Not that she wouldn’t research that contractor thoroughly before the vote came. Anything the least bit shady, and she’d vote the other way.
It would serve Lamey right for lying to her. If she were to be corrupted by a lobbyist, she needed him to be an honest one.
The vase was cool and smooth to the touch. White, with a brilliant, eye-catching design of flowers and birds in a flaming color palette. Sula inverted the vase and viewed the Meissen crossed swords trademark. “Hard-paste,” she said, “made in Germany, but in imitation of Japanese Kakiemon. The enamel paints were the first developed in Europe, by Johann Gregorius Höroldt. They called this style Indianische Blume.”
Lamey gave an admiring smile. “See, the fellow in the salesroom called it ‘Indian flowers,’ whatever those are. And he didn’t know that other stuff.”
“Maybe I should become a dealer.”
Lamey pointed at the vase. “Is that a bird? Do birds in Germany have antennae?”
“That’s a quail, and they aren’t antennae, they’re a kind of feather crest.”
“I knew you’d have the answer.” The admiring grin broadened. “I love how you know these things.”
Facts are easy, Sula thought. Facts are easily learned, easily ordered, easily deployed when you need them.
Life is the thing that’s hard, she thought.
“I should take you out to dinner to celebrate your becoming a convocate,” Lamey said. “Lots of great restaurants in the High City. Six or eight courses of the finest food, cocktails, five different kinds of wine . . .”
Sula was amused. Lamey had always mistaken quantity for quality, particularly if it came with a large price tag.
“You forget I don’t drink,” she said.
He waved a hand. “Whatever you want. Wine, hashish, fruit juice, doesn’t matter. And then we go to the club, hear some music, go dancing.”
It had to be admitted that Lamey was an excellent dancer. He’d made a point of learning after he’d got his limp fixed.
“Maybe,” Sula said. Deliberately she stirred cane syrup into her tea. “But I don’t know whether we should be seen too often in public.”
Lamey raised his eyebrows. “Are you ashamed to be seen with me, Earthgirl?”
She looked at him levelly. “It’s not about shame, it’s about trust.”
Lamey pretended astonishment and laughed. “You say that, and here I am with a whole other present for you!” he said.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What do I have to do in exchange?”
Lamey shrugged. “That’s pretty much up to you. It’s your first client.”
“Ah. Hah.” Sula was amused. “Who is he?”
“She. A Terran named Mahru Tiffinwala.”
“And why is Miss Tiffinwala in need of a patron?”
“She’s from our old neighborhood in Spannan. Her patron of record lives on Spannan, and so does her patron, and so on up to Lady Distchin, who lives here, but Lady Distchin won’t see her, because when did Lady Distchin ever do anything for any of us?”
A suspicion began to settle in Sula. “Miss Tiffinwala doesn’t need a job, does she?” Because she wasn’t about to hire one of Lamey’s spies for her office.
“No, she’s a baker and is doing all right. What she needs is a divorce, but her husband is with the Urban Patrol and he and his mates have been harassing her ever since she moved out with the kids.”
“How do you know her?”
A shrug. “I didn’t till a few days ago. But my mom knows her mom, and my mom sent me a message. Said that since I was such an important politician now, I could have this taken care of.”
Sula considered this. Word that Lady Sula was taking an interest in the case should convince the husband and his friends to back off, and if that didn’t work out, there were always the Bogo Boys. In many parts of the Lower Town, police walked in fear of the gangsters and not the other way around.
“What’s involved?” Sula asked.
“Changing patrons is a legal procedure—you have to get the old patron’s agreement, and then the new client swears to accept you as a new patron, and you swear to do well by her. You need witnesses for that.”
“Will the old patron agree?”
“Don’t know why she wouldn’t.”
“Well.” Sula surrendered. “Send Miss Tiffinwala here, and I’ll talk to her.”
Lamey grinned. “Very good! You’ll be a grand Peer yet, with a lapdog and a thousand clients.”
