King's Test

by Margaret Weis

  The royal city's streets were empty, deserted. The art galleries and boutiques, restaurants and cafes were closed; the last tourist and employee buses had departed. The elite who could afford to live upon King's Island—many of them members of the Blood Royal—had returned to their townhouses or condos located on the island's perimeter to prepare for tonight's festive event. Traffic would be heavy, closer to the time of the ceremony when the Guardians, invited guests, and the news media began arriving. For now, the staff car had the cobbled streets nearly all to itself.

  City streets flowed snakelike into a large park that melted unobtrusively into the royal military headquarters. The king grudgingly conceded the necessity for a military base upon his island, but would not permit any harsh reminders of war to obtrude upon the peaceful, serene beauty of Minas Tares. The base, therefore, looked more like a hunt club than a military HQ. Fancifully dressed sentries, whose main duty was to endure having their pictures taken with tourists, stood guard on an immaculately kept lawn surrounding several sparkling-facaded buildings.

  A large crowd of humans and other life-forms was gathered around festival tents installed on the cricket ground. The promotions ceremony must be nearly concluded. Night would be falling soon. Five hundred senior staff officers gathered together in one place. Sagan smiled—a grim smile, not one of elation. The military had protested vociferously against such an insane proceeding, but His Majesty would not be deterred. It would look well on the vids, these high-ranking army officers swearing their fealty and loyalty, offering their lives for king and galaxy.

  Many would be called on to either make good that oath tonight ... or forswear it.

  The driver slowed to allow a caterer's truck to pass. Sagan, idly glancing at the crowd milling about the cricket ground, caught sight of the rumpled-uniformed figure of John Dixter, newly promoted general.

  Dixter: a simple man, a good soldier, undoubtedly loyal to his king, and Maigrey's friend. Sagan rubbed his chin, considering. Maigrey's friend. That made things difficult. If she knew of the scheduled attack ahead of time, she would warn John Dixter. And while it was impossible that one man should have the power to stop the revolution, one man—especially a soldier of Dixter's caliber—could organize effective resistance. And it was essential that the military base, a symbol of the monarchy on Minas Tares, fall.

  I had planned to tell her, Derek Sagan considered to himself silently. She agrees with me that Starfire is an inept, blind, bumbling old fool. And though she doesn't say so, because he's Semele's husband, she knows the crown prince isn't any better. Once I explain to her our places in the new revolutionary government, once I show her the power we can gain in the future of the new democracy, she will concede that the change is for the best.

  Maigrey wouldn't betray me; I have no fear of that. But if she thought her friend was in danger, she'd find a way to alert him. Sagan's frown darkened. He tapped his hand on the armrest irritably. It's an unfortunate relationship, one that continually drags her down from the high pinnacle on which she should stand. Dixter was nothing but a nuisance to me before, but now I can see that, conceivably, he could be a threat. Tonight, however . . . tonight should end that. But it means that I can't tell her. No, I can't tell her.

  The sun was setting when Derek Sagan arrived at the palace. The sky was streaked with bands of flame and gold, deepening to purple, and at its heart, a lurid splash of red. Night darkened the opposite horizon, darkened the palace except for the towers facing the west. The staff car landed, floating on cushions of air. A palace footman hastened forward to open the door.

  Derek beat him to it, nearly knocking the man over in his haste. Climbing out of the car, he stared upward at the massive palace walls. Though thronged with life and light and gaiety within, they were dark and empty as the night without. One tower, spiraling taller than all the rest, one tower alone caught the last rays of the dying sun.

  Sagan slowed his fevered pace to watch. The sun sank lower; the darkness rose up higher around the tower, a tide that could not be stopped. Still the light gleamed—a red-golden fire that burned brighter as the night grew blacker. He'd seen sunsets before, he'd viewed the palace's fabled glass walls at nearly every hour, day or night, yet he'd never seen anything like this. He had been raised to believe in portents, in signs from heaven. And right now, at this fated moment when victory or ignominious defeat stood balanced on a dagger's edge, he was extraordinarily sensitive to what God might be trying to tell him.

