Lord Oswald, looking unconcerned, swept the imperial guard’s hand from his chest and glared at the guard. “Perhaps we can stay a little longer, Noir,” he said, still staring at the guard.
At Noir’s nod, the imperial guards put down their weapons. The Angels did likewise.
Glancing out the door, I saw the emperor, Empress Jewel and the Veres waiting. Willow looked back at me with an inscrutable pained countenance, so I could only presume they waited for us.
“I’m so glad,” said Noir, grinning that weird crooked smile again. “I think it’s time we all had a friendly chat about some recent ... shall we say ... indiscretions, hmmm?”
Chapter 18
Noir's Revenge
THE IMPERIAL GUARDS MARCHED US STONILY OUT OF THE DINING ROOM and straight to the royal couple. The emperor looked constipated.
“What is it, Noir?” Emperor Seraphim asked in snipped tones. “Why did you request this audience?”
The questions surprised me, as I’m sure they did Lord Oswald, though he didn’t show it. I assumed when Noir stopped us that he was acting on orders from the emperor, but apparently he acted alone.
Noir bowed deeply again, but quickly, his white head bobbing like a fishing float on the water when a fish nibbles at the bait. “I’m afraid there’s been some ... improprieties that have come to my attention, Majesty. Is there somewhere a little more private that we can go to discuss them?”
“Improprieties, eh?” The emperor looked a little excited, and a sparkle touched his eyes for a moment. “That sounds fun. I love palace gossip.” He giggled as he pushed through the Veres, headed for the private wing of the palace. I almost expected him to start skipping and humming like a schoolboy, until I realized he was proceeding at his customary slow pace.
The imperial guards sprang to attention without missing a beat and scrambled to surround the moving emperor protectively. Empress Jewel stared after her husband, horrified, for only a flash before running after him, too. From the look on her face, she hadn’t expected his reaction any more than I did — or the others did, either, judging by their expressions.
Lord Noir, Prince Oswald and I joined the procession, flanked by a couple of guards that hung back waiting for us. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the Veres fall in, too, after Lord Noir shot them a hard look.
After only a few confusing seconds, we looked much like a normal imperial party, ambling along with the emperor somewhere or another. Prince Vere even ran up to the front in order to lend a supporting arm to the ailing emperor.
I wasn’t sure what to think now. When Noir talked about indiscretions, I expected he was going to say something about the night Empress Jewel called us to her rooms, but then why were the Veres along for the ride? What was Noir playing at?
The imperial group turned down a hallway I’d never seen, though that in itself wasn’t surprising. The private wing wasn’t open to the public, and that included heirs as a rule. Except for the one invited foray I’d made to Empress Jewel’s bedchambers, which were several hallways back at this point, I hadn’t been in the wing before and had no reason to expect to venture here again in the future. Prince Vere, I was sure, knew the wing intimately; if he didn’t, he showed no indication of his unfamiliarity. Lord Noir obviously knew where he was going, too.
I searched my prince’s face for some sign of recognition, but I could only detect his normal mask of smug aloofness. It was a look that he’d perfected some time before I met him, and he used it whenever he didn’t want someone else to know what he was thinking. An Old Earth scholar I met a few years back took one look at my Lord’s expression and pronounced it a lovely poker face, referring to a game once used for gambling with money, but now played primarily at houses with comely girls and a remarkable tendency to lose.
All I knew is my Lord’s poker face worked. I didn’t have a clue whether Prince Oswald had ever been in this part of the emperor’s private wing or not; I only knew that I hadn’t.
Lining the hallway were several unopened doors and even more portraits, presumably of the previous emperors, so that each portrait faced the other wall between two other portraits. No two portraits exactly faced each other. I stole quick looks at the little brass plates engraved with names at the bottom of each portrait and thought I recognized several of the Eternal Empire’s royal luminaries. If I remembered my history properly, they were arranged in order of office along alternating walls, so that you could trace the imperial lineage down to Seraphim by strolling down the hallway and swinging your gaze slowly from side to side.
