C f bentley, p.23
C. F. Bentley, page 23
“I thought the same… ” Her mouth opened in surprise, then quirked up into a half grin. “I have a large family. Six brothers and sisters. We shared two small flats with both sets of grandparents. All our aunts and uncles and cousins wandered in and out all the time.” She dropped her head.
Had he truly seen a tear glisten in the corner of her eye?
“You miss them terribly, don’t you, Laudae Estella?” he asked softly. He could have said the same for his own parents and brother. Only his family was dead, while hers was just across town.
Maril bombs had taken out his family dirtside. They didn’t have a chance because the intense attack had ripped the atmosphere to shreds. If they’d survived the buildings collapsing on them, they’d have suffocated out in the open.
Ever since, Jake had preferred space stations and ships, where he had a chance of saving himself with an EVA suit. And music piped over the comms to drown out his thoughts.
“I don’t get to see my family much since I moved here.” She scanned the room as if looking for something she’d forgotten. “Call me Sissy, please. I hate the name Laud Gregor imposed on me.”
“Laudae Sissy, I can take you to see them.”
“You can?” she gasped.
“Don’t see why not. You name the day and time, and I’ll order the car.” “But Laud Gregor… “
“Always puts obstacles in your way. Why do we have to tell him?”
She flashed him that famous smile that lit the entire room with joy. No wonder the people of Harmony loved her. It was the Noble and Temple castes that feared her. Feared her because the people loved her.
Temple and Noble drove big cars. No one else. Temple liked black. Nobles drove blue.
His law enforcement team looked into that. They wouldn’t let it rest, in fact, having a personal stake in Laudae Sissy’s safety. If Jake or any one of them had acted a heartbeat slower, they might all be disabled with deafness from the concussion grenade.
They also saw the presence of the illegal concussion grenade as a personal insult. He trusted Corporal Camden da Chester to follow through.
Seven giggling girls, all dressed in lavender, tumbled through the open doorway.
“Girls! You can’t just enter Lieutenant Jacob da Jacob’s room without knocking on the door,” Sissy admonished them. “We need to respect his privacy.”
“Don’t see why. No one respects ours. Gotta be a priest or priestess to have a room to yourself,” an older girl grumbled.”
“You going to sleep with him? That’s an awfully small bed for two,” one of the middle ones remarked.
Jake vowed then and there to learn all their names before evening. Little Miss Impertinence was top of the list.
Laudae Sissy went pale. Then she blushed. She looked away.
“Jilly, that is totally uncalled for. Not only is it none of your business, but Lieutenant Jacob da Jacob is out of caste.”
“But you’ve got all seven caste marks, so you can cross all caste lines any time you want,” Jilly said.
“No more. We will discuss this no more. We must leave Lieutenant da Jacob and let him settle in. In private.” She herded the girls toward the door.
“My name’s Jake,” he called after them.
“Jake, will you order the car for tomorrow? There is something I have to do that Laud Gregor will not approve of.” “Consider it done, My Laudae.” “And don’t tell… “
“I have to tell Mr. Guilliam so I can get the car.” She looked disappointed.
Jake’s heart nearly broke at the sight of her sagging shoulders and downcast eyes.
“The same thing will happen when I want to see my family.” “No. I promise. Once I find out the procedure for ordering a car, I can…
um…
work around the system to protect your privacy.” “Thank you.”
That smile again. And suddenly the world sat bright and hopeful around Jake again.
“Can I get a radio to play some music?”
“Oh, yes. Please. I do miss the music we had at home. No one here listens to anything but their own pompous… “
“Music will help mask private conversations,” he said quietly. And keep him from thinking of anything but his mission.
“I forbid you to do this, Laudae Estella!” Gregor thundered. The poor girl actually shook with fear as she prepared to step into her car. Guilliam had told him only moments ago of the planned expedition.
“You do not have the authority to stop me from my duties,” Sissy insisted.
