Musketeer Space

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Milord rubbed his face. “When you say family, you don’t mean those cousins you pretend to be polite to at parties, do you? You mean Morgan.”

  “Do not speak her name,” Bee snapped, and stormed out of the cell. “Felton, if you disappoint me again, do not expect further employment on Valour, or anywhere else in the Solar System.”

  For the rest of the day, Felton brought every meal on a tray, and Milord said nothing.

  On the second day of captivity, when Marshal Felton brought in the breakfast tray, Milord saw the star.

  It was a tiny thing, tattooed on the inside of the wrist and all but concealed by the sweeping sleeve of the uniform. But it was enough.

  The tray contained basic rations, a glass of juice (only the supper tray included wine) and two Elemental bowls, one filled with earth and one with water.

  “The Countess of Clarick insisted you have these,” Felton said quietly. “The prisoner’s charter requires you be provided with the basic tools of worship. I’m afraid she would not trust you with a flame.”

  Milord shoved the tray away, so that the Elemental bowls knocked together, and nearly spilled. “She mocks me,” he snapped. “She knows I do not share her religion.”

  There, a flicker of interest from the Marshal. A hairline crack in her armour. “Indeed? What religion do they follow, on your world?”

  “You mock me, too,” Milord said angrily. “She calls me alien though she has no evidence but the lies of a man who wants to destroy me. I am as human as you are, Marshall Felton, and I follow the stars.”

  Felton tilted her head to one side. “You belong to the Church of All?” There was sympathy in her eyes.

  “One more thing that woman has taken from me. My wife is dead, and Bianca controls my daughter. I am never to mention my own religion, lest I contaminate her!”

  Felton’s face was unreadable, but Milord knew he had got to her.

  “Did you know I have a daughter?” he said in the gentlest possible tone. “I will never see her again. That is why I am here. Nothing to do with war, or politics, or aliens. The Countess of Clarick has found a way to rid herself of her heir’s last surviving parent. I will never leave this tower alive.”

  “You will be guarded and protected in accordance with the law,” said Felton stubbornly.

  Milord gave her a wistful, melancholy smile, and ate his breakfast. “I am sure you believe that, and I respect you for it.”

  When Felton brought Milord lunch, and again when she brought supper, she interrupted the prisoner standing at the plexi-glass windows, singing quietly of the cosmonauts who went to the stars, and of the Church who kept them safe once they got there.

  On the third day of captivity, Milord was quiet over breakfast, eyes lowered to the ground. It was a magnificent performance of humble melancholy.

  He thought perhaps Felton was going to speak to him, but instead she pressed her mouth tightly closed and took the tray without a word.

  It was Bee, and not Felton who brought the lunch tray.

  “I heard you’ve switched religions,” Bee said cheerfully. “Was it your first spouse who put you on to the Church of All or is there some other husband or wife I don’t know about?”

  It was tempting to snap back with sarcasm or violence, but Milord could not discount the possibility that Felton and the other guards were watching the interchange.

  “You are subtle in your interrogation methods,” he said calmly. “Why are you still here? Isn’t there a war to fight? I would have thought charging off to blast lasers at an imagined enemy is exactly your kind of sport.”

  Bee gave him a frosty smile. “I have responsibilities here.”

  “You know that I was sent on a mission of vital importance to the war effort,” Milord tried. “Her Eminence the Cardinal wished me to encourage the Duchess of Buckingham and New Aristocrats like her – New Aristocrats like you – to bring reinforcements to Truth Space. It’s brave of you to risk the wrath of the most powerful religious leader this Solar System has ever seen.”

  Bee laughed at him. “You never stop, do you? I know who you are, Vaniel. As for the Cardinal, she has no more desire to be implicated in your crimes than I. No one is coming to rescue you. You are completely alone.”

  “Ha,” said Milord, and gave her a wan smile. “You never said a truer thing, Bee. There’s no one coming for me, and I have no allies.”

  I am alone. That’s what makes me dangerous.

  Felton brought the supper tray. Once again she found the prisoner at the window, comforting himself with songs of the stars, and the early spacefarers.

  “I can –” she said, and hesitated. “I have permission to bring you tools of worship. A book, perhaps?”

  Milord turned his beautiful face up to her. “A knife,” he said bleakly. “If you would really help me, there is a small knife hidden in the hem of the jacket I wore when I was brought here. It has a sacred star pattern on the hilt. The Cardinal herself gave it to me as a gift. Bring me that.”

  Felton approached the prisoner as carefully as if she were a wild animal. “What would you do with that knife, if I gave it to you?”

  Milord allowed a tiny puff of a sigh to escape his lips. “I promise, I will hurt no one but myself.”

  Felton shivered at the very thought of it. “You can’t think I’m going to let you commit suicide.”

  “Why not? It’s what she wants.”

  “Your – the Countess of Clarick wants to hand you over to the authorities of the Royal Fleet. Alive. She made that very clear.”

  “Ah yes, the Royal Fleet. Not the Combined Fleet, and certainly not the Cardinal’s own. Telling, that.”

  Felton’s mouth twitched. “I have no love of Musketeers but you must know that they serve the Crown’s justice. They will be fair with you.”

