“Well, that’s not likely to happen,” I quipped, and was rewarded with a smack in the upper arm from the back of my cousin’s hand. I could see that Jil was slightly shaken.
“Could any of this be real?” she asked.
“Fortunetelling reaches into one’s psychological makeup,” I said. “If anything she or I have ever said to you seems to ring true, then it might be useful to you to keep it in mind.”
“That is very good advice,” Visoltia said. “Now if you were born under the sign of the Jellyfish, I would expect to see that in the first house of your birth chart. They are haunted by specters of their past lives,” she explained to me. “What sign are you?”
“The Wolf,” I replied.
“The Wolf? That is not a real sign!”
“It is at home. We have entirely different interpretations of the constellations we see in the Imperium. We have only twelve, whereas you have seventeen.” I reached for my viewpad. “Allow me to share the texts I use with you. You can do a comparison at your leisure, but I will construct charts for you using both systems.”
Visoltia bounced up and down with pleasure. “Oh, do! I wish to know everything that I can learn. It will help me to make better decisions for my people.”
Tcocna came forward with a bejeweled hexagonal tablet and touched it to mine. I transferred all my astrological books as well as my historical palmistry charts.
A servant in a humble gray robe entered the room. He did not approach the divan, but veered off to the side and spoke to the motherly female Uctu who sat chatting with Janice. With difficulty, the old female rose and tottered over to us.
“My child,” she said. “May I speak?”
Visoltia regarded her with deep affection.
“Always, dear Ema. These humans are my new friends. Thomasin, she is the one who has cared for me since I was tiny. She holds my heart, as I hers.”
“Ah, your nursemaid,” I said, with a bow. “We have similar beloved caretakers. I am honored, Ema.”
The old one beamed at me with open mouth. “You are much nicer than we had been made to expect.” I bowed. “My child, the High Wisdom wishes to speak to you.”
Visoltia straightened up and curled her tail against her legs. She looked nervous.
“Of course. Admit him at once.”
The High Wisdom must have been waiting with his ear to the door, because no sooner had permission been granted, then the arched portal slammed open.
In strode a most impressive figure. Taller by a couple of handspans than most of the Uctus, the Advisor and Teacher to Her Excellence the Autocrat Visoltia, Sisnir Toliaus had pale skin and a high forehead. His long, slight person was clad in a long, lightweight hooded robe of dark blue upon which were spangled enough gems to fill a treasure chest.
“Look, Thomas,” Jil said, highly entertained. “It would seem that he received the memo today.”
It did rather look like my fortune-teller’s robe. Alas, Lord Toliaus was not amused by my choice of dress. He approached with the baleful countenance of an onrushing thunderstorm and looked me up and down.
“Well,” I said, pleasantly. “Can there be anything more embarrassing than coming to a party and discovering someone else is wearing the same thing? Lord Toliaus, I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The advisor remembered suddenly that there were others in the room.
“Nice to meet you,” he said stiffly. I knew he felt nothing of the sort, but we were all there to be diplomatic to one another. He turned away, and I was forgotten. He thrust a round tablet into her hand. “Your Excellence, I must counsel you at this time.”
Visoltia pushed it back.
“But I am entertaining guests, Lord Toliaus,” she said.
“Now, high one.” He stretched a clawlike hand toward the ceiling. The movement would strike awe into a suggestible soul. I did my best to memorize it so I could reproduce it when I was telling fortunes at my next party. “The stars tell me I must. I require your approval for these permissions. The matter concerns the well-being of your subjects.”
Visoltia frowned at him. She glanced at the tablet. Its screen was full of closely printed text.
“I have already given permission for such outreach from selected scholars from other nations.”
“This permission admits citizens of the Kail to come within the Autocracy for conference with my councillors.”
“Oh.” Visoltia thumbed the screen and handed it back. “You were not here to greet our guests. Where were you when they arrived?”
“I was divining information of importance to you, celestial one,” he said, smoothly. His words wiped the irritation from Visoltia’s face. She sat up even straighter.
“Yes, Lord Toliaus?”
“The number of grace for today is five.”
Visoltia went very still. I felt that if I touched her arm, she would shatter into pieces.
“There has not been a number of grace for several days,” she said, her voice strained.
“Yes, high one, but the stars are right.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
Toliaus bowed, swept his skirts around, and stalked out of the room as abruptly as he had come. Visoltia beckoned urgently to Tcocna, who opened a pair of doors set flush in the enameled walls. Behind them were stacks of drawers. Tcocna counted down five, and took a box from that one. She brought it to Visoltia. The Autocrat took therefrom a heavy gold necklace with five oval gems in it, and exchanged her tablet for a pentagonal device. Tcocna took away the ones she had discarded and put them away in a different cabinet.
Visoltia looked around at us.
“I am so sorry to say this, but two of you must leave,” she said. “It is a Day of Grace, and the number is five. I may only have five guests now, and the Ambassador must remain, as I hope Thomasin and Jilsin will. I hope you understand.”
Banitra and Sinim exchanged glances.
“I will leave,” said Banitra. “Marquessa promised to show me a shop that she has a connection with. I want some of those brooches for my mother and aunts.”
