Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall Read online

  Thomas sat with his boots hiked up on the rung of the chair in front of him—he was surrounded by empty chairs, people who normally would not mind rubbing shoulders with him shunned him now—because they knew why he was attending the trial and what was expected of him. The trial's verdict was a foregone conclusion. No renegade nester could poison water wells and expect to walk away.

  The shirt-sleeved crowd consisted mostly of farmers and ranchers. He saw a few craftsmen among the onlookers, but not many. The spectacle of a murder trial whose outcome was certain was not enough to pull them away from their trade. The farmers were here only because the wind had kept them from their labors anyway and they wanted the satisfaction of seeing a nester pulled down.

  Judge Teal listened as the jury foreman talked quietly to him, then nodded. He tapped his gavel down.

  "Get the defendant up to hear the verdict."

  That was not how the proceedings usually went, but the nester had been far from cooperative. His attorney now dragged him to his feet and onto the platform in front of the judge's bench.

  Teal stood as well. He was an aged, once eloquent man, dressed immaculately despite the warmth of the day. White and silver strands of hair were far sparser than they had been, and his face was no softer or paler than that of any of the men in his audience who earned their living out of doors. He had an eye that wandered a bit off track, making it hard to look him in the face from time to time. He looked sternly at the nester now and Blade wondered what the judge saw in this defendant who barely resembled anything human.

  He leaned forward across the chair back, not noticing his hands had gone white-knuckled as he gripped it and listened to what Judge Teal said.

  ' 'It is my duty, as judge appointed to this court of the survivors of Orange County in the year 2285, to render the verdict as given me by a jury of your peers. John Doe, you stand accused of one count of murder and three hundred and twenty-six counts of attempted murder and one count of water well poisoning. The jury has found you guilty on all counts. Accordingly, I sentence you to death and order that sentence to be speedily carried out."

  The nester knocked his attorney aside and crouched in his shackles. Rifles came up all over the outdoor yard and Blade heard the click of vials being tapped into barrels.

  Judge Teal pointed his gavel at the nester. "I guarantee you'll find Sir Thomas an easier way to go. By the authority vested in me, I hereby remand you to his care."

  With a sigh, Blade got to his feet. A slight breeze ruffled his thinning yellow-gold hair and tugged at his scarf. His leather jacket creaked as he moved forward. Dust motes caught in the wind's stirring swirled away from his shoulders like flecks of diamonds as the sun streaked slantwise across the yard. Rifles wavered, then lowered as he approached the nester.

  John Doe was not his name, of course. He'd refused to give them his name and Blade eyed his face, searching for landmarks of familiarity, cheekbones, the curve of his ears, gillmarks, anything that might tell him what family i he nester had come from originally. In the deep leathery creases of his forehead, Blade saw the telltale scars of what had once been a third eye, an abomination even the nesters had obliterated. Lines tightened about the nester's mouth. He was so weather-beaten Blade could not tell if the man were older or younger than his own twenty-eight years. Bruises that had once been angry blue-black were laded to yellow and there were knobs on his arms where his bones must have healed. He'd taken quite a beating. Blade was a little surprised the man had made it to a trial.

  "Just tell me," Blade said softly, his voice pitched to carry no farther than the two of them, "if you did it."

  The nester's eyes shifted to him. There was a quiet dignity in them. Still water runs deep, Thomas thought. "I don't want to die," the nester said.

  "No one does." He nodded to Judge Teal. "But that's the sentence for murder and attempted murder by water poisoning."

  The nester's attention flicked off. He looked back, sullen and tired. "I ain't told them nothing and won't tell you."

  Blade smiled gently. Of course, the man told him, not verbally, but he Read him and knew the truth for himself. Within the nester's tumbling thoughts was the clear image of him butchering a sheep and then throwing it down the well, with full intent to foul that water. He had poisoned the well. As foregone as the trial's verdict had been, it had also been correct. The knowledge steeled Blade for what he had to do.

