Eyes of the Calculor (19 page)

"None taken," said Elene sadly. "But at least she is alive—and so are you. Once I had such great plans for our families, Martyne. Now I just take what comes my way."

Martyne reached for a wine jar, tilted it, then upended it. One drop splashed onto the tablecloth.

"Can't stay here," Martyne declared.

"Why not?"

"No prospects. Tomorrow I'll go."

"If not to Balesha, then where?"

"Rochester. I'll teach theology at the university."

"And watch over Velesti?"

"In Libris she won't need watching."

Martyne stood up, reached over the table for his mother's goblet, drained it, bowed to Elene Disore, then discovered that his trews were still around his ankles as he tried to take a step. He bent over to draw them up, felt giddy, and sat back on his chair.

"Thought I felt a draft," he explained.

Elene walked forward, then steadied herself against the table.

"You are mere weeks out of a monastery where you lived for five years," she said, with a hand on one hip. "How do you know the University of Rochester will have you?"

"I'm well qualified to teach theology," Martyne assured her.

"At least accept a promissory note of one Rochestrian royal to your bank tally every month."

"Why? I got here unaided."

"I worry about you."

"Just write to me, fair and gracious Frelle," said Martyne, standing to go again. "That's enough."

"Fair and gracious," simpered Elene. "Balesha taught you more than prayer and fighting."

Elene embraced him and kissed his cheek. She was neither a small nor svelte woman, and the sensation of being pressed against her warm, soft, scented body made Martyne's head reel more than the wine. Nothing in Balesha had prepared him for exposure to any woman under unchaperoned circumstances, even one twice his age.

"Look after yourself, Martyne, there is so much to do . . ."

"To my eyes, it already seems done," he replied, resentment again in his voice.

"Oh, no, there is more."

"Frelle?"

"So much evil has assailed our families. Why should it be evil to fight back?"

"Frelle Disore, all that I can promise . . ." began Martyne. His voice trailed away as he considered the unspoken question. "Obviously . . . this matter may resolve itself."

Elene pushed him back into his chair, then drew her skirts up and straddled him.

"Frelle Disore!" gasped Martyne. "This cannot be."

"Fras Martyne, this is very obviously in the process of being," Elene replied.

"But, but, but you're . . . Mother's friend."

"Charming woman, known her for years."

"I could be your son."

"But you shall be my child's father." Elene squeezed him all the more tightly.

"The maid might come!"

"But she will be too late. Our families will be united, Martyne Camderine, and we shall indeed have an heir."

Julica could not see what was happening in the dining room, but with her ear pressed against the door she had heard everything. Certain that Martyne was a less-than-willing participant in what was obviously going on, she rapped loudly on the door, then opened it and backed in, pulling a serving trolley after her. By the time she had turned around Elene and Martyne had their clothing more or less restored to normal and were standing beside the table. Elene was looking embarrassed and furious, but an outburst against Julica for entering without being sent for would be an admission of unseemly conduct interrupted. Martyne cast a despairing look to Julica, then looked back to Elene.

"Must go, thank you for . . . hospitality, Frelle Disore," he mumbled quickly.

"Hah, dinner was nothing," she replied. "Take this."

She reached up to a wall rack and took down a plain but sleek flintlock pistol, then presented the Morelac twin barrel to Martyne.

"You shouldn't," he mumbled weakly.

"Why not, you are practically family now," she replied pointedly. Martyne winced. "The other of the pair will be given to Velesti tomorrow, when she leaves for the paraline terminus. Julica!"

"Frelle Disore?"

"Fetch the groom."

"He is asleep, Frelle Disore."

"Then take Martyne to the stables and give him Harren's horse, harness, saddle, saddlebags, everything."

"You're too kind, Frelle Disore," slurred Martyne.

"Oh, nonsense, Fras Camderine. You gave up so much to avenge my daughter, I must show my gratitude. The night's compliments to you."

With that Elene swept out of the room. Martyne and Julica made their way outside and around to the stables.

