King's Sacrifice (51 page)

The baroness
raised a hand, forestalled Dion's interrupting her.

"I didn't
say I would not be willing to pay that price. But you're asking more
from me than originally bargained. I want something more from you."

"Name it,
Baroness," said Dion.

"First,
sire, I want the worship of the Goddess restored throughout the
galaxy."

Dion waved a
deprecating hand. "When I am king, all will be free to worship
as they choose. The Order of Adamant, banned by the current
government, will be restored, as will—"

"You
misunderstand me, Your Majesty," broke in DiLuna. "I want
the worship of the Goddess given official status and sanction, placed
exactly on the same level with the Order of Adamant—something
that the Blood Royal would never previously allow," she added
with a curl of her lip.

"Very well,
Baroness," said Dion graciously, thinking that agreement to this
could do little harm. He was getting off cheap. "Restoration of
this ancient religion will be one of my first proclamations."

"Thank you
for that, Your Majesty, and that will be an answer to our prayers,
but I fear it will not be enough. The people of the galaxy need to
see that you yourself take the worship of the Goddess seriously, that
you respect it and honor it. Then they will come to it themselves."

"I assure
you, Baroness," said Dion, "that I will make it clear—"

"Indeed you
will, Your Majesty. Your wife, your queen, will be the Head
Priestess."

Dion was
confounded, couldn't speak for a moment, tried to grasp what the
woman was implying. He had the sudden image in his mind of Kamil
standing before an altar, performing solemn rites, and he nearly
laughed aloud.

"As you
know, Baroness, to my regret, I have no queen—"

"But you
will, Your Majesty. You will agree to marry one of my daughters."

Die now!
sighed the wind, only it was the mournful echo of a chance forever
lost.

"I must
think about this," said Dion. His teeth were clenched tightly, a
stabbing pain shot through the nerves of his jaw.

Tusk was in the
background, reminded him urgently, "Kid! The Lady Maigrey's
waiting. You don't have much time."

I can't say
what your allies might ask of you. Maigrey was saying to him once
more. But you can be certain that the cost of their loyalty will run
high. It may be higher than you are willing to pay. Higher than,
perhaps, you should pay.

"An hour,
Baroness," said Dion. "I need an hour to consider this."

"In an
hour, then, Your Majesty," said DiLuna, smiling, as one who has
won and who knows it. The vidscreen went blank.

The room was
silent. Even the faint mechanical hum and whir of the high-tech
equipment seemed to hush. Dion stared at the empty screen, still
seeing the image of the woman burned into it, as it was burned into
his mind. He was vaguely aware of Tusk starting to say something, of
Nola putting a restraining hand on his arm, of Bear Olefsky
considering him gravely. Dion knew, in that moment, that Olefsky
knew—if not in his head, then at least in the father's loving
heart—all that had transpired between Dion and his daughter.

"By my
lungs and liver, I fear the woman has you where it hurts, laddie,"
said the Bear, heaving a sigh that came from his toes. "We need
her, there's no doubt. And she knows it."

"With our
forces and Rykilth's—" Dion began, trying to draw breath,
feeling as if he were suffocating.

"It won't
be enough, laddie," Bear said. "And I've more than a
presentiment that Rykilth has been drawn into this with her. I'll bet
my beard that he won't commit his forces unless DiLuna commits hers."

I could give it
up, Dion said silently. Give it up and be ordinary. Live my life
here, in this castle, with her. Let the rest of the galaxy go to
hell. What do they care about me anyway? Nothing. They huddle behind
me, shove me forward to fight for them, defend them, give up my life,
my happiness, for them. And in return they will revile me, mock me,
plot against me.

Here, I could be
happy, father children, grow old, die peacefully in my sleep. It
might be a long time before the Corasians acquired the bomb. Let
another generation worry about it. Another king ...

The palm of his
right hand started to itch, to burn. He slowly unclenched his fist,
looked at the skin of the palm, at the lines fete had drawn on it, at
the five scars he himself had chosen to accept. He thought back to
the rite of initiation or passage or whatever it had been. He saw the
spikes of the silver ball cut into his flesh; he felt, again, the
terrible agonizing pain; saw, again, the blood flow from the wounds .
. .

