In the Garden of Iden (9 page)

“England at last!” cried Eva. She was all afire; she’d been to the British Isles before and actually liked the climate. I gathered from Flavius that that was fairly unusual for our operatives. I went to the window and looked out miserably.

“Next week, eh?” Flavius shook his head. “The diant units won’t be ready by then. I have to grow the matrices.”

“You what?” Joseph stopped eating. “You’ve had months!”

“Grow them too long before you’re going to use them, and they dry out.” Flavius shrugged. “They have to be fresh.”

“Dear friend. Old colleague. You get me four working credenzas for England, or I’ll personally see to it that you get posted to Greenland for a couple of generations.”

“I can try. I can’t promise.”

“Remember when we used to get stork all the time?” intervened Eva tactfully. “And swan? Nobody ever serves swan anymore.”

“You’d
better
promise. You’d better do a green invoice if you have to, understand?” Joseph slammed his fist on the table, but Flavius went right on eating. Joseph growled and clenched both hands in his hair, as if to tear out handfuls. The others ignored him. Eva sighed and reaccessed
Tirant
. She was getting lots more out of it than I had.

“Down on my knees at Court every day kissing the hems of cassocks, and are they grateful? Riding over every rock in the road between here and Madrid, and does anyone care?” ranted Joseph. He didn’t give a rat’s ass really about the credenza parts, he was just being theatrical. He did that a lot. Isometric exercises to maintain human emotions, I think. I didn’t understand then, but I’ve since learned.

After banging his head against the table a few times, he picked up his knife and continued: “Anyway, I’ve sent letters to our Paid Friends about housing. Nef, I’m sorry, but there’s going to be a delay in your posting. You’ll go on standby with us in Kent.”

“Hell!”

“They won’t be ready for you in Northumberland until next year. I’m sure you’ll find something to do in Kent during your layover. That’s life in the service, kid.”

There were clouds boiling up into the sky beyond the thick little panes of glass. A storm was coming, and I wanted to go see.

“What about me?” Flavius wanted to know. “I suppose I’m getting sent to London. Again.”

I put a shawl around my shoulders and went out the kitchen door.

God, the wind, how it scoured and lay flat the little green herbs of the garden: they cowered. The maize tottered and staggered. Beyond the low wall the wheat danced with the wind, all song and combat. It moved and moved like the sea, with the rustle and scream of stiff silk.

I pushed the gate open and walked out into it, finding the rows with my feet, meaning at first just to leave the sounds of the house behind me. Oh, but the clouds that massed in the East were beautiful. They were domed cities and explosions, such meteorological violence touched with the tenderest colors, pink and lavender and fathomless blue. So soft-looking a home for howling angels with flaming swords.

I could never get any nearer that place, though I kept walking, though it moved endlessly toward me out of the sky. In the sough and boom and murmur of the wind it came, and each stalk of wheat circled through its endless are among the millions of stalks that nodded all around me. The colors in the clouds glowed brighter. Something was about to happen. I wanted to see it happen.

The wind was hot and smelled of orange trees, distant. It smelled of green-cut hay. It smelled of rain and fever. What was going to happen?

Suddenly the wind fell. Click, on cue the summer crickets started up. Then I heard a hoarse cry from far away:

“Mendoza! What in hell are you doing?”

I turned to scowl at them. They were crowded together at the door, staring out at me in consternation. I had left the house farther behind than I’d thought. Joseph opened his mouth to shout again; but the blue flash came and with it the thunder, like barrels rolling downstairs. Rain began to fall, a few big hot drops. There came another blue flash.

I covered that half mile in seconds and stood beside them, trembling, and they pulled me in through the door and slammed it. I stood there in the storm gloom, and they stared at me, their faces shut like books. Joseph was the only one who spoke.

“How about a little talk, Mendoza?” he said. “Upstairs, in the rec room. Now.”

God, how embarrassing. I had to follow him up the stairs and sit still while he ran a diagnostic. He said nothing to me while it was running, and I noted the blankness in his eyes. He’d looked just like that when he worked for the Inquisition.

But I tested out normal. He leaned back and looked at me, and let a little human irritation show in his face.

“So, were you trying to get yourself fried? No problem with your evaluation of hazard data, and you knew damn well what those meteorological changes meant. So what’s your excuse for generating a Crome field out there, hm?”

“I wasn’t!”

“Yes, you were, kiddo, in about a five-meter radius. And if you think this is a way to get yourself sent back to base for repairs so you can get out of going to England, forget it.”

“I swear I wasn’t!” I was stung. Also intrigued. Was it possible to duck duty that way? Joseph read in my face what I was thinking (one picks up that knack working for the Holy Office) and shook his head grimly.

