“Imagine!” said Secunda, the master’s second wife. “Letting a poor girl grow up knowing so little. What did they expect you to do, child? Marry a man so rich and dissolute he would expect your servants to do everything?”
“We had machines,” Hazel said.
“Oh, machines,” Prima said. She shook a finger at Hazel. “Best forget about machines, girl. The devil’s ways, making idle hands and giving women ideas. No machines here, just honest women doing women’s work the way it should be done.”
“Prima, would you taste this sauce?” Tertia bowed as she offered it.
“Ah. A touch more potherb, m’dear, but otherwise quite satisfactory.”
Hazel sniffed. She had to admit that the kitchen smelled better than any ship’s galley she’d ever been in. Every day, fresh bread from the big brick ovens; every day, fresh food prepared from the produce of the garden. And she liked chopping carrots-even onions-better than those long, straight seams. The women even laughed-here, by themselves, and softly-but they laughed. Never at the men, though. None of the jokes she’d heard all her life, bantering between the men and women of the crew. She wanted to ask why; she had a thousand questions, a million. But she’d already noticed that girls didn’t ask questions except about their work-how to do this, when to do that-and even then were often told to pay better attention.
She did her best, struggling to earn her daily visit with Brandy and Stassi. The women were quick to correct her mistakes, but she sensed that they were not hostile. They liked her as well as they could have liked any stranger thrust into their closed society, and they were as kind as custom allowed.
* * *
The closed car had gone an unknowable distance-far enough for Brun to feel mildly nauseated-when it stopped finally. Someone outside opened the door; a tall woman-the first woman she had seen on this world-reached in and grabbed her arm.
“Come on, you,” she said. After so long in the ship, the accent was understandable, if still strange. “Get out of that.”
Brun struggled up and out of the car with difficulty, not helped by the woman’s hard grip. She looked around. The groundcar looked like an illustration out of one of her father’s oldest books, high and boxy. The street on which it had driven was wide, brick-paved, and edged with low stone and brick buildings, none more than three stories tall. The woman yanked at her arm, and Brun nearly staggered.
“No time for lollygagging,” the woman said. “You don’t need to be sightseeing; get yourself inside the house like the decent woman you aren’t.” Brun could not move fast enough to satisfy the woman, even with one of the men helping-she was too big, too awkward, and the stones of the front walk hurt her feet. She glanced up at the building they were urging her towards and nearly fell up a stone step. But she had seen it-made of heavy stone blocks, it had no windows on this side, and beside the heavy door was a tall stout man who had the body language of every door guard Brun had ever seen. A prison?
It might as well have been, she found when she was inside and the matron was listing the rules in a harsh voice. Here she would stay until her baby was born, and a few weeks after, with the other sluts-unmarried pregnant women. She would cook, clean, and sew. She would be silent, like all the others; she was there to listen, not to talk. If the matron caught her whispering or lipspeaking with the other women, she’d be locked in her room for a day. With that, the matron pushed her into a narrow room with a bed and a small cabinet beside it, and shut the door on her.
Brun sagged onto the bed.
“And no sitting on the bed during work hours!” the matron said, flinging open the door with a bang. “We don’t put up with laziness here. Get your sewing basket; you have plenty to do.” She pointed at the cabinet. Brun heaved herself up and opened the door; inside was a round basket and a pile of folded cloth. “Decent clothes for yourself, first of all,” the woman grumbled. “Now come along to the sewing room.”
She led the way along a stone-floored corridor to a room that opened on an interior court; five pregnant women sat busy at their handwork. None of them looked up; Brun could not see their faces until she was sitting down herself. One had a wry face, pulled to the right by some damage; Brun could see no scar, and wondered what had caused it. But the warden tapped her head with a hard finger. “Get busy, you. Less lookin’, more sewin’.”
* * *
“You did what?” Pete Robertson’s voice rose sharply.
The Ranger Captain looked even more like a sick turkey gobbler, Mitch thought.
