“A man named … oh I think Parmentier,” Calyxa said, pretending innocence.

“Parmentier! That European terrorist! Good God, Mrs. Hazzard, you do need some direction in your studies!” Wieland cast an accusing glance at me.

“I have recommended the novels of Mr. Charles Curtis Easton,” I said.

“The spread of literacy is the problem here,” said Palumbo. “Oh, I’m all in favor of a sensible degree of literacy—as you must be, Mr. Hazzard, given your career as a journalist. But it has an infectious tendency. It spreads, and discontent spreads along with it. Admit one literate man to a coffle and he’ll teach the others the skill; and what they read won’t be Dominion-approved works, but pornography, or the lowest kind of cheap publications, or fomentive political tracts. Parmentier! Why, Mrs. Hazzard, just a week ago I purchased a string of three hundred men from a planter in Utica, at what appeared to be a bargain price. I kept them apart from my other stock for a time, a sort of quarantine period, and I’m glad I did, for it turned out reading was endemic among them, and Parmentierist pamphlets were circulating freely. That kind of thing can ruin an entire Estate, if it flourishes unchecked.”

Calyxa didn’t ask what Mr. Palumbo had done to check the flourishing of literacy among his “stock,” perhaps because she feared the answer. But her face betrayed her feelings. She tensed, and I worried that she was about to fling some new accusation across the table, or perhaps a fork. It was at this moment, fortunately, that the dessert plates were cleared away.

Intoxicating drinks circulated freely after the meal, including such expensive abominations as Champagne and Red Wine. I did not partake, though the Eupatridians went at it like horses at a trough.

Deklan Comstock briefly appeared from another indoor balcony—he preferred a commanding height, Julian said—and invited us to step into the ballroom adjoining, where the band would play patriotic tunes. We followed at the President’s bidding. The music struck up at once, and some of the Aristos, well lubricated with fiery fluids, began to dance. I didn’t dance, and Calyxa didn’t want to; so we looked for genial company instead, well distant from Mr. Wieland and Mr. Palumbo.

We found company—or it found us—but it was not congenial, in the long run.

“Mr. Hazzard,” said a booming voice.

I turned, and saw a man in clerical garb.

I gathered he was some high functionary of the Dominion, for he wore a broad-rimmed felt hat with silver trimming, a sober black jacket, and a formal cotton shirt on which the legend John 3:16 was stitched in golden thread. I didn’t recognize his face, which was florid and round. He carried a glass in his hand, and the glass was half-filled with an amber fluid, and his breath smelled like the copper-coil stills Ben Kreel used to discover and destroy in the indentured men’s quarters back in Williams Ford. His eyes glittered with intrigue or drink.

“You know me, but I don’t know you,” I said.

“On the contrary, I don’t know you at all, but I’ve read your pamphlet on the subject of Julian Comstock, and someone was kind enough to point you out to me.” He extended the hand which was not holding a drink. “My name is Simon Hollings-head, and I’m a Deacon of the Diocese of Colorado Springs.”

He said that as if it was a trivial thing. It wasn’t. The simple title belied a powerful position in the Dominion hierarchy. In fact the only clergymen more elevated than the Deacons of Colorado Springs were the seventy members of the Dominion High Council itself.

Pastor Hollingshead’s hand was hot and moist, and I let go of it as soon as I could do so without offending him.

“What brings you to the east?” Calyxa asked warily.

“Ecclesiastical duties, Mrs. Hazzard—nothing you would understand.”

“On the contrary, it sounds fascinating.”

“Well, I can’t speak as freely as I would like. But the eastern cities have to be taken in hand from time to time. They tend to drift away from orthodoxy, left to their own devices. Unaffiliated Churches spring up like fungal growths. The mixing of classes and nationalities has a well-known degenerative influence.”

“Perhaps the Easterners drink too freely,” I couldn’t help saying.

“‘Wine that gladdens the heart of man,’” quoted the Deacon, though it appeared to be something more powerful than wine in his glass.^* “It’s sacred doctrine I’ve come to protect, not personal sobriety. Drinking isn’t a sin, though drunkenness is. Do I seem drunk to you, Mr. Hazzard?”

“No, sir, not noticeably. What sacred doctrines are in danger?”

“The ones that prohibit laxness in administering a flock. Eastern clergy will overlook the damnedest things, pardon me. Lubriciousness, licentiousness, lust—”

“The alliterative sins,” Calyxa said quietly.

“But enough of my problems. I meant only to congratulate you on your history of Julian Comstock’s military adventures.”

I thanked him kindly, and pretended to be modest.

“Young people have very little in the way of uplifting literature available to them. Your work is exemplary, Mr. Hazzard. I see it hasn’t yet received the Dominion Stamp. But that can be changed.”

It was a generous offer, which might result in an increase of sales, and for that reason I thought we shouldn’t offend Deacon Hollingshead unnecessarily. Calyxa, however, was in a sharp mood, and unimpressed with Hollingshead’s ecclesiastical rank and powers.

“Colorado Springs is a big town,” she said. “Doesn’t it have problems of its own you could be looking after?”

“Surely it does! Corruption can creep in anywhere. Colorado Springs is the very heart and soul of the Dominion, but you’re right, Mrs. Hazzard, vice breeds there as well as anywhere else. Even in my own family—”

He hesitated then, as if unsure whether he ought to proceed. Perhaps the liquor had made him distrust his tongue. To my dismay, Calyxa wouldn’t let the matter drop. “Vice, in a Deacon’s family?”

“My own daughter has been a victim of it.” He lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t ordinarily discuss this. But you seem to be a thoughtful young woman. You don’t bare your arms like so many of the ladies present, nor cover your skin with ugly vaccination marks.”

“My modesty is well-known,” Calyxa said, though she had lobbied to wear just such a sleeveless costume—Mrs. Comstock had overruled her.

“Then I won’t offend you by mentioning, um—”

“Unpleasant vices are offensive to me, Deacon Hollingshead, but the words describing them are not. How can we eradicate a problem unless we’re allowed to name it?”

She was baiting him; but Hollingshead was too virtuous or drunk to understand. “Homosexuality,” he whispered. “Do you know that word, Mrs. Hazzard?”

“The rumor of such behavior has occasionally reached my ears. Is your daughter a—?”

“God forbid! No, Marcy is a model child. She’s twenty-one now. But because she has yet to marry, she drew the attention of a league of degenerate women.”

“In Colorado Springs!”

“Yes! Such a thing exists! And it continues to exist, despite all my efforts to eradicate it.”

“What efforts have you made?”

“Both the Municipal Police and the investigatory arm of the Dominion have been put on the case. Needless to say, I don’t let Marcy go anywhere unobserved. There are eyes on her at all times, though she doesn’t know it.”

“Is it really a wise thing to spy on your own daughter?”

“Certainly, if it protects her.”

“Does it protect her?”

“Several times it has saved her from absolute ruin. Marcy seems hardly able to leave the house without wandering by accident into some depraved tavern or other. Naturally, when we discover such establishments we shut them down. More than one degenerate woman has attempted to make Marcy a special friend. Those women were arrested and interrogated.”