A Taste of Wine (Wine of the Gods Book 7)

by Pam Uphoff

  Damien pulled out the C&W, unfolded the stock, flicked the safety, and sighted in on the rifleman. As the Oner stepped up to the rail and raised his weapon, Damien squeezed the trigger. Chaos jumped at the report, and Damien tumbled and tried to land gracefully. He landed as much on other people as on the ground. He'd kept his grip on the gun, and folded the stock before cramming it under his coat and standing up.

  He got glares from his neighbors in the crowd. He heard curses from ahead where Chaos was forcing her way through with less delicacy than before. She cast a reproachful look over her shoulder before she broke free from the crowd and galloped around a corner. Damien cursed internally, and eyed the Oner's balcony. From the perspective of six feet lower he couldn't see what was happening.

  He eased into the crowd, moving away from the corner. The crowd was breaking up and heading off down the cross streets and alleys. Probably headed for the next fire . . . Damien went the same direction Chaos had gone. He looked back and spotted the Oners. The lead man was scanning the street, and was holding something under his coat. The other two were right behind, one supporting the other. Damien dropped his gaze to the people around him. The curves on that woman, the long blonde hair on another, the smelly obnoxious little man the crowd was crowding him against . . . When he looked back the three Oners were moving away from the fires.

  Damien spotted the troops mounting up and heading for the next fire as well. Or the piece of the same fire around the corner. Three houses were burning, and the forth went up in a flash, and a rolling boom much louder than his single shot. A roiling fireball shot out the shattering second floor windows and unrolled into roaring flames reaching skyward. Some of the guards' horses bolted, with and without riders. No sign of Chaos, but she could probably find her way home. So long as she didn't run home with the troopers' horses.

  Lefty was front and center. The flames died as he walked up on them. A murmur ran through the crowd, and Damien joined them, watching in amazement as Lebonift circled the block, killing the fires with his mere presence. At one point the sound of horse shoes on cobbles caught his attention, and he trailed some loose horses down a dark alley. He spotted Chaos's white splashes in the shadows and smoke, cursed the guard's stallion that was busy with her, and collected all available reins as they came within reach. He led the batch of them back out, tied them to the first post he spotted, making sure Chaos's big black friend was very securely tied. Isn't that the general's horse? He adjusted Chaos's saddle and called her names before deciding he'd seen enough here and he should go home and monitor the Oners.

  Chaos looked smug, and pranced home through the rapidly clearing streets. He didn't spot the scrapes until he was unsaddling her. He winced and sprinkled a bit of "Havwee Temple Water" on oats for her. "I thought you had better sense than to go spooking into trash and hurting yourself." He fed the other three and headed back inside. The house was still empty. He bit his lip, and slipped down to the basement quickly.

  The Oners were still deploying their medical equipment, with one of them cursing painfully.

  He hesitated, then kept the gun when he went back to the barn. Solstice was alternating between threatening the geldings and trying to sweet talk Chaos from three stalls away.

  "Forget it. You're her grandfather. She's inbred enough as it is." Damien harnessed him and one of the geldings and hitched them to his closed wagon. The gun went behind a drop panel, in easy reach. He drove down the alley, and headed uptown again. He'd look over the situation at the Temple, and circle around the docks district, then it would be time to check the hospitals.

  Hauling freight from the wharfs all over town had made him familiar with the whole town. He knew where the hospitals were, the King's Hospital, the three smaller Council Hospitals, the private hospitals, the chirgeon's offices . . .

  The riot around the Temple was breaking up, partly from pure exhaustion, partly shame now that daylight showed faces, and partly the Troops shoving people away and threatening them with arrests. Damien stopped well back and looked them over. This was the closest to home where Andrai could have gotten into public trouble, but there'd been so many people roaming the streets, a smaller scale trouble was all too possible.

  "Do you have business here?" A gruff voice from a grizzled trooper on a big bay horse.

  "I'm missing an aunt. No reason to expect she'd be here, except it's the closest trouble to home."

