Songs of Love & Death (17 page)

Palo stood back, letting him up. The wizard said, under his breath, “What, a Galahad?” His voice had a rough edge, as if the red knight’s gallantry annoyed him.

Fioretta’s heart leaped. He was brave, after all, Palo, and good. And in the wizard’s annoyance she sensed some weakness. She pretended an interest in one of her hands, admiring the perfect fingernails, and watched from the corner of her eye.

The black knight rolled to his feet and snatched up his sword again. He rushed at Palo, flailing his blade from side to side. Palo backed up, stumbled, and went to one knee, and the knight raised his sword for the final blow.

The wizard said, “Shall he die, my Io?” He was watching Fioretta, not the fight. Fioretta bit her lip. But the knight, perhaps waiting for the wizard’s command, had paused, and now Palo rolled away across the floor and leaped up, out of reach of his enemy. The black knight yelled, and chased him, but Palo held his ground, and as the other man plunged recklessly toward him, brought his own sword up with both hands and struck the other man’s weapon sending it flying.

The black knight staggered back, his arms up. “Mercy,” he cried. He went down on one knee.

The wizard stood. “Enough of this. Kill him. As you are my knight, I command it.”

Palo came forward toward the throne. “My lord, grant him mercy.” His handsome new face was solemn. He never looked at Fioretta. “Let him have time to regret his inadequacy.”

The wizard gave a harsh laugh. He shot a quick glance at Fioretta beside him. “I give no mercy here.”

“My lord,” Palo said, “for your greater glory and the glory of your queen.”

The wizard’s teeth showed. When he spoke, it was clearly against his will. “You shall have his life, then. Go.”

The black knight knelt on the floor, his hands raised, imploring. “My lord—”

The wizard jerked his hand up in command and the black knight’s men hauled him off. Palo bowed and backed away into the crowd. The courtiers in their satins and gilt and jewels flooded back onto the floor, dancing and laughing again, as if nothing had happened.

She thought,
Nothing did happen, really
. He made it all up, to catch me. But somehow Palo had escaped. Had won, against the wizard’s will. He had found the edge of the wizard’s power. She dared not look at him, lost now anyway in the mass of merry, dancing people.

She thought,
He has found a place here. Like me.

She looked down at her beautiful clothes. A servant was offering her a fine flaky pie and a cup of wine. The hall filled with laughter and chatter.

Maybe this is good enough
, she thought. But something in her had divided, and the pieces didn’t quite match anymore.

Except for the wizard, there was no one to talk to. The other people were only shells, without conversation; they laughed, and said how happy they were, and whirled away from her into the general dance. It all looked the same as yesterday: Maybe it was all the same day. Then, at sundown, when they were all going off to bed, she saw Rosa again.

The fallen favorite had become the lamp beside the door. Her body was thin as a pole, glistening gold, her arms clasped across her middle; her white hair stood straight up, glowing. Only her eyes moved, sleek and hopeless, watching Fioretta. Wanting to be there again, to be what Fioretta was. Fioretta went swiftly up to the bedchamber, and let them undress her and put her to bed, but she lay stiff on the pallet, biting her lips and pinching herself to stay awake, until the others were all asleep.

Then she rose, threw a cloak around her, and went out.

S
HE WENT STRAIGHT
down into the kitchen, where she found the cook stirring a great cauldron, and the red knight, sitting on the steps.

He gave her a glancing look, his face stern. She sat beside him.

“You did very well,” she said. “I didn’t know you could fight.”

“When it’s your life,” he said, not looking at her, his voice cold, “you learn fast. You should go back. He’ll catch you.”

She said, “He’s already caught me.” She looked at the cook again, beseeching. “Tell us how we can escape.”

The cook was slicing onions, the knife so fast it was a blur. “You came here of your own will. You must stay until the castle falls.”

She groaned. Palo was watching her curiously. “You don’t want to
stay—where you are so beautiful and so cherished?”

