Prisoner of Conscience (11 page)

Left Joslire behind.

Joslire was gone.

###

Koscuisko had cleared it with Plugrath and with the Domitt Prison — Administrator Geltoi, if Caleigh remembered the name correctly. The prison was treating the issue very carefully. Bond-involuntaries were much more exotic than ordinary mortals, and common report embroidered upon a special relationship between them and the Inquisitors in token of the unusually absolute power a Ship’s Inquisitor had over their lives.

No one who had witnessed the death of Joslire Curran — howsoever indirectly — could doubt that the relationship between Koscuisko and his dead Emandisan bond-involuntary had been intense and highly personal. At this point Koscuisko could probably have told the Domitt that he was going into retreat for two weeks, and taking his people with him; and no questions would have been asked. At least not right away.

As it was, he was simply going to Rudistal’s service house, and for a day. More than reasonable. Really.

They left the hospital in the bright morning; it amused Caleigh to see how many more Security posts there seemed to be, suddenly. Ship’s Inquisitors were even more rare a commodity than bond-involuntaries. To have hazarded the life of one created a huge embarrassment for Dramissoi and the Domitt alike, even if it had most likely been the Domitt that the ambushers thought they were striking at. Well, they had. Indirectly, maybe. But no less effectively for that.

An uneventful transit to the service house, uniformed troops at every turn. It wasn’t the most luxurious facility Caleigh had ever been to in Koscuisko’s company, but it would do. Koscuisko made a point of visiting service houses at every opportunity; it was for the benefit of his bond-involuntaries assigned as much as anything else, from what little Caleigh could tell.

Koscuisko’s bond-involuntaries had few opportunities to develop social bonds for recreation on board
Scylla
, though Robert St. Clare was a great favorite amongst the ladies in both Security and Medical. For what that was worth. So Koscuisko went to service houses so that his people could enjoy what transient pleasure could be lawfully obtained in the embrace of the professional partner of their choice.

Caleigh hoped there were free women at this service house. As far as she knew, St. Clare was the only one of Koscuisko’s people with a sister that had taken a Service Bond, but the other bond-involuntaries were sensitive about the issue as well.

When it came down to it, though, it wasn’t an issue of recreation as such that brought them to the service house this morning. Nobody had slept. And they were all in shock. And the officer was in no condition to stand an in-briefing with prison administration.

Koscuisko went up to the senior officer’s suite while Caleigh made arrangements for his people. A suite of rooms beneath the one Koscuisko would be using, with direct access in case of emergencies, per standard operating procedure. Food and drink and sexual contact ad lib: but these were all just comfort items.

It was as important for the bond-involuntaries to be left to themselves to share their common grief and observe what forms of mourning they might choose. There were ad-hoc rituals that bond-involuntaries shared, ways of coping that they had developed over the years; and that was strictly their own business.

Once she had assured herself that her people were to be properly seen to, Caleigh went up to the senior officer’s suite to give the officer a status report, wondering whether she should bother.

The senior officer’s suite was as large as the troops’ gather-room taken all together. Caleigh identified herself to the doorkeeper and sought out the suite’s exercise area, where she expected to find her officer.

She had to cross the front room to get there. They were laying the table for his meal; and she could see through to the bedroom with the bed made up and waiting, the bed-clothes arranged invitingly. It made her want to cry. And she hadn’t cried since she could remember. Wept, perhaps.

She was perhaps a little bit hysterical. She’d valued Joslire Curran as much as the next man; he’d been as genuine an asset as a Chief Warrant could wish. She’d learned early on to rely on him and St. Clare to manage the officer on those occasions when Koscuisko — for whatever good and sufficient reason of his own — had had too much to drink, and got the terrors.

Being in Security meant that people that you knew and relied upon were frequently killed, and usually traumatically so. It wasn’t that. She’d never seen a Bond claim the Day. She’d never dreamed of seeing Koscuisko so naked in his grief, on his knees in the street in front of everyone, the deepest — most private — secrets of his heart on display for anyone who cared to notice.

There was no reason for the sight of a waiting bed to make her want to cry.

She went through to the exercise area, where she could count on finding Koscuisko having a massage.

Right first time, Caleigh congratulated herself, stepping into the warm dark room. Koscuisko lay face-down on the padded bench-table with the house masseur frowning over his upper back and a towel draped discreetly across the middle part of his body. He wouldn’t be surprised to hear from her; she cleared her throat, to put him on notice that she was here. All right, she was intruding, but Koscuisko liked to know. Sometimes the masseur took it a little personally, however.

“H’m. Sir. I’ve seen to arrangements made for your people, sir. As you would wish it.”

Her interruption earned her a glare from the masseur. Koscuisko intervened to head off a confrontation.

“Thank you, Fishweir. I am very much obliged to you.”

Fishweir sounded Chigan to Caleigh. Impressive. The best masseurs in known Space were Chigan. A group of fellow Security had taken up a collection to buy her a massage for a promotion gift, years gone, when she’d made her first rating. She could remember it as though it had been yesterday. Wheatfields. The masseur had been of Wheatfields, not of Fishweir. Chigan was Chigan. Caleigh wondered, suddenly, whether she had just worked her way out of any chance of a massage herself by offending the man.

“I don’t like to prescribe, your Excellency.” Fishweir, whomever of Fishweir, shrugged it off, wiping excess oil from his hands on a clean towel. “But your whole body’s in knots. I think the only thing for it is a glass of caraminson wine. I’ll send up a flask.”

Yes, Chigan by the accent. Koscuisko made as if to rise; Fishweir placed a hand firmly in the middle of Koscuisko’s back and pushed. Koscuisko subsided, capitulating.

“You are very kind. It is generous of you to offer.” Koscuisko had the authority to prescribe whatever he liked for himself to ease his pain; many Ship’s Inquisitors took that way out, and became addicted to mood-altering substances. Koscuisko’s mood-altering substance of choice remained alcohol.

That didn’t change the fact that for most people a flask of caraminson wine was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, worth every bit of the cost. And only licensed professionals could provide it. “Here is my Chief of Security, Fishweir, her name is Samons. She knows that I am worried about my bond-involuntaries. One wonders whether massage might be made available for her benefit as well.”

Of course it might. That wasn’t what Koscuisko was asking. Professionals at a Chigan’s level were to be approached as carefully as if they were — well, Ship’s Surgeons, for example. Koscuisko was asking whether Fishweir would condescend to favor Caleigh herself with the skillful medication of his educated hands.

Fishweir shook his head with polite regret. “Sir, I’m Unreform, I’m sorry. No offense, Chief.” And while most Chigan off-world simply treated women as though they were female men and dealt with Chigan cultural taboos in that manner, “unreformed” Chigan were prohibited by their creed from any form of physical contact with the sex of hominid that carried young in utero. Caleigh didn’t mind Unreform Chigan. It was nothing personal. Fishweir was clearly well intentioned as he spoke on.

“I’ll tell you both something, though, and you can take it for what you feel it may be worth. The nature of grief is heavy, wet, and cold. It settles in your stomach. You need fire to drive it off or it’ll make you sick.”

Fishweir had been stroking Koscuisko’s body as he spoke, as if restlessly. Now he stilled his hands, one at the small of Koscuisko’s back, one at the back of Koscuisko’s neck, and rested himself there. Caleigh wondered that Koscuisko would submit to being touched at the back of his neck, when he was so selective about who he would touch in that manner, and when. Perhaps it was to do with surrendering himself into the capable hands of a professional.

The thought ambushed Caleigh Samons, and took her breath away.

Surrender herself.

Into the hands of someone who could take care of her.

She shook herself to clear her mind. She was a senior Security warrant officer. She could take care of herself. She had been taking care of herself — and her officer, and her troops assigned — for years.

But the shaking didn’t work to clear her mind and rid her of the alien thought. Someone who could take care of her, even if only for a few hours, even if only in a sense.

Someone like her officer.

She knew the strength of his body from combat drill, she knew the strength of his will. She knew the strength of his passion from these few hours past, watching him grieve for Joslire Curran. She knew the quality of his mind from what she had heard of gossip from Infirmary, surprise at his skill level, appreciation for his ability, finally gratitude for the healing in his hands.

