So this is what personal bodyguards rate by way of quarters
, he thought.
I believe I’ll stick to privateering.
He sat down in the chair and waited. According to his chronometer, an hour, Standard, passed by without incident. Then two hours. At last, when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to be called for or even fed, he turned off the lights and stretched out fully clothed on the bed.
Some time later, he woke to the sound of the inner door swinging open in the darkened room. He didn’t make any sudden moves, but had his blaster aimed before the door was all the way open. Then a familiar presence settled down on the mattress next to him. He slid the blaster back into its holster.
“Thank goodness
that’s
over,” Perada Rosselin said. “I thought I’d never get away.”
He put an arm around her and leaned his cheek against her hair. She smelled nice—no flowers or perfume or anything, just girl. “I was afraid you’d decided to spend the night with your friend instead.”
She gave a sleepy giggle. “Garen? He has clammy hands. And his mother’s a horror.”
With Perada curled up beside him, Jos could afford to feel magnanimous. “Don’t be too hard on the poor kid. He can’t help his mother—or his hands, either. When I was his age, I was even worse.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“Truth,” he said. “But I learned better.”
“You’ll have to show me what you’ve learned some time.” She yawned. “But not tonight, I think. I’m so tired I’m falling over when I try to stand up. If you don’t mind just keeping me company—?”
“We’ll keep each other company,” said Jos. And wondered, as he drifted off to sleep a few minutes later with her head pillowed on his shoulder, if he hadn’t already grown too used to Perada Rosselin for his own good.
(GALCENIAN DATING 963 A.F.; ENTIBORAN REGNAL YEAR 27 VERATINA)
M
AIL DELIVERY at school came once a day, in late afternoon after all the classwork was done. It didn’t matter whether the news from home came as voice chip or compressed-text, as printout flimsy or calligraphed parchment; everything came first to Mistress Delaven’s office and passed under Mistress Delaven’s eye. What Zeri Delaven judged safe and fitting, she distributed. The rest—or so dormitory rumor had it—she kept, and presented years later to the departing student in one fat, long-outdated bundle.
Perada Rosselin didn’t know if she believed the story or not. After almost six months of schooling, she could speak and understand enough Galcenian to follow the classroom lessons—the teachers always talked slowly and explained everything at least twice—but the conversation of her fellow-students still at times confused her.
And you can’t ask anyone for help
, she thought. That lesson, at least, she’d guessed at without having to be told.
Or they’ll know for sure that you don’t know
.
But today it didn’t matter. She had a letter from Dadda: real ink on real paper, in a stiff white envelope sealed with his university ring. The letter had come from Entibor on the diplomatic courier—Mistress Delaven had said so—and the Entiboran ambassador had put it into the Galcenian Planetary Post, and the GPP had carried it by aircar, hovertruck, and speederbike to the mailbox in Mistress Delaven’s office, and Mistress Delaven had given it to her.
Perada clipped the envelope onto the back of her text reader and hurried for the big dormitory room she shared with three other primary-class girls. She didn’t like any of them—they were all Galcenian, and the way they spoke to each other, a quick slide and patter of words with all the important syllables missing, wasn’t anything like the way her teachers said that the language was supposed to go.
She didn’t think the other girls liked her, either.
As soon as she reached her desk, she tore open the envelope. When she saw the writing inside, she felt a sharp sting of anger: more Galcenian! But the seal and the writing were Dadda’s, so—slowly and clumsily—she began to read:
Mistress Delaven said that I should write to you in Galcenian to help you learn faster, and I think that she is right. Besides, I need the practice myself. If I make any mistakes, I know that you will tell me, since you speak the language every day with your friends.
But that is not what I am writing to tell you. The real news is that when spring comes in Felshang this year, you will have a new baby sister. Gersten Kiel is her gene-sire, as he was yours, so she will probably look a iot like you once she is grown. We are all very happy, and your mother is well. I hope that you—
She never got to read the rest of the letter. The door slid open and two of her roommates came in—the worst two, as bad luck would have it. Elli Oldigaard was the oldest of the four girls who shared the room, a second-year student whose father did something important with other people’s money in Galcen Prime, and Gryl was Elli’s most dedicated follower.
Perada tried to tuck the sheet of notepaper out of sight underneath her text reader, but it was too late. Elli had spotted it.
“Oooh, look who’s got mail!”
Elli’s long fingers darted out and snatched up the letter. Her dark eyes flicked over the lines of writing.
“Oooh!” she said again. Perada wanted to hit her. “Somebody’s mamma is going to have a baby!”
