Raj gave an unwilling snort of laughter, meeting the tilted green mockery of his wife's eyes. His heart gave a little lurch as he watched her, even then; Suzette Emmenalle Forstin Hogor Wenqui Whitehall had that effect on most men. Small, scarcely up to his shoulder, greyhound-slim and graceful, breeding showing like light through fine porcelain. And alive, so alive . . .
"Will you take it?" she asked quietly.
"Probably. Spirit of Man knows nobody else with any experience wants the Expeditionary Force. This is a formality, really . . . unless I screw up."
"Can you do it?"
Raj slapped his gloves into the palm of one hand. "I think so." One more thing I love about you. You never give me an optimistic lie, and you think, my angel.
"A lot depends . . . We don't know enough about the Squadron. The Ministry of Barbarians hasn't been expending enough effort in that direction. Orbit of Righteousness! We've had little enough contact with them for a couple of generations now. At least the Governor has picked the right man for the civil side."
Suzette's brows arched a question.
"Just heard," he said.
Was that Center? Sometimes I can't tell, these days.
"Mihwel Berg; he's from Cyudad Gut, his family trades heavily all through the central Midworld Sea, he's got friends and relatives outside the Civil Government area too. He'll be invaluable . . .
if
he cooperates."
She came over to him, put her hands on his shoulders and stood tiptoe; he bent to take the kiss. Suddenly she gripped him fiercely.
"You
can
do it," she said, whispering in his ear. "You—sometimes I think the rumors are true, you know, and the Spirit
has
touched you."
He straightened, giving her a crooked grin and a salute.
Messa
Suzette Whitehall stood as he left, blinking in thought and tapping her thumb against her chin.
"Leave me," she said to the maids. "Not you, Ndella," she added to a tall gawky Zanj woman as the others made their curtsy and rustled out. When they were alone: "Fetch kave, and get me Abdullah and . . . hmmm, Fatima. Bring them yourself. Be discreet."
"Messa."
The black left with silent efficiency. Suzette had been raised in a great household of East Residence, and she had her own ideas on how to manage here in the Palace. Raj would have been glad to find their servants from Hillchapel, the Whitehall family estate, but Descotters were too awkward in the city and free servants too easily corrupted, in her opinion. Like most, she bought her household staff, but unlike most she gave it personal attention. Only those from outside the Civil Government, with neither friends nor family here, only the strong, healthy, and intelligent, and only after careful personal examination. She saw to their training, and education in some cases. Each was paid a small wage, with promise of eventual manumission and enough for a dowry or a shop or a farm. The only punishment was the threat of sale.
Most people underestimated slaves, even more than men underestimated women. And they talked in front of their servants as if they were deaf, too.
Ndella entered bearing a tray. A man in nondescript but respectable clothing followed her, pewter-buckled shoes and dull-gold pants, black coat and plain linen cravat. A plumply pretty young woman carrying a year-old child followed him; she was dressed in the pleated skirt, embroidered jacket and lace mantilla of a respectable city matron, perhaps a bureaucrat or artisan's wife, but her looks were pure Arab. The child was darker, and even barely walking had something of the heavy-boned solidity of a Descotter.
"Peace be with you," Suzette said in fluent Arabic, a tongue they all had in common, and a little safer than Sponglish.
"And upon you, peace," they replied. Ndella served the others and then sank back on her heels. The tantalizing odor of fresh-brewed kave tinged the flower and incense scents of the room; bees murmured in the lilac bushes outside the window.
"Abdullah," she said.
"
Saaidya
," the Druze replied, rising quickly to check outside the window and back through the door before returning to the table. He had been born Abdullah al'-Azziz; technically, he would have been Abdullah cor Wenqui—freedman of the Wenqui family—if the records of that transaction had been in the register. "I have prepared a preliminary report on Messer Berg; his home, connections, wealth, and opinions."
The little Druze pulled a small role of paper from one sleeve of his jacket and handed it to her.