  "Well, we've got some bodies. If you want to check, stay here until the crowd's been disbursed." He narrowed his eyes. "You hire out? I expect there's folks need a ride over to East Wind."

  Damien nodded. The Council Hospital on East Wind was the closest. "If Andrai isn't here, that's where I'll be looking next."

  The trooper rode on, and as the crowd thinned he spoke to his officer, and turned to wave Damien up closer. He started picking up passengers almost immediately, taking the worst looking immediately to East Wind, and then coming back for another load.

  Bert, deeply unconscious, was in his third load. The old man wasn't obviously injured, but his pupils were tiny and unreactive. Damien cursed and made a hasty sweep around the nearest alleys. Andrai was bruised, battered and equally unconscious in an open shed down the third alley he checked. Steady slow pulse. Rather obviously raped. Her hands were frigid; luckily she wasn't laying directly on the icy ground. Damien wrapped his coat around her and carried her back to the wagon.

  "Found her?" The old trooper sighed. "Well, we're done here. Good luck."

  The hospital was overflowing, and after a moment, Damien took both Bert and Andrai home. Bert on the couch, Andrai in the basement with the autodoc. He unharnessed Solstice and Ollie, grabbed his Havwee Temple Water and took it inside to administer few drips to each of them, then he paced until the autodoc diagnosed Andrai as being deeply asleep. He carried her up to her bed, checked the Oners—all dark and quiet, checked the horses—demanding a second breakfast since he was here, checked his patients, put his head down on the kitchen table and fell asleep . . .

  "What the . . . "

  Damien jerked awake, winced over stiff muscles.

  Bert was sitting up, looking blearily around.

  "Oh, good. You're awake. Let me go check Andrai." Damien yawned his way upstairs and found Andrai still asleep, but curled up on her side. He walked back downstairs.

  "Still asleep. What the hell were you two doing at the Temple of Ba'al?"

  "Andrai said we should see if any of the riots were coming our way. Then she spotted someone and started following him." His brow wrinkled. "Big guy, muscular, but fat too, you know? I didn't like the looks of him and figured I should come too. Then I . . . went to sleep?"

  Damien pondered. "I try really hard to not believe in magic."

  "Heh. Magic sleeping spell? I don't think so."

  Damien brewed coffee, and fried bacon and eggs for them both. Sometime around noon Bert decided he'd as soon go home and sleep some more.

  Andrai slept until sundown. She woke up cursing, and almost crying. Shaky. Furious. She tromped down to the little room they'd added on beside the kitchen so the cobbled together water heater could sit on the stove with a pipe running to the big iron bath tub. She soaked for a long time. Damien didn't press her, and she didn't volunteer. The Temple water had done its usual good job, all the scrapes, abrasions and bruises were gone.

  Down in the basement, they listened to the recordings of the Oners across the alley. Andrai read his report. "You shot one of them?"

  "Yeah, I figured if they were into assassination now, they were planning on Auralia attacking soon. So I tossed a roadblock at them. I don't understand why they haven't even tried to tell their command that, though."

  "Humph. Yes, very odd." She glowered at him. "Could it be that they know we intercept some of their communications? They might not want to let us know they were calling a mobile station, rather than their embassy. And I'm quite certain no one will drop an anonymous note to the King's Own Intelligence division about that. Right?" He
r glare was cold and her meaning very clear.

  Damien nodded. It had been ten years or so since he'd done that. No need for her to be so pointed . . . even though letting the King's Own know about a possible assassination attempt on the General last night was a good idea.

  Damien slept uneasily, got up early and harnessed Chaos and Pol for the morning deliveries. The river was frozen solid, so it was just the ship traffic to unload, and that was pretty quiet and subdued today. He lunched at the Sooty Duck. Bert was there already, and he joined him. I hope I'm not going to regret this.

  "Busy today, aren't they? I guess with so little work being done, people figured they might as well sit around drinking."

  Bert chuckled. "How's Andrai?"

  "Madder than hell. I mean, I know that was a damned scary sky and all, but, well. It seems like it would make a better cover for an invasion, or, oh, organized mayhem like an assassination attempt on Rufi or something. Just running around crazy, beating people up and raping women is just completely barbaric."

