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Laris knew it had snowed overnight before she even opened her eyes. It wasn’t any specific sound or smell, but there was a certain quality to the tranquil morning air wafting in through the window Zhaban had just thrown open.
“Soji! Soji, wake up! It’s all covered in white! It looks just like the holonovel! Soji!!”
“¡La madre que te parió! Elnor, shut up! It’s eight in the goddamn morning!”
There was also that.
Laris grumbled a curse and groped for a pillow to pull over her head.
“Oh my god, snow! Cris, there’s snow!”
Laris couldn’t quite make out the captain’s gruff reply through the thick wall, but there was no mistaking the squeal and thump as he shoved his mate off their bed.
Up above, two pairs of footsteps rushed around the attic room at a speed that could only stem from years of Qowat Milat training and the bionic enhancement of a synth’s legs.
“You’d think they would have taught the boy to move soundlessly.”
Laris squinted at her husband, who in turn was looking at the ceiling with a mix of curiosity and mirth. “They don’t believe in sneaking around in your home,” she said around a yawn. “Their monasteries don’t even have walls.”
The door to the upper landing flew open with a loud enough clang to make Laris wince.
“Neither will the Château if they keep this up,” Zhaban mused.
“Come on, Soji! We have to get outside before it melts!”
“Shhhh! You’ll wake the whole house!”
From the bedroom next door, Rios yelled: “Too fucking late!” and Dr Jurati started giggling. She, too, was running around trying to get dressed by the sounds of it.
Defeated, Laris pushed herself upright and rubbed her bleary eyes. “The next time the Admiral wants to invite house guests, remind me to shoot him.”
“I would,” Zhaban said as he turned to close the window again, “but I’m terrified of his bodyguard. They say she once knocked out an entire squadron of Tal Shiar intruders with nothing but a trowel.”
“Do they, now? Are you sure it wasn’t the phaser rifle she’d stashed in the large flower tub?”
“Maybe,” he conceded and regarded her with a warm smile. “I’ll get started on breakfast, shall I?”
“Hm.” Laris let out another massive yawn.
Up in the attic room, Soji had apparently finished getting ready, because now, their two youngest guests were running down the stairs, making the ancient wood creak like a sailboat in a storm. They had barely reached the end of the hall when another door flew open and Dr Jurati charged after them. “Wait for me!”
“Close the goddamn door!” Rios yelled.
Over in the other wing of the old house, Number One started barking enthusiastically.
“Maybe better start with coffee,” Laris said as she threw back the covers. “I think we’re gonna need a lot of that.”
The seals on the kitchen windows had started to loosen again.
Laris pulled her cardigan more tightly around herself as she waited for the kettle to boil. No matter how often Zhaban told her that these old French houses needed a bit of a draft to ‘keep out mould’ and ‘regulate their microclimate’ or some such tosh, she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but resentful about the slight air current nipping at her fingers.
She’d fixed this particular seal a few weeks ago (that it happened to be a day when Zhaban was in Paris on vineyard business was a complete coincidence, of course), and her repairs should have survived at least until the storms they sometimes got in early spring. The part of her brain that was always going to be Tal Shiar started meticulously sorting through her memories of the last days, tracking Zhaban’s movement, trying to determine when he might have had the time to sabotage her attempts at not freezing in her own fecking home.
Before she could reach a conclusion as to his guilt, however, the shrill whistle of the kettle called her back to the present.
“We might have to replicate some virgin cocoa,” Zhaban mused as he came to stand next to her and took the kettle off the stove.
Laris shoved her hands under her arms, hoping that might warm them up a little. “Oh? Elnor seemed perfectly happy with tea last night.”
Zhaban nodded over his shoulder. “I think Hatral has invited herself to stay.”
Laris spun around just in time to see Elnor chasing the young Romulan woman across the patio, holding a snowball in each hand. She looked giddier than Laris ever remembered seeing her, and a moment later she shrieked with delight as one of Elnor’s projectiles found its target with a loud ploff.
The basket Hatral had been meant to deliver from her mothers’ bakery in the village lay abandoned just outside the French doors, the snow around it slowly being melted by the warmth of freshly baked baguettes.
“Unbelievable,” Laris muttered, but she was smiling as she headed to the replicator to order the largest thermos of non-intoxicating cocoa their menu had to offer. Extra sweet with a hint of chilli, of course, just as Hatral liked it.
