Hour of Judgement (16 page)

Trembling, Hanner took step forward, desperate to give the alarm. But an entire ocean of people was coming toward him now, rushing out of the great hall onto the veranda steps like the water in a tidal bore. Security. And they had seized Skelern and bound him, carried him down into the garden toward the grisly thing and forced him to his knees on the blood-sodden lawn next to the still-twitching body on the stairs before he could so much as catch his breath.

###

Sylyphe Tavart was awake, and at the same time dreaming.

She had never seen so grand a dancing hall in all of her life. It outshone even the great ceremonial cathedral at Saldona, where her mother had been chief of accounts.

She was wearing the traditional colored scarf of a marriageable woman for the first time in her life, and before she had left the house her mother had examined the folds of fabric over Sylyphe’s modest bosom and sighed — but declined to rearrange the folds, a habit of her mother’s that Sylyphe had been dreading.

And then walking down the reception line Andrej Koscuisko had called her out, spoken to her, kissed her hand with flattering courtesy and released her fingers from his grasp with something that seemed very like reluctance to Sylyphe.
Dance with the daughter of the house
, he had said, and Sylyphe had loved him then and there for treating her like the grown girl that she was, if her mother only realized.

Had loved him for suggesting it, yes, and had not dared to put any more weight on it than that; so when Andrej Koscuisko — the reception line broken up, the dances about to begin — had sought them out and presented himself to her mother once more to “request the pleasure of your daughter’s company” it was almost more than Sylyphe could believe.

It was a sallbrey, the first dance. She had studied the Dolgorukij folk-dances diligently in order to be able to be a credit to her mother and to Iaccary Cordage and Textile when the time came to demonstrate their desire to participate in all of the Danzilar prince’s goals. She knew the steps in a sallbrey, they were among the easiest to learn and to perform, and she could concentrate all of her energies on fixing this moment in her mind forever and ever after this.

He was the inheriting son of the Koscuisko prince, and in the Dolgorukij Combine he outranked the Danzilar prince himself. The wealth of the Koscuisko familial corporation was staggering, but more than that, he was the Ship’s Inquisitor, a man with the power of life and death — sweet easeful healing or atrocious torment — both under his authority.

Dancing with her.

A little taller than she was, but not too much so; she felt perfectly at ease with him — or at least she didn’t feel awkward. Taller, and all in duty black, for everyone to see — the warmth of his body, the feel of the supple muscle of his fore-arm, the elegance of his small white hands, the effortless grace with which he danced, the strength held in reserve . . .

The figure of the dance carried them across the dance floor and back again. She could catch glimpses of their reflection in the clear-walls at the side of the room, the bright lights reflecting off the glass like a mirror. He was her lord, and she was his princess — at least while they danced the sallbrey.

She was beautiful.

Partnered by the son of the Koscuisko prince, a grown girl now even in her mother’s conservative estimation, she was a princess in his arms, and he smiled and chatted with her with unaffected simplicity and candor while they danced.

How does the daughter of the Tavart this evening? The medication you prepared is very good indeed, it works quite well. And kind of you to take thought for the leavings. I saw a man for an arthritis of the joints who sat and wept as we our interview conducted, and all to be back at his home for so long as he could smell the flowers.

He carried a faint perfume with him for his own part, a musky-peppery scent that seemed to be a thing of soap and skin rather than a grooming-fragrance. She could not analyze it into its component parts, but she dizzied herself trying to fix the exact taste of it within her heart and mind forever. Oh, if she could only make it last, if she could fold the fabric of time back upon itself and keep this instant of transcendent joy forever she would not grudge the price. Whatever it might be.

The dance could not last forever.

But they were interrupted even before the last few measures of the tune signaled an end to bliss and fantasy.

One of the Danzilar’s house-men stood at the front of the ranks of observers, and as Sylyphe passed by in the arms of the Koscuisko prince she noticed one of the
Ragnarok
’s Security was there as well — a very tall man, and ugly, with a ruined face so flattened by nature or by accident it looked as though his features had been razed flat from forehead to chin. She saw them there, and knew that the Koscuisko prince could see them too; maybe they had only come to watch?

She knew as soon as she caught sight of them that she was not to be so lucky. Koscuisko turned his head away when they passed, but almost at once turned back and gave a nod. So it was over.

“Oh, this is — very unfortunate indeed,” Koscuisko said. “Come, we must escape. Follow with me.”

