The Domination

Chapter Ten

CHATEAU RETOUR PLANTATION

TOURAINE PROVINCE

JULY 1947

“Must we do it today?” Chantal Lefarge asked, shifting the ledger restlessly from one arm to another.

“It will do you good to get out of doors,” Marya Sokolowska said firmly. The other woman had been losing weight and sleep. The nun forced herself not to think of the real reason: it was not something she could alter, and bringing it up would help neither of them. “Besides, we’ve done as much as we can without instructions. This way.”

They turned right from the south-facing main doors between tall beeches that threw dazzling leaf blinks of sunlight in their faces. The gardens to the east of the Great House were warm and softly murmurous with bee hum, drowsing in the early summer afternoon. Further out they grew shaggy, where fields had been enclosed for future care. Labor and time were still too short for much to be spent on adornment, and the von Shrakenbergs had merely transplanted sapling trees where avenues and groves would be. Sheep grazed there, keeping the grass mowed short and starting the process that would end in dense velvet-textured lawns. Lately they were joined by a group of dik-dik, miniature antelopes four inches at the shoulder; by peacocks and red deer and flamingos.

One of the huge black-coated hounds the Draka kept ambled over to the two women, nosing at Marya’s hand; she ruffled the beast’s ears, which were nearly at the level of her chest. Lion-dog indeed, she thought. That was the Draka name for the breed, so called for their size, and the thick manelike ruff the males grew. And because they were used in catsticking, putting lions at bay for mounted hunters with lances. It wagged its tail, sniffed suspiciously at Chantal, who was holding herself rigid with control. Lion-dogs were also used to hunt runaway serfs, and they had both seen the scars on a man who had tried to make the Channel, soon after the plantation was founded; he had been kept alive at considerable trouble, as an example.

“It’s only a dog, Chantal,” Marya said. “Touch it, go ahead.” The younger woman extended a hand, which received a perfunctory sniff; it wagged its tail and trotted away, nails clicking on the bricks. They continued around a screen of bushes, past a dry fountain, its link to the water main not yet finished.

Marya stopped at an open manhole cover; the man sitting on the edge beside a wheeled tray of tools stubbed out his cigarette and made to rise, removing his flat cloth cap.

“No, Marcel,” the nun said. “How is the leg? I thought you had permission to rest a while yet.” Although he’s making a good recovery, she thought critically. Still drawn and underweight, but it had been only three months since the ambush in the gorge, and it was excellent progress for such a serious injury, followed by major surgery. Of course, the Domination’s medical corps had a matchless fund of experience in dealing with wound trauma.

He laughed with a slightly sheepish expression and slapped the cap against the stainless-steel prosthetic that replaced his left leg above the knee. “A good afternoon, Sister. Don’t worry, I’m not walking far on it yet. I sit on the cart and young André here”—an adolescent popped his head out of the hole, nodded to Marya and Chantal, and returned below to the accompaniment of a metallic clanking and banging—“pushes me about. He’s a good apprentice, but he needs direction. I only work where I can sit, vraiment . . . and I was getting bored, sitting in the cottage and annoying Jacqueline, she has her own work to do. Believe me, Sister, it does a man good to get out in the fresh air and feel he’s doing something useful. Very interesting system of piping they’ve put in here, extruded aluminum where we’d’ve used cast iron.”

He yawned, paused to look down. “No, no, the number three connector, imbecile!” To Marya: “And is it true there’s to be a holiday, Sister?”

Chantal answered, running her hand through her uncombed hair. “Yes. The next generation of tyrants is a month old.”

The air was warm, scented with tea roses and freshly cut grass, but a chill seemed to touch them. “Now, that was a very stupid thing to say, Mademoiselle Lefarge,” the plumber replied softly. “Very stupid indeed.” Down the hole, where the noises had ceased: “Continue, André, and keep your ears shut.”

Chantal glared at him through red-rimmed eyes; the pipefitter had belonged to the Catholic trade union, before the War. Class-traitor, she thought: just the sort one would expect to turn out a collaborationist. “You were expecting a song of praise for our owners, perhaps?”

“Chantal!” Marya whispered sharply.

“No, Sister, let me reply.”

Marcel picked up a wrench and spun the adjusting screw, but his eyes never left Chantal’s. “I heard a great deal of that sort of thing before the War,” he said. The nun looked at his hands, broad and battered like any working man’s, but also scarred across the knuckles.

“Union jurisdictional disputes” in Lyon had meant more than handing out pamphlets, she suspected.

“In the Army, too, after I was called up; that was in ’40, before the Nazis attacked Russia. The Party men were always going on about how it was a war for the rich only; after we lost, they said right out we should collaborate. I know, I spent three years in a German prisoner-of-war camp and they let copies of L’Humanité circulate. Then when we were released I fought again as a volunteer against the Draka, in Belgium, and I escaped because a Flemish peasant saw a rosary in my hand when he found me lying wounded in the woods. And it was a Frenchman who shot off my leg.

“So now, comrade Lefarge, I have my work, my garden, a child on the way, and a wife whom I do not intend to leave alone again. That is all that concerns me. About what used to be, I try not to think at all; I have fought enough. Too much to be pushed by someone like you, the type who lost us everything. Now if Father Adelard, or the good Sister here, tells me to do more, I would consider it . . . As for you, comrade, endanger yourself if you must. But not me or my family! Or you may suffer an accident. You understand me?”

The Frenchwoman’s eyes slid away from his. He nodded to the nun. “A beautiful day, Sister, isn’t it? As pretty a place to work as any, as well.” A shaky smile. “Better smelling than most a man in my trade gets.”

Marya nodded, and decided not to rebuke the man for the threat. Besides which, he was right; it was pure folly to take risks without need or hope of results. Sinful, even; prudentia was a virtue, and God had not given the gift of life to be spent recklessly.

“Indeed it is, Marcel,” she replied gently; he was sweating, struggling to control his breathing and put on an appearance of calm. There were so many with memories too hurtful to bear, on this wounded earth. She glanced around. “Beautiful, today.”

Here, closer to the manor, the changes were more extensive, old plantings with alterations in the Draka taste; French gardens were too formal and close-pruned to suit them. Pathways in tessellated colored bricks salvaged from ruins and towns, ponds and watercourses, a few fine pieces of statuary in bronze or marble, mostly loot as well. And flowerbeds, bush and trellis roses, young hedges of multiflora, banks of purple violets, impatiens in mounds of hot coral and magenta, geraniums nodding in trembling sheets of pale translucent lavender. She had seen Tanya’s watercolors of what the grounds would look like when the plans were complete; this was merely a foreshadowing.