“We captured the trader without any trouble; the crew and captain lied, and the females was all using abominations, so we killed ’em. There were five children aboard, though: three girls and two boys, and those we brought home. They’re in my household now. We were still in the system, learning the big ship’s control systems before taking it through jump, when this little yacht came in-”
“And you couldn’t let it go-”
“Not after it slowed down and was sneakin’ up on us, no. It would’ve got all our IDs. They might’ve traced back to where we got the ships from. So we grabbed it, and found a mighty important passenger, so she thought herself.” Mitch grinned at the memory of that arrogant face.
“Abomination!” Sam Dubois hissed.
“She’s a female, like any other,” Mitch said. “I had her gagged, and muted her without letting her speak-she can’t have contaminated any of us. Our medico said she was pure in blood, and after he took out her implants and made her a natural woman again-”
“She’s one of them Registered Embryos,” Sam said. “And you call that pure in blood?”
“Mixing genes from more’n one person-she might as well be a bastard-” Pete added. “You know what the parsons say about them.”
“She’s a strong, healthy young female who’s now pregnant with twins,” Mitch said firmly. “And she’s mute, and she’s safely in a muted maternity home. She’s not going to cause any trouble. You better believe I was firm with her-she’s quiet and obedient now.”
“But why did you send the yacht back?” asked Pete.
If they were asking questions and not yelling at him, he was over the hump.
“Because it’s about time we got a little respect, that’s why. The talk on the docks is that we’re just a bunch of pirates like any others. Common criminals. That’s what the Guernesi are sayin’ in their own papers; they’re not tellin’ the truth about us. So we make it clear we aren’t goin’ to put up with it-they can’t just ignore us. God’s plan isn’t goin’ to be held back by such as them. Besides that, once they started lookin’ for that female-and they would look, considerin’ who her father is-they could’ve found things we don’t want them to know.”
“And you bring the whole Familias down on us,” Sam hissed. “Biggest power in this part of the galaxy and you have to make them mad-”
“I’m not afraid of anything but God Almighty,” Mitch said. “That’s what we all swear to, ’fore we’re sworn in as Rangers. Fear God but fear no man-that’s what we say. You goin’ back on that, Sam?” He felt strong, exultant. New children in the home, shaping well. That yellow-haired slut carrying twins-God was on his side for sure.
“There’s still no sense leadin’ trouble home,” Pete said.
“I didn’t,” Mitch said. “Sure, I claimed what we did for the whole Militia-but I didn’t leave one scrap of evidence which branch it was. By the time they figure it out-if they figure it out, which I doubt-we’ll be raisin’ enough hell right there in Familias space that they won’t have time to bother us. If they make one move against us, we blow a station or two-they’ll back off. I told ’em that. Nobody goes to war for one female.”
* * *
Brun fretted in the confines of the maternity home. She was allowed to go into the walled courtyard, hobbling around the brick paths on her swollen, sore feet. In fact, she was required to walk five circuits each day. She was allowed to go from her dormitory to the kitchen, to the dining hall, to the b
athing room or toilet, to the sewing room. But the only door out was locked-and more than locked, guarded by a stout man a head taller than she was. The other occupants, all five of them, were as mute as she. The woman in charge-Brun could not think of any word that fit her position-was not mute, but all too verbal. She ordered the pregnant women around as if she were the warden in a prison. Perhaps she was; it felt like a prison to Brun. She had to spend so much time a day sewing: clothes for herself, clothes for the baby to come, clothes for herself after the birth. She had to help in the kitchen. She had to clean, struggling to push a heavy wet mop across the floor, to scrub out the toilets and sinks and shower stalls.
What kept her going was the thought of Hazel, somewhere with those two small girls. What was happening to Hazel? Nothing good. She promised Hazel-she promised herself-that she would somehow get Hazel out of this.
She was examined every day . . . and as her time came nearer, she found a whole new source of fear. One of the other women, cutting carrots beside her in the kitchen, suddenly bent and pressed a hand to her side. Her mouth opened in a silent yell. Brun could see the hardening under her maternity shift.
