by David Drake
“Lady Mundy, a pleasure as always,” she said. “I appreciate you taking the time to see me on such short notice.”
Deirdre had dark red hair and a tightly lacquered expression. Though her features were similar to those of her younger brother, there was nothing of the friendly openness that Daniel projected.
Deirdre stepped back, saying, “Won’t you and your servant come into my office?”
“I’ll wait in the lobby,” said Tovera. Her voice was emotionless. “After all, someone might come in to rob the bank.”
“Just as you choose,” Deirdre replied, equally deadpan. She closed the door behind herself and Adele.
Adele sat on a carved wooden chair without being directed and took out her personal data unit. Whatever the purpose of this meeting, it was more than simply social.
Adele’s relationship with Daniel’s sister was equivocal. Deirdre clearly had her brother’s best interests at heart, to a greater degree than Daniel probably realized. She had done Adele herself many favors over the years that Adele had served with Daniel. That did not make Deirdre Adele’s friend; it just meant that Adele felt a degree of obligation to the other woman, which she would willingly repay if circumstances permitted it.
Deirdre was also her father’s representative in matters of business. Adele owed Corder Leary a debt also. Because of her friendship with Daniel, she wasn’t actively looking for an opportunity to pay it, but if she ever happened to come face to face with Speaker Leary, she would make every effort to shoot him twice through the eye. Daniel would understand, and Deirdre would certainly understand.
Deirdre settled into the chair behind her desk. The room’s furniture was of dark, carved wood with leather seats on the chairs and a leather pad framed by wood for the desktop. “May I ask if you expect to be working on a major project in the next few months?”
“I do not,” said Adele. I’m waiting to die, she thought. Which of course could be said of every waking moment of her life. In context, all that mattered was that nothing she was doing at present was of the least interest to anyone else—particularly to Mistress Sand.
Because Deirdre waited instead of leaping in with a comment, Adele said, “Daniel is relaxing at Bantry. He invited me to join him, but I wasn’t raised to appreciate the delights of rural life.”
She smiled slightly.
“Fortunately, Daniel and I know one another well enough that I don’t have to pretend interest in his offer to avoid offending him. At some point”—probably very soon, judging from Daniel’s past behavior—“he will decide that he wants another command. I will expect to accompany him when he does.”
“I see,” Deirdre said. She tented her fingers before her on the black leather, then looked up to meet Adele’s gaze squarely. She said, “I’m being blackmailed over financial and political matters. I need someone to act for me in the affair. If you are willing to take on the problem, I will give you carte blanche to solve it.”
She made a dismissive gesture with her left hand and added, “And of course pay whatever fee you set.”
The fee was minor to both of them: to Deirdre because she controlled vast wealth, to Adele because she didn’t care very much about money.
“Give me the background to the situation,” Adele said quietly. She had considered the request thoroughly in her several seconds of delay. Her first impulse—as generally—had been to begin searching with her data unit.
She smiled inwardly. It would have been difficult to get the information that way, though it would have been interesting to try.
Deirdre nodded. “A Pantellarian businessman named Arnaud,” she said, “has become a member, the leading member, of the Council of Twenty which rules Pantellaria since the planet regained independence following the Treaty of Amiens.”
Adele had noticed a minuscule hesitation before Deirdre began laying out the data, but it had been no more than Adele’s pause before she decided to pursue the matter instead of walking straight out of the office, the bank, and Deirdre’s life. There had been none of the usual maundering: “This must remain secret,” or “You’ll have to swear not to say anything about this,” or other such nonsense.
Deirdre had asked for Adele’s help; Adele had asked for information which she would need to provide that help. Nobody who knew Adele would have assumed that she would accept a proposition without learning the details—for anyone except for Daniel Leary.
