The Domination

Chapter Fourteen

CHATEAU RETOUR PLANTATION

TOURAINE PROVINCE

AUGUST 3, 1947: 0200 HOURS

It was the quiet hours after midnight, the time of deepest sleep, the time when old men die and young ones lie awake and shiver with an emptiness glimpsed at the heart of things. The wind had died, and the stars shone soft and huge through the damp clear air; grass gave off its heavy scent as the dew beaded on stems, but the flowers were curled in on themselves, petal folded over petal. Mysterious creaks and rustles sounded through garden and field, stalks rubbing one on the other in the slow cellular swellings of growth and decay. A light went by on the river, drifting downstream silently, then others passed overhead with a quiet throb of engines and a long torpedo shape black against the moon.

Below, a fox crouched and barked shrilly as the dirigible passed, then went about his rounds with swift paws that moved the leaves hardly more than his black questing nose. Green bush crickets sounded, strident bursts of sound fading into the empty spaces, and a midwife toad pipped from the borders of the lake.

In the Great House of the plantation, this passed . . .

“Non.”

Tanya woke at the stirring, from a dream where burning rubble collapsed again over the vision blocks, and ventilators poured smoke. For a moment she was bewildered, expecting first the engine growl and the thunder of the falling building; then she recognized the harsh feel of the sleeping bag, starlight and the bulk of her tank above.

Home, she thought. I am home. Smooth silk against her skin, the near-absolute blackness of her own bedroom, underneath her the wavy resilience of a bed whose mattress was water-filled cells. No prickle of dirt or sweat; clean smells of fabric and wood and the garden odors from beyond the curtains. No light except the radium dial of the clock on the table across the room. She sank back into a half-drowse, smiling to herself. It was a pleasure like waking up early on a school holiday as a child, just so you could realize that you were free to go back to sleep. Her own home, bulking solid about her. Edward, the twins, the new-born pair, all near at hand.

“Non.”

The bed was big enough that Solange’s thrashing had not touched her, but the sound and the flowing transmitted through the liquid mattress brought her fully awake. With a sigh, Tanya slid over until her hand touched the smooth warmth of the serf’s back; the Frenchwoman was curled into a fetal ball, and her owner could feel the shudders of nightmare running under her skin. A mumble in her native tongue; pleading, Tanya thought, and she could catch “Poppa” and “Maman” occasionally.

Damn, thought this was tapering off, the Draka mused to herself. Aloud: “Wake up.” A firm, arm’s-length shake. “Wake up, Solange.”

The younger woman convulsed, shot into a sitting position and screamed twice, shatteringly loud; Tanya winced, but kept her hand between the other’s shoulder blades. The Draka could imagine it from times when the light had been on, the serf’s hands plastered to the sides of her face, eyes owl-wide and unseeing. Her quick shallow panting echoed through the room, slowing gradually as the rigid lock of her muscles relaxed. When her hands sank from her face, Tanya pulled her down and close; Solange pushed her face into the angle of the Draka’s neck and clung within the circle of her arms, shivering quietly.

“I was—I was—” she began.

“Shhh, shhh, I know,” Tanya whispered into her hair, rocking her gently. “It’s all right, all right, you’re not there now.” There were several places Solange went during her worst dreams, and none of them were pleasant.

They lay together in the darkness for quiet minutes; Tanya could feel the serf’s heart beating against hers, fluttering in the cage of her ribs. It slowed, until Solange sighed and moved her face so that their lips touched.

“Thank you, Maîtresse,” she whispered.

Well, I know what comes next, Tanya thought. There was a complex wiggling beneath the sheets as Solange slid out of her panties. Do I want to? She probed mentally at herself; it was only three days since her period had ended, which was generally a low point in her libido. Also she had only been asleep four hours and . . . No, I don’t, she thought. I want to go back to sleep. On the other hand, she’ll he hurt, she needs the reassurance, and besides, in a few minutes I will feel like it.

They kissed, and she could taste the slight salt of fear-sweat on the singer’s upper lip; the stronger mint from her toothpaste; and the natural flavor of her mouth which had always reminded Tanya of apples and earth. A pointed tongue flicked at hers, ran lightly along the inside of her lips. The Draka nudged with her knee and Solange welcomed it between hers, gripping with her thighs.

“You wish to make love, Mistress?” Solange asked breathlessly, a small catch in her voice.

Tanya murmured assent, running her fingers through the serfs hair, marveling at the texture, soft as ostrich down, how it was matched in the fine curls pressing against her leg. Solange’s mouth was moving across her face to the angle of her jaw, feather-light brushes of petal lips and tongue tip, while her hands stroked at Tanya’s neck with only the pads of the fingers touching, just enough to brush the near-invisible hairs. The sensation was an unbearable mixture of caress and tickle; she heard her own breath catch as the pulse speeded in her ears with a long swelling.

Now I want, she thought, smiling silently into the darkness. Now I want. Their bodies moved for long minutes in a subtle mutual urging, and then Tanya rose to hands and knees, while the serf slid beneath her and lower. Her hands are so soft, the Draka thought, as they slid down over her shoulders to cup her breasts and then trace delicately along her flanks. They moved in slow gliding circles as the kisses floated down her throat. Tanya shivered as her skin grew tingling-tight, even her lips feeling swollen, like buds about to burst.

“Ahhh,” she hissed aloud as the mouth closed around a nipple, and made a small convulsive arching of her back when small sharp teeth slid over it, nibbling. All sweet goddesses, that’s hotwired to my crotch, she thought exultantly. Solange moved to the other breast, stroked her stomach.

“I—want,” the Draka said hoarsely.

Solange lay back, wiggling lower, and Tanya could feel hands gliding up the backs of her thighs. The serf’s voice was still a whisper. “Then ride this pony.”

