A Matter of Oaths

by Helen S. Wright

  And that was a threat, not a promise. A careless decision, I thought. The Emperor Julur … has a certain fondness for the youngster … Notice was being served that Carher would not escape retaliation for the attempts on Rafe’s life. As Braniya disappeared through the hatch to the dock, Joshim did not find it reassuring that Rafe was in her hands.

  * * *

  Rallya plucked at the pins that held her shub-coated plaits close to her head as she sat at the edge of her web-position to hear Joshim out. The intervention of the provosts had been pure bad luck, but it seemed that in every direction that they turned in this tangle, there was a new hand meddling. Braniya, aide to the Old Emperor … Rallya slowly licked the shub from her lips. That was raising the stakes in this game higher than she had anticipated.

  “I want ears open for any whisper of this on the full comms band,” she told Jualla, who was waiting anxiously for orders. “And I want to know the movements of every ship within sensor range.”

  So. The obvious precautions had all been taken. Bhattya was on full alert, her sensors wide open, her web full, her comp programmed with a sequence of escape jumps in case they had to flee. All that remained to be done was to extricate Rafe from Braniya’s clutches. All, Rallya snorted silently. The little scut caused havoc in no proportion to his size.

  “Are we going to get him back, ma’am?” Jualla lingered to ask.

  Rallya pressed her lips together. “One way or another,” she promised. “Although I hadn’t planned to take on the Old Emperor as well as the Guild Council. At least, not at the same time.” And when Jualla repeats that, the web-room will think that everything is under control, she thought wryly.

  “You think the Old Emperor himself is involved?” Joshim asked in disbelief when Jualla had gone. “If he’s broken his Oath…” He trailed off, unwilling to follow that thought to its unsettling conclusion.

  “Braniya is his Palace Security Chief,” Rallya said bluntly, “or so the rumour goes. When she moves, it’s because he’s pulling the strings. Gods, Joshim,” she exploded, “why can’t your pretty boy be satisfied with the kind of enemies that the rest of us make?” She gestured angrily that she did not expect an answer. “At least now we’ve put names to both sets of his enemies. If there are only two,” she added drily. “He seems to have a talent for collecting them.”

  Joshim smiled tightly. “And they for collecting him.” He moved restlessly to the centre of the web, watched the activity displayed on the monitor there. “We’ve got no choice now,” he said abruptly. “We’ve got to petition the Council for a hearing, before they allow Braniya to take Rafe away.”

  Rallya sighed. “We can’t do that,” she said gently. “Rafe is only safe with Braniya as long as she believes that his significance is still a secret. No matter how important his life is to the Old Emperor, Braniya would kill him rather than let him give evidence about Julur’s Oath-breaking. And Havedir is an immune ship,” she added, forestalling Joshim’s next protest. “If we tried to take him back by force, we’d be fighting every other ship in the zone. And if by some miracle we won against odds like that, we’d have forfeited any chance of getting a hearing afterwards.”

  “What are we going to do then?” Joshim demanded. “Slink back to Aramas and pretend nothing has happened? Let Braniya take Rafe to the Old Emperor, who doesn’t give a two-credit kiss for Rafe as a person, only as a pawn? Who may decide to give him another identity-wipe and another identity outside the Guild? Who may decide to kill him after all because he isn’t worth the trouble or the risk and more?” He stopped shouting as abruptly as he had started and turned his back on Rallya. “I should have tried to get him out when I had the chance,” he said bitterly.

  Rallya stood up, ignoring the twinge in her hip, seized his shoulders and shook him fiercely. “You never had a chance,” she said vehemently. “If you had, you’d have taken it, and Rafe will know that too. So stop wallowing in guilt and answer this. What use is a pawn to Julur? Any pawn?”

  Joshim turned back to face her, his attention caught. “Ultimately everything Julur does is aimed at Ayvar,” he said slowly.

  “The New Emperor,” Rallya confirmed. “If Julur has a use for Rafe, Ayvar will want to know what’s going on.”

  Joshim’s face clouded. “What good can he do?” he asked. “He can’t dictate to the Guild. If he could dictate to Julur, we’d have one Empire, not two. And Rafe will still die as soon as Julur realizes that he’s a threat.”

