by Jo Zebedee
“The signal says ‘immediately’,” she said into his chest. “I have to go.” Pulling back, she gazed up at him. A woman taller than most, she still felt small beside Mubariz. It was one of his many attractive qualities. “I’ll think I’ll get changed first. Wear my uniform. I’ve a feeling it’ll make things easier.”
“Dealing with the Admiral is never easy.”
“You managed. For many years.”
“That does not mean it was easy.”
“No, of course not.” She smiled wanly. “It’ll be good to see Casimir again, though.” She snorted. “It’s been very quiet the last two and a half weeks—except for Sudnik’s brief appearance, of course—but things have a tendency to happen around Casimir.”
“Ah yes, the boy.” Mubariz released Finesz and walked away. He paused by an armchair, stroked a hand along its back, gazed at the rumpled bed visible through the door into the bedroom and then continued on towards the window. It was unfair to say standing before the window was his favourite position—he frequently stood there—but no prisoner can resist a view of the world outside.
Finesz had told him what she knew of Casimir Ormuz: his origins on Rasamra, his true origin as a clone of the Duke of Ahasz, his dealings with the knights sinister and the Admiral… Mubariz had admitted astonishment that one young man, poorly-educated, could cause so much to happen. He stressed the passive nature of Ormuz’s involvement, as if he were no more than a pivot around which great events revolved. Finesz disagreed and still did: Ormuz had directed those about him until the present situation had arrived. She had yet to work out how much of that had been done knowingly. She did not think the youth himself knew.
“I have to go,” she said to the baron’s back. “A launch is waiting.”
“I will see you again.”
It was not a question but Finesz treated it as one: “Oh, definitely,” she replied. “It’s unsafe to leave you here—who knows when Sudnik might be back? I’ll arrange to have you transported up to the Admiral’s fleet.”
“Thank you.”
She left him, but not without a backward glance from the doorway. Fittingly, he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, a naval officer once again. She closed the door on him, gave herself a secret smile and turned to find herself confronted by Troop-Sergeant Assaun.
After changing into her uniform in the suite she had nominally been using in the pilot-officers’ mess, she was escorted to the aerodrome terminal by Assaun and a platoon of Yalosukinen household troops. After her tangle with the knights sinister, Captain Sotamis was taking no chances. A launch sat on the apron, a sleek silvery arrow crouched on tricycle undercarriage. Its hatch was open and the boat officer and two marines awaited Finesz.
The march through the blanket of snow to the boat filled her with trepidation. It had been easy to forget what the future held as she’d dallied with Mubariz. She could no longer. She was marching to war. She gripped the hilt of her sword tightly with one gloved hand. Assaun crunched along beside her, her ever-present ever-silent guardian. The weight of events-to-be pressed heavy on her shoulders—she had played a part in what would come to pass; she would play a part in it still. She could die, they could fail. This lonely trek across the apron was toward a rendezvous with destiny.
Ormuz and Varä were there to meet her when she exited the launch on Vengeful’s boat-deck. She clapped each on the shoulder and joked they were looking smart. Which they did, in their expensively-cut trousers and embroidered jackets; but Ormuz looked a little haggard and Varä worried. They weren’t, she soon discovered, there wholly to welcome her, but also to see off Lieutenant Ieza mar Sorio, the ship’s chaplain. A tall and thin officer with a ready smile, the reverend lord was shuttling to Tempest to help Rinharte deal with the various captains of Livasto’s squadron.
“Why Sorio?” Finesz asked, watching the ship’s chaplain disappear into the launch’s interior.
Ormuz answered, “The Admiral trusts him implicitly. And he’s a trained negotiator.” He gave a faint smile. “The fact that he’s a representative of the Church… Well, that’ll help too.”
“You’re claiming Chian is on your side?” joshed Finesz.
“Isn’t He?” returned Ormuz lightly.
“Only if you allow Willim IX divine right to occupy the Imperial Throne.”
“I do.”
“And what of the emperors of the Old Empire?”
“A different god.” Ormuz shrugged. “A different church, certainly.”
Finesz snorted. “That smacks of political expediency.”