  The nester went rigid then, as if he'd felt Blade inside his thoughts. He shook. Dust flew from his ragged, ill-made clothes.

  "You chose this end," Blade told him. He stretched out his hand.

  Tears of fury brimmed in the man's eyes but he did not flinch away. His stare bored into Blade. "Your eyes," the nester spat. "Your truth."

  Blade stunned him with a chop of his hand and as the man sagged to his knees, the Protector pulled his garrote and finished him off. The man was strong. The cords on his neck stood out as the wire cut deeply, but he did not struggle. Blade did not let up until he was certain the prisoner was dead. He let go and the nester's limp form toppled to the wooden platform. He had forgotten there was an audience and felt a faint blush of embarrassment heat his face as he looked up to see them watching. His gills stirred beneath the scarf.

  Someone murmured, "Coldhearted son of a bitch." He did not see who.

  With a collective sigh, the crowd began to disperse. Bailiffs unwound the garrote from the nester's throat, coiled it, and handed it back to Blade as they took the body away.

  Teal dropped a callused hand to his shoulder. "Come on, Thomas. The women are waiting for us. Wouldn't want the beer to get warm. I'd like to talk to you about the election before you finish your circuit."

  Blade pulled himself away from the sight of the nester's heels dragging a groove into the dirt and grass as the body was hauled away. Remorse he shouldn't have felt lanced through him. Your eyes, your truth. To hell with it. The truth was the truth . . . wasn't it?

  Another judge took the platform and gavel as a bailiff called for Small Claims Court to convene. Their job was done here. Teal never looked back.

  He matched Teal's lanky stride as they crossed the courthouse lawn. Teal snapped his fingers and one of the bailiffs caught up with them.

  "Get Sir Thomas' horse. He'll be staying with me and my wife this evening."

  That meant at least a hot bath and decent meal. "What is this going to cost me?" he said warily.

  Teal stopped in the road and gave him a look, both eyes examining him. "Now, Thomas. Don't go balky on me. Lady's waiting up at the house."

  The judge's distinctive gaze was reminiscent of that of Lady Nolan, but her eyes were cast, one blue, one brown, and at the mention of her name, he keenly felt the lack of her company. They had not managed to cross paths in the past three months, but two of her letters had caught up with him.

  Something in his expression must have prompted the judge because Teal said, "You know I have a reputation iis a hanging judge, but I've also been vested with the power to marry.''

  Thomas shook his head and surged back into motion again. Traffic on the road began to catch up with them as ilie crowd dispersed. "There's more to it than that, Henry. We're both Protectors and can't leave our counties without an overseer."

  "She's gone now. And so are you."

  "That's different. We're riding circuits now and you know it."

  Henry made a noncommittal noise at the back of his throat as a chrome-bumpered Chrysler carriage pulled by a high stepping mule team edged around them. He waited until the carriage drew past before saying, "Neither of you is getting any younger."

  And that was the crux of it, of course, Teal cutting right to the bone. Lady did not have the time to wait for him to reconcile his jumbled feelings about their relationship. Blade creased a smile across his lean face. "I'll keep that in mind."

  "Do that," Teal said crisply. He hailed the driver of a flatbed sledge. "Zaldava—give us a lift, will you?"

  The judge's home was near the Sant
a Ana riverbed, which occasionally had water in it, and now served mainly as a reminder of the edge they all lived on. It held wild bamboo and a line of pampas grass, the stately plumes wavering in the wind. There was still water there, but it had gone underground, leaving behind these green and brown tracks. Blade's palms itched. He could find the water if he had to, but it wasn't necessary. The judge's home drew off the Glassel basin reservoir and was under the jurisdiction of the Director of Water and Power. Clean water was power.

  The judge's house, and a cordon of others, were remnants of another age, not large but spacious and convenient, built along the corridor of Santiago Park where etched boulders lined the errant river's bed. Lawns of green ran down to the park and became part of the wilderness where dense trees held back the sun. Blade had been there before, though not often. The houses that remained standing were built of stucco and stone, their yards sprawling across the broken foundations of other homes that had not withstood the ravages of time. The monied and important lived here. If he stayed until morning, he might see deer grazing on the short stalks of green and brown grass that had survived the impossible summer. Whether he stayed until morning or not did not depend on Judge Teal, but on Lady.