Tanya reached up with her right arm to touch the ivory plaque that controlled the lights. They flickered once and shone dimly on the lowest setting, reflected through gaps between the frosted glass false ceiling and the wall all around the big room. Shadows remained, hinting at a few large pieces of furniture, desk and armoire and massage table, hiding inlay and rare woods and even the colors of the glowing thousand-knot Isfahan carpet. There was a slightly brighter patch above the big bed, and the crumpled black silk of the sheets had a liquid shine around and across their bodies. The Draka lay back, examining the face in the crook of her left arm: spots of bright red high on her cheeks—that was familiar enough from their more usual times together, afternoons mostly—but not the tears that slid quietly from under her closed eyelids, pooling and beading and then running in slow tracks down the sides of her face. It was a contrast to her usual sleepy-smug-catlike expression of satiation, but common on these rare nights when she woke from the terrible dreams. Amazing, Tanya thought. She looks lovely even when she cries; most people get red and puffy.

She bent her head to kiss the tears, the salt taste of melancholy and of life, stroked back the drifting wisps of black hair. A kiss, smelling and tasting the warm flavor of sex, her own and the lighter musk of the serf’s, mingled on their mouths.

“Why so sad, my pretty pony, my butterfly, kitten?” Tanya said softly, pulling up the sheet and holding her closer. “Didn’t I make you happy?”

A sigh, and the long curved lashes fluttered back. “Oh, yes, I felt marvelous.”

“Thought so. Do you know, you sing when you come? Anyone awake on this floor is goin’ know I did right by you.” Solange smiled through the tears and snuggled closer; Tanya could feel the slow dropping warm on her arm, then cooling, a little chill where the serf’s breath ran over the wet skin. “Still haven’t said why you cryin’, though. Happens whenever you get like this.”

“I . . . don’t know, Mistress. It was my dream, I was . . . alone, everyone had turned away from me. I wanted them to come back to me, because there were . . . things . . . and I called out to them to help me, to save me, but they wouldn’t, they walked away without speaking. I ran from one to the other but my hands could not touch them. And then, just before I woke up, they did begin to turn towards me, and I knew suddenly that if I saw their faces it would be too terrible to bear, my heart would burst.”

Solange gripped Tanya fiercely, hiding her face in the angle of shoulder and neck. “Isn’t that a silly dream to be frightened of?” she said, muffled.

The Draka stroked her back. “No, it isn’t,” she said, resting her cheek on the other’s head. “Not at all.”

“And then . . . when I wake up and you are there . . . I want very much to make pleasure with you. Not like other times, but because it makes me feel—” A hesitation. “Real again, not alone. As if I am found, not lost.” The tears dripped more slowly onto Tanya’s shoulder, and Solange sniffed. A moment later she spoke again, almost too soft to hear. “I love you.”

Never promise more than you will give, Tanya reminded herself, as she stroked the serf’s hair. She stretched, feeling a delightful lassitude that was not quite sleepiness, as if every muscle had been individually massaged and soaked and returned painlessly at half its original weight. I feel such tenderness, she mused, reaching up for a handkerchief and gently pushing Solange’s shoulder down to the pillow so that her face was exposed. Odd. Ah well, it’s my feeling, why not?

“I know you do,” she said, wiping the streaks from the other’s cheeks and putting the kerchief to her nose. “Here, blow.” A tremulous smile, and the Frenchwoman obeyed. “There, isn’t that bettah? I know, my sweet. I’m glad you do, and I’m . . . very attached to you. You are wonderful and precious to me, you give me infinite enjoyment in a dozen ways.”

Solange reached up and gripped her arms, eyes searching Tanya’s. “You will never . . . send me away, Mistress?”

Tanya kissed her firmly. “What a thought! Nevah.”

“Not even . . . not even when I am old and ugly?” More quietly: “I am twenty-one this Christmas, mistress.”

The Draka chuckled. “Look . . . Solange, honeybee, how old were you the first time I took you?”

“Eighteen, Mistress.” An answering smile. “So frightened and ignorant . . . how did you tolerate me?”

“Easily, sweet.” Tanya remembered the violet eyes watching her undress, huge and misted with terror and determination. “You were tryin’ . . . anyways, that’s about as young as I care to go.” She gave the serf a peck on the nose. “I don’t fuck children, Solange, and I’m ten years older than you, as is. Keep up you dancin’, and you’ll still be breath-stoppin’ beautiful at fifty.”

She rolled closer and took the other’s face firmly between her hands. “And,” she said slowly, “I’ve said I care fo’ you. That means there’ll always be a home fo’ you here, an’ I’ve made provision in my will. Word of a von Shrakenberg.”

Solange sighed again, took one of Tanya’s hands and kissed the palm before pressing it against the side of her face. They settled to sleep, curled spoon fashion in a warm tangle of arms and sheets.

“Oh, one thing,” Tanya murmured sleepily.

“Yes, Mistress?”

“When we’re sleepin’ together alone like this, call me by name.”

Solange inhaled sharply, knowing the rarity of the privilege, especially for one not estate-born. “Thank you, ma—Tanya,” she said.

“You welcome, sweet,” the Draka said. Twenty-one, she mused. Have to get her a present. Perfume, probably, or more platters for her needle-player. Or another crate of those trashy pre-War romance novels; she devoured them like candy . . .

Dirigible, Fred Kustaa thought, leaning out the window and looking upward. The Paris-Alexandria passenger shuttle. Below, the grounds were washed in moonlight and starlight, only a low seeping of yellow somewhere from a curtain not completely drawn. There was a countryside quietness to the landscape; the sounds of merrymaking from the pavilions had ceased. The Draka were early to bed even in a party mood. The air smelled of dew but not rain, and he could tell that tomorrow would be another day of dry sun and heat. Good for the crops, he thought sardonically. The harvest of his plans was prepared, and needed only the cutter to bring it in. With a controlled impatience he turned and strode across the room, kicking angrily at the hem of his caftan.

He passed the bed, which the servants had noiselessly stripped of the usual sheets and relaid with smooth linen, less likely to tear. The posts had soft cloth restraints fitted to them, laced to the wood and with quick-fasten loops suitable for holding an ankle or a wrist; there were other fasteners on a table nearby, hard pillows, a jar of what the label claimed was scented, flavored lubricating oil, a blindfold and a whip with a dozen cords of hard-woven silk. Kustaa looked at them for an instant, then turned to the window, hawked and spat copiously into the night; it was silent enough that he heard the tiny splat as it landed on the roof of the shorter tower below.