“At the beginning of the recent war”—between Cinnabar and the Alliance—“Arnaud owned a small repair yard,” Deirdre continued. “In the course of the war, and after Pantellaria had been annexed to the Alliance of Free Stars, Arnaud found outside investment to expand his yard and to construct ships of some size. Among the yard’s projects were five or six destroyers, which operated as elements of the Alliance Fleet in battle against the RCN.”
Deirdre grimaced and stared at her fingers again for a moment, then looked Adele in the face again. “I was the outside investor in Arnaud’s yard,” Deirdre said. “That is, Bantry Holdings made the investment.”
She smiled wryly. “It’s been quite profitable for us,” she said. “Though peace will require some adjustments.”
“I would have expected you,” Adele said carefully, “to have worked through a series of cutouts which would make it impossible for the investment to be traced back to Bantry Holdings in a provable fashion.”
Then Adele shrugged. “There could be allegations,” she said, “but there are always allegations. Your enemies will believe them, your friends will pretend that they don’t.”
Deirdre made a sour face. “Under ordinary circumstances,” she said, “that would be true—though I’ll admit that when I looked at the detailed records, I found that the security arrangements weren’t as complete as I would have wished them. My primary concern, however, is that Councillor Arnaud is the party threatening me. He probably can prove our close association during the war.”
“I see,” said Adele, because she suddenly did see. “Please wait a moment.”
Deirdre had said that she was the blackmail victim, but in fact the information led to Bantry Holdings, which she now managed. At the time the initial investments were made, Deirdre could not have been more than ten or twelve years old. Corder Leary himself had been in charge.
Adele felt her lips quirk into a smile. She had allowed herself to pretend that she could associate with the Leary family but not with its patriarch, Speaker Leary, who had murdered her family. Reality had just forced its way to the front, as it had been certain to do unless Adele had died before that happened.
She had two options. On reflection she found herself unwilling to cut herself off from Daniel Leary and through him the RCN, the first real family Adele had known in her life.
“All right,” Adele repeated. In for a soldi, in for a florin. “What is Arnaud asking from you?”
She brought her data unit live and began searching, starting with the Sailing Directions for Pantellaria, published by Navy House. Whatever the specifics of the problem were, the more she knew about Pantellaria, the better off she would be.
“The Treaty of Amiens required that the parties”—the Republic of Cinnabar and the Alliance of Free Stars—“give up all territories captured during the course of the war,” Deirdre said. “There were balanced exceptions, but Pantellaria regained the independence it had lost eighteen years earlier.”
“Yes,” said Adele to show that she was listening. Of course. But it was a polite acknowledgment, and she had been raised to be courteous when that was possible.
“Pantellaria had six colony worlds, all of which were controlled by the Alliance during the war and which were returned to Pantellaria under the treaty,” Deirdre said. “One of them, Corcyra, declared its independence from the homeworld.”
Adele refined her search while she listened. Deirdre continued. “A number of Pantellarians who were closely associated with the Alliance regime fled to Corcyra. The exiles control a great deal of wealth, even after the
ir assets on Pantellaria have been expropriated. They’ve been helping to arm the rebels—the independence movement, if you prefer. In addition, the former Alliance garrison of Corcyra was locally recruited and remained on the planet.”
Adele continued to read her holographic display. Corcyra held vast quantities of copper. The mining income was sufficient to sustain the rebellion indefinitely, unless Pantellaria was able to sustain a real blockade. That last seemed doubtful when the homeworld itself was disrupted by both the war and its recent change of government.
“Ah,” said Adele. She looked past the hologram to Deirdre and quoted, “‘The Pantellarian Council has appointed Ermann Arnaud as Commissioner Plenipotentiary of Corcyra, with full authority to return it to the beneficent control of the homeworld.’ I would say that Master Arnaud has chosen a difficult task.”
“I’m confident that he would agree with you,” Deirdre said dryly. “It affects me because whatever Arnaud’s original expectation, he is now pinning his hopes on Cinnabar intervention as a signatory of the Treaty of Amiens, returning Corcyra to Pantellaria as part of the status quo ante provisions. Our legal department informs me that Arnaud’s interpretation of the treaty language is open to question.”
