Sword of the Lamb (30 page)

Alexand shook his head, as if he could shake off the feeling of uncertainty. “But why, Rich?”

“Not because of any sympathy for star-crossed lovers. It’s very simple. We protect and aid the liberal Houses whenever and however we can. That includes Woolf and Eliseer. Eliseer is of particular interest to us for the same reason it is to Father. Loren Eliseer is the strongest Lord in the Centauri System and the best hope for keeping Orin Selasis out of Centauri. Woolf and Galinin and the Phoenix have one thing in common, Alex: we all recognize Selasis as a threat to the stability and survival of the Concord. So, to protect Centauri and bolster Eliseer, the Phoenix encourages an alliance with DeKoven Woolf, with the future Chairman. Is that so unreasonable?”

Alexand took a long breath and let it out slowly. “The people responsible for this gambit—tell them for me, whatever their motives, I’m grateful. Perhaps the day will come when I can express it in more than words.”

Rich smiled obliquely. “Perhaps it will.”

“And Rich—” Alexand closed his eyes against the burning in them, wondering why he was trembling. “Rich, if this . . . this hope is realized, I know one thing: I’ll never give her up again. Not for anything.”

“A spirit weft,” Rich said with a long sigh. “That’s what the Shepherds would call it: a bond of souls. A spirit weft can’t be broken. It’s more than a life vow. It holds into the Beyond.”

Alexand nodded. “Then I’m so bound.”

“Dr. Lile, my head is aching with all this effort.” Adrien Eliseer waved off the reading screen and rose, noting the brief disequilibrium. Strange that it always seemed to take longer to
re
adjust to Castor’s lighter gravity than to adjust to Terra’s. “Come, let’s go out on the terrace. I’ll ’com Mariet for tea. I don’t think I can bear to look at one more sporozoa or phytoplankton.”

Lile Perralt’s lined face crinkled with his smile. “It’s mind-boggling. Adrien, I’ll admit.”

“That’s not very encouraging. I’d never have enrolled in this microbio class if I didn’t think I could depend on you to get me over the rough spots.” She touched a button on the desk comconsole. “Mariet?”

After a moment, Mariet’s face appeared on the screen. “Yes, my lady?”

“Tea for Dr. Perralt and me, please, in my suite.”

“A few minutes, my lady.”

“Thank you.” She turned and took Perralt’s arm as they walked out onto the terrace. “I only have two days before classes resume, and of course VonHart scheduled the test on the first day. You’d think he’d have more respect for the Concord Day holiday.”

Perralt laughed. “Postholiday tests are an age-old tradition, Adrien, and it was your error to count on me to get you over these particular rough spots. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a biology textape.”

Adrien went to the terrace railing and looked up at the blue-black sky and the faint sprinkling of stars visible beyond the sheen of the atmobubbles. In spite of the ‘bubbles, the morning light cast black shadows and narrowed her eyes into a reflexive squint. In the distance, seemingly impaled on Helen’s towering, needle-slim buildings, hung the blue crescent of Pollux.

She turned, watching Perralt as he sat down in one of the chairs under the striped umbrella shading the table, noting the care with which he moved. He was perfectly all right, only a few years older than he liked to admit—so he answered all her anxious inquiries.

She smiled as he looked up at her. “Dr. Lile, you’ve been very patient with me, but I think I’ve learned my lesson. Science isn’t my forte.”

“Don’t be so modest. You’re doing very well, and I’ve heard of VonHart. He has a reputation for—” He stopped, looking toward the salon at the sound of footsteps. Then he rose.

Adrien’s eyes widened questioningly as Lord Loren Eliseer walked out onto the terrace. It was unusual for him to take time in the midst of his workday for a casual visit, and she knew this would be a crowded day. He’d stayed in Concordia another day after the rest of the family departed and had just returned yesterday evening. She went to him, turning up her cheek for the expected paternal kiss.

“Well, this is a delightful surprise, Father. We’re having some tea. Will you join us?”