  “Oh yes,” Milord said hollowly. “Fair. They shall be fair judges, fair juries and fair executioners all rolled together into one – or, rather, three. You know the three I mean?”

  “Ha,” said Felton, rolling her eyes. “Yes, I have some idea. I took a call from the Musketeer Aramis before I received my official orders to hunt you down. They are not my favourite people, and in private life they barely have the morals of an alley cat between the three of them – but I don’t think they would be a threat to an innocent man.”

  “It depends on what you mean by innocent,” said Milord, and paused precisely so that Felton would encourage him to speak further. “Do you love the Cardinal, Marshal Felton? I believe you served her once.”

  “I did,” said Felton. “I love her still. I left Paris Satellite for personal reasons.”

  “You know that the Musketeers have an unreasonable hatred for the Cardinal and everything she stands for. That is why I have ended up in this awful situation. The Duchess of Buckingham – you know of her?”

  “I might have heard her name once or twice,” Felton said dryly.

  “She’s a monster. She seduced the Regence’s husband, months ago. And now – I can’t even speak of what she is doing now.” Milord stood, and stretched his legs. “I should eat, to keep up my strength. They will be here for me, soon enough.”

  Felton waited impatiently while Milord chewed through the dull, rote-printed rations. Finally, she burst out: “Of what do you accuse the Duchess?”

  “I accuse nothing. It is not my place.” Milord gave her a wry look over one shoulder, letting his silver hair fall rakishly over one eye. “I can’t give away all of my secrets.”

  “But if the Cardinal is in danger…”

  Marvellous how Felton had put the story together all on her own, with only a few steering hints from Milord himself. “Grave danger. The Duchess of Buckingham has the Musketeers wrapped around her little finger. They don’t realise the extent of her evil, because their hatred of the Cardinal makes them blind. Buckingham used that against them.”

  Felton stepped forward to take the tray. “I can’t – you know I can’t let you out. No matter what you say. You m
ust wait and submit yourself to justice. If what you say is true…”

  “There will be no trial,” said Milord, patting his mouth with a napkin. “I will be dead the moment that the Musketeers or their representatives arrive to take me. And by then, it will be far too late to save her Eminence.”

  As Felton turned to leave, Milord caught her troubled gaze with his own. “You will never forgive yourself,” he said gently. “If I am right, and Buckingham’s conspiracy succeeds. But God will forgive you.”

  On the fourth day of captivity, Felton brought Milord his knife.

  “I can’t give it to you,” she said stumbling over her words. “I can’t – the Church of All does not condone suicide, and neither do I. But I thought – it has the sacred constellations engraved upon it, and I thought it might bring you some comfort to see it.”

  Milord sat by the window, the model prisoner, hands folded submissively in his hands. “Perhaps I might hold it for a moment?” he asked. “You are a strong woman, I know you would stop me if I sought to do violence to myself. But – you are right. It has always brought me comfort.”

  Felton hesitated for a moment, and handed over the folded knife.

  Milord squeezed it tightly to his chest, and traced the star engravings with his fingertip. “You are kinder than I deserve. I would not fear justice at all if you were the judge.”

  “Would you like to pray?” Felton asked.

  Milord gave her a sweet, melting smile. “I would.”

  They held hands, and they prayed together for some time. When it was over, Milord handed the knife back to his jailer, and went to eat his breakfast.

  Felton had not seen the tiny hidden compartment in the knife, nor the silver grain-like beads that Milord poured secretly into his palm.

  Now, at least, he had a plan.

  He would not die here, on this rock.

  “Shall I come again, to pray with you?” Felton asked.

  Milord smiled warmly at her. “They’re watching us,” he said. “I worry about you. I think, once I am dead, they will think that I had too much opportunity to influence you. Why let a single official have so much exposure to me, if not to have a scapegoat when I am dead?”

  Felton’s face crumpled. “They’re not going to kill you,” she said. “We don’t execute prisoners, not on any planet in the Solar System.”

  Milord gave him a crooked smile. “Buckingham wants them all to think I am an alien spy. Everyone knows that the only way to kill a Sun-kissed is to cut their head from their body.” He turned away, as if the expression on Felton’s face was painful to him. “Don’t pray with me again. I don’t want you to suffer for sympathising with me.”

  “I’ll come when they’re not watching,” Felton whispered.

  “Don’t,” breathed Milord. “I’m not worth it.”

  On the fifth day of captivity, the Countess of Clarick brought every meal to her brother-in-law.

  “You have been made a fool, Bee,” he said, as she left after supper. “Buckingham is using us both – and the Musketeers too – for a plot that has nothing to do with this planet, or our family. When it is done, I will be dead and you will be left with blood on your hands and nothing to show for it.”

  “I knew you were poison when she married you,” Bee grated out.

  “No,” said Milord, and the smile he gave her was very different to the one had had been using on Marshal Felton. “You liked me. That’s why you’re so angry now. Don’t let them do this to our family.”

  Bee banged his tray out of the room with her, leaving the wine glass behind.

  It was later, nearly midnight, when Felton came.

  Milord was ready for her.

