C f bentley, p.35
C. F. Bentley, page 35
“Jake? How will he find you? You need to wait.”
“Jake will find me, no matter where I roam in the universe.” That felt almost like a prophecy. She had to ignore the strange implications of those words and continue with what needed to be said. “I need to get my girls to safety. The Temple is no longer a haven for me or anyone else. Someone, some group of someones, fear me so much they are willing to fracture the Covenant with Harmony by destroying the Temple to get rid of me.”
Something clicked in her mind. The strange requisition for charcoal and saltpeter. She knew without knowing how she knew that those chemicals had something to do with the fire or the grenade.
Someone in Temple had close ties to the “no bones” cult.
“Until the Covenant is reforged and these dangerous criminals removed, I cannot reside in the Crystal Temple, nor preside over its rituals.” Resolutely, she began walking toward the gate in the hedge that led to the street. “As High Priestess, I close the Crystal Temple and revoke its authority.”
Chapter 53
Jake tiptoed into the unlocked apartment registered to Sissy’s parents. False dawn lightened the horizon outside the windows. By that light he spotted a blanket-wrapped lump on the floor surrounded by six smaller sprawls of little girls secure in their sleep.
Gil had given him directions. But Jake had known deep in his heart that Sissy would come here with her girls. She wouldn’t risk staying at the Temple. Hell, she didn’t like living in the Temple when all was peaceful and quiet.
“Shsh,” he breathed into Sissy’s ear as he lay down beside her and confiscated half her blanket. The chill of shock and too many hours without sleep had him shaking. A cup of hot chocolate, or coffee, would work wonders on his system, but that blessed balm was one of the few human luxuries that hadn’t made it to Harmony. Too addictive. The founders of Harmony had left a lot of wonderful things behind in their quest for a peaceful society.
“Jake,” Sissy sighed and relaxed into him.
Her warmth went a long way toward relieving his chills.
“Laudae Shanet will return to Harmony City tomorrow. She and her girls will watch and listen carefully at the Crystal Temple, keep you informed of what Laud Gregor is up to.” He didn’t tell her that he’d told Shanet how to find the listening post.
“Good. I miss her.”
“I also talked to Jeoff. He’ll be the first one into the fire scene as soon as it cools enough to pick through the rubble.” “What good will that do?”
Jake wrapped his arm around her waist so he could whisper more quietly. She felt better nestled against him than he’d imagined. But his dreams had always set this moment in a more romantic and private situation.
Oh, well, beggars can’t be choosers. He’d take what he could get.
“Jeoff will find out if the fire was arson. He might even be able to find evidence to point toward the perpetrator.”
“This is good.” She turned within the circle of his arm to face him. Her breath tickled his neck and roused new sensations in him. Sensations he had to suppress.
“Go to sleep, Sissy. We’ll sort the rest out in the morning.”
“It is morning. Pop and Stevie will be up soon to go to work. They’ll trip over us. Just like old times before they moved to bigger quarters.” She yawned.
Jake groaned. “I was looking forward to ten minutes of real sleep.”
“I can promise you ten minutes.” She half smiled and snuggled closer. “I like having you beside me. I feel safe with you, Jake. I trust you. Just like I trusted you to find me here. Harmony led you to me.”
“I will keep you safe, Sissy. Always.” My love.
“Who is this person?” Gregor asked Guilliam.
They followed the blond Military man wearing black overalls through the stinking, steaming rubble of the residential wing.
Gregor kicked aside a charred black lump. The outer layer of charcoal crumbled away to reveal the staring blue glass eyes of a doll.
He gagged, thinking again of the little girl who had died of smoke inhalation. A little girl who had shown signs of the gift of Harmony. Prophecy.
Her words still haunted him. They could only reforge the broken Covenant out there, among the stars. Coming on top of his visit from Admiral Nentares he felt he had to listen.
Later. Right now he had to deal with the Temple in shambles, worse than after the quake.
