Divine Right

by C. J. Cherryh

  Well, they were off the riverboat and he had a job to do and an area to reconnoiter. He focused in on his personal briefing by Magruder with all the intensity that had gotten him this assignment, and the quarters over this would-be shop in the lower part of the city, where fashionable shops gave way to warehouses.

  Maybe Foundry was a slum, and maybe it wasn't. It was in the thick of things, and so were he and Jacobs, with their nice new machinist's shop cum revolutionary bastion. Magruder was loaded for bear: he already had the raw materials laid in, here where metal was scarce and the tools to work it scarcer.

  The brunt of the briefing went down while Jacobs was doing a quick inventory of the storeroom, and it went like this:

  "Look, Kenner," Magruder told him, "if you need anything, or anything doesn't feel right to you, get with me right away, don't wait. We'll have lots of standing orders for this and that, stuff you can bring up to the Embassy any time, and ask me to sign for it personally because of the disbursement policies being what they are."

  "What are they?" Kenner asked, hiking his butt up on a barrel marked "Nails" in the warehouse space he'd have to partition if he wanted an office.

  "On the record, you're Nev Hettek citizens working for our government, so you'll be paid in our scrip and we'll convert it to local gold and silver for you, saving you the money-changing percentage. Off the record, you can have whatever you need, as long as you don't start asking for things at odds with your cover. Oh, yeah: no drugs. No deathangel, nothing like that. Keep your head clear until you know the ropes—and thereafter."

  "What about the reporting chain ... I mean, what about m'sera Lambert. I'm supposed to report to her." Might as well play a card and see what happens.

  "You follow all your orders, whenever possible. Danielle Lambert and I have worked together now and again. She's going to be hard to reach once she takes up her own role here, especially initially, what with being the personal obstetrician of Boregy House. You can't send dispatches in and out of Boregy House. It's too insecure and there are too many players here. You'll drop messages for her at the Embassy and she and I will figure out what to do about the rest."

  "I'm glad you two are comfortable. What with the baby and all, I was wondering how the hell this was going to work ..." Play a second card.

  "Don't push it, kid. I know what you're saying. I can't respond yet. Everything ends up in my lap here, eventually. Do us all a favor and don't get too concerned about command hierarchies. Just do the job the most efficient way. Dani and the baby and her Boregy workload aren't going to be too efficient right away."

  "So you want me to set up shop and keep a list of who buys what, right?"

  Magruder started to move around the big, empty space. He crossed in front of a window and Kenner realized that dawn was near: Magruder's shadow showed dark against the view.

  "Serve all comers. Extend credit with interest to everybody; get signatures on promissory notes. Listen to the complaints and talk about Nev Hettek only when asked. The blacklegs—Tatiana Kalugin's police—are arresting anybody who says anything inflammatory. You'll have some plants coming by to test you. Don't talk revolution. Just show them how generous and supportive we can be. You're the answer to a canal-rat's prayer. They'll want those propeller cages like they want to get laid. Worse. Lay up a stock of standard sizes, so there's as little waiting as possible. You've got everything you need to do that, don't you?"

  "I dunno." Kenner turned his head and yelled over his shoulder, "Hey, Jacobs, got what you need to do the job?"

  An affirmative came back through the half-open door. "Okay, then. Do I get to come to the Embassy any time soon?"

  "You bet. You'll need more papers, green cards. I didn't bring you more than the basics so that you could come up and meet some staffers. Until you have met some, don't assume that anybody else is friendly, but treat them all like brothers. Clear?"

  "Got it."

  Magruder came over to him, his bootheels cracking against the floor, so determinedly and suddenly that Kenner slid off the barrel and balanced on the balls of his feet.

  Eye to eye, Magruder said, "Don't ever give a document to anyone you don't know by sight. Ever. If you do, and I find out about it, even if no harm was done, you're fish food. Got that?"

  "Yes sir—'m'ser.' " Damn, but this guy was prickly.

  "It's my personal rule and I never break it for anybody: you screw that one up, you're dead."

  "I don't screw up—m'ser."

