Gods, but I was callow, Eric thought in sadly affectionate embarrassment. They had talked; rather, he had, while she replied in tense, polite monosyllables, until she began to shed the fear. He had showed her things—his battle prints, his butterfly collection—that had disgusted her—and the secret place in the pine grove, where he came to dream the vast vague glories of youth . . . A month before she crept in beside him one night. A friend, one of the overseer’s sons, had asked casually to borrow her; he had beaten the older boy bloody. Not wildly, in the manner of puppy fights, but with the pankration disciplines, in a cold ferocity that ended only when he was pulled off.
There had been little constraint between them, in private. She even came to use his first name without the “master,” eventually. He had allowed her his books, and she had devoured them with a hunger that astonished him; so did her questions, sometimes disconcertingly sharp. Making love with a lover was . . . different. Better; she had been more knowledgeable than he, if less experienced, and they had learned together. Once in a haystack, he remembered; prickly, it had made him sneeze. Afterward, they had lain holding hands, and he had shown her the southern sky’s constellations.
She died in childbirth three years later, bearing his daughter. The child had lived, but that was small consolation. That had been the last time he wept in public; the first time since his mother had died when he was ten. And it had also been the last time his father had beaten him: for weakness. Casual fornication aside, it was well enough for a boy to have a serf girl of his own. Even for him to care for her, since it helped keep him from the temptations that all-male boarding schools were prone to. But the public tears allowable for blood-kin were unseemly for a concubine.
Eric had caught the thong of the riding crop in one hand and jerked it free. “Hit me again, and I’ll kill you,” he had said, in a tone flat as gunmetal. He’d seen his father’s face change as the scales of parental blindness fell away, and the elder von Shrakenberg realized that he was facing a very dangerous man, not a boy. And that it is not well to taunt an unbearable grief.
He shook his head and looked out again at the familiar fields; it was a sadness in itself, that time healed. Grief faded into nostalgia, and it was a sickness to try and hold it. That mood stayed with him as they swung into the steep drive and through the gardens below Oakenwald’s Great House. The manor had been built into the slope of a hill—for defense, in the early days—and it still gave a memorable view. The rocky slope had been terraced for lawns, flowerbanks, ornamental trees, and fountains; forest grew over the steepening slope behind, and then a great table of rock reared two hundred meters into the darkening sky.
The manor itself was ashlar blocks of honey-colored local sandstone, a central three-story block fronted with white marble columns and topped with a low-pitched roof of rose tile; there were lower wings to each side—arched colonnades supporting second-story balconies. There was a crowd waiting beneath the pillars, and a parked gray-painted staff car with a strategos’ red-and-black checkerboard pennant fixed to one bumper; the tall figure of his father stood amidst the household leaning on his cane. Eric took a deep breath and opened the door of the van, pitching his baggage to the ground and jumping down to the surface of the drive.
Air washed over him cool and clean, smelling of roses and falling water, dusty crushed rock and hot metal from the van; bread was baking somewhere, and there was woodsmoke from the chimneys. The globe lights came on over the main doors, and he saw who awaited: his father, of course; his younger sister Johanna in undress uniform; the overseers, and some of the house servants behind . . .
He waved, then turned back to the van for a moment, pulling a half-empty bottle out of his kit and leaning in for a parting salute to the Janissaries.
They looked up and their faces lit with surprised gratitude as he tossed the long-necked glass bulb; it was Oakenwald Kijaffa, cherry brandy in the same sense that Dom Perignon was sparkling wine, and beyond the pockets of most freemen.
“Tanks be to yaz, Centurion, sar,” the black said, his teeth shining white. “Sergeants Miller and Assad at yar s’rvice, sar.”
“For Palermo,” he said, and turned his head to the driver. “Back, and take the turning to the left, half a kilometer to the Quarters. Ask for the headman; he’ll put you all up.”
A young houseboy had run forward to take Eric’s baggage; he craned his head to see into the long cabin of the van after making his bow, his face an ‘O’ of surprise at the bright Janissary uniforms. And he kept glancing back as he bore the valise and bag away. Eric stopped him to take a few parcels out of the bag, reflecting that they probably had another volunteer there. Then he was striding up the broad black-stone steps, the hard soles of his high boots clattering. The servants bowed like a rippling field, and there were genuine smiles of welcome. Eric had always been popular with the staff, as such things went.
He clicked heels and saluted. His father returned it, and they stood for a wordless moment eye to eye; they were of a height. Alike in color and cast of face as well; the resemblance was stronger now that pain had graven lines in the younger man’s face to match his sire’s.
“Recovered from your wound, I see.” The strategos paused, searching for words. “I read the report. You were a credit to the service and the family, Eric.”
“Thank you, sir,” he replied neutrally, fighting down an irrational surge of anger. I didn’t want the Academy, a part of him thought savagely. The first von Shrakenberg in seven generations not to, and a would-be artist to boot. Does that make me an incompetent, or a coward?
And that was unjust. Pa had not really been surprised that he had the makings of a good officer; he had too much confidence in the von Shrakenberg blood for that. What was it that makes me draw back? he thought. Alone, he could wish so strongly to be at peace with his father again. Those gray eyes, more accustomed to cold mastery, shared his own baffled hurt; he could see it. But together . . . they fought, or coexisted with an icy politeness that was worse.
Or usually worse. Two years ago, he had sent Tyansha’s daughter out of the country. To America, where there was a Quaker group that specialized in helping the tiny trickle of escaped serfs who managed to flee. They must have been surprised to receive a tow-haired girlchild from an aristocrat of the Domination, together with an annuity to pay for her upkeep and education. Not that he had been fond of the girl; he had handed her to the women of the servant’s quarters and as she grew, her looks were an intolerable reminder. But she was Tyansha’s . . . It had required a good deal of money, and several illegalities.
To Arch-Strategos Karl von Shrakenberg, that had been a matter touching on honor, and on the interests of the Race and the nation.
His father had threatened to abandon him to the Security Directorate; that could have meant a one-way trip to a cold cellar with instruments of metal, a trip that ended with a pistol bullet in the back of the head. Eric suspected that if his brother, John, had still been alive to carry on the family name, it might have come to that. As it was, he had been forbidden the house until service in Italy had changed the general’s mind.
I saved my daugh—a little girl, he thought. For that I was a criminal and will always be watched. But by helping to destroy a city and killing hundreds who’ve never done me harm, I’m a hero and all is forgiven. Tyansha had once told him that she had given up expecting sense from the world long ago; more and more, he saw her point.