The Praxis (19 page)

Lord Richard's smile was very white, his eyes very blue. “I put you on your first pony, in our garden at Meeria.”

“Oh,” Sula said. Her eyes widened. “That was
you?
”

“I haven't changed
that
much, have I?” he said. “Do you still ride at all?”

“Not in ages.”

Lord Richard looked at his father, then back at Sula. “We still keep stables at Meeria. If you'd like to go down and spend some time riding, I'm sure we'd love having you. We also have excellent fishing.”

Lord Durward nodded agreement.

“Thank you,” Sula said. “I'll think about it. But it's been so long…”

Lord Richard turned toward the young woman by his side. She was tall and willowy, with dark almond eyes and a beautiful, shining fall of black hair.

“This is my fiancée, Lady Terza Chen. Terza, this is Caroline, Lady Sula.”

“A pleasure. I saw you on video.” Lady Terza's voice was low and soothing, and the graceful hand she extended was unhurried but warm and welcoming in its gentle clasp.

Sula knew it was far too early to hate her, to resent the ease and privilege and serenity that oozed from Terza's every pore, but somehow she managed it.
Shove off, sister
, she thought.
You think you can get between me and the man who put me on my first pony?

“What a beautiful necklace,” Sula said, the first civil thing that popped into her head.

Lord Richard turned adoring eyes to his bride-to-be. “I wish I could say I'd given it to her,” he said. “But she chose it herself—her taste is so much better than mine.”

Sula looked at him. “You're a lucky man,” she said.

It's not as if she wouldn't have bollixed the relationship anyway.

A trim, broad-shouldered man in the uniform of a convocate arrived, along with Lady Amita, Lord Durward's wife. The newcomer was introduced as Maurice, Lord Chen, Terza's father. Sula's knowledge of the status of Peer clans in relationship to each other was hazy, but she understood enough to know that the Chens were on top of the pile. Lords Chen, Richard, and Durward then engaged in a brief contest in who could offer Terza the most compliments, with Sula adding plaudits of her own now and again out of politeness Then Lord Chen turned to Sula and said equally polite things about her parents, and about her rescue of
Midnight Runner
.

It was a polite group altogether, Sula thought.

“The problem,” she said, “is I'm not likely to see the end of
Midnight Runner
for some time. I've had to give a deposition for the court of inquiry, but I've been contacted by advocates representing Lord Blitsharts's insurance company.
They
want to prove it was suicide.”

“It wasn't, was it?” Lady Amita asked.

“I found no evidence one way or another.” Sula tried not to shiver at the memory.

“However complicated it gets,” Lady Amita said, “I'm so glad it was you who got the medal, and not that dreadful man.”

“Dreadful man, my lady?” Sula asked, puzzled.

“The one who talked all the time during the rescue. The man with the horrible voice.”

“Oh.” Sula blinked. “That would be Lord Gareth Martinez.”

“That's what the news kept insisting, that he was a Peer.” Lady Amita made a sour face. “But I don't see how a Peer could talk like that, not with such a horrid accent. Certainly
we
don't know any such people. He sounded like some kind of criminal from
The Incorruptible Seven.
”

Lord Durward patted his wife's arm. “Some of these decayed provincial Peers are worse than criminals, take my word on it.”

Sula felt a compulsion to defend Martinez. “Lord Gareth isn't like that,” she said quickly. “I think he's kind of a genius, really.”

Lady Amita's eyes widened. “Indeed? I hope we never meet any such geniuses.”

Lord Durward gave her an indulgent smile. “I'll keep you safe, my dear.”

The point of the evening, it turned out, was to demonstrate Lady Terza's accomplishments before a select group of Lis and their friends. After supper, which was served on modern Gemmelware with a design of fruits and nuts, they all gathered in a small, intimate theater. It was built in the back of the Li Palace in the form of an underwater grotto, with the walls and proscenium covered with thousands of seashells arranged in attractive patterns, and blue-green lighting to enhance the effect. All listened as Lady Terza sat before a small chamber ensemble and played her harp—and played it extremely well, so far as Sula could tell. Terza's concentration on the music was complete, her face taking on an intent look, almost a ferocity, that belied the serene exterior she had shown with her family and friends.

