In the Garden of Iden (19 page)

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“I guess we’ll have to provide them with one.” He got up and went to the window. “Is that your guy down there in the search party?” I went to the window to look but couldn’t make out anyone amidst the leaves. Joseph put a hand on my shoulder.

“You’re sore about this, I can tell.”

I didn’t know what to say. “You were awful to Nicholas.”

“That’s true. Yes, you’re right. I’m truly sorry. I got the impression, though, that he was going out of his way to be awful to me.”

“He doesn’t like you.”

“Gee. And I cut such a dashing figure as a freethinking victim of the Inquisition. Well, you can’t please everybody. You appeared pretty agitated when he asked me for your hand, by the way. Did he just spring that on you?”

“Yes.” I grew hot with embarrassment. Why didn’t he leave me alone?

“Yeah. Poor kid. It’s a good thing I was there to field that one for you. Marriage with a mortal! It’s been done from time to time, actually. On a limited basis. Of course, you always have to desert them later, or pretend to die, or something like that. But, yeah. Naturally, it was out of the question this time, so I’m glad I was there for you, but with your next one—”

I felt dazed. “You mean I could have said yes?”

“Well, in principle, sure. Not to this guy, though. I’ve been married myself, you know, quite a few times. It’s occasionally useful, and once in a while you just can’t avoid it. But, believe me, it’s the easiest thing in the world to get out of.”

“But—but how can you do it? What if you really love one of them?”

“Is that a problem? I’ve loved my mortals, too. But, honey, the bottom line is—they’re mortal. They’re going to die. Nicholas is going to die. Now, do you want to stick around and watch it happen, or do you want to skip out and keep a beautiful memory? Of course you want the beautiful memory. Mendoza, it’s painful to watch mortals get old. You have no idea yet.”

“I’ve been thinking, actually.” Although I hadn’t been; I was desperately inventing this on the spur of the moment. “I had this thought. Nicholas is very unusual, you said so yourself, he’s almost like one of us. He’s absolutely physically perfect, and you wouldn’t believe the things he says sometimes. His whole interpretation of the Christian cosmology is so close to the truth, it’s scary. I’ll bet he could adjust really well if he were told about us.”

“No. I see where you’re headed, but no.”

“But just listen a minute! I know he can’t be fixed like one of us, I know you’re not supposed to do the Process on an adult, but look at the stuff you’re doing for Sir Walter. And we have paid mortals who know about us, who work for us. So why couldn’t you do the same for Nicholas, and we could take him away with us when we leave here, as a sort of—sort of …”

“A pet?” Joseph snorted. “Mendoza, we may be very attached to Fido, but sooner or later he’s going to dog heaven, all right?”

“You bastard.”

“No.” He took my arms. “Sweetheart. Please understand. It wouldn’t change anything and would only hurt you worse in the end. Trust me, I’ve been there. I feel very responsible for you, you know. I spotted you in that dungeon in Santiago. And I’ve watched you grow up into a damn good operative. Seriously, I think you’ve got what it takes to be the best in your field. I know I kind of encouraged this, it seemed like a good way to deal with the guy, and I thought the experience would be good for you. But I’d hate to see you get burned out this early by a bad relationship.”

I pulled away and sat down, not looking at him.

“Besides,” Joseph added, “his skull’s the wrong shape.” He came and sat down beside me. “And another thing,” he went on. “I’d think you’d find the fact that he’s a religious bigot kind of wearing at times.”

“He’s not a religious bigot!”

“Oh no? Remember his remarks about me being a secret you-know-what? And all that Jesus, Jesus, Jesus stuff. It must drive you crazy.”

No, of course that wasn’t true. Much.

“Yeah, they’re funny that way.” Joseph leaned back with a rueful chuckle. “I remember one of mine once. Golly. She was a sweet thing, you know, and I was just nuts about her, but she had this devotion to Ishtar and you simply could not argue with her. I had to become an initiate, go the whole route. When she finally died, I was heartbroken, really, I just moped around for weeks, but on the other hand—it was so great not to have to paint my ass blue and go whack the heads off doves at the temple every night. Always date atheists, that’s my advice.

“By the way,” he went on, “how’s the work coming?”

“Oh.” Slight uncomfortable pause from me, and a close examination of the brocade pattern on my sleeve. “It’s—I had kind of taken this week off, because I’ve pretty much got the range of specimens in their summer growth phase. Now that autumn’s here, I’ll have to get busy again.”

“Hmm. Any chance you can give me a preliminary completion date?”

“Well.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I’ll want to do a full scan on the plants that live through the winter, of course, and then we missed the spring because we didn’t get here until July, so—er—I think we’re looking at April or May.”

