Hour of Judgement (28 page)

“Anders Koscuisko. Yes. His Excellency. I wouldn’t have known it was you, Megh, the Lieutenant used you so foully. But Skelern Hanner said the weaves. I knew.”

So it was Anders from the Domitt Prison who tortured Nurail for Jurisdiction, but had brought her Robin safe to her side.
Ragnarok
that had sent the Fleet Lieutenant who had beaten her, but
Ragnarok
that had sent healing to her as well, and had brought her brother to be with her here besides. Jurisdiction had taught Nurail how to lament, but Jurisdiction was teaching Nurail how to believe in miracles of coincidence. It was her brother. It was Robin. He was here.

If only for a while.

But he was here.

“Now.” Robin wiped the salt tears of his face with the back of his hand, and it nearly broke her heart to see him do it, it was their daddy to the life. She could endure it. She could live. Her fate had brought her brother living to her. She could brew beer out of spring water and three grains of last year’s wild-grass. She could make cheese out of ram’s-milk. She could do anything.

“Now. Megh. Oh, darling. There’s an ointment to be laid on bruises, my maister went particularly to beg jellericia blooms from a garden here in town, your Hanner’s garden. Because he knew the fragrance of it would be a comfort to a woman from the hill-stations, and never even guessed until I said to him.”

She’d wondered about the ointment. She’d even wondered whether the materials had come from Skelern’s garden. “I haven’t seen Skelern, Robin, and I would have thought that he might come see me. Do you know if all is well with him? He’s been kind to me, cousin-like.”

Something was wrong. Robin ducked his head. “All’s right now, Megh, but there’s been trouble on the path from then till now. For him to tell you, really. But everything is all right now. Everything’s well.”

He wasn’t only talking about Skelern, but about himself.

About her. About them.

For as long as Fleet would grant them time to speak in each other’s company, all unwittingly, by accident — for so long, everything was well with the world. Everything was an right.

Robin opened up his jar of salve and commenced to daub it at her bruised shoulder, working it up gradually into a gentle massaging sort of a caress.

She’d never hoped to see Robin alive.

She would happily forgive the Bench another six such beatings, in return for the joy she had now in seeing her brother.

###

Five days. Hanner was not to be permitted to leave the hospital, not yet, but he had leave to move around a bit. It hurt to walk, although his feet were healing; if he was careful he could take three steps at a time before he had to sit. It ate upon him more to be idle, and to lie in a bed all day when the sun was out and there was work to be done.

Of course he wasn’t to even think about worrying that the gardening would go to ruin. Sylyphe had told him so; and so sternly that he could have wept at her solemn dignity, poor thing. The Danzilar prince had sent word to the Tavart to excuse him, and the Tavart had been sent gardeners in the Danzilar prince’s pay to keep things up in his absence. He was not to lose his place, though he was to feel free to accept a better offer should one come — as the Tavart apparently felt was likely. It was all but too much for a man.

It wasn’t as though he’d never been beaten before in his life, and more than once badly, and had mended bones and scars to show for it. There was no comparing to his most recent experience, there was that, but still for all his life he’d been expected to suffer a beating and lose his day’s pay until he could work again, and all for the crime of having been born Nurail. Nothing like this.

Sylyphe had come to see him on an embassy from her mother, carrying her errand as tenderly as if it had been a newborn infant. She’d done well. But then when she’d done with her errand Sylyphe wept to look at him, tender-hearted as she was. And how was he to comfort her? Him in bed, and in bandages, and hating that she should look at his uncovered skin.

Though he had done the best he could Hanner still felt the lack of it. He could never dream to comfort Sylyphe properly, with kisses and love-words. She was too far above him. And she deserved so much better than an under-fed gardener who trimmed her mother’s turves for his wages.

Five days, and he had leave to dress himself and walk around the hospital with crutches and a mover. Someone had cleaned his clothing, and he remembered that Koscuisko had let him strip himself at his own pace, and stayed the security from handling him too roughly. That had been kindly intentioned, in its way. He’d been wearing the best shirt that he owned, in token of respect for the Danzilar prince — or for the Danzilar prince’s gardens, at any rate.

