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house though she kept a blind copy there, as a decoy but in a remote hunting lodge. Every hunting
season and in between, if they were in residence she added another set of records, stripping the
current logs.
It would have been easier if she could have had Kevil's help, but she could do it herself, given
enough time. That was the trick, finding enough time.
The staff at Sirialis met her with the sympathy and respect she'd expected. Harlis might have
local spies and supporters, but they wouldn't show themselves yet. She spent the first few days as
anyone would expect, taking sympathy calls and answering what questions she could about the future
of their world.
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The big house felt empty, even with all the servants in it . . . knowing Bunny would never come
down those stairs, never wander out of that library, never sit at the head of the long table. She
missed him almost as much in the stables and kennels; although she had ridden to hounds every
season, foxhunting had never been her favorite sport; she had done it because Bunny enjoyed it so,
and enjoyed her company.
That first evening, alone in the big room she had once shared, her mind wandered back to Cecelia's
visit. Where had she taken the twins? She had seemed to know exactly where she was going . . .
well, that was Cecelia, and always had been, though it usually involved a horse.
But before the twins, what was it she'd said? About Bunny's killers, about some plot Miranda
struggled to remember, past the confusion of the last weeks, the urgency of her concern about the
estate, and the travel-induced headache. Finally she shrugged, and gave up for the night.
The name didn't come to her until she was at the hunting lodge far north of the main house, where
the snow still lay deep on the shadowed sides of the mountains. She'd made copies of all the
critical data astonishing herself with the number of cubes it took to hold it all and then packed
it neatly into her carryall for the flight back. It was too late that day she didn't want to risk
a night flight, as tired as she was so she'd heated up one of the frozen lumps of soup, and
settled in by the fireplace with a mug of soup and another of cocoa. She felt not smug, exactly,
but pleased with herself. She had the backups, which she could work on at the main house, and her
surveillance link showed no ships in the system. That meant Harlis could not possibly get there in
time to discover her hiding place.
Her mind wandered off to the twins again, and from there to Cecelia, and then as if a cube were
playing her memory handed her the first part of their conversation. Not the NewTex Militia well,
she'd been doubtful of that herself, though they were certainly capable of killing and maiming.
But . . . Pedar Orregiemos?
Cecelia hadn't mentioned it, and perhaps didn't know it, but Pedar had once wanted to marry her.
She hadn't loved him; he was older than Bunny, and fussy pomposity had never attracted her but
he'd been convinced she married Bunny just for his money. He'd even said so, one afternoon in the
rose garden. She hadn't quite smacked his face, but she'd been tempted.
Pedar? Could it be? She couldn't imagine him doing it himself, except perhaps with a smallsword he
had been quite a fencer in his day, and probably kept it up. And Cecelia might have misunderstood.
What could be the reason? What could Pedar gain from killing Bunny, or having him killed?
She did not realize, until the handle snapped off the cocoa mug, just how agitated she was.
Luckily the cocoa had cooled; she wiped up the mess, put the broken bits in the trash she'd take
back to the main house, and tried to quiet the racing of her heart.
Pedar was, after all, a Rejuvenant not merely someone who had had rejuvenations, as she and Bunny
had had, but someone who felt threatened by those who hadn't. She remembered six no, seven, at
least eight years ago, an argument about Rejuvenants and Ageists at one of Kemtre's parties, when
Pedar had insisted very loudly that it would end in bloodshed. They will kill us out of envy, or
we will kill them in self-defense, he'd said, and then some other men had hustled him away and
sobered him up.
Would he have had Bunny killed for that? Was he one of a group who would have done it? And who
else?
She tried to turn off these thoughts she needed rest; she had a long flight the next morning, and
a lot of work to do after it but she lay long awake, tossing, her stomach roiled with anger.
The next day, back in the main house, she walked past the glass cases of antique weapons as she
had done so often before, and paused. Bunny had fenced only because it was an expected social
skill, keeping her company in the salle as she kept him company in the hunting field. But he had
had a strange passion for old weapons, both blades and firearms.
It was a mixed collection, though displayed with all the organization possible: long blades in
this case, short blades in that one, short-barrelled firearms here, long-barrelled ones there,
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glass-topped floor cabinets with helmets and breastplates and mailed gloves.
Miranda stopped in front of the wall-hung case of swords. The broadest blades below the single
broadsword, the two sabers, one straight and one curved slightly. Two schlagers, a rapier, five
epees, four foils the latter displayed in pairs, angled and opposing, their tips crossed.
On a whim, Miranda opened the case and took down the broadsword, turning its blade to the light to
see the dappled pattern of refolded and beaten steel layers. When she rapped it with her knuckles,
it rang a little, and its edge was still sharp enough to cut.
She wished she knew its history. Bunny had suspected it of being an ancient reproduction from the
early space era, not a genuine prespace relic. But when they'd done a forensic scan on it, there'd
been human blood in the runes incising the blade. Only a trace, and the scans weren't able to date
it closer than a couple of hundred years, but . . . she'd always wondered.
The sabers were easier to date. One of them had been a presentation sword made for one of Bunny's
ancestors as a fiftieth wedding anniversary present, with a dated inscription. It had never been
used for anything but ceremony carried upright in processions, or laid along the top of the coffin [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]