The Devil and Deep Space

by Susan R. Matthews

  Andrej didn’t want to talk about Ferinc. He didn’t want to think about him. “Will you take these? There will come a time when the Nurail will have leave to come and find them, and they must be safe till then.”

  Stanoczk nodded. “I will go to Chapter, Derush, and put these in trust for the future, and ask about the warrant. When I return to go with you to Chelatring Side, I will tell you what the Saint may have found out.”

  There was nothing more that Andrej could do about it until Stanoczk came back, then. And he needed to speak to his Security before the sun set on the day. The news would come out. He had a clear duty to his people that they should hear of it from him.

  “And I in turn will sound out my child and his mother, and give careful thought to if I should tolerate that your Ferinc breathes the same air as I do. It is my pledge to you, Cousin.”

  Stanoczk came to embrace him, but informally, as his kinsman rather than as a Malcontent. “It really is so good to see you, Derush,” Stanoczk said. “You have been away for so long. Your family has missed you. I have missed you. Save a place at supper for me, in six days’ time.”

  Andrej nodded, unwilling to speak, feeling overwhelmed by a species of nostalgia for the place where he was, the place where he could stay, the place that was his place. Stanoczk let himself out, with the notebooks — and the Bench warrant — secure in his custody.

  An hour. He would take an hour to compose himself. Then he would have to tell Stildyne that he was not going to go back with him to the Ragnarok.

  Chapter Nine

  The Appropriate Channels

  Marana had gotten a late start to the day, late in rising, much later in dressing, and only now was sitting down in the nursery office to review the status of Anton’s lessons with the house’s master of children’s education.

  “The lesson plans have fallen a little behind, Respected Lady, but it is only to be expected,” Housemaster Janich said, but comfortingly. “Under the circumstances. Our young lord’s father does not come home every day.”

  Marana closed the schedule log carefully. Nor would their young lord’s father be coming home ever again; he was here to stay. But it was for Andrej to make the announcement.

  “Still, this is a lag of three days.” The single most pernicious fault that Aznir culture found with the members of its hereditary aristocracy was in the tendency of many to substitute privilege for perception. “How are we to recover?”

  Anton Andreievitch had needed the very best education because he had been fated for a life as a bastard child, who could reasonably expect a good position within the Koscuisko familial corporation, but whose performance would be under constant scrutiny by the partisans of legitimate children jealous to ensure that no undue special favor was shown him. Now she didn’t have to worry about that any longer.

  Now Anton needed an even better education, because he was to inherit the controlling interest in the familial corporation one day. Then history would judge her worth as a mother, and the value of her love for Andrej Ulexeievitch, by the prosperity that Koscuisko should enjoy during Anton Andreievitch’s tenure as its master.

  Therefore she would have to pay twice as much attention to Anton’s lesson plans. The family would do its best to intervene, to take control of so important a task away from her. She would be ready to defend her primacy; she would accept help, but she would not yield control. Anton was her son.

  Janich frowned. “The young lord does well with his languages, Respected Lady. Perhaps some time could be found in the schedule for Standard grammar and syntax. I will create a recovery plan, if this suggestion meets with your approval.”

  And above all else Anton had to be allowed to be a child. It was lucky that he was intelligent and biddable; he did his lessons with as much diligence as one could ask any child his age, and learned them well. Ferinc helped Anton with his language. How was that going to work, with Andrej home?

  “Thank you, house–master. We might find a way to do a science lesson outside of the classroom as well. If it can be worked into Anton’s play.”

  Ferinc was here, standing in the open doorway to the nursery office, looking very pale. Janich had noticed Ferinc as well. “Very good, Respected Lady, until next time. With your permission.”

  Janich had gotten more formal with her. Before Andrej had come home, she had been “Respected Lady,” but no one had taken leave of her “with her permission.”

  Ferinc stood aside, smiling in wordless response to Janich’s greeting as the house–master left the room. Marana stood up and waited for Ferinc, who closed the door.

  “What is it that they say about Malcontents, Respected Lady? That there is no trust or honesty in them?”

