by Sales, Ian
“The Admiral needs money to rebuild,” Ormuz pointed out. “Corruption of blood would give her Ahasz’s fortune.”
“He has enough allies in the Electorate to keep his fief safe. It’ll all be aboveboard and scrupulously fair. The Empress can do nothing else—the Vonshuans have a lot of clout.”
The staff car had reached the House’s front door and came to a halt. Troop-Sergeant Assaun jumped out of the front of the vehicle and pulled open the door beside Ormuz.
Finesz was the first to clamber out. She stepped to one side, fiddled with her sword, tugged at the hem of her black OPI jacket, and then pulled her cap onto her head.
Ormuz climbed out to stand beside her and together they marched up the steps to the open doors of the building. Thick caramel light sat gelid in the foyer within. Walls, floor and ceiling of polished wood gleamed with a confectionary shine and everything seemed frozen in time, a snapshot of ages past.
The illusion was broken, first by footsteps, then by the appearance of a tall lugubrious man in pale grey. He marched into the foyer, turned smartly towards Finesz and Ormusz and approached them.
“Inspector Finesz?” His voice, airy and musical, did not fit his appearance.
“Yes.”
“To see the duke, yes?”
Finesz doffed her cap, scowled momentarily at it, and then nodded.
“The appropriate permissions have been sought and gained. The duke is in his apartment. I shall escort you there.”
The Duke of Ahasz’s “apartment” proved to be in a distant wing of the House, with excellent views over the park-like grounds. The warden led them along a corridor with enormous windows, which laid great rectangles of golden light across the wooden floor. Between the windows were portraits of dour-looking men and women, and Finesz wondered if they were distinguished prisoners. Yeoman wardens were unlikely to be so honoured.
At a door at the end of the corridor, the warden knocked politely, and then pushed open the door.
“It’s not locked?” Ormuz asked, surprised.
The warden looked at him. “Of course not. We have the duke’s word.”
Ahasz was seated on a sofa before the fireplace, and casually attired in a plain white shirt, tight black trousers and knee-high boots. He had one leg crossed over the other and an open book in his hands. He looked up as the trio entered, put his book to one side and smiled warmly.
“Your visitors, your grace,” the warden said.
The duke rose smoothly to his feet and approached, hands held forward to greet Ormuz and Finesz. “Inspector Finesz. Sliva. It’s good of you to visit me in my cell.” He smiled to indicate he was joking. Turning to Ormuz, he continued, “Casimir Ormuz. I hope your wound is not troubling you.” He sketched a brief bow, equal to equal.
“But, please.” He turned and indicated the sofa opposite the one on which he had been seated.
He waited until both Finesz and Ormuz were settled before reseating himself.
Finesz glanced from Ahasz to Ormuz and back again. It was as if the gap between the two sofas were a gap in time. Beside her sat the young duke. Across from her sat the middle-aged duke. The carpet between the two, however, was more than just a chasm of years. Ahasz had been a high noble from birth.
“Before we begin,” the duke said, “would you care for a drink? Some wine, perhaps?”
Not waiting for an answer, he lifted his gaze and spoke into the air. “A bottle of the Piyani ‘47, if you please. And three glasses.” To Finesz and Ormuz, he added, “They listen constantly, eager for a hint of conspiracy.” He clearly found the situation amusing, although Finesz thought it disturbingly intrusive.
“It must come as something of a shock,” Ahasz said to Ormuz, “to find yourself a prole again.”
“No.”
“We both came close to having everything, didn’t we?”
“Both? If you had become emperor, would you have given me your duchy?”
“No, of course not. But you have lost even when you should have won.”
“I didn’t do it because I wanted to be a duke.”
“Surely you consider it your birthright? The duchy belongs to you—that must be how you feel. I know I certainly would.”
“I’m not you.”
“Quite. We established that when we fought.”
“I don’t want to be you.”
