Marching Through Georgia (6 page)

200 Years: A Social History of the Domination
by E. Sorensson, Ph.D.

Archona Press. 1983

OAKENWALD PLANTATION OCTOBER, 1941

Eric woke in mid-morning. It was his old room at the corner of the west wing, a big, airy chamber ten meters by twenty with two walls giving on to the second story balcony through doors of sliding glass. The air was sharp with spring, with a little of the dew-smell yet, full of scents from the garden and a wilder smell from the forest and wet rock that stretched beyond the manor; the breath of his childhood years, the smell of home.

He lay for a moment, enjoying the crisp smooth feel of the linen sheets, feeling rested enough but a little heavy with the wine and liqueurs from last night. It was like being sick, when he was a child. Not too ill, just feverish, allowed to lie abed and read. Ma would be there, to see that he drank the soup…

Dinner had been better than he expected; Pa had avoided topics which might set them off (which meant platitudes and silence, mostly), and everyone had admired Johanna's eardrops, which led naturally to the hilarious story of the near-mutiny in Rome, when the troops arrived to find Security units guarding the Vatican and preventing a sack. Florence had been much better; he had picked up a number of interesting items, including a Cellini, two Raphaels and a couple of
really
interesting illuminated manuscripts. Better than jewelry, far too precious to sell.

Illegal, of course
, he mused, throwing a loose caftan over his nakedness and tossing down a glass of the fresh-squeezed orange juice from the jug by the bedside.
Still, why let the Cultural
Directorate stick the books in a warehouse for a generation
while the museums and the universities quarreled over 'em
?

* * *

The baths were as he remembered them—magnificent, in a fashion forty years out of date, like much of the manor. That had been the last major renovation, in the expansive and self-confident years just before the Great War, when the African territories were well pacified and the Draka were pleasantly engaged in dreaming of further conquests, rather than performing the hard, actual work. There was a waterfall springing from dragon heads cast in aluminum bronze, steam rooms and soaking tubs and a swimming pool of red and violet Northmark marble. The walls were lined with mosaics from the Klimt workshops, done on white Carrara in gilded copper, silver, coral, semi-precious stones, gold and colored faience; his great-grandmother's taste had run to wildlife, landscapes (the dreamlike cone of Kilimanjaro rising above the Serengeti was a favorite), dancing maidens of eerily elongated shapes…

Soaking, massage, and a dozen laps chased the last stiffness from his muscles; he lazed naked against a couch on the terrace, toying with a breakfast of iced mango, hot breads, and Kenia coffee with thick mountain cream. Potted fruit trees laid dappled patterns of sun and shade across his body; a last spray of peach blossom cast petals and scent on long, taut-muscled arms and deep runner's chest. The angry purple scar on his thigh had faded toward dusty white. He was conscious of an immense well-being as wind stroked silk-gentle across cleansed skin.

The serving girl padded up to collect the dishes, averting her eyes; Draka of his generation had little sense of body modesty, but their serfs were more prudish. Lazily, he stretched out a hand as she bent and laid it on the small of her back. She froze, controlled a shrinking and looked back at him over her shoulder.

"Please, masta, no?" she said in a small breathless voice.

Eric shrugged, smiling, and withdrew his touch; he had never liked tumbling with a woman who didn't desire him. Not that that had ever been a problem, he being the master's son, young, handsome, and well-spoken…

Too young, anyway
, he mused. He preferred women about his own years or a little older.
Hmmmm, I could take a rifle up
into the hills and try for that leopard Pa mentioned before it
takes more sheep. No, too much like work. And curse it,
Johanna will already be out hawking, she said "early
tomorrow"
… A ride with a falcon on his wrist was something that had been lacking these last few years.

He looked down and grinned; the body had its own priorities.

No, first thoughts are best: a woman
. That was a minor problem; he had been away from the estate for years now. There had been a few serf girls he'd been having, after his period of mourning for Tyansha ended, but they would be married now.

Not that a serf wedding had any legal standing, but the underfolk took their unions seriously; more seriously than the masters did, these days. It would cause distress, if he called one of them to his bed.

