The Sundering

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Good grief, no,” she said. Martinez blinked in surprise.

  And then, as if Sula had begun to suspect she’d been too blunt, she stepped close to him and put her arms around him. “My baths are for me alone,” she said. “It’s one of those things I’m fussy about. Sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” Martinez said. How Sula’s standards of privacy could possibly have been maintained in the Fleet was something he couldn’t imagine.

  He kissed her. “Would you mind terribly if I left my family and joined yours?”

  She gave him a curious look. “My family’s dead,” she said.

  “There are advantages to that,” Martinez said. “And in any case it’s you I want to join.”

  Her expression softened. He kissed her again, and her hands cupped the back of his head to hold his kiss to hers.

  Join Sula’s family? he thought.

  He could. He believed he could.

  EIGHT

  Sula watched as the juggler spun and danced in the center of a whirl of blades. Torchlight glowed on keen-edged steel. The knives were attached by elastic to the juggler’s wrists, ankles, and hips, and snapped back as she threw them out over the heads of her audience. To control them she had to catch them and throw them again, or let the elastic wrap around her limbs or body or head, and then cast the knives off with a jerk of the head or a spin of the body.

  The timing was exquisite, and breathtaking. One slip and the girl would be cut, or if the elastic was cut instead someone in the audience could get a knife in the eye.

  Sula’s breath frosted in the chill midnight air. Martinez’s arms coil around her from behind, and she leaned back against his warmth.

  He had taken her to a series of clubs in the Lower Town, and on their return had encountered a group of street performers presenting their act on the wide apron before the lower terminal of the funicular railway. Surrounded by torches, Cree drummers had beaten a rhythm while Daimong acrobats balanced atop chairs or barrels or each other; and nocturnal Torminel, huge eyes wide in the semidarkness, had performed a slapstick routine. The air was heavy with the scents of roasting chestnuts and ears of maize produce shipped up from Zanshaa’s southern hemisphere, sold by vendors from portable charcoal braziers. Now a Terran girl barely in her adolescence was mastering the flying knives with an intent stonefaced courage that left Sula dry-mouthed with admiration.

  “Here,” Martinez said. “Try one of these.”

  In one hand he held a crystalized taswa fruit just purchased from a vendor. Sula bit down on it, and bright sparks of sugar exploded on her tongue, followed at once by a tartness that flooded her mouth with flavor.

  “Thank you,” she said as the acid puckered her lips.

  The juggler was a blur of motion now, the bright knives whipping around her. Sula could hear the sound of her soft leather soles on the flagstones. The juggler bounded into a twisting somersault, landing on her feet just outside of the knives’ danger zone. Her hands were a blur as she snatched the steel from the air. Metal clacked on metal. And then the girl was motionless, the knives bunched in her hands, and in the absolute silence she drew her feet together and bowed.

  The audience, a hundred or so drifting toward the High City from their evening in the Lower Town, burst into applause and cheers. Sula cheered wildly with the rest, applauding till her palms grew red, and when one of the Torminel came by with a little portable terminal for contributions, she keyed in a generous contribution.

  Another act followed, a mournful-looking Terran whose performance consisted entirely of bouncing a ball on the pavement, but doing it in surprising ways. Martinez’s arms were still around Sula. She took another bite of the candied taswa fruit.

  I am sitting in a circle of torches watching a grown man bounce a ball, Sula thought, and I am feeling…what?

  Happiness…The surprise was so strong that she took a sudden astonished breath of the charcoal-scented air.

  Happiness. Bliss. Contentment.

  The thought that she might be happy was so startling that she had to probe the thought carefully, as if it might explode. She found herself suspicious of the very idea. Moments of happiness had been rare in her life, and nonexistent since she’d stepped into the role of Lady Sula. She had not thought happiness possible, not when her whole life was an imposture and when she had to remain constantly on guard against the lapse that could expose her.

  The man with the ball reacted to an unexpected bounce, and Sula laughed. She hugged Martinez’s arms to her. Lazy pleasure filled her mind.

  Happiness.

  What a shock.

  “No,” said Lord Tork. “Never. Abandon the capital? Such a thing can never happen.”