“You give that back!”
Perada grabbed for the note. Elli danced back out of reach, laughing.
“You didn’t share, so it’s mine.”
“It’s
mine
! My dadda sent it to me!”
“He’s not your father,” Elli said—the older girl was speaking clearly, so Perada knew she was meant to understand. “The letter says he isn’t.”
“He is so!”
Elli shook her head. “Is not. It said right there in the letter: your father is somebody called Gersten Kiel.”
Perada felt tears of frustration coming to her eyes. Galcenians were
stupid.
“It did not say that. Gersten Kiel isn’t my dadda, he’s my gene-sire, my—”
She was speaking Entiboran now, because Galcenian didn’t have the right words to say it—if the words had been the right ones, Elli would have understood when Dadda used them. She gave up trying to explain and made another grab for the note. Elli tossed the sheet of paper to Gryl, saying something as she did so in that too-fast, too-mixed-up kind of Galcenian that the other girls spoke with each other, and Gryl threw the letter down the waste-recycling chute.
Perada slapped Elli across the face.
Elli screamed.
Gryl shouted, “I’m going to tell! I’m going to tell!”
“I don’t care!” Perada shouted back at her, and ran out of the room.
She was all the way down the hall and halfway down the main stairs—not knowing where she was heading or what she was going to do when she got there—when she ran headfirst into Mistress Delaven coming up.
“Now,” said Zeri Delaven in a dreadful voice. “What has disturbed the tranquillity upstairs?”
It was no use keeping secrets from Mistress Delaven. The students said she read minds, and Perada believed them. She told the whole story—letter, waste chute, slap, and all.
“I see,” said Zeri Delaven. Perada couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Come with me.”
Perada followed Mistress Delaven to the small room near the school office where students waited for interviews, and sometimes for discipline. The door slid open when Mistress Delaven touched the lockplate.
“Stay here for now,” Zeri Delaven said. “I need to have a word with Gryl and Elli.”
Perada went into the room and the door slid shut behind her. The soundproofing was thick; she couldn’t hear if Mistress Delaven, on the other side of the door, went away or not.
The waiting room held only a couple of desks and, today at least, one boy. He was about Perada’s age, or a few months older, and he looked as if he’d been crying. He was new, Perada thought; at least, she’d never seen him before—and it was usually the new students who cried.
For a long time she didn’t say anything. But Zeri Delaven didn’t come back, and the quiet room was lonely even if it did have somebody else sitting in it.
“Did you just come here?” she asked finally—in Galcenian.
The boy looked at her and swallowed hard. His face was blotchy and his eyes looked puffed—yes, Perada decided, he had definitely been crying.
“Today,” he said. The words came out slowly, with long spaces of thought between them. “From Pleyver. And I can’t. Understand.
Anyone!”
His accent, Perada thought happily, was even worse than hers.
But there’s two of us. And if we stick together, Elli will have to leave us alone.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll help you.”
ENTIBORAN REGNAL YEAR 38 VERATINA
J
OS METADI opened his eyes. The ceiling seemed too far away, and it took him a few seconds to orient himself. He wasn’t on his ship or in some portside flophouse—the high overhead that had at first startled him told him as much.
That’s right
.
Perada’s buddy Tarveet and his family’s little place in the country.
He rolled onto his side. From the new position, he could see that the morning had dawned a wet and sullen gray. He felt like he’d slept in his ctothes—which turned out to have been the case—and his face felt scratchy.
Wonderful. Wrinkled clothes and a face full of stubble. And I’m supposed to convince the locals that I’m the Domina’s professional bodyguard.
Thinking of the Domina caused Jos to look for the first time at the place beside him on the bed. Perada was gone. He felt a wrench of dislocation that was almost physical.
You knew it would be like this,
he told himself. The reminder didn’t help. He grunted and rolled out of bed.
No point in lying here.
He stretched and ran his fingers through his tangled hair. A quick look around the room showed him that nothing obvious had changed since the previous night. The inner door was locked again on the far side. The refresher cubicle, fortunately, was not; he had a long, luxury-loving shower underneath what seemed like an unlimited supply of hot water, and felt somewhat less out-of-focus as a result.
He put his old clothes back on for lack of anything better. Then—seeing no point in another several hours of idle waiting—he slid open the room’s outer door.
A stack of trunks and boxes filled most of the service hallway. Shipping labels on the boxes declared them to be the property of The Royal Party of Entibor, and enjoined the recipient to Hold For Arrival. A quick look at the routing codes told Jos that the boxes had been sent from Innish-Kyl on the same day that
Warhammer
had left.
