Rules of Engagement

Chapter Fifteen

All the way to Sector IX HQ, where she switched to civilian transport, Esmay felt she had a fiery brand on her forehead and back, defining what most Fleet personnel thought of her. She kept to herself as much as possible, trying to think how to explain to her father her precarious state in Fleet. Perhaps the funeral and its aftermath would distract him. For it seemed she was in fact her great-grandmother’s heir.

Her previous visit to Altiplano had begun with pomp and ceremony; this time she had the ceremony, but no pomp, and no newshounds. Her father met her in the inbound reception lounge; she almost did not recognize him in the formal mourning garments of black, with elaborate curlicues of black braid on breast and sleeves of the tight short jacket with its black-beaded collar, the full black pants tucked into low black boots with turned-up toes, and the flat black cap with the shoulder-length tassel hanging past his left ear. Left ear, heart ear, direct line of descent . . . that came back to her at once.

He had brought one of the estancia maids to help her into the clothes she must wear. In the ladies’ retiring room, she changed from Fleet uniform to the layers of white: long pantaloons under a petticoat, a short white chemise. The outer layers were all black, like her father’s. Wide-sleeved black blouse finely tucked down the front, full black skirt, black brocade short vest heavily overbeaded in jet, a wide black waistcloth in a diamond-patterned weave, black-on-black. Women’s boots, with the top rolled down to reveal the black silk lining. On her head, a stiff black cap sitting squarely across her brow, with a rolled knob at either side. Esmay had seen this at other Landbride ceremonies; she had never expected to wear it, and she had never witnessed the whole ceremony—outsiders never did.

The weight of the clothes burdened her almost as much as the secrets she carried.

Slowly, in a cadence old as the mountains, they walked from the reception area to the shuttle bay. She was used to being a half step behind him, if not more; but now, slow as she walked, he would walk slower.

It was real. She was the Landbride. For no one else would her father slow his steps.

On the shuttle down, he spoke briefly of the arrangements, then left her with a sheaf of old-fashioned paper . . . the family copy of the old rites in which her great-grandmother had lived her long life. Esmay read carefully. She could have a coach—she would have a coach—but the more she could do by herself, the better. She had never witnessed the ceremony of Landbride’s Gifting, though she had heard others talk of it. At the shuttlefield, it was just past sunset, with a fiery glow behind the mountains. By the time they were out of the city, night closed around them; Esmay switched on the light in the passenger compartment and kept reading. Then her father touched her arm, and pointed ahead. Esmay switched the light off and peered into the darkness.

On either side of the road, flickering lights resolved into rows of black-clothed figures holding candles . . . the car slowed and stopped. Her father handed her out. Esmay this time was first in lighting the candles at the shrine . . . remembered without prompting the words, the gestures, the entire ritual. Behind her, she heard the respectful murmurs.

They walked from there, slowly, up to the great entrance and up the long drive, and the others closed in behind them. The house loomed, darker than the darkness around it. Then candlelight appeared from inside—the family, each carrying a candle. Esmay entered a chill dark space where normally light and warmth held sway. No fires would be kindled until after the ceremony; luckily the new rules had allowed fire and light during her travels, until she arrived onplanet.

She walked through the house, and lit one of the tiny candles in each room—a promise of the Landbride’s coming. Then through, and out to the Landbride’s Gift, the heart of the holding, and the place where the first Landbride in her heartline had made claim long, long ago.

There the priest waited for her, with the basket that held the braided coil of her great-grandmother’s hair. Esmay shivered suddenly, her imagination caught on the possibility—no, the certainty—that someday her own unruly hair would be coiled in such a basket, its strands, however short or meagre, braided formally and tied off with silk cord.

Her great grandmother’s body had long been buried, of course, and the new pale gravestone set above it. But her hair awaited this final ceremonial dance. No musicians played. In the dark night, by flickering candlelight, Esmay led the women of the estancia in slow procession around each Landbride’s gravestone, starting with the oldest, and ending with the latest. The men, standing around the margin of the space, stamped a slow rhythm, but did not follow.

When the dance was done, Esmay took the silvery braid from its basket and held it high, turning to show it to everyone.

“The Landbride . . .” came the hushed whisper from many throats. “The Landbride has died . . .”