That was the Eastcheape Waits performing
Vous Avez Tout Ce Qui Est Mein. A crisp voice from the radio spoke over a burst of static.
We break now for an update on the Newsmaker of the Hour, Edward Bonner, that hard-line Catholic Bishop of London. Minor riots followed in the wake of his announcement yesterday that he is initiating an inquiry into the conduct and opinions of Protestant clergy. Results are in from our citizen correspondent’s survey of Londoners: eight percent declined to state, fifty-two percent were opposed, forty percent said they favored the inquiry. Of the opposed percentage interviewed, most felt that this was the first move in a conspiracy to bring the Spanish Inquisition to England and deprive Englishmen of their civil liberties. The Council is expected to call a special meeting this evening to discuss the civil unrest. We’ve received no word yet from our correspondent on the Council, but as soon as we have the minutes of the meeting, they’ll be broadcast live. Meanwhile, all operatives with Spanish identities are advised to avoid the following municipal areas
—

“Now, that’s interesting.” Joseph leaned over and switched it off. “I didn’t think there were that many Spanish-cover ops out here. I wonder who else came over with us?”

“My God, aren’t you the least bit alarmed?” I cried.

“No. Look, this will all blow over. The Council will reprimand this bishop, and he’ll lay off for now. I’ll bet they won’t even hear about it in Kent for another week. Trust me.” Joseph got up and stretched. “We have more pressing concerns right now.”

“Such as?”

“Such as getting hold of a three-inch piece of deformed goat horn,” he said.

A
MAZINGLY ENOUGH, JUST
such an object was found two days later, in the purse of a man floating facedown in a nearby river. He had been bludgeoned about the head and shoulders, making identification difficult, and his clothes were in rags, except for a fairly new buff soldier’s jerkin.

Francis Ffrawney was quick to point out that this must be the thief, for Doctor Ruy had described just such a man as the probable culprit; doubtless the scoundrel had fallen out with his villainous Flemish accomplices. This theory was accepted by everyone except Nicholas, who gave me some very troubled and searching looks.

However, I was able to look right back at him with wide-eyed innocence, because I knew perfectly well that Joseph hadn’t killed anybody; the Company would never permit such a thing. He’d just found a convenient corpse that was
already
dead and used it as a decoy, that was all.

At least, I thought that was what must have happened … but when I questioned Nef about it, she glowered and refused to tell me anything. She made herself pleasant enough to Sir Walter, however; became quite attentive. She coaxed him to let her tend to the poor little mutilated unicorn during its recovery, and the result was, it ended up sleeping in a wicker basket beside her bed. Joseph had a fit. Joan the chambermaid took to muttering darkly about how she was a
house
servant, not a stable girl, and I was doubly glad I wasn’t rooming there anymore.

The wet weather began again. For about a week the hills were golden, the forests were rustling clouds of gold. Then the rain took it all away. There was suddenly a great deal of blue sky in England; a chilly wide sky, pale blue, like Nicholas’s eyes.

The first morning there was a break in the rain, we went out for a bit of a frisk in the garden, but we had to take some care in our merry chase, with the mud and piles of wet slick leaves. As we neared the end of the path, we saw a traveler out by the gate, peering vainly in. He could see us perfectly well, too, so we slowed to a dignified walk and pretended we had been coming to meet him.

“The porter is not at his post, sir,” called Nicholas.

“I can see that!” shouted the man in exasperation.

“I mean, sir, that there be no penny-paying guests after the rains begin,” explained Nicholas as we drew nearer. “I fear most of our marvels are lacking their proper foliage. You may see the Great Aviary, or the Walk Historical. But the roses are a dead loss.”

“I have come expressly to see Sir Walter Iden,” grated the man.

“Oh,” said Nicholas, and since we were at the gate by this time, he produced his ring of keys and let the traveler in. This gentleman shoved through and stood shaking the rain out of his hat, for the branches had been dripping on him where he stood. He glared at us. I had seen him before. Yes, he had come one day back in summer, with a party of other folk.

“Master Darrell.” Nicholas bowed slightly, having placed him too.

“I am he.” Master Darrell jammed his hat back on his head. “Pray announce me to your master.”

“At once, sir. There is hot wine and a good fire in the hall,” Nicholas placated. Master Darrell brightened considerably at the prospect as we walked back to the house.

“You have come on some business, sir? Or for the pleasure of Sir Walter’s company?”

“A little of both, I think,” the traveler replied, puffing out his breath in a frost cloud. “And I hope to sweeten your master’s inclination to business by pleasant discourse with him. Heard you the news about Her Grace the queen?”

“I think not,” said Nicholas cautiously. I put my arm through his as we walked. I knew what was coming.

“Why, she is with child.”

