Festival Moon

by C. J. Cherryh

  Finally he heard the dogs barking and the grilled guard-panel creaked open.

  "Open the door. Fm Richard Kamat—owner of these works." He waved his left hand, the one on which he wore the Kamat signet, past the grille. In the darkness it did no good: a threatening gesture rather than a source of identification.

  "Y'er a pie-eyed canaler," the watchman retorted.

  What followed was no worse than Richard had expected. Merovingen was not a trusting city, especially after dark, and the least the watchman might lose if he let the wrong man past the door was his job. Still, Richard had another powerful persuader slung on a baldric beneath his sweater: the ornate steel key to the lock between them. When the young man proved he could, indeed, turn the metal bolt, the watchman did his part and raised the inside bar.

  "Ye do have the look of the Kamat to you, after all," the workman said, holding the lantern while Richard shook water from his cap and hair.

  "I am exactly who I said I am."

  That continued to stretch the man's credulity but he and his lantern accompanied Richard upward to the bridge gate without further comment.

  "I'll be back in a while with two people from Nikolaev. I'll ring the bell twice and I expect to be let in without interrogation—"

  "Yes, m'ser."

  Though he might have preferred more confidence and acceptance in the watchman's tone, Richard knew better than to expect miracles and walked quickly to the Nikolaev gate. Shadows moved behind the backlit guard-panels, convincing him that he had been observed leaving the dyeworks. He expected some difficulty getting inside the Nikolaev establishment but no more than he'd had getting into his own and rapped on the wood like a man with absolutely nothing to hide.

  'I'll see the Househead, if you please. Tell him Richard Kamat's come to fetch his sister home," he informed the darkness now obscuring the guard-panel.

  The demand was repeated and discussed within, then the door swung open—a sure confirmation, Richard judged, that Marina had, indeed, come here.

  "M'ser Nikolaev's not home; the whole family's not home," the servant said—which meant only that no one was dressed for visitors. Kamat's guests had been getting much the same story this past week as well.

  "My sister's here, though, isn't she? With a gentleman friend." Richard waved an open hand at the Nikolaev retainer, a hand that showed two things: a silver lune and the massive signet ring—a Househead's ring.

  A noncommittal shrug. "M'seras—" the servant explained reluctantly, "—the young ladies—they do as they please now, don't they?"

  "I'll look for her."

  The servant took the coin, flipped it and was pleased by its weight. "Be quiet about it. Y'er not dressed for Festival visitin'."

  Richard grunted and headed up the stairs. He knew the business rooms of the house from the days when Nikolay had sent him out with the rent money. Those were all here on the bridge level and were unlikely hiding places for Marina and the Nev Hetteker. In the usual order of things within the residence spires of Merovingen's various islands, the higher you went the more private the rooms got. He didn't begin to wander the corridors until the entry-way was three flights down.

  Househead or not, he couldn't kick open the doors of every private room but knocked politely instead and wished to god he could remember the Nikolaev sisters' names. Most rooms were quiet, some were locked and no one came forth as he repeatedly identified himself and called his sister's name.

  He was on the fourth level now. If Nikolaev were Kamat he'd be hammering on his mother's bedroom door and he was beginning to feel more than a bit conspicuous.

  "I'm looking for Marina Kamat," he called from the head of the hallway, having just removed his ring and decided that he'd claim to be a lesser member of the family if his presence here was questioned.

  "South spire," a woman's voice replied from behind one of the closed doors, he couldn't tell which.

  He had descended halfway to the entry hall when the stair shaft echoed with a loud crash followed immediately by a woman's scream that ended sharply in mid-warble. He paused and heard the faint sound of running and what might be the moving of heavy furniture. An accident in the kitchen, perhaps—none of his business either way except that the lower hall was empty when he reached it and no one noted his movement through the business suites to another stairway.

  Intermittent shouts and other sounds of disorder penetrated the hallways of this spire as well but not so loudly as the sounds of intimate partying and lovemaking behind the nearest doors. She'd be here, if she were anywhere, and, thinking now that commotion might add up to fire—the ultimate physical catastrophe in wooden Merovingen, Richard no longer bothered to knock or call his sister's name before opening the doors.

