Саймон Морден - Degrees of Freedom

Petrovitch picked up the bottle by its neck and read the label.

“Proof that there’s at least something American you’ll appreciate,” said the cardinal.

“I’m not that knee-jerk.” Petrovitch passed the bottle back, and the cardinal cracked the seal. “Am I?”

“I think that’s a whole different conversation to the one I planned on having.” Carillo bent low over the glasses, pouring carefully so he didn’t spill a drop. “If this was any stronger, I wouldn’t be able to carry it on commercial flights. As it is, it shouldn’t dissolve your guts if you take it in moderation.”

“And all this on an empty stomach. You’d think being a multi-billionaire and leader of what’s left of one of the world’s great cities would mean lunch at some point.”

Carillo passed Petrovitch his drink and looked out from under the porch at the darkening sky. “Can’t help you there. I brought the booze.”

“At least I’m a cheap date.” Corn whiskey wasn’t his usual, but he’d make the exception, just this once. He twisted his wrist and emptied the contents of the glass into his mouth. He held the liquid there for a moment, then swallowed.

He let out a puff of air, and screwed up his remaining eye.

“Stagg’s a decent drop. The bottle’s yours to keep, by way of an apology.” Carillo sipped his bourbon and drew his knees up against the cold. “You’ll be getting a letter from the Pope at some point, too.”

“Yeah, well. You didn’t know. And it’s only your God that’s supposed to be omniscient, not his followers.” Petrovitch hefted the bottle again, and worked the stopper free. He poured himself another two fingers and stared at the light through the dark oak whiskey. “This is self-medication. I’m due in surgery.”

“The eye?”

Petrovitch touched his pirate’s eyepatch: Lucy’s idea. “I don’t even need a local for that, just plug and play. It’s the arm. It bled inside, and it’s… easier if they amputate.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. You going organic?”

“Probably not. My flight from this meat-sack continues, Tetsuo- stylee.”

“What does Madeleine say about that?”

“I’m paraphrasing, but it was something like ‘at least the next time someone tries to break your arm, you can break theirs right back’.” Petrovitch drank half the bourbon in his glass. “She understands me. I don’t know if that’s good or scary.”

“She is your wife.”

“Yeah. We’re still just a couple of kids, though. We have no role models: both our fathers are dead, her mother was an alcoholic and, when she sobered up, she became an Outie and tried to kill Maddy. I abandoned my family back in St. Petersburg. I don’t even know what marriage is supposed to look like, let alone the rest of it.”

Carillo sipped and contemplated. “So why did you get married?”

“Apparently it was the only way we could get to bang each other’s brains out without incurring God’s wrath.”

After they’d both stopped laughing, Petrovitch felt he should explain.

“The whole living together, being with each other thing. I didn’t need a piece of paper for that. She did: she has this irrational belief that it means something extra. So that’s why I agreed.” He drank more, poured more. “I don’t want to be with anybody else. She’s…”

“What?” said Carillo after a suitable wait.

“Did I ever tell you about how fantastic her breasts are? They’re just breathtaking, amazing, a work of art from a Renaissance master. They’re the sort of breasts Leonardo would have drawn.” He looked sideways at the cardinal. “There is a point to this.”

“I was wondering.”

“When she takes her top off, I’m like a kid in a sweet shop. I know it’s a function of biochemistry, my age and my complete lack of experience in these things, and mostly I’m just pathetically grateful she wants to be with me. But it wasn’t her breasts that I missed while we weren’t together. It was her.”

“What you’re saying is that you love her.” Carillo made a half-smile. “Which is right and proper. I know a lot of my colleagues don’t approve, but I do.”

“You’ve talked about me and Maddy?”

“At a surprisingly high level. She is, as I’m sure you realize, an extraordinary young woman. A great loss to the Order, and some have agitated this past year for your marriage to be annulled.”

Petrovitch’s fingers tightened around his glass. “So Father John didn’t act on his own.”

“So it would seem. You’ve already caused two revolutions today, why not a third?” Carillo hunched over further. “Maybe I will have some more of Kentucky’s finest.”

Petrovitch slid the bottle across the gap between them. “Strange days for both of us, then. I take it you’re not going to name names.”

“Having seen what you do to people who cross you, no. There’ll be an inquiry, held in curia, and the results will not be divulged. I’m sure you can create some pattern-recognition software that’ll track appointments and retirements, but I’d rather you didn’t.” Carillo held the bourbon bottle up and frowned at the amount already missing. Then he shrugged and dealt himself another shot. “We might move slowly, but we are very thorough.”

“Like the Americans.”

“You keep forgetting I am one.”

“You keep having to remember you are one. I’d hardly call what’s happening over there a revolution, though. It’s still Reconstruction to the core.”

“Mackensie went within the hour, and you got everything you wanted. That’s a victory, of sorts.”

“The cost of it. Chyort, we lost so much to get so…”

“Little? I could list your achievements, but that won’t make you feel better.”

“I can’t unsee: with my set-up, I can play it again with perfect clarity any time I want. And I can’t undo: I’ve killed people today, and they’re not coming back.”

“They so rarely do,” murmured Carillo. “Shall we get this over with, then? Assuming you still want to go through with it.”

“Yeah. I’ve thought about it, and what with me being such a yebani genius I have to be right at least some of the time.” Petrovitch saw off the last of his drink and pulled his arm back ready to throw.

The cardinal caught his wrist and retrieved the glass. “Enough broken things for one day.” He set the glass down with his own, and got up stiffly. The cold had seeped into his bones and he hadn’t taken as much whiskey as Petrovitch.

He led the way up the steps to the tall wooden doors. He knocked, rapping with his knuckles: the door opened a crack, then further. Sister Marie, dressed in her full habit, stood aside. When they were between the outer doors and the inner ones, she stood close to Petrovitch and looked him up and down.

“Weapons, please,” she said.

“What makes you think I have any?”

“If you don’t, I think you ought.”

“This is the Freezone, not the wild west.” Petrovitch raised his arm over his head anyway. “Feel free to pat me down, sister. You won’t find… huy, you know what? I’m going to cut the cheap innuendo and let you get on with your job.”

“Thank you.”

If he thought she was going to wave him through, he was mistaken. She was thorough in her way, just like the men she protected. When she was done, she faced him, blinking.

“You can have my gun on the way out if you want,” she offered.

“That’s very kind. But I’m being picked up, and they’ll have all the guns I need.” Petrovitch put his arm down, and started forward, but Sister Marie put her hand out and blocked him.

“A couple of ground rules, mon ami. Do not touch him, at all, ever. Even if I think you’re going to shake his hand, I’m stepping in. Second: you’re here against my advice and I’m yet to be convinced this is a good idea. If this looks like it’s taking a wrong turn, or even if it’s not going anywhere, I’ll call a halt to it. Oui? ”