In Evil Times

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “Now you want to talk to me? You couldn’t talk to me in there. Instead you make a scene in the street? What do you want?” she said in an angry whisper. They were mere inches apart and her perfume washed over him, bringing back memories of holding her in his arms.

  “Don’t do this, Mercedes. I’m begging you.” It was the first time he had used her name in two years. It didn’t go unremarked.

  “You forget yourself.”

  “No, I’m trying to reach you.” His hands stretched out to her. “Remind you that once—” He bit off the words before he said something that couldn’t be forgiven.

  The stiffness leached from her shoulders and she looked more like the girl he had met on the beach on that long-ago evening. “I don’t understand, Tracy. I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Pleased? That you’ve come to Pony Town? Don’t think the press won’t notice that.” He glanced around and sure enough there was a camerabot floating overhead. He suspected more would soon arrive. “We’re going to be plastered all over the news feeds.”

  “Get in the flitter,” she ordered.

  He wasn’t sure which was worse. Being recorded entering a vehicle with the heir to the Solar League or continuing to stand on the street remonstrating with her. He decided privacy was better and followed her into the plush interior. Cipriana looked from one to the other, sighed and nodded.

  “I’ll leave you two to it. Try not to get too bloody.” She scrambled over their legs and left the vehicle.

  Mercedes brought up the privacy screen shielding them from the driver and guard in the front seat and turned her ScoopRing to signal block. Once that was done she shifted to face Tracy and said accusingly, “You’re just embarrassed.”

  “You’re damn right, I am.”

  He gestured at a window indicating the run-down buildings, the tiny bodegas, the one-room restaurants with signs in the windows featuring cheap dinner specials, the payday loan shop on the corner, the Hajin hoof trimmer and mane salon, the Tiponi Flute water station and light salon, a garishly painted building that housed the Candy Box, which was the neighborhood’s whorehouse, the shabbily dressed people and the large number of aliens.

  “Everything isn’t about you, Tracy. I didn’t do this to remind people that you’re an intitulado. I did it because my wedding gown is a horror—”

  “Because everything really is about you.”

  “That is so unfair! I can’t help who I am. I can’t help that the whole League is going to be watching—”

  “I bloody well won’t be.”

  “Fine and I can’t say I blame you, but that’s not the point. I need a new dress so I picked…” her voice trailed away.

  “Yeah, when you actually try to justify it, it doesn’t make any sense, does it? There must be a hundred top designers who would leap at the chance to make your damn wedding gown. People who actually make wedding gowns.” He paused and pressed the question. “So why did you really do it? Really?”

  With her dark skin it was hard to tell that she was blushing, but he knew her so well that he could tell. That and the fact she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I… I guess I wanted to feel close to you… one last time. I didn’t think you would be here but I could pretend…”

  “That life was different?” Mercedes nodded, seemingly unable to speak. “Well, it’s not.” It was hard to force the words past the aching pain in his throat. “We all have to play our parts.” His hand moved, reaching for hers. He caught himself and drew it back quickly. “Please, Mercedes, don’t do this.”

  “I want the dress, Tracy. It’s beautiful. Don’t you want your mother’s design to be seen?”

  “Not when you’re wearing it and marrying him.” Rage joined the grief. It was a toxic mix that threatened to choke him.

  “That can’t change. You know that. I understand I’ve hurt you so let me at least do something to ease your father’s situation. He’s going to become very fashionable.”

  “And that’s the problem. He’ll feel like he has to be worthy of the patronage. He’ll move into a better part of town. Hire more people, and then when he ceases to be a one-day wonder the business will dry up and he’ll be back in debt and back in Pony Town.”

  “I won’t let that happen.”

  “And just how are you going to do that?”

  “I’ll instruct my staff. They’ll make sure he has work.”

  Anger had him surging to his feet and he hit his head on the roof of the flitter, then dropped back onto the leather seat. “We don’t want your charity!”