"That was a fine thing you did," said Julica, to break the awkward silence. "You are more gallant than any of the noblemen who strut the streets of Griffith."

"I failed," mumbled Martyne.

"Nonsense."

Together they managed to saddle the horse, and Martyne mounted it. It quickly became apparent to Mica that unless the horse could find its own way to the Camderine house, Martyne certainly wouldn't. With Julica leading the horse, they set out on the short trip.

To Mica's mind, the situation was both sensitive and tragic. Martyne had wanted the murderers of his sister and friend dead, but he cared nothing for the glory of public vengeance. He had come in secret, taken the papers to identify the musketeers that were his quarry, wiped them out of existence, then somehow feigned innocence. He now had vengeance and Elene's unwelcome attentions, but nothing more, other than loss.

Martyne had just turned fourteen when Julica had begun working in the Disore household. He had been shy yet charming, strong yet gentle. He had once serenaded Velesti beneath her window for her birthday, and everyone had joked that he was in training to be a great seducer. At Christmas he had even saved his chocolates and presented them to a tired and disheveled Julica in the Disore kitchen on a little red cushion, but had fled back upstairs to the dining room when she tried to kiss him. Then the day had come when Elsile burst into the Disore mansion in tears and announced that Martyne had decided to follow a vocation in the Church. He had left for Balesha with no more than a hurried good-bye and a kiss to pass on to Velesti as he climbed into a pony gig before dawn one morning. Like Velesti, he had once been so very charming. Now he had slashed away the lives of over three dozen men, and was terse, sullen, haunted, and desolate.

At the stables of the Camderine house Martyne toppled from the saddle into Julica's arms, rather than dismounting.

"Now, then, you left something behind, five years ago," said Julica.

She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips, then stood back from the astonished youth, holding both of his hands.

"Think, ah, I'd remember that, Frelle."

"Your Christmas chocolates were very welcome, Martyne."

She guided him inside and to his room, where she forced him to drink a pint of water and helped him to undress. Martyne grate-

fully crawled into the refuge of his bed, lay on his back, closed his eyes and felt himself spinning and tumbling through blackness, falling from nowhere to nowhere.

Another body abruptly invaded his reverie, a naked body with soft, warm skin and the hint of perfume.

"Mica—" managed Martyne before she smothered his lips with hers.

She lay on him for a long time, and did not free his lips until his badly coordinated struggles had ceased.

"In all conscience I could not let you end this night with Frelle Disore as your introduction to the female body," she explained.

"But, but should you get with child—"

"It is a little late to worry about that, Martyne, but do not worry. There is no problem."

"Frelle Disore will be very angry."

"And will dismiss me. Not to worry, I might even journey to Rochester with Velesti to seek my fortune. I have heard a lot about Rochester, it seems an exciting place. We might even meet there."

I he following morning Julica arrived at the paraline terminus. A long, sleek, articulated pedal train was being prepared for departure, but Velesti was already aboard.

"Frelle, you want just one ticket to Rochester?" said the vendor at the registration window.

"Just one, I have the fare."

"But two fares are required, Frelle. What man goes with you?"

"None. I travel alone."

The man shook his head. "We are at war with the Southmoor Emirates, even though a truce is currently in force. Only women escorted by a man may travel through Southmoor territory, and from Narrandera to Rutherglen is indeed Southmoor territory."

"I happen to know that at least one woman is on this train unescorted," retorted Julica.

"So do I, Frelle, but that woman is also a Dragon Yellow. Li-

brarians are not considered to be human by the Southmoors. I think it is meant to be an insult, but it does sometimes work in their favor."

"If it is a bribe that you want—"

"Frelle, I am no more above a bribe than a fish is above the moon, but just now I am powerless. Every ticket must be approved by that Islamic Fras over there, and you look exceedingly alone and female."

Mica watched as the train was cleared for departure. A Christian minister blessed the train, an Islamic cleric declared it to be approved, a Gentheist priest declared it not to violate the principle of engine prohibition, then the terminus master blew his whistle. The terminus band struck up the pedaling chanty "Ride the Rails," and the long, sleek shape glided softly away from the platform and out into the shunting yards. Mica watched, waving although she knew that Velesti would not be looking back.

