The Lily and the Crown

by Roslyn Sinclair

  When the fifth person rose to speak, Ari tuned out and stared at her father’s body instead, laid in state at the front of the room, maybe ten feet away from her. He was dressed and posed just as he had been the last time she saw him. Now, though, she couldn’t imagine that he was only sleeping. She’d spent most of yesterday staring off into the distance, or looking at the few holo-chips of them together, and wondering if he truly ever had been alive when she was in his presence.

  She got her answer when she waited in the endless receiving line after the rites were over. When the guests had ceremonially bowed to her father’s body, they shook her hand before proceeding on to other important station officials. She hadn’t been introduced during the service because nobody had spoken about her father’s family. Most of the people here seemed either to have known or guessed who she was, but more than one guest blurted out, “Oh, I wasn’t aware he had a family. My apologies.”

  Every time, all Ari could manage to say was “Thank you for coming” before shaking their hands in her own cold, clammy fingers. Was she as cold as her father now? Sometimes breathing felt difficult.

  After an eternity, the last guest had shaken her hand and departed for a reception that Ari could not, could not make herself attend. She could skip it. The funeral director could say (if anybody cared) that Lord Geiker’s daughter was overcome with grief and had needed some time to herself.

  Or maybe that she had a headache. The thought almost started another bitter, horrible laugh out of her, but she stifled it in time.

  Last to leave were the slaves. Her father’s slaves were still sniffling as they knelt before his body instead of bowing to it.

  Assistant did not kneel. When it was her turn, she stood before the corpse for far longer than Ari would have expected her to, regarding it silently. Then she inhaled, pressed her hand over her heart in a salute, and inclined her head. There was nothing in it that suggested groveling, affection, or even obedience—anything a slave was supposed to show. Assistant’s gesture was one of genuine respect. For some reason, that made Ari’s heart seize up in a way that no weeping or kneeling could do.

  She looked mutely at Assistant as she came to Ari’s side. They were alone but for the two soldiers covering her father’s body with a sheet emblazoned with the Imperial sigil: a flame motif around a circle, signaling the burning loyalty citizens were supposed to feel for Homeworld, the Empire’s origin.

  “From what I heard, Mír’s fleet saw your father as a worthy foe,” Assistant said quietly. “There are few like him left.”

  For a second, Ari thought Assistant would touch her: stroke her cheek or push back a tendril of her hair from where it had fallen over her eye. Ari’s own hands seemed too heavy to be up to the job. But two soldiers stood right beside them, and that would have been a terrible idea.

  Just then, one of the soldiers spoke, plainly unaware that the former stationmaster’s daughter and her slave were standing a few feet away, partly hidden behind a pillar. Or maybe he just didn’t care, now that Ari was the former stationmaster’s daughter. She probably wasn’t going to get more salutes or visits at the Officers’ Mess.

  “Did you see His Lordship’s slaves? Putting on that display,” he said in disgust.

  “Crying because their next master won’t be so kind, most likely,” the other soldier replied.

  She sighed as she folded the final pleat on the corner of the bier.

  “What a ridiculous display,” he continued. “You know they don’t feel things like ordinary people.”

  Ari’s breath caught. Assistant’s hand briefly touched her elbow in caution, but it was too late. She had to say something. Slaves were ordinary people. They came from everywhere—children whose parents sold them out of poverty, people captured during war or raids, people who had gone too deeply into debt and had only themselves left to sell for repayment.

  “Why shouldn’t they have cared about my father?” she demanded, her voice high-pitched and too obviously distressed. “He was good to them. Slaves feel things. Of course they can love people!”

  The soldiers whirled around, eyes widening with embarrassment as they realized they’d been overheard, and by the dead man’s daughter, no less. They bowed, but before they could stutter out apologies, Ari turned on her heel and fled the auditorium. Assistant followed.

  They didn’t get far before a woman in a blue robe, wearing a deep green dress beneath, approached Ari. Her fine, black hair was pulled up in a professional-looking bun, and she had a no-nonsense look about her.