Sula sipped her tea. The aroma rose in her senses. “The problem is that I can’t afford to offer my clients a lot of help, let alone give them jobs or set them up in business. I haven’t got that much money.”
Lamey gave a rippling shrug and made an equivocal gesture with one hand. “It can all be arranged, Earthgirl.”
“My lady,” Sula corrected.
“‘My lady.’” Sula could hear the ironic quotes around the words. Lamey drummed his fingers on his knee. “Aren’t you going to offer me tea?”
“I just poured the last of it. But the electric kettle is on the table in the corner.”
“You don’t have servants for that?”
“I don’t need servants. I’d much rather do everything myself. That way I know it’s done right.”
She sipped her tea again. Lamey’s lips formed a pout when he realized she wasn’t going to make his tea for him, then he decided to forget about both the pout and the tea.
“How are your committee assignments?” he asked.
Sula looked at him narrowly. “How do you know I’ve got committee assignments?”
“Because it’s on the Lord Senior’s posted schedule for the day. ‘Meeting with Lady Sula re: committee assignments.’” He gestured at Sula’s terminal. “You could learn a lot about the Convocation just by looking at where all the important people are during the course of the day.”
Sula told him about the Court of Honor and the Committee on Banking and Exchange. He had to have the Court of Honor explained to him.
“Well, that’s good, right?” he said. “If we can get Lady Distchin accused of something, maybe we can get her tossed out of the Convocation.”
“It better be something good,” Sula said. “The Court of Honor is lenient with common crimes such as bribery.”
Lamey seemed impressed. “Yes? How do you know?”
“I just overheard Roland Martinez giving Lady Tu-hon a hundred-thousand-zenith bribe.”
Lamey laughed out loud. “Well, she’s on our side, then!”
“Our side?” Sula looked at him. “Maybe it’s time you told me what ‘our side’ is.”
“The side that wants to get rid of the Distchins and find patrons for Spannan who won’t suck up all our wealth.”
“Except,” Sula pointed out, “that you seem to be allied with people who have nothing to do with the Distchins or Spannan and couldn’t be expected to care. So what else are you up to?”
Lamey considered the question, then nodded. “One looks for allies, you know.”
“One does,” Sula said, her tone half mocking.
“You may have noticed that all sorts of people are making money now.”
“There’s a lot of it around,” Sula said. “The other week I got a ridiculous offer for my building in the Petty Mount.”
“During the war the tax law got changed,” Lamey said. “It became a lot more profitable to engage in long-distance trade, and people in a position to do that got rich. So did the people who built their ships and who made the goods they were shipping from place to place. The government was also handing out a lot of money for war work, and the work was so urgent they didn’t care so much who the money went to. Not all the money was made by the high-caste Peers, but by people further down the scale, like Clan Martinez.” Lamey laughed. “A lot of it is even made by commoners.”
“Lady Tu-hon wants to change all that.”
Lamey laughed again. “I don’t doubt it—though maybe being on the receiving end of Lord Ro
land’s cash will change her mind.”
“That’s something I do doubt. She seemed very committed to her point of view.”
“Well, maybe Roland’s after her for some other project.”
Sula decided she’d had quite enough of the Martinez clan. “And these moneyed people? What do they want, and why do they need you to get it for them?”
A pleased smile crossed Lamey’s features. “They want the same thing you and I want,” he said. “They want the old Peer families to get out of the way.”
“Ah. Hah.” Sula wasn’t sure what degree of amusement was the proper response.
“See, whenever you want to pass through a door, there’s some old Peer standing there with his hand out.” Lamey illustrated with a cupped hand. “You pay a toll just to go about your own business.”
Sula wanted to laugh. “I think you and Lady Tu-hon have a great deal in common. You both hate paying your taxes.”
“When I pay a tax to the government,” Lamey said, “I get services in return. When I have to pay off a Peer with a percentage of my business, I get nothing.”
“What is your business, these days?”
Lamey waved a hand. “You’re seeing it in front of you right now. I’m just a kind of agent for other people.”
