Though the sun was already high, moving toward the hottest time of a fiery day, Genevieve nursed Dovidi, put on the proper shoes and the proper robes, including the robe Awhero had given her, regardless of the dampness around the neck. Though she was soon dressed, the messenger did not immediately return, and soon the Marshal grew impatient.
“That man should have been here to fetch the woman some time ago,” he remarked to the courtyard at large. “I’m going to find out what is holding him up.”
“Do you know where he is, sir?” asked one of the guardsmen.
“No doubt I’ll find him at the palace, and you two can come along to be sure we get there unhindered.”
Full of impatient mutters, he left with both the remaining guards. Dovidi was asleep, and Genevieve left him under the eyes of the third guardsman while she went out onto the balcony. The house was oppressively silent, as though it were totally vacant, though Genevieve assured herself that Aufors had not been gone long and there were others still present. The staff was there, along with the cook and the communications man, all in the small courtyard. She went to the stair top to look out through the wall-slit toward the ship and its auxiliary, surprised to see them surrounded by antlike movement and the red sparkle that identified the laser cannons. At the distance she could not see what was happening, though a gust of wind brought the sounds of shouting and screams
Before she could react, someone scrambled on the stairs behind her and she turned to see Awhero scuttling up toward her, robes thrashing and tangling around her skinny frame. She gasped, “Lady, they’re coming to kill you, now!”
The words made no sense. “Who? Awhero, what are you talking about?”
“Your father’s taken. Shah Arghad has him and other two men at palace. There is fighting by airships. Now Shah’s men come for your blood. Yours and child’s. They’re coming!”
She tottered. The world filled with blood, a sea of blood, and she choked at the smell of it. Whose was it? Where had it come from? And then it was gone, leaving her as her visions always left her, shaking and weak.
She faltered, “Coming for Dovidi? How did Arghan know about the baby?”
“Your father tell him.”
Her mind tumbled, refusing to believe. “I’ll get Dovidi. We’ll go to the ship . . .”
“If you take him, you both be killed. Fighting out there on sand, where ship is. No way you can get there. No. I take babe, my people take him, we dirty his face and say he one of us. . . .”
“Take me, too . . .”
“You too tall, too pale. The Shah’s women, theyheard you, theyknow you.”
“Where? Where shall I go?”
“Remember song of Tenopia. They won’t think you go that way, inland, no. Your only chance! Take your man’s cloak, there by gate. Take these rags, disguise. I take baby-boy, you go like Tenopia!”
“Tell Aufors . . . tell him where I went,” she cried.
Awhero scrambled toward the baby’s room as Genevieve stumbled down the stairs. The outside door had been left inexcusably ajar when the Marshal left, and the Mahahmbi who usually manned the sentry booth outside were gone. The booth was empty. She barred the door, grabbed up a staff and waterbottle, and fled through the passage into the back courtyard, where she detoured past the communications room.
“Assassins coming, crewman!” she cried at his blank and unbelieving face. “Bar the city door. Look to your own safety.”
“But my lady,” he cried. “Marchioness . . .”
“No time,” she called to him. “No time. Tell the ship! Tell my husband I’m escaping. Bar the door!”
She pulled on the robe and settled the spongy cap within the hood as she went down into the cellars and out into the world. Then, like Tenopia, she ran for her life.
22: Machiniations
When Aufors, the doctor, and the baby-tender arrived at the ship, each preoccupied with his own concerns, they passed among several men quietly at work among the anchor ropes, whom they passed by with little regard, separating at the ramp top, the two off-worlders toward the com-room and Aufors toward the bridge in search of the so-called “tech,” the crewman who had been trained to use and care for the off-world machines.