The Domination

Chapter Twelve

CHATEAU RETOUR PLANTATION

TOURAINE PROVINCE

AUGUST 2, 1947

“Master, wake up, plait,” the voice said.

Kustaa’s hand darted under the pillow to touch the butt of his pistol; the Domination’s 10mm service-issue, but he had practiced enough to be as much at home with it as he had been with the Concord .44s he carried in Sumatra. Awareness came on the heels of the movement, and he relaxed into his yawn, catching himself in time to stop his natural reflex to cover himself with a woman in the room.

She had stepped prudently back after putting the tray on the table beside the bed, and smiled timidly at him as he sat up with another yawn and a stretch. God, it’s difficult to be nonchalant with a hard-on, he thought, unconsciously glancing down at a morning erection like nothing he could remember since he was a teenager. Well, two months of celibacy doesn’t help, he reminded himself wryly. That brought other memories, and he slapped the servant’s hand aside with unnecessary violence when she followed his eyes and reached tentatively for him.

“Sorry,” he grunted, and saw confusion added to alarm as she jumped back with a cry, cradling her hand. Christ, what a bastard you can be, he thought at himself. Bad enough the momentary temptation, but to take his self-disgust out on her in anger . . . She’s just a kid. Sixteen, he judged; slim, with long russet hair and eyes the honey-brown color of water in a forest pond blinking at him. Dressed in some sort of long knit-silk shirt to just above her knees, and a tied-off cloth belt, with sandals that strapped up her calfs. She’s probably afraid of getting whipped if she doesn’t lay you. The orange number-tattoo was obscenely evident behind her ear.

Kustaa stood and let her put the caftan over his head, sat while she poured him coffee. The smell was almost intoxicating, and it was black and strong, enough to jolt him into higher gear. The room was midway up the taller square tower at the rear of the old chateau building, about ten feet by fifteen. Two tall narrow windows, one looking east over the gardens and the other north along the roofline of the new wing, with its neat black slates and the balustraded terrace at the end. Both windows were open, letting in fresh green smells and early-morning light; it was about six, he estimated.

I could at least have fallen in among decadent aristocrats who lolled in bed until noon, he thought grumpily. The ones who owned this estate were probably up already, working at the famous Draka fitness. No rest for the wicked, he mused sardonically. In this case, literally. The coffee finished, he accepted a glass of orange juice and began prowling about the room; it was paneled in plain dark polished oak to thigh level, then finished in deep-blue tiles with silver-gilt edges. The ceiling looked like translucent glass, probably some indirect-lighting system; the floor was jade-green marble squares, covered by an Oriental-looking rug that felt silky to his bare feet. He stopped by the east window, pointing east to a set of large striped tents half-hidden among trees, a thousand yards away.

“What are those?” he grated. Not quite so exaggeratedly as he had for the Draka—it was unlikely they would compare notes with the French girl.

“Ces?” she said, coming to stand beside him. “Pour . . . fo’ les guests, maistre. No, how you say, room here fo’ all.”

A discreet scratching at the door; the girl answered in French and another woman entered, pushing a wheeled tray. This one middle-aged, dressed in blouse and skirt; there were razors, basins and towels on the metal-framed stand before her. With a sigh, Kustaa sank back into the chair, submitting to the routine of hot towels, a trim for hair that was growing a little shaggy by the standards of the Domination’s military-style crop, a careful edging with tiny scissors at his mustache, manicure, pedicure, neck, face and scalp massage . . .

The girl kept up a stream of French chatter throughout, handing tools to the older woman in an apprentice-to-master style. Kustaa waited until his face was being rubbed with some astringent cologne before he pointed a finger to the ceiling.

“Up . . . there?” he said.

“Above us, Master, is the armory,” the woman replied in accented but fluent English; learned pre-War, he judged. “Above that is the communications room, for telephone and radio.” A jolt of excitement ran through him at the news: perfect. There had to be a communications room, every plantation had one; there was a regular schedule of calls required by the Settler Emergency Network, to make sure no uprising went long unreported. But to have it right over his head—frustration followed, here he had an English-speaking informant, a legitimate excuse for curiosity . . . and a cover story which kept him dumb as a post. Nor could he simply say, “Where is Sister Marya Sokolowska?”