“No tea for me, Adrien, but I will join you for a short while. Hello, Dr. Perralt.”

“Good morning, my lord. Uh . . . perhaps you’d like to speak with Lady Adrien alone.”

“No, Doctor. Please—sit down.” He took a chair across from Perralt at the table, and Adrien approached slowly, studying her father, wondering at the light in his blue eyes, the slight flush that always colored his fair skin when he was pleased or angry. And she knew he wasn’t angry.

“In fact, Doctor,” he said, “I think it particularly fitting that you should be here, since Adrien calls you her second father.”

Perralt glanced at Adrien. “I’m flattered, my lady.”

“It’s true, Dr. Lile, you know that.” She sat down at the table, eyeing Eliseer. “What’s this all about, Father?”

“Whatever do you mean? Is it so strange for me to pay a visit to my daughter?”

“It’s strange in the middle of a busy day, and strange when you’re grinning as if you’d just discovered the secret of turning sand into gold.”

He laughed ruefully as he reached into the inner pocket of his doublet. “Such a suspicious nature she has, Doctor.”

“I’ve learned deception is futile with her, my lord.”

“Indeed, and I wouldn’t attempt it.” He had a flat, leather-bound case in his hand. Adrien felt a chill at the back of her neck; the case was scarlet, with the eagle crest of DeKoven Woolf embossed in gold on the top.

“Father, what . . . what is it?”

“Well, it seems this just arrived by special messenger from Concordia.” When she made no move to take it from him, he put it on the table before her. “It’s for you, Adrien.”

She knew she was pale, and she couldn’t control the trembling of her hands as she reached for the case and cautiously opened it. A folded slip of vellam fluttered to the floor, but she was too distracted to notice it.

A lining of black velvet; inscribed in the lid, initials shaped in a golden, intertwining scroll: A.C.E. and A.DeK.W. And, resting in a precise circle in the bottom of the case, glinting against the velvet, a necklace.

She gazed at it numbly. The delicate chain was beaded with pearls, and attached to it with a cluster of golden, pearl-dewed leaves, was a tear-drop stone a full three centimeters long, a magnificent, fiery stone with a blue cast, transmuting the sunlight into a shower of rainbow flashes. When it came to her that it was a diamond, she could only stare at it in bewilderment.

“Father . . . ?”

“It’s an old custom, Adrien.” He smiled as he handed her the vellam that had slipped from the case. “Here. I rather imagine this will make everything clear.”

She unfolded the sheet, feeling the wrenching quickening of her pulse as she recognized the straight, spare handwriting.

Adrien—

Now I can say it, even put it down on vellam with no fear of consequences, and I find no words adequate. But you know my heart and mind, and can read past the words. The vows—the public vows—will be said and sanctioned later, but I’ve already taken my own life vow, a vow to love my lady until death. Thus this gift, asked by custom, offered in love. Pearls because they suit you, diamond for immutability. Never doubt I love you, Adrien, and I always will. . . .

“Alexand . . .” She wasn’t aware of reading the name aloud, nor at first of her father’s soft laughter. She looked up at him pleadingly.

“What does this mean?”

“It means you’ve just received the traditional betrothal gift, and in two weeks, you’ll go to Concordia to take your vows and become the Promised of the Lord Alexand.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks, falling onto the vellam; she closed her eyes to hold them back.

Alexand, all the vows are already made
. . . .

A marriage of destiny.

On the evening of 30 Octov 3250, the vidicom screens brimmed with the betrothal ball at the DeKoven Woolf Estate, and the society commentators agreed unanimously, and repetitiously, that it was a marriage of destiny.

The newscasters and vidicam crews were excluded from the betrothal ceremony at the Cathedron, but the guests were inventoried in detail on their arrival. They represented all the Houses of the Directorate, and included the Chairman himself, and every Cognate House of DeKoven Woolf and Camine Eliseer. The vows were blessed by none other than the High Bishop, the Revered Archon Simonidis.

