Ninth Euclid’s Prince
by
Dan Hoyt
Ninth Euclid’s Prince© Daniel M. Hoyt 2015
Cover Design - Sarah A. Hoyt
Published by Mankind Ink
Mankind Ink
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Denver, Colorado 80206
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of review. Address email queries to [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any persons, (living or dead), places or events is a coincidence.
About the Author
Chapter 1
Meet Ninth Euclid
WHEN I WAS A SKINNY BOY WORKING ON MY DADDY’S FARM, I loved watching Oasis’s single sun rise warmly over the sticky summer fields. The quiet just before the sleepy dawn is simply unparalleled on any other world in the Eternal Empire. I’d lounge in the hayloft in the south barn, whose single window faced the magnificent sunrise, close my eyes, bask in the blissful silence broken only by the crunching from a carrot I’d stolen from the horses, and pretend I was the only child of parents who didn’t talk much.
It’s the kind of fantasy that could only be created by the youngest in a family with ten children. My surname is Ancel, but nobody remembers to use it, since there’s no other Ninth Euclid in memory.
My daddy, displaying a certain lack of imagination and not a little eccentricity, saw fit to name me and each of my eight brothers Euclid. He once said that he had no idea what the name meant, but that he liked the way it sounded. The first two babes were twin boys, and Daddy couldn’t figure which one should be Euclid, so, after two weeks of arguments with Mama, he gave them both the nonsense name. Everyone called them First Euclid and Second Euclid, and when the next child turned out to be a boy, Daddy named him Euclid, too.
We Euclids all slept in a single room with three large beds — grouped roughly to equalize total mass in each bed, so as the youngest and smallest, I slept with First and Second — which made for a cacophony of snores keeping me awake most of the night and frequent bruised ribs whenever one of my bedmates decided to turn over.
So I’d sneak out of bed under the cover of the dark — easy enough, since with chocolate-colored skin and coal-black eyes and hair, I tended to fade into the background at night.
Later, after Lord Oswald hired me away from Daddy's farm, I found my ability to blend in to be detrimental to dealing with the governors, who tended to assume from my imposing size that I was just some hired muscle, so one day early on in Oswald's employ, in a fit of utter insanity, I dyed my short, curly black hair bright blue, the predominant color of the skies over Daddy's farm. Coincidentally, as I soon found out, it was also the color the ladies from a particularly discriminating pleasure palace dyed their hair. After my Lord's initial shock and a good laugh at my expense when we walked into The Hen's Coop that very night, I found to my Lord's delight that it had the unintended benefit of confusing the governors immensely, so I've kept my hair blue.
As a child, when my hair was still jet black, I'd escape the tandem snores of First and Second to stagger unseen, barely half-awake, the quarter mile or so to the south barn, where I could get some sleep in the pre-dawn silence. I’d be up with the first rays of ambient sunlight splashing across my eyes, which gave me a few minutes for my only-child fantasy.
Eventually, one of the roosters — there were two of them sharing the coop, caged separately, of course, so they couldn’t eviscerate one another, each one somehow believing he was the only rooster around for miles — would stagger out of his wooden cubby directly below me and shriek a wakeup alarm. The other rooster would tear out of his own cubby and blurt out a short quip, apparently surprised that there was another rooster around, then crow even louder than the first. Naturally, the first rooster, amazed that another rooster had encroached on his territory, responded even louder.
For the last half hour or so, I’d been listening to Lord Oswald’s regional governors gossip and bicker among themselves about who was entitled to what taxes and what kind of trade limitations were appropriate and other boring government crap. I was reminded of those roosters back home on the farm, and I’d kept drifting away from the arguments just to keep my sanity, trying to decide if the governors were louder than the roosters or not, even though I was supposed to be taking minutes for the interminable meeting.
Before long, there was a din equaling the crowd’s noise when old, old Emperor Seraphim VI — eighty eight this year, as I recalled — deigned to visit one of the eighty three planets in his empire. Well, at least the crowd’s noise when his twenty two year old wife, Jewel, stepped out of the space-to-ground transport, in one of her famous shimmering, is-it-transparent-or-isn’t-it gowns, her long, black hair fluttering about her barely-concealed shapely curves with every step.
Meetings with one or two governors were bad enough to squash my naturally calm demeanor; this many in one room — even one as large as the great ballroom in my Lord’s palace — was nerve-wracking. I closed my eyes to block out the noise, but that just made it worse.
The bickering governors were louder, I decided, than those dueling roosters that signaled the start of my day for many years before Lord Oswald happened upon me.
“—bleeding us dry—”
“—heirs have disappeared—”
“—emperor will be naming a successor—”
The sounds of dozens of arguments colliding swelled and ebbed cyclically, hypnotically, until at last the spell was broken by the slam of a door. The echo bounced around the hall in the ensuing silence as every eye in the room undoubtedly turned to the only exit.
It could only be the three o’clock arrival of Lady Phoenix Redwing. I opened my eyes reluctantly.