  The dinner party had already begun when the sledge driver dropped them off. The sounds of conversation and laughter drifted over the terraced lawns. Blade gave the judge a hand down.

  "You're not an easy man to talk to," said Teal, who'd hardly spoken at all during the ride.

  Blade flipped the edge of his scarf back. "That all depends on what you have to say. But if you've invited me here tonight to draft me to fill the position of DWP, our conversation is already over, Henry. Charles Warden was my patron and my best friend, but I have absolutely no desire to follow in his footsteps."

  "The massacre left us little in the way of candidates."

  Silence fell after the judge's remark. The massacre of the Director of Water and Power and his family and most of his friends and fellow leaders of the Seven Counties during a massive wedding celebration nearly two years ago had left a large hole in their survival plan. Blade had done what he could to avenge Charles, but he knew he could never replace him.

  "There's always Art Bartholomew," Thomas answered, looking up the walkway.

  "We want a Director, not a dictator." The judge dusted himself off before shanking it up the walk. "When you get a little older, my boy, you'll learn that politics is a necessary evil, a system to get things done." He pointed up to the side of the house, where paper lanterns hung glowing in the purpling shade. "You'll want a bath first, of course."

  His jeans creaked with trail dirt. He gave a wry bow.

  Teal said, "I'll send someone up to scrub your back," and made his way to a doorway which suddenly flooded golden-yellow light upon the dusk as his wife came out to greet him.

  In the still warm late summer day, Thomas felt a shiver down his back. He shrugged it off as he trudged down the side lane to the public bathhouse. The privileged warrens of the county seat were a far cry from the wolfrat infested ruins of In-City, but they were nonetheless dangerous, he told himself. Only here it would be your neighbor who gutted you. A man without influence, or on the wrong side of it, would be dealt with mercilessly.

  Death would be as certain, if not as quick.

  He checked his weaponry before peeling off his trail clothes and sliding into the four-man tub of warm water. Tapers lit the bathhouse. Nighttime had fallen deeply here while dusk still held outside. The rock decking was nearly as warm as the water, thanks to the fires banked below. He sighed and let tense muscles give way to the cleansing warmth as he stared into the shadows and tried not to think of ambushes. There was a clean caftan hanging on a brass hook by the door which he supposed would do as well as anything until he could find out where the judge had had his mount stabled. The wide sleeves gave him the advantage of hiding anything he wanted to, although he reminded himself this was a dinner party among the civilized and he should be lightly armed to be suitable.

  He ducked under the water and came up in a cloud of steam, gills flared in exhilaration. Droplets ran in a stream off his forehead and though his eyes hadn't quite focused yet, he knew he was no longer alone. A slight draft touched the back of his neck and evaporated as quickly as someone entered the bathhouse. From the direction of the shadowed corner, the water level climbed.

  "The judge is sending someone up," he said. "It's going to be very crowded here in a minute."

  The hand slid across his thigh muscles. "No, it won't," she said softly. "Because she'll be dead."

  Blade shook his head. "Temper, temper." He put his arm out and gathered Lady's curves next to his leanness. "God, I missed you."

  For a long couple of minutes, she told him how she missed him as well, without words. Then he answered her, and then they told each other. Water splashed and sizzled upon the rock decking.

  She was scrubbing his back before she said anything of consequence, and then it was a flat, "You're a son of a bitch, you know."

  Thomas stopped relaxing under the ministrations of her hands, but she did not let him turn around. "I spent a couole of weeks healing that man."

  Baffled, "What man?"

  "The one you throttled today."

  "The nester?" Thomas closed his eyes in quick reflex. Yes, the mottled bruises, the knots in his arms. . . .

  "They beat him to a pulp before they brought him in for trial."

