Musketeer Space

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  She passed it over, and waited as Buck pressed it into her own wrist and listened to the message within, her eyes closed. She swayed a little as she all but inhaled the sound of her lover’s voice. Then her eyes snapped open again. “The coat. It never made any sense that I took the coat. Come on.”

  Dana followed Buck to her private quarters. Duchesses required multiple wardrobes in which to keep their many outfits. Every room on this floor had one or more cupboards dedicated to fancy dresses, boots, hats, trousers, jewellery and other trinkets.

  So much space. So much wastage. On Paris Satellite or any other station, even the most dedicated party animal would have most of their clothes dissolved and reprinted based on the needs of the day. Why would you need to keep so many things?

  Dirtsiders were crazy, and wealthy New Aristocrat dirstsiders were crazier than most.

  “Here!” Buck crowed, diving into yet another room full of massive antique furniture and lush carpets that made Dana’s feet feel like they were being softened up for bad news.

  The duchess pulled a garment out from under her bed: a soft heap of purple silk shot with gold, green and midnight blue. An embroidered pattern of feathers covered the silk in an intricate design. This had to be the peacock coat Conrad had made for his Prince – Dana had never actually laid eyes on it before, but what else could it be?

  Diamonds glittered ferociously from the lapels of the coat. Dana blinked as she took them in. Prince Alek had tossed the coat away as an impulsive gift to his lover, not thinking about the value of the studs or the danger if it turned up in the wrong place.

  “I shouldn’t have taken it,” said Buck, handing it over. “Of course I shouldn’t. But Winter was in my head and – I don’t remember.” She sighed deeply, and sat on the bed. Her voice was steadier. “I don’t know why he didn’t take it off me at the spaceport. You know there are two Winters? The silver and the brown. The silver lives inside my head, but the brown – he’s the dangerous one. You won’t even see him coming.”

  Dana smoothed the silk between her hands. “It’s all right now. I will get this back to Conrad and the Prince in good time for the ball…” But then she stopped, and laid the coat out on the canopied bed, stretching it flat so that she could count the diamond studs. “Ten. There are only ten here.”

  Buck frowned, a gleam of intelligent thought passing briefly across her glazed, drugged-up expression. “No. There were twelve. Of course there were twelve. For the twelve continents of Auster.”

  Dana wanted to shake her. “Has anyone touched this coat? Since you left Dubois’s ship?”

  “Winter,” Buck moaned, and slid down on to the floor. “He must have taken them. He’s going to use them against Alek.” She buried her face in her hands. “I am too high for this. Can’t think straight. But if I get straight, he’ll come back and he’ll know.”

  “Okay,” said Dana, thinking fast. She was apparently the only person in the room who could be trusted to make plans. “Assuming that you’re right about having a spy implanted in your head – and I’m taking a lot on trust right now…”

  “Agreed,” Buck said softly.

  “If Alek wears it at the ball, with only ten diamond studs showing, it will be a disaster. Especially if your Winter has passed on the other two diamonds to someone in a position of power.” The Cardinal, Dana thought with a shiver. The Hammers and Sabres who jumped them on the Calais were working under her orders, and they weren’t the only ones. Rosnay Cho. That mysterious Milord. Perhaps more agents that she didn’t even know about.

  Dana’s brain finally caught up with her mouth. “We need to replace the diamonds. Conrad didn’t want to risk it on Palais Luna or Paris Satellite, but that was when he thought we might have to replace all twelve.”

  You couldn’t print diamond; it was one of the few substances that couldn’t be artificially replicated. But if the Duchess was willing to bankroll them, and they had the right craftsperson, they could perhaps have a couple of studs made from scratch in the time available.

  Buck nodded, caressing the coat with one hand. “I know an electro-jeweller in Liberte who should be able to – do a thing.” She waved her hand vaguely.

  “Can I use your credit?” Dana had no shame in asking. This was Buck’s mess and Dana was already doing more than enough to clean it up.

  Buck waved her hand again, to indicate that she didn’t care.

