by Paula Volsky
“Shut your trap, bitch,” the short one advised. She knew just enough of the language to understand the colloquialisms he employed, and her eyes widened in amazement. “Pick up your feet.”
“Go away! I will call the stationmaster!” she threatened. Both soldiers guffawed and the first twinge of fear shot through her. Still, it was broad daylight, the train waited a few yards away, and the platform was well populated. No harm could befall her here.
“Come on.”
Each of them had her by one arm and they were hurrying her along the platform, their purpose all too clear, but absolutely unbelievable. Were they stupid, or mad? Did they imagine for one moment that they could get away with this?
Filling her lungs with springtime air and cinders, she yelled for the stationmaster. The cry was piercingly audible, and she expected her assailants to react, but they were stone. Her eyes raked the platform, jumping from face to alien face, and everywhere her gaze lighted, strangers looked away. She realized then that these people, townsfolk and travelers alike, were altogether cowed by the Grewzian soldiers. They might pity her, but they wouldn’t dare to help. Real terror shot through her then, but the incredulity remained. She stood in Dinsifise, a civilized duchy. These were modern times. Moreover, she was no subject of the Imperium, no citizen of a conquered nation.
“I am Vonahrish!” Luzelle exclaimed. “Do you understand? Vonahrish!”
“Vonahrishwomen—whores.” The white rat nodded his comprehension.
She aimed a kick at him, but her long skirts defeated the effort. A sharp twist failed to free her wrist. She pulled back, but could not slow her own swift march from the platform. Dozens of eyes followed her reluctant progress, but nobody intervened.
Unbelievable. The persistent sense of dreamlike unreality seemed to paralyze her intellect, but instinct told her to dissemble, and breathing a sigh, she let herself go limp. Her knees buckled and her body sagged, held upright only by the force of her captors’ grip.
They were not deceived.
“Get up,” commanded the lipless bruiser. “Now.”
“You want it here, then?” the white rat inquired.
“Around back,” his companion decreed.
If she got out of this alive, she would never again travel without a loaded pistol. In the meantime, contemptuous of her feigned swoon, they were dragging her lax body toward the stairs. Raising her head, she twisted sideward to sink her teeth deep into the Grewzian hand grasping her right arm. The white rat squealed, and his grip loosened. Springing to her feet, Luzelle twisted one arm free, spun to the left, and swung a wild punch at the bruiser’s lipless face. The ill-aimed blow barely grazed his cheek, and he muttered an oath as he raised a clenched fist to strike back.
“Halt.” The command, spoken in Grewzian, was calm, authoritative, and instantly effective.
To Luzelle’s surprise, both her assailants stiffened into immobility. She looked back over her shoulder to behold Overcommander Stornzof standing there beside his customary companion.
“Release her,” Stornzof ordered.
The bruiser obeyed at once, and Luzelle stepped away from him. She was shaking, and her heart hammered.
“You two are a disgrace to the uniform you wear,” Stornzof observed evenly.
“But, Overcommander,” the white rat attempted, “we were only—”
“Have you received permission to speak?”
“No, Overcommander.”
“Then hold your peace. Your discipline is slack as your impulses are bestial. You are unfit to call yourselves soldiers of the Imperium.” He did not raise his voice, but his subordinates waxed visibly uneasy. “State your names.”
The two culprits complied reluctantly.
“Report to your sergeant. Furnish an account of this incident and request appropriate punishment. Dismissed.”
The two grey figures saluted and withdrew. Overcommander Stornzof turned to inquire of Luzelle in Vonahrish, “You are unhurt, Miss Devaire?”
He knew her name. A tiny current of pleasure tingled across her mind.
“Yes, only—” Frightened almost to death, she thought, and finished, “A little rattled, perhaps.”
“I do not wonder. You have suffered an outrageous indignity.” His Vonahrish was perfect, although excessively formal, and marked with a faint Grewzian accent that somehow sounded pleasant upon his lips. “Do you require the services of a physician?”
“Not at all, thank you. And thank you indeed, Overcommander Stornzof. I hardly know what to say. If you hadn’t been here, I don’t like to think what would have happened.”
