The Eclipse of the Zon - First Tremors (The New Eartha Chronicles Book 2)

by R. M. Burgess

She pulled up in the courtyard of the Temple Heights Nursery campus. The campus included the junior school that Asgara and Iantha attended. It was a hive of activity in preparation for the queen’s visit. Several nursery caregivers were out on ladders, putting up bunting. Others were raising the Zon circle-cross banner and the queen’s personal standard on the twin flagpoles.

  Megara emerged from the speeder and waited as Asgara unstrapped Iantha and helped her out. Very patiently, the child led the littler one into the nursery foyer and approached the reception desk.

  “My womb sister needs to be cleansed and changed,” Asgara said to the caregiver on duty. “Then I must get ready, for I am to greet the queen.”

  Megara stood behind her, smiling at the caregiver who was used to Asgara’s precocious ways. She came around and took Iantha’s hand.

  “Have the girls had breakfast?” she asked.

  When Megara nodded, she said, “I will make sure Iantha is ready. Can you take care of Asgara? The queen’s party will be here within the hour, and she must be ready well before then.”

  In the event, Megara had to do very little, since Asgara used the cleansing unit and was able to do almost all of the complex Zon toilette by herself. Megara helped her with some of the lotions and picked out a simple outfit of green silk that she had just bought for her.

  Well before the queen was due, the entire population of the nursery campus, most mothers, as well as a large crowd of onlookers was assembled in the large courtyard or in overlooking balconies. While the campus was located in the aristocratic reserve of Temple Heights, it served many of the western districts of the city. It had over a thousand children during the day and over a hundred boarders. So the waiting crowd was large and enthusiastic.

  At precisely the appointed time, the Imperial speeder pulled up, preceded and followed by speeders bearing the markings of the Cohort of Palace Guardians. Centuria Lady Alexandra Sheel, the tall, blonde First Handmaiden to the queen, stepped out of the lead speeder, followed by another two Palace Guardians. More Guardians emerged from the following speeder and formed a semi-circle around the Imperial speeder. Alex hit the hatch release and handed out Hildegard.

  Turning to the assembly she announced, “Hildegard, Queen of the Zon Sisterhood, Empress of New Eartha!”

  The entire assembly bowed as one. Someone from the crowd cried out, “Hail Queen Hildegard the Victorious!” The cry was taken up and soon hundreds were chanting it. Will this be my epithet? wondered Hildegard. She knew there was talk of writing the Hildegard saga, talk that had arisen without any prompting from her. But she had not discouraged it, either.

  “The Imperial March” played on the speakers as the head caregiver stepped forward, holding Asgara’s hand. They walked forward several paces together. Then the head caregiver stopped and Asgara continued forward alone, walking confidently up to Hildegard through the phalanx of tall Guardians. She was not awed by the stone-faced Guardians and smiled at Hildegard, eliciting a warm smile in return. As the final strains of the march died away, she reached up and held out a bouquet of wildflowers that she had picked by Upper Moat Falls. The caregivers had tied it prettily with multicolored ribbons. Hildegard reached down and took the proffered bouquet.

  “Your Majesty, I am Lady Asgara Paurina d’Orr,” said Asgara, speaking slowly and enunciating every word. “On behalf of all my mentors, teachers, and sisters, I welcome you to Temple Heights Nursery.”

  “Thank you, Lady Asgara,” replied Hildegard gravely. “I am so happy to be with you and all your sisters.”

  Several in the audience were struck by the similarities between the child and the queen. Look, they said. The child has the queen’s hair and eyes! Such a good choice for a welcome maiden! Hildegard herself could not fail to see them, but she checked herself thinking, Don’t be silly and read too much into a passing physical resemblance. Nonetheless, she made a mental note to ask Repro for Asgara’s genetic profile.

  Asgara was supposed to retire at this point, but she lingered for a moment, rose onto her tiptoes to get closer to Hildegard, and said in a stage whisper, “My mother took my sister and me for a picnic breakfast to Upper Moat Falls. That is where I got your flowers.”

  “And who is your mother, child?” asked Hildegard. She knew that Asgara was the d’Orr heiress and that Caitlin had departed into exile.