  "Invasion? Assassination? What did I sleep through?"

  Damien paused. Warning! Danger ahead! "Oh, nothing. Although I did hear something about odd doings around the General at some fire. My imagination being what it is, I figured, first the General, then the invasion, you know?"

  Old Bert scratched his head. "Nah. All the worst of those meteors was down south. The Amma's probably got his hands full, right now. If he invaded, he'd probably loose what he's got right now."

  Damien nodded. "Actually that's much more sensible. I expect you're right. Thank goodness." One of the whores who rented a room here and helped out a bit between customers brought him a sandwich. Kola was middle aged and looked older. Her four year old daughter was right behind her with a small ale.

  The locals had good contraceptives, for a medieval level society, but they were far from perfect. Kola had a five year old around somewhere as well. Today, she winked at him, but didn't push. There were plenty of men around today who would chase her. When business was slow she'd no doubt expend the energy to catch him. And no doubt would catch him; he was a mole not an angel.

  Damien once again pondered the pluses and minuses of marrying a Native, and still came up with a negative sum. Max could do it, but Damien wasn't going to create children that he might have to abandon some day. Max had a thirteen year old stepson, and a son and daughter of his own, aged four and nine years. If the United Earth command had decided to retreat from the World for the comet strike, would they have returned the moles, afterwards? Or would Max have suddenly found himself separated from wife and kids, not knowing if they'd survived the comet, never able to return? And Damien would never have seen Nicole again. Duke Succuro is so old . . . Damn it, I didn't meant to get involved . . . I'm as bad as Max.

  "You've gone quiet. What are you thinking about?" Bert sat back with his second ale and looked around the bar.

  "Women. What else? Home. I've got a sister back home. It's been so long I wonder if I'd recognize her?"

  "You're Veronian, right? I suppose you're wondering if it was worse down there."

  "Well, hopefully it just looked worse. Maybe I'll get another heavy wagon, do some Farofo runs this winter and jog over toward Cadent. Although I suppose writing a letter would be easier."

  "Faster, too. Stages, you know?"

  "Yeah. True. Well, I'd better go check on Andrai." He sent little Periti off with his payment, and a tip for her. "Yes, those are for Onray. But you get to keep this little one."

  He watched her take the money to Onray, then headed home.

  Andrai was up and stomping around angrily. "I listened in on the Oners. It looks like the one you shot is going to make it. The other two are talking about how they 'ought to have heard already' and what they should do if they don't hear in another month, but they won't say what they'll be hearing about."

  Damien nodded. "What do you think, shall I head out and pick up Max and company?"

  Her fingers whitened on the table edge, then relaxed. "Let's wait and be sure the rioting is over and done with. I'd hate to miss a major change in government or something."

  "I suspect the Guard is going to be so busy arresting people for the next month . . . did you see if there were any organized actions in the Temple of Ba'al?"

  "It looked spontaneous, at a guess a bit of leading was done by former low level priests but most of it was just scared people. There was this man. They called him the God, he walked around, disappeared, reappeared elsewhere. One of these Native wizards, I suppose, with an invisibility spell, or sleight of hand if you prefer. I spotted him off to the side and headed over to get a better look at him." She colored angrily. "That was a serious mistake. He said he loved shocking old biddies. Bert was with me, but the man waved at him and he just laid down and went to sleep. Then I just followed him down the alley. I couldn't stop myself, couldn't turn. I suppose it's a form of hypnotism. Genetic engineering to enhance it." Her nails were white again. "Damn good thing I'm too old to worry about a pregnancy. Or maybe a pity. I always wanted a child, but somehow never had the time." She gave a biter laugh. "He might have had the decency to rape me twenty years ago."

  Taking it better than I'd thought. "Yeah, well, you don't want to have a Native wizard's kid. Any chance that they'd let you bring a halfbreed home would be killed by the genetic engineering. I'll bet that if we ever get home your back pay will be enough to pay for the advanced techniques and a vat pregnancy."

