His Conquering Sword (60 page)

Twenty years later, he still liked it, he decided as he strolled through Concourse Axum on his way to the gate from which he would take ship back to Odys, and Charles.

He wished Nadine could see it. He would have liked to share it with her, to show her how it interlocked, how the architecture and the ornamental motifs reflected each other, how the dimensionality of building in space both freed and limited the engineer. Had it really only been eighteen months since he had left her? It seemed like one month, she remained so clear in his mind. It seemed like a hundred years.

Impatient with himself and these pointless reflections, he tapped his one piece of luggage against his leg. The plastine tube thudded gently against his thigh, light but sturdy. It contained three hand-drawn maps that David and Rajiv had done together, to send on to Rhui, to Tess. They were ostensibly a map of the principality of Jeds, a detailed map of the city, and a detailed map of the palace of Morava and its grounds, based on his survey, but coded into the key was a secondary matrix on which Tess would build a secondary architecture for the saboteur network based on the architecture and layout of the palace of Jeds, the palace of Morava, and—although this wasn’t mapped—the traditional spiral layout of a jaran camp, which made the arrangement of tents look haphazard until one divined the pattern by which they were set up.

Under a winged buttress, he paused to admire his second favorite sculpture, this one done in light, in three dimensions, by the famous artist Surya Neve Lao. It depicted the Meroite queen, the Candace Amanirenas, as she directed a dawn attack on the Roman garrison at Syene together with her son, Prince Akinidad. Silhouetted against the flames rising within the garrison walls, David recognized a woman as she tipped back her head and stared up at the sculpture curling back along the concourse wall.

“Diana!” he cried.

She turned and blinked at him for a moment. Behind her, the battle raged endlessly on, never to be lost, never to be won.

“David!” She smiled suddenly and it seemed that the whole concourse was brightened by her. She hurried over to him, and they embraced.

“Where are you off to?” he asked. “When I left Rajiv, he said the Repertory Company was in Bangkok. You haven’t left them, have you?”

“No, I—” She hesitated and glanced behind at the sculpture, then back at him. To his surprise, she still wore the scar of marriage on her face. Right now, she looked nervous, and even a little embarrassed. “I’m meeting someone. At Scarab Gate.”

“Oh, I’ll walk you. I’m leaving through Antelope Gate, and it’s right next door. Anyway, my favorite sculpture is at Scarab Gate.”

“Your favorite sculpture? Do you go through Meroe often? You must be quite the traveler.”

David grinned. Oh, well. He was proud of his work, and it was worth being proud of. “I designed it.”

“This station!”

One of the things David loved about Diana was that her emotions were so wonderfully distinct. He laughed.

“But it’s wonderful! Why did you make the buttresses like that, like they’re wings?”

“Because they are wings. They’re the wings of the Goddess.” So they walked to Scarab Gate and he told her about the design and the arguments and compromises and the choices that had gone into building Meroe Transfer Station.

A beautiful bronzed arch made of huge linked scarabs bridged the concourse wall that led into the steep, four-walled chamber that was Scarab Gate and a lounge for departing and arriving passengers. A second scarab arch, smaller and less ornate, sealed off the port tube that led to the pier and the locks.

“Where are you going?” Diana asked finally.

“I’m going to Odys. Business for Charles.”

Diana smiled. “His Nibs. That’s what Maggie O’Neill always called him. Where is she?”

“There. On Odys.”

“Ah,” said Diana, and that was another thing David liked about her. She knew when he had said as much as he could say.

“Here it is. My favorite sculpture.”

She stopped. “It’s very simple.”

It
was
simple, a simple gray sandstone statue of a young Candace, a queen, a resolute soldier bearing a sword and wearing a crown. To David, that statue was Nadine; not that it looked anything like her, but that it captured her spirit.

“I like the way the sculptor has suggested hair just by using hatching,” said Diana.

“Are you coming to meet family?” David asked.

Her mouth tightened. She held in some overwhelming emotion. “Tess Soerensen told me once that it’s easy to act on impulse and much harder to think about what the consequences might be. But the consequences will show up sooner or later, and then you must prepare yourself to deal with them.” She looked up at him. A man could drown in the blue of her eyes. Despite himself, he found his gaze darting down to the scar. It looked oddly fresh. “It’s what we’ve done to Rhui, isn’t it?” she asked bitterly. “We walked blithely in and watched how it changed us, but we never thought about how it might change them. They’re the ones who will suffer the most.”