  The sun sank lower and lower until only a fingernail s-breadth of fire shone above the already night-dark horizon. The flame reflected in the tower burned lower, like a guttering candle. The sun vanished. Night claimed the palace; the flickering fire on the tower flared and died. Darkness.

  Sagan was satisfied and began to climb the crystal steps— row after endless row—sweeping upward to the palace's gigantic silver doors. A footman went before him, lighting his way with a star-torch, whose intense but small white beam would detract only minutely from the splendor of the night's dark magnificence reflected in the palace walls.

  Reaching the top, Sagan dismissed the footman. The doors swung open to receive him. Warmth and light and noise spilled out, cascaded down the stairs. Derek paused, looked up one last time at the tower.

  Dark still, but—shining above the battlements—a single star.

  Lady Maigrey Morianna attempted to fasten the silver chain around her neck. Her impatient fingers fumbled at the clasp. She thought she had it, turned from the mirror, and felt the starjewel slither down the front of her indigo blue velvet robes. Catching hold of it before it fell to the floor, swearing softly beneath her breath, she put the chain around her neck and began, again, to wrestle with the clasp. This time, it got caught in her hair.

  A knock on the door interrupted her. Her lady-in-waiting—an honorary position, granted to women of the minor nobility—answered it. From the shocked look on the older woman's face and the bright flush on the woman's cheeks, Maigrey realized her swearing had increased in volume and intensity. Sighing, she bit her lip and swallowed her words. Her brother entered the room.

  "Was that you? I thought I'd wandered into the barracks by mistake," Platus said, mildly reproving.

  "It's this damn necklace. It won't stay on! I think the clasp's broken—"

  Gentle hands took the starjewel away from her, fastened the chain around her neck with ease. "Calm down," he whispered, patting her on the shoulders.

  "Allow me to do your hair, my lady," the older woman said, approaching.

  "What's there to do? Run a brush through it? I—" Maigrey caught her brother's eye, subsided rebelliously into a chair in front of her mirror.

  "'You're no longer on a troop ship. You're the daughter of a planetary ruler, in the palace of her king,'" Maigrey muttered to herself, mimicking Platus's voice.

  The lady-in-waiting, lifting the brush, began to try to untangle the pale, fine hair. Maigrey gritted her teeth, held herself stiff and rigid under the torment.

  "Why are you dressing so early?" Platus asked. "The banquet isn't for hours yet."

  "I'm going to see Semele before the reception begins. I won't have time to change afterward."

  "I didn't think she was allowed to have visitors."

  "They'll make an exception for me."

  The gray eyes reflected in the mirror were cool and resolute. "Yes, I guess they probably will," her brother said dryly. "How is she?"

  "Confined to bed. They can't seem to stop the bleeding. And she's gone into premature labor once already, two months ago. She almost lost her baby then." Maigrey's hand clenched to a fist. "No one told me, of course!"

  The lady-in-waiting was making clucking noises, presumably in an effort to calm her charge.

  "What could you have done, Maigrey?" Platus asked. "You were in the middle of a war zone."

  "I could have— Ouch! Damn it to hell and back! Give me that!" Maigrey leapt to her feet, grabbed the brush from the startled woman, and flung it into a c
orner of the room. "Get out!" she cried in a fury.

  "Well, I never!" The lady-in-waiting sniffed, folded her hands across her broad middle.

  "I think you had better leave," Platus said in mollifying tones. "My sister's a bit overexcited."

  "Your sister, my lord, is a spoiled brat!" the lady-in-waiting pronounced with feeling, and flounced out of the room.

  Platus shut the door on the woman, turned around to find his sister, in her best robes of state, on her knees on the floor, peering under the bed.

  "Maigrey! You're covered with dust! What—"

  "I've lost my shoes!"

  "Here, get up. Go sit down. I'll look." Platus searched under the bed, found three shoes, two of which—he counted to his great good fortune—happened to match. He held them up. "Are these the ones? They're black. What happened to the shoes made to match your robes—"

  "I tossed them. Those will do. No one's going to be looking at my feet anyway. Damn dress is so long, I'll be tripping over it half the night." She snatched the shoes from him, attempted to put one on.

