Festival Moon

by C. J. Cherryh

  Limp and exhausted, Chamoun sat staring at the empty fireplace, and tried to order his thoughts before somebody came to take him to Vega Boregy. Or the damned dungeons.

  There was no way Boregy could have connected him with the Sword hit on the party, was there? He hadn't even known about it. Chance hadn't trusted him enough to tell him. Could Magruder, in his infinite deviousness, have decided to sacrifice Chamoun to save his own cover? The look Vega Boregy had given him on the boat still hovered in Chamoun's inner sight, scouring his soul.

  These Merovingians were good people in their way. Karl Fon and Chance Magruder might be ready to sacrifice whatever was necessary to gam a foothold in Merovingen, but Michael Chamoun had never been ready to sacrifice Rita Nikolaev. For all Chamoun knew, the hit on Rita's house had been masterminded by Magruder himself....

  "No," Chamoun said out loud to the empty room and shook his head forcefully. And "No" again. Magruder was on Chamoun's side. Magruder had promised to take care of Romanov, didn't want Chamoun getting involved because so many people had gone to so much trouble to put Michael Chamoun right where he was, in this fancy Boregy House sitting room, in the stronghold of the enemy.

  Vega Boregy was tight with Anastasi Kalugin, who controlled the militiar blacklegs. Anastasi wanted war with Nev Hettek because it was the only way to put together a bigger force and more power than his sister, Tatiana, had; Tatiana controlled the city blacklegs, the Merovingen police.

  Vega Boregy, like Chance Magruder, was too experienced and too smart for Chamoun to handle alone. And Boregy had some tenuous connection with the infamous Mondragon, ex-Sword of God, which probably meant that Boregy knew more about the Sword's long-term goals and perhaps its agents in Merovingen than anybody else. More, maybe, than any of the Kalugins.

  And Vega Boregy wasn't real pleased about the way the party had gone. Now he wanted to see Chamoun. The young Sword agent sat immobile, still sweating, his chest heaving as if he'd run a long way.

  Chance ought to know that Chamoun wouldn't be able to parry Boregy's probing after something like this, not alone. But Magruder had been last seen with Tatiana Kalugin, and Chamoun didn't even want to think about what that meant.

  Over and over, the young Nev Hetteker's mind kept coming back to the certainty that, if Sword strategy demanded it, Michael Chamoun would be sacrificed to the Cause without a blink of Chance Magruder's eye.

  Was that what he was going to learn in Vega Boregy's study? That Chamoun was going to have to marry Cassie tonight, so she could become a wife before she was made a widow in the morning—-just in case there was any issue from their tryst on the Detfish?

  Alone on the brocade settee, Mike Chamoun might have been carved from stone. He had a tendency to become very still when he was nervous, to appear lethargic, to sprawl without moving a muscle and stare off into space.

  This mannerism had served him well on the journey down the Det, with the al-Bannas and Romanov and Magruder on board, all jockeying for position while Chamoun tried to keep up the fiction that he, Michael Chamoun, was captain of at least the Detfish, if not of his own destiny.

  Now, the automatic stillness that came over him at times like these was less useful. Part of him exhorted the rest to get up, get off his butt, slip out the front, over the bridges, and find Romanov himself. It was his honor, not Magruder's, at stake; his heart that had been pierced as surely as the casualties in the Signeury—as surely as Kika's frail body.

  Rita would have died too, if the Sword had had its way. Chamoun had stayed out of the Sword's factional infighting, bent over backward to get along with all the Romanovs in the power structure. And look where it had gotten him, thinking that his usefulness and Chance Magruder could protect him and his parents back in Nev Hettek.

  Chamoun was nearly ready to renounce his allegiance to the Sword of God. Despite the lesson of Mondragon, despite what Chamoun knew happened to men like Mondragon especially when they didn't have Mondragon's connections. If Magruder had been there to argue with, to receive an ultimatum, to take his damned resignation, Chamoun would have tried all of those.

  But Magruder was closeted with Tatiana Kalugin and Mike Chamoun was on his own. Unless and until Vega Boregy had him arrested.

  Chamoun snapped to his feet suddenly, shaking off the lethargy of indecision. He was going out into the Merovingen night, what was left of it. He was going to find Dimitri Romanov and gut him with a fishing knife, then throw his body into a handy canal. He had to, or die trying.