The girl was one of the many orphans and strays that had fallen through the cracks of the Romulan Rescue Effort and washed up at Château Picard over the years. The admiral had found a family in the village who was only too delighted to take her in, but it had taken nearly a year until Hatral felt safe enough to start talking to anyone. To see her laughing so freely made Laris’s heart sing.
However, her good spirits only lasted until she opened the glass doors and was greeted by absolutely freezing air. She swore as she hurried over to the large table to put down the thermal flask.
Laris loathed the cold. It had been snowing the day she arrived in La Barre, over a decade ago now. Zhaban had gone ahead of her, unable to wait at their agreed rendezvous site lest he be caught by the Tal Shiar agents sent to kill them.
The cargo ship she’d stowed away on had taken her as far as Paris, then she’d had to make her own way south, distrustful of any transport that might allow someone to track her, always wary of discovery. The memory of dragging herself up the interminable path to the Château, her only hope of salvation, was seared into her mind.
Dead leaves crunched under her heavy boots, and in the distance, a gaggle of dark birds were chattering ominously, watching the new arrival stumble through the waning light. She couldn ’t shake the feeling that if she stopped to catch her breath, even just for a moment, the snow that was dusting the ground would rise up her feet and then her legs, trapping her, keeping her still until the strange birds descended upon her. So, she kept stumbling forwards, small white clouds swirling around her with every laboured breath, mixing with the thick, wet flakes that were soaking through her jacket.
Up ahead, the crest of the hill sloped gently down to reveal a clump of ancient trees. Their dark branches were empty, almost skeletal, and through the wavering shapes, she could see the twinkle of warm lights.
Not far now.
“Oh, is that cocoa for us?”
It was a credit to Laris’s decade of training herself out of old instincts that she stopped her hands before they could draw her hidden knife on Doctor Jurati, who had startled her out of her reverie. She managed to mask her instinctive movement by pulling her cardigan closer around herself as she turned around. “I thought you might need something to warm you up after running around in this cold for half an hour.”
The little doctor looked adorable in her periwinkle coat, all flying blonde hair and rosy cheeks. “Thank you, that’s so thoughtful!” She started to say something else, but it ended in a squeal as a snowball hit her right between the shoulders. “Oh, you bastard!”
Jurati whirled around and started racing after Elnor, who dove over the low garden wall and landed with an elegant shoulder roll. When he got back to his feet, he was somehow holding another clump of snow and Jurati had to throw herself sideways into a drift to avoid getting hit again.
Instead, the projectile sailed through the air and landed just in front of Laris’s feet, bursting apart and showering her boots with snowy flakes. “Watch it!” she shouted, but Elnor was already sprinting away with Jurati in hot pursuit.
Laris shook her head and went to rescue the bread before it got too soggy. As she bent down to grab the basket, a freezing gust of wind tore at her hair and cardigan and she swore as she hurried to get back inside.
The ancient oak table groaned under all the plates heaped with various baked goods, bowls of fruit and nuts, and a small battalion of jam jars. Laris managed to squeeze in the third thermo-jug without disturbing the precariously balanced tower of pancakes at the centre of the tableau. Only the steam, rising lazily under the large stasis cover, rippled in protest.
A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Captain Rios, the only one of their guests who had come down to breakfast so far, was starting to sag, his head coming precariously close to dropping onto his plate. At the very last moment, he jerked upright again and looked around, deeply confused.
With a quiet tut, Laris firmly pushed the cup of coffee he’d poured and then forgotten into his hand. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
He squinted up at her like he was trying to solve a complicated maths problem. “Why d’you ask?”
“Because you look like death warmed over.”
Apparently, her bluntness was enough to shake him awake a little, because he sat up straighter and finally took a sip from his steaming mug. Then, he shrugged. “Time zones.” He was a terrible liar, but in Laris’s books, that actually added to his charm.
“You know that Romulans have excellent hearing, right?”
Rios nearly choked on his coffee.
Fortunately for him, they were both distracted by a loud thump as a clump of snow hit one of the garden windows.
“Careful!” Laris yelled, certain that Soji and Elnor would hear her from where they were chasing each other just beyond the low garden wall. “If you break something, you’ll repair it yourselves!”
Zhaban came to stand next to her and handed her a steaming cup of coffee. Extra strong with a swig of whisky from the smell of it. “Oh, the energy and exuberance of youth,” he mused with a fond smile as he watched the excitement outside.
“And this early in the morning, too,” Laris added with a yawn.
“Fucking disgusting,” Rios grumbled into his own cup
Laris snorted and playfully swatted the back of his head. “Jealous grump.”
