Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future

by Barbara Bartholomew

  He didn’t salute, but bowed. “As you say, Madam.”

  She’d known Thereon since he’d first been promoted to the crew. He was always annoyingly unflappable. Now she supposed she really would have to order his execution.

  “I suppose you were conflicted when the princess gave you orders.”

  “No excuse, Madam.”

  “Come on, help me out here a little. She probably forced you to bring her here.”

  “I serve at the command of the Empress Claire and the princesses Adaeze and Lillianne.”

  “You wouldn’t really have him shot?” Mack asked.

  “Depends on if the kids are all right,” she said in an aside. “They are alive and well?” she asked.

  “And inside the castle,” the captain told her, “having a party, I believe.”

  “My Alice?” Isaiah inquired anxiously.

  “The princesses friends are here,” the captain admitted cautiously. “I don’t know their names.”

  “Adaeze and Lillianne aren’t allowed friends,” Claire stated firmly, “and the captain of the imperial cruiser better remember that his orders come from the empress.”

  He didn’t even say ‘yes, madam.’ Things were going to hell in a hand basket around here. He stepped back, waiting for her to go ahead of him, her shoes crunching on the stony pathway that led to a front door that opened automatically. She remembered that door. Mathiah had expected her to be impressed by the technology displayed when he’d first had her carried here, a kicking, squirming kid brought in by a couple of scary Aremia guards. She had eventually convinced him that technological tricks were as much a part of Earther society as it was his.

  Automatically opening doors had been around for over two hundred years.

  Nothing had changed since she was last here. The halls seemed to echo with emptiness and somewhere on the upper floors lay the elaborate suite for the imperial governor, the place where Mathiah had lived before his father went mad and he became emperor. And part of that suite was a doll-house apartment, made on the smaller scale required by an Earth girl, the rooms where she’d first lived as catere to Mathiah.

  She dismissed the past from her mind as Captain Thereon showed them into a room she’d never seen before, though she recognized from the style that it was a Gare meeting room. As at a Roman orgy, the Gare aristos lay on low couches placed around a long table to conduct formal business. She’d set in on more than a few of these meetings, at first trying as hard as she could to listen in on telepathic conversations, but to no avail. She’d even gotten used to the creepy silences of official meetings, though she wouldn’t have gone if Mathiah hadn’t insisted.

  He’d said it was important for the leadership to understand that she was one of them as the emperor’s wife and consort. He’d also thought she’d learn from what she saw there.

  She hoped now that he’d been right. She could use the skills she might’ve picked up over the years right now because Adaeze reclined gracefully in the position of honor on the far side of the table, while on the closer side Lillianne rose slightly to watch her mother enter.

  Claire barely took in the other occupants of the room, none of whom looked as at ease as the princesses.

  The meeting of eyes between Claire and Adaeze became a kind of battle. Concentrating intensely, Claire was conscious of whispered murmurings from behind her, heard more distinctly as Isaiah said, “But where’s Alice?”

  She couldn’t afford to pay attention. “Adaeze,” she said in her firmest tone.

  Whether it was the custom of her childhood or because Claire had the stronger will, Adaeze slid from her couch and stood in courteous acceptance of her mother’s entrance, just as she did when she’d been acknowledging the presence of both her parents.

  Quickly Lillianne followed her sister’s example. The five boys had learned no such etiquette. They did sit up from their rather awkward lounging positions, but their faces displayed a range of emotions ranging from sullen to confused.

  Her daughters were the only girls present. She glanced around at Isaiah’s agonized face. He said once more, “Where is Alice?”

  “Yes,” Claire echoed, knowing how she’d feel if one of her daughters was missing. “Where is Alice Michaels?”

  The boy she had identified as Jamie’s son got up. “I’m sorry, Isaiah, but she wasn’t there. Jon was left alone and he said they’d taken off with Alice.”