“Don’t even think about it. We’re not supposed to malfunction. Dr. Z will excuse you for crying wolf once or twice, but you’ll be disciplined. You won’t like that. If you’re really in need of repairs this early in your career, that’s a bigger problem. You won’t like the solution to that either.”

“Look, I just wanted to look at the storm. It was neat. I didn’t do anything wrong. I got out of there the second it got really dangerous, didn’t I? So I throw a little Crome when I’m excited. How was I to know that? It’s not in my specs. It must have developed since I was posted. I’m only eighteen.”

He nodded. “It happens, every now and then. The Company doesn’t like it, but it does happen.”

“Well, if I’m glitched, it’s not my fault, is it? They made me. And what can they do to me if I’m not all up to standard anyway? I’m immortal.”

He wasn’t smiling. “They’ll find a way to use your talents. The Company never wastes anything. But let’s just say it’s not a career choice you’d ever want to make.”

This was distinctly scary. There were stories I’d heard about flawed agenst.

“Look, I tested out normal!” I said in a panic. “I’m sure I’m all right.”

“Don’t let me down, Mendoza,” he said. “I recruited you, remember? If it wasn’t for me, you’d be out there in the zoo with the rest of them.”

“What do you want me to do?” I could feel sweat starting. There was a creepy sense of déjà vu to this conversation.

“Watch yourself. Don’t do anything dumb. Be the best little agent you can be, and you’ll probably do fine.” He decided to lighten up. “To let you in on a secret, nearly every operative I’ve known has had one or two little kinks. Most can function well enough so there’s no trouble. Most.”

“What about yourself? Are you flawed?”

“Me?” He smiled. “Hell no. I’m perfection itself.”

O
N THE APPOINTED
day we closed up the house, sent away the servants, and rode in the coach, miles and miles and horrific bumping miles through Spain. Days it took us. There were problems with axles and horses. The windows were too small to see much of the passing scenery, which was a comfort to me when we passed into Galicia, because I feared I might feel a pulling, a homesickness or something, and I was now determined to be the most dependable operative the Company ever had. But what little I could see of Galicia looked pretty much like everywhere else. Mostly it just jolted and danced beyond the wooden frame of the window.

And we came to La Coruña on the seacoast, and it stank.

It stank of the lives of mortal men, but also of the deaths of fish, and of rotting, leaking little ships. The crowded stone town was filled, it was true, with sunlight and air, and a brisk breeze snapped the banners in the rigging of the ships, and there were big joyful clouds white as snow in the blue sky. But the town still reeked.

I crawled out of the coach, took one look at the little ships, and yelled in horror.

“We have to go all the way to England in one of
those
?” I gasped. Joseph put his face close to mine.

“Daughter,” he said quietly. “Dear. When we board our particular ship, you will notice immediately a number of alarming structural flaws. Do not, I implore you, broadcast this fact to your fellow passengers, the ship’s crew, or anyone else you can think of, because if you do, you will be sent directly to the Convent of No Return. Your affectionate father is quite serious. For your spiritual comfort, I can tell you that it is a matter of historical record that the good ship
Virgin Mary
will not sink until the year of Our Lord fifteen hundred and fifty-nine, when neither you nor any of our party will be aboard. Therefore, my child, a silent and discreet botanist has the best chance of not being throttled on her way to the lamentably heretic island of England.”

“Okay, okay,” I muttered.

“I came over in a galley my first time,” remarked Flavius. “What a panic.”

“Cheer up,” Eva told me. “Look at all the courtiers! Look at all the clothes!”

Look at all the clothes indeed. The cream of the Prince’s court was walking all around us, and it was as if all the cloth merchants of Cathay, Antwerp, and Italy were having a trade war in the streets. All the jewelers, too. Such gold tissue, such brocade and velvet, trimmed silk, figured satin! Such colors! Orange-tawney and sangyn. Primrose. Willow. Peach. Gingerline. Popinjay. Slashes, sashes, and dashes. Peasecods and pansied slops. Picardiles and epaulets. Shoe roses. These were the bright young things, the new generation, not the gloomy old intriguers of the Emperor’s court.

There were courtiers walking their little dogs. Courtiers gossiping and sniffing at pomanders. Courtiers in tight silk hose showing off their calves to very attentive sailors. Courtiers directing the loading of their baggage, with screams of alarm for their sweet wines, their sugared comfits, their gold plate. A pair of them, male and female, paraded by in complimenting shades of emerald sewn with pearls.

“I want their clothes,” I moaned under my breath.

“I do too,” Eva moaned back.

“You don’t really. Can you imagine the body lice?” observed Nefer. We glared at her.