Well, at least they use their stolen wealth for something besides tanks and bombers, she thought wryly.

“I’m sorry,” Chantal said, beside her. “It’s just—I—”

“I know,” Marya said, putting an arm around her shoulders. She could feel a quiver under her palm. “I understand, child. Do you want to go back? I can give the mistress her summaries myself.”

“No, no.” Chantal drew herself up. “You do more than your share already.”

The pergola was set in the middle of a maze, the young hedges only knee-high as yet, with tall beeches and poplars left standing from the pre-War gardens. Climbing roses twined through wooden trellises between the marble columns, over lacework arches above them, through the verdigrised metal flowers of the dome; for a moment Marya thought of blood drops on a sheet of crumpled green velvet. Music sounded over the quiet plashing of the water.

“Solange,” Chantal said. Marya nodded; the instrumental portion was a recording but the voice of Tanya’s body servant was unmistakable, a soaring mezzo-soprano, beautifully trained. Solange had spent two years in the Conservatoire in Paris, and practiced faithfully since.

“Delibes,” Chantal continued. The nun nodded, startled at another flash of the scholarship the girl from Lyons occasionally showed. “Delibes’ Lakme, the Fleurette à deux.

“Quite good,” she continued. “Not meant for a solo, but quite good.” It was spoken grudgingly: there was bad blood between the two.

The two bookkeepers entered, made their obeisance; Tanya von Shrakenberg signaled them to wait with an upraised palm. Marya looked at her, then transferred a fixed gaze to the edge of the pergola above, blushing furiously. The mistress of Chateau Retour was reclining on a lounger, wearing an undergarment that seemed to be made of nothing but two triangles of silk. Shameless, the nun thought. I should be accustomed to it, but I am not. She herself was dressed in an ankle-length skirt and a high-collared blouse that buttoned at the wrist; she wiped sweat from her upper lip and suppressed a moment’s envy at the cool comfort of the long body resting in the dappled shade. Indecent. The Rule of her own Order forbade even bathing without at least a shift.

Of course, it could be worse: at least Tanya was a woman. Draka men were equally careless. Grimly she forced her eyes down again, aware that her ears had turned a bright burning pink and that her owner would see and be amused. The Draka was lying with one arm behind her head, the other resting on a table beside the couch that bore a Carries coffee service and a bowl of strawberries beside a tall glass of clotted cream. Beyond that was a wheeled stroller with her month-old twins; one was looking around with the mild wide-eyed wonder of any infant, the other suckling at the breast of the wet nurse who sat beside the carriage.

That did not embarrass her; it was something you saw every day in a Polish village. Madonna and child, she thought with a brief warmth. A real thing, and also the representation of a Mystery, the first icon of compassion; even the heathen in the days before Christ had made the Mother and Babe a symbol of holiness. Marya watched the wet nurse as she smiled and stroked the baby’s cheek; remembered hearing that Draka women almost never breast-fed their infants, and wondered how they could bear not to.

“ . . . and these are the estimates from the League for the construction crew, Mistress,” Marya finished. A team of specialists, hired out for heavy building work, they had left last week, and the nun was glad of it; they had created no end of noise and confusion.

“Hm.” Tanya flipped through the last of the account sheets. “Excellent work, Marya, youve got a talent fo’ administration . . . ouch.” She folded the contractor’s bill. “Piracy, even if everybody does need them. Oh, well, we can always take out anothah loan. Anythin’ else?”

“A circular from the Transportation Directorate. They are moving one of their labor camps into the area, the gauge-standardization project.” The Domination’s railways ran on a 1.75-meter gauge, wider than the European system, and tens of thousands of kilometers had to be relaid. “They would appreciate any bulk foodstuffs available, to save transport. We have several thousand kilograms of potatoes surplus to projected requirements, Mistress.”

“By all means, sell ’em.”

“And a cablegram for you in this morning’s mail, I think concerning the naming-day celebrations for your children.”

Tanya ripped open the flimsy. “Probably Tom and Johanna,” she said. To Marya: “Third an’ first cousins respectively; they have a place down in Tuscany.” A snort of laughter as she read it. “Johanna, all right. Askin’ why I’ve had the infernal bad manners to pup at such an inconvenient time, with grape harvest comin’ on. Says can’t I count to nine, or have I jus’ forgotten what activity results in babies? Hmmm, that’s them, their two children an’ six staff. Flyin’ up in their Cub. How many so far?”

“Thirty-seven Citizens who will be staying at least overnight, Mistress, with about twice that number of servants. Where are we going to put them all, Mistress? The new wing is just a shell.”

“Pavilions, of course. We have a couple around somewheres. We’ll set them up in the cherry orchard just south. Serfs can double up. Then we’ll have to find room for the namin’ gifts, as well.” A sigh. “Just because I paint pictures, everyone assumes I want pictures, ’sides everyone havin’ loot comin’ out they ears. I’m goin’ to have to open a gallery.” She reread the cablegram. “Ahh, no, second thoughts—Tom and Johanna are comin’ up in two Cubs. They two were in the Air Corps, they’ve got pull, an’ I suspect they’re goin’ to be giving one to us. We’ll have to buy another mechanic. Hmmm, we might be able to pick up an ex-Auxiliary from the Forces.”

“I will make a note of it, Mistress.” A piece of meadow had been marked off as a grass-strip runway for those guests flying in, but she supposed something more permanent would be needed if the plantation was to have an aircraft of its own. Cubs were small six-seater runabouts, but the waiting list was long. “And I’ve received a telephone message from Tours; the thousand kilos of oranges you ordered have arrived, the steamtruck will be here Thursday.”

Tanya opened her eyes in alarm. “Wait a minute, isn’t the cold-storage room out of order?”

“Yes, Mistress; Josef tells me it will take a week to repair once the parts arrive . . . and they are overdue.” The Landholder’s League had just established a schedule of per-capita citrus consumption, to get the export trade from the Domination’s old territories going again. It was more convenient to buy in bulk and issue from storage, but the oranges would not keep without refrigeration.

“Shit. Burn up the wire, try an’ get the parts. Issue every household a big sack, an’ hunt up mason jars; we’ll put up preserves an’ marmalade. No use tryin’ to send them back—those League bureaucrats would rather eat their children than muss the paperwork. Damn waste.”

Tanya rose, yawned, put her hands together back-to-back above her head, linked the fingers and bent backward. She was not bulky, but for an instant the long smooth swellings of muscle jumped out into high definition, like a standing wave beneath her skin. Frowning, she probed at the curve of her stomach where it scalloped in under her ribs. “Damn, bettah put in another couple of hours, today; still too slack. Last thing we need is fo’ me to get six months’ punitive callup fo’ bein’ unfit for service.”

