by Val Roberts
He allowed himself a faint smile at the fantasy, well aware he probably had a better chance at winning the Heliconan lottery than making it come true.
* * * *
"Your Majesty?"
Silean looked up from the budget to see a young clerk wearing the diplomatic service uniform fidgeting in front of her desk. “Yes?"
"The Bariani ambassador has not yet arrived, and there's been an incident just outside the marketplace, behind the Temple of the Serene Mother.” An incident involving the negotiator? Silean folded her hands so they wouldn't tremble.
"What sort of incident?” she asked in her calmest voice. It wouldn't do to alarm the clerk unnecessarily.
"From what the civil guard found, his carriage was attacked and three of the negotiator's party are dead, along with approximately twenty attackers.” The girl fidgeted some more. “His Highness Mychell was among the dead, Your Majesty."
Silean gripped her hands together more tightly. Mychell had attacked the Barian negotiator? But why? The man couldn't even get a pair of boots on without two assistants, so it couldn't have been his idea.
"I see. I assume the Matriarch's Own are looking for our missing Barianis?” The girl nodded, looking miserable. Then something occurred to Silean. “What about their escort? There should have been a Silvergard officer bringing them to the palace. Was she killed as well?"
The clerk went white. “Commander Penthes’ body was not found, Your Majesty, but a bloody Silvergard vest and cloak were recovered."
Silean felt her heart stop as the room went icy. It started again almost immediately, but it was beating too fast and the room was starting to spin, ever so slightly. Talyn had decided to kill her sister again, using her lover as the weapon, and this time Taryn had only Zona's almost-enemies to protect her.
Silean didn't need this on top of the problems she was already trying—and failing—to solve, though the extra food from the borderlands was helping. It was probably smuggled in from Bariani relatives, humiliating to Zonan pride, but a full belly beat pride with room to spare and she wasn't prepared to look at the origins of such a gift. Now Talyn had involved the Barian negotiator in her private feud, and Silean had seen the destructive results of the Bariani military with her own eyes. If she couldn't smooth this over, Zona would be a charred land in a week.
She nodded and dismissed the girl, then headed for her quarters. If luck was on her side, and that was a very big if because her luck had always been spotty and strange, Taryn had spirited the surviving Bariani away and was even now hiding out somewhere in the city to figure out her options. She was a bright enough young woman that she would know she could always seek help from her mother. Unless she thought Silean in her role as the Matriarch was behind the attack, of course. Pray to the Goddess Taryn knew her mama wasn't that big a fool, even if she'd been fool enough to declare a crown prince at their birth and not their majority as she should have done.
"Goddess help us,” she breathed to the empty corridor, then continued praying silently for the daughter who bore her scars externally.
The first thing she needed to do was get out of her work clothes and into something that made her look like a Matriarch. She almost groaned when she realized she was going to have to wear the blasted crown for this, too, because the thing weighed at least five pounds and always gave her a headache, but needs must when the devil held the reins. She lengthened her stride to get to her quarters faster.
* * * *
Taryn called a halt an hour past midday, and turned to the leader. “There's a tavern a few miles east on the main road. If you have any currency, I can get food there. It will be dark before we get someplace we can stop."
He twisted in his saddle and looked to the older man on his right. “Did you manage to hang onto the coinage, Galen?"
"Right here, Blade.” He handed over a small satchel that the leader hefted.
"Won't it look odd to send a Silvergard officer by herself to get lunch for eight?” He looked at her, his eyes glowing again. “I mean, shouldn't you have a couple of grunts to help you carry stuff?"
Was that an insult? She sat as tall in her saddle as possible and looked down her nose at him as she said, “I assure you, Negotiator, I'm perfectly capable of transporting food for eight."
He smiled, which irritated her even more. “To quote my youngest sister, ‘well, duh.'” He shrugged. “She reads a lot of historical novels. But I wasn't questioning your ability, Commander, only the customary practice. If you went in there by yourself, it might look strange. People remember strange occurrences."
She could have smacked herself for not seeing the obvious and thought furiously. Going after sandwiches for a command group would be just the sort of chore for a junior officer, especially one as notorious as the scarred prince. But would she be sent with an escort? “It doesn't matter,” she decided. “All of the Silvergard is female, so there's no way you can pass.” She took the purse from him. “I'll have to go alone."
He didn't like that, she could tell from the way his face smoothed into his dullard's mask. “Why eliminate half of your fighting population with gender discrimination?” he asked, his tone decidedly neutral.
"Why aren't any of your people female?” she snapped before she thought.
"Because the female portion of the diplomatic corps all refuse Zonan postings,” he responded in that same calm, emotionless tone.
"Blade,” the older man warned, but he held up a hand.
"Galen, someone's gunning for us. I don't think this is the time to hang on to euphemistic niceties. They've pretty much all come out and said they would quit before going to Zona.” He turned back to her. “Why couldn't you have a couple of civilian flunkies?"
She eyed the seven survivors, none of whom could pass for a civilian with their cold eyes and hard-steel weapons, putting aside the revelation to be digested later. “I could. Where do you propose I get some? Anyone can tell you lot aren't civilians, Negotiator."
