Back | Next
Contents

Day 310
Standard Year 1392
Blair Road
Surebleak

THE CAT DOGGED his heels from the bedroom to the kitchen, sat by his knee while he broke his fast with bread, cheese, and tea; and trotted, tail high and jaunty, at his side down the hallway to the vestibule.

It was a strangely crowded vestibule. In addition to Cheever McFarland, who was entirely capable of filling the small space without assistance, there was Jonni, and the slender subtlety that was Natesa.

"Good morning," Pat Rin said to his oathsworn, simultaneously offering the same greeting in sign to the child.

"Mornin', Boss."

"Good-day, Master."

The child likewise returned his greeting; paused and signed something else, not, Pat Rin thought, to himself, but to—

The cat.

"Good morning, Boss Silk," he murmured, reading—and captured Jonni's attention with an interrogative wave.

"The cat's name is Silk?" he asked, imitating the soft, smoothly flowing sign.

The boy nodded, grinning, and tossed a spangle of sign off his fingers.

"Ah, did he so? I had thought him a cat of discernment."

"What does he say?" Natesa wondered softly.

Pat Rin shook himself. "Why only that this cat—this Silk—had the good sense to scratch the late Boss Moran very thoroughly not too long ago, to the vast amusement of one barbaric and bloodthirsty child." He tipped his head. "Forgive me if I pry, but am I to understand that you will be accompanying us today?"

"My business today is on the street, and I thought to walk with you and Mr. McFarland—and one bloodthirsty child—until my way turns from yours." She bent her head gracefully, suggesting a full bow in her favorite mode of student to master.

"Perhaps I am inconvenient."

"Or perhaps you are not," he said dryly. "One merely inquired."

"Cat comin', Boss?" Cheever asked lazily from his lean against the door.

"I believe that his duties keep him at home," Pat Rin replied, and looked sternly down at his attendant feline. Silk blinked molten gold eyes, then turned and flowed away down the hall toward the kitchen.

"Now is the hour," Pat Rin said. "Mr. McFarland, the door, of your goodness." He moved a hand as he spoke, alerting Jonni to the door's opening, and they exited the house a veritable army: Cheever, then Pat Rin, the boy at his side, and Natesa, silent and graceful, walking slightly to the rear and the right.

He heard the pellet sing by his ear and Natesa's shouted "Down" in the same instant, and dropped to the street, gun to hand, a target in his eye.

It was target practice then—heavy game, and when the targets stopped showing, he blinked, disoriented, and with a high buzzing in his ears.

"Stay down," Natesa hissed, from somewhere behind him. "Do not move. We are awaiting Mr. McFarland's sign."

It was the word "sign" that jerked him back to the reality of the street, where he lay in the half-frozen mud, staring at the dead man crumpled at the base of the wall opposite, his blood shockingly bright on the dingy walk.

"Where . . . " he began, but Natesa's voice came again, louder this time.

"We have the sign. I will stand first. Count slowly to twelve. If I have drawn no fire, stand, but hold your weapon ready."

He sensed her movement and counted to twelve, slowly. Silence reposed upon the street. Pat Rin rose, gun held ready.

Across the street, a door somewhat down from the dead man opened, and a woman peered out, then hastily withdrew, the door slamming into place.

More action across the way. Cheever McFarland slipped out of an alley that should have been to thin for him, and waved.

"All clear," he shouted and strode toward their position.

Released, Pat Rin spun, looking first at the ground near at hand, but there was nothing there, save the mud.

"Master?"

"The child," he said, remembering the pellet whine and Natesa shouting—and of course Jonni could not have heard either. Though, surely, seeing all of his house going to the ground, he would—

"The child," he said again, to Natesa's black, black eyes. "Where is the child?"

Her gaze shifted over his shoulder. He turned and saw the ragged huddle of cloth, not so very far away, really.

"Gods."

He knelt next to the still, small body; and turned the boy in his arms. No breath, no heartbeat, no wide, glad smile. Gods, gods . . . no.

"Master?"

"Who did this?" The High Tongue felt like ice in his mouth.

"Master, Mr. McFarland has found Jim Snyder among the fallen," she answered softly. "He believes the others come from Boss Deacon's turf."

Pat Rin knelt, holding the dead child in his arms, and if he wept now before his oathsworn, he was lost to shame; lost to all but a vast and frightening coldness.

This ends, and ends now. No more of mine will be shot down in the streets.

