Land and Overland - Omnibus (55 page)

Annoyed, Bartan left his place of concealment and approached Sondeweere. "Welcome to the party," he said, quite certain in his mind that she would be disconcerted to learn that she had been under observation.

"Bartan!" Smiling brilliantly, she ran to him, threw her arms around his waist and nuzzled against his chest. "It seems
years
since I've seen you."

"Does it?" he said, refusing to return the embrace. "Haven't you found a way to make the time pass quickly? And pleasantly at that?"

"Of course not!" Becoming aware of the rigidness of his body, she stepped back to look at him. "Bartan! What are you saying?"

"I saw you with Glave."

Sondeweere's jaw sagged for a moment before she began to laugh. "Bartan, Glave is just a boy! And he's my cousin."

"Full cousin? By blood?"

"That doesn't come into it—you have no reason to be jealous." Sondeweere raised her left hand and tapped the brakka ring on the sixth finger. "I wear this at all times, my love."

"That doesn't prove…" Bartan's throat closed painfully, preventing him from finishing the sentence.

"Why are we behaving like strangers?" Sondeweere fixed Bartan with a soft but purposeful stare and embraced him again, this time putting her arms around his neck and drawing his face down to meet hers. He had never been to bed with her, but before the kiss was over he had a fair idea of what the experience would be like and all thoughts of rivalry, or indeed of anything, had flown from his mind. He responded hungrily until she had broken away from him.

"Labouring in the field is making you very strong," she whispered. "I see I will have to be careful with you and grow a plentiful crop of maidenfriend."

Flattered and uplifted, he said, "Don't you want to have children?"

"Lots of them, but not too soon—we have much work to do first."

"We'll have no talk of work for the remainder of the day." Bartan linked arms with Sondeweere and drew her away from the farm buildings towards the sunlit peacefulness of the open land, where crops in different stages of maturation glowed in strips which narrowed into the distance. They walked together for a good hour, enjoying each other's presence, passing the time with lovers' Smalltalk and counting the meteors which occasionally scribed silver lines across the sky. Bartan would have liked to keep Sondeweere to himself until nightfall, but he gave in with good grace when she decided to return to the others for the start of the dancing.

By the time they had reached the main farmhouse Bartan was thirsty. Feeling it would be prudent not to have more wine, he joined the men clustered around the ale barrels in search of a less heady brew. He fended off the expected ribaldry about what he had been doing while absent with Sondeweere, and emerged from the group with a heavy pot of ale in his hand. Three fiddlers had begun to play in the shade of the barn and several young women—Sondeweere among them—had joined hands and were opening the first of the set dances.

Bartan looked on in a mood of utter contentment, taking small but regular sips of his drink, as some male farmers overcame their self-consciousness and gradually swelled the ranks of the dancers. He finished his ale, set the pot on a nearby table, and had taken one step towards Sondeweere when his attention was caught by a group of small children at play on a grassy patch near the kitchen orchard. All were aged about three or four and were moving in a circle, silently absorbed, performing a dance of their own to a slower rhythm than that of the adults' music. Their chins were tucked down into hunched right shoulders, and their right arms were extended in front, gently wafting and undulating like so many snakes.

The movements were strangely inhuman, strangely unappealing—and exactly simulated those with which Ennda Phoratere had acted out the obscene horrors of her nightmare.

Bartan turned away from the children, frowning, suddenly feeling isolated from the merriment and innocence of his neighbours.

As they walked to the palace's principal entrance Gesalla Maraquine talked continuously about domestic trivia—a tactic which Toller found more baffling and infuriating than if she had chosen to maintain a cold silence.

He had not been able to return home in the twelve days which had elapsed since the visitation by the skyship from Land, and consequently had been pleased when Gesalla had ridden up from the estate to spend the night with him. But her stay had provided none of the comforts for which he had hoped. She had arrived in a strange mood, enigmatic and slightly distant, and on learning that he had insisted on going aloft with the first fortress had become positively acidic. Later, in bed, she had responded to his advances with a dull compliance which was more hurtful than outright rejection and which had caused him to abandon all thoughts of lovemaking. He had lain apart from her all night, physically and mentally frustrated, and when he had lapsed into sleep there had been dreams of falling—not just of ordinary falling, but of the day-long drop from the weightless zone…

"Cassyll is waiting for you," Toller cut in forcibly. "It's good that you'll have his company on the ride home."