"My summation: Messer Berg is indeed the most promising man for the post. However, he was appointed primarily because he is in disfavor with Chancellor Tzetzas; a little matter of percentages from intervening fees in a tax-farming bid. He is furthermore under suspicion from the Anti-Viral Cleansers"—the investigative arm of the Church—"because relatives of his, living in Brigade territory, have converted to the cult of Spirit of Man of This Earth. All in all, this is a hardship posting for him, a punishment. He may recoup his position either by brilliant success—he probably considers this unlikely, sharing the general opinion of the military probabilities—or by ruining Messer Whitehall, thus gaining the favor of Tzetzas."
She nodded. It was quite possible he
could
somehow contrive the expedition's ruin; and escape blame for it, too.
"Thank you, Abdullah," she said sincerely, tucking the sheaf of notes into her own sleeve. He bowed, smiling. Pleasure at her gratitude, and at the excitement of the task.
"Ndella," she continued.
The Zanj bobbed her head. Her flat black face was exotic to East Residence eyes, and Suzette had added gold snake-coils for her arms and neck to heighten the effect. People in the Civil Government rarely encountered Zanj, and knew them mostly through highly biased accounts from the Colony. The Colonists were commercial rivals of the southern continent's city-states, there were frequent military clashes—full-fledged war quite recently, which was how Ndella had ended up on a Sandoral auction-block—and the orthodox Sunni Muslims of the Colony detested the Reformed Baha'i heresy the Zanj practiced. To hear the Colonists talk, all Zanj were depraved savages who ate their young and mated with anything, carnosauroids included.
So nobody in East Residence would be likely to suspect that Ndella, for example, was literate in four languages. . . .
"Messa Whitehall, I have now access to Messer Berg's Palace household; a few matters of healing, and, ah"—she coughed discreetly—"I have become very good friends with one of the household servants, an undercook." Ndella liked girls, usually a matter of indifference but here rather useful. "Lorhetta has been adding the
capoyam
to Messer Berg's chili, on the understanding it improves his digestion and temper.
"Add the
beyem
," she went on, briefly showing a small glass vial, "to anything he drinks, and . . . heart failure. Perfectly safe for those not sensitized by the
capoyam.
Undetectable."
. . . and nobody would be likely to suspect Ndella was a doctor, either. Women could learn medicine in the Civil Government, although most who did were also Renunciate Sisters, but the Colony was very restrictive. Everyone would assume the Zanj were even more so.
"Excellent," Suzette said. "Thank you, my friends."
Abdullah and the black woman took the hint, leaving quickly. Fatima released her squirming son; the boy ran half a dozen steps and grabbed the cushions of the opposite couch. He turned his head to give the two women a toothless grin of delight, then hauled himself along the settee hand-over-hand, until he came face to face with the house cat sleeping curled up on a cushion at the end. The animal opened yellow eyes and submitted to pats and gurgling cries of pleasure for a moment before fleeing; the baby went on all fours and began a determined pursuit.
Fatima turned back to Suzette with the same bright-eyed interest she had shown for the last half hour; the hint had been delivered, however. She had a child to consider.
Suzette put aside envy; there was no time, not now, later . . . "Young Barton seems to thrive," Suzette said.
Fatima sighed. "Only if his father does," she replied, a little more subdued.
Suzette leaned back, nodding and sipping at her kave. Her own point had been conceded.
Whichever one
is
his father,
she thought.
But both of them are Raj's men.
The Arab girl had nearly taken out the eye of a 5th Descott trooper while he and his squad tried to rape her, back in El Djem, the Colonial border-hamlet where she had grown up as a very minor daughter of a minor concubine of the town's mayor. Fatima bint Caid, she had been then; Fatima cor Staenbridge, she was now. Two of Raj's officers had rescued her from an unpleasant death by the trooper's bayonet—on a whim more than anything else, being lovers themselves—and she managed to make it back to the Civil Government border with the 5th during the chaotic nightmare of the retreat through the desert. A prudent career move, given the options available to an ex-virgin with no family in the Colony's strict Islamic society.