  “What about my friendship and my patronage? Will you accept that? Or are you going to allow your anger to leave us with nothing?”

  She had begun the sentence as the heir to the imperial throne. It had ended on a plaintive note that throbbed with unshed tears. It robbed him of rage and left him sad and empty. They stared at each other for a long moment. He longed to touch her cheek, feel her skin beneath his fingertips. Instead Tracy tried to commit each beloved feature to memory. He sighed and nodded.

  “Yes. All right. I’ll take that. But please, don’t let my dad get hurt.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  He climbed out of the flitter. As he had surmised and feared, the single camerabot had been joined by six others. He resisted the urge to give them the finger as he walked under the sign that proudly stated BELMANOR & SON. He paused and studied the sign. It would not be this son. Alexander had done everything in his power to get his only child out of the shop and into the imperial officer corps.

  I’ll do well, Dad, I promise. I’ll win a title. Then you won’t be sewing for anyone.

  He ducked back into the shop. The scent of her perfume still lingered. He closed his eyes remembering—soft lips, a sigh slipped from between those lips like a song of joy, the tickle of hair against his ear—

  I’ll win a title and no one will doubt I have the right—

  He shied away from what that right might be, fearing where the thought would take him and knowing it was mere delusion.

  3

  NOT MY DAUGHTER

  The small anteroom just off the parade ground at the High Ground was not meant for four people, particularly when they included the obese Conde de Vargas, all the six-foot-five magnificence that was Boho, Mercedes’ father who had developed an impressive belly over the past few years, and herself. Rohan Danilo Marcus Aubrey was the aristocratic patron of the High Ground and the Emperor’s best friend. Right now his words weren’t making the Emperor happy. Mercedes was equally flabbergasted over Rohan’s proposal and Boho was wide-eyed with shock. For what Rohan was suggesting would shake society. He wanted the Rule of Service to apply to the daughters as well as the sons of the FFH.

  “This is the time to make the announcement,” Rohan was saying. “While the entire press is watching. The populace is feeling charitable toward the crown in general and the Infanta and her dashing consort in particular. Let’s get the idea out there. Allow the public to become accustomed to it. And if we spring it on them like this the old guard won’t have time to prepare their objections and bury the proposal in committee.”

  “We’re taking a hell of a chance,” the Emperor muttered. “This could backfire and blow up on us.”

  “Then why risk it?” Boho asked.

  “Yes. Why are we risking it?” Mercedes echoed and stared at her father.

  “There are reasons,” he muttered, then added, “I’ll tell you later.”

  Rohan rubbed plump hands together. “Then we’re agreed—”

  “Conde, most of the girls won’t try,” Mercedes warned. “They’ll deliberately wash out at the end of the first year so you may end up causing an uproar for no reason.”

  Rohan turned to her, ran a hand through his thinning red hair. “Then you must be the example for them, Highness. Convince some of them that service to the League is a worthy pursuit.”

  “Their future husbands won’t thank you if you do, Mer,” Boho said with a laugh. “I expect a la
dy officer won’t be the most compliant bride and wife.”

  Mercedes gave him a limpid look. “Well, you’ll soon find out, won’t you?” For an instant he looked startled, then he threw back his head and laughed again.

  “So you approve of this plan?” her father asked Boho.

  Her fiancé lifted Mercedes’ gloved hand and dropped a kiss onto it. “I’d be foolish not to, wouldn’t I?” He gave them all his patented sideways smile. “And if I may, sir, the conde is right about the timing. If you’re really going to do this, this is the time. You’ve got the graduation and then the wedding. It puts everyone in a mellow mood. Oh, the conservatives will rage, but they’ll look petty when everyone else in the League is celebrating our wedding.”

  “Your father has a great deal of power in the upper house,” Rohan said. “Can you get him on our side?”

  “He knows which side his bread is buttered on,” the Emperor growled before Boho could answer. He made a testy gesture. “There’s no way this station pod is large enough to contain an influx of girls. It will double at least the number of cadets.”