“She who was Landbride is no more,” Esmay said.

“She has gone into darkness,” the people said.

“She has returned to the land,” the priest said. “And her spirit to the heavens.”

“Her power is released,” Esmay said. She untied the silk cord, and untwisted the strands of the braid. The night wind sighed down off the mountains, cold around her legs even through the layers of clothes. Candle flames streamed sideways; a few went out.

“Into the heavens . . .” the people said.

Esmay untied the second cord, at the top of the braid, and held the loosened braid high in her open hands. A gust of wind picked up one strand, then another. She heard the next gust coming, shaking the trees around the glade. When she felt it, she leaped up, tossing the hair free . . . and landed in darkness, all the candles blown out.

“Now is the death; now is the sorrow born!” In darkness and windy cold, the people cried out, and burst into the formal wails of mourning. One voice, quavering, old, sang the story of her great-grandmother’s life, a counterpoint to the mourning cries. It had been a long life; it was a long dirge, and it ended only when the darkness crept back under the trees with approaching dawn. Light strengthened moment by moment; one by one the mourners fell silent, until at last there was no sound nor movement. Far off, it seemed, a rooster crowed, and another answered.

The priest with his tall black hat had turned his back, to face the sunrise. The women helped Esmay back through the crowd, into the curtained tent she had not seen for the darkness. Quickly they stripped off the black vest, waistcloth, skirt, blouse, boots. Over the pure white underclothes, they helped her into the Landbride’s traditional outfit: white blouse, with wide pleated sleeves ending in a hand’s width of frothy lace; white skirt pinstriped in green; white doeskin vest embroidered and beaded in brilliant color with flowers and vines and fruit . . . and to top it all, the hat with its two blunt points, from each of which a gold tassel fell past her ear to her shoulder. Around her waist, the scarlet and purple striped waistcloth, folded and tied precisely. In its folds, a narrow belt to which was hung on her right hip a sickle’s curved blade, its metal varicolored with age, but its edge still gleaming. On her left side, slung from a shoulder strap, she had a pouch of seed. Soft green boots, lined in yellow silk, would come later—for the first, she would go barefoot.

Back outside, the risen sun streamed through the trees in long red-gold shafts, but the dew beneath her feet felt icy cold. Someone behind her struck a bell, and at its lingering mellow tone, the priest turned to face her. He raised on outstretched hands a long sharpened stick. The men moved to stand behind him.

“From night comes day,” the priest said. “By the grace of God. And from the death of one comes the life of another, as the seed in the ground dies to live as the grain that blows in the sun.”

Esmay lifted her arms in the ritual gestures.

“Does any here challenge the Landbride’s lineage?” the priest asked. “Or is there cause she should not be wed?”

Silence from the people, and the nervous chattering of a treehopper, who cared nothing for ceremony. The priest waited out a full count of a hundred—Esmay counted it out in her own mind—then nodded.

“So it shall be . . . this bride to this land, to the end of her life, or her willing gift to her heir.” He held out the digging stick.

The next part had seemed ridiculous and more theatrical than archaic when Esmay read it, but wearing the old costume in the early morning light, with the digging stick in her hand (far heavier than she expected), and the sickle and seeds . . . it felt right in a way she had not imagined.

She strode out into the little circle of grainland kept for this purpose, and planted carefully each year. Though the season was wrong, and what she planted would not grow, it still felt connected to some larger ritual which would work, which would bind the land to her, and her to the land. She was not sure she wanted that, but she was sure what she had to do.

With the digging stick, she pried up the three holes at the corners of an equilateral triangle, pushing through the earth until they were big enough. Old stains on the tip of the digging stick made clear how deep was the right depth. Her helpers picked up the loosened clods and put them in a copper bowl. Then, taking the old sickle blade which would have no handle until this was over, she laid the edge of the blade to the palm of her left hand. It hardly hurt at first, and the blood ran redder than her sash into the bowl, into the clods of earth, darkening them. When it was enough, the women nodded, and she held out her hand for someone to bind in the kerchief that would henceforth be laid under the kitchen hearthstone.

