Hour of Judgement (18 page)

“If his Excellency would care to explain, about a ‘fanshaw?’ Can’t say that there are many opportunities for such as this, on board ship.”

The Danzilar prince was a little taller than Koscuisko, and his hair was brown. Blue eyes, though. There were people out there on the dance floor who looked so much like Koscuisko and Danzilar put together that it was easy to imagine a blood relationship.

Now Danzilar smiled a little sadly, gesturing politely with his cupped hand palm-uppermost at the demonstration dance. “Fanshaw is a challenge-piece, by nature. Here they are dancing mixed fanshaw, a courting dance, although the relationships that one dances to obtain are courtships of very short duration. Little permanence.”

Or week-long wedlock, Mendez guessed. “Is that why they’re all tricked out so bright?” He’d never seen Andrej in a ruffled shirt, much less a brilliant blue embroidered vest. He’d never seen Koscuisko wearing bright green leggings or a painted leather skirt. In fact the only color he’d ever associated with Koscuisko was the little bit of crimson in the cording on his sleeves that identified his area of service. Oh, and the bar of matching crimson that lined through his rank-plaquet, in token of his custody of the Writ to Inquire.

“Well, one wishes to impress the ladies. He has unfair advantage there, because one need not wear one’s land-holdings for everyone to be impressed by them.”

Andrej was rich, was that what Danzilar was saying? Hard to tell, with Dolgorukij. He already knew that Andrej was rich. The comment gave him an idea, though. There were probably questions he could ask his host, with Koscuisko gone, about all the things he didn’t know about the Chief Medical Officer; he might well learn something interesting. About Koscuisko’s children, for instance, since Two dropped maddeningly vague hints about their number and situation from time to time.

If a man couldn’t pry into the private lives of his fellow Primes then there was no reason to keep on living; gossip was the spice of life.

For Intelligence Officers and Ship’s Executives gossip sometimes provided information that came in very handily at the most unexpected points. But the dance was breaking up, and he had already seen Lowden signaling for him; he could not see his way clear to pretending that he hadn’t noticed, not since Danzilar had apparently seen it too.

“I hope we get a chance to watch some more of that. It’s interesting. With your permission, your Excellency, Captain Lowden seems to need me, if you will excuse the interruption.”

It probably wasn’t strictly necessary to excuse himself formally. He didn’t really need Danzilar’s permission. But somebody should probably be at least polite to their host, especially after having soiled his clean white garden steps with blood and an ugly corpse. And if anybody was going to be polite it would have to be him, because Lowden wasn’t even pretending very hard any longer.

Nodding, Danzilar frowned a little. “Naturally I do not dream of impeding. Come back to me when the music starts, I will have the dancing-master tell to you about the time when the son of the Koscuisko prince took out nine of his cousins in one set.”

Which sounded ever so much more interesting than whatever Lowden could have on his mind. The Captain had been all but publicly gloating about getting a Tenth Level from Koscuisko ever since they’d taken the gardener away. Mendez bowed out of courtesy and retreated; Lowden was visibly impatient, and the sooner he got whatever it was out of the way the sooner Mendez would be free again to pump that dancing-master for juicy tidbits about Koscuisko’s other life. His real life. Well, maybe he should just think of it as “other,” after all.

Lowden had started for the front entrance, once he had apparently assured himself that Mendez was following. Ralph only just caught up with him on his way out.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Lowden said firmly, his voice sufficiently emphatic to get the attention of everyone within wire range. “I’m going to the service house to take some healthful recreation. I’ll need Security, of course, and you’ll cover for me if Danzilar notices that I’ve gone.”

Predictable. But very impolite. “Choice of Security, your Excellency? Double teams, perhaps.” Apart from it being rude to leave their host’s welcoming party without so much as telling Danzilar about it, there was a safety issue to consider. There were Free Government agents in Burkhayden, by Intelligence report — Two had said so. Well, she’d said that there were reports. And then of course a person might want to be a little prudent, when it was Lowden’s Lieutenant whose assault had set things in such an uproar. Wyrlann was dead, and maybe that would turn out to be all there was to be to that. Still, Captain Griers Verigson Lowden was an unpopular man even in quiet ports, among people who’d had a chance to get to know him.

