Festival Moon

by C. J. Cherryh

He was a Det-man, her father had warned. The Chamouns had made their money in one generation, these last years after Karl Fon's takeover in Nev Hettek. His parents might have been revolutionaries, though Daddy had said nothing of that.

  She went down to dinner in her creme silk and her finest choker of pearls. If she liked him, she'd change to tight pants for the party and they'd go together. Unless he was too sophisticated for Kika and her silly friends. Six years, maybe seven—a grown man, and she was just eighteen and holding out for M'ser Right, whoever and wherever he was.

  Girls her age had children and alliances; married girls her age had their own stipends, their own families.

  Down two flights of stairs she tiptoed, terrified she'd run into him in the halls, wanting him to see her at her best, over aperitifs in the saloon adjoining the Blue Room.

  She should have known when Daddy said the Blue Room—Daddy and Mother dined alone there, when they were on good terms. Children never ate there.

  But tonight, Cassie was not a child.

  Servants clustered around the door to the salon, whispering, tittering behind sheltering hands.

  The butler murmured, when she asked, her back ramrod straight and her hands on her creme silk breeches, that "Captain Chamoun awaits in the saloon, m'sera. And when should dinner be served?"

  Woman of the house tonight, with everyone off somewhere—Mother with her friends, scheming; her brothers and sisters out carousing or in the main dining hall or in their beds—she demanded the menu, pronounced it good, named a time and swept by them, through the carved door the butler opened.

  In a loud voice, the butler announced her: "M'sera Cassiopeia Boregy," as if she was entering some state reception ball.

  Captain Chamoun was standing by the false mantle, one elbow on the white marble, smoking one of Daddy's blends in a briar pipe—she recognized the smell of her father's tobacs. He put the pipe on the mantle and took a step toward her, then another and another.

  He was beautiful! Tanned, dark, tall, weathered and with adventures in his eyes. And so, so, grown up—he even had gray in his longish, Nev Hettek-cut hair. Nev Hettekker. Tech. Civilization. Wonders. She blurted, "This is so awkward, with no one to introduce us. My father assures me you will not take offense that I'm the only one to greet you. I'll try to keep you amused—" Rapid-fire, it came out of her, a girl's chatter, stopping only when he reached her, took her hand and brought it to his lips.

  "Awkward?" He straightened up. "You? Never, m'sera Cassiopeia. I only hope my arrival hasn't disturbed your schedule." -

  He was still holding her hand and her palm tingled. His hand had horny callus ridging its heel; from that callus to her blood, electrics streamed, so that the tingle ran up her arm and into her throat.

  His eyes were wise, green as the Det in winter, and hiding kindly amusement—or hiding something. She felt even more awkward, and mumbled, "Cassie, m'ser—Captain. It's permissible that I call you 'Captain?' "

  "If you like."

  His voice was husky; his body under his good, modest silk and velvet, was honed on the Det. He was the kind of man you dreamed would sneak in your window some dark night and carry you off to sea. "I like."

  Only when he raised an eyebrow did she realize how silly her last comment must have sounded. Only when she took an embarrassed step backward did she realize he was still holding her hand.

  Her body, and now her face, was on fire. She said, "Dinner is waiting," in what she hoped was a sophisticated tone. Perhaps Kika Nikolaev's party would be too juvenile for him, too boring, but God and Retribution, she wanted to show him off to her friends.

  He led her into the dining room, taking her elbow with studied decorum, not saying a word.

  Once her panic receded, Cassie realized that the silence he offered wasn't awkward. It was, in fact, companionable.

  By the time he'd pulled back her chair and seated himself opposite her at her parents' private dining table, Cassiopeia Boregy was making small talk just to hear the timbre of his voice when he answered, hardly listening to the words.

  For the first time in her life, Cassie was in love.

  Magruder was sitting on the edge of the Grand, watching the Festival lights sparkle on the black water and the night traffic come and go, waiting for Mondragon to come out of his hidey-hole in Petrescu where the Sword's agent, Romanov, swore they'd found him.

  Down at canalside, with level after black level of Merovingen above his head so that he couldn't see the stars, he was perspiring despite the salt-laced breeze. Magruder didn't like being hemmed in; he didn't like Merovingen-below one bit.