Gesalla nodded. "It's
very
good—after all, you might have decided to take him into the sky with you."

"What are you saying? The boy has no interest in flying."

"He had no interest in guns, either—until you put him to work on those cursed muskets. Now I see almost as little of him as I do of you."

"Is
that
what this is all about?" Toller stopped his wife in the busy, high-ceilinged corridor, waited until a group of officials had moved out of earshot, and said, "Why didn't you come out with it last night?"

"Would you have changed your plans?"

"No."

Gesalla looked exasperated. "Then what would have been the point in my speaking out?"

"What was the point in coming to the palace in the first place?" Toller said. "Was it to cause me pain?"

"Did you say
pain?"
Gesalla gave an incredulous laugh. "I heard about your plunge into insanity with that beast of a swordsman, Karkarand, or whatever his name is."

Toller blinked at her, thrown by the apparent change of subject. "It was the only way…"

"Now you're going
up there
when there is absolutely no need for it. Toller, how do you think I feel, knowing that my husband would rather court death than go on living with me?"

Toller strove for a suitable answer, gaining time through the fact that two clerks carrying ledgers were passing close by and giving him inquisitive looks. This was the sort of situation in which Gesalla could strike a near-superstitious fear into him. Her oval face was hard, pale and beautiful, and behind those grey eyes was a mind that could far outpace his own, making it impossible for him to best her in an argument, especially an important one.

"I know there is little evidence of it thus far, but this is a time of crisis," he said slowly. "I am only doing what is required of me, and I hate it as much as…" He allowed the sentence to tail off as he saw that Gesalla was shaking her head emphatically.

"Don't lie to me, Toller. Don't lie to
yourself.
You are enjoying all this."

"Nonsense!"

"Answer just one question for me—do you ever think of Leddravohr?"

Again disconcerted, Toller conjured up then drove from his mind a vision of the military prince, the man whose hatred had altered his entire life and with whom he had fought a duel to the death on the day their ships had touched down on Overland all those years ago.

"Leddravohr?" he said. "Why should I think of him?"

Gesalla produced the sweet, sweet smile which often preceded her deadliest thrusts. "Because you were a pair of sixes, you and he." She turned and walked away quickly, her straight-backed figure slipping through barriers of people with an ease he could not emulate.

Nobody can say that to me,
he thought in dismay, trailing in Gesalla's wake. In spite of his efforts to overtake, she had passed through the arched entrance and was in the sunlight of the forecourt before he reached her side, and Cassyll was already bringing two bluehorns forward.

Cassyll Maraquine was as tall as his father, but the maternal component of his build was evident. His physique was of the lean and long-muscled type, giving him the capability—as Toller had learned through a number of failed challenges—of running for two or three hours at a stretch with virtually no diminution of speed. He bore a strong resemblance to his mother, with a fine-featured oval face and thoughtful grey eyes beneath a widow's peak of black hair.

"Good foreday, mother, father," he said and immediately gave all his attention to Toller. "I brought samples of the new batch of pressure spheres. Not one of them has failed or even distorted under test, so we can start producing reliable muskets right away. I have them in my saddle bag—do you want to see?"

Toller glanced at Gesalla's set countenance. "Not now, son. Not today. I'm leaving it to you and Wroble to take care of the production planning—I have other work in hand."

"Oh!" Cassyll raised his eyebrows and gazed at his father in open admiration. "So it's really true! You're going aloft with the first of the fortresses!"