Adele flicked her hand. “It doesn’t matter what lawyers say,” she snapped. “If we send troops—or ships, more likely—the Alliance will certainly respond by supporting the pro-Alliance exiles. We’ll be back in a state of full-scale war in six months, or more likely three.”
“Yes,” said Deirdre. “My research bureau said within a year, but I accept your assessment. Renewed war would be even worse for my interests than being accused of supporting the Alliance during the recent war, so I have decided not to comply with Arnaud’s request. Morality aside, of course.”
“Of course,” Adele said. She pursed her lips. Partly to give herself more time to analyze the options, she said, “Could you have gotten Cinnabar support for the Pantellarians?”
Deirdre spread her fingers before her. She had chunky hands; indeed, she might best be described as a chunky woman. She was no more a raving beauty than her brother was a conventionally handsome man.
Not that Deirdre’s looks mattered. From what Daniel had said, she preferred professional companionship to amateurs. Professionals cost only money, which she had in abundance.
“There are a number of hardliners in the Senate who believe we should not have made peace with the Tyrant Porra, as they call him,” Deirdre said, smiling faintly. “Senators who feel that Guarantor Porra’s behavior toward his citizens is a proper matter of concern for the Senate of the Republic of Cinnabar. And also—”
Deirdre turned her palms up.
“—there are hard-line or personally involved Alliance citizens who certainly are funnelling arms to the rebels. Though of course the galaxy’s awash with surplus arms following the general demobilization after the treaty.”
Adele nodded agreement. Arms dealers were rarely concerned with the political complexion of potential buyers, so long as they could pay in hard currency.
“A campaign in the streets of Xenos, protesting Alliance aggression, wouldn’t be very expensive,” Deirdre said. “Combined with discussions with individual senators—”
“Discussions” meant logrolling or simple bribery. Which Speaker Leary would conduct, and very ably, too, based on his past performance.
“—I think it might be possible, yes.”
Deirdre didn’t bother to repeat that she had already decided against the option. Adele was pleased to deal with someone who assumed that the person she was speaking to could remember a statement made a few seconds earlier.
“If this matter were publicized,” Deirdre went on, “it would ruin my chance of getting into the Senate. There’s almost no possibility that I would go to jail for treason or even be tried, however. I have always expected to enter the Senate at some point, but I can bear the disappointment.”
Adele looked at her. On the face of it, “I can bear the disappointment” was sneeringly ironic. But behind Deirdre’s polished deadpan, Adele saw a hint that the disappointment would be real. There had been a Leary in the Senate for almost seven hundred years, and that, if not personal ambition, would hurt Deirdre.
Daniel would make a terrible senator. But he might feel that family honor compelled him to fill the seat that his father would vacate, upon death if not by retirement.
“How would you like to see the problem solved?” Adele said. A mechanical voice would have held more emotion.
“Any solution which doesn’t result in the ruin of the Leary family is acceptable,” Deirdre said. “I’m aware what may be involved in giving an agent of your caliber carte blanche.”
You think you understand, Adele thought, holding Deirdre’s eyes. But perhaps she truly did. The Learys were a notably ruthless family.
“All right,” said Adele. She shut down her data unit and got to her feet.
She paused to slip the data unit into her pocket, then said, “My help will be expensive. Do you speak for the Leary family or just for yourself?”
Deirdre cleared her throat. She remained in her chair. “I must ask,” she said, “if your price will affect the physical safety of any member of my family?”
“It will not,” said Adele with a smile as hard as the muzzle of the pistol she always carried in the left pocket of her tunic.
Deirdre stood and smiled in turn. “In that case,” she said, “I accept your proposition. If my personal resources are insufficient to meet your fee, I will commit those of the Leary family.”
She walked around the desk and offered her hand.