“Read the Book of the Sun. It’s a history of political expediency.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I hear the Admiral talking. That’s not a proletarian interpretation.”
Varä smothered a giggle.
They left the boat-deck and passed through the hatch. Ormuz halted. “Some things,” he said, “proles have no need to know.”
“How remarkably arrogant,” said Finesz.
Ormuz glanced at her sharply. “Why? Because I’ve changed my views? You grew up thinking that way, you’ve never thought differently. That’s arrogant.”
“You expect me to defend Imperial society? My job is—was—to uphold its laws or at least those pertaining to the Subjects’ Charter. It’s not my place to comment on the inequalities or injustices.”
“Sliva, you can’t see the inequalities and injustices,” insisted Ormuz.
“That’s not true,” Finesz protested.
“It is.” Ormuz gazed at her flatly. “Troop-Sergeant Assaun?” he prompted.
Finesz glanced about but she knew the troop-sergeant had taken her kit ahead to the cabin she would be using.
“He’s from Darrus, correct?” continued Ormuz.
Finesz nodded warily.
“You promoted him and dragged him along with you. Did you ask him if he wanted to leave his home? You knew full well he’d likely never return—or certainly not for so many years he’d ever be able to return to his previous life.”
“Ah.” Finesz grinned. She saw the thrust of this argument and she could parry it. “I asked him if he minded leaving Darrus and he said he had nothing to keep him there.”
“You expected him to say that. He couldn’t say anything else.”
Finesz’s face fell. Assaun had humoured her? He had left behind his life because he had not been able to conceive of saying no? “I don’t believe it,” she accused.
“He had a life in Amwadina, Sliva, and you took him away from it. He’ll never say as much but that doesn’t mean it never existed.”
“If I’m guilty of that,” Finesz countered, “then you’re no innocent. People have died because of this mantle you’ve taken upon yourself: Captain Plessant on Kapuluan, Mate Kowo, the people at the aerodrome—”
“You think I don’t know that?” Ormuz was angry.
“Yet you’re still prepared to send more people to their deaths.”
“I have no choice,” he snapped.
Varä put an arm about Ormuz’s shoulders, glared at Finesz and said quietly, “Casimir…”
Ormuz shrugged him off angrily. “Too many people stand idly by. I can’t do the same.” He took a deep breath and added, “But at least I’m aware of the consequences of my actions. On everyone.”
He marched away, his shoulders stiff, and did not once look back as he left her standing by the hatch into the boat-deck. Finesz watched him go thoughtfully. The youth had grown in these last few weeks and more than just into the role he had claimed for his own. She wondered what had possessed him to first set foot on this path he now trod… and speculated further what sort of man was Ariman mar Vonshuan, Duke of Ahasz. If young Casimir Ormuz, his clone, were any indication, the imminent war would be a brutal one. A fierce determination drove Ormuz and she could only imagine a similar force at work in their enemy.
Despite all the times she had worked with proles, the months Assaun had spent traili
ng after her, proletarian thought processes were as alien to her as those of the Admiral. Yet she did not expect to comprehend what went on in the mind of an Imperial Princess. She had fooled herself into believing proles were simpler creatures—much the same as yeomen like herself, only less formed.
Perhaps the Admiral was right after all: Ormuz might well be more dangerous to the Empire than the Serpent.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
The Battlecruiser Vengeful prior to Going Into Battle to Safeguard the Throne, decided Rinharte. That was what she would call this enormous artwork hanging on the bulkhead of Tempest’s boat-deck. A rectangular canvas, it bore a background of star-spattered blackness upon which floated the sinister length of Vengeful, filling the frame and close enough for detail to be apparent. Predatory, her antennae circled warily and scattered lights shone the length of the hull. A blurred point of light amidships grew larger and resolved into the silvered sleekness of a launch. Perhaps The Admiral meets her Captains on the Eve of Battle would suit better. Freeze-frame the moment and it was pregnant with martial potential. It was a pity, mused Rinharte, there was no suitably stirring music as accompaniment.
