'My game, I think.'
'You cheated!' She rose, quivering with anger. 'A child's trick! Earl, I never expected it of you! Can't you bear to lose?'
'I won.'
'No! You-' She appealed to the monk. 'You saw what happened. He couldn't win and so ruined the game.'
'A game of war,' said Dumarest. 'I asked and you agreed. A game we play to win. Well, my lady, that's what I have done.'
'No! The rules!-'
'In war there are no rules!' His tone was harshly bitter. 'There is only one aim-to win. To win no matter how. That is what I have done. Perhaps that is what you should remember to do.'
A lesson she ignored as, eyes bright with anger, she pushed past him and from the room. As he picked up the scattered pieces Tobol shook his head.
'You play a dangerous game, Earl. She is not a woman to forgive a slight.' He added quietly, 'Does the money mean so much to you?'
'As much to me as to her.'
'You could have won.'
'No.'
'Yet you have so much it seems unwise to risk losing all for the sake of a part.' So unwise Tobol wondered if Dumarest had hidden motives. Setting the last recovered piece on the board he said, 'You are under stress, something Fiona may have forgotten. And she tends to a certain willfulness.'
A selfish disregard-but when had the rich been otherwise?
Dumarest said, 'Doesn't it irk you having to live under sufferance?'
'Can you name a single world where men do not?' A rhetorical question and Tobol illuminated it. 'Those who established this culture tried to make the best of an unhappy system. They used commercial strife in place of real war with its blood and pain and destruction. To avoid stasis and what it would bring they instituted rules enabling holdings to be gained and changed and set in new combinations. To avoid too great a measure of confusion they limited the number of holders yet insisted that the number not get too small.'
'A game,' said Dumarest. 'But how limit the players? Can't anyone buy in?' He knew the answer. 'Only the Orres, of course, the privileged. But they tend to concentrate.'
'To gain maximum power. It is all so beautifully simple. The entire world split into holdings; counters to be used on a planetary board. Advantage gained by revenues and exploitation. Safeguards established against cabals and monopolies by the incentive offered to a single winner.'
The Maximus. A form of stabilizing influence to prevent outright anarchy. A governor to slow down wildness yet always to stimulate ambition. The target for others to attack, themselves to be attacked in turn if they grew too strong or posed too great a threat. Selfish interest married to the overall welfare, for to neglect a holding was to diminish its value.
'It cannot survive,' said Tobol. 'No such system can. But what culture can guarantee anything more? How to wed bloodless violence with the stimulus of personal gain? The common good with a growing economy? To avoid stasis while maintaining stability? Yet the Orres did as well as most.' He looked at the pieces neatly set on the board. 'Don't blame her-Fiona Velen is a product of her society.'
He found her standing before a carving depicting a distorted figure.
She did not turn as Dumarest approached, the sound of his steps a susurrating whisper which rose to be amplified by the groined roof, to fade in echoing murmurs. The day was ending, ruby beams streaming through the clerestory to make wide swaths and blotches on the opposing wall. On the floor shadows gathered, broken into fragments by reflected light, darkness which held the glow of colors, the golden cascade of her hair.
'Carmodyne,' she said as Dumarest halted at her side. 'I cried when he died.'
'Fiona-'
'I know. I was being stupid and greedy and acted the fool. A family trait,' she added bitterly. 'Always we seem to act the fool. My father who took one chance too many, my brother who drowned, my mother who took her own life- did any of them think of me?'
Dumarest touched her shoulder, felt the small tremors running through her body, the emotion which roiled on the edge of eruption.
'Carmodyne took care of me,' she said. 'Did I tell you that? He was a father to me, a brother, a friend. He made me his heir. I think he gave me his love. Look at him, Earl. Do you think he was capable of love?'
The artist had been a genius, beneath the comic exterior Dumarest could see pathos. Had he yearned for the mother of the woman at his side? The brother he had lost? How often did laughter hide sorrow?
'Love,' she said, turning to face him. 'A word-what does it mean?'
'Caring, Fiona. Sharing. Doubling pleasure as it decreases pain.'
'And who will share my pain? Who gives a damn about me? Earl! I-Earl!'
His arms closed around her as she pressed against him, the touch of her hair silken on his cheek. Beneath his hands he could feel the jerking movement of unleashed tears, of the venting of stemmed emotion. A time in which he did nothing but hold her within the protection of his arms. Then, as the dying sunlight crept with carmine glows over the wall, rising to the roof as the primary set, she sucked in her breath and straightened a little.
He said, 'What is wrong, Fiona?'
'Nothing. I-'
'What is wrong!'
'A message,' she said dully. 'Delivered by someone while you were at the pool. A warning from someone who owed me a favor. Kalova wants to ruin me. He intends to push me down and then out. Out of any holding, out of position, out of any pretense at pride. To crush me--and he can do it. Earl! I'm so afraid!'
Chapter Twelve
Vardoon said, 'No, Earl! It isn't reasonable! You're asking too much!'
Scowling, he began to pace the room, his figure caught and reflected in the mirrors which adorned the salon as they lined the bedchamber. Still thin, stooped a little, but active and alive when days ago he had been dying. He swore as he bumped into a mirrored wall. 'This damned place is like a maze!'
'Sit down,' said Dumarest. 'Relax and listen.'
'I've done that and the answer's still the same. I've waited too long and risked too much to give it all away now. All right, if it hadn't been for you I'd be dead, but that's what partners are for.'
'That's what I'm talking about-our partner.'
'The woman?' Vardoon shook his head. 'Where does she come in?'
'She could have sold her holding and us with it.'
'So?' Vardoon shrugged and resumed his chair. Wine stood on a table to his side and he sipped a little before biting into a wafer of concentrate. 'It means nothing, Earl. The new holder would have taken his fees and that's all. We owe her for hospitality, maybe, but she invited us to stay with her, right?' He grunted as Dumarest nodded. 'Well, that's all there is to it. If you want to split your share with her then go ahead but I'm keeping mine.'
'For how long? And what's it worth?'
'For as long as I want and-' Vardoon frowned. 'What the hell are you talking about? You know damned well what it's worth.'
'I know,' said Dumarest. 'On this world that's zero. Who is going to buy it? Come on, man, tell me.' He smiled as the other remained silent. 'Good-you're beginning to catch on.'
'I'll handle it myself. Leave Sacaweena and deal through a Hausi. He'll certify the ardeel as genuine and handle the sales. He'll take a commission, sure, but it'll be worth it.'
'Now tell me how you're going to get it to him?'
'By ship, of course, how else? I'll-' Vardoon broke off and said slowly, 'No. No, he wouldn't do it. He can't.'
'Kalova?'
'The Maximus. He holds the field but he can't stop free trade. He daren't.' He sounded as if he wanted reassurance. 'Earl, he can't do that.'
