Musketeer Space

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  “This one had scads of interesting things to say,” said Bee, her mouth hard. “Vaniel. I think it’s time you and I talked about family loyalty.”

  Well, this was unlikely to be pleasant.

  51

  The Comte de La Fere Is A Ghost Story

  The de Winter family skimmer was a masterwork of comfort and elegance in design. Milord had always been rather fond of it.

  Bee sat with her boots up on the dash, waiting him out.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, choosing not to address the implied knowledge and accusation in her voice.

  There were at least sixteen methods he could use to kill her, right this minute. It would be a shame – Bianca de Winter had been a worthy ally. Her loyalty to family had provided him with a certain layer of protection in the cutthroat world of Valour politics.

  Milord had always known that it would be temporary. Olivier, you taught me that. The second I disappointed you, my life was forfeit.

  They were a ruthless race, these New Aristocrats of Valour. Only four generations ago, their ancestors had set foot on a barren rock and turned their machines against it until it transformed into a land of storybook beauty, worthy of their distant myths and legends.

  If Milord had learned anything from the university courses he took to snare his first valuable spouse, it was that humans were stupid in the face of beauty. Having conquered this planet and made it perfect, the New Aristocrats thought themselves above it all.

  Oh they had religion, but was it a surprise that so many of them preferred Elementalism to the more forward-looking and inclusive Church of All? By worshipping the earth and the trees and the very air, they worshipped themselves all over again. Who was it that made the earth rich and fertile on this planet? Who was it that shaped the rivers and the mountains and altered the air so it tasted sweet in human lungs?

  The fucking New Aristocrats, that was who. Their religion, like everything else, was all about them.

  The de Winter family were as bloated and self-congratulatory as the d’Autevilles had been. But Milord had learned from the Comte de La Fere. By the time he presented himself on a platter to Delia de Winter and her arrogant, brash older sister, he had shaped a history that allowed him to play Someone of Note rather than an outsider, craving acceptance.

  He loved his title. How could he not? As the husband of the Comte de la Fere he had been merely the Honourable Auden d’Auteville, which made it clear he was of lesser status to everyone else in the backwater noble family he had chosen to infiltrate.

  When he came to marry Milady Delia de Winter, younger sister of the Countess of Clarick, he had expected much of the same. But Bee was generous, and pleased with the money and political influence that ‘Vaniel Greywater’ brought to the marriage. She allowed him to share Delia’s title, and somehow…

  Somehow, as Milord, he had become someone new. Perhaps these New Aristocrats knew what they were doing after all. The title was meaningless, and yet.

  He was a different man when he wore it. There was a confidence to him that only arrived when he became Milord, distancing himself from the ragged remnants of the previous identity that had nearly destroyed him.

  Bee waited now for him to speak, her boots twitching impatiently. Did she realise that he was considering the potential risks of killing her right here, in the skimmer? Had she password-locked the autopilot? It would not do to arrive, bloodstained and breathless, at the de Winter estate in the county of Clarick with the recently-murdered corpse of his sister-in-law.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what I know about you?” Bee made herself pretend her usual careless amusement.

  “I have already asked you a question and received no answer,” Milord replied, matching her light tone. “Goodness, darling, what have those surly Musketeers been telling you?”

  Bee leaned in. Milord’s gaze swept over the pulse at her throat, the one that he could pinch out so easily. She had no idea how strong he was, how much more than a human she had trapped here in the metal skin of this skimmer.

  Unless, of course, she did know.

  “One Musketeer,” said Bee, tipping her head back against the soft leather of the pilot seat. “His name is Athos. You’re acquainted, I believe?”

  Milord was careful not to allow anger to show in his body language. “We met for the first time some days ago.”

  Bee’s expression went hard. “Really, Vaniel? Is that the truth? I got the impression you had known each other long ago. Or is it a lie that you were once married to the Comte de La Fere, under another name?”

  Milord huffed out a laugh. “The Comte de La Fere? Someone has been telling you fairy tales. The Comte de La Fere is a ghost story.”

  “Indeed.” Bee looked unimpressed. How had Olivier got under her skin so quickly, turned her trust into suspicion? “I’d never heard of the estate, but I’ve had time to research it while waiting for you to show up. It’s found in the peak district of far north Castellion – a long way from civilised society. Far enough north that they use the old language – comtes and comtesses, ducs and duchesses. As it turns out, there was a Comte of those lands until five years ago, and he had a husband.”

  Milord had not wasted a thought on what happened to the estate after he left. He knew – had read somewhere – that Olivier d’Auteville disappeared after the execution of his husband, and was eventually declared dead. Perhaps one of the hangers-on that orbited the family had taken the lands for themselves. Perhaps they stood empty still.

  He had been happy there, for a time. When he thought of it now he remembered the chilly grey winters and not the fresh green warmth of the summers.

  “Have you been listening to gossip from a dead man?” he asked Bee.

  Her mouth broke into a broad, cold smile. “Such fascinating gossip.”

  Milord’s gaze was drawn to the viewscreen that was full of blue, bright blue. “We’re skimming over water.”

