A Few Good Men (18 page)

“All right,” I said. “I just worried that . . .” I floundered. “That something had happened to him, since he was guarding me.”

“Yes, Patrici— Luce,” Sam said. “I understand.” Which was indeed very good, because I didn’t understand at all. “Will there be anything else?”

“No,” I said. “If I can have a few minutes, I’ll bathe and dress, and then meet you wherever you tell me to.”

He smiled, a faint, puzzled smile. “You seem to have the wrong idea about which of us tells the other what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do, you see,” I said. “I’ll come around soon enough and become a proper tyrant.”

He raised his eyebrows at me, then decided I was joking and smiled and said, “I’ll meet you in your father’s . . . in the Good Man’s office, then. And we’ll meet with the merchants afterwards.” He hesitated on the threshold. “You might need more than a few minutes.”

But I didn’t. To be honest, I don’t think I knew how to take longer, anymore. I washed quickly, managed to tame my hair and tie it back, and slipped into one of the new suits—a slick black pants and jacket over a flowing white shirt affair. Then I stared at the mirror and frowned. And the person frowning back at me was someone yet totally different from the haunted prisoner I’d glimpsed when leaving my cell. I still had the same scar crossing my face. My hair was still long, though there’s a lot to be said for proper moisturizing products, since it now shone a subdued gold and didn’t look like an untidily piled hay stack. But the way the jacket and pants delineated my shoulders and muscles, I looked like what I was—a well-born man, not so old, who might know a little about how rough life can be but who has power and wealth, both, at his fingertips. The jacket was cinched around the waist, then had a sort of little ruffle at the bottom. The sleeves allowed the ruffled flaring cuffs of the shirt to show. It seemed to me fashion must have got a lot more frilly since I’d been away. Or perhaps I simply wasn’t used to anything but a minimalist bodysuit. The dark color brought out the paleness of my skin and made it seem intentional, accentuated by the creamy, lacy white of the shirt. And the tailoring somehow made me look healthy and not intimidating. I slid on boots that came just above my calf, and which shone as discreetly as the—was it silk?—of the suit.

I slipped a burner into my boot and managed to strap another holster around my middle, in a way that wasn’t immediately obvious. The problem with well-tailored clothes is that there was only one obvious place to hang that gun, and even that was all too obvious and would make people stare, or at least wonder what I’d padded with, or what had got me so happy. And I could live a long, long time without Nat Remy’s sarcastic gaze that I was sure would rake over such an arrangement. And that was if he were discreet enough not to snort, something I wasn’t about to bet.

So, instead, I managed to put the holsters in the small of my back. Not as reachable as I’d wish it, but hidden by the fall of the jacket’s frill, which was of an ample cut back there.

Walking out of my room and encountering a sentinel who straightened and bowed slightly by way of salute, reminded me of other unfinished business. If I didn’t want my father’s clothes, I wanted my father’s furniture even less. I walked back into the room, much to my guardian’s surprise, and punched the link at my desk.

“Sam?”

The voice that answered me was several octaves higher than Sam’s. “My father is down in the offices, Patrician Keeva. If you should need—”

“No.” I fished from the torrent of names that Nat had poured in my direction last night. “Abigail Remy?”

“Martha, sir.”

“Oh. I don’t know how to put this order through or to whom, and you might not, also, but I’d like the furniture from my room removed, my old furniture restored if it’s still available.”

“Mmm,” she said. “If it can’t be restored would similar furniture be acceptable?”

“Definitely,” I said. And then, because it occurred to me this would be a very busy day for everyone. “I’m sorry for adding to your work load.”

“No problem at all,” she said. “I’ll just delegate. I believe my father is waiting for you in your office, Patrician.”

“I do, too,” I said. And refrained from adding
for my sins
.

Sam Remy was at his desk, in his portion of the office, which was the antechamber to my father’s office proper. While my father’s office, from what I remembered, was a vast room rejoicing in a desk set in solitary splendor, an armchair of the kind that could comfortably sit a person five times the size of normal men, this antechamber, as large, was crowded with desks, chairs, and people. It looked much like my room when I’d awakened, with people going here and there and in every possible direction, according to a choreography I was unlikely to understand, at least without spending a lifetime in study. In the middle of it, Sam looked perfectly in control, his desk piled with papers that he handed off at seeming random to various men and women who approached. He had his computer on too, with the hologram screen projected in front of him, and impossible to read from this side, the holograms casting shadows like stigmata on his tired face.

