King's Test (16 page)

The statement
was reassuring, though hardly complimentary. Williams's face
reflected the knowledge that he had just seen all hopes of a swift
and meteoric rise in his career plummet to the ground. He swallowed
his protests, however; afraid, perhaps, of succumbing to a sudden
"illness" as had the late Captain Nada.

"I wonder,
my lord," Williams said instead, "why he did it."

"Did what,
Captain?" Sagan's thoughts were far away, reaching out, probing.

"The
senseless butchery, my lord! There was no need. He was armed. He'd
caught them completely by surprise."

"Perhaps he
tried. What would your men's response have been, Captain, if he'd
asked them to open that hangar bay, allow the mercenaries to escape?"

Williams didn't
hesitate. "They would have refused, my lord."

"There's
your answer, Captain. First they insult him, then they won't take him
seriously."

Williams
remained unconvinced. "He could have insisted, coerced them.
Most likely they would have done what he wanted. A man tends to, when
he has a beam rifle pressed up against his skull. It was the act of a
madman, my lord."

No, Sagan
thought, it was the act of a young man who's mad as hell, frustrated
as hell, and scared as hell. And he won! He pulled it off, by God!
There might be more to that young man than I first suspected.

"You've
activated the tracking device aboard the craft, of course."

"Yes, my
lord. The plane has gone into hyperspace, but we will have a firm fix
on it when it emerges and touches down."

"Excellent.
And what of the Lady Maigrey?"

"Our belief
is that she escaped with the other mercenaries, my lord. That call I
received in sick bay was from the aide, Bennett's, interrogators. The
sergeant major proved extremely stubborn, but my men were eventually
able to learn that the lady was here and she was in contact with John
Dixter. They spoke together in private at some length. Bennett was
able to overhear them. The lady referred to a conversation she and
the general had on Vangelis. She said, and I quote, my lord, I think
I have found a way to deal with it.'"

"Anything
else?"

"Dixter's
response was a single word."

"And that
was?"

Williams turned
his back on the crew on the bridge. The Warlord did the same, both
staring out the viewscreen at the remnants of
Phoenix
and the
Corasian vessel, burning off the starboard bow.

"A word
that he did not recognize. A rather unusual word. It sounded like
'ohme,' my lord."

Sagan glanced at
the captain sharply, wondering if Williams truly did not know what he
had just said. The Adonian weapons dealer was notorious, his name
figuring prominently in the vidmags and among those interested in
acquiring the capability of blowing their neighbors into small
pieces. What was not supposed to be generally known was that the
Warlord was dealing with him. Such knowledge had cost Nada his life.

This captain's
face remained impassive, however. If Williams knew, he wasn't letting
on—which had been Nada's mistake.

Not a bad
officer, this captain, Sagan decided. I might forgive his stupidity
... in time.

"Excuse me,
my lord." One of the centurions advanced. "There is an
urgent transmission for you—"

Probably from
his dunderheaded commander-in-chief, President Peter Robes.

"Not now!"
Sagan snapped.

"Begging
your pardon, my lord," a communications officer struck in,
looking extremely nervous, "but she says it is import—"

"
She!
"
Sagan strode rapidly over to the console.

"No
picture, my lord. Audio only."

"My lady.
Track her!" Sagan added in an undertone.

"That won't
be possible, my lord," Maigrey replied. "I am making the
Jump in exactly one minute. I am communicating with you to tell you
that I've left you a prisoner."

"A
prisoner?" Sagan hadn't thought anything could astonish him
further. Apparently he'd been wrong.

"Yes, my
lord. The man is a prison guard, taking bribes from prisoners to help
them escape, then sending them out in junk planes. I offer the
following recording to be used as evidence in his court-martial."

What they heard
was, Sagan eventually figured out, a recording of a transmission
between Maigrey and a pilot in another plane. The recording was
brief, as had been the young pilot's life.

"I trust
you to see justice done, my lord."

"It will
be, my lady," he said gravely.

She sounded very
much like he felt. "Until we meet again . . .
Dominus
tecum—
God be with you, my lord."

"Transmission
ended, sir," the officer said.

The Warlord
stood staring thoughtfully at the console, then turned on his heel.
"I'll be in my quarters, Captain."

"Very good,
my lord."

"I didn't
really need to discover what she said to Dixter," Sagan said to
himself, pondering. "I didn't have to drag her plans out of the
unfortunate Bennett. I know what she intends to try to do. The Blood
Royal surges in your veins, Maigrey, carrying its poison into your
soul. You left Dion to his fate. You left John Dixter to die. Why?
Because you can see and feel and sniff and taste the prize! Power!
You want it as badly as I do. But what will you sell to gain it?

"Your soul,
my lady? No matter. Your scheming will be all for nought. Because, in
the end, you will bring the power to me.
Et cum spiritu tuo
—And
His spirit be with you, my lady," Sagan added, beneath his
breath, with the flicker of a smile.

Pearl of Great Price

Again, the
kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
who, when he found one pearl of great price, sold all that he had,
and bought it.

St. Matthew,
13:45, 46

Docebo
iniquos vias tuas
. . .

Then will I
teach transgressors Thy ways . . .

Gregorio
Allegri,
Miserere

The Warlord sat
in a chair in his temporary quarters aboard
Defiant.
He was
relaxed, eyes closed, listening to music from his past. The chanting
of male voices filled the air around him; he seemed to breathe them
in. The simultaneous combination of the parts of the sacred text each
formed an individual melody, harmonizing with the others, the deep
bass of the men counterpointed by the sweet, searing tenor of youth.
The
Miserere,
by Allegri. Late sixteenth century. Nine voices.

"Miserere
mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam."
"Have
mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness."