“Where’s that bunch of Andrej’s? The slaves. He’ll be distracted; I might just have myself some fun with them. Not that I care. But it makes him so edgy when he doesn’t know.”

If Koscuisko was going to be distracted — and who would know better than Lowden, about that? — then what real difference could it make whether Lowden took Koscuisko’s bond-involuntaries or not?

Mendez didn’t feel like playing. “His Excellency has relieved the advance party, but Koscuisko’s people have been on line for almost as long. And Koscuisko takes more energy out of a person. Take another of Koscuisko’s teams, if you want to make a point of it.”

At the rate Koscuisko was going one more worry, one more uncertainty, one more outrage was going to send him off on a hard oblique so sharp that they’d never find his mind to stuff back into his skull again.

“Forget Koscuisko’s people, he’s going to be giving them enough of a workout.” Lowden seemed to have changed his mind anyway, but whether it was because he’d accepted Mendez’s point was anybody’s guess. “Give me, oh, who’ve you got? All right, one-point-four. I’ll take one-point-four.”

Mendez lifted an eyebrow at the senior man on one-point-four, Anji Ghaf; and, bowing, she went to collect the rest of her team. Security one-point-four it was. “Will the Captain be returning to Center House, or shall we send for you in the morning?”

“I’ll let you know.” And why not? Mendez asked himself rhetorically. Why shouldn’t a ship of war with a crew of more than seven hundred souls hang impotent in neutral orbit while its Captain slept off an evening’s sensual indulgence in the service house that no one else had been granted leave to visit? Command Branch had its prerogatives, after all. And that was one of them.

“Captain Lowden will be needing you for the rest of the shift. Carry on, Miss Ghaf.”

And now that Lowden had reminded him about Koscuisko’s Security, one of Andrej’s bond-involuntaries had been looking a little less than eight in eighty. He was going to have to ask Chief Stildyne to check on St. Clare, just in case there was something more than usually wrong with that damned defective governor of his.

Then maybe everybody would just leave him alone, and he could go back to ferreting out the deep dark secrets of his Chief Medical Officer’s youthful days of cheerful frolic.

###

Eights passed.

The table had proved itself more useful than Andrej had hoped. Hanner’s chains had caught beneath its surface on a rod or brace of some sort, and prevented Hanner’s weight from pulling him by the shackled arms painfully down to the end of the table to the floor. No, Hanner was caught there, as efficiently as though Andrej were at home in Secured Medical and Hanner lying across the whipping-block.

Hanner wept, half-strapped onto the table, wept with pain and with the fear of more pain. He could see the whip when Andrej came from his left side, and he was quite properly apprehensive of it. Andrej had worked him hard in the past eights: and yet something wasn’t right.

The dose he’d administered and refreshed was a solid performer even at the next Level, one Andrej could rely upon to eat away at a man’s will to keep his truth still to himself. Hanner had had two doses of it, one even moderately increased in consideration of Hanner’s wiry muscular frame — it could well be that Hanner was heavier than he looked.

More than two doses in a space of four eights Andrej could not see his way clear to administer, and still there was the fact that the first dose should have been enough. It was not to be expected that a man yield to confess himself of such a crime on the persuasion of the whip alone, no matter how thrilling the sound of its impact against helpless quivering flesh, no matter how honestly Hanner reported the pain that the whip granted him. But there had been the drug.

Andrej strolled forward to stand at the middle of the table. Here was where Hanner lay face-down on the table’s surface, one cheek flat against the sweat-damp wood. Trembling. Trying to catch his breath. Andrej wiped tears of pain from Hanner’s cheeks carefully with the gathered coils of his whip, and waited, caressing Hanner’s cheek with bloodied leather while Hanner settled down.

“What is the matter with you, Skelern Hanner?”

Hanner winced, and closed his eyes tightly. Andrej tried to explain. “I am at a loss to explain your stubborn behavior. One would almost think you had no desire to confess. Is that the problem, Hanner? Have I failed to inspire the correct sense of urgency? Do you lack motivation to make your confession?”

Hanner was polite; it was one of the things that made his intransigence confusing. “No, thank you. Sir. I wish. Very heartily. That I could confess, and be done with this. Your Excellency.”