He snapped his fingers. Rahksan—Johanna's maid. She'd have mentioned it in her letters if the wench had taken a lasting mate.

Uncle Everard had brought her back from Afghanistan, one small girl found miraculously alive in a village bombed with phosgene-gas for supporting the
badmash
rebels. He had given her to Johanna for her sixth birthday, much as he might have a puppy or a kitten. They had all run tame together, and she had seldom said no, in the old days…

Let's see, Johanna's out with her hawk; Rahksan'd probably
be in her rooms, tidying up.

* * *

The corridor gave onto Johanna's study; the door was ajar, and he padded through on quiet feet, leaning his head around the entrance into the bedroom. Rahksan was there, but so was Johanna, and they were very much occupied. Eric pursed his mouth thoughtfully, lifted one eyebrow and withdrew to the study unnoticed. There was a good selection of reading material; he picked up a newsmagazine with a profile of Wendel Wilkie, the new Yankee President. The speech he had given opening the new lock at Montreal in the State of Quebec was considered quite important, bearing on the new administration's attitude to the war…

Rahksan came through the door with her shoes in one hand, buttoning the linen blouse with the other. She was a short woman, full in breast and hip, with a mane of curling blue-black hair and skin a pale creamy olive that reminded him of Italians he had seen. Her face was roundly pretty, eyes heavy-lidded above a dreamy smile.

He stood: the serf squeaked and jumped in startlement, then relaxed into a broad grin as she recognized him.

"Why, masta Eric, good't'see yaz egin," she said, tilting her head on one side and glancing up at him; she came barely to his shoulder.

He laughed and pulled her close; she flowed into his arm, warm, soft, skin damp and carrying a faint pleasant scent of woman.

"I was looking for you, Rahksan," he said.

"Why, whatevah fo'?" she asked slyly, snuggling. They had always been friendly, as far as different stations allowed, and occasional bedmates in the years since Tyansha died.

"… unless you're too tired?" he finished politely.

"Well… ah
do
have wuk't'do, masta. 'Sides all this bedwenchin", that is." She paused, with a show of considering.

"Tonaaht? Pr'bly feel laahk it agin bah then."

He nodded, and she jumped up with an arm around his neck; he tasted musk on her lips as they kissed, and then she was gone with a flash of bare feet, giggling as she gave him a swift intimate caress in passing. Eric shook his head, grinning.

Another thing that hasn't changed about Oakenwald
, he thought. Rahksan had always had a sunny disposition, and an uncomplicated outlook on life. It was restful, for a man given to introspective brooding.

His sister's voice interrupted his musing. "Well, brother dear, if you're
quite
finished making assignations with my serf wench, come on in."

Johanna was lying comfortably sprawled across her bed amid the rumpled black satin of the sheets, sipping at pale yellow wine in a bell-goblet and toe-wrestling with a long-haired persian cat.

She was, he noted with amusement, still wearing his gift of eardrops, if nothing else; she had the greyhound build of the von Shrakenbergs, but was thicker through the neck and shoulders than when he had seen her last, a year ago. Wrestling a two-engined pursuit plane through the sky took strength as well as skill.

He seated himself and took up the second glass, pouring from the straw-covered flask in its bed of ice. "Glad to see you're not wasting
your
leave," he said. "A little… schoolgirlish, though, isn't it?"

"Now, listen to me, Eric—" She sank back into the pillows at his smile. "Freya, but it's always a surprise when that solemness of yours breaks down." Johanna paused to pick a black hair from her lip with thumb and forefinger.

"Glad you knew I was joking; Pa might not be, though. He's a stickler for dignity," Eric said.

Johanna snorted. "I'm old enough to fight for the Domination, I'm old enough to choose my own pleasures," she said. More slowly: "For that matter, it's
like
school around here, these days: no men. Not between eighteen and forty, at least. Draka men, that is; plenty of likely-looking serf bucks… just joking brother, just joking. I know the Race Purity laws as well as anyone, and I've no wish to do my last dance on the end of a rope. Actually, the only man I'm interested in is six thousand kilometers away in Mongolia, while celibacy interests me not at all."

