What would he want on his walls? he wondered. And what steps would he have to take to make certain that none of his colleagues removed what he put there?
“And here,” Tvar said, pointing to an instrument glittering, in a case, “is the spoon that the Marquess of Tharkar used to remove his heir’s eyes during an argument over dessert.” Her tongue lolled in amusement.
“What was the argument about?” Batty asked.
“Dessert, as I said.”
“I thought you said it was during dessert.”
“The argument was over dessert, not during dessert. They fought over what flavor of sherbet to serve, I think.” Tvar’s eyes glittered with amusement. “You know, it is generally believed that the Khosali are a lot more steady, reliable, and law-abiding than humans . . . but I must say that when we go bad, we really go bad.” She cocked one ear toward Maijstral. “You know, Drake, you might consider spoons as weapons in your next combat.”
Maijstral grinned with forced jocularity.
“I will if the other fellow will.”
Roberta gave him a superior look. “Oh,” she said. “And as to weapons, I have a much better idea than that. And by the way, if Captain Hay ever calls, may I borrow Roman for the meeting?”
*
“Hello?”
Roberta smiled as she saw who had telephoned her. “Will!” she said. “I hadn’t expected to hear from you.”
“I just called to let you know that J.B.’s been released from the hospital. He broke a cheekbone, and rebroke the nose and lost-some teeth, and there are bruises and some nasty cuts—I think from that diamond of Maijstral’s—but it’s nothing that can’t be repaired.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Yes. He’ll soon be good, as new—better, once the teeth are replaced with implants.” Pause. “You and I are still friends, aren’t we? I mean, we can still speak to each other and everything?”
“Of course we can.”
“Good. I’m relieved. Because I’d like to express my thanks for your part in forming Maijstral’s strategy and keeping everything nonlethal.”
“Well,” a smile, “I’m afraid I can’t claim credit for that. It was all Drake’s doing.”
“Oh. Well. I suppose I can’t exactly call him and thank him, can I?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Really?” Brightening. “Do you think it would be good form?”
“Certainly. It wasn’t your fight, it wasn’t your grudge. If we can all be friends again, so much the better.”
“Wonderful. But I don’t suppose . . .” A long pause.
“Yes?”
“I don’t suppose I can resume my magic lessons.”
“Well,” laughing, “I think Drake is rather busy now.”
“Yes. Of course. But still, it would be very nice to see you—to see you all again.”
“I will look forward.”
There was the sound of a chime. “I’ve got to go, Will. I’ve got another call.”
“Well. Talk to you later, then.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Roberta switched to the other call and found herself gazing into the shaded eyes of someone who looked remarkably like Elvis Presley.
“Your grace?” the Elvis said. “I am Major Song. Captain Hay has asked me to act for him in the matter of his fight with Drake Maijstral.”
“Ah,” Roberta said. “I see.”
She took a breath and steeled herself.
She knew exactly what she wanted to do.
*
Conchita Sparrow blinked in surprise when she saw who had phoned her.
“Miss Sparrow,” Maijstral said, “are you busy?”
“I’d imagine that you’d be,” she said. “What is it, three duels left?”
“I have no intention of keeping track,” Maijstral said.
The score would be too depressing in any case.
“The media are full of the story,” Conchita said. “Several of the broadcasters seem to have converted to twenty-four-hour Maijstral channels.”
That, Maijstral reflected, was too depressing all by itself.
“I was wondering if I could hire you for a few days,” he said.
Conchita looked puzzled. “You need me to build some gear?”
“No,” Maijstral said. “Not really.”
She grinned. “I can’t imagine you want to hire me for my burglarizing skills.”
“No. Not that, either. I want you to do a tail job.”
“It’s not really my line of work,” she said, ears cocked forward with interest, “but I’m willing to give it a try. Who do you want me to follow?”
“Alice Manderley.”
Conchita pursed her lips and whistled. “Well, now that’s an interesting assignment.”
“I thought another burglar would be more likely to understand any countermeasures she’d use. Are you willing?”
“Only too! Where do I find her?”
“The Underwater Palace for the moment, though I expect she’ll be leaving in the next day or so. There’s only one exit, not counting submarines, so I imagine she’ll be easy enough to pick up.”
“Sounds right as Robbler.”
They spoke about fees and communication protocols for a while, then said their adieux. Maijstral turned away from his suite’s phone pickups, a subdued green glow in his lazy eyes, and smiled.
Nichole had provided Diadem security’s watch a list of all known burglars in the vicinity of Earth. Of those named, Maijstral judged that only Alice Manderley possessed the skills necessary to have neutralized all the alarms and traps in Maijstral’s booby-trapped room at the Underwater Palace.
Which in itself wasn’t conclusive, but it was something like a large pointing finger floating in the sky over Alice’s head, inscribed with the ideogram for “inquire within.”
If in the next few days, Alice took a little detour in the direction of Memphis, then Maijstral fancied he’d know what to do.
*
Captain Milo Hay looked as if he were battling a hangover in addition to his numerous contusions and bruises. His face was dotted with semilife patches and he moved uneasily, as if it hurt to exert himself.