So it had been
real. Not illusion. He knew, because the pain he felt now was the
same.

He could give it
up. The choice was his.

Or could he? He
saw Maigrey standing in the Audience Hall on board
Phoenix
,
saw her glimmer in his mind, pale and cold as the moon.

It's too late
for that now, Dion. Don't blame yourself. I think it was too late
from the moment you were born.

"Kid"—it
was Tusk, reluctant, shoving something in the king's unfeeling,
unresponsive hand—"messages, kid. One from Rykilth. The
Bear was right. The vapor-breather's in this with DiLuna. He won't go
unless she does. And another message from the Lady Maigrey. It's
urgent, kid. She needs to know what your plans are.

"Look,
Dion. " Tusk squatted down on his haunches, put his arm around
his friend's shoulder. "You have to go along with this. Agree to
the marriage. What can it hurt? Hell, a lot can happen between now
and then. We'll work on it, find some way to back out. In the
meantime, we keep it quiet. No one'll know except us. You don't have
to tell Kamil."

Already, Dion
thought, I'm hiding things from her, keeping secrets. Already, it's
begun . . .

Die now . . .

Too late.

Und wenn du
lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich
hinein.

And if you gaze
for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Friedrich
Nietzsche,
Jenseits von Gut and Bose

"I'm sorry,
Dion," said Maigrey. "Truly sorry."

"My lady?"
Agis glanced at her. "Did you say something?"

She was for
away, her eyes gazing off into a distant world, into a castle, a
tower room. Agis's voice brought her back. When she returned, she
sighed, removed her hand from the hilt of the bloodsword.

"You were
with His Majesty?" pursued Agis.

"Yes. There
are disadvantages to this means of communication, Agis." Maigrey
looked somberly at the five red marks on her palm. "Unlike comm
links, it transmits pain."

"Is there a
problem?"

"We will
hear from him. He knows what he must do, what is born in him to do.
But for a while he can pretend he doesn't have to. He can pretend to
be . . . ordinary."

Agis said
nothing more, accepted her word without question, though he must be
wondering what they would do if Dion didn't agree to join them.
Maigrey wished she could be as confident of him as she'd forced
herself to sound. He was only eighteen. The burdens of kingship
already sat heavily on him. But he was old enough and wise enough to
look ahead with clear eyes, and see that, Adas-like, he would bear
them all his life. How could she blame him if he chose to cast the
heavy crown aside and walk bareheaded into happy obscurity?

And what would
she do if he did?

Maigrey leaned
back in her chair, closed her eyes, and thought longingly of a hot
shower and bed, sleep, oblivion. She suddenly, fiercely envied those
poor wretches who were now burrowed deep in their drug-enduced
hibernation, all bodily functions slowed to an absolute minimum,
mental faculties shut down. They didn't even dream. . . .

"My lady,"
said Agis, voice low and warning, "trouble."

Maigrey jerked
awake, cursed herself for having dozed off. Sparafucile stood in the
doorway.

"What is
it?" she demanded. "What's wrong?"

"You come,"
said the assassin.

Maigrey rose
quickly, followed him out into the corridor, where she found Raoul
and the Little One, waiting. "Brother Daniel?" she asked,
and was startled to feel bitter disappointment. It was then she
realized that she'd been using the priest as a kind of good-luck
mascot, God's sign that He was with her. If she lost Brother Daniel,
if he betrayed her . . .

"The priest
okay," said Sparafucile, grinning at her. "Him not fail my
lord."

Maigrey noted,
as a point of interest, that the assassin said "my lord."
Not "Him not fail you, my lady."

"The
tricksy woman say nothing to him. He say nothing to tricksy woman. I
know. I listen."

"How—"

"I think
maybe something like this happen when captain want to have fun with
me. I put bug in room when I there. Now I hear everything, even her
breathing." The half-breed leered.

Maigrey
swallowed her revulsion. "Go on," she said coldly.

"Priest, he
give her injection—"

"Then
what's the problem?" she demanded irritably.

