The Heretic (General)

2

It was not precisely a whorehouse, Abel discovered. There were indeed sleeping cots for rent, and these separate from the other beds for rent by the quarter hour. There was food of a sort to be had, and Golitsin ordered them both a dak steak, a loaf of barley bread, and a jug of wine.

The central hall was filled with rough-hewn tables and chairs, with pedestals strewn about upon which stood women. They were elaborately veiled about the head, but otherwise unclothed.

They swayed to the loud blare of rivercane pipes and some sort of percussion instrument that was made from an even larger, halved reed set on a resonating frame.

Interesting that some form of Hrand’s Planet kahlpipe music has either been preserved or reinvented, Center intoned.

Do you even know what this place is? Abel asked. And do you approve?

Oh, we know where you are, lad, answered Raj. At least, I do. As to whether or not we approve: that’s really none of our business, now is it?

Damn right it’s not, Abel answered with an enthusiastic nod of the head that surprised Golitsin, though he took it for assent to something else he was talking about.

A waitress approached, almost as naked as the veiled dancers, and Abel saw Golitsin pay with a clay piece rimmed with hardwood. It was a sum equal to nearly a month of his lieutenant’s pay. Abel waited to see the waitress bring back change, but there was none.

“I can’t pay you back. I…didn’t bring those kinds of funds,” Abel said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Golitsin shouted over the music. “The prelate said to tell you it was your Scout’s bonus.”

“Bonus? For what?”

“Killing Redland devils, I suppose,” Golitsin replied. “Now drink up, because I don’t think you’re going to like the taste of that steak otherwise.”

“Why not?”

“Not sure anybody told these Bruneberg cooks that you’re suppose to put meat in them.”

Abel drank. Then he sat back and for the first time really looked around.

The women were stunning. Or at least their nakedness was. He hadn’t seen a woman undressed since…well, since Captain Blackmore’s wife had flashed her breast at him while he’d stood detail outside one of Blackmore’s all-night officers’ bones games one night. He’d been fifteen. She’d stumbled outside and tried to pull him into the stables. After he resisted, she’d shown him her breasts. After he’d continued to resist, she’d reached under his tunic and grabbed his cock, as stiff as a musket barrel by now.

“He won’t come out,” she whispered. “He’s winning, you know. He’ll never come away when he’s winning.”

And Abel had almost done it, almost followed her into the stable. But another officer who was not Blackmore and who was not winning had stumbled out to relieve himself in the yard.

And, just like that, Captain Blackmore’s wife or concubine or whatever she was had transferred her entire attention to the officer.

Abel heard the pissing abruptly stop. Laughter. And then the creak of the stable door opening. And the sounds from within that he knew were not the sounds of rutting donts, no matter how much they sounded like them.

I won’t stand holding my musket tonight, Able thought. I won’t. But which? And how?

He turned to Golitsin. “They have special dispensation for this kind of thing in the priesthood? Special prayers or something?”

“Never heard of Zentrum smiting a brother who responds to his urges now and again,” Golitsin replied. “So long as you don’t break Stasis by, you know, trying something wrong.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know exactly. There’s stories about brothers that like to…do things…you know, with metal instruments.”

Abel shook his head. “I don’t know. Tell me.”

“I’ve only heard stories, I mean,” Golitsin quickly replied.

A bit too quickly, Center said. Stand by and I will perform a first pass interpolation to determine the priest’s deviancy from norms and specific instances of—

No, no, no! Abel shouted in his mind. I don’t want to hear any of that, let alone see it!

Very well.

“But they say Zentrum finds out things such as that, if you do them, I mean. That Zentrum knows when a priest breaks Stasis, even then, even doing that.”

Quite possible, Center said. But even for a planetary defense computer with powers as immense as Zentrum, that would seem to be one calculation too many.

Golitsin tugged at Abel’s sleeve as the steaks arrived. “How about that servant girl?” he said. “They are for sale, too, you know.”

Golitsin began to flirt with the wench, who, after a moment, allowed him to pull her onto his lap. She cut up his food and fed it to him while the priest begged like a flitterdak chick for the next.

Abel noticed that the knife in her hand was trembling a bit much, as if she were having trouble controlling the urge to plunge it through Golitsin’s upturned chin. But after he finished off another cup of wine, the serving girl pulled the priest away toward one of the curtained doorways in the back of the room that led—well, Abel wasn’t sure where they led. It certainly wasn’t to the sleeping area, which was down a clearly marked separate hallway well-lit with torches.

And so he found himself alone with his wine and half-eaten steak. Golitsin had been right about the lack of meat, but incorrect about the amount of wine it would take before he didn’t care. Even with his head swimming with drink, he could still taste the sawdust filler when he chewed.