The voices, like
those of the Sirens, took hold of Sagan with melodic hands, drew him
back to a time when he had been most deeply happy, most profoundly
miserable—the first twelve years of his life. He had been
raised in a monastery, raised by the monks as an atonement for the
sins of a brother, raised in silence by a priest-father, who, from
the day his little son was born, never spoke a word to him or to
anyone.

"Ecce
enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum; et in peccatis concepit me mater
mea."
"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did
my mother conceive me."

That part was
true enough. A High Priest of the Order of Adamant, enamored of a
nobleman's daughter, finds his lust overwhelms him. Forswearing his
vows of chastity, he slips out of the monastery walls, meets the
object of his lust, embraces her. One night is enough to quench his
ardor. Filled with remorse, he forsakes the girl and returns to hide
within the monastery walls. But his seed has been planted. Nine
months later, he discovers the bitter fruit, wrapped in linen, placed
at the monastery door.

Confessing all,
he removes himself from his high office, casts upon himself a vow of
silence and of isolation. From that night forth, his brethren see him
only at prayers or silently performing the meanest, most degrading
tasks in the small community. The scandal is hushed up, the
nobleman's daughter removed to a far-distant planet. The child is
taken in, hidden from the world behind stone walls, raised in cool
darkness and reverent prayer.

"Ne
projicias me a facie tua; et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me.''
"Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy
Spirit from me."

Sagan formed the
words with his lips, the melody echoing in his heart. What had
brought him to remember all this? Perhaps meeting the young monk
serving as a male nurse aboard
Defiant.
The Warlord should
have had faith; he should have known the Order could not die, though
its members had been slaughtered during the revolution. It had gone
underground, sunk into the darkness with which it was most familiar,
and grew there as the child grows in the womb, waiting impatiently
for the light.

Sagan had been
twelve when the king, old Starfire himself, received word (rumor had
it that Sagan's mother revealed the truth) that a child of the Blood
Royal was being raised apart from the world, hidden in a monastery,
without proper teaching. Not even the king's arm could have reached
into the closed stone walls, for the church was a strong power. But
the father had seen his son's extraordinary gifts. The priest made it
known that he wanted the boy educated, trained to use the quicksilver
mind, the "magic" of the Blood Royal. Sagan had been
removed from the stone walls.

That night, his
last night, was the one and only time in his life he wept, and that
had been alone, shut in his monk's cell, in the candlelit darkness.
For days after, he had burned with the shame of the memory.

"Sacrificium
Deo spiritus contribulatus
..." "The sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit ..."

At the Royal
Academy for Men, created especially for the sons of the Blood Royal,
Derek Sagan was the most brilliant student and the most disliked. He
had seen from his first days how far above the rest he was, not only
in intelligence but in mental and physical discipline. Tall, strong,
powerful, he bested the others in every test. Aloof, brooding,
proudspirited, charismatic, he could have made them love him.

He preferred it
that they hate him.

"... cor
contritum et humiliatum Detis non despicies.
" "A broken
and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise."

And then had
come the fair-haired child—a girl, wild as a catamount,
daughter of a barbarian warrior father who flew to his enemies in
spaceships, landed, and attacked them on horseback. Sent to the Royal
Academy for Women, she had been expelled at the age of six for
attempting to stab the headmistress.

As a last
resort, she had been sent to the male branch of the Academy, to live
with her elder brother—a gentle young man, who took after their
dead mother, and who had been renounced by their father. Of course,
the Creator's hand could be detected moving in all these events. It
was here, at the Royal Academy, the masters had discovered that the
pale-haired girl and the dark-souled boy were connected by the rare
phenomenon occurring occasionally in the Blood Royal— the
mind-link.

"My lord."

The voice broke
in harshly and discordantly, disrupting his music and his thoughts.
Sagan looked up. It was the captain of his guard, and the matter must
be urgent, or the man would not have disturbed him.

"What is
it?"

"The
President asks to speak to you, my lord."

Sagan felt
himself tense, as before a battle. He'd been expecting this summons.
He could have, undoubtedly should have, reported directly to the
President earlier. But he had decided to wait, preferred to make
Robes come to him. That, at least, is what he told himself. But the
adrenaline quickening his heartbeat, the tingling in his blood,
forced him to admit that perhaps he'd been putting off this interview
for another reason.

This meeting
would confirm his fears. And if he found them to be true, it would
set in motion the rock that might eventually bring down the entire
side of the mountain. He would either end up standing on top or be
buried beneath the rubble.

The psalm ended
as he left his quarters.

"Tunc
imponent super altare tuum vitulos."
"Then shall they
offer bullocks upon Thine altar."

"Citizen
General Sagan."

"Mr.
President."

"I suppose
congratulations are in order. The news media are hailing you a hero."

Sagan shrugged,
indifferent, though in truth it had been his own publicity agents who
had circulated the reports, emphasizing the fact that his forces had
been badly outnumbered, enlarging upon his own daring in sailing his
dying ship into the enemy cruiser. Negotiations were under way for
the movie; someone was writing a book.

The people
needed a hero—a fact Sagan was shrewd enough to realize. The
revolution had been extremely popular, but it was seventeen years
ago. The people of the galaxy had lost their king, were now stuck
with a Congress whose myriad members seemed to do little but argue
and bicker and run for reelection.

Their
President—first viewed as a political reformer, an intellectual
who was still "one of us"—had become too much like
one of them. The people were bored with him. They were tired of the
myth of democracy, frustrated at being told they could make a
difference when they knew damn good and well that they couldn't, and
they were irritated at being constantly reminded that whatever was
currently wrong in the galaxy was their fault.

Sagan was a hero
to a galaxy that desperately needed heroes, desperately wanted a
strong father figure to pat them on the head, assure them that they
needn't worry anymore. They could close their eyes and go to sleep;
he was here to protect them. And once they were asleep . . .