A clamber of steps down the central stairs announced the arrival of Raffi Musiker and Seven of Nine, with Number One hot on their heels.
“Morning,” Laris called and started looking for somewhere to put down her cup. “Would you like some coffee or tea?”
“Later,” Raffi grinned as she rushed past. She was wearing her coat and winding a colourful woollen scarf around her neck. “Can’t waste this gorgeous weather!”
Seven gave Laris and Zhaban a nod for a greeting and snatched up a couple of croissants before hurrying after her partner out the French doors.
“Disgusting!” Rios called after them, and Raffi laughed and made a rude gesture before slamming the door closed.
Laris smiled as she poured him another cup of coffee. “Here. Looks like you’ll need it to keep up.”
He looked up at her with feigned desperation. “Why are they all so excited about snow? It’s cold and wet and a huge hassle.”
“No idea,” she said. “Seems like collective madness to me.”
“It’s something about childhood and nostalgia, I suppose,” Zhaban said as he went to check on the perimeter alarm that flashed on the monitor over the kitchen counter.
“Yeah, right,” Rios grumbled. “I bet none of them were made to shovel the sidewalks for all of their neighbours.”
Laris raised her eyebrows. “What happened to the municipal snow bots? Didn’t you have those where you grew up?”
He muttered something about “faulty” and “broken.”
“What did you do?”
Rios put down his cup with enough force to nearly spill the coffee. “Look, those things were begging to be used as hovercraft. They practically had a saddle and control stick on top. They just… didn’t like it when you tried to jump them over recycling bins at speed.”
Laris started laughing. “No wonder the Admiral’s so fond of you; you’re just as mad as he is.”
Rios’s smile was a little sheepish, but also quietly pleased at the compliment.
She patted his shoulder. “Now, finish your breakfast while I make up some trays for our fearsome youths out there. I’ll have to have a word with that Hospitality Hologram of yours. He needs to make sure you lot get more food in you.” She ignored Rios’s groan as she headed to the pantry.
By the time she returned with the stack of breakfast trays, the perimeter alarm had given three more chimes. “More people from the village?” she asked Zhaban, who was calmly chopping chives.
He nodded. “The east hill has the best sledding runs for miles.”
Laris shook her head. “Why anyone would do that for fun is beyond me. It’s freezing and dangerous and you just have to run up the same hill over and over again.”
“Not very dangerous,” Zhaban said mildly. “You used to be quite adept at it, if memory serves.”
Laris closed the cutlery drawer with a little more force than strictly necessary. “That was for survival training. Barrelling down a near-vertical cliff on a rickety wooden frame while people try to shoot you isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”
Zhaban put down the knife and gave her a pensive look. “I wonder —”
Fortunately, his musings were interrupted by a knock on the kitchen window. “Excuse me?”
At the table, Rios perked up from his slump, and Laris turned around with a smile. “Yes, Doctor Jurati?”
The little Doctor had discarded her coat but from the glow in her cheeks, she was probably more than warm enough. Laris had to stifle a shudder.
“Please, do call me Agnes,” Jurati shouted through the glass. “I was wondering if— Oh.”
Zhaban had gone over to pull up the window, and she beamed at him.
“Thanks,” she said in a normal voice. “Sorry, could you ask Cris to come over here for a second?”
Laris didn’t need to turn around to know the grumpy captain had already gotten up to join them.
“What is it, Agnes?”
She pushed some wispy strands of blonde curls out of her eyes and smiled at her mate. “I need your help. We’re having a snow sculpture competition at the back of the field.” She pointed down the hill past the vines. “Monsieur Cormier is making a model of Notre Dame, and if I want my Colossus of Andor to be taller, I’m gonna need you to put on the head.”
Rios’s smile was practically besotted. “Give me a minute to get my coat.”
Agnes let out a triumphant whoop and spun around to race back.
Laris flicked Rios’s arm as he headed past her towards the hall. “Traitor.”
He just gave her a placid shrug. “Somebody has to help her protect the honour of Château Picard.”
“Who’s threatening our honour?” Admiral Picard had appeared in the door, and Rios squeezed past him with a polite nod.
Zhaban finally closed the window again. “Monsieur Cormier, apparently. With a superior model of French architecture.”
“Ah! Yes, he learned from his father. Old Cormier was always the best sculptor in the village.”
“Well, he’d better watch out for Doctor Jurati,” Laris said, as she poured the admiral a cup of Earl Grey from the thermos she had just added to one of the trays. “She looked very determined.”