Solange rose and slid the Draka’s white-striped black caftan over her head, tied the belt and knelt to fasten her sandals. The wet nurse had taken the infant from her breast and had it on her shoulder, patting gently at its back until a small, surprised belch indicated success. She wiped up the results and Tanya held out her hands for the wiggling pink form, taking it in an experienced head-and-fundament grip.

“They always look like piglets at this age, don’t they?” she asked the air, chuckling and swooping the child around in a circle. It gurgled and waved its arms and legs with a gum-baring smile; Tanya brought it close and fluttered her lips against its stomach. A hand stuck tiny fingers into her nose as wide infant eyes looked down uncertainly, deciding whether to laugh or bawl. They settled on sleep instead; heavy eyelids blinked down, and the Draka settled her child in the stroller beside its twin.

“Hush now,” she murmured, pulling up the light coverlet. “You two don’ know it, but the whole clan, the neighbors, an’ half creation are comin’ to give you toys.” A smile, soft and amused. “Give you momma and poppa toys in your name, really.” The baby gave a small half-cry and then dropped off with the abrupt collapse-in-place finality of infant sleep. “Don’ you worry though, little ones. Momma an’ Poppa are goin’ give yo the whole world fo’ a toy.”

“Come on, Marya,” she said as she straightened. “Few mo’ things we need to talk about, might as well do it on the way to the palaestra.”

Chantal sat staring dully as the Draka left, watching with blank indifference as Solange hopped up onto the lounger and leaned over to pour herself a cup of coffee.

“A cup, Chantal?” she said, using the silver tongs to drop two of the triangular lumps into her own. “Or some of these strawberries? Really, they are very good, just picked. One doesn’t appreciate what freshness is until one lives in the country, a shame to waste them.” Sighing with contentment, she spooned some of the cream over the fruit and sank back against the rear of the lounger, cross-legged with the bowl in her lap.

The other woman looked up, the blank apathy leaving her narrowing eyes. “You are disgusting,” she hissed. “A disgusting whore.”

“Ah.” Solange dipped the long slender spoon into the bowl, picked up a berry and considered it a moment before eating. “I will spare you, cherie, the obvious retort that far from being disgusting, I am a beautiful and accomplished whore . . . and instead merely point out that nobody is paying money for my favors; one should use words with precision, no? ‘Kept woman,’ perhaps, or ‘concubine.’ Furthermore, you have been called to the master’s room fairly often of late. In fact, last night—he was with the Mistress, you understand, and I sleep at the foot of her bed—I heard him express great satisfaction with you. Particularly the way you squeeze your—”

The other jumped to her feet with a strangled sound; Solange dropped the spoon and spread her hands in a placatory gesture.

“I am sorry. Truly, that was cruel, and I should not have said it. Accept my apologies, ma soeur.”

Chantal dropped back to the stool, let her face fall forward into her hands and wept with a grinding sound, hopeless and disconsolate, misery past all thought of privacy or control. Solange turned on one side, busying herself with the cup and saucer in embarrassment until the other woman had command of herself once more.

“I suppose I deserved it,” Chantal said at last, blowing her nose and wiping at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I am no better than you, after all.”

The serf on the lounger sighed in exasperation and clinked the stoneware down on the marble table slightly harder than necessary. “Lefarge, it is not a matter of better or worse, but of less or more foolish. This grows rapidly more tiresome, my old, this martyred pose of yours. If the von Shrakenbergs took you seriously, there might already have been grave happenings. Some . . . friends have asked me to speak with you.” She shook her head at Chantal’s quick suspicion. “No, not the masters—Mistress Tanya does not, I fear, think of me in connection with such practical matters—some of the other servants. You are becoming a somewhat dangerous person to be about. Not Sister Marya either . . . ”A pause.

“The good Sister is, as one might expect, something of an innocent. She would sympathize, but say you have nothing to reproach yourself for, as one who submits passively to superior force.” She kept her eyes on Chantal’s, until they dropped again. “Which we both know is not entirely the case, n’est-ce pas?”

“Say what you have to,” Chantal replied in a mumble.

A sigh. “Did you ever see the Bastille Day parade in Paris, Chantal?”

“No,” she replied with surprise, startled out of her thoughts. “May Day only.”

“A great pity, the spectacle was beautiful. I remember well. I was about six, so this must have been ’32 or ’33, the first time my father took me. He was just back from a field trip, burned dark as an Arab, with a most dashing beard; he held my hand as we walked to our seats in the reviewing stand where others with the Croix du Guerre would sit, and I was very proud of him. Maman—” she continued, smiling dreamily, “Maman had the most lovely hat, with flowers; she put it on my head and it fell right over my eyes and I pushed it off again because it was very important to see everything. Poppa put me on his shoulder when the soldiers went by; there were hussars in red cloaks, and cuirassiers in shiny breastplates, and Foreign Legionnaires in white kepis and epaulets.

“I was a little frightened, they looked so fierce and the horses were so large. But Poppa explained that these were men from all over France, who would fight to keep bad men from coming and hurting me, as he had fought the Germans in the Great War; he showed me the President of the Republic, who I could tell was very important because of his frock-coat and sash, and told me how he would command them. I felt very safe, then, my maman was with me, and Poppa was the strongest and handsomest man in the world, and now there were all these others who would look after me, so there was nothing that could hurt me.”

Chantal blinked at her, astonished and sadly envious. Remembered her father stumbling home smelling of cheap sour Midi wine, and his fumbling hands; remembered hiding in the closet too frightened to cry while her parents screamed at each other outside and then the slap of a fist on a face and the tinny crash of kitchenware. Wondering, she studied Solange, trying to see the child with the starched pinafore and the ribbons in her hair, perched on the laughing bronzed explorer’s shoulder. Watching the soldiers, she thought bemusedly. For her, soldiers were the men who came and broke strikes, or the way her eldest sister picked up a little extra cash for drink after the bottle got to her.

Solange was frowning slightly in concentration, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Well, I’ll listen, Chantal thought resignedly. My god, how did the little princess end up here? Perhaps I was wrong to envy; at least I was never allowed to think I could rely on anyone but myself.

“There is a point?” she said.

“Well, we’re neither of us little girls any more, are we, Chantal? Nor are you the only one to have suffered,” Solange said with a shrug. “The past is gone, and everything it held, as well. Why should we fight, you and I? Because of things from before the War, politics, classes? It’s absurd; that world is gone and this one of ours is all we have.

