It was signed “A. Pettengill, Director,” over the stamp of the Legatis Primus de Matraup. The last sentence was Pettengill’s, she knew, telling her that this time there was no way around the forced resignation—it had been Arthol who was at the end of many of the strings she’d pulled to keep the Regency after the Heritage fiasco. All debts have been paid, he was saying.
She had a sinking feeling that he might be right.
D’Embry stared at the flimsy as if the intensity of her gaze could alter the words. The symbiote fed her cooling balms that did little to quench her fury.
Santos McClannan entered her office without knocking. He strode over and extruded a chair from the floor before her desk. He sat, watching her. She let the flimsy fall to the desk. A thin forefinger tinted bright orange skidded it across the slick surface toward McClannan. “I assume you’ve seen this,” she said dryly.
Something between smile and frown tugged at his mouth. He picked up the paper with a strange gingerness. One hand ruffled through his hair as he scanned it—as she had somehow known it would, his hair fell back perfectly in place. “I was aware of the decision,” he said at last. He was not sure how she was going to respond, and he was also a little frightened—d’Embry could see that in the way he sat, in his fiddling with the edges of the flimsy, in the fact that he could not look at her directly for more than a few seconds. Damned frigging coward. I wonder where he got the courage to go over my head?
“I’m not going to make any pretense, McClannan,” she said. “You’re responsible for this, aren’t you?”
His face shifted to shocked innocence an instant too late. “M’Dame, I—”
She shook her head. The motion stopped his protest. “I could still fight this, McClannan. I don’t have to accept this forced resignation.” She said it merely to see how he would react—she was not disappointed.
He sat back, dumbfounded, hands clenched into fists on her desk. “That would be a waste of time, m’Dame.” The fact that he neglected her title didn’t escape her. “Surely you know that,” he said in his darkest tones, full of gentle sympathy whose falseness burned at her. “You’d simply compound the difficulties here, maybe wreck all that you’ve worked to gain on Neweden. Simply for spite? I don’t believe you’re that selfish, m’Dame. I won’t believe it.”
She didn’t answer for long seconds. McClannan looked more and more uncomfortable with her silence. When she did speak, it was to say one word. “Bullshit.”
She closed her eyes and felt dizziness. Make it stop, symbiote. Come on, you damned Trader slug. And with that came an unbidden afterthought: Maybe they’re right. When you must divide your attention between crises and your health . . .
McClannan’s soft voice interrupted her reverie. “M’Dame—”
“It used to be ‘Regent.’” She did not open her eyes.
“M’Dame,” he persisted, “all that you’ll gain by fighting this decision is dissension, both within the Neweden government and our staff here.”
“Our staff?” Her eyes opened, blue-gray eyes blinking. “You mean your staff, don’t you, Regent McClannan?”
“I’d hoped you wouldn’t be bitter, m’Dame.”
“Just what the hell did you expect me to be, McClannan?” She shouted as loudly as she dared, feeling the raggedness in her throat. She forced down a fit of coughing. Not now, symbiote. Punish me later. “Did you think I’d sidle up to you, all sweetness, and kiss your cheeks proudly? Did you want me to tell you how glad I am that you stabbed me in the back?”
“I did nothing.”
“Gods, spare me your protestations. I know what you did, McClannan, at least some of it—my com-unit logs all calls from this Center, and I know you contacted Niffleheim two days ago. Don’t tell me that’s coincidence.”
This time, at least, he didn’t deny the allegation. “M’Dame, didn’t you defy those in power when you felt they were wrong?” He seemed to be mouthing someone else’s words. She wondered whose they were—Sula Hermond’s, the Li-Gallant’s, or some other traitor within her staff. “Who told you that trash?” she snapped.
He did not lie well. He almost stuttered his reply “M’Dame, your reputation . . . in the classes at Diplo Center they talked about you, about some of your, ahh, old confrontations with authority. And the teachers, the Diplos who’d known you . . .”
D’Embry waved a hand as if brushing aside a troublesome insect. Multihued flesh broke off McClannan’s sentence. “It’s not important, I suppose. You’ve done it, McClannan. You’re now the Regent. I hope that Dame Fate sees that you receive what you deserve for it.”