  Maybe he should have argued with Dimitri Romanov and gone to Mendragon's apartment on dilapidated Petrescu's second tier, back there behind the Foundry somewhere. But Romanov had Rack and Ruin al-Banna behind him, and Romanov had been abroad in Merovingen-below, using what connections the Sword had here, while Magruder had been "hobnobbing with society."

  Mita Romanov hadn't been pleased about that— wasn't pleased now, sitting in the fancyboat's stern by the motor, glowering up at Magruder with a handkerchief to his nose. The canalside stank, so what?

  Behind Magruder, lounging against the wall like they'd grown there from bad seeds, were Rack and Ruin al-Banna. Magruder wasn't entirely sure they were waiting for Mondragon—the Sword had its factions; Romanov was a heavyweight in one of them, Magruder in another.

  If Romanov's informants were wrong—and they could be, considering the botch his boys had made of cornering Mondragon on their last outing—Magruder was going to use the excuse to confine Romanov to the Detfish.

  He could do it. Would have done it now, except for the al-Bannas at his back and all those spindly wood bridges and heavier timbers of multi-leveled Merovingen-above towering over his head.

  He shivered and hugged himself. Come on, Mondragon, show! The Boregy play had gone well because of Mondragon, in a way: Romanov's Sword boys had gotten into Boregy House a while back and assassinated the Boregy in charge, making trouble for Mondragon, whose family had been friends of the eldest, senile, presently comatose, Boregy. The Boregy who'd stepped in and taken control, Vega, was an Anastasi partisan.

  So, according to Romanov, Mondragon had been stashed out at Petrescu, a seedy safe house, now that the Boregy who might have sheltered him was out of the picture. But that chalked up no points for Romanov's marauders: they'd been sure that murder in the Boregy household would mean the death of Mondragon. They'd been wrong.

  They'd just pushed the traitor deeper into Merovingen.

  God, Magruder wished he'd gone up to Petrescu's second level and broken down Mondragon's door. Mondragon could recognize him; they'd both been around Karl Fon too much for Mondragon not to remember him.

  Magruder had to make sure, before tomorrow night's 24th Eve Ball, that Mondragon didn't piss his pants or point his finger when they ran into one another, which they were almost sure to do. Otherwise, all the work and all the trouble they'd gone to, bringing in Chamoun as a riverboat captain and Magruder as Minister of T&T would be for nothing.

  A boat glided by, hardly visible in the low-lying miasma of cook Fires and canal fog; farther away, revelers shouted and sang: Revenantists on holiday, drinking and screwing themselves into Karmic debt. A little more hellraising wouldn't be remarked in Merovingen tonight.

  Another body on its way to the Det wouldn't mean squat. The al-Bannas, behind his back, knew it as well as Magruder did.

  Magruder wished he had a drink. He could have gotten one in the tavern nearby, but he never drank when he was working. And he wasn't fool enough to dull his edge, with the al-Bannas there breathing down his neck, pretending to dice on a convenient barrelhead because a group of waiting men would scare Mondragon off, if the ex-Sword remembered any of his training.

  But the weight of Merovingen-above was getting to Magruder, and the waiting was getting to him. Easy, Sword. First Mondragon, then Romanov, then Romanov's rats. He wasn't half so claustrophobic here and now as he'd been in the Sig
neury with Vega Boregy.

  What a damned stroke, Boregy taking him by the hand like that: " 'Come with me, friend Magruder, and we'll grease the wheels a little.' " Grease them Vega had, but at what cost, Magruder still wasn't certain.

  Strolling over the Boregy's private bridge right into the Signeury, making mental maps of everything he saw .. . easy going until the weight of Merovingen's government buildings closed over him and he could hardly breathe, thinking of the prisons across the canal and wondering whether Boregy hadn't seen through him all along.

  Deliver me right into a nice padded interrogation cell and then they haul out their toys... rock all around him; the damned Signeury was solid rock with windowslits too narrow for a man to squeeze through. Take the place with pubescent boys, maybe, if you had enough of them, half-starved kids recruited from Merovingen-below....

  Trying not to sweat himself into a lather that would betray him, he'd listened to Boregy explaining how they were going to "facilitate the re-establishment of Nev Hettek's trade mission" by talking to so-and-so and bribing this one and promising that one he could rake off a percentage of the take.

