FIFTY
8:00 PM
STEPHANIE COULD NOT RECALL THE LAST TIME SHE AND MARK had sat and talked. Perhaps not since he was a teenager. That was how deep the chasm between them ran.
Now they had retreated to a room atop one of the chateau's towers. Before sitting, Mark had swung open four oriel windows, allowing the keen evening air to wash over them.
'You may or may not believe this, but I think about you and your father every day. I loved your father. But once he came across the Rennes story, he changed his focus. That whole thing took him over. And at the time, I resented that.'
'Which I can understand. Really, I can. What I don't understand is why you made him choose between you and what he thought was important.'
His sharp tone bristled through her, and she forced herself to remain calm. 'The day we buried him, I knew how wrong I'd been. But I couldn't bring him back.'
'I hated you that day.'
'I know.'
'Yet you just flew home and left me in France.'
'I thought that was what you wanted.'
'It was. But for the past five years I've had a lot of time to reflect. The master championed you, though I'm only now realizing what he meant by a lot of his comments. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, Whoever does not hate their father and mother as I do cannot be my disciple. Then He says, Whoever does not love their father and mother as I do cannot be my disciple. I'm beginning to understand those contradictory statements. I hated you, Mother.'
'But do you love me, too?'
Silence loomed between them, and it tore at her heart.
Finally, he said, 'You're my mother.'
'That's not an answer.'
'It's all you're going to get.'
His face, so much like Lars's, was a study in conflicting emotions. She didn't press. Her chance to demand anything had long passed.
'Are you still head of the Magellan Billet?' he asked.
She appreciated the change in subject. 'As far as I know, but I've probably pushed my luck the past few days. Cotton and I haven't been inconspicuous.'
'He seems like a good man.'
'The best. I didn't want to involve him, but he insisted. He worked for me a long time.'
'It's good to have friends like that.'
'You have one, too.'
'Geoffrey? He's more my oracle than a friend. The master swore him to me. Why? I don't know.'
'He would defend you with his life. That much is clear.'
'I'm not accustomed to people laying down their lives for me.'
She recalled what the master had said in his note to her, about Mark not possessing the resolve to finish his battles. She told him exactly what the master wrote. He listened in silence.
'What would you have done if you'd been elected master?' she asked.
'A part of me was glad I lost.'
She was amazed. 'Why?'
'I'm a college professor, not a leader.'
'You're a man in the middle of an important conflict. One that other men are waiting to see resolved.'
'The master is right about me.'
She stared at him with undisguised dismay. 'Your father would be ashamed to hear you say that.' She waited for his anger to come, but Mark merely sat silent, and she listened to the rattle of insects from outside.
'I probably killed a man today,' Mark said in a whisper. 'How would Dad have felt about that?'
She'd been waiting for a mention. He'd not said a word about what had happened since they'd left Rennes. 'Cotton told me. You had no choice. The man was given an option and he chose to challenge you.'
'I watched the body roll down. Strange, the feeling that goes through you knowing you'd just taken a life.'
She waited for him to explain.
'I was glad the trigger had been pulled, since I survived. But another part of me was mortified, because the other man hadn't.'
'Life is one choice after another. He chose wrong.'
'You do it all the time, don't you? Make those kinds of decisions?'
'They happen every day.'
'My heart is not cold enough for that.'
'And mine is?' She resented the implication.
'You tell me.'
'I do my job, Mark. That man chose his fate, not you.'
'No. De Roquefort chose it. He sent him out on that precipice, knowing there'd be a confrontation. He made the choice.'
'And that's the problem with your Order, Mark. Unquestioned loyalty is not a good thing. No country, no army, no leader has ever survived who insisted on such foolishness. My agents make their own choices.'
A moment of strained silence passed.
'You're right,' he finally muttered. 'Dad would be ashamed of me.'
She decided to risk it. 'Mark, your father's gone. He's been dead a long time. For me, you've been dead five years. But you're here now. Is there no room within you for forgiveness?' Hope laced her plea.
He stood from the chair. 'No, Mother. There's not.'
And he walked from the room.
MALONE HAD TAKEN REFUGE OUTSIDE THE CHATEAU, UNDER A shady pergola overgrown with greenery. Only insects disturbed his tranquility, and he watched as bats fluttered across the dimming sky. A little while ago Stephanie had taken him aside and told him that a call to Atlanta, requesting a complete dossier on their hostess, had revealed that Cassiopeia Vitt's name did not appear in any of the terrorist databases the U.S. government maintained. Her personal history was unremarkable, though she was half Muslim and these days that raised, if nothing else, a red flag. She owned a multicontinent conglomerate, based in Paris, involved in a broad spectrum of business ventures with assets in the billion-euro range. Her father started the company and she inherited control, though she was little involved with its everyday operation. She also was the chairwoman for a Dutch foundation that worked closely with the United Nations on international AIDS relief and world famine, particularly in Africa. No foreign government considered her a threat.
But Malone wasn't sure.
New threats arose every day and from the strangest places.
'So deep in thought.'
He looked up to see Cassiopeia standing beyond the pergola. She wore a tight-fitting black riding habit that suited her.
'I was actually thinking about you.'
'I'm flattered.'
'I wouldn't be.' He motioned to her outfit. 'I wondered where you disappeared to.'
'I try to ride every evening. Helps me think.'
She stepped under the enclosure. 'I had this built years ago as a tribute to my mother. She loved the outdoors.'
