A Prison Unsought (49 page)

“The
problem with the Enkainion,” Hesthar said with a slight smile, “is that none of
us were there. Regrettable: I was to have represented our family, as my cousin
was on Lao Tse, but my yacht would not cooperate.”

Fierin lifted her head, and the light caught in the
gemstones in her hair.

“We’ve
only hearsay,” Hesthar finished, “which does not constitute proof.”

Y’Talob’s brows lifted. “What matter? Whether out of
cowardice or expedience, he left, and we can hold him to an investigation if
it’s necessary. Legal, perfectly legal . . .”

“And
if he submits, it will ruin him,” Cincinnatus whispered.

Srivashti gestured reluctance, his expression one of faint
distaste. “One regrets any gesture of disrespect to the thousand years of
Arkadic rule.”

“No
finesse,” Hesthar said, still smiling. “Much better to secure our position
while he is busy elsewhere.”

Y’Talob drank again. “Which means he can’t be at the Masaud
ball,” he stated over the rim of his cup. “How do we contrive that?”

Srivashti, stroking his fingers over Fierin’s wrist, said
nothing.

It was Hesthar who turned her smile up at Vannis. “We will leave
the Aerenarch,” she said, “to you.”

Vannis was so still her jewels winked to the beat of her
heart. Then she bowed, a graceful gesture of profound irony.

o0o

Admiral Nyberg stood and lifted his glass; the other three
rose with him. The wine glowed like embers in the goblets above the snowy linen
on the table. “His Majesty Gelasaar III,” he intoned, and emptied his glass
with a defiant toss.

The others followed suit.

The wine hit the pit of Margot Ng’s stomach with a rush of
warmth, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch.

The others perceived a glitter in Anton Faseult’s black eyes
as he lowered his glass; he blinked away the moisture as Damana Willsones
drained her goblet with an air of relief.

They were all working too hard. But they had no choice.

They seated themselves, and the steward lifted the silver
dome off the platter in front of Admiral Nyberg with a flourish, releasing a
puff of aromatic steam. On the platter lay a roast encased in flaky pastry.

Ng’s mouth watered, and she resolved to spend more time at
the salon, as Ares actually had a competitive fencing team.

During dinner the conversation was light, leaping from
subject to subject but never touching on the present. Nyberg’s dislike of
“working meals” was well known and not even Vice-admiral Willsones, with the
crusty fearlessness lent by age and long, distinguished service, tested that.
But everyone present sensed that both Security and Communications had news of
import to impart.

And so did Margot Ng.

Her hand strayed to the chip in her breast pocket, with the
Aerenarch’s test result encoded in it.
I
wonder how their news will fit with mine?

When they finished the last course, the steward brought them
after-dinner cordials with coffee, and Nyberg dismissed him.

The candles flickered in an occasional draft from the
tianqi, which was making the transition from the neutral dining setting to a
crisp, slightly cooler phase, filling the room with a faintly bitter herbal
scent.

Finally Nyberg set down his glass and looked around the
table. “You all seem to have news, and I hope it’s good—or as good as it gets
around here these days.”

Vice-admiral Willsones laughed. “Here we are,” she said.
“The masters of Ares, slaves to duty.”

Commander Faseult snorted. “Not for long, if the Harkatsus
cabal has any say in it.”

Nyberg cocked his head, picked up his glass, and sipped.

“Scefi-Cartano,
Srivashti, Torigan, Harkatsus, al’Gessinav, Cincinnatus, and Boyar met again
yesterday evening, comm-access denied.”

“Srivashti
yacht again?” Nyberg’s smile faded, leaving him looking tired.

Anton Faseult shook his head. “Harkatsus’s dwelling. But the
ubiquitous Felton was in command of security, which meant we did not get an ear
in.”

“Don’t
need to,” Nyberg said, sitting back. He flicked a finger over a slim sheaf of
papers and printouts at his side. He knew that Faseult’s investigative team had
still not located the leak, nor was it likely they would: his people were overextended
as it was, a situation that would only worsen.

For now, however the cabal was getting their information,
they seemed to be keeping it to themselves, and so he and Faseult had perforce
shifted priorities. “With us invited to the al’Gessinav dinner and all the rest
of the Douloi going to the Masaud ball, they’d be fools not to move: they’re
aware as we are that time has run out.” He leaned forward. “My question is,
where will the Aerenarch be?”

The commander sat back, hands spread.

Willsones startled them all with a laugh. “I think I can
tell you that. My news is a delightful bit of gossip.”

Nyberg’s lips quirked. “You’re incurable, Damana.”

“When
you get to be as old as I am,” she retorted, “you realize that people are
really the only surprising things in this universe. But it’s gossip to the
point: you’ll never guess who came to me—herself, no intermediaries—to rent—at
a smacking good fee, I should add—that old lovers’ barge I inherited.”

Faseult sustained a laugh, the first in weeks. “Why you ever
held on to that thing,” he said, “let alone shipped it out here . . .”

“You
never know, Anton. You just never know.” She poked with one gnarled finger at
the ice in her glass.

Distracted, Ng wondered if that green drink of hers might be
Shiidra Tears—appropriate in a decorated veteran of the last war against those
dog-like beings. Willsones had given them more than enough reasons to weep.
“And it has paid off at last. Vannis Scefi-Cartano! She plans an intimate
evening on the lake.”

“Ah,”
Nyberg sighed, sitting back. “So that places the Aerenarch.”

“My
question is, has she planned this as a countermove, or is she acting on behalf
of the cabal?” Faseult mused.

Willsones shrugged. “Either way, the end is the same.”

Ng tapped her nail on the edge of her snifter, listening to
the tink. The sense of well-being after a good meal had almost dissipated,
leaving a curious sense of unreality. “My experience of Douloi coups being
limited,” she said, “bear with me, I beg. The cabal comes out into the open
tomorrow, at this ball, right?”

Nyberg dropped his chin in a slow nod. “If they can get the
majority of the Douloi behind them, they’ll march straight to me and start
handing out orders. And if everyone complies—” He lifted his fingers away from
his glass. “A government is born.”

“And
the Aerenarch?”

“He’s
kept out of the way until it’s too late,” Faseult said.

“So
while he’s bunnying with Vannis on the barge—”

“Exactly.”
Willsones raised her glass in mocking salute. “He wakes up to find a new Privy
Council ready to serve him.”

Faseult said, eyes still narrowed, “If it really is
Harkatsus in charge, that’s the likeliest plan. If Archon Srivashti is the
backbone, he’ll make certain of the Aerenarch first.”

Ng considered this. “How? Threats? Do you think they’ve been
behind the murder attempts?”

Faseult shook his head. “At this point it hardly matters.
But they’ll use whatever works, whether promises, blandishments, or threats.”

“I
can’t believe they’ll use violence,” Ng exclaimed. “They’d never get away with
it.”

“Agreed.”
Nyberg set his glass down. “Srivashti would not be so crude if he could
possibly avoid it. Hesthar al’Gessinav even less so. Why, when a more effective
threat would be the release of information?”

Faseult’s countenance sobered. “The dead laergist and his
missing recording of the Enkainion? There could be a connection.”

Damana sighed. “What could be on it? What did he do?”

Nyberg gestured, a graceful turn of wrist that chilled Ng
with its fatalism. “It hardly matters, does it? If Brandon vlith-Arkad can’t
seize control, he’s lost. All that remains is the matter of what sort of
justice the cabal will demand, or will use to force him into compliance.”

Ng made herself breathe slowly, releasing what she
recognized as pre-battle tension.
No,
this is worse: there is no enemy to shoot at. Supposedly we are all on the same
side.
“Do you believe he will comply?”

“I
don’t know,” Nyberg said lightly. “Though a pleasant young man, he is
completely opaque to me. I cannot gauge him at all.” He turned to the
commander. “What say you, Anton?”

Faseult sighed. “If you will honor me with your forbearance
while I digress into irrelevance?”

Nyberg deferred with a stately gesture, and Willsones
responded with another. Ng smiled into her cup, entertained, despite her
tiredness and the tense situation, with the ineradicable ritual of Douloi
interactions.
Will the Panarch be as
polite on Gehenna?
The random thought jolted her.

“Did
any of you ever meet the Kyriarch Ilara?” Faseult asked.

Surprised, Ng nodded. Willsones shook her head, and Nyberg
murmured, “I saw her once, but it was at a huge Mandala function. We were never
closer than fifty meters.”

Faseult turned to Ng. “Your impressions, Margot?”

Ng closed her eyes, calling up the vivid image of clear
blue-gray eyes. “It was right after Acheront,” she said. “When I received the
Karelian Star. We spoke briefly. . . .” She paused, reliving the
intensity of that day: herself a young ensign, about to be decorated and
promoted, still grieving over the loss of good comrades; the occasion her only
visit to the Palace Major, for a dauntingly formal ceremony that would be
broadcast to the farthest reaches of the Panarchy; her conflicting emotions
overridden by her fear that she would fumble and disgrace herself.