Whoever posted these
, he thought,
knew that we’d be coming next to Pleyver.
Years of working the dubious side of the spacelanes had given Jos a deep-rooted mistrust of mysterious packages that appeared at convenient times. He pulled the top sheet off the bed, twisted it, and tied it to the handle of the uppermost case. Then, standing around the corner of the open door, he gave a quick jerk to the improvised rope. The case fell from the stack onto the floor.
As far as he could tell, nothing else happened. No explosion, no noxious fumes.
So far, so good.
Feeling a bit foolish, he dragged the case over to the window where the light was better. If his hosts had wanted to kill him—or Perada—they’d had a dozen chances already. And they weren’t likely to pick a method that would require them to replace all the wall hangings afterward. But feeling foolish didn’t stop him from rigging a remote-release on the box’s catch, or from taking shelter behind the far side of the bed while he used it.
The top of the case cracked open—nothing more. Nevertheless, he waited for several minutes before walking over and lifting the lid. Inside the box he found a layer of women’s clothing, with a card and a sealed envelope lying on the top.
He picked up the card. It was small and rectangular, cut from thick, heavy stock, with an elaborate crest in raised gold. Underneath the crest was a handwritten note, in Galcenian:
You are wise, Captain, to take precautions. Few things are what they seem. The young Domina’s continued safety is of the utmost importance. I congratulate you on the care you have taken thus far, and wish you every success in the future. Awaiting your arrival at Entibor,
I remain, your servant, &c.—
Beneath the note, by way of signature, was an elaborate swirl of Entiboran script—initials, it looked like, worked into some kind of design. Jos frowned. As a privateer and sometime trader, he had first-glance recognition of any number of seals, sigils, chops, and trademarks, and casual knowledge of a great many others. None of them matched the one he was looking at.
He laid the note aside with a sense of unease. Whoever had sent the Domina’s belongings to Pleyver must have known in advance that she would come here, and that he would be coming with her. Jos didn’t like the idea of somebody being able to predict his movements with that much accuracy. He made his own living by knowing where the Mageworlds ships would be, and when, and had no desire to play the victim in someone else’s ambush.
I’ll have to talk to Errec about this,
he thought.
See if he’s noticed anything funny going on.
He picked up the envelope. It was thick, as if it contained many sheets, and the same hand that had written the note had inscribed on the front: “To: Perada Rosselin, Dom. Ent., F.C., S.B.” A line of Entiboran script, written with the same firm elegance, ran beneath the address, and the unfamiliar sigil-signature was sketched across the seal on the other side.
He heard the faint creak of the inner door swinging open, and looked up. Perada had come back from wherever she had vanished to while he was asleep. She wore a widesleeved white bathrobe, and she looked like she’d washed her hair and put it into braids while it was wet.
“Good morning, Captain,” she said. She craned her neck a little to get a better view of the letter in his hand. “What do we have there?”
Jos nodded toward the partially open box. “Looks like you don’t have to go shopping in Flatlands,” he said. “Somebody knew that you were coming.”
“Oh, dear. That could be awkward. Unless—”
She held out a hand and waited, eyebrows lifted in polite inquiry. Jos took the hint and passed over the envelope.
“Want me to open that for you?” he asked, as she turned it over for a closer look. “It could be rigged.”
Perada smiled. “Spoken like a true bodyguard. But it isn’t necessary. I recognize the mark.” One neatly trimmed fingernail tapped the unfamiliar sigil. “It belongs to Ser Hafrey, armsmaster to my House.”
The name sounded familiar to Jos. A moment’s thought, and he remembered: she’d used it once in Waycross, talking to her brace of escorts, the thick-necked bruiser and the one who looked like a retired schoolteacher.
“Which one was Hafrey?” he asked. “The young guy?”
Perada’s lips twitched in amusement. “No.”
That’ll teach me not to trust in appearances,
Jos thought. Aloud, he said, “You told the armsmaster you were coming here?”
“No—I didn’t decide until after we were away. Until you mentioned Ophel, in fact. Up until then, I’d thought that you would be making course for Entibor.”
Once again Jos felt the stirring of unease. The armsmaster, it seemed, was an unknown quantity, and one who didn’t match his outward seeming.
I
definitely
have to talk with Errec about all this.
“Then how did he—?”
“Hafrey is like that,” she said. “He makes it his business to know things that other people don’t.”
“For your benefit?”