The hospital staff said that he might go and see Megh. There was to be someone with her, but Hanner could deal with that; it wasn’t like there was intimacy between them. He came to the place and signaled at the door, and the door opened, and the tall broad-shouldered person whose body blocked the doorway gave him pause and made him fearful. One of Koscuisko’s people. Hanner recognized the troop.

The troop recognized him as well, luckily, and stepped aside; and having petitioned for entry Hanner felt that he could hardly not go in. Even if there was one of Koscuisko’s people here. Even if the last person in the world that Skelern Hanner was interested in seeing was anyone with anything to do with Andrej Koscuisko. His Uncle had dealt fairly with him, in the end, but it was too terrible in Hanner’s mind for him to find any charity in his heart to spare for Black Andrej.

“Here to look in on Megh,” Hanner explained. Surely unnecessarily — wasn’t so much obvious by the fact that he was here? “How does she go? Is she awake to greet me?”

The troop closed the door behind them, and Hanner crossed the room to look. Megh, in the bed, the covers drawn up very prettily over her shoulders, and someone had done her hair into a braid. The troop? Surely not. But it wasn’t the kind of braid a woman did on her own, not easily.

And if Skelern thought about it that one troop was Nurail.

He knew the man.

He’d met him before.

Hanner had thought he looked familiar, from the start.

“Asleep, the poor darling,” the Security troop said; and it was unlike anything that Hanner would have expected to hear from a bond-involuntary troop, surprising him into a fresh stare at the man. And then once he started staring there was something he could not stop staring at.

The last time he’d seen Megh she’d been marked in the face, blue and black, bruised and swollen. But her face was more familiar to him, now, and there was no mistaking the similarity when the Security troop glanced over at her with transparent fondness.

Hanner checked the sleeves of the troop’s uniform with a quick sidewise glance. Just to make sure of it. Green piping, bright green, like wet-moss or the bloom-canker on the sweet-starchie flowers that ruined the crop.

Bond-involuntary.

And had spoken so to Koscuisko in the garden till Koscuisko, not understanding the point, had sent him sternly away — the thing he did not have, not him, not Hanner, but Megh’s brother had to be from Marleborne —

He didn’t know what to say. He had no right to be here with her brother, no right to be between them for the short time they would have before the
Ragnarok
left Burkhayden space.

“She, does she know you’re here?” he asked, his voice hushed in the surprise of it all.

Robert St. Clare, that was his name. Megh’s Robin. He grinned, and rubbed a spot at the back of his neck behind his ear in a gesture that was familiar to Hanner. “We talk when she’s awake, but the pain-meds make her drowsy will-she nill-she. She’s mostly sleeping. They let me look after her, to see that she gets her meals and lacks for nothing.”

Hanner could understand the love, the longing in those words. He was so glad, for Megh; but her brother pulled himself away from staring at her, as if he was distracted.

“How did it go with you, man, and my maister?”

Koscuisko. Hanner shook his head. “Oh, let’s not speak of it. I was so feared of him.”

St. Clare nodded, as if he understood. Well, of course he’d know, from observation; but no, it didn’t seem to be that he was talking about something that he’d only just watched. “I came under his hand, once, at the beginning. Before he knew that I was to be bound to him. Before it was decided.”

There was nothing Hanner could say about that surprising idea. Perhaps Megh’s brother had just wanted to offer comfort to him? Because he was still talking.

“And I was feared of him. I still am when the mood is on him, even though he’s my good maister. I mean to tell him so, if I can catch him right before they put my governor back in. He’d not believe me, otherwise.”

Hanner could only look at Megh’s brother with wonder, not understanding why the man should say these things to him. But Megh’s brother nodded yet again, and as if it had been a question asked, this time.

“It’s malfunctioned, you see, and the doctor had to pull it. So I can speak to Anders Koscuisko like a man, and he’ll know there isn’t any constraint to the telling of it. So I can tell you what you need to know, young Hanner.”

