Conquistador (54 page)

Jesus, I'm nervous,
Tom thought.
You betcha I am.

Meeting Adrienne had been a complex thing, with a lot of highs and lows—more highs than lows right now, but the lows had been doozies. Meeting her grandfather . . .

Rolfe Manor stood near the head of the Napa Valley, not far from where Calistoga was FirstSide, and the scale was quite different from Seven Oaks. There was a pleasant-looking leafy little town of about a thousand people to serve the Prime's residence, and beyond it a mile-long paved lane through pasture and vineyards and olive groves—the pavement itself being a sign of something unusual, by Commonwealth standards. It was flanked on either side by a double avenue of redwoods. The king trees didn't start naturally on the valley floor here, but they grew fast if you watered them well and the soil suited—three to five feet a year, once they were established. These must have been transplanted as saplings about the time Tom's grandfather got back from Korea, and they towered a hundred and fifty feet into the air, each at least six feet around at head height. The branches just met overhead, and the cool, resin-fragrant shade gave a cathedral feeling to the drive despite the hot morning sun, a tinge of awe and stillness under the hum of the tires.

Which is probably just what was intended,
Tom thought, looking aside at Adrienne for a moment.

They'd been together long enough for him to get a handle on her expressions. The careful casualness he saw now hid a tension that probably wasn't entirely due to the real reason for this meeting: Rolfe Manor was where she'd been born and had grown up to a notably stormy adolescence. Seven Oaks was her home; this was the place she'd escaped from.

The avenue of redwoods ended at an open space with a large fountain at its center; the roadway divided around it. At the other end was a brick wall stretching far on either side, broken by a tall wrought-iron gate. The gate showed the Rolfe lion outlined in iron facing its mirror image; flagpoles bore the domain emblem on one side and the crossed bars of the Commonwealth on the other. There was a small guard detachment there: gray-uniformed, helmeted household troopers with the same lion in red on black on their shoulder flashes. The men reminded Tom of himself, minus a decade and change: big, tough-looking plowboys with serious, solemn faces; their sergeant was older, obviously professional cadre recruited FirstSide, with a scar on his left cheek that was probably from a shell fragment.

From the look of his squad they were disciplined and at least knew which end of the rifles a bullet came out of, and he didn't doubt they were brave. The skill level of the Commonwealth's miniature military remained to be seen, though, especially the way they were split up.

The sergeant saluted Adrienne, and matched faces to ID cards for Tom, and for Tully and Piet—who were sitting as far apart as they could in the backseat of the Hummer.

“Pass, Miz Rolfe,” he said.

He signaled for the gates to open. They did, smooth and silent; Tom noticed a pair of discreet surveillance cameras on either side. There were probably a lot of other ones he hadn't seen; the Commonwealth was a fairly peaceful place, but its lords didn't take that for granted.

Or maybe it's peaceful
because
they don't take it for granted,
he thought mordantly.

Inside the gate was parkland. The road was white crushed rock, and flanked on either side by big glossy-leafed evergreen magnolias; their plate-sized white flowers lent a heavy scent to the warm still air. The avenue curved in a graceful S shape, first through a pretty amendment of nature, with fallow deer grazing under ancient valley oaks and an occasional stream or pond that looked original but probably wasn't; then as it straightened and turned toward the great house there were flower beds, lawns, a hedge maze, an increasing formality. The house itself was Regency Georgian, redbrick, built in the form of an H with an elongated central bar two stories high. A long walkway of russet tile led up to the main entrance; that was surrounded by eighteen-foot marble pillars with gilded—literally—Corinthian capitals, supporting a second-story balcony; identical columns soared up from that to support the pediment roof.

The doors opened . . . and a torrent of children poured out, kids just short of adolescence mostly, dressed in riding clothes. They stopped at the sight of the Hummer, then crowded around with cries of “Aunt Adrienne!” and stayed for a few moments of hugs and kisses on the cheek and hair ruffling.