  "Lady. What do you expect ... he poisoned a well."

  "And you believed that?"

  Thomas turned about in the tub and caught her wrists. Water had darkened her ash brown hair, and pinked her fair skin, but had not thawed the icy gleam in her blue eye. "I Read him," he said. "I may be an executioner, but I have never carried out a sentence unless I have Read that the verdict is true."

  She had been riding circuit, like he had, for three months, but she would never carry his leanness. She was all curves, and she'd worn a straw hat to protect her skin, so it was only freckled from the sun, not burned and tanned like his. He would never be able to feel the ribs of her rib cage under normal circumstances nor would he want to. But he could feel the strength and determination in the muscles of her wrists. He could also feel her anger in her pulse. He wanted to say to her, don't try to change me. I don't try to change you, but did not. It was not exactly true, anyway.

  Her brown eye, warm and deep, brimmed with unshed emotion. "I worked very hard," she said, "to save him."

  "I wasn't the judge or jury," Thomas returned, letting go of her wrists.

  She sank into the far end of the tub, just keeping her chin above water. "I know. I know. If only it hadn't been water.''

  "Or if only he hadn't stuck around to be caught. They tried him as a John Doe—he ever tell you his name?"

  She shook her head. One graceful, dimpled hand swept back her hair from her temple. "Did you think he would? The first day he was fully conscious, he spat in my face. He didn't have a chance and he knew it."

  "Because he did it," Thomas said flatly.

  She gave him a measuring look. This was an old argument between them. He killed, she healed. He could not reconcile the differences between their chosen vocations. It was a chasm that separated them, that kept him from asking her to marry him for life—they would destroy each other, he feared, if she said yes and it would destroy him if she said no. At least now they could still talk. Like partners in an elusively patterned dance, they faced each other at times, spun away at others and occasionally embraced intimately. He had missed her terribly these last few weeks of summer. He stood in the hot tub, water cascading down his flanks and reached for a bag of scrubbing sand. "I got your letters," he told her as he sat back in the water. "What didn't you put in them?"

  Worry crossed her face. "Stefan is talking about leaving Alma."

  "What?"

  She nodded. "He can't get her pregnant."

  "Who says?"

  She splashed a hand of water at him. "The fact is self-ev
ident."

  Thomas paused in washing himself. "They're both young. He's just embarrassed. Talk him out of it."

  "I will, but... I was hoping for some help from you."

  "You want me to get her pregnant? Sorry ... the gills would show." And Thomas smiled as Lady blushed at his small joke. Russian born and bred Stefan and quiet Alma were the hope of the Seven Counties—as genetically pure as any generation had ever been since the disasters. Charles Warden, his family, and many others had died to protect and give those two a chance to bring about a new future. The wedding of his daughter Jennifer had been held to decoy the departure of Stefan and Alma into what should have been the hands of allies.

  Although Charles was his closest friend, the DWP had not lived long enough to tell Blade the extent of the plans that had gone so terribly wrong. The elitist colony known as the College Vaults was to have taken in Stefan and Alma, to protect them against the rigors of survival above ground, the eleven year plague, and the warring mutants. But it appeared the secretive colony had been an even more dangerous enemy than any Charles could have feared. A man known to him only as the dean looked upon all the survivors of the outside as genetic aberrations and less than human. He had ordered a massacre to cover his association with them and his taking of Stefan and Alma and to throw blame elsewhere. Blade had done what he could—his actions and those of others had cracked the College Vaults open like a rotten egg, but he would never know for sure whether he had destroyed the man who had ordered the massacre nor had he been able to find out if the dean had other allies hidden within the Seven Counties. He scrubbed his hands vigorously as if the action could cleanse his mind of the memory. His voice softened. "Is there any reason why they can't have children?"

  "I could use better lab equipment to be sure, but no, I haven't found any. She's awfully young—just turned fifteen. I think all they need is time and confidence."

  "Then I'll do what I can with Stefan." He extended his hand. "Let me get your back."