  Something had happened. Ferinc was much worked upon by some emotion or another. Andrej knew about Ferinc; he had told her so in words that implied without accusing, earlier today, in the maze in the garden. Had there been some terrible sort of confrontation?”

  “They say such things about all Malcontents.” Not Ferinc. Ferinc was her very great comfort. Almost her friend. “What is it, Ferinc?”

  Ferinc reached into his blouse for a case of some sort, as long and as broad as her hand. No, as his hand, and Ferinc had long hands. Wincing slightly. “I’m lucky these boxes are as crushproof as they are, Marana, or else it would have been all over. Has the fish survived?”

  Marana opened the case. A wheat–fish, secure in a padded container, carefully wrapped to avoid breaking off any fragment of the long whiskers in the beards of the heads of grain that had been used to plait the ancient good–luck charm. “How is that have you been scuffling? Ferinc.”

  He was looking at the wheat–fish, not at her. “I’m glad. You must give it to Anton for me, Marana, and tell him that I love him, but I have to go away on the Malcontent’s business. The thing I never told you was that I had known your husband, once, under different circumstances. He has forbidden me to see his son.”

  In all this time, Ferinc had given no hint — “He has good reason, Marana,” Ferinc added hastily. “The Malcontent knew, of course, but there are personal feelings. And. To be honest. I never meant to love either of you.”

  It was worse than just that Andrej had discovered Ferinc to be her lover, before she had been able to come up with a good strategy for telling him. She had been the lover of a man whom Andrej had known, and did not like.

  There were so many questions that she wanted to ask. Were you a criminal? Why doesn’t he want you to see Anton? Is he jealous? What is it? Doesn’t he realize that Anton loves you? Not that I —

  Ferinc was Malcontent, and any such questions were not to be asked. Marana swallowed hard, instead. “You deserve better for your care of Anton.” He had been as tender a parent as any woman could wish, and Anton was not even his son. “Is this to be forever, Ferinc?”

  Too much was changing too fast. She had not thought far enough ahead, perhaps. There had been too much to do to cope with the immediate changes resulting from Andrej’s declaration of the Sacred–art–thous to leave her any room to think on more than the issues that lay directly before her.

  Ferinc stood very close, and touched the hair beside her face. But not her face. “It’s his concern that makes him stern. So if Cousin Stanoczk can speak for me perhaps I’ll be allowed to see Anton. But you, Respected Lady, you owe your husband duty and honor, and a chance to be your husband. You know it’s true.”

  Yes. She knew. It didn’t make it any easier, though.

  “What becomes of us, if Andrej and I marry?” In the true sense, rather than the formal sense. “Ferinc. All of this time.” He had been so great a comfort to her. She was torn between the duty that she owed Andrej, both as a man and as her husband, her duty to be honest and true; and reluctance, inability, to discard five years and more of Ferinc’s quiet support.

  “I will think about you on cold lonely nights, and wonder if you miss me,” Ferinc said. But wickedly. There was a streak of play running throughout his personalit
y that took much of the sting out of even so melancholy a thing to say as that. “And tire my lover with I–remember–when until she kicks me out of bed, and bids me go hang myself. And then it will truly be a cold and lonely night.”

  She’d known that it was going to come to this. Part of her had known that, anyway. She took him by the braids on either side of his face and kissed him, very carefully. Good–bye.

  They didn’t embrace. The kiss was enough. He looked at her for a long moment, as if he was committing her face to memory and smiled, fondly, without much pain.

  Then he kissed her nose. “Give Anton his fish,” Ferinc reminded her. “And my excuses. I’ve got to go. Thy lord has sent me away, and we don’t like to provoke the inheriting prince, because we have to apologize and it’s the wrong direction for the Malcontent’s preferred mode of operation, isn’t it?”

  It was the end for them, one way or another. Andrej was to stay. If they were lovers ever again, it would be different. That was unavoidable. “ ‘Till later, Ferinc.”

