Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

With a disgusted expression Sam passed Julian’s note to me, and I unfolded the paper and read it. It had been written with obvious haste in an unsteady hand, but the penmanship was recognizably Julian’s. The note said: Dear Sam, Thank you for your repeated attempts to reach me with news of the imminent departure of the Goldwing for foreign waters. Please tell my mother and Calyxa that I admire their extensive and thoughtful planning for this eventuality. I regret that I cannot join them, and you, and Adam and all, for the voyage. I would not be safe in Europe, nor would those I love be safe as long as I was among them. And there are more personal and pressing reasons why I must stay behind.

As unsatisfactory as this explanation is, it will have to do. Please don’t attempt to seek me out, for nothing can change my decision, and I would only be endangered by the attempt.

I thank you all for the kindnesses you have shown me over so many years, and I apologize for the hardships those kindnesses too often caused you. Thank you, especially, Sam, for acting in the place of my father, and for guiding me usefully even when I defied your guidance. Your lessons were not wasted, and never more than briefly resented. Please be kind to my mother, as I know she will be upset by my absence, and please emphasize my love for her, which is everlasting, if anything is.

Also thank Adam for his boundless friendship and many indulgences, and remind him of the promise he made to me.

Yours, Julian Comstock (never really a Conqueror) “Do you know what he means, Adam?”

“I think I understand it,” I said in a small voice.

“That’s more than I do!

Damn Julian! It’s just like him to throw a shoe into the works! But about the promise he mentions—”

“It’s nothing much.”

“Do you care to tell me about it?”

“It’s only an errand. Escort Calyxa to the Goldwing, and I’ll join you there.”

Calyxa made some objection to this, but I was adamant, and she knew me well enough to hear the steel in my voice, and she yielded to it, though not gracefully. I kissed her and told her to kiss Flaxie on my behalf. I would have said more, but I didn’t want to increase her anxiety.

“Only an errand,” Sam repeated, once Calyxa was settled in the carriage.

“It won’t keep me long.”

“It had better not. They say the fire is spreading quickly—you can smell the smoke on the wind even here. If the docks are threatened we sail at once, with you or without you.”

“I understand.”

“I hope so. I might have lost Julian—I can’t do anything about that—but I don’t want to lose you as well.”

His statement made me feel very emotional, and I had to turn my head away so as not to embarrass myself. Sam took my hand in his good right hand and gave it a sturdy shake. Then he followed Calyxa into the carriage; and when I turned back they were gone.

All the crowd had gone away before them. Except for a few Republican Guards still keeping a vigil, the street was nearly empty. Only a single horse cart remained at the curb. It bore the insigne of the Executive Branch.

Lymon Pugh was holding the reins. “Drive you somewhere, Adam Hazzard?” he asked.

A few trucks and carriages passed us as we rode up Broadway, all of them headed away from the burning Egyptian quarter. A brisk wind blew steadily along the empty sidewalks, lofting up loose pages from the special edition of the Spark and inconveniencing beggars in the darkened alleys where they slept.

Sam’s parting words had touched me, and I have to admit that Julian’s unexpected letter caused some turmoil as well. I supposed he had his reasons for doing as he did. Or at least imagined he had good reasons. But it was hurtful that he hadn’t lingered long enough to say goodbye face-to-face. We had survived so many harrowing turns together, that I thought I was owed at least a handshake.

But Julian had not been himself lately—far from it—and I tried to excuse him on those grounds.

“He was probably just in a big hurry,” Lymon Pugh said, divining something of my thoughts.

“You saw the note?”

“I carried it to Sam myself.”

“How did Julian seem when he passed it to you?”

“Can’t say. It was handed out from behind that curtained box of his. All I saw was a gloved hand, and all I heard was his voice, which said, ‘See that this gets to Sam Godwin.’ Well, I did. If I unfolded it on the way, and had a quick read of it, I guess that’s your fault.”

“My fault!”

“For teaching me my letters, I mean.”

Perhaps it was true, as the Eupatridians believed, that the skill of reading shouldn’t be too widely distributed, if this was the general result. But I passed over his indictment without comment. “What do you make of it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. It’s all above my station.”

“But you said he might be in a hurry.”

“Perhaps because of Deacon Hollingshead.”

“What about Deacon Hollingshead?”

“Rumor among the Guard is that Hollingshead holds a personal grudge against Julian, and is hunting him all over the city, with a body of Ecclesiastical Police to help him.”

“I know the Deacon is hostile to Julian, but what do you mean by a personal grudge?”

“Well, because of his daughter.”

“The Deacon’s daughter? The one who famously shares intimacies with females of her own sex?”

“That’s more delicate than I’ve heard it put, but yes. The girl was an embarrassment to Hollingshead, and he locked her up in his fancy house in Colorado Springs to keep her out of trouble. But Deacon Hollingshead’s house was blown up during the trouble with the Army of the Californias. The Deacon was safe here in New York, of course. But he blames Julian for his daughter’s death, and means to take his revenge on Julian directly. A noose or a bullet, it don’t matter to the Deacon, as long as Julian dies.”

“How do you know these things?”

“No offense, Adam, but news that circulates in the Guard barracks don’t always reach the upper echelons. All of us that Julian hired to be Republican Guards are fresh from the Army of the Laurentians. Some of us have friends in the New York garrison. And talk goes back and forth.”

“You told Julian about this?”

“No, I never had an opportunity; but I think the rogue pastor Magnus Stepney might have said something. Stepney has contacts among the political agitators, who pay attention to questions like this.”

Or it might all be hearsay and exaggeration. I remembered how, back in Williams Ford, a head-cold among the Duncans or the Crowleys became the Red Plague by the time the grooms and stable-boys told the story. Still, that was unhappy news about Hollingshead’s daughter. I had always felt sympathy for the girl, though all I knew of the situation was what I had learned from Calyxa’s pointed verses at the Independence Day ball a year and a half gone.

“Any particular reason we’re heading back to the Palace?” Lymon Pugh asked, for that was the destination I had given him.

“A few things I want to pick up.”

“Then off to South France, I suppose, or somewhere foreign like that?”

“You can still come with us, Lymon—the offer stands. I’m not sure what your prospects are in Manhattan just now. You might have a hard time drawing your wages after tonight.”

“No, thank you. I mean to take my wages in the form of a breed horse from the Palace stables, and ride the animal west. If any horses remain, that is. The Republican Guards are fond of Julian, and remember him as Conqueror, but they can read the writing on the wall as well as the next man. Many of them have pulled out already. Probably some of the Presidential silverware has gone with them, though I name no names.”