Akantha started to pull out her sword. I hastily raised my hand silently, telling her to stop, and for once she actually heeded my advice. I was shocked and amazed. This couldn’t be a good sign.
Unsurprisingly, Bethany took this gesture to be my indication that she should stop speaking, instead of being directed to the woman with the half-drawn sword beside her. My cousin looked irked and gave me a look that threatened retribution. Frighteningly enough, Akantha was giving me a similar look.
When I was certain Akantha wasn’t about to pull out Bandersnatch and try to cut off Bethany’s head, I turned back to my cousin.
“I trust my people, Cotton-Mouth,” I said, buffing my fingernails on the arm of my uniform. I turned to one of the ‘Honor Guard’, “Please send a yeoman for some tea. Enough for all of us,” I said as pleasantly as I could manage before turning back to my Cousin/Confederation Representative.
“I’m sure it must be quite some tale, how a member of the Royal Family ended up as the Official Representative sent to beard me in my lair,” I said curling my upper lip.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Bethany said sweetly. “But don’t flatter yourself, this rattrap of a system hardly qualifies as a ‘lair’. A Bug magnet and death trap, perhaps,” she finished, drawing out the last word.
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m surprised Parliament let you off your leash, Bethany. They’re not known for allowing members of the Blood Royal positions of power, even if it's only a symbolic post involving someone as harmless as yourself,” I said, acting disinterested.
“There’ve been a few changes back home, Cousin,” Bethany replied, looking like the cat that ate the canary. “Parliament is no longer the force it once was.”
I waved my hand in disbelief. “I find that hard to believe,” I said, rolling my eyes at the notion. “Everything I’ve heard says the SDF is firmly under Parliamentary control. With that kind of force behind them I seriously doubt anything will change, at least in our lifetimes.”
“Says the fringe Royal who somehow managed to gain command of a Caprian Battleship,” she said scornfully. “If an idiot Montagne like yourself can manage that, why do you find it so hard to believe that someone without the detriment of your name and bloodline could capture the loyalty of the entire System Defense Force?”
“I’m still not buying it,” I said, rejecting her line of space junk. I wasn’t some rube to be taken in, I needed proof before I took one step into that merry little fairy tale. “Still, you are here, so something is afoot,” I paused to think about it. “I suppose I could see how with all this confusion Parliament might want to send a member of the family to try to talk me down. Although, why they would bother sending you of all people, boggles the mind.”
For a moment she looked at me like I was crazy, then a calculating look crossed her face. I was instantly on my guard. “What do you mean by talk you down?” she asked, wiggling her fingers in the air, both trying and succeeding in portraying a light tone.
I looked at her flatly. "You know what I’m talking about. They sent you to convince me to give up my Confederation duties and return to Capria so that they can lock me away in the Royal retreat," I was fishing here, trying to figure out what they planned to do when I got back.
Bethany paused for a moment, then threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, that’s rich, Flat-Nose,” she chuckled. “It really is.”
“I fail to see the humor. Please enlighten the rest of us with the joke,” I said stiffly. This wasn’t going quite the way I’d envisioned...well to be honest, it wasn’t at all going how I’d thought it would when I’d originally planned to meet the Confederation Representative in the Admiral’s ready room.
“The joke is you, Flat-Nose,” she sneered.
Right then and there I decided I’d had enough. She thought she had some big trump card still to play. For someone like myself who’d grown up sharing many of the same tutors and school space with her, I could tell when she thought she had something up her sleeve.
“Call me Flat-Nose one more time,” I said holding up a finger before slowly turning it down and miming the push of a button on my desk, “and it will be the last time,” I threatened.
For once Akantha looked less than furious. Instead, she looked almost hopeful.
Bethany was taken momentarily taken aback, but quickly regained her composure. “You don’t have the stones for something like that,” she said, waving away my threat as if it were an annoying fly.
“Guards,” I said, cocking an eyebrow and indicating they should lay hands on my Cousin. They immediately responded and moved toward her.