That was all to the good. “Is it that you do not wish to confess to the murder of our Fleet Lieutenant? Because that is the only confession that is of interest, you know that.”

Eights, and Hanner was marked from neck to foot, bleeding and bruised. Andrej knew. It had been hard work, if not without its satisfactions. Now he was becoming bored and a little anxious, and he had rather liked young Skelern Hanner; he wanted to make as clean a confession of it as possible. It would mean less to be suffered in the long run, if that could truly be considered when there was the Tenth Level —

“I. I would like. To confess.” For a moment Andrej was hopeful, resting his hand against Hanner’s back encouragingly. “But must not. To a crime. Which I have not committed.”

“You must not want it hard enough.” In truth that was the only conclusion to be drawn. Since Hanner had committed murder — and Andrej had no reason, no real reason, to doubt but that he had — the only thing Andrej could think of to explain Hanner’s stubbornness was a failure of motivation. Not even the half-choked cry of desperation with which Hanner answered him was good enough.

“Your Excellency — ”

“I am sorry to have to say it. But you are simply not adequately engaged in the process. I wonder how I am to be sure of your attention?”

Whether or not he liked Hanner had nothing to do with what he craved from him. And what Andrej knew he was working toward was a good confession; Lowden had required it. But in the mean time he could make Hanner cry; and Andrej’s fish sought each whimper of anguish as eagerly as it might seek the blue ocean. His body ached with it. Hanner would pay him back for the aggravation.

Reaching beneath the table, Andrej unfastened the shackles that bound Hanner wrist to wrist at opposite ends of the table’s width. Trefold shackles. Hanner didn’t move, being freed; Andrej wrapped the chain around Hanner’s throat and tightened it snugly. Then snugged it a little more tightly.

“Come, let us discuss this once more in detail.” Hanner made a gesture as though he wanted to raise his hands to his throat, to catch at the cord. Hanner didn’t dare. Andrej cinched it more sharply yet, just to enjoy the choking sounds Hanner made in his throat. “Onto the floor with you, my young friend. Onto the floor — ”

Andrej pulled, and Hanner fell, putting out his hands as he tumbled over the edge to try to break his fall. What a bore. Should he have Hanner back up to the table again, and fasten his wrists behind his back, watch to see how Hanner took the impact then?

He was getting drunk. But his fish would not rule him.

“Here is a thing that I learned long ago.” Crouching down to the floor over Hanner’s prone body Andrej knelt, with his left knee squarely planted in Hanner’s back and his foot flattened sideways against weeping flesh. “It is about Nurail and stubborn-headedness. That is perhaps redundant. And yet the trick was a useful one.”

He’d had Security to help him, that once long ago. He was much more practiced in atrocity now than he had been. He could do this himself. One hand flat to the shoulder to keep it in place. One hand at the elbow, to draw it around, to twist it up behind and pop the crozer-hinge —

Then, as before, his prisoner had screamed.

But now, shockingly, there was no slipping of a joint out of socket, but the ugly grinding snap of a bone fractured brutally. A compound fracture. Not a disjoint.

Andrej stared at the shoulder, the undeformed shoulder, the shoulder that showed no hint of the crozer-hinge; stared at the shoulder, and at Hanner’s arm, still gripped firmly in hand.

Holy Mother.

In the name of all Saints.

Hanner had called the woman Megh his sister, and she was hill-country Nurail. Andrej realized with all-consuming horror that he had assumed —

But the evidence could be interpreted no other way. Skelern Hanner was from Burkhayden. He was not hill-people. He had no crozer-hinge.

Hanner was Burkhayden Nurail, not hill-station, but there was no way in which a Nurail without a crozer-joint could have thrown something that hard and that fast. The Lieutenant’s neck had been all but completely cut through. There was spinal bone, and the trachea was tough, and a good deal of muscle was always required to hold a man’s head up upon his shoulders —

“Please, Uncle, please, I didn’t mean harm by it, just watching. She’s such a pretty thing. I can’t confess a thing that isn’t true — ”

Andrej pushed himself away from Hanner’s wracked body and backed away a pace, afraid. Two paces. Three. What could this mean, if Hanner had no crozer-hinge, if Hanner had no crozer-joint, if Hanner could no more throw a crozer-lance than he could?