by K. Eason
* * *
• • •
The Vizier was a cautious man, fond of evidence. And so he spent the next few days before the funeral making use of the diplomatic access available on the Thorne embassy’s turing, and of his considerable skill with arithmancy when that access proved insufficient.
It was because of what he discovered that the Vizier was alone among foreign diplomats and dignitaries who attended King Sergei’s funeral to be unsurprised that Minister Moss took charge of the event, and the only one to notice how very close the Minister of Energy stood to Prince Ivar during the funeral and how he hovered, not so much protectively as possessively. Nor was he surprised when reports came that the Queen’s shuttle suffered an inexplicable power surge that sent it diving into the sun. Instead, the Vizier quietly arranged for passage back to the Thorne Consortium and departed Urse the same day that Vernor Moss was named the Regent of the Free Worlds by unanimous vote of the ruling Council.
This time, the Vizier spent his journey organizing his notes and observations, and rehearsing his eventual report to the Consort in front of a mirror in his quarters until he was certain of every syllable. It was not his first time acting as Thorne’s official representative, but it was his first time doing so for the Consort, and he wanted to impress her with his attention to detail. The old King would have deferred that report for several days. The Vizier suspected the Consort would not, and indeed, she summoned the Vizier to her office within an hour of his return to Thorne.
And so the Vizier found himself delivering his report to the Consort almost exactly as he’d rehearsed it. He stood in front of the desk, which he’d planned; and he had his hands clasped behind his back, which kept him from picking at his cuticles. But he could not stare at his favorite stain on the desk, because the Regent-Consort had covered it with a small pot, in which grew a Kreshti fern. Its silver-blue fronds sampled the air, sifting for pheromones, sending out some of its own, in an attempt to attract unwary insects.
The Vizier recalled that the apparent delicacy of its fronds and stems was an illusion. The only way to kill a Kreshti fern, as the Kreshti farmers well knew, was to tear it out by its roots and burn it. The Consort had been born and raised on Kreshti, and he suspected she and the fern shared that tenacity.
The Vizier finished his report. “That’s all, your Highness.”
Ordinarily the King would say, “Thank you, Rupert,” or, “That will be all, Rupert,” or sometimes, a muffled “mrrzzz,” at which point the Vizier would wait exactly one minute before leaving quietly so as not to wake his sovereign.
The Consort also said nothing, but she was not snoring, and so the Vizier did not move. Instead, he stared so hard at the little fern that it stretched four of its five fronds toward him and turned a remarkable shade of vermillion.
“That was a fine report, Rupert. Now tell me what you actually think.”
The Vizier jerked as if someone had jammed a pin into his leg (which Rory had, once, in her early childhood, shortly after Grytt became her body-maid). His gaze bounced off the fern and landed on the Consort. She had made a little steeple of her first two fingers and rested the point of her chin on the apex. It was a surprisingly disarming gesture, and deceptive, because it meant that she was thinking. A thinking monarch was, in the Vizier’s experience, always dangerous. He wished he’d sneaked out while he had opportunity. He wondered if he ever had an opportunity. He weighed the wisdom of answering honestly against his experience with the King, who preferred brevity. And, out of reflex, he stalled.
First, clear the throat. Then, raise the brows. Then, adjust both sleeves. And then, “Your Grace?” in the most innocuous tones possible.
She stared at him, night-dark eyes unblinking as a singularity and as impossible to escape.
“Rupert. Sit down. And tell me. What. You. Think.”
The Vizier sat. Shot a nervous glance at the fern, which had turned vivid scarlet, and decided on honesty.
“The Minister offered neither accusation nor apology when I met with him. He did not act like a man surprised or bereft by Valenko’s death. I think he’s responsible, your Grace, for all of it.”
“Go on.”
“The popular choice for Regent of the Free Worlds was the Minister of Commerce. She declined. So did the second reasonable choice, the Minister of Defense. Together, they nominated Moss, and with their support, the rest of the Council approved his appointment without even a cursory debate.”