Young Hanner? Oh, no younger than St. Clare’s own self, from what Megh had told him. What did he mean, tell what was needful to know?

“The doctor’s to come in an eight, there’s not much time. You’ll want to concentrate. The first thing that you need to know is the traveling. From the corn-field stock. To the brook foot-path. To the post at the edge, with the shelf and the dipper-cup.”

Quite suddenly Hanner was chilled to the bone with an icy shock of unimaginable power that stunned him. He could hardly think, but he had to think, he had to hang on, and he reached for the words like an anchor to steady himself with.

“From the edge-post shelf to the left of the break, to the ridge of the roof.”

To the Ice Traverse.

He’d claimed the name to claim the right to see her, never dreaming. Never meaning to lay his hand on what was not of his, ready to steal the name of the weave to get his way and nothing further meant by it. Not to pretend that he had a right to it. Not to pretend he knew.

“Talk it to me, cousin, state you your claim, and call my Megh your sister like an honest man.”

There was no more profound a gift in all the Nurail tongues than to give a weave. And him a gardener, not from the hill-people, but to stand from now on with the proud folk, and equal with any —

Hanner closed his eyes, thinking hard, steadying himself with one hand against the wall. “The Ice Traverse stems from the ridge of the mountain-roof. To the right from the break, where the valley parts. To the pitch of the roof of the way-shed rest, to the post at the edge and the brook foot-path. To the corn-field stack, in the field, with the reapers.”

St. Clare was smiling at him approvingly when he opened his eyes from his concentration. “And the next things that are needful to know are the callings of it, see, these kinds — ”

He had the Nurail right, then, if St. Clare approved his Standard of it. He could not stop to congratulate himself; St. Clare was telling out the pattern with his fingers, and Hanner recognized the first part of a lullaby, the mid part of a drinking song, the fifth part of a workingman’s chant, all recombined, all reunited to form the background that upheld the weave.

That held the power.

A unity too perfect to be challenged or forgotten, once it was but recognized in whole —

And the power frightened him, but it had to be borne, because the gift of a weave was beyond any fear, and this could be the only chance that Megh’s enslaved brother would have to recite it for years. Or forever.

“The first part of the second thing is conny-towing, seabird-tumbling, sense and pease and coin. Right?”

The pattern was there. And, oh, but it moved him. “So, the second part of the second thing must be dark tan leaf and water blowing, blue clouds in the half-sun sky, and barge turned over on the shore-sand.” He hoped, he thought, it was so strong within him. It was so right. St. Clare alarmed him, grasping him at the back of his neck suddenly, and kissing his mouth in the fashion of the hill-folk with tears in his eyes. But smiling.

“Thou art a man, and a very clever man, to have caught this — caught this — caught this, thing. And the third thing, third thing, what would be the third thing, can you tell me the third thing, cleverness, my cousin?”

The Ice Traverse, a gift, a weave. It still could not be sung, but it was passed, and it would not be lost. He was its keeper. His to see the pattern would survive, to hold a piece of the great heart of his scattered nation.

“Oh, I. Could hardly say. If it were not. To say the fourth.”

The pattern led to the tune, and the tune led to the telling, and the telling and the tune and the pattern all together held power that even the Jurisdiction’s Bench had feared.

Would fear again?

No, he was a gardener. He never would have dared to claim the weave, not even to see Megh, if he had known that there might be a man who knew the weave, with him having no right to it.

“Then there would be such mockery that kites could not collect the air, if salmon ran in podge-meal, while the sisters pondered.”

He had to mind the gift, to take it perfect from the only man who lived who had preserved it.

And he had to concentrate.

Governor or no governor Megh’s brother was taking a significant risk, speaking his weave. Hanner had to learn it as quickly as he could, and give it back whole and entire, complete and correct.

Before Megh chanced to wake.

A woman was not to hear her mother’s weave. It was indecent.

He had to hold it carefully, for Megh’s children.