“Colonel Jeoff da George pa Law Enforcement HQ H Prime,” Guilliam answered quietly. “He’s the most expert in his field, forensic investigation.” He dogged the Military’s footsteps, peering over his shoulder with avid curiosity.
“What’s he looking for? We had a fire. Fires happen. Especially when we burn candles and incense,” Gregor protested. He didn’t want to think about any other possibility.
Bad enough that Sissy had removed herself from the Temple. Not just to go to another Temple. But back to her parents’ home. If she was right, that someone had deliberately set the fire…
Then a prophet of Harmony had been murdered. Another seriously endangered. The Covenant was broken.
No, he would not believe that. He dared not believe that anyone powerful enough to gain entrance to the residential wing would have so little faith in the Temple, the Covenant, their entire government and culture, that they would commit the ultimate sin.
“This is what I’m looking for,” Colonel Jeoff announced. He crouched before what was left of the wall that separated Sissy’s public office from her private sitting room.
“What am I looking at?” Gregor asked. All he saw was black.
“The way the char marks fan out from this point.” Colonel Jeoff described an arc with his arm.
“Now that you point it out… ” Guilliam said. He crouched beside the Military and peered at the black-on-gray stains.
“That’s the flash point. Where the fire started.” Colonel Jeoff dug out a small knife from his pocket along with a sealable plastic bag. He scraped some of the black residue off the wall into the bag. “Once I get this back to the lab, I’ll be able to tell the composition of the accelerant. That will point to the perpetrator.”
“Then this is definitely arson?” Guilliam asked.
“From the smell, I’m guessing gasoline. Hard to come by unless you can afford a car and have a license to buy the stuff. That makes it arson. I’m also detecting gunpowder. Highly illegal and almost unknown except among the Military and Spacers.”
Gregor felt sick.
Suddenly he saw a way out. “Lieutenant Jake is Military. He’d know about this gunpowder. Who told you to come today?” Normally the Senior Firefighter would have petitioned for permission to investigate anything suspicious. This man had arrived and started poking around without even announcing his presence. Fortunately, Gregor and Guilliam had been staring at the ruins, wondering how to go about salvage and reconstruction when he showed up.
Whoever called him might very well be the person who set the fire.
“My Laud, I am not allowed to speak of that. You will have to ask General Armstrong da Beaure pa HQ H Prime,” Colonel Jeoff said. He shifted position, still crouched, and collected scrapings from a different area.
“I shall ask him. No one may keep secrets from me.” Not even Laudae Sissy. “Guilliam come with me.” Gregor stalked off, desperately afraid he was losing control over his caste—indeed, over all of Harmony.
“My Laud.” Guilliam touched Gregor’s sleeve and nodded to their left, the direction of the garage where the Crystal Temple stored several vehicles and had a refueling station for their exclusive use. Easy for one of their own to siphon off a little extra for a dirty job.
They didn’t keep records of consumption.
But that was not what had caught his assistant’s attention. A long black car had just pulled up. Laudae Shanet and her seven teenage acolytes spilled out. The priestess who had taken Sissy under her wing marched toward him without pausing. From the set of her chin and the length of her stride, Gregor knew she meant to stir up trouble. Lots and lots of trouble.
When had so many things gone wrong all at once? When did he have to answer to a priestess who didn’t even have Crystal Temple sparkles in her caste mark?
“Deal with her, Guilliam. I have calls to make from my office.”
“Sissy! It’s for you,” Ashel, the youngest of the du Maigrie girls called from the front door of the apartment complex.
“No so loud, Ashel,” Maigrie called back to her daughter. She cringed and winced as if she had a headache.
Sissy cringed and winced in empathy. Her mother had been hesitant and fearful since Sissy and her six remaining acolytes had descended upon the household in the middle of the night. Her mother didn’t like involving her family in anything the least bit controversial. She’d rather hide in the shadows.
Like she had hidden Sissy her entire life.
“Sit,” Jake ordered when Sissy tried to disentangle herself from the circle of her girls combined with her youngest brother and Ashel. “I’ll check it out.”
