The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25 (Mammoth Books) (117 page)

Ó Tubbaigh spoke in halting Danish. “Ship take hair yellow.” When David made no answer, a distant look came into his eyes. “Go with. Home see
ahcheba
. Ah, the grass, the grass.”

David pulled his knife and scabbard from his belt and handed it to the Muisce ó Geogh captive, for such he had concluded the man was: one of the sacking horde in the wreckage of an empire, captured by a fleeing band of al-Goncuins, possibly even as the escape ship was casting forth. There were red stains on the cog’s decks that spoke of a desperate fight. Ó Tubbaigh hesitated. Then he snatched the knife from its scabbard and secreted it in the wraps of his turban, returning the empty scabbard to David. He said, “Smoke we two
ahcheba.”

“We will smoke again,” David lied.

The ó Flaherty Himself escorted David to the edge of Cill Cluanaigh and sat upon his pony beside him while the hill men disembarked from the boats and sorted themselves out for the long trek back to the Slieve ua Fhlainn.

“You’ll tell Cormac,” ó Flaherty suggested.

“I’ll tell The McDermot everything I’ve seen.”

The king of Iar Connaught grunted over the careful phrasing, then he looked west, past his stronghold in the lough. “I don’t understand your loyalty to a weakling like Aedh.”

“A weakling he is, and a fool,” David admitted, “but if we demand our kings be worthy before we pay them the respect that kings are due, then all is chaos. Kings come, kings go. It’s the white rod that matters, not the fool that holds it.”

The ó Flaherty pondered David’s words. “I see,” he said at last. “You are Felim’s man. You’ve been Felim’s man all along.”

“It would be awkward,” David explained, “if he killed his own brother. Turlough will see to that – should no cuckold step forward.”

Ó Flaherty grinned without humor. “And then Felim’s dogs will remove Turlough, with the iron shirts to back them? Sure, it’s a sad tale, then, that the Red Foreigners will upset his plans.”

David shrugged. “Life brims with the unexpected. Oh. I’m after losing my knife.”

“Are you now?”

“I think that red gilly is after taking it. I think he means to murder Tatamaigh.”

“Over the woman? She isn’t much to look at, but I don’t suppose looking is what he has in mind.”

“Maybe the woman. Maybe the smoke. It doesn’t matter. Warn Tatamaigh.”

The king of Iar Connaught scowled, suspecting some cleverness. “It would be better for you – and Felim and Cormac – if Tatamaigh were slain.”

David crossed himself piously. “The Lord commanded us to do good even for our enemies.”

*     *     *

David halted his party once again on the hill overlooking Lough Corrib and turned his pony round to gaze at The ó Flaherty’s stronghold while awaiting the signal from the outriders that no ambush lurked. Gillapadraig trotted his pony to stand next to David’s.

“So it did come down to a woman in the end,” he said. “How much have you teased out?”

“They’re not coming,” David said. “They’ll never come; not to help Turlough, not for any reason.”

“Can you be so sure? The Normans found it worth the effort . . .”

David pulled on his moustache, gauged the position of the sun, and wondered if he could reach the monastery at Tuam before nightfall. “The Irish Sea is a shorter crossing than the Ocean Sea. But that is not the reason. The al-Goncuin empire is broken. The clans of the Muisce ó Geogh light campfires with their books. Tatamaigh was desperate for a refuge and grasping at any straw. He would have promised ó Flaherty anything. We may see a few more such boat-loads seeking the legend-lands the Danes sing of – but that is all.”

“What of these Muisce ó Geogh folk, then? They are the victors, you say. Will they not come?”

“The ó Flaherty is mad. Bad enough to invite the red Romans in; to invite the red Huns is pure Sweeney. They are horsemen, not sailors, and there is more wealth in the wreckage of an empire than on these poor shores. Yet they are a wild folk, and the horizon taunts them. Should ó Tubbaigh escape to tell them of us . . .”

“Small chance of that.”

“How small is small enough? He is a bold man, and a clever one to survive as long as he has in the hands of his enemies. When Olaf steals the ship, will he not be aboard? Could I hazard his escape? Ah, darling, it’s a cruel and pitiless age we live in to spend such a life to buy a little time. Had they not burned the books, I might have hesitated.” David fell silent and tugged his chin. “There may be a blessing, though, in all this.”

“What is it?” Gillapadraig asked.

“That Tatamaigh’s crown was solid gold, was it not?”

“It had the look of it.”

“A bold man with a sword might carve himself a pretty kingdom over there, a greater one than he can ever find in these poor hills.”

Gillapadraig fell into open-mouthed silence. When he found his voice, he stammered, “Would you be leading the ui Fhlainn then into some foreign land?”

“I would not, but the prospect of gold and plunder is a sore temptation.” David turned his pony about and saw the outriders coming in from the east, signaling that it was safe to proceed. He kicked his pony in the ribs and the hill men set off at a slow mile-eating pace. “Maybe the Normans will go.”

CODY

Pat Cadigan was born in Schenectady, New York, and now lives in London with her family. She made her first professional sale in 1980, and has subsequently come to be regarded as one of the best new writers of her generation. Her story “Pretty Boy Crossover” has appeared on several critics’ lists as among the best science fiction stories of the 1980s, and her story “Angel” was a finalist for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award,
and
the World Fantasy Award (one of the few stories ever to earn that rather unusual distinction). Her short fiction – which has appeared in most of the major markets, including
Asimov’s Science Fiction
and
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
– has been gathered in the collections
Patterns
and
Dirty Work
. Her first novel,
Mindplayers
, was released in 1987 to excellent critical response, and her second novel,
Synners
, released in 1991, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award as the year’s best science fiction novel, as did her third novel,
Fools
, making her the only writer ever to win the Clarke Award twice. Her other books include the novels
Dervish Is Digital, Tea from an Empty Cup
, and
Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine
, and, as editor, the anthology
The Ultimate Cyberpunk
, as well as two making-of movie books and four media tie-in novels, most recently
Cellular
.