Or perhaps he was made uneasy by Roman, whom Roberta had brought with her. Hay was apparently a professional xenophobe, and might therefore be expected to be wary of Khosali—but he might be indulged in this instance, as Roman was a sight guaranteed to produce unease in anyone with even the faintest grasp of sanity: skin wrinkled and gone from normal grey to bright pink, nose cracked and bleeding where the new age-ring was coming in, eyes starting from their sockets in a barely repressed psychotic glare.
He was the worst molter Roberta had ever seen. But apt, she concluded, to her purpose.
Captain Hay, despite his injuries and the effects of alcohol on his tender system, had nevertheless made an effort and donned the full dress uniform of the Human Guard, as splendid in its way as the white bejeweled outfit, of Major Song, who—as ever—was dressed as Elvis.
“A what?” Major Song asked.
“Caestus,” Roberta said, and fingered the studded leather straps she’d dropped on the table in front of Captain Hay. “It’s an ancient Earth weapon, dating, I believe, from the time of the Romans. You strap one on each hand. I was surprised to find the caestus in the Khosali weapons lists, but there you go. They’re a very inclusive sort of people.” Unlike others, her tone implied.
Hay picked up the straps and looked at the metal studs designed to crush bone, the hooks meant to tear flesh. He swallowed hard.
Immediately after Major Song’s call, Roberta had flown to Alaska to meet with her in person. She wanted to handle this face-to-face.
Major Song hiked up her wide wrestler’s belt. “Let me understand this,” she said. “You insist on using this weapon.”
Roberta straightened her spine and flashed a cold look at Captain Hay. “Your principal chose to strike mine with his fist. My principal insis
ts he be allowed the chance to reciprocate.”
“But this isn’t according to form,” Song protested. “You can’t just dictate which weapons are to be used. It’s up to both seconds to decide.”
“Hitting someone without warning isn’t according to form either,” Roberta pointed out. She flicked her ears carelessly. “Of course, if your principal is afraid of facing the consequences of his behavior . . .”
Hay looked up sharply. “Hey. We never said that.”
“We want to follow form,” Major Song insisted.
“Let me point out that my principal has already fought one duel—just this morning, in fact. I assume you’ve seen it on video. He won a complete victory, of course, and with his bare hands.” Roberta permitted herself to smile. “Of course, his antagonist was a friend whose continued existence my principal wished to preserve.” She looked at Hay. “He doesn’t know you at all.”
A growling noise filled the room. Song and Hay looked in alarm here and there to find the source, and then seemed even more alarmed when they discovered the source was Roman.
Hay turned pale. “Say;” he said; “Now, about these weapons . . .”
“That’s why we insist on the caestus,” Roberta went on. “It might be said that Captain Hay chose fists himself, when he struck my principal, and my principal chose the, ah, intensity level of the combat. If it’s a formal duel, of course there has to be a chance of death. I’m informed that quite a few ancient Romans died in fights with the caestus, though of course there’s a decent chance that, with those heavy studs and hooks, the loser will just be mutilated so severely they will be unable to continue . . .”
“Wait a minute!” Hay said.
“We insist on another weapon!” Major Song said, turning as red as her principal had turned pale.
Roberta looked at her. “Do you have another weapon in mind, or will just any other weapon do?”
Major Song opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.
“I remind you,” Roberta said, “that my principal has nothing to prove in the matter of his courage, while your principal, whose introduction to my principal was by way of a cowardly attack, has everything at stake—either he is a polite individual, fit to be seen in society, or he is not, and so far the evidence is not in his favor.”
“Hold on here,” Hay said. “All I did was hit the man. After what he said the other day, I couldn’t help myself once I saw him. It was just . . .” He groped for words.
“A form of political protest,” Major Song concluded.
“That’s right,” Hay said. “I don’t see why it really needs to go any farther.”
Roberta frowned, straightened herself, and looked at Hay. “Is it your contention that striking people is an acceptable form of political protest? And that there is no need for a fair combat as a consequence?”
“Well,” Hay said, “yes, I suppose.”
Roberta frowned, then shrugged. “If you insist.” She turned to Roman and smiled. “I believe, Roman,” she said, “that you have several political points to make with Captain Hay?”
Hay’s eyes widened. He got out one word—”Wait!”—before Roman reached him.
Roberta closed her eyes during the worst of it. The meaty sounds of fists on flesh, the grinding of cartilage and the crack of bone, were quite graphic enough without her having actually to watch it.
Once a day for this sort of thing was enough.
Throughout the fight Major Song backed up against the wall and stared at the proceedings with horror. After Roman had finished, Roberta looked at her and nodded.
“I’m pleased we reached an understanding,” she said, then took her caestus and left, fingering the media globe in her pocket through which she’d recorded everything.
The next visit would be to Prince Hunac. Unfortunately she anticipated that, with the Prince of Quintana Roo, she’d have to adopt a different strategy.
*
“Hello?”
Two perfect blue eyes gazed at Maijstral from the video. “Drake. I have some information.”
“Oh yes?”
“Concerning the Baron Sancho Sandoval Cabeza de Vaca.”
“Oh. Yes.”
