Angel of Destruction (12 page)

If Shires was guilty, he had all the time he needed to make a run for it. Somewhere. Anywhere. Gonebeyond space, maybe, across the Sillume vector.

If Shires was innocent, he’d stay right where he was, oblivious to implications or standing on his integrity as a matter of principle, maintaining his honor in the face of adverse situational elements.

And if Shires were guilty, but didn’t run, using his behavior to signal his innocence, intent on playing the game at its highest level — then Hilton Shires was Walton Agenis’s own blood kin.

No help there.

Maybe they’d know more once they could talk; with the Sarvaw pilot Kazmer Daigule, in Anglace.

Chapter Five

Three days of waiting after his interview with the Inquisitor had driven Kazmer almost to the point of distraction, torn between his relief in having found a way to protect Hilton, his sense of loss, and his shuddering horror of what he had done.

The Malcontent.

To elect the Malcontent meant to become one of them.

That meant doing anything they wanted him to do; and there were stories about what Malcontents were like behind the impenetrable walls of their safe houses.

He knew what his motives had been, but any casual acquaintance could only assume the most obvious explanation: that Kazmer had failed to reconcile his sexuality with the ordinance of the Holy Mother and the expectations of decency and morally upright behavior; that he had been forced to elect the Malcontent at last or face ostracism even more profound and absolute than simple criminality could ever have meant for him.

They’d think he wanted boys.

Modice would think that, if she ever heard. Maybe she wouldn’t even hear. Maybe as far as Modice was concerned he would simply disappear and never be heard of or from again, ever. Aunt Agenis and Hilton himself would surely keep the truth of his fate to themselves, if they ever found out.

Boys.

It was almost more than Kazmer could bear, even knowing as he did what the Bench would do to Hilton — and Modice, and the rest of the Langsariks — if Kazmer had been referred to interrogation and implicated them all by virtue of simply knowing their names.

He’d visited Modice in Port Charid.

The Bench would be sure to see conspiracy there.

But boys?

To be a Malcontent could mean becoming the chartered agent of reconciliation for other Malcontents, people whose pain had forced them to take such drastic measures because they did like boys, or men; because their desire was not for the ocean within the sacred cradle of a woman’s womb but for the succulent and inviting waters of an atoll, or even the narrow constrained channel of a dry wash.

Three days.

After three days, two guards came to the door of the holding cell to which the Inquisitor had returned Kazmer, calling him out to go back to the room in which he had had his fateful interview. There was someone waiting for him there, now as before.

For one confused moment Kazmer thought that the Inquisitor had come back — but why in plain clothes?

No, Koscuisko had pale eyes, and this man had not. The man who sat waiting for Kazmer was about Koscuisko’s height, perhaps, and there were similarities in the face and in the expression. But this man had dark eyes, and hair that shaded several degrees further toward the tan side than Koscuisko’s had done; and, most tellingly of all, this man was wearing a necklace made of bright red ribbon that showed clearly beneath his collar before disappearing beneath his shirt.

This man was Malcontent.

One of the slaves of the Saint, set apart by the halter he wore around his neck, collared with a necklace that marked him as a slave without any legal identity of his own.

Kazmer had sought that bondage of his own free will, because questions that one wished to ask of the Malcontent had to be addressed to the legal person of the Malcontent rather than to any mere slave; and the legal person of the Malcontent had been dead for octave upon octave — ever since the Malcontent’s revolt against the autocrat’s court, for excess tax impositions — rendering the entire issue a little problematic.

There was a legal entity to serve as the proxy of the Saint, of course — empowered to enter into contracts and to transact business on the Saint’s behalf — but any particular question or demand could lawfully be referred to Saint Andrej Malcontent himself for a decision.

Some of the questions thus put before the Malcontent had been waiting for three or four lifetimes for a response, without notable success.

The Malcontent might or might not be actually and truly and traditionally dead, being a Saint. But it was certain that the Malcontent wasn’t talking, at least not to answer claims that the Saint felt to be impertinent.

Kazmer sat down, not because he meant to presume the privilege without being asked, but because with every added notice of the reality of his election, the enormity of what he had done weighed more heavily upon him, so that he could not find the strength to stand.

“How fragrant are the little blue-and-yellow flowers that line the pathway to the kitchen-midden,” the Malcontent said, his voice as deep as damnation for all the note of humor it might have contained.