“Are you suggesting bribery, Rupert? Or conspiracy?”
“It is unclear which, your Grace. Perhaps both.”
The Consort raised one half-moon brow. “Samur, Rupert. When we’re in private, call me Samur.”
The Vizier bowed slightly and hoped the heat crawling up his neck and cheeks didn’t show up as red on his face.
“As I said. I have no proof of bribery or conspiracy, nor did I feel it my place to inquire too deeply. Moss had, by the time I departed, already issued warrants for the arrest of individuals he believed responsible for the alteration of the body-man’s implants. He is very dramatic, and very persuasive.”
“And are those individuals guilty?”
“Perhaps, although I do not believe that is likely.” The Vizier tapped his tablet and turned the screen to show the Consort. “Note that they are all former employees of the Science and Research Department. Note, too, that they all either lost their funding in the past two years, or were replaced on their project teams for reasons which seem rather contrived. And note whose authorization is on all of the orders.”
The Consort leaned onto her elbows. Swiped the screen, once and again, and frowned. “It seems odd, Rupert, that a minor minister would be signing termination orders for Science and Research personnel and projects.”
“It does, your Gr—Samur.”
“And it seems unlikely that, even disappointed by their terminations, these individuals would all decide to conspire to assassination, particularly since the King did not terminate their projects. Regicide is a capital crime. If they had conspired, one imagines they would have left Tadeshi space already rather than accepting this exile. And—hm.”
The Consort had just noticed, as the Vizier himself already had, that all the accused had been relocated to a half-frozen moon orbiting a gas giant denied any official moniker more personalized than an alphanumeric string. The colonists called the moon Perdition, the planet, Judgment, and the system’s star, Sheol. It was, on record, a mining outpost, although not a particularly prolific one.
There were two possible destinations for ships leaving Perdition. One was solidly in Tadeshi territory. The other was Kreshti. This mattered for two reasons. The first was that should those scientists choose to flee that accusation of regicide, Kreshti was their only option. If the Kreshti did grant asylum, then it looked like they approved of—or at least did not mind—the crime of regicide; and given Kreshti’s relationship with the Thorne Consortium, and that the Consort was herself Kreshti, it looked as if that regicide might be politically motivated.
And second, Tadesh (before it had collected any Free Worlds) had been sniffing after Kreshti’s planetary resources for most of the two hundred years since Kreshti had fought its way free of the Merak Horde. Kreshti had a breathable atmosphere, liquid water, and a relatively hospitable biosphere. While the Thornes were still terraforming dead red planets in the home system, Kreshti were earning their skill with battle-hexes—skills that reminded the Tadeshi in the occasional skirmish that those planetary resources would cost them more than the planet’s worth. But as the Free Worlds accumulated, the Tadeshi grew bolder and more certain the cost would be worth it.
It had been the Kreshti’s formal alliance with the Thorne Consortium, in the person of Samur, that had guaranteed Tadeshi good behavior. And if Kreshti could be accused of harboring King Sergei’s assassins, well. The Free Worlds of Tadesh might be willing to risk
an invasion and apologize later. No one liked a suicide bomb, after all, particularly at a birthday party.
There was one final document. The Vizier leaned forward and flicked the screen. “And then there are these, your Grace.”
“Requests for asylum to Kreshti. With my aunt’s approval already stamped.” The Regent-Consort side-eyed the Vizier. “Are these official documents, Rupert?”
“They are.”
“Does Urse keep records like this on the public access systems? Because I know that Kreshti does not.”
“No, your Grace.”
“Rupert. Are you a secret hacker?”
“It is a . . . hobby.” The Vizier caught a smile sneaking onto his face. To his surprise, the Consort smiled back. She had a dimple on her left cheek.
“Well done.”
This time he knew the heat on his cheeks was visible. And the damned fern turned deep yellow.
