“We will, my lady,” Tonra said.
“In the future, you had better just call me Padmé when we’re out like this,” she said. “Senators are a dime a dozen on Coruscant, and being a lady doesn’t get you very far.”
“I’ll practice,” said Tonra. Sabé thought it entirely likely that Padmé’s name would stick in his throat the first few times he tried to say it.
Senator Clovis apparently decided that he had given them enough privacy, because he returned to hover and couldn’t keep the disappointment from his face when it became apparent they were all preparing to leave.
“Are you leaving now?” Clovis said. “Because there’s going to be a concert—”
“Yes, I am leaving now. I recommend you do the same, Clovis. I am not sure this is an altogether safe place,” Padmé said. Sabé managed not to roll her eyes as Padmé slipped into the persona Clovis was used to. Padmé stood up, Varbarós beside her, and looked straight at Sabé. “I wish you luck in your travels.”
“The same to you,” Sabé said.
As they took their leave, she heard Clovis say “Where are you headed to?” and Padmé begin to explain even more Naboo traditions to him. She wondered if his interest in the planet was genuine or if he, too, wanted something from Padmé. Sabé had all sorts of dark thoughts as to what that might be but was smart enough to know that it was none of her business unless Padmé was endangered, so she resolved to stay out of it. Frankly, if she never saw Clovis again, that would be just fine with her. Perhaps she was being unreasonable, but he peeved her.
Her wrist comm chimed, indicating a transfer of funds had been completed. The name she used on Tatooine and also here on Coruscant was the name she had been given when she was born, but it felt false and artificial to her now. She had been Sabé for all of the most important parts of her life. Tsabin was a stranger. Not even her parents called her that anymore, and all of her official records on Naboo had been changed.
Still, if she had to be someone else, at least she was still a person that Padmé knew. Tsabin and Padmé had met when they were barely fourteen years old, when she applied to be a handmaiden, and by the time they were settled into Theed palace, they were an unshakable pair and Sabé had a new name to show for it. Padmé had been trained to stand out, and Sabé had been trained to blend in. She had never minded it. It was hard to be resentful of something that she was so good at.
And now Padmé was reinventing herself again, and by necessity, Sabé was not there to help as closely as she might have liked. Senator Amidala was clearly different from the queen, judging by how Clovis had acted, and Sabé didn’t fully understand it, but she trusted Padmé’s judgment.
If she was going to be Tsabin anyway, maybe it was time to be Tsabin. She would remain Sabé in her heart, but she could learn to be a new person, too, as Padmé was.
“This was much easier when it was just one planet,” she whispered, repeating Padmé’s words.
“No argument here,” Tonra said. His was a steady presence beside her, and she leaned into him with no ulterior motives. He might have been a bit surprised, but he put an arm around her shoulders anyway.
They waited in silence, the pulse of the music throbbing in their bones, for time to pass between Padmé’s departure and their own. For once, Tonra didn’t fidget, only tapped his fingers lightly on the table in time with the inescapable beat. When they deemed it safe, they went out in search of an air taxi and a quieter place where they could plan their next steps.
The shouting went on for quite some time. Padmé let Typho speak his piece, figuring that the sergeant had more than earned it. Mariek would get her own in later, but it had been Typho they had taken advantage of, and Padmé owed it to him to listen to him now.
“—not to mention the danger Cordé was in if anyone had discovered her,” he wound up his tirade. “And I do not want to know any of the details about where you were, my lady.”
“I was meeting with Sabé and Tonra,” Padmé said, though for the sake of Typho’s blood pressure she didn’t mention exactly where, only that it had been a nightclub. “I was with Varbarós.”
“While an excellent pilot, Varbarós is not a trained guard. And her choice of meeting locations leaves a great deal to be desired,” Typho said. “I realize that politics is complicated and sometimes there are things you have to do yourself, but please, Senator, I beg you: tell me next time. I am a much better actor than you think. And I can help with the details.”
“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Padmé said. “I had hoped tonight would be a practical test for us all, in addition to a necessary meeting. But I see now that I was practicing the wrong thing. The decoy plan used to involve fooling the guards, too, but we should modify that the same way we’re modifying everything else.”
“He reacted with complete discretion when he realized who I was,” Cordé said. “Though I fear he may have torn the fringe off the sleeve of the ocean-dark ball gown.”
“I can fix that,” Dormé said. “And I think Typho is correct about the planning, too. If he was in on it, he could have prevented Senator Clovis from leaving. Or at least warned you when the gathering broke up.”
They had fallen into this pattern automatically, and Padmé liked the way it functioned. She would do something, Cordé would rationalize it, one of the guards would protest, Dormé would smooth ruffled feathers, and Versé would change the subject.
“I’ve picked up a story on one of the newsnets,” Versé said, right on schedule. “It’s about tonight.”
“I hope it’s about the scandalous relationship Senator Amidala has with one of her guards,” Cordé said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Speak for yourself,” said Mariek. “I’m a happily married lady, and I wish for no such drama.”