  Rohan shrugged. “So we build a station just to house the High Ground. With the recession we could use a new infrastructure project.”

  “That may be a solution for the FFH, but what do we do about the hombres? Recruiters are reporting a significant uptick in female intitulados trying to enlist. We have yet to give the recruiting stations guidance so it’s a piecemeal affair with some recruiters allowing them to join and most not. And once the women reach basic only a handful are making it past the drill sergeants,” the Emperor argued.

  “Which is why we must do this, Fernán. It needs to be regularized.” Her father was still frowning. “You had to know this was going to happen once you put forward Mercedes as your heir,” Rohan said softly.

  “Daddy… sir,” she corrected herself. “You can’t turn me into a unicorn. If you do no one will ever accept me as the commander-in-chief.”

  The Emperor paced, looked back over his shoulder at Mercedes. “You know that going forward this will have to be applied to your sisters.”

  That stopped her but after a moment of reflection she acknowledged the necessity. “Estella is already nineteen. It’s too late for her to start, but…” Mercedes realized that her youngest full sister could start in the fall. Julieta had been betrothed to one of Mercedes’ classmates and was supposed to marry him by the end of the year. Mercedes hated the match. Sanjay was known for his furious temper and his quickness to resort to his fists. If Julieta started at the High Ground it would postpone the marriage for at least three years. A lot could happen in three years. Mercedes decided she loved this plan.

  “You really think this is necessary? You’re shaking our society to its foundations,” her father asked Rohan. The older men exchanged a very long look.

  “We don’t know, do we? Better not to be wasting half our populace if… well… Perhaps better to be…” Rohan’s voice trailed away, but Mercedes thought she could guess the final word he hadn’t spoken. Prepared. What did they know that they weren’t telling?

  The Emperor tugged at his upper lip then finally nodded. “All right. Do it. Add it into your speech.”

  “It was already in there,” Rohan said and her father gave a sigh of exasperation.

  “Someday you’re going to guess wrong and I’ll surprise you.”

  With a laugh in his voice Rohan said, “Maybe… but not today.”

  * * *

  There was one place where rank and title couldn’t dictate. The alphabet was the alphabet. Which meant Tracy was seated next to Mercedes while Boho was forced to sit fourteen chairs away. The parade ground was a stone garden where massive black stone colonnades stretched to the station’s roof and slate tiles bruised the feet. In this place of stone Mercedes’ gardenia and jasmine perfume was a memory of other gardens and softer times.

  He glanced over at her. At the line of her cheek, the aggressive blade of her nose, the glint of a sapphire earring. She was knotting her hands, which caused the multi-carat teardrop diamond engagement ring to flash and sparkle. A sour taste filled his mouth and Tracy looked away. He longed to look over his shoulder and locate his father though he suspected the tailor had been seated in the very back row and couldn’t be spotted. He just hoped his father would be able to see.

  Alexander would certainly be able to see when Tracy walked across the tall stone rostrum directly in front of them. On stage there was a large throne in a sunburst pattern where the Emperor sat. On his right the Conde de Vargas, on his left Vertrant, Commandant of the High Ground. Also present was the academy’s chaplain, Commander Father Lord Tanuwidjaja, and Musa del Campo, Duque Agua de Negra, cousin to the Emperor and at one time heir to the throne before Mercedes had been elevated to that position. He had a son graduating this day. Finally there was Lieutenant Marqués Ernesto Chapman-Owiti, the class valedictorian.

  Tracy had come up a few points short of that honor, but unlike the last time, when he’d been cheated out of the honor when he graduated from high school, he didn’t resent Ernesto. The man was stone-cold brilliant.