I should not have been surprised; yet, my mouth dropped open. The lady wore a brown dress, adorned in what appeared to be cowbells of varying sizes, with a small retinue of green-kilted children waving six foot long elephant garlic stalks with purple flower heads about her. She stood with her hands on her hips, not even trying to hide her charms, rocking her hips slightly back and forth in a vaguely suggestive manner, a coy smile playing across her lips, which she parted slightly and licked slowly, once, before announcing, “Adrian, dear, it’s three o’clock.” Two tiny cowbells suspended from the tips of her breasts tinkled lightly as she rocked.
I didn’t know how my Lord managed to keep rejecting her; even in this ridiculous costume, the lady was magnificent. Perhaps it had something to do with her steadfast refusal to call him anything other than Adrian, a name he hated with a passion. Or perhaps he felt he could do better, like that pretty-boy, Prince Vere, the emperor’s favorite heir and, not incidentally, grand-nephew, who somehow managed to stay alive despite repeated visits to the fair Jewel’s bedchambers, at least according to palace gossip. The intimacies of royal marriages were still a bit of a mystery to this farm boy; as near as I could tell, they were based more on advantageous court positioning than passion.
Whatever Lord Oswald’s secret for resisting Lady Redwing’s charms, he employed it again. He turned to me and nodded, a gesture I knew well to mean, “Get rid of her, Euclid; I don’t have time for this now.”
I nodded and set off for the lady at once. Behind me, I heard my Lord say, “Now, gentlemen, shall we get back to business?”
The governors resumed arguing immediately.
Lord Adrian Oswald is actually a prince, one of the many heirs to the emperor — His Grace’s first wife’s sister’s grandson, to be exact — but he pre
fers to use the title Lord instead. He says it’s less pretentious.
A humbler man I’ve never met, perfectly satisfied with his position, with never a thought about advancement beyond the planetary governing of my Oasis. Although, I’m not sure he’d refuse a promotion to emperor if it included the lovely Jewel as well. Then again, His Grace’s lovely wife has that effect on most men with a pulse and an inclination for the fairer sex — myself included — so my Lord’s occasional stolen glances at our fair empress are hardly remarkable.
For nearly a decade now, I’ve been his personal secretary and aide-de-camp, keeping his appointments, scheduling his entertainments and frequent travels, sometimes even helping with battle strategy when the need arises. But this battle with Lady Redwing was not one I enjoyed.
Lady Redwing’s arms dropped to her sides when she saw me approach, and I detected a bit of the old blue ice in her eyes again.
“He’s not coming, is he?”
I held my face impassive and shook my head. “Sorry.” Adopting my best diplomatic apology expression, I flicked one hand back toward the assembly and pulled open the door with the other hand.
“You know how it is, Lady. He’s got important business to attend to with the governors. It’s only once a month; I’m sure you understand.”
“No, I don’t,” she said as I guided her through the door amidst a burst of cowbell and shut it behind us. “Why does he schedule it now, when he knows—”
“I know, Lady,” I said, interrupting. I took one of her dainty hands and patted it gently, copying a seemingly innocuous but remarkably effective gesture I’d seen Lords use at parties to calm their wives. What she really wanted, I thought, was some indication of affection from my Lord, but knowing my Lord as I did, all she was likely to get that night was a good cry.
The lady’s not actually a Lady, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her that. Phoenix Redwing brings with her a rather sizeable monthly stipend from her very wealthy father, and Lord Oswald is kind enough to accept it on her behalf, so we don’t quibble about titles with her. It would be rude to reject gifts from such an important patron as Lord Redwing.
Lady Redwing came to the palace originally as one of those gifts nearly a year ago — technically, a palace servant, but really just a means for providing an ongoing bribe through those stipends — though she seemed unaware of it. Immediately, she set about choosing her quarters and moving in her belongings, without once seeking my Lord’s approval. I made the mistake of addressing her as Phoenix that day, suggesting she move to the staff quarters, and I’ve never done it again. She turned and stared up at me, hands on hips, without saying a word. Her flaming red hair, braided into a halo behind her head, seemed to catch fire, and her clear blue eyes froze over in an instant. Something in the pit of my stomach tried to escape me and I felt myself sweating profusely. Her father’s butler, Foster, came up beside me silently and sniffed, “Lady Redwing,” at which her icy eyes melted instantly and her hair cooled back down to burning embers. She went away, chittering about one of her trunks, with Foster in tow, and she’d been in the palace ever since.
As I guided her from the great hall, the Lady said quietly, “You don’t have to do this, Euclid.” Straightening her back regally, she added, “I know my way.”
I nodded, but said nothing and hooked her warm arm in my elbow. Her bells tinkled lightly.
We’d adapted to her continued presence in the palace, mostly ignoring her, but we’d only had a few days’ peace before Lady Redwing approached my Lord wearing the finest white silk gown I’d ever seen, demanding his presence. To her mind, her father had arranged for her marriage to Lord Oswald, and she didn’t want to waste time waiting for the wedding. Every Thursday, at three in the afternoon sharp, she’d show up wherever Lord Oswald was, interrupt whatever he was doing, and demand his presence before the priest — or whatever religious authority she’d tracked down that week, having run out of priests pretty quickly. Once, she even tracked us down at The Hen's Coop.