He had thought the same thing many times.
“Who
are you meeting?” he asked, but by the expression on her face, he could guess who it was. So this was her guilt talking, that she had wanted Anatoly and had somehow managed to persuade Charles or Tess to let him come to her, and only now did she realize how hard the transition would be for her husband.

The boards lit. The familiar monotone announcement began, detailing the arriving ship and its coordinates. Diana’s hands flew to her cheeks. She had gone suddenly pale.

“It was so good to see you, David,” she said, lowering her hands with conscious embarrassment. “But I have to go. Please. Please, come and visit me when you come back, or if you see us, if we tour, come and see me backstage.”

“I will. I wish you the best of luck, Diana.”

She kissed him on each cheek, in the formal jaran style, and smiled, and left him.

Thus dismissed, he had no choice but to simply stand there and watch as she ran over toward the small gate and then jerked to a halt at the waist-high wicker fence that blocked off the egress. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, too nervous to stand still.

Passengers streamed out. Diana waited. David watched.

The floor was sloped so that he could see farther into the port tube than Diana could, so he saw the uniformed attendant first, and her companion, a shell-shocked looking young man. Next to the attendant’s dark uniform and olive skin and robust build, the young man looked almost fragile, he was so fair and so slight. But he was here.

David felt sick with envy.

It was a little scene, complete in itself. Diana wiped a tear from her face, and then she saw him. The attendant jostled his arm—what need had she to know Diana? It was apparent who was waiting for the young man—and Anatoly looked up and saw Diana.

David turned away. He could not bear to watch any more. It was too painful.

He skirted the sandstone statue and trudged back through Scarab Gate and on down the concourse to the gentler lines of Antelope Gate. Thank the Goddess, there was no delay for his flight. He boarded, found his cabin, locked the door, stowed the precious tube between his leg and the bunk wall, and plugged straight into hibersleep for the voyage.

He had no dreams.

But he did wake up with the usual horrible nausea and vertigo. Maggie was sitting on the pull-down chair, squeezed into the tiny cabin, regarding him with a frown on her face. Her freckles were prominent today for some reason, making her red hair seem all the more red. Or maybe it was just his eyes adjusting to the lights.

“You don’t usually do hibersleep, do you, David? I thought it made you sick as a—Aha!” She jerked the siphon out of the wall and caught most of the phlegm that was all he had to throw up, and then wiped his face with a cool towel.

“You’re a peach, Mags,” he said. His mouth felt like it had a thousand-year-old growth of fungus in it. “I don’t dare sit up.”

“No sympathy from me,” she retorted. “I hate the fumes of that stuff. Here.” She bent over and extracted the tube of maps. “Do you want me to wait for you to recover, or just take this downside?”

“Maggie!”

“Oh, David.” She sat down beside him and smoothed his hair with a hand. “You look rotten. Why did you do it?”

“I didn’t want to think for that long, cooped up on a ship.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “Oh,” she said at last. “I don’t suppose you crossed paths with Diana Brooke-Holt, did you?” He didn’t need to reply. Maggie knew him well enough to read his face.

“Poor Diana,” she said.

“Poor Diana!”

“No, you’re right. Poor Anatoly’s more like it. You know she sent him back a message saying he should stay on Rhui, didn’t you?”

“What?” David felt utterly confused.

“But it was already too late. The damned scheming boy had evidently planned it all along. He got himself sent to Jeds and by one means or the other—no one is willing to take responsibility for it—he buffaloed his way onto one of the sloops by claiming he had a dispensation from Tess to go to Erthe, and by the time they realized their mistake, he’d seen a shuttle. So what could they do? They sent him to Odys. We never gave him Diana’s message. So maybe it is poor Diana after all. She was wise enough to see that he ought to have stayed on Rhui.” She broke off. “Oh, David,” she said on a sigh. She bent and kissed him on the cheek. “David, she never could have left the planet. You know it’s true.”

“I know. I know.” But it still hurt. “Has there ever—been any news of her?”

She opened her mouth and then shut it again. “Well. We did hear that she had a baby, a daughter, recently. Tess is pregnant again. Did you hear that?”