Joseph ignored us all and scanned the harbor for our ship. Given the absolute forest of masts and rigging, and the fact that the
Virgin Mary
turned out to be a popular name for ships that year, he was not having an easy time of it. We stood there, clustered protectively around our crates of disguised field gear, and the absurd mortal carnival flowed by on all sides. Just as Joseph thought he had located our particular
Virgin Mary
among the rest, there was a blare of trumpets. All heads turned.

Shouting. People scrambling back.

Make way! Make way for His Royal Highness, the elect of Princes in the whole of Christendom, the most Catholic Philip, Infante of Aragon, Castile, and Brabant, King of Jerusalem, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Milan and Burgundy, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and the Tyrol, Defender of the Faith!

Boom. We all went down on our knees.

And I think a cloud must have crossed the face of the sun, for there was a sudden darkness and coldness. It could hardly have come from the man riding there among his pikemen and priests. He was not even wearing black. Yet we all looked involuntarily to see what was casting the chilly shadow that he was.

But really, now. How could I or anyone else have seen anything that day but a handsome young prince riding to meet his intended bride? Handsome, that is, if you found the barracuda Hapsburg looks appealing. And it is true that the bride he was riding to was nearly forty and no beauty. So maybe he did look a little gloomy. But evil? Did we really see mortal evil somehow incarnate there?

Of our journey, the less said the better. It took us over a week. I will tell you, though, that I would rather spend a month in the dungeons of the Inquisition than a day under hatches. Any time.

Not soon enough, we crossed the channel.

England was gray curtains of rain. When the salvo came booming across the water, all the women belowdecks and some of the men shrieked and wept. Joseph looked up from the detective novel he was reading.

“We must be in Southampton Water,” he remarked. “That’s probably the English warning us to lower our flags.”

“Good old Britain,” grunted Flavius.

“I want to see!” Eva leaped to her feet. “Anybody else want to come?”

I was only too glad to get some air, so we found our way above decks and peered out from under an overhang.

Mist and drizzle. Lots of ships. Some Flemish vessels. Men shouting across the water. It began to rain harder.

“There’s England!” Eva was all excited. “The Groves of Amadis!” I peered out but could see nothing distinctly. Rain pocked the surface of the sea, streamed from the ropes and rigging. Sailors shouldered past us, giving us to understand that we had picked the most inconvenient spot on the ship to watch the rain.

“Let’s go inside,” I shouted in Eva’s ear. “It’s too wet.” She nodded, and we went back below, lifting our skirts well clear of the pools of vomited wines and sugared comfits. So much for England.

We made landing as darkness fell with more rain, but remained on board that night because the English wouldn’t let us come ashore. As we understood it, no Spaniard was allowed to set foot on English soil until Philip himself was officially granted permission; and his serene shadowy Highness was prostrate seasick in his own cabin on the
Holy Ghost
. It was the first inkling a lot of those grandees had that they were in another world entirely. Here was Mary, longing to see her royal intended, and these sons of merchants were telling her whom she could and couldn’t have setting foot on the soil of her own country!

The following day, the Prince had recovered himself enough to meet the great golden barge of state when it arrived. We all crowded up on deck to watch the distant scene. Eva quoted ecstatically to herself about burnished poops. Through windy sheets of sunlight and rain we saw the green-and-white figures of the bargemen bring the barge up alongside the
Holy Ghost
. Stiff little gesturing figures in scarlet: those must have been the English lords. Someone descended into the barge from the
Holy Ghost
; shade and dimness, an abrupt fog. Yes, Philip must have boarded. Guns boomed in salute. We all ducked involuntarily.

The golden barge was rowed to shore, and for a while nothing happened, so a lot of people on deck got bored and went below. Eva and I, thus able to see better, were the only witnesses when the wedding party disembarked and took horses on shore. I made out Philip, on a mare with red trappings. Then they all rode off into the countryside, and I swear there was darkness spreading behind them like exhaust smoke.

That was the last I saw of Philip of Spain but not, I regret, of his shadow.

We still weren’t allowed to go ashore until the following day, by which time we’d have killed for solid ground under our feet. After hours of jockeying around, we got somebody to row us in with our baggage, under a freezing mist.

“It’s July, for crying out loud,” I murmured, watching the quay draw nearer. “Doesn’t it ever stop raining in this country?”

Flavius just laughed sadly, but Eva said:

“July fifteenth was St. Swithin’s Day. The English have a traditional belief that if it rains then, it’ll rain for the next forty days.”

“I guess it rained then, huh?” said Nefer, wringing out a corner of her shawl.

“What ho!” boomed a voice in English as we bumped up to the landing. “Two fine magnificoes and their ladies with trains of Spain, all wet. How like you our English weather, Grandees?”

There was a chorus of nasty English laughter, and we looked up defensively, but the speaker was one of our own. A big blond man in a leather hood, he was standing at the front of the crowd with arms akimbo.