"Captain
not go under."

"What?"
She stared at him.

"Tricksy
woman not respond to drug. Oh, she not walk very well and she take
long naps and her tongue is very thick, but she not sleep."

Maigrey shifted
her gaze to Raoul and the Little One. The empath seemed to shrivel up
beneath his fedora.

"How is
this possible? Are we going to have more passengers like this? I
thought you said you knew what you were doing—"

"My lady,"
broke in Raoul, hands spreading gracefully in a pretty pleading
gesture, "truly, I can understand your anger but it is not
justified. False pride is unhealthy, you feed yourself lies. It is,
however, right and good to feel proud of what one does well and thus
I may say with pride that I am an expert in my field, as oftentimes
my former employer, the late Snaga Ohme, had reason to comment.
Indeed, my former employer, the late Snaga Ohme—"

"Get on
with it!" Maigrey snapped, too tired to put up with the Loti's
meanderings.

The Little One,
eyes fixed on Maigrey, edged nearer his partner. Reaching out a tiny
hand from the pocket of his raincoat, the empath grabbed hold of the
Loti's velvet coattail and tugged. Raoul glanced down at him; they
shared their silent communication.

"I
understand. My lady," he said, turning back to her, speaking
more clearly and precisely than she had ever before heard him, "the
other passengers are completely somnambu-lent. A periodic injection,
administered every so often, will maintain them. I have no idea why
the ship's captain has not reacted to the drug in a similar manner."

The half-breed
grunted. Raoul glanced at him, eyelids lowered in acquiescence. "My
friend here has expressed an opinion that the priest may have given
the woman only part of the injection. That would account for the
unaccountable. Being a trained nurse, he would, of course, know how
to decrease the dosage without being discovered—"

"Of
course," said Maigrey coldly.

The Little One
blenched. Raoul paused, smoothed his hair and perhaps his thoughts at
the same time. "There is also the possibility, although it is a
remote one and I have never known it to previously occur, but—I
repeat—it is possible that the woman herself is of such a
strong will that she has the ability to put mind over matter, so to
speak."

It took Maigrey
a moment to disentangle the meaning from the words, but eventually
she understood. "What can you do if that's the case? Increase
the dosage?"

"That would
not be wise, unless you wanted her to sleep for a long,
long
time. Which could be arranged," Raoul added, as an afterthought,
adjusting a froth of lace that fell over his delicate-boned wrists.

"I take
care of her," said the assassin. "Faster, better than any
drug."

"I beg to
differ, my friend," said Raoul politely, bowing. "I have,
at the moment, on my person, a poison which can cause—"

Angrily, Maigrey
shoved the Loti out of her way, stalked off down the corridor. She
heard, behind her, after a moment's pause, the tap-tap of Raoul's
high heels on the deck, the rustle of the hem of the Little One's
raincoat trailing along the floor. She did not hear Sparafucile, but
she knew he was following. He would not allow anything to interfere
with the rescue of his lord.

Reaching the
captain's quarters, Maigrey activated the controls, opened the door.
She found the captain—what was her name? Corbett?—leaning
drunkenly over her bed, supporting herself on the nightstand. Brother
Daniel was near her, speaking to her in low earnest tones. At the
whooshing sound of the door's opening, he looked up, sprang back away
from the woman. A crimson flush stained his cheeks.

"What is
going on, here, Brother Daniel?" demanded Maigrey.

"I don't
know, my lady. I gave her the injection, as you commanded. She has,
as you can see, only gone partially under."

"You're
certain you gave her all the drug?"

"Yes, my
lady," he answered, his eyes level with hers.

Maigrey believed
him, sighed inwardly, in relief and was immediately irritated at
herself for having done so.

The captain, it
seemed, had just realized that someone else was in the room. She
lifted her head, gazed at Maigrey with drug-glazed eyes.

"Hullo,
bitch," she said, and though her speech was slurred and thick,
Maigrey could hear the fury, the hatred in the woman's voice, see it
glint through the drugged mists that clouded the eyes.

So that's what
was keeping her going.