Walter Williams - Conventions of War

Veronika gave a whoop of joy and ran to embrace him. “Better add this,” Casimir said, adding a vest to the yes pile. He picked up an embroidered jacket from another heap and held it out to Sula. “What do you think of this?” he asked. “Should I add it to your pile?”

Sula considered the jacket. “I think you should pick out the single very nicest thing out of the stack and give it to me.”

His dark eyes flashed and his gravel voice was suddenly full of anger. “You don’t want my presents?” he asked.

Sula was aware that Veronika was staring at her as if she were insane.

“I’ll takea present,” Sula said. “You don’t know me well enough to buy me a whole wardrobe.”

For a moment she sensed thwarted rage boiling off of him, and then he thought about it and decided to be amused. His mouth twisted in a tight-lipped smile. “Very well,” he said. He considered the pile for a moment, then reached in and pulled out a suit, velvet black, with satin braid and silver beadwork on the lapels and down the seams of the loose trousers.

“Will this do?” he said.

“It’s very nice. Thank you.” Sula noted that it wasn’t the most expensive item in the pile, and that fact pleased her. If he wasn’t buying her expensive trash, it probably meant he didn’t think she was trash either.

“Will you wear it tonight?” He hesitated, then looked at Chesko. “It didn’t need fitting, did it?”

“No, sir.” Her pale, expressionless Daimong face, set in a permanent caricature of wide-eyed alarm, gave no sign of disappointment in losing sales worth hundreds of zeniths.

“Happy to,” Sula said. She took the suit to the changing room, changed, and looked at herself in the old-fashioned silver-backed mirrors. The suit probablywas the nicest thing in the pile.

Her old clothes were wrapped in a package, and she stepped out to a look of appreciation from Julien and the more critical gaze of Casimir. He gestured with a finger as if stirring a pot.

“Turn around,” he said.

She made a pirouette, and he nodded, more to himself than to anyone else. “That works,” he said. The deep voice sounded pleased.

“Can we eat now?” Julien asked.

Outside, the white marble of the Couch of Eternity glowed a pale green in twilight. The streets exhaled summer heat into the sky like an overtaxed athlete panting at the end of his run.

They ate in a cafe, a place of bright red and white tiles and shiny chrome. The cafe was packed and noisy, as if people wanted to pack in as much food and good times as possible before rationing began. Casimir and Julien were in a lighthearted mood, chattering and laughing, but every so often Sula caught Casimir looking at her with a thoughtful expression, as if he was approving his choice of outfit.

He had made her into something he admired.

Afterward they went to a bar, equally crowded, with a live band and dancing. The other night Casimir had danced with a kind of gravity, but now he was exuberant, laughing as he led her into athletic kicks, spins, and twirls. Before, he had been pleasing himself with a show of his power and control, but now it was as if he wanted all Zanshaa to share his joy.

He was taking me for granted the other night,Sula thought.Now he’s not.

It was well past midnight when they left the bar. Outside, in the starlit darkness, a pair of odd colossi moved in the night. Leather creaked. A strange barnyard smell floated to Sula’s nostrils.

Casimir gave a laugh. “Right,” he said. “Get in.”

He launched himself into some kind of box that, dimly perceived, seemed to float above the street. There was a creak, a shuffle, more barnyard smell. His long pale hand appeared out of the night.

“Come on,” he said.

Sula took the hand and let him draw her forward. A step, a box, a seat. She seated herself next to him before she understood where she was, and amazement flooded her.

“Is this a pai-car chariot?” she asked.

“That’s right!” Casimir let a laugh float off into the night. “We hired a pair for tonight.” He thumped the leather-padded rim of the cockpit and called to the driver, “Let’s go!”

There was a hiss from the driver, a flap of reins, and the carriage lurched into movement. The vehicle was pulled by a pai-car, a tall flightless bird, a carnivorous, unintelligent cousin to the Lai-own driver that perched on the front of the carriage. There were two big silver alloy wheels, ornamented with cutouts, and a boat-shaped body made out of leather, boiled, treated, sculpted, and ornamented with bright metal badges of a pattern unique to each driver. Mounted on either side were some cell-powered lamps, not very powerful, which the driver now switched on.

The car swayed down off the Petty Mount and into the flat cityscape below. Sula relaxed against Casimir’s shoulder. Darkened buildings loomed up on either side like valley walls. The slap of the pai-car’s feet and its huffing breath echoed off the structures on either side. There seemed to be no other traffic at all, nothing but the limousine, with its Torminel guards, which followed them at a distance, the driver able to navigate perfectly well with his huge nocturnal eyes.

“Is this legal?” Sula wondered.

Casimir’s bright white teeth flashed in the starlight. “Of course not. These carriages aren’t permitted outside the parks.”

“You don’t expect police?”

His grin broadened. “The police are bogged down processing millions of ration card applications. The streets are ours for the next month.”

Veronika’s laughter tinkled through the night. Sula heard the slap of another pair of feet, and saw the savage saw-toothed face of another pai-car loom up on the left, followed soon by the driver and Julien and Veronika. Julien leaned out of the carriage, hands waving drunkenly in the air. “A hundred says I beat you to Medicine Street!”

Sula felt Casimir’s body grow taut as Julien’s face vanished into the gloom ahead. He called to the driver: “Faster!” The driver gave a hiss and a flap of the reins. The carriage creaked and swayed as the pace increased.

Veronika’s laughter taunted them from ahead. Casimir growled and leaned forward. “Faster!” he called. Sula’s nerves tingled to the awareness of danger.

A few lights shone high in office buildings where the staff were cleaning. A rare functioning street lamp revealed two Torminel, in the brown uniforms of the civil service, having what seemed to be a disagreement. The two fell silent and stared with their big eyes as the carriages raced past, their silver wheels a blur.

The side-lamps of Julien’s carriage ahead loomed closer. “Faster!” Casimir called, and he turned to Sula, a laugh rumbling from deep in his chest. Sula felt an answering grin tear at her lips.This is mad, she thought.Absolutely mad.

She heard Julien’s voice calling for greater speed. The wheels threw up sparks as they skidded through a turn. Sula was thrown against Casimir. He put an arm around her protectively.

“Faster!”

Veronika’s laughter tinkled from ahead, closer this time. Casimir ducked left and right, peering around the driver for a better view of the carriage they were pursuing. They passed through an intersection and both carriages glared white in the startled headlamps of a huge street-cleaning machine. Sula blinked the dazzle from her eyes. The night air was cool on her cheeks. She could feel her heart beating high in her throat.

She heard Julien curse as they drew even. Then they were in another turn, metal wheels sliding, and Julien’s carriage loomed close as it skidded toward them. Their driver was forced into a wider turn to avoid collision, and Julien pulled ahead.

“Damn!” Casimir jumped from his seat and leaped to join the driver on the box. One pale hand dug in a pocket. “Twenty zeniths if you beat him!” he called, and slapped a coin down on the box. Twenty zeniths would buy the chariot, the pai-car, and the driver twice over.