She put her hand on his arm. “You were so brave. And you were good, when he wanted you to be wicked. You defied him when you did not kill the black knight, and he had to accept it. You gave me some reason to hope I can keep on resisting him.” He had turned toward her, at her touch, and she looked into his eyes. “That was wonderful,” she said, and she kissed him.

He flung his arms around her and kissed her back. She shut her eyes, reveling in the strength of his arms, the sweetness of the kiss. If the wizard destroyed her tomorrow she would have this one real, true moment, this one real, true knight. Palo’s hand stroked her hair and she laid her head on his shoulder.

“I love you,” he said. “I will always love you.”

“You have saved me, so far—without you, I think I would already have given in to him.”

“You haven’t. Thank God you haven’t.”

“I don’t know how long I can fight him off. I’m afraid—”

“Sssh,” he said. “I’ll think of something—hush, my darling one.” He kissed her again.

The cook was watching them, smiling. Fioretta made herself draw back. The memory of Rosa flooded her mind. “That’s not good enough. I don’t know if we have much time.”

He said, “No—stay—” and grabbed for her hand.

She held herself away from him. “At any moment he can ruin us. I saw him—you saw what he did to that other woman. If he finds out—”

She faced him, her heart pounding. She had found a wonderful man to love but she could never have him. She turned and ran up the stair, a sinking feeling in her heart that in fact the wizard already knew.

S
HE HAD TO
sleep, and when she slept, the demon came on her, whispering. “Kiss
him
, will you? Want him and not me, will you? After all I’ve done for you, you heartless whore!” It ground itself on her, pinching and tugging at her breasts, poking her between the legs, stirring her to a thick, greedy lust. She struggled against her own body, which longed so for the consummation. Palo, she thought. Palo.

She knew that to give in would doom her and Palo both. But her lecherous body yearned for the coupling, for the demon’s thrust; she could not hold out too much longer. Between her legs was damp and thick with heat, and an evil voice inside whispered, “Let him. He’ll keep me. I will be queen forever. He’ll love me, and I’ll be different from the others.” She thought,
Palo. Palo.
She
made herself see him in her mind—as he had been before, the round untested boy. With a wrench she woke up, and lay there struggling to stay awake until the dawn came.

In the morning, the other women dressed her, and they hurried down to the court, to the senseless merry laughter and the endless wild dancing. When she came in, the wizard rose, as he had before, but this time he was scowling at her.

“Behold, the adulterous one! I name you Helen, Queen of treacherous women!” She stopped before his throne, and the court fell silent. The wizard sneered at her. “I ask one act of gratitude, and instead I am traduced. You shall not sit by my side today, slut.” Then Palo stepped up out of the crowd.

“Wizard.” He walked between her and the throne, and his voice rang out, loud and brave. “I challenge you for this woman!”

“Ho ho,” the wizard said. “You do, do you?” He came down from the throne and paced around Palo, the hem of his white gown sweeping on the floor. “You think you can fight me, you fool? Hah!” He flung one hand up. “Go back as you were, Palo!”

Fioretta cried out. Palo seemed to buckle. His red tabard flew off, and he shrank, and grew wider. His handsome face bloated into the plain round pock-marked face of the bailiff’s black sheep son. He gave a yell, and drew his sword, and the blade melted away to nothing.

The court let out a lustful howl. All at once they rushed forward, snatching off their hats and shoes to throw. Fioretta leaped forward toward the wizard, her hands pressed together.

“No. Let him live—I will do what you wish—only, let him go!”

The wizard seemed to grow taller and his eyes blazed. His voice hissed out. “Too late for that, hussy. Too late, Fioretta!”

She staggered. She felt her beautiful clothes fall away, and she stumbled on her bad leg; she put her hands to her face and felt the slick ugly scar. A shoe hit her shoulder. The crowd of the court pressed closer, their eyes glowing, their faces ugly with hate. Palo wheeled, his arms out, trying to shield her.