  The two of them had walked right into Tatiana Kalugin on the way to the office of the Seal, in a windowless corridor that had Magruder's skin crawling.

  Bam! Vega Boregy stopped in his tracks when the tall woman, coming down the hall from the other direction in a close-fitting gray velvet jacket and pants, had called his name.

  Magruder hadn't the foggiest who she was, at first: dark hair with red highlights, pulled back severely; strong face with wide green eyes; folio under her arm. But the command in her voice made him hold his breath. And the calculating look in her eyes made him wish the stone ceiling with its frescoes would go ahead and fall—if it didn't kill him, it would hide him.

  She'd said, "Vega, what a surprise. And so late in the evening? You ought to be out celebrating, no? May I be of assistance?"

  "Tatiana . .."

  First time Magruder'd seen Vega Boregy at a loss for words; first time he'd seen blood drain from a Boregy face. See a lot more of that, however things went. The Boregys were allied with this woman's rival and brother, Anastasi.

  "Yes?" she'd prompted, more like a sovereign than governor's daughter.

  "M'sera Tatiana," Vega Boregy began again, recovering, "I'm on my way to the Seal Office—I'm sure you'll have the harbormaster's record—"

  "So? And this is?"

  "This" meant him, Magruder. He was wondering whether it would be worth it to haul out his revolver, blow away the two of them, and run amok in the Signeury ... if Vega Boregy's miscalculation had just derailed the Sword's play, he could salvage something.... He flicked a glance at Boregy, obviously deferring to someone who ought to know what the hell to say in a situation like this.

  Meanwhile, Tatiana Kalugin's jade-green eyes were boring into him with more force than he'd thought possible. He met her gaze and felt a physical shock, as if he'd tongued a battery pole or stuck his finger in a live socket.

  Vega Boregy had regained full composure. "M'sera Secretary, Tatiana Kalugin, may I present Minister Chance Magruder^ of the Nev Hettek Bureau of Trade and Tariffs."

  "Indeed," said the governor's daughter, one of the heaviest power players in Merovingen—and one of the most dangerous, if Sword reports could be believed. "I'm sure I do have the report. And lodged in Boregy. How kind of Boregy to remember its old trading ties... in the name of peace."

  Flaming Retribution, Tatiana Kalugin! I should have known! But he hadn't known; he'd been too shocked by the waves her proximity produced. "I'm honored, m'sera Kalugin." He shot an acceptably desperate look at Vega Boregy, who was stone-faced.

  "Yes, but why are you honored?"

  Hostility crackled between the two Merovingians, now. Magruder drew a deep breath, the first he could remember since Tatiana had started staring at him like some specimen under glass.

  "Minister Magruder comes from Nev Hettek with a . .. trade proposal . .. for my family. And as a goodwill ambassador."

  Her free hand balled on her hip. "In unofficial capacity, of course."

  "Yes, m'sera Kalugin," Magruder dived in: he couldn't botch this worse than Boregy already had. "Customs—T&T, actually," he stumbled, making the same purposeful mistake so that she'd back off and listen: when Nev Hettek Customs talked, anybody who wanted in and out of Nev Hettek, or who wanted any tech out of Nev Hettek, listened. "Unofficial, if personal visit, under Boregys' auspices. The Ball ... the Secretary knows with no embassy staff here—"

  He didn't remember what else he'd said. He'd spouted his rote-memorized line, steering clear of the marriage part—that was supposed to be spontaneous, between Chamoun and the girl—hoping to hell that he was judging the waters correctly.

  When he'd finished, there was a pause in which he studied Tatiana's face and couldn't decide what he saw there because her eyes kept trying to suck him up whole.

  Then she'd nodded and said, "Interesting. There will be an official approach to follow—to reinstate the embassy? You'll be staying, if Nev Hettek's request is approved? As Trade Minister?"

  Lord, I'm dead or dreaming. "If it pleases the Secretary to request. ..."

  "It might," Tatiana said and smiled like a predator. "You'll be at our little party tomorrow night, Minister? Do make sure to save a dance for me." And she'd turned on her heel and gone back the way she'd come.

  Leaving Vega Boregy enough privacy that he dared slump against the wall momentarily, and wipe his fishbelly brow before he blew out a noisy breath, shaking his head at Magruder: "Minister, I'm not sure what we did here just now, but we did something, have no doubt. Now, on to the Seal office. Without the proper endorsement, we won't have you around for Tatiana to toy with."

  Easy, man. Don't they have spies here? Or don't you care? Or are you saying what you want them to hear?

  It was too damn deep for Magruder, deep as the Det down here where it was like a different river.

  Deep as the Grand and the hole he was in, a man-made hole that hemmed him on every side.

  When you don't know the rules of the game, you change the game. If Boregy was telling him that Tatiana Kalugin, the governor's only daughter, wanted to get into Magruder's pants, he could handle that. If he meant something more sinister, then that was easier—Magruder liked rough games. If he had to stay here, well then, that was what the Sword wanted. Though no one had thought it would happen so soon.

  Magruder had lots to learn, lots more to see than what Boregy showed him next: the ornate office of the Keeper of the Seal, an unctuous staff fawning over Vega Boregy, and an inlaid sanctum door through which Magruder wasn't invited.

  When Boregy had come out of that office, he carried a sheaf of papers as thick and finely-printed as what Magruder had brought from Nev Hettek: letters of intent to negotiate; conditions of leasing and lists of suitable sites; a statement from certain officials of qualified support, headed for Governor losef Alexandr Kalugin's upstairs office.

  Nothing more could be done until Chamoun either succeeded or failed. It all hung on two kids now, whether they'd marry. Without the marriage and Chamoun Shipping, the trade delegation had no reason to come to Merovingen; creating a mission without reason was asking permission to open a Sword office. A Sword presence in Merovingen, officially tied to Nev Hettek, would give Anastasi Kalugin an excuse to start the sort of war Kalugin wanted. And Fon didn't want that. Perhaps .. . neither did Boregy.

  So it was find Mondragon and shut his mouth, whatever that took. Find him fast.

  Magruder's butt was going numb, he'd been sitting so long. He got to his feet to stretch his legs and the al-Bannas moved restlessly in the shadows. Loitering without a permit, was that a crime here? Talking to Romanov in the boat below was a no-no, for sure.

  Magruder sauntered toward a floating chips stand, feeling in his pockets as if for change. Weapons check; everything where it ought to be. Over to the boat and buy something, any damn thing. Whatever kind of fish came fried
and wrapped in seaweed, and thin beer to go with it. He needed something to hold in his hands.

  When he'd finished making unfamiliar change and turned back, the al-Bannas were out beyond the shadows and their barrel. There was enough background noise from the tavern at the corner and the canal that Magruder hadn't heard a warning, if one was given.

  Stopped by the al-Bannas blocking his path was a man in natty evening clothes.

  Magruder saw a flash of steel as the man drew a weapon.

  He dropped his beer and chips and sprinted, wishing he dared yell.

  By the time he got there, the man was backed against the wall between two barrels, the al-Bannas on his left and right.

  The sword the man carried was rapier-like, no match for the two guns pointed at him, but this man wasn't thinking about the odds. His stance was that of a duellist. The blade hummed twice, slicing the air, keeping the al-Bannas at bay.

  Behind Magruder, as he reached the threesome, he heard a woman's voice and Romanov's, some argument in low tones on the water. He didn't have time to worry about Romanov. If the fool got into an argument with a canaler that he couldn't win, that was one less problem.

  Magruder bore down, inserting himself between the two al-Bannas and heard the quarry saying, ".. . ain't nothin' worth robbin' me of, y'see. M'life, tha's 'nother thing."

  For a moment Magruder thought the al-Bannas had made a mistake, gotten the wrong man. Then he looked closer, among the shadows and the play of reflected light from the canal.

  The face before him was pale, handsome, tired, and there were dark circles under hunted eyes. The man's blond hair was beginning to darken with nervous perspiration that beaded on a furrowed forehead.

  "Whatcha gonna do, Mondragon?" asked Magruder aping the feigned patois he'd heard. "Throw tha' thing? That'll account fr one a' us, then you're fish food." And waited, to see what the ex-Sword did, whether the use of his name would jog memories.

  Mondragon squinted as if into the sun, though the rapier's tip never wavered. "Lord, I know you!" Low, urgent voice, "You're—"