House of the Wolf (Book Three of the Phoenix Legacy) (4 page)

“Will you mention the name used by one of the rescuers?”

Woolf was half joking with that question, but Galinin considered his answer quite seriously.

“Perhaps I will, Phillip. Something’s happened in the Phoenix; a power struggle. We can assume that on the basis of these betrayals, and since Riis’s arrest, their military program has expanded at an alarming rate. I can’t believe that name was used gratuitously, and if Ransom is with Riis, I think we’d do well to help him get his message through, if that’s his purpose. I’d rather deal with the Phoenix under Riis’s leadership. At least he’s not an entirely unknown quantity.”

“Is there anything else I should know about this?”

Galinin shook his head, absently working at the gold Concord crest ring on his left hand.

“No, but I’m concerned about the direction the Phoenix seems to be taking. Confleet is convinced they’re building up for a major military campaign.”

Woolf said coldly, “The peaceful Phoenix is showing its talons. Perhaps Rich misjudged it after all.” He was aware of Galinin’s inquiring scrutiny, but chose to ignore it, and after a moment Galinin turned to look out at the Plaza.

“At any rate, we may have to deal with this taloned Phoenix in the future. I hope it doesn’t come to open revolt. We can defeat them, but we’re rocking on the edge of chaos now, and it would be a costly war, considering the degree to which they’ve infiltrated the Concord.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Woolf responded with a flat inflection, and Galinin seemed to recognize his unspoken plea for a change of subject.

His white brows were drawn in a frown as he said, “I’ve reached a decision on another matter, Phillip. I’ve decided to cancel the Concord Day ceremonies in the Plaza this year.”

Woolf stared at him, stunned. The Plaza ceremonies had marked the celebration of Concord Day for a century and a half. Then the shock passed, giving way to numb resignation.

“It’s unfortunate psychologically.”

“I don’t like it, but Conpol has been pressing me. They don’t think they can maintain order. It’s their attitude that forced me into the decision more than anything else. Take a hundred thousand Bonds and Fesh, three thousand Lords and their families, add five thousand nervous Conpol and Directorate guards, and disaster is almost inevitable.” He gave in to a long sigh. “It’s only one of many small surrenders. Bit by bit we surrender the Concord, and we don’t even know what we’re surrendering it to. But—” He glanced at Woolf’s arm, “—if something like this can happen on an ordinary day in the Hall of the Directorate, I can’t risk what might happen on Concord Day with that many people and armed men crowded together.”

Woolf turned and gazed out the windowall again. There were only a few people in the Plaza this late in the day; it seemed peculiarly bleak under the cold, clear sky.

“I should be relieved not to have to endure the ordeal again. I assume other celebrations won’t be affected?”

“No, and I’ll plan special public entertainment, but only in small groups. You’d better have your broadcasting branch work out some vidicom programs for the evening. We’ll discuss it in detail later, but you might give it some thought and get your producers thinking.”

“I’ll see to it.” He paused, glancing at his watch. “Mathis, will you join Olivet and me for supper? We’re dining alone tonight—for once.”

Galinin grimaced irritably. “I’d enjoy that, but I have James Cameroodo to contend with this evening. But I’m anticipating the newscasts tonight. I’m looking forward to the screened account of the Lord Woolf singlehandedly putting down an armed assailant.”

Woolf groaned. “I would manage to get attacked in full view of a covey of reporters.”

“You might be a candidate for a popular hero, yourself.”

“Never. I’m cast as the villain in this life.” He started for the door.

“Goodbye, Mathis.”

“Goodbye, Phillip. Be careful.”

When the doors closed, Galinin frowned. He’d never before felt an inclination to add that cautionary admonition. It seemed quite natural now.

Valentin Severin bit back an expression of annoyance as her foot caught in the hem of her habit, nearly sending her—and her armload of clean linens—tumbling onto the steps. The word she’d almost spoken wouldn’t be appropriate in the cloister of Saint Petra’s of Ellay.