“Do you seriously expect me to believe you’re happy as a prole? They called you ‘prince’, I hear.”
“I was a prole before I was a prince.”
“You were never really a prince but you might have become one. Not now. She threw you away, Casimir.”
“I walked away.”
“Has she come running after you? Of course not. She used you. And now she no longer needs you.”
“She walked away from you too.”
“True.”
“And she put you in here.”
“Again true.”
Dear Lords, thought Finesz; listen to the two of them: fighting a duel with words.
“I have no regrets,” the duke said. He shook his head. “No. I regret failing.”
“You committed treason,” Ormuz pointed out.
“I did it for you —”
“For me?”
“You and your kind.” Ahasz leant back and crossed one leg over the other. He stretched out an arm with easy grace along the back of the sofa. “Where are you staying? With Sliva?”
“No,” she put in quickly. “He’s living with a young woman in a pub in Chikogu.”
The duke raised an eyebrow. “I always did land on my feet. But Chikogu is not a good area of Toshi. How is life treating you there?”
“Fine,” replied Ormuz mulishly.
Ahasz barked a laugh. “Indeed? With all your airs and graces? You no longer fit there and you know it. You are me in all essential aspects and I could never pass for a prole. Yes, yes.” He held up a hand to forestall Ormuz’s reply. “You have been one most of your life. But you never really felt as though you fit in, did you? Perhaps you even thought you might have been adopted—the by-blow of some noble passing through. You knew you were destined for greater things.”
Ormuz was angry now. Finesz could see it in his tight lips, his lowered brows. “I thought being aboard Divine Providence was ‘greater things’,” he said. “I was happy there. But you had to spoil it.” He leaned forward. “How many clones did you kill over the years? How many of us did you murder?”
“I’m not the one who created you. The greater crime was that of the knights sinister. I only protected myself.”
“From what?” Ormuz chopped the air with one hand. “I was no threat.”
“Of course you were,” snapped Ahasz. “The Involutes did not create you for nothing. They had planned to use you against me. Though they’ve been pulling all our strings since the beginning.”
This, decided Finesz, was proving quite entertaining and educational. She was enjoying herself.
“As it was,” continued the duke, “you provoked Flavia into action. Which brought forward my own timetable. Oh, I’d had enough, that I will not deny. It was time for change, but I’d sooner have been more prepared.” He gestured dimissively. “You know what happened.”
“I’ve yet to be convinced you did this for anyone but yourself,” returned Ormuz.
Ahasz held up a hand to halt the conversation. Behind her, Finesz heard the door to the withdrawing-room open. She looked back over her shoulder and saw a servant enter carrying a tray on which stood a bottle and three wineglasses. He carried it to the table which sat between the two sofas and carefully set it down. He withdrew as wordlessly as he had performed his task.
Once they had full glasses in their hands—and it was indeed a very good vintage—Finesz said, “What do you think Gyome told the Admiral?”
Ahasz frowned. “Gyome?”
“Gyome mar Norioko, the Involute who appeared in the Emperor’s study.”<
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“Ah,” said the duke. “And the Admiral is what you call Flavia, correct? I think I can guess, although I suspect you will not believe me.”
Finesz leaned forward. “Tell me,” she insisted.
Ahasz said, “The Empire is weak and decadent. The way we treat our proles is indication enough. The Shutans are weak rulers and have been for centuries. Perhaps this should not matter.” He gestured vaguely. “Oh, we should better the lot of our subjects—make it law and not rely on the consciences of the nobility. We call ourselves civilised and yet still we refuse to do as much. With a strong emperor, then perhaps something of the sort could be instituted.” Ahasz leaned forward conspiratorially. “But there are,” he added, “other reasons to consider. Over a thousand years ago, the Empire did something very foolish and now the bill has come due. Flavia and I plotted to make the Empire ready, but then the damned Involutes tried managing things themselves. Your Norioko knows full well the fate in store for Shuto, and he knows too that the Empire as it is now cannot survive the coming threat. With Flavia on the Throne, then perhaps something can be done.”