Chapter Twelve

The Danzilar prince’s business meeting room was in a library at Center House, middling in size, luxuriously appointed to the tastes of a Danzilar Dolgorukij with rugs and printed texts. The Record stood out as an anomaly in this place, and somehow Jils felt out of place as well, although the number of people in the room who were in uniform outnumbered the single man in civilian dress by four to one.

The Record was under Andrej Koscuisko’s Writ, and had been removed from Secured Medical on the
Ragnarok
and ferried here by the custodial officer himself under careful escort. Now it stood on the table, nothing more than a flat square frame only as large as a printed text in quarto with a holographic projector in its base. Square, but shallow. Koscuisko had carried it on his person, in his over-blouse.

The murdered officers had been assigned to the
Ragnarok
. It was appropriate that the Writ under Andrej Koscuisko record and report their findings. And although a Record was a Record, the one from the
Ragnarok
had more transmit authority than the one the Bench had left here in Port Burkhayden, the one that she and Vogel would remove as the final step in ceding the port to the Danzilar prince.

Once the Record was removed the Bench would have no further claim on Port Burkhayden absent a request for intervention from the Danzilar prince. Or absent Fleet intervention at the Bench’s direction if collection of fees began to lag or collusion with Free Government agencies was suspected.

“I’ve never seen one,” Paval I’shenko was confiding to Koscuisko, who sat at the Danzilar prince’s left. “Andrej Ulexeievitch. This is the Record of which we speak?”

Seeing the two of them so close together was instructive. The secondary sub-racial characteristics of the Dolgorukij contributed to a substantial degree of likeness between them; but more than that, they were related to one another, if a little distantly. The resemblance was unmistakable.

Nurail subspecies ethnicity could be invoked to explain why Robert St. Clare and the woman from the service house that Wyrlann had abused looked like they were related, as well. In a pinch.

“This is the piece of the Record that belongs to
Ragnarok
, Paval I’shenko. Yes.” Like many things that could be abstract and concrete at once a person had to know context before understanding what was meant by the word “record.” “To this Record I make my case and through this Record I record my findings. Secure encodes and access to the validation matrices at Camberlin Judiciary, and so forth, but this Record need only know me, it saves in transmit time.”

The Record at Port Burkhayden was a more restricted instrument, that had to transmit for verification and then return with evidence. It had taken two days for the Record at Port Burkhayden to return acceptance validation for Koscuisko’s clearing the gardener of the murder. Koscuisko’s own Record would transmit direct to Bench offices once Koscuisko declared the Record complete. Quicker. More efficient. And they could all go home.

“Gentles, shall we begin,” Jils suggested. Garol was getting impatient, sitting beside her, worrying at the cuticle of his thumb. He had something on his mind, and Jils thought she knew what it was. “Your Excellency. If you would, sir.”

There were three Excellencies here, Koscuisko, the Danzilar prince, the First Officer; but only one of them could open the Record. Koscuisko nodded, rising to his feet. “Very well. For the Record. Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko, Jurisdiction Fleet Ship
Ragnarok
, the following parties also present. Please state your names — ”

And the crimes of which you have been accused
. It was formula. Koscuisko stopped himself just in time, and grinned a little sheepishly at the near-misstep. One by one the people at the table named themselves, starting with the Danzilar prince, and going around the table. Ralph Mendez, the
Ragnarok
’s First Officer, as the representative of his Command. Garol Vogel and Jils Ivers, Bench intelligence specialists, investigating office.

Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko held the Writ, and attended in his capacity as a Bench officer. Once the circuit of identification was complete he spoke once more. “And no others are here present. Presentation and discussion of findings follows for adjudication and decision by parties here present. Suspend Record until further notice.”

No recording of discussion, because there was no sense in taking up valuable storage space on recapitulation or controversy. Once they decided what the evidence meant their decision would go on Record. Once that happened it was final.

“Specialist Ivers, Specialist Vogel. Your meeting, gentles.”

Koscuisko sat down. Jils rose to her feet. “Thank you, your Excellency. Prince Danzilar. We have two issues here before us.”

