A Prison Unsought (17 page)

He gestured largely, his signet ring glittering blood red.
“The leaders of the two most powerful families in what remains of our
polity—either of us . . .” He raised his brows. “. . . eligible
heirs, should we lose our two remaining Arkads.”

“It has its advantages,” she said
with neutral politesse.

“Of course it does. Even if our
alliance is only temporary, each of us can help the other—and if we were to
find it to our advantage to ally, ah, permanently . . . who is
there to gainsay us?”

Marriage? No, impossible. He’d always said he would never
marry until he was old, to prevent tiresome heirs from breathing impatiently
down his neck.

He opened his hand in
appeal, then brushed his thumb along the inside of her wrist. The brief touch
seared her sensitized skin, evoking muscle memory: her wrists pressed against a
pillow, the lessons in pleasure and pain.

He doesn’t want me. He
wants me to think he does.
She knew his tastes ran exclusively to the young and
inexperienced; did he actually think she would respond?

Let him think it.
He’ll reveal more.

She was aware of a tingling in her lips, the warmth
circulating lazily through her body that had nothing to do with the ambient air:
the Cambrian tea. She smiled. “Do let us consider it. But you must have
something more immediate in mind.”

He smiled back, delighting in the flush beneath her skin,
the wariness revealed in the flare of nostril, the contraction of pupil in her
glorious eyes. He remembered lessoning a very young Vannis, and though he
hadn’t set out to seduce her now, he found himself stirred by warmth. Her spark
of resistance added enticement to the moment, opening to equally enticing
possibilities. “Immediately—we will jointly give a reception for the conquering
hero.”

“Brandon?”

“Has he conquered anything, except
a record for longest orgy? You must have seen the feeds’ speculation about
what, if anything, has been going on behind the closed doors of the Enclave.”
He poured out more of the tea, and picked up his cup, cradling it in his long
fingers. “I refer to the hero of the Arthelion battle, Captain Margot Ng.
Wouldn’t you like to hear about that engagement? I would, very much. And of
course we must invite Brandon as well. He will need friends.”

“We can,” she said slowly, looking
away from those hands, and the memory of their imprint on her skin. Heat spiked
behind her navel, unfurling downward. “But . . .” She fingered
the chinois cup, suspecting that the tea would have an adverse effect. Of
course it would. “. . . wouldn’t that be the Aerenarch’s prerogative, to host
such a gathering in her honor?”

“We can’t know that his highness
will do it. And if he does, whom he will invite,” Srivashti said, enjoying the
visible effects of the tea in her still-delicious curves, which matched the
intensifying sensations along his own nerves. Really, an unexpected benefit of
his intent. “Several of our friends have already tried to honor her this way,
and Captain Ng has refused them all. If you and I throw in together, I believe
our combined names might obtain a different answer.”

“I’ll do it, of course,” Vannis
said slowly.
He never has one goal
. “But
will you forgive my stupidity today and tell me why it is so important? If you
want to hear about the Battle of Arthelion, they’ll have something on the
novosti feeds before long—”

“They’ll have everything but the
objective and the outcome.” Srivashti got to his feet and walked slowly across
the room, the light from the golden gargoyle wall sconces glimmering in the
gold threads woven in the dark silk that fitted his shoulders so nicely.
“Tomorrow Nyberg is holding a briefing.” He turned her way. “They will be going
over the records of the battle.”

He leaned down and tapped a key; the console showed the
highest ranking officers in the station, wearing full regalia, forming the
double line called the “arch of steel.”

Vannis had attended enough of them at Semion’s side to
recognize the highest honor for a returning captain, and there, alone between
the lines as the officers struck fist over heart, walked a small female in
uniform. Ng appeared to be forty or so, trim, her coloring the ubiquitous brown
of most of humanity, her face intelligent rather than remarkable. She moved
with the toe-heel precision of a trained athlete.

The vid was a regular novosti feed; the surprise was Srivashti’s
knowledge of the proposed briefing. Again thanks to Semion, Vannis knew how
difficult it was for civilians to get access to military schedules.