  “Lady Ariana, please accept my condolences,” she said briskly. “I’m glad I found you. I am your father’s solicitor. I understand now might not be the best time, but if you are not going to the reception, then there are some matters we should clear up right away, including his will and legacy. It’s far better if you don’t put them off.”

  “Um,” Ari said. Nothing seemed less possible than doing such a thing right now.

  “My lady,” Assistant murmured behind her, “you should go.”

  The solicitor raised an eyebrow at this impertinence, but said only, “Wise advice from a slave.”

  “Thank you, Your Solicitorship,” Assistant said. “Oh, I ask pardon. I was never taught how to speak to lawyers.”

  The solicitor turned back to Ari. “My secretary will also be there. The office is a little small for four.”

  “Go on back to our quarters,” Ari told Assistant. Her shoulders slumped. How had her energy drained from her so entirely? She certainly didn’t have enough to protect Assistant from her own sharp tongue. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  Assistant acquiesced. Without bowing either to Ari or the lawyer, she proceeded down the corridor by herself.

  The solicitor watched her go, then turned back to Ari with her eyebrows raised and her mouth open.

  Ari held up her hand. “Forget it. Let’s go.” She hadn’t known she could sound so much like her father. That was his voice inside hers, for the first time she could ever remember. Maybe he’d left her something after all.

  As Ari found out when she sat down with the solicitor and her secretary, he’d left her a lot. It seemed he had not, in fact, forgotten she existed. In simple terms, she’d inherited almost everything except for a bequest her father had set aside for the Empire—funds to build a library in one of the minor Rim stations. He’d always been a big believer in education. But the rest was Ari’s.

  It turned out that her father had been an extremely wealthy man. Ari supposed that, on some level, she’d always known as much. She’d never worn fancy clothes or jewels, but how else could her father have afforded to transport a miniature forest between space stations? How else had it been possible for her to acquire some of the rarest specimens in the system? She’d just never known how wealthy “wealthy” was. As the solicitor kindly informed her, Ari was now one of the richest women in the whole sector.

  It was something else she couldn’t bring herself to care about. She hadn’t felt anything since she’d reprimanded the soldiers.

  That night, Ari returned to her quarters still feeling as if everything was some kind of awful, bizarre dream. Assistant was waiting for her back at her rooms.

  Tonight, Ari didn’t want to go to sleep chastely. Tonight, she flung herself into Assistant’s arms, seeking her mouth. Assistant gave it to her.

  That, and so much more. Assistant kissed her, touched her, as if she was in a fever too, as if she, too, needed something to hold onto tonight, even if she hadn’t lost what Ari had. Ari knew that in the morning she would have bruises from where Assistant grabbed and kissed her with such desperation. That was fine with Ari. Now, at last, she felt something other than blank disbelief, than shock.

  When Ari had come, Assistant waited all of ten seconds before starting again, licking her way down Ari’s body while Ari trembled and cried out.

  “Soft,” she muttered. “Sweet. Ariana.” It was the first time she’d said Ari’s name while they were in bed, and Ari
moaned. “So perfect,” Assistant whispered.

  Ari had never felt perfect, or anything like it. But tonight, of all nights, when Assistant said it with such fervent conviction, Ari allowed herself to believe that at least someone else thought it was true.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ari stared into her porridge at breakfast the next morning. “They’re packing up my father’s things today,” she said. “So the new stationmaster can have his old quarters. I have to go through it. To decide what to keep.” She gulped as she realized she didn’t even know what her father had. His shiny medal had been shot out into space along with his body. The rest was a mystery. “It’s…I can’t believe all that stuff is…I mean, it’s his. It’s not mine. I feel like I shouldn’t be allowed to look at it.”

  “But it is yours,” Assistant said. “Everything is.”

  “I guess,” Ari whispered, and picked at her food, even though Assistant hated it when she did that.