“Come along, you,” the warden said. She glared at Brun. “You help her, you.” Brun took the woman’s other arm, and helped her stumble down the corridor, into rooms Brun had not yet seen. Tiled floor . . . narrow bed, too short to lie on . . . as the woman in labor heaved herself onto it, she realized that this-this utterly inadequate ramshackle arrangement-was where women gave birth. Where she would give birth. The woman writhed, and a gush of fluid wet the bed and splashed onto the floor.
“Get basins, you!” the warden said to Brun, pointing. Brun brought them. When was the warden going to call the doctor? The nurses?
There were no doctors, no nurses. The warden was the only attendant, along with whatever women were in the house. The others edged in-some of them had done this before, clearly. Brun, forbidden to leave, stood against the wall, alternately faint and nauseated. When she sagged, one of the others slapped her face with a wet rag until she stood straight again.
She had known the facts of human reproduction since childhood. In books. In instructional cubes. And she knew-or she had known-that no one who had access to modern methods still gave birth in the old way. And certainly no one, no one in the whole civilized universe, gave birth like this, without medical care, without life support, without anything but a grim old woman and other pregnant women, in a room with unscreened windows, with the blood and fluids splashing onto the bare floor, splashing onto the women’s bare feet. Her father’s horses had better care; the hounds had cleaner kennels for whelping.
She tried not to look, but they grabbed her, forced her to look, to see the baby’s head pushing, pushing . . . her body ached already in sympathy.
The baby’s first cry expressed her own rage and fear exactly.
She could not do it. She would die.
She could not die; she had to live . . . for Hazel. To keep Hazel from this horror, she would live.
Chapter Eleven
Castle Rock
Lord Thornbuckle, Speaker of the Table of Ministers and the Grand Council of the Familias Regnant, successor to the abdicated king, had spent the morning working on the new Regular Space Service budget proposal with his friend-now the Grand Council’s legal advisor-Kevil Starbridge Mahoney. All morning a succession of ministers and accountants had bombarded them with inconvenient facts that cluttered what should have been-Lord Thornbuckle thought-a fairly simple matter of financing replacements for the ships lost at Xavier. They had decided to lunch privately, in the small green dining room with its view of the circular pond in which long-finned fish swam lazily, in the hope that the peaceful spring garden would restore their equanimity. A spicy soup and slices of lemon-and-garlic roasted chicken had helped, and now they toyed with salad of mixed spring greens, putting off the inevitable return to columns of numbers.
“Heard from Brun lately?” Kevil asked, after reporting on his son George, now in law school.
“Not for several weeks,” Thornbuckle said. “I expect she’s in jumpspace somewhere; she wanted to visit Cecelia’s stud before coming home for the hunt opening day.”
“You don’t worry?”
“Of course I worry. But what can I do about it? If she doesn’t show up soon, I’ll put someone on her tail-the problem is that as soon as I do, the newsflash shooters will know where to look, and the real sharks follow the bait.”
Kevil nodded. They had both been targets of political and private violence, as well as intrusive newsflash stories. “You could always use Fleet resources,” he suggested, not for the first time.
“I could-except that after Copper Mountain I’m not at all sure it’s safe to do so. First she’s nearly killed right on the base-they still haven’t figured out who was shooting at her-and then the heroic Lieutenant Suiza takes it upon herself to question Brun’s morality.”
Kevil held his silence but one eyebrow went up. Thornbuckle glared at him.
“I know-you think she’s-”
“I didn’t say a word,” Kevil said. “But there are two sides or more to any quarrel.”
“It was unprofessional-”
“Yes. No doubt about that. But if Brun were not your daughter, I think you would find it more understandable.”
Thornbuckle sighed. “Perhaps. She can be . . . provocative. But still-”
“But still you’re annoyed because Lieutenant Suiza wasn’t more tactful. I sympathize. In the meantime-”
The knock on the door interrupted him; he turned to look. Normally, no one disturbed a private meal here, and that knock had a tempo that alerted them both.