“I didn’t . . .” Marquessa began, then responded to a desperate look from me behind the Autocrat’s back. “Yes, of course. It should be cool enough to wander the shopping district by now. Thank you so much for your hospitality, Your Excellence.”
“We are greatly honored,” Banitra added.
Visoltia put her palms together. “Thank you. I hope to welcome you back another day. Tcocna, show them out. And summon Lord Rimbalius. He must know this as well.”
“Yes, Your Serenity,” the servant said.
“I say,” I asked. “What does that grim old lad Lord Toliaus do for you?”
Visoltia smiled nervously. “He is my teacher, my sage. Through him and his research, I am learning eternal truths and how to know what is best for my people.”
“So today’s important number is five, eh?” I said, hoping to break the Autocrat’s fit of nerves. My curiosity was definitely piqued. I had never encountered in my readings the custom that I had just witnessed, but if it was only practiced in the highest office of the system, then it was unlikely to be revealed in guide books or general historical texts. I had never seen anything about it on Ya!, in spite of the many plot lines that concerned its fictional royal family. I hoped that I could persuade Visoltia to discuss it with me later. “It may interest Your Excellence to know that the number five in numerology of distant human history is considered a lucky number, indicating both adventure and uncertainty. A vibration of five shows a restless spirit, but it is an important number.”
Visoltia gave me a nervous smile.
“It is not as lucky for us, but luckier than four. Can you read my numbers as well?”
“Certainly,” I said, once again employing my handy viewpad. “Tell me all of the names you use customarily, and I will combine them with your birth date to give you your most favorable numbers.”
She began to reel off a string of forenames and given names. I
took them down as quickly as I could, but the gray-clad servant scurried in again, interrupting us.
“Lord Rimbalius,” Ema said. I could tell immediately she liked him a good deal more than Toliaus.
The big male entered with more ceremony and courtesy than his predecessor. If he was outraged to have humans enjoying the Autocrat’s levee, he did not say so. But I rose to be introduced to him.
“My lord, we met briefly earlier. I am Lord Thomas. I—”
“I know who you are,” he said, five degrees off a snarl.
“Lord Rimbalius!” Visoltia exclaimed.
“Yes, Your Excellence,” he said, putting his grudge aside, albeit unwillingly. “How may I serve?”
“You may have five today,” Visoltia said, as though conferring a great favor. Rimbalius looked dismayed.
“Five! But there are surely more than thirty.”
“Five, and five alone! I will not have unlucky configurations.”
Rimbalius sighed deeply. “Very well, my lady. Five. Have you given any further thought to the list of technological goods that the Kail wish to offer in trade to us?”
“Yes, yes, we will discuss them, but later, please. In the meanwhile, I have guests. You may go.”
“Yes, Your Excellence.”
Very reluctantly, he departed. I admit I was relieved to have him go, though I felt a twinge of sympathy. The Autocracy needed to keep functioning, and we were getting in its way.
At that moment, my viewpad screen erupted silently, revealing that Parsons had sent me a message, reminding me that I also had duties to fulfill. I realized how long we had spent with the Autocrat.
“Your Excellence, we have taken up too much of your time,” I said, rising. I put out a hand to help Jil off the divan. “It has been a great pleasure, but if your life is anything like that of your esteemed brother our cousin, the rest of your ministers have been hanging about outside the door, wondering desperately when your visitors were going to leave. So, if you will please allow us to depart, we would be very grateful.”
The girl’s sweet face seemed pulled down by grief.
“Oh, I hate to have you go,” she said, touching each of us on the hand. “It has been such a happy and enlightening day. Come back again. Come tomorrow! We have much to discuss.”
I bowed deeply and swept my skirts back and forth.
“I look forward to it, madam.”
“You and I are cousins!” she declared. “Call me Visoltiara.”
“And I am pleased to be Thomasin to you,” I said, with a bow.
“And call me Jilsin,” Jil said. “I never have nicknames. I like that one.”
Visoltia beamed. “That is most kind. We will be good friends.”
“It would be an honor to our family and the Imperium,” I said. Ambassador Galeckas pulled herself to her feet and met us at the door.
“That was a success,” she whispered, as we followed a servant through the swathes of cloth in the Room of Trust. “She never keeps guests this long.”
“I am at her disposal as long as we are here.”
“You’ll be sorry,” Janice said, with a sly grin. “She’ll call you day and night if she likes you.”
“It’s a small price to pay for peace,” I replied. “In the meanwhile, I need to return to the Raffles to change clothes. I have an appointment to keep.”
CHAPTER 35
“Coppers,” said the chief guard’s voice. “Visitors.”
M’Kenna stared at the two tall, well-dressed men standing at the cell door with Allisjonil. They looked like a couple of characters out of a digitavid, completely different from her normal life, and especially the life she and her family had lived over the last several weeks. Their clothes were so elegant and nice, she could tell that they must have cost thousands of credits. Not that the garments were showy, or anything, but the fabric almost gleamed with quality, and they fit the men wearing them like second skins. She scrambled up from the bench, the tablet from which she had been reading completely forgotten in her hand. Rafe was at her side in a second, smoothing his hair down with nervous fingers. The two boys peered around the edge of their doorway to stare at the unfamiliar sight.
