Rock of Ages

by Walter Jon Williams

  Kuusinen cleared his throat tactfully. Roberta took the hint and turned to Maijstral.

  “Actually,” she said, “it’s my fault he’s here.”

  “Oh yes!” the corpse added. “That’s right!” He sighed, which came out of the coffin’s speakers as a faint electronic sizzle. “I keep forgetting these things. . . .”

  Maijstral turned, his bewildered attention to Roberta. “He came to see you?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “I arranged for him to be brought here to see you, but . . .”

  “I remember! I remember!” the corpse cried triumphantly. “I remember why I’m here!” And then the voice trailed away. “I thought I remembered . . . just a moment . . . maybe it’ll come back.”

  Roberta passed a hand over her brow. “This isn’t working out the way I’d hoped,” she said. “Kuusinen, can you help me?”

  Kuusinen nodded and turned to Maijstral. “As you know, I am her grace’s solicitor. Two years ago, her grace instructed me to undertake certain researches having to do with a Special Project she was undertaking in regard to her future. You and your family were among those to whom I devoted my efforts.”

  Maijstral’s head was whirling, but he managed to put his finger on at least one important point. “That’s why I keep running into you,” he said. “On Peleng, and Silverside Station, and...”

  “Just so,” Kuusinen nodded.

  “And what was the tenor of these researches?”

  Kuusinen looked appropriately grave. “The contract of a matrimonial alliance,” he said, “between Her Grace the Duchess of Benn and…”

  Maijstral jumped as if stung. “No!” he said.

  The others stared at him.

  “Absolutely not,” Maijstral said.

  Roberta’s eyes were wide. Her lower lip trembled. “But . . . why not?” she asked.

  Maijstral folded his arms and looked stern. “I absolutely forbid you to marry my father. He’s married already, for one thing, and for another he’s dead, and I don’t care what your demented relations told you would make a good dynastic alliance, you’d just be throwing your life away…”

  His words trickled away as Roberta’s real intent slowly filtered its way into his mind.

  “Oh,” he said.

  In Maijstral’s defense it must be said that this really was a surprise. He’d been thrown off-balance by his father’s arrival, and made slow by a good dinner, and he wasn’t operating at full speed.

  All that said, he certainly proved a bit dense on this occasion. However, one should remember that this sort of thing happens to the best of us, and usually, alas, where personal matters are concerned.

  “Well, yes,” Roberta admitted. “It was you I was planning to marry, Drake.”

  Maijstral’s head whirled, but even through all his inner confusion he couldn’t help but admire Roberta’s style . . . to have Kuusinen quietly case him for a year, to carry her valuable jewels to Silverside Station as a way of bringing herself together with Maijstral, and then to arrange for all the necessities of the formal betrothal as dictated by Khosali High Custom: a representative from each of the families (his father for the Maijstrals and, he presumed, Aunt Batty on the Duchess’s side), a meeting on neutral ground (the estate of the Prince of Tejas), a neutral who had doubtless conspired with her to sneak Maijstral’s father onto the premises while Maijstral was at the Grand Canyon or on his morning ride. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was an Imperial Recorder stowed away in the next room, ready to transcribe all the niggling little details of noble lineage and so forth on a formal betrothal written with a jade pen on the tanned hide of a grookh, proper for transmission to the City of Seven Bright Rings, where the Khosali Emperor himself, Nnis CVI, would give his formal permission for the wedding.

  Permission in these cases was never denied, of course. Nnis CVI had retired to his cryocoffin long ago, and was probably in worse shape than Maijstral’s father.

  Roberta had acted brilliantly, and in so doing had displayed a surprising amount of subtlety for one so young. Maijstral was struck with awe.

  He was also struck by the realization that he didn’t know whether he wanted to marry Roberta or not, She was young, she was attractive, she was intelligent and interesting, she was staggeringly rich, and she was thoroughly worthy of admiration… but yet.

  But yet. She was not, in his brief experience, an easy person. She was high-strung, she was quick-tempered, she was a fierce competitor who raced in the highest amateur league. Her force of will was prodigious. Maijstral admired her, but thus far he’d succeeded in admiring her only at a distance. Who knew what emotion might result from closer proximity?