Sissy returned to the simple finger games and teaching rhymes she’d shown her acolytes, amazed they’d never learned them. But then these girls had the advantage of special schools from an early age. Something Worker children could only dream of. They entered school at the age of seven, learned basic reading, writing, and maths, then started working at the age of twelve.
Temple children began working a little earlier, if you called following a priest or priestess about and running their errands work. They continued their lessons in history, geography, and politics along with their studies of religion and ritual well into their twenties. Even those who never aspired to ordination had the advantage of as much education as they could absorb. Sissy was playing a constant game of catch-up, learning right alongside her acolytes.
“I knew you’d not sit idle and brooding,” Shanet said from the doorway.
Sissy jumped up. Before she could run to embrace her friend, she found herself engulfed in hugs and tears from Shanet’s seven assistants.
“We brought clothing,” Shanet said. She proffered a pile of black cloth edged in purple toward Sissy. “I had to invoke your name to break through the line of laudaes demanding fresh clothing, untainted by the smell of smoke. They had no concept that you had lost everything. No interest in anything but their own minor discomfort. They’ve barely acknowledged your right to be in mourning.” A tear leaked out of her eyes.
Sissy pulled the older woman closer.
“Clothing is needed. Food is needed more,” Maigrie grumbled. “I haven’t the coupons or credit to feed all these extras. I haven’t a license to buy meat for all them animals.” She stood in the doorway to the kitchen wringing her hands. The smell of hot cinnamon, sugar, and yeasty flour filled the four-flat complex with warmth and the scent of hospitality.
“I had no idea.” Shanet looked amazed. Then a flash of resolution crossed her face. She fumbled in her pockets. “Bethy, paper and pen?” she asked her senior acolyte.
The teenager produced a notebook and pen from her own pocket.
Shanet filled two pages rapidly with her neat handwriting and handed it back to the girl. “Take this to our driver. Go with him and help procure everything on the list.”
“Would help if Laudae Harmony signed it,” Bethy whispered. Briefly she lifted her eyes to Sissy and then lowered them again. “Local merchants don’t know us.”
“The locals don’t even know she’s alive,” Kandy, the next oldest to Bethy, added. “No one has seen her since before the fire.”
“Stevie reported crowds milling about the squares, watching the news. A lot of rumors. More rumors than truth,” Jake mused. He tapped his fingers against his thigh in an arcane rhythm.
“The people need to see you, Laudae Sissy,” Shanet said.
“No,” Maigrie wailed. “They’ll kill her!”
“She’s right,” Jake said firmly. “I can’t protect her out in public. They all looked at each other, shivering in fear.
Sissy hugged the pile of dresses, undergarments, and shoes close to her chest. They looked much too fine for this neighborhood. Her old brown coveralls felt comfortable, familiar. Loose and unconfining. Like stepping backward in time to before her life had become so complicated and dangerous.
But her girls kept picking at their borrowed clothing as if the coarse weave irritated their skin. Suddenly her own back itched and she craved the tailored fit of one of the silky dresses.
“I’ll get cleaned up. Then we all go out to the square. We let the hover cam take a few pictures. We use Temple credit for food, the animals can stay at the local Temple, then I come back here.”
“Laudae, no.” Jake grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly until she looked up into his face.
She didn’t like the fear and anger she saw in his eyes. For the first time since meeting him, she understood that this man had killed people with his myriad weapons. He would kill again on her behalf. Without guilt.
“I don’t want that kind of power,” she whispered to herself.
But he heard her. “What kind of power is that, Laudae?”
“The power to impel you to kill people.”
Shock made his jaw drop. He let go of her shoulders and stepped away.
“Jake?”
He walked to the window overlooking the community square, turning his back on her. “Do what you must, My Laudae. I will do what I must.”
Sissy mastered her need to run and hide in the back of the closet. “Girls, we will wash and change and then walk out.”
Jake’s shoulders stiffened, and his jaw clenched.