The ball following the ceremony attracted over a thousand guests, and was open to the ecstatic ’casters, all of whom gave glowing accounts of the
Cotilonna
, the stately circle dance that traditionally marked the betrothal of Elite couples, a dance in which the Promised pair and their parents formed a small circle within the concentrically larger ones of the assembled guests. It was reported that never had such a handsome trio of couples graced the inner circle of the
Cotilonna
: the betrothed pair themselves; the dark-haired Lady Galia and as a perfect foil, Lord Loren, fair and blond; the Lord Woolf, elegantly austere, and, of course, the recognized reigning beauty of the Concord, the Lady Elise.

The reporters catalogued the entertainments, the refreshments, the décor—the theme was gold, the huge ballroom was resplendent with it—and dwelt lovingly on the costumes, noting every nuance of detail. The betrothal ring and the fabulous blue diamond betrothal gift each rated a full five minutes in some accounts.

But if any of the casters noticed that soon after the
Cotilonna
the Promised couple was no longer in evidence in the ballroom, no mention of it was made. There were other couples to note and speculate about, especially Lord Karlis Selasis and Serra Janeel Shang, the Lady Adrien’s cousin.

But there was general agreement that it was, beyond a doubt, as Frer Simonidis reiterated, a very auspicious occasion.

On my immortal soul, I take this vow for life and unto death
. . .

Alexand listened to the sound of their footfalls on the slate walk and the soft whisper of the eucalypt leaves moved by a wind cool in the spring night. Adrien Eliseer would grace the House of DeKoven Woolf as Elise Galinin graced it, and she would grace his life; she would be a wellspring of strength, as Rich was, mentor and balance wheel, another linked-twin soul.

He looked down, watching the dappled moonlight moving across her quiet face as she walked beside him under the arc of his arm. This he would never forget: Adrien as she was now, as she was when she stood beside him before the Cathedron’s magnificent Altar of Lights. She was all in gold, a gown of a gossamer material that shimmered in the currents of her slightest movement; a veil trailed behind her, a golden cloud caught in a brocaded koyf framing her face, edged in pearls that seemed to take warmth from her skin. At her throat the pearl-flowered diamond caught the muted light.

It would be nearly three years before this vow was finalized, but the legal covenant was already made in the Contracts of Marriage and given religious sanction tonight. The Church marriage ceremony would be only a formality to give the union the sanction of tradition.

But he didn’t wish that final sanction done now, not while Confleet held him bonded. He would endure these next years so he could take his Promised to wife free of the invisible chains, the nightmares that haunted his sleep. First Alber, and now he could add to his mnemonic catalog of horrors the Delai Omer uprising in Coben only three days ago. And in Coben he had been a good soldier; a good, unthinking, unquestioning soldier. If only he could also be an unremembering soldier.

“What is it, Alex?”

Even the fleeting memories created a tension that transmitted itself to her.

“It’s . . . not important; not now.”

“It’s something you don’t want to talk about.”

He shrugged. “Yes.”

She was silent for a while, then with a long sigh she rested her head against his shoulder.

“So, it’s finally done. I wonder when I’ll believe it.”

He smiled at that. “Frer Simonidis calls it done, and it would be nearly blasphemous to question his word.”

That called up a short laugh. “I’d rather take old Malaki’s word. He calls it a Rightness.”

“Or a spirit weft?”

She looked up at him. “Yes, he used that term. Where did you learn it?”

“From Rich.”

She nodded, smiling to herself. “I wonder what the Shepherds call him. A holy man, no doubt, and they’d be right. Thank the God he can be here now. I don’t think I could call it properly done without him.”

He drew her closer, savoring the calm of the night. “Nor could I.”

“How long will he be staying?”

“A week. Until my leave ends; my special dispensation from Confleet.”

That last word seemed to create a silence, a shadow.

“Alex, I . . .” She hesitated, then shook her head. “I can’t find the words for what I want to say. It’s Rich and you, and Confleet, and I know it’s breaking your heart. I want to stop the pain somehow, but I . . . can’t.”