“He did in fact serve as a junior officer under your grandfather in police actions in Malaysia and on the Indian subcontinent. There is no indication that he and your grandfather ever met.”
“I see.”
“He and your father seem to have crossed paths on several occasions. They had an assortment of political groups in common.”
Maijstral sighed. “No need to go into detail. I can imagine.”
“I expect you can.”
“The point being,” Maijstral said, “I never met this man until he walked up to me and started hitting me with his cane. No glory is going to be won by thrashing an elderly nobleman in a fight.”
And even less glory, Maijstral added to himself, if it was the elderly nobleman who happened to be the winner.
“I have been looking through the Imperial Sporting Commission’s Manual on Approved Formal Combat Systems,” Maijstral went on, “hoping to discover if there is some way I can avoid fighting Sandoval, but all I’ve discovered is that if I object to Sandoval on account of age, the Baron is then allowed to find some strapping young brute as a substitute, and then I have to fight him.”
The blue eyes narrowed in concern. “How long is this manual?”
“Over two thousand pages, not counting all the statistics in the appendix. And, as I’ve discovered, it’s not very well indexed.”
There was nothing in the index, Maijstral had discovered, along the lines of Fights, weaseling out of.
“Continue your researches, then. Perhaps I will assign several of the Diadem’s people to it.”
“The Diadem doesn’t mind you using their resources this way?”
“Gracious, no. The research boffins love work that has a real application. They got all these degrees and things, and here the Diadem sets them to research fashion trends, dig out old video star gossip, and find out which exotic fish rates as a ‘must-see’ off Cozumel. They love having work out of the normal run.”
Maijstral smiled. “Well. Thank you.”
“And another thing. I’ve arranged things at Graceland. You will be granted use of the Jungle Meditation Room tomorrow afternoon and all night, beginning at sixteen o’clock.”
“Thank you.”
The blue eyes looked at him frankly. “I must confess that I was of two minds concerning this business of sending you on to Memphis instead of keeping you here. I may have thrown you into the arms of your young Duchess.”
“I haven’t forgotten our time together.”
“Well,” grudgingly, “see that you don’t.”
There was a gentle chime. “I have another call,” Maijstral said.
“Au revoir, then. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“It’s been tomorrow for a couple hours.”
“Later today, then.”
The blue eyes winked out, were replaced by eyes of violet The eyes looked very weary.
“Good news. I’ve settled with Captain Hay, and there won’t be a fight. I recorded our entire conversation, so that if he tries to recant or make untrue claims, we can release our version and make him look ridiculous.”
Maijstral’s heart warmed. “Splendid!”
“I’m sending Roman back to you. And I’ve just spoken to Prince Hunac. He’s still under the influence, a bit, of the stuff he took last night—and I think that’s fortunate, because it made him quite suggestible. He has agreed to postpone any confrontation until the situation clarifies.”
Maijstral’s already-warm heart sparked to a furnace glow. “My dear, if the phone permitted it, I would kiss you full on the mouth.”
“I’m too tired for kisses right now.” With a yawn. “Prince Hunac has offered me a room here, and I’m going to take it.”
“Sleep well.”
“What you must do is speak to the media tomorrow
and let them know that the Hay matter is settled, and that your quarrel with Prince Hunac is on the verge of being composed. That will force our opposition to make another move—they’ve got to try to frame you again, or give up their plan.”
“Nichole just told me that Graceland has become available.”
“Excellent. Then you must tell the media of your plans for a religious retreat.”
“I will. I’m a hereditary prince-bishop after all—I’ll tell the media I’m going to spend a whole night praying for peace.”
Laughter lines formed about the violet eyes. “I keep forgetting you’re a bishop. You’re not very ecclesiastical.”
Maijstral composed his face into an expression of piety. “I prefer to keep my devotions private, thank you.”
“Well, I’m a hereditary abbess, so I suppose I should not criticize.”
“Really? Which order?”
“The Reformed Traditional Hospice Order of the Blessed Spatula.”
“Oh. The Spatulans! I’ve seen their abbeys scattered here and there.”
“Yes. And since I’m an abbess, I’ve got to see the Spatula itself, in a vault in the City of Seven Bright Rings. It’s supposed to be an emanation of Gulakh-XII the Well-Versed, who is alleged to have ascended bodily to heaven after he retired from the throne.”
“An emanation, is it? I wondered why they worshiped a bit of kitchen equipment.”
“They take it out of the vault once a year and make a holy omelette with it, and then the celebrants all swallow a piece. The ceremony is quite moving.”
“I’m sure.”
“My piece was a bit leathery when I tasted it, though.” Another lengthy yawn. “I really should turn in. It’s been a long day.”
“You’ve more than earned your rest.”
“So have you. But you got a nap.” Another yawn. “I’ll think about Baron Sancho tomorrow.”
“I have every confidence in you. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Maijstral sat for a long moment in his darkened room and contemplated the remarkable women, the galactic superstar and the nobly born Spatulan abbess, who seemed to have taken command of his life.
Not, considering the alternative, that he objected. Not exactly. But he found himself yearning for that blessed time when he had been convinced that he was captain of his fate. That time seemed very remote now, though it had only been a few days ago.
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