I can’t count on making it clean away, he thought. With returning vigor the fear was having its usual effect, sharpening wits and sight, making the world clearer and more real. Nobody can throw sixes on every roll; Lyon was far too close anyway. It’s getting tight. The sub would be in place from tonight, for a full week. Waiting that long would be an invitation to disaster.

Patience, patience, he told himself. One battle in a campaign, one campaign in a very long war. More haste, less speed.

The plantation was not a very large community; he would have breakfast, and then wander. Sooner or later he would make contact, and he would just have to hope it was soon enough. One of the things the most gung-ho officer had to keep in mind was that men were going to stop to rest, eat and take a crap every so often, whether they had orders to or not. He had slept, and now—

“Thank you,” he said to the manicurist.

“It is nothing, Master,” she said, packing away her instruments with quick, efficient movements. “My name is Annette—Tom’s wife, Annette, anyone will direct you—if you require anything. This young wench is Madeline; she will show you the Great House, if directed.” A stern glance at Madeline, who looked meekly down at folded hands. “Although her English is not of the best, Master. Breakfast will be served on the terrace for the family for the next two hours: your servant has been directed there. Nothing more? A good morning, then, Master, and may you enjoy your stay on Chateau Retour.”

“I—will,” he grated. To himself: But Chateau Retour probably will not.

The terrace was a section of flat second-story roof at the north end of the new wing. Inside, the recent construction was still mostly empty echoing space, smelling of green concrete and strewn with ducts and wires, no break in the sweep but the occasional structural member. The far wall was stained glass; he gave the design a quick cursory glance, the usual intertwining vines and flowers the Draka were so fond of. Up under the peak of the roof, in what would be the attic crawlspace, he could see the mounts for an extensible aluminum-framed glazed shelter that would run out over the terrace in winter or bad weather. As he pushed through the swinging doors, he noticed the metal rails for more glass panels, running out along the sides; a clear wall, to make the outdoor space a greenhouse-like enclosure.

Now it was open to heaven, a stretch of warm yellow honeycomb marble flooring, the cells separated by strips of darker stone. The edges were fringed with a balustrade of some shiny reddish stone that looked semitransparent, carved into fretwork; the surface was big enough to seat fifty or sixty when tables were set out, not counting the space taken up by potted trees, topiaries and flowers. Six tall cast-iron lampstands held globe lights about the perimeter in tendrils that looked suggestively like tentacles; pots of brown earthenware trailed sprays of impossibly red-purple bougainvillea. Actually quite pretty, he thought.

Somewhere within him a puritanic Lutheran was asking where all this came from, and if he would ever find bayonet marks on the furniture from the last moments of the previous occupants. Shut it off. Show some interest, man: you’re a Draka, an aristocrat, aesthetics are half your life. Plus he was what passed for a lower-class Citizen; mixing with Landholders wouldn’t be all that common for him.

He nodded appraisingly and turned in a circle, froze with his back to the north and his face turned to the stained-glass wall. The view from this side was better, much, much better. The vines ran around the border of the arched picture, and wove through the base of it. It depicted a row of crouching figures, naked human forms all enlaced about with thorn vines and flowers no redder than the trickles of their blood; there were chains dangling from collars about their necks as well, down to pitted eyebolts in the ground. The faces . . . every race and age of mankind, male and female, alike only in their expressions of weary despair and endless strain.

Across their backs, supported by shoulders and knotted hands, was the bottom of a terrestrial globe, not a solid sphere, but an openwork projection with outlines for the continents. Overlaying the world, the Dragon.

Drakon, he thought. I’ve met you before, oh, yes. Whoever had done this one was a real artist, of sorts. The vast wings outspread, angled out and up in a flaring gesture; scalloped like a bat’s, and colored a dull crimson that experience reminded him was almost exactly the shade of clotting blood. A skeletal ribbing supported the stretched skin, rendered in a glass halfway between black and indigo blue. Taloned feet braced against the outline of the globe, clutching symbols: a slave manacle, the glass somehow suggesting the pebbled black surface of wrought iron, and a sheathed bush knife, the machete-sword of the Domination. The body itself was the same dead-blood red as the wings, with an underlying hint of darker color where the bones would be. Enough to suggest a starved leanness to match the eternal hunger in the yellow eye that caught at his.