  He surprised one of the sisters in bed with her current lover and a group of her friends in groping, drug-reeking orgy—but no Marina. He checked the quiet rooms next and found four of them empty and one locked with no one answering on the inside. There was another scream from deep in the house and he gave the door a flying shove from across the hall. The latch popped and stumbled into the room.

  His nose flared with the smell of gas—potent enough that he didn't wait to search for a lamp but searched the place in the faint light from the corridor. The nauseating smell was stronger by the day-bed; strongest on the damp pillow where Marina slept—or had been left unconscious—alone.

  Richard staggered backwards overwhelmed by the enormity of what he had discovered. He stayed frozen in his outrage until another scream echoed through the corridor. Something horrible was happening in Nikolaev; something that included Marina and Baritz—wherever the Nev Hetteker might have run off to—and yet went beyond them as well. Without understanding, or questioning, his instincts, the Kamat Househead silently shut the door and raised the window.

  He dragged his sister from the bed—observing with unindulged relief that she was still breathing— and shoved her face into the harbor breeze. There was a walkway some ten feet below the window— part of the permanent scaffolding that adorned almost every residence. Richard tore the draperies loose and bundled them around Marina's shoulders. Limp and drugged as she was, she'd survive the drop to the walkway with nothing more than a few bruises.

  Richard wasn't as lucky. He was no acrobat to be hanging from a windowsill and too keyed up to collapse as he touched the planks. The ache in his shoulders was dull and ignorable but the pain in his ankle brought him belatedly to his knees.

  A quarter-way around the spire a window was thrown open and a man's head and shoulders thrust out into the night. Richard grabbed his sister and held her tight against the wall, her face against his sweater to muffle the cough-spasms that had overwhelmed her.

  "It's all right," he whispered, stroking her malodorous hair. "It's going to be all right."

  "Richard? Richard? O my god, is it really you, Richard?"

  He held her closer—this wasn't the time for conversation or emotional reunions—and, in return, she hugged him with enough strength to say she wasn't permanently harmed by her ordeal. "He was Sword, Richard. Baritz was—" "I know," he whispered, though in truth he hadn't known, only suspected. "Not now, Ree; not until we get home."

  The man had withdrawn, leaving the window open.

  There was Sword in Merovingen; Sword, for some god-unknown reason, inside the spires of the Nikolaev residence. And Richard knew he wasn't as smart as the Sword of God—not when the games were played by their rules. He wondered if Nikolaev had caught their wrath as innocently as Marina had, then wondered if there were assassins swarming over Kamat as well.

  "Come on, Ree," he urged her as he pushed himself, wincing, upright. "We've got to try to get home."

  The young woman nodded and climbed gamely to her feet. The breeze had become a salty wind that slapped noisy waves against the house pilings even as it cleared the gas from Marina's head. Brother and sister passed steadiness and strength through their clasped hands as they crept along the scaffolding toward the bridge gate
and the safety of the dyeworks beyond it.

  Richard peered out over the last of the scaffolding at the deserted bridge unwilling to believe their good fortune. But, no—the Sword hadn't come to Nikolaev across its bridge to the harbor-works; they'd come in those poleboats moored in the family slip out north. He sat back with a shudder and the realization of what he had almost tied-up with,

  "What's out there?" Marina asked beside him.

  "Nothing. Let's go."

  He lowered her to the bridge then jumped, with an unsuppressible groan, himself. Their luck held: the bridge remained deserted and, even more miraculously, the dyeworks watchman saw them coming and had the door open before they reached it. Richard was in the midst of his thanks when the south spire of Nikolaev erupted in flames.

  Alarm bells began clanging from every nearby porch and alcove. The watchman had his job to do and scuttled off to ring his own bells. By rights, Richard should have stayed to oversee the protection of the dyeworks but protection of his family was even more important. With a shouted promise that he'd carry the alarm along the Grand Canal, he grabbed Marina's hand and headed for the dock.

