Musketeer Space

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  She continued to not remember his existence when she discovered Chevreuse in her hotel room, and they had a blazing row about about promises, exiles, and whether or not either of them could be trusted to keep it in her pants.

  They both conceded moral high ground on that one.

  Later, once the friends had called a truce and the heavily pregnant Chevreuse was fast asleep on one side of Buck’s spacious bed, Buck’s clamshell chimed with a text from Alek.

  Are you asleep? he asked.

  Too hot to sleep, she sent back.

  I want to see you before you head home, he said next. No flirtation, no pretence.

  Buck stared at the message for a long time.

  “Yes,” breathed a voice. She looked up, and was startled to see Winter sitting at the end of her bed. He was not in disguise any more – his hair was silvery, falling around his face. He wore grey and white pyjamas, a soft blend of silk and cotton that showed their quality and expense in every shimmery movement. His feet were bare, but he looked every inch an elegant New Aristocrat. There was an arch, moneyed confidence to him, like every other man she had known growing up, except for the hard edges around his lovely face. Oh, and the fact that he was living inside her head.

  “You,” Buck said, remembering all at once in a wave of anger and nausea. “Is this it? The peace of the solar system hangs on this one moment, me texting yes or no to the Prince Consort?”

  “One moment,” Winter scoffed, stretching out like a cat on the covers. He pushed Chevreuse’s foot out of the way, and she did not stir. Of course, he was not really here. “As if we would bank everything on a single moment. A chess game is full of moves and moments and decisions. Right now, my job is to get one particular piece to one particular place and time. The rest is up to you.”

  Buck stared down at her clamshell again. Yes, no, or maybe. She typed Yes and I have a plan, and sent them both before she could change her mind.

  Winter tilted his head back, smiling winsomely at her. “That’s my girl.”

  “I might have said yes anyway,” Buck said angrily. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

  “Oh, Georgiana,” he said as if sorry for her. “The people I work for pay a lot of money to make sure there’s no such thing as a maybe.”

  A few hours ago.

  “You can still change your mind,” said Chevreuse for the tenth time as the Colin Guillaume, piloted by Captain Tracy Dubois, prepared for descent.

  Buck and Chev sat in the seats against the back of the cabin, bickering in an undertone so as not to distract their pilot. Dubois was another old friend, who could be trusted to be discreet no matter how much she disapproved of what they were doing.

  “We’ve covered everything,” Buck insisted. Alek, she was finally going to see him again, probably for the last time while his marriage lasted. A lot could happen in eight years. “Dubois has shielded her fin, so no one will connects my flight from Honour to Valour with a ship that touched down briefly in the old dome on Luna Palais. Conrad will make sure no one sees Alek leaving the Palace…”

  “We haven’t heard back from Conrad in two days,” Chevreuse snapped.

  Buck wasn’t sure whether it was the pregnancy or the possibility of arrest that made her friend so irritable. “You know why I’m doing this.”

  Chev laughed at that. “I know why you say you’re doing it.”

  “Alek is a wild card. Cooped up in that Palace, hardly any of his own supporters left. Do you know how many people there are down on Auster who care about him?”

  “Enough to start a war, I expect.”

  “Everything that happened last time… it was out of his control. Our control. If he never sees me again, he’ll resent the Regence and their marriage contract forever. He’ll be a sitting duck for any petty conspirator who figures out what buttons to push. But maybe, if I can talk properly to him, I can repair some of the damage that was done.”

  Chevreuse looked at her with heavily lidded eyes. “It’s fascinating the way you manage to make this sound patriotic.”

  “I’m impressed too,” said Winter, draping himself over the helm. He wore a flight suit this time, but his feet were still bare. Those feet of his. They curled like cat paws against the cool metal floor of the Colin Guillaume. Winter played with Dubois’ cables, and tweaked at her flight suit, but she did not react to his presence. “I thought I was the master of compartmentalisation, but you leave me in the shade, sweetness.”