The face was a final masterwork, the bony outlines of the reptile visage curved and planed, not with any obvious mimicry of expression, yet still conveying something . . . a mockery that seemed to see within him and laugh at his defiance and his plans, an arrogance and cruelty vaster than worlds. Power for power’s own sake, he thought, recalling the words of Naldorssen, the Draka philosopher. Power is an end, not a means. Power to crush the homes and hopes of men like him to be used as building rubble in this prison they called a Domination. Eternal tyranny.

With an effort that brought sweat to his face he stopped himself from emptying his automatic into the obscene thing. Hatred he had felt before, but it had always left him feeling a little dirty—like masturbation. This hatred felt clean, as if the thing on the wall before him was something that it was truly right to hate, the thing for which the feeling of hatred had been made.

You’ve been here too long and seen too much, he thought. Control, control. Then: Come on, you’re a Draka, you fucking love the shitty thing.

He turned with a cheerful smile plastered on his face. I was not cut out for clandestine ops, I truly was not. If—when—I get back, I’m going to tell Donovan to go fuck a duck, and settle down with Aino so hard I’ll grow roots like a barnacle. Reup to Active in the corps, even a line command, go back to university, hell, take the wife and daughter and head for the north woods and farm with Dad. His false smile turned genuine and wry. Who am I kidding? Every time I looked at Aino or the kid I’d he seeing these people here in Europe. Waiting for the bomb to drop.

The family breakfast table was in the far left corner of the terrace, with a good view over the courtyard at the north side of the chateau and the lake beyond. A few serfs were sitting at a smaller table nearby. Personal servants, he supposed, required to be on call at all times. They rose and bowed to him, the hands-over-eyes gesture that always set his teeth on edge. Two caught his eye. One was a pretty colored girl who looked like a mulatto, with a mandolin propped beside her, and a smile that seemed genuine. The other was a Frenchwoman, her brief flicker of the lips had all the warmth of February in Minnesota, but her looks were enough to stop him an instant in midstride. God, what a man trap, he thought. That brought a chill, as he considered what it probably meant to her life. No wonder the poor bitch looks depressed.

He seated himself where the house servant indicated; the table was set for seven, with plenty of room, and he was the first there. Folded newspapers beside five of the plates, with neat stacks of mail on top for four—those must be the resident adults. He unfolded the paper, grateful for its cover, remembered Aino scowling at him while he hid behind it over the breakfast table at home. Some men like to talk in the morning, some don’t, he’d said. Me, I like to chew my way through the sports section while I eat. Hands filled his coffee cup, began piling his plate. Little fluffy omelets stuffed with herbs and cheese, smoke-cured bacon and sausages, grits with butter, hot croissants . . . Kustaa waved them to a halt, propped up the paper and began methodically fueling himself.

The paper was the New Territories Herald; about sixty pages, and more like an Army field rag than a civilian newspaper, say, something on the order of the Star-Spangled Banner he’d read in the Pacific. Logical: most of the Citizens in the conquered lands would still be military, or on some sort of official business, administrative or economic. He scanned the leading stories:

FAMINE IN RUSSIA OVER.

Command sources indicate that the food distribution program has now reached most of the remaining population centers; grain production should reach sufficient levels with two years to discontinue . . .

MEDITERRANEAN PROJECT AUTHORIZED.

Energy Combine spokeswoman Marie Kaine today announced that preliminary studies have confirmed the techno-economic feasibility of a large hydroelectric project in the straits of Gibraltar. “It will actually be more on the nature of a huge bridge rather than a dam, an arched structure that will be a virtual city in itself, supported by an openwork lattice descending to great depths. There are currents in both directions at different levels, and modularized power units, large low-speed turbines, will be added in series over a long period. The temperature differentials at various depths will also supply energy, and there are obvious aquacultural and industrial applications. The Dardanelles Project is a model, of course, but the Gibraltar complex will be of a new order of magnitude. We estimate a labor force in the 2,000,000-6,000,000 range, and thirty to forty years for the first phase alone. While the general concept is undoubtedly sound, I expect to spend the rest of my career troubleshooting this one.”

BUSHMAN ACTIVITIES IN LYON

Kustaa tensed, hid his reaction with a cough. Two days, he thought. I would have expected them to keep it quiet longer. On the other hand . . . yes, the citizen population was simply too small to keep the ordinary sort of secret well. Too stubborn as well: they were disciplined enough but lacked the sort of meekness that obeyed bureaucratic dictates without question. He read quickly; just an acknowledgment that sensitive materials had been attacked in transit, the safe house of a resistance cell raided, and . . .

. . . suspicion of Alliance involvement. “We caught some of them.” Strategos Felix Vashon of the Security Directorate assured our reporter. “Right now they’re telling us everything they know and some things they didn’t know they knew. Soon we’ll catch the others—this meddling Yankee, too, if that turns out to be the truth—and they can join their friends. My people are experts; we can keep them all alive, sane and screaming for weeks. By the time we impale them, they’ll consider it a mercy.”

The editors of the Herald wish Strategos Vashon all success in tracking down the last of the Bushmen, and making Europe a place fit for the Race’s habitation.

Not as bad as it could have been, he thought with relief. Thank God for the cell system and Resistance paranoia. Of course, the ones who had survived this long, first the Gestapo and now the Security Directorate, had to be paranoids. Blinking his way back from his thoughts, he noticed the flavor of the omelet on his fork: superb, a little too spicy but very good. The bacon was not smoked with anything like hickory, and the sausages had a trifle too much garlic, but both would do.

A grim smile: the spy heroes of the films he had seen rarely enjoyed breakfast on enemy territory, they were too busy dodging the invariably stupid machinations of the villains. His experience of clandestine operations was rapidly confirming that espionage fiction bore about the same relationship to reality as the war films he had seen in the Corps. And he fondly remembered joining a mob of enraged Gyrenes at a rest center wrecking a projector and screen after those USO morons tried to show what was left of an assault battalion Jason Waggen in Hills of New Guinea. Not that they would have appreciated a realistic war film—what they wanted was a nice light comedy with lots of leggy showgirls and music—but the heroic speeches and neatly photogenic casualties had been just too much.

Of course, those fictional heroes could also afford to spit in the interrogator’s eye as the hot irons came out, because something always rescued them at the last moment, or their captors would stand cackling and spouting all their secrets before the dashing adventurer grabbed their gun . . . Kustaa took a last bite of buttered croissant, touched his coffee cup for a refill and leaned back with a slight belch. I must have gained six pounds, even with all the running, he thought. Funny, you never see a fat Draka.

There was a sharp clacking from the courtyard below. Then again, not so funny. Two of them were practicing there, stick-fighting on the tiled stretch just in from the colonnade that ran along the inner edge of the building. Not the ones he had been introduced to, so they were probably overseers. A short squat dark-haired man and a taller woman with reddish-brown curls cut close to her head; both stripped to trousers and singlets, the thin fabric clinging to their sweat-slick bodies. Swinging fighting sticks in each hand, meter-long ebony rods with rounded steel tips. Swift flicking strikes, thrusts and darting slashes that blurred the night-colored wood and would have crushed bone and ruptured organs if they had landed.

Fast, God, but they’re fast, he thought enviously. Another form dashed out from the exercise room beneath his feet. Anonymous in unarmed-combat armor of brown leather and padding and steel; it dove forward on its forearms and kicked back with both feet. The one following was only a flicker before it flew back out of sight with a crash. He recognized Tanya as she went into a forward roll and twisted back the way she had come, just barely in time, as her husband followed in a huge bounding leap that ended with a sidekick and his heel driven into her midriff. Their feet and hands were thickly padded, the armor over the stomach strong, but Kustaa was still surprised to the edge of shock to hear no more than a huff! of exhaled breath as the woman was knocked back half a dozen feet.

