by E G Manetti
A servitor appears with thimblefuls of crimson liquor. Taking two, he hands one to Elysia and tosses back his. Sweet, sharp spice fills his mouth and arousal floods his groin. Elysia melts into his chest. The last of the burst fades and he cannot resist. She has not the tattoo but there is naught amiss in a kiss. Her lips are soft, full, and redolent of the crimson liquor, her body pliant and yielding. Joy and desire meld in a heady mix as her arms twine about his neck.
5.
Recall
To be severed from one’s family or cartouche is to be cast out and discredited, denied all benefits of family history and kinship ties. Severing does not alter genetics. Generations later, the offspring of the severed line can and do reemerge to assert kinship claims. Commonly known as ‘hedge kin,’ if orphaned, they become fosterlings of the nearest genetic relatives. Even if those relatives are warriors, the hedge kin remain commoners. Although lack of honor and poor commerce choices are the most common causes for severing and eventual hedge kin, they are in some instances the result of ill-considered post-wedlock peccadilloes or, on rare occasions, teenaged waywardness. ~ excerpt from A Social History of the Twelve Systems, an academy primer.
Sevenday 136, Day 2
The Balance Way pavilion is empty but for Ronan, his powerful movements those of combat, not serenity. Her heart skips and she rushes forward, reaching him as he straightens. Pressing her lips to his, warm delight floods her senses. His hands find her waist and she touches her tongue to his. It is surprisingly pleasant. Ronan’s lips jerk from hers. “Forbidden.”
The conclave surrounds the men and women in gray. “Forbidden.”
Ronan’s blue eyes meet hers and turn away.
The conclave raise arms crossed in the shunning. “Outcast. Forbidden.”
Ronan.
Jerking awake, Lilian hugs her knees. Ronan. Handsome, cheerful Ronan. That first year at Mulan’s Temple she was lost, disoriented, her crush on the Balance Way instructor the only bright note. When she reached the age of consent, she caught him unaware and kissed him. Touching her lips, she remembers the joy of that moment. When he withdrew, she was stunned.
Blue eyes rueful, he cups her face. “You are lovely but too young. Your body is ready and your mind, but your spirit is fragile. In a few years, do you yet desire me, then we will see.”
So gentle. So careful not to wound her. Cringing at her youthful folly, she rests her head on her knees. She is not certain he would ever have returned her affection, but it changed not her emotions or altered her grief. A sevenday later the third Universalist settlement in the free-trader worlds was decimated by pirates, and dissenters formed. Lilian had demonstrated how the Balance Way could be turned to combat. At the time, she had but sought Ronan’s attention, too young and self-absorbed to appreciate the danger of her actions.
A dozen brothers and sisters broke with the conclave and formed Mulan’s avatars. They were joined by another two hundred from the sect. Outcast from the Universalists, they could never return. Ronan went with the hundred bound for the Eleventh System. All but a handful died before milord arrived to relieve them.
The tide turned with milord’s coalition of the Serengeti Militia and the system governor’s militia. It required most of a year, but the pirates were destroyed, the fallen avenged, and order maintained.
Years later, when she came to know Andreas Chiang, she discovered that her actions had little to do with Mulan’s avatars after all. The means to turn the Balance Way to combat was well known among the conclave elite. As an instructor, Ronan would have had knowledge of it, as did all those who chose the path of Mulan’s avatars. While the knowledge relieved her of guilt, it did naught to lessen her grief at Ronan’s death or her rage at the conclave for casting out Mulan’s avatars.
Rising from her bed, Lilian pulls her thorn from beneath her pillow. She need not be a seer to understand that the pirate attacks on Eleventh and Twelfth System Mercium have roused the old memories. A part of her will always grieve Ronan’s loss, but it is a decade gone and, in retrospect, an immature love. Time and new passion have muted her emotions. She does not dare dwell on the past any more than she can hope for the future.
There is only this day.
»◊«
Milord rises as soon as she enters with eighth bell. His charcoal commerce garb hangs perfectly from his broad shoulders. He is no less riveting in a simple suit than he was in formal wear for Elysia’s cotillion. He waves to the wall reviewer. “Show me.”
