In the Garden of Iden (7 page)

New game card: the Royal heirs, in order of their respective rights to the throne. Three stiff children with the coldest eyes in Christendom.

Protestant Edward, the boy king, soon to die, his prim face closed and folded shut.

Catholic Mary, sad old maid, with her bulldog face. She’d done a slow burn for years as she watched her father abuse her mother and her Church. She was shortly to get revenge in a big way.

Noncommittal Elizabeth, somber and alert, despised by the Catholics and Protestants alike for her mother’s disgrace. Cunning and cautious, she was destined to survive her siblings and inherit the throne. She was famous in our classrooms as one of the Exemplary Mortals, right up there with Charles Dickens. She hated war and wastefulness, and didn’t really give a damn what prayers people said as long as the economy thrived and nobody tried to dethrone
her
.

Yay, Elizabeth. I scanned for the current events I’d be concerned with.

1553, June. Edward is dying, lingering on in the last stages of heavy-metal poisoning administered by Mary’s adherents. He finally, horribly, dies, and then—

Oh, dear. After a messy interlude involving an abortive Protestant coup, Mary Tudor (a.k.a. Bloody Mary) would be crowned queen. She would make the mistake of assuming that her loyal subjects were all still true Catholics in their hearts, eager to forget the distasteful heretical interlude That Bitch had seduced her father into ordering. But, surprise: a whole generation had grown up sincerely Protestant, and wanted none of the old faith. Riots and rebellion would break out, and here I caught the names Wyatt and Dudley. In desperation, she’d begin burning her disobedient subjects at the stake, earning her nation’s everlasting hatred before she died.

But before she died, she’d marry a Catholic monarch in the hope that he’d (1) love her and (2) help her bludgeon the True Faith back into people’s hearts. Grimly she yearned for love. She was never to have any love out of him: but in the matter of religion he’d assist her ably.

For she was to marry Philip, most Catholic heir apparent to the throne of Spain, and when he came to England, he’d bring all his pet Inquisidors to share with her. A great respecter of the Holy Office, Philip. Very eager to discuss matters of faith with the English Protestants. They must have run out of secret Jews to burn.

I sat blinking, taking all this in. They were going to send me with Philip’s entourage. With all those Inquisidors. The Spanish were going to be as popular as smallpox with their English hosts, and I would be one of their number.

I
T WAS JULY
21, 1553. Clutching my wicker suitcase to my bosom, I made my way to the transit lounge.

Behind me, the ship blinked and hummed. People in flight-tech coveralls ran around with service hoses. There was no evidence there that time had passed: nothing had changed but me. Now I, too, was beyond change.

I dropped my luggage on a settle and collapsed beside it, pushing my hat to the back of my head so the long comb wouldn’t bore into my skull. I leaned back carefully. I was frightened.

This was sunny Spain, land of my birth. A concrete floor, stretching to the other side of the cavern. Three green couches set around a coffee table. A row of beverage-dispensing machines. I thought longingly of coffee and wondered why there were no cups on the stand. Then blared a voice from the steel box directly over my head.

“Botanist Mendoza, please report to the arrivals desk.”

I blundered to my feet and looked around. Not ten feet away, the clerk was putting down her microphone, looking straight at me. I glared at her and dragged my suitcase over.

“Reporting.”

“Please sign in. Your transport shuttle has arrived.”

I signed in. I put down the stylus and looked at her. She was buffing her nails. After a moment she glanced at me, as if surprised to see me there, and said:

“Up those stairs.”

I looked around. The stairs were steep, narrow, concrete, and rose into darkness. There was no hand rail. Cursing, I hitched up my skirts and struggled upward. The first few steps were littered with the debris of any transit area: snack wrappers, crushed paper cups. The treads had been painted green once. Traffic had worn a path through the paint, polished the cement to a greasy luster. Cement is one of the few things that look worse polished.

The light at the top of the stairs was out. I found the VIA panel by groping and flattened my palm against it for identification, hoping the panel wasn’t broken too. It whirred and clicked, but no door appeared. I turned to shout down that chimney of a stairwell but heard a gentle whoosh. The door swung open behind me. I stepped through.

I was standing on a rock terrace on a mountainside. Big tumbled boulders and cliffs of red stone sat there in utter silence. It was seven o’clock on a warm summer evening, and the sun was low in the sky. Air warm and heavy as milk, but clear: I could see range upon range of mountains stretching out before me to the horizon. Where the late sun slanted on them, they were red and gold. Where it did not, they were violet. A few stark trees, pines mostly, were aromatic in that calm air. I was shaking badly. It wasn’t supposed to be beautiful.

When I got my nerves together, I picked my way down from there. On a curve of road below me waited a coach. There were two horses standing patiently in harness. There was a small man talking to the horses.

