Orion Shall Rise (19 page)

‘Greeting. Please be seated. May I offer you –?’ Jovain fussed about with cognac and cigarettes, though he himself did not smoke. It was more than the courtesy due from a host to a guest. He was a member of Clan Talence, but Dyas Garsaya was a spokesman for the Zheneral of Espayn.

He was also disconcertingly direct. Within minutes he was asking: ‘How serious are you about this proposed coup?’

Jovain mustered courage to reply with equal bluntness: ‘One hundred percent. I’ve done my best to explain the
issues,
but let me recast them briefly for you. Then, if you find my position reasonable, we can go on to practicalities.’

He let a sip of brandy burn its comforting way down his gullet before he itemized:

‘I belong to the Domain of Skyholm. That’s where my loyalties lie, please understand. I’ve fought for it, taken wounds, risked my life – all the while unsure why it was
your
country whose men I traded shots with. Afterward – well, your people are largely Gaean by now, and I began to imagine a whole new cycle of world civilization – But we needn’t repeat slogans.

‘The fact is’ – anger grabbed him; his fist slammed down on the arm of his chair – ‘Talence Donal Ferlay has died. He was the obvious heir to the Captaincy when Toma dodders off, and would have been bad enough. But the Clans immediately raised his son Iern to Senior status, and talk is that that jackanapes, that technolater, may well be chosen –’ He gulped. ‘Precisely because I’m his personal enemy, I feel I’m in a position to make a move for Gaea. Hatred can be an energy of the Life Force, can’t it?’

Dyas Garsaya nodded. ‘I suppose so,’ he replied. ‘I’m no adept, you realize. I’m an officer in the service of my Zheneral. We’d naturally like to see the next government of the Domain friendlier
to legitimate Espaynian goals than past ones have been. If, in addition, it should be a Gaean government … why, there is indeed the nucleus of the next civilization!’

He drew hard on his cigarette. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘let’s discuss contingencies. Nobody knows what will happen. For instance, a candidate less controversial than Ferlay might be impossible to push aside. But just in case –

‘You want weapons. Espayn can’t supply them directly. If nothing else, Skyholm intelligence would learn we were producing more than we were using, and set out to trace where they were being sent. However, we have connections to Yuan, in Merique … and can be the intermediary and arrange the conduit, do you see? And these mountains are a good place to train men discreetly. … Yes, let us by all means talk, sir.’

In Jovain’s breast, glory mounted.

‘Vineleaf, O my Vineleaf, now pour the hoarded sunshine out

From bottles where it lay in a dream of summers lost

To the sunsets wrought by frost

All throughout the vineyards where grapes had swollen purple

And well-nigh sweet as kisses that from boy to girl were tossed

When their lightfoot pathways crossed –

Nor count the cost!

Aldebaran is not so red within the Hyades

As is the hearthside claret heartward flowing;

No gold or whiteness quivers across the winter seas

Like that which gleams where chardonnay is glowing.

Drink, before our time shall come for going.

‘Once again the vintners have wrought their humble miracle –’

Plik broke off. ‘Bah!’ he snorted, swept a crashing discord out of his lute, and banged the instrument down. ‘Plenty. Indeed, too bloody much. Fill my glass, will you, dear?’

Seated opposite, Sesi gave him a surprised look through the candlelit dimness. Likewise did the four – a sailor, a couple of laborers, a pysan come to market – benched at the adjoining table. They and the singer were the only customers in the Pey-d’Or. Not expecting heavy trade until later, when most men would have finished their evening meals at home, the landlord was upstairs enjoying his.

‘Why’d you stop?’ the barmaid asked. That’s a nice song.’

‘Puerile,’ the Angleyman sneered. ‘So conventional it creaks. Nothing of the Goddess there. Suddenly I couldn’t go on quacking banalities about drink and love, when I might instead be drinking’ – his mood shifted to impudence – and maybe, later, get in a spot of lovemaking?’

Sesi tossed her head. ‘Wasn’t that song for me? And you stopped right in the middle.’

Plik sighed. ‘Yes, I intended a tribute, but this wasn’t worthy of my Vineleaf.’ He shook his head, clicked his tongue, twisted his mouth upward on the left side. ‘Or perhaps it was, which would be rather worse. I’ll compose you something better, I promise.’ He paused. ‘Ah … you could provide a bit more inspiration, you know, sweet-pants. Starting with a recharge of burgundy.’

‘I’ll buy, Plik,’ a workman offered. He spoke Brezhoneg.