“Unhand me you fools,” snarled Bethany after the guards grabbed hold of her arms. “What do you think will happen when the Confederation finds out what you‘ve done? Not to mention my Family. Everyone you care about will be-”
I should have remembered that one of the guards was Tracto-an. Bethany grunted and sagged in their grip when he gave her a gentle tap on the back her head.
“That’s enough, I think the point has been made,” I said a bit more hastily than I would have liked.
Bethany shook her head quickly and glared at me, but she couldn’t entirely hide the flash of fear at this treatment. “When King James learns how you’ve treated his envoy,” she threatened with only a slight quiver to her voice.
“Most of my Lancers aren’t from Capria. The vast majority aren’t even Confederation citizens, they are native to this system,” I said archly. I couldn’t resist the next dig. I know I should have, but it was beyond me. “In point of fact, they tend to listen to the Lady you’ve so studiously ignored so far, more than they ever have to me,” I finished smugly. Ah, the taste of petty, vindictive revenge. There’s really nothing quite like it. No one dies, no one gets hurt and there’s absolutely no guilty conscience afterwards to plague you. Not like there was when dead bodies were strewn all over the floor.
Then something she’d said floated to the forefront of my brain and my eyebrows started climbing for the rafters. “KING James, you said,” I exclaimed with dissatisfaction. “As in, your uncle James. The very same uncle who is actually two years younger than you are, and went to school with us, that King James,” I said incredulously. For the first time I actually started to think there might be something to this whole Royal coup notion. “What about the Queen Regent? Did something happen to her?”
By now, Bethany had recovered enough that her courtly mask was back and fully in place. “Your jewels may have finally dropped after all, Jason,” she spit out my name as if it were a poisonous substance she couldn’t wait to get out of her mouth. “But before all this temporary power goes to that normally impotent head of yours, you,” she put particular emphasis into the word, “need to remember the State of Affairs back home,” she gritted.
She didn’t say the words outright because she didn’t have to. The State of Affairs back home was the same as it had always been: A person’s family stood pledge to their good behavior. I thought I had a general idea just how far Parliament would go. But these were trying times, and if she wasn’t lying about this King James business… Enough turmoil back home might, in some royalist wet dream, have opened the door for a resurgence of the Monarchy.
Akantha must have seen something in my face she didn’t like, because the next thing I knew she’d cleared Bandersnatch from its sheath.
Bethany gave a cry and jerked in the duralloy grip of her honor guards, but she couldn’t get away from Akantha and her five and half feet of razor sharp, dark glittering metal.
‘No,’ I mouthed, and closed my eyes. There was no way Bethany wasn’t going to recognize Bandersnatch once it was out of its sheath. I had been hoping to keep the sword a secret. As soon as Bethany knew about it…
“It would give me nothing but pleasure to slit your throat just so we could all watch you choke to death on your own vile juices. Then, before you breathe your last, I’ll cut off your head and display it publicly, that all may know the full wage of ra
nk impudence,” Akantha hissed.
You had to give Bethany this; whether it was an unwavering belief in her own invincibility or genuine starch in her belly, she didn’t break down and beg for her life like I realized I’d been half-hoping for as soon as Akantha put the sword on her.
“You’re a tall one,” Bethany said, her smooth voice in stiff contrast to the sweat that suddenly broke out on her forehead. “Tell me, do they grow them stupid as well as ugly where you come from?”
Akantha slowly drew back her sword and Bethany couldn’t help a squeal of pain as blood started trickling down her throat.
“My Mother works in the Palace, Akantha,” I said, quietly hoping I was able to keep the desperation out of my voice.
Akantha glanced at me sharply and her nostrils flared. A questioning look crossed her face and I nodded my head. I could see her arm tense as she looked back at Bethany.
Bethany’s newly triumphant smile said she thought she had us over a barrel. If it were just me, she might have been right, but with Akantha thrown into the equation it was anyone’s guess how this thing was going to play out from here.
