The Domination

Chapter Four

CLAESTUM PLANTATION

DISTRICT OF TUSCANY

PROVINCE OF ITALY

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

APRIL 1969

“Mistis.” Yolande stirred and blinked her eyes; Lele was at the foot of her bed, touching the mattress to wake her. Machiavelli was there, too. The cat rolled, flexed its feet in the air and tucked itself into a circle on the other side, tail over nose.

I wish I could do that, Yolande thought, swinging her feet out and taking the juice, yawning and stretching.

“Mornin’, Lele,” she said, rising and walking over to the eastern window and leaning through the thickness of the stone wall. There was just a touch of light over the trees, and the last stars were fading above. The air was cool enough to raise bumps on her skin, but there were no clouds. It would be a warm day, and sunny.

“Terrible about Marco, Mistis,” Lele said. News spread fast on a plantation. “Whatevah could he want to hurt Rahksan fo’?” She began laying out Yolande’s hunting clothes. There was indignation in her voice; violent crime was very rare in the countryside. And Rahksan was very much a mother-figure to the younger house girls, which said a good deal. Favorites were not always so popular.

“Who knows?” Yolande said, forcing the memory out of her mind and starting her stretching exercises; she felt sluggish this morning, and sleep had come hard in the dark loneliness. She lay down on the padded massage table, and felt the blood begin to flow under the serf’s impersonally skillful hands.

“Ali quite the hero, Mistis,” Lele continued in a dreamy tone, patting a little scented oil into her palms. Rahksan’s son was popular with the wenches, too, for entirely different reasons.

“Lele, be quiet,” Yolande snapped. The serf subsided, quelled as much by the sudden tension in the young Draka’s muscles as by the tone. “Is Mistis Venders up yet?”

“Yes, Mistis,” the serf replied. “She—” There were footsteps, and Yolande turned her head to watch as her friend climbed the stairs. She was already dressed in hunting clothes, boots and chamois pants, pocketed jacket of cotton duck with leather pads at the elbows, wrist guards and a curl-brimmed hat.

“How y’feelin’, sweet?” Myfwany said softly.

“Pretty good,” Yolande replied, and realized it was true, suddenly. The achy feeling was gone, and her body was rested and loose. She arched her back against the masseuse’s fingers, sighing with contentment as her friend perched one hip on the table by her shoulder and began braiding her hair with swift deft motions.

“Ever taken the big cats befo’?” Myfwany said.

“No,” Yolande replied. “Little harder there on the small of the back, Lele. No, just wildcat. Foxes, of course, an’ wolves now and then. Plenty of deer. John has, though, lion an’ tiger an’ leopard, gun an’ steel huntin’ both.” Her people usually took game smaller than Cape buffalo on horseback, with javelins or lances, terrain permitting.

Lele finished the massage, carefully rotating knees and ankles to ensure suppleness, and brought the clothes. Yolande turned to look over one shoulder—Myfwany was watching her dress with frank pleasure, still half-sitting on the table with one leg swinging. Draka had little body modesty—the nudity taboo had been dying in her grandmother’s day—but the feeling of being watched with desire was strange. I like it, Yolande decided. It was like being stroked all over with a heated mink glove, tingly and comforting and exciting at the same time.

“Ready fo’ some huntin’?” she asked, buckling the broad studded belt and holstering her pistol. Automatically, her hands checked it, ejected the magazine, pressed a thumb on the last round to make sure it was feeding smoothly, worked the action, reloaded, snicked on the safety, and dropped it back into the holster, clipping the restraining strap across behind the hammer.

“Ready fo’ that, too,” Myfwany said. “Where’s that brothah of yours?”

“C’mon, let’s go roust him out; much longer and the sun will dry out the scent.”

They clattered down the stairs, jumping four or five at a time with exuberant grace. Out through her rooms and down the corridors, past the sleepy early-morning greetings of the House staff, up and about their sweeping and polishing. They passed through the library complex, a series of chambers grouped around an indoor pool, two stories under a glass dome roof; galleries ran back from it, lined shoulder-high with books, statuary, paintings. This had always been one of her favorite indoor parts of the manor, for reading or music or screening a movie; last year they had gotten a Yankee wall-size crystal-sandwich unit, the first in the region.

Off to one side a group of serfs was sitting about a table littered with papers, printouts, coffee cups, and trays: the senior Authorized Literates, managerial staff at their morning conference.

“Hio, Marcello,” Yolande said, waving them down as they made to rise. That still felt a little strange. “No, go on with you breakfasts, everybody.”

Marcello was Chief Librarian, a lean white-haired man in his sixties who had been a university professor before the War. Normally that meant Category 3m71, deportation to a destructive-labor camp, but her mother had thoughtfully snapped him up from a holding pen while scouting out the estate on recovery leave in ’42. Yolande returned his smile; he had been an unofficial tutor of sorts when she was younger. Not that she was under House-staff direction anymore—no Draka child was, once he turned thirteen and carried weapons—but there were fond memories. She nodded to the others she recognized: the paramedic from the infirmary, the schoolteacher—these days, even a plantation taught one child in five or so their letters—and the librarian’s son and daughter, understudying as replacements in the usual way.

“We’re off huntin’,” she said to the elderly Italian serf. “Tell the Lodge we’ll be there in ’bout half an hour, an’ have somethin’ sent to the armory, coffee an’ a snack, will you?”

“Gladly, Mistis,” he said. “I’ll see to it.” His accent was odd, much crisper than the usual serf slur, and as much British as Draka in intonation; she remembered some of the neighbors saying he talked too much like a freeman for their taste. He hesitated, then continued: “Will, ah, any of the Family be at the funeral, Mistis?”

Yolande scowled, then forced her features straight and her mood back to where she wished it. “No. I wouldn’t think so, all things considered.”

Usually the Landholders of Claestum put in a brief appearance at such affairs, as a token of respect. The other serfs at the table exchanged glances, then returned their eyes to their plates and documents. Some estates would have hung an attempted murderer’s body up in the Quarters for the birds to eat, as an example.