The artwork, of course, was no painting or motion-picture but actuality. The frame was the troop-transport’s boat-deck access—Vengeful had “crossed the T” of Tempest and was moored several miles off the troop-transport’s bow. The approaching boat was delivering the Admiral and her aides to her first meeting with the gathered captains of Livasto’s squadron.
A welcome party, led by Rinharte and including Commodore Livasto and his captains, awaited the Admiral’s arrival. Behind them, a dozen marines in patrol pattern uniform stood at attention, led by Marine-Captain Kordelasz and Boat-Sergeant Alus.
Vengeful’s launch drifted lightly through the force-curtain across the boat-deck access. Rateds ran out, attached hawsers and the boat was warped into a berth. Once securely tethered, the hatch swung open and a marine stepped out. Five more followed and took position, three to either side forming a corridor. Unlike those behind Rinharte, they wore full dress.
Captain Okrent, standing to Rinharte’s right, uttered a low grunt. She ignored him, even though he had become her staunchest ally in Livasto’s squadron.
A figure appeared in the launch’s hatch, paused for a moment and then exited. With surprise, Rinharte recognised Casimir Ormuz. He wore jacket and trousers of military cut, black and exquisitely tailored, and highly polished boots. From an ornate belt about his middle hung a regulation sword. With his hair braided back into a pony-tail, he looked every inch a young prince.
The Marquess of Varä, uncharacteristically subdued in dress, joined Ormuz. He hovered close, clearly occupying the role of bodyguard or champion.
The Admiral exited the boat next.
Low mutters sounded from the captains with Rinharte. The Admiral second in precedence?
And finally, Inspector Finesz in full uniform appeared, accompanied by her troop-sergeant, Assaun.
Ormuz strode forward. A trick of the harsh boat-deck lighting, and the unrelieved black of his jacket, crowned the youth with a faint nimbus. Rinharte was put in mind of various ancient paintings of Avatars and wondered if ecclesiasticals would someday chart the life of Casimir Ormuz.
There was something portentous in the approach of the group of five from the launch, an effect not missed by the welcoming party. Rinharte heard low whispers from the captains. She could imagine their conversation: who was this youth the Admiral followed? An Imperial Princess, a member of the Imperial Family, the leader of this fleet… and she allowed herself to be preceded by some young noble of unknown lineage?
Ormuz halted before Rinharte.
It was a moment before she remembered to say, “Welcome aboard… my lord.” She saw the Admiral, eyes fierce, nod imperceptibly in approval.
“Thank you, Captain Rinharte,” Ormuz answered, with an air of authority Rinharte had not known he possessed.
He raised his voice and continued, “My lords and ladies, we have much work and little time. You have chosen to honour Edkar’s Promise and for that you are to be commended. But I will ask more of you before the day is out and yet more still before the battle is finally won. The fate of the Empire is in your hands. The Emperor, were he here now, would expect you to do your duty. I expect no less.”
Someone to the right of Rinharte stepped forward and, hand to sword-hilt, said loudly, “I would know who claims to represent the Emperor, my lord.”
Captain Sztanda of the squadron flagship, the destroyer Ensign. Rinharte knew her reputation: courageous, a solid tactician and sufficiently well-protected by patrons to be outspoken when needed.
“And so you shall, Captain Sztanda,” Ormuz replied. “All in good time.”
He had done his homework, Rinharte noted approvingly. He also appeared so much more convincing in his nobility than she recalled. The Swovo was exactly right, the body-language precisely that expected of a scion of a noble family. Rinharte was hard-pressed to see the proletarian naïf she remembered in this self-assured young peer. He even wore his sword with the confidence of someone who knew well how to use it.
The welcome was clearly over and Rinharte set about directing the welcoming party to the troop-deck. Ormuz, Varä, the Admiral, Finesz and Troop-Sergeant Assaun led the way from the boat-deck. As she waited for the captains to file past her, Sztanda marched up and halted beside her.
“So who is this young prince?” the captain asked, her attention fastened on the departing Ormuz. “I recognise his companion: Puoskari. Met him once at Court. Not the sort, I admit, I’d have thought a recruit to our cause.”