“May we come in?” asked the taller of the two, an ascetic-looking man with dark hair and eyes that seemed that they could see through her body and into her soul. But it was the younger of the two who attracted her attention. Once she focused on him, she could hardly keep her eyes off him. Something about him just fed her spirit. She couldn’t have explained it, but she felt better just by looking at him.
“Ms. Copper?” he asked, his tone gentle.
M’Kenna snapped out of her reverie.
“You’re Thomas. I mean, Lord Thomas.”
He smiled, and her heart melted in a way it hadn’t since the birth of their last child. There was just something about him . . . but she put it down to his being related to the emperor. She had never thought she would meet any noble. Space merchants tended to band together in raucous bars or other hangouts in stations or port cities, no place that the nobility would ever see. But this one just didn’t act like there was anything strange about entering a cell or shaking hands with her. He was touching her hand! She thought she would faint right there.
“That’s right,” Lord Thomas was saying. Be in the moment, she chided herself. She tried to focus on his eyes. They were a pretty kind of greeny blue, almost the same as Rafe’s left eye. “I am very glad to meet you, Ms. Copper.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I haven’t seen anyone except the guards and our lawyer since all this started. It’s strange to see you in the flesh, instead of a tri-dee video or a still frame. We looked you up.”
He threw back his head and laughed. The warm and genuine sound made tears sting her eyes. She hadn’t laughed like that since before they were stuck on Way Station 46. How dare he be happy when she was so worried!
“I would have wagered you did,” he said. “And did you like the vid of me at the end of the skimmer race?”
M’Kenna gave him the same kind of look she would have given Lerin for destroying something out of carelessness.
“Not exactly. You wrecked something, and you were laughing about it.”
But Lord Thomas seemed unaware of her disapproval. He squatted down between Lerin and Akela, his eyes at their level. “Hello, young men. My name is Thomas.”
Akela went shy in the presence of strangers, as M’Kenna knew he would, and put his finger in his mouth. Lerin had better manners.
“Hi.”
Lord Thomas put out a very long hand and shook Lerin’s solemnly.
“I am honored to make your acquaintance. I hope we will get to know one another better.”
“How long have you been here on Dilawe?” M’Kenna demanded.
“Scarcely a day,” Thomas said, rising to meet her eyes.
“And this is the soonest you came to see us?” M’Kenna asked, impatiently, poking him in the chest with her forefinger. Allisjonil clicked his tongue and she stopped prodding. “We’ve been waiting forever! You couldn’t just come here and talk to us right away? You don’t know what it’s like, being stuck here! We need to get out of this place! It’s not good for our kids, or us.” The buildup of chlorine finally got to her lungs. She stopped to cough.
The young man dipped his head apologetically.
“I am sorry to have made you wait. There are protocols to be observed. I am not in my own purview here. The Autocrat commanded our presence, and I needed to visit her. All I do is as a guest, no more. I can make no demands, only requests. I try to be as persuasive as I can, but it takes time.”
M’Kenna waved away his apology. She was ashamed of herself for blurting out everything that was in her head.
“Yes, I knew that. Sorry. I’m just frustrated as hell being in here.”
“I understand. But I want to assure you that I have thought about you all the time since you first wrote to me. I had no idea how difficult things were for you in here.”
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“I get that. But you wrote back. I want to thank you for that. It kept me from going crazy. Nobody we sent messages to even seemed to care about what was happening here.”
“Well, I had no idea how bad it was. In fact, until I was informed of the situation, I did not know how many of you had been incarcerated.” Lord Thomas tilted his head sideways and peered at her curiously. “You’re the only one who sought out help. Tirelessly, from my understanding.”
“Well, wouldn’t you?” M’Kenna asked, furiously. “You know we’re on trial for our lives, right?”
The young man’s face went blank. “I beg your pardon?”
“This is a death penalty offense we’re accused of! And we’re innocent, but they might kill us anyhow.”
“By heaven,” Lord Thomas said, his eyes widening. “I had no idea there were such things as death penalties left in the galaxy for anything but identity theft.”
“Well, there are! Didn’t you listen to the laws they broadcast over and over as you enter Dilawe and Partwe systems?”
“To tell the truth, I turned it off,” he admitted sheepishly. “It was rather dull, and endlessly repetitive.”
“Well, you probably have diplomatic immunity, so probably none of those apply to you anyway.”
Lord Thomas’s face brightened. “I probably do. I never thought about it.”
The taller man at his shoulder nodded his head very slightly. “That is so, my lord. You have full diplomatic privileges.”
“Well, that must be good for something.”
“For you,” M’Kenna said, feeling herself getting angry, no matter how appealing her visitor was. “We have four children, and they’re included in the indictment, even the baby!”
“I read that in your message,” Lord Thomas said. He looked honestly concerned and angry. “They can’t execute children. In fact, they should not even be threatening to execute you.”
M’Kenna felt tears starting in her eyes. She was determined not to cry in front of him, but he really had come to see them, after such a long time when no one would listen to them or believe what she was saying.
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