  "That's the wrong foot, dear," Platus said softly.

  Maigrey hurled the shoe under a chair. Turning away, she rested her elbows on the vanity stand, let her head sink into her hands. "I think you should go, Platus."

  Instead of leaving, he walked over, rested his hands on her shoulders. "He hasn't returned yet."

  Maigrey raised her head, looked into the mirror at her brother's reflection. The two didn't resemble each other. Platus, in his early thirties, took after their mother. A gentle, sensitive woman who loved music and poetry, she was given in marriage—by royal command—to the ruler of a planet far distant from hers not only in light-years but in every way possible.

  Such marriages were not uncommon among the Blood Royal, whose bloodlines the scientists were always attempting to strengthen. In this instance, the poor queen had the misfortune to be deemed a perfect mate for a barbarian king of a warrior people. She had the further misfortune to bear him a son as gentle and peace-loving as herself. The boy was a comfort to her, an extreme disappointment to his father. Platus was sent to the Royal Academy as soon as the king could decently rid himself of the fragile, intellectual child. The queen's life was unsupportable and, when her daughter Maigrey was born, the poor woman gave it up with little regret.

  The warrior king had no use for a girl-child and ignored his daughter until one day, passing by the nursery, he saw the four-year-old neatly skewer one of her dolls with a small, handmade spear. From that day forward, his daughter never left her father's side until King Starfire, hearing rumors that a daughter of the Blood Royal was being raised in military camps, caused her to be forcibly removed.

  Although Platus resembled their mother most closely, both children had inherited her light hair, slender build, and love for music and poetry. Platus was tall and lanky, his blond hair wispy and starting to thin on top. His hands were the hands of a musician, with tapering, delicate fingers. The blue eyes were mild and introspective. He was even-tempered, rarely angry, and was attempting to resign the Guardians due to his pacifist beliefs.

  Maigrey's face was her mother's, the fearless gray eyes her father's. A skilled swordsman, a skilled pilot, she had made her warrior father proud of his little girl. She was fond of her brother, but didn't understand him. The two had never been particularly close and this decision of his to leave the Guardians had precipitated more than one bitter quarrel between them.

  But there was a family resemblance, no matter how remote. Maigrey saw it now, looking into the mirror. The resemblance tended to be strongest when she was weary, sad ... or afraid.

  "No, he hasn't returned," she said.

  "Perhaps he has, and you haven't seen him. His rooms are in the other wing—"

  "I would know," Maigrey interrupted. "I would know if he were here. And he isn't."

  The two didn't pursue the issue. Platus didn't like Derek Sagan, and Maigrey knew the feeling was mutual. She knew, too, that her brother was appalled at the thought of the mind-link. Brother and sister never discussed what Platus considered an unnatural bonding unless forced to by circumstance.

  "A month's leave of absence isn't that remarkable. Where did he go, by the way? Did you find out?" he asked.

  Maigrey, looking in the mirror, kept her expression impassive, her face immobile. "No," she said, shaking her hair over her shoulders and flinching away from her brother's solicitous and irritating touch. She stood up, hand toying nervously with the starjewel around her neck. "It's time I was going—"

  "Maigrey"—Platus's mild voice hardened, was unusually stern—"the rumors of revolution fly thicker and grow darker by the hour. Do you know something about it? Sagan has made friends with that troublemaking professor, that Peter Robes. Derek has freely expressed admiration for the man, he's openly criticized the monarchy—"

  "I've openly criticized the monarchy, brother. Does that make me a traitor?" Maigrey demanded, turning to face him. "Derek Sagan is our commanding officer. We owe him not only our loyalty but our lives. It's not for us to question his . . . his"—she faltered—"to question him," she concluded. She stood up, started to move past her brother. "If you will excuse me, I'm running late—"

  Platus put his hands on her arms. "Maigrey—"

  "Leave me alone!" she flashed.

  "Maigrey!" He was earnest, intense. "Maigrey, if you know something, you have to tell it! Tell the king! Tell the captain of the guard! Tell me, Danha! Tell someone!"