‘Why, thank you, Roparzh,’ the poet replied in the same language. ‘Do that twice and I’ll probably feel like committing a different song – a real one, with blood in its veins.’

‘And in our lingo, hey? I wasn’t following the Angley too well. How about that “Bandit Ballad” of yours?’ Roparzh turned to his companions. ‘You like it too, don’t you, Koneg? And you out-of-town fellows will, I know. It’s a rouser.’

Plik considered. ‘It’s subversive, is what it is.’ In many stanzas, it celebrated the exploits, combative as well as gustatory and amorous, of the half-legendary outlaw Jakez, who five centuries ago spearheaded pysan resistance to an oppressive Mestromor. ‘It wouldn’t be popular among your sort – I’ve heard it bellowed from end to end of Kemper, and in the countryside as well – it wouldn’t be, if it didn’t vent a real grudge or two.’

Roparzh scratched in his mane and thought about that. Koneg grunted, ‘Yah-uh. You know what the cost of food’s gone up to? And rent and everything else. Except wages. Can our Ligue get the Trademaster to allow us a raise? No!’

‘The city Ligues have given in –’ began the farmer.

Koneg nodded vehemently. ‘They won’t so much as go over the Mestromor’s head and appeal to the saints on our account.’

‘Don’t your precious saints know about your plight, or care?’ scoffed the sailor.

His was not the first voice between these walls to speak thus of the Aerogens, but Sesi stuck out her tongue at him, which made Plik
say: ‘It’s not their fault. By their own law, the annexation treaty, they can’t interfere in the domestic affairs of this state. If ever they did, you Breizhads would howl as furiously as any people in the Domain.’

‘Don’t blame us food-growers either,’ said the pysan. ‘We’d be as squeezed as you are, except that our association still has, oh, one ball left to it. And even so, it can’t keep cheap grain from the South out of Ar-Mor. We’ll be ruined if we don’t get some modern ten-horse combines, and do you know the price on those things?’

‘Argh, forget your Ligue,’ the seaman growled. ‘Scrap it. Scrap ’em all. They may’ve been useful once, in old times when people needed to band together for everything, but now they’re a meddlesome yoke on you.’

‘The thought of a yoke running about meddling in business has a certain elfin charm,’ Plik remarked. Sesi flounced off after his wine.

‘What would you put in place of them?’ Roparzh asked.

‘Nothing,’ the sailor said. ‘Abolish them. Abolish the Trademaster’s office too – every damned official we’ve inherited from the past. Let people earn their keep however they personally please, and sink or swim by themselves. If they want to cooperate, fine, but let them do it by free choice, and have a right to opt out anytime.’

The pysan regarded him in astonishment. The townsmen, who had had more exposure to strange notions, grew thoughtful. Sesi brought Plik his filled glass. He took a long draft.

‘You wouldn’t know what or who you could depend on,’ said Koneg at length.

‘That’s how they do it in Merique – the Northwest Union, anyhow,’ replied the sailor. ‘And it works, it works. Not that I’ve been there myself or ever expect to, but I’ve talked with crewmen of theirs who’ve come this far –’

The door at the head of the stairs opened. A cold breath of air pierced the tavern smokiness. Snow was falling through an early dusk. Colored lanterns shone across the street, as they did everywhere in the city, for Solstice was only three days in the future.

Two persons closed the door behind them and descended into the taproom. Snow dusted their cloaks and caps. Their shadows followed them, huge and restless as the glooms around the hearthfire. Plik peered, and suddenly exclaimed:

‘Why, talk of an ace and draw a royal flush! Here comes author
ity’s own self, if you wish to continue debating about the Northwest Union.’ He raised his lanky frame and sketched a bow. ‘Welcome, sir and lady,’ he said in Angley. ‘Come drink with us. That’s obviously your intent, but let us invite you nevertheless.’

The pair approached. ‘Many thanks,’ the man responded in accented but fluent Francey. ‘Ah, isn’t this language preferable for the rest of the group? It behooves foreigners to be polite.’

He reached the table and stopped, a small and rather ugly individual with a blade of a nose, glacial eyes, beard short and gray around bad teeth. His garments were nondescript, like his companion’s. It was on her that the men’s attention dwelt, and not simply because a woman in trousers was a rare sight here. She was big, blond, young, handsome, and there was a feral quality about her though she stood quietly.

Himself still on his feet, gesturing with his goblet, Plik performed grandiose introductions. ‘– And this is adorable Sesi, whose true name I have decreed to be Vineleaf, prepared to serve you. What shall it be? My treat, unless these gentlemen care to contribute. We don’t get ranking officers of the Northwest Union in our down-at-heels favorite inn very often. In fact, have we ever? No. Therefore, on behalf of the management, welcome.’

