by David Drake
Krychek closed the hatch. "So!" he said. "We have much in common, mistress, you and I. Though I've never been to Bryce."
"The Academic Collections suited me better than they might you," Adele said with a faint smile. Sometimes she was afraid that she had no more conscience than Tovera did.
The compartment was built on two decks. A hardwood mezzanine circled this level, giving access to the books in shockproof cases, but a broad staircase led down to cushioned chairs and curio cabinets. The ceiling was white and double-vaulted, with unfamiliar—to Adele, at least—coats of arms at the eight corners.
"Come, please," Krychek said. "We can sit as we talk. And surely you'll drink something with me?"
"A light wine, then," Adele said, walking down the polished steps with the care they deserved. Neither the staircase nor the mezzanine had railings. Krychek was presumably used to it, but even so it'd be a bad place to be caught if the ship had to maneuver unexpectedly.
"How is dear Maurice, eh?" Krychek said as he unlocked a Tantalus and withdrew the decanter of pale yellow wine. "He wasn't sure how he'd find Xenos. One doesn't really return after so many years, you know; what had been home is a different place."
"Yes, I do know," said Adele dryly as she accepted the offered wineglass. "As for Claverhouse, he seemed as well as anyone his age could expect. Judging from the restaurant where we met, he's comfortably fixed at least."
"Yes, we made a good deal of money," Krychek said, waving Adele to a chair. Its leather upholstery was the same polished brown as the paneling. "And Maurice's expenses are lower than mine, of course; he has only himself to care for."
He looked up at the ceiling. "This library is a replica of the one on my estate, as you'll have guessed," he said, lowering his eyes to Adele's. "I cannot return to Infanta till God rips the tyrant Porra from the throne he disfigures, but I have brought a little of my home with me."
"Including your retainers," Adele agreed, tasting her wine. She was no more of a connoisseur than she'd claimed, but she was quite confident that her father—who was remarkably knowledgeable—would've approved the vintage.
"Yes-s-s. . .," Krychek said, sipping his wine with a harsh expression, his eyes focused a thousand miles away. "That is so."
Rather than probing while her host was lost in a brown study, Adele glanced at the curio cabinets to either side of her chair. The one on her right held pipes for smoking; tobacco pipes, she was almost sure. They were of a remarkable variety, ceramic, vegetable, and mineral. One was of white material, possibly ivory but stone or synthetic with equal likelihood. Its bowl, bigger than her clenched fist, was decorated with a forest scene in high relief.
The case on the left held. . . more pipes.
"They are my whimsy," Krychek said. "I began collecting them before my exile."
He walked to the case on Adele's left and rotated it, then pointed to a simple pipe with a bowl of dark root-stock and a stem with noticeable wear. Many of the others didn't appear to have been used.
"This was my grandfather's," Krychek said musingly. "He was smoking it when he died. That and his name are the only things that remain to me of him."
He met Adele's eyes. "I do not smoke myself," he said. "But I collect."
Krychek settled into his seat again and cleared his throat, frowning. "You wish to know about Bennarian politics," he said. He shrugged. "There are four great magnates, Waddell above all; Fahey and Knox; and there is Corius, who sets himself against all the others. Waddell leads the Council, but he's not greedy. Not too greedy. He leaves some cream for the rest; more than they'd get fighting him, at least."
"If Waddell isn't interested in driving the Pellegrinians off Dunbar's World. . .," Adele said, pursing her lips as she looked into the display of her data unit. "Then Corius is our only hope?"
She'd brought the unit out without really being aware of what she was doing. A flick of the wands brought up a graph of payroll records for the five Counciliar Houses represented at the meeting in Manco House. It was the first thing she'd checked after entering the Councilors' databases.
"Perhaps," said Krychek. "He's a reformer, this Corius. He thinks the common people of Bennaria should have some of the cream themselves. A victory on Dunbar's World would give him greater status."
"Do you mean that he says the common people should have more?" Adele said harshly. "What other evidence is there that he believes what he says?"
Lucius Mundy had said similar things as head of the Popular Party, but he'd literally ridden on the backs of his supporters down Straight Street to the Senate House a month before Adele left to complete her schooling on Bryce. Representatives of the poor districts of Xenos dined at the Mundy table in the run-up to every election that Adele could remember. . . but they were clients dining with Mundy of Chatsworth. None of them was likely to misunderstand the fact that their role was to aid Senator Mundy in his plans for the betterment of their position.
"You're a cynical one, Mundy!" Krychek said with a laugh. "More wine, then? No? Well, Corius says the people should have more, I'll leave it at that. But he's gathering soldiers, two thousand of them."
Adele said nothing for a moment, staring at the graph already on her display. Councilor Waddell had some three hundred armed retainers, allowing for the possibility that she'd misallocated men who might be clerks. None of the other Councilors had more than two hundred, putting Corius' private army on a different scale from those of his rivals.
"Do you think he's planning a coup here on Bennaria, then?" she asked, meeting Krychek's eyes calmly. She didn't bother asking whether he was sure of his figures; that would simply insult his intelligence and make him less forthcoming. Besides, the numbers matched the capacity of the transports Corius had rented.