He was the first mortal I’d seen in years. My transport shuttle had a mortal driver. I would have to put my life in mortal hands. He looked up and saw me. His eyes widened.

“Señorita!” He swept down low in a bow. “A thousand apologies! You are Doña Rosa Anzolabejar, whom I have been sent to meet?” That was my cover name. How nice that my one travel outfit was elegantly cut.

“I am even she,” I said in my snootiest Castilian, starting down the hill. “Pray fetch my luggage, if you will be so kind.”

“Immediately, señorita.”

While he bustled after my suitcase, I hastily scanned the coach. Mid-sixteenth-century model, built like a Conestoga wagon without appreciable springs. No structural defects, though, no weaknesses or excessive wear in the wheels. I scanned the horses: all eight shoes on tight, no flaws in the harness, placid healthy animals unlikely to bolt or fall over dead. Carefully the mortal brought my belongings down. He opened the wagon door and bowed again, extending a hand to help me in.

“Allow me, señorita.”

I took his hand gingerly. He was young, there were no traces of alcohol or toxic chemicals in his sweat, his vision was normal, heartbeat and pulse rate normal, muscular coordination above average. He did have an incipient abscessed tooth, but he wasn’t aware of it yet, so it wasn’t going to distract him from his task. He helped me in.

“Have we far to go, or shall we arrive before nightfall?” I inquired.

“It is not far to your father’s house, gracious Mistress. I will bring you there before moonrise.”

“I thank you, señor.”

He sprang up into the driver’s seat, and we rattled away. Dust billowed. We snaked along the road down out of the mountains. I tracked the landscape fearfully for bandits or other lower life forms but I found none, which was good. Nor had my mortal flown into any chest-pounding homicidal rages yet, nor was he being reckless and driving too fast. So far, okay.

Down, then, to a plain of wheatfields, spreading away empty. A single windmill stood black against the yellow sunset. Where were the dark and crooked streets? The gibbets? The bonfire smoke full of human ashes? This was mortal land, wasn’t it?

The sunset deepened to red, and another house appeared on the horizon. As we drew near, I saw people assembled by the front door. Some of them were mortal servants, peering in excitement at the coach. Four of them were my own kind, a man and two women standing together and one man who waited by the gate. He came forward smiling as the coach shook to a stop and I was handed down.

“My most beloved daughter, I am overwhelmed with joy to behold you again!” he cried, opening paternal arms. I made my deepest curtsey and began:

“Dearest and most reverend father, it is with the utmost delight—” Our eyes met, and I froze. It was the Biscayan. He blinked. His smile twisted up into his beard, just as it used to. “—that I return again to your loving care,” I concluded, and we embraced with seemly affection. I was as tall as he was. He took my arm, and we turned toward the house.

“And how did you find the Convent of the Sisters of Perpetual Study, my child?”

“Truly, Father, a right holy place, and the good sisters taught me so well that I am
everlastingly
in their debt. And in yours.” I shot him an arch glance. He just laughed, patting my arm. The servants were nodding and smiling and trying to make eye contact. I wondered if I was supposed to tip them or something.

The Biscayan waved at them. “Well, here she is, my daughter the most chaste Doña Rosa. You have seen her. Perhaps you will go home now?” They edged out of the yard, still smiling. “Anything for some excitement in their lives,” he told me sotto voce. “And here, my child, are the others of my household. This is your duenna, Doña Marguerita Figueroa. This is my housekeeper, Señora Isabel Sánchez. This is my secretary, Señor Diego López.”

They had been cast well. The duenna looked swarthily formidable, the housekeeper meek, and the secretary nearsighted. In reality they were a zoologist grade seven, a cultural anthropologist, and a systems technician first class.

“Doña Rosa, we welcome you,” said the secretary. We all turned to stare at the servants, who got the hint and took off at last down the road into the evening.

“You know, I never connected the name?” said the Biscayan. “Little Mendoza, all grown up! So welcome back to Spain. How the hell are you?”

“Immortal,” I said. “Glad to see you again. What happened, though, that you had to send a mortal with the transport? That startled me a bit. Regular driver busy?”

“Oh, Juan’s all right. He
is
the regular driver, you see. We hire a lot of mortals, it’s cheaper. Hey, everybody, I recruited this kid! Must have been, what, fifteen years ago? Small world, isn’t it?”

“Right now, anyway,” said my duenna. “Come on in, honey, and we’ll celebrate. Three whole chickens have been killed in your honor.”

“Plus there’s lots to brief you on,” said the housekeeper as we went in out of the night. “You’d heard the poor king of England died?”

“Yes, I heard that.”

“So Bloody Mary’s got the throne now, and there was the most awful debacle for the Protestants. Half the regents’ council is in prison already.” She led us into a room dark-lit by candles, where a table was nicely laid for five.

“Has she killed Lady Jane Payne yet?”

“Grey. Lady Jane Grey, the little Protestant claimant. No, but that’s coming.”

