Palace (34 page)

Dukayn considered, caught between amusement and anger. The amusement won.

‘Very well, Se Vida. I’ll inform the First Citizen of Palace of your decision. I’m sure he’ll drop everything to come down here and discuss it with you.’

‘Good!’

Vida strode off down the hall.

‘Se Vida?’ Dukayn called out. ‘Do you have a key to your guest rooms with you?’

Vida stopped walking. She could feel herself burning in rage and embarrassment both as Dukayn strolled up. He handed her a small silver disk.

‘Your factor gave me this to give to you. She noticed you’d gone off without it.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And will you be able to find your way back?’

‘That’s one thing I can promise you. You don’t need to worry about that.’

Still, he trailed her all the way across the tower. Vida had the satisfaction, once she reached her rooms, of looking over her shoulder to see an amazed Dukayn watching at the intersection of the corridor.

* * *

Earlier Kata had left Sar Elen a message, suggesting they meet to discuss ‘something interesting.’ As he walked through Finance Sect, he was wondering if the youngling would appear. Displays of spirit came cheap; following the spirit into danger cost a great deal more. On the bridge over Golden Canal Kata paused to wait, leaning onto the railing. In the glow of the streedights he could see fungi, hanging in orange and purple clusters from the steep sides of the canal. In the curves and twists of the wrought plasto railing itself he found sulphurous yellow masses of life - whether fungi or moulds, he wasn’t sure. When he idly flicked one with a clawed finger, the mass let out a smell like excrement and puffed up twice its original size. Kata stepped back fast and moved a couple of yards down the railing. This time he confined himself to watching the water ripple.

Kata had just about given up hope when he saw young Sar Elen striding along, dressed in grey and shabby clothes, just as Kata had suggested. The youngling put his back to the railing and raised his crest. Kata answered with a rustle of his own.

‘I take it you got my message,’ Kata said.

‘Yes, I certainly did. I’m honoured that you’d let me join you.’

‘Well, it’s a nice evening for a stroll. Let’s keep moving, and I’ll tell you about an errand we might run. It has to do with this UJU rally.’

* * *

It was close to the twenty-twos by the time Karlo finally appeared at Vida’s door. Vida and Samante were fitting in front of the vidscreen, studying floor plans of the various available suites, when the Announce buzzer sounded, and Karlo’s image appeared, laid over a blueprint.

‘Open!’ Vida called out, then stood to face the door.

Just as Samante joined her, Karlo strode in, followed by Dukayn and Cardinal Roha, dressed in his everyday robes of plain black. Vida could hear Samante gasp, and her own heart began to pound.

‘First Citizen, thank you for coming.’ Vida heard her voice squeak. ‘Your Eminence.’

The cardinal answered her bow with a nod of his head, but Karlo merely stood, his hands on his hips, and looked her over. He was trembling, she realized, just ever so slightly, like an aircar set on idle, ready to leap to the sky at any moment.

‘Se Vida.’ Karlo’s voice rasped tight and hard. ‘Dukayn tells me that you have some ridiculous idea about not marrying my son.’

‘Did Dukayn tell you why?’

‘The drunken party? Oh yes. That won’t be happening again. I give you the word of an old soldier on that.’

‘Wan also hit me. It’s a good thing I know how to defend myself, or he would have really hurt me. Se Karlo, your son’s a fool and a drunk. He’s not worth being your heir.’

Samante made a little chirring noise like a jadewing. Dukayn gaped; the cardinal grabbed his scented handkerchief from his sleeve and clutched it. Vida kept her eyes on Karlo, who stared back, as tense as steel, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his grey trousers. All at once the First Citizen laughed, a long rumble of cold mirth. It was the cardinal’s turn for the gasp and the nervous chirring. Vida was dimly aware of Samante sitting down again, and rather quickly.

‘You’re right, Vida,’ Karlo said, glancing at Dukayn. ‘Do you know anyone else on this planet of cowards who’d say it to my face?’

‘No, Se,’ Dukayn said.

‘Well, then,’ Vida snapped. ‘That’s why I can’t marry him.’

‘Oh, but you’re going to.’ Grinning, Karlo glanced round, took his hands out of his pockets at last, and gestured at the remaining chair. ‘Sit down, Vida. That divan will do for the rest of us.’

Although the cardinal and Dukayn both sat, and Vida took her chair next to Samante’s, Karlo stayed standing, pacing back and forth, all coiled muscle on the edge of rage.