“So your indignation is secondhand.” She considered him, sitting opposite her in her dingy office, gleaming in his white suit. “And what’s your plan for getting rid of the high-caste Peers, exactly?”
“We’re trying a number of ideas,” Lamey said. “We’re not committed to a single course of action. Some Peers can be subverted, by making them a part of the program. If they have stock in a transport company, they’ll want to see that company succeed.”
“Wait a minute.” Sula waved a hand. “Isn’t that what you’re complaining about—having to give Peers a piece of your business—and now you’re doing just that, voluntarily?”
“In the first example,” Lamey said, “I get nothing in return. In the second, I get a vote in the Convocation.”
Sula was silent.
“Plus,” Lamey continued, “it’s not a bribe, it’s an investment. They give us money, not the other way around, and get stock or bonds in return. The investment is worth nothing unless they help make it a success.” He gave a reassuring nod. “And not all high-caste Peers oppose the program—Lord Chen, for example, makes a lot of money on shipping.”
“True,” Sula said, “but if you expect Lord Chen to join with you in sidelining his whole caste, I think you’ll be very disappointed.”
“Roland says that Lord Chen prefers money to class solidarity,” said Lamey.
“Really?” At which point the gears of Sula’s mind seemed to seize into a clashing halt. Because at Lamey’s words an idea hurtled into her thoughts with the impact of a speeding bus: Roland bought Terza Chen for his brother, Gareth.
Which explained so much. Lord Chen must have been hard hit by the rebellion, with ships taken by the enemy or isolated by the Naxid expansion. It had become clear to Sula just that day that the most embarrassing thing possible for a Peer was to lose his money: the Convocation would have been so mortified that they’d have expelled him rather than have to look at him every day. It’s one thing to be morally bankrupt, but financially—she could envision the shudders rippling throughout the Convocation. But if Roland appeared, checkbook in hand, to help him out? That would explain why Captain Gareth Martinez had gone, in a single day, from proposing to Sula to engaging himself to Terza. She wondered if Roland had given him any choice.
Of course he had a choice, she thought. There was nothing stopping him from saying no.
Nothing but Roland’s money, and a father-in-law on the Fleet Control Board who could give him postings, and Lord Chen’s sister, Michi, who promptly employed him as tactical officer. Plus a beautiful, accomplished wife who could bring him into the High City’s most elite society.
“What’s the matter?” Lamey said. “You look as if you’ve just been hit by a cannonball.”
Sula’s mind whirled. “I’m wondering. Lord Chen.” She realized her words were as disconnected as her thoughts, and she tried to compose herself. “What you said makes sense.”
Lamey’s brows tented. “You know something?”
“Did Roland save Lord Chen’s shipping business during the war?”
Lamey thought about it. “Roland didn’t say. It didn’t come up.”
Sula took a drink of lukewarm tea while she tried to control her flailing thoughts . . . and her flailing heart. Change the subject, she thought. She gulped the tea, then blurted the first thing that came into her head.
“I’ve got to wonder how you’re planning not to be killed,” she said.
Lamey spread his hands. “I’m not killed yet,” he said.
“But you’re attempting a social revolution at the highest levels of the empire. One wrong step and the Legion of Diligence takes you and cuts off your head.”
Lamey shrugged. “I’ve committed no crime.”
Sula smiled. “I don’t believe that’s objectively true.”
He offered an indulgent smile. “I’ve committed no crime on Zanshaa. And I won’t. As you’ve pointed out, it’s normal to cut high-caste Peers in on your businesses, and in this case it’s not even my business, but those of my associates. As I said, I don’t have a business. All I do is put friends together with other friends.”
Sula found herself wanting to shake him out of his superiority, dent his invincible confidence. “Something bad happens, somebody reports a crime, who do you think the Legion is going to interrogate? Lord Chen? Lady Tu-hon? Or a suspicious-looking nobody from Spannan with lots of money and a background that won’t stand up to investigation?”
