Sartas stepped forward, an arm sweeping aside his nightcloak, his hand pulling the brown-stained vibro from its sheath. It whined eagerly; behind him, Sartas could hear the harmony of McWilms’s own weapon. The guards, suddenly uncertain, stopped, caught between obedience and fear. They looked back at Guillene.
“Marco de Sezimbra faced Hag Death with honor,” Sartas hissed, poised over the body. “I won’t have him dishonored now. You’ll lose your lives if you try. Sirrah Guillene, unless you want bloodfeud declared against you, tell them to stay away.”
Guillene’s face was taut, his neck corded with unvented anger. “This isn’t your little backward world, Hoorka. There’s no bloodfeud here, no kin. The man died because I willed it so. He’s to be an example to my employees—I warned him to leave Heritage, to go before I was forced to take stronger measures. He stayed. He chose his fate. You stop me now, and you give an unwanted meaning to his death. That’s not what I paid for. I won’t have it.”
“You paid for death. Nothing else.” Sartas spoke to Guillene, but he watched the guards, who backed away one step. “The meaning and results of a person’s death aren’t in your hands but the gods’. You aren’t able to pay for that. De Sezimbra will be given the proper rites or more than one person will join him in the Hag’s dance. You can summon enough people to overcome us, true, but that’ll only give more emphasis to de Sezimbra’s death, neh?” Adamantine, that voice, with no hue of weakness. His vibro hummed threateningly, the luminous tip unwavering.
“We’ll take the body back to his people.” The voice came from the front ranks of the watching crowd; as Sartas glanced that way, a woman stepped out into the light of the gate-lamps. She was plain, heavy, clothed like a miner or lassari laborer. Behind her two men as nondescript as she stepped forward, heads down. “De Sezimbra helped my family once. We’ll take the body and do what’s proper, sirrah.” Her voice was an odd mixture of servility and determination.
Sartas glared, uncertain. He didn’t trust these people, so much like lassari, so used to doing Guillene’s bidding. Lassari could not be trusted. It was a bitter lesson all guilded kin learned. Turn your back on them, and you’d better be prepared for the thrust of the knife.
Guillene raged behind his ornate barrier. “I’ll have your shift masters cut your wages—your family will never leave Heritage. That’s the cost of touching that body.”
“Sirrah Guillene, I’m sorry, but the assassin is right. De Sezimbra deserves to be treated better than a common thief.” She could not defy Guillene for long; her gaze dropped at his scowl. Behind her, the men shuffled their feet.
“You’ll do this properly, woman?” Sartas asked.
She glanced at the angry Guillene. A nod, tentative at first, then stronger . . . “Might never leave Heritage anyway. I’ll take the body back to his cabin and his people. If we may?”
Sartas, slowly, stood aside, still unsure but swayed by the look on Guillene’s face. “You will do it,” he said again.
“By my word,” she replied. Sartas nodded and watched the two men lift the body and turn back into the crowd. The mass of people parted wordlessly, flowing back around them. Guillene, with a broken cry of frustration and rage, turned and strode back toward his house. “I won’t forget this, Hoorka.” The words came from the night.
Sartas and McWilms, a wary eye on the silent guards, sheathed their weapons. The groundcar roared as they made their way back to the hostel.
• • •
The following day was as pastoral as Heritage seemed capable of being. The sky was sooty blue, tinged with orange on the horizon where the metallic cross-hatching of a mining platform gnawed the distant hills. The sun was unrelenting: too hot, too bright, too oppressive.
Sartas and McWilms were pleased. They would be gone soon.
The flitter held the day’s warmth in abeyance, circulating cool air through the glassed compartment in which they sat. The windows were polarized to cut the glare, and the scenery passed—ten meters below them—at a tolerable speed. The flitter purred along its predetermined course. The Hoorka relaxed, heads back on the cushioned seats, eyes half-closed.
“Gorgeous view, neh?” McWilms was half-turned, looking down at the orangish landscape.
“I’ll be damned glad to leave it. Underasgard’ll be very pleasant, even with having to tell Thane Valdisa that we need to prepare a wake for Renier.” He glanced back. A heavy, oblong case was secured to the back of the flitter.
“When do we reach the Port?”