“Fioretta—”

Her name. She understood, suddenly, in a gust of memory, how the wizard had only spoken her name twice, and each time changed her. Something else hit her on the cheek. Palo jerked his arms up to fend off a hail of missiles. She had heard the wizard’s name, once—what was it—

He stood there, laughing. Palo clutched her, as hard things rained down on both of them, and she flung her arms around him to stay on her feet.

She shouted, “Goodman Greenough, Greengood, Greenman, Greenham, Godham—”

The wizard laughed, disdainful. She sagged under the weight of the attack.

“Greenam, Goodman, Goodgreen—”

The wizard laughed again. But he was slowly turning, spinning around in place. His white robes flew off; what they had covered was not as tall, was lumpy, green, damp, covered with leaves or feathers or scales. It spun faster and faster, and the court besetting Palo and Fioretta let out a screech.

Their target had changed. The walls and columns erupted hands, legs, bodies. The great throne behind the wizard reared up into a scrawny old man and two brawny boys, who hurled themselves on the whirling green demon. The floor burst up into waves of bodies, wild hair like spume, and the arch of shoulders rising. In pieces and as one, the prisoners of the castle flung themselves past Fioretta and Palo and onto their tormentor. Fioretta cried out. Something struck her from above, and she looked up; the roof was sagging down, as legs and hands and heads rained down from it. The floor was rising around her, breaking into a tumble of arms and legs, buttocks, elbows. She clutched Palo’s hand. In the door, through the thickening downpour of the collapsing roof, she saw the cook, laughing.

“Run,” Palo shouted in her ear. “Run!”

She turned and hobbled after him. He caught her hand and held her up. They struggled against the tide of bodies rushing at the wizard. The air was thick with some kind of damp hot green mist and she could see nothing, but she followed blindly where he drew her. Her leg hurt. Palo’s hand in hers dragged her on through the confusion. She could not breathe. The ground under her was falling away.

Then under her feet was the rocky forest floor. Suddenly she could see again. She limped along, gasping for breath, her hand in Palo’s, along the mountain path. Turning, she looked back.

Back there the last of the castle was vanishing into a clump of trees clinging to the mountainside. The screaming and howling faded. She slowed, panting, her bad leg caving in, and he slid his arm around her waist.

He said, “G-g-g-ood enough?”

She turned to him, to his plain, pocky face, smiling at her. Her one true, brave knight. He had always been there, but neither of them had known. A gust of love swept over her, warm and sweet. She still held his hand and she squeezed it tight. “Good enough,” she said, and kissed him.

Here’s a compelling drama set in deep space that reunites lovers long parted by rank, social status, and circumstance—although, as they both soon come to realize, it may not reunite them for very long…

A writer whose work crosses several mediums and genres, Melinda M. Snodgrass has written scripts for television shows such as
Profiler
and
Star Trek: The Next Generation
(for which she was also a story editor for several years), written a number of popular science fiction novels, and was one of the co-creators of the long-running Wild Cards series, for which she has also written and edited. Her novels include
Circuit, Circuit Breaker, Final Circuit, The Edge of Reason, Runespear
(with Victor Milan),
High Stakes, Santa Fe,
and
Queen’s Gambit Declined.
Her most recent novel is
The Edge of Ruin,
the sequel to
The Edge of Reason.
Her media novels include the Wild Cards novel
Double Solitaire
and the
Star Trek
novel
The Tears of the Singers.
She’s also the editor of the anthology
A Very Large Array.
She lives in New Mexico.

We came out of Fold only twenty-three thousand kilometers from Kusatsu-Shirane. “Good job,” I started to say, but was interrupted by blaring impact alarms.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Melin at navigation chattered, and her fingers swept back and forth across the touch screen like a child finger painting. Our ship, the
Selkie
, obedient to Melin’s sweeping commands, fired its ram jet. My stomach was left resting against the ceiling and my balls seemed to leap into my throat as we dropped relative to our previous position.