“I remember the War,” she continued. “Better, because I was old enough to understand and be frightened. We stayed in Paris when the government fled to Bordeaux. Maman wanted to go, but Poppa said it would be safer staying than on the roads. When the Germans came, my father went out to watch them parade down the Champs Elysees. Then he came home and got drunk, the first time I can remember that happening. He was already ill and his hands trembled; he just kept raising the glass and wouldn’t listen to me, as if Maman and I weren’t there—that frightened me even more. Later, we’d be crouching in the cellar of our building with the other families, listening to the English robot bombs overhead like . . . like bees in the sky, waiting for the engine to stop and the bomb to come down and kill us with nerve gas, and he was afraid too, there was nothing he could do.”

“Then the Draka came?” Chantal asked gently. A corner of her mind noted how much of a relief it was, to have the arrow of attention dragged around from its unrelenting focus on the pain at the center of herself.

“Yes.” Solange looked down at her hands. “You heard?” The other woman nodded. “The Janissaries picked my father up and threw him into the glass shelves with his souvenirs and kicked him and kicked him, and they . . . they were killing me, there were too many. Big men, crazy drunk, stronger than horses. I knew I was dying, could feel my life flowing away, I was only eighteen and I didn’t want to die—”

She stopped for a moment, dabbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand, took a deep breath. “Then Mistress Tanya came in. I could see a little still. They had guns, they were many; she just told them they were baboons out of . . . order, I think, and to go. Stared at them, and they shuffled their feet and went away. She picked me up and”—a shrug—“I woke up in a hospital, swathed like an Egyptian mummy. It gave me a great deal of time to think. The Mistress came and visited once or twice, but I had a good deal of time, once the pain was less. Time to consider my decisions carefully.”

“Decisions?” Chantal asked. “You weren’t in a position to make choices, surely?”

“Oh, one always has some choices to make. Par example, the Mistress offered to find me another owner, if I would rather not stay with her. My decision . . . I decided to give up, Chantal. To surrender absolutely, to submit, to make the best of whatever came. Which, you must admit, could be much worse. We could be whoring in a Janissary brothel, or spending the rest of our lives between a factory and a concrete barracks. Or anonymous lobotomized lumps of flesh in a labor camp. Instead . . . ” She waved a hand at the pergola.

“Actually, I find myself unable to complain even a little,” Solange continued more brightly. “Here I am, safe, after all. Protected. Unless the Americans drop their atomics on us, or the world ends, of course. Safe, pampered, given every luxury and pleasure, hardly required to work at all, indulged, treated—”

“—like a pet animal!” Chantal snapped.

“No, like a pet human, cherie. With affection, valued for my talents and beauty and skills; the Mistress is quite proud of me. I’m not treated as an equal, of course, but then we aren’t their equals, are we?”

“Are you so convinced of their superiority, then, this master race?” Chantal said quietly, but with an ugly rasp below the surface of her voice.

“Superiority?” Solange made a moue. “Is the wolf superior to the deer? Superior at what, my dear . . . singing, perhaps? By that standard, I am the superior one on this estate; except perhaps for Yasmin, and she is stronger on the instrumental side. Mistress can paint in a superior fashion; you are superior to me in mathematics. Master race? They are a race of masters, that is plain fact, Chantal. Also that they are stronger than we; that is a better word than ‘superior.’ Stronger in their armies, of course, stronger in their wills and bodies, as well. They are here, are they not?

“That,” she continued, lying back and linking her hands behind her head, “is what I meant when I said that I had surrendered, Chantal.

I don’t try to fight, or pit my pride against theirs . . . There’s a curious freedom to it, really. No more tension, no more struggle or fear. Like stepping off the high diving board, everything’s out of your hands and all you have to do is . . . let go. I just let . . . ” She paused, quirked her lips. “No, I helped them change me, inside.” She tapped her temple. “Like surgery in here, you see? The scars still ache a little, now and then, but that is fading. Once you’ve stepped through that wall you find they’re not so bad. Even kind.”

“Kind?” Chantal came to her feet. “Leaving aside the War—”

“—which they did not start,” Solange interjected.

“—Leaving that aside, I said, leaving aside what is happening to me, what about the people they killed? Here, on this land they call theirs.”

Solange sighed. “A pity, but those three attempted armed revolt, Chantal. If you lift your hand to the masters, you die. Everyone knows that.”

“What about Bernard, then? In the stables? They cut off his balls. And made everyone watch!”

“Chantal, he tried to burn down the house”—she jerked her head back at the towers of the chateau—“at night, with forty people inside, most of them locked in their rooms! I would not have been so merciful.” She cocked an eyebrow. “We become somewhat abstract, my dear. Let it suffice to say these people suffered because they resisted. Once you have said in your own heart, ‘do with me as you will,’ the suffering ends, n’est-ce pas?” Her tone became dry. “One might add, at least you are not required to learn a whole new set of . . . ah, habits, shall we say.” Chantal flushed, and Solange giggled again.

“Actually, it’s a bit like those revolting-sounding Normandy dishes we ate in Montparnasse when I was a student, you know, tripe cooked in cream with calf’s brains. Horrible to think about—you have to close your eyes the first time; quite nice once you’re used to them.” A smile. “She could see I was trying hard, and was very . . . patient with me, very gentle. Besides, there is a certain enjoyment to be had from making another happy, is there not?” She sat up on the lounger and moved down, closer to the other serf.

“Let’s get to the heart of it, Chantal. You feel that you are a person, and are being used like a . . . like a convenience, isn’t that it?”

“Yes, that is it,” she replied bitterly. “I’m surprised at your insight.”

“Now, now.” Solange paused and bit her lip. “Look I’ve slept with him too, you know.” At Chantal’s surprised glance: “He asked her, she asked me, I agreed . . . why not, after all? He’s not a bad man, once you get to know him. Have you tried talking to him?”

“What for?” Chantal said wearily. “What could I say?”

“Because, if you want to be treated as a person, well, people talk, things don’t. I talk to the Mistress a good deal, you know: I amuse her, she . . . terrifies me, fascinates . . . What to say to him? ‘Isn’t it a nice day,’ or ‘How did you get that scar,’ or ask him what he’d like you to do . . . They’re perfectly willing to treat you as a person, Chantal, on their terms. After all, he doesn’t want as much from you as the Mistress does from me, just a certain degree of . . . ah, cheerful complaisance. Why not give it a try?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No!” She looked up; there was no anger in her face, only the translucent blankness of someone looking within themselves for knowledge of their own soul. “I am too afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of becoming like you.”

“Well,” Solange said, stopped herself and threw up her hands, then leaned forward and patted Chantal on the shoulder. “So was I, before I did it. I’m a different person now, and happy . . . Ah well, I’ve done my best for you. If your pride means that much to you, well just don’t drag anyone else into your suffering.” She stood, the violet eyes lidded. “Because you are going to suffer, you know, until they break you or you die. Until dinner, cherie; I’m supposed to see Father Adelard about the choir.”