She backrolled half a dozen times and came to her feet to meet Edward’s attack; for twenty seconds they fought almost in place, hands, feet, knees, elbows, blocking and striking almost too fast for the American’s trained attention to follow. Pankration was what they called it, the classical Greek term for all-in wrestling-boxing, although it was an outgrowth of Draka contacts with the Far East in the 1880s. He could see the origins of the style in the Oriental schools he had studied, but this level of skill could only be learned by continuous training from babyhood. And we have better things to do with our lives, he thought. Furthermore, the Way of the Gun beat the Way of the Empty Hand every time, in his opinion. Automatic weapons at two hundred paces, that’s my preference.

It was functional, though, he supposed. Serfs rarely confronted their masters with weapons in hand, and on a subconscious level a demonstration of personal deadliness was probably more daunting than weapons, no matter that the firearm was so much more objectively destructive. Just as a rifle with a bayonet could drive back a crowd better than the rifle alone, even though the blade added little to actual combat effectiveness. A fresh clatter broke into his thoughts; the owners of the plantation were down on the ground now, rolling, close-quarter work, driving knuckles at pressure points and trying for choke or breaking holds. Weight and strength told more in grappling style, and Edward called victory with clawed fingers in a position that would have ripped out his wife’s windpipe in true combat.

They pulled off their helmets of padding and steel bars and kissed.

“Not bad fo’ a turtle-minded tanker,” he heard the man say.

“Pretty damn good fo’ someone who trained to crawl through ditches an’ listen at windows,” she replied, as they both shoulder-rolled to their feet.

“Mistah Kenston!” she called up to him. “Good mornin’; see you in half an hour!”

The two Draka were shedding their padding and clothes, tossing them aside with the casual unconcern of those raised to expect things to be picked up, cleaned and neatly replaced by ever-attentive hands. Kustaa remembered his own mother’s weariness after he and Dad came back from the fields, keeping house for a family of six far from electricity and the sort of money that bought appliances. Bastards, he thought. They were trotting down to the marble beach; Edward swept the woman up in his arms and began to run, clearing a stone table with an easy raking stride. At the edge he halted and threw her; Tanya twisted in midair and hit the surface with a clean dive, her blurred form swimming out underwater for a dozen yards.

The overseers joined Kustaa at the table, freshly washed and dressed in long robes. Any more of this and we’ll look like a Southern Baptist’s idea of the Last Supper, Kustaa thought irritably. The man was wearing an earring and bracelets, too, one joined to his thumb ring by a silver chain; it still looked unnatural to see men wearing jewelry. A rueful glance down at his own clothes: loose indigo-blue trousers with gold embroidery down the seams, ruffled shirt, string tie with a jeweled clasp, black silk-velvet jacket with broad lapels edged in silver-gilt, buckled shoes. He had drawn the line at the diamond ear studs the outfitting section back at OSS HQ tried to insist on, but there was no alternative to the floppy-brimmed hat with the side clasp and spray of peacock feathers; the only really comfortable item was the gunbelt. At least he didn’t have to wear that to breakfast.

I look like the most dangerous goddamn pansy in the world, he thought. The overseers were making conversation among themselves, tactfully including him when replies could be limited to yes or no. Making conversation about this party coming up, and the impending harvest; it was late this year, evidently the spring had been cold and the summer delayed. Once he was jarred by a question about Alexandria, his supposed hometown, but the Draka answered it herself after his noncommittal grunt. They were going to have to get more agents trained in Draka speech patterns; the trouble was that the ones who could pass even casually for Citizens were so few. The dialect was not really all that much like American Southern, either: derived from the same roots, but a hundred and fifty years made a lot of difference. Not to mention the regional variation; he could tell the two overseers came from separate areas, but . . .

Two of the von Shrakenberg children joined them, a towheaded boy and a girl of the same age with freckles and red braids; disturbing—it was easier to think of Draka as adult monsters. Then the master and mistress themselves . . .

They halted by the servants’ table, Edward only long enough to sign Ernst over to his “master’s” chair; Tanya stopped and spoke to the French girl. Girl? Kustaa thought. She looked young, with that clear porcelain skin, on the other hand . . . The conversation was in French. His own command of the language was rather good, and he strained unobtrusively to hear over the sounds of wind and water.