A massive piece of steel and composite resin, edges jagged and blackened by an explosion, tumbled slowly past our front viewport. It had been four years since I’d been cashiered from the Imperial Navy of the Solar League, but the knowledge gained during the preceding twenty years was still with me.

“That was an Imperial ship,” I said. My eye caught writing on the hull. I had an impression of a name, and my gut closed down into an aching ball. It couldn’t be… but if it
was
… I had to know. I added an order. “Match trajectory and image-capture.”

Jax, the Tiponi Flute, piped through the breathing holes lining his sides, “Not good news for Kusatsu-Shirane if the League has found them.” The alien had several of its leafy tendrils wrapped around handholds welded to the walls, and his elongated body swayed with the swoops and dives of the ship.

“I’d call that the understatement of the year,” Baca grunted from his position at communication.

Three hundred years ago, humans had developed a faster-than-light drive and gone charging out into our arm of the Milky Way galaxy. There we had met up with a variety of alien races, kicked their butts, and subjugated them under human rule. But two hundred years before the human blitzkrieg began, there had been other ships that had headed to the stars. Long-view ships with humans in suspended animation, searching for new worlds.

Most of these pioneers were cranks and loons determined to set up their various ideas of utopia. Best guess was that probably eighty percent of them died either during the journey or shortly after locating on a planet. But some survived to create Reichart’s World, and Nirvana, and Kusatsu-Shirane, and numerous others.

The League called them Hidden Worlds, and took a very dim view of human-settled planets that weren’t part of the League. In fact, the League rectified that situation whenever they ran across one of these worlds. The technique was simple and brutal: The League arrived, used their superior firepower to force a surrender, then took away all the children under the age of sixteen and fostered them with families on League planets. They then brought in League settlers to swamp the colonists who remained behind.

But it hadn’t worked this time, because there were pieces of Imperial ships orbiting Kusatsu-Shirane. Something had killed a whole battle group. Whatever it was, I didn’t want it destroying my little trade vessel.

“Contact orbital control, and tell them we’re friendlies,” I ordered Baca.

“I’ve been trying, Tracy, but nobody’s answering. Worse, the whole planet’s gone silent. Nobody’s talking to nobody.”

“Some new Imperial weapon to knock out communications?” Melin asked.

“Are you picking up anything?” I asked.

“Music,” Baca replied.

We all exchanged glances; then I said, “Let’s hear it.”

Baca switched from headphone to speaker, and flipped through the communication channels from the planet. Slow, mournful music filled the bridge. It wasn’t all the same melody, but they all had one thing in common. Each melody was desperately sad.

Something terrible had happened on Kusatsu-Shirane, and judging by the debris, something equally terrible had happened in orbit. Periodically, Melin fired small maneuvering jets as she dodged through the ruins, but despite her best efforts the bridge echoed with pings and scrapes as debris impacted against the hull.

“Not the safest of neighborhoods, Captain,” came my executive officer’s voice in my left ear, and I jumped. Damn, the creature could move quietly! I gave a quick glance over my shoulder, and found myself looking directly into the Isanjo’s sherry-colored eyes. Jahan had settled onto the back of my chair like Alice’s Cheshire cat.

“We’ll grab an identification and get out,” I said.

Jahan wrapped her tail around my throat. I couldn’t tell if the gesture was meant to convey comfort or a threat. An Isanjo’s tail was powerful enough to snap a two-by-four. My neck would offer little challenge.

As if in answer to my statement, the screen on the arm of my jacket flared, adjusted contrast, and the name of the ship came into focus:
Nuestra Señora de la Concepción
. My impression had been correct. It had been
her
ship. I gave the bridge of my nose a hard squeeze, fighting to hold back tears.

“Holy crap, that’s a flagship!” Baca yelped as he accessed the computer files.

