Sebastian of Mars (19 page)

I stood at attention, but he said, almost
yawning, “You needn’t do that. The captain would like his breakfast
early today. Keisha will show you.”

He began to saunter off. “By the way,” he
called back, “the Captain sends his compliments to the cook for
last evening’s meal.”

I turned to see Keisha, our boss, staring at
me. “You don’t know how good that is for you,” she said.

“How so?”

“He hates
everything
.”

She would say no more,
but Darwin, risen at the prod of my own boot, less clean but more
kind, helped me cook a small mountain of eggs and a small trough of
hog bacon, while the sun came up, and the mud dried around us.

W
e found things
relatively easier after that.

The march continued for three days.
Everywhere, evidence of Frane’s iron hand was obvious – burned
houses, decimated countryside, knots of huddled, scared refugees
with nowhere to go and no one to help them. A knot formed in my
stomach at such sights, and I secretly cursed my powerlessness to
do anything for them. When I could, I left scraps of discarded
meals behind with our refuse, so that they might pick through the
leavings and at least find something, however meager, to eat. Even
this was dangerous, I knew, but I could not help myself, my growing
fury was so strong.

It became evident that we were moving deeper
into a great army. Keisha became more talkative as the days wore
on, and told us that scuttlebutt had it that we were heading almost
to the front. In the far distance, I saw the frosted caldera of
Mount Olympus begin to dominate the horizon. The mountains we were
supposed to traverse with Radion and the gypsies – a trip which
would have saved us this tedious march – lay like worshiping
foothills to the right of its base.

The great volcano grew daily larger, and it
seemed like years since I had left it with Quiff, in his vessel
beneath the ocean.

And now, from that far
horizon nearly to my feet, I saw nothing but an unbroken sea of red
tunics.

O
ur captain’s
appetite only grew as we neared the front, and the provisions
became better. I could tell because the wines were no longer local,
but the best imported ones. As the sergeant had said, an army does
indeed march on its stomach, but this stomach was well fed off the
plunder of an entire planet.

The quality of his visitors grew, also
(Keisha informed me that the captain was known throughout the F’rar
army for his hospitality) and we began to be visited by top-level
officers, some of them rumored to be at the right hand of Frane
herself. Darwin and I were now but two of eight personal cooks – or
chefs, as we were now instructed to call ourselves. We wore white
blouses and crisp white caps that were never to be soiled with
grease. As with everything in the F’rar army, there was a penalty
for this – I watched our newest chef being flogged within an inch
of his life for wearing a spotted tunic. That the spots had been
produced by a drunk officer tipping his plate against the poor
feline as the plate was being held out for a second helping made no
difference. There were now three red and white striped tents, one
of them a grand affair fit for a circus. It was the day this
monstrosity was installed in the midst of our camp that Keisha
informed us that we would be serving a very special guest that
evening.

“Prepare yourselves to be extra diligent
tonight – if you want to keep your skins,” she said wryly to our
assembly. “And you, Darwin,” she said pointedly to my little
friend, “be sure your cap is straight on your head – no cocky tilt.
I guarantee you someone will notice.”

“Who’s coming?” a voice said from behind me,
and I cringed, because it was the kind of question that could bring
violence.

But Keisha merely smiled enigmatically. “Just
do your jobs. And you,” she said to me, dismissing the rest, “I
want to speak to.”

Fear clutched my heart momentarily, but it
quickly dissipated when she kept her wry smile. We had not become
close in the last weeks, but her harshness had somewhat softened
toward Darwin and I. I could not account for it, since we were only
little better than adequate cooks and often needed her expert help
– but perhaps it was just that, that we asked for assistance when
it was needed, instead of floundering like fools and making
mistakes, which inevitably caused more trouble in the end. Or
perhaps it was that we did as we were told, and were quiet about
it.

“Sebastian,” she said, and to my surprise she
put a friendly paw around my shoulder and squeezed, “we will indeed
have a very special guest tonight, and I would like you to assist
me directly. You and I will serve the main table. I trust I can
count on you to do what needs to be done?”