She readjusted her load, freeing one hand to lift her skirt as she continued up the stairs. Don’t
hurry
so, she admonished herself, hearing the words in Sister Herma’s unctuous tones. In the Holy Mezion’s house, one must comport oneself with dignity out of respect for Him. Herma could make a breach of decorum sound like a mortal sin.

Frustration usually focuses on trivial annoyances when the real source is beyond hope of control, and Val found annoyances enough here. Sister Henna was one.

Stone stairways were another, and somehow she wasn’t suitably impressed that these were dished with nearly two hundred years of
dignified
footsteps. And it was difficult enough to accustom herself to stationary stairs without the added burden of negotiating them in a flowing, floor-length habit, and difficult enough to find her way through the shadowy corridors without the veil that enveloped her in a blue fog.

At the top of the stairs she stopped to catch her breath. She was trembling, and that index of the state of her nerves dismayed her. But there was due cause for it; she’d endured eighteen days of convent life, and it seemed like eighteen weeks, but she was still no closer to accomplishing her mission. And after what Jael told her about Alex, about that wound . . .

The Phoenix had failed him at every turn where Lady Adrien was concerned, and now the burden of failure fell most heavily on Val. She was the only one behind these walls, the only one with any hope of finding the Lady Adrien.

She
is
alive. How many times a day did she tell herself that? She is alive; she must be.

But all Val had to show for her eighteen days’ incarceration was a name that meant nothing in itself—Sister Betha—and the fact that Lectris was still at Saint Petra’s, which meant as little, and twenty-five microceivers planted in various places in the cloister where they might pick up conversations between the Sisters from which a mere novice would be excluded. So far, they had provided only that name and hours of stultifying boredom listening to the tapes in the after-curfew privacy of her room.

In regard to the sensational tragedy visited on Saint Petra’s in Sister Betha’s death, the Sisters cautioned curious novices not to be afraid and to pray. Pray for Sister Betha’s soul and that of the benighted person who had desecrated the Holy Mezion’s house with violence. They wouldn’t even identify him, as Conpol had, as a Bond gone inexplicably insane, nor did they mention the fact that Conpol had found no trace of the crazed desecrator at Saint Petra’s. The novices were more inclined to talk among themselves about the tragedy, but Val soon learned that they knew no more—in fact, much less—about it than she did.

She heard footsteps, the measured pace adopted by all these veiled women. She shifted her load and started down the corridor, imitating that
dignified
pace and studying the nun as she approached, trying to identify her. Val was learning the visual cues, but it was a slow process; another source of frustration. This one she didn’t know, but she nodded respectfully.

“Good morning, Sister.”

“Good morning, Sister Alexandra. Lord bless.”

Val sighed as the footsteps faded behind her. They all seemed to recognize
her
easily enough. She paused at a crosscorridor, looking down toward an area of brighter light, hearing the sound of children’s voices. The morning play period. She could reach the linen storage room faster by continuing along this hall, but she decided on the longer route via the arcade overlooking the play court.

The court was of interest to her as the site of Sister Betha’s murder, and because Lectris had returned to his duties there after two days in the infirmary for treatment of his leg wound. Val took every opportunity to look for him, but she’d never seen him talk to any of the nuns. Watching Lectris from within the cloister was a futile endeavor when her opportunities were so limited, but it was something concrete, and in the hushed, ritualized world of the cloister she grasped at any straw simply to preserve her sanity.

Still, she doubted anything would preserve it if it weren’t for her nightly contacts with Jael. She hadn’t realized how important he had become to her, or how much she would miss him, until this exile into the cloister.

Sunlight glared through the intricate screens guarding the arcade, casting a weave of shadow patterns on the stone. She looked down into the court. Lectris was there, kneeling in a bed of flowers, alone and intent on his task. Four nuns were supervising the children: teachers. None of them were novices, and she was totally convinced, after eighteen days, that Lady Adrien could only be here as a novice. Passing herself off as a full nun would be all but impossible; there were too many matters of custom, ritual, and attitude that no outsider could understand or imitate.

She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and saw a veiled figure come out of one of the side corridors, cross to the screen, and stand looking down into the court, apparently unaware of Val, some ten meters away.

A novice. Val had eliminated all but fifteen of the thirty-six novices simply because they were too tall, and of those fifteen, she had managed to get VP ident that eliminated five more, but that still left ten likely candidates.

This novice was one of the fifteen who fell within the height range, but she was far too heavy. Val didn’t know her name; she seemed even more reclusive than the other Sisters. Val identified her as “the plump one,” and that extra weight eliminated her as a possibility. Lady Adrien had never suffered the problem of obesity, and this woman—

Val frowned, inwardly cursing the habit. From the white koyf framing the face, a cape-like drape extended to the waist, and the habit itself fell from the shoulders in loose folds, unfitted, unbelted, all the way to the ground. As unflattering, she thought bitterly, as it was successful in disguising the figure under it. But now, as she studied the novice, she realized her bulk wasn’t simply a matter of overweight, and she chastised herself for having blithely classified it as such. For one thing, the diet in the cloister would make overweight nothing short of a miracle.

She remembered a monitored fragment of conversation between two nuns; something about Sister—what was the name? Iris. That was it. Sister Iris was excused from certain duties because “her time is almost at hand.” Val had taken that euphemism to mean one of the Sisters was near death, but perhaps another kind of “time” was indicated.

The novice’s head turned in her direction, and Val looked away, down into the courtyard, watching the jubilant choreography of the children in a circle game.

The novice was pregnant.

There was a certain irony in that, but she suspected there was also heartbreak for the novice. The irony was that one didn’t expect a nun to be pregnant. The loose habit hid her pregnancy not only in a physical sense, but because it was a
nun’s
habit. Yet nothing in the rules of this Order precluded membership because of pregnancy, and it probably wasn’t so unusual in the Sisters of Faith.

There was a lesson to be learned here: Don’t take anything for granted.

Val glanced obliquely down the arcade and found it empty; the novice had disappeared into the cloister. At any rate, whether by virtue of plumpness or pregnancy, she was still eliminated from the list of possibilities.

Val sighed, feeling the weight of her load. Sister Hernia would give her a lesson if she didn’t get these linens put away, and that would mean more hours in the chapel saying penances on aching knees.

Tickings and swishings, metronomic electronic pulsations; the rhythms never stopped, never faltered, and seldom changed their cadences.

He floated in an electronic womb, suspended in soft warmth, webbed in multiple umbilicals; tubes to force air into his lungs and pump it out; tubes to carry moisture and sustenance into his body; still more tubes to carry the wastes of living away.

They were keeping his body alive.

There had been a time when he was wracked with despairing resentment at that, when he was still capable of wondering why. Why did they refuse him what he sought?

He passed a threshold of tolerance somewhere in the endless, monotonous transitions from awareness to unawareness, the myriad small deaths and births. Beyond that threshold, the mental circuits ceased to function, etched to fragments, neural rags that could no longer carry the impulses, that diffused energy in errant, aimless patterns.

They couldn’t keep his body alive forever.

He could only wait; there was no alternative to that.

And waiting asked nothing of him. Impatience exists only within a temporal framework, and he’d been freed of the reference grid of time; the matrix of memory had collapsed. Memories came only in sensory fragments, sensations divorced from the rational processes that would give them meaning.

He experienced memory fragments of another limbo when existence had also been separated from time and locked with a pattern of fear and pain. He might still be in that limbo. The pattern of fear and pain was still constant.

But the fear had become vague and unfocused. He didn’t know what he was afraid of until it was upon him. It surfaced only in those transition periods on the brink of unconsciousness and semiawareness, taking the old shapes, the terrifying images, of his nightmares. They floated out of the darkness, aligning themselves in the familiar lattice of horror.

Yet when they were gone, fear was also gone. That asked a temporal framework, too; one that included a future.

Pain was ultimately the only constant.

Pain was pure sensation demanding no ratiocination, no temporal framework; it transcended both thought and time. It was aboriginal. It antedated and survived the mental processes that drew the demarcations of time. It would be the last index of his existence, as it had been the first.