Sawdust and meat that wanted to return, he discovered. Return from the slurry of death in his stomach and emerge once more into the land of the living. Abel stood up, stumbled blindly in a direction he had decided might lead to a chamber pot, or at least to an empty alleyway.

And she was there, leading him. Gliding through the crowd, clearing a path in front of him, taking him through a curtained doorway, down a hall, and into a stall where a genuine toilet and washbasin sat. He heard the sound of rushing water somewhere nearby and looked around until he realized it was under him, under the floorboards. He was over the River.

He saw that when she opened the toilet hatch and he looked down fifteen feet into dark, rushing water.

“Don’t fall in, Sweetbread,” said the voice from behind the cerulean veil.

“I can swim,” Abel said. Not well, he knew, but he could. He’d learned, at Raj and Center’s insistence, in the lake at Hestinga.

“It isn’t that,” said the voice. “It’s that the carnadons would have you to pieces before you managed to drown in the cataracts.”

Her tone was playful, but with a trace of contempt, as well.

Not for me, Abel thought. More like for all men.

Aye, Raj said. You’ve got the right of that.

Abel turned away from the open hole. “Actually, I don’t think I need it now, I—”

That was when the swell hit him. He jerked back, and hung his head as fast as he could over the opening and let rip only just in time for the bulk of it, the spill of it—steak, wine, day’s rations, everything—to rain down in a putrid waterfall to the River below.

“Ah! Ah, by the bones and breasts of the Lady,” he cried out, “let this stop.”

He didn’t notice then, but later realized that this was when it must have happened, that she realized he was either a Scout, knew the borderlands, or was a Redlander himself. For who else would think to call upon Irisobrian at such a time?

He felt her hand upon his arm, softer this time. “Here now, drink some water,” she said. The other hand had dipped a clay cup into a nearby pitcher.

He took it, rinsed his mouth, spat into the River again and again until he’d banished enough of the taste of his own innards to resist the urge to turn once more to the blank hole and start the puking process all over again.

She handed him a bit of cloth. “Wipe your mouth.”

He did.

And then what looked like a weed.

“Chew this.”

He examined it, turned it in his fingers, didn’t recognize the small leaves or the pungent smell.

It is mint, Abel, Center said. Probably imported from the Schnee foothills. Quite safe.

He chewed. Good. The nausea faded.

“Can we—I would like to…not go back out there,” he said. “I mean, I don’t really have anything to pay you with.”

“You are inside, are you not? You have paid the night charge.”

“But I thought that just covered a pallet.”

A laugh from behind the cerulean veil, this time not contemptuous. Sweetly amused. “Come.”

She led him out and down the hall in the opposite direction from the main hall. At the very end, they passed through a beaded curtain and onto a veranda.

The view was stunning. They were at least a fieldmarch from the near River bank, suspended over water that was raging through the rocks of the cataracts below. Far on the opposite side of the River, nearly a quarter league away, firelights twinkled through the silhouettes of willow and fern trees.

High above, Duisberg’s three moons gathered.

She led him along the veranda, which seemed to encircle the perimeter of the structure. He paid no heed to where they were going, only looked out at the expanse of the River, the white flash of the rapids in moonlight. And listened to the surge of the water pouring through the teeth of the Land.

“Here,” she said, and pulled him through another curtain. The River was gone. He counted three doorways, and then she pushed aside another, a beaten flax curtain, and he followed into a chamber.

It was not what he expected. Not fancied with fabrics or colored papyrus. A makeshift bed. A table with a washbasin. A clay oil lamp.

“This is mine,” she said. “Where I sleep. Where I live.”

“Oh.”

“We can have time here,” she said. “At the other, they will roust you when the sand has run its course through the tumbler. And if you don’t come out, they will use sticks.”

“I don’t want them to use sticks.”

“No, this is better,” she said. “Also, seeing is not allowed there. Here, you can have this.”

She reached up and worked a clasp loose near the back of her neck. Then she carefully began to unwind the veil.

Which gave him a moment to step back and look at her completely for what, he realized, was the first time.

She was of medium height. Her skin had a darker hue, not sun darkened but naturally so. Her breasts were ample, not small or overlarge, her nipples brown and, so far as he could tell, perfect. She smelled of something he had never experienced before. Something wonderful.

Lavender, said Center.

Lavender. As she lifted her arms to undo the veil, he glimpsed the undersides of her forearms. Something odd. He looked closer. Three stripes. They were covered with something, something chalklike, to hide them. But here in this light, so near to her, they were quite clear scars. Scars like those he had seen before.

Blaskoye clan scars.

The veil fell away. Her eyes were blue. Lapis lazuli.

“Thon schonet er, damme Blaskoye,” he said to her.