  Claire didn’t want to see the expression on Isaiah’s face harden into tragic lines. He’d lost his wife when she gave birth to his daughter. She would not allow this to happen to him? “We’ll find her, Isaiah, as soon as possible.”

  Jamie moved to one side of his friend, while Mack took the opposite space. They were signaling their loyalty to him friend, Claire thought.

  She concentrated on Adaeze. “What’s happened to Isaiah’s daughter?”

  “How could the child know?” Mack questioned. “Charlie has already said she was already gone.”

  Adaeze didn’t yield this time, but her younger sister spoke up nervously. “They took her away, Mom. She’s left the planet.”

  Claire let her eyes grow steely as she continued to look at Adaeze. Lillianne’s skills as a far speaker were not as strong as her sister’s. She had no doubt that Adaeze could hear Alice’s captors wherever they had taken her.

  Adaeze didn’t drop her gaze. She showed no signs of groveling. Claire couldn’t help but be a little proud at the same time she was furious.

  “Please, princess,” Isaiah was not too good to beg. “She’s my little girl.”

  Adaeze didn’t look at him, but continued to meet her mother’s eyes. “She’s a lovely girl in a delicate, rather fragile way. Like the princesses in the fairy tales from Earth that you read to us when we were small. She’s bright and though a little shy, I could imagine a male might consider her good company.”

  Adaeze waited, very much afraid she knew what was coming. “The former governor of Blood sent her on a ship to Aremia. He felt sure he would be rewarded for selecting such a delightful catere to meet the young emperor’s needs.”

  Claire’s heart jolted, reminded at once the young Sara Louise who had been chosen as catere to Mathiah’s doomed brother Prince Darin. Her lingering death at her dead prince’s side had been the greatest horror of Clair’s first days on Aremia.

  “We remanded the governor into custody, but it was already too late. The girl was already on Aremia. So we armed the satellites and sent out warnings that approaching Blood was forbidden by order of the imperial princesses.”

  “That must have been a big hit with your grandmother,” Claire commented drily.

  NINETEEN

  So it was an open secret throughout the empire that the Princess Adaeze had inherited her father’s far speaker abilities. That would certainly draw lots more attention to Sanctuary.

  Jamie could only hope Claire’s daughter knew what she was saying when she said she’d armed the planet’s weapons. Looking at the self-possessed princess, he was pretty sure she did.

  “What do we do about Alice?” Isaiah asked in a voice Jamie barely recognized.

  “Nothing can be done,” Adaeze told him bluntly. “I hear my cousin the emperor talking to her now. He is only a little boy and doesn’t understand that she cannot talk to him mentally. He is angry.”

  “Adaeze,” her mother said very calmly. “Shut up, my dear!”

  The tall, black-haired princess stared at her in absolute shock. Jamie supposed with some interest that nobody had ever dared to speak to her in that fashion in her whole life. She sat down abruptly on her couch.

  “Captain Thereon,” Claire went on. “You will escort my daughters to the suites designated for their use by the governor’s house staff.

  The captain looked from her to the princess. “Now!” Claire said.

  Jamie managed to keep from grinning as the princesses were formally shown from the room, a door closing behind them.

  Claire looked at Jamie. It was hi
s turn now.

  He shoved Isaiah gently into a seat on the couch just abandoned by Lillianne and sat down beside him. He leaned toward the table and spoke in a soft voice not intended to deceive anyone as to the mildness of his temper. All of the males present, including the youngsters who had so far sat in awed silence while they watched the girls and their mother do battle, were left with any doubt that Jamie Ward Lewis was less than happy.

  “Now boys,” he drawled, “suppose you tell your dad and me just how you got involved in this debacle.”

  Poor Jon, the boy who had been held captive, still looked like he was in shock. Jamie figured he could be excused from blame. But Charlie and David Russell, Mack and Karen’s sons, and their buddies were another matter.

  Jamie waited in a silence that he meant to be excruciating to the boys he’d trained in guerrilla fighting skills since they were small children.

