Gregorio was as unobtrusively helpful as always as he put away the box with Peter’s decorations. Peter was a little amused at the reverence with which the man handled the box.
“It’s all right to breath while you do that, Gregorio,” he said in a joking tone. “They’re only bits of metal and ribbon.”
Gregorio looked hurt. “It’s not the medals themselves, Count. It’s what they stand for that I admire.”
“Most of them are mine only because I was born my father’s son,” Peter said. “They’d go to whoever was Count Barranca.”
“Not all of them, Count.”
Peter smiled at the passion in his voice. “You’re making too much of what people will do out of self preservation.”
“I don’t think so, sir. When I look at your courage every day that you’re here, I know you earned your medals honestly.”
Peter stared at him in surprise. “My courage?”
Gregorio turned from putting away the box and bowed deferentially. “Certainly, Count. You’re in an extremely difficult situation. Just this morning Hubert and I were saying how much we admire the way you’ve handled it.”
Peter stood in confusion, uncertain of what to say.
“It was the hair that alerted us first, sir,” Gregorio went on, his tone kindly. “Hubert noticed that, while Princess Vinitra has very dark hair—darker than yours—he often found long red hairs on the pillow next to yours.”
“Did he?” Peter said faintly.
“He did. And then, too, Hubert was friendly with the workman who did the renovations on your suite. He wondered what they were whispering about so often, so he explored a little bit, and he found the fitting in the back of the closet—the one that opens the secret door.”
Peter opened his eyes wide. So that was where the door was? “Hubert sounds very enterprising. He’s wasted on the household staff.”
“I’ve always thought so, sir,” Gregorio agreed, his composure unimpaired. “But then, I think Hubert was seduced by the fascination of the Imperium. Now that he’s seen it up close, he’s a good deal less enchanted by it.”
“I could say the same myself,” Peter said, a little unsure of himself. Where was this conversation leading?
“Yes, sir,” Gregorio went on. “And because of his new-found skepticism, Hubert has been very interested in what’s happening in the city, as far as revolutionary efforts. He heard that they’d arrested your sister, of course, even if it was hushed up soon after.”
Peter decided to be direct. “Is there some reason you’re telling me all this, Gregorio?”
“Why, of course, Count,” the valet said. “Hubert and I wanted you to know we’re available—if you should ever need our help.”
“I see,” Peter said, truly surprised for the first time since Sergei Paznowski had suggested that he marry Vinitra du Plessis.
“I’m glad you do, sir. There’s an ancient proverb that says no man is a hero to his valet, but I wouldn’t go that far. I’d just say that it’s difficult to impress anyone who picks up your dirty laundry.”
Peter couldn’t hold back a smile. “I can’t argue with that. I’m surprised you have any respect for me at all.”
“As to that, sir,” Gregorio said, “it’s all a matter of degree. In this house, your laundry is a good deal cleaner than anyone else’s.” He bowed once and started for the door. “If you require no further assistance, Count, I shall wish you a good evening.”
Peter returned the salutation and pondered this development as he waited for the signal to go to his bedroom.
• • •
In spite of all that he had to think about, Peter still felt a thrill of anticipation as he slipped under the covers next to Marie. He hadn’t succumbed to temptation where she was concerned, but he admitted to himself that he had grown quite attached to the idea of sleeping next to her. He recalled Gregorio’s revelation, and he wondered for perhaps the thousandth time what Marie looked like. Red hair sounded intriguing.
He and Marie had established a routine. Peter would allow an affectionate greeting and then they would converse for a while before going to sleep. Marie still insisted on speaking in whispers, but Peter had come to feel that he knew her in spite of the limitations of their communication.
She was very subdued this night, and Peter knew immediately what had happened.
“Marie?” he said softly as she clutched him urgently. “He did it again?”
She nodded in the dark, too upset to rebuke him for using her name. “Yes,” she whispered faintly. “Oh, Peter, he hurt me!”
Peter held her tightly, his ardor completely dissipated as he tried to comfort her.
“If I didn’t have you, I don’t know what I’d do,” she said. “You’re the only one I can trust.”
He stroked her hair. “You can trust me completely, Marie. Always.”
• • •
Vinitra du Plessis frowned as she lay back on the pillows. “You had that woman in here again, didn’t you? It takes you longer when you’ve had her first.”
Antonio lay on his side and frowned back at her. They were both naked, having just made love in his bed. In spite of her sullen expression, Vinitra was looking very lovely with her black hair spilling down around her shoulders. Too bad she was so boringly conservative in her tastes. Antonio preferred more exotic forms of arousal. “What if I did? You know very well I have the right, Vinnie.”
She flushed and didn’t answer.
Antonio was alert to this hint of defiance. He sat up beside her and held her hands over her head. “You know I have the right. Say it, Vinnie, or I shall have to punish you.”
Her lower lip trembled, and she gave a little sob.
“I shall bring Cassandra here one night,” Antonio said harshly. “I’ll make you watch while I take her, and then I’ll make her like it. I’ll make her beg me to take her, just the way I make you beg.”
She sobbed again and then gave up. “You have the right to take any woman you want, Tonio, as often as you like. I admit it.”