  Lord Chen feigned a curiosity he did not feel. “Both my sister and Lord Squadcom Do-faq have endorsed the plan. What is your objection?”

  “Zanshaa is the heart of the empire!” Tork chimed. “The capital cannot be surrendered!”

  “To defend Zanshaa is to stake everything on a battle where the odds are against us from the start,” said Chen.

  “If the government can be moved—” began Lady Seekin.

  “The government will not move,” Lord Tork said. “Lord Saïd would not permit such a radical step.”

  We’ll see about that, Lord Chen thought grimly. He would seek a personal appointment with the Lord Senior.

  The eight members of the Fleet Control Board sat around their broad black-topped table in their large, shadowy room in the Commandery. Someone had forgotten to tell the staff to remove the ninth chair, the one suitable for cradling the long breastbone of a Lai-own, and it sat empty as a reminder of Lady San-torath, flung from the rock of the High City two mornings ago.

  “I would like to further remark,” Tork continued, “that it is not the place of a junior captain to submit these kinds of memorials to the Board. It is the task of junior captains to carry out the tasks assigned them in silence, and to spare us their opinions.”

  Lord Chen suspected that he was stepping into a trap, but a need for clarification demanded he speak. “I beg your pardon, lord fleetcom,” he said, “but it was not a junior captain who submitted this plan to the board. It was myself.”

  Knowing there was prejudice against Martinez on the board, he had told them only that it was the product of two officers who had brought it to his attention.

  Tork turned his white, round-eyed face to Lord Chen. A strip of dead flesh dangled from his chin like a large, twisted whisker as he spoke. “Squadron Commander Do-faq submitted the memorial to me this morning, and identified Captain Martinez as the author.”

  “Martinez!” cried Junior Fleetcom Pezzini, as if some terrible private theory had just been confirmed, and slapped his hand on the table in annoyance.

  Lord Chen would have mentioned Lady Sula as the coauthor, but he suspected he would only blacken her name.

  “Captain Martinez has a habit of submitting memorials to his superiors,” Tork continued as disapproval rang in his words. “He has offered a radical tactical theory to Do-faq, and Do-faq has given it to your sister. Now they are both engaged in maneuvers that are detrimental to the traditions and practice of the service.”

  “Will his interference never cease?” Pezzini said, just as Chen was about to reply. “Just a few days ago he blackened the name of a client of mine, a perfectly sound young man who revered him—revered him against my advice, I must point out.”

  “I fail to see where any of this is improper,” Lord Chen said. “Captain Martinez submitted his suggestions to his superiors with proper regard for rank and with all deference. And now your own commanders see merit in these proposals.”

  “The rot has spread far,” Tork said. “I trust that Lord Fleetcom Kangas will halt the infection and restore discipline. Only the tactics of our ancestors, adhered to with utmost inflexibility, can possibly save the capital.”

  “Let Martinez rot in his damned training school,” Pezzini said. “That should cool his ambitions.”

&n
bsp; Chen, his face expressionless, felt his insides twist with growing contempt. You people know nothing but how to lose a war, he wanted to shout. You’ve been offered a way to win, and you can’t see it.

  But he kept silent. He knew that protest was useless in the face of Lord Tork’s rigidity, and his private lobbying with other board members hadn’t yet reached the stage where they would support a vote against the chairman.

  He would send the Lord Senior a message requesting an immediate meeting. And then hope for the best.

  Martinez, in high heart, stepped into the foyer of the Shelley Palace twirling the ribbon of the Golden Orb medal around his index finger. As he prepared to bound up the stairs to his room, he was approached by one of the maidservants—a thick-legged, homely woman, the type his sibs hired so that the Martinez sisters would always be the most beautiful women in the room.

  “Captain Martinez,” the woman said. “Lord Roland asked me to tell you that he’d like to see you in his office.”

  In his memory, a girl snatched flying knives from the air. Martinez caught his medal in his hand with a sigh and said, “Very well, thank you.”

  He found Roland behind his desk, talking to someone—a Torminel—on his display. “We hoped you could attend,” he said, “as you’ve been so kind to us since our arrival.”