He looked relieved, knowing that she would not fight the resignation. “M’Dame, I think you’ll be surprised to find that I’m quite competent.”
“You’re right, McClannan, I will be. Let me tell you what I think will happen.” She leaned forward, elbows on the desk. Her thin, much-lined face was intent with the force of her emotions. “You’re a conceited, ineffectual fool—a good toady because you frighten easily. You’d make someone a fine assistant as long as they didn’t give you too much responsibility.”
He stiffened in his chair. His voice was suddenly formal and distant. “M’Dame, I don’t have to sit here and be insulted. As Regent, I have much work facing me. Neweden—your old regency—is a mess.” He began to rise.
“Sit down,” she said. “If you think I’m a toothless old beast, you’re wrong. None of the staff knows about your appointment yet. I could have you incarcerated on some trumped-up charge, and how do you think Niffleheim Center would react to that? They’d still replace me, but they’d send someone to replace you as well, just to be safe. So sit down and listen, if you really want this job.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said. He did not sit, but neither did he move toward the door.
“Then walk,” she replied. Her finger poised over contact on her desk. “I’ll have Karl put you under house arrest as soon as you touch the door. Embezzlement should be a good charge—easy to fix, hard to disprove.”
Still he hesitated. Then, fists clenched at his side, his mouth a hard line, he sat again.
“You see, McClannan, that’s one of your problems. You can’t judge the risks properly. If you knew me at all, you’d know that I’ve given my life to the Diplos, the Alliance. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt them because I believe in what we’re doing, if not always in how we go about it. And if you knew that, you’d have known that I also realize when I’m beaten. It was a bluff, McClannan, but you took it, so you might as well stay and listen to the rest.” She paused, winded. The shortness of breath was returning, and with it the paroxysms of coughing, the bile she would spit up from her ravaged lungs. A while longer, symbiote. A few minutes more. Please.
McClannan looked more angry than before. As Vingi had seen, he was not handsome in his rage. “Get on with your speech, then.”
“It’ll be short,” she said, and the first of the deep coughs struck her. She reached for a tissue as she hacked, hunched over in her floater. When it passed, she spat; folding the tissue, she wiped savagely at her mouth. “You’ve much to learn, McClannan, and now you’ve ensured that I won’t be here to give the lessons. Let me tell you what I see happening if you don’t learn quickly. You’ll lose Neweden—violently, most likely—because you’ll be the dupe of the Li-Gallant, and for all his subterfuge and wiles, he’s no match for FitzEvard Oldin. I’d give you no more than a standard, maybe two, before that happens.”
“That’s your own paranoia speaking,” he said. “You’re obsessed with the Family Oldin. You invent plots when there are none.”
“I assure you, it’s not paranoia. FitzEvard and I go back decades. We’ve skirmished many times on many worlds.”
“I can’t agree, m’Dame,” he replied, still distant with anger.
“Then there’s very little I can teach you in the few months I’ll still be here. I don’t have the patience to coddle an unwilling student.”
“In that case
, what good’s your proud altruism for the Alliance?” he answered. The words stung her, and she sat in silence, unsure how to reply. McClannan rose again, going to the door this time. “You may keep this room as your office until the Mengelo arrives, m’Dame. I’ll use my own office for the Regent’s business. I expect you to disclose the contents of the letter to your staff this afternoon. Good day, m’Dame.”
He left. D’Embry waited, knowing that the punishment would come now. She was amazed at how little she cared. “Maybe you’re right, McClannan,” she whispered. “But I still only give you six months.” Then the attack struck her and she could speak no more.
• • •
Valdisa thought that she could gladly kill Gyll at that moment.
Not that it was his fault. Probably not. If anyone should be blamed, it should be Dame Fate. The note’s seal had been addressed to Thane Valdisa only—who could have anticipated that a clumsy courier would have knocked off the seal in his pouch and, rather than reattaching it, have stuffed it inside the envelope. And the apprentice who received the note at the entrance to Underasgard gave it to McWilms first, because the Thane was busy on the practice strip. McWilms had read it to see if he should interrupt the Thane at her exercise.