“They
both spoke to me. The Panarch was grave and kind, but I was dry-mouthed with
terror.” She paused for a murmur of laughter from the others. “But then the
Kyriarch spoke to me, and, oh, it was as if we were alone in the room together,
just for those seconds.” She lost the image and turned her gaze to the three
pairs of eyes watching her now. “She asked a couple of questions, nothing I
hadn’t been asked a hundred times since the battle. But she really listened to
my fumbling answers. When I walked away, I carried the conviction that she
would remember me forever, that I carried her pride and trust with me as my
special charge.”

“Ah,”
Nyberg said. “Go on, Anton.”

Faseult inclined his head toward Ng. “Are you aware of the
circumstances of the Kyriarch’s marriage?”

“I
was told by my patrons that she sprang from a frontier family and that the
marriage had taken everyone by surprise.”

“It
was a scandal,” Faseult said. “My mother told me the whole story before she
took me to the Mandala. This was before I was old enough to go to the Academy;
Gelasaar had just succeeded his mother. Since his birth everyone had expected
an alliance with the Cartanos—it was their turn, and these things had come to
follow a certain pattern of rotation, which kept the most powerful families
happy. But Gelasaar broke it, risking the enmity of the Cartano faction.”

Ng nodded, waiting for the point.

Faseult smiled briefly. “You may have heard the gossip about
the marriage ceremony, and how wars nearly broke out that day. But.” He paused
to drink. “What no one appeared to perceive was how, within half a year, Ilara
had managed to win them all over. Every one of them. The Cartano candidate had
even become her staunchest supporter in government circles. Ilara never had an
enemy. Until the end.”

Willsones sighed, and Ng winced, remembering the doomed
peace mission to Dol’jhar. The Kyriarch Ilara had been Eusabian’s first victim.

“Whatever
it was about her, it was innate. One only had to meet her to fall in love. I
certainly did,” Faseult added with a wry smile. “Case-hardened
fourteen-year-old that I was. To a certain measure, her second son, Galen,
inherited that ability, though he was seldom seen at the Mandala.” He paused
again, looking around at them, last at Nyberg. “At your request, I have
attended as many of these interminable civilian entertainments as duty allows,
and I’ve watched the Aerenarch.”

“Does
he exhibit this remarkable trait?” Ng asked, rapidly reviewing her own brief
observations of the young man.

“When
he wants to,” Faseult said. “I don’t know whether to be frightened or
impressed, but he seems able to cloak it at will.”

“You’ll
forgive me,” Ng exclaimed, “but that makes him sound like . . .”

“Like
a wire-dream actor, making a false front to gain his purpose,” Willsones said,
her tone flat with disgust.

“I
expressed myself poorly,” Faseult said, with one of those deferential gestures.
“Think about that reception when we first saw him. He moved through the crowds,
making all the correct gestures and responses, but leaving little more
impression than a stone dropped into a pool. He wore a mask, but after the
concert, the mask was lifted, and we’re seeing him as he really is. He’s been
winning partisans ever since, mostly in ones and twos, perhaps a family here or
there.”

“Like
the Masauds,” Nyberg put in.

“Exactly,
Trungpa. But always social, always within a purely social context. He has not
courted us; his single action in our direction was to take the exam. And that
he did without any fanfare. Few are aware that he did it.” Faseult turned Ng’s
way.

“Leaving
aside the question of his conduct at his Enkainion,” Nyberg said, “one is left
with his reputation.”

“Ah,
yes,” Ng said, withdrawing the chip from her inner pocket. “The drunken sot who
lives only for pleasure.”

Nyberg’s brows lifted.

“I
also have my bit of news,” she said, “but it can wait for a moment. I’ve been
doing my own investigations. It will not surprise you that one of the hot
topics of gossip in our own wardrooms is the truth behind the Aerenarch’s
expulsion from the Academy ten years ago. There’s inevitably more speculation
than fact but this much seems clear: everyone on Minerva, or almost everyone,
knew the true reason behind the Krysarch’s expulsion ‘for irresponsibility and
insubordination,’ but no one dared talk openly. The death of Aerenarch Semion,”
she said dryly, “seems to have had a remarkable effect on freeing tongues.”