“John’s through here,” she continued, as they came out an arched doorway and into a long arcade. Cool air and dew from the gardens to their right; they cut through, and into her brother’s rooms. “Hio, Johnny?” she called.

The lounging room was empty, with only the sound of moving water and music playing. A Gerraldson piece, quiet and crystal-eerie, the Conquest Cantata. Yolande had never liked it, it always made her think of the way serf women cried at gravesides, which was odd since the sound wasn’t anything like that. But somehow there was laughter in it, too . . . The outer room of John’s suite was larger than hers, since he used it for entertaining, and surfaced on three sides with screens of Coromandel sandalwood inset in jade, mother of pearl, ivory, and lapis; they could be folded back to reveal the cabinets, chiller, and displays. The furniture scattered around the lavender-marble floor was mostly Oriental as well; there were a few head-high jade pieces, Turkestan rugs, and a familiar bronze Buddha in the ornamental fish pond that ran through the glass wall into the garden beyond.

“Slugabed!” Yolande said indignantly. “An’ there he was, goin’ on about how we should make an early start. Come on, Myfwany, we’ll tip him out an’ throw him in with those ugly carp.”

There was a colonnade through the garden, which was mostly pools and lilies. “Ah, ’Landa, maybe we should call ahead—” Myfwany said as they pushed through carved teak doors and down a hallway.

“Johnny!” Yolande chorused, clapping her hands as they turned past the den into the bedroom. “C’mon, you big baby, sun’s shinin’ and we got an appointment with a kitty-cat! Oh.”

John Ingolfsson was sitting half dressed in one of the big black-leather lounging chairs. Colette was kneeling across his lap, and wearing nothing but anklets sewn with silver bells. They chimed softly as her feet moved. Her owner’s mouth was on her breasts, and her hands kneaded his shoulders, the tousled blond hair fell backward to her heels as she bent, shuddering.

She gave a sharp cry of protest and opened her eyes as John raised his head and looked at his sister with an ironical lift of eyebrows.

“You might knock, sprout,” he said dryly, lifting the wench aside and setting her on her feet as he rose. “Or even, if’n it isn’t askin’ too much, use the House interphone.”

Yolande tossed her head, snorted and set her hands on her hips. “All afternoon, all night an’ you still can’t think of anythin’ else?”

She eyed the huge circular bed. John’s other two regular wenches, Su-ling and Bea, were there in the tangled sheets. Bea was sitting, yawning and rubbing her face, smiling and making the slight courtesy bow to the two Draka girls. She was a big black woman, Junoesque, older than John, a present from relatives in the southlands given when he turned twelve. Yolande nodded back. She had always rather liked Bea, the wench was unassuming and cheerful and unsulky about turning her hand to ordinary work. Su-ling made a muffled sound and burrowed back into the sheets. Well, who could blame her?

“Should see what wezuns had to make do with in those border camps,” John said. He stretched, naked to the waist, showing the classic V-shape of his torso. Smooth curves of rounded muscle hard as tile moved under tanned skin, like a statue in oiled beechwood. Not heavy or gross, the way an over-muscled serf who could lift boulders might be; graceful as a racehorse in motion. She felt a glow of pride. Even by Citizen standards, he was beautiful.

“Men,” Yolande continued. “Hmmmph. It’s a wonder we let you vote.”

Colette was standing, panting and ignored, sweat sheening on her long taut dancer’s body. Yolande caught a glare of resentment from the huge violet eyes, frowned absently at her. The serf glanced deliberately from Myfwany to Yolande and back, smiled ironically and made the full obeisance from the waist, palms to eyes and fingers to brow. The Draka girl gritted her teeth. The wench needed a good switching; John spoiled her.

“Colette did sort of distract me,” he was saying mildly. “Meet you in the armory in, oh, no mo’ than five minutes.”

“Sho’ly, John,” Myfwany said, touching Yolande on the arm. She giggled as they left the bedroom, flapping one hand up and down in a burnt-finger gesture. “Oh, hoo, hoo, quite a sight!” she said.

Yolande blinked surprise at her. “Who, Colette?” she asked. “Needs a belt taken to her rump.”

“That might be interestin’, but I was thinkin’ of you brother, sweet, in an aesthetic sort of way,” Myfwany said, twitching at the other’s braid. “You a good-lookin’ family.”

“I’ll tell him you thinks so,” she said, grinning slyly. “I mean, seein’ as Mandy’s makin’ moon eyes at him already . . . ”

Myfwany laughed and slapped her shoulder. “Don’t you dare; swelled heads runs in you family, too.”

The armory was a single long room on the lower level, a twenty-by-ten rectangle smelling of metal and gun-oil and of coffee and hot breads and fruit from the trays on the central table. The kitchen wench had put it down and scuttled out; ordinary serfs were not allowed past the blank steel door with its old combination lock and new palm-recognition screen. There were no windows, only a row of glowsticks along the ceiling. Military-model assault rifles along the left wall, a light machine gun, machine pistols, helmets, body armor, ammunition, communications gear and night-sight goggles. Benches at the rear held the tools of a repair shop. Ismet sat there: a big balding ex-Janissary, the plantation’s gunsmith and one of the four licensed armed serfs on Claestum, although he was technically state property, rented rather than owned.

The hunting gear was on the other wall. Broad-headed boar spears, javelins, crossbows, shotguns. And rifles of the type Draka thought suitable for game when cold steel was impractical, double-barreled models.

“Here,” Yolande said. “This is my other Beaufort style . . . unless you’d like somethin’ heavier?”

“No, 8.5mm’s fine fo’ cat, I think,” Myfwany said, popping a roll of melon and prosciutto into her mouth and dusting her hands together. She accepted the weapon and looked it over with an approving nod, thumbing the catch that released the breech; it folded open to reveal the empty chambers. The barrels were damascened, the side plates inlaid with hunting scenes in gold and silver wire, the rosewood stock set with figures in ivory and electrum.

“Nice piece of work, really nice. Sherrinford of Archona?”