  She heard Assistant take a deep breath and prepared herself for a lecture on table manners. But instead Assistant said: “Including his slaves.”

  Ari blinked and looked up. Assistant hadn’t touched her own porridge. She was regarding Ari with unwavering, almost deadly intensity.

  “Yes,” Ari said. “The solicitor said—”

  Then the force of what Assistant meant struck her. She nearly gasped. Assistant was her slave now, in both name and deed.

  “Right.” Ari blinked again. The feeling of unreality, of numbness, was settling back around her. “That’s right. I just—I’ve never thought of you as—”

  “I know. You care about me,” Assistant said. She reached across the table and took Ari’s hand. “Don’t you?”

  “Of course I do!” Ari said, her eyes widening. I love you. “You know that!”

  “Then set me free.”

  Ari froze. Assistant’s grip on her hand became very, very firm. Almost painful.

  “I-I…”

  “Set me free,” Assistant repeated. “You asked it of your father, once. Now it is in your hands, and yours alone.”

  Assistant was right. She always was. “Yes,” Ari whispered. “Of course I will. When? Oh. Right now. Sure, right now.”

  Assistant’s grip relaxed on her hand a little, though she never stopped staring right into Ari’s eyes.

  “Then,” Ari said, swallowing hard, “once I take care of that…it won’t take more than a few…” It was a surprisingly simple matter to free a slave, if you were the owner. “Oh, I need to get my father’s codes and—”

  Assistant reached down into her lap and pulled out a datachip. “I retrieved it this morning,” she said. “Before you woke up. From that stack of your father’s documents you left by the bed.” She placed it on the table between them.

  “Oh,” Ari said. She was having a hard time breathing. “Um. But a-after that…I mean, would you be willing to… I’m sure you’ve got lots of stuff you’d rather do, but would…” She shook her head. Get it together. “I mean, maybe you could help me with my father’s…”

  “There is a small freighter bound for Carellian One in two hours,” Assistant said. “I would like very much to be on it.”

  “Oh,” Ari said yet again. “I…yes…” She took a deep breath. “Are you going to visit somebody?” Did Assistant have somebodies? How many times had Ari wondered, told herself that Assistant would stay with her because she didn’t have anywhere else to go? Also, the word visit was very important here, because—

  “Will you come back?” Ari managed.

  Assistant pursed her lips. She looked over to the side. For the first time since they’d met, she couldn’t seem to look Ari in the eye.

  “Oh.” Ari began to shake.

  Assistant looked at her again. “I cannot stay here,” she said, her voice as low and hypnotic as the first time she’d pinned Ari down in the dark. “I want to leave.”

  Ari nodded wordlessly, hardly aware of what she was doing.

  “Let me go.”

  “Maybe,” Ari said, feeling like she couldn’t breathe at all, “if, if you waited a couple of days while I sort things out. Maybe I could c-come with you. I wouldn’t—” Wouldn’t what? Get in the way? Be a bother? Ari didn’t even know what Assistant was off to do.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Assistant said.

  “Oh,” Ari said, “right,” and she stood so fast she banged her knee on the table. Assistant looked at her with some alarm, but Ari just said, “I’m fine. I’m just going to go, and I’ll take care of everything.” She reached down and grabbed the datachip. “You…you can stay right here. Just—just stay—”

  She was out the door before Assistant could say another word.

  She didn’t precisely sprint down the corridors, but she moved at a fast clip. Not fast enough to outrun her thoughts, though, which chiefly consisted of one phrase.

  “I want to leave.”

  Assistant wanted to leave. Assistant, who had said Ari was perfect, delicious, and so many other things. Assistant, who had kissed her, who’d started kissing her, it hadn’t been Ari’s idea—surely Assistant cared about her a little bit? Just a little? Surely?

  But there had been no caring, no passion, in the eyes of the woman who had looked at Ari across the breakfast table. Just cold, hard intent. “I want to leave.” She’d practically broken Ari’s hand from grabbing it, she was that desperate. And she hadn’t wanted Ari to tag along, either.