So how did Tau Srivashti find out? If they really were going
to be allies, she hoped he’d give her access to his contacts.

“I shall be honest,” he said with a
rueful gesture. “I tried to obtain an invitation.”

She laughed, aware of the movement of air against her skin,
the subtle scent he wore, the same scent, the same amber eyes, and the same
merciless smile, aboard this very ship ten years ago.
He’s using sex to hide his real goal
.

“But the Navy—so simple with their
black and white judgments—cannot forget that Timberwell was lost to the
insurgents,” he went on, with an air of candor. “They were polite enough to
avoid trouble, but firm enough that I still remain determined.”

Vannis remembered what the captain of Rista’s yacht had said
on their arrival at Ares,
The Navy is
coming on board to disable the fiveskip—no one leaves Ares while the emergency
lasts
. Srivashti would hate the inability to leave whenever he wanted.

He was drinking again. Had the tea the same effect on him?
It must, but he no doubt had more experience. The room seemed to undulate
slowly, and her palms tingled. She lifted her cup to her lips and made a pretense
of sipping; if she wanted to be part of any forming government, then she had to
be able to negotiate Srivashti’s intrigues. “So you think a gentle hint—purely
within the pleasant boundaries of social interaction—might remind our Naval
friends that they, after all, defend what is ours. Yet we, as the Panarch’s
sworn servants, must have access to information that concerns our government?”

“Correct, my dear.”

My dear?
That was what
he called his pets. So he thought she’d made a tactical error? She set down the
cup, blinking as its outline wavered. Perhaps the error was in accepting his
invitation. Yes. He’d beckoned; she’d come.

But she was no longer a girl. Ten years ago, as the
negotiations for her eventual marriage to Semion were carried out, she’d
happened to encounter the infamous Tau Srivashti, Archon of Timberwell, and
he’d chosen her out of all the high company, which she’d found flattering.

The encounter lasted the duration of a journey aboard this
very yacht, the cost her innocence. By the time he deposited her at the Mandala
before her wedding, she had discovered that the encounter was not accidental.
The secondary cost of this encounter—Semion’s hatred of Srivashti, visited
thence upon herself—she paid when she met Semion for the first time.

In spite of all her mother’s careful training, that had been
her real introduction to court politics.
He
thinks I’m as ignorant as I was ten years ago. Good. Because his arrogance
becomes his weakness.

The decision was made between one breath and another. Vannis
would permit Srivashti to regard her as weak. She had learned in dealing with
Semion that there was no more exquisite way to undermine the strong than
through their own underestimation of others.

“It sounds delightful. And I do
want to know what happened.” She smiled as she pretended to sip more tea. The
cooling liquid had a faint, oily sheen, its scent thick in her nostrils.

Forcing her mind to focus, she sat back in an attitude of
coziness, and saw from the satisfaction in his lazy gaze that this was what he
expected. “Another question,” she said, toying with her cup. “Why will Brandon
need friends? From my—admittedly little—experience of him, that was the one
thing he had no dearth of.”

“True.” Srivashti’s tone was soft.
Indulgent. “And I hope he will always retain them, for I hold no grudge against
him—really, a very charming, pleasant young man. But there are some rumors,
among those handicapped with a narrower vision, that might harm him.”

“I’ve heard nothing.”

“Consider your position,” Srivashti
reminded her, still with that instructive air. “Surely no one will wish to
commit the solecism of discussing around Semion’s widow how it is that her one
remaining relation by marriage is the only one who escaped the disaster at his
Enkainion. But you know everyone is talking about it.”

She did know that. Now to elicit some information by
displaying her ignorance. “Oh, but surely it was not through his contrivance.
If his bodyguards found out about the plot, they would have bundled him aboard
a ship so fast he would not have had any choice.”

“Except . . .” Srivashti
ticked the rim of his cup with his nail. “None of his bodyguards survived. From
what little news we’ve obtained from Arthelion, very few people made it out of
the Palace Minor after the bomb ignited.”

“There’s got to be an explanation,”
she said.