“Mm, yes,” Yolande said, taking down her other rifle. They were part of a matched set, and Sherrinford worked only by appointment; you had to be born a client. Over-and-under style, like a vertical figure eight; her parents thought that made for better aim than the more usual side-by-side. She watched as her friend snapped the weapon closed and swung it up to dry-fire a few times. How graceful she is.

Her brother finished taking down three bandoliers. “I’m usin’ the 9mm, but 8.5’s fine as long as you’ve got the right cartridge. A big male leopard can go full manweight, an’ we’re talkin’ close bush country here. These’re 180-grain hollowpoint express, ought to do it. There’s a range with backstop at the lodge, Myfwany, so you can shoot in on that gun.”

“Lovely,” Myfwany said.

The balloon tires of the open-topped Shangaan hummed on the pavement as they wound east from the manor. The road was like the broad-base terraces on the hills, and the stock dams that starred the countryside with ponds: a legacy of the Land Settlement Directorate and the period when the estate had been gazetted, right after the War.

The labor camps were long gone, and the work of the engineers had had time to mellow into the Tuscan countryside. Babylonica willows trailed their fierce green osiers into the water, and huge white-coated cattle dreamed beneath them with the mist curling around their bellies. Roadside poplars cast dappled shade, and the low stone walls of the terraces were overgrown with Virginia creeper.

“I like this time of year,” Yolande said. “It’s . . . like waking up on a holiday morning.”

She inhaled deeply; the air was still a little cool as the sun rose over Monti del Chianti to the east. The olives shone silver-gray, and the vines curved in snaking contour rows of black root and green shoots along the sides of the hills; shaggy bush-rose hedges were in bloom, kilometer upon kilometer of tiny white flowers against the lacy thornstalks. Their scent tinted the air, joining smells of dust, dew, the blue genista and red poppies that starred the long silky grass by the roadside verge, the scarlet cornflowers spangled through the undulating fields of wheat and clover. The air was loud with wings and birdsong, plovers and wood doves, hoopoes and rollers. The white storks were making their annual migration southward, and the sky was never empty of them in this season.

“It’s beautiful any time of year,” John said; he was at the rear of the fantail-shaped passenger section of the steamer. Yolande looked up. His voice was completely serious, different from the bantering tone he usually used with his youngest sister.

“You love this place, don’t you, John?” she said.

He smiled, shrugged, looked away. “Yes,” he replied musingly. “Yes, I do. All of it.”

They were passing through the lower portion of the estate, as close to flat as any part of Claestum, planted in fruit orchard, dairy pasture, and truck gardens. A score of three-mule plow teams were at work, sixteen-hand giants with silvery coats and Roman noses, leaning into the traces with an immemorial patience. The earth behind the disk-tillers was a deep chocolate color, reddish-brown, smelling as good as new bread. The work gangs were there already, unloading flats of seedlings from steam drags, pitchforking down the huge piles of pale-gold wheat straw used for mulch, spreading manure and sewage sludge from the methane plant, or wrestling with lengths of extruded-aluminum irrigation pipe. Some of them looked up and waved their conical straw hats as the car passed; the mounted foremen bowed in the saddle.

“Y’know,” he continued, and shifted the rifle in the crook of his arm, “we say ‘Claestum,’ and think we’ve summed it up. It all depends who’s doin’ the lookin’. A League accountant looks at the entry in her ledgers and sees forty-five-hundred hectares, yieldin’ so-and-so many tonnes of wheat and fodder, x hundred hectoliters of wine and y of olive oil per year. Security District Officer down t’Siena calls up the specs on a thousand-odd serfs an’ checks fo’ reported disorders. An ecologist from the Conservancy people thinks in terms of”—a flight of bustards soared up from a sloping grain field and glided down to a hedgerow—“that sort of thing.”

“Ma and Pa?” Yolande said. Damn, can’t get to know your own brother until you grow up, she thought.

“They see it as something they made,” he replied. “Almost as somethin’ they fought and broke. I can understand it; every time they look out they can say, ‘we planted these trees,’ or ‘it took five years of green-manurin’ to get those upper fields in decent tilth.’ Pa told me once it was like breakin’ a horse; you had to love the beast or you’d kill it in sheer exasperation.”

“And you, Johnny?” she continued softly, careful not to break the mood.

“It’s . . . home,” he said. “Some people need that feelin’ of creation. I don’t. I love . . . it all; sights and smells and sounds, the people an’ the animals and the plants and . . . oh, the way the sun comes over the east tower every mornin’, the church bell soundin’—Shit, I’m no poet, sprout; you’re the only one in the family with ambitions in that direction.”

He smiled ruefully. “I suspect I love this place mo’ than any individual, which may say somethin’ about yours truly. At least, a community an’ place is longer-lived than a person. I won’t change anythin’ much, when it’s mine. A bit of tidyin’ up here and there, maybe bring in a herd of eland, it’d do well . . . ”

“Mr. Ingolfsson?” Myfwany asked.

“John,” he said.

“Thanks, John . . . I was wonderin’, don’t mean to pry, but if you like it here so much, why did you volunteer fo’ officer trainin’?” Everyone started equal in the Citizen Force, three years minimum and a month a year until forty, but not everyone wanted to prolong their spell in uniform.

“Payback,” John said, opening a thermos of caffé latte and passing it around. Myfwany made an inquiring sound as she accepted a cup of the coffee.

“I pay my debts,” he amplified. The road was winding upwards again, through fig orchards and rocky sheep pasture dotted with sweet chestnut trees.

“Down at that school, they’re probably fillin’ y’all up with you debt to the Race and the State.” He shrugged. “True enough. I likes to think of it on a mo’ personal level. A plantation can feel like a world to its own self, but it isn’t. It only exists as part of the Domination. The Race makes possible the only way of life I know, the only world I feel at home in, the only contentment I can ever have.”

He laughed. “Not least, by controllin’ change. It must be powerful lonely to be a Yankee; by the time one of them is middle-aged, everythin’ they grew up with is gone. Like havin’ the earth always dissolvin’ away beneath you feet. Cut off from you ancestors an’ you descendants both. Here, barrin’ catastrophe, I can be reasonable sure that in a thousand years, what I value will still exist.