  Maijstral became aware that the others were watching him with their ears cocked forward in expectation. Clearly some manner of reply was required. He bowed toward the Duchess and placed a hand over his heart without quite knowing what he was going to say. Fortunately, his training came to the fore.

  The Nnoivarl Academy, ridiculous though its curriculum might be in any practical respect, is at least good for seeing its graduates through a crisis of style.

  “I am astounded by your consideration,” Maijstral said. “I had never thought to look so high.” As he rose from his bow, he regarded Roberta carefully through half-closed lazy-lidded eyes—was that a trace of disappointment he saw mirrored in her face? Had she expected, he wondered, for him to throw himself into her arms?

  If so, he considered, she shouldn’t have surrounded herself with all these intermediaries.

  Delay, he thought. He still had no idea what his response would be—or, for that matter, could be.

  “I should consult with my father to determine his wishes,” Maijstral said, then gave the coffin a dubious glance. “Insofar as they can be determined,” he added.

  “Drake’s going to marry the Duchess!” sang the corpse. “That’s why I’m here! Wonderful girl! Imperial family! Good match! When the Emperor comes back, we’ll all live like kings!”

  Well, Maijstral thought, that sounded like consent.

  The impulse to delay was still uppermost in his thoughts. He turned to Roberta, his ears flicking forward. “Your grace,” he said, “may we speak to each other alone? Perhaps in the next room?”

  Roberta bit her lip. “There’s an Imperial Recorder in the next room,” she said.

  Knew it, Maijstral thought.

  “But we can use my parlor,” Roberta added. “It’s only a few doors away.”

  “The parlor will suit perfectly well.” Maijstral turned to Aunt Batty and bowed. “If you will excuse us.”

  He offered Roberta his arm and she took it As he closed the door behind them, she looked at him and bit her lip.

  “You’re not angry, are you?”

  “Of course not. I’m . . . stunned.”

  “You didn’t have any idea? Really?”

  “I thought Kuusinen had been scouting me out on account of your jewels. I’d no idea you had any… other interest.”

  She opened the door to her parlor and passed inside. Maijstral sat down on a small settee, and Roberta sat next to him. His big diamond flashed as he reached to take her hand.

  “How exactly… did this come about?” he asked.

  Roberta looked at him with her violet eyes. “Well, the family were pressuring me to marry. And you can’t imagine the sort of candidates they came up with.”

  “Indeed I can,” Maijstral said. “Elderly-bishops, gawky schoolboys who. can barely walk without falling down, middle-aged sportsmen gone to seed, a widowed duke looking for his fourth wife, lots of hopeful cousins who want your money, and an adopted human son of a Fifth-Degree Imperial Khosali Prince who is very fat and at least a hundred.”

  Roberta smiled. “I can see you’ve met them.”

  “On the contrary. I’ve met their sisters.”

  Roberta gave him a knowing look. “I see. Well, you know the situation, then. All the candidates were so hopeless… and, of course, safe, in the purely dynasti
c sense, of course. So I decided that, if I had to marry, I would at least find a candidate who suited me better.”

  “And I was chosen? Out of all our busy galaxy?”

  Her ears reddened a bit. “I had a short list of about a dozen,” she confessed. “Paavo Kuusinen met all of them, over the course of a few years, and sent in his reports, and I arranged to meet some of the more promising candidates myself, and… well, I made my choice on Silverside Station, when I met you. Since then I had to travel back to the Empire to inform my family, and, well, to inform yours. Such as he is.”

  “You could have done far worse,” Maijstral said. “You could have contacted my mother.”

  Roberta bit her lip. “We don’t have to invite her to the wedding, do we?”

  “Don’t ask her for my sake. But if we don’t invite her, she’ll probably crash the reception anyway, with an escort of His Majesty’s Secret Dragoons.”

  “We’ll try to contain her somehow.”

  They looked at each other for a moment, then self-consciously looked away. “I still don’t know how you fastened upon me,” Maijstral said. “You made your decision years ago, apparently, before I was very well-known to the public.”