“An hour. Just lie back. Relax.”
McWilms sighed and closed his eyes. Thus it was that he didn’t see the grove of trees to their right nor the gout of fire that blackened the leaves there with sudden fury. Both Hoorka were only momentarily conscious of the wrenching lurch as something tore into the shell of the flitter, shredding the plasti-steel, ripping off the guiding power vanes. The canopy sheltering them flew apart in crystalline shards; the next lurch of the flitter threw them both from the craft, blessedly oblivious.
Orange and black: flame and smoke tore at the craft and flung it to the ground.
The wreckage plowed into earth a hundred meters from the still bodies, carving a blackened gouge in the gritty dust, burning. Neither Hoorka saw the figures that came from the grove and stood over them, silent and grim-faced.
“They’re dead?”
“This one is. The other’ll be soon enough. No, don’t bother to kill him—let ’im suffer.”
It was nearly thirty minutes before the nonarrival of the flitter caused a puzzled Diplo at the Port terminal to send an investigating team out after the tardy vehicle. Neither Sartas nor McWilms heard the exclamations of surprise and concern as the Diplo crew arrived at the still-smoldering mass of twisted metal.
Hag Death, grinning eternally, returned again to Heritage.
Chapter 8
An excerpt from the acousidots of Sondall-Cadhurst Cranmer. This transcript is one of the rarities. In the Family Cranmer Archives there is a dot with what seems to be a live recording of the following scene, but the fidelity is terrible and much of the dot is indecipherable. Evidently Cranmer felt the conversation to be of some import, for he immediately did a dictation of the conversation as he remembered it. It was a method to which he had to resort on other occasions. The concealed microphones sometimes failed. It was, in his own words, “a penance one pays for being dishonest.”
EXCERPT FROM THE DOT OF 5.28.217:
“Gyll was not much in a mood to see me. ‘Don’t even bother, Cranmer,’ was all he said when I knocked at his door. I persisted noisily, though, and eventually he had to answer. He looked angry and tired. His eyes were red-veined and he moved with a jerky sullenness.
“‘Don’t you ever listen?’ he growled. ‘I’m not interested in talking to anyone.’
“I put on the jolly-old-Cranmer face that Gyll seems to consider the real me. ‘Talking can be a catharsis of sorts, you know. You’ll feel better afterward; it’s guaranteed. I always find that . . .’ I went on like that for a time, until through weariness or self-defense, Gyll stepped back to let me in. He’d evidently been cleaning his weapon—the tools were spread out on his bed and the vibrowire was extended. The wort sat quietly in its cage, its head turning to watch us. Gyll sat on the bed, pretending to be absorbed in his task. I took the one floater in the room, asking if he’d heard anything new about the Heritage foul-up.
“Gyll has an interesting face. For all his talk of the code and Hoorka aloofness, anyone that knows his habitual ticks and grimaces can read him. He’s virtually without guile. I love playing cards against him: he can’t bluff. When he’s mad, he looks at you from slightly under his eyebrows, his lower lip sticks out a little, and the mouth turns down. All the wrinkles on his face get a little deeper. All those things happened then. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he said. ‘Valdisa insisted on going to see d’Embry alone. She should have let me go in her place, Cranmer. I know that cold bitch of a regent, Valdisa doesn’t. She’s likely to get so
me placating story . . .’ He stopped and began to polish the vibrowire vigorously.
“I grunted and hmmmed a few times in sympathy. ‘What interests me is the contract itself,’ I told him. I let him know that I’d checked with the Center files and from what I could glean, de Sezimbra was exactly what the miners thought him to be—a good man, a gadfly (and a needed one) to the Alliance. And Moache Mining’d been involved in questionable practices before. ‘Does it bother you that the Hoorka have killed an honorable man in the service of a dishonorable bastard, a man who has no sense of moral right or wrong, at least in the way Neweden views such things?’
“That brought his head up. He set the vibro aside too gently. The way he looked at me, I could see that the question was one that was already nagging at him. ‘What the Dame wills to happen, happens. And if Hoorka hadn’t killed the man, someone else would have, without giving de Sezimbra his proper chance.’ But he said it without fire, without conviction.
“I replied that no doubt the fact that it was all the Dame’s will was very comforting. ‘And no doubt she meant for the flitter to be ambushed, too.’
