The Stone Dogs (11 page)

hours; Tom would be in from the fields any time now. It was a house rule that the family ate together; otherwise you might as well be living in a hotel.

"C'mon, yo' two!" she called to the girls in the pool.

"That was fun," Yolande said, as they slid out of the water.

The verge was covered in the same blue-and-green New Carthage tiles as the pool; they felt warm and slick under her feet, and the dry air cooling on her wet skin. It had turned out to be a not-quite-hot day, just right for outdoors.

" Twas," Myfwany agreed. "I'm nevah goin' be able do that circle-flip like yo' can,'Landa."

Yolande grinned with pride as the servants came forward with towels; Bianca and Lele, her own. The deep pile of the cotton was a pleasure in itself, smelling crisply fresh and slightly of the cherry-blossoms they had been laid on in the

warming-cupboard. She had always rather enjoyed being dried; there was less distraction than when you had to do it yourself, and after a swim it made you feel tingly and extra clean. Like wearing new-laundered underwear, only it was your own skin.

She reached down and absently patted Lele's head as the Eurasian serf worked over her feet.

"How's Deng?" she said.

"Still poorly, Mistis. Gives many tanks fo' the crystallized ginger yo' sent up last month." Lele looked up and grimaced.

"Says he hasn't seen any since China. I tried it. I kin see why."

Yolande laughed and held up her arms for the serf to slide the Moorish-style striped djellaba over her head. The fine-textured wool settled against her skin like a caress, and she ran her fingers through the damp mass of her hair to spread it over her shoulders.

The serfs gathered up their towels and left; Myfwany looked up from adjusting her belt-tie. "Yo've got wonderful servants,"

she said sincerely, shaking back the wide sleeves. Disciplined obedience could be bought from any good labor agent, but enthusiasm was not as common. "Spirited but not spoiled."

"My parents' doin'," Yolande said in disclaimer. "They had the hard part, back right after the War. Had to kill a few, even; but now we go six months at a time without so much as a floggin'; Pa doesn't hold with whippin' much, says it's the last resort of stupidity an' failure."

"Good teacher still needs good pupil," the other girl replied with a slow smile. "Yo've got the nature, like Marsala wine: strong but sweet."

Yolande smiled back, and then the expression faded. There was a feeling like cold under her breastbone, yet it was hot as well, cramping her lungs. She could feel her lips paling, and her arms and legs wanted to tremble; her vision grayed at the edges until Myfwany's face loomed in a tunnel of darkening night.

There was a moment when the whole surface of her skin seemed to prickle, drum-tight, then the world snapped back to normal.

Or almost normal; the hot-chill sensation in her stomach settled lower and faded to warmth, and she put a hand to the side of her head, gasping for breath.

"Yo' all right? "
'Landa?
" Myfwany's voice was sharp with concern, and she gripped her friend by the shoulders.

"I—yes, just felt funny fo' a second." She shook her head.

"Little scary… must've held my breath too long underwatah.

Anyways, let's go eat; I'm starvin'." She had, suddenly, a bottomless hollow feeling almost like nausea. It was worrying, even if they had only had rolls and fruit with their coffee that morning. No run, after all, and only a couple of hours in the water…

A serf struck with quiet precision at a tiny bronze gong by the table. Another seated herself at a harp nearby and began to play softly as the Draka assembled. The table was near the house wall, the usual rectangular slab of polished stone on curved wrought-iron supports, shaded by oleanders. Yolande dropped into her wicker chair and grabbed at a roll from a basket, breaking the soft fresh bread and eating it without benefit of butter. The taste was intoxicating, and she finished it off and took another, more slowly. Muriel and Veronica had arrived, looking sleekly content; they nodded around the table as they drew their chairs closer.

"Where is yo' father?" Johanna asked, as the serfs handed around the first course; it was iced beet-and-cucumber soup, for a warm day. "And are they starvin' yo' down at that school, child?"

"Mmmph," Yolande said, then swallowed to clear her mouth.

"No, I just had a… really strange sensation. It's funny, I was lookin' at Myfwany an' thinkin' on how nice she is, then all of a sudden my head was swimmin', and my knees felt watery and my skin went cold an' I broke out in a sweat; and then my stomach felt strange. Figured I must've not noticed how hungry I was…

What are y'all laughing at?" she concluded with bewildered resentment.