He stiffened. One hand traced the braided seam of his trousers.
“It’s to be hoped,” he said, “that my powerful friends will intervene.”
“I wouldn’t count on anyone named Martinez. Or Chen. Or—” She smiled. “Who else do you know, exactly?”
Lamey scowled. “I know you, my lady,” he said. “War hero, the heir to a great name a couple thousand years old, and perfectly placed to lead the charge against the old guard. After all, they can’t accuse you of being a parvenu, can they?”
The smile froze to her face as Sula spoke through clenched teeth. “My background won’t stand up to investigation, either.”
“Who’s going to even think to investigate it?” Lamey asked. “You’re a far more perfect Sula than Caro ever was.” He plucked at his braided trousers and smiled. “But if you’re that concerned, you should take care that I’m not interrogated. The Legion plays rough, and though I’ll do my best to keep your secret, I can’t promise to hold out under torture.”
Black rage settled onto Sula, and a savage response was poised on her lips. Better not, she warned herself, and instead adopted tones of dismissal. “Thank you for the lovely vase,” she said. “Rest assured that the cooling systems on Zarafan are safe.”
Lamey glared at her for a moment, then decided his message had been delivered.
“Always a pleasure, my lady,” he said, and glided away, leaving Sula in her chair, an empty teacup in her hand.
Chapter 7
“Well, genius,” said Martinez. “What do you have?”
“I made a picture!”
“Let’s look at it, then.”
Gareth Martinez the Younger, age seven, trotted to where Martinez was brushing his hair at his dressing table and handed the picture to his father. The paper was still warm from the printer. Martinez viewed the picture with the eye of a connoisseur.
“It’s an excellent house,” he said.
“It’s not a house!” Young Gareth said. “It’s a spaceship!”
Martinez held the picture at a slightly different angle. “Oh, of course!” He pointed at a figure in a corner of the structure. “Is that your handsome father?” he asked.
“It’s me! It’s me when I’m a captain!”
Martine
z regarded the picture with unfeigned admiration. “And a very good likeness, Chai-chai. Does the picture have a name?”
“‘Me When I’m a Captain,’” the boy repeated.
Martinez viewed his son with unconcealed admiration. Young Gareth, he considered, had acquired the most attractive features of both parents. He had his father’s olive skin and was tall for his age and thus stood fair to achieve his father’s height without the unfortunate short legs of the Martinez family; but his face had a full measure of his mother’s chiseled beauty. He was quite simply a lovely child.
Plus he’d inherited his father’s brains, which was by far the most impressive thing about him.
Martinez returned the picture to his son. “Make sure you send it to me,” he said. “I’ll put it on my wrist display so I can admire it at my leisure.”
He returned his attention to the mirror above the dressing table, gave his hair one last brush, and then did up the final buttons on his viridian-green dress uniform tunic. His medals rang lightly against one another. He brushed a bit of lint off his shoulder and then picked up his gloves from his chest of drawers and walked with Young Gareth to the palace entry hall.
There Terza awaited him, dressed in the brown tunic of the civil service, her long black hair drawn over one shoulder. Leaning against her was their daughter, Yaling, who had just enjoyed her third birthday. Young Gareth ran ahead.
“I want to show Mei-mei my picture!” he said.
Martinez crossed the floor and was enveloped in the scent of the flowers that brightened the hall in their tall vases. He kissed Terza’s cheek while Yaling was shown her brother’s drawing. Yaling had a round, ruddy face, and a smile that turned her lips into a perfect V shape, almost a caricature of delight. She was dressed in a fluffy jumpsuit with a pattern of birds in flight, and when she turned her eyes to Young Gareth’s picture, she seemed properly impressed.
“Have you heard the news?” Terza said. “Cosgrove’s gone smash.”
Martinez looked at her. “What does ‘gone smash’ mean, exactly?”
“Bankrupt. Finished. Fled the High City just ahead of his creditors.”
The Accidental War Page 13