Sword of the Lamb (18 page)

Admittance to the small gallery overlooking the Directorate Chamber was granted by personal invitation from a Directorate Lord, and only relatives or close friends were likely to be tendered such invitations. In consideration of the rank of its occupants, the gallery was luxuriously appointed, the ten chairs lining the curved railing richly upholstered. Alexand sat at one end of the row looking down into the Chamber, ignoring the only other tenants of the gallery, the Lord Theo Albin Reeswyck and his brother, Gamil.

When they arrived, there had been a brief exchange of amenities before they took seats at the opposite end of the row. Theo’s manner had been condescending, bordering on open contempt, but Alexand allowed himself no reaction to that except amusement. Reeswyck was here to witness his own triumph—his nomination to a seat on the Directorate—and the humiliation of Galinin, Ivanoi, and—obviously—Woolf.

Alexand looked down into the spacious, austere oval of the Chamber. The gallery was at one end, hidden behind the fine-meshed golden screen that lined the top half of the Chamber wall. Most of the right-hand curve was delineated by an expanse of windowall offering a spectacular view of the Plaza. Centered in the left-hand wall were double doors, three meters tall, of carved teak, and on the white marlite walls hung tapestries woven three centuries ago, transforming history into epics. To the left of the door, Lord Even Pilgram, with Bishop Colona apparently blessing the event, died dramatically at the Battle of Darwin. On the right, Lord Patric Eyre Ballarat accepted the surrender of the Minister-Keffe Tsane Valstaad with a crowd of Confederation Lords in attendance, which was taking artistic liberty with history.

The floor of the Chamber was carpeted in a rich gold hue, and woven in contrasting black was the circled cross of the Concord crest. The emblem was five meters in diameter, and spaced around its periphery were ten massive, karri-wood chairs. The one on the far side of the circle was larger than the others, with a small platform before it serving as a step and footrest.

The Chairman’s seat.

Alexand stared down at it, that solemnly carved, venerable hulk that had been the object of ultimate desire for ambitious men for generations. It seemed too heavy to be supported by anything other than stone; heavy with tragedy and blood, portent and power.

He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes before the appointed hour; only two of the Director’s chairs were occupied now. His eyes moved around the circle to the one nearest him, the Ivanoi chair, and to the smaller chair that had been installed to its right for this meeting.

Lady Honoria Corelis Ivanoi sat in that smaller chair. He had only an angled view of her back now, but he’d studied her closely when she entered the Chamber. She wore black, a high-necked, long-sleeved gown; her golden hair was hidden under an unadorned koyf from which a black veil trailed like an ominous cloud. The regal, immutable calm was intact.

Lady Honoria had been purposely relegated to the chair squeezed into the circle, but the Ivanoi chair wasn’t empty. From the gallery, Alexand could see the top of the small, tawny-haired head of its occupant. Derek Arment Ivanoi, first born of the Lord Alexis, was learning early the lessons of power.

Like his mother, he was dressed in black. He sat the big chair with his black-shod feet projecting in front of him because the seat was too deep for his five-year-old legs, and he didn’t move except to gaze around the Chamber and occasionally look up at Honoria for reassurance.

This child would sit patiently through the meeting, comprehending nothing of the verbal battles raging around him. He would sit quietly; no fidgeting; no laughing—or crying. Derek Arment Ivanoi was the first born. His obligations had undoubtedly been made clear to him.

Alexand might have pitied the boy if he allowed himself to dwell on his plight. He didn’t. He understood his own obligations as well as Derek Ivanoi did.

And he understood now Honoria Ivanoi’s unbreachable calm, her quiet hands. A name, a presence, existed like a shadow in his thoughts, something so loved, so vital to his being, he couldn’t encompass the grief of loss. And today it might be lost to him. Yet he waited in calculating calm, shutting out the potential of grief; for him at this time and place it did not exist. He could not let it exist. His obligations were clear.

The only other occupant of the circle now was Trevor Hild Robek, whose House was built firmly on the Planetary Transystem franchises. He was both a friend and an ally to Woolf and Galinin, and it was he who had escorted Honoria and Derek into the Chamber. He sat in the chair to Derek’s left, solid and compact, dark hair laced with gray; like an old soldier, wily and wary.

Alexand’s attention shifted to the double doors as they slid open.