  Buck sighed, turning her eyes away from the bastard that only she could see. “You have no jurisdiction on this flight, Chev. You can’t stop me.”

  “I know,” said her friend in a low voice, her hand resting on the curve of her stomach. “I was hoping you’d stop yourself.”

  Now.

  They didn’t talk.

  Alek stepped up into Dubois’ ship, and let the sight-shield fall away so she could see him standing there, all gold and silver and green. He wore a peacock-coloured coat that glowed with diamond studs, not exactly a subtle outfit for a secret rendezvous. He looked sad and uncertain, beneath that fall of bright emerald hair. Everything that Buck had convinced herself that she would say to him fell away with the sight-shield.

  She didn’t speak. She kissed him, and he kissed her back, holding her face in his hands as if she was precious, unbreakable. He rubbed his cheek gently against hers and she felt the gentle tugging rasp of his silver scales against her soft skin.

  “You don’t have to fuck him,” said Winter.

  Buck gasped with the shock of it, the remembering. It happened that way every time, like a bucket of cold water, reminding her that she wasn’t here by choice.

  Except, of course, she was. She was right here, doing exactly what she had promised she would never do. They had a witness. A sarcastic, barefoot witness who had burrowed himself into her brain.

  Alek kissed down her neck, burying his face in the swell of her breasts as he lowered the zip of her flight suit. “Buck,” he moaned.

  Buck stared over his head to Winter who sat on the helm, feet dangling off the edge. He wore an Emerald Knights fan shirt now, over silver jeans. He waggled his bare toes cheerfully at her.

  How could she communicate with the invader without Alek hearing her, and thinking she was crazy? Not that Alek was interested in anything she had to say right now, his mouth hungry against her ear, and his hands catching hers, squeezing their fingers together.

  “I mean it,” said Winter. “All that matters is that enough people think you’re banging away in here. It doesn’t make a difference to the Crown or the realm or the chess game whether you actually let him into your knickers.”

  “No one will say anything,” she said in a whisper.

  “I know,” said Alek, thinking that she spoke to him. He came up for air, gazing into her face. “We have good friends, Buck. They are all trustworthy -” He kissed her mouth deeply and she kissed him back, inhaling the scent of him, the taste. I will never have this again.

  “Oh very trustworthy,” Winter said, and Buck was too busy tasting her prince to see him, but she could hear the smirk in his voice. “Still, secrets get out, Georgiana. One way or another, you and your man here will pay for tonight’s deed.”

  I won’t remember this, Buck told herself desperately. I won’t remember this. I won’t remember that he was here, ruining everything.

  Alek knew something was wrong. He stepped back, not knowing why she hesitated – or, perhaps, thinking of a hundred reasons why she would. “Buck,” he said softly. “Have you changed your mind about me?”

  “Never,” she said fiercely, and threw herself at him. “No one else matters. Not right now.”

  His mouth on hers was hot, and hungry. They had waited for so long, to be together.

  Winter laughed.

  A moment later, Buck forgot that he had ever been there.

  “Take that coat off,” she hissed, pulling the peacock garment roughly from Alek’s shoulders. “Take it all off.”

&nbs
p; “Keep the coat,” whispered Winter in her ear, a final command before he disappeared completely. “Whatever happens, Georgiana, hang on to that coat for me. It will come in very useful indeed.”

  Later.

  “I could come with you,” said Alek. They lay wrapped up in each other, mostly naked, on the floor of the small spaceship. Buck wore his jacket, bright with peacock colours and diamond buttons, and nothing beneath it. She never wanted to take it off.

  “No,” she said softly. “We’re not that stupid.”

  “Are you sure?” He nuzzled against her, his mouth making soft kisses against her shoulder, her collarbone. “I feel that stupid.”

  This was why Chevreuse was here, Buck realised. Not to stop this one night of passion, but to make sure that was where it stopped.

  Conrad and Dubois served the Crown. Their contracts ensured that they had to obey, if Prince Alek gave them a direct order. But Chevreuse was already in disgrace, in exile. As a mere citizen of the solar system, she was obliged to obey a reasonable demand from the Crown, but not to obey unthinkingly.