The man formed a curiously charming smile and waved at the company. ‘My name
is
Mikli Karst,’ he said.

‘Ronica Birken,’ the woman informed them. Sir, are you the poet we have heard about?’ Her Francey was barely serviceable.

‘From time to time I perpetrate various doggerel,’ Plik answered. They settled themselves at his table and Sesi took orders – ‘including whatever you desire, my loveliness, within the limits of this lean purse.’

Mikli Karst brought forth a cigarette case, proffered it around, was refused – instead, Plik asked Sesi to bring him his clay pipe – and lit up with a fuel device that drew much comment. Presently, though, the foreigner could take a sip and ask: ‘How did you instantly know where we’re from? Norries aren’t exactly common in Uropa, yet.’

‘Ah, but a ship from your country arrived two days past,’ explained Plik. ‘A most impressive ship,’ he added for the benefit of Sesi and the pysan. ‘You ought to see her while you have the chance. A giant catamaran, four-masted, actually carrying an aircraft.’ He flicked his glance back at the newcomers, especially
Ronica. ‘Several of her crewmen wandered in yesterday. I was singing and they seemed to enjoy it. I daresay you heard from them, and came when your duties permitted.’

Ronica nodded. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I like a good song. And maybe you’d like to hear a sample of ours.’

‘Absolutely, whether or not I can decipher the words.’ Plik drew out a tobacco pouch and began stuffing his pipe. ‘Your men – two of them could mangle their way through a little Angley – they said you’d come directly to northern Espayn, and laid to in Bylba harbor for three weeks before proceeding here. They didn’t know exactly why. Can you tell us?’

Mikli spread his palms. ‘We’re on what amounts to a diplomatic mission,’ he said. ‘My associates and I had business in the Espaynian interior. Sightseers in Kemper needn’t hurry, because our ship will probably be docked for months, while our team conducts further business with your people. Some of it relates to trade – tariffs, for example – and some to other matters of mutual concern. I regret not being free to say more.’

Nobody minded much. Aristocrats of the Domain, both Aerogens and groundlings, did not make their own proceedings public. ‘Well, then,’ Plik replied, ‘I hope that whenever your tasks bring you back to Kemper, you’ll visit the Pey-d’Or. Meanwhile let’s buckle down to the really serious thing in life, namely getting drunk.’

It became a memorable evening, though not one that anybody remembered clearly. A few did recall afterward that toward the end, Ronica Birken leaped onto a table, beaker aloft, and shouted something about Orion rising. Mikli Karst was quick to hush her. Nobody knew what it signified. Foreigners had peculiar ways.

As his yacht entered the bay, Terai Lohannaso swarmed up the rigging. For a minute he crouched on the spreader beneath the masthead and let the world flood him.

Wind whooped fresh and salt from the port quarter, through a brilliance that laved his flesh and skipped across whitecaps. The waves were like diamond-dusted sapphire, swirled with emerald where sunlight met crests, but moving, molten, alive. This far aloft, he still heard how they rushed and chuckled. Their vigor throbbed upward, into him. Gulls wheeled and piped overhead. Forward, mountains encircled the shore where his town nestled. They were mostly forested, summer-green in a thousand hues, save where a river cataracted down toward the sea or where an occasional hayfield ripened toward harvest. Above them in the west, cloud banks loomed, their whiteness deeply blue-shadowed and faintly gold-tinged by a declining sun.

Terai bawled in delight, sprang to his feet, and dived. The sloop was heeled far over. He struck the water cleanly and knifed down through cool depths that darkened from amber to amethyst as they caressed his whole body. Rising, he saw a long shape approach. Hiti, the family dolphin, had accompanied the party all day, playing tag with the hull but also, more and more, begging in every leap and fluke-flicker for somebody to come join him.

They broke surface together. The helmsman, Terai’s older son Ranu, brought the boat around in a rattle of jib, main, and boom. The girl he had invited along kept an arm around his waist. Likewise engaged were Terai’s second son, Ara, and, by her boyfriend, his older daughter, Mari. Slender, lithe, tawny skins aglow, dark hair tossing, scantily dressed or nude, they all made a pleasing sight along the rail. (Parapara had elected to spend this first of the school holidays at a party for children. Unspokenly, she seemed clear about
the fact that at ten she was old enough to be perturbed by an erotic atmosphere which she was not yet old enough to share.)