Childish, he thought. But sometimes a man’s got to . . . say what he thinks. Then: Where is she? It must be going on two a.m. There wasn’t much time for what they had to plan; not to mention that the sooner she arrived, the sooner he could tell her the truth. It could not have been a pleasant day for her and the news seemed to have spread rapidly. At least there had been a couple of hard looks from the servants who arranged the room for his “pleasure;” he suspected that Sister Marya had made herself well-liked.

A knock at the door. He cleared his throat, grunted. It opened smoothly, and the nun stumbled through. The male overseer leaned his head in past the jamb for a moment.

“Found this-here wench still ditherin’ in her room, ’stead of reportin’ to be tupped, Mistah Kenston.” He looked her up and down. “No accountin’ fo’ tastes . . . Anyhows, enjoy youself and maybe-so you can pump some manners into her, too. Uppity inside her head, I kin tell.”

Marya shrank back against the door. She was carrying a cloth bundle in her hands, probably tomorrow’s morning clothing. Some perverse Draka sense of humor had had her dressed in a short silk peignoir, transparent, that lifted her heavy bare breasts and swept open beneath to show the round belly sagging slightly over her thickset legs. He had started forward to whisper reassurance when he saw that her crouch was not a cower; her eyes had gone to the bed and seen what awaited her, and the sound she made was a low growling as the lips curled away from her teeth. The bundle of clothes she held floated down, and time slowed as he saw what came free of it in her right hand. Knife, fighting knife, long and slender and double-edged with a round hide-wound hilt. Draka knife; she must have palmed it somewhere, an Ildaren wrist blade.

It should have been comical, the fat woman in the obscene silk nightie coming for him with the hilt clutched in a clumsy white-knuckled hatchet grip. It was not, not to a man who had seen and dealt violence as often as Kustaa, not with that face behind the seven inches of edged metal. He backed away behind the corner of the bed, and fear blocked his throat for an instant before he could stutter out words, quietly but in his own voice.

“American, I’m an American!” The woman kept coming, her eyes rimmed all about with white, the point of the knife moving in the gloom. “I’m not a Draka, the Resistance sent me.” Even then, the absurd code phrase almost stuck in his throat. “The escargots of Dijon are very fine. Goddammit, Sister, the escargots of Dijon are very fine!”

She stopped, as if a glass wall had come between them. The berserker look faded from her eyes as she began to straighten; it was probably the sound of his undamaged voice that got home, as much as the words and accent. “Not . . . American? Resistance?” The knife slipped from her hand, bounced once on the carpet, lay still with lamplight breaking off the honed edges. He was barely in time to catch her as she began to crumple.

“Ah,” Edward von Shrakenberg said. “Ahhh.”

He looked down. The wench Chantal had her legs about him as he knelt on the surface of the bed, thrusting steadily. Her back was arched, making her a bow with weight resting on her shoulders and neck. His hands were clamped on her hips, thumbs kneading at the edge of her bush and fingers moving her in rhythm with him; he watched the mingling of their pubic hair at the end of each stroke, dark coarse black and tawny down below the ridged muscles of his belly. Obedient, she gripped tighter with her thighs and pushed up to meet him each time, the full plum-nippled breasts jiggling. The air was heavy with sweat and sex and the fumes of strong Moroccan kif.

They were both sweat-slick; her body seemed to glisten with it, but her face was hidden. He leaned back slightly on his heels and let his head fall back also, looking into the pattern of silvered mirror-tiles on the ceiling. Tanya had laughed at that, calling it a symptom of encroaching vanity. He smiled at the memory, smiled more at the soft warm moistness clenching and unclenching around his penetration of the wench. He could see her face in the mirror, although he doubted her open eyes were seeing much beyond the spray of black hair that lay across them. Her mouth was closed but her lips were wide in a teeth-baring grimace; half from the hard muscular effort that was making her grunt with every straining breath, half fury at this steady, intolerable invasion of her self.

But she’s learned not to try that passive-resistance nonsense anymore, he thought with satisfaction. Amazing what a little pain, a few drugs and patiently ruthless will could accomplish. By Frey, he mused, in the intervals of lucid thought, this may not be a serf-taming technique fo’ mass employment, but it has a lot to be said for it in individual cases. Though he doubted the odd Mr. Kenston was having as much luck with his nun; the two thoughts brought him a snort of laughter.

Chantal broke rhythm; his fingers gave her a tweak, and she settled back. Still, can’t keep this up all night, the master of Chateau Retour decided. Might get boring.

He turned his head to Yasmin, who was beside them on the wide bed. She was lying on her stomach with her chin in one hand, the mouthpiece of the water pipe in the other; her feet swayed in time to the rhythm of the act that rocked the fluid-filled mattress beneath her. Edward nodded at her, and she smiled lazily, blew scented kif smoke toward him through pouted lips, rolled closer. One hand went down to where the master’s body joined the wench he was riding, caressing them both; the other settled on Chantal’s fist where it clenched straining beside her shoulder. The brown girl’s mouth went close to the other’s ear, whispered. How to bring him off faster and get it over with, Edward supposed.

He let slip the control that had kept his thrusts slow for twenty minutes, increased the speed until Chantal’s buttocks were slapping against the hard flat muscles of his upper thighs with the violence of their movement. Yasmin’s long cool fingers stroked unendurably at him, and he could hear her calling encouragement to the wench, until everything was lost in the long exquisite moment of release and his own triumphant shout.

The Draka came back to himself with a long sigh and worked his hands down under the Frenchwoman, working his fingers into the slackened muscles and feeling the residual tremors deep within. Her head whipped back and forth, a sound halfway between a whimper and a cry of protest escaping her: there were words in it.

“No,” he heard. “No, no, no, not with you, no, never.”