He danced her out of the figure of the dance, off of the dance floor, so gracefully it seemed part of the dance itself. The Security were waiting for them; how had Koscuisko brought them so precisely to the place? She could spare little of her mind to wonder at that. She was to be deprived of her lord, who had never been her lord, who had been hers only so long as she could dance with him. She was bereft. She was her mother’s daughter all the same, and knew she could not show her disappointment.

No words passed between Koscuisko and his man, who only bowed. His fingers seemed to twitch, was it just nerves? Or was it a message? Because Koscuisko sighed, and spoke to the Danzilar’s house-man.

“Escort the daughter of the house Tavart back to her mother, then, with my profound apologies. Sylyphe. Miss Tavart. I must beg that you excuse me. I am asked for.”

He was not just asked for but desired. Profoundly. Passionately. Fiercely. Couldn’t he tell how much she wanted him?

Or could he tell, and saved her face as best he could?

She cast about for some polite response, but Koscuisko didn’t wait.

Koscuisko bowed and kissed her hand, and it seemed to Sylyphe that he almost touched her fingers to his cheek as he straightened from his bow.

She could not be sure.

And he was gone.

The house-man bowed in turn and gestured with his hand for her to precede him through the crowd. To go back to her mother. To sit alone for the rest of the evening, for how could she countenance another partner, who had danced with the Koscuisko prince?

Chapter Seven

“
This
piece of trash.” Hanner knelt low on the ground beside the now-covered corpse with someone’s boot planted firmly between his shoulder-blades to ensure he wouldn’t be tempted to try to run away. He couldn’t see a thing except for blood, and the boots. What he could hear was hard for him to understand, stunned as he was by the shock of the event and Security’s rough handling. “Andrej. Is there anything to be done? Anything at all?”

“No, nothing, Captain.” He’d heard that voice before, not long before, cold and moderate in pitch, with an accent. Dolgorukij accent. “Traumatic amputation, there’s complete severance for spinal, and the brain is more than six-eighths gone already. It would be a very slim chance even if we had the resources and had caught it sooner. And the resources are not here, and we did not catch it soon enough by half. There’s nothing I can do.”

He didn’t know what a Dolgorukij accent might be, but Koscuisko was Dolgorukij, and he had heard Koscuisko in hospital. And in the Tavart’s parlor, of course, later on.

“Were you able to actually see anything, Captain Lowden?” Maybe that voice was familiar, too. But Hanner was still too confused in his mind to put a name to it.

“Unfortunately not, Specialist Vogel.” Captain Lowden, again? That would make sense. The dominant voice one way or the other, or so it seemed. Skelern felt sick to his stomach, and hoped he wasn’t going to vomit. It would be such a mess. And there was such a mess already . . . “All I really saw was Wyrlann turn and point. And then his head jumped off his shoulders. Quite a sight.”

The Captain’s voice came closer; the foot moved off his back. “And this is the man poor Wyrlann was pointing at. Hadn’t expected to be caught about his dirty business, obviously. I’m surprised he had the nerve to go through with the assassination, what with Wyrlann looking right at him.”

What man was that? There’d been someone On the veranda, moving as quietly as a small breeze in the bushes?

“You’re quite sure there was nothing else, sir,” the second voice urged. Someone kicked Hanner in the stomach, suddenly and very hard, and laid him flat on the ground, gasping for breath. The lawn held the blood like a sponge, and yet somebody put his foot to the side of Hanner’s face and pressed down hard.

“Vogel, I as good as saw him throw the knife. We need to move quickly on this.”

Hanner couldn’t breathe for tasting blood. The knowledge that it wasn’t even his own blood sickened him, and the pressure of the foot against his face filled him with irrational fear. He tried to breathe as best he could through one nostril, shuddering at the stink of the fluid that he could not help but draw into his lungs.

Shuddering was a mistake.

The Captain stepped down harder on his face, and Hanner stilled himself as best he could in desperate horror. Captain Lowden was still talking; and though Hanner couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of the words, he knew with sickening certainty they meant that something terrible was going to happen to him.

“I don’t doubt but that there’s Free Government behind this, in light of the recent intelligence reports. We can’t leave the port to the Danzilar prince with a potential cell of insurrectionaries unaccounted for.”

The horrid pressure of the booted foot shifted at last, and Hanner gulped his breath in great gasping sobs. There were people at him again, pulling him to his feet, straining his arms painfully against the restraints that they latched around his wrists behind his back. He was having a hard time keeping his balance, but fortunately for him Security still held him fast.

