Hour of Judgement

by Susan R. Matthews

  The gray filament wires slipped gently, without injury, between cells around the lidded eye of the unconscious woman, to seek the optic nerve-bundle at the back of her eye and massage a range of sensors there back into alignment.

  Andrej forgot his life and went to work.

  ###

  Robert St. Clare stood for hours in mute misery behind the officer where he sat in the by-room of the operating theater.

  It was his sister. It was Megh.

  As much as he dreaded the sight of what the Lieutenant had done to her he could not keep himself from straining to see, all of his love and all of his grief focussed hungrily on the pitiful limbs of her, naked and helpless, bruised and bloodied and broken, in the operating theater below. Days and days it had been; they had cleaned her up carefully, but the evidence was still so terrible that he could curse his own eyesight for the keenness of it.

  And still he could not bear to turn away. His sister. His Megh. The only one of his family that yet lived, but there was an end to his father’s weave, because what the Lieutenant had done to her could not be made right.

  Not after three days.

  What the Lieutenant had done to her he had done to her father, to her father’s mother, to the father of their father’s mother, to the whole family lineage of the Narrow Pass. She would be whole, if she could be made so, but she could never bear a child of her body.

  What the Lieutenant had done to her . . .

  “Your Excellency.” The query from the theater sounded, one of the doctors below asking for advice. “Not quite happy with respiration, sir. Can an increased dose of elam be risked at this point?”

  Oh, if only she wore the mask, he would not have to look on her. But she could breathe on her own, so her face was uncovered and ghastly in the bright light. The officer shifted.

  “How much longer need we maintain her on cynerdahl? Well. It will be safe to increase to nine parts. But let’s try not to go ten, if it can be managed.”

  The officer’s subspecialty, in pharmacology. Psycho-pharmacology, but the basics were the same. Settling back in the hammock-slung seat, Koscuisko chanced to glance up at him; what, had he been too quiet, too still?

  “Robert. You are suffering. What is the matter, please?” He was suffering. Yes. It was true. He could not look at Megh without rage in his heart for the beast that had fouled her. And the beast was an officer, against whom he could rage all he liked in the quiet of his mind but in whose presence he was a slave.

  “It’s hard to look at.” Choking the words out, Robert could only hope Koscuisko understood. And then hoped Koscuisko didn’t understand too much. “Sir. With respect. It’s something about just the fact that she’s Nurail.”

  And my sister. He wanted to say it, and he could not. He had no claim to Megh while he was still Bonded. He could not say. He could not claim her. He could only make generalizations —

  “And no one to avenge her, because after all it’s the Lieutenant. Sir. But it cries out for revenge. If it please the officer.”

  He knew the uneasy prickling at the back of his neck, the tingling tension in his skull as his governor tried to decide if what he was saying violated his orders and whether he should be punished. But he was speaking to Andrej Koscuisko, and in the presence of Andrej Koscuisko he was safe from the governor. Even from that.

  Koscuisko was watching him, wary and measuring; but Koscuisko did not send him away. “Talk to me, Robert. Tell me how it is that she should be avenged. And I will tell you how it would be, on Azanry.”

  Pretending that it was an abstract sort of issue, a discussion initiated to pass the time. For the officer’s amusement. Making the words that ached in his heart an obedient answer, nothing treasonous there.

  The governor quieted.

  “Well. When a man’s done a crime, it’s for him to make up the loss, in the hill country.” Emboldened, he came forward to stand next to the officer, closer to the clear-wall. Where he could watch Megh. Where he could see her. “And killing is one thing, but this . . . It’s another. A killing can be made right with a child. But how can it be made right if a man has murdered a woman’s children, in such a way?”

  He wasn’t sure he made sense. He knew what he was saying. A killing robbed the weave, and a man could make up for it by making the weave whole with a child of his body. What was more precious to a man than his own childer?

  “Robert, you seem to say that if I killed her brother I would make amends by — engaging with her?”