You are very beautiful, Blaskoye woman.

He saw the recognition, the understanding, as she started back.

“You—you speak with an accent,” she said. “You are not a clansman.”

“I am a lieutenant of the Scouts.”

“Ah, of course. A sworn enemy.” He thought he heard the contempt that had vanished seep back into her reply, but this time it sounded as if it were directed at herself. “I should have known. I should have.”

“Yes. An enemy.”

“I had thought you might be…someone else.”

“Who?” he asked. “A Redlander? Is that what you thought? Is that what you are?”

“Not anymore,” she said. She dropped the veil beside her washbasin on the table. “Have you killed many Redlanders?”

“No,” he said. “A few.”

Only one woman. She looked like her. The same eyes, at least. He tried to push the thought from his mind, but could not.

“Have you f*cked many Scouts?” he asked her.

This caught her off guard, and she laughed.

Her lips, he thought. They don’t tell you about the lips, full like that, behind the veil. Before he could stop himself, before he even knew what he was doing, he reached up and touched her lips, ran a finger across the softness, pulled his hand slowly away.

“You will be the first,” she said.

And she was the first, his first. He didn’t tell her. Perhaps she knew. It wasn’t pretty. Her bed creaked, and several times she had him slow, stop the noise. If they were discovered, she whispered, he would be dragged away, she would be beaten. So finally they pulled what covers she had off the bed and he took her on the floor, which squeaked less.

And somewhere below them, he knew the River ran, the carnadons gathered. He pushed the face of the Blaskoye woman he’d killed from him mind, willed himself to replace it with her face, her form.

And almost could do it.

Almost, but not quite. For when he came, it was both the lamplit form of the woman and the feel of his hand on the trigger of the Blaskoye musket as he shot the other, shot the Redlander woman, that filled his mind like an explosion of desire, rage, and grief.

There was one solace. This one, this Blaskoye clanswoman or whatever she was, was not dead. She was still very much alive.

“You are young,” she whispered. “You can do it again. Quickly now, do it again.”

Could he?

Yes. Oh yes, he could.

So he did. And this time, it was only her and the River.

* * *

She led him back to the pallet and slipped away before he could speak to her again. He hadn’t even gotten her name. He lay still, unable to sleep, unwilling to converse with Center and Raj. For their part, they respected his obvious wish for quiet and remained silent.

Then Golitsin stumbled into the room—which slept five, although only four pallets were occupied—and collapsed beside Abel. He was making an odd sound, somewhere between a whistle and a moan, and at first Abel thought he was crying. But then he slapped the pallet and let out a guffaw, and Abel knew it was laughter.

“What?” he said groggily.

“Three,” Golitsin said.

“Women? Times?” Abel sat up. “What?”

“Yes, each,” he said. “Then all at once.”

Abel shook his head. Had he heard that right?

“And years,” Golitsin said. “One for every year I didn’t. That I haven’t.”

“So the last time was—”

“Here,” said Golitsin.

Abel nodded, turned over. “I guess that’s all right, then,” he said.

“By the Bite and the Bolt.”

“Whatever you say.”

“By the Law and the Land.”

“Okay, Golitsin.” Abel’s stomach suddenly spasmed. The nausea rose again momentarily, and with it a thought. Abel fought down the one, but not the other. “Golitsin, did you—is this the only reason you came? Just this tonight? You knew the state of things in Cascade, didn’t you, the reasons the shipment never came?”

“Not the extent.”

“But you knew?”

Golitsin sighed. “Yes, but you’re wrong,” he said. “I may be a bad priest, but I’m not that kind of bad priest. Zilkovsky trusts me, or he wouldn’t have sent me. I know him enough to know that, and so should you by now. That’s why he got your father to send you along, I expect. He trusts you, too. And he knew what I’d do here, and maybe overlooking where I happened to spend the night while here is payment for my being such a good priest for the past three years. That other kind of good priest, I mean. Anyway, we’ll get to the bottom of the problem with the shipments.”

“All right,” Abel said. “Goodnight, then.”

“You think I’m damned?”

“No.”

A pause, then Golitsin spoke again in a lower voice.

“You get yours, kid?”

“I guess.”

“Either you did or you didn’t.”

“Yes. I did. Okay?”

“How was it?”

Abel didn’t answer. Golitsin started to say something else, stopped himself. Then Abel heard him collapse on the pallet, let out a great sigh, and begin to snore.

This seemed to be what Abel’s body was waiting for. The snoring. Familiar. Like after a day on patrol. The clump of spent and tired men who had nothing in common other than the fact that they had all just risked their lives on the same enterprise, taken the same chances, reaped the same reward, which was survival to fight another day.

Abel finally fell asleep.