“It’s here because Ma and Pa an’ others like them fought fo’ it, bled fo’ it. A decade of my life is cheap payment. I wouldn’t deserve this unless I was ready to die fo’ it, to kill fo’ it.” He blinked back to the present, and the gray eyes turned warm as he smiled at his sister. “It’ll always be here fo’ you, too, sprout, when you come back from that space travellin’.”

The lodge was pre-War Italian work, only slightly modified. The plantations fronting the hill nature reserve maintained it jointly, part of their contract with the Conservancy Directorate to manage the forest. Vine-grown, it nestled back into the shadow of the hill, flanked by outbuildings and stables and a few paddocks surrounded by stone walls. The huntsmen were waiting in the forecourt, with the horses and dogs, beside a spring-fed pool. A dozen lion dogs, the type the Draka had bred to hunt the big cats in the old African provinces: black-coated, with thick ruffs around their necks and down their spines. Massive beasts, over a meter at the shoulder and heavier than a man, thick-boned, with broad blunt muzzles and canines that showed over the lower lip. They rose and milled as the car stopped, straw-yellow eyes bright with anticipation, until a word from the handlers set them sinking back on their haunches in disciplined silence.

“Menchino, Alfredo,” John said, nodding. The huntsmen were brothers in their early thirties, one fair and one dark, with the slab-sided, high-cheeked faces of the Tuscan peasantry.

“Master John,” Menchino said, making the half-bow as the Draka stepped down from the car and the driver pulled away in a chuff of steam and sough of pneumatics. There was a smile on his face; hunting was the brothers’ religion, and John Ingolfsson had been a devout fellow-worshiper since he was old enough to carry a rifle.

“Missy—” Alfredo began. “Mistis,” he corrected, as she frowned and tapped her gunbelt in reminder of her adult status. Adult as far as serfs were concerned, at least. A slight glance out of the corner of his eye to the other serf, the hint of a shrug; she suspected it was the thought of two young females going after a dangerous beast. Italian serfs were funny about things like that, and Ma said it would take another generation or two to really break them of it.

They had learned not to let it show some time ago, of course.

“We’ll probably be back fo’ lunch,” Yolande said to the middle-aged house girl on the veranda. “Myfwany, you pick y’ mount?”

The serfs led the horses over, and the Draka checked their tack. Light pad-saddles, with molded-leather scabbards for their rifles; the huntsmen had much the same, though without the tooling and studs. The two Ingolfssons and their guest slid their weapons into the sheaths and fastened the restraining straps. Their pack was sitting quiet, but the dogs knew what that meant; tails began to beat at the gravel of the drive, and deep chests rumbled eagerness.

“I’ll have the dapple,” Myfwany said reaching for the bridle of a spotted gray mare. It blew inquisitively at her, and politely accepted a lump of brown sugar. She turned eyes bright with excitement to her friend. “Less’n you’d rather?”

“ ‘S fine,” Yolande said, gathering her own reins and vaulting easily into the saddle one-handed. The brown gelding sidestepped, then quieted as she gathered it in and pressed her knees. She ran a critical hand down its neck, checking the muscle tone, and turned an eye on the others. They were fresh but not rambunctious, which meant the lodge staff had been exercising them properly.

“Keep the dogs well in hand,” John said to the huntsmen. “They not used to anythin’ bigger an’ meaner than they are.”

“That’s it!” John said, reining in on the bank of the little stream. The sound of the pack had changed, the deep gerrr-whuff! barking giving way to a higher belling sound. “They’ve sighted.”

“Less’n they’ve taken out after a deer.” Myfwany grinned, reached down beyond her right knee. The rifle came out of the scabbard with an easy flip, and she rested the butt on one thigh. The other Draka followed suit.

One of the Italian serfs snorted, and the other coughed to cover it. John laughed. “Not this pack,” he said. “Not when we gave them a clear scent.”

They heeled their horses down the slope in a shower of gravel and dust. A two-hour chase had brought them deep into the high hills; the Monte del Chianti were mountains only by courtesy, more like steep ridges, few more than a thousand meters high. It was just enough to keep the air comfortably crisp as the morning turned clear and brilliant. The forest was shaggy and uneven, part old growth, much new since the conquest, you could see the traces of old terracing, or the tumbled stones of peasant houses. Oak and chestnut covered the lower slopes, with darker beech and pine and silver fir above; feral grapevines wound around many, and there were slashes of color from the blossom of abandoned orchards.

This spot was cool under tall black pines, full of their chill scent. There were poplars along the stream; the mounts stepped through cautiously, raising their feet high as horseshoes clattered on the smooth brown rocks. Spring rains and sun had brought a brief intense flowering where sun reached through the trees; the far slope was too thin-soiled to carry timber, and it blazed with wild field lilies, grape hyacinths, and sheets of purple-and-yellow crocus. Yolande rose slightly in the stirrups as the gelding’s muscles bunched to push it up the hillside in a series of bounds. The bruised herbs raised a sharp aromatic smell, of sage and rosemary and sweet minty hyssop that shed anthrophora bees and golden butterflies in clouds before the horses’ hooves.

“Hiyaaa,” Yolande shouted, as they broke onto an open ridgeline and swung into a loping canter. One of the serfs sounded a horn, taaabrrrt, and the sound of the dogs rose to a deep baying roar; the prey was treed or at bay. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears, and the wind cool after them; it tugged her hat down and blew streamers of pale hair free of her braid, flickering at the corners of her vision. The horse moved between her knees like a beating heart, a long weightless rocking and then the rhythmic thumping of hooves, snort of breath, a creak of leather, and rattle of iron.

“Whoa-hey,” John said. The dogs were raving, just out of sight ahead, and then the voice of one rose to a shrill scream of pain, cut off sharp as a knife. Another sound, a wild saw-edged snarling shriek that never came from a canine mouth, and the cries were echoed and reechoed as if from stony walls, fading to a harsh far-distant clamor. Yolande’s horse laid back its ears and shook its head slightly, and she tightened her legs to reassure it.