She bent to strap up the player and walked out into the sunlight past the fountain of the nymph. Her kidskin slippers scuffed across the grass, and already she was singing.

Tanya von Shrakenberg watched the stroller being wheeled off to the main entrance of the manor, her head cocked to one side. It was very quiet, the loudest sound the wind through the chestnut trees above them, somewhere children were playing, an ax sounded on wood; far off and faint came the long mournful hoot of a steam locomotive’s whistle.

“Ahh, children,” she said. “One of the better things in life. Once you’ve pupped, that is, as my cousin so elegantly put it: conceivin’ them is nice, too. Bearing them is an insufferable nuisance, but then, life is like that.”

Marya made a noncommittal noise as they walked along the path at the foot of the chateau’s east wall. The sun was just behind the high bulk of the towers, leaving a strip of shade for the brick path; outside it, to their right, the gardens shone with the cruelly indifferent beauty of nature.

No, the nun thought. The pathetic fallacy. Nature is merely indifferent, it is the heart of fallen man that is cruel.

“I would not know, Mistress,” she said in the flat, calm tone she found best for dealing with the masters.

“Yes. Pity you’re sterile, shame to lose your heredity.” Marya started. “Haven’t read y’own file?” the Draka continued, surprised. “Radiation overdose.” Her face grew somber for a moment. “I wish t’hell we hadn’t invented those things, I surely do.”

The Pole blinked aside memory of the intolerable flash and searing heat. “I am sworn to chastity, in any case, Mistress,” she went on.

“So?” To the plumber and his apprentice, shifting into French: “Ça va, Marcel?”

Marcel smiled cautiously and bowed in place; the younger man rose from the manhole and made a more formal obeisance. “It goes well, Maitresse,” he said. “The fountains should all be working for the celebrations. Also the standpipes in the Quarters are all completed.” He shook his head. “You were right about the total input, Mâitresse.”

“Water-borne sewage systems are hungry beasts, that’s why we put in a twenty percent margin.” A smile. “You’ve been doing good work, Marcel,” Tanya said. “Don’t overstrain now: I want you healthy. Jacqueline and her baby?”

This time the plumber’s smile was more genuine. “Very well, Mâitresse; there is some sickness in the mornings, but the women tell me that is to be expected.”

Tanya nodded, and patted her own stomach. “Inconvenient process . . . Anyway, I’ll be sending the midwife by, and I’ve told the kitchens to send down anything special she recommends. Jacqueline looks like she hasn’t been eating as well as she should these past few years, so we don’t want to take any chances.”

“Thank you, Mâitresse,” Marcel said with a worried frown. “She is tired, but will not rest as much as I would wish.”

“I’ll mention it to the headman. Keep well.”

They came to what had been the north side of the chateau, where the new construction began: the old east-west I-shape had been turned into a C by adding a three-story wing to each end. Reinforced concrete frames, Marya remembered, and prestressed panels for the walls, exterior cladding in a stone-and-brick checkerboard that matched the older part of the chateau without trying to imitate it. Tall windows looked in on echoing empty space, but the ground outside was already comely with fresh sod and transplanted trees; Tanya stopped and nodded to a group transplanting creepers along the base. They were girls in their early teens, mostly, and Chantal’s sister Therese. She had been giggling and talking with the others, falling silent than they as the Mistress halted.

“Good work,” Tanya said, and patted Therese casually on the head.

“How is she?” the Draka asked Marya as they continued.

“Somewhat better,” Marya replied, keeping her eyes carefully forward. “She speaks more freely, particularly to young people; she remembers a little, although all from her earlier childhood, mostly before the War. But she is still easily frightened, particularly around men, and the nightmares continue.” She frowned in thought. “Essentially, she is stabilizing in a regressed state. Very delicate . . . ” She hesitated.

“Spit it out,” Tanya said.

“Mistress, in Lyon, you, ah, intimated that if Chantal were to misbehave—”

“That Therese would be punished for it?”

“Yes, Mistress. I must advise you that further mistreatment could easily drive her into catatonia, and—”

“—and you’re afraid Chantal might do somethin’ stupid and Therese would suffer fo’ it,” Tanya finished.

Marya stopped, wheeled and confronted the Draka; her face was calm, but her hands were clenched and shoulders braced, as if she leaned into a storm.

“Mistress, with all due respect, Chantal is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The abuse to which she is being subjected—”

“Stop.”

Marya jerked slightly, with a prickling consciousness of danger running over her skin like the feet of ants; she forced herself to remember what Chantal’s eyes had been like, the last time the summons came. Tanya’s were unreadable, the clear pale gray of snow at sunset; her lips were slightly parted, impossible to tell whether in amusement, anger or anticipation.

“Marya,” Tanya said softly, taking the long ash-blond braid of the nun’s hair and switching her lightly on the cheek with it. “Marya,” she continued, with another admonitory tap, “on this plantation we don’t starve our serfs, let them get sick, beat them for pleasure, or rape their children. Any of those would be abuse, perfectly within our rights, but grounds fo’ complaint. Chantal isn’t bein’ abused, just used. As a bookkeeper, like you; and fo’ pleasure. Fucked, to be blunt, and occasional sexual intercourse is no inherent problem to a healthy wench her age, particularly if she lubricates properly, which I’m told she does. If she chooses to find it unpleasant, that’s her problem. As fo’ you worries about Therese, fo’get them.”

“But—”

“I lied.” Tanya gave a wolf’s grin. “Never had any intention of makin’ her a hostage. Now, as fo’ a ‘breakdown,’ breakin’ Chantal down is one of the reasons I mentioned her to Edward. Saw it in her background, the way she fought up out of the guttah, got an education, that sort of thing; took spirit, determination an’ a strong sense of self. All of which need to be . . . rechanneled. She’s just gettin’ what you might call a graphic demonstration of her own helplessness, on a level impossible to ignore or deny. All she has to do is accept her own weakness, dependence an’ so forth. Lucky we didn’t decide hunger or physical pain would be mo’ efficient.”

Another grin. “Mo’ fun fo’ my husband this way, too.” Her head went to one side. “Why, Marya, sometimes I think you disapprove of me.” A laugh. “Nice stone face, an’ you’ve got good voice control, but when you’re really upset or angry, yore ears turn a brighter shade of red. Wouldn’t be a problem if’n you were wearin’ a wimple an’ coif, of course.”

Marya snatched down a hand that had flown to the side of her head from reflex, and spoke in a voice whose steadiness brought her a small guilty spurt of pride, even now.