He stopped and looked down into her dark, somber eyes, his arm still resting on her shoulder.

“I know, nor can I stop all your pain. Sharing only doubles the pain, really, and yet it makes it easier to bear. A paradox, that.”

Her eyes didn’t leave his, nor did she smile, and the moon shadows moved softly across her face.

“Too much,” she said after a long pause. “Too much is asked of you. Too much to accept; too much to tolerate. I wonder if you won’t reach a breaking point.”

He felt himself going pale, something chill in the wind. “I won’t break.”

“No. But you’re damned with a conscience and open eyes. A dangerous combination.”

He took her hand and looked down at the ring he’d put on her finger only hours ago. Ruby and sapphire; Woolf and Eliseer. A life vow. And a hope; a desperate hope.

“Three more years, Adrien. I should be able to survive that.”

“And will it all be over then?”

He hesitated. “I don’t think past that.”

“No.” She pressed his hand to her cheek. “Forgive me, love. I’ve learned one lesson in life, but for the moment I forgot it. Joy must be taken in the present tense. We can remember the past and imagine the future, but we
live
here in the present. And Alex . . .” Tears brimmed in her eyes, and he couldn’t at first resolve them with the laughter, warm as sundrenched earth. “Alexand, my lord, this present is so full of joy for me, it spills over into both past and future.”

He touched her cheek, wet with tears, and felt the tears in his own eyes. “And for me. Joy enough to see me through any future.”

He made no conscious decision to kiss her; still, there was no surprise that it happened. He closed his eyes, hearing the soft wind in the trees, remembering and imagining, and holding this moment; holding the awareness of this linked-twin soul, of her whole being, mind and body.

“Never doubt I love you, Adrien.”

“I never have, Alexand. I never will.”

The words existed like lights in the leaf-scented darkness, fading slowly, one by one. Then she laughed and drew away from him, but still held on to his hand.

“Come. Rich is waiting for us.”

Alexand found himself laughing as they started off down the path. “So, I must share you with my little brother.”

“Well, I hope you don’t think you’re the only attraction in Concordia for me.”

They emerged from the grove, still laughing, but at nothing more than an indefinable elation. He slowed as they moved across the grassy knoll toward the viewpoint pavilion, his attention caught by an unfamiliar pattern of lights.

Shimmeras.

A cluster of golden shimmeras floated inside the dome, and a small table had been brought in, replete with flowers and wine. And Rich was waiting, turning at the sound of their voices.

Alexand quickened his step. “Rich has prepared a private celebration for us, Adrien.”

“Ah, how beautiful!” She broke away from him, running ahead to greet Rich with a laughing embrace.

There would be laughter for Rich, too, and nothing could mar or shadow this present. The lucent spring days would stretch themselves like cats in the sun, making a store of warm remembrances, and no grief, no pain, no dread could coexist with this laughter.

PHOENIX MEMFILES: DEPT HUMAN SCIENCES:
BASIC SCHOOL (HS/BS)

SUBFILE: BASIC SCHOOL 16 JANUAR 3252
GUEST LECTURER: RICHARD LAMB
SUBJECT: POST-DISASTERS HISTORY
WARS OF CONFEDERATION (2876–2903)