“Varä has… important friends,” Rinharte replied. And she wondered at a knight sinister whom everyone knew was a member of the Order of the Left Hand, but who himself didn’t know that they knew. It was, she reflected ruefully, a convoluted circumstance typical of the Order.
“The prince?” prompted Sztanda. She frowned. “The Admiral’s son? There’s little resemblance… and she would have had to be young when she had him.”
“Ah,” said Rinharte, amused at Sztanda’s wild guess. “No. They’re not related. Except perhaps very distantly.”
The troop-deck resembled either a concert party or a religious meeting. Chairs, all facing starboard, sat in serried ranks between the six barracks-blocks. At the rear of the impromptu auditorium, Midshipman Maganda, Tempest’s two stewards and additional bodies borrowed from Vengeful, oversaw trestle-tables laden with refreshments. About these, and among the chairs, milled the commanders, flag-lieutenants and Imperial Marines officers of Livasto’s squadron, and the officers of the Yalosukinen household troops and Duke of Kunta’s Imperial Winter Rangers, which to date comprised the Admiral’s force—
No, Rinharte told herself, not the Admiral’s, Casimir Ormuz’s. These officers… were gathered here to accept Ormuz’s leadership.
Could the youth persuade them to follow him?
Rinharte could see Ormuz over the heads of those before her. The Admiral’s shaven skull bobbed alongside the young “prince” and Varä’s black tresses alongside. She saw Finesz glance back and their eyes met across the crowd. The inspector was clearly amused but then she saw the ridiculous in everything: it was her armour. And here, aboard Tempest, she surely needed such a shield. The only black-clad OPI officer amongst a sea of bluecoats, pea-greens and regimental colours, she was outnumbered.
Ormuz and his entourage climbed the stairs on the barracks-block at the front of the rows of chairs: they would use its first floor as a stage. The members of the “audience” began to make their way to their seats…
Flanked by the Admiral to one side and Varä to the other, Ormuz clasped his hands behind his back and gazed down at the assembled officers. An expectant hush fell.
“Our enemy,” began Ormuz, “is the Duke of Ahasz.”
A susurration swept across the seated officers. Some, Rinharte guessed, were wondering if this were no more th
an a war between fiefs. Although that did not explain the Admiral’s presence.
As if reading their very thoughts, Ormuz continued, “My lords and ladies, this is no spat between noble families.” He paused. “Ahasz intends to seize the Imperial Throne. We shall stop him.” He held up a hand to forestall interruptions. “The history of the Empire, and that of the Old Empire before it, is filled with those who tried to take the Throne for themselves. With the sole exception of Edkar I, all have failed. But Ahasz is backed by an organisation that has been working towards to this end for many generations, perhaps even for centuries. He has a very real chance of success. That is why the Admiral has asked you to honour Edkar’s Promise.
“Ahasz’s plan is simple: a military assault on the Imperial Household District. Should his forces prevail, Ahasz will ascend to the Throne.
“Yes, I know: the Throne is not so vulnerable it can be taken by force. But Ahasz’s backers have managed to undermine the conspiracy of interests which maintains the Emperor in power. They have agents and sympathisers throughout the ministries, throughout the Imperial Regiments, throughout, yes, even the Imperial Navy. We do not have the time, nor the resources, to root them out, to defuse their conspiracy. We must bring Ahasz to battle and defeat him.
“Ahasz knows this. He has fashioned a stratagem that will allow him to neutralise the only group—you, my lords and ladies; and those who will flock to our banner—that is likely to stand in his way. He has made a trap of Geneza. We will spring that trap and we will crush his forces. Without them, he cannot succeed: the Emperor will have the upper hand.”
The speech, Rinharte had to admit, was delivered with remarkable assurance. Again, she was impressed at Ormuz’s new-found nobility. It was easy to understand how Captain Sztanda had mistaken him for a prince. He was a prince, in all but the true circumstances of his birth. Rinharte remembered the young man she had met on Ophavon all those weeks ago. He had been perhaps a little more fey in appearance than an average proletarian but there had been no mistaking his prole upbringing. His transformation into the figure that now held the attention of the gathered officers was nothing short of extraordinary.