Her hand was beginning to throb. Esmay ignored it, and hung the sickle back on her belt. Then she spat into the bowl, onto each clod. The women nodded again, and she stepped back. They poured a few drops of water from a jug of springwater and, using paddles carved of wood from orchard trees, kneaded the earth and blood and water into a ball.

Esmay took five seeds from the sack and dropped them carefully into the first hole—and the women laid a small lump of the mixture in the bowl on top of it. Again . . . and again. Then the women set the bowl on the ground in the triangle, and divided the remaining lump into five smaller ones, each carefully shaped into a loaf, and laid a tripod of sticks over them, with a tuft of dry bristlegrass atop. The priest approached, and took from around his neck the crystal that formed the center of his scapular, the symbol of the star. But so early in the morning, it could not focus enough sunlight . . . no. For one of his assistants brought forward a pot, in which was a coal from the fire on the hearth, kept live since that fire had been quenched.

The fire, fed carefully, baked the earthen loaves hard and dry. While it baked, the musicians began to play, wild heartrending dances. When it was baked, the Five Riders came forward. Esmay broke the lump apart, and each took a section, mounted, and rode away. They would place the loaves in the boundary shrines, where the earth from her planting, her blood, and her spit, would declare the land hers. It would be days before the last one, far to the south, was set in its little stone house.

By now, the smells of food had wafted across from the kitchens; with the Landbride’s dawn, fires could be lit, and cookstoves heated. Fresh hot bread, roast meat . . . Esmay sat on a throne piled with late flowers as the feast was carried out to her guests.

When the crowd around her thinned, her cousin Luci came up. “I have your accounting,” she said. “The herd has done well.”

“Good,” Esmay said. She sipped from the mug someone had handed her, and felt dizzy from the fumes alone. “Could you get me some water? This is too strong.”

Luci laughed. “They want to follow the old ways into the bedding of the Landbride, do they? I’ll bring you water.” She darted off, and was back soon, this time with a handsome young man at her heels.

“Thanks,” Esmay said, taking the jug of cool water.

When the long ceremony was over, Esmay’s stepmother led her to the suite her great-grandmother had occupied. “I hope you will stay awhile,” she said. “This is your home . . . we can redecorate the rooms—”

“But my room’s upstairs,” Esmay said.

“Not unless you wish it. Of course, if you insist . . . but this has always been . . . it’s the oldest part of the house . . .”

She was trying to be tactful, and helpful; Esmay knew that, just as she knew that she was too tired, after all this, to discuss anything calmly. What did it matter, after all, where she slept?

“I think I’ll lie down awhile,” she said instead.

“Of course,” her stepmother said. “Let me help you with these things.”

Her stepmother had hardly touched her, as near as she could remember—it felt strange indeed to have help from her. Would she have helped, years ago, if Esmay had let her? A disturbing question, which she might reconsider after a long nap. She was in fact a deft maid, quick with the fastenings, and she knew exactly when to turn away, the outer garments folded carefully in her arms, and leave Esmay alone.

Esmay woke in late afternoon to the chill light of an overcast sky—clouds had moved in. Nothing looked right . . . and then she remembered. She was not upstairs, not in her own bed, but in great-grandmother’s. Except it was her own now, in a way that the bed upstairs had not been . . . hers not by custom, or assignment, but by tradition and law. Everything was hers now . . . this bed, the embroidered panel on the wall with The eyes of God are always open on it (her great-grandmother had done the needlework herself, as a young girl), the chairs . . . and the walls around them, and the fields around the walls, from the distant marshy seacoast to the mountain forests. Fruit trees, olive trees, nut trees, gardens and ploughland, every flower in the field, every wild creature in the woods. Only the livestock might belong to others—but it was she who would grant grazing rights, or refuse them, which land could be put to plough, and what would be pasture.

She pushed the covers aside, and sat up. Her stepmother—or someone—had laid out more normal clothes. Not anything she’d brought, but new—soft black wool trousers, and a multicolored pullover top. Esmay found the adjoining bath unit, and took a shower, then dressed in the new clothes.

In the hall, Luci was talking quietly to Sanni and Berthold. Sanni looked at her, a long considering look. “You slept well?” she asked. Esmay had the feeling that the question meant more than it said.

“Yes,” she said. “And now I’m hungry again.”

“A few minutes only,” Sanni said, and turned toward the kitchen.