He meant that Kazmer stank.

It had been more than a week, now, with no change of clothing or any chance to bathe —

The folkish homeliness of the old adage was too much for Kazmer. Sorrow and fear and grief overwhelmed him, and he was too deep in pain — even to care any longer when he began to cry.

Too much.

It was all too much.

The Malcontent let the storm pass without comment, waiting in compassionate silence for the moments it took for Kazmer to bring his emotions to heel once more.

Then the Malcontent pulled a white-square out of a pocket somewhere and passed it to Kazmer across the table. “Here. Wipe your face. The Bench expects you to suffer, Daigule, but you don’t have anything to prove to me.”

They were alone in the room. The Malcontent must have sent the guards away. Kazmer blew his nose, blotting his eyes with the residual clean portion of the white-square. His face was dirty; the white-square came away soiled. It was an offense against human dignity to deny a man the chance to wash. Kazmer supposed he was lucky enough that they’d fed him.

“Sorry.” He handed the dirty white-square back, and the Malcontent accepted it without comment. Or recoiling, which was charity on his part. “This has all been a challenge. Maybe more than I’m really up to.”

Yes, the Bench expected him to suffer. That was the only reason a Combine national was allowed to call for the Malcontent — to escape from the Judicial process — in the first place: because the Malcontent had successfully convinced the Bench that the life of a Malcontent was a comparable experience to whatever sanctions the Bench was likely to impose.

There were exceptions, of course; for certain classes of crimes — those against the Judicial order — not even the Malcontent could stay the hand of the Bench. That was what had happened to the Sarvaw bond-involuntary that Kazmer had seen with the Inquisitor, he supposed.

Kazmer was luckier.

The most his potential crime would have amounted to was an offense against private property and the lives of citizens under Jurisdiction, not a crime against the Judicial order itself.

There were so many gray areas, even so.

Kazmer knew he should count himself fortunate that the Inquisitor had not challenged the issue: or if the Inquisitor had, it had been after Kazmer had made the call, and if the Inquisitor had objected, the Inquisitor had obviously lost. Or the Malcontent would not be here.

“Well.” The Malcontent leaned back in his chair, hooking one arm over the chair back and crossing his legs. “You called for the Malcontent, and I’m here. But before I lead you out of this place we need to talk. My name is Stanoczk, feel free to call me ‘Cousin.’ ”

The Malcontent used a Dolgorukij word for the title that gave Kazmer a profound appreciation for the shakiness of the ground on which he stood. Religious professionals were all “Cousin,” but Malcontents were usually addressed as the kind of cousin that was the barely legitimate offspring of the unfilial daughter of a younger son of a collateral branch of the family who had made an inappropriate liaison with a social inferior — possibly Sarvaw.

The “Cousin” that the Malcontent offered to permit Kazmer to call him was the older son of the older son of the direct lineage of a family to which one belonged only as the younger son of a younger son of a cadet line. There was no hope of truly expressing the nuances of such a thing in Standard; but Kazmer and the Malcontent would know.

“Thank you, Cousin Stanoczk.” Kazmer used the Dolgorukij word back with humility in his voice and a determined submissiveness in his heart. “What do you need from me?”

Cousin Stanoczk nodded. “When a soul born of the Holy Mother’s creation calls the name of my Patron, may he wander in bliss forever, they must do so in full knowledge of the price to be paid. And my Patron, he also must know what is required of him — in exchange for what he will exact from you.”

The first part was easy. Kazmer knew the answer to the first part. “ ‘Who calls the name of the Malcontent becomes no-soul with no name, no family, no feeling but the will of the Saint.’ Yes, Cousin Stanoczk. I understand what duty I owe.”

Straightening up in his chair, Cousin Stanoczk leaned forward over the table, so close that Kazmer could smell his breath. Stanoczk smoked lefrols. What was going on? “Then kiss me,” Stanoczk said. “Convincingly, if you please. Demonstrate to me the depth of your commitment to the irreversible step that you propose to take.”

Oh, Holy Mother.

Kazmer’s stomach pitched at the very thought.

But he had said it. He needed the protection that he could only get from the Malcontent, protection not for himself, but for Hilton and Modice. For the Langsariks.