Her mother had put fingertips to brow and her shoulders shook. Aunt Alicia was coughing into a napkin; Myfwany looked back and forth between them, blinked in understanding, and then focused on carefully pouring herself a glass of white Procanico wine. Mandy looked at her owl-eyed.

"Y'are joshin', 'Landa?" she asked, and turned to Veronica and Muriel. "She is joshin', isn't she? Please, tell me, nobody could be that ignor—"

"Johanna!"

It was her father's voice, from the french doors that gave onto the terrace from the main house.

"Look-see who I've brought to lunch!"

"… so it turned out they were just Keren tribesfolk who wandered across the border," her brother was saying. "It's pretty wild there in south Yunnan, mountain jungle. Of course, they could have been Alliance operatives
pretendin
to be tribesfolk, so we turned them over to the headhunters." He grinned and buffed his fingernails. "And my tetrarchy got extra leave fo' stumblin'

across them. Scramjet shuttle to Vienna, overnight dirigible to Milan, caught the train to Florence an' so forth."

The soup was removed and the next course arrived: seared sea-scallops with asparagus, stuffed Roman artichokes and truffled walnut oil, then insalata in cumin vinaigrette and a paella salad on the side. Plain country food; her parents disapproved of the modern Orientalizing fashion of bits and pieces of this and that, saying it was bad for the digestion and distracted the attention from the real pleasures of dining and conversation. Hunger satisfied, she touched a finger to her wineglass for a refill and watched the others. John was getting respectful attention in his description of an impromptu tiger-hunt in the rhododendron thickets of the Yunnan mountains, up on the Nepalese border. Mandy was drinking it in, with her chin resting on her hands.

Well, he is pretty dashin
', Yolande thought critically, glancing at her brother. Tall and long-limbed, which showed to advantage in garrison blacks. Russet colored hair and close-cropped beard, straight high-cheeked features and gray eyes against brown-tanned skin, set off by tasteful ruby ear-studs and the silver-niello First Airborne Legion thumb-ring.

"… so I ought to be able to squeeze in a week here to home,"

he finished.

Johanna signed for the serf to remove her plate and lit a cigarette. "Well be havin' some people over next Tuesday, if yo'

haven't lost the taste fo' countryside jollifications… I'm goin' over the orchards this afternoon. They're in bloom; why don't yo'

come along and help show Yolande's friends about?"

"Hmmm." The serfs were bringing coffee and deserts, blueberry lemonade sorbets and almond flan with fruits and cheeses. "Actually, mother, I had somethin' else planned fo' this afternoon. Glad to, tomorrow. Sorry." He grinned un repentantly.

Yolande looked up at the harpist. Colette, her name was. A gift to John on his twenty-first birthday from the von Shrakenbergs of Chateau Retour, over in what had been France; they were kin, first cousins on her mother's side and more remotely on her father's, as well. The wench's mother was a serf-artist of note, a singer trained pre-War at the Paris conservatoire. Colette had inherited some of the talent, and her looks as well. Tall, slender, dancer-graceful; softly curled hair the color of dark honey to her waist, and huge eyes of an almost purple violet. Priceless, and faultlessly trained, but Yolande had never liked her; conceited, given to dumb insolence, and unpopular with the other servants, which was always a bad sign.

Except for a few of the bucks hopelessly infatuated with her, of course.

The serf met the Draka girl's eyes for a moment, smiled with an almost imperceptible curve of the lips, then dropped her gaze to the instrument. Sunlight worked in flecks through the flowers overhead and patterned the white samnite of her gown.

Yolande's father laughed. "Give the boy a few hours to… settle in, darlin'," he said. Johanna smiled and slapped her son on the shoulder.

"Don' wear yo'self out befo' dinner, then," she said as he rose.

"If there's anythin' left of yo' tomorrow, yo' might help with a problem, son." Thomas Ingolfsson said. "We've been losin' sheep, over to Castelvecchi."

"Ah! His son turned back, alert. "Wolves? Wildcats?"

"Leopard, from the sign." Yolande saw her father's eyes narrow in amusement at the sudden prickle of interest around the table. "Yes, they must finally be breedin' enough that they're spreading out of the Apennines."