He raised his face to Natesa, and saw her eyes widen.

"Fetch Audrey," he said. He heard his voice shake—and did not care. "I will know the name of my enemy. They will answer me. Fully."

 

NATESA HESITATED at the entrance to the garden, an unaccustomed shyness rooting her feet to the top stair. Mid-way across the roof, she saw him, silhouetted against the starry glow of Surebleak's nighttime sky; seated on the edge of a shrouded garden patch, shoulders bowed, the cat crouched at his side. Neither seemed to note the wind, intermittent from planetary north, which added to the evening's chill.

The child's death—she recalled the face he had shown her then, mud-streaked and slick with tears, icy with a purpose that surpassed mere revenge by an order of magnitude, and shivered with something more than the cold.

"Inas, why are you come?" His voice was soft and mannerly. He did not turn his head. And who knew what the invocation of her personal name might mean?

Natesa gathered her courage, lifted her feet and entered the garden.

"It is cold," she said, matching his tone. "I have come to bring you a blanket."

"Ah."

Gently, she moved among the shadows of the dormant beds, and came to stand before him, the blanket draped over one arm.

He looked up at her, his face a golden mask in the starshine.

"Thank you," he said, but made no move to take the blanket from her. Beside him, the cat straightened from its crouch and settled into a sit, fuzzy tail wrapped neatly 'round its toes.

Natesa sighed lightly. "Ms. Audrey bade me say that her house is open to you."

The golden mask displayed no emotion. "I am grateful to Ms. Audrey, but I do not seek distraction."

The wind gusted, bitter enough to dismay her, though she had taken care to don a jacket. This close, she could see that he was shivering, though she doubted he knew that himself.

"Pat Rin." Surely, she might dare his name, when he had established the mode himself? "Pat Rin, you are cold. The night is not temperate. At least the blanket, if I cannot persuade you to go inside." She bit her lip. "You serve no one, if you sicken."

"Very true," he said politely, yet still he made no move to take the blanket.

Wondering at her own temerity, she stepped forward and draped it around his shoulders. The cat Silk, sitting tall at his side, blinked golden eyes in approval.

Something moved in his face. Indeed, he sighed, and lifted a hand on which Korval's Ring glittered, to touch the fabric of the blanket and pull it more snugly about him.

"Thank you," he said again, and it seemed to her that there was more than mere ritual in the phrase. "I am grateful for your care."

"You are welcome." She hesitated, unsure of what now she should offer, reluctant to leave him here, alone, but for his cat and his dead, inside the freezing night.

"You will wish to know," he said surprisingly, "that I have decided to take up the roles you doubt may be acted by a single individual."

She frowned. "I beg your pardon?"

"I will unite the territories," he said, sounding altogether sane. "We shall have laws and contracts. We shall have free and easy travel between streets, even to the spaceport itself. We shall rejoin the Health Net. There will be schools, libraries and clinics. Children and adults will take advantage of these benefits without fear for their lives. I will accomplish this thing."

"Pat Rin . . . "

"We will begin by annexing Boss Deacon's territory."

Natesa shook her head, torn between impatience and pity. "Pat Rin, Boss Deacon is well-protected. More, his territory lies in the opposite direction of our goals."

"You have not attended," he chided her gently. "I will unite the territories. Thus, we will take first he who has dared to deal death to one of mine. It shall serve as a lesson, and bring us to the attention of those others with whom we will need to treat."

"And, having done so," she said with asperity, "you will receive even more assassins into your presence, until one of them succeeds."

"Inas, we can prevail—not without blood, no. And perhaps we shall entertain more assassins before we win through. But it can be done. I see it. I know how to proceed."

Pity overruled impatience. His mind had broken beneath the burden of his griefs. Had she been other than a Sector Judge, she might well have cast herself to her knees and sent up a wail to the heedless gods, which was how one grieved for the dead and the demented on the distant, unlamented world of her birth.

Instead, she extended a hand and touched his shoulder, lightly, companionably.

"It is good that you have a plan. Mr. McFarland is below stairs. Let us go to him and discuss procedures over tea and cheese."

She had not expected to so easily persuade him, but he rose at her word, slipping the blanket from his shoulders and folding it neatly over his arm.

"Let us do that," he said, still in that soft, oh-so-sane voice. "Silk—we descend." He inclined his head, courtesy itself. "Inas, after you."

Back | Next
Framed