He bent over her and gently stroked her nipples. Vinitra moaned with pleasure.
“That’s a good girl, Vinnie,” he said coaxingly. “Now say the rest of it.”
“I belong to you completely,” Vinitra said with a gasp. “You own me—my soul as well as my body. I can never love anyone else or allow anyone else to touch me. Nothing you do to me can be wrong. Every part of me is yours, and you can do whatever you wish with me.”
“Very good,” Antonio said warmly. “I’m going to reward you now, Vinnie. I’ll always reward you when you’re good.” He slid down in the bed, moving his head lower as he gently pushed her thighs apart. Vinitra gave a little shudder of anticipation as his mouth reached her genitals. After a few moments she began to moan and finally she gave a shriek of delight as a climax wracked her body.
“Now, you see,” Antonio said sternly. “I was kind to you, wasn’t I, Vinnie? In spite of the fact that you disobeyed me and annoyed me with your foolish questions, I gave you pleasure, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Tonio,” she said.
“So you see I can always satisfy you. Even if I’ve had a dozen other women first, even when you’re very pregnant and too close to term to make love, I can do that to you to make you happy. On the other hand, you must cease to bother me about when I choose to take another woman. They mean nothing to me—not even Cassandra. You see that, don’t you?”
“Yes, Tonio,” she said sleepily, laying her head on his chest.
“Good,” he said, folding her into an embrace. She was learning. In time she would come to understand. “I dislike being angry with you, Vinnie.”
They fell asleep in each others’ arms.
• • •
Baron Arthur Urquart, President of the Parliament of Nobles, stared at the brandy in his glass with a heavy sense of dread. So far, the new Imperium could hardly be called an improvement on the old one. Antonio du Plessis seemed to have all of his father’s bad qu
alities, coupled with his mother’s disregard for anyone else’s opinion. It wasn’t a felicitous combination.
Could the Imperium survive? Urquart had always done his best to preserve it, not from any love of his Emperor or belief in empire, but from a profound need for order. The Emperor might be a tyrant, but a tyrant was better than having no leader, no laws, no expectation of orderly government.
“Anything wrong, Artie?” his wife asked solicitously. She put her book reader down.
Urquart jerked his thoughts back to his own parlor and smiled warmly at her. “No, dear. I was just thinking about the wedding.”
“I thought it was a lovely ceremony,” Gretel Urquart said. “Much more restrained than I had expected.”
Urquart’s smile lost its humor. “You can thank the new Baron Paznowski for that. He persuaded the Emperor to keep both the service and the guest list conservative.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like that man. I know you said he’s smart, but I find him frightening.”
“In many ways, so do I.”
“Not that Antonio is any less scary. His half-sister looked terrified of him. Did he force her into the marriage?”
Urquart frowned. “I don’t know. She certainly didn’t make a fuss.”
“She was too afraid to make a fuss. Sometimes I’m glad my father was a grocer.”
Urquart gave her a sharp glance. Gretel was quite perceptive. She was also his gauge on how the people of Gaulle would feel about any given set of circumstances. “What does that mean?”
“It means Antonio du Plessis gives me the creeps. All that inbreeding shows in his face. The man is not entirely sane.”
Urquart smiled sourly. He paid a good deal of money every month for a service that guaranteed that the conversations in his home couldn’t be overheard. It was worth every credit to be able to talk things over with Gretel. “I’m beginning to agree with you, dearest. I think perhaps it’s time I thought about the long term. Instead of merely propping up the du Plessis, I might consider the alternatives.”
Gretel looked intrigued. “What alternatives are there?”
He smiled at her. “I don’t know yet. But I’m supposed to go to the palace tomorrow. I shall make an effort to speak to Count Barranca.”
She looked even more interested. “Count Barranca? What can you hope for from him? He’s always avoided politics.”
“I know he has,” Urquart said draining his glass. “It’s one reason he appeals to me at the moment. He has no political baggage attached to him.”
“Not unless you count the Princess,” Gretel said dryly.
“Yes,” Urquart said, getting to his feet. “The question is, how firmly is she attached?”
• • •
Alexander pressed himself against the wall of the barracks and held his breath, as he listened to a pair of guardsmen walk past. Even hidden by the shadow of the roof overhang and the projecting wall of the stairwell, he could hear them quite clearly. They were apparently off duty, as they were making idle conversation. After a few seconds, Alexander recognized their voices. It was Luc Garcia and Diego Portiers. Of all the men in the Emperor’s Own Corps, they were the only two with whom he had ever even approached friendship.
For one wild moment, Alexander considered stepping out of the shadows and speaking to them—asking them to help him. He dismissed the idea immediately. Diego and Luc might not be as brutal as Lieutenant Duchenne or Sergeant Merot, but they took their oaths to the Emperor seriously. They would never assist in a plot to assassinate a du Plessis. Besides, the thick layer of molded thermaplex that masked his features thoroughly would make it difficult for them to recognize him as Alexander Napier.
“So,” Luc was saying, “shall we go over to the brothel and relax a little before we head into town?”
Diego sounded unenthusiastic. “I suppose we can. No sense going out and paying for it when it’s free here.”