“Of course,” I said, forcing a measure of
enthusiasm into my voice.

“Good. We will prepare all afternoon, and the
fires must be ready by twilight.

“As you wish.”

She gave my shoulder a second squeeze, and
let me go. “Good. You know, I learned almost everything from my
husband, before he died.”

“Oh?” I said, noncommittal. This was a
strange conversation that was growing stranger by the minute, as
Keisha seemed to be staring off into space. In fact, in the time
that I had known her, this was the first time I had ever seen her
almost . . . at peace.

“May I go?” I offered meekly.

She looked at me from faraway, as if I had
never been there, and said with a slight smile, “Of course. Be here
in mid afternoon.”

I bowed, and left.

T
he preparations for
our special visit began long before mid afternoon. I had never seen
so many guards in my life, and then some of the so-called “foreign
dignitaries,” a few of whom I vaguely remembered as visitors to the
palace – mostly second functionaries to senators who had probably
been murdered by now – began to arrive. Darwin, ever thoughtful,
whispered to me as we stacked firewood, “Are you afraid you might
be recognized?” but I shook my head.

“The last time I saw any of these men I was
barely a kit,” I said.

“You act like barely a kit now,” he snorted,
and then dodged the playful swipe I aimed at his head.

And then, at dusk, a hush that made the fur
on the back of my neck stand on end came over the entire camp. It
was like the hush of dark angels, and a long, sleek motorcar, the
first I had seen in months, steam pushing from its rear exhaust,
its body crimson as blood, drew up to the main tent, where the
Captain waited, bowing from the waist like a manservant. The door
on the far side of the vehicle opened, and I saw something red and
tall emerge, immediately surrounded by bodyguards, and hustled into
the open flap of the tent as the Captain still bowed . . .

“Merciful heavens,” Darwin said, beside
me.

“
Frane
,” I breathed, and it was a
breath that seemed to drift through the entire camp at once,
becoming louder than a whisper:

Frane.

Frane herself, the root of all our pain, of
all the suffering of our poor planet, the architect of the ruins of
the second republic, and the first before it, the cause of
everything evil on Mars and in my own family and the families of
millions of my people.

I could not breathe; could not move a muscle
– it was as if every breath I had taken, each tick of my life’s
clock which had been counted, had all led to this moment.

Keisha stood before me. “So. Now you know who
our esteemed visitor is.”

I looked up at her, and said nothing. I could
not speak, and already the magnitude of what I must do was dawning
on me.

“You have work to do,”
Keisha said, with amazing kindness, and the strangest look in her
eye, and I said, “Yes.”

W
e cooked, and
plated, and served.

There were fourteen courses, and four mail
courses. The pheasants were the most tender I had ever seen,
brought in by airship, I was informed, precisely for the Queen. Her
taster, an oily fellow with yellow eyes and bad breath, stood by my
elbow as I cooked and watched everything that went into the
preparation. He insisted on tasting each spice (some of them
Tyron’s) before I used it, and his greasy finger often reached out
to scrape the skin of a cooked goose and dab into its sauce, still
hot in the pan, and then put it obscenely into his mouth.

“I would rather die here, than at her feet,”
he said, and somehow made it sound dirty.

Keisha pushed him aside, and plated the
Queen’s food herself as he watched with loathsome, hungry eyes.

“You will serve with me, Sebastian,” she
said, and I noted that she had primped herself and smelled of
perfume. Her white blouse was crisp and starched and unblemished.
She looked ten years younger.

The taster struck out his finger and dabbed
again at the sauce which Keisha pooled around the perfect pheasant.
I now held a platter of tiny asparagus tips which looked too good
to eat.

“Good,” he said.

“Then get out of our way,” Keisha ordered,
and he did so, trailing behind us like a slathering pet.

