Free The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories by Walter Jon Williams Page B

door, flung out an arm. "Please come in."
    She lived in a small apartment in Toulouse, with a view of the Allée Saint-Michel and the rose-red brick of the Vieux Quartier. On the whitewashed walls hung terracotta icons of Usil and Tiv, the Etruscan gods of the sun and moon, and a well cover with a figure of the demon Charun emerging from the underworld. The Etruscan deities were confronted, on another wall, by a bronze figure of the Gaulish Rosmerta, consort of the absent Mercurius.
    Her little balcony was bedecked with wrought iron and a gay striped awning. In front of the balcony a table shimmered under a red-and-white-checked tablecloth: crystal, porcelain, a wicker basket of bread, a bottle of wine. Cooking scents floated in from the kitchen.
    "It smells wonderful," Davout said.
     Lifting the bottle.
    
    Wine was poured. They settled onto the sofa, chatted of weather, crowds, Java. Davout's memories of the trip that Silent Davout and his Katrin had taken to the island were more recent than hers.
    Fair Katrin took his hand. "I have uploaded Dark Katrin's memories, so far as I have them," she said. "She loved you, you know—absolutely, deeply." She bit her nether lip. "It was a remarkable thing."
     Davout answered. He touched cool crystal to his lips, took a careful sip of his cabernet. Pain throbbed in the hollows of his heart.
    "Yes," he said. "I know."
    "I felt I should tell you about her feelings. Particularly in view of what happened with me and the Silent One."
    He looked at her. "I confess I do not understand that business."
    She made a little frown of distaste. "We and our work and our situation grew irksome. Oppressive. You may upload his memories if you like—I daresay you will be able to observe the signs that he was determined to ignore."
    
    Clouds gathered in her grey eyes. "I, too, have regrets."
    "There is no chance of reconciliation?"
    , accompanied by a brief shake of the head. "It was over." "And, in any case, Davout the Silent is not the man he was."
    
    "He took Lethe. It was the only way he had of getting over my leaving him."
    Pure amazement throbbed in Davout's soul. Fair Katrin looked at him in surprise.
    "You didn't know?"
    He blinked at her. "I should have. But I thought he was talking about me , about a way of getting over . . . " Aching sadness brimmed in his throat. "Over the way my Dark Katrin left me."
    Scorn whitened the flesh about Fair Katrin's nostrils. "That's the Silent One for you. He didn't have the nerve to tell you outright."
    "I'm not sure that's true. He may have thought he was speaking plainly enough—"
    Her fingers formed a mudra that gave vent to a brand of disdain that did not translate into words. "He knows his effects perfectly well," she said. "He was trying to suggest the idea without making it clear that this was his choice for you, that he wanted you to fall in line with his theories."
    Anger was clear in her voice. She rose, stalked angrily to the bronze of Rosmerta, adjusted its place on the wall by a millimeter or so. Turned, waved an arm. , flung to the air. "Let's eat. Silent Davout is the last person I want to talk about right now."
    "I'm sorry I upset you." Davout was not sorry at all: he found this display fascinating. The gestures, the tone of voice, were utterly familiar, ringing like chimes in his heart; but the style , the way Fair Katrin avoided the issue, was different. Dark Katrin would never have fled a subject this way: she would have knit her brows and confronted the problem direct, engaged with it until she'd either reached understanding or catastrophe. Either way, she'd have laughed, and tossed her dark hair, and announced that now she understood.
    "It's peasant cooking," Katrin the Fair said as she bustled to the kitchen, "which of course is the best kind."
    The main course was a ragout of veal in a velouté sauce, beans cooked simply in