Hour of Judgement (15 page)

His.

Perhaps it was true after all, and he’d done what he ought not to have done, and lost his head over a woman that could never share in his life. But she was a gardener her own self. She could not consort with Anders Koscuisko. The mere sight of the torturer would turn milk in the breast of the nursing mother, and if he even spoke to a woman who carried a child in womb the babe yet unborn would wither and die, blasted, destroyed, derelict in the mere presence of a Ship’s Inquisitor.

Andrej Koscuisko was not a proper man for Sylyphe.

He was a blight, a smut, a rust, a mold, a canker of worms, a creeping plague of parasites boring into the honey-heartwood in Sylyphe’s breast to destroy her from the inside out. Andrej Koscuisko would kill Sylyphe Tavart — not in body, but how could he but kill her in her heart?

She would be honored, she would be transported to be taken by the hand as his consort, but within weeks the life would start to ebb within her, she would fade, she would fail, her pretty little fingers would crumble into dust and the dimple in her sweet ruddy cheek would dry up and crack into a gaping gray-fleshed wound.

And he couldn’t stop watching his Sylyphe dance.

###

Fleet First Lieutenant G’herm Wyrlann was drunk, but for once liquor wasn’t helping, didn’t make him feel better. He obtained none of the sense of effortless power from Danzilar’s wodac that he usually found in wine: for once he had too much on his mind. That was unfair. He was a Fleet First Lieutenant. That anything external should have attained so much weight and importance as to interfere with his enjoyment of life was an offense — but there he was.

Captain was going to want to talk to him.

Captain was not going to be cordial and friendly.

He’d put the problem aside for as long as possible; but it was not going to be possible to put it aside any longer.

Captain had told him after the last time that he was to exercise more restraint.

Go to an unlicensed house if you have to,
Captain had told him.
You don't have the rank to do as you please in a service house without Bench Audit noticing. You have to wait. You have to wait your turn. There are claims against Fleet to reimburse the Bench for damages. Sooner or later it's going to start counting against your career potential unless you're careful.

Wyrlann remembered every word; all too clearly, really.

What was he going to do?

What was he going to say?

There was no problem with the Port Authority, of course.

They didn’t dare look crosswise at a Command Branch officer. It wasn’t that.

His mind was fuddled with alcohol. He had to think. He couldn’t face the Captain in this condition.

Stumbling a little, Fleet Lieutenant G’herm Wyrlann made his way unsteadily across the crowded room toward the great clear-walls that let out to the side garden. It would be quieter outside. It would be cold, but the coolness would help him to clear his head. He could see the white steps, gleaming in the nightlights, falling away from the terrace in shallow tiers toward the dark lawn, and the necklace of warming-lights that seemed to float at the outermost edge of the lawn, illuminating the ghostly gaiety of flower-blossom in the night.

One of the doors was cracked halfway open, and the fragrance of the cool garden night was calming. Fumbling with the catch, almost tripping over the threshold, Fleet First Lieutenant G’herm Wyrlann stumbled out into the cold dark night air.

And then he saw that he was not alone.

###

From where he stood on post Robert St. Clare, keeping his eye out for officers, saw the dark mass of the Fleet Lieutenant’s Command Branch uniform moving through the crowd. The intensity and hue of Command Branch uniform black could not be mistaken for anything else: That was precisely why the color had been chosen, with its peculiar intensity and particular hue. Regardless of how one’s class of hominid perceived color or tone Command Branch black could be consistently identified for what it was.

Robert watched the Fleet Lieutenant go with mixed feelings, personal and conditioned instincts warring in his heart and mind.

This was the beast who had brutalized his sister. His poor sister, his sweet sister, his darling Megh. She’d been like a mother to him
. . .
and to see her like that. After all of these years of not even knowing. His sister.

But this was also a superior commissioned officer, and Wyrlann was going out into the garden. Command Branch officers were not expected to go anywhere without a Security escort.

No one else seemed to have noticed, and it was in Robert’s area of responsibility, after all.

His sister.
. . .

But Wyrlann was Command Branch. Robert St. Clare was a bond-involuntary. He was expected to behave like one. His governor knew what he was supposed to do. His governor wouldn’t let him stand and permit the Fleet Lieutenant to go out into the garden alone, not when he knew quite well what was expected, not when he knew that to stand would comprise a violation.

It was a profound violation, an extreme violation, a violation of all that was right and decent and moral to let such a man walk free to enjoy a party, after what Wyrlann had done to his sister —

Robert could sense the conflict building within himself. Conflict was dangerous for bond-involuntaries. Conflict confused the governor. He had to control his own internal state, or fall prey to the punishment his governor would assess; not for doing something wrong — his governor didn’t know what was right and what was wrong — but for doing something that Robert had been carefully taught Fleet meant him to take to be a violation.

And it was a violation to permit a senior Command Branch officer go out without an escort. The governor didn’t have to know right from wrong. It only had to pay attention to the conflict created in Robert’s heart that arose when he did something he’d been conditioned not to do, or failed in some task that he’d been taught he must always complete.

Robert stepped back from his post, back into the shadows, back into the service corridor that surrounded the great hall. There was a door out to the side of the house. They’d had their briefing. They were expected to know all of the ways to get into and out of the special event location.

Out through the service corridors to the side of the great hall. Down the leafy avenue of trees. They were still losing their foliage, but the turf had been swept free of debris not two eights gone and there were no dead leaves to make a sound as he passed over. Nothing to betray his foot.

There was a work-bundle sitting in the pathway, and Robert reached down for the nearest object without thinking. A trowel, that was what it was, but one with a good edge to it. Robert tried the edge against the side of his thumb, absentmindedly, as he went deeper into the garden, down the long avenue of trees that bordered the lawn. It was careless to leave tools unattended.

Where was the Fleet Lieutenant?

Robert came around the side of the steps to the wide stone veranda, and saw the damned bastard. Standing as smug as anyone could please, free and easy and secure in his rank. If there was any justice — if there was any right — Wyrlann would die. He deserved to die.

His body knew what had to be done, if his mind dared not think of it. Almost not noticing, Robert loosened the trowel-blade from its handle, staring at the Fleet Lieutenant from the shadows at the foot of the stairs.

She could have been anyone’s sister, even that cheeky young Skelern Hanner’s sister. She wasn’t just anybody’s sister. She was his sister. It was his to punish the man who had hurt her. It was his right. It was his duty. It was more right that he avenge his sister’s near-murder than anything Robert had ever known.

He raised the blade.

He knew.

One step, two steps, and he stood on a level with the Fleet Lieutenant, who turned toward him even as he came.

Was there someone else there, with his back to the decorative support-pillar?

What did it matter if there was someone there?

He had no doubt; he was secure, serene, utterly certain at his task. He had to do this. It was right. He didn’t have to think, and if he thought —

But no. He knew what he had to do.

Fleet Lieutenant Wyrlann raised his arm and pointed, started to shout, angrily. Robert didn’t hear him shout. He saw that hateful face convulsed with angry spite and threw the trowel, absolutely sure of what he was to do. He threw the trowel, he engaged the crozer-hinge in his shoulder to add enough force to the flight of the weapon to separate a man’s head from his shoulders.

He was out of practice.

He threw, and the weapon found its target, and it was finished. He’d done what he had been supposed to do.

That was all.

Now he should get back to his duty post.

Someone would see the movement of the Lieutenant’s body as it fell, if nothing else. There would be an alarm. He had to be back before he was missed.

He went as quickly as he had come, as quietly, his mind utterly empty of triumph or concern. It had been necessary, and he had done it. He hadn’t really thought about it; he was a little surprised at himself. Should he have been able to?

His governor had never been quite right. They’d told him.

Even so, should he have been able to —

To what?

He couldn’t afford to think about it. He wasn’t even going to think about why he couldn’t think about it. That was a trap.

Slipping back quietly into the crowded room, Robert returned to his post. No one seemed to have missed him; it had taken him only a short period of time. He smoothed his face into its mask of professional readiness and stood at his post.