“No, I—I haven’t been much in touch with Rhui lately,” he said, and realized how stupid the comment sounded, considering the maps he carried with him. “I’ve tried to put it behind me, that year.” But he thought of Nadine, holding a little child who probably looked like her fair-haired father. “Damn it,” he murmured. “It’s so stupid to dwell on something that wasn’t meant to be.”

“Oh, my dear friend, I didn’t know you still missed her that much. Let me get you something to drink to settle that stomach of yours. Charles is waiting for you. And I’m always glad to see you. I missed you.”

David felt comforted, knowing he had the solace of friendship waiting for him here on Odys.

At the palace, Charles sat in conference with Hon Echido Keinaba in the domed audience chamber that overlooked the massive greenhouse wing.

Suzanne, seated next to Charles at the ralewood table, saw David and Maggie at the door and beckoned to them to come in. Evidently Echido was by this time used to the casual way in which humans came and went, although he did stand and acknowledge the new arrivals with a pallid nod.

“…and when I officially open the female wing here on Odys, Hon Echido, I hope your family will be able to provide me with suitable females with whom I can extend my staff. Ah, hello, David. Sit down. Maggie, can you deliver—the gifts—and then go and make sure the reception room is ready? I’m expecting Tai Naroshi Toraokii anytime now.”

“Naroshi?” asked David.

“In response to my summons.”

“It took him long enough,” said Suzanne tartly.

“Only by our standards,” replied Charles. He turned back to the merchant. “So is it well with you and the Keinaba elders, Hon Echido, that I send twenty-seven apprentices into your service to learn the craft of commerce from your masters?”

“At your command, Tai-en. The proper arrangements have been made. As well, we have chosen three
chay-hon,
nine
sendi-nin,
and eighty-one
ke di
to enter your female house.”

Charles glanced at Suzanne, who said in a low voice, “Three of the merchant class, nine of the steward, and eighty-one ke, all female.”

“I beg your pardon, Tai-en.” Echido flushed blue about the cheeks.

“It is granted,” said Charles impatiently. He looked at Suzanne, who looked at her slate and shook her head. Charles frowned. “He’s late. Well. Now, Hon Echido, about the other matter.”

“Tai-en. Neither I nor the Keinaba House have the authority to allow these disciplines you call The Arts free movement along transport lines or, indeed, access to ports of call. But if I may be allowed to take an
orchestra
back with me to Keinaba Mansion on Paladia Major, I would be triply honored by your magnanimity.”

“Umm.” Charles turned to look out at the greenhouse that sparkled in the pale sunlight, a swath of brightness thrust out across the curry-colored massif flats. “That will do. Perhaps once guests at your mansion hear the orchestra, they, too, will wish such human artisans to grace their homes and mansions.”

“Indeed, Tai-en, if it is considered a sign of ducal pleasure, many will be eager for such a mark of distinction.”

“Aha!” Suzanne jumped to her feet. “Incoming.”

Hon Echido rose as well, and he bowed to the precise degree due a duke being honored by his least worthy servant. “I will withdraw, with your permission, Tai Charles.”

“It is granted.”

Hon Echido withdrew.

“You know what I think,” said Suzanne, “I think he’s beginning to read us.”

“Read us?” David asked.

“I think he’s beginning to get a sense of how we work, we humans. Frightening thought.”

“Good thing he’s on our side,” said David. “If he is. If any of them can be. Why is Naroshi coming in?”

“I asked him to,” said Charles. “Maggie is going to send the maps on to Rhui.”

“Is she going to take them down herself?”

“No. Marco wants to go back downside.”

“You’re letting him?”

“We need more survey. Tess needs more intelligence, especially in Rhui’s other hemisphere. He’ll transfer over the maps to her and then head east, as far as he can go.”

“Until he comes around back to the other side? Wait. Does this have something to do with Diana Brooke-Holt and the sudden appearance of her interdicted jaran husband on Meroe Transfer Station?”

“What do you think?” asked Suzanne sourly. “I told him he was being a fool.”

“Which comment,” said Charles dryly, “he appreciated greatly. In part to do with her, yes, but mostly to do with Marco. He’ll be circling that globe for the rest of his life, because he’s too damn restless to settle in any one place, and he always has to be testing himself.”