“Welcome home,” Berthold said. He looked slightly wary.

“Thank you,” Esmay said. She was trying to remember if her new status changed anything but the land titles . . . was she supposed to change the terms of address for Berthold and Sanni, for instance?

Her father came out of the library wing. “Ah—Esmay. I hope you’re rested now. I don’t know how long you can stay, but there’s a great deal to be done.”

“Not until after eating,” Sanni said, reappearing. “We’re ready now.” Esmay realized they had been waiting for her.

The meal made clearer than any explanations how her status had changed. She sat at the head of the table, where her great-grandmother had sat on the rare occasions she joined the family at table . . . which deposed Papa Stefan from his position as her representative. She had not imagined he could look so small, hunched over his plate halfway down the table. She ate slowly, watching and listening, trying to feel out the hidden currents of emotion.

Her stepmother and her aunt Sanni, for instance, were eyeing each other like two cats over a plate of fish. In what way were they rivals? Her father and Berthold, though studiously polite, seemed both particularly tense. Of the youngsters, only Luci was at the table—the young ones, she supposed, had been fed informally earlier.

“Have you decided whom to name as your heir?” her stepmother asked. Sanni shot her a look that should have had gray goosefeather fletching, it was so sharp.

“Not now,” her father said.

“No,” Esmay said. “I haven’t—it’s all too new. I will need to consider carefully.” She would need to look at the family tree; she had no idea who might be eligible. It might even be Luci. That wouldn’t be so bad.

“The paperwork starts tomorrow,” her father said. “All the judicial red tape.”

“How long does that last?” Esmay asked.

He shrugged. “Who knows? It’s not something we’ve done for a long time, and since then some of the laws have changed. It’s no longer enough for the family to swear agreement to the whole change; it has to be done piece by piece.”

It sounded far worse than Administrative Procedures. If the whole family had to pledge peaceful acquiescence to the change in ownership of each field, each woodland patch . . .

“At least, much of it can be done by proxy, now. My guess is that it will take hours, if not days—and all to do over again when you abdicate.” He sounded more tired than resentful; Esmay considered that he had probably taken on most of the family responsibility on her behalf since her great-grandmother died.

“If she abdicates,” Papa Stefan put in. “She should stay, marry well, and be the Landbride we need. She’s been a hero to the world—she has proved herself—but they cannot need one young hero as badly as we need her here. She could retire now.”

Her father gave her a look, and a tiny lift of the shoulders. He knew what her career meant to her, as he knew what his meant to him—but there was much he didn’t know, as well, and at the moment, Esmay could almost see the wisdom of leaving Fleet before they forced her out.

“It may not be me that you need, Papa Stefan, but someone who has lived here all along, who knows more—”

“You can learn,” he said, his spirits rising as he had someone to argue with. “You were never stupid, just stubborn. And why should you serve the Familias Regnant? We have not even a Seat in their Grand Council. They do not respect us. They will use you up, and discard you at the end, whenever you displease them, or they tire of you.”

That was too near the mark; Esmay wondered if some word of her disgrace had leaked through the newsnets. But Berthold jumped in.

“Nonsense, Papa. Young officers of her quality are rarer than diamonds at the seashore. They won’t let her go easily. Look what she’s already done.”

“Finished eating, is what she’s done,” her stepmother said. “Dessert, anyone?”

Esmay was glad enough to have the subject turned, and accepted a bowl of spiced custard gratefully.

Next morning, the legal formalities began. Her father had brought an entire court to the house: judge, advocates, recording clerks and all. First, although Esmay had openly accepted her heritage in the ceremony, she must now swear that she had done so and sign the Roll, her signature beneath her great-grandmother’s, where anyone could compare its slightly awkward simplicity to the lovely old-fashioned elegance of her great-grandmother’s writing. But three lines above, someone had signed in awkward childish letters that looked even worse.

Once she was sworn in as heir, the true Landbride, the real work began. Every Landsteward, including Papa Stefan and her father, had to submit an accounting of the management of each division of the Landbride’s Gift. Esmay learned things about the family estancia she had never known, because in her great-grandmother’s long tenure as Landbride, changes had been made before Esmay was born which had now to be explained. From the trivial (the decision to move the chicken yard from one place to another, to accommodate a covered passage to the laundry) to the major (the sale of almost a third of the cattle lands to finance artillery and ammunition for her father’s brigade in the Uprising, and its eventual repurchase), the last 70 years of history were laid out in detail.

