Seven Surrenders--A Novel

by Ada Palmer

  I spotted tears in Spain’s eyes. “You knew, Prime Minister?”

  Perry forced himself to face the King. “Yes, Your Majesty, I’ve known for years, ever since I was appointed to the Special Means Committee. That’s what they … we … do. The committee was created a hundred and twenty years ago by the subministers that made the deal to join this three-way alliance. It’s been so good for Europe, you can’t possibly imagine. The committee existed to let Europe participate in the system without the knowledge of the Prime Minister, to protect you and your predecessors from involvement with the assassinations because … because…”

  “Because His Catholic Majesty goes to confession,” Madame supplied.

  Kosala could hardly keep herself from ripping the paper in her shaking hands. “You mean because Spain has a conscience, unlike some.”

  “Conscience?” Andō repeated, hoarse with scorn as if Kosala had just recommended some useful artifact to its inventor. “My conscience could not be clearer. Thousands, perhaps millions of lives are saved by every war we stop. All your charities have never given so much as a band-aid to so many.”

  “War?”

  Just as, at sunset, the battlemented fortresses scattered across the Greek coast by the old Venetians stand in black blocks against the sea’s rose gold, so Andō stood stark against the sparkling twins. “War, Bryar,” he confirmed. “Riots. Slaughter. Death. Déguisé can tell you, they watch the numbers more closely than any of us. How many close calls have we had, Déguisé? How many ripples in the Hive balance that would have exploded if something invisible hadn’t tipped us back from the brink?”

  “I … the self-correction. It’s tr-ue.” The words cracked as they rose from the Anonymous’s manikin. “That’s what the self-correcting push is. I’d noticed it. I didn’t understand it until now, but the worst of the trends always reset, settle down just before the point of no return. I always worried about recessions in the past, economic contraction, but since Sniper shared Tully Mardi’s speech at Ingolstadt this morning I’ve realized the ripples have been threatening something a lot worse than a recession. The Hives are not as friendly to each other as we like to think. It’s true. It has been stopping war.”

  “What are you saying?” Bryar cried. “That it’s okay? That they should get away with murdering thousands of people?”

  “Of course not,” the Anonymous replied, “and certainly not in secret to further their Hives’ interests against the others. They’ve been doing that, too, I can see it now. The inexplicable resets always favor those three Hives.”

  Kosala rushed a pace toward the doll, as if to seize or slap it. “That’s what matters to you most? Hive bias? Then I suppose it would’ve been okay if they did it for everyone equally?”

  “We did.” Andō’s declaration brought not only Bryar’s glare, but everyone’s. “A ship that boards too much cargo will sink, however strong. The Masons have benefited from this as much as we have. So have your Cousins. We can even save your CFB now if you like, we have a plan all ready. We were going to do it for you in the spirit of goodwill, but if you’d rather we can let you fall apart.”

  Would you expect the lady to threaten tears here, reader? That Kosala did, but threatened fists as well.

  Headmaster Faust glanced up from reading. “I have students on this list.”

  Director Andō nodded acknowledgment. “Not as many as you would have lost in wars.”

  Faust glared. “I was talking to the system’s creator, Andō, not to you.”

  “The system is three hundred years old, Felix. Its creators are long dead.”

  The old Headmaster shook his head. “Not their ideas. The Humanists created this. No one else sees history as composed of individuals. On their own the Mitsubishi would target corporations, Masons governments, Europe nation-strats, me bash’es, the Anonymous ideas. Only the Humanists still think the world is made of individuals.” He leaned forward. “Ganymede? You can’t pretend you aren’t the heart of this.”

  The Duke President had sat detached, giving the papers a half skim as he continued to sooth his trembling sister. “This list is just names.” He looked to Jehovah. “Does Your Highness have more exact proof?” Even in such crisis His Grace does not forget the title due an Emperor’s Son.

  “Not yet, Your Grace,” Jehovah answered, “but the Commissioner General is close to proof.”

  Ganymede’s lips pursed for a moment—a stifled wince perhaps? “The Commissioner General. How many of their staff know?”

  Kosala’s face grew dark. “Ganymede, you still haven’t answered if you knew.”

  The Duke crossed his arms, the yellow diamond fabric flashing like the Sun without its warmth. “A leader is responsible for the actions of his Hive, regardless of personal involvement. Even if I didn’t know, if my Hive is guilty then I am, so are Andō, Perry, His Majesty, and all others who have led our Hives in the last three centuries.” He waited for Spain to nod. “But blame can wait. What matters now is that we stop the police from exposing this without warning and throwing the world into—”

  “Donatien,” Faust interrupted, “is Ganymede a murderer?”

  It had to be asked, but all eyes, even Faust’s, flinched slightly in the silence before Jehovah’s slow and lifeless answer. “You are all murderers,” He pronounced, “you and your whole world. We had thought that, if humanity left the trees far enough behind, you could leave the war of all against all with them. We were wrong.”

  I sobbed here. So did Caesar, once, the sob stifled stillborn in his throat like a too-hard swallow. He saw it too, I think, the specter of Apollo stirring in Jehovah’s words like a harmonic, played by no one but rising unbidden from the perfection of a chord. We will never be free of you, will we, Apollo? We had not heard these words since Death and I extinguished what we thought was the vital part of you, yet here we hear your voice again, the stronger since it rises from His lips. I choked.

