by Kage Baker
After Christmas came interminable rains that turned the roads to clay. No excuse for us to stay home from Mass; we took the wagon, and still had to slop back and forth from the door, holding our skirts up out of the mud. Only Joseph went out anywhere else, tending his little plots and plans at Court. The rest of us mostly huddled around the fire in the kitchen, accessing novels or holos or staring out the windows at the landscape.
A day came when a man led a horse to the edge of the nearest field. He hitched it to the traces of a plow. Man and horse began to move, and the earth crested and broke dark beneath them like a wave. Away down the plain they went, cutting a long stripe on the land, turned at some point and came back, and at length doubled back again, and so down once more.
All day I watched. By nightfall the field had a weave on it like the fabric of my overskirt. The next day, men came and walked the long lines, casting seed into the furrows. The next day, the field was alive with birds, and the next day, it rained. That was the day I set out my maize seedlings in the earth I’d prepared for them, closed around by the garden wall. There was no more chance of frost now, anyone could have told from the feel and the smell of the air. The earth was black and wet. Bright green as flames were the little blades of corn.
Late in February, Joseph came back from Madrid with the news: open rebellion had finally broken out in England and been promptly squashed. As a further punitive measure, Mary had Lady Jane Grey (still on ice from the previous coup) summarily executed.
“Well, there,” I remarked from where I shivered by the fire, trying to make sense of Tirant lo Blanc. “I knew she died sometime.”
Eva flashed an access code at me. “Lady Jane, Helena Bonham-Carter, Cary Elwes, Patrick Stewart.”
“Real pointless business, too.” Joseph poured himself a sherry. “Mary’d much rather have disposed of her sister, but Elizabeth’s too popular with the people. She’s got her locked up in London now, letting the poisoners have another shot at her. When that doesn’t work, she’ll try sending her to the Tower, to see if the English will stand for it.”
“Will they?” Nefer moved a pawn, and Flavius leaned forward to study the chessboard.
“No. Mary has no idea how unpopular she really is. She’s sure this rebellion problem is confined to Kent.”
“Kent?” I registered alarm. “The rebellion’s in Kent? Kent where I’m being posted?”
“It was in Kent. Was. Past tense,” Joseph soothed. “By the time you’re there, everything will be dullsville. Would we ever send you anywhere dangerous?”
“You don’t think this sounds dangerous?” retorted Flavius. “I’d like to see sometime what you consider dangerous. Every single time I’ve been shipped over there, they’ve told me—”
“Take it easy, friends.” Joseph held up his hands. “We can but trust Dr. Z, after all. We may catch a rotten egg or two but no sticks or stones, I positively guarantee it. Trust me.”
“I don’t think I’m happy about going to Kent, Joseph,” I said, with considerable restraint I thought.
He surveyed us all with a sympathetic expression.
“What we have here is a morale problem, that’s all,” he told us. “Poor kids, cooped up with nowhere to go. But I just happened to have stopped in at the transport warehouse on my way back …” He hauled his rain-soaked saddlebag up on the table and rummaged through it. “… where they just happened to have got in a new shipment.” Beaming, he pulled out the silver-wrapped bars and tossed one to each of us.
“Theobromos!” cried Eva. I tore open mine and inhaled the fragrance hungrily. Almost at once the buzz set in. This was powerful stuff, nearly Toblerone quality.
“Highest grade Guatemalan,” Joseph informed us. He struck the same pose as the little togaed Greek on the label, waving cheerily.
The fields changed again. There had been a mist, pale and close along the ground; then one day the blades of new wheat stood up green in the sun. Greener. Deeper. A solid carpet of green, going out to the edge of the sky. There was no more rain now, and the green went to silver as the wheat began to come into the ear.
My maize was standing high, setting big ears like clubs, showing bright tassels. I would drag a settle out into the garden and sit for hours, just watching the wind sway the corn. Our mortal servants would come to stare at it in silence; they’d notice me there apparently reading my missal, and edge away with a bow or curtsey.