It was his turn to straighten in his saddle. He was silent for nearly a full minute, only the glowing scowl betraying his anger. “Fine. Do it yourself then, Commander."
"Thank you so much for your permission,” she threw over her shoulder as she dug her heels into the horse. She shouldn't have snapped at them. She shouldn't have said anything about what she had noticed. Her carefully crafted shield was cracking and she had to get it back in place. It was becoming clear that her mother had sheltered her, even in the Silvergard, because she'd never seen combat before that morning.
It felt like the world had exploded into a thousand pieces and she had to put it back together. Soon. If she didn't get the seven surviving Bariani to safety, there would be a war. One look at the devastation a single outland personal weapon could do was all she needed to know Zona would lose.
Damn Talyn. Her personal vendetta had condemned not only Taryn to death, but Mychell and probably the entire Matriarchy as well. Taryn couldn't allow that to happen. She might be dead already, waiting only for the trial and the crossbow squad, but she was still breathing and Zona needed every skill she possessed to prevent that outcome.
And if she had to be charming to seven Bariani who weren't what they were trying to pretend to be, she could do it. She could do it because Zona had never stabbed her in the face.
* * * *
Talyn surveyed the carnage in the alley with a handkerchief pressed to her nose against the smell. All of the bodies had been lined up in neat rows, waiting for the meat wagon to take them away to the morgue, but there was no question what had killed them. Some of the Zonans had been burned beyond recognition; others had been cut in half. And one still had the hilt of a dagger sticking out of its face where an eye had been. She leaned closer, because something about that particular corpse looked familiar. She walked closer still.
Mychell.
And then she was vomiting against the side of a building, because he had been so strange for the last couple of days, almost as if he'd somehow learned
of her plans. He'd even been rough with her in bed last night, when he'd never been anything but tender and solicitous to the point of boring before. She couldn't remember the last time she had enjoyed sex with him so much. It had been the final factor in deciding to keep him and find a convenient accident for her “husband” once she'd been through the coronation as Grant Barian Heir Consort. Now Mychell was dead in an alley, and it was all Taryn's fault.
"I'll get you for this,” she gasped out when the contents of her stomach decorated the cobbles and added another stench to the mix. Indeed, even if His Royal Highness Blademir von Stassos wasn't one of the three dead Bariani, she would have to radically alter her timetable and the Dozen Worlds people wouldn't be pleased about that. She straightened and wiped her mouth on the edge of her cloak.
"There has to be a way to make this work,” she muttered as she took the unsteady steps back to the alley entrance, where her horse had refused to go any farther. All she had to do was think of that way. She mounted and started for the teahouse where she was already late to meet the Dozen Worlds operative.
When she got there, she spied him immediately, because he was almost a foot taller than everyone else and had blue hair, along with a ten-foot zone of empty space around him. All of the other patrons were constantly watching him, too, and she cursed the DW penchant for public meetings for about the thousandth time. It made it very difficult to keep her negotiations with them quiet in a homogeneous population like Balsom.
"You're late,” he said in his strangely accented Tereng when she slid into the seat opposite him.
"Yes, I am,” she agreed, looking straight into his unsettling yellow eyes. “Now try something useful, such as, ‘Why are you late?’”
"I am not here to play games, Timarrian.” He leaned forward and made her watch his pupils contract to slits. She repressed a shudder.
"The Bariani Crown Heir was attacked on his way to the palace and now nobody knows where he is,” she took great satisfaction in relating. “I've been investigating."
That made him sit back and an expression crossed his features that must have been something like astonishment, but it was so hard to tell with offworlders.
"There was no motorcade?” he asked after a few seconds of silence ticked by.
"We don't use motors for transporting people,” she responded, biting back the sarcasm, “in case you hadn't noticed."
Blue-head made a throwing-away gesture. “Unimportant. There was a transport. There was military and-or police protection. Children throwing flowers."
"Don't be ridiculous,” Talyn snapped in spite of her attempts to remain unaffected by his attitude. “We hardly admit that there's a permanent ambassador from Barian, let alone someone quartered in the palace for the sole purpose of sucking funds out of the pigs. There was one carriage being escorted by a Silvergard officer, all very quiet."
"But not quiet enough.” The offworlder tapped a finger on the tabletop several times. “What of the Zonan soldier? Killed as well?"
"No.” She hated to admit it, but Taryn was a ferocious fighter, and had been long before she'd gone into the Matriarch's Own. “She's probably taken them into hiding until she can figure out what happened."
"What did happen?” It was a logical question, but she wasn't certain of the answer, so she shrugged and said nothing of her suspicions. “Who was this soldier?"
Talyn swallowed hard and admitted the truth. “My sister."
The DW slimeweed leaned back in his chair and smiled as if it were good news. “The co-heir to the Zonan throne will work just as well for our purposes,” he said, and Talyn was astute enough to hear the implied threat. If she didn't handle this, and fast, they would drop her like so much trash.