“Someone else, anyone else can ritually cleanse and bless the asylum. Send Shanet.” The asylum held terrors for Sissy beyond what it could for anyone else. Yet she insisted upon going there. Again.
“I cannot order someone else to do this. The people have demanded this ritual. For their peace of mind as well as my own, I must do this.”
“They’ve been influenced by the media. Little Johnny is the only one who really demands this.”
“We all need this, no matter where the demand began. And I have to do it.”
No arguing with the girl when she set her chin like that. Especially when she sat so regally, making him appear a mere petitioner standing at the car door.
Gregor sighed.
“At least leave your acolytes behind today. They do not need to be exposed to the asylum at their tender ages. Pile them with enough lessons to keep them busy for a week.”
“Already done. I do this on my own. For myself as well as the people.” She looked at her trembling hands and stuffed them under her.
Her bodyguard Jacob da Jacob stood stolidly holding the door open for Gregor to join her or leave. For all his impassive face and posture, his eyes never stopped moving and one hand always hovered near a weapon.
Gregor had no doubt he heard every word and digested it.
The brown-and-white mongrel dog leaped over Sissy’s lap to settle beside her. His tongue lolled and he drooled happily. The wary angle of his ears suggested his happiness was all an act. He was as ready as Jacob da Jacob to rip out the throat of anyone who threatened their mistress.
“I have to do this,” she said, as if by repeating it often enough she’d truly convince herself. “The people need a… a sense of… ” Sissy stammered.
“Closure,” Jacob da Jacob said quietly. He did that a lot, ever since he’d moved in, providing her with vocabulary when her education failed her. And she always remembered every new word she encountered.
“Yes, closure. They need to see the cleansed asylum blessed. The Poor and the outcasts of our society, those on the fringes, need to see it as a place of refuge instead of a house of horrors.” She sat gracefully in the back seat and nodded for da Jacob to shut the door. Close out Gregor, the HP of all Harmony.
Gregor stayed the man’s arm. He felt strong muscle and sinew through the thick black dress uniform sleeve. And something more, a sheath with another wickedly sharp blade hidden there. He took Sissy’s protection seriously.
The look he gave Gregor told him that he viewed even the High Priest of Harmony as a potential enemy. Why didn’t that reassure Gregor? “Laudae Estella.”
Sissy frowned at him and set her chin.
“Sissy, please. This is a minor ritual. Let someone else do it. Certainly a Temple presence is necessary, if you say so. But not yours. Guilliam will do a nice job and be very diplomatic.”
“There is no one in this rarified edifice who understands the asylum as I do.”
Her caste marks sparkled as color infused her face. In just a few months they’d taken on the crystalline sheen of those who were born and bred within the Crystal Temple. Perhaps the physicians had augmented them some way the last time she had surgery. The scintillation intensified with her emotions. When she turned her head to look at him directly, her eyes shone with the peculiar reflection of prophecy.
“The time has come to open the haven to all. Exterior markings mean less than you think and more than you imagine.” She closed her eyes and slumped back against the seats as if exhausted.
“Excuse me, My Laud, we will be late if we do not hurry,” Jacob da Jacob said. His words might be polite, but his manner suggested that he was the one in charge. He easily pushed Gregor aside and slammed the car door shut. Then he slid into the passenger seat beside the driver, slamming that door as well.
“I will be in the car directly behind you, My Laudae,” Gregor said. His voice sounded meek in his ears. The girl had a power over him he didn’t understand. When she spoke with the authority of Harmony he had to obey, had to believe. But he didn’t like it. Not one little bit. By bringing Sissy to Temple, he’d begun a chain of change that could lead to a quake storm. Maybe he should have sent her to asylum with the other Loods when he discovered her mutant caste marks.
He still could if she continued to disobey him.
Chapter 35
Jake bowed when Laudae Sissy rapped her little wand upon a portable crystal. The three nurses and two physicians also present followed suit a bit behind Jake. The asylum director, an officious little man with thinning hair and a sharp nose, and wearing a freshly pressed business suit, looked at his pocket watch impatiently.