  “Yes,” said Bee. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, brother dear. But we’re not going to Clarick.”

  His attention snapped back to her, calculating. “Then I’m the one who’s sorry. I don’t think we have anything left to talk about.”

  Milord moved, and Bee twisted away from him. He had a blade in his hand by the time her boots smacked down on to the floor, but she did too. His was a killing knife, the kind that concealed so easily in a sleeve, though the SmartMetal allowed it to bend and warp to whatever length or width was most useful.

  Bee had a sword. She had kept it hidden beside her seat, but the hilt was in her hand now, the tip directly pointing at Milord’s throat.

  Her weapon had the reach on him, but she was a sportswoman and not a killer. He took a step, intending to let her impale him. A thin blade sucking through the middle of his throat would nicely take the sword out of play and do little to slow him down as he slit her throat and let her bleed out on the floor of the luxury skimmer.

  A hard snap locked around his ankles, forcing him still. Cuffs. The chair had cuffed him in place – some sort of automatic system? He growled, flexing against the hard metal that restrained him.

  Bee de Winter, the Countess of Clarick, lowered her sword. “I was never as stupid as you believed,” she told him.

  Milord snarled at her, no longer having to pretend. “Isn’t that inconvenient?”

  Finisterra. This was Finisterra. Milord knew it from the moment Bee led him – cuffed at the ankle and the wrist – from the skimmer and on to the hard grey rock of the island.

  Delia had brought him here once. She hated the place as much as any member of her family did. Finisterra was where New Aristocrats went to remember how good things were on the rest of the planet. It was one of the few patches of Valour which had never been successfully terraformed – oh, the air was breathable enough, and the bitter blue ocean as teeming with life as any other body of saltwater on this over-designed planet.

  But nothing grew on Finisterra. The de Winter family had sold stone blocks hewn fro
m this grim island for generations, to build castles all across Castellion, though the New Aristocracy preferred butter yellow sandstone from the eastern quarries than the pale blue-grey rock of the islands. Eventually the quarry was closed down.

  There was a tower here, built high and sure above the island, with a clear view across the ocean to mountains that must, it occurred to Milord, overlook the land he had first infiltrated when he arrived on Valour.

  This was a northern island, so he was closer to La Fere than he had been since his execution. Ironic, that he might meet a second execution here. Full circle, one might say.

  Good luck with that, Bee, Milord thought as he trudged the path from the skimmer to the grim tower that awaited him. His ankles were weighed down by magnetic cuffs. His sister-in-law held an arc-ray on him as she followed his steps. I wonder if you have any idea how difficult I will be to kill.

  Milord made his way inside the tower as a prisoner. The de Winters hated Finisterra but they loved their grey stone. Bee and Delia’s grandfather had built a similar tower on an unnamed asteroid after winning the ownership title of the space rock in a gambling debt. The asteroid was one of many random properties assigned to Milord’s care after the death of his wife, and he had made use of it recently to house Conrad Su.

  The Finisterra tower was colder and less welcoming than the asteroid tower had been.

  “I haven’t been here since I was a child,” Bee remarked as they entered the arched gate to be greeted by a flat-faced unit of guards, all wearing the de Winter crest. “I do hope there are dungeons.”

  “You are making a mistake,” Milord said, keeping his voice soft and unthreatening.

  Bee leaned in to him, making sure to keep at an arm’s length. Even with his wrists heavy in cuffs that matched the weights on his ankles, she did not trust him. And so she should not. “Was that someone else’s hand wielding a knife in my face a few hours ago?”

  “I feared for my life.”

  “From me?”

  “You have been bewitched by the words of a madman.”

  Bee smiled at that. “Mad is he, your handsome Musketeer? I thought he was a ghost story.”

  “Bee, for the sake of our family…”

  She actually hissed in her throat. “Family. You dare say that to me? I have trusted you as a brother and a friend, and this – what you have done to my family is indescribable.”

  “It’s the dishonour that burns, is it?” he shot at her. “How embarrassing, to have Musketeers spreading lies about your kin.”

  Bee looked as if she had been slapped. “You think I brought you here because you are an embarrassment? Darling boy. I brought you here because I want answers.”

  Milord wriggled his fingers, flexing his wrists against the cuffs. He could get out of them now, if he changed shape, but he did not yet know the lie of the land. If he could be sure those six men and women in livery were the only guards on the island, he would be prepared to risk it. But he had not got this far without patience, and caution.

  “I am an open book,” he said, projecting an aura of harmlessness. “What do you need to know, sweetness?”

  “For a start,” said Bee. “Did you murder my sister Delia?”

  Oh, that.

  Well.

  That was a long story, and the truth would not to endear him to Bee tonight.

  Better to say nothing.

  Milord was taken, not to a dungeon, but to a room high in the tower. Suitably melodramatic. He was impressed Bee’s commitment to the role of ruthless jailer.

  There were twelve guardsin all, presided over by a resentful woman in the emerald-and-gold sash of a Planetary Marshal.