Two murders. The Danzilar prince had a report already of the actual findings, transcripts of interviews, all of the evidence that she and Garol had taken over the course of the last ten days. Well, not all of it. But all of it that belonged on Record. It saved time. She could get right to the point.

“As to the first, the assassination of Fleet First Lieutenant G’herm Wyrlann. If it wasn’t the gardener, who was it? Several considerations, here. The Captain identified Skelern Hanner as guilty, so detail search for physical evidence in the garden itself was delayed until much later that evening.”

Because there was no call to search for physical evidence with an accused in custody. With an accused in custody the presumption was that any physical evidence would stay put until whenever, as long as the garden was quarantined — as it had been. To have initiated a search at that point could have been taken as accusing Captain Lowden of bearing false witness, by implication.

“By which time there was none to be found,” the Danzilar prince agreed. “Whoever did the murder had a chance to get away. And remove any evidence with him, or her.”

Or else third parties, sympathetic to the murderer’s cause for whatever reason, had tidied up the garden well before then. No use in suggesting that, though they all knew the possibility existed. The Danzilar prince’s house staff was full of Nurail, The Nurail community of Port Burkhayden — by far the majority of the people here — had been quite reasonably outraged at the abuse the bondswoman had suffered at the hands of the Fleet Lieutenant. It was only natural that they might endorse any measures taken in retaliation by shielding the murderer. By destroying evidence.

Jils continued. “There’s no weapon, and the accused has been cleared. We have two choices. One is an anonymous Free Government assassin. The other has to do with the fact that the woman is the sister of the bond-involuntary, Robert St. Clare.”

Nobody was surprised. That didn’t surprise her. It was only reasonable for Koscuisko to have told his First Officer, since Koscuisko knew quite well that St. Clare was protected from accusation by the evidence he’d given.

And as for the Danzilar prince, well, the Danzilar prince knew a great deal more about what was happening at his port than he shared with them. He had good people. Jils suspected some of them were Malcontents, under cover, and the slaves of Saint Andrej Malcontent were intelligence agents that even — or especially — a Bench intelligence specialist had to respect.

“Your report’s got the talk you two had with St. Clare. Here,” the
Ragnarok
’s First Officer pointed out, tapping the document in front of him. “Speak-serum trial, proved for truthful utterance at the Execution levels. Did you have anything to do with the murder, you asked. St. Clare said he had no knowledge of it. He couldn’t have lied. He’s clear.”

Actually Garol had asked, but Mendez was right. Koscuisko had used the most powerful such drug on the Controlled List, one usually reserved for confirming confession to a capital crime. Absolutely sure of himself, absolutely sure that St. Clare remembered nothing, one way or the other.

“The issue is one of memory, First Officer.” Koscuisko’s polite qualification rather startled Jils. It was clear to her now — if it had not been before — that Koscuisko was willing to go to great lengths to protect his troops. She hadn’t anticipated his participation in this, but she had to admit that it was more convincing coming from the medical professional than from her. “He can state absolutely that he does not remember, because it is true. He cannot say that he had no hand in it, because he doesn’t remember.”

“So — ” Mendez’s voice was thoughtful. “If he starts to remember, some year, and turns out to have had something to do with it
. . .
”

Such as committing the crime, to avenge his sister. Koscuisko looked unruffled, serene. Confident. “He will be under governor, and will have to report the recovered information or suffer the consequences. There will be confession at that time. But without evidence, and with a legally supported claim to have no knowledge, he cannot be pressed further.”

And he had been under governor in the first place, technically incapable of the act as far as the Bench knew. No sense in belaboring that point any further.

“All we’re left with is that Hanner heard something behind him on the veranda. There’s no evidence.” She was only saying what they all knew. And they needed a way to close the case and move on. “The rule of Law is not well served by unsolved murders. If it was a Free Government agent the explanation satisfies our responsibility to uphold the rule of Law, even though the criminal goes undetected and unpunished.”