‘I know what Wan’s like,’ Karlo said at last. ‘I’ll tell you about my mistake. I left him with his mother while I went back to Kephalon, just before the war, and then of course I couldn’t get back till it was over. I should have taken him with me on shipboard, and then he’d have been raised right. She treated him like a pet dog, spoiled him rotten - when she remembered he existed, anyway. Brainless bitch!’ He paused, glancing at Dukayn. ‘Have I ever told anyone else this?’

‘No, Se.’

Vida wondered why he thought Dukayn’s corroborations would be convincing. Aloud she said, ‘I’m honoured, Se Karlo, that you’d tell me about it.’

‘Good.’ Karlo hunkered down directly in front of her. ‘It’s Wan’s children that concern me. They’ll be born Palace citizens, they’ll be Peronida y L’Var, and this time I’ll have the raising of them. Does this shock you, Vida? That I want to raise my own grandchildren and not leave it to the servants? You’re Palace born and bred, after all. But I’ll say it anyway. It’s not only your DNA that matters when you’re trying to raise a child fit to hold command. I’m sick and tired of hearing about people’s genes! Sapients aren’t your goddamn Mapstations, programmed from birth!’

The cardinal made a very small mutter of protest. Karlo ignored him.

‘Se Karlo,’ Vida said. ‘I understand what you’re saying. My guardian raised me to be something, too, something worthy of my L’Var genotype, yeah, but even if I lived in Pleasure all my life, I still could have been somebody. But that’s why I won’t marry Wan. I’d rather be a madam and run The Close than that.’

Karlo laughed with a toss of his head. When Vida glanced at Samante, she found her factor dead-pale.

‘I can’t say I blame you,’ the First Citizen said. ‘But what about that assassin?’

Vida flinched. She’d forgotten the Outcast, here in the safety of Government House. The cardinal leaned forward in a rustle of black robes.

‘Se Vida.’ Roha’s voice purred. ‘It’s only a political marriage. Once the First Citizen has his heirs, I’m sure you’ll have a great deal of freedom.’

‘Hell, yes,’ Karlo snapped. ‘You can have a lot now, for that matter. Look, we’ve established that Wan’s a slimy little son-of-a-bitch. There’s no reason you couldn’t make some other arrangement on the side, with a man more to your taste, I mean. Just so long as the children are Wan’s, and I know damn well that Palace women have plenty of ways to ensure that kind of thing.’

The cardinal shot him a look that would have curdled milk. Karlo laughed, winking at Vida.

‘Se Vida, let us think of higher things.’ Roha clasped his hands in front of him. ‘You’ll soon be confirmed as the chief patron of your family. You’ll have the power to bring that proud name back to honour.’

‘Well, Your Eminence, I don’t care about the L’Var name. My real family’s in Pleasure Sect.’

‘Ah, but what about your hereditary seat on the Council?’ Roha went on. ‘In just a few more months, you’ll be a Not-child, and the First Citizen and I can invoke the emergency ruling to get you seated. And what about the goodwill trips throughout the Pinch? And the enormous

-’

‘Trips?’ Vida’s heart raced. ‘Trips off planet?’

Karlo grinned like a trap closing.

‘Okay, Vida.’ The Peronida stood up, dusting off the knees of his uniform trousers. ‘Give me those grandchildren, and I’ll give you your own shuntjammer.’ He looked down into Vida’s eyes.

‘How’s that for a bargain?’

‘Well, uh.’ Vida had trouble speaking. She was aware of Samante, too, gone tense with hope now instead of her former fear. ‘It’s tempting, sure, but there’s still Wan.’

‘I’ll take him in hand.’ Karlo’s voice was flat, casual. ‘Dukayn and I will take him in hand.’

Dukayn allowed himself a slight smile at the prospect.

‘Two grandchildren,’ Karlo went on. ‘Your licensed allotment and then Wan’s. Two authorized heirs - sons, daughters, I don’t give a damn which. But I raise them.’

Never in her life back at Pleasure had Vida ever considered that she’d have a child. She’d never even seen a pregnant woman, not that she could recall. She’d be trading away very little, to her way of thinking, in return for more freedom than she’d ever dreamt possible.

‘Well, after all,’ Vida said at last. ‘If I’d been Marked, you know? Every now and then you get customers like Wan - really drunk, I mean, and brutal - and I would have had to put up with them.’

Karlo winced in a sincere sympathy. The cardinal raised his handkerchief to his face and looked away. Vida ignored them, her mind full of the stars.

‘All right, Se Karlo,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay. I’ll marry Wan.’