  “Aren’t you overqualified for guard duty?” Milord asked the Marshal, calculating the size and shape of the room, the electronic seals on every window, and the active security system that would monitor him every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

  “Marshal Felton is here at the First Minister’s request,” said Bee, as she checked the accommodations. “I’ve done my research on you, since that informative call from Athos. Her Eminence the Cardinal was especially informative about your past activities.”

  Milord raised an eyebrow. “I bet she was.”

  “The government of Valour took it as a personal favour for me to discreetly remove you from the public, to minimise the scandal,” Bee went on. “I might get a knighthood for it.”

  “Betrayal is such a lucrative business these days.”

  Her face frosted over. “Don’t you dare, Vaniel. You wormed your way into my family, married my sister – who died so conveniently a year after the wedding, after such a brief illness. I never doubted you for a second. All this time.”

  “Bee,” he said, still hoping he could convince her to take his word over that of his former husband. “Be reasonable.”

  “Reasonable?” Bee hissed. “This isn’t a minor skeleton in the closet to be tidied away. My sister is dead, and my only heir turns out to have been fathered by a scum-sucking alien. I’m not in the mood to be reasonable, Vaniel. I’m done with you. If you have any confessions, give them to Marshal Felton, and we’ll see if anything you say is worth trading for a swift and private execution, instead of the publicly humiliating spectacle that the Valour government is preparing as we speak.”

  She stormed out of the room, leaving only Marshal Felton behind.

  Milord took a deep breath, and gave her a charming smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Family tiffs can be so awkward. Any chance of a hot cup of tea?”

  Olivier, you will die for this, he decided, then and there. I will make you watch me dismember the girl D’Artagnan before I finally let you fall into you own oblivion.

  52

  Five Days of Captivity

  Marshal Felton was a problem.

  Milord had been imprisoned many times, under many circumstances, but he was currently short on allies, and every guard on the island was aware that he had the ability to change his shape and his face.

  His room, at the top of the tower, was locked. The windows had turned out to be sealed. Plexi-glass, of course. Most New Aristocrats on Valour were willing to sacrifice history and traditional grandeur for security and convenience.

  No, the only way Milord was getting out of here was with the help of an ally, and the only one with the clearance to make it happen was the flat-eyed, suspicious and thoroughly sulky Marshal that was in charge of security around here.

  How to crack Felton? She was as dry and resistant as the grey rock that had been hewn into this isolated tower, on an island so far north that you could taste ice in the air.

  But every soldier had a breaking point. She would crack, sooner or later.

  On the first day of captivity, Milord sat quietly and responded obediently to every order. He did not try to scare Marshal Felton, or show her any face other than the one he had so carefully constructed for his identity as Vaniel de Winter, after losing his life as the younger and more cynical Auden d’Auteville.

  Milord had won many hearts and opened many doors with this face. There was something about humanity and their susceptibility to a fine pair of cheekbones that he should report back to his own people, sooner or later.

  If cheekbones could be weaponised, conquering humans would be easy.

  Milord composed himself outwardly while his inner heart burned with rage. Rage against D’Artagnan, against Olivier – no, Athos, it was Athos the musketeer who had brought him so low this time around. Olivier was as dead as the husband he had ruthlessly executed.

  He waited.

  Finally, the security web on the door hummed in response to a code, and the door swirled open to reveal the implacable figure of Marshal Felton, holding a food tray. Milord examined her through his sweeping eyelashes, considering the possibilities. “I don’t think I can eat,” he whispered.

  “No?” Felton banged the tray on the plain table in the corner. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I couldn’t begin to sa
y.”

  As Felton turned her back on him, Milord made his move. He slumped forward, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.

  Milord awoke to hear an argument happening over his head.

  “What kind of amateur are you?” demanded the dulcet tones of Vaniel’s sister-in-law. “Pretending to faint is the oldest trick in the book. I thought you were smarter than to fall for a literal slapstick routine.”

  “He wasn’t pretending,” Felton said hotly. “The medic confirmed he was unconscious.”

  “I told you no one was to enter this room except you and I, and it took him less than a day to compromise your instructions. What’s next? Am I going to find you braiding him an escape rope with your own hair? No more medics. No unauthorised personnel. I shudder to think what he could have done with access to medical equipment.”

  “There are rules on how to treat prisoners,” Felton replied. “I will not break those rules simply because…”

  “He is not human,” Bee hissed. “He has betrayed everything about our race and our planet. You cannot treat him like some common or garden prisoner.”

  “Spy, traitor, alien, whatever he is, we should treat him honourably,” said Felton.

  “Honourable is not the same as stupid,” said Bee. “Stop pretending, Vaniel, I know you’re awake.”

  Milord opened his eyes and stretched lazily. He lay on the floor, with what felt like a bruise across the top of his face. He had induced his entire body into a legitimate faint, knowing that bruising was a possibility. It all sold the story of his misery. “What did I miss?”

  “There will be no more pretending you are ill,” Bee said flatly. “We have been charged to keep you imprisoned until representatives from the Fleet collect you. It is the only way that the de Winter family can escape retribution for harbouring an alien spy in the first place.”