She introduced all of us, the duke bowing slightly as he heard each name, while keeping a watchful eye upon the countess. When the introductions had been made, he growled:
“I can only apologize for my brother. Fasahd has been informed that the emperor will not tolerate this behavior, and yet he continues. It’s hard for me to understand what he thinks he’s doing. You say you have not encouraged him.”
The countess replied, “Your Grace knows I have not! And if anyone knows why he behaves this way, you must. Who knows him better than his brother?”
Fasal Grun sighed deeply. “Fasahd has it in his head to inherit the throne of Farsak.”
“Very ambitious,” murmured Izzy.
The Prime Duke shrugged. “Faros VII is my mother’s much younger brother, reared by her after our parents died, and he is very little older than Fasahd and I. He is also in rude good health, so it is unlikely that either Fasahd or myself will ever inherit the throne of Farsak, no matter who outdoes the other. We are not in competition, but Fasahd will not believe that! The fact that I was born first so irritates him that he will do anything to cause me embarrassment.”
He turned and called over the side, telling his boat to put back to shore. “I will go in with you,” he said. “Unless your captain would rather moor along the breakwater.”
Pheledas are all too eager to demonstrate their skill, which in this case took some time. I thought we could have moored and walked into the town several times over by the time the ship was maneuvered among the rocks and into the harbor. By the time we reached the cobbled street that gave upon the piers, Fasal Grun had learned of our reasons for travel, including the fortunes given to Lucy Low, though the subject of magic had been carefully avoided.
The duke took the countess’s hand and placed it upon his arm, pointing up a slightly wider street toward the Imperial Residence. Townspeople cleared the way, bowing. As we walked, the duke spoke loudly enough that all of us could hear him clearly: “Since this quest was laid upon you by the Seers of Sworp, I need take no action against you. I am gratified you have not been guilty of dabbling in sorcery.”
“Weren’t there sorcerers in Sworp?” Izzy asked, being very casual about it. “It seems to me I’ve heard—”
“There was a tribe of sorcerers here in Sworp, but when faced with the edicts of Faros, they consented to become seers, instead.”
“Would they have included members of the Gershon family?” asked Izzy.
“They would indeed,” said the duke. “Many of the Society of Seers were members of that family.”
“We are no doubt related,” said Izzy, still casually.
“I thought your family name was Poffit,” said the Duke.
“It’s a long story.” Izzy sighed, adding irrepressibly, “What’s the difference between a seer and a sorcerer? Don’t both use magic?”
The duke regarded him thoughtfully. “Prince Izakar, Faros VII feels there is a great difference between people seeing the future and people influencing it. He doesn’t care who sees what will occur, but he himself intends to decide what will occur. He wants peace! He wants an end to invasions and battles. As did his forebears. As will his heirs. He wants the world unified under one government and an end to all intertribal strife. When he acts to influence the future, he comes to the seers to see if his acts have been effective. He uses the seers as a kind of monitor on his own plans.”
“Is Faros VII aware of this message we have been given, this threat to the future of all people?” Izzy persisted.
“I don’t know. Since he’s even now here in Sworp to consult the seers, perhaps you can ask him.”
“Here?” cried Sahir. “How fortunate. May I have audience with him?”
“If he is so disposed, of course. I would not presume to promise anything, but I will see he is informed of your wish to meet with him. In the interest of peace, of course.”
“Of course,” Izzy agreed, Prince Sahir concurring with a regal nod.
“If Faros is so set upon tranquility,” said the countess with some asperity, “then why does he let the Dire Duke run about behaving like a cannibal.”
His Eminence sighed. “When my mother lay dying, Faros, her brother, swore an oath to care for her own twin children, my brother and me, to advance us and let us achieve great things. Faros and our mother were close, almost as mother and son. He had not the presence of mind in that tragic moment to put conditions upon his oath.”
“Then why don’t you—”
“Because Fasal Grun and Fasahd were once Fass and Grunny, children and brothers,” he said sadly. “And when we were children, we were friends. Thus far I have chosen merely to keep track of him and mitigate the harm he does, always hoping he will improve his behavior.”
“I urge you to keep close track, Your Eminence, for he has threatened to eat my people,” said the countess. “And there is the possibility he has made common cause with the trees….”
“Trees?” The duke was astonished. “What trees?”
“A new sort,” said Izzy. “A belligerent sort, who believe themselves threatened with extinction.”
The duke stared at him, his amber eyes intent. “Now how would you have gathered that information?”
Soaz said smoothly, “Their belligerence could be determined from their actions, Your Eminence. And it was the talk of Blander that the reason for it was a fear of extinction. What else would move trees to attack people with axes?”
“Remarkable.”
Ahead of us a line of pheled guards snapped to attention, maintaining their rigid stance while the duke and his guests paraded before a gleaming line of pikes to an iron-bound door that swung soundlessly open as we approached. In the courtyard, the veebles and our guards were put in the care of the stablemaster while the rest of us proceeded to the door of the residence. The High Duke bowed us in, muttering orders to an obsequious butler, who darted off at once in several directions.
“How did he do that?” I whispered to Izzy.