“Gyll gave me the aggravated look—the one that comes right before anger. ‘Because something is fated doesn’t mean that it’s also right. You know that. What happened with Renier; that was understandable, even expected in its own way. But what Guillene did to the other two . . . If that man were on Neweden, bloodfeud would be declared without a thought, and it’d be a slow death if I found him.’
“I figured I had one more push before Gyll got angry and I had to shut up for a while. That’s Gyll’s way: you have to dig at the man to get him to talk, and all the prodding makes him irritable. ‘Guillene’s offworld,’ I reminded him. ‘You can’t do a damned thing to him. And in any case, Valdisa’s handling it, not you.’
“He didn’t say anything at all, which was unlike him. He picked up the vibro again, reeled the wire back into the hilt and attached the holding plate. Then he jammed the weapon back into the sheath and stood up. He stared down at me. ‘Cranmer, one day the looseness of your tongue is going to cause it to be cut out,’ he said, and then he walked out of the room.
“The wort whimpered at his retreating back. And I sat there wishing that there was another way to get Gyll to react—jabbing holes in a person’s dreams is depressing.
“And in any case, I like my tongue.”
• • •
Thane Valdisa was possessed by rage. It sat, an indigestible and bitter lump in her gut. Frustration gnawed at her stomach; sorrow battered at her, demanding release.
Two Hoorka dead, Renier by a contracted victim, but Sartas slain by a cowardly ambush. And McWilms—she’d just left his rooms in the Center Hospital. The surgeon had said that the boy would recover, but Valdisa had seen the misshapen face under the med-pad and the empty socket of his shoulder where they were preparing the arm bud. He might attend his initiation as full kin, but it would be many months before he could take his place in the rotation. The condition of McWilms, his mute helplessness and pain, made her the most angry. Death, that she could understand, could cope with, but the boy’s mutilation . . .
She strode into the brilliant lobby of Diplo Center, the sunstar a mockery at her back, and demanded to see Regent d’Embry. The startled Diplo she accosted mumbled nervously and whispered into her com-unit. The Diplo’s eyes spoke of contempt, but her voice was blandly polite. “The Regent is able to see you now.”
“She didn’t have a choice.” Valdisa strode away.
D’Embry’s office was awash with lemon sunlight. It glared from the holocube of d’Vellia’s Gehennah in the corner, a wedge of light shimmered across the carpet and over her desk, slashing across the Regent’s thin body but leaving the face in shadow. D’Embry herself was a mobile sunbeam, her hands, shoulders, and earlobes dashed with yellow skin tint. Only her much-lined face was at odds with the day. Her mouth was down-turned, the icy-blue eyes serious.
“Come in, Thane Valdisa. I have to admit that I was expecting to see someone from the Hoorka today. I was sorry to hear about the problems with the Heritage contract.”
“Problems? . . .” Valdisa glared at the woman. So frigging secure behind that desk. She doesn’t care about Renier, Sartas, or McWilms. If she feels any sorrow, it’s only because of the trouble she’ll have over Heritage. “You have an interesting way of phrasing things, m’Dame.”
D’Embry toyed with an ippicator bone on her desk. The polished surface caught the light, held it and amplified it, lustrous. Thin fingers, yellow against the bone’s subtle ivory, turned the piece and set it down again. “You think I haven’t any feelings for your kin in your loss. Believe me, Thane Valdisa, I do.” She looked up, and Valdisa was caught in her young-old eyes. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ve had to lose those that were close to you. I do understand how you have to feel, the anger. The Alliance will pay the cost of McWilms’s hospitalization. Consider it a gesture of our concern for your feelings—I shouldn’t have let you work that contract. The situation was far too volatile.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Apprentice McWilms? No.”
“I have.” Valdisa tore herself away from d’Embry’s steady regard, going to the window. The lawn of the Center stretched out to the flat expanse of Sterka Port. In sunlight, the head of the large ippicator before the Center stared sightlessly at distant port workers. “They told me that half his face had been torn away, like someone had scrubbed at it with a file,” she said, staring outward. “He was just a mass of bleeding, shredded tissue. The right arm had been crushed, flattened, the bones shattered. He’d nearly bled to death. Both legs broken, severe internal injuries. Maybe here on Neweden he’d’ve died, unconscious. Now he gets to live with the agony—and I’ll have to tell him that it’s the better option. Sartas’s injuries had been worse. I think in some ways he’s luckier.”