Sula knew next to nothing about chamber music, and had always dismissed it as the kind of music where you have to make up your own words. But Terza's concentration led her into the piece. From the other woman's expressions—the way Terza held her breath before a pause, then nodded her satisfaction at the chord that ended the suspense; the way her eyes grew unfocused as she made a complicated attack; the way she seemed to relax into the slow passages, her movements growing dreamy, evocative—Sula felt the music enter her, caressing or stimulating or firing her nerves, dancing in her blood.

After the music ended there was a pause, then Sula helped to fill it with applause.

“I'm glad to have a chance to hire an orchestra,” confided Lady Amita, her hostess, during the interval. “Musicians aren't going to be in very great demand during the mourning period.”

This aspect of mourning hadn't struck Sula till now. “It's good of you to give them work,” she said.

“Terza suggested it. She has so many friends among the musicians, and she's concerned for them.” Her face assumed a touch of anxiety. “Of course, once she's married, we don't imagine she'll be spending so much time with—” Tact rescued her in time. “With those sorts of people.”

The interval ended, and the orchestra began to play again. Sula watched Terza's long, accomplished fingers as they plucked the harp, her intent face hovering near the strings, and then Sula glanced across the aisle at Maurice Chen and Lord Richard, both gazing with shining eyes at the graceful woman on stage. Sula suspected her own accomplishments would never gather quite that level of admiration—she was a good pilot and a whiz with math, but she'd already destroyed any hope of a relationship with the one person who had ever shown appreciation for that particular blend of skills.

Not that she would have had a chance with Martinez anyway, not in the longer term, and certainly not with someone like Lord Richard. She had long ago discovered that her looks attracted eligible men right up to the point where their parents found out she had no money or prospects, after which the young men were dragged off to look elsewhere. Strangely, however, this made her attractive to their fathers, men who had married once for the sake of procreation and family advantage, and who now, widowed or divorced, were looking for fun in their declining years, and someone beautiful on their arm for other men to admire.

If she'd been interested in older men, Sula supposed she could have done very well for herself. But she would have been lost in the complex, intricate world that those men lived in—she hadn't grown up in it the way they had, or had a fraction of their experience—and she didn't fancy being in the position of a pampered, addled, half-imbecile doll, trotted out for show or a romp in bed, then sent off to the boutique or the hairdresser whenever anything important went on.

The Fleet, for all its frustrations and disadvantages, was at least something she understood. Given a chance, perhaps only the merest breath of a chance, the Fleet was a place where she could do well.

After the concert, Sula complimented Terza on her playing. “What instrument do you play?” Terza asked.

“None, I'm afraid.”

Terza seemed surprised. “You didn't learn an instrument at school?”

“My schooling was…a bit spotty.”

Terza's surprise deepened. “You were taught at home, Lady Sula?”

Clearly no one had told Terza about Sula's past. “I was in school on Spannan,” she said. “The school wasn't very good and I left early.”

Something in Sula's tone perhaps suggested to Terza that the matter was best left unpursued, and so it was.

Sula raised her coffee cup. “This is the Vigo hard-paste, isn't it?”

Which led to a discussion of porcelain in general, and a tour of some of the family's collection, led by Lord Richard.

It never hurts to know a genial senior officer, Sula told herself, and exerted herself not to tell him he was an idiot when he got something wrong.

 

T
he vote appointing Akzad as Lord Senior of the Convocation was unanimous. The choice had been obvious. Lord Convocate Akzad was a member of an exemplary and dignified Naxid clan that had provided scores of distinguished civil servants and high-ranking officers of the Fleet, he had served in the Convocation most of his life, and he was a prominent member of the previous Lady Senior's administration.