“Golly.” This was surreal. I was so nervous, I was tracking a radius of two miles, but the house was warm and the chicken tasted wonderful. We did it justice, postponing my briefing until the second bottle of Canary had been opened. My new father lounged back from the table and lifted his glass.

“To your first assignment, Mendoza. All the best.”

Everybody drank. Clearing my throat, I said:

“Thanks. You know, I never learned your real name.”

“I guess you didn’t, did you?” He looked amused. “My character’s name is Don Ruy Anzolabejar, but I’ve used Joseph as my real name for a long time now. Ms. Figueroa is known among us as Nefer, Ms. Sánchez uses Eva, and Mr. López has been Flavius for almost as long as I’ve been Joseph.” He pointed to each with his wineglass. “Good servants to a good master. You, of course, are my only child from an early marriage, and I am a humble physician who’s been knighted for certain discreet services to the Court. I inherited my fortune from an uncle who worked for the Holy Office a few years back.”

“Convenient.” I held out my glass, and Flavius topped up my wine.

“About the stuff you’re supposed to be growing in the back area?” he said. “I have my matrices set up there, but I can move them in a couple of days.”

“Am I growing things?” I looked at Joseph.

“You are, as a matter of fact,” he said. “This time”—he popped open his chronophase and peered at it—“next year, we’ll be in England on our various little missions. We have twelve months to get ready. You’re supposed to come up with an exotic plant as a gift for an Englishman.”

“What’s our objective over there, anyway?” I said, sipping my wine nonchalantly and trying to sound like all the spy novels I’d ever accessed.

“Black-faced sheep!” said Nefer with enthusiasm. She was the zoologist. “We’re going after genetic material for the original breeds that won’t be around much longer. Well,
I’m
going after them. You’re going some place called, what was it, Joseph? Iden City?”

“Iden’s Garden,” he explained. “Country estate in Kent. Kind of a private botanical garden and zoo. This guy Iden is a retired gentleman who’s nuts for collecting rarities. He’s got some that are even rarer than he thinks. That’s
your
game. We’re bribing him to let us come in and take specimens. It would be a nice gesture if you came up with a suitable gift for the man. A showy new plant for his collection, maybe. Something splashy, exotic, impressive.”

“Like?” I had another swallow of the wine. It was heady stuff.

“How should I know? You’re the botanist.”

“Oh.” Light dawned. “Right. Improvise. Okay, I’ll get going on it tomorrow.”

“Good. You’ve got a year.”

“But, really, is this Englishman just going to let a bunch of Spaniards come in and ransack his private garden in exchange for a new plant? Is that enough of a bribe? Won’t the English hate us, because of all the burnings?”

“Relax.” Joseph spread out his fingertips. “We’re offering him a lot more than one potted palm, believe me. All will be goodwill and brotherly love where we are, you’ll see. The fix is in, Mendoza. That’s what a facilitator does. Our traveling arrangements are already made, I’ll have you know.”

“That was neat.” Eva put down her glass in surprise. “The marriage negotiations haven’t even started yet.”

“Nah. The Court has seen this coming for years. You want to know something? When the couriers rode in with the news of Edward’s death, back on the eighth? Within forty-eight hours, no less than three noblemen I personally know sold their estates: land, dogs, and all. The reason? They figure they’ll be able to pick up much better places in England, cheap.”

“No wonder the English will be sore.” Flavius shook his head. “They don’t like invaders, let me tell you.”

“Ah, the lure of barbarian lands for the civilized entrepreneur.” Joseph reached for a toothpick. “When Philip the passionate pilgrim sails, there’ll be one hundred and one Spanish ships crossing the channel, kind of a marital Armada, with (get this)
eight thousand
predatory hidalgos on board, to say nothing of their cooks, confessors, catamites, and”—he placed a theatrical hand on his heart—“personal physicians. Of which I shall be one. Don Alvarado has asked me already if I’ll accompany him on the great adventure. He’s the one I fixed up with penicillin, remember? I said I’d be happy to go if I could take my household. He said, Why not? He’s bringing his confectioner and Señor Moreno. The Emperor is making noises about no women being allowed on the voyage, but nobody’s taking him seriously.”

“I hope you’re bringing more penicillin,” snickered Flavius.

“Hey, this isn’t the Armada that gets wrecked, is it?” asked Nefer in sudden alarm.

“They call me El Señorito Milagro,” mused Joseph.

“No, no,” Eva assured Nefer. “That’s about thirty years down the line. You remember,
Fire over England
, Dame May Robson as Elizabeth?”

“Raymond Massey as Philip. With Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh.” Nefer relaxed. “Okay.”

“Isn’t that the holo where they burn Atlanta?” Flavius grinned at her. He looked over at me. “I’ll clean out that back area tomorrow,” he promised. “Next week at the latest.”