When they'd been shepherded on by a governess—herself in jodhpurs—he turned to Adrienne as they climbed out.

“
Aunt
Adrienne?” he said with a smile. “Hard to think of you as an aunt, somehow.”

“Hard to think of
them
as that big,” she replied, shaking her head. “Time's getting away from me . . . those were my eldest brother's larvae, mostly, and some of my sister's; she's staying here last I heard while her husband's on a trade mission in Hagamantash. Nice kids, but it's a good thing this place has room.”

It did. A secretary—male, middle-aged and taciturn—showed them in. Tom blinked at the entrance hall, with its sweeping staircases on either side and squares of green malachite on the floor, inlaid in larger squares of white marble; they went on from there, down groin-arched corridors where niches held things bizarre or beautiful—one held a shallow twin-handled painted cup whose lines were so numinously perfect he nearly stopped right there—and up another long staircase. The second-story hallway there was the full width of the building, tall windows on either side alternating with paintings that had Tully's eyes popping—his partner had some nodding acquaintance with art history.

“Kemosabe,” he murmured, “either those are some very good fakes, or a couple of museums back FirstSide are showing some extremely good fakes . . . and I suspect it's option number two.”

Adrienne chuckled softly at that. “This is the public wing,” she said. “The business section. One thing I'll say about growing up here—there was always somewhere you could get away from your folks.”

The secretary frowned but stayed silent, until he led them through an outer office and to the doors of another.

“Sir, Miss Rolfe and party,” he said.

OK, now I'm
really
nervous,
Tom thought.

The inner sanctum was oval, flooded by light from the windows around most of its circumference. There was a fireplace on one side, and an eighteenth-century iron-and-bronze chandelier overhead; a large desk; and settees and chairs around a low table of some rose-colored wood, polished to a high sheen. A maid laid out coffee and biscotti, and the man who'd been leaning on a walking stick before one of the windows that looked out over garden and the side of Mount Saint Helens turned.

“Thank you, Margaret,” John Rolfe said, with a gracious nod as the servant left.

He was shorter than Tom's subconscious had expected—an inch or so taller than Adrienne's five-nine—and gaunt with age, but still ramrod straight. His hair was silver-white, receeding only a little from brow and temples; the eyes were pouched and sunk into an ancient eagle's face, but the same leaf green as his granddaughter's, and very keen; you could see where she'd gotten the cheekbones, too. He walked forward slowly but firmly, leaning into the walking stick to spare a lame leg—acquired on Okinawa in 1944, Tom remembered—and halted close to them; he was wearing a lightweight linen suit of subdued elegance.

Adrienne stepped forward first, bowing low, taking his outstretched left hand in hers, and kissing it.

“
Baciamo le mani,
” she said, then stood and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Grandfather.”

“And it's always a pleasure to see you, child,” he replied—the voice was raspy, but clear and accented with a purring drawl.

Piet Botha repeated the ritual. Tully looked at Tom, shrugged almost invisibly, and followed suit.

I also feel like a damned fool doing this,
Tom thought.

Nevertheless, he bowed and kissed the hand of the master of New Virginia with a murmur of
baciamo le mani
of his own; the fact that everyone else in their party had done the same thing before him made him feel a little less conspicuous.

“Sit, by all means, all of you,” John Rolfe VI said, letting smoke trickle out of his nostrils. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

He seemed to sense Tom's discomfort as he walked slowly to the spindly curved-legged settee, leaning on his stick, and sat with careful dignity. The upholstery sighed beneath him, but the lined, scored face remained impassive as he pulled a narrow cigarillo from a humidor and lit it.

“Think of it as a salute, Mr. Christiansen,” he said softly. “In any organized society there must be forms, gestures of respect. I am founder and master of this nation. My fellow Virginian Washington followed a similar policy of emphasizing formal etiquette during his presidency, for much the same reason; I've often found his solutions useful when an analogous problem came up.”

The green gaze was sardonic as he took in the two Americans' stifled reaction to the implicit comparison. “By the way, do you know what the Iroquois call my distant cousin? George Washington, that is.”

“Ah . . . no, sir,” Tom replied.

“It translates roughly as the Burner of Towns, which is a fairly accurate description of what his forces did to them during the War of Independence. ‘The immediate objects are the total devastation and destruction of their settlements, ' to quote the precise words of his written orders on the subject. Houses burned, food stores stolen or spoiled, civilians driven out into the winter cold without sustenance or shelter, and exile and starvation for the survivors.”

“Ah . . . I hadn't known that, sir,” Tom replied.
Hmmm. Have to look it up, but I'd bet that's substantially accurate. Well, live and learn.

“And the Indians here called me—may still, for all I know—Johnny Deathwalker,” Rolfe said. “My own people refer to me as the Founder, or the Old Man—which latter, nowadays, is literally true. It's all a matter of perspective.”

A smile. “Although that particular hand-kissing ritual was Salvo's idea. I went along with it . . . not least because custom and tradition add color and meaning to life; a new country needs to establish traditions not less than it needs guns or plows. Perhaps I've been too much enamored of the picturesque; the product of a romantic boyhood, perhaps. Now, to business. Adrienne?”

“Yes, sir,” she said in turn. “I presume you've read my report?”

John Rolfe nodded. “I have. I've also discussed it with Charles.”

Must mean her father,
Tom thought. He hadn't met the man yet, and wasn't looking forward to it, particularly. Meeting the father of someone you'd been dating was always a bit fraught, and probably more so here in fifties-never-ended land.
Fortunate—or well planned—that he isn't here right now. That would be awkward.

She poured her grandfather coffee and added cream; he sank back with the cup in one hand and the cigarillo in the other, and went on: “What I'd like to have is a firsthand redaction from all of you. This place is as secure as any in the inhabited parts of the Commonwealth, I assure you.”

Adrienne cleared her throat and started. It was soothing, in a way—doing reports was something that had occupied a good deal of Tom's adult life, one way and another. Everyone here seemed to know the drill: facts and interpretations clearly separated, concise and short as possible. The old man's questions were sharp and to the point as well. Tom kept his account unemotional when his turn came around; that would be best, considering the rather awkward fact that he'd been on the other side—or
an
other side—when all this began.

John Rolfe sighed. “It seems definite, then, that there is a conspiracy.” He shook his head. “A pity that Salvo died so young. He would have known better than this. . . . Ah, well, forgive an old man's tendency to dwell upon the past. What we must know now is, first, who is involved in this conspiracy, second, what are their goals, and third, what do they hope to accomplish.”

Tom cleared his throat; John Rolfe raised one snowy eyebrow. The younger man went on: “Sir, I don't think that there's much doubt as to the aim. The aim is to seize power here, and I'd give any odds that the means is through seizure of the Gate itself. It's the point failure source . . .”

“I'm familiar with the term,” the Commonwealth's ruler said.

“. . . of your whole setup here.”

Adrienne nodded. “It's the Collettas, too, sir,” she said. “Almost certainly with the help of the Batyushkovs. And as Operative Botha has made plain, with at least some elements among the affiliates of the Versfelds.”

John Rolfe nodded, blew another plume of smoke and thought in silence for a long moment.

“I should have anticipated this,” he mused at last. “The first generation of Primes were mostly personally loyal to me—even Salvo, in his way. Those who weren't were mostly too grateful to be here to cause much trouble. That isn't quite the case with the Batyushkovs, obviously; and many of the second generation of Family heads know me only as the irritating elder statesman who keeps them in a permanent political minority. . . . I suspect Karl von Traupitz is numbered among those.”

“I don't think
Oom
Versfeld would support such madness, sir,” Piet Botha said, with an edge of diffidence to his tone. “But some of our people . . . well, they dream of a new South Africa,
in
this world's South Africa. I can understand it. I do not think it would be a wise thing; nor does
Oom
Versfeld. But I understand.”