Welcome to goddam Sherwood to you too
, transmitted Joseph sourly.

Careful. These people are ready to lynch you, they’re so frightened. Let’s play this scene as a comedy, shall we?

Comedy? All right. One order of broad slapstick served hot
. Joseph stood up in the boat and stretched out his arms.

“Por favor, good Señor Englishman, will you not offer us some assistance in conveying our baggage to shore? We have much gold and will pay you well.”

“Aye, that thou wilt, I doubt it not.” Our representative grinned broadly around at the English, wink wink, who were watching us like vultures. “We’ll convey thy Spanish gold any day of the year, will we not, my hearts?” They all laughed appreciatively, and Joseph climbed up the creaking ladder. Our man put out a hand to help him up.

“Ay, Señor, muchas gracias, muchas—” Joseph broke off as they did the stunt: the operative, appearing to assist Joseph, tripped him, and Joseph went rolling neatly into a mud puddle with loud Hispanic cries of distress. Nefer and Eva stood on cue, screaming shrilly, and the assembled mob howled with mirth. Several dropped the stones they’d had ready to pitch at us. We weren’t dangerous: we were only comic foreigners, after all.

“Oh, sir, you have rolled in horse dung.” The operative went to raise Joseph with a great show of concern. “I am most heartily sorry for it. Let me take you to a fine clean inn I know of where belike you’ll have a fine sea-coal fire for drying your fleece, I mean your cloak. Rates very reasonable, sir.” The word
fleece
had its subliminal effect on the crowd, and they went off to range along the quay, where other wretched Spaniards were attempting to come ashore.

Nice tumble. You okay?
The operative leaned down to Joseph, shaking his hand.
Xenophon
,
facilitator seventh class. Welcome to England
. Between them, he and Flavius got our baggage loaded into an oxcart, while the rest of us stood shivering and looking around.

I can remember being astonished at how green everything was. Electric green, glowing emerald-green, green growing out of the cracks between the stones, and green crowding in the gardens. Looming tunnels of green trees and green meadows rolling away that pulsed against the eye, they were so green. In Spain and Australia what passed for spring was a sedate olive season compared to this, and it made the green of the tropics look dried out. No wonder the English had a reputation for rowdiness. They must have been drunk on pure oxygen their whole lives.

The other thing that impressed me was the persons of the English themselves. They were the tallest people I’d ever seen and uniformly, man, woman, and child, had skin like rose petals. I saw a grandmother holding up a toddler to curse at us: the old woman’s face was no less white under pink than the baby’s, and her cheek only a little less smooth. I felt swarthy, with my freckles and Spanish sunburn.

We clambered into the oxcart, and Xenophon drove away with us, chatting subvocally the while. We learned he was taking us to a Company safe house disguised as an English country inn. I could have cried when we pulled up in front of the Jove His Levin Bolt, with the Company insignia carved into its beam ends, and were shown upstairs to private quarters. I saw my first flush toilets in over a year. I leave it to you, whoever you are, to imagine the bliss of a hot shower after so many unspeakable days in the hold of a ship.

When we assembled in the briefing lounge, steamy and as clean as we were going to be for a long while, Xenophon was sitting with a big tray of food and drinks and our assignment dockets. We found seats while he poured out tankards of room-temperature beer and passed them to us.

“Welcome, everyone. Here’s a classic English ploughman’s lunch for each of you along with our local beer. We brew our own, by the way. We think it’s pretty good. Please feel free to eat while we talk; this is all informal. Well, now.” He cleared his throat. “I guess you heard some of the things people were shouting at you as we drove along.”

“I did get the impression they weren’t exactly happy to see us,” Nefer said and blew her nose.

“Yes, that’s pretty close to it. The thing to remember is, they’re just as frightened of you as you are of them. And the law is technically on your side, if one of them attacks you without reason, though of course I imagine you’re all too good at keeping low profiles for that kind of situation to develop. If you’re from Spain, you may be expecting the same muscle from the local law enforcement you’d have at home. Not the case here. Robin Hood stories notwithstanding, you’ll have a fairly hard time getting hold of any sheriff to help you in this shire if you get robbed. So
don’t
get robbed. Exercise caution. Any of you operatives who’ve been here before—you, I think?” He nodded at Flavius, who nodded back. “Yes, well, you’re familiar with the crime in urban London. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll be safer in the country. You’re much more visible here, particularly those of you with darker skins. People are frightened, ignorant, and superstitious, so you might as well have targets painted on your backs. Travel fast and keep your heads down. London in fact is pretty cosmopolitan these days, so you’re less likely to have your throat cut for racial reasons, though of course you still run the risk of having it cut for your purse.