“It is shameful. I apologize for the actions of my countrymen.” His companion flashed him a glitteringly icy glance, which Stornzof seemed not to see. “Some of these troops have been so long in the field, they have forgotten that they are civilized men.”
If they ever knew it in the first place. Aloud she merely observed, “It is my very good fortune that you are here to remind them. Although I know that final command of yours must be regarded as a formality.”
“Formality?”
“Well, those two won’t actually go running to their sergeant in search of punishment, will they? You won’t be here to see that they obey, so isn’t it safe to assume that the matter will slip their minds?”
“Miss Devaire.” Karsler Stornzof smiled slightly. “A direct order from a superior officer does not slip the mind of a Grewzian soldier. Such insubordination in time of war is a major offense—”
“Punishable by death.” Stornzof’s companion spoke up for the first time. His voice was deep, the guttural Grewzian accent far more harshly marked than the younger man’s. “They would be shot, of course.”
They deserve it, Luzelle thought bravely, but could not suppress an internal chill. Who is this walking ice-sculpture?
“Miss Devaire, allow me to introduce the Grandlandsman Torvid Stornzof,” the overcommander supplied. “My kinsman and traveling companion.”
“Grandlandsman.” Luzelle swept a curtsy. The title told her that the overcommander’s kinsman belonged to the highest rank of Grewzian nobility. Such status, combined with his age, marked Torvid Stornzof as the head of his entire extended House. Here stood one of the greatest of Grewzians, almost certainly a relative and an intimate of the imperior, and he looked the part with his ramrod carriage and stellar tailoring, his silvery hair and heavy black brows, his arrogant impassive face and his steel-rimmed monocle that might have appeared effete on a weaker countenance, but only seemed to lend the grandlandsman an additional armoring of ice.
Torvid barely acknowledged the introduction with the smallest inclination of the head.
“You compete in the Grand Ellipse, sir?” Luzelle essayed.
His black brows lifted minutely, as if he wondered at her temerity in questioning him. For a moment he seemed to debate the necessity of reply, and at last deigned to answer, “No. I amuse myself, merely.” Turning away from her, he urged his kinsman, “Come, we have dawdled long enough.”
This fellow’s frozen hauteur dwarfed the garden-variety insolence of the Vonahrish formerly-Exalted, Luzelle reflected. His attitude was offensive and his manners atrocious. She disliked him immediately.
“Miss Devaire, you will allow us to escort you back to the train?” Karsler Stornzof inquired.
“With pleasure, Overcommander.” There was little likelihood of further unpleasantness, but she found herself disinclined to refuse his offer. Moreover, the look of disgusted impatience curdling the Grandlandsman Torvid’s square-jawed visage was a spectacle of which she did not choose to deprive herself.
They walked her back to the Ilavian Whistler, and she boarded. Returning to her own seat, she pressed her nose to the window and watched the Stornzof kinsmen make their way along the platform to a car near the back of the train, where she lost sight of them. Luzelle turned from the window with a thoughtful frown. The overcommander certainly didn’t seem to fit the stereotype of a contemporary Grewzian offic
er. In fact, something about him seemed quite out of place in a mundane railroad station, almost as if he were the product of some earlier era set down inappropriately in a modern world and not quite at home there.
What nonsense. Just because this renowned Grewzian overcommander looked the very image of the knightly hero, and had played that role to perfection, was no reason to let imagination run away with her. Still, he possessed a singular quality, and it wasn’t simply a matter of his good looks. Perhaps it had something to do with that courteous, careful, antiquatedly correct speech of his. Or the indefinably remote expression in those blue eyes, the bluest eyes she had ever seen. Cleft chin, too.
The train coughed its way back to life and pulled away from dreary, dangerous Glozh. Extracting one of the new novels from her valise, she descended to The Cellar of the Red Beast, whose varied marvels were sure to divert her mind from all thought of handsome enemy officers.
Perhaps he’d be in the dining car again this evening.
But the evening hardly lived up to her hopes.