She sighed. "And… the locho's going operational in another month, once we've finished shaking down on ground-support.

Ever noticed how war puts a hand on your shoulder, and says

'hurry'?"

"Yes indeed," he said, refilling her glass. "Confidentially…

Johanna, the Germans are getting pretty close to the Caucasus.

They've taken Rostov-on-Don already, and it looks like Moscow will fall within the month. Then they'll push on to the Caspian, which will put them right on our northern border. Three guesses as to where the next round of fighting begins."

She nodded, thoughtful. The Domination had never really been at peace in all the centuries of its existence; a citizen was reared to the knowledge that death in combat was as likely a way to go as cancer in bed. This would be different: a
gotterdammerung
, where whole nations were beaten into dust…

Too big
, she mused. Impossible to think about in any meaningful sense; you could only see it in personal terms. And seeing it that way, Armageddon itself couldn't kill you deader than a skirmish. It was the personal that was
real
, anyhow. You lived and died in person-time, not history-time.

"Funny," she said. "Back when we were children, we couldn't wait to grow up… Do you remember when Uncle Everard gave Rahksan to me? I was around six, so you must have been going on ten."

Eric nodded, reminiscing. "Yes: you'd play at giving orders, until she got tired of it; then she'd plump down and cross her arms and say, This is a stupid game and I'm not going to play anymore,' and we'd all roll around laughing?"

"Hmmm, well, it was a change to give anybody orders. At that age, nurse and all the house-serfs tell
you
what to do, and wallop your bottom if you don't… Did you know she'd have nightmares?"

Surprised, he shook his head. "Always seemed a happy little wench."

"At night, she'd wake up sometimes on the pallet down at the foot of the bed, thinking she couldn't breathe. Damn what the vet said, I think she got some lung damage when they gassed her village. I'd let her crawl in with me and hold her until she went to sleep; then later, when we were both older, well…" She paused and frowned. "You know, I never
did
go in for the schoolgirl stuff, the real thing, roses and fruit left at the window, bad poetry under the door, meetings in the pergola at midnight… Always seemed silly, as if this was seventy years ago and you could get in real trouble. So did what happened in the summer months-off, everyone rushing out and falling on the nearest boy like ravening leopardesses on a goat."

He laughed. She had always been able to draw him out of himself, even if that humor was a little barbed at times.

"Rahksan… that's just fun and exuberance, and release from need, with more affection than you can get in barracks. I really like her, you know, and she me." She paused to sip the cool tart wine. "And I miss Tom."

"I always thought you two were in love," Eric said lightly.

"From the way you quarrelled: you'd ride ten miles just to have a fight with him."

Johanna smiled ruefully. "True enough. And I do love him…"

She paused, set down the empty glass and linked her fingers about one knee. "Not the way you felt about that Circassian wench," she continued softly. "Don't think I didn't notice. I'll never love anyone with that… crazy single-mindedness, never, an I thank the nonexistent gods for it."

He glanced away. "There has to be one sensible person in this family," he said. He thought of his other sisters, twins three years younger than Johanna. "Besides the Terrible Two, of course."

"Yes; they were threatening me bodily harm if I won the war before they could get into it… Eric, you know the problem with you and Pa? You think and feel exactly alike."

"We haven't agreed on a goddamned thing in ten years!"

"I didn't say the
contents
of your thoughts were alike, but the
way
you think is no-shit
identical
, big brother. You feel things…

too much: duty, love, hate, whatever. Everything's a matter of principle; everything counts too much. You both
want
too much—things that aren't possible to us mortals."

"Possibly; but even if that's true, it's no solution to our problems."

"Shit, you always did want
solutions
, didn't you? Most of the things that bother you two
aren't
problems, and they don't
have
solutions—they're the conditions of life and you have to
live
with them." She sighed at the tightening of his lips. "It's like talking to a rock, with either of you. Mind you, Pa's more often right on some things, to my way of thinking. Politics, certainly."

"You don't think I should have gotten Tyansha's child out of the Domination?"