The horses slowed to a fast walk as they went under the shade of a stand of tall fir, then again as they emerged into a semicircle of open space surrounded on three sides by trees. The ridgeline was broken here, with a steep slope that turned into a cliff ten meters high. The spot had been improved slightly, the sort of thing the Conservancy Directorate did to encourage the game: a spring had been dug out halfway up the cliff and tunneled through a stone lion’s mouth, leaping out to feed a pool and the trickle that drained down toward the creek. A big maple grew out of the cliff near the spring, thick twisted roots gripping at the rocks like frozen snakes, the trunk sweeping out almost horizontally and then flaring upward. Six of the lion dogs were leaping and calling beneath the trunk; five more were clustered around the base of the tree.

“Merda!” Alfredo swore. One of the pack was lying at the base of the slope, still twitching but with its intestines hanging gray and pink out of its rent belly. It was plain enough what had happened. The five dogs at the tree were barking frantically toward the dense foliage farther out, making short dashes out the broad sloping surface of the trunk and then retreating, as if daring each other. Through the leaves the hunting party could see a flash of brown and orange, and hear the yowling screech of the leopard. Only one dog could approach at a time. A lion dog might outweigh a leopard, but its jaws alone were no match for the big cat’s claws and speed.

“Call them in, Alfredo,” John said, without taking his eyes off the tree.

The Draka all dropped their reins, and the horses froze into well-trained immobility; nervous, though, and sweating, their eyes rolling at the scent of carnivore so close. Alfredo blew a series of notes on his horn, and his brother rode among the dogs snapping his whip. They milled, bellowing, then drew back with a rush, standing in a clot with their muzzles raised toward the tree. Discipline kept them motionless and quiet, but there was a straining eagerness in their posture, and they shifted weight from foot to foot as unconscious whines of frustration slipped between their fangs.

Yolande worked her mouth, suddenly conscious of its dryness. The glade grew quiet; there was the soft background surf-sound of air through the trees, and the incongruously soothing rush of water into the pool, the small noises of the horses and dogs, and for a moment the fading echoes of Alfredo’s horn. Gods, this is exciting, she thought. The branches shook as the leopard moved restlessly, then settled, and she could see its amber eyes peering through the leaves. Exciting. Quiet outside, inside a torrent of feelings: pity for the dead lion-hound, awe and pity for the great deadly beast seventy meters away. The peculiar combination of sorrow and deep happiness she always felt hunting, but raised to a new level, an aliveness that seemed to reach out to encompass every speck of dust in the slanting beams of light, every movement of leaf and shadow. As if she could track the bees by their humming, or know every rock and crevice of the cliff . . .

“Fist fo’ it,” John said easily. He drew his binoculars left-handed and focused. “Hooo, lordy, that’s a big one. He-cat, old an’ mean. He not happy at all.” Her brother laughed softly with pure pleasure as he returned the glasses to their case at his saddlebow. “Sprout, you first.”

They both beat their left fists through the air, then opened them simultaneously.

“Scissors beats paper, tow-hair,” John said. “Miz Venders?”

“Myfwany,” she corrected, raising her hand. “One, two, three—” The girl’s hand came out closed: rock. The young man’s was scissors again; he swore good-naturedly.

“You win, Myfwany. Remember, he’ll come down fast; that’s, oh, thirty meters. Ten in the leap from the tree, then a couple bounds to us. Got it?”

“Mm-hm,” the redhead said. There were two spots of crimson high on her freckled cheeks as she kicked one leg over the neck of her horse and slid down, then went to one knee. The muzzle of the rifle stayed pointed half-down, and rock steady. The breeding pairs for the Italian leopards had been imported in the late ’40s from the Atlas and Kayble mountains, and not much hunted since; they would have little fear of men. Still it was possible this one knew what a gun meant; if nothing else, the scientists used dart guns for tagging specimens. She was equally careful not to stare directly at their prey.

“You next, sprout.”

Yolande brought her right leg over the low horn of her saddle, rested her left hand behind her and eased herself down to the ground. The springy turf gave beneath her boots; it was a long way down, a fifteen-hand horse and a short person. She dropped the reins, which meant “stand still” to a gun-trained mount, and brought her Sherrinford to high port. Her brother waited a few seconds and then dismounted, careful to make no abrupt movements.

“Menchino,” he said, in the same soft, conversational voice. “Take you rifle, circle around and come up behind that tree. Don’t shoot less’n you has to. If’n you has to, don’t hesitate.”

“Grazie, Mastah,” the serf said; some Draka might have sent him up there unarmed. He drew his own plain single-shot hunting weapon and dropped back to follow the edge of the trees around the clearing and approach the maple from behind.

“Spread out,” John continued. The two Draka fanned out from Myfwany, leaving her directly facing the tree. Alfredo snapped leashes to the collars of the lead dog and bitch, drawing them to one side to anchor the pack. They could all hear the leopard moving restlessly in the branches, a coughing grunt and an occasional snarl, glimpses of patterned hide.

“Mastah, there’s a cave back here,” Menchino called from the dense scrub at the base of the slope. The soil was thin there, but the rock was damp with seepage and carried dense thorny maquis, rock rose and broom. “Sign and scat.”

“Lair,” John called. “Ignore it.” He waited until the huntsman was well-positioned at the base of the tree. “Can you see him?”

“Yes.” There was a tight quality to the serf’s voice. “Jesu and Maria, Mastah, he’s a big one. Two and a half meters long, easy.”

“Good. Now send him down.”

Menchino shouted and began kicking the underbrush around the base of the tree; he roared insults, waved his arms, skated rocks out toward the thicker branches. Yolande wiped her hand on her jacket and took a firmer grip on the rifle. To a cat, noise and motion were threat; it would probably break forward. And predators were more sensible than humans, they were dangerous when cornered or where their young were concerned, but they rarely attacked something except in self-defense or to eat. Leopards were an exception sometimes, though . . .