  Chevreuse had spent her whole life cleaning up the messes left behind by the Crown. Buck had no doubt she would break a thousand rules to stop this particular catastrophe from becoming a reality.

  Buck owed Chevreuse more than she could ever say. Their bonds of friendship could only take so much before they shattered. There was another life waiting for them both, elsewhere in the solar system.

  “Shh,” she said, and stopped Alek’s mouth with a deep kiss. “We have this, right now. We can’t take more. Don’t be greedy.”

  In this one thing, at least, she could be selfless.

  Much later.

  Valour. Finally, Buck was home.

  Dubois put the Colin Guillaume down discreetly at the smallest space dock in southern Castellion, at the border between the county of Triomphe and the duchy of Buckingham. Normally Buck’s homecomings were more dramatic, with a party atmosphere and crowds of paparazzo chronicling her antics.

  Perhaps she was getting old, because the thought of that made her want to drown herself. Quietly slinking on to the planet felt about right.

  Her highest security comm stud filled with alerts as soon as she entered Valour space – messages, appointments, requests for her attention.

  She was home. Being in Valour space meant being bombarded all over again with the political issues of the day: the referendum on planetary independence, the ethical question of terraforming the last unclaimed continent and, of course, the ongoing religious tensions between the Church of All and the Elementals, who were growing their support here on Valour.

  There was the election, coming up in a year’s time, the one where Buck was expected to run for First Minister of Valour now that her political credentials had been bolstered by her term as Ambassador. If only the media knew how much of that term had been spent sampling the beers of Honour. Would that make her more or less popular with the voters?

  If Alek had abandoned his wife to come with her – he would have only found himself tied to another woman who was expected to dedicate every hour of every day to politics.

  Buck was tempted to wear the peacock coat through the space dock, one final rebellion. Instead, she hid it instead deep in her luggage, not wanting Chevreuse to know about the gift.

  “Your skimmer should be here shortly,” Chev told her now. “And your entourage, ” She checked her comm stud. “Through here.” She led Buck to a small, bleak meeting room. “They’ll meet us in a minute – ugh.”

  Chevreuse folded up like a piece of broken furniture, and Buck lunged for her, only just catching her in time. Slowly, she lowered the other woman to the floor. “Oh, shit. Is it the baby? Chev, wake up.”

  Her friend’s skin was very cold and too pale, contrasting against the bright pink braids that framed her face.

  “Chevreuse!” Buck said insistently, and raised her wrist to call for help through the comm stud.

  A man cleared his throat. “My apologies for the inconvenience, your Grace.”

  “Not now, we need -” Buck’s protest died in her throat. “You!”

  It was the man in her head. That bastard Winter. But it wasn’t quite him – he seemed different. Shoes, actual shoes for once, covering those pretty feet of his. He wore a discreet grey suit, like he was one of the hundreds of bureaucrats she had to deal with every day in her usual life. Instead of the wild silver tendrils falling around the sharp planes of his face, he had dull brown hair that made him look like no one in particular. Even his grey eyes were muted.

  Same cheekbones you could cut a sandwich with, though.

  “Your Grace,” he said in an officious voice. “Allow me to introduce myself properly, now I am no longer wearing my Raven disguise. I am Milord de Winter, brother-in-law to the Countess of Clarick. I am also the newly appointed Private Secretary of the Interior. I hold the portfolio for covert intelligence.”

  Buck blinked, for a moment seeing double as that other Winter appeared behind his real life double, barefoot and blowing kisses at her. He wore black pyjama pants and a copy of the peacock coat that Alek had given her, over a bare chest. His hair was sleep-rumpled and silver. It was quite easy to tell one Winter from another. “What do you want?” Buck said, still holding her friend in her arms. “Is Chevreuse...”