  “Seignora Megara Paurina of the Cohort of Palace Guardians,” said Asgara proudly.

  She turned and pointed to Megara who stood with the other mothers, tall in her ceremonial Palace Guardian uniform, her conspicuous raven hair bound into a bun, her plumed helmet under her arm. Megara shot a fond smile at Asgara but remained otherwise unmoving.

  “I see,” said Hildegard thoughtfully. “You are right to be proud of your mother—she is a fine example.”

  “She is the best mother in the world!” Asgara bubbled happily.

  Then she backed away the prescribed three steps as she was taught, turned, and walked back to her place in the ranks.

  The visit was a huge success. Hildegard’s charisma was well known, and she made everyone she met feel special with her warmth and empathy. She was everyone’s picture of the ideal Zon mother—she had just the right mixture of beauty and elegance, striking without being intimidating.

  An hour later, a group of caregivers saw the royal party off and the speeders departed. Slowly the mothers began to leave and by mid-morning all was normal again at Temple Heights Nursery. Megara kissed both Asgara and Iantha and left to return to her post at military headquarters. She was walking toward her speeder when a commoner accosted her. She was wearing the black lipstick and eye shadow favored by the more hardline members of the Sisterhood.

  “Seignora Megara Paurina?” she asked curtly.

  “Yes,” said Megara stiffly, looking down at the much shorter woman.

  “I am Tyla Dorrina. I am a descendant of Princess Iren d’Orr and therefore related by blood to Lady Asgara d’Orr. I have filed a motion in City Court challenging your right to serve as Lady Asgara’s legal mother and to control the wealth of the d’Orr estate. A hearing is scheduled for the fifth day of the cycle at ten o’clock in the morning. I am hereby giving you notice of an official comm channel that you will receive this afternoon. I will see you in court.”

  She turned and walked away rapidly before Megara could respond, leaving her staring at her back.

  “YOU WILL TAKE some katsch, I hope, Seignora Megara?” Countess Dorothea Sheel asked sweetly.

  Megara nodded, shifting her position on the low-slung couch and adjusting her weapons belt to make herself more comfortable. Though she did not know why, she sensed she was sparring with the countess and felt at a disadvantage. While Megara was considerably taller, Dorothea sat on a high-backed chair so she could look down on her.

  “Alex, please ask Mina to bring some katsch,” said Dorothea to her older daughter, who sat on an identical high backed chair by her side. Alex was resplendent in her Palace Guardian uniform, the dagger insignia of her rank on her wrist bracers and metal choker. The emblems of her office of First Handmaiden to the queen were on her shoulders. Alex tapped her wrist bracer and within moments, Dorothea’s personal maid Mina came in bearing a silver tray embossed with the Sheel coat of arms. She wore a uniform with a badge bearing the Sheel arms on her left breast.

  Megara guessed that everything was being done to overawe her. She was thankful she had not bothered to change out of her own Palace Guardian uniform when she had received the impromptu invitation half an hour before. She glanced out through the french windows on to the terrace, where Asgara and Iantha were playing a boisterous game. Being older, Asgara had an insurmountable advantage, but Megara saw that she was quietly letting Iantha win every other time.

  She took her katsch and blew on it. She wondered what lay behind this sudden, unexpected invitation. She had lived in Palace d’Orr for years, and while the Sheel mansion was only a short walk away, this was the first time she had been invited. The presence of Alex,
her senior officer in the Cohort of Palace Guardians, made it even more awkward.

  “Seignora Megara,” said Dorothea, after taking the first sip of her katsch. “You are probably wondering why we have invited you here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Megara.

  “We are a small, close-knit community here on Temple Heights. My daughters Centuria Lady Alexandra and Lady Tara grew up here as did I, and our ancestors before us. Our foremother, Cornelle Soefia Sheel, commanded the Cohort of Palace Guardians and sacked Dreslin Center during the Brigon Conquest six hundred years ago. For her service in the Conquest, Queen Caitlin the Unforgiving created Cornelle Soefia the First Countess Sheel and gave her this property, cheek-by-jowl with the grounds of Palace d’Orr and Palace Saxe. She built this mansion, and it has stood here ever since.”