“It’s about Senator Clovis,” Versé said. “Apparently, after he ducked out of the reception, he went to some incredibly dangerous nightclub and met with—”
Too late, Versé became aware that Typho was reading over her shoulder. Padmé resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands.
“Do you have any idea the sort of thing that goes on in those places?” Typho all but shouted, all of his mollification gone in an instant.
“Of course she does, she’s a grown woman,” Mariek said. “Nephew, you need to calm down or the Senator is never going to trust you. She has already admitted that you are right.”
Typho mastered himself and nodded.
“Is there anything in that article that could be used to identify me?” Padmé asked.
“No,” Versé said, scanning the rest of it. “It looks like they actually interviewed Clovis, and he only told them he was seeing some friends from home.”
“Everyone will know that’s a lie,” Dormé pointed out. “The Banking Clan isn’t exactly known for fitting in at Coruscant clubs.”
“It’s a message for me,” Padmé said. “That’s how I introduced Sabé and Tonra without giving their names. I said they were friends from home. He wants me to know he’s covering for me.”
“It would be the first solid political move he’s made,” Cordé observed. She had a rather low opinion of Clovis’s dedication to galactic politics.
“I’m not entirely sure he’s thinking politically,” Versé said. “I’ve stayed behind the scenes almost the whole time we’ve been here, and I’ve watched a lot of recordings. I’ve seen the way he stands when Padmé is in his orbit, and the way he looks at her.”
“We continue on as we are,” Padmé said. “Only now we’ve got Sabé and Tonra working outside the political framework to help us.”
“And me, to help you inside it,” Typho said.
“Yes, Sergeant,” Padmé said. “And I do apologize. We have changed a great deal about how Amidala acts in public in the last few weeks, but I still find myself thinking about her the way I did on Naboo. I have trouble remembering that the circumstances of secrets are different here. We won’t cut you out of a decoy maneuver again.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Typho said.
A soft chime indicated the arrival of the next day’s schedule, and they spent the next two hours strategizing about votes and trying to determine how the Senate would act in each case. This was also much easier now that they were working as a team.
Before, Padmé had taken two handmaidens with her into the Senate chambers to observe, but the truth was, there was nothing for them to observe. Now she took only Mariek or Typho, and occasionally Cordé if the situation demanded it. The others stayed back at the senatorial residence or in Padmé’s office, watching recordings of Senate proceedings and trying to figure out who was allied with whom. It was easy enough to trace through a single motion but became infinitely more challenging when multiple agendas were tabled, and with the size of the assembly, there were always multiple agendas on the table.
“You have to get on one of these committees,” Cordé said.
Padmé knew this all too well. She had been deliberating for days, trying to determine which committee was best suited to her talents and experience.
“Senator Bonteri heads a committee looking into educational reform in the poorer areas of the Core planets,” Dormé said. “This bill was stalled because no one on the Core planets wanted to admit they had poorer areas.”
“There’s something about piracy, too,” Cordé said. “It’s new and I’m not even sure there’s an official committee yet, but the topic keeps coming up in your briefs so I am sure there will be soon.”
“And there’s always the antislavery committee,” Versé added. “It’s not headed by anyone you know, but I am sure you could talk your way into it without relying on the Chancellor’s reference.”
“I know,” Padmé said. “I know, I just can’t decide on the best way to get a seat at the table.”
“What is it you want?” Dormé asked. “From the Senate, I mean.”
“Respectability,” Padmé said. “I want my words and my efforts to mean something.”
“And you don’t have it because everyone thinks you are too new, too inexperienced,” Dormé said. “They think you’re not a serious senator.”
“And they think you’re too connected to Chancellor Palpatine,” Mariek added. “Too connected to your own planet.”
“There’s a degree of truth to all of those arguments,” Padmé said.
Her last discussion with Chancellor Palpatine had not gone well. She’d encountered him almost by chance after a Senate session, and at first, he had been his normal self.
“Chancellor,” she had said. She laid a hand on Versé’s arm to indicate that she was going to need some space for the conversation, and her handmaiden and guard fell back a few steps. “I’m glad our paths have crossed. I wanted to asked you about joining your transportation committee.”
She still didn’t much care for the layers of political speaking that had to be set on top of the antislavery legislation, but technically there was no slavery in the Republic, and so Palpatine had to be creative with his wording. The actual debate was about the transportation of goods, and the roundabout discussion made Padmé’s skin crawl, even though she very much wanted to have a hand in shaping the legislation.
The Chancellor had stopped when she greeted him, affable as ever, but his face hardened when she mentioned joining the committee.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, my dear,” he’d said. His tone had an odd note of dismissal in it, one that she’d never noticed before. Beside him, Mas Amedda glowered at her.
“Why not?” Padmé asked. “I’ve already begun my own explorations into the situation, and I think—”
“Senator, you misunderstand me,” Palpatine said, a modicum of his usual warmth coming through. “You are eminently qualified for this committee, but you have known ties to Tatooine and to me. If you join the discussion, your qualifications will undermine my authority.”
There was something about the Chancellor’s statement that didn’t entirely ring true, but Padmé couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
“Find another committee, my dear,” Palpatine said. “I will do my best to keep you up to date on my progress and I will let you know if your help is needed.”