Lord Oswald gave in to her summons occasionally when he was drunk, and charged me with intercepting him before the nuptials could take place. I’d never failed him yet, and I doubted I ever would, but I’d found my affection for Lady Redwing growing daily, and sometimes wondered if my Lord deserved her. She’d glower about the palace for days after each aborted attempt, moaning about how they’d have made beautiful redheaded babies. My Lord refused to see her when she was in that kind of mood, which meant I was the one who had to keep her at bay — and she always pointedly ignored me for the rest of the day as punishment for my interference.
I escorted Lady Redwing to her chambers accompanied by a gentle cowbell melody. As if in preparation for the silent treatment she’d bestow upon me imminently, she chattered the entire time about all the injustices she’d suffered since coming to the palace.
Once inside her door, she called for her maid, who was nowhere in sight, on the off chance that my Lord relented and followed us. As expected, when no maid arrived after a few silent, tense minutes, she sighed dramatically.
“Euclid, dear, help me unfasten this infernal contraption.” She turned away from me.
As impassively as I could, I started unlaced her dress, exposing her flawless pale back. Many redheads had seas of freckles, especially on their backs, but Lady Redwing’s skin was smooth and unblemished, at least from her shoulders to her waist. With her dress loosened, it was clear that she wore no brassiere, begging the question of how much support that cowbell gown provided. I unlaced her dress quickly, ignoring the momentary brush of my fingers on her warm skin as I loosened her dress as much as I dared, lest it should drop to the floor entirely and leave her standing semi-naked before me. At length, as I unlaced the last part, near the small of her back, she thanked me and glided away to her dressing room to change into something that didn’t require help to put on. Seconds later, I heard the clatter of discarded cowbells uncomfortably nearby.
I raced to the door and started off down the hallway without a backward glance. I never understood why she did this to me, but she did it often. Perhaps she expected me to report her charms to Lord Oswald, with the expectation that he’d somehow forgotten them. Or maybe she was trying to raise his jealousy. My opinion was that she felt it was some kind of punishment for conspiring with my Lord to rebuff her. Perhaps she was trying to pique my interest enough that I’d forget myself for a moment and make a pass at her, so that she could reject me and claim to her father that I took untoward liberties with her virtue, which would effectively remove her stipend from Lord Oswald’s entertainment budget, punishing his purse, if not him. Or perhaps I was simply reading too much into it, and she just needed a little help unlacing her dress.
Whatever Lady Redwing’s reasons, once again I had been compelled to play the ladies maid after she was rejected by my Lord, and once again my mood was fouled as I made my way back to the racket known as my Lord’s monthly meeting with the governors.
The roosters were definitely quieter, I was sure of that.
The governors were making such a ruckus by the time that I returned that they didn’t even hear me come back in. I swung the door closed behind me, letting it slam at least as loudly as Lady Redwing had done, but the squabbling continued unabated. Lord Oswald noticed me out of the corner of his eye, and motioned furiously for me to go over.
“I hear Vere is in New Rome,” he stated without preamble, as soon as I sidled up to him after threading my way through the crowd of arguing governors. “What have you heard?”
The emperor’s city was nestled in the middle of a jungle, just about the only developed area on the empire’s home world, Eternity III. If Prince Vere was in New Rome, there was a good chance that he was taking the opportunity to butter up the emperor in the hopes of raising his standing for succession — and, if the rumors were true, buttering up the empress as well.
Either reason was enough to cause my Lord a few sleepless nights, but the former was more of a problem than th
e latter. Everybody knew that Prince Hunter Vere was merely a tool in the hands of the ranking senator, Lord Noir. Nobody quite knew what Noir was up to, but the last few years had revealed several secret meetings between Noir and Prince Vere, and a curious decrease in the number of rightful heirs to the throne of Emperor Seraphim VI, née Tristan Vere. Even more curiously, the favored prince or one of his men was always nearby when one of the unlucky heirs permanently relinquished his claim. Prince Vere wasn’t particularly known for his intelligence, and so it was deduced that Lord Noir was the brains behind the deaths.
What wasn’t clear was why Lord Noir would want Prince Vere on the throne. The prince wasn’t very smart, but he certainly wasn’t stupid enough to be Noir’s puppet once he controlled the empire, either.
An alternate explanation was that Prince Vere simply felt the need to eliminate his competition, but that didn’t make much sense either, given he was the closest of Seraphim’s relations and clearly the favorite for the succession.
It was a puzzle, but one that could wait.
“Nothing, my Lord,” I said, embarrassed, shouting over the din from the roosters, and excused myself to rectify my inexcusable lack of information.
Chapter 2
Oswald's Oasis
LORD OSWALD CLAIMS I HAVE A KNACK FOR KILLING PEOPLE IN INTERESTING WAYS, even if it’s just vicariously through the legion, Prince Oswald's personally-selected planetary-wide defense troops. I developed some of their more unexpected offensive techniques, one of which I was testing out on a particularly massive legionnaire.
“Drop your stance a little before you start into that swinging kick,” he advised, “then twist your wrist with that practice knife upward so I fall into it. Let gravity do the thrusting.”
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