Cameroodo and Fallor.

They parted when they reached the circle, Fallor stooped and gray, although he wasn’t yet sixty, his pinched features revealing his confusion when he saw Derek Ivanoi and his mother. But he recovered his usual smug aplomb by the time he settled himself in his chair.

It seemed perversely appropriate that Fallor would be the last to vote, since his was one of the votes both antagonists in the impending encounter were vying for. His turn at voting was determined by the position of the Fallor chair in the circle, and the sequence of voting was determined by entrenched tradition whose genesis was lost in the shadows of history. It began with the Chairman and moved to his left around the circle. Fallor, on Galinin’s right, always voted last.

Julia Fallor’s father would have the last word today.

Alexand turned his attention to the man who had entered with Fallor. James Neeth Cameroodo, Lord of Mars, tall, stringently lean, the hint of negroid structure in his dark face revealing his racial origins as the leopard of the House crest revealed its geographic origins in Terra’s Sudafrika. Unlike Fallor, Cameroodo could never be called a fence rider. His position on any issue was always clear. He stood with Selasis not out of friendship, but because Selasis’s reactionary tendencies were in agreement with his.

Cameroodo showed no hint of surprise at seeing Honoria and Derek Ivanoi, and even offered her a courtly bow before he seated himself. Still, he didn’t speak to her, even though they were separated only by the still-vacant Hamid chair.

The doors opened again and the man who entered was a marked contrast to Cameroodo. Sato Lao Shang’s racial heritage was oriental; he was slight of body with wizened features and a balding head, yet he carried himself with profound dignity. He crossed the circle at a circumspect pace, then on reaching the chair to Cameroodo’s right, turned and bowed to Honoria Ivanoi and spoke a few words to her, apparently condolences, then formally greeted the Lords present, and finally seated himself to wait silently beside the equally silent Cameroodo.

Sato Shang’s show of courtesy to Lady Honoria didn’t surprise Alexand, but neither did it offer any hint of his intentions. He could be fully prepared to destroy Ivanoi with a word, yet he would still extend Honoria that courtesy because it was her due; her birthright. A dynastic thinker.

Again the doors opened, and Alexand’s eyes narrowed. Interesting that two of the habitual fence riders entered accompanied by a Selasid faithful. Shang had been alone, but Fallor had Cameroodo, and now Sandro Delai Omer was enjoying—or at least tolerating—the company of Lazar D’Ord Hamid.

Hamid was carrying the conversation, but Omer apparently concluded it for him when they reached the circle, stopping at his chair to Robek’s left, while Hamid crossed to the chair next to Honoria Ivanoi. His surprise at seeing her and Derek literally stopped him in his tracks. He made an awkward bow to her, his round face hotly pink, then he went hastily to his chair, and from that time on, although no more than a meter’s space stood between them, he spared her not even a glance.

A man of myopic subterfuges, so Phillip Woolf characterized Hamid. And a vain man, prone to decking himself with an abundance of ornament and given to extremes of fashion that only emphasized his paunchiness and short stature. A fool, and generally recognized as such, who held a Directorate chair only by virtue of heredity, and headed a financially successful House by the same accident of birth. Even a fool given the resources of a virgin planet could be successful. The House held a series of foodstuff franchises as well as Concord grants on most of the developed land on Pollux. Failure was all but impossible.

Alexand looked across the circle to the man whom Hamid had escorted into the Chamber. Sandro Delai Omer, a fence rider who seemed to take sardonic delight in the role and who was generally clever enough to profit by it. Like Hamid, Sandro Omer was vain, but with some justification. A handsome man whose refined features fell just short of delicacy, he wore his dark hair long, curling around his face, yet in spite of his tendency to affectation in manner and dress, there was nothing effete about him. Alexand knew his father’s grudging respect for him. And he knew there was no way to guess how Omer would cast his vote. He wondered if Omer himself had yet decided.

The circle was almost filled, but the principals in the impending drama hadn’t yet appeared. Alexand watched the doors, and at length they opened for the Lord Orin Badir Selasis.