  That was it precisely, though to hear the sound of the officer’s voice he could not quite believe it. Robert could only nod, eyes fixed in misery on the scene below. His sister. His Megh. Oh, his poor darling, and naked in front of all of these people, with no one to care that she would feel shamed by it . . .

  “Practical, really. Sir. If you think on it. You’ve got to convince her that you’re really sorry, first.” Children were the wealth of the weave, after all. And that was the bottom of what killing meant, a killing robbed the weave. A weave could be made whole. “But a rape means an injury, if the officer please. And I heard you say. To Doctor Howe, there.”

  Oh, careful, careful. How could he say it, and not reproach his officer? Koscuisko, who had been a good maister to him, though neither of them had chosen their roles. Koscuisko would understand. Koscuisko would not reproach him. The officer frowned, watching below.

  “I admit I am not hopeful.” Because of the rape, because of the manner of it. Robert could not think. He could barely breathe. “And still it may come out right. It seems odd to me, Robert, that any crime would be worse than a killing, is it indeed so?”

  Oh, it was so. It was so exactly. A killing took one life. This thing took the lives that Megh might have had in her, and showed disrespect for a mother’s womb. “In the hill country, your Excellency. Yes. There is no way to make such a crime right.”

  Except by killing. Except by killing the man who had done it, and killing his children, and killing his women lest they carried life that had sprung from a man who could do such a crime. And even then killing could not make it right. Killing solved nothing. Killing was a waste.

  Killing the Lieutenant —

  Robert waited long moments for the governor’s rebuke to punish the thought, unbidden though it was.

  There was no rebuke. The governor was silent.

  Was it because Robert knew he was right?

  “Hill-country Nurail,” the officer said, in a musing sort of voice. “Robert. I wonder. Do you believe he is in blood her brother? Oh, well, never mind. He’ll do as well as any, I suppose. When this is over we to the gardener should go and speak. I have an idea. Because he is a gardener.”

  Down in the operating theater the orderlies were moving pieces of surgical equipment back toward the wall. One of the physicians was leaving the room, stripping off the sterile layer of her garment as she went. Two of the orderlies came to the side of the operating level, one to each side, and shook a sterile covering over her naked body, covering her at last. Megh, poor Megh. His sister. His own.

  The officer spoke on. “And I have also promised that he could see her, once we were finished. Come along then, Robert. Let us go see Hanner home to his garden. And hope for a greenhouse.”

  Whatever that meant.

  He had seen his sister. He had spoken his mind, and to Koscuisko who received it with care and respect. He could do nothing about the Lieutenant.

  He wasn’t sorry he’d thought it, even so.

  ###

  It was very early in the morning, scarcely sunrise. Sylyphe Tavart stood half-asleep, half in shock at her mother’s side in the front business room, staring at the visitors that had come upon them so suddenly. Security, four of them, all of them tall, and green-sleeves — green piping on their sleeves, bond-involuntaries. So straight, so still, so perfect; and with them was their master.

  “I must beg to be forgiven for this untimely intrusion.”

  Andrej Koscuisko.

 
; The language was so stiff as to almost be insincere. Coming from any other man, it might have been; but Sylyphe could not imagine anything more perfect than the way in which Koscuisko chose his words. And how he spoke them. “I had not marked the time. And it is my fault to have kept your garden-master, may one hope he could be excused his morning’s work? Because I have kept him up all night.”

  Andrej Koscuisko. Slim and elegant in his black uniform, with the dew glittering in his blond hair. He was so fair it was almost unnatural, and if he was not beautiful he was important — more important than any man she’d ever seen so close up.

  Her mother stirred in her seat. “It shall be so, your Excellency, since you wish it. But I hardly think you came all of this way simply to make excuses for my gardener. You’ll pardon my saying so.”

  Skelern looked white in the face as well, but he was in the sun all day and was not so pale as Koscuisko. Skelern looked tired and worn. He’d been to see his friend in hospital, and Sylyphe had wanted to know all about his friend, but hadn’t been able to quite puzzle out how to ask without giving the wrong impression.