  They might be scared of their mom and dad, neither of whom was long on patience, but Uncle Jamie was their leader and commander. This was more than a family matter.

  “Jamie asked how you guys let yourself get dragged into this?” Mack demanded, the wait apparently sending him to boiling point. “I thought you had more sense,” he flung these words in his sons’ direction.

  “I take responsibility,” Charlie responded immediately. It was the first thing they’d been taught, to stand up and admit it when they’d done wrong.

  “You let a pretty girl persuade you,” their father charged in disgust.

  “No, it wasn’t like that,” Charlie took up the conversation again. “It’s just that we didn’t like what Kevin was doing, or not doing, and we thought it would be a good thing if we went ourselves to rescue Alice. We thought she must be plenty scared.”

  “You saw her before they took her away?”

  Charlie shook his head. “She was already gone when we got there.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mack said. “If she was already gone, how come the princess could describe her so exactly.”

  Charlie shook his head. “Can’t give a guess.”

  “She sees through other people’s eyes,” Claire interrupted.

  “Didn’t know that went with being a far speaker,” Jamie said in an aside.

  “Never has before.”

  Jamie considered. So they had the advantage of having a uniquely talented far speaker, maybe two, on their side. And the bad news was that the two princesses were on their side and likely to be running things. He didn’t much like the idea of a strong-minded kid the same age as his own Charlie in charge of a whole world. And yet who would dare argue with the Princess Adaeze.

  “She seems to know a whole lot about what’s going on,” David put in.

  “She’d be a real advantage leading us to where they’ve got Alice hid out,” Mack said thoughtfully.

  True enough. And they not only had the imperial cruiser, no doubt there were other larger spaceships still in dock here on Sanctuary. The princesses would know about that.

  “My daughter’s life would be forfeit the minute she moved into Aremian air space,” Claire said, “No, absolutely not. Nobody is going to rescue that girl.”

  “The princess can read them,” Jamie argued. “They can’t read her unless she deliberately messages them. Isn’t that the way it works?”

  Claire’s mouth formed a firm line through which she evidently had no intention of letting words escape.

  “I’ll go by myself if necessary,” Isaiah said in desperation. “Once you were a girl held prisoner by the Gare.” He looked in appeal to Claire.

  “Don’t see how they can kill your girl, Claire. Their whole system works only because of the far speakers and right now it seems the kid emperor isn’t doing too well. She’s the best bet they’ve got to hold the empire together.”

  “Mellisande is not exactly a reasonable woman,” Claire interjected.

  “Who’s Mellisande?” again Mack spoke.

  “My mother-in-law, Mathiah’s mom, the girls’ grandmother. She hates me and she’s not real fond of Adaeze and Lillianne because their mother is a mongrel Earther.”

  “Mack, she’s talking about the dowager empress who has made herself regent for the boy emperor in Claire’s place.”

  As the two of them debated back and forth, Jamie was conscious of Isaiah, who was slumped in place, looking the figure of sadness and defeat. The images from the night when Alice was born played through his brain. He’d been there, along with old George who was then training Isaiah in much needed medical skills.

  They’d fought through the night to try to save the mother, a delicately built and gentle girl who he’d always thought had appealed to Isaiah for those very qualities. She’d slipped away just before the dawn broke and he’d been almost glad to see her relieved of her agony.

  Isaiah had blamed himself for not being able to save her and in some unreasonable way had held the baby girl at fault as well. Several weeks passed before he began to fall in love with the petite bundle and by the time she could coo and smile, he was firmly wound around her dainty little finger.

  He couldn’t let Isaiah lose his little girl to the Aremians. They couldn’t be allowed to use her youth and beauty only to save an underserving one of their own, a Gare child who might or might not have the far speaker gift they needed.

  He would not see this child or any other Earther child in torment at the hands of the Gare.

  “We’re taking your ship,” he told Claire, “and going to Aremia.”

  “Fat chance,” she retorted. “You don’t know how to pilot the thing and even if you did, they’d blast you out of the sky as you approached.”