He had presence; Alexand gave him his due. Orin Selasis moved into the Chamber like a mountain; a man of massive proportions, yet he walked with a light-footedness that with the long robes gave a paradoxical impression of floating. His steel-gray hair was combed back from a high, sloping forehead that made an unbroken line with a prominent, subtly hooked nose; his mouth might at one time have borne the stamp of sensuality, but it was only unyielding now, and hinting of cruelty.

But his face was dominated by the eyepatch, a black ellipse that seemed to give prominence to the other eye, a chameleon green with a reptilian aspect engendered by the pouched socket and the very singleness of it.

Selasis moved, floated, to his chair without so much as a nod to anyone present, betraying no awareness of Honoria or Derek Ivanoi. He took his seat between Omer and Fallor, and the huge chair was dwarfed by his bulk.

Alexand was so intent on him that he didn’t hear the gallery door open. He was only alerted to the new arrival when he heard the Reeswyck exchanging greetings with him. Alexand listened to the voices. He recognized the newcomer, but chose not to acknowledge him.

But this latest arrival wouldn’t be put off. “Well, Alex, come to take a lesson from the proceedings?”

Alexand didn’t turn. “Isn’t that why you’re here, Karlis?”

Karlis Selasis laughed, a sound unrelated to humor. “I think I just might enjoy
this
lesson.”

Alexand swiveled his chair a scant quarter turn and looked up at Karlis with a dispassionate eye that finally made him turn away. The Lady Idris Svynhel Selasis had been one of the Concord’s reigning beauties, and Karlis was very much her son. It was rumored that he had been the model for the two Leador Neogreco sculptures Selasis donated for the entry court at the Concordia Sports Arena last year, and the resemblance was too obvious to be denied. Leador had no doubt enjoyed his model, and the two figures were among his best works. The faces were particularly telling, and Alexand had been amazed that the sculptor had not only carved excellent likenesses of that nearly perfect face, but had imparted so manifestly the ruthless sensuality in it. Perhaps it was too subtle for the Selasids, or perhaps they didn’t take exception to it.

Alexand turned back to the Chamber while Karlis seated himself, leaving one empty chair between them, then leaned forward, staring blankly.

“Holy God, now we’ve got women and children sitting on the Directorate.”

Alexand said levelly, “We have the first born of Alexis Ivanoi and his regent.” A pause, then, “You know about the regency, of course.”

Karlis’s fair skin reddened. He was clearly not aware of the regency, but he said airily, “Of course I know about it. Who doesn’t?”

Alexand didn’t comment. The doors were opening again. It would be his father.

The Lord Phillip DeKoven Woolf was today every centimeter the Black Eagle, even to the somber hue of his attire, the formal surcoat embellished with gold brocade, the cloak, bordered in black fur, set back on his shoulders, emphasizing their breadth. On entering the circle, Woolf paused, then crossed to Lady Honoria, bowed, and exchanged a few words with her. He didn’t bow to Derek—that would be inappropriate—but offered him a nod of recognition and a brief smile before he went to the chair between Shang and the Chairman’s seat.

“Well, it’s beginning to look like a family reunion.” Karlis gave a caustic laugh, then turned his attention to the opening doors. “Finally. Here comes the old man.”

Alexand wouldn’t allow himself the indulgence of anger now, but neither would he let that pass unchallenged. His voice was low, the words spaced.

“Karlis, don’t ever let me hear you refer to the Lord Galinin as ‘the old man’ again.”

Karlis turned, lips curling, on the verge of asking what he intended to do about it, but the answer was obvious, and it became equally obvious that Karlis wasn’t willing to take him on in a point of honor.

But Alexand wasted no more thought on Karlis. The Chairman had arrived.

The Lord Mathis Daro Galinin. robed in black, a stark contrast to his white hair and beard, seemed an ancient patriarch reincarnated, and in his grave face and imperious bearing was a grim promise: Mathis Galinin would not surrender to man or fate. And these proud and cynical Lords responded, however reluctantly or subtly: he was the focal point of every eye, and his entrance created a hushed tension, the rustle of his robes was audible as he approached the Chairman’s seat, stepped onto the footrest, and turned to survey the circle.

Alexand counted them off around the circle as the votes would be heard: Galinin. Woolf, Shang, Cameroodo, Hamid, Ivanoi, Robek, Omer, Selasis, and Fallor.

That sequence of names hadn’t changed for four generations. He wondered if it would be the same at the Directorate’s next meeting.