Conquistador (87 page)

“Of course, sir,” the second Salvatore said. He surprised them all with a smile. “It doesn't have very positive associations for me, if you'll forgive me for saying so, sir.”

Rolfe smiled, a sly expression this time. “And the Tully family will have an Indian princess at its genealogical root, just like the Rolfes.”

He trickled smoke through his nostrils. “Now, let me think. . . . I've given the Batyushkov domain to young Siegfried von Traupitz; it
would
be embarrassing for him to inherit from his father, after killing the man. Let his younger brother take the original domain and committee seat, when he reaches his majority.”

“That was a good idea. And you should do something for Jim Simmons, Grandfather,” Adrienne Rolfe said.

“Seeing as he's dead and has no immediate family, what
can
I do besides a posthumous medal?”

“Something for Kolomusnim's family. Jim's tracker. He'd want that.”

“Ah.” The elder Rolfe closed his eyes, then sighed. “Very well. I'll arrange for citizenship for the tracker's children, and scholarships, and I'll enjoin Charles to keep an eye on them in matters of patronage, according to their abilities. . . . I suppose you will too? Excellent. Loyalty must run both ways. And for you, Mr. Villers? What would you have of me? My House is in your debt, as well. Although I doubt, to be frank, your underlying devotion to its cause.”

The black man met the leaf green eyes levelly. “Well, you gave Good Star a whole country down in Sonora,” he said. “You going to promote me to the Families as well?”

The old man grinned like a shark. “I suspect that you wish me to do so, Mr. Villers, only in order that you may throw it back in my face.”

Henry Villers's own face fell a little. Tom smiled to himself; there were no flies on John Rolfe VI, even if he was slowing down a bit.

I suspect this will be his last hurrah, though, after he's tied up the ends,
he thought. John Rolfe VI was enjoying himself, but he
did
look pretty tired.
A fitting conclusion.

“Well, Mr. Villers, what would you say to a job?” Villers looked startled. “You were a soldier, and a detective, and a very good one, I understand. You ferreted out
our
secret, after all. Now, what would you say to . . . mmm, shall we say a captain's commission? Gate Security must be rebuilt, after all. . . .”

Tom nodded sympathetically as he saw temptation warring with impulse on the other man's face. That wouldn't only make Villers an important man; it would guarantee his children's positions in the Commonwealth, too. Nepotism was an established mode of operation here. He'd have the power to push their careers forward as well, and he'd have a set of powerful patrons backing him while he did it.

“Can I think about it?” he said, with small beads of sweat on the dark brown skin of his forehead. “Sir.”

“By all means, Mr. Villers. By all means. Take as much time as you wish. Your father-in-law will need you to run his establishment for a time, in any case.”

I wonder what that means?
Tom thought.

“And shall I find a reward for you, Mr. Christiansen?” John Rolfe said, after the others had kissed his hand and left.

“You know better, sir,” Tom said, and helped Adrienne to her feet.
What a pair of wrecks we are!
“I've found my own.”

“Excellent, young man. And now if you will excuse me? There are a few things I must attend to. One or two, before the baptism.”

He laughed at Adrienne's expression; Tom had to admit that it
was
sort of raccoon-like, with the rings of dark bruise around her eyes.

“You thought I wouldn't know? Reckless of you to begin so soon, but then we Rolfes never were much for caution.”

They bowed over his hand.
“Baciamo le mani,”
Tom murmured.

“Scary,” he said when they were outside, and winced a little as his foot caught on a rug.

Adrienne's hand closed on his arm. “Do you want to stay over?” she said. “It's a bit of a drive back to Seven Oaks, in this weather.”

“Weather?” he said, looking down at her and grinning. “You Californians call a bit of rain
weather?
Why, back in North Dakota we'd call this a balmy spring evening.”

“Yah, you betcha,” she said. “And you walked through blizzards to get to school every day, with a rope tied to your waist and a St. Bernard following along behind.”

“Skis,” Tom said. “That's all we Norski need. Skis, and an axe to beat off the wolves.” He looked up; Tully was waiting, standing behind Sandra's chair. “Heck, Roy can drive. Roy! You want to crash at our place?”

“Hell, yes, Kemosabe,” the smaller man said. “We can talk about what we'll build out on our place . . . where we're
really
out in the country.”

“Sounds good,” Tom said. “Let's go. I want to get home.” He caught Adrienne's eye and laughed softly. “Nice-sounding word, after all the goddamned adventures, isn't it?”

“You said it.”

Sergei Lermontov was sweating slightly, despite the fact that the temperature inside the great metal room was barely fifty degrees. The wreckage had long since been cleared away and the damaged structures removed, but the echoing emptiness of what had been a bustling nexus for so long was a reproach in itself.

Although not so much so as the armed guards,
he thought.
And the sentence of death with conditional stay of execution.

Beside him, Ralph Barnes made a final adjustment to the control console.
A stroke of luck there, that he was the one to interrogate me and take my offer of a new Gate to the Rolfe.
Like most Americans, Barnes was sentimental about persons he'd come to know
as
persons.

A metal framework outlined the area where the Gate had stood for so long; control cables ran to it, and to a cat's cradle of leads all around it.

“You must understand, sir,” he said. “The wave form—”

“Mr. Lermontov,” John Rolfe VI said softly.