Of course, I was the only one doing such sightseeing, and only with my eyes, so as not to appear to be gawking. By the time we got to the current emperor, I was getting dizzy from the repetitive back and forth motion.
One of the guards scrambled ahead to open a door before Emperor Seraphim turned into it, and we all filed through after him into what appeared to be Empress Jewel’s receiving room.
After the initial shock of recognition, I noticed several discrepancies between this room and Jewel’s, which convinced me we hadn’t gone in circles. The palace architect, evidently bored, had merely copied the basic architecture and made subtle changes.
I wondered how many of the other rooms were similar. If we’d got the directions to Jewel’s rooms wrong, would we have accidentally wandered in on some intimate scene we weren’t supposed to see? How many times was one of the empress’s famous trysts discovered when a visitor picked the wrong door to open? Or, I thought wickedly, how many of those trysts came about because a visitor opened Jewel’s door by accident?
Did people mistake rooms regularly in the palace? Could it be that Noir’s seeing Lord Oswald and I coming out of the empress’s room meant nothing? Was I blowing the whole event way out of proportion?
If so, why were we here and what was Noir so desperate to reveal to the emperor?
The emperor eased down onto a sofa, joined by his wife and Prince Vere on either side. Willow took a seat in an overstuffed loveseat near her husband, and Lord Oswald appropriated a desk chair, placing it opposite the loveseat. I stood beside my Lord, having exhausted the seating in the room except for sharing the loveseat with Willow, which I deemed inappropriate.
The room seemed to be a study of some sort. The appointments were slightly more masculine than the emperess’s receiving room. For instance, where the empress had a settee, there was an intimate niche carved out for work, with a leather topped desk — whose chair my Lord had borrowed — and a green glass banker’s lamp atop it.
Noir paced the room in full view of everyone as the guards took up their accustomed places in the room. He looked up, appearing ready to speak, but looked down again and paced some more. The albino frowned, opening and closing his mouth a few times, but continued pacing.
Emperor Seraphim rolled his eyes and settled in his seat.
“Adultery,” Noir blurted suddenly, as if all that time he’d been working up to saying an unpleasant word that his personal code of ethics forbade. “Adultery,” he repeated, a bit more calmly, apparently getting used to the word.
Suddenly, I understood why we were all there. Noir had found out about my passage on the Raven and assumed the rest. Despite Willow’s efforts to hide the ship’s logs, there must have been a backup log or something that Noir had consulted. Or maybe it was just missing parts of the log that tipped him off, and he was playing a hunch. Or something else my frantic mind couldn’t think of right then. Convinced Noir knew that I had been with Willow on the Raven, I steeled myself for him exposing us to the emperor.
Why, I didn’t know, but I could see no other explanation for why Noir wanted this particular group together. If Noir wanted to expose Jewel’s long-standing affair — alleged affair, I corrected myself — with Prince Vere, certainly there was no need to involve Lord Oswald and me. It couldn’t have been our visit to Jewel’s chambers that Lord Noir wanted to talk about, or the Veres had no need of being there.
It had to be Willow and me, des
pite the fact that nothing had happened outside my dreams. On Old Earth, in some ancient time, in the absence of proof, just the fact of being with her alone might have been considered adultery, but this was New Rome.
I hadn’t actually thought of adultery until Lord Noir said the word. When I found Willow on board, she wasn’t dressed like a princess, or even someone’s wife, she was dressed like a jumpport technician — with a burner pointed at me, as I recalled. Hardly a situation that could be considered adultery.
In this day and age, even infidelity wasn’t automatically adultery. Marriages were made for the purpose of forming a familial unit under which children could be raised. While two was the normal number of partners — although not always of different genders — there was no theoretical limit. I knew of several Old Earth-style harems that thrived for years.
But sex and procreation weren’t linked. So long as all the partners in the marriage agreed, sex was permissible outside the marriage. It only turned to adultery without consent.
But the cold reality was that Willow could have claimed adultery with me, if there was some benefit to her.