Perada shrugged. Jos couldn’t be certain, but he thought that he sensed in her manner an uneasiness similar to his own. “He’s always been loyal to the House. Veratina trusted him.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose I do.”
She opened the envelope and drew out several sheets of paper covered with Entiboran script. Jos left her reading it, and went back out into the service hallway. He’d thought earlier that he’d recognized one of the pieces of stacked luggage, and he wanted to see if he’d been right.
He had been. Sitting on the carpet next to the Domina’s pile of trunks and footlockers was a duffel from
Warhammer
, with an address tag dated from the day before. There was a note on the back of the tag, written in Tillijen’s firm hand:
“If you’re planning to spend the night, boss, I thought you might like your tooth cleaner and a change of clothes.”
Jos shook his head and picked up the bag. There was no mystery about this one, other than how Tilly had found out where he was going. He supposed that Errec had been involved somehow—this Hafrey wasn’t the only one good at that sort of thing.
First the armsmaster, now my own crew members, he thought. If it’s so damned easy to figure out what I’m going to do next, I sure wish that somebody would let me in on the secret.
Because I haven’t got the foggiest idea.
In her office at the Entiboran Fleet Base on Parezul, Captain-of-Frigates Galaret Lachiel swallowed the dregs of her latest mug of cha’a. She was starting to feel worried. Parezul had beaten off the first wave of raiders—and the second wave, which had hit a few days later—but Gala wasn’t inclined to call the accomplishment a victory. She’d lost too many ships and seen too many others crippled, and not even knowing that she’d swapped the Mages one-for-one in losses could make her feel good about the overall situation.
Parezul lay near the end of a long supply line; only Tres Brehant and his squadron patrolled farther out. Without more ships and fresh crews, Gala knew that neither she nor Brehant could bear up for long under repeated attacks from the Mageworlds. She’d tried her best to get the supplies and reinforcements that Parezul needed, but her best, it seemed, had not sufficed. The requests she’d sent to Central had been acknowledged, and nothing more.
Veratina Rosselin—damn her barren bones—couldn’t have picked a worse time to die. Central wasn’t going to bother itself with thinking about Mages when there was a new Domina to worry about instead. Gala knew what that meant, too.
They’ll leave us hanging out here. And when the Mages push in past the outplanets and start raiding An-Jemayne, they’ll blame us for not keeping them away.
Unless somebody did something, the situation could only get worse. Already the even flow of trade and communications—the constant back-and-forth of raw materials and finished goods, of news and entertainment and simple gossip—had been disrupted by the repeated attacks. The next stage wouldn’t be long in coming: unable to rely on the Fleet for protection, the colonies would begin to slip away from the influence of their mother world.
Gala wondered if Entibor’s outplanets were the only target in the current raiding campaign, and decided that she wasn’t going to find out while it still mattered. If raiders had struck the Khesatan colonies, the Highest of Khesat wasn’t likely to pass along the news.
And Central, damn them, wouldn’t bother to tell me even if they did happen to know. Just like they sure as hell haven’t mentioned the situation to any of our so-called allies.
Base Commander Galaret Lachiel thought about the future she saw coming, and decided she didn’t like it.
I can’t fight this war single-handed with my head stuffed in a sack. Something has to change.
She left her office and went down the hall to the base comms center.
“Captain Brehant’s squadron should be coming into orbit shortly,” she told the crew member on duty. “Send word to his flagship that I will be coming aboard for a private conference.”
Most of Entibor’s western hemisphere lay in darkness. In a fashionable block of houses in central An-Jemayne, a shuffling noise disturbed the predawn quiet. An instant later there came a flash of light and a rolling boom, and a section of wall collapsed inward in a cloud of dust from broken stonework.
Dark-clad figures carrying blasters and energy lances slid into the building through the smoke of the explosion. As soon as most of the haze had dissipated, Ser Hafrey left his position on the far side of the street and entered the ruins as well.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Meinuxet said, coming out of the wreckage to join him. Shadows obscured the features of the armsmaster’s chief agent, but his voice sounded concerned. “There could be traps or snipers—and we haven’t evaluated the structural damage yet, either.”
“Let me judge how much peril to place myself under,” Hafrey said. He gestured Meinuxet aside and moved farther into the broken room.
The whole chamber had been painted and hung in black, except for a white-painted circle on the floor in the center of the room. The circle was surrounded by candles, now extinguished. The heavy smell of wax hung in the air, masked by the acrid, throat-catching smell of the explosion and its attendant dust and smoke.
Hafrey reached out with thumb and forefinger and pinched the candle near its wick. The wax deformed easily.