Oh, someone to be responsible for the next few hours, someone to see to her needs —

The very idea was so foreign that it turned her stomach.

At least there was a sudden strange sensation there, in her belly. And surely it was revulsion at the very idea.

Unless it was desire for comfort, after what they had suffered last night?

“There, now.” Fishweir stroked up the length of Koscuisko’s body one last time and turned away, his voice low and calm and caressing. “You’re to lie still for at least four eighths. Miss Samons, time him. I’ll have the kitchen send up some warming, drying food. Good-greeting, your Excellency.”

Professional courtesy was all very well.

But Fishweir was Chigan.

And Koscuisko was beautiful, in a masculine sense, his body maybe a little white but smooth and sleek with the lithe lines of his Dolgorukij musculature. It wasn’t the bulk of the muscle but how the muscle tied in to the bone that made the difference with Dolgorukij. Koscuisko was much stronger than he looked, and if he took her into his embrace —

She shouldn’t be having these thoughts. He was her officer. Granted that Koscuisko desired her; most men did. She didn’t want him.

She only wanted comfort.

And that desperately.

All of her life spent taking care of things, seeing to the well-being of her troops —

“Slow count, Chief,”
Fishweir reminded her, on his way out.

Was it her imagination?

Or did that damned Chigan know exactly what was going on in her clearly stress-addled mind?

“Have you made plans, Miss Samons?” Koscuisko asked, casually, after a moment had passed. “They could lay two places. Unless you’ve found something of interest here.”

Did he mean that he hadn’t?

“Haven’t had a chance to check, sir. Settling the others.” Hadn’t been particularly interested. She was tired, and she just wanted to sleep. She’d thought. And hiring a man wasn’t the same as surrendering an hour to someone she could trust, and there she went again, and she was going to have to concentrate. And take a nice cold shower. Which would not be relaxing.

“It is said that grief likes company. But only aggrieved company. I would be glad of your companionship, I do not feel like talking with a stranger.”

“That would be nice. Thank you.” It was an effort to keep her voice calm and casual; when she was hungry. “I should probably get a wash in before we eat, though.”

“Plenty of time.” Koscuisko’s voice was muffled against the pillow on the bench-table. “Perhaps so much as an eight, but I hope not. I’m hungry. We didn’t get our third-meals in, last night, and fast-meal gone begging as well. Tell the kitchen, Miss Samons, and we will sit down together. That will be comforting. I will enjoy that.”

Leaving her officer to lie quietly in the serene calm of the exercise room, Caleigh called the kitchen to arrange for doubled portions. And had them send up a second wrap-robe as well. If Koscuisko thought it was just too odd of her, she could cover for it somehow. But it didn’t need to mean anything. Fatigue could explain it. And she didn’t care. She was reckless with weariness and hunger to be the one taken care of, just this once.

She went through the officer’s bedroom into the washroom beyond, and stripped, and lay in a tub full of hot water until she knew by the quiet sounds outside the bath-enclosure itself that the house staff had carried away her clothing to be cleaned, and left her a wrap-robe.

Clean white toweling, sweet with a fragrance of sun. It was probably a perfume. Caleigh didn’t care. The warmth of the robe was comforting, and the silk slippers for her feet were very caressing as well. They had put out a sleep-shift for her, much like the sleep-shirt that had been waiting for Koscuisko in the exercise room, hanging on a hook. Koscuisko had already had his wash. It was the first thing Koscuisko always did when he came to a service house, regardless of whether or not he anticipated seeking entertainment.

She was as dressed as he was, and had seen him naked, what was there to think twice about? Caleigh tied her long blond hair up in a loose damp knot and went out to find the meal-table.

Koscuisko would have known she had gone into the wash-room; he would have heard her. He seemed a little surprised at it, but took her reappearance in stride. Maybe he wasn’t taking it in stride. Maybe he was too beaten down by everything they had been through to be surprised at anything.

Their meal was ready for them, one way or the other, and that took care of having to talk about much of anything for a while. Dinner? Supper? Fast-meal? She’d lost track. It was mid-meal by local reckoning, and she didn’t usually take much of a mid-meal, but she found herself to her surprise accounting for her fair share of the meat-dish.