  Megara looked at Dorothea, her powder-blue eyes puzzled, wondering where this was leading. She could think of nothing to say and glanced over at Alex who had the grace to look embarrassed at her mother’s boastful recounting of their ancestry. Dorothea took another sip of her katsch and drew a breath before continuing.

  “We aristocrats believe in duty and service to the Sisterhood. I wear the Order of Motherhood with a bar and Centuria Lady Alexandra wears the uniform of the Cohort of Palace Guardians. However, we also believe in the maintenance of social decorum.”

  Megara was pleased that she had worn her own Order of Motherhood and now touched the red ribbons trailing from it.

  “I completely agree with you, Countess Dorothea,” she smiled. “I am proud to wear both the uniform of the Palace Guardians and the Order of Motherhood.”

  To her surprise, Dorothea tapped the arm of her chair in irritation.

  “I am afraid that I have been too subtle for you,” she said sharply. “Let me speak plainly. Queen Simran the Merciless marked out this enclave on Temple Heights for the aristocracy over a thousand years ago, when she first drew up the plans for Atlantic City. Your taking up residence in Palace d’Orr is an abomination. We have just heard that it will be challenged in open court, making the whole Sisterhood aware of this disgraceful situation. You must leave and return to your barracks immediately.”

  Megara’s eyes grew wide with shock, and for a moment she was tongue-tied with disbelief. Then she rallied.

  “I reside at Palace d’Orr at the express wish of Princess Caitlin,” she said stiffly. “She has given me full control of all her material possessions till her daughter’s majority. That includes the private apartments at Palace d’Orr.”

  “You refuse to heed my friendly advice?” Dorothea asked nastily.

  “I fail to see the friendliness,” responded Megara, polite but firm.

  Dorothea turned to her daughter and gestured her to speak.

  Alex looked uncomfortable, but she did not disavow her mother.

  “Seignora Megara, my mother may have pitched it a little strong, but there is truth in what she says. This part of Temple Heights has been the preserve of the aristocracy since the founding of Atlantic City. We must respect our traditions.”

  “I have spent countless days at Palace d’Orr since I was a little girl,” returned Megara. “No one ever told me it was off-limits to commoners.”

  “Princess Deirdre was wrong to allow her daughter so much intimacy with a commoner,” said Dorothea harshly. “She was a great heroine, but her social judgment was not the best. I begged her to separate Caitlin from you and to make her spend more time with my own younger daughter, Lady Tara. I knew that consorting with a commoner would lead to presumption of this sort.”

  Lady Tara, who failed to become an electra, thought Megara. As you failed, Countess Dorothea. But she was too polite to say it.

  Dorothea went on.

  “Just look at you!” she said. Her fingers ran over the Sheel tiara as she took very obvious note of Megara’s lack of jewelry and the wildflowers in her hair. “Your very appearance conveys your lack of breeding.”

  “I am the legal mother of Lady Asgara, the d’Orr heiress,” Megara retorted. “And I am an electra, no longer a commoner. I see no reason to move out of Palace d’Orr.”

  “You may be an electra,” cried Dorothea. “But who was your mother? A common server in a café! Are the halls of Palace d’Orr to be debased with such low blood?”

  “I am obviously not welcome here in the Sheel Mansion,” said Megara, standing up. “I beg your leave to take the girls and depart. I thank you for the katsch.”

  “Alex!” said Dorothea, tensely. “Tell her!”

  Alex’s look of discomfort grew more acute.

  “Seignora Megara, you know that your record is outstanding,” she said, speaking slowly as though the words were being dragged out of her. “You will soon hear officially that you have been short-listed for promotion to Centuria this year. You also know that as First Handmaiden to the queen, your file must pass through me.”

  Megara knew how difficult it was to be promoted in peacetime. Most seignoras spent their whole careers at that rank without promotion. A bad assessment by Alex would go into her permanent record and doom her chances of promotion forever.

  “Would you declare me unfit, Centuria Lady Alexandra?” asked Megara formally.

  “Seignora Megara, fitness for a senior rank requires a respect for hierarchy and a recognition of authority,” said Alex pedantically. “You saw firsthand the disastrous consequences of Seignora Lady Caitlin’s failure to follow orders.”

  Megara did not hesitate.