  “I knew a few things about you,” Roberta said. “I knew you would inherit an old title, which removed any objection on account of birth. I knew your parents were dedicated Imperialists, and your grandfather old Dornier was the most famous human Imperialist of all, so that removed any objections on account of politics and your citizenship in the Constellation. You were poor, of course, but I’ve got so much money that I certainly don’t need to marry it, and anyway you’ve eliminated that objection yourself by earning a fortune in the last year…”

  “But why me? There must be a thousand poor, virtuous, titled Imperialists out there.”

  “Well.” A little smile crept onto her face. “If you stand to inherit a fabulous gem like the Eltdown Shard, you spend a lot of your girlhood trying to imagine who’s going to try to steal it from you. Trying to picture the romantic stranger who’s going to fly in the window some night. And, of course, your family security people keep a list of all the top burglars, and you get dossiers…your face crossed my desk when you took out your burglar’s license, and I remember thinking, Well, there’s one I wouldn’t mind meeting some dark night…”

  “I took out my ticket ages ago. You must have been just a girl.”

  “Oh yes. Red hair and freckles and a school uniform that wouldn’t fit. I’m glad you didn’t know me then.”

  “I’m pleased to know you now.”

  “Are you?” Her eyes sparkled with interest. “Had you considered me a marriage candidate?”

  “Frankly, no. I hadn’t thought of myself as suitable.” Maijstral touched his chin thoughtfully, with a forefinger and regarded her, absorbing the creamy shoulders, the intriguing shadows about her clavicles, the gems that sparkled about her neck.

  “I had thought about trying to get you into bed,” he said, “but on Silverside we were both busy, and we had a business relationship besides, and since I’ve arrived here there hasn’t been time.”

  She flushed becomingly. “Well,” she said. “At least you noticed I was trying to make myself attractive.”

  “Your grace,” Maijstral said, “I would have had to be as inhuman as a Drawmiikh not to notice.”

  Roberta smiled a little. “That inhuman, eh?”

  There was a moment of silence as the two shared a memory. A Drawmiikh, they had once discovered, was more unforgettable, and inhuman, than either anticipated.

  “Your grace,” Maijstral finally said, “this whole marriage situation seems impossibly complex. Couldn’t you just be my mistress for a while?”

  She gave a little smile. “I could,” she conceded, “but they’d probably make me marry someone else first.”

  “I suspected as much,” Maijstral said. There was another little pause. “You saved my life,” he added, apropos perhaps of nothing. “When that madwoman attacked me.”

  “Yes. I did; didn’t I?”

  He looked at her. “Have I ever thanked you properly?”

  Kissing Roberta, Maijstral discovered, was very pleasant, and he prolonged this pleasure for some little while. When there was a pause; Roberta said, “What do we tell everyone?”

  “Tell them,” Maijstral said, “that negotiations are ongoing.”

  Negotiations onwent a while longer, and then Maijstral and Roberta returned to his father’s room holding hands. Kuusinen and Aunt Batty looked up expectantly.

  “We have more talking to do,” Maijstral said.

  “What’s the problem?” Gustav Maijstral demanded. “Is the girl ugly or something?”

  “No, Dad,” Maijstral said. “Her grace is very beautiful.”

  “I order you to marry her whether she’s ugly or not!” the corpse said. “Gad, son, the girl is rich! Think of all the money for the Cause!”

  Maijstral offered the Duchess an apologetic glance. Money and the Cause were two of his father’s favorite topics, and once the old man had broached either subject it was difficult to keep him from enlarging upon it. Maijstral spoke up quickly.

  “Time for your cocoa, Dad,” he said.

  *

  An hour or so later Maijstral returned to his own room and called for Roman to unlace him. The tall Khosalikh arrived with a thick leather tube under one arm.

  Maijstral looked at the tube, then at Roman, and then at the bare patch of pink flesh on the underside of Roman’s muzzle. He thought he recognized the dangerous red-rimmed look smoldering in Roman’s eyes, and ventured a cautious question.

  “Are you molting again, Roman?”