“On my word as a Leary,” she said.
Adele shook Deirdre’s hand. “I know what the word of a Leary is worth,” she said. She opened the door for herself and followed the waiting Tovera through the lobby.
I have a good deal of planning to do, Adele thought. But first I need to speak with Daniel.
CHAPTER 3
The Bantry Estate, Cinnabar
“Here he comes,” Hogg said, looking to the northeast. “And he’s not half moving.”
Daniel rose from his seat on the porch that wrapped around three sides of the manor. Tom Sand’s gray aircar was approaching over open country, which allowed much higher speeds than if it had followed the road from Stavingham, the market town for the region. As Hogg had suggested, the car was moving very fast, faster than Daniel would have said was safe, even twenty feet above the ground.
As the driver approached the village proper, he lifted higher still—sunset brushed the bow—and let the angle of attack brake his vehicle smoothly above the houses. The aircar had slowed to a walking pace before it settled to the paved plaza following the curve of Bantry’s seawall.
“He’s here!” Daniel called into the house as he started toward the car. When he noticed that his servant was coming along, he said, “I don’t think I need help to greet a friendly businessman, Hogg.”
“I thought I’d chat with his bodyguard,” Hogg said blandly, continuing to match Daniel step for step. The driver was opening the limousine’s back door for Tom Sand. His uniform perfectly matched the vehicle’s finish.
Daniel smiled. He’d noticed that city folk generally thought tenants were louts with no more will than the sheep they tended while not jumping to fulfill the master’s whim. That hadn’t been his experience. For that matter, sheep had their own opinions also.
“Welcome back to Bantry, Sand,” Daniel called. “How hungry are you? Because I thought we could talk and watch the sunset from one of the benches—”
There were a pair of west-facing arbors at the inner edge of the plaza.
“—before we went into the house and had dinner. I’ve invited the manager of the packing plant and his wife to eat with us; and Miranda, of course.”
As usual, life was more complicated than the polite words into which it had to be compressed. Chloris had told Gwen Higgenson that the Squire hadn’t caught enough floorfish sprats to
feed their surprise guest from the city. Gwen had called the plant, and her husband had rushed home with a dozen sprats. Gwen had filleted them and carried them over to Miranda.
Daniel, when he heard about the confusion, had invited the Higgensons to dinner with the three of them—later in the evening. It’s what I should’ve done in the first place; but the whole business had been unexpected.
“I appreciate you seeing me, Leary,” said Tom Sand. He was a solid man and not fat, though he obviously carried more weight than he had when he was thirty years younger. At one time, his hair must have been red. “And I’m not going to be able to taste my food till I’ve talked to you.”
He grunted a laugh and added, “We’ll see how I feel then.”
The arbors had been planted as saplings, then bent and trimmed to shape. They’d been allowed to continue to grow upward; their crowns provided summer shade to the grapes planted around their roots.
Daniel gestured his guest to one end of the bench under the arbor and took the other. Sand settled with a sigh. Meeting Daniel’s eyes, he said, “Leary, I’m here to ask you a favor. And I know bloody well that you don’t owe me anything.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” Daniel said mildly, “but friends don’t keep that kind of score sheet anyway. Ask away, Tom.”
“Ah … ?” said Sand, grimacing. “I was glad when your fiancée said that Lady Mundy wasn’t here. Now—don’t mistake what I’m saying, because I know you’ll have to tell her, but this is going to be easier to say as one man to another.”
“Go on,” Daniel said. Is Mistress Sand seeing another man? That seemed unlikely, and it was even less likely that Tom Sand would come here for advice in such a case. Daniel’s experience was all on the other leg of such triangles.
“Bernis was a widow when I married her,” Sand said. “She was born in Xenos, but Ordos Cleveland, her first husband, came from Oriel County. His family was something there.” He guffawed. “Sort of like the Learys here, I guess,” he said. “But not in Xenos and politics, you see.”