“It is not my place to approve or disapprove of you, Mistress,” she said. To herself: That is God’s prerogative, and be assured that He will, you murderer, blasphemer, and corrupter of innocence.

“Marya, words cannot express mah utter lack of concern fo’ you opinions, ’s long as you are reasonably polite about expressin’ them . . . Just to clarify, though, we are not tormentin’ Chantal fo’ its own sake, or because we enjoy seein’ her suffer. Draka have two professions, basically: we fight wars—beatin’ down open, organized opposition an’ enforcin’ political obedience—an’ we manage serfs, doin’ the same thing on a personal basis. Obedience isn’t enough, in the long run; the objective is domestication. Her sufferin’ is incidental to what we do enjoy, the feelin’ of another’s will breakin’, leavin’ obedience and humility. Pain is just another tool we use fo’ the process, like a hammer; we take it out when necessary, then put it away. Analogous to trainin’ a horse to the saddle.”

“We are, then, not human in your eyes, Mistress? Animals?”

“To the contrary, we never fo’get you’re human, that’s exactly the point. It’d be mo’ accurate to say we don’t consider ourselves human in the usual sense; we’re higher up the food chain. In terms of culture, if not biology, though the eugenics people are workin’ on that. Or to be blunt again, you farm the earth an’ we farm you. Domesticated humans are much mo’ profitable and rewardin’ than plants and animals, although much mo’ dangerous and tricky, of course.”

A blink, followed by laughter. “And if serfs weren’t human, we’d all be guilty of bestiality, no? I’ll have to tell Edward that one. Well . . . little Chantal’s education is goin’ to continue until she learns her lesson, after which it’ll be recreation instead. I might take that pretty pony fo’ a trot myself, when she’s properly tamed down; don’t much like it unless there’s . . . interaction . . . on a personal level, as well. Men do, of course, but”—she made an offhand gesture—“men, well . . . lovely creatures at their best, very satisfyin’ at times, but their nerve endings are a little crude, difficult fo’ the poor dears to appreciate the subtleties of the amatory arts. Prisoners of their hormones, really . . . ” Another shrug. “If Chantal comes to you fo’ advice, consider givin’ her Solange as an example of successful adaptation.”

Marya coughed to cover the lump in her throat and waited a moment. Curiosity as much as anger drove her to speak. “Mistress, in my opinion—my professional opinion, that is—Solange is mentally ill.”

Tanya laughed as she turned to walk on, giving the nun’s braid a tug to bring her along. “Marya, Marya, I expected better than that from an intelligent and well-educated person like you. Sanity is always socially defined.” She stopped to pick a flower and tuck it behind one ear.

“Among Romans of the late Republic, fo’ example, overt sadism was the normal personality type. Mass masturbation in the stands of the Coliseum while they watched people bein’ burned alive or torn apart by wolves. I’m familiar with the technical terminology you might apply to Solange, masochism, fo’ example, learned helplessness, regression, transferal, identification with the aggressor. All addin’ up to a perfectly functional response to this environment, even if it would have been neurosis before the War. Fo’ that matter, what was that Viennese fellow, Englestein, we studied him in introductory Psychological Manipulation—claimed women were inherently masochistic. Nonsense among us Draka, of course, but perfectly sensible among outlanders, where females are slaves anyways.”

Marya opened her mouth, considered certain doctrines of the Church and closed it again; futile, to try and explain the difference to a Draka. Yet a woman was Mother of God, she reminded herself. Beside that, even being Pope is very little.

“Actually, Solange—well, she’s the finest piece of loot I acquired in the whole War. Beautiful, of course; intelligent, well educated as far as cultural things go, good conversationalist, playful, wonderful singer, first-rate amourist . . . and charmin’, simply charmin’. Pleasure just to contemplate, and an inexpressible pleasure to own; like havin’ one of those magical jeweled birds in the Thousand and One Nights, all fo’ myself. Fun just to pet an’ pamper, she enjoys things so much.”

A sigh. “An exotic luxury; I spent five years in that stinkin’ tank, figure I deserve it. Also”—she paused for words—“difficult to convey to someone outside the Race—the emotional twining . . . that particular combination of adoration, fear, desire and willing, total submission . . . It does somethin’ fo’ a Draka. An intoxication like bein’ a god, one of the more disreputable Greek ones.” She glanced aside at Marya’s face. “Ah, shocked you a little, eh?”

Tanya released the nun’s hair, and they walked in silence for a moment, the Pole was white-faced, her hands pressed together to control their shaking. “It . . . disarms us too,” the Draka mused, almost to herself. “Like a wolf stops fightin’ when its enemy rolls over on its back an’ shows its belly. Operates below the conscious level, just as pride an’ defiance arouse our aggression.” She spread her hands. “Practical reasons, as well. Notice that I don’t allow Chantal access to the nursery; won’t, either, fo’ a good long while.”

The nun looked up, the breathing exercise learned as part of meditation giving her back control enough; her mind felt detached, washed in a white light of anger and revulsion. “I notice that you place no such restriction on me,” she said huskily, the liquid Slavic accent stronger. “Have you some program to break my spirit? Am I so tame, then, Mistress?”

“No, I think you are incapable of harmin’ a helpless infant,” Tanya said amiably. “Chantal might, in a fit of temper, though she’d probably flail herself with guilt afterwards. Such a grubby bourgeois emotion, guilt . . . Solange wouldn’t hurt a child, but she’d quite probably neglect one.” A shrug. “Marcel back there, still another case of tolerable adaptation. Even better in a few years, nothin’ like a family to teach a man caution an’ humility.”

They had come to the north end of the new wing, a glassed-in shell with a flat second-story roof ringed by a balustrade of red porphyry. Through the windows they could see climbing bars, mats, ropes, wall racks for weights and weapons, suits of padded unarmed-combat armor, machines of springs and balances. Behind would be the steambaths, soaking tubs and massage rooms; not so well equipped or elaborate as it would become but what the von Shrakenbergs considered a good beginning. The outdoor cold-water plunge was an embellishment of nature, a stretch of slough and marsh dredged into several acres of artificial lake; trees, gardens, walkways and lawns bordered it, and an island held a grove and pergola. Not entirely a luxury, since it also served as the main reservoir, with intakes below taking off the filtered water.

Most of the fringes were tawny-gold sand brought up from the Loire, but here near the palaestra was a half-moon beach of gently sloping marble; Marya remembered coming across the indent-order for it while organizing the files, forest-green serpentine stripped from a bank building in Tours. The paved space between building and water held potted trees, stone benches and tables, some shaded by trelliswork, others by ornamental hoods of stained glass on wrought-iron frames. Water quivered under the breeze like ticklish skin, shot fifteen meters skyward from a fountain amid the lake’s waters, arching up in a sunlit cloud of spray. The sun turned the flat surface into a sheet of silver-gilt and blue for an instant, making her blink back tears with its eye-hurting brightness.