  “It has been a year since the last molt, sir.” Roman put the tube on a table and turned to attend Maijstral.

  “That long, eh?”

  Maijstral made a mental note not to overstress Roman in the next week or so, and not to send Roman on one of the errands that sometimes proved necessary in his line of work— breaking the odd leg, say—not, anyway, unless Maijstral wanted the leg well and truly broken. Roman was not a good molter, and during the height of molt his normally moderate temper tended to veer unpredictably toward the savage.

  “Sorry,” Maijstral said. “If you want to just take a week off, I can get along with Drexler and a few robots to handle the lacing and unlacing.”

  Roman’s ears flattened. “I am perfectly capable of discharging my duties, sir,” he said.

  Maijstral recognized the finality in Roman’s tone. “Of course,” Maijstral said. “I never had any doubts on that score whatever, I merely wished to make you as comfortable as possible.”

  He raised his arms to give Roman access to the side-laces. Roman picked at the lace-points expertly. “Was the evening enjoyable, sir?” he said.

  “It was eventful, at least,” Maijstral said, and gave his servant a sly, sidelong look. “Her Grace the Duchess of Benn made me an offer of marriage.”

  Roman’s ears stood straight up, as did the surprised hair on top of his head. “Indeed, sir?” he said.

  Maijstral smiled. He hardly ever saw Roman nonplussed. “She even arranged for my father to come here to Tejas to put his blessing on the union.”

  “His late grace is here?”

  “Yes. You should probably pay your respects tomorrow.”

  “I will not fail to do so, sir.” Roman smoothed down his top-hair, and a swatch of it came away in his fingers. His father had served the late Duke with the same resigned, half-despairing dedication with which Roman served Maijstral, and his grandfather had served Maijstral’s grandfather, and so on back to the first Baron Drago, the Viceroy of Greater Italia in the early days of Imperial conquest.

  Roman looked at the tuft of hair in his fingers with distaste and, rather than let it fall to the carpet, stowed it in his pocket. He returned to picking at Maijstral’s laces.

  “May I inquire as to the nature of the reply with which you favored her grace, sir?” he asked, his feign
ed casualness so studied that Maijstral was forced to turn away with a smile.

  “Her grace and I,” he said airily, “are still discussing the matter.”

  *

  Well might Roman’s diaphragm pulse in resignation at this answer. Despite the familiarity brought on by years of association, despite all the adventures shared and obstacles overcome, when all was said and done Maijstral was, quite simply, incomprehensible.

  “Very good, sir,” Roman said. Dutiful, as always. Roman was all too familiar with the defects of Maijstral’s situation. They could be summed up as follows:

  Money. For most of his life, Maijstral had been desperately short of money. This situation was not, Roman knew, Maijstral’s doing, but that of his father, who had spent such of the family money as survived the Rebellion in crackpot Imperialist political schemes and who on his death had left Maijstral with nothing but debt.

  Maijstral’s response to his fiscal dilemma was reflected in Defect Number Two, to-wit:

  Profession. What better way to get money than to steal it? Allowed Burglary was legal—though barely, in the Human Constellation—and it was, thanks to its regulation by the Imperial Sporting Commission, a profession that a gentleman could adopt without danger of losing his position in society. But some respectable professions were still more respectable than others. Allowed Burglary was lumped in with various other wayward callings, like drunkenness, banking, and the composition of satires, that were permitted but not precisely overwhelmed by the honors and distinctions given more respectable characters like civil servants, courtiers, great actors, military officers, or Elvis impersonators.

  If one was a burglar, one was compelled to associate with many of the wrong sort: fences, enforcers, people willing to sell their employers’ secrets, the agents of insurance companies (parasites of parasites, in Roman’s view). Allowed Burglary required an irregular life, and constant travel both to avoid the police and to find new objects to steal. Often burglary was dangerous. It was irregular. Sometimes it was sordid.

  But, Roman was willing to concede, it was necessary in Maijstral’s case. It was where his master’s talents lay, and his master, alas, needed to earn a living. His attempts to do so, and to live in the social stratum to which he was born, involved Defect Number Three: