Sands of the Solar Empire (The Belmont Saga)

by Ren Garcia

  * * * * *

  The enemies Lady Jubilee made that night were many and persistent. No longer was she engaged in social cattiness with a foolish rival, for this was now a matter of the heart and Lady Vendra of Cone became not just a social enemy, but a mortal one as well.

  But, as time would tell, Lady Vendra would not vent her rage on Lady Jubilee herself, but on those she loved.

  * * * * *

  It was a usual custom for the lady to relocate to the House of the lord she’d married. However, Lady Jubilee couldn’t bear to leave her beloved Tyrol, and her father Carjil, a lord swimming in Tyrol money, put up a fair fortune to renovate an old Merian monastery complex south of the city, complete with gardens, chapels and ballrooms, and offered it to the new couple as a gift. The estate was sprawling with a view of the sea and the secluded, breathtaking monastery, freshly rebuilt and ready to accommodate, was truly lovely. Lord Stenstrom, upon touring the rolling, wooded grounds, agreed it was a fabulous home and promptly relocated from his traditional lands near Brynthia on the flowing banks of the GreatBluePierceRiver in Zenon. There they began their life together, the brand new Belmont-South Tyrol branch.

  3 The Wirguild

  The courier rode up the sea-side lane. He arrived in a grand afternoon procession of float cars from the League offices in Armenelos. He and his vast entourage were admitted to the manor grounds and, while they waited outside, the courier was allowed to await the Lady in the parlor.

  “Great Lady,” the courier said in his polished burr as Lady Jubilee entered the parlor holding her new baby daughter Beryla in her arms. “Well met. I am Lord Marist of Grenville. I have come to your wondrous home by the sea bearing an official dispatch from the League Ex-Commons. The nature of the dispatch compels me to deliver it in person.”

  It had been a little over two years since Lady Jubilee met her Lord Belmont. After a whirlwind romance, where she was promptly impregnated, they made lavish plans to be married. Several months later, a daughter was born to them.

  Lady Jubilee, still carrying her baby, approached him, and he bowed. “Good sir, you are most welcome here. Our home is honored with your presence. I shall be pleased to hear your dispatch.”

  Lord Grenville bowed again. “I am compelled to deliver it to both yourself and Lord Belmont. Both must hear the dispatch.”

  “Lord Belmont is at sea in his Fleet ship. He is not here.”

  “I am aware of Lord Belmont’s important duties in space. I have a portable Com, directly fed into the League’s communication network. With your permission, we may make use of it to contact Lord Belmont directly.”

  Lady Jubilee approved, and Lord Grenville pulled the tiny Com from his coat and set it up. Soon, the flickering image of Lord Stenstrom loomed in holographics.

  Lord Grenville then pulled a scroll from his coat and began his oratory in a singing, joyous voice. “I, Lord Marist of Grenville, am here in the presence of Lord and Lady Belmont-South Tyrol bearing an official dispatch from the League Ex-Commons on behalf of the Sisterhood of Light. I am compelled to inform you, Lady Jubilee of Belmont-South Tyrol, with Lord Stenstrom of Belmont-South Tyrol in attendance, that a legal Wirguild has been issued and approved against the Lady Jubilee.”

  On the Com, Lord Stenstrom appeared shocked. “A Wirguild?”

  “Yes, my lord. A Wirguild is a public declaration of revenge against an individual Household or against a single person. The Sisterhood of Light holds the final say to whether a Wirguild is accepted and made legal or not accepted and therefore rejected. The League Ex-Commons is then tasked with formally informing the parties involved.”

  “I am aware of that. Who is issuing the Wirguild.” Stenstrom asked.

  Jubilee cleared her throat and shuffled uncomfortably. Baby Beryla gurgled.

  “The Wirguild has been issued by the Lady Vendra, fourth daughter of the House of Cone, against the Lady Jubilee of Belmont-South Tyrol.”

  Lord Stenstrom was beside himself. “Why in Creation does Lady Vendra of Cone wish Wirguild against my wife?”

