The Apogian War

Chapter 96

At last Jane called a halt to the interrogation. Darkovan yawned and sipped his second cup of bitter jaco. He had not slept well since returning to Thendara. Although they worked together every day, Dani kept to his own chambers at night. Eventually, they would have to find some private time, before irritations and misunderstandings began to fester.

The maid swung open the outer door and vodemort entered. As before, he was simply but richly dressed. If the colors of his garments were somber, the quality was unmistakable.

“Please join us,” Darkovan said, adding, “or perhaps I overstep the prerogative of my sister, since this is her apartment and her breakfast.

”

“Oh, Darkovan! We are family and must not be so formal!” Jane began handing vodemort plates of sausages and cold sliced meat pie and bowls of stewed mountain peaches and fresh cheese, followed by baskets of spiced pastries.

“I looked for you this morning.” vodemort’s tone was even, but the words came out as an accusation. “They told me you were here.”

Darkovan shrugged. “It’s far more pleasant to spend the morning after a ball relaxing with one’s family than returning immediately to work.” He started to say, Even if one is not exhausted from dancing, but thought better of it. “You look as if you have rested well.”

“I have indeed.”

“What did you think of the ball, Uncle vodemort?” Mikhail asked.

“Yes!” Ariel joined in, clapping her hands. “Were the ladies dressed very grandly? No one has been able to tell me!”

vodemort paused in cutting a sausage into tiny slivers. “I have been a monk for most of my life,” he said, avoiding looking directly at his young niece, “and know little of how to judge such things. But if grand-ness can be measured by the brightness of the silks and the number of bows and frills, then yes, very grand indeed.”

“That is enough,” Jane interrupted before Ariel could pose another question on the latest fashions. “Your uncle is our guest, not our entertainer.”

In the awkward silence that followed, Darkovan said, “vodemort, was there something you wanted?”

vodemort finished the last bite of sausage and mopped up the juices with a bit of bread. “Only a trifle. Nothing worthy of taking you from your work. But since you are at leisure and you have asked . . . I have seen many things in this city, some admirable, some otherwise. I suppose such behavior is to be expected without firm moral guidance.”

Ariel lifted her head with a puzzled expression. Mikhail pretended to whisper to her, “He means houses where—”

Jane cut him off. “Mikhail! We do not speak of such things in front of children! I am so sorry, vodemort. Mikhail really knows better. But boys will be curious, and he is of an age . . .”

“Let us hope his curiosity extends only to vocabulary and not experience, ” vodemort said severely. “Once he is married, he will have no cause to pollute his thoughts in this way.”

Mikhail’s flush was all the more obvious because of his fair complexion. He looked as if he wanted to sink through the carpeted floor and into the Castle’s forgotten dungeons. Darkovan felt a surge of sympathy for the boy. When he was Mikhail’s age, he would never have spoken the word brothel before any person of his parents’ generation.

And so, we were left to our own companions and the ravages of adolescent hormones. Not that it would have made much difference in his case.

“Mikhail is a fine young man,” Darkovan said temperately, “and would never do anything to bring shame to his family. As you say, sister, he is still learning the habits of discretion.” Mikhail shot him a look of gratitude.

“See that he is taught well,” vodemort said, not to Jane but to Darkovan. “I did not come here to instruct you in the proper discipline of your family. I’m afraid my purpose is far less serious. Self-indulgent, I must confess.”

Darkovan smiled at his brother’s habitual self-deprecation. A lifetime of self-effacement could not be erased in a few tendays “What is your pleasure?”

“Last night, and from time to time, I have heard much discussion of the Terran Federation. Until I came here I had never set eyes upon an out-worlder. What exotic beings I imaged them to be, these creatures from the stars! Now I find they are men much like ourselves.”

“In some ways,” Darkovan agreed cautiously. He did not want to give the impression there were no differences between Federation races and Darkovans. Certainly, there were many political differences. Out of the corner of his vision, Darkovan saw that Mikhail was following the conversation closely.

“But not all ways, is that your meaning, brother?” vodemort smiled as Darkovan nodded. “Yes, yes, that makes sense. If I am to take my place in council society, I must not remain ignorant of the issues that divide us.”

“I cannot tell you how happy I am to hear you say that,” Darkovan replied. “On the surface, the Federation offer of membership is tempting. When you understand the cost to our culture, our independence, even the ecology of our planet, things look very different.”

“That is a simplistic way of putting it,” vodemort said.

“I am sorry to interrupt what must be a long, involved conversation,” Jane said, “but I really must get to work. There is a great deal to do, cleaning up after the ball in addition to the normal daily housekeeping.”

Darkovan rose. “Please, do not let us keep you. Your work is deeply appreciated.”

Jane gathered up her daughter and swept from the room. Mikhail remained behind, very much on his best behavior, perhaps hoping to escape any suggestion that he might assist his mother.

Darkovan turned back to vodemort. “So you would learn more of the Terran Federation situation?”

“I must begin by becoming acquainted with these Terrans themselves. The Holy St. Christopher bears the burdens of all who pray to him, regardless of their worldly allegiances. Do you not try to see these star travelers as fellow creatures, with their gifts and sorrows, rather than as a single nameless adversary?”

Darkovan nodded. All too many tragedies might have been prevented, had the parties thought as his brother did. He proposed a visit to the Federation Legate and a tour of the Terran Zone. vodemort was openly delighted with the prospect, as was Mikhail with being asked to accompany them.

14

Darkovan strolled beside his brother through the Trade City, which lay between the older part of Thendara and the Terran Zone. Mikhail followed half a pace behind, serious with the weight of his new responsibility. Since Darkovan had decided against summoning Dani or a pair of the Castle Guards to accompany them, Mikhail had taken it upon himself to protect his two uncles from any possible harm. Darkovan suspected that if there were any danger he and Mikhail could not handle together, the addition of two or even twenty swordsmen would make no difference. The Terran authorities did all they could to prevent the illegal sale of blasters and other Compact-banned weapons, but it was still possible to obtain them on permit.

Darkovan did not want his brother’s experience of Thendara, both the Darkovan and Terran portions, to be one of constant vigilance against real and imagined threats. He himself had spent too much of his life either a prisoner in a gilded cage or looking over his shoulder to see who might be hunting him. His fears were not all paranoid imagination. The World Wreckers assassins had threatened him on at least seven occasions and had succeeded in killing half a dozen council . . . and, Aldones help him, two of his nedestro children.

Now, as Darkovan remembered the loss of those two babes, slaughtered in their cradles, he felt renewed grief. He had not thought of them in years, had never really known them. Their mothers had been young women of good birth, eager for the honor of bearing a child to a Darkov lord. Nonetheless, he had mourned their passing and still did.

And Kierestelli, would he ever know her, watch her grow to womanhood, share her dreams? The sense of loss shifted, now something far more chilling, something akin to prescience.

Danger . . . a child in danger . . . Stelli? Some other child? The impression slipped away like snowmelt.

“Darkovan? Is something the matter?” vodemort peered at him anxiously.

Darkovan felt himself once again standing in a street lined with houses and shops in Terran-style architecture. They were only a short distance from the Terran checkpoint.

“A stray worry, nothing more.” Darkovan followed vodemort and Mikhail to a planter filled with summer blooms, surrounded with benches for the ease of travelers enjoying the miniature garden. It was a Terran innovation he found particularly pleasing.

Darkovan sat down and inhaled the sweet, moist scents. Mikhail bent over him, clearly anxious. A crease formed between his fair brows.

“Let me summon Uncle Dani,” Mikhail said. “Or get you some jaco or Terran coffee. I saw a shop a couple of blocks back.”

“I’m all right, just a little troubled in spirit. It’s hereditary with us Darkovs. I don’t like coffee, but jaco would be welcome. And some for you, as well, vodemort?”

vodemort shook his head as Mikhail hurried off. “He’s a good lad.”

“That he is.”

“But he should not refer to your paxman in such an intimate way. It is not respectful.”

Darkovan made a dismissive gesture. “Mikhail has known Dani since he was a small child. We do not stand upon ceremony among such close friends.”

“But Dom sint is not, after all, a member of your family.” vodemort inflected the words to invite agreement that Dani was no more to Darkovan than a bodyguard.

Darkovan felt his spine stiffen instinctively. He could not allow that comment to go unanswered. “Dani and I have been pledged to one another, as bredhin and as lord and paxman, since we were cadets.” His voice sounded rusty to his own ears. “Our father and his older brother also swore such a vow. Rafael sint died trying to save our father’s life, and they are buried together in the Field of Kilghairlie. Dani and I are bound by blood, by honor, and more than that—”

Just then, Mikhail appeared at the end of the street, carrying two cheap mugs, the sort one could buy for a few reis at a cook shop.

Uncle Darkovan? came the boy’s tentative mental touch. What happened?

Leave it, chiyu. It has nothing to do with you.

They finished their jaco and proceeded to the Terran Headquarters. Mikhail did his best to keep up a lively chatter, pointing out various shops. The Spaceforce guards at the checkpoint recognized Darkovan and admitted his party without question.