Eyes of the Calculor (42 page)

Martyne removed the reaction pistol, turning the unfamiliar but very advanced weapon over as Samondel stood wringing her hands.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" asked Martyne.

Samondel could not even hope to explain, even were her Austaric as good as Martyne's. The gun was just like the bullet that Velesti had shown to him. Polished, functional and very finely made. Martyne stared at her intently . . . but there was something about her

face that disarmed him, a cornered and hopeless expression. Back in his office, on the wall, was a char stylus sketch of his sister Elsile, done only a fortnight before her death. Drawn by Velesti, as she used to be. The face was proud and full of enthusiasm, not desperate and hopeless as it had certainly been in her last hours alive. Martyne blinked and shook his head. Huge, violet eyes regarded him steadily, and hair as red as late sunset cascaded down over one shoulder.

He placed the angular, unfamiliar weapon on her little writing desk.

"Frelle, please throw this stupid toy away and get a proper gun," said Martyne, now looking at her with an earnest, helpful expression.

"Toy?" echoed Samondel, glancing doubtfully down at her reaction pistol and its clip of ammunition.

"I have seen combat, Frelle. Serious combat. I am only alive today because I have learned to react quickly to concealed threats— like a gun's outline in a coat."

"Ah," said Samondel. "Very sorry."

"Misunderstandings happen so easily. Carry a real gun, if you are going to carry one at all." He scribbled out a note and handed it to her. "Here, show this to Frelle Larchfeld in the University's administration. I am your edutor in Applied Theology now. You may have a high pass for your essay. In your native language it might have been honors, but the subject must be conducted in Austaric."

"Ah. Thanking you."

Martyne returned to his office and sat behind his desk, his face in his hands, propped up on his elbows. He forced himself to breathe evenly. Eventually his cramped muscles began to relax. A bell tolled the hour in some distant clocktower. Five clangs. No appointments. Just as well. Martyne's mind held a pleasant blank. He thought of moving to a meditative state, but it seemed like too much effort. Various feet strode up and down the corridor. Someone laughed. The relief of thinking about nothing was almost as pleasant as surrendering to his first seduction by Marelle. A confident, brisk pair of feet sounded on the bare floorboards of the Faculty of Theology's edutor annex. Feet with an almost military bearing. Someone knocked.

Martyne did not reply, he did not even move a muscle. Another knock. Silence. Martyne remained sitting with his hands over his eyes. The latch of the door clacked, the door creaked open. He had neglected to slide the bolt over. A good way to get killed, thought Martyne. / should be so lucky.

"As the ancients used to express it so very eloquently, Frelle Velesti, fuck off!" said Martyne between his hands.

"Am not Velesti."

Martyne looked up, blinking in the bright sunlight streaming over the modesty curtain. Samondel was not wearing a promenade coat, nor did she have the reaction pistol.

"Was there a problem with Frelle Larchfeld?" asked Martyne.

"No."

"Then why are you here?"

"Ah, advice, flintlock, purchasing, required."

Samondel closed the door and sat on the edge of his desk, hunched over with her hands clasped.

"Having no friends, knowing weapons, here. Isolated."

"Know the feeling."

"You. None friends, real friends, except Velesti."

"True."

"But Velesti, being, ah, something of strain."

"Frelle Samondel, just how do you put so much meaning, perception, and wisdom into so very few misarranged and misused words?"

Samondel frowned, for a moment, then brightened. "Compliment? Yes?"

"Yes."

"Lady on wall. Is dear to you?"

"My sister. Her ghost haunts this room, and she is very cross with me. I was not with her ... so she died."

Samondel put her hands on Martyne's shoulders, shaking him gently.

"Martyne, looking at me. Looking up. Not long ago, facing defilement. Saved. Now what? Next time, you are not there, for me, perhaps. Better buy real gun, for wearing, nice redwood handle, matching hair. Yes?"

"Yes, but you had better learn to fight without guns as well. Take some instruction from Velesti and me. Promise?" "Ah . . . yes!"