“There will be a reckoning,” Akantha said quietly, before drawing back the blade.
I gestured to the honor guards, “Release her,” I said wearily.
Bethany’s eyes followed Akantha as she slowly drew back the sword and stepped away. “Who’s the space tramp, Cousin? Perhaps you should introduce us after all…” she trailed to a stop and sucked in a breath.
I could see the recognition dawning in her eyes, like the rising sun about to turn into a hot blistering mess and burn everything it touched.
“Bandersnatch,” she breathed and shot me another calculating look. My stomach sank. I didn’t like this look any more than I did the first. If I’d been thinking about it at all, this would have been one of my top reasons for not including Akantha in this meeting.
“Now you really will have to introduce us,” she gloated. “Oh, His Majesty and the rest of the Royal Family will be quite pleased when they learn what I’ve just found.”
I gritted my teeth. No matter how this thing played out, I was in it deep now. All the way up to my neck, with the fecal matter all set to rise up to my nose and beyond.
Now both women were looking daggers at me. Akantha’s the more blatant, 'I’ll gut you and leave you for the fishes if you don’t get on with it' and Bethany’s a more gilt-covered stiletto, the sort that was aimed at your heart and you just knew, a moment of inattention and she was more than ready to shove it in to the hilt.
My Royal cousin cum Confederation Representative took my slightly extended silence to try to cause trouble.
“You do realize why he calls me Cotton-Mouth,” she said, turning toward Akantha, a sickeningly sweet smile on her face.
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” Akantha replied disdainfully.
“Oh, but I am,” Bethany cooed, “has he bothered to mention that growing up, he gave a secret little name to anyone he squabbled with,” she waggled her fingers, mocking me, “the little whiner gave all of us nicknames.”
Akantha raised an eyebrow, and despite herself shot me a half-amused smile.
Bethany’s smile turned vicious. “Named each of us after a snake. The girls anyway, I never found out if he had any little pet nicknames for the boys. Did you know that the Cotton-Mouth is a highly venomous snake from old Earth, equally at home in water or on the land,” she paused before glancing over at Akantha, who was at this point rolling her eyes and looking bored. “I can already see from my short time in the same room with you two, that you seem to get along like peas in a pod. Which is why I’m wondering if he’s shared whatever little nick name he’s come up with for you,” she said sweetly. Then she glanced in my direction, the same as if she was slipping a dagger into my side.
Family, can’t live with them, can’t orbitally bombard them back to the foul, oozing proto-plasma they crawled out of, I thought grimly.
For the first time, Akantha looked uncertain. I could tell from the wrinkle in her brow that I didn’t want her remembering all the times we’d fought and thus the likelihood that I had indeed come up with a nickname for her. Which I had.
“Bethany, I’d like to introduce my-” I started but Bethany cut me off.
“My proper introduction if you please, Jason,” my cousin interrupted, trying for a stiff tone, but coming off more catty than anything else.
I blinked at this petty bit of senseless drama. “I had thought the familiar more in-keeping with protocol, but if you desire to be more formal,” I said waving my hand languidly, “then as you wish, of course.”
I stood up from behind my desk and gave a half bow.
“Princess-Cadet Bethany Tilday Vekna, Confederation Representative, Envoy of King James the 4th, Heir to the Tilday Demsene and so on and so forth,” I said, bringing my hand up as if to cover a yawn. From behind my fingers I observed Bethany turning pink in the face and suppressed a chuckle. “I’m truly sorry Beth, but you really must present your credentials beforehand if you are determined to receive a proper introduction,” I glanced pointedly at the leather messenger pouch strapped to her hip.
Bethany glared daggers at me, promising revenge for this latest slight. I turned to Akantha.
“May I be the first to introduce to you, my lovely Wife,” I said, gratified to see the look of shock she quickly masked, skittle across her face. Suppressing a smile I continued, “The Lady Adonia Akantha Zosime, Hold Mistress of Messene, Land Bride of Argos, ruler of over one hundred and fifty thousand subjects both in orbit and on land, then of course there is the most important part, at least to me personally,” I said with perhaps my first genuine smile of the whole conversation, “she is Sword-Bearer to one Admiral Jason Montagne.”