  "That'll be a refreshing change. See you before noon at the Embassy. You may have to wait in line. It only means I'm concerned that we don't make you look too special."

  With that parting shot. Chance Magruder left Kenner on his own, slamming the door behind him.

  Kenner stared at the door out of which Magruder had disappeared. He'd never encountered Magruder before. Oh, you heard stories, but stories tended to be exaggerated. He rubbed his arms and shook his head once before he set off to help Jacobs. He'd heard rumors that Karl Fon was that tough, though he'd never even seen Fon, wouldn't know him if he fell over him. Kenner had heard rumors that said Fon and Magruder needed some distance between them, like the distance between Nev Hettek and Merovingen. From what he'd seen, he could understand it.

  Kenner had set a lot of fires in his day, and put the fear of revolution into more hearts than he cared to count. Stopped a few hearts, as well.

  But he'd never been on the receiving end of a briefing like the one Magruder had just given him. And he'd never let somebody threaten him and walk away.

  At the time, he reminded himself, it hadn't seemed like Magruder was threatening: just explicating a law of nature. If Kenner did what he was probably going to be ordered to do by Danielle Lambert, sooner or later, and Magruder found out about it, Magruder was going to kill him.

  That was nice. It really added sparkle to his morning. He decided he wouldn't tell Jacobs. Jacobs didn't need to know more than not to open his mouth to strangers and not to hand dispatches to strangers.

  Ambling back to the door beyond which Jacobs was taking inventory, Kenner had the distinct impression that he had walked into the opportunity of a lifetime: learn survival skills, a la Chance Magruder, or die trying.

  One hell of a pass/fail, your first time out in the field. But then, Kenner knew what he was really here for: Fon was giving Magruder a pass/fail of his own.

  Life was just so damned interesting these days, he could hardly wait to see what would happen next.

  "If Cassie Boregy's allowed to continue prophesying unchecked, about a class revolt and the city going up in flames, only the Revenantist College is going to benefit. Not us. Not Nev Hettek." Magruder leaned back in his velvet chair and, from a china cup, sipped tea strong enough to wake the dead.

  "I understand," said Dani Lambert. "That much was in your report. This place is really extraordinary." She craned her neck at the opulence.

  "Have to keep up with the locals. We've got an image problem if we don't." Quit trying to change the subject, Dani. You've been sleeping with Karl, I hear. You've seen some opulence before. "Mike Chamoun's a good boy. He'll come over and escort you to Boregy House to see his wife. They'll probably ask you to stay there. I'd prefer to have you stay here. It's your choice, once you see how it feels."

  "Thank you." She slid sideways in the brocade antique chair and brought up her knees. He could see the slackness from childbearing; in fact, he could barely keep his eyes off her waist, off her heavy breasts. He really wanted her to stay with him in the Embassy, but it was going to cause problems.

  When he just looked at her pensively, she asked, "But what about Hope—about the baby?"

  "Ah . . . yeah, that's a good question. What about it? Her, I mean?" The baby's name's the same as my mother's. Are you going to tell me what I'm afraid to hear? Or are we going to be good players and ignore the provenance issue? After all, it wasn't like you weren't present and accounted for through all of that; not like it was rape or under false pretenses
. Damn, he did want her to tell him it wasn't his. Or tell him it was. "Do you want me to engage a governess for the time being, make room for Hope here?" Wasn't that what he was he supposed to say?

  From the look on her face, it wasn't. She said, "I'll have her with me, wherever I stay. So we'll decide that later. Unless you want to tell me why you insisted that the obstetrician in question be me, in spite of my pregnancy coming to term so soon. And why you couldn't wait."

  This wasn't going to go down well, whenever he broached it. "Sure, I'll tell you. Just promise not to throw any of this expensive bric-a-brac at me."

  She almost smiled, despite herself, and tossed her head.

  "I'm serious: promise me, no violent reaction—that you'll think about what I'm about to propose and not react at all, right now. That you'll wait until you've examined Cassie Boregy before you make up your mind."