Crashing in Australica had seemed to Samondel no less final than crashing in the ocean: one simply did not expect to survive. Now she was sitting in a tavern whose cuisine was even better than what one might find in a palace at home, in an exotic sort of way. Rochester even reminded her of Condelor. She might well be a student girl being shown the sights of Rochester by a quite gallant and handsome chaperon ... but in a real sense, all of that was true! An oddly acute wash of pleasure passed through Samondel, in spite of the danger and distance between her and home, and she smiled at the strange but charming edutor sitting across the table from her.

Samondel and Martyne left the tavern and wandered the nearby market. Determining prices, change, and rates of currency exchange was particularly entertaining. Rochester was trying very hard to be normal, in spite of the extraordinary circumstances that currently assailed it. In public, everyone assiduously denied any knowledge of arithmetic at all, because gangs of shadowboys lurked at markets, taverns, and even the paraline terminus in search of anyone numerate enough to get into an argument about being short-changed—whether vendor or customer. Strangest for Samondel, was being in summer during February, while half a world away her friends and subjects were enduring winter.

A squad of lancers rode past, colors flying from their lances and their helmets polished. The horses were so huge and strong that Samondel cringed away by reflex, yet they were so docile as well. Mighty beasts that loved humans and worked hard for no more than fodder, yes, they were definitely worth coming seven thousand miles to buy. Even stranger was the lack of class distinction that was so evident on the American continents. There was a local nobility, but the Dragon Librarian Service added an avenue to power and influence for those with intelligence and education, regardless of social background.

"About yourself, no hearing?" Samondel asked, noticing that Martyne had been saying little for some time. "Clergy, yes?"

"Former clergy, a monk, actually. I left my order to avenge my sister's murder."

"Oh. Tragedy. Doing it, as yet?"

"Someone else beat me to it. Mostly. A bit annoying, really. I give up everything for honor and revenge, then I arrive and it's already done. I really felt quite a fool. Now I teach theology in the university, and teach girls to fight back when cornered."

"And are betrothed?"

"You might say that," Martyne replied unhappily.

"Not love?"

"Duty."

Samondel was amazed at how many of the pistols for sale had been supposedly salvaged from the wreck of the "air machine" that had crashed in the city earlier the month before. Martyne stopped at a stall that seemed little different from all the others and spoke a few words of some quite unintelligible language to the owner. The vendor presented Samondel with an attractive double-barrel flintlock, which had one barrel mounted above the other. The stock was of beautifully carved and oiled red rivergum.

"Always best to have two barrels," said Martyne. "Shoot to maim with the first barrel, then everyone else knows that you are not afraid to fire the second."

"Two shootings, only?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Wear always?"

"Ever since the Women's Assertion League grew out of the Dragon Librarian Service, all young professional girls and female students have been encouraged to carry a flintlock."

Samondel examined the weapon.

"Loading?" she asked presently.

"Loading is tedious. You pour gunpowder into the barrel, ram a lead ball down with poorpaper wadding, pour a little more powder into this flash pan, then twist the sparker down to hold it in place.

When you want to shoot, twist the striker with the flint back and pull the trigger. Sparks from the striker ignite what is in the flash pan, which ignites what is in the barrel through a little hole. This shoots the lead ball out of the barrel."

For a moment Samondel was lost for words.

"Is much bothering."

"I admit there is probably scope for improvement, but it is better than throwing rocks. Do you like it?"

"Yes. Magnificent. Is priced?"

Martyne turned to the vendor, they exchanged a few words, shook hands, bowed, huddled over the stall, then exchanged a few more words. They clapped their right hands together, then their left hands. The vendor's wife came out from behind the stall. The vendor kissed her on the cheek, and she passed the kiss on to Martyne. There was yet more talk and waving of hands. The vendor burst out crying, wailed something incomprehensible, then dripped tears onto the stock of the gun and rubbed the tears into the wood with a cloth. Four tiny ceramic thimbles were produced, and something exceedingly sharp scented was poured out from a small jar. They tossed back a liquid that left Samondel coughing for nearly a minute. Martyne embraced the vendor's wife, the vendor's wife embraced the vendor. Martyne and the vendor strode away into the crowd, leaving Samondel with the vendor's wife. She discovered that the vendor's wife did not speak Austaric, and certainly did not speak Old Anglian or Bartolican. Martyne returned. He now had a belt of scarlet leather whose buckle was cast ironblack in the shape of interlocking wings. Samondel complimented Martyne on his good taste and buckled on the belt. The vendor's wife arranged the twin barrel pistol in the left side of her belt with the stock facing right. There was another round of bowing and incomprehensible talk, then Samondel and Martyne walked away.