“Good, we need some friendly competition.” Picard took his tea and looked at the monitor over the counter, where the security feed showed a gaggle of Romulan children from the village, shouting and laughing as they dragged their colourful sleds up the drive. “You know,” he mused, “I’m sure we still have some of those in the cellars. I remember my grandfather building them for us, but we never got to use them much. I wonder if they’re still sound.”
Before Laris could answer, he had already wandered off towards the stairs to the basement.
Zhaban came over to stack a few heat-sealed boxes of omelette on the trays. “You checked them last summer?”
“Two months ago,” she said absent-mindedly. “Though I haven’t had time to get a new osteo-regenerator.”
“I replaced it last week,” Zhaban smiled. “But I doubt we’ll need it now that he has this fancy new synth body.” When he saw that Laris was not convinced, he added: “And Captain Rios has a fully functioning medbay on his ship, complete with an Emergency Medical Hologram. They’ll be fine.”
“I’ll remind you you said that when we have our first near-fatality.”
Zhaban chuckled and dusted his hands on his apron. “Do you think we should just move all the food outside? Set up some heaters and have a buffet on the terrace? I doubt any of them will come back in before lunch.”
“Absolute madness,” Laris grumbled as she went to find her warmest jumper.
They ended up having to move the dining table out onto the terrace. Fortunately, as soon as their visitors saw what they were planning, a lot of them broke off their excited snowy activities and came to help. Before long, the two large oak tables were heaped with the breakfast Laris and Zhaban had prepared and a bunch of provisions the villagers had brought along.
Apparently, once it was clear that most of the village was headed out to the Château, Hatral’s mothers had decided to close the bakery early and bring their wares along as they came searching for their daughter. Laris took a roll out of the large basket and let the familiar smell of spicy black bread waft over her. Michelle and Florence had made it their mission to study and master baking traditions from all over the Romulan empire to try and give their adopted daughter a piece of the home she had lost, however small.
Right now, the three of them were kneeling together in the snow, forming bricks for the igloo Raffi was trying to build. Despite Seven’s best efforts in support and intervention, the whole construction looked very lopsided, and it was probably a credit to the xBs knowledge of structural integrity that it hadn’t collapsed in on itself yet.
Laris smiled as she pocketed the roll and looked around to see if anything else might be missing. Any excuse to go back inside, where it was warm and cosy and —
“Laris!” Elnor was running along the terrace, beaming like he’d never had this much fun in his life. “Soji and I made snow angels! Agnes taught us how! They’re not really angels, they’re prints in the snow, but they look really pretty!” He grabbed Laris’s hand and started dragging her towards the field where the sculpture wars were taking place. “And Captain Rios nearly destroyed Agnes’s colops, so now he has to build his own snowman, but he says his has much more character, and snowmen aren’t supposed to have ripped abs anyway.”
In all his excitement, Elnor had apparently forgotten the suspicion he’d felt towards Laris and Zhaban after he found out they used to be Tal Shiar. She hadn’t blamed him, of course. Her former associations were the very embodiment of the deceit and treachery the Qowat Milat had sworn to combat. But it was a great relief that the boy’s openness apparently meant he was willing to be proven wrong about his reservations towards Admiral Picard’s housekeepers and bodyguards.
Elnor was still chattering away when they reached the path leading up the east hill. The two sleds Picard must have dragged from the basement lay abandoned by the wayside a few steps ahead. Laris was proud to see that the joint she had repaired in the autumn was apparently holding well and barely noticeable under the dark polish.
She pulled to a stop and Elnor turned to look at her. “Have you ever been on one of these?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand how you steer them, and I don’t want to injure myself if I lose control.”
Laris patted his cheek. “You’re a good boy, Elnor.”
He looked a little puzzled at the compliment, but pleased nonetheless. He turned to look up the path where people were dotted along the shoulder of the hill, waiting their turn to rush down the other side. “It does look like a lot of fun, though.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” For a moment, they simply watched and listened to the excited shouts and laughter all around them, then Laris squeezed Elnor’s hand. “Right.” She pointed at the sleds. “Go and grab those. If you carry them to the top of the hill, I’m going to teach you how to steer and stop without breaking your neck.”
Elnor beamed as he dashed off.
Despite the cold and all the memories it dredged up, Laris found she couldn’t help but smile as she started climbing up the path after him. Maybe, just maybe, winter didn’t have to be so bad after all.