Another exciting day: I was issued two new gowns for the trip to England. They arrived via courier from the transport station and, once unwrapped, proved to be not exactly the height of current fashion, which was a disappointment. One was a brown broad-cloth thing for working in that looked like a servant’s livery. Still, it gave me something to wear besides my peach wool, which looked smashing on me but was fast wearing out.
Was I ever really that bored girl, pining for new gowns? Time, time, time.
Joseph held up his knife, eyed the chunk of potato skewered there.
“I love potatoes,” he remarked. “How I used to wait in longing for 1492. Before then you could only get them if you were stationed in the New World. Or occasionally at the transport station commissaries, but then of course they were instant mashed. Little whipped peaks of starch and gray gravy.”
We all sat staring at him. The wind howled relentlessly outside. It was June, 1554. He took a little bite of potato and chewed slowly, staring back at us.
“Now, before the Crusades,” he continued with his mouth full, “food was even more limited. Bland, bland, bland. Not even cinnamon, except in the bread pudding at the transport station commissaries—”
“When are we leaving?” demanded Flavius.
“Next week. By coach overland to La Coruña, where we have a berth on the Virgin Mary. It isn’t exactly a stateroom—hell, it isn’t exactly a cabin—but I’ve pulled some rank and greased some palms, so we should be reasonably comfortable.”
“England at last!” cried Eva. She was all afire; she’d been to the British Isles before and actually liked the climate. I gathered from Flavius that that was fairly unusual for our operatives. I went to the window and looked out miserably.
“Next week, eh?” Flavius shook his head. “The diant units won’t be ready by then. I have to grow the matrices.”
“You what?” Joseph stopped eating. “You’ve had months!”
“Grow them too long before you’re going to use them, and they dry out.” Flavius shrugged. “They have to be fresh.”
“Dear friend. Old colleague. You get me four working credenzas for England, or I’ll personally see to it that you get posted to Greenland for a couple of generations.”
“I can try. I can’t promise.”
“Remember when we used to get stork all the time?” intervened Eva tactfully. “And swan? Nobody ever serves swan anymore.”
“You’d better promise. You’d better do a green invoice if you have to, understand?” Joseph slammed his fist on the table, but Flavius went right on eating. Joseph growled and clenched both hands in his hair, as if to tear out handfuls. The others ignored him. Eva sighed and reaccessed Tirant. She was getting lots more out of it than I had.
“Down on my knees at Court every day kissing the hems of cassocks, and are they grateful? Riding over every rock in the road between here and Madrid, and does anyone care?” ranted Joseph. He didn’t give a rat’s ass really about the credenza parts, he was just being theatrical. He did that a lot. Isometric exercises to maintain human emotions, I think. I didn’t understand then, but I’ve since learned.
After banging his head against the table a few times, he picked up his knife and continued: “Anyway, I’ve sent letters to our Paid Friends about housing. Nef, I’m sorry, but there’s going to be a delay in your posting. You’ll go on standby with us in Kent.”
“Hell!”
“They won’t be ready for you in Northumberland until next year. I’m sure you’ll find something to do in Kent during your layover. That’s life in the service
, kid.”
There were clouds boiling up into the sky beyond the thick little panes of glass. A storm was coming, and I wanted to go see.
“What about me?” Flavius wanted to know. “I suppose I’m getting sent to London. Again.”
I put a shawl around my shoulders and went out the kitchen door.
God, the wind, how it scoured and lay flat the little green herbs of the garden: they cowered. The maize tottered and staggered. Beyond the low wall the wheat danced with the wind, all song and combat. It moved and moved like the sea, with the rustle and scream of stiff silk.
I pushed the gate open and walked out into it, finding the rows with my feet, meaning at first just to leave the sounds of the house behind me. Oh, but the clouds that massed in the East were beautiful. They were domed cities and explosions, such meteorological violence touched with the tenderest colors, pink and lavender and fathomless blue. So soft-looking a home for howling angels with flaming swords.