  53

  The Many Deaths of Milord

  The first time that he died, he was not Milord De Winter, nor was he Auden d’Auteville. His namewas a burst of light and shade in his own language: a vision that meant familiarity and home and me.

  He was one of the Bright Ones, a legion of youngsters charged with scattering themselves across the alien Solar System. Their mission: to integrate themselves into the society that called itself humanity.

  There were four of them in each pod, hurtling through the galaxy, away from the true suns, away from the light and heat and anything they had ever known.

  He (was he even a he at this point?) had no words for this loss, for the fear that swept over them all as they were shot like bullets into a Solar System that felt cold and grey compared to their own world.

  Why not call it death?

  He would never be bright and warm again.

  The planet was cold and pale; too far from the sun which was itself a weak ball of yellow light, hardly worth bothering about.

  Two pod-siblings were dead, shaken badly on impact. A third crawled ahead of him, out of the pod and into the wan sunshine. She stood, already forming her flexible scarlet limbs into the body she had learned to make in Basic Training.

  He watched as she gave herself two arms, two legs. She grew hair from her scalp, and nails from her fingertips. She stretched her waist thin and her hips wide; made globular breasts too round to be realistic.

  “Clothes,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t have enough… energy to stay warm, without clothes.”

  Something had gone wrong with her heat source; she was already turning blueish and pale, simply from the contact between her misshapen feet and the fierce white ice-crust of the ground.

  Winter, he realised. They had landed on the winter side of the planet. That was not in their mission parameters. It would count as a failing mark.

  He could feel his own heat within his core. It kept his muscles relaxed and protected even as he shaped his own body into the design he had worked on for so long.

  Male, now. A sleek, practical silhouette with the appropriate musculature. Toes. He had worked hard on his toes, ensuring a deliberate inconsistency between them. To be too perfect was to stand out, and their mission was to integrate, to collect data.

  To survive.

  His pod-sibling moaned as her skin chilled quickly. Her energy flickered. He stepped forward, pressing his chest to her back, so that she would think she could warm herself on his heat.

  As he drained her of the remainder of her light energy, she screamed. There was no one on this ice-crusted land to hear her. He burned with triumph, with the heat that meant survival.

  The pod disintegrated, as was always intended, leaving a small beacon behind, dug deep into the ice.

  As he walked across the ground, towards the flecks of heat and light in the distance that meant some kind of civilisation, his feet steamed where they touched the snow.

  The second time he died, he was the Honourable Auden d’Autevielle, husband to the young Comte de La Fere. He had spent two years befriending Olivier with his wit and sarcasm and beauty, before pouring everything he knew about humanity into a dazzling seduction.

  From lovers to husbands: it took only a few months for Olivier to fall so completely that he stood up to his remaining family members and asserted his privilege to marry whoever he damn well wanted.

  They were happy in their marriage, or as near to happiness as Auden had ever imagined. Each year he made a discreet pilgrimage back to the snowy wastes of far north Castellion, to pour all that he had learned about these people into the blinking, impersonal beacon.

  The war between his own people and the human solar system was over, but the work of spies continued. There would be another war, and he was one of the weapons they were saving for the future.

  Every year it became harder, to slide out of the warm bed and the man who loved him, to make that solitary trek and to betray the planet that had become his home.

  He was never warm on Valour, and yet he no longer saw it in bleak shades of grey and white. There was colour, if you looked hard enough.

  The beacon – his people – knew too much, now. They knew about Olivier and La Fere. The only way Auden could escape would be to destroy that life entirely: all the conne
ctions he had made and shared. To destroy his husband, and start again as a different person.

  Auden gazed thoughtfully at the beacon, uploaded his report, and returned home to the estate, to love, to Olivier, to warmth.

  The following year, he stayed home. He left it a day, and then another, telling himself that he would go tomorrow, that he had not truly made up his mind to turn rogue. The beacon made up his mind for him. At the beginning of the third day that the Honourable Auden d’Auteville failed to make his annual report, his skin began to burn.

  The heat was pleasant at first, familiar warmth that filled him with light and urgent energy. But the heat did not disperse. It poured over him in waves, sending him shivering one moment and sweating with heat the next.

  It appeared as an illness, to the humans. He fell into a rambling fever, his whole body swamped with pain and heat and punishment.

  By the time he had recovered anything like his usual sensibilities, it was too late. He found himself weighed down with heavy chains and cuffs, under sentence of execution by his own husband who had finally – terribly – discovered his secret.

  Here is what he could have done:

  1. Twisted his hands and feet thinner to easily escape the cuffs.

  2. Murdered the guards watching over him.

  3. Made a new body and started again, on the far side of the continent, or elsewhere on the planet.

  Instead, Auden placed his trust in the love that he had built with Olivier. He believed, right up until the last minute, that his husband was incapable of striking the killing blow.

  Humans knew so little about the Sun-kissed, even after fighting a war against them. One thing they all believed was that the only way to kill a Sun-kissed was to sever his head from his body.

  It was an extremely useful myth.

  There were millions of ways for his kind to die on their own world, but Auden had seen for himself that the only way that the Sun-kissed could die on Valour was if they took damage while their bodies were cold.