  “The Lady Vendra wishes it known that the Lady Jubilee of Belmont-South Tyrol, with malice and intent, did willfully steal a man for whom Lady Vendra of Cone did announce her love.”

  “Love? Is she referring to me? That cannot be—I barely know Lady Vendra and have only met her in person once. And, by the by, that was over two bloody years ago!”

  “A Wirguild, sir, is not something that is happened upon quickly or without much debate. There are appointments to be made, visits to the various strongholds, and cases for and against to be argued before the Sisterhood. Yea, two years is a rather speedy process for a Wirguild to be duly delivered. And, it is here at last.” Marist began singing again. “Be it also known that the Lady Vendra did firstly submit a Wirguild against the entire House of Belmont-South Tyrol, but such request was denied by the Sisterhood. This Wirguild is between the Lady Vendra and the Lady Jubilee alone. If Lady Vendra should take revenge against any other of the Household, she shall be in contempt of the law and appropriate action shall be taken against her. I do bade you, Lady Jubilee, to be at your guard and defend yourself appropriately at all times.”

  After a little more discourse, Lord Grenville gave the Wirguild scroll to Lady Jubilee and took his leave, his mission completed.

  Two days later, Lord Stenstrom returned home—he taking a leave of absence from his post.

  He was irate. “Why, Jubilee, does Lady Vendra wish to do you harm? I would think, of any of us, she has cause to be angry with me. We had been introduced via correspondence by my late mother Caroline. The Cones are a fine family from Jacarta in Remnath, which isn’t too far from our traditional home in Brynthia. We got on well via correspondence—she seemed a delightful young lady. She invited me to a Nether Day ball in Falz. We had only just met, when you caught my eye, and I discarded her for you. Therefore, if that is what she is angry over, then I should sit down and talk with her.”

  Jubilee sat there, fidgeting with a cigarette. She fumbled with it, eventually tearing the paper, the tobacco spilling out. “My love, she has good cause to be angry with me.”

  She took a deep breath and started. “I have been a social rival of her older sister, Lady Sephla, for many years. It’s just nonsense, a snide comment here, a social slap there—I don’t know who started it or when, but we have been at each other’s throats in such a fashion for years. At the Nether Day ball, I was sitting with my cigarette, and, over my shoulder, I could hear Lady Vendra talking to her friends. She was very excited. She was talking about you, how it was love at first sight for her. And then I, remembering my rivalry with Lady Sephla, decided to steal you, just to humiliate her.”

  “Why would you do such a childish, catty thing?” he asked.

  “I don’t know—that’s just what we do—it’s almost expected. Sephla did the same thing to my sister Charity on Saluting Day with her fellow several years back—they even got caught in the cloakroom with their knickers down. It didn’t occur to me not to try and humiliate her sister.”

  Stenstrom cupped his face with his hands and listened. “Go on,” he said.

  Jubilee crushed the remains of the cigarette up in her fist. “Oh, darling, though I started it with all the wrong intentions, the moment I saw you standing there, I fell in love with you too. Everything I said to you at that time, and ever since, has been genuine.”

  They said a few more words, and Lord Stenstrom forgave Lady Jubilee and took her into his arms.

  She then went on to assure him that she could take care of herself; still, Lord Stenstrom took an extended leave of absence from the Fleet and stayed home—ready to defend his wife at all costs.

  The days and weeks passed. Nothing unusual happened. As the Cones were from far away Remnath, there was little to no chance of Lady Jubilee happening upon her in the street. There was one story of the two of them being invited to the same party in the city of Lyra. They saw each other, had a few words, and excused themselves. Accordin
g to the story, they were found on a secluded terrace, Lady Vendra brandishing a pair of long, sharpened hair-pins and Jubilee holding several daggers between her fingers. They appeared to be ready to begin a mortal contest. Interrupted, the two quickly put their weapons away and exited in opposite directions. After that, Lord Stenstrom wrote Lady Vendra a letter stating that what happened at the Nether Day ball was his fault and to forgive Lady Jubilee, but he received no reply.

