Lord of Janissaries (67 page)

She sipped again. “Rick, when will they come?”

“Who?”

“The
Shalnuksis
.”

“I’ve got skywatchers looking for satellites from Tamaerthon to Dravan—you’ve got as good an idea as I have, Gwen.”

“Mostly I’m reminding you of something. Distilling. Hammer mills. Printing presses. If they see real changes on Tran, they’ll do a
lot
to wipe them out.”

Rick sat heavily. “Yeah, I know. But we have to do
something
for these people! Gwen, I was out there in the
surinomaz
fields last week. Week. Hah. We don’t even have weeks. But I was out there, listening politely while Apelles told me about the cavalry patrols that herd the peasants back to work—have you seen
surinomaz
? I’d imagine working in that stuff is as close to hell as you can get. And I’m making people do it!”

“Rick, you’ve no choice—”

“Like hell I don’t. I could run. Vanish somewhere.”

“That wouldn’t be very smart,” Gwen said. “In the first place, you wouldn’t like it much, hiding out. But suppose you did. Are you mad enough to suppose that one of your men wouldn’t try growing
surinomaz
? Or that any of them would be gentler than you? Do you really think anyone
cares
what happens to peasants?”

“You do.”

“Maybe a little,” she said.

“I think that’s the worst of it,” Rick said. “Nobody really gives a damn. Even Tylara thinks I’m crazy, worrying about people who aren’t clansmen—”

“It’s going to get worse, too,” Gwen said. “And you’re avoiding the subject, which is how far can you go in making changes before the
Shalnuksis
bomb you out.”

“Yeah, but look, if we disperse knowledge far enough, the
Shalnuksis
won’t dare try to destroy everything. They’d have to drop enough bombs to make the planet uninhabitable, and that would ruin their little drug racket. They can’t risk that . . .”

“Can’t they?” She shrugged. “Rick, I don’t know. Les may have known, but he didn’t tell me that much. I do know the
Shalnuksis
are afraid of wild humans. Another thing, suppose what we do—”

Her look of fear was contagious. Rick automatically lowered his voice. “Suppose what?”

“That what we do gets back to the Confederacy. That they find out Tran exists. Then it wouldn’t be
Shalnuksi
businessmen we’d have to deal with. It might be somebody who thinks this whole planet is a cancer!”

“Christ almighty! But how would they know?”

She laughed. “A hundred ways. The
Shalnuksis
tell them. They send a human pilot and
he
tells them. Inspector Agzaral decides to make a new deal. Rick, I don’t
know
, I can only make guesses from what Les told me.”

“Yeah. But—Gwen, I don’t know either, but I do know I’ve got to do
something
!”

“To assuage your conscience,” she said. “You’re forcing the peasants to work the fields, so you need a higher cause to justify it.”

“I—yeah, I guess that is it,” Rick said.

“So why are you ashamed of being ethical?” Gwen asked. “For that matter, you
have
a higher cause. The University, for example. Rick, did you ever read a book called
Connections
?”

“I saw several of the TV episodes.”

“Well, I wish we had that book,” Gwen said. “But I can remember some of it. How glass-making led to a shortage of wood, and that made coal valuable, and coal mining needed pumps, and that resulted in the steam engine. And acetylene, and illuminating gas, and coal tar—Rick, we’ve already changed life on Tran, it’s just that you can’t see the changes from orbit. Unless you’ve studied Earth history, you wouldn’t see them no matter how closely you looked. There are a hundred students who
think
now. Maybe not well, but they ask questions, they wonder
why
things happen, and they know the difference between chemistry and alchemy. We’ll send them all over the planet.”

“That’s your work.”

“No, it’s yours,” Gwen said. “I know who keeps the University going. If it survives—”

“Your University has to survive,” Rick said.

“Ours. And I want it to, but we can’t be sure.”

“How will they know?”

“They’re not above capturing and interrogating you,” Gwen said. “Not at all.”

“I know. But I’m not going near them without mini-grenades. Their detectors don’t seem to find them—didn’t on the Moon, anyway. Pull the pin on one of those and they’ll have to scrape the walls.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “You’d do it, too. Will the others?”

“Elliot will, I think.”

“What if they take a local?”

“They might do that. But most of the
Shalnuksis
are
lazy
, Gwen. You didn’t know the local languages when you landed. How much time will they put in learning? And most locals don’t know about the University, and the ones that do don’t know where it is—how many can even read a map?”

“I hope you’re right,” she said. She got up and paced around the room. “You—don’t even mind,” she said. “You
like
for me to know things you don’t.”

“Sure—”

“It’s not sure at all,” Gwen said. “All my life men said they wanted me to be smart, but when I showed I could do something better than they could, they left me.” She stood at the window and watched the darkening sky. “You’re not like that. Why?”