  The harbor chop had blown into phosphorescent whitecaps. Had Richard been at Kamat, it would have been a welcome sight—rare was the month that had two First-bath runs—now, with Marina huddled under the torn drapery in the middle of the punt, it only meant treachery on the water and agony on his weakened ankle.

  Marina had never been much of a sailor; she'd walk from one end of Merovingen to the other rather than ride a poleboat against the wind or tide. Her ordeal hadn't improved her seaworthiness any and she lunged for the side of the punt just as Richard hit the Raraseyhead race. It was all he could do to keep the punt level in the water; his desperate thrusts and turns caught the attention of the nearest craft coming to Nikolaev's aid.

  "Need a hand?"

  "A rope?"

  "Take the Jady for you?"

  Richard faced the darkness where the last voice had been. Huddled and bedraggled, Marina didn't look much like a lady anymore; he was surprised anyone had guessed her sex much less her status. He had a notion to accept the offer and in the next heartbeat reconsidered. At least some of the boats milling around had been tied-up near Nikolaev; some of the boatmen tonight might be Sword.

  "Thanks, no—" he shouted instead, skudding the punt away with a hard thrust. "A fare's a fare."

  He ached from foot to shoulder by the time they'd crossed the heavy water to the Grand where he could catch the flow of the tide without worrying overmuch about the wind. Traffic was against them; he hugged the starboard pilings, resting more often than he liked but unable to thread the punt through the crowd.

  Fire! Fire at Nikolaev! echoed from the bridges and walkways above him. He'd pushed across the Snake, though, before he heard the first shouts of Assassins much less the whispered: 'Hare Sword! here on the water itself. They were under the Hanging Bridge itself when a shout passed down the canal like electricity.

  "Signeury's hit!"

  Richard shoved the pole in the muck and brought the punt to a standstill. His mind ached trying to comprehend it all and he didn't notice Marina until she fairly shouted his name.

  "We've got to tell him!" she pleaded, turning to look across the Grand.

  They were just about opposite Ventani; even in his confusion, Richard had little doubt who she was talking about. But there were twenty boats, at least, between him and the tavern and his Househead fears were getting stronger by the moment.

  "Please, Richard?"

  He shook his head. "Our place is at Kamat—to make sure whatever's happening isn't happening at home. Your Mondragon's on his own tonight; we can't help him if we don't take care of ourselves. Tomorrow's different."

  Very different—even if Mondragon himself didn't make it through the night. It was personal now, transcending business. The Sword had cut through Kamat; had casually meant to kill Marina for god knew what reasons—except a tie to Thomas Mondragon. He and the rest of the family would never have known—never begun to suspect—that Marina's murder was anything but the tragic aftermath of a moment's recklessness. Richard hoped Rod Baritz was brazen enough to come by the residence offering his sympathy. The Sword-man would never leave.

  The Sword of God was due a lesson: First-bath meant something more than midnight indigo.

  FESTIVAL MOON (REPRISED)

  C.J. Cherryh

  A good whiskey swirled into the glass, and Jones took it up. Mondragon poured one of his own, there in Boregys' kitchens, in the stony dank underside of a high Revenantist House the size of the Isle it sat on. There was whiskey and there was a roast, and Jones' stomach was not so churned she could not take to that. She had a cold slice in front of her and a bit of upDet cheese, and she put both into her mouth in big, hasty gulps, chased clown with whiskey.

  Mondragon had just the whiskey. The jeweled collar and cuffs were open. His face was all hard planes and clenched muscle in the hollows, and his knuckles were white where he gripped the glass, his throat working once, twice, three times when he took the first drink, like it was water.

  He stared at the wall. She saw that in the middle of her own third mouthful, that it was not Mondragon being mad, it was pain she was looking at.

  That killed her own appetite, desperate as it was. She forced a too-large bite down a throat gone too small, with whiskey that stung tears to her eyes. She sat staring at him, because he had said Boregy was where they were supposed to be, where they were called on to be; but he lied sometimes for his own reasons, he lied sometimes when the reasons were too tangled, or when he did not want to talk, like now, when there was hell in his face and he had brought them here to the last place she would have come.