DOC LOC #819/219–1253/1812–1648–1613252

Motivation in itself never explains great historical figures—context and blind luck are inevitably major factors in “greatness”—but it’s always interesting to consider. Lord Patric Eyre Ballarat in the period just before the Wars of Confederation (which began in 2876 and continued until 2903), had personal reasons for calling the “outlanders” enemies, particularly those who had turned to piracy. The House of Ballarat held franchises for the large marine vessels that carried most of the Holy Confederation’s trade and suffered most directly from the depredations of pirates. It’s possible that he also believed the “heathen” should be Mezionized. Certainly, if that weren’t a sincere conviction, he was careful not to let it be known. Like Even Pilgram, Ballarat recognized the efficacy of a spiritual-political union, and he had his Colona in the person of Bishop Almbert, Eparch of the Cathedron in Sidny, which was then the largest city in Conta Austrail, in some ways equivalent to Concordia today, although the comparison falls short in many areas. To be sure, the Holy Confederation’s Council of Lords—which is analogous to our Court of Lords—met there, but the entire administration complex of the Council would fit into the Hall of the Directorate alone with ample room for Almbert’s Cathedron. The Council was a very loosely organized body with little real power. Power in the Holy Confederation was vested in the Houses, and individual Lords maintained allegiance to the Confederation only to the degree that it served their needs.

Patric Ballarat is the first prominent historical figure about whom we have a great deal of personal knowledge. We know what he looked like from numerous two-dimensional, monochrome “photograms” that have been preserved for us: a sturdy, broad-shouldered man with thick, dark hair and an unusually—even for the period—full beard. After he became First Commander of the Armed Forces of the Holy Confederation, he is always shown in that uniform, even long after the Wars when he had retired to his Tasman estate. What is never fully evident in the photograms is that he was slightly below average height at no more than 165 centimeters. This obviously didn’t prove to be a disadvantage to him. A few audio recordings have survived, too, most of them orations before the Council, as well as an especially stirring address to his officers on the eve of the Battle of Capeton, and, although the recordings are primitive by our standards, they still give us a measure of the forcefulness of the man and explain to a great degree his success in mobilizing the Holy Confederation to its extraordinary conquests.

Something of his forcefulness also comes through in his
Autobiography
. In the first volume he outlines—a little tediously—his House’s history and his childhood, but the pace picks up as he goes on to describe his ascendancy to First Lordship of his House despite the fact that his father, although chronically ill, was still alive, and despite the opposition of his brothers, Hugh and Bryan. His marriage to Lady Noret Tadema, whose father was First Lord of the most powerful of the landed Houses, is recorded, as well as the births and histories of their two sons and two daughters, at least up to the time of his self-exile after the Wars. Ballarat was a remarkably good writer, and exceptionally well educated in comparison to most of his Lordly peers, and there we find a key factor in his motivation. His consuming interest was history, and he had what was often termed an obsession for the histories of the Roman and Brittish empires. The information available to him then was comparatively scant, but he devoured it all, and there is little doubt—in fact, in his
Autobiography
he spells it out very clearly—that his fundamental ambition was to make of the Holy Confederation an empire.

His imperial vision was not at the outset appealing to most of the Holy Confederation Lords. Here Ballarat found himself at odds with feudalism. The centralized government he proposed antagonized the more conservative Lords, who jealously guarded their power and prerogatives, and feared surrendering any part of them to a centralized power. But Ballarat was convinced that if the Confederation didn’t move into an imperial phase, it would disintegrate into isolated feudal holds and revert to a pre-Pilgram state in spite of the technological advances made in the intervening three centuries, and it would then be at the mercy of the emerging powers and alliances outside Conta Austrail.

Undoubtedly, that consideration impelled him more than pique at the depredations of outlander pirates and competing merchant fleets, and more than concern for the souls of heathen. In fact, in his first efforts to interest the Lords of the Council in an imperial future, he said nothing about the unredeemed heathen, but spoke heatedly of the Sangpor League in Indonasia, which under the leadership of the King Madang Sambor was demonstrating its burgeoning power and confidence by wresting the established Sinasian and Indasian trade routes from the ships of the House of Ballarat. Other Houses whose fortunes were adversely affected by the loss of those routes—as well as the cargos sunk in armed disputes over them—joined Ballarat in demanding action from the Council, but the assembled Lords could only agree to make financial contributions to the House of Ballarat for the building and better arming of more ships.