“Spontaneous disassembly,” muttered Izzy. “The butler seems to be a communal entity.”
“What in hell is a communal entity?” growled Soaz under his breath. “I’ve never heard of—”
“Just…something other than the usual,” Izzy replied. “I’m trying to remember what I’ve read about communal entities. I thought they were imaginary.”
Whether imaginary or not, the butler, or another similar one, met us at the end of the corridor and ushered us into a pleasant reception room overlooking the gardens.
“Breakfast will be served promptly,” said the High Duke. “I have an enormous appetite this morning, no doubt stimulated by all that sea air. And you, Countess, are you the least little bit hungry?”
She dimpled at him, fluttering her eyelashes. “You are too kind, Your Eminence. I know we of Estafan have been a trouble to you. You are generous to overlook it.”
“I overlook nothing,” he said firmly, striking a determined pose before the empty fireplace. “The emperor, my uncle, would be disappointed in me if I were not vigilant. But being aware of a problem does not mean I, we, the Farsakian Empire, should respond with viciousness or evil. The emperor is interested in peace, in the welfare of the earth, in peoples living together with a minimum of conflict. He believes that in order to achieve this balance, he must bring all provinces and princedoms under one government and, gradually, to a shared language and culture. Nonetheless, within that government he intends to maintain room for many customs and kinds of people.”
“I hope we will be able to meet the emperor, your uncle,” Izzy murmured. “Perhaps he can cast light upon the puzzles we are trying to solve.”
“Where’s Dzilobommo?” asked the countess suddenly.
“He asked our leave to go to the kitchens,” murmured the Duke. “He has some kindred there, lady, and he wished to spend some time with them.”
“Kind of you,” she murmured.
The Prime Duke bowed in acknowledgment. Servitors arrived
with food—steak and eggs for Soaz, the duke, Oyk, Irk and the onchiki; fish, fruit and oatmeal for the rest of us—and our party, made hungrier by the danger we had so narrowly avoided, sat down to breakfast.
19
Dora Meets a Dionne
One evening, a few days after meeting Abilene McCord, Dora received two phone calls.
The first was from the fireman she had talked to. The Dionne house, he said, had been arson. The place had burned to the ground, the arson squad had investigated, but they’d never had any good leads.
The second call was from Harry Dionne. She introduced herself as a police officer who was investigating this phenomenon and thought it might have started in the neighborhood where the Dionnes had lived.
“Why would you think that?” he asked calmly, with a strange degree of uninterest.
“Well…” She didn’t want to mention Jared. “I was living a few doors down from your old home site. I think I may have seen the first…ah, one of these new trees. And it may be related to that huge tree that was in your backyard.”
“What an odd idea.” His voice sounded removed and far away, like a bad long-distance connection.
She swallowed deeply and persevered. Well, it wasn’t certain and this and that, but could he meet with her and tell her about the people who had lived there, his brothers, his father, their cousins from out of town? Mrs. Gerber had mentioned their cousins from out of town.
Long pause. “I was twelve years old when Demmy and Cory came visiting. If you want to know about them, you should talk to my brothers. Or my father. I was a little too young.”
“Are your brothers or father here in town?”
“No. They aren’t.”
“Then, won’t you talk to me, please? Just give me your impressions. Were, ah…the women attractive?”
“Of course. Considering who they were, are, they’re attractive. That’s part of it, isn’t it? Though I was too young to understand what all the fuss was about, all the men in the neighborhood were prancing around like buck goats.”
Goats again. “Your brother…brothers are older?”
“Yes, I’m the youngest. I have four brothers, but they’re widely scattered by now.”
“So, you were twelve years old….”
“Tom and Dick were in high school, seventeen and eighteen, or thereabouts. Charlie and Roger were in their twenties, just graduating college.”
Somehow, from Mrs. Gerber’s satyric description, Dora had expected hooves and horns, people who peed on the ground and spit through their teeth, not a tribe of college graduates.
“If I met you for breakfast, could you tell me about that summer?” she asked.
He tried to put her off, half-heartedly, then agreed, still in that toneless and relaxed voice. Dora picked a hotel, one near the precinct. They’d try to be there at eight, they agreed, leaving it flexible, both of them realizing it might take longer to get there, depending on what the trees decided to do. She planned to leave a little early in the morning, which was no problem because she’d found herself waking earlier and going to sleep earlier. Somehow, the forest around her place seemed to settle when the sun went down, a kind of drowsiness descending that was very hard to fight off, even with the TV on. The corollary of this was that the forest woke when the sun came up, announcing itself through a good deal of bird chatter that Dora couldn’t remember ever hearing before there had been trees.
Harry Dionne was six or eight years older than she, forty-two or three, maybe. He shook her hand and sat down across from her. He had an eponymous name, for as Mrs. Gerber had said, he was hairy, with a fine pelt on the backs of his hands and a blue shadow extending down his neck into the collar of his spotless button-down shirt. He wore a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, however, and the hairs of his neck were neatly shaved. Dora, trying to be reasonably subtle about it, sniffed the air for the smell of goat. An aroma was detectable, strong but not at all unpleasant. So much for Mother Gerber’s characterization.