Nicholas came to a full stop, gaping at him. Master Darrell eyed him wryly.

“Ah, that was how London did receive the news; then the folk all tore their caps off and cried huzzah, and blessed her name. As I think you will too, sir, being a prudent man.”

“But …” said Nicholas.

At this moment Sir Walter emerged from the house and came springing nimbly down the steps, ready for his midmorning trot around the garden (per Joseph’s orders). Master Darrell peered at him, and it was his turn to gape.

“Sweet Jesu, man, thy beard is red! How hast thou grown young?”

“It is a restorative physick, recommended by my personal physician,” said Sir Walter airily. “Run along with me, for I may not stop, and I shall tell thee more.” Master Darrell clutched his hat and panted off after him. I tugged at Nicholas’s hand.

“My love, be of good cheer. The queen is old. A child is impossible.”

Horror was slowly dawning in his eyes. “But if she brings forth an heir to the Spanish prince, then farewell England’s liberty.”

“She won’t,” I said, treading on thin ice. “She can’t. I know it, love. She’ll die.”

“And what if she doth not die? Or what if she should die, and the child live?” Nicholas clenched my hand. “An infant crowned and the Inquisition to stand as regent over us all? This must not be.” His grip was painful. I wanted to tell him about Mary’s ovarian tumor and the hysterical symptoms, but all I could say was:

“Your God would not desert England so. Consider well, love, the late Queen Katherine bore but the one live child and that was Mary. All the rest died babies. Have faith. Pray.”

“I cannot pray for the death of a child,” said Nicholas wildly.

I racked my brains. “Hear me, love. My father has tended gentlemen of the Emperor’s court and heard them tell tales current there, from the very spies come from England. And the saying is, that the Queen is so troubled in her monthly courses, and so subject to swollen distemperatures of her womb, that they doubt she could have borne a babe even when she was young.”

“If the Emperor believed that, why did he send his son to marry the old cow?”

Well, that was a good question. “It’s only dropsy,” I said. “I’ll stake my life on it.”

“So thou mayest, and so may we all,” growled Nicholas.

Later we heard rumors he liked better: that beaten Spaniards were leaving the country in droves, having failed to make their fortunes in this unpleasant country, and that their prince wished bitterly he could go with them. All true, according to our radio commentator.

We poor Spaniards, though, were stuck in an English
winter
. The bare fields like a gray sea frozen. The sky all lowering slate. Lead, steel, silver weather. The smell was oppressive. I don’t mean that it stank, though there was a lot of death in the smell, and it wasn’t the normal mortal reek of men and beasts. It was a cold, black kind of smell. It urgently needed jolly wood smoke to cover it, and piercing sweet winds off the sea to carry it away.

Visually winter was beautiful, especially if seen from behind thick windows and with a good fire at your back. The bleaker it got, the more the mortals in the household seemed to want to go out and rush around in it, especially after the snow started. No wonder the damned things died.

Yes, snow utterly failed to charm me. On the day I first saw snow, the
Ilex tormentosum
was fruiting at last, and I had crunched through frozen puddles to get at it, had wrapped myself in every garment I possessed plus a cloak of Nef’s, smelling of goat though it did. For those sharp branches with their distinctive oblong berries I braved frostbite and an increasing atmospheric disturbance niggling at the edges of my sensory array. Nicholas, holding the basket beside me, looked perfectly comfortable in his ordinary clothes.

“This same holly we cut in the summer, I well recall,” he observed. “Why do you take it again? Is there a particular virtue in the berry?”

“Oh, yes.” I thought of diseases yet unnamed, in lands yet unknown. How to explain to him about Taxol, or
Vinca rosea?
“Blessed virtue. Their quality distilled will do more than garland they house at Christmas, I’ll tell thee. It’s said the common kind keeps witches out; these will keep out Death himself.”

“A likely story.” He shifted the basket to his other arm.

“Well, it’s true,” I grumped at him. “Would I be out here in this filthy cold to get them, if it were otherwise?”

“It maketh thee look a spirit.” He peered at me dreamily. “The leaves so green and the berries so red, and thy little blue hands and blue wrists and little angry blue face. I think if I tumbled thee under this green bush now, thou’d vanish like an ice cloud.”

“Then should Friar John find himself out in the cold.” I backed away a pace, just in case he intended to try it. Though he did look so handsome, with the frost bringing up the color of the good hot blood under his skin. He leaned down and lifted my chin in his own warm hand.