The serf fired his rifle into the air; then she could hear the hasty sounds of his reloading. Again.

That brought the cat out into the open, out along a thigh-thick branch that had only a tuft of leaves at the end. Flowing out, then halting blinking in the sun. The light seemed to catch fire on its coat, hot spotted gold rippling like living metal, and the tawny pools of its eyes with the pupils slitted against the sun. Wotan, it is a big one, she thought delightedly. The North African breed were larger than the subSaharan variety, but this was exceptional, even so. An old male, one ear chewed to a stump. Not a happy one, either; the head was forward and the ears laid back, the tail lashing. Menchino fired again, into the upper branches of the tree, and cut twigs pattered down.

That’s decided him, Yolande thought, with a pins-and-needles sensation that ran down to the small of her back The long body froze, tail extended and rigid, and then the haunches moved, settling and gripping. She could see the muscles bunch, the claws extend and dig into the rough pale bark. The leopard screamed.

And leapt. An impossible distance out from the branch, soaring as if in flight. Myfwany’s rifle came up, seeming to drift, with the deceptive calm of a motion that is fast but very smooth. The muzzle halted, steady, and the flat crack of the heavy game round broke the air with a startling suddenness. The yellow grace recoiled in midair and fell, hitting the tall grass with an audible thump; it thrashed, sending stalks and wildflowers and divots of turf flying amid a wild squalling that set the horses shuddering and the lion dogs growling like thunder. Then it was up again, flowing like swift water across the open ground, stretching and bunching. Yolande brought her own weapon up, and saw the fangs bared in the V of the backsight. Myfwany fired again, and the predator seemed to stumble with a grunt, fall, sliding into the ground shoulder-first, tumbling end-for-end, then lying still. Time began again.

“Wait fo’ it!” John called. They waited, in a moment that seemed forever. Yolande met her friend’s eyes, bright in a flushed face, and felt a shock that seemed to run down to the pit of her stomach.

Myfwany glanced away. “He’s not breathin’,” she said, slightly hoarse. Yolande looked at the leopard; it was smaller, somehow. The eyes and mouth were open, the tongue lolling like a pink flag; blood pooled out, and there were flies on it already. She walked over to Myfwany, putting a hand on her shoulder, and together they looked down at the dead leopard. It was a little past its prime, marked with the scars of its prey and of mating fights, but still sleek and strong. Triumph and a huge sorrow mixed to make a feeling that was wholly pleasure; she took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, letting the moment pass with it.

John came up and clapped Myfwany on the back. “Nice shooting,” he said heartily. “Cross the loins with the first round, and right through the lungs with the second,” he continued, pointing out the grounds with his toe. “Want to skin him out?”

“No,” the redhead said, breaking open her rifle and letting the spent brass tinkle down to ping on rock and bounce off the warm skin of the cat. Loosening the sling, she hung it muzzle-down across her back. “I’ll water the horses, if’n you don’t mind.”

The young man nodded, slung his own weapon and drew the long clip-pointed Jamieson from its sheath along his leg. The honed edge glinted in the morning sunlight, a line of silver along the blackened steel of the narrow blade.

“Alfredo, give me a hand,” he said, kneeling and holding the hilt in his mouth while he rolled back the sleeves of his hunting jacket.

Yolande let the barrel of her rifle fall back onto her right shoulder, reaching left-handed for the reins of her mount. Myfwany collected the other horses, soothing them with words and a firm stroking band on nose and neck, leading them carefully around the bloody bodies of dog and leopard. They shied slightly at the smell as they passed, then quieted a little; the wind was from the hillside, and she thought it must still carry the dead cat’s scent, if it had been denning here. She gathered the reins and pulled her horse’s head around, following her friend.

“Mastah! Look out!” Menchino shouted.

She looked up, and for a second perception warred with knowledge; the leopard was dead, but a leopard was charging toward her from the shrub beyond the pool. Running in long low bounds, the tail swinging to balance it, fluid and sure. Menchino fired from above, and his bullet kicked dust and spanged off stone by the animal’s side. It swerved slightly, the platter-sized feet spreading and gripping in automatic adjustment; swerved toward Myfwany. The horses were rearing and neighing. Myfwany’s hand was tangled in their reins; she was fighting to free it, clawing with her other for the pistol by her side. Alfredo’s rifle was still in its scabbard on his saddle; John’s was across his back, and his hands busy with the skinning.

Yolande felt the reins burn through her left palm. The Sherrinford’s muzzle came forward as she yanked at the stock with her right hand, but slowly, so slowly, caught in air thick as honey. Only the leopard was moving at normal speed, the bounds lengthening. Myfwany’s face was chalk-pale, the green eyes enormous. Slap and the forestock of her rifle hit her palm, hold the breath squeeze the trigger. Bam! and recoil hammered at her shoulder, another spurt of dust by the cat’s forefeet, and now it was rising in the final leap, head high, Yolande let the muzzle drop again—straight-on shot ran through her head—and bam!

Then she was running toward the tangled figures on the ground, rifle held high by the barrel, shouting wordlessly. She swore as she ran, every muscle tensing for the single blow, then froze. The leopard was not moving, but neither was Myfwany . . . Yolande dropped the rifle heedlessly, buried her hands in the cat’s ruff and strained backward, heaving at a limp unresisting weight that was like a roll of damp canvas; the animal’s bones and sinew moved in their natural courses, but flopping loose without a directing mind, hampering. She heaved it half off the other girl and dropped to her knees, hands smoothing blood-matted hair back from blood-slicked skin.

“Myfwany!” she said frantically. “Oh, gods, Myfwany, are you all right, please be all right, I tried, oh please, I love you, please!”

“Phffth,” Myfwany said, spitting blood to one side. The matted lashes fluttered open. “It’s—pfhth—not my blood, an’ get this thing off me!” She kicked and shoved, freeing herself, then sat up and caught at Yolande’s shoulders. “And I love you, too.” Suddenly they were laughing, embracing, with kisses that tasted of rank blood and fear and joy.