What had he done?

He couldn’t think about it.

But it was too immense, and too unimaginable, and he couldn’t not think around the edges of it, no matter how desperately he tried.

###

The First Lieutenant was unhappy to begin with, and the sight of a Nurail workman staring greedily through the clearwall at his masters and their women within was intrinsically offensive. “You!” Wyrlann shouted, meaning to call Security from within doors, raising his arm and pointing. “You, you scabby piece of Nurail trash, what do you think you’re doing?”

The workman seemed to jump, as if startled, turning a pale anxious — guilty — face toward the Lieutenant, backing away. Opening his mouth to speak, but Wyrlann wasn’t interested in anything any Nurail had to say to him.

“Lurking around out-of-doors, you’ve no business here. Free Government, is it?”

Advancing on the workman where the Nurail stood with his back to a tall while pillar. Security had better be here quickly, or they’d look foolish in front of the Danzilar’s house-staff. There would be penalties assessed for embarrassing Captain Lowden in front of the Danzilar prince.

“I’ll have Security on you before you can — ”

Something hit him.

Something struck him in the throat, he couldn’t breathe.

Cast down into a black unreasoning world of blind bewilderment Wyrlann tried to fix his mind on what had happened, but could not.

And died.

###

A door in the clear-wall of the great assembly room had been left halfway open, because of all the people that were inside, Hanner supposed. There was a man come out into the night; and Hanner didn’t see him, didn’t so much as notice he was there, until the harsh shout of confrontation shook him from his anguished focus on Sylyphe and the Inquisitor at last.

“You!”

The First Lieutenant, Wyrlann. It had to be. He had heard the man described to him, and there was the uniform, Command Branch markings — this was the man who had hurt Megh that way, the black beast, the obscene monster, it was him.

“You, you scabby piece of Nurail trash, what do you think you’re doing?”

The dreadful image of his friend’s abused body rose up white and red in Hanner’s mind’s-eye to overlay the figure of the Lieutenant as he stood like a chipped piece of semi-opaque layer-rock stuck in a hole in his gardener’s shed to let a little bit of light in. Skelern could not focus on the man. He could scarcely even stir, for the horror of it. To see the Lieutenant, and not so much as spit on him, after what he had done — to see him standing on his feet, in his fine uniform, and Megh helpless and naked in the white light of the recovery room, with just a hospital blanket to cover her over from the casual gaze of any stranger —

The Lieutenant stalked toward him imperiously, and Hanner shrank back against the roof-pillar but could not seem to move himself further than that to flee. There was too much conflict in his heart between hatred and self-preservation.

“Lurking around out-of-doors, you’ve no business here. Free Government, is it?”

In the extremity of his surprise and shock Skelern’ s senses seemed preternaturally sharp. The Lieutenant’s voice sounded as if it was a very long away. He could hear himself breathing. He could hear his heart beat. He could hear the little sounds all around him, behind him, as if of something or someone with them on the veranda. An animal in the shrubbery, or a little breeze.

Except that there was no breeze, no little wind, no animal free to move about within the Danzilar’s garden. This was too large an animal. What Skelern heard was footsteps.

A sudden and irrational panic paralyzed him, held him to his place without a single movement. There was another sound now, a sound like the swift passage of a diving-bird, or the drop of a heavy piece of ripe fruit from the highest branches of a tree. A knife, a thrown knife, passing swift and sure over Hanner’s right shoulder to strike the First Lieutenant with such force that the blood shot upward like a fountain, clean and bright, and Wyrlann’s head reeled sideways from his neck to hang at the tether-end of a narrow scrap of flesh as Wyrlann’s body collapsed from the blow.

It was a frightful thing, gut-wrenching, and Hanner’s face worked without any sound, trying to call out. Trying to shout. Trying to warn the Lieutenant by sheer reflex, but it wouldn’t do the Lieutenant any good, because the Lieutenant lay crumpled across the wide white steps that led down to the garden, with the blood running down into the earth and his head hanging from his carcass by a thread.