She turned back into the room. D’Embry was watching her, silent, hands folded on her desktop. “And you, damn you, sit back there and talk about problems on Heritage,” Valdisa shouted. “Well, they were people, and my kin, and I feel their hurt.” She paused, breathing heavily once, and when she continued, the voice was more controlled. “My people are going to want to declare bloodfeud. I can’t say that I disagree with that.”
“Bloodfeud’s not possible.”
“Your own report says that Sartas argued with Guillene, went against Guillene’s orders. Guillene threatened Sartas, publicly.”
“There’s no proof that Guillene was responsible for the attack.”
“Who the hell else?” Valdisa laughed in exasperation and disgust.
D’Embry shrugged, but her gaze was sympathetic. “De Sezimbra was popular among the miners—it could have been a group of them, or perhaps even de Sezimbra’s associates. It didn’t have to be Guillene.”
“None of the others have any reason to harm Hoorka. We’re simply the weapon, not the hand that wields it. Would you destroy a vibro and let the man go that used it?”
“I’d be tempted to destroy both.” Then d’Embry sighed, leaning back in her floater. “Heritage isn’t Neweden, Thane. They’ve a different governing structure, a different set of laws. Believe me, I understand your anger and frustration, but there’s very little I can do about it.”
“Because Moache Mining is involved? Is that it? I’ll wager that the word reached you from Niffleheim before the bodies were even loaded on the ship, neh? Leave Heritage alone, ignore the murder of Hoorka.” Valdisa’s fury boiled; she fought to hold it back, knowing it would either make her cry or rage and knowing that d’Embry would just sit there and watch, unmoved. She stood opposite the Regent, leaning down, her hands on the polished surface of the desk.
D’Embry hesitated before answering, and Valdisa wondered what emotion clouded those clear eyes for a breath. “Moache Mining is powerful,” d’Embry admitted. “I can’t answer for Diplo Center on Heritage. But I’ve had no instruction from Niffleheim or Moache. And ev
en if I had, my actions would be my own.”
There was a fierce pride on the Regent’s face.
Valdisa glanced at the ippicator bone on the desk, with an inward prayer to She of the Five. “But you still won’t let Hoorka act as we wish.”
“Only because I don’t want Hoorka getting involved in something too big for them. I’ll do everything I can. It’s an offworld matter, Thane.” Reaching out, d’Embry touched Valdisa’s callused hand with her softer, vein-webbed one, yellow against tanned flesh. Valdisa began to pull away from the contact, but d’Embry held her with gentle pressure. “No matter what you want done,” the Regent continued, “it’ll have to be handled through Diplo channels and in accordance with Heritage’s own laws, which are the laws of the Alliance. We’ll try to find the people responsible, I promise you that. I’ll push them if I have to, and I’m a very good, experienced pusher. It was just this kind of situation that worried me when I allowed the Hoorka to work offworld, Thane. Don’t make my fears become reality, or I’ll have little choice.” A quick squeeze of fingers, and a surprising warmth in d’Embry’s eyes: Valdisa found herself listening, the anger momentarily background.
The Regent moved her hand back. Valdisa pulled herself erect. “I understand you, Regent. I do. But you’d better get results and a punishment that’s satisfactory to Hoorka. I’ve only so much power to sway my kin, and they’re enraged and bitter.”
“You’re the Thane. They have to understand, or at least obey.”
Valdisa smiled, lopsided. “I’m Thane, yah. But obedience is another matter, sometimes . . . Ulthane Gyll could do it, but Ulthane Gyll also doesn’t take orders well, nor do some of the others.” She glanced away, slowly looking about the uncluttered room. When she looked back, she had again become the arrogant Hoorka-thane.
“You’d better see that something is done quickly, m’Dame,” Valdisa said. “You might find that it benefits both you and Neweden.”
• • •
The Li-Gallant Vingi found his new Domoraj to be rather less intelligent and less given to moody introspection than the former holder of that tide. The combination was more to his liking.
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