The hours passed, the sun set, the interior lamps were lit, the exterior world vanished, and the Ilavian Whistler took sick. Luzelle emerged from The Cellar of the Red Beast to find the train wheezing, shuddering, and failing. Twice the Whistler lost power, slowed to a crawl, and rallied. Upon the third seizure, there was no recovery. The throb of the engine ceased and the train coasted to a halt.
A buzz of speculative conversation filled the car. Setting her book aside, Luzelle peered out the window. Nothing to see but impenetrable blackness. Certainly no border had been crossed, and they remained in Grewzian-dominated Dinsifise. She frowned. Whatever the difficulty—mechanical failure, damaged rails, or stray cow blocking the tracks—it had better be resolved quickly. She counted on reaching the Shipwreck Inn in time to enjoy several hours of comfortable sleep before catching the Persistence in the morning.
An hour passed. The train stood motionless. Luzelle went to the dining car, where she caught no glimpse of Karsler Stornzof. She ate, returned to her seat, and submerged once more into The Cellar of the Red Beast. Another idle hour passed.
When a conductor ventured into the car around ten-thirty, the man was bombarded with questions, to which he responded with a vague account of “technical inexactitude,” currently “in process of readjustment.” When pressed for explanation, he fled and did not show his face again.
Two more hours crept by. It was well past midnight, around the time that the Whistler ought to be huffing into Ila Station. Instead she sat dead in the dark, somewhere short of the border. Luzelle’s fingers drummed. If only it were daylight—if only they’d stopped near a town, a village, or even a farm—she might hire a carriage, a cart, a mule, anything with wheels or legs capable of carrying her on toward the coast. At night she was trapped, and there was no use in fretting about it. No use worrying about Girays v’Alisante and the others, steadily gaining on her. No use thinking of Szett Urrazole, drawing farther and farther ahead. She picked up her novel, read the same paragraph four times, and tossed the book aside.
Her joints were stiff. She was sick of sitting and sick of the ailing Ilavian Whistler. Rising from her seat, she paced the aisle a couple of times, made her way forward to the crowded dining car, drank a cup of tea there, and exchanged commiserations with restive fellow-travelers. Still no sign of Karsler Stornzof. Her frustration sharpened, and she realized that she had been looking for him. Ridiculous. She went back to her seat.
It was late and she was tired, but there was no berth reserved for her in the sleeping car, for by now she was supposed to be resting comfortably at the Shipwreck Inn in Ila. And no berth available, the conductor informed her. She was out of luck, then; for tired or not, she could never fall asleep sitting upright.
Her lids drooped and she dropped off to sleep at once.
The clanking vibration of machinery woke her. Luzelle opened her eyes upon morning light streaming in through the windows. Hours had passed, the night was over, and somewhere during that lost interval the Ilavian Whistler’s, unspecified affliction had corrected itself. A sharp whistle split the air and the train resumed its interrupted advance. Luzelle yawned and consulted her watch. Her somnolence vanished. Seven o’clock. Half an hour ago the Persistence had embarked for Dalyon without her. Her brows drew together. She’d have to arrange alternate passage when she reached Ila, and the delay was certain to reward her rivals.
The Ilavian Whistler proceeded without further incident to the border, where it halted for the usual inspections. Luzelle’s passport received its stamp, at which time she learned from the inspector that a second southbound passenger train, running on time, waited directly behind her own.
She could well imagine who was on it.
The Whistler reached Ila around noon, some twelve hours behind schedule. Exiting the train with relief, Luzelle hurried along the platform, into the station house and out the other side without a glance to spare for her surroundings. Snagging a miskin-drawn cab, she tossed her luggage in and ordered the driver to head for the docks. The man stared blankly, and she realized that he spoke no Vonahrish. She tried Hetzian without success, and then broken Grewzian, which drew results. He nodded, she entered, and off they went at a stolid miskin pace.
