Songmaster (22 page)

Ansset watched as Mikal raged at the Chamberlain. Ansset knew Mikal’s voice well enough to know that he was lying somehow, that the rage was, at least partly, a sham. Did the Chamberlain know it? Ansset suspected that he did.

“Only a fool would have killed that soldier!” cried Mikal.

The Chamberlain, acting frightened, said, “I tried everything—drugs, hypnosis, but he was blocked, he was too well blocked—”

“So you resorted to old-fashioned torture!”

“It was one of the penalties for treason. I thought that if I began it he’d confess to the rest of the conspiracy—”

“And so he died and now we have no hope of discovering—”

“He was blocked, I tell you, what could I do?”

“What could you do!” Mikal turned away. Ansset heard a hint of pleasure in his voice. At what? It was a grim pleasure, certainly, nothing that Mikal could let himself openly rejoice about.

“So he got poison to the Captain despite our best efforts.”

“At least it proves the Captain’s guilt,” the Chamberlain said.

“At least it proves nothing!” Mikal snarled, turning back to face down the Chamberlain’s attempt at brightening the prospects. “You betrayed my trust and failed your duty!”

It was the start of a ritual. The Chamberlain obediently began the next step. “My Lord Imperator, I was a fool. I deserve to die. I resign my position and ask you to have me killed.”

Mikal followed the ritual, but angrily, gracelessly, as if to make sure the Chamberlain knew that he was pardoned but not forgiven. “Damn right you’re a fool. I grant you your life because of your infinitely valuable services to me in apprehending the traitor in the first place.” Mikal cocked his head to one side. “So, Chamberlain, who do you think I should make the next Captain of the guard?”

Ansset was even more confused. The Chamberlain and Mikal were lying about something, withholding something from each other—and now Mikal was asking the Chamberlain for advice on a subject that was absolutely none of his business. And the Chamberlain was actually going to answer.

“Riktors Ashen, of course, my Lord.”

Of course?
The attitude was impertinent, the very fact of giving advice downright dangerous. The Chamberlain did not do dangerous things. A safe answer would have been to say that he had never given the matter any thought and wouldn’t presume to advise the emperor on such a vital matter. And here he had said
of course
.

Ordinarily, Ansset would have expected Mikal to grow cold, to dismiss the Chamberlain, to refuse to see him for days. But Mikal defied everything Ansset thought he knew about him and simply answered, with a smile. “Why of course. Riktors Ashen is the obvious choice. Tell him in my name that he’s appointed.”

Even the Chamberlain, who had mastered the art of blandness, at will, looked surprised for a moment. And the Chamberlain’s surprise made the connection in Ansset’s mind. The Chamberlain had named the one man he definitely did not want as Captain of the guard, sure that Mikal would immediately reject any man the Chamberlain suggested. Instead, Mikal had chosen him, knowing the man would be the one most independent of the Chamberlain’s influence.

And Ansset couldn’t help but be pleased. Riktors Ashen was a good choice—the fleet would approve, of course, because Riktors Ashen’s reputation as a fighter was the best in years. And the empire would approve because Riktors Ashen had proved in the rebellion of Mantrynn that he could deal mercifully with people. Instead of retribution and destruction, Riktors had investigated the people’s complaints against their rapacious planet manager, tried the fellow, and executed him. Along with the leaders of the rebellion, of course, but he had governed the planet himself for several months, rooting out corruption in the upper levels of the government and installing local people in high positions to continue the work after he was gone. There was not a more loyal planet in the galaxy than Mantrynn, and no name in the fleet better loved by the common people than that of Riktors Ashen.

But more than any of those good reasons for the appointment, Ansset was glad because he knew the man and liked him and trusted him. Esste herself had told him that Riktors Ashen was the man most like Mikal in the universe. And now that Ansset knew Mikal and loved him, that was the highest praise he could think of.

While Ansset had reflected on the appointment, the Chamberlain had left, and Ansset was startled out of his reverie by Mikal’s voice. “Do you know what his last words to me were?”

Ansset knew without being told that Mikal was talking about the Captain.

“He said, ‘Tell Mikal that my death frees more plotters than it kills.’ And then—and then he said he loved me.” Mikal’s voice broke. There were tears in his eyes. “Imagine, that cagey old bastard saying he loved me. Did you know that forty years ago he was involved in a conspiracy to overthrow my government? A pathetic thing—his lover betrayed the conspiracy and eventually he grew out of it. He never knew that I knew it. But maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe he did love me, after a fashion.”

“Did you love him?”

“I damn well never trusted him, that’s for sure. I never trust anybody. Except you.” Mikal smiled at Ansset, roughed his hair. His tone was flippant, but Ansset knew the sorrow that lay behind it. “But love him? Who can say. I know I feel like hell knowing he’s dead. Loves me. Loved me. Yes, as much as I could love anybody I suppose I loved him. At least I’m glad he found a way to die with honor.” Mikal laughed. “Sounds odd, doesn’t it? His death leaves the conspiracy covered, and yet I’m glad of it. Since you came here, Ansset, I’ve forgotten my dedication to my own self-interest.”

“Then I should leave.”

Mikal sighed. “La la la. One of your most boring songs, Ansset, forever singing the same note.”

Mikal settled deeply into the chair. It flowed to support his shift of weight. But his face also sagged into a morose expression.

“What’s wrong?” Ansset asked.

“Nothing,” Mikal said. “Oh, it does no good to lie to you. Let’s just say I’m tired and affairs of state get heavier the older I become.”

“Why,” Ansset asked, to change the subject—and to satisfy his own curiosity, he was willing to admit to himself, “why was the Captain arrested? How did you know?”

“Oh, that. The Chamberlain’s men had been watching the Captain. He visited that place regularly. He claimed to his friends that he was seeing a woman who lived there. But the neighbors all testified under drugs that a woman never lived there. And the Captain was a master at establishing mental blocks. Still, it all would have been circumstantial, even the ship being similar, if you hadn’t identified that man who killed himself there. Husk?”

“Husk.” Ansset looked down. “I don’t like knowing I affirmed the Captain’s destruction.”

“It wasn’t pleasant for anybody.”

“At least the conspiracy is broken,” Ansset said, glad for the relief it would bring him from the constant surveillance of the guards.

“Broken?” Mikal asked. “The conspiracy is barely dented. The soldier was able to get poison to the Captain. Therefore there are still plotters within the palace. And therefore I’ll instruct Riktors Ashen to keep a close watch on you.”

Ansset did not try to hide his disappointment from Mikal.

“I know,” Mikal said wearily. “I know how it grates on you. But the secrets are still locked in your mind, Ansset, and until they come out, what else can I do?”

The secrets came out the next day.

Mikal held court in the great hall, and at his request Ansset stood with the Chamberlain not far from the throne. Sometime in the afternoon Mikal would have Ansset sing. The rest of the time Ansset resigned himself to watching the boring procession of dignitaries paying their respects to the emperor. They would all be ritually respectful and solicitous and swear their undying love and loyalty to Mikal. Then they would all go home and report how soon they thought Mikal the Terrible would die, and who might succeed him, and what the chances were for grabbing a piece of the empire.

The order of the dignitaries had been carefully worked out to honor loyal friends and humiliate upstarts whose inflated dignity needed puncturing. A minor official from a distant star cluster whose innovations in welfare management had been adopted throughout the empire was officially honored, the first business of the day, and then the real boredom set in. Princes and presidents and satraps and managers, depending on what title had survived the conquest seventy or eighty or ninety years before, all proceeded forward with their retinue, bowing (and their bows showed how afraid they were of Mikal, or how much they wanted to flatter him, or how proud and independent they wanted to seem), uttering a few words asking for a private audience or a special favor, and then backing away to wait along the walls as Mikal put them off with a kind or curt word.

To particularly humiliate the satrap from Sununuway, he was preceded by a delegation of Black Kinshasans attired in their bizarre ancient Earth costumes. Kinshasa insisted, ridiculously, that it was a sovereign nation, though the Chamberlain whispered in Ansset’s ear that they hadn’t even got their country in the right place, that ancient Kinshasa had been in the Congo River Valley, while these benighted peasants lived at the southern tip of Africa. Still they thumbed their nose at Mikal, calling their representative an ambassador, and they were so ridiculous that giving them precedence over anyone was a gross insult.

“Those toads from Sununuway,” said the Chamberlain, “will be madder than hell.” He chuckled.

They were picturesque, after a fashion, their hair piled high with bones and decorations holding it all in place, vast piles of beads across their chests and only the tiniest of loincloths keeping them decent. But picturesque or not, Mikal was bored with them already and signaled for wine.

The Chamberlain poured, tasted it, as was the custom, and then took a step toward Mikal’s throne. Then he stopped, beckoned to Ansset. Surprised at the summons, Ansset came to him.

“Why don’t
you
take the wine to Mikal, Sweet Songbird?” the Chamberlain said. The surprise fell away from Ansset’s eyes, and he took the wine and headed purposefully toward Mikal’s throne.

At that moment, however, pandemonium broke loose. The Kinshasan envoys reached into their elaborate headdresses and withdrew wooden knives—which had passed the metal detectors and the frisking—and rushed toward the throne. The guards fired quickly, their lasers dropping five of the Kinshasans, but all had aimed at the foremost assassins, and three continued unharmed. They raced on toward the throne, arms extended so the knives were already aimed directly at Mikal’s heart. There were shouts and screams. A guard managed to shift his aim and get off a shot, but it was wild, and the others had exhausted their charges on the first shot. They were struggling to recharge their lasers, but knew even as they tried that they would be too late, that nothing would be fast enough to stop the wooden knives from reaching Mikal.

Mikal looked death in the eye and did not seem disappointed.

But at that moment Ansset threw the wine goblet at one of the attackers and then leaped out in front of the emperor. He jumped easily into the air and kicked the jaw of the first of the attackers. The angle of the kick was perfect, the force sharp and incredibly hard, and the Kinshasan’s head flew fifty feet away into the crowd, as his body slid forward until the wooden knife still clutched in his hand touched Mikal’s foot. Ansset came down from the jump in time to bring his hand upward into the abdomen of another attacker so sharply that his arm was buried to the elbow in bowels, and his fingers crushed the man’s heart.

The third attacker paused just a moment, thrown from his relentless charge by the sudden onslaught from the child who had stood so harmlessly by the emperor’s throne. That pause was long enough for recharged lasers to be aimed, to flash, and the last Kinshasan assassin fell, dropping ashes as he collapsed, flaming slightly.

The whole thing, from the appearance of the wooden knives to the fall of the last attacker, had taken five seconds.

Ansset stood still in the middle of the hall, entrails on his arm, blood splashed all over his body. He looked at the gory hand, at the body he had pulled it out of. A rush of long-blocked memories came back, and he remembered other such bodies, other heads kicked from torsos, other men who had died as Ansset learned the skill of killing with his hands. The guilt that had troubled him when he awakened in the evenings on the boat swept through him now with greater force than ever, for now he knew why he felt it, what the guilt was for.

The searches had all been in vain. The precautions were meaningless. Ansset could not have used a weapon, did not need a weapon—Ansset
was
the weapon that was to have been used against Father Mikal.

The smell of blood and broken intestines combined with the emotions sweeping his body. He would have vomited. Longed to vomit. But Control asserted itself—it had been instilled in him for such unbearable moments as this. And he stood, his face an impassive mask, waiting.

The guards approached him carefully, unsure what they should do.

But the Chamberlain was sure. Ansset heard the voice, trembling with fear at how close the assassination had come and how close Mikal had been to assassination ever since Ansset had been restored to him, as the Chamberlain shouted, “Keep him under guard. Wash him. Never let him be out of a laser’s aim for a moment. Then bring him to the council chamber in an hour.”

The guards looked toward Mikal, white-faced and shaken on the throne, and he nodded to them.