It meant she had to find the missing Bariani before anyone else got to them, and she had to get rid of Taryn once and for all, or everything she had spent the last two years working toward was for nothing. She should have kept her mouth shut.
"How nice for you. She will not work just as well for my purposes,” she told him with the faintest touch of acid in her voice. “I'll contact you when I have him."
"I think I will contact you when I require more information.” He smiled again, then rose and walked out of the teahouse without looking back. She sat back in her chair and fumed. When the waiter came a few seconds later, though, she decided she needed something hot. It was colder than a witch's behind, and she still had the taste of the alley in her mouth.
* * * *
"I think that went well,” Galen commented when she had disappeared into the trees. “I wonder if she's going to come back?"
"And yet I managed to shave this morning without slitting my throat,” Blade said to the sarcasm as he dismounted. “I'm going to take a leak.” In fact, it had gone considerably better than he deserved, including the information that his father's suggestion of a disguise had been completely useless. A soldier knew another soldier, like a sneak-thief knew another sneak-thief. That must be what kept drawing him to the woman, like calling to like, though the prickly antagonism was considerably safer than following his instincts would be.
Hells, she was having a bad day. They were all having a bad day.
He unzipped and emptied his groaning bladder of the four cups of kava that had gotten him going before dawn that day. Soft footfalls in the pine needles, along with the sound of urination, made him realize his bodyguards had decided to relieve themselves as well. After he had the dagger out and ready, with his genitals still out of his pants.
"Gods, you are a moron,” he muttered to himself as he resheathed the knife and then himself before walking back to the small clearing where Commander Penthes had left them.
"What's gotten into you?” Galen asked, lounging against a tree at the clearing's edge. “You're acting like you're in charge or something."
"If we don't get out of this mess with our skins intact, who do you think is going to get the blame?” Blade returned. “It's not going to be the king's sainted little brother, I can tell you that.” He looked at the sky that was almost blue in the overhead sun. “I was in charge the moment it went down the chute, Galen, and you know it.” He rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. “I can see the headlines now: Crown Heir in new diplomatic debacle."
"You're forgetting the spin,” Galen said, pulling a decorated Zonan dagger out of his belt and cleaning his fingernails with the tip. “How about, Crown Heir narrowly escapes Zonan ambush in Balsom? I like that one much better."
"Only if we get out of this foobar alive.” Blade started to pace to burn off some of his nervous energy. “And that depends on a Zonan who doesn't have a first name."
Galen snorted. “A Zonan you'd bed in a heartbeat, given half a chance. If I'd known your taste ran to dominatrixes, your social schedule would have been decidedly different last summer."
Blade stopped. “What? Dominatrixes?"
"You didn't notice the parade of blondes, brunettes, and redheads? Short, tall, curvy, willowy?"
"I noticed teenaged and clueless,” he retorted. “Spineless, simpering and superficial were there in abundance, too."
"She doesn't have to rule, Blade. That's your job.” Galen's façade had started to crack, because the comment didn't come out mildly amused.
"Have you noticed how Sabinet spends her days, Galen?” Blade asked softly. He shouldn't be needling his uncle about this, but he was edgy and irritated and he hadn't had anyone to talk to for a long time. “She's not lounging around the pool, eating chocolates. And don't get me started on what that vixen you married gets up to when you're off babysitting."
He dropped his eyes from Galen's gaze and let out a sigh of pure frustration. “Sorry. You didn't deserve that."
Galen resheathed the knife and pushed away from the rock. “Actually, I think I did. I forgot there's a brain behind that goofy grin you feed the tabloids. I should have known you've been looking at the prospect of marriage from a strategic viewpoint. And you're right about the women, too. Not one
of them was fit to be the head of the humanist departments."
"Yeah, and short of taking a foreign bride, that's pretty much all I have to choose from.” Blade started pacing again. “Or maybe I just need to get laid."
Galen's laughter echoed through the clearing.
* * * *
Silean called a stop to look at the nondescript alley as she rode past in her coach. Everything had been cleaned up but the bloodstains, but it wasn't difficult to imagine. The wagon would have turned in here with snipers already in place on the rooftops. No maneuvering room with a width that could be blocked by six good fighters meant it was probably the best killing ground on the route between Eastgate and the Lady Palace.
There were no doors or windows opening on to the block-long roadbed. Silean turned to her prime minister.
"Why is this here? It serves no function except for an ambush site."
"When the Temple of the Serene Mother enlarged its choir loft four years ago, the exit was blocked,” Vallan said with equanimity. Her even temper was one of the things Silean liked best about the woman.
"I've been considering what to do with it, but we've had much more pressing problems than a single blind alley in the temple district.” She gave a brief smile. “I was thinking of putting in a city guard station. Only a small one, of course, but you know as well as I do that people require more protection in hard times."
"It just moved up the priority list a considerable amount,” Silean said as she eyed the narrow space. It might hold six officers and a couple of desks, perhaps with a small holding cell at the back suitable for two or three, but it would increase the guard presence in the quarter. And the space could never be used for an ambush again. “Make it so,” she decided formally, then rapped on the forward wall of the carriage to let the driver move on.