The upper hill-country had been stripped bare of population after the War; that was standard practice, for security reasons and because such areas were seldom worth the trouble of cultivation by Draka standards. The Conservancy Directorate had reforested most of the abandoned lands, and introduced appropriate wildlife. The Italian reserves were still not as rich as North Africa's, where a hundred and fifty years of care had left the mountains green and teeming with game, but there was enough to allow limited culling. Draka loved hunting with a savage passion, and were preservationists accordingly, but letting the big cats into densely populated farming country was excessive even by their standards.

"In fact, the Conservancy people said go ahead an' take them, not worth the trouble of trappin'."

John sat down again; behind him, Yolande noticed Colette playing with an irritated vehemence.

"I could ride over tomorrow morning with the dogs; take Menchino and Alfredo… Join me, Pa?" he said eagerly. "Ma?"

His parents shook their heads reluctantly. "Winnifred went and broke her arm, can't spare myself," Thomas Ingolfsson said.

At John's frown, Johanna added: "Can't come myself either; we're sortin' the yearling colts fo' the Sienna show. Tell yo' what, though, Johnny, why don't yo' take Yolande and her friend Myfwany P."

"Thanks—" Myfwany and Yolande began in chorus, then broke off with a giggle. John opened his mouth to say what he thought of taking his baby sister and an unknown teenager along on a leopard hunt, caught his mother's eye, and nodded.

"Glad to, sprout. An' yo' too, Miz Venders," he added.

"Thanks awfully," Myfwany said. "No leopards on Sicily yet, an' my elder sister got one down in Kenia last year an' she's always on about it."

Johanna turned smoothly to the other girls. "Best not to cluttah up a huntin' party too much; I'd be honored if y'all would come with me and assist at selectin' the yearlings, we're rather proud of our ridin' stock here at Claestum… An' to be sure, pickin' out one each fo' yo'selfs, as well."

Mandy smiled with delight.
John-boy, you still can't compete
with horses
, Yolande thought satirically.
Muriel and Veronica
were enthusiastic as well: of course, they like anything they can
do together.
She suppressed envy and hunted a last blueberry around her plate.

"I'm sure there'll be one left yo'll find suitable, Miz Venders,"

Johanna continued." 'Landa's been half-livin' in the stables since she was knee-high, she can help yo' pick."

"That was beautiful," Myfwany said.

They were riding their horses through the Quarters, but blossom from the orchards still clung to their shoulders and hair.

Yolande could see them starring the other's dark-red mane, pink cherry and white of apple and peach; the blossom season had overlapped this year, which was a little unusual.

"Y-" Yolande cleared the stammer from her throat with an effort. "Yo' are beautiful."

"No," Myfwany said fondly, looking around. Side by side with their boots touching, they were just close enough for private talk.

"I'm good-lookin', just. You are beautiful." A smile quirked her mouth as the other girl shook her head in a spray of flowers.

A companionable silence fell, and Yolande enjoyed the feeling of communicating without speech. The roofs of the Great House were just visible on the distant hilltop, over the cypresses and the outer wall of the gardens; some plantations tucked the serf village away out of sight, but the Ingolfssons were Old Domination and not shy about the foundations of their wealth.

The cottages were native stone, tile-roofed and closely spaced along brick-paved streets; shade trees flanked the lanes, and each four-room house stood in a small patch of garden, vegetables and often enough a few flowers. It was getting on towards evening, and the Quarters were noisy enough to drown the clop-clatter of hooves and the occasional metallic kiss of stirrup-irons.

Heads bowed towards the riders from passing serfs, dutiful routine deference to the Landholder and her daughter, curiosity towards the guests. Folk were back from the fields and the compulsory evening shower, work-gnarled older men in shapeless overalls, short thickset women brown as berries and seemingly built of solid muscle. Younger ones with enough energy left to throw jokes and snatches of song at each other as they scattered to their homes. Children played run-and-shout games along the sidewalks, or helped their mothers carry home baskets of round loaves that gave off the tantalizing scent of fresh baking. Cooking-smells came from the cottages, tomato and garlic and hot olive oil. They reined in to the little plaza where the lane joined the main road to the manor, and Yolande called to her mother:

"Ma!" Johanna Ingolfsson reined up. "Ma, Myfwany and I'll go right around to the stables an' walk up."

The Landholder raised one brow; the grooms could take their mounts from the Great House steps just as well. A touch at her stirrup made her look down; Rahksan was there, and gripping her ankle. She frowned slightly at the lapse in decorum and bent low to listen to an agitated whisper.