The Consort sat back, then, and abandoned her smile. She sighed a little and rubbed the nine-month moon of her belly. “Are you aware, Rupert, why I married Thorne?”
Not the King. Not my husband. Not Philip. The Vizier hesitated. As a point of fact, he did know the details of the marriage contract, having helped his Majesty with the finer points of law and Kreshti custom. After a moment’s hesitation (and the traitor-fern turning just the slightest bit orange), he said so.
“It was a political alliance, your Gr—Samur. To win your mother and sisters an ally—”
She sliced him silent with a gesture. “My mother used her daughter to buy an ally, so that I could, in turn, buy alliances and peace with my children, so that we could all avoid war. It’s what sovereigns do. But now—now, we have one king dead, and one dying, and these documents suggest that the man who is now Regent of the Free Worlds both provoked dissent and relocated the dissenters a convenient tesser-hex from the one tiny planet that would, and in fact did, grant them sanctuary, which just happens to be allied to the Thorne Consortium by marriage. Furthermore, you have informed me that the Urse system is full of warships. Would you be willing to wager that the Regent of the Free Worlds killed my husband and his own king, and now he is preparing to declare war on the Consortium?”
“I would never bet against you, Samur.”
A ghost of the former smile haunted her lips. “Good to know, Rupert. I will count that a promise. Because I’m not waiting for him. We are going to war.”
CHAPTER FOUR
War, Death, And Birth
Those who do not record history often labor under the misconception that it is easy: events happen, one after the other, fitting together like a well-crafted plot in which the characters do precisely what they must, when they must, to make the story turn out as it should. This is rarely the case. More often, significant moments overlap, crowding each other like geese around grain, each pushing the others aside for primacy. The death of the King of Thorne, the birth of the Prince, and the Consortium’s declaration of war against the Free Worlds of Tadesh comprise a trilogy of such magnitude that it is difficult to discern which of them had the greatest impact on the little princess. A conventional recounting of Rory’s life might prioritize the dramatic loss of her father, and the more subtle loss of her mother, as formative influences in what was to come.
But in truth, it was Grytt’s absence that affected Rory most keenly. Before the explosion, Samur had insisted on daily breakfasts with Rory, and when possible, lunch and dinner as well. Even during her pregnancy, when she was not interested in, or capable of, eating, Samur would sit (complexion waxy, jaw locked and set) at the table with Rory, listening more than she spoke (for fear of what might happen if her jaw were unlocked). But the shift in duties from Consort to Regent-Consort meant that breakfasts became hurried affairs during which Samur stuffed toast into her mouth at a pace that would have drawn criticism, had it been Rory doing the gobbling. Then she was out the door, gone before Rory had got halfway through her own toast—chewing before swallowing, little bites, as she’d been taught. At least before, she would have had Deme Grytt for company, should her mother be struck unexpectedly busy.
But now, after the explosion, Deme Grytt was not there, having been wounded and whisked into the medical facility beyond Rory’s reach. She had tried to visit. The medic at the front desk had been very firm in her insistence that Grytt could have no visitors, not even the Princess, but that she had been
badly hurt
a little banged up, your Highness, and that she
wouldn’t die
would be just fine
If fine meant in pain and all metal and wires, poor thing.
Messer Rupert, her next most constant companion and tutor, was thoroughly occupied with helping her mother run the Consortium, so Rory’s lessons were suspended, pending the acquisition of a substitute tutor.
And so it was that Rory found herself alone for the first time in her life. She thought she should feel lonely, and did, for exactly two hours, at which point she realized that there was no one to observe her loneliness and take pity on her.
That there was no one to observe her . . . doing anything. Well then.
Rory went down to the koi pond first. It was a destination she was permitted to visit alone, so long as she informed someone where she would be. She informed no one. And after skulking along the edge of the pond for several hours—having exhausted her supply of toast crusts, and thus having lost the koi’s interest, as well—she determined that no one actually knew where she was, and judging from the lack of household staff swarming about and calling her name—no one cared.