  “You are quite right.” Koscuisko smiled a little with his ruddy mouth, tilting his head a bit back on his shoulder. A little to one side. He had a perfect smile. Perfect. “It’s because the young man is a gardener, and our patient is Nurail. I hoped to beg some medication from you. And here I have come at too early an hour. I shall go away.”

  It was early. Her mother was in her fast-meal wrap and Sylyphe had only put a smock on over her night-dress. It was a very decent smock. But she knew that she was in her night-dress. If Skelern should guess she would die of humiliation: and still she could not bear to leave the room.

  “No sense in running an errand twice, your Excellency, and an honor to receive you at any time. Can I offer you something to eat? What could there be in my house for medication that isn’t in hospital stores?”

  Sylyphe could hardly stand still, she was so embarrassed. Her mother. Short and plain, and no cosmetics to disguise the pallor of her cheeks, the thin line of her mouth, the weathering of her face. Thin brown hair tied up in the single most unbecoming knot in known Space. And Andrej Koscuisko, dark and dangerous, with an aura that scintillated with the glamour of his craft. Those Bonds. Bound body and soul to the Inquisitor, to do his bidding at his word or suffer the consequences . . .

  “If you will permit, Dame Tavart.” The housemaster had come in with the beverage set, but Koscuisko paid no attention. How could her mother be so gauche as to offer an Inquisitor his fast-meal, in the first place? As if he was a salesman or a business partner, and not a senior Judicial officer with custody of a Writ to Inquire?

  “There is an ointment in the pharmaceutical inventory that originated amongst the Nurail hill-people as a simple fatty salve infused with jellericia flowers. I have asked Gardener Hanner, and he says there may be jellericia flowers in your hand to grant, but more than that he very properly declines to say.”

  Why would that be? This was confusing. If Skelern had flowers . . . because they were her mother’s flowers, perhaps. And Skelern didn’t want them simply taken. That was odd of Skelern, why would he be protective of her mother’s property, when he so much resented being made near-property himself? Why would Skelern care?

  “I still don’t understand. The flowers are yours, of course, with all of my goodwill.” Sylyphe thought she knew which flowers, now. They were small and very red. The fragrance was subtle if distinct, and the blooms were difficult to force under artificial light. Skelern had worked very hard on the jellericia flowers. Would Koscuisko appreciate the effort? “If it’s in the inventory there must be near-naturals to substitute, surely.”

  It was Andrej Koscuisko who asked for them. An Inquisitor could not easily be denied. “It’s only because the patient is Nurail hill-station, Dame Tavart. Her subconscious mind will recognize the fragrance. It’s very difficult to match with near-naturals. That is the particular reason that I ask. She will know the fragrance and be glad of it, and it will speed her healing.”

  It was true that there were fragrances that continued to deny the perfumer’s art. It was a comfort item, then. Sylyphe couldn’t help but wonder why a man of Koscuisko’s rank should stir himself to such an extent for any patient, let alone a woman from the service house.

  Sylyphe’s mother nodded one final time, in acceptance or agreement — Sylyphe couldn’t tell which. Rising to her feet, Sylyphe’s mother made her decision known.

  “What you have requested shall be yours, your Excellency. I can’t promise you the use of my gardener to assist you, though. I’m sorry, but his labor has been committed to other tasks. Is there someone at the hospital who can make up this ointment for you?”

  Koscuisko didn’t answer, not right away. Skelern cleared his throat, and when Koscuisko — raising one eyebrow, and looking as though he was amused at something — looked back over his shoulder toward where Skelern stood in the back of the room, Skelern spoke.

  “The Tavart’s lady-daughter knows how to handle the blooms, with the Tavart’s permission. She could do it as well as I, your Excellency, or maybe better; she’s mindful in such matters.”