I went pale, I knew, because I started getting cold all of a sudden, with goosebumps crawling up my arms. Lord Oswald glanced up at me and a scowl broke his frozen expression for a second, so he probably noticed. He did a double take, staring for only a few seconds before resuming his poker mask.
Willow looked at me, too, and our eyes locked for a moment. In her eyes I saw the same longing she’d displayed since we parted. In that momentary look, I saw another version of us making love on the Raven again, free and sharing, without reservation or regret, without shame. She tore her gaze from me and glanced at Noir, and a flash of guilt clouded her eyes. She averted her eyes to stare at her lap. Her cheeks burned quickly, reddening so fast I was sure it wouldn’t go unnoticed.
Adultery. At the time, on the Raven, I hadn’t thought that I had much chance at winning Willow’s affections, but given the truth of my Lord’s comment, and the double entendres we’d traded as Oasisis jumpport, maybe I’d had a chance. Still it was only potential, not actual adultery. I sighed, my heart heavy with the possibilities that never happened.
“Adultery?” Prince Vere said, and by his high, squeaky voice I was sure Noir had told him about it beforehand. “Why, that’s, that’s detestable, Noir. Speak up, man, who is it?”
Prince Vere wasn’t very convincing. His protest came off as a poorly rehearsed scene. Although I had to admit his squeaky voice was a nice touch.
Lord Noir glared at the prince, but said nothing.
I swallowed and looked down.
“We must all remember,” Noir said, finally, “that our stations in life do not ... shall we say ... guarantee immunity from proper recourse. A prince, for example—”
“Is not immune,” Prince Vere broke in, finishing the thought for Noir, “from the same, um, desires and cravings that the common man has.”
I looked up and scanned the room. Vere glanced around frantically as he spoke, as if he was trying to convince us all of his own innocence. Noir glared at the prince again, his mouth clamped shut in a tight line while the prince prattled on.
“We are no different than other men,” Prince Vere said. “We are men, too, aren’t we, Adrian?”
My Lord offered only his poker face.
Prince Vere blundered on, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead. “Of course, in our positions, there are more opportunities available, of course, and we try to act like men. I mean, better than men, because, of course....”
The prince’s voice trailed off as he seemed to notice the surprise and bafflement on the emperor’s face. Clearly, the emperor didn’t expect that he should be held to the same standards as the common man, and the very suggestion from his favorite heir that they shared any similar thoughts with the common man seemed to unsettle the emperor tremendously.
Vere mumbled for a few seconds before leaping to his feet and yelling, “But adultery is wrong, of course.” The prince lowered his voice before continuing, but I remained startled by his abruptness. “And we cannot allow it to continue, now can we? Out with it, Noir, and let’s dispense with this perverter of the sacred bond of marriage.”
Willow stared up at her husband, horrified, no doubt wondering what had come over him. She believed Vere had been dallying with the empress, and she must have figured out, as I did, that Noir had already told the prince about her own supposed indiscretion with me, so the prince’s holier-than-thou attitude must have shocked her as much as it did me.
It was almost comical, actually, watching Vere struggle with his words, condemning adultery so vehemently when in all probability he was guilty of it himself.
Or was he? Did Vere actually believe what he was saying? Was it possible that he hadn’t been intimate with the empress, that it was just palace gossip and no more?
But, then, what was that whole diatribe about having the same urges as the common man? Maybe Noir hadn’t told him anything, and he really was expounding on his beliefs. If so, if he really did believe that marriage was sacred, what would he do to me if he’d thought I’d dallied with his wife?
If the fair prince was behind the other heir murders, would I just be added to the list? Was I going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder? Vere’s men had already been spotted on Oasis, could they be in the prince’s palace already?
I realized I hadn’t breathed in a while, and I labored to take a long, slow, steady breath, hopefully without attracting undue attention. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and tried to calm myself, ignoring my heart beating in my throat.