A slit-eyed phalanx of guards parted before
the tent flap, which opened before us as if by magic. The sound
increased ten-fold. There were bright lights at the far end of the
tent, and a bevy of performers – two jugglers and three tumblers
whose acts intertwined. There was loud music, flutes and a booming
drum. Again I thought of the circus.

We wove through the sea of tables, and now a
spotlight fell on the pheasant. I glanced up, and noted a fellow
furiously working the contraption as if his life depended on it. It
probably did. There were rows of tables all pointing to the main
table at the far end of the tent. We slowly made our way up the
centermost aisle, each step brining us closer to the evil vision in
red who sat in the middle, elevated as if on a podium, attended to
either side by servants and hangers-on.

I reached briefly beneath my white blouse to
feel the long dagger secreted there.

As instructed, as we approached, we raised
the silver plates higher, so that the Queen would see not our faces
but only her food. I noted the severity of her face, the cruel
lines just as they had been described to me, the sallow cast to her
features, the thin whiskers and almond eyes. It was the cruelest
visage I had ever seen or imagined.

We stepped up the single step, and stood
before her, eyes downcast, offering the food.

The taster capered like a clown next to us,
waiting, making hungry noises in his throat.

“You may set it down,” Frane said, in a
surprisingly melodious voice.

I caught her eye for the merest second as I
placed the perfect vegetables before her and stood up straight.

My paw inched beneath my tunic, and began to
draw it out.

But her eyes blazed not at me but at Keisha,
whose own dagger, thinner and longer than my own, was revealed
now.

“Death to you! You murdered my husband and my
planet!” Keisha screamed – but it was a scream of triumph turned to
pain as her body arched forward, the dagger plucked on its downward
arc and another, firmer, more sure blade planted in her back by the
taster, whose eyes were now hard as ice.

The blade came through her front, staining
her white apron with a spreading pool of blood.

She gave a little sigh and collapsed, and in
the chaos that erupted – Frane immediately surrounded and pulled
from her chair to safety, the ten guards who drew their own blades
and sank them into Keisha’s now lifeless body – I slipped my own
dagger out of its hiding place and let it drop to the floor.

I kicked it aside, unseen, and turned to
go.

I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.

I turned and looked into the face of the
Captain, who hissed, “Get out of here, now, if you value your
life.” He began to hustle me away from the table, toward the exit.
He held me like his prisoner, and walked me through the mass of
guards who blocked the way, shouting, “Do you know who I
am
?”

They moved aside, letting us pass.

When we were beyond the tent, in the cool
night air, he shook me as if I were a baby and roared, “Why did she
have to do this! She was the best chef I ever had!” He turned to
me. “And now
you
are! Or would you rather
die
?”

His face was suffused with madness.

“I will be your chef.”

“Good! Then go, and finish the meal. I will
talk to her. This kind of thing has happened before, and I will
convince her that you had nothing to do with it. She knows how much
my fetes mean to morale – otherwise I would be dead by now.” He
rattled me again. “Just do as you’re told – and continue to
cook
!”

“Yes, sir,” I said,
and when he let me go, and stalked back toward the tent, I watched
him bull his way through and then went back to finish the next
course.

I
waited for an
execution that didn’t come. The next morning what little word there
was concerning the attempt on the Queen’s life was relegated mostly
to rumor. I said nothing, understanding that it would mean my life.
By the end of the day it was as if nothing had ever happened.

But the large tent was soon taken down, and
then the two side tents, leaving the captain with his original
place to entertain. The meals became sparsely attended, and then,
within a week, no one attended at all. The captain took his meals
alone, his face taking on a haggard look.

One night, after I had served a desert
pastry, a thing of cream and the thinnest layers of pastry dough,
which Darwin had become adept at, the captain took me almost gently
by the arm as I was leaving.

“I’ve been given a choice,” he said, his
voice as vapid as his eyes.

“Yes, sir?”

He nodded. “A choice, do you understand? I
want to thank you for all the wonderful meals you’ve made. They’ve
made these past days . . . bearable.”