  Thinking about that other graduation led him inexorably to Hugo. The man who had replaced Tracy as the valedictorian despite inferior grades. All because his father got a title. Once Tracy had hated Hugo. Then Hugo had become Tracy’s closest friend at the academy. The memories led inextricably to that ghastly moment when Hugo had died, literally cut in half by a broken cable, and Tracy would never stop feeling like it was his fault. If he hadn’t rammed the docking bay doors the cable wouldn’t have been weakened. He had proposed they spacewalk on the exterior of the station to try and retake the hub from terrorists…

  Why couldn’t it have been Boho who’d died? If Boho had been killed then Mercedes—Tracy cut off that line of thought. Even if Boho hadn’t cowered in the computer center and had died instead of Hugo, Mercedes would still be marrying some other highborn jackass. Tracy’s eyes shifted to his right where Lord Arturo Espadero del Campo sat. His father was the Emperor’s cousin. It might have been Arturo marrying the Infanta. In no version of the future was it ever going to be the tailor’s son from Pony Town.

  There had at least been one salve to Tracy’s bruised spirits. When the graduating class had formed up to march into the parade ground Tracy saw that Mark Wilson, the only other scholarship student and non-noble, had also been given the rank of lieutenant J.G. Tracy’s resentment had been lessened, but only slightly. The weight of the Distinguished Service Cross where it rested on his left breast seemed to mock him. He had won one of the highest military honors granted by the Solar League, done it in his first year at the academy, and even that hadn’t been enough to raise him above his common birth in the eyes of the FFH.

  Tanuwidjaja’s reedy, diffident voice penetrated, and Tracy realized they were almost at the end of the invocation. He managed to join the rest of the assembled crowd in the amen and resolved to stop torturing himself with might-have-beens that were really could-never-bes. He took another quick glance around the assembly.

  On the other side of the aisle were the faculty and seated among them was the High Ground’s second-in-command. It was so typical of Vertrant that his second had been relegated to the audience along with family, friends and sweethearts. From where he sat Tracy could see Commander Marquis Chand Ganguly’s profile. The muscles in his jaw were set and the dark brows drawn into a deep frown. He was starting at Vertrant. No love lost there, Tracy thought.

  Rohan stood and approached the podium. The levimike spun down a few inches to compensate for Rohan being shorter than the priest. It hovered in front of the nobleman. He smiled at the assembly.

  “Welcome, graduates. Yes, you made it! Get drunk later. I know I did.” There was scattered laughter. Rohan continued, “I have never been prouder of this majestic institution. For over three hundred years the academy has sent graduates on to distinguished service in our armed forces, and at every step the High Ground has been willing to ada
pt and change. This year is no exception. For the first time in its long and noble history this institution will graduate two young ladies whose strength, intelligence and bravery have shown that the weaker sex is anything but—as most of us husbands can attest!” There was more laughter.

  “I am honored to be the patron of this school at this historic moment. And I feel so strongly that this is the right thing to do for our beloved League that I propose to introduce legislation during the parliamentary session to extend the Rule of Service to the young ladies of the FFH.” There was a rising growl of shocked reaction from the assemblage. The students exchanged startled glances.

  “No longer will our daughters remain behind while their brothers go out to safeguard the League. They will be taking their place, their rightful place, as defenders of our worlds, our homes, the children they will eventually bear, and indeed our very species.” The reactions were getting louder. “Some will say this is a radical idea, a scrapping of our ideals and traditions. I say it is the very definition of conservatism and honoring those customs and traditions. Before we took our first steps into a wider universe, women served with honor and great distinction on old Earth. Do we argue that our daughters are less capable than their foremothers? I think not, nor would I insult my own daughters in this way.”

  The startled conversations were starting to resemble more the howl of the mob. The outrage echoed off the surrounding stone, threatening to drown out even the amplified voice of the conde. But he hadn’t spent twenty-five years as a politician for nothing. Rohan held up his plump hands, palms out, and raised his voice almost to a shout to say, “And now it is my great pleasure to introduce the man who embodies our government, who has and continues to guard our League and our way of life—His Imperial Highness Fernán Marcus Severino Beltrán de Arango, our emperor.”