“I’ll want you to get started right away, Andrej, bring me confession before fast-meal and I won’t ask First Officer where Security were when all this happened. Though come to think of it — ”

Things began to come back into focus as he finally caught his breath, now that he was no longer doubled over to the ground. The body. Andrej Koscuisko, his rival in a contest for Sylyphe’s attention that could be no real contest at all. Security, and some other people, important people he’d no business even looking at. Why had they shackled him?

Captain Lowden was looking past Koscuisko at one of the few Security troops here that Hanner had met before. “I don’t think I saw you on post, where were you? No. Never mind.” The Captain of the
Ragnarok
. Hanner stared up at him in awe. “We have more important issues to address. I’ll let it go for now. Confession in due form, Koscuisko, and go as lightly as you can, we wouldn’t want to cheat the Bench of its lawful revenge.”

Koscuisko bowed; and Hanner could not see the expression on his face, shadowed as it was by the light from the great room within. There hadn’t been an alarm. Had there been? He could hear music, laughter, as if the party was continuing, oblivious. Why hadn’t there been an alarm? Shouldn’t they raise the hue and cry, to track the murderer?

“Instruction received is instruction implemented. Stildyne,” Koscuisko said. “If you would go relieve the other gentlemen. Specialist Vogel. There is a Record still at the Port Authority, one presumes? And come to think of it, will the courthouse have power?”

The Captain clearly had other ideas. “Take my Security one-point-three rather, Andrej. Your people have been worked too hard, too long. You told me so yourself, as I remember. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Then Captain Lowden moved away back toward the lights, back toward the warmth, back toward the music.

“What was that all about?” The voice was the one that had been identified as Specialist Vogel; the man wore a different uniform, one without rank-markings. “Captains interfering in the First Officer’s business?”

“A game.” Koscuisko’s response was savage. Hanner wondered what Koscuisko was so angry about. “Captain Lowden likes to play games. In this one he reminds me that if I don’t do as he has instructed me he has a complaint to cry against my Security. Just in case I had had any ideas about consulting my own judgment in how quickly a lawful confession was to be obtained.”

“I’d say he made it pretty clear what he expected.” Vogel’s agreement was not an entirely approving one. “Makes a man a little uncomfortable, if you don’t mind my saying so. He didn’t actually see the murder.”

Hanner had. Hanner had seen the murder. But no one had asked him about the murder. Why hadn’t anyone asked him about it? Maybe they had, and he didn’t remember. His head was spinning. He could hardly keep his balance, and his stomach was going to pitch at any moment. Just as well he hadn’t had his supper.

“What does it matter?” Koscuisko asked. Hanner knew it mattered. Hanner knew it mattered critically — but Koscuisko was still speaking. “If he’s guilty he will confess. If he is not guilty there will be no confession.”

Only
. . .

“As you say, sir.” Even to Hanner Vogel sounded dubious enough to strike a spark from Koscuisko, who exploded in challenge quick and sharp almost before Vogel had finished.

“Do you suggest otherwise, Specialist?”

For a moment it seemed to Hanner that Vogel might do just that. But the moment passed. Was that a good thing? Vogel bowed. “Of course not, your Excellency. You’ll excuse me, sir, getting back to the party, and all.”

Koscuisko glared after the retreating man until Vogel reached the steps; then abruptly transferred his attention back to the grotesque gory scene in the garden.
   

“Very well.” Koscuisko glanced at him now; met his eyes, and let his gaze travel down the length of Hanner’s body, soiled from kneeling in the blood that pooled at the foot of the stairs. “Young Hanner. I am heartily sorry to see you here. The Bench makes no provision for family feeling where its officers are concerned.”

There hadn’t been an alarm, and there would be no alarm. Because they thought that they had found the murderer. That he was the murderer.

“I’ve done no murder!” Skelern protested, so horrified by his realization of what he was accused of that he nearly stuttered in his frantic need to speak out. “Only watching Sylyphe, for a little moment, there’s no harm in watching Sylyphe dance, is there?”

But Koscuisko only snapped his fingers. Rough hands began to drag him away, across the lawn toward the maintenance-track beyond the screening trees. Maybe it was a killing offense to have desired the consort of an Inquisitor. But Uncle Andrej dealt honestly with a man, and Skelern had not realized until he’d seen them dance that Sylyphe was to be soul and flesh of Anders Koscuisko. Surely he could not be put to death for having offended in error.

“What does his Excellency think, a crozer-lance?”

He could hear the words behind him as Koscuisko followed after. Koscuisko. But it was all right then, after all. Wasn’t it?

“No, it seems to have been a trowel-blade, Robert. Perhaps a hoe. We’ll have the details soon enough.”