  “I promised Caitlin I would be a mother to her daughter,” she said resolutely. “If that means I am never promoted, that is a price I am willing to pay.”

  She went out on to the terrace, collected the girls, and left without another word.

  MEGARA HAD WALKED over to the Sheel Mansion, so she now carried Iantha and held Asgara’s hand as they retraced their steps toward Palace d’Orr. She was an incongruous figure, a tall military officer in uniform with her weapons, with the two small children. They had to pass Palace Saxe on the way. On an impulse, Megara opened a comm channel to Andromache and asked if she could come in. Andromache readily consented and the motors whirred to open the gates as Megara approached them.

  Andromache’s handmaiden stood inside the gates waiting for them. She led them into the palace and through several long corridors to a cozy study, with a vintage fireplace and old-fashioned overstuffed chairs. As with most desirable chambers on Temple Heights, it had a viewport with a commanding view of the city. Megara entered the study behind the handmaiden and bowed formally to the High Priestess. Asgara followed her example and executed a very creditable bow. Iantha hid behind her mother, peering around her legs at Andromache apprehensively.

  “Some amphal juice for the girls,” Andromache said to her handmaiden in her cultured High Zon accent. “And Seignora Megara, will you take some katsch?”

  “I have just had some, ma’am,” said Megara. “I will only take a moment of your time. I need to get the girls home to dinner and to bed.”

  Andromache smiled.

  “Why don’t we ask my handmaiden to take them to the nursery with their juice?” she asked. “It hasn’t been used since my daughter Althea was a girl, but I am sure there are things there to amuse children.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Asgara seriously. “That is very kind of you.”

  Andromache looked at her warmly.

  “She is a very precocious young lady,” said Megara, grinning. “It will not do to treat her like a baby.”

  “So I see,” said Andromache. Asgara’s mannerisms brought Caitlin to mind, though her confident demeanor was more reminiscent of her grandmother, Deirdre. A look of sadness crossed Andromache’s face, for she missed both of them dreadfully.

  Andromache’s handmaiden returned bearing a tray with two glasses on it. On receiving Andromache’s instructions, she led the two girls away to the nursery.

  “Well, what can I do for you, Seignora Megara?”

  Megara composed her thoughts
before relating both Tyla Dorrina’s challenge to her status as Asgara’s legal mother and then the Sheels’ demand that she vacate Palace d’Orr and return to the barracks.

  “I am merely carrying out Caitlin’s wishes,” she finished. “She wanted me to bring up Asgara and to take her place in Palace d’Orr. She would not have transferred everything to me otherwise.”

  Andromache did not respond immediately.

  “Caitlin often did not make the wisest choices,” she said finally. “You know that yourself from personal experience. She is not worldly. Choosing you to be Asgara’s legal mother is just another example of this.”

  “What do you mean, Princess Andromache?” asked Megara worriedly.

  “My dear, you are a fine military officer. And I am sure you are a fine mother. As you know, I am a firm believer that birth is irrelevant in decisions about advancement. Why, I turned down my own mother’s application to the Middle Temple Magis! And I campaigned vigorously for our Queen, who was born a commoner. But you are not a fit legal mother for the heiress to the Royal Tiara of d’Orr. And though I rarely see eye to eye with Dorothea, I agree with her that it is inappropriate for you to be in residence at Palace d’Orr. There are a few time-honored privileges of the aristocracy that I would like to see preserved.”

  Megara was completely blindsided by Andromache’s response.

  “What is your advice, ma’am?” she asked, dazed.

  The ancient Saxe tiara on Andromache’s brow emphasized her blue-blooded descent and for the moment, Megara was cowed. Andromache looked out of the viewport and drew a deep breath.

  “You have fulfilled your promise to Caitlin. Asgara is walking, talking, a young lady, as you said yourself. Recuse yourself and name me as her legal mother. If Caitlin had acted sensibly, this is what she would have done in the first place. It takes an aristocrat to bring up an aristocrat.”

  Megara could not believe her ears. It was true that Andromache had never invited her to Palace Saxe, but she often came by Temple Heights Nursery to visit Asgara. She had always been friendly whenever they met and Megara had thought of her as an ally. But all this time, she has thought me unfit to mother the d’Orr heiress, she thought.