  Now she was cautious; perhaps beginning to surmise where he was leading. Her eyes widened, beautiful light brown eyes that he knew had violent flecks in them. "Go ahead, Chance, say it. Whatever it is, I promise I won't say a word about it until after I examine the patient."

  "Cassie's overdue. She's been doing lots of deathangel, and it's toxic. The College has been making huge points from her prophecies. They're not going to let her stop while she lives. You're going to be asked to save the mother, regardless of the child. For all we know, the kid'll be stillborn or deformed."

  "You can't know anything of the—"

  Magruder silenced her with a raised eyebrow. "Let me continue with my supposition and my concerns: Whatever the state of the baby, it's Mike Chamoun's baby and it's the cornerstone of the Chamoun/Boregy merger, the shipping venture, the Embassy here, the whole ball of wax. If the kid's damaged or stillborn, the Revenantists will read it as a karmic indicator against a continuation of the marriage. We lose the Embassy, maybe. We lose Chamoun Shipping's favored status ... we lose our in to Vega Boregy and his buddy, Anastasi: we lose the game. I don't want to lose the game. Are you with me?"

  She said dully, "You never do want to lose. You can't be sure that the baby's damaged."

  "No, that's why you're here. Or part of the "reason.

  But I'm sure of what I want you to do if that baby is in any way less than one hundred per cent healthy, bouncy offspring. I want you to switch babies. Cassie's too doped up ever to—"

  "What?" Dani came out of her chair, fists balled.

  "You promised, no violence." He wasn't smiling. Danielle Lambert was as intelligent, tough, deadly, and pragmatic as any man who'd reached her grade level during the revolution. If he knew whose damn kid it was, he'd have been able to judge how this was going to hit her—or judge it better.

  However he judged it, he knew it wasn't an easy thing to ask, or even to contemplate. So he didn't give her a chance to respond with something she might later stick to, simply because she'd said it. "If you hadn't already given birth, I was going to closet you here until you did. The College will probably find out about any switch even if we do our damnedest—if we have to do it. But everything we've done here is shot without a live baby, in good health, in Cassie Boregy's arms."

  "The mother could die in childbirth, even in induced labor," said Dani coldly, sitting back down and crossing her arms over her own belly. "It's cleaner. Would that solve your problem?''

  Lord, he'd forgotten how quick she was. "It would still read like bad karma from Michael's union with her, and they'd find a way to void any inheritance codicils the couple may have made between them. Nope, I need a healthy baby. Can we assume yours is?''

  "You can assume anything you want, Chance Magruder. ''

  "All I'm asking you to do is think about it."

  "And I thought you wanted me here because you were getting old and sentimental and thought maybe the baby was yours."

  "What difference would that make?" Come on,

  Dani, don't throw anything at me, especially not a knife from your boot or a piece of furniture or a declaration of paternity. I'm trying to get us both off the emotional hook.

  She looked away, out the window. "None, I'm sure. Not to either of our decisions, Chance." Then she looked back at him. "I'd really like to keep my options open."

  "That's a nice non sequitur. Let's clear it up: for now, the baby stays here. I'll get somebody I can trust to care for it. You go with Mike. Come back here tonight and we'll talk. You can sleep at Boregy House if you wish, but I need to see you sometime this evening." He named a time.

  She agreed. There was an odd set to her jaw now, and he needed to forestall any later problems. "You'd better know something else before you go."

  She was just getting up. She sat back heavily. "Let's hear it."

  "I'm real overt with Tatiana Kalugin. Just business, so to speak, but she's the governor's daughter and very territorial. I'd like to see you, by my soul I'd love to sleep with you again, but the profile has to be exceedingly low, if we're going to spend time together beyond what our relative positions would indicate. Okay?"

  He really wasn't happy about the way he was handling this, but then, he wasn't happy about her and Karl Fon, either. And he couldn't afford any mistakes. This way, she'd make her decision on good data. He respected her enough to give her that.

  "Well, that surely ends this meeting," she said sweetly from an expressionless face. "I'll let you know, Magruder, if and when there's anything you can do to make me more comfortable. Don't bother to see me out."