“It — must have been — the crozer-hinge, the force, the height — ”

He knew the voice. St. Clare. Robert St. Clare, a Nurail, but not one like himself. The reproach Koscuisko made grew fainter, in its volume, as Koscuisko stopped while Hanner was hurried off.

“Yes, of course, Robert. What is your point, exactly? You are to go back to your duty post. Captain Lowden will be watching for you. You are to go now. I do not want to be angry with you.”

Anybody else, and he would only have been able to despair. But this was Andrej Koscuisko, the bloody butcher, Koscuisko, Black Andrej. And everybody knew that if you were guilty there was no hope, no chance to escape punishment.

But every Nurail also knew that Andrej Koscuisko had the truth-sense on him, the curse of the blood was upon him, and he knew when a man was telling the truth.

It didn’t mean a great deal, since Koscuisko was required to test, and the test itself was terrible; but it meant enough. Koscuisko did not condemn the innocent for crimes that they had had no action in.

And Hanner was innocent in word or deed of the murder of the man who had tortured his poor friend. Koscuisko would know.

He would have to bear the testing of it, yes.

But Koscuisko would know.

###

Robert St. Clare stood in his place. He was safe and secure as long as he was in his place, and at attention-rest as he was expected to be.

Safe and secure, but far from serene. What had he done? And why hadn’t he stopped to think that someone would be taken for it? He should have known. Someone had to be taken for it, and there were Nurail allover Port Burkhayden; it was a Nurail port. They had taken that gardener away, and he knew that Hanner hadn’t done it. He knew that Hanner couldn’t have done it, but did Koscuisko know?

He’d tried to tell Koscuisko, once he’d realized. He’d tried to tell him, and he hadn’t been able to. Why had his governor let him do the deed and then prohibited him from speaking of it? He’d known that he was right to do it when he’d done it, and he could even guess that that was why he’d been able to do it at all. But he was wrong to keep silent and let Hanner go to torture. Why wouldn’t his governor let him confess himself now?

Because — even though she was his sister, his beloved sister, his sweet sister that he hadn’t seen for so many years — even though she was his sister, his sister, not that Skelern Hanner’s sister, he would not have done the thing if he had been thinking and had realized that someone would have to be taken for it.

He knew what a Tenth Level Command Termination meant, and at his maister’s hands particularly.

And if the gardener had not done the murder, as Robert knew quite well that he had not, still Hanner might well prove guilty of enough besides; and Captain Lowden forced such compromises on a man. Trades. If Captain Lowden were to tell Koscuisko to either execute the Tenth Level or keep after other prisoners from Danzilar’s people until someone confessed, would not his maister be forced to bend his neck and do the horrible and unjust thing?

It had never been so blatant, so horrible, ever yet, but had Koscuisko not agreed before to execute at a more advanced Level in order to keep as many still-unaccused souls from the torture as he could?

Why had his governor let him do the thing, the thing which until it had been well done he had not known for certain that he could do, and then not let him do the smaller task, confess himself to keep an innocent man from coming beneath his maister’s hand?

If only, if only Koscuisko could have heard him, if only Koscuisko could remember. But Robert was too confused now in his mind between his private torment and the stress on his governor to be sure of whether he’d even really managed to say, about the crozer-hinge. If Koscuisko had heard him, Koscuisko would remember, but would his poor maister be too deeply sunk into his passion to call the point to mind before it was too late for Skelern Hanner?

Closing his eyes as tightly as he knew how, Robert tried to set a governor on his mind, since the one the Fleet had given him was not helping. He could do nothing now for Skelern Hanner. He had not stopped to realize what would have to happen, if he did it right, if he could do it at all. Perhaps in another little while he would be able to speak to Chief Stildyne, and Hanner not more than a few hours the worse for it. Not that he cared about Hanner, he didn’t know Hanner; although the man seemed to be fond of his sister.

Oh, his sister, after so many years, and then to see her so unkindly served, knowing exactly what the Lieutenant had done . . .

He blinked his eyes open hastily, feeling his balance beginning to erode.

He could not move from his place. He did not have permission. His governor was that much more strict with him now, it seemed, now that the damage was already done, now that he only wanted to surrender himself to punishment — because he could get away with it, he had gotten away with it, but an innocent man was to suffer if he could not confess.

He could not move from his place. His governor protected him from punishment, would not permit him to speak the word that would put himself in jeopardy. It was intended to help him censor his incautious tongue, to ensure that he would not challenge an officer or speak an actionable violation of some sort,

It protected him too well.