“ . . . lonely, Mistress,” the serf was saying. “My bad dreams again.”

Tanya ruffled her hair. “I do have to sleep with my husband occasionally, you know, my sweet. Tonight, then; the day will be a busy one.”

Does that mean what I think—Kustaa’s thought began. Then they kissed, and he managed to avoid staring. Jesus, they’re french-kissing, he thought, halfway between fascination and disgust. Reaching for another croissant, he used the movement to glance aside at Edward; the Draka had looked up from his newspaper and smiled, proud and fond, before glancing down again.

“Glad they’ve approved that Gibraltar thing,” he remarked to his wife. Then “See you’ve got yorn mo’ enthusiastic about domestic duties than I’ve ever managed on mine.”

“That’s because you’re a man and therefore crude, love,” she said with a grin. “But keep tryin’, by all means.” He laughed and kissed her fingers, then turned to Kustaa.

“We ’spect to be rather busy, today, Mr. Kenston,” he said affably. “Guests should be arrivin’ any minute—”

“Speak of the devil,” the male overseer remarked, and jerked his head to the east.

Two black dots coming in low and fast: twin-engine small planes. Engine roar grew swiftly, and they flashed by overhead; one began to circle, while the other drove across the chateau again at barely rooftop level and began a series of wild-looking acrobatics, looping and turning.

“My cousin Johanna,” Tanya said. “Ace pilot durin’ the War, an’ never lets you fo’get it.” She snapped her fingers and the mulatto girl came running. “Yasmin, up to the radio room an’ have the operator tell ’em where the landin’ field is.”

Kustaa signed at Ernst. “My master asks,” the Austrian said, “if you have landing facilities, Masters.”

“Why yes,” Edward said, “ ’bout two kilometers north, there were some buildin’s suitable fo’ light hangars. Up near our primary wine-cellars an’ the shelter.”

“Shel-ter?” Kustaa asked in his own gravelly “voice.”

“Oh, the War Directorate’s insistin’,” Tanya said with an expression of distaste. “Good idea, I suppose, but . . . shelter from radioactivity, in case o’ war with the Yankees. Underground, industrial-strength fuel cell, air filters, food an’ water, so forth. Jus’ fo’ the family an’ some key serfs to start, eventually fo’ everyone. Hopes to God we nevah have to use the damn thing.”

“Amen,” Edward said. “Though at least we didn’t have to put it in ourselves. Public Works Directorate did it, nice neat job, reinforced concrete shell an’ doors from an old French cruiser. Pretty well all local materials an’ labor, come to that.”

Kustaa signed. “My master says you seem to be making rapid progress, Masters,” Ernst said.

“Very,” Tanya replied, taking a second helping of the grits. “Almighty Thor, but I missed these while I was expectin’. Mo’ coffee, Francois . . . Yes, very rapid. Troublesome, conquerin’ an advanced area like Europe, but there are compensations. Got the road net intact, fo’ one, that saved us ten years. Local supplies of skilled labor, an electric power grid needin’ only a little fixin’ . . . well, you know.”

Kustaa nodded and accepted a slim brown cigarillo. A nursemaid had pushed out a double stroller with the youngest von Shrakenbergs, to be dandled and appropriately exclaimed over; the American carefully shut his mind to how much the wiggling forms resembled any human children.

“Now,” Edward said. “As I was sayin’ we’re goin’ to be ferocious busy, Mr. Kenston. But Tanya has volunteered to give you a quick once-over of our art collection, if you’d like.”

The woman sighed, opening a cablegram. “I’m the resident appraiser, fo’ my sins. We got a fair bit in Paris; that’s another benefit of conquerin’ wealthy countries—they have more worth stealin’.” That sally brought a general chuckle; Kustaa managed to join in.

“Darlin’!” Tanya exclaimed suddenly, the hard tanned face turning radiant. “It’s from Alexandra! They can make it!” Politely, she explained to Kustaa: “You know, the Alexandra from my ‘Alexandra Portraits,’ my lover in school, the exhibition I won my first Archon’s Prize with?”