The words were Gyll’s typical blend of arrogance and innocent disbelief that anyone could see the world in a manner different from the way he viewed it.
Goshawk will be leaving soon, I’m afraid. With her will go our last opportunity to get the Hoorka off this dead-end world. I don’t mean to be so unforgiving of my homeworld, but I’ve been outside it now for some time, and so can view it in a more dispassionate light. It is a dead end for Hoorka—in that, old Aldhelm was right. I’m asking you again to let the guild come with me. We’ll share the leadership, Valdisa, work it out whatever way we have to. Maybe we can do more than just settle our differences (or so I can hope). Let me know when I can talk with the kin and make an offer. Please, make it soon.
Valdisa crumpled the paper in a sweaty fist. McWilms, standing before her in the practice room, said nothing. She went to one of the benches set around the cavern (greenish light from the fungi-strips moving over her wet-dark clothing) and angrily pulled a towel from a stack set there. She began drying her short hair furiously, facing the rough stone wall. By She of the Five, now I need another workout to get rid of this anger. Her shirt clung to her—down the back, under the arms and breasts, sweat-cold in the chill of Underasgard. She heard McWilms come up behind her, and she could also hear the sound of paper being unfolded—he’d picked up Gyll’s message from where she’d dropped it. The cavern echoed with the clash of steel on steel: other Hoorka-kin fencing.
“If you want to keep this a secret from the kin, Thane, you shouldn’t leave it lying around.”
Valdisa whirled about. McWilms’s face was a study in neutrality. “Don’t give me that sarcasm, Jeriad. I’m not exactly in the mood for it.”
“You’ll never be in the mood for this, will you?”
He said it quietly, matter-of-fact. Valdisa, hands on hips, stared at him for long seconds. He stared back. Then she took a step away. She stretched, bending over at the waist to touch the ground. “I’ll ignore that, Jeriad,” she said, grunting with effort. “I’ve asked you once, now I’m telling you. Drop the subject.”
“Thane—”
She came up. Her dark eyes flashed. “I mean it.”
“I know you do,” McWilms persisted. “I know, too, that Ulthane Gyll’s offer would tempt quite a few of us. Is that why you don’t bring the matter up before all kin? Are you letting your personal feelings get in the way of what’s best for Hoorka?”
Valdisa’s eyes narrowed, her head reared back as if slapped. She glanced right and left, surveying the room. When she spoke, her voice was a harsh whisper; only McWilms could hear it in the noise of practicing kin. “You listen to me, Jeriad. If anyone else had said that to me, I’d have him on the floor now for first blood. Don’t you dare”—the cords of her neck went taut with the half-shout of the word—“give me that kind of crap as an excuse. You don’t deserve an explanation, but let me give it to you again. Sula Gyll made his choice against the Hoorka eight standards ago. If he’s sorry for it—and he isn’t—then let him apologize to the kin and see if they’ll let him rejoin the guild. Maybe then I’ll consider the offer.”
“You want him to apologize to you, as well.”
“Yah, damn it. I deserve it more than any of the rest of the kin, if it comes to that.”
“And until you get it, you’ll ignore whatever he has to say.”
She glanced at him, then sat on the bench, leaning back against the rough wall. “Are you deliberately trying to provoke me, or are you no longer in control of your tongue?” Her voice was as cold as the stone at her spine.
McWilms breathed once; again. He was not looking at Valdisa, but at the rest of the room—pairs of fencers, a knot of laughing kin, a huddle of apprentices around one of the kin-masters, a torn-down vibro in front of them.
“Jeriad, listen,” Valdisa said behind him, her voice suddenly gentle. “It’s more complicated than simply my relationship with Gyll. It’s the Traders, for one: I don’t know that we can trust them.”
“Gyll trusts them.” He spoke without turning to her. Across the cavern, the kin-master adjusted the vibro for the apprentices, the click of the control ring loud and metallic.
“Gyll can be duped. That’s one of his weaknesses—he’s very trusting. He tends to believe what people tell him until a lie is obvious.”
“Many people call that a virtue.”
“It’s only a virtue in a saint, and Gyll doesn’t come close to that status.” She waited, but McWilms didn’t reply. “It’s not just the Traders, either,” she continued. “There’s a whole pile of objections involved, with the Li-Gallant, with our arrangements with the Alliance, with our holdings on Neweden.”
“You don’t think those can be worked out?”
“If they can, is it worth the effort, or are we just throwing everything away for a false dream?”
“I think you’re wrong,” he said. He watched the kin-master snap the haft into the proper slot, reel in the vibro wire.
“You’re not the Thane.” Valdisa’s voice had lost its friendliness again; it walked on the edge of fury. McWilms could hear it.
“Gyll will wish that you weren’t when he hears that you’ve allied us with Vingi.”
McWilms heard the movement even as he began to turn to Valdisa: a sharp intake of breath, a half-grunt of effort, the scratch of boots on stone. Instincts took hold. He sidestepped to the left and back, his left hand slipping the vibro from its sheath, his weaker arm up as a shield. Valdisa was on her feet, crouching, ready to attack or defend. Her eyes were on his vibro. She was peripherally aware of the sudden silence in the cavern—they were being watched, and that deepened her anger. “Is this what you want, Jeriad? Fine, let me get my own vibro and I’ll give you the satisfaction you’re after. First blood, kin-brother? Fine.”
McWilms shook his head. “That won’t prove a thing. We both know that.” But he did not sheath the weapon.
“Is Serita an acceptable choice for referee?”
“Thane—”
“Answer me!” she shouted. “Or is Jeriad McWilms afraid?”
Heat flushed his cheeks as she slipped into the impersonal mode, insulting him. His hand, reflexive, tightened around the vibro’s hilt. “She’s fine,” he said tensely.
Valdisa nodded. She straightened, wiped her hands on her pants. “Arioch!” she called. The kin-master looked up from the midst of his apprentices.
“Thane?”
“Send one of the youngsters to get Serita Iduna.”
“Thane,” McWilms broke in. The anger had left him. “I won’t fight, not like this. I’ll stand there holding my vibro if you insist, but I won’t move, won’t defend myself. First blood will be yours.”
She stared at him. The tableau held for a second, Valdisa stern, McWilms
strangely sad. Then, with a sound of disgust, Valdisa strode away from him, moving toward the entrance of the cavern.
McWilms watched her leave, feeling the stares of his kin.
• • •
The connection was damned expensive and not of particularly good quality.
Gyll would never have initiated the call himself. The fact that FitzEvard did so was well in character for Grandsire Oldin, who was well-known for costly extravagances—at the same time, Gyll knew him well enough not to expect the normal social amenities. He and Helgin, sitting before the flat-screen viewer, didn’t get them.
FitzEvard had a voice of sandpaper, roughened further by the transmission difficulties. “You’ve made money, at least,” he said without preamble. “I didn’t expect you to get the Hoorka, Sula, not with the troubles Neweden is having. I was right, it seems.”
Flares of interference gamboled through the face of FitzEvard. The family resemblance was stamped into him as it was in all the Oldins: wide, round faces; large and dark eyes under gilt eyebrows; bodies stocky and a bit too heavy by Alliance standards.
“I’ve not given up on that yet, sirrah,” Gyll answered. He didn’t enjoy talking with FitzEvard, never had—the man’s gruff curtness made him uncomfortable.
“We’ll see, Sula. I’ll wager you a month’s wages you won’t get them.”
“And if I fail to take that bet?”
“Then I’ll know you’re lying about not having given up.”
“In that case, I’ll take the bet, sirrah.”
FitzEvard grinned. It reminded Gyll of Helgin’s grin: dark, somehow devoid of much humor, interior. FitzEvard, it was gossiped, smiled only when shown a potential profit. Gyll knew that to be as true as any adage—he’d heard the Neweden saying that the Hoorka smiled only at death. A grain of truth, nothing more. Yet FitzEvard was a driven man and the parameters of his success could be outlined in wealth. “Good, Sula. You’ll save me money on the payroll.”
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