“Under the command of Mercedes de Arango, the Infanta who would have held the lives of countless millions of humans and aliens in her hands once her father died,” Jax recited in his piping tones. His encyclopedic memory baffled me. I had no idea how that much brain power could reside in something that looked like an oversized stalk of bamboo.

“Instead, she precedes him into oblivion,” Jahan said.

The attention of my crew was like a pinprick, the unspoken question hung between us. “Yes, I was at the Academy with her,” I said.

“So, did you
know
her?” Baca asked.

“I’m a tailor’s son. What do you think?”

Baca reacted to my tone. “Just asking,” he said sulkily.

A fur-covered hand swept lightly beneath my eyes. “You weep,” Jahan said, and I was glad she had used her knuckle. An Isanjo’s four-fingered hand is tipped with ferocious claws, capable of disemboweling another Isanjo or even a man. She leaned in closer and whispered, “And I note you did not actually answer the question.”

“Twelve ships were destroyed here. Six thousand starmen died. If things had fallen out differently, I might have been among them,” I said loudly. “Of course I’m upset.”

“They came here to do violence to the people of Kusatsu-Shirane,” Jax tweeted.

“It wasn’t a duty they would have relished.”

“But they would have done it,” Jahan said. “The Infanta would have ordered it done.”

I shrugged. “Orders are orders. I cleared a Hidden World once. When I was a newly minted lieutenant.”

“And now you trade with them and keep them secret,” Jahan said.

“Making me a traitor as well as a cashiered thief.” I changed the subject.
“We need to find out what happened down the gravity well.”

“It will take a damn lot of fuel to set the ship down,” Jax tweeted. Flutes were famous for their mathematical ability, and Jax was no exception. He was our purchasing agent, and I was pretty damn sure he was the reason the
Selkie
ran at a profit. He counted every Reales and squeezed it twice.

“I’ll take the
Wasp
,” I said, referring to the small League fighter craft we’d picked up at a salvage auction. The cannons had been removed, but it was still screamingly fast and relatively cheap to fly.

Melin had given us enough gravity that I could grip the sides of the access ladder, and slide down to the level that held the docking bay. Even so, Jahan, using her four hands and prehensile tail, reached the lower deck before me.

“I take it that you’re coming along,” I said as I hauled a spacesuit out of a locker.

“I will need to report to the Council.”

“Chalking up another human atrocity,” I said with black humor.

“It’s what we do,” the creature said shortly and she removed her suit from its locker. Isanjo suits always looked strange. They were equipped with a tail because the aliens used their tails for their high-steel construction work.

“And what happens when the ledger gets filled?” I asked as I stepped into the lower half of my suit.

“We will act,” she said, and I knew that she was speaking of all the alien races. “There are a lot more of us than there are of you.”

“Yeah, but none of you are as mean as us.” I shrugged to settle the heavy oxygen pack onto my shoulders.

“But we’re more patient.”

“You’ve got me there.”

I reflected that Isanjos now built our skyscrapers and our spaceships. Under human supervision, of course, but my God, there was so much opportunity for mischief if the aliens decided that it was time for them to act! I had a vision of skyscrapers collapsing and ships exploding.

I thought about the Hajin who worked as servants in our households. How easy it would be to poison a human family.

And the Tiponi Flutes did our accounting. They could crash the economy.

Humans were fucked. Good thing I worked on a ship crewed mostly by aliens. Maybe they liked me enough to keep me around.

We secured each other’s helmets, and headed for the
Wasp
, which sat in the middle of the bay. Even sitting still, it looked like it was moving a million miles an hour. The needle nose and vertical tail screamed predator.

I took the front seat, and Jahan settled into the gunner’s chair. The canopy
dropped, I flipped on the engines, instruments, and radio, and called to the bridge. “We’re ready.”

For a few seconds, we could hear the air being sucked out of the bay and back into the rest of the ship. No sense wasting atmosphere. It cost money to make, as Jax frequently pointed out. Once the wind sounds died, the great outer doors swung slowly and ponderously open. Our view was dominated by the curving rim of the planet. Green seas and a small continent rolled past us. Beyond the bulk of the world, the stars glittered ice-bright. I sent us out into space, and immediately dodged a piece of broken ship.