‘Good.’ He turned on her a smile so charming that she suddenly understood why his beautiful holostar had signed his contract. ‘Can I trust your word?’

‘Of course.’ Vida stood up and offered him her hand. ‘And everyone on Palace knows that you keep yours.’

Karlo engulfed her small pale hand with his huge dark one. The cardinal rose, smiling all round.

‘The Eye of God will witness this bargain,’ Roha said. ‘And I shall have Brother Dav see to the drawing up of a marriage contract. If you allow me to take a hand in this, that is, Vida.’

‘Your Eminence, you’re too kind.’ Vida turned to him. ‘I owe you all kinds of thanks.’

Roha’s expression turned very odd - as if he were so happy that he was fighting back tears.

‘No matter what heretical opinions our First Citizen holds,’ Roha said in a shaking voice,

‘you’re very like your father, Vida.’

Holding his handkerchief to his face, the cardinal swept toward the door, which opened to let him hurry out into the corridor. Karlo bowed to Vida.

‘You’re worth a dozen of Wan,’ he said. ‘I’ll promise you something more, Vida. Your children will be giants on this planet.’

With Dukayn in tow, he followed the cardinal out. After the door closed behind them all, Vida sat down and looked at a pale and trembling Samante.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ Vida said. ‘You know something, Samante? You might get to discover that new language after all.’

Samante managed a brief smile. . ‘I was afraid I was going to have to compose your funeral oration,’ the factor said. ‘I’ve never seen anyone talk to Karlo like that.’

‘Maybe you should try it. He seems to like it. Besides, he couldn’t kill me. I’ve been all over the screens now.’

Together they turned toward the tower graphs, building up a high blue stack of sheer political power, welcoming the new L’Var home.

* * *

Cardinal Roha left Vida’s apartments in a strange state of mind. Vida reminded him so much of Orin, wilfulness and rebelliousness and all, that he felt as if his friend’s ghost had returned to him. Even as he walked down the long corridor with a silent Karlo and Dukayn, he was remembering Orin. All those long nights at university, when they’d sat up talking till dawn, or the wonderful weekends when Orin had taken him, a poverty-stricken scholarship student in molecular biology, out to the L’Var estates - it had been a perfect friendship, and it had outlasted their college days as well.

Even after Roha had given up his family name and taken the final vows as a Lifegiver, and Orin had gone to the Military Guild, they had stayed in touch, sharing their triumphs and setbacks. Every man and woman should have a friendship like that, Roha thought. At least one - pure and unsullied by either lust or ambition. They’d only ever argued over one thing, Roha’s growing conviction that human beings alone should hold power in the Pinch, and even there, they’d eventually agreed to disagree.

‘Something wrong, Your Eminence?’ Karlo said.

‘No, no, just thinking about the L’Var girl. She certainly has a mind of her own.’

‘Yeah, she sure does.’ Karlo smiled briefly. ‘I like that in a person. She reminds me of my old street-fighting days.’

Dukayn nodded silent agreement.

At the lift booth pillar they parted, Karlo and Dukayn to return to the First Citizen’s quarters, Roha to take a booth down to the private transport station in the basement of the tower, where waiting for him was the sleek black bullet train that ran from the twin towers to the Cloister of the Eye, the library and research laboratories of the Lifegiver order. While the train whipped through darkness, Roha was considering how to best keep his headstrong little Vida safe. He could feel his hatred of Vanna Makeesa well up and burn. More fed that fire than Orin’s death and the threat to his only child.

Like most members of Interstellar, Vanna considered aliens no different than human beings. She admired the Hirrel so extravagantly, in fact, that she often said they were better than human beings. Roha saw her as an obstacle to his plans and to those of the entire Lifegiver order - or rather, of the direction that Roha was planning for the order to take, once Karlo’s post of First Citizen became hereditary. As soon as the popular polls could no longer unseat the Peronida, Roha would be confirmed as the abbot of the entire order. Then we’ll see, Roha thought to himself. Then we’ll just see who dares to argue theological biology with me! But in the meantime, there was no doubt that she would do Vida harm if she could - nothing so crude as physical harm, of course, but harm nonetheless.

Before returning to his quarters, Roha went to the Cathedral of the Eye. As he walked up the long path, he felt a clutch at his heart for the sight of the flood-lit Cathedral. According to historical holos, the cathedrals of the Rim had been meagre structures; the religion of the Lifegivers had been only one of thousands of faiths practised by dozens of sapient races, after all. In the Pinch, however, the True Faith, as Roha thought of it, had won out and alone survived.