He sat at his ease in a padded chair, comfortable in his alpaca greatcoat and ascot. The armed men behind him somehow looked entirely at one with his conservative elegance.

“I find myself growing less patient as I grow older,” he said. “I'm also content to let you experts handle these matters. Leaders motivate their subordinates, and the subordinates act. A division of labor.”

“Blackmailer,” Ralph Barnes growled, shooting him a glance from under shaggy brown brows.

John Rolfe arched one of his. “Why, Mr. Barnes, you wrong me,” he said, with a slight sardonic smile. “Didn't I shower you with rewards and praise? You are here entirely as a volunteer this time.”

“And you said you'd shoot Sergei if he couldn't give you back your toy,” Ralph said. “What'm I supposed to do, let you kill him? Besides, Sergei could do it alone. It would just take longer, and maybe something would go wrong and
everyone
would get hurt.”

“He helped
break
my toy,” Rolfe pointed out reasonably. “It's only just that if he is to live where others died, he make some recompense. And I
do
wish a Christmas present for my grandchildren and prospective great-grandchildren. The Commonwealth can survive without the Gate, but regaining it would be a major boon.”

Sergei prayed to a God in whom he'd never believed, and touched the screen.

He winced, then looked up and let himself slump forward in relief, his palms resting on the console and breath shuddering in and out in great gasps. Rolfe might have killed him without rancor, as the price of a sporting wager ...

But if I died, it would be in earnest,
he thought, and waved the probe forward.

A long boom swung through the gate, with sensors on its end. And a television pickup; it was keyed to a large flatscreen placed where they could all look at it.

The screen flickered, then settled to a clear image. It was raining there, too; as well it might, in midwinter along the Californian coast.

“But where is the Gate complex on FirstSide?” he asked himself; all he could see was long grass. . . .

Rolfe began to laugh; coughed, recovered, laughed again.

Because in the grass was a dead animal, huge and shaggy, almost certainly a giant sloth. Paws braced on it, the saber-tooth bared its foot-long fangs and screamed, flattening its ears and bristling its orange-and-black-striped fur.

The Thirty Families

 

 

 

Domain: Napa, Lake County
Motto: “Carpe Diem et Omnia Mundi.”
Sigil: Red lion rampant on black background

 

Alan Fitzmorton—Domain: south Oakland to San Leandro
Rob Fitzmorton—Domain: Sonoma Valley

 

Domain: Marin County
Motto: “O'Brien Go Braugh!”
Sigil: winged harp

 

Domain: Santa Clara Valley
Motto: “Silence.”
Sigil: Winged Thompson gun

 

Domain: Healdsburg area

 

Domain: San Francisco peninsula to Palo Alto—“New Brooklyn”
Motto: “The Best You Can.”

 

Domain: Petaluma

 

Domain: Concord, Contra Costa

 

Domain: Livermore-Amador, Contra Costa

 

Domain: Orange County

 

Domain: lower Santa Ynez valley

 

Domain: Pleasanton, Contra Costa

 

Domain: southern Santa Clara valley

 

Domain: western Santa Maria valley

 

Domain: Central Santa Clara (between Collettas, Rob Fitzmortons)

 

Domain: Suisun Valley

 

Domain: western Yolo county
Motto: “Who dares, wins!”

 

Domain: Santa Monica, east along Santa Monica foothills
Motto: “Look before you trek!”

 

Domain: Carmel, Carmel Valley
Motto: “Death Holds No Repose.”

 

Domain: southern Oxnard valley
Motto: “We Fight for Our Friends.”

 

Domain: Lower Salinas
Motto: “Down Styphon!”

 

Domain: Upper Salinas

 

Domain: Russian River valley
Motto: “Fortune Is Bald Behind.”

 

Domain: Orange County
Motto: “Pick Your Man and Aim Low.”

 

Domain: San Leandro (south of Alan Fitzmortons)
Motto: “By This Right.”

 

Domain: Ventura; northern Oxnard
Motto: “Winter Isn't Coming.”

 

Domain: inland Santa Ynez valley, around Solvang
Motto: “How Shall One Fight a Hundred?”

 

Domain: inland Santa Maria valley, around Sisquoc
Motto: “Westward the Course of Empire.”

 

Domain: Paso Robles area
Motto: “Pour Dieu et la Patrie.”

 

Domain: Santa Cruz, Pajaro Valley
Motto: “Za Nas!”

 

Di Montevarichi—collaterals of the Rob Fitzmorton line; relatives of his wife.
Tuscan nobility.

Pocahontas and the Rolfes of Virginia

 

 

 

In our history, John Rolfe (1585-1622) married the woman nicknamed Pocahontas, whose real name was Matoaka. She was the daughter of the Powhatan chieftain Wahunsonacock, and married Rolfe on April 5, 1614, ensuring peace between the powerful Powhatan confederacy and the struggling English colony at Jamestown for eight more years.

That probably ensured the survival of the first English foothold on North American soil—without that breathing space, it might well have suffered the fate of the earlier “lost colony” at Roanoke, with unguessable consequences for the history of the Americas. Rolfe was also responsible for introducing the already-popular West Indian variety of tobacco to Virginia, sparking the colony's first boom and putting it, for the first time, on a sound economic footing.