He shouldn’t have been able to see me in the movement and crowd of the office, but his gaze fell on me almost immediately. A touch of buttons on the desk and the holograph screen vanished, as he stood up. “Patrician,” he said, by way of both greeting and summoning me to his desk. I didn’t protest. In public he’d call me Patrician Keeva or Good Man Keeva. I didn’t mind that. It was only when he did it in private that I got the feeling I’d become someone else, someone I didn’t recognize, if Ben’s brother was treating me that way.

Sam didn’t exactly order me into my office, but by standing back to let me pass into it, he herded me into it just as effectively as if he had, and I tried to obey. Only as I was about to enter it, a person came out, and I stopped.

Understand, Ben was never in any way effeminate. Not unless you count the slightness and the softness of being only barely past twenty. In his case it had not been pronounced. So the reaction of my mind was unreasonable and impossible. You see, it told me the person who’d come out of my father’s office and now stood there, looking up at me with a poleaxed expression was Ben. And that was nonsense, because the person was, unavoidably, female. Though she was probably close to the same age Ben and I had been when we’d been arrested.

My mouth went dry, my brain stopped all rational processes. My lips opened to say “Ben,” and I stopped them just in time. And into my complete confusion, Sam’s voice came with the same affability and warmth as a sharpened blade, “Patrician Keeva, let me introduce you to my daughter, Abigail Remy. I don’t think you’ll remember her. She was barely four when you . . . ah . . . went away.”

My head was doing quick calculations. She was just about the same age that Ben and I had been when Ben died. And she had Ben’s dark hair, his slightly too sharp to be oval face, the somewhat aquiline nose, the mouth that reposed in a smile, and the eyes—those dark-haunted eyes that ran in the family. Her hair was pulled back at the base of the head, much like mine. She favored the same nondescript grey clothes her brother seemed to like, and she was looking at me with an expression bordering on alarm. Possibly because she was Ben’s height, considerably shorter than Nat, and I loomed over her. Let alone that I was the Good Man and looked like I spent my free time engaging in street fights. “Pleased to meet you, Abigail,” I said, in my very best company voice.

“Patrician,” she said, and inclined her head. I noted she was holding a tray in her hand, as she squeezed past us.

And then I noted that Sam, as he gestured for me to precede him into the room, looked very worried indeed. I wanted to tell him I had no ill intent towards his daughter. Or his son for that matter. Then I realized that I really didn’t. Well, I didn’t think I could have intentions of any sort towards Abigail, other than a protective feeling, born of her resemblance to Ben. As for Nat . . . I had no intentions either. Not only did I feel anyone at all reaching for Nat was likely to withdraw a stump; not only was I sure that other than a feeling of . . . hereditary loyalty? Towards me, he didn’t actually like me as such, but more than all that, I couldn’t have any sort of intention of that sort towards someone whose livelihood was bound with me, and whose family had served my family for centuries.

I guess Ben and I had been too young and I, myself, too unconscious of my future destiny for the separation in our stations to intrude. I remembered envying him his family and his position in the world. I didn’t know we might have grown up—at least had my situation been what it appeared—to have him envy my power. I had a moment of quasi-regret for the illusions of childhood, the short pang that comes with knowing even if nothing untoward, no nightmarish circumstances had intruded, it would not have ended well.

There was some old tale or other, which I barely remembered about the lion lying down with the sheep in some perfect paradise. But I couldn’t understand how that would ever happen. The sheep would know—would always know—that his life was forfeit should the lion want to kill him. It didn’t make for good relationships, be they friendships or love or anything in between.

I felt like I’d lost everything. I felt like the loneliest man on Earth. I stepped through the door, telling myself I’d have to dispel Sam’s fears for his children at the first opportunity. Though, somehow, telling him that his children were safe because I had power of life or death over them seemed more like a threat than a calming remark. On the other hand, if I had it in my power, I would protect Nat and Abigail, and Martha, and even Sam and his dimly remembered wife, too. Because they were my responsibility, and I could hurt them without meaning to.