Esmay would have stipulated that the accounts were correct, if she could, but the judge would have none of it. “You were away, Sera. You cannot know, and although these are your family, and you are naturally reluctant to consider them capable of the least infidelity or dishonesty, it is my duty to protect both you and the Landbride Gift itself. These accounts must be scrutinized carefully; that is why we brought along the accountants from the Registry.”

And how long would that take? She did not want to spend days sitting here watching accountants pore over old records.

“Meanwhile, Sera, as long as a representative of your family is here to answer any questions, we need not detain you.”

That was a relief. Esmay escaped, only to be captured by Luci, who had in mind a lengthy discussion of the herd she managed for Esmay. From one accountant to another—but Luci was so eager to explain what she’d been doing, that Esmay did not resist as she was led through the kitchens, out the back of the house, and into the stable offices.

“You hadn’t said what direction you wanted to take,” Luci said. “So I decided to sell the bottom ten percent at the regional sales, not under your name. Your reproductive rates are above the family average, but not much—”

“I didn’t know they could be improved at all . . .”

“Oh yes.” Luci looked smug. “I started reading offworld equine reproductive journals—couldn’t afford a lot of what they talked about, but I made some changes in management, and everyone smirked at me until the first foal crop. Then they said it was normal statistical variation—but your second foal crop hit the ground this year, and it was a point ahead of last year’s.”

Esmay had never had any interest in equine reproduction, but she knew natural enthusiasm when she saw it. She had definitely picked the right manager for her herd . . . and maybe more than that.

“What did they say about selling off the bottom end without the family name? They were branded, weren’t they?”

“No . . . I decided to defer branding until after the cull period. Papa Stefan was angry with me, but it was your herd, so he couldn’t stop me.”

“Mmm. And what criteria are you using for culling?”

“Several things.” Luci ticked them off on her fingers. “Gestational length—early or late is one cull point. That could be the mare, but there’s evidence it may be the foal, too. Time to stand and suck, and vigor of suckling; if they’re outside a standard deviation on time to standing, or if they don’t have a strong suck, that’s another cull point. You already have good performance mares in that herd—but you’ll benefit by having additional survival vigor.”

Esmay was impressed. “I assume you’ll cull mares later?”

“With your permission, yes. And while they’re young enough to sell on . . . according to the articles I read, after three foals you should know if length of gestation, foaling problems, foal vigor, and milk production are due to the mare. I can show you the references—”

“No, that’s all right. You’ve done very well. Tell me what you think we should do with this herd.”

“Produce exportable genestock,” Luci said promptly. “We have the perfect outcross genome for at least five other major horse-breeding worlds. All our horses have been performing—we’ve culled for soundness, speed, and endurance. I entered a query in one database, to see if anyone knew of, or would be interested in, what we’ve got, and the response was promising. Here on Altiplano, with the reputation our family has, we can sell live animals, but the export costs are far too high to export anything but genestock . . . so I would concentrate on the most salable genestock.”

“Sounds good to me,” Esmay said. “When do you think we might see a profit on it?”

Luci looked thoughtful. “Not immediately. Since we usually do live breeding, and have never exported genestock, we’d need an investment in equipment. I put the income from the cull sales into a fund for that, pending your approval.”

“Would genestock from the rest of the family holdings, or from Altiplano in general, be salable?”

“I would think so. Possibly even other livestock, like our cattle . . .”

“Then I’ll see if it’s possible to make an investment from family funds, and then you could rent the facilities.”

“Would you really?”

“If it’s possible, yes. Why not? It would benefit not only our family, but all Altiplano.”

Luci nodded, looking satisfied. She made a notation in one of her books, then gave Esmay a challenging stare. “You look worse than you did when you left,” Luci said.

“You have less tact,” Esmay said, nettled.

“Was it the fighting?” Luci asked. “They say the Bloodhorde is terrible.”