  It beat what would happen to him if he disobeyed Magruder's direct order and went to Nikolaev House, broke in there, saw Rita.... Tried to see Rita.

  Rita, I'm sorry. Please be all right.

  Rita was just wounded, Magruder had said, or led him to believe. Chamoun was pacing now, and didn't hear the retainer until the man cleared his throat.

  "What? Yeah, I'm comin'," Chamoun muttered, forgetful of his diction. He was a riverboater, was all. Less before that. Magruder couldn't really expect him to pull off this charade, not perpetually.

  Magruder didn't expect it, then. It was part of the Sword's plan for Chamoun to fail, sooner or later. So it didn't matter what he did. He could slip out a door, if he could just find one, instead of following this velveted mannequin deeper and deeper into the rock of Boregy House, where Vega awaited, probably with hot pokers and saw horses to stretch Chamoun's guilty body over....

  Rita, I'll make it up to you.

  But he couldn't find a way out, a corridor that seemed to lead upward, or the sand in his craw to bolt and wait for Magruder to find him. Michael Chamoun would rather be taken captive by the sharrh than by Chance Magruder. He couldn't risk his only friend here, not until he'd made a plan, some sane preparations.

  Not until he had proof that Magruder wasn't his friend, that Chance had sanctioned the hit on Nikolaev House.

  Chamoun didn't realize until the retainer stepped aside and he walked into a rock-walled chamber deep in the lower reaches of Boregy House that he'd come up with a plan of his own. Find Romanov. Torture the truth out of the Sword's tactical officer—whether or not Magruder had had a hand in the Nikolaev affair.

  Then, if Magruder was guilty, take Rita and run. Blow the Sword's hand, go for himself....

  "Sit down, m'ser," said Vega Boregy in a voice full of guile, with a cultured edge that not even violence could dull.

  Chamoun looked up, blinked, and stopped in his tracks. Vega Boregy had company. By the tapestry which hung over what must be a water-level window because the shutters were on the inside and made of steel, another man stood. Chamoun heard the door close behind his back. There wasn't another, no way out of here but the way he'd come in—or the window.

  The man standing beside it was blond, aristocratic, and leaning on one stiff arm against the tapestried wall. The face was as pale as Boregy's, but the light hair made it seem fairer.

  On that face was a weariness not attributable to the stubble of a day's beard.

  Chamoun had studied that likeness, drawings in files, portraits done before men fell out and friends became enemies. His hands curled around his belt, where two emergency stars nestled, squeezing them out slowly.

  Then he forcibly relaxed his grip and nodded to the man the Sword wanted more than any other in Merovingen, "Mondragon, isn't it?"

  "Done your homework, have you?" said the tired man.

  "Don't need none. You're famous in Nev Hettek." Then in cold afterthought: Does Boregy know what he is?

  "I said, sit down, Chamoun," Vega Boregy insisted without raising his voice. "And you too, Thomas."

  Mondragon obeyed, suddenly meek, obviously taking hold of a frayed temper here before a man who, if rumor was true, had saved his butt more than once because of tenuous blood ties.

  Chamoun shifted his gaze from Mondragon to Vega Boregy, who was obviously calling the shots. The handsome Boregy was barely Magruder's age and yet tonight he seemed ancient. He leaned forward, fingers entwined on his desk, and tapped the joined fis
ts on its shiny wood top.

  "We've reached a moment where a great deal can be lost or gained, gentlemen. Michael, you're married into this household as of this moment. Do you understand? When you walked through that door, you passed the point of no return."

  "I figured." Chamoun slid a glance toward Mondragon, who'd pulled up a chair cattycorner to the desk and now slouched in it, eyes narrowed so that crow's feet showed around them, as if the dim electrics were too bright.

  "This is a fellow countryman of yours, and kin of mine. I'm going to let him tell you what he proposes. Answer as truthfully as you can."

  And Mondragon said, sliding down on his spine, propped up by his elbows on the chair's arms, "Anastasi wants a truce with your people—with the Sword, and don't waste time telling me you're not. Even if you hadn't come in here with Magruder, it's written all over you."

  Chamoun shrugged as if it didn't matter to him what Mondragon, a traitor, thought. Does know, then. Now what?