“Touchin’,” John said, dryly and a trifle breathlessly. The girls broke apart and rose, leaning on each other. Yolande’s brother heaved the animal over on its back. “Female, nursin’.” The teats along its belly were enlarged. “In through the lung, an’ a perfect heart-shot,” he continued. “Dead in the air.”

Myfwany gripped Yolande harder, and gave way to a single deep shudder. “Felt like someone fired it at me like a cannonball, an’ it was sprayin’ blood.” Yolande felt her stomach knot with fear-nausea, and pushed it down; there had been no time before, and now it would be foolish. She slipped her arm down to rest around Myfwany’s waist, unwilling to break contact, unwilling to let go the concrete feeling of life.

“Bet there’s kits in that-there cave,” she said.

The leopard cub mewled, and Machiavelli danced back from the box that held his fascinated regard, hissed, then turned tail and bolted up the tower stairs. Yolande heard Myfwany laugh, and gripped harder at the stone of the balustrade, biting at her lip and choking back a sob.

“Sweet, what is it?” Myfwany asked.

Yolande turned to see her framed by the opened French doors of the lounging room; behind her the servants were scurrying out. The afternoon wind blew up from the gardens, cuffing with warm soft hands at red hair still damp and dark from the baths, plastering the thin cloth of the robe to her body.

“I—” She breathed deeply, winning back control. Her head felt light, only vaguely connected to the rest of her. “I just realized again. Yo—might have died, Myfwany. You might be gone, right now.”

“So.” The other smiled, warm and fond; then her expression grew serious, and she stretched out her hands toward the other, palms up. “Come to me. I’m here.”

The cub was looking doubtfully at the bottle. Yolande looked up from fastening her eardrops as it hissed.

“Come on, eat, you little moron,” Myfwany said, pushing the bottle toward the spotted form. It tumbled backward in the blankets, crowding toward the back of the improvised cage the plantation carpenter had knocked together for them. The huge amber eyes were opened wide, and it made a pathetic gesture of menace with the too-large paws.

“Oh, the poor thing!” That was Sofia, Myfwany’s maid. She reached toward the leopard and yanked her hand back, sucking at the scratches and spitting curses in Sicilian.

“Here,” Yolande said, laughing. She picked up the comforter from the rumpled sheets of her bed and threw it over the cub, then clamped the wriggling form through the thick fabric while the others tucked it into a bundle.

“Now, let’s get the head free . . . right. Give me the bottle, darlin’ The cub was glaring and hissing again; she waited until it quieted a little, then dribbled milk on its muzzle. It squalled, but licked its fur as well, and she could almost see it pause mentally at the warm almost-familiar taste. “There, little tiger, that’s bettah, isn’t it?” Yolande moved the rubber teat closer, then gently brushed it against the cub’s lips. It hesitated, then began to suck strongly; she let it feed for a moment, then brought the fingers of her other hand close enough for it to smell, rubbing along its jaw.

“Lele, Sofia, that’s how y’all does it,” she said. “Ready to go down to dinner, darlin’?”

“Sho’ly, love,” Myfwany replied. The word was still new enough to send a stab of pleasure. “How do I look?” She stood and turned, holding out her arms.

They were both dressed in evening wear, the neo-Grecian gowns that had been standard formal dress for Citizen women since the Classic Revival a century and more ago. The draped and folded chiton still felt a little strange, children did not wear such. The right shoulder was bare, and the end-fold hung over the left elbow. Myfwany’s was a warm bronze color, edged in a turquoise that matched her eyes. Yolande had decided to stick with ivory-cream; ash-blondes tended to look washed-out in anything lighter.

“You look wonderful,” Yolande said, running her fingers gently down the other’s neck. “Ready to face the music?”

“I didn’t know you meant it literally,” Myfwany said. Dinner was indoors today, it being still a little cold for dining on the terrace after sunset. The two girls had halted in the corridor outside the lounge where the family gathered before the evening meal, and they could hear the sound of harp and flute through the tall carved-ebony doors.

“Oh, you,” Yolande said. Then: “Oh, you.” She made a few last-minute adjustments to the hairpin in the psyche-knot above her left ear. “I’m nervous. I mean, I feel, you know, different.”

“Love, you didn’t have a big ‘V’ fo’ ‘virgin’ stamped on y’forehead, anyhows.” Myfwany smiled heavy-lidded, and leaned forward to plant a gentle kiss on the skin between Yolande’s breasts, above the drape of her gown. “Besides, it’s only fifty percent deflowerin’.”

“No fair, I cain’t grab when we’re all dressed up!” Yolande whispered, then chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Well . . . it wasn’t like I expected. I mean, I knew it was a pleasure, everyone’s always goin’ on about it, but I didn’t expect it to be so much, oh, fun. Like a tickle-fight, hey? An’ I feel so much bettah.”

Myfwany joined in her laughter. “I think that depends on who, sweet,” she said, and held out a hand. “Shall we go in?”

Yolande took the hand in both of hers. “Myfwany, I want you to know something. As long as our names are spoken together, I’ll never do anythin’ to make you ashamed of me.”

“Nor will I,” Myfwany said, equally grave. They linked arms and turned.

The door swung open easily with a hand push against one of the silver lion’s heads that studded the night-black Coromandel wood, into a space more dimly lit than the corridor. The room within was a long L-shape. The inner wall held bookshelves and a huge fireplace; the outer, Flemish tapestries between tall windows. Cedar logs burned with an aromatic crackle, their light ruddy on the couches, settees, and low tables. The serf musicians were gathered unobtrusively in a corner, the Draka grouped around the hearth: her father and mother and brother, of course, and Aunt Alicia; her friends from school; the three overseers. This was a semiformal occasion, to celebrate the successful hunt.

“Greetins,” her father said with a slight bow, raising his brandy snifter. “Honor to our leopard killers.” He was smiling, but there was real pride in the gesture.