“We will do what the Crystal Temple should have done. Reassure all of Harmony that we are safe even if there is evil afoot elsewhere. And don’t worry, Mama, I’ll take care of my family as I take care of all Harmony.”
“For as long as Temple and Noble let you,” Jake muttered.
Chapter 54
“My Laud.” Guilliam approached Gregor’s desk with a smirk only half hidden behind his usual formal demeanor. “I think you need to turn on the television.”
“I’ll watch the news later…” Gregor surveyed the damage reports on his desk alongside estimates of rebuilding half the residential wing. The Construction sect of Professional caste wanted a year and twice the amount of money the wing had cost to build in the first place. Unconscionable. They weren’t dealing with uneducated Workers who could be bilked of every credit they’d earn for the rest of their lives. He’d give them half the money and three months to do the work.
That should teach them to keep within the guidelines of “reasonable profit” outlined in the Covenant. “Now, My Laud.”
The firm authority in Guilliam’s voice grated on Gregor. Maybe it was time to rotate the man out to the rural Temples, teach him a little humility. All of Harmony needed to learn a lot of humility. Maybe he should find a way to elevate that attribute to godhood instead of Discord.
Nevertheless, Gregor swiveled his chair to the small unit on the credenza behind him. He expected the usual afternoon serial dramas beloved by the masses that featured ancient times with the gods and goddesses blatantly interfering with daily life. About every three years he had to call the head of the media sect of the Professional caste and warn him that the stories had strayed from accepted doctrine. He didn’t approve of the near irreverence of common actors portraying deities.
What he saw instead shocked him even more than seeing a half-dressed actress playing Harmony, disporting in bed with Discord.
Sissy stood at the center of a community square waving to a throng of mixed Workers, Professionals, Military, and Poor. No one seemed to be keeping order, and the crowd chanted ceaselessly, “Sissy, Sissy, Sissy!”
The normally soothing voice of the man who usually read the evening news overlaid the pictures with excited tremors. “We are pleased to report that despite rumors of her death, our Laudae Harmony survived the tragic fire at Crystal Temple last night. She is alive and unharmed. Harmony be praised. Laudae Sissy lives!” The voice cracked with tears.
“Put a stop to this, Guilliam, and bring her home.” Gregor switched off the annoyance and returned to his work. “The people need to be reminded that their High Priestess is Temple caste and presides over the HC from the Crystal Temple, not from some hovel in Lord Chauncey’s factory complex.”
Anxiety ate at Gregor’s innards. Sissy taking refuge out there was only a symptom of how much control he’d lost over the people and the government. Harmony needed her back. Now.
“She is home, My Laud.”
Gregor glared at him.
“Very well, My Laud.” Guilliam heaved a sigh worthy of martyrdom. “I shall seek audience with Laudae Sissy and ask her to return to Crystal Temple.”
“Her name is Laudae Estella.”
“Try convincing the empire of that, My Laud. They love their Sissy.” He turned. His next words filtered through to Gregor as a muffled grunt. “And they don’t love you or the HC.”
“The Covenant doesn’t require the people to love their governors,” Gregor insisted. Still he felt stung by the realization.
“Who knows what the Covenant says, My Laud.” The outer door slammed behind Guilliam’s retreating back.
Jake paced the confines of the family flats. Four tiny apartments, each with two bedrooms and a bath, opening into a big sitting room. Three of them had miniscule alcoves with a two-burner stove, sink, and a half-sized cooler. The fourth unit had a monster kitchen, easily as large as the sitting room. Maigrie presided there, turning out mountains of baked goods. Cinnamon rolls, cookies, pies, and luscious cakes. But no chocolate.
For some reason Jake craved chocolate. His teeth ached for the taste and texture of rich dark chocolate. Not the cheap watered-down waxy stuff so popular among kids that was more milky filler than chocolate. He wanted the pure soft, melt-in-your-mouth, with just a touch of bitterness dark chocolate.
He felt like his mind would explode and scatter into stardust if he didn’t get some soon. He had to settle for endless cups of the roasted root coffee substitute they used on Harmony. At least it had some caffeine.