"Buy for me? This?" she asked.

"Just a moment, Frelle," responded Martyne.

There was a great shouting and commotion behind them, and the vendor from the gun stall came running after them with the utility

case for the pistol. They bowed, the vendor knelt and placed it on the ground, Martyne knelt and picked the case up. They clapped the right hands together and bowed, then Martyne and Samondel continued walking.

"The sale has been concluded, do not ask me to even attempt to explain what just went on."

"Paying, you have?"

"I am owed a favor by the vendor, so he has been trying to give me one of his wretched guns for months. I will show you how to use it tomorrow at the public firing chambers."

"Most real thanks, Fras Martyne."

Dinner was shredded roast lamb and pine nuts rolled in layers of flatbread and lettuce, and eaten as they walked. By the time they reached the doors of Villers College the air was cooler.

"Waiting, be back," said Samondel.

She hurried inside. Presently she emerged with the reaction pistol and a brown drawstring bag.

"Toy is yours. Fun, yes? Put on wall."

Martyne forced himself to laugh as he accepted her gift.

"Gracious Frelle, I am honored."

Martyne bowed, but Samondel did not respond with the subtle curtsy customary among well-bred women of his homeland. Feeling foolish, he turned and walked away into the night without another word. For a moment Samondel stared after him, a hand on her hip, the brown bag hanging from her other hand, affronted that he had left without a farewell. Perhaps it was something to do with being a monk, she decided, some religious protocol. After tossing the bag of bullets into the rubbish cart behind the refectory kitchen, she returned to her room.

IVIartyne unlocked his door to find Velesti sitting cross-legged on his bed with Samondel's brown bag. She was counting out the bullets.

"A cunning ploy to say that you have been in my bed, Frelle Cat Burglar?" asked Martyne.

"I just happened to be foraging for fisheads in the university's garbage wagon when this landed on me."

"Can you walk through walls, or is there something wrong with my new and very expensive lock?"

"I told the landlord to let me in. He did."

She bared her teeth.

"Can I get you anything? A saucer of milk? A nice fat mouse?"

"Meow. Look on your table."

On it was a somewhat more streamlined version of the single-shot pistol that Velesti had demonstrated to him that morning.

"What is this for?" asked Martyne, picking it up and checking the mechanism.

"For not arresting Samondel."

"I changed my mind. I am going to keep her under surveillance."

"Even that is worth a reward."

"Thank you, I am touched. Really."

"My new, lever-action pistol can be reloaded fifteen times faster than a flintlock. There are only two in existence, and until I learn to make bullets I would advise you to use these American imports sparingly. You can have half, and the spare ammunition clips. Where did she dispose of the reaction pistol?"

"You are asking meT

"Are you not Martyne Camderine, master spy?"

"Hah! Even when some girl propositions me you seem to know before I do."

"Point taken. I'm surprised that she kept the gun as long as she has. It marks the owner as being someone exceptional. This is not wise, when one is trying to be inconspicuous."

Velesti got off the bed, then scooped up her share of the bullets and dropped them into her jacket pocket.

"I knew you would come back here alone."

"What do you mean?"

"Any other lad would have taken Samondel out for a few drinks, invited her back, and rolled her. You merely bought her a gun and a walkalong dinner, then escorted her back to Villiers."

"What would you suggest?" asked Martyne, pressing a bullet into his prototype lever-action gun.

"What about looking into her eyes and telling her they are like clear, violet sapphires that reach into you and draw the heart and soul out of your body?"

"She would think I was trying to get her into bed!"

"You should be."

"No!"

"Call yourself a man?"