He swept off, his retinue behind him, and Padmé was left with too many questions and no sure direction.
“Then you have two choices, I think,” Dormé said, recalling Padmé’s attention to the present. “Commit to being in Palpatine’s shadow. Go to him and use his influence as much as you possibly can.”
“Or?” Cordé said.
“The exact opposite of that,” Dormé said. “Amidala is charming now. Use that. Find someone who opposes the Chancellor, not violently or extremely, but enough to put a wedge in the public’s image of you and him, and then step on that wedge until you’ve carved out your own identity.”
“That rules out Bonteri,” Versé said. “She’s not cozy with him or anything, but she never directly opposes him.”
Padmé was a little disappointed. She liked Senator Bonteri quite a bit and would have been honored to work with her. But she also knew that there was no question of being in Palpatine’s inner circle. Even if he had allowed it, she wouldn’t have wanted to limit herself that way.
“Don’t worry,” Padmé said. “I have just the senator in mind.”
Senator Amidala was dressed for the occasion. She had left off the ornate reminders of home. There was no headpiece in her hair today, just looped coils pinned in place so well that Dormé had made the pins themselves seem invisible. Her dress was deceptively simple. She wore a light blue undertunic with a collar that didn’t impede the turning of her head, and wide sleeves that were folded back over the dark blue gown she wore over top. The deception was in the dress’s embroidery, in the same light blue as the tunic. It could have been done by any machine on a mechanized planet. Only someone who got close would notice that the stitches had been done by hand—Padmé’s sole concession to Naboo. And she didn’t intend for anyone to get that close.
During the session, Padmé was almost giddy with impatience. She had to force herself to pay attention. The votes on today’s schedule were not of less importance simply because the senator from Naboo had plans. Still, it seemed like the voting would never end, and by the time Chancellor Palpatine called a halt to the day’s proceedings, Padmé was more than ready to go.
Dormé intercepted her before she could exit the pod, doing a quick check that every part of her dress and hair was still in place, and then wished her luck.
Padmé took measured steps. There was no reason for her to make unseemly haste. Versé had pored over the recordings and done a little bit of slicing that Padmé was sure was an invasion of privacy, though this time she turned a blind eye. Cordé had helped her prepare her lines, couching theoretical arguments for Padmé to contest until both of them were sure they had covered every option. Her handmaidens might no longer shadow her every move, but Padmé was no more alone than she had ever been as the Queen of Naboo. Mariek had been correct, all those months ago on the steps of the lake house: everything was different, but Padmé was different, too. And she was figuring out what that meant.
At last, she spotted her target heading for one of the rooftop gardens, right where Versé’s analysis said he would be. He was in green today, which Padmé noted only because Cordé said it appeared to be a favorite. His outfit was simple, though he had allowed himself the indulgence of an asymmetrical cape. Padmé got close enough that she wouldn’t have to shout, and raised her voice.
“Senator Organa,” she said. The voice was more vibrant than the flat tones Queen Amidala had used. It moved better over the syllables of his name. Senator Amidala drew near as Organa stopped to listen to her.
“Senator Amidala,” he said. “How may I help you?”
She stepped closer, modulating her tone to accommodate for her proximity.
“I wish to join your committee on the transportation of construction materials to the planets in the Mid Rim,” Amidala said.<
br />
Whatever Organa had been expecting, it wasn’t that.
“What do you know about the transportation of construction materials?” he asked. She suspected he was stalling for time while he puzzled through her true motivations, though his tone remained polite.
“Nothing,” Amidala admitted. “And if I do not join your committee, then I suspect that is all I shall ever know.”
He looked at her for a long moment. People didn’t usually look at her face. They saw the ornamentation of Naboo’s handiwork in her hair, in her style, in her makeup. That was why the decoy policy had worked so well. Everyone knew what Amidala looked like, so no one ever thought about Padmé. She felt exposed without her usual methods of disguise-in-plain-sight, even though she had done it on purpose. She had never wanted someone to see her before, not like this. She might never let him in again, but she needed him to see her now.
“Walk with me?” he said, offering her his arm.
She took it and followed his lead into the gardens. She hadn’t come here before, preferring to go back to the residence and study policy or rest. She saw immediately why he visited with enough regularity for Versé to track him. Alderaan wasn’t quite as green a world as Naboo, but it still took great pride in its natural wonders. Coruscant must seem to him a lot like it did to her: crowded, noisy, and entirely lacking in plant life. The gardens were a poor echo of what the two of them were used to, but the smell was close enough, and when one took a breath, one could feel the difference in the air.
They took a full turn around the garden, stopping here and there while he showed her his favorite grove of chinar trees, where he liked to sit after the general session and think of home. It was, she realized, his way of letting her see him. The brusque professional was gone, as was the overwhelming presence of the queen, and instead they were two colleagues standing on common ground. At last they completed their circuit of the garden and stood in front of the door that would take them back to the Senate’s stuffy halls and overcrowded workspaces.
“We meet tomorrow, after the general session,” he said. “The room assignments haven’t been designated yet, so I will send an aide.”
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