  She wasn't looking at him; she didn't struggle to break free of his grasp. She held perfectly still, staring at the glittering jewel around her neck.

  Platus shook her—not harshly, he could never be harsh, not even when he was frightened. She raised her head, saw her face reflected in his eyes, and was startled to see how pale she was.

  "I have faith in Derek," she said at last. "Whatever he's doing, it's for the best."

  "How can you be so blind?" Platus lost his patience. Maigrey struck his hands away from her. "I took an oath of loyalty to my commander—"

  "You took an oath of allegiance to your king!"

  "You can't understand, Platus. You're not a soldier!" She cast him a cool, disdainful glance. "Sometimes I wonder if you are my father's son! I know Father wondered it often enough!"

  Platus paled. "Sometimes," he said, "I wish to God I wasn't."

  Maigrey was immediately remorseful, tried to draw back her verbal blade, but it had already cut too deeply. Her brother forgave her readily, however, was calm and soothing to her, and left her almost immediately. His look, as he went, was grave and sorrowful. Almost pitying.

  So superior, Maigrey thought when he was gone. Always so damn superior! Just like when we were kids in the Academy and he'd take it upon himself to try to run my life. Her fingers itched to seize the door and slam it after him, but she restrained herself. She was above that sort of behavior now.

  Maigrey buckled the bloodsword around her waist. She would wear it until the banquet, then she'd be required to take it off. She supposed it wasn't necessary, going armed through the Glitter Palace, but she could no more walk out without the sword than she could walk out without her shoes. . . .

  And where were they anyway?

  Finding them, tripping over the long skirts as she irritably thrust the high heels onto her feet, she hurried out the door. She decided she wasn't the least bit sorry for what she'd said to her brother. It was the truth, after all. She'd heard the whispers all her life. And she hoped he would resign from the Guardians.

  Derek was right. Platus didn't belong.

  Chapter Two

  . . . you that do abet him . . . Cherish rebellion and are rebels all.

  William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act II, Scene 3

  "I really shouldn't permit this," the doctor said. "Her Royal Highness's time is very close at hand. I would prefer she remain completely undisturbed."

  Maigrey strongly considered grabbing the man by the lapels of his sterile white coat
and hurling him through the steelglass window. She controlled herself, with an effort. "I should have been informed."

  "Semele wouldn't allow it, Maigrey," said Augustus Starfire, Crown Prince. "Besides, what could you have done, off fighting the Corasians?"

  "Her condition isn't that serious," the doctor snapped. "Bleeding like this isn't uncommon. Her Royal Highness has been restricted to her bed to prevent any major complications, and consequently there have been none. She has brought the pregnancy to full term. The baby is healthy, Her Royal Highness is well . . . or she will be, if she is allowed to rest. "

  "I won't stay long. I only want to visit with her for a few moments. She's my best friend. We haven't seen each other in months. I'll be leaving for my next tour of duty tomorrow."

  "I've spoken to my wife." This from Augustus Starfire, looking to the doctor as one might look to a god. "She is feeling much better today and thinks that a visit from the Lady Maigrey would do her good. She promises not to tire herself. The delivery's going to be tonight.' The prince reported the last in an undertone to Maigrey.

  "I didn't say that for certain," the doctor rasped in acerbic tones, overhearing.

  "But surely with all this modern technological equipment you've got"—Maigrey gestured at numerous blinking screens keeping track of the patient's progress—"you could tell—"

  "Lady Maigrey," the doctor interrupted. "We can travel faster than the speed of light. We can genetically alter life. We can destroy each other with remarkable skill and efficiency. But babies still come when they're damn good and ready. Mother Nature's been at her job for thousands of years and it's my belief that the less we interfere with her, the better off everyone will be."

  "Semele should be in the hospital," Maigrey pronounced.

  "My lady, when you have completed eight years of medical school and have served your internship and residency, I will then welcome your medical opinion. You may visit her," the doctor added magnanimously, perhaps by way of emphasizing his authority, "but remain only fifteen minutes."