The people of Harmony might need this cleansing ritual to happen, but that didn’t mean they wanted to watch it. The press had sent one hover cam. No one else had showed up. No Little Johnny behind the cam. Not even HP Gregor had made his promised appearance.
Jake didn’t want to be here either. His insides turned to liquid every time he thought about the massacre and his part in it.
That didn’t stop Laudae Sissy. She saw a need for the ritual and plowed forward. Her dog dropped his head almost to the pavement in imitation of Jake’s bow, sending his hind end into the air, scrawny tail stiff like an antenna.
The crystal’s ding sounded muffled, like it was swallowed by the tall walls of the asylum and the cramped warehouses around it. The High Priestess, in the full black-and-gold funeral regalia, frowned at the crystal. She set it on the freshly scrubbed door stoop. Then she rapped it again.
This time the chime came out clear and bright. It bounced around the stone barriers a bit, then settled.
Jake bowed again. This time he snaked out a hand and pushed against the director’s back. “Show some respect,” he whispered.
The director glared at Jake until Sissy fixed them with a gaze that told them both to be quiet and show some respect for the spiritual forces she invoked.
She tapped the crystal again and sang a familiar hymn Jake had learned as a child. Her clear soprano gave special life to the tired tune. The words had changed, but not the intent. Regret piled upon guilt, sorrow at the passing of another, forgiveness and healing. All there. All appropriate for the occasion.
Then she poured a flask of specially blessed water into a golden ball suspended from a chain. Tiny holes perforated the scrollwork around the ball. An aspergillum. That was a word Sissy had to teach Jake. She began swinging the chain in small arcs. Drops of blessed water arced out to spatter the pavement and walls.
Jake let the water fall on his hands. If anyone needed cleansing here, in this place, it was him, not the inanimate street and buildings.
The director sneaked a peek at his watch again.
Jake confiscated it with a yank.
The man opened his mouth in protest. A drop of holy water landed on his tongue. He closed his mouth with a snap and a bewildered expression.
Sissy stepped up to the open doors and paused. Her hands trembled. The chain on her aspergillum rattled and water spewed out in uneven splotches.
Jake took the three long strides necessary to stand at her side. Ready to hold her up, catch her if she fainted. Whatever.
He didn’t expect her to thrust a stubby green candle into his hands.
“Light it,” she whispered. “I… ” Her voice trembled as badly as her hands.
Jake grabbed a lighter from her open kit beside the door and set flame to the wick. It caught easily and sent a cheery little light upward along with a whiff of perfume. It reminded him of a damp morning in the forest where his scout troop had camped.
“New growth, new life, a new beginning for the people who come to this asylum.” Somehow Sissy managed to impart the meaning of sanctuary and haven to the word rather than a torture chamber to shut away the unwanted. “Now light the blue one.”
Jake obeyed, setting the green one down and then placing the lit blue one next to it in the beginning of a half circle that would mark the full double doorway.
“Clean water of the deep blue ocean, washing, renewing,” Sissy said.
And he smelled salt spray at the beach, sharp and clean.
Then she directed him to light the yellow for the sunlight that promoted growth. She led the ritual through seven colors, seven phrases of cleansing and renewal, seven scents, each carrying a pleasant memory for him. Each seemed to wash away a bit of the filth that coated his soul.
When they stepped through the doorway, he was able to smile again.
Immediately he was struck by the vastness of the open hall beyond the entrance corridor with its soaring ceiling, and the morning sun rising behind the stained glass windows at the far end. A dais rose three steps at the end, with a long table. Like an altar.
Sissy didn’t pause. She’d found her momentum and conquered her fears. She set the aspergillum in motion again, singing small prayers and invoking each of the seven gods to bless the asylum and the people who dwelled and worked here. From the hall they progressed upward and outward to dormitory wings. All empty now. All freshly scrubbed with bleach and disinfectant.