I hadn’t asked for this responsibility. I didn’t want it. But there was no one else around to take it and therefore it was mine.

I walked into my father’s office. Like my bedroom, decorated for his use, it was all heavy wood, and dark leather and the sort of prints on the wall that spoke of vast estates and untrammeled territories. It occurred to me for the very first time to wonder how insecure my father had felt that he needed to surround himself with symbols of power.

However, the symbols of power worked. As in my room, the merchants looked out of place and conscious of it. I gathered that Abigail had just set the table with coffee and cups, with piles of fruit and little fussy pastries of the sort that yielded no more than a bite or two, most of it cream and froth. But none of them had sat down. Instead, they stood around the table, clutching cups and saucers and looking like they’d bolt if I said boo.

I didn’t say boo. I’d been trained for this, and a voice at the back of my head told me it was because my father believed in physical habit as much as in mental habit. He’d wanted me to react before my brain could kick in. Or his brain, as the case might be.

And I did react appropriately without the slightest attempt at thought. My mouth shaped itself in a smile, and I walked forward and spoke in a calm, non-intimidating voice, about how chagrined I was that my small contretemps had inconvenienced them, about how badly I felt for it all. How I wanted, more than anyone else, to end this standoff as soon as possible.

I said nothing much other than that I regretted it, but my own voice falling on my ears sounded reassuring and vaguely paternal, and when I stopped, all of them were smiling, somewhat diffidently. I looked up and found Sam watching me with a speculative expression. And then he stepped in and I backed off, because there was precious little I could add.

While my conversation had been all polished phrases and zero substance, his was all matter of substance. Abatements and mitigations and who knew what. I hoped Sam was honest because if he weren’t, I’d never know it. I realized, as I’d suspected in talking to his oldest son yesterday, that I had met someone far more intelligent than I.

It took him about two hours to talk to the traders, with my presence doing no more than gentling them.

When they bowed themselves out the door, consigned to the good offices of some sort of footman or doorman or something—someone young and very self-important in the dark green livery of the house, Sam Remy asked, “Will you be having lunch in the dining room?”

“What?” I said. “I just had breakfast.”

He gave a tight smile. “Nat is likely to keep you most of the rest of the day,” he said. “And it’s not likely to be an easy . . .” He stopped himself and compressed his lips.

“Listen, Sam,” I said, “I was never noted for my social graces in my private life, and being alone for fourteen years hasn’t improved me.”

His eyes widened in alarm, and I hastened to add, “So, I’ll just say it. There are times . . . I mean, of course I get lonely like everyone else, but—” His eyes widened more. “BUT,” I emphasized, “I want to make sure you understand that I have no intentions towards any of your family. No . . . I know you know . . . I mean . . . Ben and I . . .” I floundered. “But I have no intentions towards anyone in your household. Romantic or otherwise. I was very young, with Ben, see. I think it would have ended badly anyway. Not as badly as it did end, but our different positions—that is, I don’t think—”

His mouth dropped open. He closed it with a snap. His fingers pinched and massaged the bridge of his nose on either side, the same gesture I’d seen Nat make. “Ah, hell,” he said, softly. “Good Ma— Ah . . . Luce. I’m not ready to deal with what might have been. As for your assurance . . .” He seemed at a loss for words, then snapped his mouth shut again. “Go have lunch. Go down to the dining room. Give the cooks a reason for existing.” He must have seen my intention of protesting, because he held up a hand. “No, listen. It’s important that they see you’re having lunch and . . . and following a routine. It will show them you’re not scared and . . . and all that. Just do it, will you?”

I did it. Sometimes, there are things that are not worth arguing, and Sam’s determination that I should eat was one of them.

So I sat in the vast, dimly lit dining room and ate my dinner off fine porcelain plates, and tried to get at least three bites of each of the dishes. At a guess there were fifteen of them, but who was I to count? None of them was salty or sweet mush, it’s all I can tell you. And I knew for a fact that at the end of my meal, all the leftovers were eaten in the servant lounge, so I didn’t feel I had to clean my plate. Which was good, because I didn’t think I could, short of exploding.