Roland’s look grew abstract. “I can suggest a number of young ladies—”
“I already have one in mind.”
Roland’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t your Warrant Officer Amanda, is it? Because my patience is—”
“Lady Sula,” Martinez said, enunciating the words with passionate clarity.
Roland blinked, and Martinez rejoiced at his surprise.
“I see,” Roland said slowly. “It’s not Miss Amanda you’ve spent the last couple nights with, it’s—”
“None of your business.”
“Quite.” Roland fingered his chin. “She has no money, of course.”
“Only the Sula title, which is of the highest. You can’t find a more formidable ancestry in the records. And it’s the ancestry and the title that opens the doors to all those drawing rooms and ministries, the ones that won’t open to mere money.”
“True.” Roland still gazed inward at his own calculations. “Still, we’d have to lay out a fortune to set the two of you up in the High City. Provide you a palace here, a place in the country—she can ride, yes?”
“I’ve no idea.” Martinez grinned. “But whatwill be necessary is an empire-class collection of porcelain.”
“Porcelain?”Roland was frank in his amazement. “What does porcelain have to do with anything? Has she made it a condition?”
“No, but trust me to know my bride.”
A thought occurred to Roland. “Have you even asked her yet?”
“No, but I will tonight.” Martinez suppressed a grim laugh. “How can she resist a family like ours?”
“I doubt she will,” Roland murmured. “She must be sick of being poor in a rich world.”
Martinez clapped his hands and made as if to rise. “So! Walpurga’s off the hook?”
Roland snorted out a condescending little laugh. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t go back on my word to Lord Pierre.”
Martinez gave his brother a long, angry look. Roland held his gaze for a moment, then gave a snort of irritation. “Don’t give me those Command-room eyes—your shoulder boards are too new, and I’m not one of your snotty cadets.”
“I thought we had a deal.”
“Not for Caroline Sula we don’t.” Roland gave his fingernails a fastidious inspection. “The Ngenis are rich, they’re already in place in the Convocation and the ministries, and haven’t lost their influence. Rehabilitating Lady Sula would be a years-long project—it would pay off eventually, but the Ngenis are paying offnow. ” He looked up from his fingernails. “But don’t let me discourage your matrimonial ambitions. Sula’s beautiful and bright, and that’s one more advantage thanyou’ve got.”
“Damn you,” said Martinez. Roland shrugged.
Martinez rose and left the office.
She’s the heir to a title, he thought, and I’m not. And thankfully all my children will be Sulas.
“No,” said Lord Saïd. “That is out of the question. The empire has been ruled from the High City for twelve thousand years, and will for ten million more.”
The Lord Senior’s office, unlike the gloomy board room in the Commandery, was brilliant with light. One transparent wall showed the great granite dome of the Great Refuge, from which the Shaa had ruled their empire, and beyond that a spectacular view of the Lower Town. From his seat Chen could see the private gallery by which Lord Saïd’s predecessors had once traveled to the Great Refuge to receive orders from their masters. But the Great Refuge was closed now, with the death of the last Shaa, and vague plans to make a museum of the place had been ended by the war. The first man in the empire sat before him, comfortably disposed in a huge domed chair with a kind of flaring hood that overshadowed the Lord Senior’s face.
“The High City and the government aren’t the same thing,” Lord Chen said, paraphrasing Martinez’s memorial. “The government can be anywhere—itshould be somewhere else, where a stray missile can’t wipe it out. Where it won’t be trapped on the planet if the battle goes against us.”
“What is a more glorious death than one in service to the Praxis?” asked Lord Saïd. He was over ninety, with close-cropped white hair and mustache and a beaky nose that age was drawing ever closer to his prominent chin. His clan was known for their fierce conservatism, and he had been placed at the head of the government on the very day of the rebellion, when he had denounced the Naxid Lord Senior from his seat in the Convocation, and led the resistance that had ended with the rebels being flung from the High City to the rocks below.
Chen looked at him. “The government is determined to die, then?” he said.
Saïd seemed a little surprised by Chen’s words. “We are determined to preserve both the capital and the Praxis.” His eyes darkened with thought, and then he said, “I shall tell you a secret, lord convocate, and trust that you shall repeat it to no one. Since almost the very beginning, we have been in communication with the rebel government on Naxas, their so-called Committee for the Salvation of the Praxis.”
Chen stared at the Lord Senior in profound shock. “My lord?” he said.
“The chain of wormhole relay stations between Zanshaa and Magaria has never been cut,” Saïd said. “We can speak to each other if we need to. They have demanded our surrender, and we have refused…officially.”
Something in Saïd’s tone sent a cold waft of suspicion through Chen’s thoughts. “And unofficially?”
“Since the failure at Magaria the Naxids have been contacted by what claims to be a dissident organization within our government. They claim a base of support both within the Convocation and the Fleet. They have been pleading for time while they organize an overthrow of my,” Saïd smiled, “inflexible government. And our false traitors are also using the conduit to feed them false information—for instance that the Fourth Fleet is in a much better state than it actually is, and will be here from Harzapid at any time.”
“And the Naxids believe this?”
The Lord Senior gave a subtle shrug. “They show every sign of belief. We hope to delay long enough to bring reinforcements to Zanshaa.”
“This game is very dangerous, my lord,” Chen said. “You can never be certain who is deceiving who. And they may decide to force the issue by coming anyway.”
Saïd gave a thoughtful nod. “True, lord convocate,” he said. “But what choice do we have?”
Chen left the Lord Senior’s office with his mind on a thoughtful, rolling boil. He was a Peer of the highest caste, and until the previous day he had felt himself ready to meet a Peer’s fate, dying for the Praxis beneath the fire of Naxid antimatter bombs, or with a pistol to his head as Naxid gendarmes broke down the door of the Chen Palace.
If he had thought the situation completely without hope, he would have shot his wife and daughter first, and he would have expected them to show the same indifference to fate as he hoped to display himself.
But that determination had ended the previous afternoon, in the quiet garden amid the scent of lu-doi blossoms, when Martinez had spoken to him, and Chen had seen new possibilities open before him like a flower.
Now, Lord Chen realized, it was possible that his wife and daughter would survive, and that very possibly he would live as well. And in order for this to happen, he would have to convince enough members of his own caste of the virtues of a plan developed by their social inferior.
Mere days ago, he would have laughed at this idea. But that was before he had spoken to Martinez.
He already had a mental list of people to talk to, people both in Saïd’s administration and without it.
He stepped into his own office and told his secretary to contact the first person on the list.