  Boregy leaned back in his chair and reached for the single filled wineglass of three behind him, on a chest. Silver pitcher, crystal glasses, all this opulence and it didn't make any difference: when it got down to cases, Vega Boregy couldn't buy his way out of whatever he was into, or Michael Chamoun wouldn't be here.

  "Anastasi's going to hang me if I can't put together some sort of truce between the Sword and his people," said Mondragon in a hoarse voice, He looked bluntly at Chamoun, with no apology for ruining all these months of planning: Vega Boregy wasn't going to let his daughter marry a confirmed Sword agent.

  Michael Chamoun considered the two stars in his belt again: one for each man, and who was to argue if Chamoun said they'd killed each other? Secret safe. Marriage saved. And no Magruder chasing him around the world until he, like Mondragon, ran out of hiding places.

  "Not my problem," said Michael Chamoun.

  "You're here," Vega Boregy interjected, "because I want you to help us with this. Boregy House has ineradicable connections with Thomas, here. Now we have you. Anastasi has seen your Minister Magruder approach Tatiana. He desires an understanding—a truce or alliance—with your superiors, before Tatiana uses Magruder and what he controls against us. Is that clear?"

  "Hell, no," said Michael Chamoun. "Anastasi wants war with Nev Hettek; Karl Fon wants war with Merovingen. What kind of 'alliance' could either Kalugin make under those circumstances?"

  "Don't ask those kinds of questions, boy," Mondragon said harshly. "Don't think about what you're not capable of comprehending. There are factions inside the Sword, surely you're aware of that."

  "I'm aware that you say your neck's in the balance, is all. And I guess the Boregy reputation, or Vega wouldn't be hosting this meeting." Was it really the Thomas Mondragon, public enemy number one, here before him? "But I've got to say, m'ser . .. Vega ... I don't know what he's talking about."

  Boregy's face quivered, every plane of it shivering. "My daughter's life, the House as it's stood for so long, my own somewhat privileged relationship with Anastasi Kalugin—all of it rides on you and your connections, Michael Chamoun. Notice 1 don't say 'guilt.' There are no innocents here tonight." Boregy toyed with the glass before him and looked into it as if Chamoun's answer was there.

  "If I were Sword, just supposin', of course—how do y' think I'd feel about yer mixin' in, blowin' me five ways from sunrise, Mondragon?" Chamoun was praying Magruder would approve.

  "Your risk; you're paying the price. Am I right? The Nikolaev incident? Sword's showing you now much leash you've got, what the price'll be if you screw up."

  Chamoun was on his feet. "You scumbag traitor, I don't know what you're talking about. There's a price on your head in Nev Hettek, for all I know there's one here. If you're Sword, then go talk to your Sword friends. If you think Magruder can help you, talk to him. He's our Minister here. I'll set up your meeting. But don't implicate me, or draw me into your games." He turned to Vega, who watched him with deceptive casualness over the glass. "M'ser, I want to marry your daughter, make an alliance with Nev Hettek possible—do everything I said. If you ask me to use what little influence I've got with... whoever, I'll try. I'll get Minister Magruder to help me. But don't believe this liar about who's who and what's what in Nev Hettek. He just flat doesn't know."

  "Easy, Michael. We'd be pleased if you could set up a meeting with whomever might be appropriate— Anastasi can't have this sort of incident taking place at random here."

  "That's got nothing to do with Chance," Chamoun blurted. "It's that bastard Romanov—" And stopped.

  Vega Boregy, putting down his glass, sat back.

  Mondragon stood up and went to the window. "But Magruder's making Anastasi nervous. If he backs Tatiana... Tell Chance," said the fugitive named Mondragon, "I'll help him... even help with Romanov ... if he'll come in on our side of this. For old dme's sake."

  Chamoun tried half-heartedly to protest again that he wasn't part of any Sword contingent here, but Vega Boregy cut him off:

  "Welcome to the family, Michael Chamoun. It's a family that does what it must to survive. Whatever it must. Right now, that's setting up a meeting between Mondragon or another of Anastasi's agents and an agent of the Sword of God—perhaps Dimitri Romanov, if you're... unqualified . .. and Magruder is unsuitable. Which Mondragon assures me, and his behavior with Tatiana may confirm, that he is."

  And from the window, Mondragon said in an undertone, "A family that does whatever Anastasi says it must," but Vega Boregy pretended he hadn't heard it, and so did Michael Chamoun.