The American nodded, his grin going fixed. Christ, these people are strange, ran through him. And: I’m supposed to be an art expert! with a trace of panic. Running into what was evidently a well-known painter was just the sort of lousy break in his luck that was due, by now.

“And she’s been pesterin’ me ever since the war to do a new portrait, one so people won’t think of her stuck at seventeen fo’ever; after all she’s older than me an’ a responsible official with four children, but we’ve never had time to do another study.” A sigh, and she looked down at the paper with a slightly misty-eyed smile. “Ah, youth, sad an’ sweet.”

Kustaa coughed, and signed again. “My master says thank you very much,” Ernst followed fluently, almost a simultaneous translation. “But he has several crates of selected pictures ready for shipment in Paris. Presently he is rounding off this trip by acquiring antique jewelry.”

“Hmmm,” Edward said doubtfully. “We’re anxious to cash in some of the paintin’s fo’ want of space. The jewelry, what we’re not keepin’, takes no space to mention an’ can only appreciate; market’s glutted right now.”

Tanya nodded; they both glanced at Kustaa, concerned to make his visit a productive one.

More signs. “My master says, thank you, a few days relaxation is what he principally needs, he grows tired more easily these days.” Nods of sympathy. “If, perhaps, you could show him some of the estate, particularly the winery, my Masters, he would appreciate the kindness?”

“No problem ’t’all,” Tanya said decisively. “Goin’ up there now anyways.” She rose, dusting off her hands and chamois breeches. “Glad of you company, Mr. Kenston.”

They were almost to the main doors when the stout blond serf stopped the Landholder of Chateau Retour.

“I have those seating plans you wished, Mistress,” she said. The accent was unusual, not French or even German, despite the transpositions of “w” and “v”: singsong and heavy at the same time. Kustaa’s mind struggled to place it, the automatic filing process that kept covert ops personnel alive; languages were his tools as a spy, as much as his rifle had been as a Marine, and he was good with both. He snapped mental fingers. Kowalski had the same accent! The big coal-country Polack, the one who’d gotten the Bronze Star on Bougainville for taking out the Nip machine gun.

Polish. His eyes snapped back to her, in her thirties, about one-fifty pounds, five-three, built like a Slavic draft horse, flat face and ash-pale Baltic hair . . . and something about the eyes that reminded him of Kowalski or Sergeant McAllister, or even himself, sometimes. Longer skirt than any he had seen here, long sleeves, rosary and cross at her belt . . .

“Not now,” the Draka was saying, when Kustaa touched her on the arm.

“Ex-cuse,” he said, jerking a suitably casual thumb toward the serf woman. “Po-lish?”

Tanya stopped, swung round to nod. “Yes, though we picked her up here. Met her in Poland . . . long story, tell you later, Mr. Kenston. Nun, oddly enough; name’s Marya, Sister Marya. Bit set in her ways, but a good hard-workin’ wench; my head bookkeeper an’ clerk.”

Jesus fucking Christ, my contact! ran though Kustaa like a song of exultation. Patience evaporated in a fury of calculation: perhaps his luck had not quite reached the turning point. Radio, airfield, hiding place . . . and his contact, who could put them all together. Wait a minute. He rearranged his face, conscious that at least something had shown, they were both looking at him a little oddly. I’ve got to talk to her, somehow. Privately, with no possibility of interruption, so that he could give her the recognition code that must be kept secret. The way occurred to him; he almost gagged, but it was necessary. The Sister would have a bad time of it, but only until the door was closed, after all . . .

“Ex-cuse,” he said, taking the Pole by the arm. Ernst interpreted his signals, his eyes going wide in surprise.

“My master says . . . ah, excuse—” Kustaa signaled further and the Austrian’s eyes narrowed in understanding. “My master says, could he have the use of this wench?”

The nun’s arm went rigid under his fingers, and she wheeled around on him with a look of pure hatred in her eyes before they dropped in the worst imitation of meekness he had ever seen. Tanya stared at him, began a peal of laughter and ended it in a cough. “No offense, Mr. Kenston, no offense, you don’t know her. Ahhh . . . ” She looked at the nun. Kustaa could see her evaluating the stocky figure, graceless in its thickset strength. Not what a Draka looked for in a wench, at all, or comely by the separate standard a Citizen male used for women of his own caste, either.