  “Possibly,” Rallya conceded brutally. “There isn’t any certainty in this, Joshim, but it’s the only chance we’ve got. Rafe’s life is the least important thing at stake now,” she added ruthlessly. “Julur’s broken his Oath. At least one member of the Council has broken hers. If we don’t act against them now, we can say goodbye to the Guild that we know. And we can’t win against opposition like that without support from an Emperor as well as from within the Guild. And we have to have something ready to fill the vacuum that will be left when we’ve won. Which means we need Ayvar.” She laughed without humour. “Not that I think he’s any better than the other one. He may even be worse. But he’s the only Emperor I’ve got left to play.”

  “You’re talking about giving both Empires to Ayvar? About changing everything?” Joshim breathed.

  His doubts helped to ease Rallya’s own. “If necessary,” she said more confidently. “If there’s no other choice. Most people live their entire lives without caring how many Empires there are, or who claims to own them. It only makes a difference to damned aristos like Rafe who get themselves involved with matters above their heads. And it’s long past time the Guild stopped shoring up a ridiculous war whose sole purpose is to stop two immortal fools from getting bored.”

  Joshim inhaled deeply, then let his breath go in a rush. “The worst thing is, Rafe would agree with you about this,” he said grimly. “Well, if we’re going to change the shape of history, we’d better get started. I’ll take over from Vidar in the web. You go and tell the web-room what’s going on.”

  Rallya nodded, then took his wrists affectionately.

  “Don’t,” Joshim said, refusing the comfort she wanted to offer.

  * * *

  Rafe splashed cold water on his face, dribbled it over his head, temporarily driving back the unmistakable after-pain of a sleepbeam. A stateroom was the last place he had expected to wake; neither the provosts nor Security habitually provided such accommodation for their guests. Which left a very large question to be answered: whose guest was he?

  Or rather, whose prisoner. When he tried the door of the stateroom, it was locked. There was an intercomm on the wall that might yield the answers, but he ignored it in favour of a rapid examination of the rest of his surroundings. Standard model luxury stateroom, the storage units empty except for a selection of clothes that were suspiciously close to his size and had the look of new fabric. An inactive console, hidden behind a decorative panel of real wood. A range of personal items in the san, all new. Nothing that suggested how he had arrived here, or why.

  He remembered being trapped between Security and the provost sergeant, catching the edge of a sleepbeam as he moved to avoid it. After that, his memory was less clear. A condition he should be accustomed to by now, he jibed at himself. There was a vague impression of being supported by somebody, then the deadening sensation of another sleepbeam. Then nothing until this stateroom.

  He contemplated the intercomm. Notify his captors that he was conscious, or wait for them to come to check? Or did they have the stateroom under observation, and already know that he was awake? It might be informative to wait, to confirm that he was being watched. He lay back on the spacious bed.

  Wherever he was, he was not aboard a ship in transit; the almost subliminal vibration of a ship’s drive was absent. Still at Central then. Or had they kept him unconscious long enough to take him elsewhere, he thought in an instant’s panic. No. If they wanted to keep him unconscious so long, they would have used drugs, not a sleepbeam.
His headache had the heavy overtones that only a sleepbeam left behind.

  “They could have provided me with some painkillers,” he said experimentally.

  Had Joshim escaped? If he had not had the same bad luck as Rafe, there was an excellent chance that he had, Rafe decided with relief. Which meant that Bhattya had the evidence of Yuellin’s record. My old record, he corrected himself, although Yuellin’s memories still did not seem an integral part of him. That would come, Joshim had promised; it was the gaps that caused the illusion of distance.

  The stateroom door opened with a whisper. Rafe opened his eyes and looked at the woman who stood there. Ten lengths of gold lace, one of the provosts had said, and Braniya Lady Rujur was still wearing it. He remembered the moment in the library when a memory had almost returned and was only slightly surprised.

  “Did you bring the painkillers?” he asked impudently.

  She inclined her head courteously. “I did.” She placed two tablets on a convenient surface. “Should I introduce myself?”