“Do mind the trash,” Jahan said.

Something was niggling at me. Something missing in the orbital mix—but I was too busy negotiating the floating debris to figure it out. Instead of heading directly to the planet, I took the time to explore the expanding circle of debris that had been the
Nuestra Señora de la Concepción
. We soon saw bits of floating detritus that had once been people. I studied each frozen face haloed with crystals of frozen blood.

“She’s dead,” Jahan said.

“I know,” I said. But I couldn’t accept it. She was the heir to the League. There may have been added protection for Mercedes. There had to have been. She could
not
be gone. Twenty minutes later, I admitted defeat, took us out of the debris field, and headed toward the planet.

We were passing relatively close to a small moon—Kusatsu-Shirane had five but the others weren’t presently in view—when I heard it. A distress beacon, sending its cry into the void. We locked on and followed it. The life capsule had clamped itself limpetlike to the stony surface of the moon. The tiny computer brain that controlled the capsule had rightly figured that it was safer for the occupant not to be floating in a battle zone, and found refuge.

I landed the
Wasp
, popped the canopy, and pushed out with such force that I almost hit escape velocity from the tiny planetoid. Jahan’s tail caught my ankle, and pulled me back.

Moving with a bit more caution, I approached the body-shaped container resting in a small crater. The black surface was etched with messages in every known League language, urging the finder to contact the navy headquarters on Hissilek. There was also a dire warning to any that might stumble upon the body that the DNA of the human inside was not to be harvested or touched in any way.

I brushed away the layer of fine dust and ice that covered the faceplate of the life capsule. It was Mercedes. Placed into a deep coma by drugs injected by the capsule. Her long dark brown hair, streaked now with silver at her temples, had been braided, and the braid lay across one shoulder. A few strands of hair had come loose, and caught in her lips at the moment that the capsule had slammed shut around her. I wanted to reach out and brush them away. I studied the long, patrician nose, the espresso-and-cream-colored skin. She was so beautiful—and she was alive.

“Hmm, I thought a princess would be prettier,” Jahan said.

“She’s beautiful!” I flared.

“Ah, I see now. You’re in love with her.”

W
E RETURNED TO
the
Selkie
. There was no way to fit the capsule inside the
Wasp
. I reprogrammed the clamps and secured Mercedes to the hull. It made me uncomfortable treating her in such a disrespectful way, but I couldn’t open the capsule in vacuum and I had no suit for her.

“That was a quick trip.” Baca’s voice filled my helmet.

“We found a survivor,” I radioed back as I brought us in through the bay doors and dropped the Wasp onto the deck.

It was the work of minutes to unclamp the capsule from the side of the
Wasp
, and blow the seals. I eyed the tangle of IV tubes and the pinpricks of blood that stained her arms and legs where the needles had driven through her clothes and into her veins. While I was trying to figure out how to remove them without causing her pain, the capsule sensed warmth and atmosphere, and withdrew the needles that kept her in a deathlike coma.

I slid my arms beneath her and picked her up. I’d like to say that I swept her into my arms, but at five feet eight inches tall, she was not much shorter than me, and I had to work to carry her.

“You could have waited for a stretcher,” Jahan said as she listened to my panting breaths, and noticed the way I braced myself against the wall of the lift. I shook my head, not wanting to waste the air. “And have you considered that you have put us all at grave risk by bringing her aboard? We were smuggling
to a Hidden World. The League will not only imprison us for that, they will assume we know the location of other such worlds, and they won’t be gentle in trying to elicit that information.”

“I couldn’t just leave her there.”

“Because you’re in love with her.”

I summoned up a glare. I didn’t have the breath for a response. We reached the fourth deck level, and I carried Mercedes into our small, but well-equipped, sick bay.