Pity she takes it so hard, Edward thought idly. There was a . . . what was the French word? A certain frisson to it, with her so visibly defiant; still, it would be better when her heart broke and she truly submitted. Tanya was right, he mused. This one’s hard but brittle. Not the type who can live without hope.

He released her, and she moved away to the edge of the bed with jerky motions, curling her knees up against herself and reaching blindly for the mouthpiece of the water pipe, drawing on it as if it were air and she drowning. Drawing, coughing, drawing again. The Draka yawned hugely and stretched out his arms, the thick muscles sliding and bunching beneath the damp skin. Yasmin was looking at Chantal’s hunched back, shaking her head with a frown; at his movement she shrugged, smiled and picked up the damp and dry cloths from the head of the bed.

“Pleasure you good, Mastah?” she asked politely and began to clean his genitals with gentle deftness.

“Just fine,” he said, with another stretch and yawn, conscious of enormous contentment. And a full bladder. Damn.

The dark girl had finished and was cradling him in her hands. “Then maybe-so you doan’ need Yasmin no mo’, Mastah?”

He laughed and ran square strong fingers through her hair as she bent her head to take him in her mouth. “You’ll see how much in a little while,” he said, using the thick black curls to lift her away from his crotch and kiss her. “Wotan’s balls, you do that good. But first I’ve got an errand. Back in a minute.”

Yasmin watched him pad across the darkened room and then moved to touch the other woman’s shoulder where she lay in a shuddering ball. Chantal slapped at her without looking around.

“Go away, don’t touch me, go away,” she said, in a hoarse thready wail.

Yasmin caught the hand that struck at her and held it in a grip as soft as her voice. “Chantal, honeybee, it’s terrible to see you sufferin’ so. Is there anythin’ I can do t’help?”

“Help? You help him, bitch, slut, whore, go away!”

A sigh. “Chantal, we all does what we’s told; me an you both, we’s serfs, honeybee. I tries not to hurt anybody, I really does. Look, Chantal, it’s just fuckin’, that don’t mattah nothin’ at all, really it doan’.”

Wide-pupiled black eyes came up to peer at her through matted hair and a face wet with tears and sweat. “So you serve him with a smile, you!”

“Well, I’s born ’n raised to service, Chantal. He was m’first man, too . . . sometimes I’m not bothered by it, sometimes I likes it, an’ if I could take all this on mahself an’ spare you, I would certain-sure. But I cain’. Jus’ like you cain’ say no, or lie still like you tried.” She shook her head. “Sometimes they can be pow’ful cruel . . . ”

Patting the other’s hand, “I knows you doan’ want to end up like Solange, givin’ them everythin’; well, I doan’ give everythin’, either. Somethin’, yes, cain’ be helped an’ why bothah? It like the wind an’ rain; no shame to bend to the wind, let the rain fall on you. Grass an’ reeds, they mighty humble, bend right to the ground, but the rain and wind, they come an’ go and the grass and reeds still there. Proud strong tree git tumbled ovah, broken.”

“I want to die,” Chantal whispered, letting her head slump back to the bed. “I want to die.”

Yasmin gave an almost-painful tug on her arm, and there was real fear in her voice. “Now that jus’ stupid, wench! ‘Less’n you believes Marya’s stories ’bout the place we go when we dies, which is too good t’ be true, like-so them tales ’bout the Western Land where everyone free an’ happy. You die an’ that an end to everythin’, good as well as bad. No mo’ eatin’, drinkin’, singin’, tellin’ stories, playin’ with babies—” She stopped, struck by a thought. “Is that it? Chantal, is that it? You quickenin’?”

A mumble almost too low to be heard. “I’m three weeks late. Vomiting in the mornings.”

Yasmin’s face lit in a smile as she leaned over the other serf. “Why, that wonderful! A chile of you own, an—”

“It’s his!” The Frenchwoman’s face was a gorgon’s mask as she reared off the resilient surface, hissing so that a drop of spittle struck Yasmin on the cheek. “He put it in me like a maggot!” She collapsed as if a string had been cut. “I want to die,” she repeated, in the voice of a weary child. “I want to die.”

“Oh, honey, doan’ feel like that!” Yasmin said softly. “It only a baby, doan’ matter whose seed, baby belong to the momma. Be your’n to raise, if’n you wants. Jus’ little an’ helpless, needin’ everythin’. Your’n to love an’ to love you; everybody need that. Where we all be, if’n our mommas didn’ raise an’ care fo’ us?” A sigh. “You feeling pretty bad, I knows. Doan’ do nothin’ foolish . . . but look, Chantal, when they knows, they leave you alone, doan’ bed you fo’ a year or mo’.”

“Truly?”

“Mm-hm, that the rule.” A hesitation. “They pro’bly let you get rid of it, if’n you wants, but then you . . . ” She patted the surface of the bed. “Say, you go back to the room now. Only, first, go take a nice hot shower. I tell mastah you take too much smoke an’ puke; ain’ no man in creation wants a pukin’ woman around while he pleasures hisself. Then I make him feel real good, an’ I tells him you bearin’, and gets him to say you doan’ have to bedwench no mo’. Hey?”

Chantal nodded dully and pulled herself to her feet, groping along the wall in the detached lassitude that kif and despair together bring. To be left alone, she thought; it was like a vision of . . . of the Revolution. She touched her stomach and thought of the price, and almost doubled over with nausea in truth. Shower, she thought. Shower first, long and hot.

* * *

“I’m sorry, Sister,” Kustaa said, as she sat hunched and shivering in the chair with the blanket wrapped securely around her, eyes fixed on the knife in her lap.

“I just couldn’t see any other safe way of managing it, without blowing my cover.”

“I forgive you, Mr. . . . No, don’t tell me. ‘Need to know.’ A day of fear is a little thing, compared with what so many others have suffered. And suffering is a great teacher. How did the Englishman—More, I think—put it? ‘God whispers to us in our thoughts, sings to us in our pleasures: but in our pain, He shouts.’ I forgive you as I hope for forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness?” he asked, puzzled. “Given what you thought was in store for you, it was . . . heroic.” He glanced at the bed, with the dangling bonds he did not dare remove. “By the way, my first name really is Frederick. My friends call me Fred. And considering your, ah, vocation, Sister . . . ” He paused delicately.