  The Torminel, whomever she was, accepted the invitation, whatever it was, with pleasure. Roland signed off and looked up.

  “I hope you’ll be able to take time off from your carnal adventures,” he said, “to attend your sister’s wedding tomorrow, at sixteen and one.”

  Martinez dropped into a chair. “Which sister are we talking about?”

  “Vipsania. After which she will be joining Lord Oda and his family on a visit to their clients on Zarafan.”

  Martinez put his feet up on his brother’s desk. He was in a buoyant mood, and not simply because he’d spent the night in Sula’s arms. In the morning had come the communication from Do-faq saying that he approved Martinez’s plan and had sent it on to the Fleet Control Board. Do-faq had also sent the results of his latest series of experiments in the new tactics, and he and Sula had analyzed them over breakfast. He couldn’t help but be buoyed by physical satiation followed by useful mental exercise, and all with a partner whose imagination and wit more than matched his own.

  Poor Vipsania, he thought.

  “Sounds like a delightful honeymoon,” he said, “stuck on a ship with a pack of her desiccated in-laws. Will she be running her broadcasting empire from Zarafan?”

  “Probably, unless Zarafan in its turn becomes unsafe.”

  Roland folded his hands on his desk and looked at Martinez from over the glossy toes of the shoes. “If Sempronia tries to contact you, I’d be obliged if you don’t reply.”

  Martinez only raised his eyebrows.

  “She’s to be disinherited,” Roland said. “No money, no communication, no contact. When we have the time to pack them all up, her belongings will be given to charity.”

  “Charity,” Martinez repeated, as if the word were a stranger.

  “Walpurga insisted on banishment for Sempronia, and after the threat she made I can’t say I have any objection. Oh, did I mention this?—Sempronia agrees.” Roland gave a smile filled with grim satisfaction. “I spoke to her last night, and again this morning. She’ll be given permission to marry, but she’ll be a Shankaracharya from now on—he’ll have to support her fancies, not us.”

  “I believe he’s rich,” Martinez pointed out.

  “Clan Shankaracharya is heavily invested in pharmaceuticals and biochemicals.” Trust Roland to know these details. “Nothing on Zanshaa, though—we expect she’ll relocate after the war.”

  “No doubt a crushing blow,” Martinez said. Roland seemed to have forgotten it was their father, he thought, who did the disinheriting—that was one task he couldn’t delegate to one of his offspring. Martinez might be able to influence that decision with a personal message, perhaps not to Lord Martinez, but to his lady, a woman to whose romantic nature an elopement might appeal…

  Roland gave Martinez a curious look. “What did you do to enrage Sempronia so totally? I’ve never heard her use such language.”

  Martinez was silent. Roland shrugged, then continued with his news.

  “Lord Pierre and I have fixed Walpurga’s wedding with PJ for three days from now. It won’t be a very elaborate affair, but we hope you’ll be present.”

  “You don’t mind if I wear mourning, do you?” Martinez barely had to search his mind for the cutting reply.

  Roland’s eyes were level beneath his heavy brows. “You know the wedding’s necessary.”

  “I know nothing of the sort.” Martinez tossed the Golden Orb medal into the air, then caught it. “You want the Ngenis because they give you access to the highest circles of the capital. Very well.” He drew his feet off the table and leaned forward, letting his gaze meet that of Roland. “Suppose I give you all that myself? Suppose I sacrifice myself in place of Walpurga?”

  Roland’s gaze was unblinking. “You’re offering to marry?”

  “Yes.” Tossing the medal again.

  Roland drew back, his frown thoughtful. “I would have suggested it myself if I hadn’t known how much you enjoy being a bachelor—I assumed you’d turn me down flat.”

  “Perhaps I would have. But with all this romance in the air, how can I resist?”

  Roland’s look grew abstract. “I can suggest a number of young ladies—”

  “I already have one in mind.”

  Roland’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t your Warrant Officer Amanda, is it? Because my patience is—”

  “Lady Sula,” Martinez said, enunciating the words with passionate clarity.

  Roland blinked, and Martinez rejoiced at his surprise.