  “Not if they think the princesses are on board. They don’t actually have to be on the cruiser, but if the grandmother thinks Adaeze and Lillianne are there . . .”

  Claire sharply outlined eyebrows rose slightly in a gesture of distaste. “Their grandmere is not exactly a sentimental woman.”

  “From everything I’ve heard she’s a wily one, politically savvy to the hilt. She’s got to know that little kid Michel isn’t a strong bet to survive, much less to rule. Did she know about Adaeze’s gifts when she let you get away?”

  Claire frowned and shook her head.

  “She’s going to want both princesses in reserve in case something goes wrong with the boy.”

  Claire looked thoughtfully at him. “There is the idea that it’s criminally wrong for a girl to be a far speaker.”

  “I’d imagine your leadership is going to be able to set that aside when they start going hungry. Most of Aremia’s necessities are imported from planets they can no longer contact. Your daughter says they have their firepower on line; she’s put Sanctuary on guard. What do you think those guys on the other worlds are doing?”

  Claire told herself she’d agreed to help because removing the one Earther blood donor the Gare had in their possession would strengthen the position of her daughters. It wasn’t so much that she was anxious to see either of them ruling the damn empire as she wanted to keep them alive.

  The fact that they would be doing their level best to save Isaiah’s daughter was of secondary importance.

  After an afternoon and long night of arguing, it was agreed that she and Jamie would be the only ones going, along with the crew. Isaiah and Mack were convinced only with great difficulty that they must stay on Sanctuary to safeguard the princesses and the little New London community. Charlie, David and their friends demanded and, when that didn’t work, begged to be allowed to go along.

  Jamie refused to even discuss the possibility and Claire knew it was because he didn’t want to risk anymore young lives, especially not that of his own son and the half-brother who was nearly as close to him.

  Adaeze didn’t demand, she insisted as imperial princess that nobody had a right to keep her from going. Claire was as adamant as Jamie was with the boys, but even so it was when Jamie said, “We can’t afford to risk you. Keeping you and your sister alive is the best insurance policy the rest o
f us have,” that she conceded the wisdom of her mother’s judgment.

  Jamie aimed his wicked grin in her direction. “Adaeze,” he said, “that’s the price of being a princess. You get left out of most of the fun.”

  The crew members, all of them speakers, would be the conduit through which Adaeze communicated with the travelers. Lillianne, too, would do her best, but her skills though strong enough to be of use in planetary distances could hardly reach across space.

  Claire thought her younger daughter was relieved not to be asked to return to the capitol planet and supposed their last days there had been a horror to her. She didn’t want her mother to leave either and clung to her, white-faced and silent, as she prepared to board the Princess Adaeze.

  Even Gare girls were supposed to always look strong and stoic and being hugged by their mothers in public was frowned upon, but Claire indulged herself on this occasion and gave each girl a warm hug and a huge kiss before telling them to mind Isaiah and Mack before she saw the cruiser door slide shut between them.

  She gave the order and they began to move slowly upward, lifting away from Sanctuary and toward open space.

  TWENTY

  It was as if they were alone on the ship and, fast as the little ship moved, it would take several days to achieve their destination. The crew remained largely invisible as they went about their tasks and Jamie felt almost like a boy again, awkward and uncertain in the company of the girl who had haunted his dreams for a decade and a half.

  When she’d left him, Karen had made the claim that he’d never gotten over Claire and that was why things hadn’t worked out between them. Desperate to hold on to what he had of family, Karen and baby Charlie, he’d vehemently denied the charge even though he’d recognized its truth.

  Other relationships with women he’d attempted over the years tended to be short-lived. The last thing he wanted was to live his life on such a shallow level. He was a man meant for commitment and deep connections. Back on the farm in Oklahoma he’d always planned to marry as had his grandparents in a life-long relationship. He’d teach his sons and daughters to plow and fish. They’d enjoy long evenings before the fire telling stories of the past.