Here she delivers an ingenious and suspenseful adventure that demonstrates that being the messenger can be dangerous, no matter what the message.

C
OMMON WISDOM HAS
it,” said LaDene from where she was stretched out on the queen-sized bed, “that anyone with a tattoo on their face goes crazy within five years.”

Cody paused in his examination of his jawline in the mirror over the desk to give her a look. “You see any tattoos on this example of manly beauty?”

“Can’t see the moon from here, either. Or the TV remote,” she added. She sat up and looked around. Cody found it on the desk and tossed it to her. “Thanks. You know, carnies would call you a marked man.”

“Carnies?” He gave a short laugh. “Don’t tell me you threw over the bright lights of the midway to keep a low profile in budget accommodations.”

“Higher-end
budget accommodations.” She put on the TV and began channel surfing. “For the discerning yet financially savvy business traveller. Don’t you ever read the brochures?”

He made a polite noise that could have been yes or no and was neither. The hotspot that had come up over two hours ago was still there, midway between his chin and the point of his jaw, and as far as he could tell, it hadn’t faded even a little. The medic had assured him there was nothing to worry about unless it started to spread and it hadn’t. It wouldn’t have bothered him except he hadn’t had a hotspot in years. Rookies got hotspots.

The sudden recurrence could have been down to any number of things, the medic had said, the most likely being the attack of hay fever he had suffered on arrival. But he’d never had hay fever in his life, he’d told the medic. He’d never been to Kansas City in late August, she’d replied, chuckling.

Technically, he still hadn’t. The airport was thirty miles north of the city and the car they’d sent had taken him to an industrial park about as far to the west on the Kansas side of the state line, which apparently ran right through the middle of town. The most he’d seen of Kansas City proper was a distant cluster of skyscrapers, briefly glimpsed through the tinted window as the driver negotiated a complicated interchange of highway ramps. After that it was generic highway scenery all the way to a generic suburban industrial park, full of angular, antiseptic office buildings surrounded by patches of green landscaped and manicured
in extremis
, some with a koi pond or a fountain. The access road meandered through it so much that Cody thought there had to be an extra mile of travel. Albeit a very pretty mile; perhaps it was so people coming and going could see at least in passing the flowers they didn’t have time to stop and smell. Cody could have done without it. By the time they’d reached their destination, he had actually begun to feel car sick.

“Yo!” A pillow hit him in the head, making him jump. “And I thought
I
was vain,” LaDene laughed. “Are you really that fascinating?”

“I was woolgathering,” he said as he threw the pillow back at her. “Thinking, in case you don’t know what that means.”

“I know what it means,” she said. “I also know you’ve got a hotspot. Unclench, honey, I’ve got one, too.” She lifted her shirt and pointed at her navel.

“Oh, very funny.”

“Oh, very for-real.” She was up off the bed and had his face in her hands before he could say anything. “Ah, got it, right there.” She patted his cheek and pulled up her shirt again, exposing her midriff. “Mine’s hotter. Feel.”

Her belly button was only inches away from his nose. Cody drew back and started to protest as she grabbed his hand and pressed it against her skin. His discomfort turned to surprise. “I sit corrected,” he said, extricating himself from her grip. “Yours
is
hotter.”

“Told you,” she said, plumping down on the bed to stretch out again. “It’s probably the ragweed and who knows what else in the air. Man, I
hate
KC this time of year.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“I’m
from
here.” She laughed at his surprised expression. “You couldn’t tell?”

“How could I? We just met.”

“I knew
you
weren’t from around here, soon as I saw you. No antihistamines.”

He chuckled a bit ruefully. “I thought I was dying of a head cold I caught on the plane.”

She started to channel surf again, then changed her mind and shut the TV off. “If you get cold symptoms a lot when you fly, it’s probably an allergy.”

“Oh?” He gave a short skeptical laugh. “Is there a lot of ragweed on airplanes?”

She shrugged. “Lots of other stuff – mold, dust, newsprint. Somebody’s cheap cologne. Even expensive cologne.”

“Newsprint?”

“Believe it or leave it. You know how if something exists, there’s porn of it? Well, there’s also someone allergic to it.”

“Newsprint,” Cody said again, still skeptical.

“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.” LaDene raised one hand solemnly, then let it fall. “Okay, that was fun. Now whaddaya wanna do?”

Cody leaned over and scooped the remote control up so he could turn the TV back on, mainly to forestall the possibility of her wanting to compare hotspots again. The screen lit up to show a dark-haired, olive-skinned woman speaking directly to the camera with an earnest sincerity that made his own brow furrow in sympathy.

“. . . found flayed and burned in a midtown Kansas City, Missouri, parking garage have now positively been identified as August Fiore, AKA Little Augie Flowers, fifty-one, and Coral Oh, twenty-nine, of Liberty, Missouri. Fiore went missing two weeks ago from an FBI safe house where he was being held pending the start of the trial of Carmine Nesparini on racketeering charges. The FBI has steadfastly refused to comment on allegations that Fiore was Nesparini’s personal ‘master key’ but sources close to the investigation say that Fiore’s cooperation would have given authorities an unprecedented level of access to mob records.