  “It would eliminate the possibility that I’ve guessed incorrectly,” Rafe told her, sitting up and reaching for the tablets.

  “Guessed?”

  “I don’t recall that we’ve ever met.” Rafe examined the tablets. They looked like the painkillers they were said to be and he dissolved them in his mouth gratefully.

  “Braniya Lady Rujur, your host,” Braniya confirmed. “And you are Rafell, a member of the Guild of Webbers. Or you were until your recent death. And you’re correct. We have never met.”

  “I shall have to take your word for that, Lady Rujur, since I have trouble with my memory from time to time.” Rafe bowed politely. “Including the period covering my arrival here, and the reasons for it.” Had Braniya discovered his identity before she intervened, or afterwards?

  “You’re here because it suits me to have you here. And since you are officially dead, the Guild cannot reclaim you,” Braniya added with cold humour. “Which is to your advantage as well as mine, since there are certain interests within the Guild who would wish to turn an official fact into reality.”

  Rafe grinned back. “I had noticed,” he said plainly. “It can be dangerous to be associated with me.”

  Braniya took a seat, her lace rustling around her. Armour-cloth, not lace, Rafe realized. And there was the faint glow of a field-shield around her head. A powerful woman with her own enemies. Rafe shivered without moving. Braniya knew too much about him for hers to be a recent interest. Was she the one who wanted him alive, but identity-wiped? He would have to guard every word, in case she realized how much he had remembered. Aide to the Old Emperor … A ferreter in corners, an enforcer of secret policies? Gods, was he part of one such secret policy?

  “We could amuse ourselves indefinitely, fencing with each other for information,” Braniya said when she was comfortable, her hands clasped incongruously on her lap like a highbred child. “However, for reasons which need not interest you, I have a desire to learn certain specific facts from you and no others. In return for your answers, I offer equally specific answers to certain of your questions.”

  “And if I don’t take your bargain?”

  “Then you will never receive your answers, but I will receive mine, eventually.”

  “Whether I wish to give them or not,” Rafe deduced. “Tell me, Lady Rujur, do you conduct your own interrogations?”

  “I have said, there are things about you I have no wish to learn. But you will be interrogated, yes.” She frowned momentarily. “Or perhaps not. The decision is not mine.”

  “Whose decision is it?”

  “Answers for answers, Rafell.”

  “What happens if I inadvertently tell you something you’d rather not know?” Rafe asked mischievously..

  “At the worst, I would have to submit to a partial memory-wipe,” Braniya said calmly.

  “I don’t recommend it,” Rafe advised. “It’s an unpleasant state in which to live.”

  Braniya smiled wintrily. “It is nevertheless a state of living. My predecessor made the mistake of trying to learn too much about you; it lead to his death. I shall not repeat his error.”

  Or at least, not when there is a chance of it being discovered, Rafe thought cynically. Braniya did not seem to be somebody who would accept willingly a restriction on her curiosity. And it would be instructive to learn how she knew about her predecessor’s mistake.

  “Were you the one to report his transgression?” he asked provocatively.

  “Your profile says that you’re clever,” Braniya conceded. “Clever enough to accept my bargain?”

  “Or fool enough,” Rafe agreed, lying back on the bed with his hands under his head. “Your questions, Lady Rujur?”

  “Clever and cocky,” she said measuringly. “Why are you at Central?”

  “Because there have been two attempts on my life. To my knowledge,” Rafe added thoughtfully. “I may have missed others. Or they missed me.”

  “Two attempts only,” Braniya said confidently. “The attempt to destroy Avannya, and the malfunction in Bhattya’s web.”

  “Which you believed had succeeded,” Rafe said casually.

  “Which I was investigating.” That was all that Braniya would admit. “Whose idea was it to report you dead?”

  “Not mine. At the time, I was very nearly dead.”

  “Bhattya’s Commander,” Braniya decided. “She’s got a good reputation, in her limited field.” She would not say that if she had ever met Rallya, Rafe thought with bleak amusement. It was a slight comfort to think that Braniya was underestimating one of her enemies. “Why did you come to Central?” Braniya continued.