“No.” Esmay turned over a leaf in the studbook. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Luci cocked her head. “You weren’t this grumpy before, either. You looked horrible for a day or so, then better—and you were helpful to me. Something’s wrong.”

The girl was persistent as a horsefly, with the same ability to go straight to the blood of it. It crossed Esmay’s mind that tactical ability could be shown in more than one way.

“I have had some problems. There’s nothing you could do.”

“Well, I can wish the best for you.” Luci moved restlessly from door to window and back. “If you were my age—” A long pause, which grew uncomfortable.

“What?” Esmay said finally.

“I’d say you were lovesick,” Luci said. “You have all the signs.”

“Lovesick!”

“That’s just the way Elise said it, when she thought no one knew. But they did. Is it lovesickness, or something else?”

“Luci.” There was no way to explain. She tried another approach. “There are things I can’t tell you about. Fleet things. Sometimes bad things happen.”

“Esmay, for pity’s sake—I grew up in a military household. I can tell worry about a war from a personal worry, and you needn’t try to pretend that’s what’s going on.”

“Well, it is, Persistence. Great-grandmother died; I’ve had to take on the whole estate; there’s a lot to worry about.”

Luci turned the conversation back to the horses, and for an hour they spoke only of this line or that, this outcross line or another. They walked up to the house together, still deep in the intricacies of fourth-generation distribution of recessives. At the door Luci said, with the most spurious wide-eyed innocence Esmay had seen, “Are you going to marry and settle down here, cousin, the way Papa Stefan wants?”

In the hearing of half the kitchen staff and Berthold, who had wandered into the kitchen before the meal as usual. Silence fell, until one helper dropped her knife.

“I’m a Fleet officer,” Esmay said. “You know I told everyone I would have to appoint a trustee, and an heir.”

“Yes,” Luci said. “I know that. But you hadn’t spent even a week on Altiplano yet. You could change your mind, especially if things aren’t going well in your Fleet.”

Berthold snorted. Esmay could have done without that; Berthold’s humor was uncomfortable at best.

“You see what she’s like,” he said, around a couple of olives he’d filched.

“I’m ready for lunch,” Esmay said. “And those had better not be the export-quality olives . . .” Her warning glance took in the cooks and Berthold. He wagged a finger at her.

“You sound exactly like Grandmother. She could squeeze oil out of the very smell of olive.”

“Lunch,” Esmay said, leading the way. “A morning spent with lawyers and accountants, then Luci, has starved my brain.”

Pradish Lorany turned the pamphlet over and over in his hands. He wasn’t sure about this. Yes, it was totally unfair that Mirlin had taken the children and moved away—that Sophia Antera had been promoted over his head—that over half the seats on the station citizens’ council were held by women. He loathed the very thought of artificial births and manipulation of the human genome—if that wasn’t interfering with God’s plan, he couldn’t think of anything that was. But while he agreed in principle that society was corrupt and degraded, and that it all began with the failure to understand the roles God had ordained for men and women, he could not quite convince himself that therefore it naturally followed that blowing up people was a Godly act. Especially since Mirlin and the children would die, too. He wanted respect from women, and leadership by men, and an end to tampering with human reproduction, but . . . was this the way to do it?

He thought not. He made up his mind. He would continue to support the Gender Defense League; he would continue to argue with his former wife that she was misunderstanding his reasons for disciplining the children by traditional methods . . . but he would not attend the next meeting with the representative of the Godfearing Militia who had attempted to recruit him to help place explosive charges.

In a spasm of disgust, he threw the pamphlet toward the orifice of the station’s recycling system, but he turned away before it slid into the chute . . . and did not see it miss, to land right in front of the please ensure trash enters hopper sign.

Nor did he see the prune-faced old woman who glared at his retreating back as she stooped to pick up the crumpled pages and put them in carefully—but who stopped, her attention arrested by the glaring grammatical error in the first sentence. Sera Alicia Spielmann, as ardent a grammarian as she was a supporter of public neatness, took the pamphlet home to use as a bad example in her next complaint to the local school trustees . . . but when she read it, she called her friend whose grandson was a member of station security, instead.

She did not connect the “lazy litter-bum” or her own actions with the discovery, two days later, of the corpse of one Pradish Lorany who had been brutally attacked in his own apartment. Others made that connection.