  Chamoun was entranced by Boregy's eyes, feeling like a fly in a spider's web. Now he understood: they wanted him to turn against Magruder, play factions, play deadly games—games of the sort that had gotten Mondragon into this mess in the first place.

  They were offering him Romanov, if he agreed. And telling him that, if he refused, not only Mondragon, but the whole Boregy family, Cassie his betrothed, and Michael Chamoun himself were about to find themselves on the wrong side of Anastasi Kalugin.

  People on the wrong side of Anastasi didn't live long.

  But people on the wrong side of Chance Magruder didn't live, period.

  Chamoun wasn't sure where he was when Mondragon muttered gutter-talk at the skip-boater, and the woman let them off somewhere at canalside between the Foundry and the Fishmarket, somewhere there were fish stands and bars and rough folk staggering blearily down walkways filthy from marathon celebration.

  The waters stank here, especially the Grand Canal. The people here celebrating the Festival were a whole different sort of folk from those he'd met in hightown, and the drink and drugs of Festival just made them more surly.

  Mondragon was striding ahead, seemingly uncar-

  ing whether Chamoun got lost, a pale head bobbing among the shadows of the overhanging tenements.

  This was the Merovingen that Nev Hettek wanted to liberate, if it wanted to liberate anything at all. A weird home for a noble like Mondragon, until you thought about his history.

  Then it made all the sense in the world. Chamoun avoided three wobbly groups of ruffians, closed his ears to the catcalls coming from waterside and slum flat, and kept on grimly.

  To Romanov; Mondragon had sworn to lead him to Romanov. But somehow, Chamoun was getting the feeling that wasn't what was going to happen. The Nev Hetteker might not know Merovingen, but he knew men like Romanov. The Sword's tactical officer wasn't skulking down here, not after tonight's coup.

  They should have gone to Magruder; Chance could have seen a safe way through this for everyone. But Magruder was out of the question, at least from Mondragon's point of view.

  Chamoun's steps began to slow as indecision and doubt weighed heavier on him. He shouldn't have come. He hadn't been thinking clearly. Whatever Mondragon had in mind wasn't sensible—it was the product of desperation, and perhaps suicidal.

  Not until Chamoun had slowed to a shuffle, and Mondragon's head was a pale glint far down the walk did Chamoun realize there were footsteps
behind him. Then he heard a voice (high-pitched: a boy's voice, a woman's voice, or a voice heightened by fear) telling him to move along.

  And he felt something sharp prick his spine.

  There was nothing for it but to move ahead of the sharpness which urged him unremittingly in the path of Mondragon.

  Suddenly stairs loomed, steps that Mondragon climbed without a backward look. Steps that led high into the crazy-quilt of the tiers. And at the bottom of those steps, the sharpness jabbed him again, and the high voice said, "Move. Climb. Don' turn round."

  He'd heard more than one pair of feet, shuffling there. In the pause, he could make out the ragged breathing of more than one person, hot puffs on the back of his neck.

  Chamoun climbed. And climbed again, past a landing. And looked between the rickety steps on the next landing where the stairs widened and turned, to see two pairs of feet following his up those stairs.

  At the top of the next flight, Mondragon was waiting, leaning on a railing where a ramshackle tier began, dark and twisted boardwalks leading every way under the shadows of overhanging warrens. Mondragon said, "Here's good enough, for this kind of talk. Give him room, there."

  And the sharp pressure on Chamoun's spine ceased; he could feel, as well as hear, the two following him back off.

  "Now," said Mondragon in a voice stripped of all accent and emotion, "let's talk about this, Sword to Sword."

  "Romanov," countered Chamoun.

  'You're going to find Romanov, boy—by yourself. And give him my message. All this was for you, for your foolish cover, for your game. I didn't force it in front of Vega, you tell Magruder that. That I didn't push it to where anybody's sure what you are. But I am. That's why I don't care who you talk to—even Chance."

  Eyes glittered, fixed on Chamoun in the dark. The Nev Hetteker said, "Thought you was goin' to give me Romanov—take me to him, I mean."

  "You'll find him, you'll do what your kind always does. Unless you're smart. If you're smart, you'll give him our message—he can't be too thrilled with Magruder right now. But listen here, trash—that's what you are, Nev Hetteker trash; everything else is Sword fabrication and don't think I can't see it: you go to Romanov, or Magruder, and say what you want."