To his surprise, the nun laughed. “You are a Protestant, are you not, Mr. . . . Frederick? I know Americans use first names easily, but . . . ” At his nod she proceeded. “I swore an oath of chastity, Frederick. Renouncing a good for a higher good; but when I became a Bride of Christ, I did not swear to be omnipotent, able always to prevent my body being violated and abused by armed and ruthless men. Chastity is a matter of choice, Frederick.”

He blushed, and she returned her gaze to the knife. “So I ask forgiveness for the sins of pride, cowardice, despair.” At his startlement, she nodded to the weapon. “I thought all today, as I counted figures and solved problems . . . I thought, why has God let this thing come to me? To strike a blow and die? As I decided in the end, fully expecting to be killed, either tonight or later on the stake. Perhaps that was God’s will, His test of me, as He tested Abraham when He commanded the son of his heart be laid upon the altar. I knew that there was purpose in this,” she continued, with another of those astonishing smiles. “Vanity is not one of my sins, Frederick: I know why that particular trial has not been mine so far. I am not comely.”

A slow shake of the head. “Or perhaps, I thought, God wished me to know—with my heart and soul, not merely my intellect—how it feels to be so compelled and used as the vessel of another’s lust, so that I might better comfort others.” She sighed. “This very night, on this very estate, others are experiencing that which I only feared. Some with complaisance or even willingness, no doubt, so staining their souls with sin; but sin may be forgiven. Others, more, in fear and pain. How better could I aid such, perhaps even lead them a trifle closer to the Truth, than if I could say: ‘Sister in God, I know your anguish, it is my own’? If that was God’s purpose, then I have failed Him, who said ‘Be ye perfect.’ ”

A smile. “There are no end to my doubts and weakness, it seems. For I also thought, perhaps God wishes me to preserve my life for some small part in the greater work that you, Frederick, are also helping to accomplish, the overthrow of the Domination.”

“Sister, I’ve wondered why—if there is a God—He permits it to exist. I was raised Lutheran, don’t go to church much anymore, but I guess I still believe . . . but . . . ”A wave of his hand. “Ah, hell—sorry—why are we talking about this?”

“Because it is late, and we have neither of us had a chance to talk openly and without fear for very long . . . and I think also because we are friends, is that not so, Frederick?” The smile again, and he wondered how he could have thought her plain. Beautiful, not in any sexual sense, but beautiful still.

“And as to the Domination, that is part of the Problem of Evil, bearing on free will—and I will not burden you with the theology of Aquinas tonight, my friend. Also a Mystery, which we can never completely understand . . . You see my problem, though? Every day the Domination exists, it causes evils far greater than the mere theft of my body’s privacy; which if I truly do not consent is mere suffering, even suffering for the Faith.

“The Domination . . . it feeds on all the seven deadly sins, and engenders them. It robs men of everything. Of the fruit of their labors, making them despise the toil which is Adam’s legacy; of the building of their own families and households, the source of right education and morals; of the chance to hear uncorrupted the Good Tidings; menaces Holy Church, crushes the ordered liberty in which men were meant to live . . . Its very existence causes millions to doubt God or His goodness; it is the masterwork of Satan.” A long pause. “Not least for what it does to the Draka themselves. I often think of that.”

Slowly: “So, if in any way my services could hasten its end, was it not my duty to endure all, even . . . ”—she nodded to the bed—“for others’ sake? And my reluctance mere pride, desire for death, my being delicati, fastidious? Or was that the voice of the Tempter using Scripture for evil’s ends, when my duty was resistance unto death and the martyr’s crown?”

Kustaa looked at the square face, the pale brows set in a frown of thought. Opened his mouth, closed it, struggled to put a name to an unfamiliar emotion, finally decided: awe. “You don’t hate the Draka, then?” he asked.

“I try not to—to hate the sin and not the sinner,” she said with a wry grimace. “Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Mary Mother and all the Company of Saints know, it isn’t easy, the Draka do their vile best to make it impossible.” A quick glance up at him. “You know, Frederick, if you think about the implications, the most terrifying thing Our Lord ever said was: ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’ Draka children, at least: no more innocent than other children—we are all fallen—but no less so either. Then think: all their best qualities turned to the service of their worst. Natural love of homeland and family, twisted to idolatrous worship of a ‘Race’ whose philosophy is about as close as imperfect man can come to pure evil. Bravery and loyalty turned to brutality; every perversion of natural feeling which we are prone to encouraged . . . Socrates, who so often glimpsed doctrines of the Truth, said it was better for one’s soul to suffer evil than to do it. Also a counsel of perfection . . . ” She threw up her hands. “But on to practical things, Frederick. Tell me just so much of your plans as is necessary for me to accomplish them.”

“Just for starters, Sister, you’ve increased my morale.”

“What, by half-hysterical spoutings of the words of those greater than I? And burdening you with my doubts?”

Kustaa shook his head. “I don’t know how or why, Sister, but just listening helped.” A nod. “Now, here’s what I need—”

She listened in silence, nodding occasionally. When he had finished she propped her chin in her hands and frowned.

“An old man, a scholar from the few words I had with him, and a heavy box,” she said. “I think I can guess.” A troubled sigh, and she spoke as if to herself. “This is a Just War if ever there was one, yet the Just War must be waged by just and appropriate means. Perhaps it is legitimate to use these weapons as a threat to prevent the Draka from using them, which they would . . . yet to be believed such a threat must be genuine, and no earthly cause whatever could justify . . . ” The words sank away, and she stood up briskly.

“Frederick, you Protestants cannot know what a comfort dogmatic authority and the Magisterium of the Holy Father can be in cases of doubt. If all use of these instruments of destruction is evil, the Church will tell me. Until then, I may safely assume it is not.