But Lord Patric was only thirty then and not yet First Lord of the House. Five years later he had remedied that and undoubtedly learned more about politics. He had also found an ally in Bishop Almbert, for whom the idea of spreading the light of Mezionism to the rest of the planet—as well as spreading the power base of the Church—had great appeal. The formation of the Allienza Salvador in Sudamerika and the growing power of the Sudafrikan Union under the leadership of Tsane Valstaad, as well as continually increasing losses of cargos, markets, and sources of raw materials, made Ballarat’s later appeals to the Lords more convincing, especially with Almbert to bolster them with fiery sermons urging the faithful to join the sacred crusade to bring light to the unenlightened. And finally the King Madang Sambor made the fatal error of launching an assault on the city and Home Estate of the House of Darwin.

Under this spur, the Council was induced to accept the Articles of Union proposed by Ballarat, which among other things established the first Directorate, a body empowered to make decisions without the approval of the Council, to levy taxes on all Houses, and to create an armed force that, although it was funded and its manpower provided by the Houses, would be essentially independent of them. A few Lords rebelled at that wholesale surrender of their powers, but the weight of opinion was with Ballarat, and what had come to be called the Unionist movement held sway. With an empire to be gained—and a holy imperative to be served—to niggle at surrendering individual House prerogatives became tantamount to treason and heresy.

Patric Ballarat was, inevitably, voted Chairman of the newly formed Directorate and First Commander of the Armed Forces of the Holy Confederation. He mobilized in a remarkably short time an army augmented by naval and airborne forces that numbered half a million men. His troops swept through the Sangpor League holds, taking the cities of Timor, Jakarth, Tai, Bangkor, and Rangor. Almbert’s priest-soldiers—and so they were actually called—followed in their wake, accompanied by the Lords chosen by Ballarat to hold and administer the conquered lands.

This victory spurred the Holy Confederation to even more extraordinary feats of production and mobilization. Ballarat struck into Sinasia, where he met little resistance in the independent domains of Kangcho, Sankeen, and Kashgar, and was delayed only for a period of two months while he laid siege to Paykeen. Meanwhile, a secondary force commanded by his brother Bryan met organized resistance from the Shogan Lords of Hokido, but occupied the city of Sappuro within twenty days, then advanced into eastern Ruskasia. There Bryan didn’t meet resistance so much as huge, uninhabited stretches of land, but managed to find and subdue the holds of Okhotst and Yakutsk before Ballarat ordered him to seek more promising areas of conquest on the western coast of Noramerika.

Ballarat continued his westward thrust into Indasia, where the independent domain of Ceylonia after less than a year fell to his armies, and the loose alliance of the rulers of Calcut, Bangalor, and Poona laid down their swords and bows—their only weapons against the Holy Confederation’s explosive-charged artillery and similarly armed airships—even before Ballarat’s soldiers reached the cities, celebrating their entry with festivals. However, the nomadic tribes of Shek Mashet’s Gulf of Persias alliance offered no such welcome, and Ballarat pursued those desert ghosts across dune and mountain for three years before Mashet came to terms. He did not in fact actually surrender, but simply agreed to let Ballarat occupy the city of Hamadan, which was the only established site that might have been called his headquarters, and in exchange the nomads were left alone in their desert fastnesses. The occupation of Hamadan was hailed as another victory in Conta Austrail, but it should be noted that this was the only occupied domain where Almbert’s priest-soldiers didn’t follow the real soldiers.

Even if the full terms of Mashet’s “surrender” had been known in Conta Austrail, it’s unlikely anyone would have been daunted. The Holy Confederation was enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, with the expenditures of war financed by its spoils, and the citizens of the Holy Confederation in every class benefiting from both. Even the loss of life was ameliorated by soldiers conscripted from domains subjected in the campaign, and those conscriptions were often voluntary. Ballarat chose the Lords who occupied the defeated territories carefully and laid stringent rules for fair treatment of their new subjects; he didn’t want revolt biting at the heels of his imperial campaign, and it’s a credit to him and his administrators that there were only three such revolts—and they were disorganized and short lived—in the whole of his twenty-seven-year campaign.