I could never get any nearer that place, though I kept walking, though it moved endlessly toward me out of the sky. In the sough and boom and murmur of the wind it came, and each stalk of wheat circled through its endless are among the millions of stalks that nodded all around me. The colors in the clouds glowed brighter. Something was about to happen. I wanted to see it happen.
The wind was hot and smelled of orange trees, distant. It smelled of green-cut hay. It smelled of rain and fever. What was going to happen?
Suddenly the wind fell. Click, on cue the summer crickets started up. Then I heard a hoarse cry from far away:
“Mendoza! What in hell are you doing?”
I turned to scowl at them. They were crowded together at the door, staring out at me in consternation. I had left the house farther behind than I’d thought. Joseph opened his mouth to shout again; but the blue flash came and with it the thunder, like barrels rolling downstairs. Rain began to fall, a few big hot drops. There came another blue flash.
I covered that half mile in seconds and stood beside them, trembling, and they pulled me in through the door and slammed it. I stood there in the storm gloom, and they stared at me, their faces shut like books. Joseph was the only one who spoke.
“How about a little talk, Mendoza?” he said. “Upstairs, in the rec room. Now.”
God, how embarrassing. I had to follow him up the stairs and sit still while he ran a diagnostic. He said nothing to me while it was running, and I noted the blankness in his eyes. He’d looked just like that when he worked for the Inquisition.
But I tested out normal. He leaned back and looked at me, and let a little human irritation show in his face.
“So, were you trying to get yourself fried? No problem with your evaluation of hazard data, and you knew damn well what those meteorological changes meant. So what’s your excuse for generating a Crome field out there, hm?”
“I wasn’t!”
“Yes, you were, kiddo, in about a five-meter radius. And if you think this is a way to get yourself sent back to base for repairs so you can get out of going to England, forget it.”
“I swear I wasn’t!” I was stung. Also intrigued. Was it possible to duck duty that way? Joseph read in my face what I was thinking (one picks up that knack working for the Holy Office) and shook his head grimly.
“Don’t even think about it. We’re not supposed to malfunction. Dr. Z will excuse you for crying wolf once or twice, but you’ll be disciplined. You won’t like that. If you’re really in need of repairs this early in your career, that’s a bigger problem. You won’t like the solution to that either.”
“Look, I just wanted to look at the storm. It was neat. I didn’t do anything wrong. I got out of there the second it got really dangerous, didn’t I? So I throw a little Crome when I’m excited. How was I to know that? It’s not in my specs. It must have developed since I was posted. I’m only eighteen.”
He nodded. “It happens, every now and then. The Company doesn’t like it, but it does happen.”
“Well, if I’m glitched, it’s not my fault, is it? They made me. And what can they do to me if I’m not all up to standard anyway? I’m immortal.”
He wasn’t smiling. “They’ll find a way to use your talents. The Company never wastes anything. But let’s just say it’s not a career choice you’d ever want to make.”
This was distinctly scary. There were stories I’d heard about flawed agenst.
“Look, I tested out normal!” I said in a panic. “I’m sure I’m all right.”
“Don’t let me down, Mendoza,” he said. “I recruited you, remember? If it wasn’t for me, you’d be out there in the zoo with the rest of them.”
“What do you want me to do?” I could feel sweat starting. There was a creepy sense of déjà vu to this conversation.
“Watch yourself. Don’t do anything dumb. Be the best little agent you can be, and you’ll probably do fine.” He decided to lighten up. “To let you in on a secret, nearly every operative I’ve known has had one or two little kinks. Most can function well enough so there’s no trouble. Most.”
“What about yourself? Are you flawed?”
“Me?” He smiled. “Hell no. I’m perfection itself.”
Chapter Eight
ON THE APPOINTED day we closed up the house, sent away the servants, and rode in the coach, miles and miles and horrific bumping miles through Spain. Days it took us. There were problems with axles and horses. The windows were too small to see much of the passing scenery, which was a comfort to me when we passed into Galicia, because I feared I might feel a pulling, a homesickness or something, and I was now determined to be the most dependable operative the Company ever had. But what little I could see of Galicia looked pretty much like everywhere else. Mostly it just jolted and danced beyond the wooden frame of the window.