  He got up anyway and came around the desk, saying, "Come on, Dani, don't do this. I need to know where we stand; I needed you to know where you are. Don't take this—"

  They reached the door at the same time. His hand closed over hers on the doorknob and for a moment she struggled to pull hers away.

  Then she stopped struggling, looked up at him, and backhanded him across the face with her left hand. Hard. "That's for thinking I'd 'take this personally.' That was what you were going to say, isn't it?"

  She'd hit him hard enough that he had to suppress an impulse to hit her back. He rubbed his jaw. "You know, I've really missed you. And I forgot, I admit, how hot you run. I won't forget again, I promise. Let me know later where you want to stay.''

  Her hand was still under his. Somehow her fingers turned in his, and he knew she'd let him kiss her. If he didn't, her hurt feelings were going to become something seriously dangerous.

  So he said softly, "For old times' sake, and because I really am glad to see you ..."

  She tilted her head up and he kissed her cheek, then her too-bright eyes, one at a time, then her nose. When he met her lips with his, she was ready.

  The kiss was tentative, questioning, then sure of itself. They still had that going for them.

  When he closed the door behind her, his pulse rate was double what it had been during the interview. He really wished he knew whose baby that was, but it couldn't have made a difference, even if it were his own.

  You had to do the job, use what was at hand. Having Dani at hand was going to make the job lots easier, if she'd cooperate—and if Tatiana didn't find out and skin him alive.

  Tatiana and her father, old Governor Iosef, had asked Magruder in no uncertain terms to become part of the solution to the problem Iosef Kalugin saw in Cassie's paranoid delusions, especially since the governor's favorite son, Mikhail, was one of Cassie's most ardent devotees.

  There were only a couple of ways that Chance could manage to act under Iosef Kalugin's orders and Karl Fon's orders at the same time. The available room to maneuver was shrinking to worrisome proportions.

  He'd thought for three nights running before he'd sent to Nev Hettek asking for Danielle Lambert, looking for alternatives. But there just wasn't another tool in Nev Hettek's arsenal that could do the job as well.

  Dani would realize that, when she cooled off. They were all at the disposal of the revolution even when, on days like today, they didn't have their hearts in it.

  Michael Chamoun was a very attractive young man who reminded Dani
of Chance when they'd all been young, foolish, and drunk with ideals.

  She hadn't expected to like him; she hadn't expected to see in his eyes the clouds of a real and gnawing concern for his wife of convenience. No wonder Chance Magruder was worried: his ace agent was in love with the woman he'd been sent here to marry and betray, and that woman was Cassiopeia Boregy, on whom all things Merovingian turned.

  And Cassie Boregy was a medical disaster in the middle of happening. All the ormolu decorations and velvet and tatting and lace on Merovin couldn't disguise that truth from Danielle Lambert's practiced eye.

  Boregy House held its breath while the long-awaited Nev Hetteker obstetrician examined their pride and joy. Dani felt as if all eyes were on her, though she was alone with her patient and her patient's husband. It almost seemed as if the cupids on the walls had eyes, as if the horns they held were listening devices.

  Anybody who'd been monitoring Cassie Boregy should have shut off her supply of drugs before things got this bad. "The baby's addicted too, you know, Michael," Dani said sternly, as if the beleaguered Sword agent could have done something about it.

  Mike Chamoun was in shirtsleeves, his tatted collar loosened around his neck. "I know," he said in a nearly inaudible voice full of failure, shame, and misery.

  The drugged, pale girl with the huge belly rolled her head at the sound of his voice. "Michael? Captain? Michael, are you here?"

  "I'm here, Cassie." Chamoun went to his wife and took her by the hand. "Cassie, this is Doctor Lambert. She's going to help deliver our baby."

  "The baby's going to die. Or maybe it's dead. We're all going to die. Or maybe we're already dead. Michael, we're not dead, are we? Michael? Michael?" Cassie Boregy's eyes were huge and wholly black in bloodshot whites; under them were great circles like bruises. Her hair was greasy and as lifeless as straw spread on white damask pillowslips that matched her skin.