“No offense, but this’n isn’t trained or suited fo’ erotic service. Really, if’n you don’t like the one sent to attend you this mornin’ ”—so his guess had been right—“there’s a dozen others, prettier an’ mo’ enthusiastic.”

“Pu-lease,” he grated. Sweat had started out on his forehead, and his smile was more of a rictus. Perfectly genuine desperation, if the cause was one the Draka could not suspect. “Pu-lease, thu-is one.” He put a hand to his throat, as if the effort had strained his damaged vocal cords.

Tanya stepped closer, put a firmly sympathetic hand on his shoulder and steered him a few steps away. He was suddenly surprisingly aware of her scent, a mixture of fresh-washed body and some slight violet-based perfume. “I’m ashamed to admit it,” she said with low-voiced sincerity, “but that one won’t answer you bridle, sir. Stubborn an’ we haven’t broken her to it, a work horse an’ not a play pony.”

“Pu-lease,” and a rasping cough.

“Mr. Kenston, suh, if it’s a nun you has to have, well, there’s one on our neighbor’s place down the road a spell. I’ll phone over an’ borrow. They’ve got a Carmelite, nice bouncy little thing; they might have her original robes ’round someplace an’—”

He shook his head vehemently; from what he had heard he was straining the limits of hospitality, but a Class III veteran could push pretty far. There was a sickening fascination to it, as well, a realization that this could actually have been happening. Nobody knew but him . . . No need to hide his emotions now, just the opposite.

“Suh, I warn you, she’ll have to be subdued, an’ even then once you’re into her she’ll be dry an’ refuse to move.” A sigh at his obdurate face. “You might need help gettin’ her stripped and spread. Do you want her drugged or a couple of hands to help? No?”

Another sigh. “Well, Mr. Kenston, I’m tryin’ to be mindful of a host’s obligations, but I really can’t spare her any time today; in fact she’ll be workin’ overtime until after dinner. So, if you’d like somethin’ in the meantime?” He shook his head again. “Well, if you insist, suh. I must insist that she not be marked or injured. We don’t allow anythin’ too rough here. I’m givin’ you fair warnin’ of that. Clear? Then I advise you to tie her legs to the bedstead first thing.”

Tanya turned, a puzzled and half-angry frown on her face; she shrugged at Marya, who was standing with her hands clenched at her sides. “Well . . . this mastah seem’s determined to have you fo’ a mount, Marya. Attend his room aftah you finished work, and serve his pleasure. And no slackin’ today. Understood?” The nun continued to glare at the ground before her feet, until her owner barked sharply: “Is that understood, wench?”

Marya’s head came up slowly. For an instant Kustaa felt an eerie prickle of deja vu as the fresh-cropped hairs at the base of his skull struggled to stand upright. Then he remembered where he had felt it before: Java, when the “disabled” pillbox had come back to life, and the turret-mounted cannon lifted its muzzle with a whine of gears. The Polish woman nodded once, with a curt snap, her square pug face held like a fist, then turned and stalked away. Her heels clicked like gunbolts closing on the marble floor of the vestibule, amid the statuary and the downslanting rays of crisply golden summer-morning light.

He became conscious of a hand under his elbow and shook himself loose again, turning to follow her out into the bright sunlight with its smells of garden and dusty gravel and the slightly oily smell of distillate. A six-wheeled car waited at the foot of the stairs, and the driver sprang down to open the doors.

“Well, well, you’ve turned out to be a man of . . . interestin’ interests,” Tanya said to him.

“Th-ank you,” he said, anxious to choke off curiosity. A shrug. “I’ll have restraints an’ some oil-cream jelly sent up,” she said. “And a silk switch.” A snuffle of laughter. “I warn you, though, the last man to get anythin’ into that one got scant joy of it. I’ll tell you the sad story of Horn-dog on the way up.” She rapped on the back of the driver’s seat. “The winery, Pierre. An’ maybe you could tell me a little ’bout what you saw in Lyon, been a while since I was there.”

Lyon? Kustaa mused. Somehow I don’t think so.