Arabella of Mars(90)

“I know you stole the egg,” she said to Simon.

Fear, panic, anger, and despair flashed across Simon’s face before he covered it with his hands. “I did,” he sobbed.

Arabella had not, in fact, known with certainty that it had been Simon who had stolen the egg. But that part of Simon’s earlier confession had seemed even less sincere than the rest of it, and her guess that confronting him with his lie would cause him to break down had proven correct.

“Your brother welcomed me into his household,” Simon continued, “and it is to my great shame that even while I enjoyed his hospitality I continually warred within myself as to whether and how I should attempt his murder. But no opportunity presented itself for weeks, and as my indecision and frustration grew…” He raised his face from his hands, and it was wet with tears. “I am afraid that the strain must have driven me somewhat mad. For after we visited the new queen to pay our respects to her upon the delivery of her egg, I conceived a scheme to steal the egg and lay the blame upon your brother.” He drew a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his eyes, and noisily blew his nose. “In this way I hoped to … remove him from the succession, so to speak, without taking direct action, and thus to salve my muddled conscience.”

“But you underestimated the Martians’ reaction to the egg’s abduction.”

“That is sadly true.” He hung his head. “And so appalled was I at the, the entirely unintended consequences of my imprudent action, that when Michael was injured I abandoned all thought of my own fortune and brought him here.”

That Arabella’s suspicions were confirmed was satisfying, and that Simon had undergone a change of heart was gratifying. But she was still distrustful of him—indeed, she did not completely believe his tale even now—and of course her anger at him was redoubled.

“Please tell me you did not destroy the egg.”

“I did not,” he said, and looked to her with dawning understanding and desperate hope. “I hid it in a safe place.”

For the first time that day she felt a faint stirring of hope in her own breast. “You must return it immediately,” she said.

“I cannot,” he said, and dropped his gaze to the floor. “I buried it in the desert, miles from here.”

“In that case,” she told him, in a firm yet gentle tone like the one her father had used after Arabella confessed to breaking the automaton dancer, “you must go up into the tower, tell the Martians that you were the one who abducted the egg, and tell them exactly where they can find it. If they recover it, and it yet lives, we may receive their clemency. Otherwise, we will all certainly perish beneath their catapult stones.” As if to reinforce her words, a rumbling crash sounded from the far side of the house.

“Must I admit my complicity?” He looked up at her with an expression like a cornered khushera. “Is there no alternative?”

She gave the question serious consideration. “Martians place great stock in personal responsibility, which they call okhaya. If you were, for example, to tell them that you do not know who had abducted the egg but that you know where it is hidden, they might be pleased at its recovery, but they would still be bent on the apprehension and punishment of the malefactor. Whereas if you yourself admit responsibility and offer the egg’s location in a gesture of sincere atonement, they will leave off their search for the culprit and they might—I must emphasize might—offer leniency to you for your admission of guilt.”

Simon stared into the fireplace, as though seeking some other alternative there. But there was no alternative to be had. “Very well,” he said, and firmed up his chin. “I shall, like Daniel, offer up my confession for the sake of my people.” His eyes took on a calculating aspect. “But I must request that you, with your greater knowledge of Martian language and customs, accompany me to wherever the admission must be made.”

Arabella regarded him with frank suspicion. But she could not in good conscience deny his request. “Very well,” she said, considering. “I will accompany you to the tower.” Others would be present there, and they would be far from the Martians and their nimble swords.

Simon bowed deeply and proffered his elbow. But Arabella fixed him with a cold eye and gestured that he should instead precede her.

He raised one eyebrow, then inclined his head and opened the door.

They made their way down the hall toward the drawing-room in this way, with Arabella careful to keep Simon in sight at all times.

*

“Keep your head down, miss,” said one of the men on the parapet as Arabella followed Simon through the door. “They’ve lobbed a few arrows at us, and they usually go clean past, but you never can tell when they might get lucky.”

The view from the tower’s top was as spectacular as it had ever been. The house, still grand despite the substantial damage it had sustained, spread out its roofs and corbels below them, and all around rose the craggy red-ochre magnificence of the Skatasho Hills. But the view to the east, once an appealing prospect on Fort Augusta and the pleasant town beneath it, now offered nothing but ruin, scattered with wrecked and abandoned buildings and smeared with columns of smoke. And the plain below the house was a shambles of angry, clattering Martians. At least five catapults seemed complete now, and more were rising at the back of the encampment.

“We’ve shot a few of the buggers off the wall below the windows,” offered another man, pointing. “Not many so far.”