I met Akantha's eyes, and for a moment I imagined it was just the two of us alone, without cousins or anger between us.
Then, as it has a tendency to do when there are other people in the room, reality decided to clobber all over that perfect moment in time and I was right back to swimming in it.
Bethany slowly clapped her hands. I look up irritated to see a sardonic look on her face.
“Oh, you’ve gone and done it now, Dear Cousin,” she said mockingly.
Akantha’s face hardened and the moment was lost completely.
“Do tell,” I said biting off the last word, 'cousin.' I didn’t trust myself right at the moment, a flash of irritation shooting straight through me like a whirlwind.
“Bad enough you seized control over this bucket of bolts, but then you had to go shoot up an Imperial,” she glared at me, “an Imperial Cruiser!” she repeated for emphasis. “What were you thinking, Long-,” she stopped and shot a look over her shoulder, then looked irritated that she’d done so. “I mean, cousin.”
“I was thinking I’d much prefer my head attached to my shoulders in both instances, but I don’t see what that has to do with my getting married,” I remarked mildly, incidentally forestalling any further action by the guards with my calm demeanor.
She shook her head and when neither of the guards in the room made a grab for her, she glared at me. “Running around playing dress-up, pretending to be a proper Confederation Admiral and declaring Imperial Warships pirates is nothing to joke about!” she exclaimed.
I opened my mouth to compose a civil retort, but she cut me off.
“Mutiny, against the planetary Parliament at the very least, if not outright rebellion for taking control of the ship. You’re amazingly lucky the Re-Installment went down at exactly the right moment but honestly, there was no way you could have known that would happen beforehand. You’re a mushroom, Jason. Nothing but a stupid little mushroom kept in the dark and fed from the palace chamber pot, which is why you look like a complete idiot to anyone who actually knows the real score,” she said sticking out a finger and ticking off points, “Attacking an Imperial Cruiser which almost started a War; Planetary Piracy, just so you could try to make your own l
ittle power out here on the Rim; forced imprisonment of a Caprian Settlement ship,” my eyes widened at this last one.
There was only one Caprian Settlement ship that I’d encountered, and all I’d done was help them. Those bigoted ingrates, I had even made the Belters give them their main hyper dish so they could be free to leave if they wanted to. If I ever got my hands on the captain of that ship, someone was going to physically have to stop me from taking a neural whip to him. I wanted to show my appreciation for his efforts the same way he’d shown his for mine, only I was going to be much more open and forward about things. There would be no running around telling false stories.
Bethany continued, thankfully oblivious to my reaction. “Impersonating a military Officer; pressing real Confederation warships into this abortion you’re calling a fleet; pirating a Constructor and destroying another one through incompetence, ships that aren’t even from this sector! Do you have any idea how much those things cost to replace? The list goes on and on,” she said furiously. “What in the Name of the Great Annihilator do you think you’re doing out here, Cousin,” she all but shouted.
“I take it then, you’re here to bring me home,” I said, meeting her gaze steadfastly. After everything I’d been through, holding the gaze of one angry cousin was nothing. She’d put just about the worst spin on things you possibly could,
“Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying,” she exploded, unable to stop her face from turning a lovely shade of purple.
“I’ve been trying,” I said mildly. “The words just seem to keep spilling out though, so I might have missed a piece or two. I still don’t know what this has to do with my taking a wife.”
“You really have lost touch with reality,” she said sounding bewildered. “You almost start a war with the Empire and then instruct your Marines to lay hands on an Official Representative of the Caprian Government, the owner of the very starship you are currently gallivanting around the Galaxy in. It's suicide, and not only for you. For these Marines of yours as well.” She had recomposed her features and gained control of her blush zone by now.
Admiral's Gambit (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 30