Feeling the color returning to my face, I opened my eyes. Willow still stared at Prince Vere, who had finally sat down, mumbling to himself. The emperor stared blankly ahead, his black eyes glazed; he appeared on the verge of falling asleep from boredom, assuming he wasn’t asleep already.
Jewel fiddled with the frills of her dress, calm and quiet. She hadn’t spoken at all since I’d seen her that day, and it struck me only then how odd it was for her to be silent. Searching her face, I thought I saw a trace of unease, but otherwise she seemed unaffected, so I could have been mistaken.
But then, why shouldn’t she be detached if she wasn’t even involved? If Noir had been planning on exposing Willow and me, Jewel wouldn’t care. Even if Noir planned on exposing Jewel and Vere, why should she care? Vere would be just another in a long series of executed boyfriends. Once again, she’d be relatively unaffected, save the loss of a lover; why should she care? No wonder she was calm.
And why should the empress speak? She might inadvertently reveal her own guilt, as Prince Vere seemed about to do. By staying silent, she stayed innocent. At least until accused.
I knew something of this tack, myself. Shortly after Valeria Ogden was dumped into my Lord’s household, one of Oswald’s Angels, Herman, took a liking to the lovely brunette. Valeria accepted his advances only to a point, then spurned him in public when he crossed the line. A few days later, Herman bragged that he had his way with her, taking her virginity after that public display.
Valeria was devastated, and denied everything. She had been raised in an upper crust household that valued honesty, and she had, for some reason, decided on the ancient Old Earth custom of retaining her virginity for marriage. I suspected she wouldn’t have agreed to more than one partner, either.
Herman’s brag challenged Valeria’s sense of honesty, and it cut to the core of her upbringing. Eventually, the two were brought before Lord Oswald and his poker face, and, after I briefed my Lord on the public knowledge of their relationship, Herman presented his story, complete with rude remarks and rather graphic descriptions of the girl’s hidden assets.
Valeria’s turn came to defend her honor. She stared straight at my Lord, her posture defiant, her eyes flashing deadly fire, and spat out, “Lies.” She said nothing more.
My Lord sat back in his chair, stroking the red whiskers on his chin. “An interes
ting dilemma, Euclid,” he said to me, as if the quarreling pair wasn’t there. “What do you think?”
Lord Oswald continued without waiting for my answer. “The girl refuses to offer an alternative, relying instead on what we already know about the rebuff in public. Herman adds some interesting information, which if true would support his case. Of course, the only way to verify his story would be to examine Valeria intimately....”
Valeria’s eyes went wide with shock and her mouth formed a little circle, but she didn’t say a word. She recovered quickly, though, her defiance returned along with a dash of slyness. “Are you offering marriage, Prince Oswald?”
Lord Oswald didn’t even raise an eyebrow; he remained aloof and calm, poker face intact. “Clearly not an option in this case, which makes it harder to reach a decision. Have you anything else to add, Miss Ogden?”
Valeria shut her mouth hard and pouted her lips, shaking her head.
“I thought not,” my Lord mumbled, and went back to scratching his beard.
Although I didn’t remain as composed as my Lord, I could see where his reasoning was going. Without Valeria’s testimony, there was no way to read between her lines to the truth. Short of a physical examination, which would set her firmly against us — along with every other woman in the household, including Lady Redwing — there was no way to divine the truth. Ruling against her would be just as devastating, since she was adamant in her innocence. Ruling for her meant my Lord would have to chastise one of his Angels, but peace would be restored in the household.
Ultimately, it wasn’t a matter of discovering the truth, but the best solution to the problem. Lord Oswald declared the girl’s virtue intact and busted Herman to a private, warning him not to make such boasts in public again.
I hoped for the same kind of solution now, with Lord Noir on the loose and Prince Vere’s tongue flapping randomly. I prayed for a handy solution, rather than revealing the Raven’s passenger list, despite what had not happened between Willow and me. Deciding that Valeria and the empress had come upon a winning strategy with their silence, I resolved to remain silent myself, so long as Noir offered no concrete proof of his accusations.
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