She did note that the bedroom, like the other rooms we had seen, contained a framed photograph of Julian’s father, Bryce Comstock, in a neatly-tailored Major General’s uniform. “He doesn’t much resemble the reigning President,” she observed, “at least the face on the coin.”
The resemblance existed but it was entirely structuraclass="underline" the high cheekbones, the thin lips. In that which animates a face—that is to say, the spectrum of human emotion, apparent even in a photograph—Bryce was the opposite of Deklan. In fact there was much of Julian in him: the same brightness of eye and readiness of smile. “He was the better brother,” I told Calyxa. “Genuinely brave, and not inclined to casual assassination. He was a hero of the Isthmian War before Deklan had him hanged.”
“Heroism is a dangerous profession,” Calyxa observed, correctly.
* * *
I slept restlessly and woke as the rest of the household began to stir in the morning. The stars were just disappearing and the air was cool as we assembled ourselves and our luggage into another of Mrs. Comstock’s capacious carriages, and set off with a train of servants for the docks.
Manhattan in a spring dawn! I would have been in awe, if not for the dangers overhanging us. I won’t test the reader’s patience by dwelling on all the wonders that passed my eye that morning; but there were brick buildings four and five stories tall, painted gaudy colors—amazing in their height but dwarfed by the skeletal steel towers for which the city is famed, some of which leaned like tipsy giants where their foundations had been undercut by water. There were wide canals on which freight barges and trash scows were drawn by teams of muscular canal-side horses. There were splendid avenues where wealthy Aristos and ragged wage workers crowded together on wooden sidewalks, next to fetid alleys strewn with waste and the occasional dead animal. There were the combined pungencies of frying food, decaying fish, and open sewers; and all of it was clad in a haze of coal smoke, made roseate by the rising sun. As we approached the docks I saw the masts and stacks of schooners and steamers bobbing against the sky. Our company traveled along a wharf until we came to a steam launch, the Sylvania , which belonged to Mrs. Comstock. It was a small, trim, impeccably whitewashed vessel, gilded in places, and its captain and crew had already brought the boiler up to pressure and were ready to sail.
Before we went on board Mrs. Comstock sent a dock-boy to procure copies of the morning Spark.
The boy returned with a bundle of these journals, and as soon as we had been assigned staterooms and stored our possessions we gathered in the fore-cabin to inspect them.
Our worst fears were quickly confirmed. The front-page headline announced: COMMONGOLD A COMSTOCK!
HEROIC “BOY CAPTAIN ” REVEALED AS NEPHEW OF PRESIDENT.
The byline this time wasn’t Theodore Dornwood’s, but there were several mentions of his Adventures of Captain Commongold, the sales of which would no doubt be redoubled by the news. The story itself was a reasonably accurate account of Julian’s arrival in Manhattan and the warm greeting he received from his mother, not much embroidered with spurious drama. Most disconcerting was a brief note in the tail of the piece to the effect that the Executive Palace had been approached for comment “but has not yet issued a public statement.”
Julian, Sam, and Mrs. Comstock began to discuss the possible ramifications of all this, while Calyxa and I went to the foredeck in a gloomy mood, to distract ourselves with the passing sights. Manhattan with its skeletal towers and relentless commerce had already fallen behind us, but there was evidence of the work of the Secular Ancients on every shore—scavenged ruins as far as the eye could reach, a reminder that human beings in inconceivable numbers had swarmed here during the Efflorescence of Oil. What they had left behind was essentially a Tip of monumental proportions, so expansive that even a century of scavenging had skimmed off only the most accessible deposits of copper, steel, and antiquities. There was testimony to this continuing work on the New Jersey shore, where re-rolling mills and iron foundries vented black smoke into the air. We passed beneath two monstrous bridges—one half-fallen and choked with goosegrass, one still in repair and busy with industrial traffic—while the river itself was alive with barges, steamers, and those oddly-rigged little boats called dahabees which the numerous Egyptian immigrants liked to sail.
Calyxa had dressed herself, under Mrs. Comstock’s tutelage, in the blouse and skirt of a modest Aristo. She wore the clothes unwillingly, but they were becoming to her, although she picked at the belt that cinched her waist as if it were some medieval implement of torture. “This is not exactly how I expected to spend my honeymoon,” she remarked.
I began to apologize, but she waved it off. “It’s all very interesting, Adam, if slightly terrifying. Is Julian really in mortal danger?”
“Almost certainly. His father was killed by Deklan Conqueror as punishment for achieving exactly the sort of notoriety Julian has just acquired. There are limits to what even a President can do, of course—the contending forces of the Army and the Dominion are practical constraints, Sam says—but Deklan is devious and may bide his time until some scheme occurs to him.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?”
“In strategizing , no—that’s best left to the Aristos, who understand how these things work. In practical matters, Julian knows he can count on us.”
“Much of the blame, of course, lies with this Theodore Dornwood.”
“If there’s any justice he’ll be made to pay for his thievery and lies.”
“Is there, though? Any justice, I mean?”
I took this as a practical rather than a philosophical question. “There will be, if I can help it.”
“You mean you intend to punish him yourself?”
“Yes,” I said, and meant it, though I hadn’t given the prospect much thought. Perhaps Deklan Comstock couldn’t be brought to justice, unless at the Final Judgment; but Theodore Dornwood was no Aristo, and he didn’t live in a walled palace, and it might be within my power to extract some sort of payment from him.
I vowed that I would do so, sooner or later.
2
“Any outdoor game or sport,” Julian said, “to be a sport, ought to have three essential qualities. It should be difficult, it should be impractical, and it should be slightly silly.” His father had taught him that interesting truth, he said.
It was our second week at Edenvale. There had been no word or signal from Deklan Comstock, and the furor in the press had begun to die down for lack of supplemental fuel. Perhaps that engendered a premature sense of security among us.
Certainly Edenvale was a soothing locality. I had never summered at an Aristo’s country Estate, unless you count tending stable for the Duncans and the Crowleys, and I was appalled and seduced by the luxury and laziness of it. Edenvale’s properties were not cultivated, but kept in the wild condition. Trails were maintained for Scenic Strolling or Riding, and the vast acreage of wilderness invited hunting and exploration.
Edenvale House itself sat on an immaculately-tailored lawn bordered with flower gardens. During pleasant weather we took breakfast outdoors, the meal catered to us by servants while we sat at dainty whitewashed tables. On rainy days Calyxa and I explored the seemingly endless rooms of the House, or perched in its library, which was stocked with nineteenth-century classics and Dominion-approved novels of light romance. In the evenings Sam broke out a deck of cards, and we pursued the diversions of Euchre or Red Rose until bedtime; or we adjourned to the music room, where Mrs. Comstock was teaching herself to play Las Ojos Criollos on the piano. [She played earnestly but haltingly, and Calyxa and I often excused ourselves from these sessions. Sam, on the other hand, was made rapturous by her performances, and claimed he could listen to her all night without tiring, though even he seemed grateful when she moved on to such simpler compositions as Ladies of Cairo or Where the Sauquoit Meets the Mohawk.]