This realization, like the loneliness, was both bitter and sweet.
Next, she amused herself by creeping around the palace. Creeping, because although she could have walked almost anywhere unchallenged, she chose to dress in her least Rory-ish clothing and cling to the edges and shadows. It was a game, at first, to see who would notice her. No one did. So she went down to the formal banquet hall and spied on the contractors who had come to repair the damage. She took stock of the damage herself. The hateful chairs were so much kindling, now. The great table was all burned on one end. And there were dark stains in the polished wood floor that had, she told herself sternly, come from people bleeding. Like Father. Like Grytt. Like Ivar’s father.
She looked at those for a very long time.
She also looked and looked for any trace of the body-man—a wire, a sliver of steel—but found nothing.
By the fifth day, she had looked up a map to the medical wing on her tablet, and found the staff entrance where the laundry delivery came and went. She was making plans to sneak in to visit Grytt that way—at night, when there was no one to observe her—when there came a knock on her door.
It was well after supper (hers had been soup, a half a sandwich, and solitude), well after the time Grytt would have come in and turned off the lights and confiscated Rory’s tablet. When no one had come to collect her tray, she’d decided they had well and truly forgotten her, and told herself that was fortunate, since tonight was moonless and therefore a good time to sneak down to the medical wing.
But then the knock came. Her mind leapt to the immediate conclusion that someone knew what she was planning and had come to thwart her. Then her wits reasserted themselves. It was unlikely, she told herself, that a palace staff that had permitted her to run about unsupervised for days at a time could anticipate this particular transgression.
Her heart continued to crowd up her throat, unconvinced.
She swallowed it, best she could. Blanked the screen on her tablet and stuffed it under her pillow. Jerked the covers up, and then down again, so that her hair crackled and strands of it poked out of her braid. Then she sat up and said, “Who is it?” in her best sleepy little girl voice.
The door cracked open. Messer Rupert’s angular silhouette carved into the light spilling from the hall. Like a shadow-puppet. Flat. The
effect would have made her laugh, except that Messer Rupert said,
“Rory.”
Not your Highness. Not Princess. Just Rory, very gently, as if she were a little girl again. Her heart climbed back into her throat and stayed there. Her voice squeezed past the edges.
“Is it Grytt?”
The shadow-puppet shook his head. “No. No, Grytt’s fine. Rory, it’s your father. He’s—”
Messer Rupert hesitated. He knew better than to lie to her; but he didn’t want to be rude, either, and say an indelicate, impolite truth.
Rory spared him that trouble.
“Dead,” she said flatly. “My father is dead.”
* * *
• • •
The official press release called his death a tragedy. The whispers around the palace called it mercy. Even Messer Rupert was relieved, although there was grief, too, when he tried (not) to tell Rory the details of her father’s passing.
She learned those much later, after she had mastered and misused her lessons in security-hexes for turings and hacked her way into the medical records. The King of the Thorne Consortium died of his wounds without ever quite recovering consciousness. The records say quite, because there were times his eyes opened. It is unclear whether or not he realized that he no longer had an arm or both legs, or that his torso ended halfway down in a sleek metal bulb that was mostly wired into the metal shell that did the work of his liver, lungs, and kidneys. What is recorded on his medical charts is that King Philip Thorne, first of his name, always ended these windows of consciousness screaming.
In that future time, an older Rory hunched in front of the terminal and read, unblinking, her tears turned to silver rivers in the screen’s blue glow.
But when it happened—when the servants haunted the palace with red eyes and swollen cheeks and Messer Rupert went about stiffly, his jaw squared against grief—then, Rory couldn’t find a single tear. She knew she should cry. She was sorry, certainly, that her father was dead. Sorrier still that so many people—the contractors and the medics and the folk unattached to the household—seemed personally wounded by it in ways she did not understand, a tangle of duty and pride in something much bigger than the man her father had been, something in which they, too, participated.