  She snorted. "True, but at sixty, I don't think I have the energy to keep up with an active child. No. I'll get a cat or something."

  Damien nodded. He was a dog man himself, but there'd always been cats around the barn. Until he came here, where cats apparently went extinct several hundred years ago.

  He hauled two small loads in the afternoon then quit for the day.

  There were small riots again that night. A house and a row of shops torched, according to the lunch gossip in the Sooty Duck. In the afternoon he lucked out and got a delivery to one of the burned out houses in the block he'd watched Lefty put out single handedly. He asked the Guards on the site—they were half guarding, and half searching for a cause of the fire—where he might find the owner, and was referred to a woman.

  "Worse gossip I've ever heard." The Guard told him. "If anyone knows, she will."

  The woman told them all about the fire, the two people killed and the old man he was looking for, who had moved to his sister's house. She knew right where it was, and commented disparagingly about the landscaping and decor. "Not that I've seen it myself, mind you. I wouldn't set foot in the place!"

  The old jeweler, once tracked down, chuckled over the delivery. "Lost all my tools. What am I to do with three boxes of polishing grit?"

  "Sell it to another jeweler?" Damien suggested.

  "Eh. I'll see. I need to see if my safe survived the fire. You for hire?"

  So Damien got to inspect the premises—all collapsed into the basement—closely, and found the chunk of metal, still warm in the ashes. He held the baseball sized meteorite out to the jeweler. "Do you know what this is?"

  Harv chuckled. "After the papers trying to tell us all about the comet so we wouldn't panic and riot? So, I got hit by a meteor, did I?" He stepped out and waved over one of the guardsmen still around. "If that Captain is still around looking for arson, take this to him."

  They were heaving the burned but still sealed safe up a makeshift ramp into the wagon when Captain Gerard walked up and put his shoulder to it as well.

  "So, Mr. Fonte, you think this all started with a meteor?"

  Harv chuckled. "You aren't that nipper over on fourth street anymore, you can call me Harv. Yeah, we found that in the basement."

  "Hmm, I not sure I believed all those white hairs at the University. Guess I'd better keep the boys' eyes open."

  By the time Damien returned from leaving the safe at the safe maker's factory for forcible opening, the troops had found three other meteorites. Or ejecta, perhaps
. They looked like nickel-iron meteorites to his uneducated eyes.

  "No wonder the whole block went up all at once." Harv tossed the first meteorite to Damien. "There you go, young man. Now you can pretend you're one of those heroes in the books. All you need to do is find a smith to forge your unbeatable sword of star metal."

  Damien snorted. "I'm almost fifty, and much too sensible to believe in unbeatable swords. And I'm not sure if nickel and iron would make a good sword or not."

  "Young punk! Ah!" Harv pried up a sooty chunk of metal and rubbed it to show the gold. "Melted and flowed down to the basement. I wonder what the inside of the safe is going to look like? All the stones and both gold and silver. Not much, I'm not rich, but a jeweler has to have some material on hand. I don't know how I'm going to rebuild."

  Damien looked around. "Do you own the land? This part of town is very pricey. Maybe you could sell this, buy something nearer your sister. Her area isn't cheap, but it's not so popular as this. Then you'd have extra cash to build a store. Or rent a store and bank the sales money for retirement."

  "Huh. Now aren't you just a financial whiz, with your Traveler's nags."

  Damien grinned and patted Chaos. "Don't mind him. I know you're better than any plain brown horse." Chaos nodded agreement, to Harv's amusement.

  It took three days of careful work to not only remove all the burned remains of timbers and stone façade, but to check them for melted gold and silver. Then they scoured the basement floor, prying off the flows and drips and splatters.

  "I swear, I will never leave even the inexpensive chains out over night, ever again." Harv straightened painfully. "The safe people got around to mine yesterday. The insulation held pretty well, some stuff warped, but they didn't melt altogether, so I'll have stock for my new store, and some tools and the stones and metal. I'll just need to replace a few tools and the cases."

  "And the safe." Damien reminded him.

  Harve chuckled. "And the safe. Definitely."