I am the sum of my ancestors. Tapping her slate, she hastens to join him by the scarlet sofa. Milord’s eyes narrow, but he says naught of her inattentiveness. Eager to redeem her lapse, she gives the slate a final tap, segmenting the reviewer on the vertical axis to present the genealogy of Gertrude Mercio’s legitimate and illegitimate lines.
Although she knew the basic history of the Blooded Dagger cartouche, Lilian was fascinated when she delved into the details of the Mercio line. Some two and a half centuries gone, Lucius Mercio the Elder became the first Mercio to control the Blooded Dagger preeminence. Directly descended from Jonathan Metricelli, the line that controlled Vistrite had dwindled. The Mercios were a cadet branch formed with a wedlock alliance with Socraide’s line two centuries earlier. The exact method by which Lucius the Elder wrested control of Blooded Dagger from Cyrus Romero of Jonathan’s line is shrouded in media management and Mercio family legend. Were Lilian to be so bold as to summarize her findings—and she is not—she would remark that Cyrus was a meager warrior.
To solidify his position and that of his heirs, Lucius the Elder arranged a wedlock alliance between his heir and Cyrus’ daughter, Gertrude. That Gertrude was twelve and her spouse-to-be twenty-seven troubled none. She would complete a warrior education before consummating the alliance at the age of twenty-two.
“Milord, I have been able to find little in the historical record. The genetic record leads to a girl child fostered by the refinery chief at Southern Crevasse. There is no question that Lady Gertrude was her mother and would have given birth in her eighteenth year.”
Milord steps to the display, hands clasped behind his back, scanning Gertrude’s illegitimate line. Her daughter became a healer and migrated to the Seventh System with her spouse, where she gave birth to three children, all males. The daughter’s eldest son died serving in the Seventh System Militia. The third son was consort to the governor’s chief aide but did not reproduce. The second son wed and produced a son and a daughter, Gertrude’s great-grandchildren.
The great-grandson migrated to the Fourth System, where he joined the governor’s militia and took a spouse. His only child, a daughter, serves as a sergeant in the governor’s militia. She has two sons, both minors.
The great-granddaughter followed her grandmother and became a healer. She wed an independent transport captain and migrated to the Eleventh System. They produced a son and a daughter. The son is the man known as Deacon Raleigh. His sister is a healer and the preeminence of the Eleventh System’s premier healer’s enclave.
Lucius turns from the reviewer and paces to the windows. He cannot help but notice the predominance of militia and healers in Gertrude’s hedge branch. His great-grandmother was known to be fierce and ruthless. The healer tendencies must result from her youthful lover. It does not trouble him to discover Raleigh is hedge kin; he has a dozen that he knows of and there are likely others. He would prefer to avoid the comment such a revelation would cause, but only to avoid the inevitable difficulty it will bring Elysia. If she were a few years older, it would not matter as much, but at sixteen she is readily wounded.
The door chimes and the scarlet door recesses, admitting Trevelyan with Rebecca in his wake. Informing his spymaster that Raleigh’s genetic tie has been proven, Lucius ushers the man to the conference table, then taps in commands to give him and his apprentice access to Raleigh’s genealogy. They can examine it later for possible clues to Gertrude’s lover.
Trevelyan glances at his slate and back at Lucius.
“There is naught untoward in Raleigh’s movements. Naught to explain why he waited until this day to depart for the Third System. I have operatives on the transport and will know all he does and says.”
Lucius considers his spymaster. “We dismissed the notion that he has timed his voyage to be present when the Nightingale command crew is in training. Is that yet your opinion?”
Trevelyan rubs the back of his neck. “Our investigation found naught of concern in the deacon and much to admire. I find it difficult to credit that one who served with valor during the pirate actions could have ill intent, but the timing of events is odd.”
Until the revelations of their genetic ties and the suspicious timing of the pirate raids, Lucius had been looking forward to meeting the free-trader. Now, he must assume the worst until they have discerned Raleigh’s agenda. “Keep him separated from the command crew. They have no need to meet, and we will assume good cause not to. Is there aught else?”