  “I see,” Roland said slowly. “It’s not Miss Amanda you’ve spent the last couple nights with, it’s—”

  “None of your business.”

  “Quite.” Roland fingered his chin. “She has no money, of course.”

  “Only the Sula title, which is of the highest. You can’t find a more formidable ancestry in the records. And it’s the ancestry and the title that opens the doors to all those drawing rooms and ministries, the ones that won’t open to mere money.”

  “True.” Roland still gazed inward at his own calculations. “Still, we’d have to lay out a fortune to set the two of you up in the High City. Provide you a palace here, a place in the country—she can ride, yes?”

  “I’ve no idea.” Martinez grinned. “But what will be necessary is an empire-class collection of porcelain.”

  “Porcelain?” Roland was frank in his amazement. “What does porcelain have to do with anything? Has she made it a condition?”

  “No, but trust me to know my bride.”

  A thought occurred to Roland. “Have you even asked her yet?”

  “No, but I will tonight.” Martinez suppressed a grim laugh. “How can she resist a family like ours?”

  “I doubt she will,” Roland murmured. “She must be sick of being poor in a rich world.”

  Martinez clapped his hands and made as if to rise. “So! Walpurga’s off the hook?”

  Roland snorted out a condescending little laugh. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t go back on my word to Lord Pierre.”

  Martinez gave his brother a long, angry look. Roland held his gaze for a moment, then gave a snort of irritation. “Don’t give me those Command-room eyes—your shoulder boards are too new, and I’m not one of your snotty cadets.”

  “I thought we had a deal.”

  “Not for Caroline Sula we don’t.” Roland gave his fingernails a fastidious inspection. “The Ngenis are rich, they’re already in place in the Convocation and the ministries, and haven’t lost their influence. Rehabilitating Lady Sula would be a years-long project—it would pay off eventually, but the Ngenis are paying off now.” He looked up from his fingernails. “But don’t let me discoura
ge your matrimonial ambitions. Sula’s beautiful and bright, and that’s one more advantage than you’ve got.”

  “Damn you,” said Martinez. Roland shrugged.

  Martinez rose and left the office.

  She’s the heir to a title, he thought, and I’m not. And thankfully all my children will be Sulas.

  “No,” said Lord Saïd. “That is out of the question. The empire has been ruled from the High City for twelve thousand years, and will for ten million more.”

  The Lord Senior’s office, unlike the gloomy board room in the Commandery, was brilliant with light. One transparent wall showed the great granite dome of the Great Refuge, from which the Shaa had ruled their empire, and beyond that a spectacular view of the Lower Town. From his seat Chen could see the private gallery by which Lord Saïd’s predecessors had once traveled to the Great Refuge to receive orders from their masters. But the Great Refuge was closed now, with the death of the last Shaa, and vague plans to make a museum of the place had been ended by the war. The first man in the empire sat before him, comfortably disposed in a huge domed chair with a kind of flaring hood that overshadowed the Lord Senior’s face.

  “The High City and the government aren’t the same thing,” Lord Chen said, paraphrasing Martinez’s memorial. “The government can be anywhere—it should be somewhere else, where a stray missile can’t wipe it out. Where it won’t be trapped on the planet if the battle goes against us.”

  “What is a more glorious death than one in service to the Praxis?” asked Lord Saïd. He was over ninety, with close-cropped white hair and mustache and a beaky nose that age was drawing ever closer to his prominent chin. His clan was known for their fierce conservatism, and he had been placed at the head of the government on the very day of the rebellion, when he had denounced the Naxid Lord Senior from his seat in the Convocation, and led the resistance that had ended with the rebels being flung from the High City to the rocks below.

  Chen looked at him. “The government is determined to die, then?” he said.

  Saïd seemed a little surprised by Chen’s words. “We are determined to preserve both the capital and the Praxis.” His eyes darkened with thought, and then he said, “I shall tell you a secret, lord convocate, and trust that you shall repeat it to no one. Since almost the very beginning, we have been in communication with the rebel government on Naxas, their so-called Committee for the Salvation of the Praxis.”