“Well, one must be prudent,” he said, and kissed me. He radiated such heat it was delicious, and I leaned in to him and we could have kissed and kissed like that forever. I could have, anyway. I suppose his back would have gotten tired. As we came apart to breathe, something drifted between us. It was followed by several other somethings, white and falling swiftly. It looked exactly like the excelsior we used to kick around in heaps near the transport pad at Terra Australis, from the supply crates that were unloaded there. Of course, this was impossible. I frowned at the things, which were dropping everywhere now, and said:

“Where are all the feathers coming from?”

Of course I knew my mistake as soon as one of them touched my bare skin, and a second later I blurted, “It’s snowing!” in dismay. I made a grab for my basket. But Nicholas had it, and he was staring at me in a mixture of alarm and delight.

“Thou knewest not what it was,” he said. “Thou hadst never seen it before.”

“Of course I have,” I lied, getting the basket away from him. I had seen it in movies and paperweights and holos, and I had even done a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of a winter landscape once, but it hadn’t prepared me for the reality. “I spake in jest. Come away now, quick. We must to the house.”

“Thou’rt frightened.” He paced along beside me, leaning down to look at me. “Sweetheart, it is but snow.”

“So it is; and even in England folk must have enough sense to come in out of it, must they not?” I came to the end of the hedge and could see no garden anymore; only outlines rapidly obscured by the flying white. I panicked. “Where is the house?” I wailed; then my infrared cut in, and of course the house was the flare of light seventy meters northwest. Nicholas at my side blazed like an angel. He reached out for me.

“Peace, love, peace!” he called. “Follow my hand.” But it was his light I followed, all the way back to Iden Hall. Contrary to the expectations fostered by literature and art, I) snow does not fall in beautiful crystal kaleidoscopic flakes, and 2) it does not fall silently. It sounds like rain, only stealthy.

“Still blue,” Nicholas marveled, helping me out of layers of cloak by the fire in the great hall. “They tell no lies that call thy Spanish gentry bluebloods.”

Actually in my case it was antifreeze, but I looked haughtily at him. “Well, I shall not so chill my blood again until the spring returneth. This snow is a horrible marvel.”

“Oh, but snow is a merry thing in England.” Nicholas spread out his hands to the fire. “Many jolly country pastimes may be had, at the year’s dark end. You may sled upon snow, or walk through snow to your neck deep, or make some defense and fight battles with snow. You may go skating on frozen millponds and with good fortune not drown.”

“
You
go skating on frozen millponds,” I told him firmly, and we kissed, right there in front of a servant that was bringing big logs into the hall, and parted then. I had risked my fingers for
Ilex tormentosum
, and it had to be preserved for the ages.

Nef’s room smelled like Nef’s cloak, only more so.

“And how is our patient today?” I inquired, holding my nose as I went in.

“He’s the sweetest, cleanest little baby in the world,” Nef said. “And he’s much better, thank you.”

He looked better, sitting there nibbling on a corner of the brocade coverlet. The Graft-O-Plast had come away from the wound, and fur was growing back; the horn buds were obdurately two, as nature intended, and not one, as the fantasy of man demanded. “How nice,” I said without enthusiasm. “Say, do you mind if I open a window while I work?”

“Yes.” She didn’t look up from the magazine she was reading. “It’s snowing, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

At least it was warm in there. She hated the cold even more than I did and had built up a roaring fire on the hearth. I opened my credenza and resolutely set out my specimen prep slides. “So, what are we listening to?” I nodded at the radio.

“Pierre Attaignant memorial concert,” Nef answered. “It’s been going on for hours.”

“Then I haven’t missed the news.”

“Nope.”

“I’ve never seen it snow before.” I switched on the ultravey.

“Lousy, isn’t it?”

That was yet another set of bransles
, a voice announced, sounding slightly desperate.
And with that we conclude this afternoon’s segment of our tribute to the most prolific publisher of dance music of his time. Our thanks to studio musicians Dorin, Mark, Lucan, and Aristaeus of Thebes. Now for the news
.

News story of the hour: the first snowfall of the season has begun over southern England. Those of you stationed up north, of course, have already been experiencing nippy weather, and more of the same is expected over the next two weeks, as the cold pattern settles in over northern Europe. If you’re having difficulties picking up our signal, we recommend you tune in at 9
PM
for our special program on how to construct amplifying antennas out of common household items
.

BZZZT! A burst of interference drowned Newsradio Renaissance.

“Sounds like you need to tune in to that one,” I remarked. The signal screeched and then came back:

Newsmaker of the Hour: Number one topic with the man in the street appears to be the unexpected return to England of Reginald, Cardinal Pole, after more than a quarter century in exile. A former humanist, this rabid Catholic has been petitioning the Queen since the start of her reign for absolute restoration to the Catholic Church of all monastic properties confiscated during the reign of Henry the Eighth. Since most of these are now in the hands of the private sector, Pole’s return is expected to galvanize resistance among members of the Council
.