“Now,” he said, when they had received coffee and ordered orange juice, omelettes and toast. “Though I doubt my ability to do so, how may I try to help you?”
“That huge old tree behind your old house…or, where your old house was, seems to be something very rare. People are interested in knowing about it, who planted it, how long it’s been there, that kind of thing.”
Long silence. He looked around the room, his face rather troubled. “You mean, because of what’s happening.”
She fidgeted, uncertain how much to say. “I wondered if it might not have started there, in your old backyard, where that tree is. It’s the center, so to speak.”
He fixed her with his gaze, and she found herself unable to look aside. “It’s a family tree, Sergeant Henry. We’ve planted cuttings of that kind of tree everywhere we’ve ever been. We’re an old family, very old, with old traditions.”
They were interrupted by the waitperson bringing their orders and refilling their cups.
When she had gone, Dora asked, “Do your traditions include early marriage?”
“Why do you ask?”
“The mother evidently wanted your girl cousin to be married. According to Jared’s mother, anyhow.”
Another long silence. “She did, yes.” Harry Dionne picked up his coffee cup and regarded her over it as he drank. “Tom was supposed to marry Cory. My brother, Tom. They were much of an age. That’s the way it’s done in our family, though I must admit that Tom felt quite rebellious about the whole thing.”
“But she wanted to run off with Jared, instead?”
“For some reason I’ve never been able to understand, that is evidently what she did, but how would you have learned about that?”
She spoke without thinking. “I was married to Jared, Mr. Dionne.”
He stared at her, forehead slightly furrowed, eyes intent. “You were married to him?”
“For a couple of years, yes.”
“But you didn’t stay married to him.” It was a statement, not a question.
She flushed, at which he nodded, as though she had replied.
He said, “People who become associated with our family in that way don’t marry someone else. Jared’s mother forbade the marriage, said she’d have it annulled, but that was only a legal matter. It couldn’t change what I assume had already happened.”
“But Jared did marry me,” she said.
He smiled at her. “You’re quite a lovely woman, Ms. Henry, but I don’t think Jared cared about that, did he? If our religion has truth in it, at best, your marriage would have been…let us say, companionate?”
She concentrated upon her orange juice, feeling again that wariness, that edginess, that almost fear. Was she wearing a label? Did everyone in the world know she was a virgin?
“My father would say that no one married to Cory could ever again marry anyone else. I believe that’s true, and it has nothing to do with you.”
Long silence.
“You asked about the tree,” he said. “That particular tree, the one you’re referring to, was planted by my father’s father’s father, back in the 1800s. There was a big farmhouse built there at the same time. The place subsequently changed hands several times. The farmhouse was still there when my family came back to it the summer I was eleven.
“The year we came back, my brother Dick nailed a ladder up the trunk of the tree, and he and Tom built a tree house in it. We used to hide out up there and spy on all the neighbors, not that we were in the neighborhood all that long. The house burned and Father made no effort to rebuild. After what happened with Jared and Cory…well, Father felt the neighborhood was rather too small town. Too many people minding everyone else’s business. It was that kind of block.”
“Enforced conformity?” she asked, forking a mouthful of eggs.
“Um.” He nodded, buttering a piece of toast. “Yes. Mrs. Gerber, down on the corner, seemed to know everything about everybody and have an opinion on everything.”
“Es
pecially your cousins?”
“As I said, I was too young to be emotionally involved, but I do remember Dad’s surprise when he learned Demmy and Cory were coming that summer. He’d known they might arrive eventually, of course, but he hadn’t realized it would be that summer. The place was a mess. It usually was with five boys, and none of us were housekeepers. We boys just couldn’t be bothered, and of course Dad was very busy with the church—”
“Church?”
“I say church because it’s conventional. Actually, we don’t have a church, as in edifice, but my father is a leader of our religion.”
“What is your religion?”
“Sergeant Henry, I didn’t want to get into this. I’m always explaining my family and my religion. Since I was six years old, kindergarten age, I’ve been explaining my family. When I fell in love with a non-family member, you have no idea what I went through, explaining my family. I get very tired of explanations! However! We are a family and we have a religion. I don’t mean just my brothers and father, but all our family, everywhere around the world. There are thousands of Dionnes, though not all of us bear that surname, and we have a religion that maintains our traditions and performs our ceremonies. Think of us as being rather like…well, say gypsies, though we’re rather better educated and acculturated than the Rom. We’re more like the Diasporic Jews, separated but faithful to their heritage. No matter where we live, we’re still family members. We still learn to speak the old tongue, at least for ritual occasions, and we cherish the old ways.
“Father is one of the Vorn, which is the priesthood. Vorn can be used as either a title or a name. You could say he is a Vorn, or he is Vorn Dionne. Demmy is one of our priestesses. The arranged marriage between a son of the priestly line and a daughter of the priestess’s line is a periodic religious rite that takes place roughly once a generation, say three or four times a century. It is meant to be a binding between ourselves, our family, and the world in which we live.” His tone was bland, as though he’d said it so often it had lost its meaning.