  “Something Sajan said before she died.” Rafe saw the briefest frown on Braniya’s face. She did not know about Sajan, but she was not going to admit it. “I reminded her of somebody she knew in the New Empire. An aristo called…”

  “Not the name,” Braniya said sharply.

  Rafe considered giving it to her anyway, out of spite. But the woman had information he wanted, and might withhold it if he provoked her too far.

  “An aristo from the New Empire,” he continued. “I came to Central to see if I could read this aristo’s records. Which I couldn’t,” he added flatly. “The rest you know.”

  “Your companion?” Braniya waited a few moments, then accepted that Rafe was not going to answer. “Your Webmaster lover, no doubt. You’ll be pleased to hear that he escaped. A shuttle left the station shortly after you both escaped from the provosts, and joined a ship just over the border of the Disputed Zone. The ship—which I assume to have been Bhattya—jumped within an hour of the shuttle’s return, without making any attempt to contact Central about a missing crew-member. You wouldn’t care to speculate about their plans?”

  Rafe shook his head. “I couldn’t begin to guess what Rallya will do,” he said truthfully. Rallya had the evidence that Rafe and Yuellin were the same person, and that Yuellin could not have been lawfully identity-wiped. Was she going to gather support from within the Guild, thinking that Rafe was being held by Central Support, and thus losing his trail when Braniya took him…?

  “Where do you intend taking me?” he asked.

  “To the Imperial Palace.” By which she meant the Old Imperial Palace; like most aristos in the Old Empire, she only admitted the existence of one Palace.

  “For the Emperor, or am I not quite that important?” Rafe asked with a pretense of arrogance. The idea unaccountably started his stomach churning.

  “For the Emperor,” she said imperturbably. “As you’ve discovered already, you’ll travel in comfort. The Emperor has ordered that you come to no harm.”

  “Was that before or after the efforts to kill me?”

  “There will be steps taken against those responsible,” Braniya promised. “Elanis Lord Khalem is already enjoying my hospitality.” She smiled again, with her mouth alone. “Not as much as you are, I assure you. And he will enjoy it even less, now that his guilt in this is p
roven.”

  Nobody had told Elanis that the Old Emperor was involved, Rafe guessed; the arrogant aristo would never have had the nerve to go against Julur’s wishes. But he would get no sympathy from Rafe; for Churi’s death, he deserved whatever punishment Braniya planned.

  “I may give Danriya Lady Carher her freedom a while longer,” Braniya said thoughtfully, unclasping her hands. “She will make a suitable diversion to occupy your Commander.” She nodded with satisfaction. “Yes. Carher will fight for control of the Guild, for the power she hopes will save her. And while the Guild tears itself apart, who will be looking for a long-dead Oath-breaker?”

  Rafe withheld his reaction, knowing too well that what she planned was possible and the repercussions would be disastrous. A prolonged power struggle within the Guild would destroy the impartiality on which its strength was based, giving the Emperors a chance to gather up the fragments. He was chilled by the thought of the Guild split between the Emperors, carrying the war out of the Disputed Zone into regions where people lived. Gods, would Rallya see the risk? Even if she did, and abandoned the battle before it began, Carher had nothing to lose.

  “Have I answered all your questions?” Braniya inquired.

  “What does the Emperor plan to do with me?” Rafe asked. “Or is that something else he won’t let you know?”

  “I can’t say,” Braniya said haughtily. “He has a certain regard for your physical health, but I expect you to undergo a new identity-wipe. And perhaps cosmetic surgery to alter your appearance before you’re placed in a new environment. That will be my recommendation.”

  “Recommend another twenty cents in height, would you?” Rafe asked cheerfully. “I’m getting a pain in my neck looking up at you.”

  When she had gone, Rafe closed his eyes and for a moment gave in to despair behind them. By the time Rallya had wrested control of the Guild from Carher—and he had to believe that she would do so because the alternative was too bleak to consider—his memory would have been ripped from him again. And his face, and his web, he realized bitterly. And this time there would be no mistakes made in the identity-wipe, no loopholes left through which memory could return. Under interrogation he would reveal all that he had remembered—nobody could hold out against the truthseeking drugs—and they would finally and irrevocably steal him from himself.