  "Kalugin going to come here?" she asked finally. "Kalugin won't have left the Signeury." "You mean it wasn't him on that damn boat?" "Decoy. He's there. In the Signeury. His agents are out to Nikolaev." "And here?"

  He slid a glance her way, a stranger's look, all hard and full of shadows. "I'm here. We're here." "F what?"

  He did not answer her right away. He stared at her with the unwavering glow of electrics on him, and a muscle jumping slowly in his jaw. Then: "Stay with me now. If something happens to me, go to Anastasi—"

  "Nothing's going t' happen to you!"

  "Go to Anastasi."

  "T' that damn—"

  "You'll have something to offer him."

  "I ain't. I won't. I'll—"

  "He's your only protection. Don't leave it."

  "What've ye told 'im?" She hated the coldness in his voice, hated the numbness in it. She snaked out her hand and caught his wrist, jolting whiskey onto the table. "What's he want?"

  He made that move of his eyes which reminded her of listeners—even here, always here, same as gossip down on the water. The food sat like a lump at her stomach.

  She let go. His fingers curved round hers. His were cold, for all it was a warm night.

  NIGHT ACTION

  Chris Morris

  Enough hell had broken loose at the Signeury to bring the sharrh's wrath down upon them from heaven, and most of it was Michael Chamoun's fault.

  For a while, during the aftermath of the Festival Eve Ball, before the militia would let them leave— before Vega came to get his daughter and prospective son-in-law, enfolded them in the cloak of his power, and swept them away—Chamoun was sure his cover was going to crumble and he'd end up like Rack al-Banna, stretched out neat and dead on the ballroom's marble floor.

  But dead, there'd be no marriage, no alliance, no life of lies with the girl shivering under his arm. Cassie Boregy's teeth chattered so hard on the boatride home that he could hear the sound over the launch's motor.

  She had the flashlight he'd given her clutched against her breast like some phallic promise and he couldn't get her to put it back in her purse. Her nose was red and her lips swollen and all Chamoun could think about, now that he was safe and on the boat back to Boregy House, was Romanov calling a hit
on Nikolaev House—on Kika and Rita.

  Chance Magruder's voice kept rumbling in his head: It's probably Romanov's doing. Trust me, I'll take care of it. That's a promise.

  For one appalling moment, Chamoun wished that Romanov had been successful in killing Rita, as well as Kika. Would have made the rest of Mike Chamoun's life lots simpler. Made the upcoming decisions easier, too.

  Romanov still had one al-Banna brother, and Ruin al-Banna was the deadlier of the two. Chamoun found himself half into a plan to get to Romanov despite his bodyguard—get to him before Chance did. And stopped.

  Magruder would have his hide; you didn't want Magruder for an enemy. He found his hands were sweating in spite of the night wind whipping his face, sweating well before the launch approached the water gate to Boregy House and the enemy's fortress closed around him with the screech of winching chains and the dull roar of the launch's motor bouncing back off the stone and the claustrophobia-inducing thud of the water gate hitting bottom behind him.

  Closed up tight in Boregy House like a lamb in the slaughterhouse, Vega looked at him again with those pale eyes in a marble face and said, "I'll see you in my study once you've said goodnight to Cassie."

  Then there was lots of debarkation protocol and milling of servants and household and retainers with hand-held tallow lamps and too many stairs to climb.

  Chamoun stumbled through it all with perspiration running down his backbone, his ribcage, soaking the collar of his dress suit because there was no reason for Boregy to give him that look and those instructions—no reason that didn't have to do with the Sword of God hitting first Chamoun's dream lover and later the engagement party cum Festival Eve Ball.

  "Cassie, Cassie, come on, you'll burn out the bulb. Juice I can replace, but the bulb ..." Eventually he got the girl to turn off her flashlight, somewhere in one of the ormolu-festooned sitting rooms, and her people took her off to bed.