
“Oh, nothing too terrible. It’s just that the Abbot and Zentrum take the long view. Sometimes that means weakening some areas to strengthen others. Take the Bruneberg Prelacy. We know there is corruption going on up there, but it serves Zentrum and the Abbot’s purpose to leave it in the hands of a First Family oligarch, especially after the housecleaning that new DMC gave the secular side of things. And Mims is another example, although the situation is a good deal better down there.”
“What sort of corruption?”
“Oh, the usual. Tradesmen paying tribute to the temple to remain in business. Lax enforcement of the Laws and Edicts. Whorehouses run by the priesthood in all but name. And quite a few Redlander girls sold as slaves by their own kin to serve in them.”
“Terrible.” Mahaut kept her voice neutral. She knew Abel had cleared the regular whorehouses of slave girls, but he hadn’t been able to shut down those under protection of the prelate.
“And here in the Tabernacle, things are . . . there is much cheating and backbiting going on right under Zentrum’s nose! You’d think he encourages it.”
“Maybe it just appeals to the Lord Zentrum’s sense of humor.”
“No,” Athanaskew replied. “He doesn’t have one.”
“I stand corrected. Or sit corrected.”
Athanaskew reached a hand over and placed it on Mahaut’s thigh. She felt it, warm, through her gauzy skirt. “Land-heiress Jacobson, I—”
“Mahaut, please.”
“Mahaut. I shouldn’t be telling you this, your grace. I really shouldn’t.”
Mahaut shrugged. “Then don’t, if you would prefer not to.” She gently but firmly removed his hand from her leg.
“Is that how you’re going to be, so cold?” Athanaskew said. “All right. How’s this for interesting: there’s a secret prison under the Tabernacle with some very odd characters down there at the moment.”
“Dear Reis, I do know about the dungeon,” Mahaut said. “It’s not the best-kept secret in Lindron.”
The priest looked chagrined.
Mahaut gave him a coy look as if to say “You’ll have to do better than that.”
“There’s more,” the priest said. “And this will interest you. I believe you’re from Treville, aren’t you?”
“That I am,” said Mahaut. She sat up straighter, all attention now.
“Well, there’s this . . . special group . . . we have those who do things that we would rather not be connected with. Some are priests and some are Guardians. It’s run by a man who is both priest and Guardian; some are both. As a matter of fact, my brother, Timon, took his training in this group. It’s a very secretive circle of men, however. Its leader is named William Cloutier. He is very good at making people, well, disappear. They call him the Hand of Zentrum.”
“He sounds awful.”
“Oh, yes. You don’t want to get on Cloutier’s bad side, let me tell you. And he’s always snooping around the priesthood itself for heresy. A few priests have been among the disappeared.”
“Are you going to get in trouble for telling me this?”
Athanaskew smiled, scooted closer to Mahaut. His red robe fell against the spread fabric of her dress. “You’re a First, or at least married into a Family,” he said. He turned and looked her in the eyes. “And no one else has to know, Mahaut. I know you are but a woman, but can you promise me that?”
“On a night like this, a woman might find herself promising anything,” she replied.
Athanaskew smiled. The hand returned to her thigh, and this time she did not remove it.
“You were telling me about news of Treville District?” she said. “You’re right; it will always hold a special place in my heart. Yet I’m beginning to feel more and more at home in Lindron these days.”
“I’m very pleased to hear that.” He moved closer, as if to kiss her.
Mahaut laughed lightly and pushed him away. He almost fell off the bench.
Men were often surprised at how strong she was. They wouldn’t be if they saw her at her archery exercises and physical training each morning.
“Treville,” she said. “Come, speak.”
Athanaskew straightened himself up, looking embarrassed. “Yes, well. I was going to say, we happen to have some very interesting persons in the prison at the moment. Apparently the leadership in the district was rotten, and the Abbot recently had it cleaned out.”
Mahaut felt a coldness stab her inside.
“Who is it that’s in the dungeon, Reis?”
“I’m not exactly sure of this, but I’ve heard it’s the old Treville prelate himself.”
“Zilkovsky?”
“Yes, that’s the one. And they’ve got the DMC along with him, if you can believe it.”
“Joab Dashian.”
“Something like that. Not a First Family sort, so it’s hard to remember what they call the rogue.”
Mahaut turned toward Athanaskew, reached for his hands and took them in hers. “Come, this news is gloomy. But continue.”
“Well, here’s the really interesting part: Zentrum himself has called them here,” Athanaskew said. “It’s said he spoke to Abbot Goldfrank. Directly. The Abbot told me so himself.”
“The Lord Zentrum gave this order? Amazing. What do you think will happen to those two?”
“Oh, they’ll be executed. Only when and how, I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Athanaskew gazed into her eyes.
Trying to judge how far he can push it.
Then he shrugged, smiled. “The truth is I really don’t know. We’re all wondering about that. Those of us on the inner circle, that is.”
He was quiet for a moment, collecting himself.
Here it comes.
“Land-heiress Jacobson. Mahaut. I want to see you again.”
“You can see me any time you like, Reis. I’m usually at the House Jacobson office. I am the chief consort. I have a few minor duties that keep me occupied there, but you may call at any time.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Lord Athanaskew, you’re a priest of the Tabernacle.”
“That’s right. I am. That’s why this could be so good. We can’t marry. But that doesn’t mean we can’t—” He shook his head as if to clear it. “You’re a widow. Experienced. Unattached, but available. You’ve already been . . . blooded. Mahaut, don’t you see past this robe? I’m still a man.”
“You have a man’s needs . . .”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, exactly. You do understand.”
All right, this one is milked dry, I think.
Mahaut released the priest’s hands, sat back considering him. “Dearest Reis, that’s what whorehouses are for. You wouldn’t be the first priest to visit one.”
Athanaskew frowned. “Oh no. I would never . . . I could never.”
“Oh, I think you have already, haven’t you? More than once.”
A faint smile. “All right. You’ve found me out. What do you think? Yes. Yes, of course.”
“It’s your brother who has never set foot in one, isn’t it?”
“Timon’s way is as straight as an arrow, Zentrum help him,” said Athanaskew. “I do love him in my way, but he’s always been so thickheaded.” He looked downward, propping his forehead on a palm.
“I’m only trying to protect you, Reis.”
“It would be impossible, wouldn’t it? You and I.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You’re a very wise woman to see that,” he said. “Can you imagine me sneaking out of the Tabernacle and you out of your Family compound? This is Lindron. Everyone’s bound to find out.”
“My reputation wouldn’t suffer much, but you could be ruined, dear man. You, who have so much promise. You’ll be the Abbot one day.”
He nodded his head. “I may,” he said. “I just may.”
“Then, perhaps, each of us can do what we want, what we feel. But not until then.”
He looked up, imploring. “At least let me kiss you.”
She shook her head. “No.”
Athanaskew’s expression hardened for a moment. Mahaut’s hand trailed to the back of her tunic, where she kept an obsidian blade in easy reach. Then the priest sighed. “We wouldn’t stop, would we? May I kiss your hand?”
“Yes, dear Reis, you may.”
Mahaut stood up, straightened her dress. She held her right hand out to him. He took it gingerly, raised it slowly as if savoring every moment, then brushed his lips against her skin, lingering. Finally he let himself kiss the hand. He pulled back, but still held her hand.
“I have to know . . . what is it, your perfume?”
“Hyacinth. A special blend from Treville.”
“Ah. May I have a handkerchief, a bit of cloth, anything?”
She gently shook her head. “Better not. Besides, you’ll always have the memory,” she said. “We both will.”