  Nodding, Ferinc left, and closed the door again behind him. She was alone. She owed Andrej a chance to be her husband in a modern, Standard way, as well as the traditional manner. She’d see what he had to say to her about Ferinc, and then decide.

  But now she would carry a wheat–fish to Anton at his lessons, and interrupt his day just to tell him that Cousin Ferinc had loved him.

  ###

  Stildyne set a watch on Lek to be sure he remained at peace with his governor, and went back to his room to see whether the bottle of liquor that was there was alcoholic throughout.

  In time he began to sense a particular fragrance in the corridor through his open doorway, and knew that Koscuisko was on his way. Lefrols. Koscuisko’s smokes. A peculiar weed, and foully odiferous, but it meant Koscuisko to Stildyne, and that was usually a good thing. Even when it was a bad thing.

  Koscuisko hadn’t changed since the morning, and it was late afternoon. He looked as though he had been sleeping on the desk, with his head buried in a pile of bound text — his face was creased, his eyelids falling half shut.

  Coming into the room Koscuisko closed the door, and sat down, and reached for Stildyne’s glass. There was only one glass on the table. That would explain it. For a moment Stildyne was alarmed, because Koscuisko could drink him under the table and tended to run through bottles of liquor at a phenomenal rate when he was minded to self–medicate; then he relaxed. This was Koscuisko’s home ground. He probably had barrels of the stuff.

  “What is it,” Koscuisko asked, holding out the emptied tumbler for a refill. “About what name you should be called. Talk to me about this, Mister Stildyne.”

  Why not? Haster Girag had raised hard truths about Stildyne’s past that he’d never shared with Koscuisko; and he had been drinking. Koscuisko was doubtless already skeptically disposed toward him after the morning’s revelations; if he was going to quarrel with Koscuisko, he might as well do it when he didn’t have to compromise a period of amity and good communication to say what was on his mind.

  “ ‘Chief,’ ” Stildyne said. “And ‘Mister.’ Never Stildyne, I suppose I could understand that, not without a ‘Chief’ or a ‘Mister.’ Robert you love. Him you call Robert. Lek maybe you don’t love so much as Robert, but you call him Lek anyway.”

  Koscuisko watched his face, as though waiting for him to make his point. “Mister Stildyne. I call my orderlies also Heron and Diris and Lupally. A man should not call responsible people by their first names. It is not of due respect showing.”

  Koscuisko’s dialect was deteriorating. They’d been here for some days now. The house staff spoke Standard, by and large, when they were talking in front of Koscuisko’s Security, but Stildyne strongly suspected that they all spoke their own language when they were alone. Or speaking to Koscuisko.

  “Well, where I come from, you call a man by his last name when you have no relationship. But people that you know you call by first name.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. He didn’t come from anywhere in particular. It was just a conflict between styles — his style, Koscuisko’s style — and Koscuisko had the rank, so it was not unreasonable for Koscuisko to assume that his style should define the terms of the relationship. It was all just the issue of whether there was a relationship. Of course there was a relationship. Stildyne was a Chief Warrant Officer, Koscuisko was his officer of assignment. That was a relationship.

  “Were you with Girag then on the basis of Brachi and Haster?” Koscuisko asked, thoughtfully. It was not a challenge or a taunt; it was just a question. It was very, very good cortac brandy; it seemed to slip down almost by itself.

  To everlasting confusion with it all. Stildyne poured the glass Koscuisko sought and kept it for himself, passing the bottle back. Less effort that way. The bottle needed refilling less often than the glass. “I’m not sure I remember. There was a crew of us at a Fleet base at Gotrane. We probably didn’t know each other all that well.”

  Koscuisko took the bottle but didn’t drink from it, looking around him absentmindedly — for the glass. Stildyne knew that was what Koscuisko was looking for. “One is on intimate terms with one’s house–masters, but one does not call them by their private names, Brachi. Unless it is in private. And I dared not ever use Chief Samons’s name but once in my life that I can remember, because it was so important to try to avoid noticing what a spectacular beauty she was.”