  Shortly after, Lady Jubilee received word that Lady Vendra had tried to kill herself. Having survived her suicide attempt, she had been declared mad and taken away to live out her life in a convent somewhere in the backwater of the League. With Vendra gone off, nothing more happened, the stir the Wirguild caused seemed to have blown over, and life began to return to normal at Belmont Manor.

  Except for one small thing.

  Lady Jubilee was a consummate worrier—she always had been, and that feature of her personality only got worse after being wed and subjected to the Wirguild. She didn’t fret much for herself, as she was more than capable of properly defending against an attack should defending be needed. But, for those unfortunate enough to bear the brunt of her love, she could be unreasonably smothering.

  With Lady Vendra’s Wirguild lingering in the nether reaches of her mind, Jubilee began looking at everything twice, examining hard to see if any hidden threat existed—regardless of the fact that Vendra was sequestered in a distant convent and insane. Anything, no matter how small or innocent, could be laced with hidden traps and subtle danger. Lady Vendra could have helpers carrying on for her despite her condition.

  And she laid a vice down, on both her husband and her growing pool of daughters.

  She considered her husband. Lord Belmont was an officer in the Stellar Fleet, a Com Officer of great regard, and was nearly ready to face Appointment to a brand new Webber-class starship being assembled in Provst. When her husband got the Appointment at last, Jubilee was excited and rather proud of her handsome husband, as she should be. She bragged to her circle of friends about what her husband has accomplished and how his future was bright. But then, her friends began telling her how dangerous it was being in the Stellar Fleet, how the Xaphans were an implacable enemy, and how many husbands and wives set out in their graceful ships, never to return. She sat there listening, fanning herself, feeling a tightening in her chest as they went on and on.

  Hijackings

  Abductions

  Battles

  Spontaneous hull breach

  Decompression

  Micro-meteors

  Micro-Frags

  Metal Fatigue

  Mid-Space Collision

  Stellar Mach

  Stellar Mach Dampening

  Atomization due to Stellar Mach

  Xaphans

  Moorlands

  Radiation

  X-Rays

  G-Rays

  N-Rays

  Spoilt food

  Stellar Mach sickness

  Stellar Mach Madness

  Gift-Valve

  Blood bending

  Spacing

  Boarding

  Mutiny

  Revolt

  Insurrection

  Infection

  Scurvy

  Buggery

  Slavery

  When they finished the dire list, Lady Jubilee was near ready to pass out with fright. She had no idea Fleet-work was so dangerous. It was said that her arch-enemy, the Lady Vendra of Cone, had—prior to her madness—greased Jubilee’s friends to fill her ear full of sordid tales of Fleet work and space travel, playing on her fears, hoping she would do something drastic.

  And she did.

  Jubilee listened to all the tales and was terrified. She begged her husband to reconsider, to quit the Fleet and do something else—anything. She pleaded with him.

  He laughed and assured her he would be fine. What’s more, he wanted to honor his beloved wife by naming his new ship after her, for it had not yet been christened.

  She flatly refused, so he named it the Caroline, after his departed mother and began his long career as a captain in the Fleet.

  The years rolled by. Lady Jubilee heard through the gossip circles that Lady Vendra was back, released from the convent and in her right mind afresh.

  The Wirguild was on—it had to be. The world seemed a dangerous place to her all of a sudden. Here were Xaphans and battles in space, and there was this maniac she heard of to the south in Calvert—some person slaying the detritus of the wharfs. All these things played on her mind and made her fear.

  Soon after, there was “The Incident” which really pushed Lady Jubilee over the edge regarding her husband’s occupation. She was delighted when he returned home to Belmont Manor early, his old ship Amazing needing a bit of scheduled refitting, which worked out well because the Caroline was soon to be ready to launch.

  But then she began hearing stories of what really happened to cause Amazing to come home early: his ship came upon a derelict in space, sending out a coded distress signal. They responded, investigating in kind.

  The derelict was filled with shaddout explosives that ignited, destroying the derelict and slightly damaging Amazing in the process, wounding several crew.

  Explosives?