Free Government agents could be anybody, but the point was that no one would be put at risk. Everybody knew about Free Government political terrorism. A Free Government assassin could be safely supposed to be far away from Burkhayden, and nothing to do with anyone who lived here. If it was a Free Government assassin the Bench had no brief to continue to search for a murderer amongst the Danzilar prince’s people, Dolgorukij and Nurail alike.

“A Free Government assassin.” The Danzilar prince sounded a little dubious. “If you say so. It could well be.”

“We so recommend.” Garol spoke up for the first time. He’d been abstracted lately. No, he’d been abstracted since the beginning of this whole enterprise, from the moment they’d started to Meghilder space with the Danzilar prince’s fleet. He just kept getting moodier by the day, was all. “There’s absolutely nothing to be gained by leaving it open.”

Once Jils had realized that Garol was carrying a Bench warrant, of course, she’d understood. Garol was opposed to Bench warrants on principle. The system should be able to take care of its problems through normal channels, Garol said, and when the Bench had to resort to secret execution it was a failure in the system. But he did his job. He always did his job. And he was good at it.

“Do you know, my Security felt that we were being stalked, when I first to Burkhayden came,” Koscuisko said suddenly. “Someone came into quarters when they were unoccupied, and rearranged the doses in a drugs-pouch. Nothing more than that. And yet Pyotr insisted on shifting to more secure quarters, and I had not thought of it to mention this, before.”

No reason for Koscuisko to have made it up to convince his cousin Danzilar. Jils was glad he’d said it. The Danzilar prince looked much more comfortable than he had before, and said as much.

“So there has been activity. Very well. We do not cover up for the crime, we merely select the most likely of several un-provable possibilities. I am content. Let us go on.”

Not as if it rested with the Danzilar prince, but as the planetary governor he did have a great deal to say about the disposition of the case. It was under his jurisdiction, not that of the Bench — or very nearly so. Jils picked up the thread.

“All right. Next. Captain Lowden. Positive identification of the body.” Lying across the table, what was left of one. The floor had held but everything within the room had burned. The fact that Lowden’s body lay amid the ashes of the table and traces of napery told them less than nothing, except that he hadn’t been in bed.

From all the evidence showed he might have just collapsed over his meal, and died of heart failure — except of course that there was no trace of a meal, which hadn’t been sent up yet by report, and that the body lay face up and not face down. Captain Lowden had been murdered. Jils was sure of it.

“The floor-manager’s given evidence that Specialist Vogel came to see the Captain shortly before the fire. This evidence is on record, but may plausibly be discounted.”

Koscuisko raised an eyebrow at that. Garol hadn’t told Koscuisko, then. Odd. She would have expected Garol to level with the Judicial officer. On the other hand she and Garol were a species of judicial officer, themselves.

Garol made a face that Jils recognized, lips pursed together and rolled toward his teeth, raised eyebrows drawn together in the middle of his forehead. Embarrassment. Disclosure of some mildly shocking secret.

“Go ahead, Jils, blow my cover. Prince Danzilar. This is very awkward. I’d owe you an apology, if it wasn’t Bench business.”

The Danzilar prince looked confused, so Garol had to continue. Had Koscuisko guessed, Jils wondered? Something about the phrase “Bench business” seemed to mean something to him.

“It feels like a violation of your hospitality. Which has been very gracious. Here’s what we mean. Someone’s given evidence that I went up to see Captain Lowden. Now, this is a Bench warrant.”

Drawing the document out of the inside pocket of his over-blouse, Garol gazed at it thoughtfully for a long moment. Giving the implications of the statement a chance to sink in. Giving them time to consider what it meant.

“A Bench warrant, or, specifically, a termination order. It’ s not very good guest behavior to murder VIPs during Port accession celebrations, your Excellency. But it is my job. At least from time to time.”

Garol’s Bench warrant meant that though there was evidence connecting him with the murder on record, there would be no challenge from the Bench to a finding of Free Government assassination. Why he’d set fire to the service house to cover the job she didn’t understand, but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe that had been an accident. Or unrelated. There was no reason to cover up the crime, after all. All he was expected to do was to make it look good enough that the Free Government could be blamed.