“Our first item of business is to get this box of yours safely close to the place where your airplane may land; the shelter near the winery and airstrip will be ideal; nobody enters it, and I have the combination. Come.” She started toward the door.

“Wait, Sister,” he said. “Whoa a minute. Can we be sure nobody’s going to stop us?”

Marya looked aside, then down at the blanket and visibly forced herself to unwrap and fold it neatly over one arm. When she spoke, it was to the wall. “It is a warm night, Frederick. Anyone who sees us will assume you—the Draka you pretend to be, rather—is simply taking his, ah, wench elsewhere for his sport. Outside, that is. We can drive to our destination quite openly. The message—that should be sent tomorrow, I think. The confusion of the feast will be at its height, and . . . yes, tomorrow.”

Kustaa smothered a grin: the nun could be quite wickedly cunning, it seemed. He bowed her toward the door, then froze as two screams rang out from a window somewhere on the same side of the chateau as his room. A woman’s screams, desolate and piercing, full of pain and raw grief.

“What the hell—” he began.

Sister Marya touched his arm, her face sorrowful. “There is nothing you can do, my friend. That was Solange, Mistress Tanya’s . . . body servant.”

He remembered the elfin beauty of the sad-faced girl at the breakfast table, the hard strength of the Draka woman’s face, and shuddered. “Poor bit—sorry, poor woman.”

The nun looked at him with eyes full of reflected pain and pity; pity for him, he realized, for his innocence. “Poorer than you think, my friend. That was nightmare, not mistreatment.” At his raised eyebrow, she continued. “Solange has . . . embraced her chains. With the zeal of a convert, I fear. At least, one of her has.”

“One of her?”

“The one that rules her waking soul. I think . . . I think there is another; and sometimes, at night, it remembers what it was, and what it has become.”

He recalled the scream and shuddered again. “Let’s get going,” he said roughly. “Get the hell out.” Of hell, his mind japed at him.

The driver slowed, easing the long lever of the steam throttle back. The vehicle rattled and whuffled in protest, bolts groaning; it was an ancient Legaree that might have hauled supplies in the Great War, an antique with a riveted frame and steel tires. He dimmed the headlights and peered around: nothing, except a few distant houses showing yellow-soft through the trees, the blinking running lights of a dirigible high overhead.

“Now!” he called back through the window behind him, into the body of the truck. It was brighter tonight than he liked, and the stretch of road beside the Loire looked hideously exposed in the moonlight. A patrol boat had gone by a few minutes ago, and he could still taste the sour fear at the back of his throat from that moment when its searchlight had speared him, hiding the ready muzzle of the Gatling cannon behind it.

There was a series of thumps from the road behind him, and he rammed the throttle back up with a nervous jerk and twisted the fuel and water intakes to the boiler.

A stop in a few kilometers, to lace the canvas tilt back up, and then on to Nantes ahead of schedule. The “feed-pump problem” that kept him from the usual daylight departure time had already earned him ten strokes with the rubber hose from that swine of a foreman.

“Filthy Serb,” he muttered, as the bruises shot pain through his back; the man couldn’t even speak understandable French. The driver knew nothing of the men who had darted out of an alley into the briefly halted truck, wished to know nothing. It was better that way. An order came through, passed anonymously, and you carried it out. Never anything conspicuous—a driver with night-pass papers was too precious an asset to waste.

I am a highly valued man, me, he thought sardonically. The Transportation Directorate used him on high-priority transport like this load of parts for the naval shipyard at Nantes. Electronics, he speculated, then consciously washed the guess out of his head with a drift of no-thought. That was a habit they were all getting used to. The Frenchman reached down beside the frayed padding of his seat and carefully extracted a cigarette, pinching the end to prevent the loosely packed tobacco from falling out. A7 drivers got a double ration, which opened up interesting trading possibilities, if one was abstemious. The match went scrit on the crackle-surfaced metal of the dashboard, a brief smell of sulfur and a glow over the dim bulbs of the dials.

He used the opportunity to study the valve-pressure gauge: dark as usual. He must speak to maintenance about it. No more cigarettes tonight, he decided. The docking reception clerk in Nantes was an agreeable Breton widow; for half a carton, he might be able to get a bottle of Calvados as well as a meal in the canteen and a cot

“Name of a dog, Jean, hurry up!” the team leader hissed, pulling on his own dark knit ski-mask and thrusting the Walther 9mm through the waistband of his overalls. The young machinist was fumbling with his knapsack—that was the bricks of plastique; Henri hoped to God the man hadn’t forgotten to pack the detonators safely. You had to rely on others to do their jobs while you did yours, but sometimes he wondered about Jean, especially since his father was executed and his mother and sister were sold off in that big sweep this spring. You would think it would have toughened him . . . Ironic, that the innocent father had been executed and the Resistance-worker son not even detained.

“Ready,” came another voice. They crawled out of the ditch where they had lain to let the truck get out of sight, north into the dark, rustling hedgerow of old poplars and new thornrose.

That was Ybarra, the Spaniard; reliable, even if she was a woman and a foreigner and a communist. Their explosives expert, and very good with the long stiletto or the piano-wire garotte; she had learned them all during the war in Spain back in the ’30s, when the Reds had taken over and defeated the generals. From what one heard, that had been almost as bloody as the Eurasian War itself, allowing for differences of scale. They were all serfs now, all on the same side, as she was fond of saying.

The three Resistance fighters lay on their stomachs in the shadow of the hedge, relaxing slowly. No sound, except the harsh rasping of the crickets and the slight water-noises from the river a hundred meters south; not even much wind, tonight. More light than he liked, but they were all in dark clothing, their faces covered, nearly invisible from any distance. The smell of sandy earth and green things overbore the traces of tar and oil-drippings from the road. A warm night: sweat gathered in his armpits and on his face, insulated by the wool. He was about to signal them to move when the faint whine of tires on pavement alerted him.