Finesz stared at the duke in shock. Had she just heard what she thought she had heard? The conspiracy, Admiral versus Serpent versus the Imperial Throne, had been planned from the start? And all because of some mysterious and millennia-old threat which was about to be unleashed on the Empire?
“A thousand years ago? During the Intolerance?” asked Ormuz.
“What? Yes, Casimir, during the Intolerance.”
“A Henotic uprising?” Ormuz clearly found the prospect preposterous. “After a thousand years?”
Finesz remembered that the duke’s family were Henotic, although they had kept their religion private.
“No, it has nothing to do with the Henotics, or the Chianists. Or even the Archianists. I cannot explain more. There are—” He gestured upwards, a reference to their unseen listeners—“other factors to be taken into consideration.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Ormuz.
“That’s of no consequence.”
Finesz asked, “You plan to reveal all this at your trial?”
Ahasz shook his head. He reached for his glass of wine. He took a sip and then returned the glass to the table. “No, of course not. They would think me mad.”
Ormuz snorted in amusement.
“I certainly plan to tell them,” the duke continued, “exactly what I think of them and the way they run their affairs. If my failure achieves anything, I would hope it is that it shames them into improving the lot of their subjects. Flavia never felt quite so strongly on the subject as I do, but she is a firm believer in justice. If I can get the Electorate to acknowledge that inequalities exist, she can push through the needed reforms.”
Ormuz snorted once again, but this time he was not amused. “Even that I find a thin excuse for a grab for the Throne.”
“You would have done differently?” demanded the duke. “Come now, surely this is an issue dear to you?”
“Because I’m a prole?”
“Quite.”
“We don’t want to be looked after better, we want to be equal.”
Ormuz, Finesz noted, had not touched his wine.
Ahasz laughed. He sat back and stretched both his arms along the sofa’s back. Lifting a leg, he laid his boot across his knee. “Equality? Dear me. That’s never going to happen. You would give everyone control over their own lives? Impossible. The Empire exists because of the continuity provided by the nobility. Take that away and there’d be total chaos.” He shook his head in wonder.
Finesz jumped to her feet and clapped her hands smartly together. Both Ahasz and Ormuz looked up at her, puzzled. “Gentlemen,” she told them. “Your grace, our thanks for the wine, but it is time we left. Casimir, come; we must go.”
Ormuz rose reluctantly to his feet. The duke remained sitting, still in the same position, arms out, one booted foot resting on the other knee.
“I would like to see you both again,” Ahasz said. “They’ve yet to set a court date, so we should have time.”
“Certainly, your grace,” replied Finesz, who definitely wanted to know more about this millennia-old conspiracy of which the duke had spoken. In fact, as soon as she was home, she was going to send Assaun off to the OPI headquarters to see if he could find anything relevant in the archives…
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
The last time Rinharte had worn her full dress uniform had been on the occasion of her promotion to lieutenant-commander. That had been a happy occasion; this was not.
The Navy staff car descended the ramp to the Admiralty Fort’s entrance below ground level. It came to a halt, floating tranquilly before the four double-doors of black glass which gave onto the Fort’s foyer. Rinharte felt considerably less tranquil. She waited until the driver had opened the door beside her and then exited the vehicle. Her hand holding her sword steady against her thigh, she watched as an escort of four marines exited the Fort and approached. They took position about her and she was marched into the building.
The entrance foyer of the Admiralty Fort was, like all those of government buildings, imposingly large. Some three storeys high and thirty yards wide, hung with banners depicting the crests of honoured warships, it stretched one hundred yards to a bank of elevator shafts. Above the doors, an enormous mosaic in silver tesserae of the Imperial Navy’s arms—a sextant within a shield, beneath which a pair of armoured gauntlets held either end of a knotted silver hawser—shone eerily in the glare from a bank of lights. The ceiling was patterned to resemble the sky at night on Shuto, the stars picked out in silver. Having never lived on Shuto, Rinharte recognised none of the constellations sprayed across the black above her.