“Too much to do, I guess.” He got up and joined her at the window, knowing what would happen next, not wanting it to happen but unable to stop himself.

She turned toward him. “It wasn’t fair, you know.”

“What wasn’t?” he asked.

“Meeting Tylara just after we were put on this planet. Les—expected us to say together. I think we would have, if we’d had a chance. If we hadn’t met her so soon.”

“And?” He put his hand on her shoulders.

“I have to go back to the University tomorrow.”

She moved closer to him, and after that they didn’t talk at all.

* * *

He woke startled and sat bolt upright. Gwen was on the other side of the room, fully dressed. “Hello,” she said.

“Where are you going?”

“To dinner, of course.” She came over to sit on the edge of the bed. “We’re both crazy, you know that? Caradoc would kill you. He’d
have
to try. And Tylara would have me boiled over a slow fire.”

Rick shuddered. “Sorry. That image is just a bit too graphic. She might do it.”

“Adds a little spice, doesn’t it? Stolen fruit’s the sweetest and all that.”

“Gwen—”

“No,” she said. “I do
not
want to talk about it. Rick, we’re not in love, but we’ll always be a bit special to each other, and in this crazy place maybe that’s all we can ask for. And now I’m going down to supper, and after a decent interval you’ll come join me, and we’ll just plain forget this happened.”

“Do you want to forget?”

“No,” she said. “No, my very dear.”

“Would you get aboard a flying saucer for me?”

“I don’t have to say.” She jumped away from him before he could catch her. “See you at supper.”

PART SIX

WANAX AND

WARLORD

26

Tylara do Tamaerthon, Eqetassa of Chelm and Justiciar of Drantos, looked about the great hall of Castle Dravan with feelings of satisfaction. This was home as it should be, lacking only her husband. Her guards stood like statues along the far wall. The floors were newly scrubbed, the tapestries newly cleaned. Her well-trained servants were carrying away the remains of an excellent meal and had brought in flagons of the new wine. There was nothing to apologize for.

Not that Wanax Ganton noticed. He had eyes only for the Lady Octavia, and might have eaten straw from filthy plates for all he knew. Soon enough he would leave the table, to find some excuse to be alone with the Roman girl. Tylara smiled faintly. Octavia knew what she was doing. Or she’d better. She seemed genuinely to care for the young Wanax.

And he for her. Tylara fingered the Colt at her waist. I believe he would give his
binoculars
for her, though possibly not the
Browning
pistol, she thought. Rick wished me to encourage this match, but in truth I have little enough to do.

Caradoc, with the young Roman officer Geminius, sat across from Wanax Ganton. The archer seemed nervous. Was it because he was at table with his superiors? Tylara didn’t think so. There was too much of Tamaerthon in Caradoc son of Cadaric; he wouldn’t be awed by royalty—especially royalty not officially present. Someone had told Ganton of a strange custom,
incognito
Rick had called it, whereby a Wanax might travel as an eqeta, or even a bheroman, and be treated as such, even though everyone knew he was
really
the Wanax. It seemed strange, but Ganton had insisted, and it seemed to work. Tylara doubted that Caradoc was much agitated by the Count of the North.

And Caradoc certainly isn’t afraid of
me
, she thought. We grew up together. If my first husband hadn’t been shipwrecked in the Garioch, our friendship might have become something more than that. How little I knew, how few my ambitions as daughter of Mac Clallan Muir! I might easily have wed the son of my father’s henchman . . .

A sudden thought struck her. Caradoc was one of two living men who had seen her naked. No, five if she counted the priests of Yatar who delivered her children, but why should she? They’d not looked upon her as men do at women. Nor had Caradoc, when he’d rescued her from Sarakos’ bedchamber. Involuntarily she shuddered at the memory of Sarakos and his crone torturer.

My first time to lie with a man. She shuddered again. And to this day I must drink wine before I bed my husband, and that is shameful, for I love him as few women can ever have loved a man. Yet he knows, and he feels the loss. What can I do? Yatar has given us so much, we cannot complain that he holds back the final drops from the cup.

But if Caradoc had not come when he did! Involuntarily she nodded in satisfaction as she remembered the dead guards outside her room. Caradoc had killed four soldiers and taken her away through secret passages, out of this very castle.

“
Coronel
Caradoc,” she called, using the new title of rank that Rick had conferred on him. “You have won a great victory. Tell us of it. As hostess I command it.” And that’s why he was nervous! He doesn’t like to talk about himself, and of course he has to. “Footman! Fill
Coronel
Caradoc’s cup, that he will not thirst as he tells us of his victory.”