No use telling him to hurry—the woolly-headed double-tailed beast that he drove was not to be bullied. On they plodded through the streets of Ila, and Luzelle gazed out the open window at old wooden architecture weathered by water and salt spray to a pleasing shade of grey. The cobbles of the narrow streets echoed the muted monotone of the buildings, and the cool, tangy air spoke of fish, seaweed, salt water, and prolonged human habitation. The gulls wheeled and screeched overhead, but Luzelle hardly heard them.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Neither driver nor miskin complied. To the left rose the Shipwreck Inn, its timbers black with age and tar. Inside—soft feather bed, clean sheets, hot water, and soap.…
Not today.
On they went at the same infuriating plod through the sea-smelling streets and down to the docks, where modern steamers loomed alongside the old-fashioned sailing vessels, and the wharves were crowded with the booths of the ticketing agents and the sheds of the freight brokers. Now, if only some of them spoke Vonahrish.
Alighting from the cab, Luzelle paid the driver and turned her attention toward the agents, three of whom she tried in quick succession. All of them spoke Vonahrish, and all of them relayed identical information. The next passenger liner bound for Dalyon would not depart Ila before tomorrow morning.
With the freight brokers, she had better luck. The big steamer Karavise was scheduled to embark for the city-state of Lanthi Ume in just one hour’s time.
“Passenger space?” Luzelle demanded.
“Some. Not what you’d call luxurious, it’s a cargo ship. Not what you’d really call private, either. Four berths per slot. And no other women aboard.” The broker couldn’t suppress a smile. “Maybe you want to wait for the Keldhaam Gnuxia. Passenger liner, pleasant quarters, good chef. Leaves for Gard Lammis tomorrow morning. Now, you see that booth over there with the blue lettering on it? Just go on over there and tell the agent that you’d like a nice, clean, first-class stateroom aboard the Keldhaam—”
“No, I want the next ship out.”
“Better think it over, little lady. It’s not like you were the same as the last. At least she could shut herself up in that contraption of hers, for decency’s sake.”
“She? Contraption?”
“Turned up yesterday at the break of dawn, just in time to catch the Rhelish Mercenary. Perfect scarecrow of a woman—northerner, I bet—driving this outlandish fire hazard of a carriage. Wanted the carriage shipped to Dalyon, so it made sense that she’d have real need of a cargo vessel. Whereas you—”
“Whereas I am not prepared to wait.” Luzelle found that her foot was tapping, her sense of urgency mounting. Szett Urrazole had come through yesterday morning, and must be over halfway to Lanthi Ume
by now. I wish I could blow that Miracle Self-Propelling Monstrosity of hers to bits. I swear I’d do it, if I could. “May I have a slot to myself?”
“At the price of four berths.”
“Agreed.” Why not? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was paying for it.
Money changed hands, the broker presented her with a ridiculous quartet of tickets, and Luzelle boarded the Karavise, a vessel clean and grimly utilitarian. One of the crew conducted her belowdecks to her slot, which proved windowless, low ceilinged, and only just large enough to accommodate a pair of narrow, steel-framed bunk beds, all hers for the duration of the trip. She might, if she chose, spend the next two nights flitting from bunk to bunk, just to make sure that the ministry got its money’s worth.
The bass hoot of the whistle and the deep-throated cough of the engine recalled her to the present. Karavise throbbed on the verge of departure. Luzelle glanced about her. Already the walls of her slot were closing in. The space was too small for one passenger, much less four. Thrusting her bag beneath one of the beds, she made her way back to the deck, sensing the pressure of eyes on her as she went. Of course the sailors would look, no harm in that, but these fellows were decent—at least as decent as those Grewzian soldiers back in Glozh—and anyway, the door of her slot bolted from the inside.
The sea breeze was sharply bracing, and her spirits lifted. For a couple of minutes she strolled the deck, then went to the railing and stood there gazing down at the pier. The gangplank had not yet been removed, and a few last-minute passengers were still coming aboard. She studied them and her breath caught, for she spied a pair of youthful slim figures impossible to mistake, identically clad in cream frock coats and fawn trousers. The Festinette twins, playfully elbowing one another as they advanced, followed by porters bearing mountains of luggage. And behind the twins, a towering black-bearded man, carrying his own valise; Bav Tchornoi, the former Ice Kings champion.