He reached forward slowly to put a hand to the side of Cousin Stanoczk’s neck, sliding his fingers caressingly around to bend Stanoczk’s head toward him. Maybe if he pretended. Maybe if he thought about Modice. But Stanoczk was not Modice, and could never be Modice; Stanoczk smelled of lefrols and musk, the scent of a man’s sweat and a man’s skin. Kazmer tilted his head to Cousin Stanoczk’s mouth, shuddering in his heart, trembling like a man gripped deep in terror.

At the last possible moment Cousin Stanoczk spoke.

“Well, that’ll do. For now.” Kazmer opened his eyes, astonished, and found the Malcontent looking at him with a wry and moderately amused expression. “There is no need for you to turn your stomach inside out, it is a bad precedent for a first meeting.”

Kazmer sat back down.

Had he passed the test?

Or failed it?

“I can do this thing, Cousin Stanoczk.” He could take no chances with ambiguous signals. “I can do what I’m told. I will. No price is too great to pay for what only the Saint can grant me.”

Cousin Stanoczk had settled back sidewise in his chair, and quirked his dark eyebrows at Kazmer skeptically. “It remains to be seen. The spirit is willing, but the flesh rebels, and to elect the Malcontent is to surrender body and soul. Yet there will be time to negotiate on some issues later.”

It made no sense for the Malcontent to demand performance of a duty too strongly repugnant to him to be borne with a willing heart. The Malcontent was all about freedom from pain, even if it came at a high cost. Kazmer sat in his place, confused, feeling a little as though he was in shock.

“We move on. What is it that you of my Patron require?” Cousin Stanoczk asked. Did that mean that his failure to approach Stanoczk like a lover on demand was to be excused him, overlooked?

And exactly how was he to explain?

“Protect me from the Bench, Cousin Stanoczk. The Bench wants to ask me questions that I can’t afford to answer. And I know I won’t have any choice except to answer; I’ve heard the stories. Stand between me and the Inquisitor, and let me keep my answers to myself.”

How much could he say without giving up the information he sought to protect?

If he told Stanoczk that he didn’t want to give evidence, Stanoczk might guess that there was someone to be protected. From there it was a very short span to the obvious implication that the people Kazmer had to protect were Langsariks, so that electing the Malcontent was just another way of implicating Hilton, indirectly.

Implication was not evidence actionable under law.

Kazmer waited.

Langsarik predation was not an issue that could possibly interest the Malcontent — not unless and until Combine shipping became involved. By the time that happened Kazmer would not be in a position to implicate anybody, so maybe the Malcontent wouldn’t care.

“That which the Malcontent directs, you must unfailingly perform,” Stanoczk warned. “It may be that the information you wish to protect comes out through avenues other than a Bench claim against you. It may be that the mission upon which you will be sent will have as result exactly what you wish to avoid, revelation of information pertinent to whatever issue by another. Your duty to the Malcontent could require that you comply with your instructions, in such a case.”

This helped. This clarified things. This gave Kazmer his mission, his pledge, the prize he was willing to trade his hope and future for. “Let me not incriminate people who may be guiltless by my testimony, Cousin Stanoczk, because testimony can be interpreted so wrongly. If there are guilty, let me find them. Only if a friend of mine is to face the Bench on Charges, let it be on evidence independent of any confidences between us.”

Not as if there had been any.

Hilton had been very annoying about that, as Kazmer remembered.

Cousin Stanoczk stood up.

“Here’s what we’ll do, then.”

Did that mean Kazmer had won? Or lost? Because to win was to lose, but to lose — would be to lose more than Kazmer could bear to contemplate . . .

“You are no longer Kazmer Daigule, and therefore you no longer have any information potentially of interest to the Bench. And yet the problem of the Langsariks may not be ignored, and if our holy patron deprives the Bench of information, it may be that we owe the Bench a decent story in return.”

Kazmer hadn’t said anything about Langsariks.

But Cousin Stanoczk had probably been fully briefed, as his next words proved.

“So we will go to Port Charid, where the Holy Mother cherishes many mercantile interests which are deserving of our Patron’s protection accordingly. You will pledge your faith as one of the Saint’s children to do your utmost to find who has been responsible for the raid on Tyrell Yards; and if the trail leads back to people you love — we will negotiate.”

Kazmer thought about this.

The first and critically important thing was to ensure that Hilton Shires would not be named in evidence, that the Langsariks not face sanctions from the Bench for breach of amnesty on account of any testimony from Kazmer Daigule.