  “Please don’t worry about her, your Grace,” said Milord de Winter. “She will not take serious harm for this brief spell. I thought it best that we speak alone.” He smiled politely. “You’re going to open your case and show me the diamonds that the Prince Consort gave you.”

  Buck closed her eyes tightly. Would this ever be over? “And then?” she snarled. “What happens after that?”

  “You know the answer to that, sweetness,” said the silver-haired Winter that lived inside her head. “You’re going to forget all about me, as if I was never here. And our real work begins.”

  15

  Whatever Happened To Madame Su?

  While Dana D’Artagnan and her new friend Conrad Su were entangling themselves in the politics and love life of a nation, and the Duchess of Buckingham had been entangling herself with the Prince Consort of the Solar System, one person’s fate had – until now – been somewhat forgotten.

  Have no fear; we shall learn her story now.

  Jingfei Su was a straightforward woman. She ran her businesses with a tight hand and a shrewd attitude to the bottom line. She made most of her decisions based on what was practical – though like most people, she also appreciated the luxuries that life and a successful business afforded her. A silk suit, a gold necklace, a pretty young husband with a prestigious position at the Palace.

  She had no interest in politics, apart from the fact that it often deprived her of Conrad, because his closeness to the Prince Consort made him a regular target of investigation.

  Up until now, however, the inconvenience had been minor, and had not directly affected her.

  But here she was, under arrest, deep in the holding cells of Church jurisdiction on Paris Satellite, an installation referred to often as The Armoury because, of course, it was full of Sabres and Hammers.

  The guards who had arrested Madame Su were raw recruits, which explained why Madame Su’s regular bribery of her local Red Hammers to keep them from looking too closely at her business affairs, had made no difference.

  After many long, miserable hours alone in the holding cells, Madame Su was dragged out to face the Commissary, whose task it was to interrogate her about the activities of her husband.

  The Commissary was a short, squat woman who looked like a tortoise. Her attempts to discreetly discover what political conspiracies might involve Conrad Su were overwhelmed by Madame Su’s personal need to complain about the terrible effect that sporting loyalties had upon husbands.

  Madame Su had a lot of complaints to make about her husband, and they had been building up to a critical level. They all came spilling out of her now, and the Commissary was obliged to listen, though
she stopped taking notes when it became obvious that few of these complaints had anything to do with Church or Crown.

  Finally, the Commissary raised the subject of Madame Su’s lodger. “I believe you have a D’Artagnan staying on your property?”

  “Oh,” said Madame Su, taken aback by the change of subject. “Yes. It’s good to have a strong pair of hands around, what with never seeing my husband, and the business relying on me being at my absolute best…”

  The Commissary coughed. “We have brought D’Artagnan in for questioning.”

  Madame Su froze for a moment. “You have?” she said in alarm. “That’s no good, she was going to find my wretched husband for me. She can’t do that if you have her in here!”

  “We plan to locate your husband, don’t worry about that, Madame Su,” said the Commissary, before the other words sank in. “She? You mean he.”

  Madame Su looked confused. “I do?”

  The Commissary made a mental note to apply to the Cardinal for a pay rise. “Let’s get our prisoner in here, shall we?” She spoke into her comm stud. “Sergeant, bring D’Artagnan up from the cells to join us.”

  The man who was brought in by two of the Red Hammers was a blond, bearded pilot in a battered flight suit and bright blue Musketeer jacket. He bowed politely to them both.

  Madame Su stared blankly back.

  “Now perhaps, we can get somewhere,” said the Commissary. “Sit if you like, D’Artagnan. This may be a long night.”

  “I’d prefer to stand, if you don’t mind,” said the Musketeer with a polite bow in the direction of Madame Su. “The holding cell was so small that I could barely stretch my legs.”

  “Fine,” sighed the Commissary. “We have invited you here to help us with our enquiries about the whereabouts of Monsieur Conrad Su. Do you think you can shed light on this matter?”

  “I can’t think how I could,” said the Musketeer, leaning against the back wall of the interrogation room, and stretching his arms and legs in slow succession. “I’ve never met the man.”