  Why had she done all that, then? Why had she kissed Ari, why had she slept at her side every night? Why, if she didn’t care?

  Ari looked up, and realized her steps had led her to the Observatory. Well, this place would do as well as any other. It had a data console. She inserted the datachip and logged in. All her father’s passwords had been converted to her own.

  There were five slaves listed in the chip. All but one of them had a name.

  SLAVE:ASSISTANT;HOUSE

  >CAPTURE/SPL-OF-WAR

  Then, just staring at the words, Ari realized it. Capture. Spoil of war. She remembered the cold, proud woman sitting at her kitchen table that first day, who’d tried to escape and had been bruised for her troubles. Assistant had never been happy here. Assistant had always wanted to get out.

  So she had made Ari love her.

  She’d said they didn’t need love. But, but…but she’d also kissed Ari, told her wonderful things, made her feel special, like nobody ever had before—like she knew nobody ever had before—so that Ari would love her. So that Ari would deny her nothing, when the time came. So that Ari would set her free.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Ari told the console.

  She pressed keys and buttons and then waited for the command to go through.

  “You didn’t have to,” Ari said. “I would have done it anyway.”

  SLAVE:ASSISTANT;FREE

  >BY: ARIANA GEIKER;OWNER

  THIS COMMAND IS FINAL AND CANNOT BE REVERSED. PROCEED, Y/N?

  “I always would have done it,” Ari said, and pressed Y. “I’d, I’d have done anything for you.”

  SLAVE: ASSISTANT NOW FREED: AWAIT NEW CHIP

  A new chip popped out, next to the one Ari had slipped in. Ari removed both of them from the console and kept staring at the monitor. She wondered if she could stare at it indefinitely. Until she could forget that the only real friend she’d ever had in her life had only stayed with her because Ari’s father had forced her to, and was getting away as fast as she could at the first available opportunity.

  Assistant wanted to get to Carellian. Carellian wasn’t anywhere special—a station orbiting an uninhabitable planet, mainly known for being a conveniently placed port of call between larger stations. The only reason Ari could see for Assistant wanting to go there was that it was the next flight out of Nahtal. She probably hadn’t even cared where she was going. Just that she wanted to be gone.

  But she didn’t have any money. She couldn’t afford passage on a ship.

  Ari logged in again and put
Assistant’s new chip back into the console. Then Ari looked at how much money she had. Assistant was going to need some to get around. (To get away.) To go places. (To go away.) She did not want to stay. She wanted to leave. She’d need money. Ari punched in a random number, and then just started pressing the zero key until the computer told her she’d overdrawn her account. So she deleted several zeroes and then it told her it was okay and she put the money on Assistant’s chip.

  Ari put the chip in a small bag she had hanging at her waist. It had a few seeds in it. She saw a young slave boy lingering by a window in the Observatory. He glanced at her, and she waved him over. Then she gave him the bag.

  “Go to my quarters, please,” she said. “Give this to Assis—to my sl—the woman in there. It’s, it’s seeds,” she added, and she saw the boy’s eyes glaze over in instant boredom. It was for the best. Sometimes you just couldn’t trust people. “Hurry. Go straight there.”

  “Yes, Your Ladyship.” He left the Observatory.

  While she was at it, Ari freed her father’s four slaves. Including the two who had been crying, although now that she thought about it, maybe, no, probably they hadn’t cared that much about her father after all.

  Then she checked the flight schedules. One small freighter, CR-921, was slated to fly out to Carellian forty-five minutes from now. Ari hadn’t realized how much time had passed. Assistant was probably on board right now, or at least getting ready to board. Assuming the little boy had delivered the bag. Otherwise they wouldn’t let her on.

  Ari looked at the passenger logs. “Assistant” had checked in on the vessel, along with ten other people whose names Ari didn’t recognize.

  Assistant would get a name now. She’d have to. Ari wondered what she would choose.