  In her mind, this incident could mean only one thing—the Wirguild. An attempt had been made on her husband’s life; she was certain of it. She went to the Sisters, and they rebuffed her—there was no proof Lady Vendra of Cone had anything to do with the matter. She then confronted Lord Stenstrom and he laughed it off. It was a Xaphan ship they’d come across—they often have a great deal of explosive ordinance aboard. Nothing to worry about.

  Nothing to worry about?

  4 A Need for a Son

  And Lady Jubilee fell into a protracted state of mourning, always expecting her husband to fall, to die in space. She took to wearing black on days when he had to leave with his ship.

  However—Captain Stenstrom was a good captain, a skilled captain. He endured and never fell despite many adventures in space.

  In a puerile attempt to blackmail Lord Stenstrom out of the stars, Lady Jubilee decided to use their children against him. “You wish an heir, my love? When you place your feet upon the ground for good, then you can expect a son, an heir to all we have. Until such time, you will have girls.”

  It was said that the lady, falling back on her alleged sorcerer’s knowledge, had learned various arcane methods of preselecting the sex of her children, as in the manner the Black Hats can do, and that she was determined to have girls, to keep them from following their father to the stars—more things for her to worry about. The fact that there were great numbers of ladies in the Fleet right next to her husband didn’t occur to her. Jubilee expected ladies to behave just like she did: to have no profession; to sit in social circles; to bowl; and, whenever possible, to create gossip. Many in and around Tyrol speculated on the method Jubilee used to prevent the creation of a son: potions, poisons, complicated spells, enchanted items—the list went on and on.

  In any event, whatever she was doing worked, eventually racking up twenty-nine daughters as Lord Stenstrom re-appointed to his ship time and time again. Lord Stenstrom, though, was delighted with his daughters, and he loved all of them as they grew into lovely ladies and went their own way. But, as the decades passed and he began to get older, the pressures of succession began to present themselves. They had all sorts of callers at the manor, including demure cousins and discreet distant relatives, friends of friends, even the Lords of the city of Tyrol; each wanted to discuss what was to be done with the holdings of Belmont-South Tyrol should no heir be born.

  Everybody, it seemed, was lining up to carve the estate into small lucrative pieces, and nobody wanted to be forgotten or left out. There were already twenty-nine daughters and no sons, and surely none of the latter could be expected by this point. With no heir, all they had would be lost. All their property and wealth would be redistributed to any game enough to seize it, and
their twenty-nine daughters could expect nothing; such was the time-honored but rather unfair custom of succession in the League.

  Lord Stenstrom began railing Lady Jubilee for a son—the House of Belmont South-Tyrol, needed an heir; otherwise, their branch would fall. If only for their daughters’ sakes, they needed a son to protect their assets.

  But Lady Jubilee would not budge.

  No sons, no lost coffins to cry over. The day he left the Fleet, that’s when House Belmont South-Tyrol, would have its heir, not before.

  Tyrols, and Lady Jubilee in particular, were rather stubborn and unrelenting.

  But apparently, Lord Stenstrom had learned a thing or two himself in his travels. It was said he received a mysterious letter on gray paper one day in his Fleet bag, one with no return stamp. It was said the letter detailed how Lady Jubilee had been taking some sort of potion to prevent the creation of a male child through the years, and that she had no intention of discontinuing its use until he retired from the Fleet. If he ever wanted a son, he would have to fight fire with fire.

  Go to Bazz; the letter said, seek the Elixir of the Gods and you shall have your son.

  And Lord Stenstrom did just that. On Bazz, he discovered an apothecary selling a mystical substance that would, in essence, super-charge his Belmont seed, adding wings to his male YY sperm and lead weights to the female XX. Additionally, these “God Sperm” would be packed with nothing but Stenstrom’s best: his courage, his brains, his tenacity, and so on. Paying a healthy price, Stenstrom took the vial and left the apothecary. He returned to his ship and downed the potion, feeling quite invigorated.

  He would later hear that the apothecary burned to the ground shortly after he made his purchase.

  So, thusly armed, the next time he took his loving, silver-haired lady to bed, something remarkable happened—a battle was waged within her womb, Lady Jubilee’s herbal-enhanced male-killing eggs against Lord Stenstrom’s “God Sperm.”