Mica walked to a nearby artisans' institute, selected several books on mathematics, and copied some pages of exercises and tables. Next she went to the city gates and bought a place on a wool bale wagon bound for the Darlington river port.

There are more ways than one to cross Islamic territory, she thought as she watched the city walls of Griffith receding.

Siding Springs, the Central Confederation

Brother Disparon of Siding Springs might have been a political realist, but he had no way of knowing what the full consequences of his Mirrorsun Rotation Initiative would be for the entire continent. He sent out his request for the cooperative observation of the next lunar eclipse by Mirrorsun on the public beamfiash network, and included the background information about the paddles and Mirrorsun spinning faster than was needed to keep it in orbit. He also included Brother Nikalan's speculations that should Mirrorsun burst, huge fragments could rain down on the earth, and asked for eccle-

siastical orbital dynamics specialists to verify the mathematics. He had forgotten that the mathematically skilled beamflash operators could interpret his message about as easily as a dog could recognize a bone in its food bowl.

The message went out over the beamflash network on October 4th. By the night of the eclipse, nearly every set of lenses within a hundred miles of a functioning beamflash tower across the entire continent was trained on the moon. In addition to Brother Tontare's five sketches of the original eclipse, millions of sketches, paintings, projection tracings, and team drawings were made of the serrations passing across the face of the moon at the edge of the Mirrorsun shadow. Of all those doing observations, no more than a few thousand understood the mathematics of what they were seeing, but this in turn led to some quite wild rumors. Principal among them was the Prophet Jemli's opinion that the Deity had afflicted Mirrorsun with huge and terrible pustules.

At Siding Springs, Brother Tontare had access to the largest telescope for the first time in his life. He chose to do a projection tracing using a team of observers. The light from the moon was focused down onto a projection table, where a dozen monks stood ready with quills dipped in black ink. Tontare assessed the serrations passing across the lunar face, turned to the reciprocating clock on the wall, waited for the second hand to reach the precise time written on his slate, then called "Mark black!"

A dozen monks marked the precise location of the serrations, points where Mirrorsun's shadow met the edge of the lunar disk, and the central peaks of certain craters. Seconds ticked past. Monks in the background exchanged the quills dipped in black ink for quills dipped in red. "Mark red!" called Brother Tontare, the word "red" precisely on the second. A second set of observations was marked down on the sheet of poorpaper pinned down to the surface of the projection table. More quills were exchanged, blue ink was to be next. "Mark blue!" Outside the dome the tramp of neophyte monks on the treadmill driving the huge telescope sounded, just slightly out of syncopation with the clacking of the reciprocating clock. The op-

erations monk kept the central peak of Thyco Crater precisely at the center of the crosshairs in his tracking refractor. "Mark green!"

The skywatch monk outside was watching scattered cumulus cloud with anxiety, continually estimating drift speeds and times. Mars gleamed brilliantly a few degrees from the moon, like a luminous spot of blood. Cloud drifted across Mars and smothered its ruddy light.

"One minute to cloud cover, estimate five to seven minutes of cover!" called the skywatch monk.

"Mark yellow!" called Tontare, reaching for a chalk. He wrote down a new time. Thirty seconds ticked by. "Mark violet!" Quills were exchanged again. Tontare wrote down another reference time.

"Ten seconds to cover," called the skywatch monk.

"Cloud contact, image fading," called the operations monk.

The image on the projection table began to fade. Tontare stared at the second hand on the reciprocating clock, willing it to move faster. "Mark orange!"

"Baseline lost!" called the operations monk at almost the same moment.

Brother Nikalan shuffled out of the background shadows, from where he had been watching proceedings.

"Seven out of ten, not a bad result," he decreed, although Tontare was muttering something that sounded like the words of an excor-cism at the clouds visible through the slit in the observatory dome.

"Echuca reported clear skies in their last beamflash message," called the skywatch monk through the door.