They reached the elevators and the leading marines stepped first into the open shaft. A platform shot out beneath their feet, faster than the eye could follow. Once Rinharte was aboard, the boat-corporal dragged a foot across the floor selector and the archway onto the entrance hall began to slowly descend. The elevator gathered speed as it rose, ascending four levels in a matter of moments.
When the platform decelerated, Rinharte felt her own heart continue on an upwards trajectory. She gripped the hilt of her sword tighter and determined to show nothing on her face. She had been sorely used by the Admiral but she would not complain. Her loyalty to the woman who now sat on the Imperial Throne remained undimmed.
Yet the Admiral was not here, had made no public statement about these proceedings.
Rinharte, all those who had served in the Admiral’s fleet, had been referred to a General Court Martial, charged with mutiny. They would do this officer by officer, for every captain and commander and lieutenant. Rinharte was not even the first. She was being treated as a member of the Admiral’s command staff, her stint as captain of Tempest forgotten. For that, she supposed she must be grateful. Her closeness to Empress Flavia might count in her favour.
Rinharte and her escort stepped out of the elevator and into another richly-decorated hall, with a floor of white marble and columns to either side of dark blue. Yet more ship crests on banners hung on poles fixed between the pillars. At the far end of this hall, a pair of large wooden doors bearing a detailed carving of the Navy’s sextant gave entrance to the Navy courtroom. As Rinharte and the marines approached, the doors swung silently open. She passed between them and found herself alone—her escort had not entered.
Ahead of her, the Judge Advocate and four members of the Court Martial sat at their high bench: two Lords of the Admiralty and three serving admirals. Rinharte recognised the man in the centre, in his robes and wig of office: Lord Kadi mar Grubasz, Viscount Morsky. Her heart sank. The Admiral had treated him badly when he came aboard Empress Glorina. He could not touch the Admiral now but he could have his revenge on those who had served under her. And there was Lord Akob mar Fisc, Earl Dorsz. The Admiral had as much as accused him of corruption.
This, thought Rinharte, was not going to go we
ll.
The three admirals were unknown to her and she wondered how long they had held that rank.
Rinharte marched forward and came to a halt before the bench. She took her kepi from her head and held it tucked under one arm. With her other hand, she held her sword, about the scabbard and below the quillons, as per Navy regulations. She stared straight ahead and waited for the Judge Advocate to direct the court.
Grubasz took the lapels of his robe in each hand and scowled down at Rinharte. “Lieutenant-Commander Rizbeka demar Rinharte,” he said.
“My lord,” she acknowledged.
“Aboard which vessel have you most recently served?” he asked.
“Empress Glorina, my lord.”
“Was that not as prize crew?”
“My lord?”
“Empress Glorina was taken as a prize in battle, was she not?”
“Yes, my lord. Casimir Ormuz led the boarding action.”
A sharp report rang out as Grubasz’s gavel hit the bench-top. “That is of no consequence, lieutenant-commander. Now, answer the question: aboard which vessel did you serve, as assigned, most recently?”
“Vengeful, my lord.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“There is no Vengeful in the Navy Lists,” said one of the admirals.
“Imperial Respite, my lord,” explained Rinharte. “The Admiral—ah, Captain Shutan, chose to rename her Vengeful.”
“You will refer to the vessel as Imperial Respite henceforth. Now, were you still in active service aboard Imperial Respite during the mutiny?”
“I was, my lord.”
“Do you have anything to say in mitigation?”
“Perhaps you should ask Her Imperial Majesty how grateful she is for our service.”
Someone hissed.
The Judge Advocate’s gavel once again hit the bench-top. “Her Imperial Majesty,” he snapped, “is fully cognisant of these proceedings. We have Her utmost confidence. And we will ensure that justice is done.”