No need for words; they all froze in place. Coming from the west, he thought. No lights. Both bad. Could they have stopped the truck, found something? Had someone seen it slow to let them off? The Frenchman controlled his breathing with conscious effort, remembering lying in the burning forest of the Ardennes, not moving while the Draka hunted, yipping, through the woods for the survivors of his volunteer company. Not moving as pitch melted out of the trees above his boulder and dripped down around the curve to fall on his back, not moving at the laughter and the screams as they bayonetted the wounded and collected ears. Not moving.

A military auto but not an armored fighting vehicle, silent and steam-powered. Helmeted heads, difficult to tell the color of uniforms in the dark; he peered at the door insignia as it halted. A skull, black in a circle of red chain: Order Police. The doors swung open and four men emerged, stretching. One handed around a canteen, another did a few deep knee-bends; a third walked to the edge of the road and opened the fly of his trousers, and the team-leader smelled the ammonia of urine seconds before the spattering on the leaves at the bottom of the ditch. The talked softly among themselves; there was laughter, and the slap of a hand on a shoulder, then a quick order from their NCO.

Just a rural security patrol, he thought with relief. Out looking for plantation hands off-bounds without a pass, candidates for a working-over and a day in the local police pen until their owners came to take them home for the serious flogging. None of the Resistance fighters moved. They had a mission, and it was not to attack a few serf policemen; not that the odds would be good anyway.

My pistol, Ybarra’s knife and Jean’s Schmeisser, he thought. One and a half clips for the machine pistol, six rounds for the Walther, against four trained fighting men with automatic rifles. They would fight if discovered, of course. Being found out of their pens at night warranted suspicion, a beating and interrogation. Being caught with weapons meant an immediate hamstringing slash across the back of the legs with a bushknife, torture for days, death on the stake or the hooks.

“Right,” he said, after the police steamer had been gone a safe ten minutes. “We’re . . . ”—he looked up at the stars, down at a pocket-compass flicked open for a moment—“. . . about two kilometers from the chateau.” They would not go to earth anywhere near the plantation headquarters itself, of course. Far too much chance of a Draka out for a night stroll, and none of them had much illusion about their ability to silently dispose of a Citizen in hand-to-hand combat. Disaster even if they did. A police patrol that did not report in would bring Security and the military swarming about, but a dead Citizen would mean slaughterous reprisals all through the countryside.

“We’ll head for Bourgueil,” he concluded; safer to stick with the plan, although he had authority to vary according to circumstances. The town was on the fringe of the plantation, and their informants said it was unpeopled, heavily damaged in the fighting back in ’44 and mined for building material since; only the winery in use. On the edge of a big forest area, too. “Lie low until daylight, then see about making contact.”

It must be important, to risk his whole cell, whatever it was they were to help the American with. He reached over his shoulder to pat the radio set. “You first, madame,” he said. “I’ll take the rear. Ten-meter intervals.”

“Right, comrade.”

“And don’t call me comrade, Ybarra,” he added with a slight smile. Better her insolence than Jean’s sweating nerves; if he had known the man was this shaken, he would have left him behind.

“Then don’t call me madame.”

“Merde with that, get going.”

She moved past him, less than a ghost presence in the blackness. “Su madre, yes, sir.”

* * *

“How’s it work?” Kustaa asked, shivering slightly in the damp of the cave. Except for his shielded handlight it was pitch-black, dank, smelling of wet rock and concrete. The surface was rough under his feet, still bearing the marks of pneumatic hammers.

The drive up from the chateau had been uneventful, barely two miles; nothing in the ruins of the town, nothing but piles of stone, the shattered ruins of the Gothic church and arcaded marketplace looking as if they had been desolate two generations instead of three years. Moonlight on tumbled rock and the serried ranks of the vines on the low hills; an open field with a windsock and a strip of darkened landing-lights and three light aircraft tied down with lines and stakes. Not even a watchman. In a countryside under permanent curfew, where the population had no access to money and rarely left the Quarters, there was little danger of theft.

Perhaps it was that which was depressing: the sheer confidence of it. Arrogant overconfidence, he reminded himself. And you’re the living proof of it. Or perhaps it was what he and the nun had lifted in short jumps from the compartment of the auto; the thing always gave him the willies. He looked over at her, and she smiled back at him with serene confidence. You’ve got it good, buddy, he told himself. You’re getting out of here.

“Well, this is the outer entrance, Frederick,” she said, with that trace of dignified old-world formality that was already becoming familiar. She nodded back along the short sloping tunnel cut into the pale limestone of the hill. “You see the niches? Those will be command-detonated mines.”

Ahead of them was a blank surface of smooth gray metal; in its center was a naval-type blast door with a dogging wheel inset in the center. “This is from the cruiser Baboeuf, sunk in Toulon by the English in ’40, after the surrender to the Germans. A section cut out of one of her main turrets, I believe, and slightly modified.” There was a ball mounting beside the door on one side, with an armorglass vision block above it, tank style. “That is for a machine gun.”

Her hand fell on his wrist and guided the light to the other side. A steel box had been welded to the surface, and she undid the latch to show a mate’s combination lock recessed into the metal. “This controls the locking mechanism from the outside, although it can be disabled from within.” She began twirling the dial.

“How on earth did you get the combination, Sister?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s kept in the office,” she said, as the tumblers clicked.”The lock on that cabinet is childishly simple . . . here we are.”

Something clicked and whined deep within, and the wheel of the door swung with oiled smoothness as he spun it. The bolts went chung-chank and the thick metal swung open, bringing a hint of deeper chill from within, and a stronger smell like stone after rain, of mass concrete poured within the last few months. They wrestled the box through and dropped it, panting, with a dull chunk. Kustaa shoved the door home, and heard the nun feeling in the dark for a switch. It ticked, and overhead fluorescent lights hummed, flickered, and shed bright bluish light on a square box of a room ten feet on a side, lined with metal closets. The air smelled stale, with paint and metal and rubber odors, like the basement of a construction site. In the center of the room was something he recognized.

“Periscope!” he said wonderingly.