"No," said Krychek. "No, he doesn't have men enough to defeat all the Councilors put together—and they'll unite against him if he tries, you can be sure of that."
He snorted. "Corius is sure of that, he'll have no doubt," he went on. "His family's always been powerful here, so he was born knowing how the rest of the Councilors think. And besides. . . ."
Krychek rose swiftly and smoothly to his feet. His right arm lashed out, hurling his empty glass into the dummy fireplace set into the bulkhead across from him. He was a strong man; the impact smashed the glass to little more than dust.
"And besides," Krychek resumed calmly, looking down at Adele, "if Corius intended a coup, he would hire me and my good fellows, would he not? A hundred and eighty men, trained as shock troops and long experienced in crewing a ship, this ship. Experienced in holding their own among the dregs of the galaxy."
Adele took her left hand out of her pocket. She bent to retrieve the wand she'd dropped when her host moved unexpectedly, but she didn't take her eyes off his face.
She didn't speak, either. A matter that so raised Krychek's emotional temperature was nothing for her to start dabbling in verbally unless she had to.
"I owe you an explanation," Krychek said, though from his tone he was more bragging than apologizing. "Why I behave in this way."
"You owe me nothing but common courtesy," said Adele calmly. "If you want to break a glass in your own residence, the reasons are none of my business."
Though if you startle me like that again, she thought, you may not survive the experience. Which will pose problems for me as well.
"We had to leave Port Dunbar very suddenly," Krychek said, turning to stare at a display of pipes. "We were the only ship to lift from the harbor after the invasion. Their shots were hitting our hull and pierced an outrigger. There was danger, yes, but less danger. Arruns would certainly have hung us all had he captured the city. Maurice didn't come with us—he went by land to Ollarville and took commercial transport from there."
The flamboyance was gone from Krychek's tone and demeanor. He seemed a sharp man; Adele suspected he'd noticed that her reaction to violence wasn't to cower.
"I recall him saying that," Adele said, a politely neutral comment. She met h
er host's eyes, but the little data unit was busy gathering all the information available from the Mazeppa.
"We'd just come back from a trading voyage," Krychek continued, facing Adele again with a leisurely movement that couldn't be mistaken for a threat. "We hadn't restocked yet, and our thruster nozzles were thin. Very thin, I learned, but there was no choice. We lifted for Bennaria while the Pellegrinians shot at us, and landed as quickly as we could."
He shrugged expressively. "There was no choice," he repeated. "Two thrusters failed as we landed, and we cannot lift until the whole set is replaced. Or at least half—we can manage with twelve. We have no payload, you see."
"Are there no yards on Bennaria that can do the repairs?" Adele said. She knew full well that there were—docks and repair facilities were among the first subjects she researched on any new planetfall—but it seemed a useful comment to keep the conversation flowing.
"Ah, but that will be expensive," Krychek said. "The bankers here are the Councilors themselves, you knew that?"
"Yes," said Adele. She would've expected it anyway, since close-knit oligarchies rarely gave outsiders a chance to become wealthy.
"None of them will loan me enough for the repairs," he said, glowering. "Our latest cargo was just off-loaded into warehouses in Port Dunbar. The banks won't accept it as collateral, even at a ruinous discount; nor will they loan money against the Mazeppa herself."
Krychek stalked back to the sideboard. Instead of pouring more wine from the Tantalus, he opened the cabinet underneath and took out a squat green bottle. Adele sipped from her glass, until now barely tasted, to forestall being offered some of the liquor. She needn't have bothered; for the moment Krychek appeared to have forgotten her.
He took a deep draft of the oily, pale yellow fluid and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "It is not just business, you must see," he said harshly to a bookcase. "They fear me. They will not accept the sworn oath of a Landholder of Infanta!"
Krychek threw himself into his chair again. There was something innately theatrical about the man. He wasn't putting on a show for Adele, high emotion was simply so much of his nature that he couldn't help but put on a show.
"If the thrusters would lift us, I would take us to Ferguson," Krychek said, his voice rising and falling in measured periods. "The new Headman would treat us as we deserve! He knows the Cispalans will stop at nothing to renew their tyranny over Ferguson."
Adele hadn't studied Ferguson in detail, but current events were her trade. From what she'd gathered in passing, Daunus Fonk had been the notably rapacious Cispalan governor of the wealthy Cispalan colony of Ferguson. He'd changed his name to Headman Ferguson when he declared the planet independent, using his whole administrative budget to hire mercenaries—and then used those mercenaries to raise additional money. The wool from Terran sheep raised on Ferguson grew up to eighteen inches long and was remarkably fine, but the Headman was shearing his citizenry closer than ever they did their sheep.
"As it is," Krychek said, "were I to try the thrusters, we would rise only to plunge to the ground like a doomed comet. Yet what choice is there? If we stay here, I will shortly be unable to purchase even food for my men. Better to die in flaming glory, do you not think?"