“Of course,” he agreed, spreading
his hands. “And we will see that it gets disseminated when he does tell us. For
he is one of us, isn’t he? And we protect our own.”

Warning made her head throb. She was not going to ferret out
his real intent now, with this damn tea clouding her mind.

He set his cup down and took her hands in his. This time she
could not suppress the shiver, and his smile increased. “Cold, my dear? Shall I
adjust the tianqi?”

“Just fatigue,” she said. “The
relentless pace of our celebrations.”

“You can rest here, if you like.”
He stroked his finger along the inside of her wrist.

She gritted her teeth, watching the little signs of
excitement in him at her show of resistance. Ah, another weapon. “I have a
pressing obligation.”

He raised her hand and kissed her palm. “Another time,” he
promised, and she did not try to suppress another shiver. That tea was now
boiling in her stomach. “We will discuss our reception when your schedule
allows.” He leaned back and touched his console, and the door slid open.
“Felton will show you out. Unless you remember the way?”

The silent man waiting in the corridor took her directly to the lock. She got herself into the shuttle
and keyed her destination as her head swam unpleasantly. Chill followed the
heat at how painfully her nerves felt unsheathed, so even the touch of her
clothing was nearly unbearable, and she was grateful for the escape from the
sort of pleasures Srivashti would have taken in that noise-muted room.

Why did he tell me
that about Brandon? Any number of reasons; he would not tell her the truth, any
more than he meant his words about their union. His Cambrian tea had nearly
caused her to commit the first and worst error of a Douloi: loss of control. It
had been deliberate.

It took all the strength she had left to walk the short path
from the transtube station to her villa, where she sank into the first chair
she saw, and closed her eyes.

She made an effort and stirred; here was Yenef, bending over
her.

Vannis stared blurrily up into the revolving face, trying to
make sense of the words. Yenef went away, then came back with a sharp-tasting
drink that cleared Vannis’s head enough for the sense to penetrate. “The
Aerenarch called in person while you were gone.”

Vannis sighed. Another tactical error. She tabbed the
console and studied the pair who had stood on the threshold, looking like
they’d been rolling in mud. Another tactical error?
No, that was a challenge
.

“When we met before, you maintained
you told the truth, and yet you sidestepped the fact that either one or both of
your sons was lying ten years ago. In result, L’Ranja, your trusted adviser, killed
himself, and his son vanished. I want to talk further about that.”

“What more remains to be said? I
believe I told you that the time for investigation was past. Lusor passed to
another branch of the family, the son was gone, and as for my sons, each had
his perspective. When the three of us met, I requested Semion to guard his
brother’s safety, which Semion vowed to do. And Brandon, I encouraged to find
another path to service.”

“Something, no doubt, involving
sensory stimulation and little else.”

The Panarch gestured, apparently unperturbed.

Hoping to shake that veneer of tranquility, Anaris said, “I
tried to kill Brandon. Several times.”

He watched Gelasaar for reactions, and saw nothing but his
own amusement mirrored back.

Anaris waited. Gelasaar finally said, “Are you asking
indirectly if I knew about your lessons in manners?”

Surprised, Anaris laughed. “Yes, I was testing you as well
as trying to eradicate from existence a weak fool.”

“Not,” the Panarch said, “the last
time.”

Anaris half-raised a hand, but Gelasaar’s eyes narrowed, and
his lips tightened in awareness. Anaris recognized the hypocrisy in demanding
truth from Gelasaar while avoiding it himself. “That was different, yes.
Ironic, isn’t it? The only time I ever attempted that particular ritual of my
people. Your tutors were successful with me afterward.”

Gelasaar said gently, “I thought Lelanor gained the credit
for that. Where is she, may I ask?”

“Dead. My father wished to see my
weakness expunged.”

Gelasaar looked away, his sorrow evident. “She was a gentle
soul.”

Her name unsettled Anaris;
he wished it had not been brought in. Had Gelasaar done that on purpose? He
probably had several purposes.

So do I.
“You never
said anything about my attack on Brandon, either that time, or before. I
assumed you did not know, or if you did, you had found him as worthless as I
did.”