"It has to be done," Toller said, wishing that Cassyll had reacted differently. He had been away from home on the King's business during much of his son's upbringing and had always considered himself blessed in that, far from showing resentment, the boy had regarded him as a glamorous adventurer and a father of whom to be proud. There had been no sense of competition with Gesalla for their son's mind, even after the boy had developed a strong interest in the new science of metallurgy, but now the triangular relationship was changing and presenting difficulties—just when Toller was least able to deal with them. The first two sky fortresses had been constructed in only a few days, far too short a time for a thorough study of the problem areas, and the forthcoming ascent was looming so large in his thoughts that all else seemed slightly unreal to him. In his heart he was already soaring up into the dangerous blue reaches of the sky, and he had become impatient with earthly matters.

"I'll speak to Wroble before nightfall," Cassyll said. "How long will you be away?"

"Perhaps seven days on this first ascent. Much depends on how smoothly the operation proceeds."

"Good luck, father." Cassyll shook Toller's hand, then held one of the bluehorns steady for Gesalla to mount it. She swung herself up into the saddle with practised grace, her divided riding skirt giving her full freedom of movement, and looked down at Toller with an expression which seemed to indicate an odd mixture of anger and sadness. The silver streak in her hair shone like a military emblem.

"Aren't you going to wish me good luck also?" he said.

"Why should I? You assured me the ascent would be perfectly safe."

"Yes, but…"

"Goodbye, Toller." Gesalla wheeled the bluehorn away and rode off towards the palace gates.

Cassyll gazed after her in perplexity for a moment. "Is anything wrong, father?"

"Nothing we are unable to put right, son. Take good care of your mother." Toller watched Cassyll mount and ride after Gesalla, then turned and walked back into the palace, moving like a blind man opposed by currents of humanity. He had taken only a few paces when he heard a woman's footsteps hurrying behind him. The idea that it might be Gesalla coming back to put things right between them was irrational, but nevertheless he felt the beginnings of a surge of gladness as he halted and turned to face the person who was overtaking him. The emotion subsided in disappointment as he saw a petite, black-haired woman in her mid-twenties who was wearing the saffron uniform of an air-captain. Blue patches stitched to the shoulders of the thickly embroidered jupon showed that she had been seconded to the hastily formed Sky Service. Her face was firm-jawed and full-lipped, with unfashionably full eyebrows which seemed poised to frown.

"Lord Toller," she said, "may I have a word with you? I am Skycaptain Berise Narrinder, and I've been trying to see you for days."

"I'm sorry, captain," Toller said. "You have chosen the most inopportune time."

"My lord, this will take but a moment—and it is a matter of some importance."

The fact that the woman had not been deterred by his refusal caused him to look more closely at her, and far back in his mind there flickered the thought that she would have been highly attractive but for the anomaly of being in uniform. He was immediately angry with himself, and again wished that Queen Daseene did not have so much influence over her husband. It had been on Daseene's insistence that women had been admitted to the Air Service, and she had prevailed on Chakkell to permit female volunteers to join skyship and fortress crews.

"All right, captain," Toller said, "what is this matter of some importance?"

"I was told that it was your personal decision that no woman would take part in the first twelve ascents to the weightless zone. Is that true?"

"Yes, it's true. What of it?"

Berise's eyebrows now formed a continuous line above intent green eyes. "With the greatest respect, my lord, I wish to claim the right of protest granted to me under the Terms of Service."

"There are no Terms in wartime." Toller blinked down at her. "Leaving that aside, what have you to protest about?"

"I volunteered for flight duty and was rejected—simply because I'm a woman."

"You're in error, captain. If you were a woman with experience of piloting a ship to the weightless zone and carrying out the inversion manoeuvre you would have been accepted, or at least considered. If you were a woman with gunnery experience or with the strength to move fortress sections you would have been accepted, or at least considered. The reason that you were rejected is that you are unqualified for the work. And now may I suggest that we both resume our duties?"

Toller turned quickly and was beginning to walk away when the look of frustration he had seen in Berise's eyes struck a responsive chord within him. How many times in his youth had he too frowned and chafed when thwarted by regulations? He had an instinctive distaste for the idea of sending a woman into the front line of battle, but if he had learned one thing from Gesalla it was that courage was not an exclusively male attribute.