Father Adelard was sitting at one of the tables with Solange’s father, playing chess on a board inlaid into the granite surface. The two old men looked up as Tanya and the nun approached, down again when they halted out of earshot.

This too God made, Marya thought, glancing out at the water and heartening herself to look back at her owner. Despair is a sin, she reminded herself. Hope one of the cardinal virtues. And still meeting the pale gray gaze made her remember what Dante had said, that one of the worst torments of the damned in Hell was having to look daily on the faces of the infernal Host.

“So, no,” Tanya continued, untying her sash. “I’m not under the impression you’re tame . . . hold this.” She tossed over the cloth belt and began pulling the robe over her head. “And this . . . ” adding the caftan and putting a foot up on a bench to unlace the sandal. “Plain to see, your soul belongs to your God, your Churchan’ possibly Poland. Irritatin’, in the abstract; obviously, there are orders we can’t give you, if they conflict with those. You don’t have the sense of bein’ defeated that, say, Marcel does, either. That turn-the-other-cheek nonsense, it’s irritatin’ as well, makes dealin’ with you like punchin’ a pillow.

“On the other hand,” a shrug as she kicked her foot out of the leather and began on the right, “we can’t give every fieldhand the sort of detailed attention necessary fo’ tamin’ a wild-caught house serf. Surface obedience has to be enough; find the levers and keep a close eye on ’em.

“Same with you, Marya. After all, we don’t want you fo’ either a bedwench or a whip-wieldin’ bossboy; we want an accountant an’ administrator. The medical skills are a bonus, and as fo’ actin’ as a wailin’ wall, buckin’ people up an’ so forth, just nuts and cream to us. You work hard and conscientiously—if I’d known nuns were so well trained, I’d’ve bought mo’ of them. Christianity’s a good religion fo’ slaves; of course, it has serious drawbacks, but we’ll cure that, in time. Reedit it.”

“Will you! Will you, you—” Marya shouted, and then stopped, appalled. The priest and Professor Lebrun looked up, shocked. The nun swallowed and braced herself; Tanya straightened up from untying her last sandal and came closer, eyes narrowing slightly.

“Yes, we will,” she said softly. “In time, and we have all the time there is. Examine the Koran we allow our Muslim serfs compared with the original, fo’ example.” A thin smile. “We’ve had a nice talk, Marya: you’ve learned somewhat about me, which helps you to serve bettah, and I’ve learned more about you, which helps me. But that last outburst was a little beyond the line. You realize that?”

Marya nodded. “Yes, Mistress,” she whispered. You did not shout defiantly in a master’s face: Tanya allowed frankness, you could even state opinion fairly openly, but there was an etiquette, forms of respect. And she had broken the forms, before witnesses at that. Our Lord was scourged, she told herself. It can be no worse than that. Thank you, Lord, that I may share Your wounds.

Tanya smiled and patted her on the cheek. “But I was pushin’ you, too. No sjambok; pointless to feed your desire to be a martyr, anyways. Finish foldin’ my clothes, then come here an’ hold still.”

Marya laid them neatly on a table: caftan, cloth belt, underwear, sandals with the thongs together in a bow.

“You realize I’m not doin’ this because I enjoy hurtin’ yo?” Marya nodded; that was true, in a sense. “Believe it or not, Marya, I’d prefer you were happy here. Try acceptin’ this in the right spirit, and it might be a first step . . . ”A sigh. “No, I suppose not. Speak the proper words, wench.”

“This serf is ignorant and insolent. I beg forgiveness, Mistress.”

Crack! An open-handed slap across the side of the nun’s face, with a hand that felt like a board wrapped in cloth. Hard enough to jar her head around and sting, but not to injure.

“Thank you, Mistress.”

Crack.

“Thank you, Mistress.”

Crack.

“Thank you, Mistress.”

“That’s that, then.” They walked over to the table, and Tanya leaned over the chess game, studying it in silence for a full minute.

“Knight to queen’s pawn four?” she said to Professor Lebrun. He cleared his throat, glanced at Marya, back down at the board.

“Perhaps, Mistress,” he said after a moment. “Though perhaps . . . ?” He indicated a complex of strike and counterstrike.

“Hmm. That’s the conservative approach; still, you goin’ to be down another castle in three moves.” She indicated the sequence. “So it’s probably worth the risk. Still, suit yourself.”

Shifting into French: “Priest.” Father Adelard looked up, carefully averting his eyes. “About that request for a school you and Marya made. It’s granted.” A smile. “Don’t look so surprised, priest; we do need mechanics and clerks, after all. You can start this winter; no more than thirty pupils, give us a list of names. Marya, can you get me a list of everything necessary?”

“Ah, that is, yes, Mistress.”

“Good: by Monday, then. Oh, and look up Solange on your way back—tell her to attend in the massage room in two hours with my riding clothes.”

She nodded in return to the men’s bows and walked down to the water’s edge; ran the last two steps, sprang, and hit the surface in a clean flat racing dive. The sleek head broke surface ten meters further out, and she began a quick overarm crawl toward the opposite shore. Father Adelard smiled and left then.

“This arrived,” Jules Lebrun said to Marya, sliding the folded slip of rice paper out of his sleeve. It was only a few letter-number combinations on a liner from a carton of cigarettes; a cheap mass-produced brand, issued to semiskilled Class IV serfs in ten thousand canteens across the Domination. His back was to the lake where the Mistress of Chateau Retour was methodically swimming her kilometers, and the paper could be disposed of in an instant.

The nun came to herself with a start. He peered at her through the upper lens of his bifocals, squinting against the blur and the colored light that filtered through the glass overhead. Not hard enough to stun her, he thought. As beatings went, it had been mild, more a symbol of humiliation than real punishment. Something else had struck at her, a blow on the mind or heart. Name of a dog, but this fading eyesight is inconvenient, he thought irritably. One does not realize how much of a conversation depends on seeing the details of another’s face.

“Thank you,” she said, curling her fingers around the scrap of stiff liner and letting her eyes drop to it without moving her head. Her face turned, and her hand seemed to brush casually against her mouth; the Frenchman could see her throat work silently. Overlapping handprints stood out redly on her square firm cheeks, but the animation was trickling back into her eyes as she turned them to him.