  Sylyphe’s mother stared. Sylyphe could see the color rise in Skelern’s face even from where she stood. She would have blushed herself in sheer vexation to have her intimacy with a mere gardener exposed in so compromising a light before the Inquisitor, except that part of her was glowing with pleasure to hear Skelern’ s praise.

  “If the daughter of the house would be graciously pleased to oblige, then,” Koscuisko said, to her, to her directly. “I will be very much obliged to you both. For my patient’s sake. And for your courtesy in receiving me at this early hour.”

  “Hanner will give you instruction, then, Sylyphe,” her mother agreed. “And see to it that the kitchen gives him a good hot meal, since he’s been up all night. Gardener Hanner, speak to my daughter, and then go rest yourself. You’re needed at Center House tomorrow in the morning.”

  Dismissing her. In front of Andrej Koscuisko, dismissing her, and Hanner with her. But she was to have a job to do that would support the prestige and put forward the agenda of Iaccary Cordage and Textile at least as much as anything Hanner did. It was the first useful thing she’d had to do in a long time.

  Andrej Koscuisko bowed to her as she went past him to go out of the room, bowed to her almost as if she had been a grown woman and not just her mother’s daughter. The daughter of the house.

  It made up for her smock and her mother’s thin brown hair.

  Out of the room and down to the kitchens with Hanner in tow, to be sure that he got a good meal; and walking on air, every step of the way.

  Chapter Five

  The power was off again tonight as it had been last night. Port Burkhayden ran on hydroelectric power drawn from the tides in the Worrical Bay several eights to the south; but since the Bench had decided to sell the world to the Danzilar prince no maintenance on the saltwater cylinders and the water-gates had been done. The city was subject to brownout and blackout every night: That was what Garol had been told.

  It suited Garol’s purpose well enough.

  The sky was overcast, and the clouds picked up what little light there was and diffused it over the port. It didn’t make it easier to see where one was going, but it made it very obvious where one’s goal was to be found if one was headed for an area with auxiliary power.

  The public-funded. Then the service house.

  Garol found his way into the public-funded through an open door at the back of its great silent kitchen. There were orderlies on staff, right enough, nursing a brewer and some trays of hot-breads under makeshift warmers rigged on temporary circuits; Garol went like a shadow or a stray thought, letting a breath of wind catch the half-open door and swing it wide, waiting patiently just beside a sheltering stack of produce-boxes as the orderly swore and cursed and pulled the door more firmly to.

  The kitchen was an industrial one, built
to serve round-the-clock for a hospital population fully one-half the size of all Burkhayden. The Bench had built up Port Burkhayden for a major commercial center, and relocated a significant population of Nurail to fill out its infrastructure.

  It hadn’t quite worked.

  The Nurail that could find their way out of Port Burkhayden did, fleeing in small craft across the great dead reaches of the Baltrune vector to Gonebeyond space. Some of them made it, and some of them didn’t, but it made little difference in Port Burkhayden. The result was the same. The port had never prospered since the Bench had made Meghilder a Bench concern.

  So the hospital was larger than would be needed for twice Burkhayden’s actual population, and less than the eighth part of its capacity had ever actually been used. The Bench had built the public-funded but lost interest in staffing it once it became clear that the Nurail at Burkhayden were not going to bide quietly and turn to trade. Huge, and stripped now of everything but the most basic equipment, so that the night-kitchen had to use laboratory ovens to warm midnight meals.

  The service house was a little less ravaged; a service house had to at least seem well-stocked. But the linen was old, and there was only just enough of it, and nobody had rotated staff for more than a year now. That was hell on morale at a service house. People liked variety.

  Garol had reviewed the inventory with the housemaster: all of the standard luxury items, but the Bench had gutted the surveillance systems. The house grid was useless, its coordinator ripped out by some overzealous hand salvaging the chemos from the fire suppression systems, leaving the whole house to rely on the most primitive defenses imaginable.

  Firewalls.

  Some parts of the system had been recharged, true, but with plain water.