\It took a while for us to regain our mutual composure, after which a most peculiar detente settled over our persons; it was as if, having come to the determination that the consummation of what was evidently a mutual and primal attraction was simply not our lot, we were now able to converse amicably and openly. I suppose this might not come as a surprise to those who are more well versed in such things; I will freely admit to my callowness in regard to matters romantic, much of which arises from my natural aloofness, coupled with a healthy scepticism of both my own emotive state and the intentions of others.
Diego and I were soon sitting upon the heavy woollen blanket he had brought with him with the intent of spending his night alone beneath the heavens. It was, let me note, a blanket of considerable size, one permitting us to maintain a respectful and discreet distance. This might seem something of absurdity, given our recent intimacies, but in light of how narrowly indiscretion had been averted, it was most welcome.
Diego drew from the small pipe he had procured from a pocket, slowly releasing a cloud of dank and skunkish smoke into the cooling night air. As a matter of politeness, he had of course offered that I should share in the partaking, from which I equally politely demurred. I was somewhat reluctant, for as with the presentation of the c’anupa amongst the ancient Lakota indigenes and their present day descendants, the acceptance of such an offer helps cement allegiances; that said, I did not wish my reason to be clouded or my reserve confusticated, particularly given how both had been tested by recent events.
We sat together beneath the fulgent beams of the setting moon, as the treeline round about the outer compound wall cast ever-lengthening moonshadows; in the comfort that rises from a newfound clarity in one’s interrelation with another, we had taken to talking about our mutual losses, and then about our lives. He was full of curiosity about the Peerage, as I was about his life and his people, and I found him to be a delightfully inquisitive conversation partner. Often one finds that those who are tossed by the vagaries of passion are entirely disinterested by anything that does not make them the centre of their own universe; Diego, to his great credit, was not such a soul.
His interests, as it came to pass during our animated and reciprocal conversance, were mostly around my upbringing and education, and the nature of my childhood. It was, we unsurprisingly discovered, of a radically different nature than his own. The young scions of the Peerage are each personally tutored, as naturally we would be, with regular opportunities for social engagement both formal and informal. Reginald, my tutor, was a venerable series five, and while my time with him was hardly a woodland frolic, it served its purpose of inculcating the values and discipline necessary for participation in Society.
Diego, on the other hand, was raised in the manner of his settlement. My impression, from his description of the process, was of a wild tumble of unsupervised feral wolf-pups at play.
From an exploration of my childhood, his interest led him to inquire after the nature of our economy, and the manner in which we of the Peerage managed our affairs. He seemed quite bemused by the whole process, and at the same time intrigued.
“So…the Queen…owns everything?”
“All of our lands, both cropland and estates, the materials with which we build, and our means of transportation, of course. The Crown and its Ministries manage the distribution and allocation of all resources, which are of course more than ample to provide for our comfort and well-being. All belongs to Her Majesty, who in her abundant munificence freely shares it with all those who have proven worthy to be called Peers.”
“So, what, what was the word, you lease it?”
I laughed. “No no no. As I stated, Her Majesty shares Her Beneficent Bounty with us. It is a gift, given solely in the service of Her Gracious Reign.”
“There’s…no…money?”
I shook my head gently at his childlike naivete. “Of course not. We have our gracious society, our relation to one another, our mutual talents and abilities to share. Why should we desire the vagaries and petty avarices created by such a crass and primitive means of exchange? Why should we desire to recreate the very means by which our ignorant forebears brought about their downfall? We servants of the Crown are blessed with Her abundant Beneficence, and all share in that gracious gift.”
Diego grinned, and shook his head. “Well, xxxx. You’re just a bunch xxxxing communists. Ni hao, comrade!”
I assured him that we were most certainly not, and were Tory through and through, but he seemed unable or unwilling to grasp the nuances of my argumentation about the inherent flaws in Marxist dialectic and our functional differentiation from that ideology. For all of that, I must confess I found him to be a most congenial conversation partner, and the verbal sparring that followed was entirely amicable.
Our colloquy then turned to matters more personal, as I had early shared that Stewart and I were “intended,” and Diego’s eyes sparked with interest.
“So,” Diego said, at the end of a long exhalation. “Yes. Tell me about this, this, what’s his name again?”
“Stewart,” I replied.
“This Stewart of yours. Your ‘intended’. Tell me about him.”
“Stewart MacDougall is the Baronet Annandale, whose father and my father determined that a union between our Houses would be a…”
Diego snorted, then lolled back on one shoulder. “Rebecca. Jesus. You know that’s not what I’m xxxxing asking. Tell me about Stew-Art. What’d you like about him? Why do you, you know, love him, and xxxx?” He grinned gently.