  Brachi. Koscuisko had said it. Koscuisko was not drunk — or nothing like as drunk as he had to be before he started to get sentimental. He was not teetering on the brink of total psychological collapse. No one held fire to the soles of his naked feet, and that was just as well, because Stildyne would have had to kill them had anyone tried. Stildyne himself was more drunk than Koscuisko, and on only a little more liquor.

  “Nor wished ever to use mine. For fear of being misinterpreted,” Stildyne said sourly, being drunk. Rising to his feet, he went to the drinks cabinet and took out a clean glass for Koscuisko. And another bottle of something. Just now he didn’t care what it was, exactly, so long as it had alcohol in it. “Now you are three times as determined. Now that you’ve heard about my past.”

  Koscuisko looked at the empty glass Stildyne set down before him for a long moment. Sighing, Stildyne plucked up the bottle from Koscuisko’s hand and poured; then at last Koscuisko seemed to realize that it was meant for him.

  “Your past distresses me, Brachi, but it is past. And means you are more greatly to be honored for that you have changed your manner.”

  No, it didn’t. He hadn’t left off taking the occasional bite out of a bond–involuntary because he had developed any moral scruples. He had learned not to take advantage of them because Koscuisko disapproved. And that was all.

  If there was more to it, Stildyne didn’t even want to know. He’d heard about morality. It seemed an unnecessary complication to life in an unjust and uncertain world. Koscuisko had opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it again. Stildyne waited.

  “And I have struggled this day with how to say this to you, Brachi. But I also have a chance to step away from abuse of those within my power. It is the message that Ivers has brought.”

  What was Koscuisko saying? Koscuisko had never abused his Security, nor any member of his staff — except the orderly who’d been caught stealing drugs. Koscuisko had beaten her very thoroughly for that, and then forgotten to report the crime to the Captain or the First Officer, to keep the woman from prison. So far as Stildyne knew, there had never been any further problem with the orderly in question.

  “You meant to come home last year, sir.” So there was only one other thing else that Koscuisko could possibly be talking about. And only one thing it could mean. “Has there been some movement on the part of Chilleau Judiciary?”

  Chilleau was expected to put a bid in for First Judge, and it would be a solid bid. As far as Stildyne’s limited interest in politics went, he understood it to be a very real candi
dacy. Koscuisko was Stildyne’s officer, but — though it had been easy to overlook on board the Ragnarok — Koscuisko was in fact a great deal more. Chilleau Judiciary would want Koscuisko’s voice on their side. Stilled, if not raised in active support.

  “I have executed documentation. It was this morning. I only heard last night. And I so much regret leaving the people behind, Brachi, but I am to be relieved of Writ and sin no more against the natural laws of decency.”

  I so much regret leaving you behind, Stildyne thought to himself. A fantasy; but an appealing one. When what Koscuisko meant was Lek, and Smish, and Pyotr, and Taller, and Murat. Godsalt. Robert St. Clare.

  Stildyne knew what Koscuisko’s people would feel when they found out. It was pure selfishness of him to wish Koscuisko bound to his Writ, in order to have him back on the Ragnarok.

  “Revocation of Bond, then, in a sense.” Freedom unimagined and wonderful. “We’ll all be very happy for you, sir. I’ll write to you. If you would like to hear.”

  Lowden was dead, and unlamented. Stildyne didn’t know anything much about ap Rhiannon, but he knew that First Officer had been taking careful notes, over the years, of the ways in which Koscuisko had protected his people. First Officer was a very intelligent man, for an officer. It wasn’t going to be the same with Koscuisko gone, but it was never going back to Lowden days. Stildyne was sure of that.

  Koscuisko nodded, in apparent appreciation of Stildyne’s calm acceptance. Calm on the surface, at least. He had believed Koscuisko to be going home less than a year ago; he had had practice in imagining his life without Koscuisko in it.

  Whomever they assigned as Chief Medical Officer could hardly be one–eighth the trouble that Koscuisko had been. If they assigned a new Chief Medical Officer at all, with senior officers in such demand these days.