Headman Ferguson was at best unbalanced, at worst certifiably psychotic. He was hiring mercenaries, though, and Adele appreciated that a former pirate trader was unlikely to have a delicate conscience. Still, Ferguson didn't seem the best available choice for employer.
"I'm puzzled," she said, ignoring what she assumed was a rhetorical question, "as to why Councilor Corius isn't willing to hire your men. No matter what he intends to do with them."
Krychek looked at her. The half-full liquor glass in his hand seemed forgotten. "Corius would hire my men," he said. His faint smile hardened as he spoke. "Buy them from me, if you will. But he would not allow me to lead them. Am I such a brute that I should sell my own people?"
No, thought Adele as she put away her data unit, you wouldn't sell your retainers. But God help anybody who got in the way of you taking care of yourself and those retainers. Yuli Corius seems to understand that too.
Adele stood, setting her glass on the end table beside her chair. "Master Krychek. . .," she said.
"Krychek, just Krychek," her host interjected, rising also.
"You've been of great help to me," she said. "I'll do what I can about your problem if a means occurs to me, but I'm afraid that at present I don't see one."
"No man can escape his fate," said Krychek portentously. "Perhaps this is mine, to die in flames on this wretched planet!"
Adele looked at the man; he was posed as though modeling for a heroic statue. For all his histrionics, Krychek was just as sharp as she'd have expected a partner of Maurice Claverhouse to be. He'd made the connection that many would've missed: if Yuli Corius were planning a coup on Bennaria, he'd have hired the Infantans under Krychek simply to prevent his rivals from doing so as soon as the fighting started.
"I won't discuss religion with you or anyone else," Adele said aloud. "I have neither knowledge nor interest in the subject. But speaking analytically, Krychek, I will point out that the situation on Bennaria strikes me as very unstable. If I were you, I wouldn't be in too great a hurry to convert myself into a fireball."
Krychek laughed with honest gusto. "Come," he said, offering Adele his arm. "I will have my men take you back to your ship. We have a crawler—from our business, you see—that does very well on muck like this island. The places we met our clients to trade were ones that others did not visit, you see?"
"I do see," Adele said, mounting the steps arm in arm with her host. She'd intended to have the water taxi wait for her, but it seemed unlikely that the boatman would ever come within impeller range of the Infantans again. "And thank you."
Krychek's information meant that Corius planned to take his private army to Dunbar's World. That didn't mean she and Daniel could trust Corius, but they could trust his intentions and act accordingly.
"Now shine your cheeks like milk and wine. . .," sang the chorus as Krychek pulled the hatch open. "But ah! all roses wither."
Tovera turned out to be a lyric soprano.
CHAPTER 9: Charlestown on Bennaria
Daniel was whistling a tune from the production number that'd climaxed the show at the Diamond Palace. The dancers were only a slender cut above what he could've found on the Harbor Three Strip and the comedians' jokes hadn't gotten any fresher for having traveled across galaxy, but live entertainment never came amiss to a spacer.
There were any number of recordings aboard the Sissie, music and dance, comedies and dramas, but human beings on a stage of boards and chintz drew Daniel as surely as they did the riggers and motormen. Perhaps their greatest virtue was that a live performance proved to the audience that they were on firm ground in sidereal space once more.
"Little white snowdrop, just waking up!" Daniel caroled, giving each word a hammered emphasis very different from the saccharine blonde who'd sung the piece half an hour before. "Violet, daisy and sweet buttercup!"
Besides, the strength and quality of the Palace's cider made up for any deficiencies in its performers. "That was bloody good cider, Hogg," Daniel said. "Bloody good."
"And you drank enough of it to float the Sissie, so you did, master," Hogg said, "but fortunately there was some left for me. And since you bring that up. . . ."
They'd walked past the mouth of an alley. The street was crowded with pedestrians and slow-moving vehicles, but the only lighting was the garish mix of colors on the building fronts. A couple paces back from the entrance, the alley was dark as a yard up a hog's backside.
In practiced unison, Daniel and Hogg reversed course and strode into the alley. Daniel was already fumbling for the fly of his third-best set of Grays, the uniform he wore when he was looking for entertainment at harborside instead of in the parlors of the wealthy.
A cat or a dog—or perhaps a drunk—scuttled into the deeper darkn
ess. Daniel wasn't worried. A mugger foolish enough to set on him and Hogg together would just be more entertainment.
Judging they were far enough in, Daniel turned to the wall—the back of the Diamond Palace, he supposed—and relieved himself with a feeling of enormous relaxation. He really had put down a lot of that cider. . . .
"You know, Hogg," he said, "I've often thought that the simplest things are the most satisfying. Somebody should write a book—"
A car turned into the alley from other end, its headlights filling the passage with a blue-white glare. Trash cans, downspouts, and short flights of steps up to back doors sprang into harsh silhouette.
"Always said wogs didn't know squat about courtesy till you knocked it into 'em," Hogg muttered as he tied his fly shut. He sounded amused rather than really put out by the incident, though.