“It’s an acknowledgment. They know that Chantal and I have been moved out of Central Detention in Lyon, and where: you are to be the conduit.” She smiled slightly at his silent nod. “Good, under no circumstances should I know who.”

“Sister, I am not sure who it is,” he replied dryly. One of two drivers on the regular supply run, but that too shall remain confidential. “Also, I did several monographs on secret societies during my academic career.” He inclined his head toward the seat that Father Adelard had occupied. “You do not think we should recruit him?”

Marya frowned. “Forgive me, Professor Lebrun, but I would not tell you if I did. Nor approach him during a courier drop, in any case. But no . . . ” A hasty gesture with one hand. “Father Adelard is . . . a holy man, a good priest. My superior in the religious life, of course.”

She crossed herself: “I must risk the stain on my soul and not confess explicitly what we do, Professor. Understand . . . Father Adelard is a brave man, one always ready to take the crown of martyrdom for the Faith. But he thinks mainly of his flock—as is understandable. The bishop the Draka allow is duly ordained; we must obey his commands in spiritual matters, but . . . I suspect they selected him carefully. The Holy Father might feel constrained to agree, for fear of losing all contact with the faithful here in Europe. Likewise Father Adelard is fearful of who might be appointed if he were removed. And the people on this estate must have a spiritual shepherd whose first loyalty is to God. Best he not know of what we do. If we do anything of consequence,” she added in what was almost a mumble.

Lebrun extended a hand that trembled with the misfiring of his nerves and rested it on hers; the nun’s fingers closed around the professor’s with careful force.

“Tell me, Sister,” he said gently. “If you cannot confess to a priest, let me help bear the burden of your doubts. I may not share your faith, but I have faith in you, at least. There was anger in your voice when you shouted—is that what is troubling you?”

“No,” she sighed, looking up at him with a smile of gratitude. “She—not boasted, just mentioned, that they intended to . . . geld the Church, I suppose you could say. Over generations, alter its message into one of worship of the Draka, I suppose.”

Another sigh. “God moves in history, my friend; if He sends us trials, they are no greater than we can bear. We must do our best, and the Church Militant will survive. Oh, it may fall into corruptions for a space—the Church is the Bride of Christ, but here on earth it is made of men, and all men are fallen. Satan speaks in their hearts, and chausubles and vestments are not enough to bar him entrance; the Borgia Popes, even—” A shrug. “For a moment I believed despite myself that they could do this thing, and my anger was the anger of despair.”

“Something else troubles you, though, does it not?” he asked. She bowed her head.

“Another despair; for myself. All this time I have told myself that I had refused compromise beyond the point that my conscience could bear. The Holy Father has said that such religious as remain in Europe must minister to the needs of the people; they may render unto Caesar, so long as no specific action violates faith or morals. What I have done here . . . nothing beyond bookkeeping, and there must be records if people are to be fed, the sick tended, houses built, whether we are free or slave.”

“And you have helped whenever you could,” he reminded her. “Interceded, often at risk to yourself.”

Marya laughed, and he was slightly shocked at the bitterness of the sound. “She . . . that woman, no, that female Draka . . . pointed something out to me. That all my work, even my helping of others, makes this plantation run more smoothly. They approve! She praised my accomplishments!” Sudden tears starred her eyes and thickened her voice. “So much for my careful distinctions. This Caesar demands everything, most certainly including what should be rendered only unto God. Have I become accomplice in abomination?”

The old man felt warm drops spattering on the liver-spotted surfaces of his hands, and forced the faltering muscles to give an emphatic squeeze to the strong work-hardened palms between his.

“Sister.” He waited. “Sister Marya Sokolowska!” She looked up at him. “Remember who invented lies, Sister. And that the best lie is a twisted truth.”

The nun gave a shaky nod, returned the pressure of his hands and withdrew hers to find a handkerchief in the pocket of her skirt. “It would be simpler,” she said with a slight twist of the lips that might have been called a smile, “simpler, if—”

“They were just brutes and monsters?” he replied, and gave a Gallic shrug. “The Domination is an evil that twists and poisons everything it touches, including the better qualities of its leaders. You have nothing of which to be ashamed, Marya Sokolowska.” A grin. “Name of a name, I don’t think she would congratulate you on what we’ve been doing here today.”

She returned his smile. “Forgive me for pouring out my doubts and despairs to you, my friend; it seems I’m nothing but a thundercloud today.”

“You carry too much of a burden yourself. Chantal was involved in such affairs in Lyon; couldn’t you bring her into this?”

Marya frowned and shook her head, once more in command of herself, and her tone had a professional’s objectivity. “No, professor, I think not. She was with another organization to begin with—one we felt was compromised. She herself I have no doubt of, as far as her loyalties go. But she is, you must know, under severe stress at the moment.”

He nodded quickly to spare her embarrassment, and she looked aside as she continued. “I am afraid for her stability, and this is no business for one who may lose control of herself. In recklessness or otherwise. Besides which—” She paused. “I find myself reluctant to take anyone into this matter, the risks are so great, balanced against what we can accomplish, a little information passed along, perhaps a package hidden . . . I feel guilty for endangering you, my friend.”

“Allow me to chose my own martyrdoms, my devout one. I am an old man, and will be gone soon enough in any case; let me die as something more than a Draka pensioner, at least in my own mind.”

She hesitated, then pursed her lips and spoke: “You do have a daughter, and we may be endangering her as well, through you. Not to mention . . . well, I had hoped you might be the means of her . . . recovery.”

It was Lebrun’s turn to look aside. “Have no fears on that score, Sister. Or hopes. Solange . . . Solange is safe, whatever befalls me. The Mistress would neither believe her capable of conspiracy, nor allow her to be punished in my stead. She is safe, even happy, regardless if I live or die. So I may operate with no fear except for my own, eminently expendable, life.”

He turned his hands palm-up on the stone and concentrated on slowing the shaking. “The Mistress is right, you see. My daughter would report me in a moment, if she knew.” Marya made a shocked sound and reached out to touch his arm, knowing the comfort useless against an unbearable grief, but offering it nonetheless.

“I am the false idol, you see,” he said quietly, looking off over the roofs of the chateaus. “She loves me still, but I am the god who failed to protect her.” His hands clenched into fists, and despite the wasting and shaking they showed a little of the strength that had been his. “I did fail her and her mother, I did.” He smiled. “I must have failed my daughter long before the War, for things to have happened as they did; I never wanted to be an idol in her sight. Only for her to be happy and secure, and then a woman who would remember her father kindly; one who could stand on her own feet, with no need of a protector-god. She was such a bright child, so full of life—” Jules Lebrun shook his head with slow finality. “I failed her, perhaps by seeking to protect too much. But you I shall not fail, Sister.”