“No, Monsignor.” Trevelyan rises and turns for the scarlet door, his movements as controlled and economical as ten years gone when they met on a bloody battlefield, surround by the pirates’ victims.
The green planet expands in the reviewer, its serene beauty offering no hint of the violence in play. It has been four periods since the distress signal, six from the pirate sighting.
Master desire. It is the closest they have been. The pirates are sly and fast. Twelve periods from first contact to exit.
Master pain. Twelve periods, Twelve Systems. For all their begrudging support, even the Governing Council could not miss the threat in that message.
Master pleasure. With the Luck of the First, the pirates will be on Redemption when they arrive. He will take pleasure in slaying them. He collected an armada to protect Serengeti and Vistrite. What he has witnessed in the past two months fills him with a raging desire for retribution. Sadico. The pirate leader has become the most feared raider in the Twelve Systems. Vicious, brutal, sadistic to the extreme, he leaves carnage in his wake that is the material of nightmares. Does Socraide favor them, this time they will have him. Sadico will pay.
Mastery of body. His fingers flex, testing access to his weapons. Fire-rifle and fire-pistol. Dagger and long sword, the last two for executing what he prays are acres of fallen pirates.
Master fear. Colonel Thorvald requests permission to land and engage.
Master anger. One tap and it is done.
Master joy. Following Thorvald and three senior officers from the vessel, Lucius sets his rifle at his shoulder, the targeting intelligence in his helmet marking the enemy.
Mastery of mind. Socraide’s sword! Someone with a command of defense strategy has cleared two hundred paces around the settlement stronghold. A perfect killing ground, and it is covered in dead.
Master ambition. He had planned to slay as many pirates as he could find and exult in it.
Master sorrow. He knew that Universalists were nonviolent. He thought them meager. He has never been more mistaken.
Master affection. The young man’s blue eyes have not yet dulled. His blond hair is black where blood has matted. Gagging at the ruin of the dead man’s torso and pelvis, Lucius closes the youngster’s eyes. It is the same everywhere.
Mastery of spirit. The Universalists have defensive wounds but no weapons. They created a human shield to keep the pirates from the central building. They failed, but they did not die alone. Among the hundred dead Universalists are a score of armored pirates, necks snapped, eyes gouged, bloody entrails witness to a painful death.
Self-master. Wading through bloody mud, Lucius knows it is naught to what he must endure when he enters the central structure. Swallowing his gorge, he strides forward, doing all he can to project the confidence of the cartouche and cartel preeminence.
Socraide strengthen me. It will be the same again. All of value stolen or destroyed. The inhabitants dead, even those not yet walking, and it will not have been a clean death. Thorvald looks to him, awaiting command, the only Grey Spear warrior he dares to trust. Lucius motions and the doors are forced.
Self-master. Raising his rifle, he sweeps the chamber. Naught moves. Fading heat signatures of the cooling dead. Adults. Knowing it will only get worse, he moves forward. A bloodred apparition rises before him, dual sabers at the ready.
Falling back, Lucius struggles to make sense of the vision. No armor. Universalist garb covered in blood. Sabers? “Peace! We are here to destroy pirates.”
The demon halts the blades midstrike. “Who are you?”
“Mercio.”
The blades drop. “What delayed you so long?”
Thorvald steps up. “Who are you? What occurred? Was it Sadico?”
“Name me Trevelyan,” he says, rubbing the cuff of his sleeve across his sweat- and blood-covered brow. “The dead beyond are Universalists. They would not kill to defend their children. They left that to those of us willing to kill as well as die.”
Children? Before Lucius can ask, a far door opens and another bloody apparition emerges. “Is it safe?”
“Safe? Aye. Keep them within. They should not see their parents in this manner.”
Socraide, Rimon, Mulan, Jonathan, Sinead, and Adelaide. Lucius clenches his jaw. “Outside, those are the parents?”
“Aye, Magnificence,” Trevelyan shudders. “Have you the ability to tend the dead?”
“We do. Did you take pirates?”
The Universalist’s feral smile would give Rimon pause. “We have two. The others fled at your approach. You will not interrogate them without me.”
