“How is she?” she asked.
“Lady Cecelia? Better . . . when she got here, she couldn’t do more than lie in the bed and twitch. Now . . . she can walk a little, with supports. She can spell things out on a keyboard, and there’s a voice synthesizer. She’s ridden again—”
“Ridden?”
“Well . . . riding therapy, not real riding. On a horse, though. They tried to fit her with some kind of artificial vision things—looked like something out of a monster-adventure entertainment cube, metal contact lenses. She can feed herself, and things like that . . . ’course, I haven’t seen all this, it’s what I hear. You taking her away?”
“Whatever she wants,” Heris said. “If she still needs medical care—”
“She needs to kill the bitch who did it to her,” Driw said coldly. Heris was startled. Aside from her driving, she had seemed like such a nice girl, not at all violent. “There we are—see the gates?” Heris didn’t pick out the gates, surrounded by a thicker clump of trees, until Driw swerved through them. Heris barely grabbed hold in time, but Driw seemed to think the turn routine.
On the gravelled road, or drive, beyond the gates, Driw slowed down a little and grinned at Heris. “You didn’t squeak once—most outsiders do. That girl Brun, for instance.”
“Were you testing me, or just being efficient?” Heris asked.
“A little of both,” Driw said. “We’re very fond of Lady Cecelia. Wanted to know if her friends were tough enough to do her any good. There’s the place.” The place: brick house and brick—and-stone stable yard. Heris recognized it from the holo in Cecelia’s study aboard the yacht. Here, the horses were real, black and bay and chestnut and gray . . . here the stable cat lounged on a pile of saddle pads waiting to be washed; a dog sprawled in the sun. Someone waved to the truck and pointed. Driw swung away from the stable gate to follow a track around one side. “They want the feed in the old barn,” she explained. “Won’t take but a few minutes. You can walk through to the house.”
Heris felt scared, and angry with herself for that. She did not want to see the ruin of the woman she had come to respect and even love. She reminded herself that Cecelia, locked in the dark in a helpless body, must have been more terrified, with more reason.
She felt her hands cramping and tried to unclench them. Cecelia was better; she’d been told Cecelia was better. But that single image she’d seen, of the motionless body, the expressionless face, stayed in her mind’s eye. She could imagine nothing between that and Cecelia well . . . and Cecelia was a long way from well.
She walked through the stable yard, the forecourt, up to the graceful little porch on the big house. She felt she knew it; Cecelia had talked about it enough. But inside, it looked more like a medical center. Parallel bars and weight machines surrounded by colored mats to the right. Massive gray cabinets that might house anything at all to the left. Ahead were the stairs—and coming down, step by careful step, the tall, lean figure she had been afraid to see lying flat, helpless.
Over and under her loose shirt and slacks, Heris could see tubes and wires, the structure and electronic connections that let her walk. One hand clamped to the rail, and the other lay atop a boxlike machine attached to the wide belt around her waist. Her eyes looked odd . . . some kind of contact lenses, Heris decided, though they looked opaque. A headband flickered, red and green. What was that? Beside her, but not touching her, was a competent-looking woman with dark hair in a thick braid. She looked up and smiled at Heris.
“You must be Captain Serrano—we heard Driw’s truck go by.”
“Yes—I am.” For an instant, she didn’t know whether to speak to Cecelia or not; manners won out. “I’m glad to see you up again, milady,” Heris said. Cecelia smiled. Clearly it was a struggle to smile; the movement of her face was deliberate. Her left hand moved over the top of the box at her waist.
“I’m glad to see you.” A synthesized voice, only vaguely like Cecelia’s, came from the box. “I heard you driving in.”
Heris couldn’t think what to say. She wanted to stare, to figure out what each blinking light, tube, and cable was for, but she didn’t want to embarrass Cecelia.
“How . . . is . . . my . . . ship?” asked Cecelia. The voice still didn’t sound like her, but Heris accepted it as her speech.
“She’s . . . a mess, frankly.” Heris shook herself. She could certainly talk about the ship. “I don’t know how much you’ve heard . . . we had to yank her out of the decorators, bare naked, and make a run for it.” How much to explain? “The king—asked a favor of me. It was hinted that my taking it would ensure your safety.”
“And . . . you . . . did . . . it?”
“I’m working on it. Perhaps you’d like to sit down?” That ungainly figure poised on the stairs made her nervous.
“I . . . want . . . to . . . go.” Go? Heris scowled, uncertain what Cecelia meant and unwilling to ask. The other woman on the stairs touched Cecelia’s arm lightly.
“May I explain? You said it was urgent.”
“Yes.” Cecelia continued her slow, difficult progress on down the stairs. The other woman moved with her, but spoke to Heris.
“Lady Cecelia’s competency hearing ended yesterday. She has recovered her memory of the incident that started all this some weeks ago, including who administered the drug, but she hasn’t told the court yet. She didn’t want that person to know she had the memory, because it imperiled her family.”
“Back on Rockhouse,” said Heris. “Where’s Brun?”
“She sent Brun, as soon as she recovered the memory, to warn her family—discreetly—against the individual. Anyway, because of the competency hearing, the person who injured her now knows where she is, and because the magistrates ruled in her favor, her ID is now flagged active on the universal datanets. She has to presume the individual knows that, and will take action. None of us feel that Rotterdam is safe for her anymore. Passenger service is infrequent, and in her condition she still needs medical attendants. We had thought of sending her off on the same ship that carried her lawyers, but that ship is known—”
“That’s easy,” Heris said. “The yacht looks terrible right now, but it’s roomy and safe—and we’re not using its original ID beacon. How many people will she need along?”
“But if they’ve seen you—at the spaceport—”
“The Stationmaster saw to it that no one did. The only one of my crew who has permission to leave the ship is a woman who joined us the day we left Rockhouse—they won’t associate her with me or Lady Cecelia. Let’s get things packed and on the way.”
“Lady Cecelia,” the other woman said. Cecelia had made it to the bottom stair, and the chair beside it. “How soon could you be ready to leave?”
“Now.” The synthesized voice had no tone for humor, but Heris was sure Cecelia intended it. “Go . . . pack. Let . . . me . . . talk . . . to . . . Heris.”
“We’ll need comfort items,” Heris said, as the other woman started away. “We have only minimal bedding—you might want to load that sort of thing.”
“She told me her yacht had had a swimming pool—is that operational?”
“Yes, though again the walls in the gym are bare. We had the pool filled in the Golan Republic—and that’s what I wanted to tell you, milady. The doctors believe that the neurochemical assault you suffered is very similar to what was done to the prince. If so, it may be reversible. However, they will need a detailed history, and your own tissues to work on. I can take you there, if you want to risk it.”
“Yes. I . . . trust . . . you . . .” Cecelia said.
The big sprawling house that had seemed to be dozing in the afternoon sun erupted like a kicked anthill. Heris crouched on the bottom step of the stairs, holding Cecelia’s hands in hers, until someone fetched another chair for her. Four or five women in blue tunics bustled in and out, up and down stairs. Boxes and suitcases began to accumulate in the front hall, as the sun slanted farther and farther through the windows into the room.