And we came to La Coruña on the seacoast, and it stank.
It stank of the lives of mortal men, but also of the deaths of fish, and of rotting, leaking little ships. The crowded stone town was filled, it was true, with sunlight and air, and a brisk breeze snapped the banners in the rigging of the ships, and there were big joyful clouds white as snow in the blue sky. But the town still reeked.
I crawled out of the coach, took one look at the little ships, and yelled in horror.
“We have to go all the way to England in one of those?” I gasped. Joseph put his face close to mine.
“Daughter,” he said quietly. “Dear. When we board our particular ship, you will notice immediately a number of alarming structural flaws. Do not, I implore you, broadcast this fact to your fellow passengers, the ship’s crew, or anyone else you can think of, because if you do, you will be sent directly to the Convent of No Return. Your affectionate father is quite serious. For your spiritual comfort, I can tell you that it is a matter of historical record that the good ship Virgin Mary will not sink until the year of Our Lord fifteen hundred and fifty-nine, when neither you nor any of our party will be aboard. Therefore, my child, a silent and discreet botanist has the best chance of not being throttled on her way to the lamentably heretic island of England.”
“Okay, okay,” I muttered.
“I came over in a galley my first time,” remarked Flavius. “What a panic.”
“Cheer up,” Eva told me. “Look at all the courtiers! Look at all the clothes!”
Look at all the clothes indeed. The cream of the Prince’s court was walking all around us, and it was as if all the cloth merchants of Cathay, Antwerp, and Italy were having a trade war in the streets. All the jewelers, too. Such gold tissue, such brocade and velvet, trimmed silk, figured satin! Such colors! Orange-tawney and sangyn. Primrose. Willow. Peach. Gingerline. Popinjay. Slashes, sashes, and dashes. Peasecods and pansied slops. Picardiles and epaulets. Shoe roses. These were the bright young things, the new generation, not the gloomy old intriguers of the Emperor’s court.
There were courtiers walking their little dogs. Courtiers gossiping and sniffing at pomanders. Courtiers in tight silk hose showi
ng off their calves to very attentive sailors. Courtiers directing the loading of their baggage, with screams of alarm for their sweet wines, their sugared comfits, their gold plate. A pair of them, male and female, paraded by in complimenting shades of emerald sewn with pearls.
“I want their clothes,” I moaned under my breath.
“I do too,” Eva moaned back.
“You don’t really. Can you imagine the body lice?” observed Nefer. We glared at her.
Joseph ignored us all and scanned the harbor for our ship. Given the absolute forest of masts and rigging, and the fact that the Virgin Mary turned out to be a popular name for ships that year, he was not having an easy time of it. We stood there, clustered protectively around our crates of disguised field gear, and the absurd mortal carnival flowed by on all sides. Just as Joseph thought he had located our particular Virgin Mary among the rest, there was a blare of trumpets. All heads turned.
Shouting. People scrambling back.
Make way! Make way for His Royal Highness, the elect of Princes in the whole of Christendom, the most Catholic Philip, Infante of Aragon, Castile, and Brabant, King of Jerusalem, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Milan and Burgundy, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and the Tyrol, Defender of the Faith!
Boom. We all went down on our knees.
And I think a cloud must have crossed the face of the sun, for there was a sudden darkness and coldness. It could hardly have come from the man riding there among his pikemen and priests. He was not even wearing black. Yet we all looked involuntarily to see what was casting the chilly shadow that he was.
But really, now. How could I or anyone else have seen anything that day but a handsome young prince riding to meet his intended bride? Handsome, that is, if you found the barracuda Hapsburg looks appealing. And it is true that the bride he was riding to was nearly forty and no beauty. So maybe he did look a little gloomy. But evil? Did we really see mortal evil somehow incarnate there?
Of our journey, the less said the better. It took us over a week. I will tell you, though, that I would rather spend a month in the dungeons of the Inquisition than a day under hatches. Any time.