Yolande nodded back to the stocky figure in the dark velvet jacket and lace cravat, feeling a rush of love. The others raised a polite murmur and joined the toast before resuming their conversations. A house girl brought round a tray of aperitifs, and the girls accepted glasses of chilled white wine with their free hands as they joined the loose grouping around the fire. She sipped, marveling at the tart refreshing taste, the sensual pleasure of fire-warmth on her skin; everything seemed new, everyone sharing her joy.

“Congratulations again,” John said, taking a wafer dabbed with beluga from a passing servant. He looked at their linked hands. “On all counts.”

Her mother looked up from a lounger; she had been talking to Rahksan, who sat beside her on a stool working listlessly at her inevitable embroidery.

“Well, here’s a cat that’s found its way into the dairy,” she said dryly. “Took long enough.”

“Mother!” Yolande said, with a sound halfway between affection and exasperation.

Veronica had been leaning against the mantelpiece. “An’ about time,” she added, grinning.

Myfwany leaned closer to give Yolande a kiss on the cheek. “My sentiments exactly,” she said aloud. In a whisper: “They just teasing, sweet.”

“Don’t I know it,” Yolande replied, and realized that this time at least she did not mind, her heart knew as well as her head did that the words were without intent to hurt. Today nothing could diminish happiness, except the knowledge that today must end.

She looked down at Rahksan; the serf’s face was drawn tight around the eyes and mouth, a look of suffering. Poor Tantie. She gave her friend’s arm a squeeze.

“Just a second, love,” she murmured, then crossed to sit on the lounger. “Y’all right, Tantie?” she asked softly, putting a hand on her shoulder. The official story was that Rahksan had been attacked, which would account for her being shaken. The Draka girl grimaced mentally at the memory of the scene in the stable, then put it aside with adolescent ruthlessness; nothing seemed strong enough to cast a shadow on the changing of her life. “Anythin’ I can do fo’ you?”

“No, thank y’ kindly, Mistis ’Landa,” Rahksan said. Some life returned to her face, and she reached up to pat the girl’s hand. “I jes’ need a little time, is all.”

“Which reminds me, time fo’ an announcement,” Johanna said casually. “In recognition of his quick and decisive action, Rahksan’s son Ali is bein’ recommended as a candidate fo’ State service, an’ will be leaving in two months fo’ preliminary testin’ at the Janissary base in Nova Cartago.”

There were raised eyebrows among some of the Draka. The number of recruits needed was limited in these days of peace, and there was fierce competition for the available slots among the one and a half billion of the serf population. Recommendation was a privilege usually only given to exceptionally deserving cases, and Ali had been notorious as a troublemaker, aside from this latest incident. Of course, the Janissaries were not house serfs or field hands, and qualities which made a man unsatisfactory on a plantation could be valuable in the armed services . . .

Rahksan nodded deferentially to the congratulations, murmuring thanks. “I jes’ hope he do well, Mistis,” she said to Johanna. “He never goin’ be happy here, that sure. Maybeso this the makin’ of him.” She blinked, her lashes wet. “But I don’ see much of him now, that sure too.”

“Hey, don’ be sad, Tantie,” Yolande said, concerned. “He get leave now an’ then, you sees him as often as Ma sees me or Edwina or Dionysia or John.”

A sigh. “That true.” The Afghan smiled wearily, but with genuine warmth. “Congratulations fo’ yaz an’ y’friend, Mistis ’Landa. Good to see m’other chile’s growin’ strong an’ happy.”

“Thank you, Tantie,” Yolande said, touched.

Her mother reached out a finger and touched Rahksan’s cheek, taking up a teardrop. “Speakin’ of children, why don’t you go an’ talk to y’ boy some, Rahksi?” Johanna looked up to meet her husband’s eye; he nodded slightly, smiling. “See you later this evenin’.”

The Landholders and their guests walked through into the dining room—one of the smaller ones; there would be no point in eight people losing themselves in the halls meant for entertainment. This was spacious enough but cozy, a round rosewood table and sideboards; the white linen and burnished silverware shone beneath the chandelier, and the house girls were laying out the appetizers: smoked salmon and foie gras and oysters nestling in beds of crushed ice. Yolande found herself and Myfwany seated to the right of her parents, the senior positions.

The smells suddenly made her mouth water; it had been a long day, and she had skipped lunch.

“My, that looks good,” she said, as the serf laid salmon and capers on her plate. Another poured the first wine, a Valpolicella the color of straw. She sniffed, sipped.

“Fifteen an’ hollow legs,” Johanna said. “Children . . . oh, speakin’ of which, Tom an’ I have anothah announcement.” She reached across and took her husband’s hand. “We’re havin’ some mo’.”

Yolande choked on her wine. Myfwany thumped her back but she could still hear John’s glass hit the table with a heavy chunk as she coughed.

“You what, Ma?” she gasped. She was the youngest of the four, and had had fifteen years of hearing Johanna’s fervid relief that that particular duty to the Race was complete.

“Loki you say!” her brother added, with a snort. “That’s a surprise.”

Her father laughed, deep and rich. “Soul of the White Christ, everyone’s Methuselah to their offspring,” he said leaning back and grinning at their discomfiture. “Frig and Freya, boy, you going so slow on the grandchildren, we thought we’d show you how.”

“An’ we’re not exactly too old yet,” Johanna said, raising a brow. Then, relenting: “You youngsters do tease easy. Oh, we not doin’ it personal; that would be too risky at my age, certain-sure. Not to mention barbaric an’ uncomfortable. We had a couple dozen frozen ova stored by the Eugenics people, just goin’ have them warmed up and borne by host mothers, brooders. Finally they figured a way of havin’ the unpleasant part done by the serfs.” A bland look at Yolande. “Provided you approves, of course.”

“Certai—oh, Mother,” Yolande said, casting an appealing eye at her friends. It was bad enough being teased by your contemporaries, but parents were much worse. She saw suppressed laughter, as her schoolmates examined their plates or the ceiling.

“It’ll be nice to have babies around again,” she said. That was true enough; babies were even more fun than kittens. “An’ they’re no bother, after all.”

“Sho’ly will be nice,” Johanna agreed, nodding. “The Eugenics people talkin’ about improvements, as well. Now, about the party next week—”