Marya nodded. “German,” she said. “More military salvage. Through there”—she pointed to another ship’s watertight door—“are more rooms. A suite for the masters, dormitories for some serf cadre, storerooms, a control room for the power system. There is a fuel cell in a sealed unit, it utilizes exterior air. Water comes from deep wells, there are air filters, room for a year’s supply of food, weapons . . . ” Her finger pointed to the ceiling. “Five meters of strong rock, not to mention the concrete. Ventilating shafts, but they will be baffled and fitted with filters, later.” He noticed the inlets around the room, covered with temporary grilles, steel cap-covers hanging ready to be bolted into place.

“Protection against a fairly close miss, and complete safety from radioactive debris. Only the shell, now; the furnishings and so forth are to be added over the next few years. Eventually a linked system for the rest of the serfs, and even sealed barns for breeding stock.”

“So they do plan atomic war,” Kustaa said softly, glancing around the bare, well-lit, evil room.

“No,” the nun said slowly. “No, I do not think so . . . not without a chance to strike first and suffer little retaliation themselves. I’ve heard them speak of it and every one has had fear and hatred in their voice. At least at the prospect of the land itself being laid waste; they care for that, more than they do for any number of non-Draka lives. This is . . . a precaution. On the initiative of the State, you understand.”

“It’ll be safe here?” he said, nudging the box. “And you’d better give me the combination, as well.”

“Very safe. Only the Landholders and the overseers have the combination”—she made an impish smile—“officially, and none of them come here unless they must. With the feast and their duties, virtually no chance at all. And we are close to the airfield, relatively far from the Great House. Where better?” She shrugged, then pulled the door of one of the metal cupboards open. “This will be decontamination gear someday . . . in here.” They struggled it over to the locker, Kustaa repeating the numbers after the nun as he went.

As they swung the outer door shut, the nun stopped as if struck, then gave a low laugh.

“What is it?” he said. The night outside was still black, but it had the flat depthless quality of the time between moonset and sunrise.

“This place? Frederick, it was designed to keep that poison out. And what is inside it now?”

His own laugh had only begun when a word came from just outside the tunnel.

“Attend.”

Kustaa felt his mind click over into another mode, another time and place; his hand moved silently, cautiously through the darkness toward the butt of his pistol.

“Wait,” came the voice again. French, male, hoarse. “What are your tastes in cuisine, Monsieur-with-the-American-accent?”

Cuisine? thought the OSS agent blankly. Then: “Okay. Well, the escargots of Dijon are very fine,” he continued casually.

A gusty sigh, and the unpleasant metallic sound of an automatic pistol’s action being eased back into place by hand. “That is true, monsieur, very true. With some fresh bread to mop up the garlic butter, and perhaps a bottle of—”

“Wait, that isn’t in the password,” Kustaa said.

“No, merely being nostalgic, Monsieur.” The man came forward, a knitted mask over his head, dressed in dark stained city-serf overalls; the woman beside him was similarly clad, but tapping the blade of a long slim knife on her knuckles. “Lyon felt,” he added, “that it might be important to forward certain items you left behind in your haste.” He removed his backpack. “Your radio, for example, my old.”

Kustaa took the offered hand, feeling the hard strength of a manual laborer. “Damned nice of you, but as it turns out, Sister—”

“No names, please,” the man said, taking in the blanket and the wispy silk beneath with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Our contact, I suppose.” He drew her aside and they exchanged codes in voices too low for the others to hear. “And you do not need the radio, you say?”

“She has access to the one in the chateau. It’s an authorized transmitter, less likely to attract attention.”

“Merde. Well, we also brought twenty kilos of plastique—”

“Twenty kilos?”

A purely Gallic shrug. “It is easier to steal it than hide it. It had to be disposed of in any case; we thought that it might prove useful. As might three helpers—” He looked around, swore, strode out to the entrance.

“Jean!” he called, low but sharp. A figure by the raised hood of Kustaa’s Kellerman started erect. “Jean, name of a name, what are you doing, imbecile?”

“Nothing, nothing, just looking at this auto,” he said.

“You repair the accursed things every day; get inside and under cover!”

To the two beside him: “Even if we are not so essential as we hoped, there has been a great deal of effort to account for our absence for three days. A place of refuge is most essential . . . ”

Kustaa and Sister Marya both began to speak at the same time; the American nodded to the Pole and let her continue.

“I think,” she said, “we have a refuge available and one of . . . unique strength.”

“And,” Kustaa added, his eyes narrowing in the dim starlight, “I’ve just thought of a possible use for that plastique, boys. Just by way of a fail-safe.”

Chantal halted, leaning in the corner of the corridor. Her skin felt raw with the scraping she had given it in the showers, but not clean. Not clean for weeks, she thought bitterly. At least the man’s smell was off her, but she could still sniff the stink of it . . . She thought again of what was growing beneath her heart, and nearly heaved her empty stomach once more. Voices ahead drew her alert; Marya’s, and a man’s.

She pressed herself back against the wall, leaned her head around.

It was Marya, wrapped in a blanket. The man with her, the Draka visitor they had sent her to . . . and he was speaking. Low, but without the hoarseness she had been told of. Chantal felt something cold crystallize inside herself as she pulled her head back; the nun was not holding herself like a woman speaking to the man who has just raped her. I should know, she thought savagely. And why would he bring her back here, to her own quarters? A master would use her, then dismiss her when he was done with her. The Frenchwoman risked another look: the tall man was handing something to Marya. Something that glittered . . . a knife. Something else as well, from his belt: a cartridge case.

“ . . . eggs in one basket,” he was saying. “You hold this for a while.” An American accent! She recognized it from the radio and motion pictures, before the War.

Chantal pulled back again and sank to the floor, hugging her knees to herself, waiting for the closing of the door and the sound of the man’s boot heels walking away. Something was going on. Something that sanctimonious bitch hasn’t been telling me, she thought with a wild flare of rage that left spots swimming behind the closed lids of her eyes. Her with her sympathy and prayers! Resistance work, it must be. Something to do, a way to strike back. And the nun had left her out of it, left her in the misery of utter helplessness, a powerless victim, a thing.

“You’re not leaving me out any longer,” she whispered savagely. “Not anymore.”