“Speak for yourself,” Luc said. “I never had to pay for it in my life.”
Diego laughed. “Of course not. You were a virgin when the press gang caught you, and then once you were in the army, the Emperor started providing you with women. You couldn’t get a woman on your own to save your life.”
Luc protested vociferously; it was an old argument. Listening to them made Alexander almost nostalgic for the predictability of life in the Corps. After a short time, they moved out of his range of hearing, their footsteps echoing on the walkway as they moved farther and farther away.
Alexander was waiting for it to be darker. The main house was to his left, a huge, looming shape in the gloom of early evening. Alexander knew that getting inside wouldn’t be so easy this time. He had been lucky that no one had fixed the weakness in the perimeter. It would be too much to hope that the house would have a similar weakness.
He flitted around the back of the barracks, looking for something that would give him a clue on a way to get inside. He thought briefly about trying to go in through the trash canister, but that would mean that he would have to enter the underground cellar, and the only way in was guarded by a small gate house.
As Alexander moved to observe the palace, a man came out of the barracks and headed toward the main house. Alexander could see his profile briefly as he stood in the light of the porch, and he thought it was a sergeant named Underwood.
The man walked briskly across the walkway and climbed the steps to the staff entrance. The barracks was on the back side of the palace, at the other end of the main house from the kitchens. It was a good twenty meters from where Alexander stood, and he couldn’t see it clearly in the artificial light of the yard.
Alexander slipped a pair of night vision glasses from his belt and looked again. Underwood had reached the door. He waited, as Alexander often had, while the eye-level light checked his tattoo, and then he pressed his hand against an ID panel. After a few seconds the door slid open and Underwood disappeared inside the house.
So, they had added a step to the security check. There was no way Alexander could open the door himself. He would need help.
Alexander stood watching the entrance for some time. If Underwood was relieving another sergeant, the man should come out soon, and most likely he would use the same door. After several minutes, the door opened again.
Alexander lifted his night vision glasses and studied the man who came through the doorway. It was Louis Merot.
Alexander smiled to himself. He had been afraid whoever came out of the door might be someone he respected, someone whom he wouldn’t want to exploit. He would have no problem doing what he had to do to Merot. In fact, he knew just the way to deal with him.
Alexander waited until the sergeant was most of the way to the barracks, and then he staggered out from the shadows groaning as if he were in great pain.
“My head!” Alexander said piteously, as he slipped a small energy pistol into his right hand. He folded his right arm across his chest to hide the pistol under his left arm and held himself, groaning even more pathetically. He lurched backwards so that he was in the shadows again and leaned against the barracks wall as if he couldn’t stand.
Merot sprinted the last few meters toward him.
“Who’s there?” he said sharply. “What’s wrong?”
“My head,” Alexander repeated. “Someone jumped me!”
“Did he get your weapon?” Merot demanded, bending over him.
“No,” Alexander said putting the pistol to Merot’s side. “Don’t move or you’re a dead man.”
Merot went rigid instantly.
“Now,” Alexander said evenly, “we’re going to take a little walk, you and I. Head for the transport pool. Stay in front of me and don’t try to run. This thing is small, but it has a good range.”
Merot nodded almost imperceptibly. When Alexander gestured with his pistol, the sergeant began to move slowly toward the building that housed the transport pool. Once they were out of sight of the barracks and in the shadows of the smaller building, Alex
ander slipped his stun gun from his belt pouch and fired straight at Merot’s spine.
The sergeant dropped silently to the ground. Alexander dragged his inert body deeper into the shadows and sat down next to him. He needed to wait a few hours for the next step, and it would be best to take care of incapacitating Merot while he was unconscious. Alexander knew very well that what he was about to do to the other man would make the sergeant extremely nervous. He didn’t care to risk the chance that Merot would attack him rather than allow a critical part of his anatomy to be put in jeopardy.
Alexander unpacked several items from the well-stocked pouch the rebels had provided him and worked deftly in the dimness. When he had everything ready, he loosened Merot’s trousers, put the device in place, checked that it was working, and then restored the sergeant’s clothing.
Once he was finished, Alexander leaned back against the wall of the transport pool and prepared for a long wait.
• • •
Gaulle’s golden moon was up, a pale half disk in the night sky, by the time Merot stirred. The sergeant moved groggily, and moaned as if he had a hangover. Alexander checked to see that everything was ready, and then he watched as the older man struggled to sit up.
“Don’t worry,” Alexander reassured him. “It was just a stun gun. There should be no lasting ill effects.”
Merot let out a curt string of obscenities. “You bastard! Who the hell are you?”
Alexander laughed softly in the darkness. “If you could see my face clearly now, it wouldn’t help you. I don’t look anything like myself, just at the moment.”
“Napier?” Merot said tentatively.
“Very good. Score one, for you, Sergeant.”
The sergeant glanced measuringly at the weapon in Alexander’s hand.
The younger man smiled. “Don’t worry about the pistol, Merot. What you really need to worry about is this.”
He held out his left hand and lifted it to reveal a small cylinder only slightly longer than his fist. His thumb was pressed firmly against the center of it.
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