She had been pregnant as well; by Gerrin or Barton, but it was the heirless Gerrin Staenbridge who had manumitted her and adopted the child. Which made her a free commoner technically, with a nice little annuity and excellent prospects as mother of a nobleman's heir; besides that, she was still the—very occasional—mistress of both men, and well-liked. Gerrin Staenbridge and Barton Foley were both Companions now, their fortunes as one with Raj's; Gerrin was his right-hand man. "You have been very kind to me, Messa Suzette," Fatima said, in a quiet tone.
That was true enough; Raj and she had stood Star-parent to young Barton Staenbridge, which was a lifetime tie and taken seriously by the Civil Government's nobility. And Suzette had eased her path socially, as well. A mistress could not be received formally, even if she was the mother of an acknowledged son, but informal acceptance was possible—if the consensus of the
Messas
, the gentlewomen, favored it. Suzette had seen that it did, and she had the ear of Lady Anne, the Governor's wife.
"I anxious am—sorry, am anxious to repay your kindness," she said, dropping back into the Sponglish she had made such an effort to learn.
Suzette leaned over and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, my dear—it's just that sometimes we have to . . . look out for the men. Now, what I'd like you to do is drop by on Tanha Heyterez." Berg's mistress, and rather a neglected one, according to rumor. "She's a country girl, just in from Kendrun, and doesn't know anyone here." Hence likely to be desperately lonely and ready to talk. "She needs a friend . . . and
Berg
needs to be brought around to helping—himself, too—rather than hindering.
"So what I need to know," she went on, lowering her voice, "is
everything
about Messer Berg. Particularly the things his woman would know: what he fears, what he likes, what his tastes are."
Fatima nodded slowly. "I understand, Messa Whitehall," she said formally. Then she grinned, an urchin expression that made her face look its eighteen years again. "I have a problem, though. Barton and Gerrin, they don't want me to come on campaign with them this time. Gerrin wants me to go back to his lands, stay with his wife."
"Why not?" Suzette asked. Since a childless wife could be divorced at will, the lady in question ought to be fairly grateful; now that Staenbridge had an heir, she was safe. Nor was there likely to be much jealousy, since, from what Suzette had learned, Gerrin's wife had known his tastes before the wedding.
"Boring!" Fatima said. "Besides, I want be there if they're hurt."
Suzette nodded understanding; she had always followed the drum herself. It was bad enough to send Raj off to battle; to be a thousand kilometers away, not even
knowing
for months—she shuddered slightly.
And he needs me.
"I can't interfere in Messer Staenbridge's household," she pointed out gently.
"Oh, I take care of that. I got Gerrin to promise I could come as long as I healthy—now he and Barton trying to get me pregnant again so I
have
to stay home."
"You don't like that?" Suzette said, surprised.
"Oh, I like the
trying,
just don't want it to
work.
"
They laughed together, Suzette a little harder than she had expected. There had been few enough chances for humor, in the past few months here in the Palace. Maneuvering against Chancellor Tzetzas was not something you could do with less than your whole intent, even if you were a good friend of the Governor's wife.
"That I can help with," Suzette said, wiping her eyes. "Or rather Ndella can, when I tell her to." She quieted. "I'll be glad to get out of East Residence again," she said. "Out where you can see things coming."
Which was odd, she thought, sitting in silence after the young Arab girl had left. Back in her own girlhood—sometimes she had to remind herself she was still four years shy of thirty—Suzette had never looked uphill to the Palace without a stab of envy. That was her birthright, the legacy of the Wenqui
gens
; forty generations of East Residence nobility, ever since the Governors had come, fleeing the military takeovers in the Old Residence. Poverty had kept her out, and the need to care for Father after Mother died coughing her lungs out, leaving Suzette chatelaine of a dying house at fourteen.
Poor Father. Always with his books and a few old cronies, never even noticing.
Not noticing when she had to sell off the furniture and the paintings and the rugs to feed them and pay the doddering ancient servants she hadn't the heart to dismiss, when the pitiful rents from their last few farms had to go to keep the townhouse from being sold under their feet. All the years of scrimping and wheedling to get invitations, lessons, research, the coldly calculated dalliances, all aimed at precisely this. A big suite in the Palace apartments, wealth, recognition, to be a known and feared player in the ancient, stylized minuet of intrigue . . .