But the scent of the seven candles still burning at the doorway overrode the sharp reminders of the physical cleansing. This was a spiritual cleansing. Any ghosts that might have lingered fled before Sissy’s holy water and her songs.
They fled from Jake as well. When they’d made full rounds and returned to their starting point, Jake felt lighter, cleaner, taller with the weight of seven worlds lifted from his shoulders.
“You’ve made this place into a Temple,” he said quietly as he packed Sissy’s kit.
“As it should be. All places are sacred. Our own acts defile them. Mr. Director.” She turned her attention to the weaselly little man. “What now?”
Immediately Jake was in front of him with hands ready to wrap around his throat. “How dare you show such disrespect for High Priestess Lau-dae Estella?” he snarled.
“L…
Laud…
Laudae Estella?”
“Who do you think came all the way out here to clean up your mess?” Jake’s mess, too. The Military’s mess. Harmony’s mess.
“We presumed she was an acolyte. That’s all this place, those Loods deserve.”
“They are people, not logs of wood,” Jake yelled. “Flesh and blood, and I was forced to murder some of them!”
“Jake.” Sissy’s delicate hand on his shoulder brought his mind out of the red swirl of anger. He stepped back. His fists remained clenched.
“Mr. Director, your staff may begin moving their patients back to their home,” she said quietly.
“Patients? That’s an awful fancy name for mindless mutants.”
Jake’s fist connected with the man’s jaw. He staggered back, blood streaming from his nose.
“I’ll have your rank and your job for this, Lieutenant.”
Jake merely raised an eyebrow.
The director turned and ran to a small dark green car parked halfway down the block.
“I don’t want to lose you, Jake. I trust you,” Sissy said. Behind her crystal veil she gnawed her lip.
“Not to worry, My Laudae. You preside over the High Council. All you have to do is suggest he was impertinent to you and he’s out of work.”
“Can I truly do that?”
“There’s a lot of things you can do. Including making this place a hospice instead of a prison. You’ve already started the work with your ritual. I don’t know what magic you worked, but it truly is a miracle, the difference in how the place welcomes you now rather than repels you.”
“It wasn’t me. It was Harmony. It was the gods at work.”
“And you are truly their avatar. They chose you to correct some terrible wrongs and bring your people back to the path of Harmony.” Now where did that nonsense come from? He wasn’t here to make Harmony stronger. He was here to bring them down by stealing the Badger Metal formula.
Or was he? Maybe…
Chapter 36
“I do not need you following me to a meeting of the High Council, Lieutenant Jacob da Jacob,” Sissy insisted as she walked rapidly through the maze of corridors. Interesting that they followed a very similar pattern to the circuitry of a nav unit.
“Call me Jake, Laudae Estella. I am charged with protecting you,” the lieutenant replied.
“From the High Council?” She stopped in her tracks. He bumped into her, apologized, and backed off three steps. Barely enough space to maintain politeness.
“I saw the car in the park, Laudae. How many people outside the Noble caste can afford a large, dark blue vehicle?” He paused for emphasis, looking grim and dangerous in his daily black uniform.
“Have you found the owner of the car?”
He snorted something derisive. “No central registry of vehicles. Fifteen vehicles of similar make, model, and color in the capital. Who knows how many in the outlying areas.”
“If I gave you the authority to question the owners of the vehicles… No. Not yet. I think such inquiries should come from Laud Gregor’s office. Give your information and a list of questions to Guilliam. He’ll see that it’s done. Diplomatically.” She proceeded toward the Council Chamber, in the most ancient portion of Crystal Temple where it joined the State Palace.
“Laudae Estella, you are about to enter a closed room with five Nobles. The only person on the High Council I trust with your safety is Laud Gregor. And then only because he has an agenda. I don’t know what it is. Frankly, I don’t care as long as he has more to gain by keeping you alive than seeing you dead. Please allow me to accompany you and protect you as I am charged.”