Demon shit. Lucius massages his temples, rubbing away the old recall. He has not thought of that day in years, preferring to bury the past under his ambitions for the future. Talk of Raleigh and the current pirate attacks has surfaced memories he prefers to keep locked away. Self-master. Returning to his techno array, he ignites the reviewer. The latest progress reports on the Nightingale’s construction will serve to cleanse his mind of those dark days.
»◊«
Exiting Lucius’ office, Trevelyan turns for his executive servitor’s station. He needs to see Malcon now, and Clifton needs to reschedule four appointments for him. As if summoned by his thoughts, Malcon is leaning on the servitor’s worksite, menace in the casual stance. “I care not if the seigneur is scheduled to meet with the Governing Council, I need ten minutes and I need them before midday.”
Clifton pales but holds his ground. “I will let the seigneur know, but I cannot fabricate extra minutes in a period.”
Having no experience with executive servitors, Trevelyan had Marieth select his when his elevation to seigneur demanded it. Round faced, with thinning hair and a soft middle, Clifton is diligent and competent but not one he would have considered courageous. He should have known Marieth would not select someone who could be readily intimidated. “As it happens, there is no need. I was about to send for Malcon. In addition to his ten minutes, I need thirty. Reset my schedule, if you please.”
“Of course, Seigneur.” Clifton turns to his techno array with a superior sniff worthy of Marieth.
As soon as his office door closes, Trevelyan asks, “What need you?”
“Tiger has been meeting with Nova.”
Universe Scatter it. Nova is the Assassins’ Guild primus in the Seventh System and the dominant decadents dealer in the Fourth and Seventh Systems. They had picked up rumors he was on the Fire Sword and confirmed his identity when investigating the passengers in the aftermath of Lilian and Monsignor’s poisoning. Malcon has had the man followed for a month with naught to show for it but evidence of a man of means enjoying a holiday. Waving Malcon to the conference table, he considers the ramifications of this development. “Uniting their decadents dealing?”
“Mayhap, or negotiating expansion,” Malcon says. “Nova has thrice tried to break into the Third System and been stopped by Tiger. They both have interests in the Sixth and Tenth Systems. They could be working out a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
&n
bsp; Trevelyan taps the table. “Monsignor has Tiger on a tight leash. If either is to be in the Sixth System with Desperation, he would prefer it be Tiger. Would control of the decadents trade make Tiger primus in the Sixth System?”
“You are thinking it would buy more safety for Lilian?” Malcon asks. At Trevelyan’s nod, he shakes his head. “Guild hierarchy is driven by guild politics. To be primus gives the raider significant power in gray and black commerce, but having significant gray and black commerce does not mean acceptance by the guild.”
Trevelyan would give much to know about the inner workings of the secretive Assassins’ Guild. What little he does know is enough to make him cautious. Malcon has been released from service to the guild, but he remains bound in secrecy. “What do you recommend?”
“I think it would be wise to pay a call on Tiger and determine his purpose. If Monsignor is best served by Tiger in control of the Sixth System, I am certain he can be persuaded. And if there is another purpose in Nova’s presence in Crevasse City, it would be well to know it.”
»◊«
The transport slows, the change in movement pulling Lilian’s attention from her slate. Katleen’s shuttered house is dark and forbidding in the twilight shadows. Sliding her slate into her satchel, Lilian watches Mr. Stefan mount the stairs, his gaze scanning right and left, finding naught of concern. At his signal, Mrs. Zdenka opens the transport and Lilian climbs out. It is well past seventh bell and she wishes to be free of commerce wear. The door opens and Mr. Stefan steps aside, bidding them goodnight as he sprints to the waiting transport, likely as eager to shed his uniform as she is to remove her suit.
“Well met.” Adelaide’s Alcove Keeper rises from one of the benches built into the stairs that rise through the entry hall to the upper levels.
This day. She had forgotten. “Flavia?”
“Here.” A shadow emerges from the gloom. The wiry woman’s black tunic and trousers are devoid of insignia, the black hair tied in a short club. Flavia’s pale skin is drawn tight to her angular features, the deep groves at the corner of her mouth a testament to her ordeal first at Tiger’s hands and then Apollo’s.