There was a certain amount of speculation concerning why Akzad hadn't retired or committed suicide along with his contemporaries. Privately, the convocates admitted to one another that Akzad wanted the highest office in the empire more than he wanted his ashes to rest with the Great Masters. But it was also admitted that he deserved the office, and that his administration would be run smoothly and be free of innovation. The Convocation was not in favor of innovation, especially not now, when citizens were uneasy after the death of the Shaa and continuity was most to be desired.

Maurice, Lord Chen rose from his seat when the vote was called, then remained on his feet and applauded as Akzad took his seat at the dais and with great ceremony was cloaked in the stiff, brocaded robe of the Lord Senior. He was then presented with the overlong wand, burnished copper with silver bands, that he would use to call the Convocation to order, to recognize speakers, and to command the audio pickups that would broadcast the speaker's words to the 631 members of the Convocation.

The Convocation meeting room was a large fan-shaped building tucked beneath a wing of the Great Refuge, a carved stone amphitheater with the seat of the Lord Senior at its focal point. The gray-white granite of the acropolis was carved in abstract, geometric patterns and inset with marble, porphyry, and lapis. Each convocate had a seat appropriate to his species, along with a desk and display. They faced the dais, behind which was a transparent wall with a spectacular view of the Lower Town, the Apszipar Tower prominent on the far horizon.

The applause ending, Lord Chen took his seat and paged through his correspondence while Lord Akzad gave his acceptance speech. When Lord Chen's turn came, he rose to congratulate the Lord Senior on his appointment and express confidence in Akzad's forthcoming administration. With any luck, he'd get an appointment himself, command a department or chair a more important committee than that of Oceanographic and Forestry, on which he now sat.

After the long round of congratulations, the Convocation was adjourned. Akzad would need several days to form his government and make his appointments.

As Lord Chen made his way out of the hall, he found himself walking alongside Lord Pierre Ngeni. The young convocate walked with his head bent, frowning at the floor, his heavy jaw grinding some particle of a thought to a fine powder.

“Lord Pierre,” Maurice Chen said, “I hope your father is well.”

Pierre gave a little start and look up. “I beg your pardon, Lord Chen. I was thinking of—well, never mind. My father is well, and I wish he were here. He'd be certain to be a part of this new government, but I'm too young, alas.”

“I encountered one of your clients the other day. Lord Roland Martinez.”

“Ah.” His heavy jaw ground once. “Lord Roland, yes. He's arrived from Laredo.”

“A three-month journey, he told me.”

“Yes.”

“He's the brother of the fellow that helped Caro Sula try to save Blitsharts, isn't he?”

Lord Pierre looked as if he had just been struck by indigestion. “His brother, yes. Lord Gareth.”

Maurice Chen waved at a friend across the lobby. “Dreadful accent the man's got,” he said.

“Both brothers. The sisters' voices are sweeter, but more insistent.”

“You're marrying PJ to one of them, aren't you?”

Lord Pierre shrugged. “PJ's got to marry someone. A Martinez is probably as high as he can hope.”

Lord Chen guided Pierre into the lobby lounge, where legislators, meeting clients or family, were thick on the deep pile carpet before the bar. He caught the eye of one of the waitrons and signaled for two of the usual.

“The Martinez family's very wealthy, I understand,” he said.

“And they're doing their best to display it while they're here.” Sourly.

“They don't seem vulgar, though, from what I've seen of them. I haven't seen them making the mistakes the newly arrived usually make.”

Lord Pierre hesitated, then agreed. “Nothing gauche,” he said. “Except their accents.”

“Lord Roland spoke to me of his plan for the opening of Chee and Parkhurst.”

Lord Pierre looked at Chen in surprise. “He only spoke to me of it a few days ago. I've barely had time to consider the scheme.”

“The scheme seemed fairly complete to me.”

“He should have let me present it to people, once I'd had a chance to review it. The Martinez clan are always in a hurry.” Lord Pierre shook his head. “They have no patience, no sense of occasion—everything's a rush with them. My father tells me it was the same with their father, the current Lord Martinez.”

“Lord Roland has only a limited time on Zanshaa. I'm sure he'd like to get things in train before he leaves. And he's certainly done his homework.”