  Dana cracked open her clamshell, plotting a course.

  The bullet train could get her to the nearby county of Liberte. It wasn’t even going out of her way – from there she could travel on to Arguerinne, the largest spaceport in the region. There were closer ports, but she needed a crowd to get lost in.

  She would miss the connection with the Calais’ return trip, but that was just fine with Dana, especially if she could use Buck’s credit for passage on a venturer instead. She had no doubt that the Hammers would be well aware now of the name Dana had been travelling under with the Musketeers – better to use a new identity and let the Calais passage stand as a false trail.

  “Won’t this Winter of yours be able to see everything we’ve planned when you sober up?” was the next thing Dana though to ask. Hopefully Buck’s plan was not to never sober up; that didn’t seem sustainable.

  The duchess reached for her locket, which snapped open to reveal a cornucopia of pharmaceutical delights. “This little black pill is Oblivion. Can knock me out for a day or two. Should lose – about a day of memory. I’ll forget all about you, brave little Musketeer. Also that incredibly boring conversation I had with Madame Pinquenot this evening. So win-win.” She preened a little, looking delighted with herself. “Winter will never see what we talked about here today.”

  Dana didn’t correct Buck about being a Musketeer. She liked the assumption. She reached out to close the locket before the duchess got too enthusiastic about popping pills. “Let’s get that credit line and travel pass sorted out first, yes? And -” This last request was deeply embarrassing, but she had to ask. “I think I might need to borrow a frock.”

  Two days later, a woman whose travel pass named her as Alix Charlemagne waited impatiently on the platform to catch the bullet train from Liberte to Arguerinne. She had spent most of the day pacing up and down the sales floor of a high end electro-jewellery emporium which was so exclusive it didn’t even have a name. An elderly self-described genius called Mr Emil took seven full hours to blast-cut and engrave two diamond studs to match the others on the Prince Consort’s coat.

  They had decided to fill the studs with ancient opera tracks, cave paintings and century-old social media memes, to complement the content of the other studs that were apparently stocked with the ‘culture bank’ of Honour.

  Emil’s work was excellent, and it would pass, but Dana was pretty sure she had lost ten years off her life waiting for the studs to be ready.

  The dress wasn’t helping. Thanks to the over-enthusiasm of a drugged-up Buck, Dana had come away from Villiers Manor with a suitcase full of frocks, shoes, baubles and even a cosmetic wand, which made her feel like an alien playing dress-up. But she needed to look as different as possible to Dana D’Artagnan.

  The fashion among New Aristocrats on Valour was for retro-glamour: long sweeping skirts and jewelled collars. Dana had come this close to putting a corset on under this particular travelling gown but decided at the last moment that there was only so much internal outrage she could stomach.

  Athos might crack a smile if he could see her now. Assuming he recognised her. The other two would be rolling on the floor – Dana had muttered enough about Porthos’ vanity when it came to covering her pilot’s buzz cut with elaborate wigs that she was due for some ribbing of her own for this piece of gender performance.

  Alix Charlemagne had long black curls spiralling around her ears, a pearl choker wrapped around her throat, and a jade green gown covering her from muscular shoulder to pearl-buttoned ankle boot. Dana had never dressed so femme in her life, and she felt like a comple
te idiot. Especially when she tangled the back of the gown in the automated doors, and needed two of her fellow passengers and a conductor to help her free it without ripping.

  All she wanted to do after that was to throw herself into the nearest seat and nurse her embarrassment quietly, but the conductor caught sight of her travel pass and waved her all along the length of the train to the first class carriage.

  Cheers, Buck.

  The other occupants of the carriage were a white couple who were ignoring each other. The man had untidy brown hair, a rumpled business suit and a near-permanent frown. He leaned against the window with all his attention fixed to a gleaming chrome clamshell. Dana didn’t dwell on him despite a vague sense of deja vu. Where had she seen him before? Perhaps they were celebrities, like those yahoos in Buck’s photostream.

  The female passenger, who wore her auburn hair with pearl-clustered hairpins, and actually did have a corset beneath her own tailored silk travelling gown, was delighted to see Dana. “Finally, someone to gossip with!” she exclaimed, all but clapping her hands with glee. “I’m Bianca, Countess of Clarick, and I just know we’re going to be the best of friends!”

  Dana considered it a personal triumph that she didn’t turn tail and run instantly. Time to suck it up and become Alix Charlemagne, as convincingly as possible.

  Oh, God. She might have to talk about shoes.

  23

  Something Political

  Dana – or rather, her cover identity, Alix Charlemagne – learned more about her travelling companions over the next few hours than she ever needed to know about anyone. The charming Bianca was just as interested in Alix’s story as she was in her own, which meant that Dana had to busily invent all kinds of details and then try to remember them.

  It kept her awake for the journey to Arguerinne, and the venturer that would take her off this planet and home to Paris Satellite.

  Bianca, Countess of Clarick, forbade her new friend from ever referring to her title. She embodied everything that Dana had ever heard about New Aristocrats. Bianca was an elite hobbyist sportswoman who occupied her days attending parties, travelling for shooting competitions, and duelling in the back streets for kicks.

  Relieved, Dana confessed her own taste for the sword. The profile she had built was that of a spoiled daughter of a wealthy family on a Grand Tour across the solar system. She incorporated an unnamed Athos in her tales as an extremely grumpy swordmaster. Aramis, likewise unnamed, became Alix’s poetry tutor, while Porthos, mentioned only as ‘Madame Polly,’ was her governess.

  After a while, she realised that she was enjoying herself. Bianca had a talent for card games as well as gossip. It was the first time Dana had relaxed since she was last with her friends.

  Vaniel was more of a mystery. Bianca described him as ‘something political in the city’ and he offered nothing to add to that, busily working away and ignoring them both. The only time he interrupted their conversation was when he threw himself half across Bianca’s lap to call up a newscast on the back wall of the carriage.

  “Oh not now, Vaniel,” Bianca moaned. “Turn it down. I don’t have the least interest in whether the Marquise De Wardes is running for office or if she’s been named Best Dressed Politician for the third week in a row. Your obsession is boring.”

  “Put a cake in it, Bee,” was all her charming companion replied. He stood in the aisle watching the newscast with an odd, burning hunger in his face.

  Later, when their sumptuous supper was delivered, Dana nodded towards the other side of the carriage where Vaniel had exiled himself as part of his ongoing interest in the political ramifications of whatever it was that this Marquise de Wardes had said in her public address. “Will your husband want to eat as well?”

  Bianca stared at her in open-mouthed shock and then all but killed herself laughing. “Oh, that’s priceless, Lexie,” she bellowed. Alix Charlemagne had become Lexie somewhere round about the third hour of the journey, and Bianca demanded she call her ‘Bee’ in return. “Vaniel, she thinks we’re married! Isn’t that a kick?”

  “How precious,” said Vaniel in a light drawl that almost, but not quite, reminded Dana of Athos.

  “He’s my brother-in-law,” Bee said when she had herself under control. “Widowed, when my poor sister died a few years ago. I keep him around since he had the good taste to sire the Clarick heir – saved me the trouble of birthing my own children! Who can be bothered with that nonsense?”

  Dana saved herself from answering by filling her mouth with a smoked salmon blini.

  “Of course,” said Bee thoughtfully, eyeing Dana up from head to toe. “It would make us very happy if he married again. I don’t suppose you’re in the market for a husband?”

  “Bee,” said Vaniel warningly from the corner, which showed he was keeping at least half an ear on proceedings. “Don’t marry me off to strangers on the train.”

  “Fine,” Bee said, and mimed ‘we’ll talk later’ to a horrified Dana.

  By the fifth hour of the journey, even Bee had exhausted all topics of conversation. She collapsed against the window with a selection of fashion magazines she had managed to apply to Vaniel’s tablet. Only minutes after she started flicking through the images, she was fast asleep.

  To Dana’s surprise, Vaniel surfaced from his work long enough to order tea from the food printer, and then offered to play a game of chess. “Clears my head,” he said with a rare smile.

  He beat Dana twice in quick succession, all the while explaining to her why the political aspirations of the Marquise de Wardes were important – she was a staunch loyalist to the Solar System, and had announced today that she was in the running for First Minister. Her platform was based on opposition to planetary independence for Valour, supporting the continued rule of the Regence Royal.

  The Marquise’s talent for personal PR and her reputation as a fashion icon had helpt to establish her massive popularity among the all-important demographic of voters who hated politicians.

  To Dana’s surprise, once she realised that the Duchess of Buckingham was the other proposed candidate for First Minister – running on a platform of planetary independence based on an upcoming referendum – she became rather interested in the matter, and was more than happy to listen to Vaniel’s spiel.

  He enjoyed having someone to bounce his thoughts off, and the two of them spent a pleasant hour or two batting politics back and forth in a manner that might or might not have been flirtatious.

  It was late at night when they finally arrived in the city. Dana rose with her suitcase full of frocks and peacock coat and diamond studs. The venturer on which Alix Charlemagne had booked her passage would leave at midnight.

  “Perhaps our paths will cross again,” said Vaniel, his political face restored and his hair combed neatly. “You’re on your way to Paris Satellite?”

  “I’ve always wanted to go,” said Dana with a smile that she didn’t have to fake. Home, she was going home.

  “I’m sure you’ll find many amusements there.” Vaniel shook Bee awake with a brotherly carelessness, and the other woman hurled herself at Dana with apologies and lipstick-smearing kisses and promises to keep in touch.

  Dana had already half-forgotten the Claricks when she stepped on to the platform. The sooner she got back to Paris and completed her duty to the Prince Consort, the sooner she could reunite herself with Porthos, Aramis, Athos and their engies.

  A delegation of secretaries and assistants were waiting to greet Vaniel and Bee. Several of them swiped wrist studs against Vaniel’s to share files instantly, while one lurched ahead of the rest of perform a formal greeting. “Milord de Winter, the press conference has been pushed back an hour, but the Freedom delegation has priority depending on…”

  Dana almost lost her footing and fell under the train.

  “Goodness, darling,” said Bee, leaning back to clasp her elbow. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Dizzy,” Dana whispered. God and All. Milord de
Winter. Winter. This charming, chess-playing political obsessive was the man who had put a psychotic copy of himself inside Buck’s head, to spy on the prince. It was worse than that, because with that title ‘Milord’ she realised where she had seen him before.

  He had been dressed differently, acting differently, that night in the bar on Meung Station: all silver hair and lazy drawl. But it was him. The agent working with Rosnay Cho.

  You know there are two Winters? The silver and the brown. The silver lives inside my head, but the brown – he’s the dangerous one. You won’t even see him coming.

  Dana had liked Vaniel. She had played chess with him, and his sister-in-law had tried to set them up and OH GOD she had the diamonds here in her suitcase, only metres away from him. She had escaped right under his nose.

  He wasn’t looking in her direction as she drew away. She wasn’t interesting to Vaniel de Winter now that he had people around him who actually understood the Valour political system. Still dazed, Dana exchanged a final air kiss with Bee and fled the station, heading across the city she didn’t know to reach her berth on the venturer.

  Home, she was going home. Away from politicking Milords and drug-addled Duchesses and charming Countesses and the sodding planet that was capable of making Athos furious merely by raining on him.

  Home, to Paris. Everything was going to be all right.

  Lalla-Louise Renard Royal, Regence of the Solar System, was surrounded by peacocks: a host of beautiful people in bright, preening colours. She had never been so bored in her life.

  The Hunt called to her, as it often did. But she pressed down the urge to flee this crowd and bury herself in her beloved chemicals. She had a duty to perform tonight. She had to find out if the terrible thing that the Cardinal believed about her husband was true.