In reply, I iterated at some length all of the factors that delight me about Stewart, all of which I have previously elucidated for you, dear reader, in a prior instalment of this serialisation; should you require a refreshment of your recollection, I shall offer those reasons in sum now: the uniqueness of his mind; his estimable and particular contributions to the interests of the Crown; his deep reserve; his doting consideration of my needs and interests; and his choice to love me with the entirety of his person.
When I had finished my systematic account of his many admirable features, Diego laid back upon the heavy wool of the blanket. He sighed. “Yes. I can see why that’d be a thing. He’s a lucky one.”
Gazing down upon Diego’s relaxed and particular form, a question most impertinent rose to the fore of my mind. In other circumstances, I would not have deigned to speak it aloud, yet here having shared so much that was profoundly personal, I felt it was entirely equitable that I might inquire.
“I have answered your question, now I would pose one to you; if it offends, please do tell me so.”
“Fire away.”
“Your augmentations. Their workmanship and design appear to be of our own, of Her Majesty and the Crown. I have seen their like described in circulars from the Royal Society, but they are not frequently used among us. How did they come to be a part of your person? Again, only if it does not offend, or is not too painful to recall.”
“No. No worries. Six years ago. I was twenty three, part of our settlement’s defence brigade. It was Minsky who was xxxxing with us back then, before Caddigan put a bullet in his head and took the reins of the Hammer. We were responding to a support chit from a settlement in the Carolinas. We’d hit the Hammer hard, had them on the run. I was on a forward recon patrol. Stepped on a mine they’d left to slow us down. Once second I’m walking, the next second, nothing. Don’t remember it. Lucretia got me to one of those machine hospitals of yours. Took six months to recuperate. So. Here I am. Better than ever.”
He extended the perfect and intricately constructed metal of his arm, opening and closing the elegantly crafted hand. “You people did a xxxxing great job.”
There was an odd set to his face as he said this, one that told of some unspoken discomfiture of his soul.
“Something about it still troubles you, Diego.”
“Yes.” He took another puff from his pipe, and again the oddly tumaceous perfume of his herb filled my nostrils. “Not to be an ungrateful xxxx about it, but I wish I’d been xxxxing asked. The whole thing was...you have no idea. It would been better to die. I still think that. Death would have been better. The debriding of burnt flesh, amputations, weeks of microsurgery, the initial nervous system rejection and the reinstallation after secondary amputation, all of it, weeks of xxxxing torture, even with everything that your robot doctors could do to shut down the pain. And the whole time, six months, not a single human face, not xxxxing one. The intent was good and xxxx, but it was a surreal horror. I’m not sure, even now, if it was worth it. Seriously xxxxed me up.”
“That sounds dreadful, Diego. I know the intent of the Royal Charitable Hospitals is only for the restoration of those brought to their care, and I can assure you no malice was intended by Her Majesty’s therapeutic interventions. Does it…does it still cause you discomfort?”
He shrugged. “No no, not at all. And I’m strong as xxxx, which is great. But I’m like, well, you’ve seen me. I didn’t used to just xxxxing explode at people. Didn’t used to get so xxxx intense. I mean, I always had a temper, sure, but I could control it. Mostly. Now, it’s just like a switch gets thrown. It’s not like I want to be such an xxxhole, you know?”
I nodded in quiet affirmation. “Yes. I know, Diego. I know.”
For a while, we sat in silence. Then our conversation turned to matters of less weighty import, as I queried him about the music of his people. The night deepened and wore on, and our discourse slowly faded again to an utterly comfortable quiet. He drew repeatedly from his pipe, and seemed to disappear within the mist of his own thoughts.
I reflected, as we fell into silence, of how deeply Diego’s sojourn in our care had shaken him. It provided much explanation of his fierce fascination with the Peerage, his simultaneous enmity towards us, and so very much else about his attitude towards all who served Her Majesty.
I mused, too, of the implications of his testimony should I bring it before my sorors at the Ladies Aid Society. It had been our considered opinion, and not an unreasonable one, that the automation of the Royal Charitable Hospitals was a wholly positive advancement. It meant that these forward redoubts of Her Majesty’s Beneficence were capable of tending and mending the commoners far more efficiently, certainly, but the absence of the human touch…particularly in such an instance as Diego had described…should have been given greater reflection.
I was attempting to formulate my thoughts on the matter when I found my mind drifting in a most peculiar way. All manner of flighty and whimsical cogitations sparked into being, which now strike me as so utterly nonsensical that it is difficult to even articulate them.
A hypnagogic calm then descended upon my person, at which it occurred to the fading spark of my consciousness that my peculiar mood likely had arisen from my proximity to Diego and the moufette-scented haze of his soporific herb.
As there was nothing that could be done about that, I lay fully back upon the woollen blanket, the slightly yielding firmness of turned earth a reassurance beneath me, the stars crisp and unchanging in the sky; my eyes fluttered and closed, my thoughts a slow and pleasant whirl of chimeric character, and I was soon lost to dreaming.
Chapter Twenty Seven: The Fire at Sunrise
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