Poisson, the most senior of the private secretaries attached to Lord Thornbuckle’s official position, followed on that knock without waiting. Unusual-and more unusual was his face, pale and set as if carved from stone.
“What is it?” asked Thornbuckle. His gaze fixed on the package Poisson carried, the yellow and green stripes familiar from the largest of the commercial express-mail companies, Hymail.
“Milord-milord-” Poisson was never at a loss for words; even when Kemtre abdicated, he had been suavely capable from the first moments. But now, the package he held out quivered from the tremor in his hands.
Thornbuckle felt an all-too-familiar chill as the food he had just eaten turned to a cold lump in his belly. In the months of his Speakership, he had faced crisis after crisis, but none of them had arrived in a Hymail Express package. Still, if Poisson was reacting like this, it must be serious. He reached out for the package, but had to almost pry it from Poisson’s grip.
“You opened it,” he said.
“With the others that came in, yes, milord. I had no idea-”
Thornbuckle reached into the package and pulled out a sheaf of flatpics; a data cube rolled out when he shook the package upside down. He glanced at the first of the flatpics and time stopped.
In a distant way, he was aware of the way the other flatpics slid out of his grasp, and fell slowly-so slowly-turning and wavering in the air on their way from his hand to the floor. He was aware of Poisson with his hand still extended, of Kevil across the table, of the beat of his own pulse, that had stumbled and then begun to race.
But all he could see, really see, was Brun’s face staring into his with an expression of such terror and misery that he could not draw breath.
“Bunny . . . ?” That was Kevil.
Thornbuckle shook his head, clamping his jaw shut on the cry he wanted to give. He closed his eyes, trying to replace the pictured face with one of Brun happy, laughing, but-in his mind’s eye, her haunted frightened gaze met his.
He didn’t have to look at the rest. He knew what had happened, without going on.
He had to look. He had to know, and then act. Without a word, he passed the first flatpic to Kevil, and leaned over to pick up the rest. They had landed in a scattered heap, and before his hands-steady, he noted with surpris
e-could gather them together a half-dozen images had seared his eyes: Brun naked, bound to a bunk, a raw wound on her leg where her contraceptive implant had been. Brun in her custom protective suit, with a gag in her mouth, being held by gloved hands. Brun’s face again, unconscious and slack, with some kind of instrument in her mouth. Brun . . . he put the stack down, and looked across at Kevil.
“My God, Bunny!” Kevil’s face was as white as his own must be.
“Get us a cube reader,” Thornbuckle said to Poisson, surprised that he could speak at all past the rapidly enlarging lump in his throat.
“Yes, milord. I’m-”
“Just do it,” Thornbuckle said, cutting off whatever Poisson had been planning to say. “And get this cleared away.” The very smell of the food on the table nauseated him. As Poisson left, he retrieved the flatpic Kevil had, and turned the whole stack carefully upside down. Two of the serving staff came and cleared the table, eyeing them worriedly but saying nothing. They had just gone out when Poisson returned with a cube reader and screen.
“Here it is, milord.”
“Stay.” Poisson paused on his way back out.
“Are you sure?” Kevil asked.
“The damage is done,” Thornbuckle said. “We’ll need at least one of the secretaries to handle communications. But first, we need to see what we’re up against.” He did not offer Kevil the other flatpics.
The image on the cube reader’s screen wavered, as if it were a copy of a badly recorded original, but it was clear enough to see Brun, and the heavily accented voice on the audio-a man’s voice-was just understandable. Thornbuckle tried to fix his mind on the words, but time and again he lost track of the man’s speech, falling into his daughter’s anguish.
When it was done, no one spoke. Thornbuckle struggled with tears; he could hear the other men breathing harshly as well. Finally-he could not have said how long after-he looked up to meet their gaze. For the first time in his experience, Kevil had nothing to say; he shook his head mutely. Poisson was the first to speak.