  MASON was stronger. “Mycroft, is Ganymede a murderer?”

  Stares tortured me for three long seconds. “Yes, Caesar. Yes, he is.” Should I not have answered him? I have thought long about it. By law I must answer the Emperor, but it is by choice that we obey or break the law. It is not as if I think the Duke’s guilt would not have come out had I stayed silent. But the choice won me another enemy. Until that moment, Ganymede had thought all the Powers were equally my master, Caesar no more than he, all second to Jehovah. Now he knew otherwise. The Duke does not forgive in general, and certainly not me.

  “Would you like a copy of the list, Princesse?”

  Martin and Dominic had not brought a copy for the lady, but an aide had followed them in, sliding quietly around the back in a monk’s habit much like mine, dull as dust against the gold. Smiling her silent thanks, Danaë reached for the list, then screamed like a rabbit ripped in twain by hounds hot in the hunt, and slipped into that kind of lifeless faint which made Homer call Sleep and Death twin brothers.

  “Danaë!” Husband and brother cried her name together, but Ganymede’s scream tasted of a special panic, as a conjoined twin might scream seeing his other half die first, knowing that he will follow.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” The aide’s hood fell back to reveal a red and seething face. “Danaë is my mother.”

  “Carlyle Foster!”

  I barely had time to throw myself between the Duke and sensayer before Ganymede seized a dagger-long pin from Danaë’s golden hair and lunged. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed. “Parasite! You stay away from my sister! Away!” The steely needle inched close to my throat, while the Duke’s other hand raked me with fingers fierce as talons—better me than Carlyle. “You planned all of this, didn’t you!”

  I seized the Duke’s wrists, sleek as ivory, and forced him back until Andō could grasp him from behind.

  “Ganymede, control yourself!” Andō ordered. “The child didn’t plot this, they know nothing.”

  The Duke strained against our grips, his gold mane bright as fire
against Andō’s black. “Get that creature out of here!” he ordered. “And I want whoever let it in here flogged! No, bring the one responsible to me, I’ll do it with my own hands!”

  Lounging against the shelves of toys and Plato in Jehovah’s corner, Dominic could not entirely suppress a smile.

  “Carlyle, come with me.” Kosala reached for the sensayer’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Don’t tell me I shouldn’t be here, Chair Kosala!” Carlyle slapped Kosala’s hand away like an intruding insect. “I’m the one who gave Papadelias the evidence to expose this whole conspiracy. I’m the one who was almost killed last night by Thisbe Saneer trying to cover it up. I’m the one all of you have been trying so hard to keep in the dark, even you! When we met here before you told me you were just here as an outside inspector.” Carlyle’s hot eyes ranged her tight-corseted bodice, custom made. “You lied.”

  Bryar had a few inches on Carlyle and used them, glaring down with the stern authority of Teacher, Queen, and Mom combined. “It’s my job to protect you, and yours to listen to me. I wish you had.”

  Carlyle’s throat convulsed. “I was happy as a Gag-gene. I didn’t want to know. But I was trying to save you and the CFB. This is the price I paid.” Carlyle winced, feeling tears leak. “You can’t leave me with half the truth. I was born here, wasn’t I? I’m part of this … I won’t call it a bash’.”

  Kosala swallowed hard. “Please wait outside for me. I’ll come as soon as I can, but we have more important things to—”

  “No,” MASON judged, “we don’t.”

  Bryar’s frown looked hurt. “Cornel…”

  A true modern like you, rational reader, would not perhaps allow such melodrama to distract you from Earth’s crisis, but decades at Madame’s have taught even Caesar to think in terms of sentiment and honor. “Foster may be a Cousin, Bryar, but that doesn’t make this your decision. I am the Praeses Maximus. I guard the list of Gag-genes in the Sanctum Sanctorum, and if anyone had told me Carlyle Foster had set foot in this house, I would have summoned them at once to warn them of the danger. It’s too late now.” He stepped a short pace toward Kosala, his limp as bad as I had ever seen. “Foster is in pain, Bryar, the greatest pain they’ve ever experienced.” He glanced at his Good Son, the Source of this strict kindness. “Nothing else is urgent enough to justify extending that.”

  Kosala hesitated. “I know, Cornel, I just … not here in front of everyone.”

  “Why not?” Carlyle’s eyes shot from Power to Power, these distant faces, seen so many times on screens. “Why not in front of everyone? I get the feeling I’m the only person in this room who doesn’t know.”

  I did not know, but did not contradict.

  “What do you know already?” Caesar asked. I knew this voice of his, a special tone reserved for courtrooms, where office makes MASON play the cruel judge, while in another chair he might be merciful.

  Carlyle looked to the princess curled on the couch, tresses leaking from her fallen hair like molten sun. “Danaë is my mother. Is anyone going to deny that?”

  All saw the sheen of gold too strong for the brown tints of Carlyle’s hair to overwhelm, and stayed silent.

  “And my father was some rival of Director Andō’s for Danaë’s hand, yes?” Carlyle continued, each word aimed at Ganymede like a dagger. “Some other young politician Madame was trying to corrupt? But there was some deal made between Director Andō and President Ganymede.” Even in rage, the good-hearted Cousin would not drop their titles of respect. “The two of you used the Saneer-Weeksbooth assassination system to eliminate my father, didn’t you?”

  Ganymede laughed, as if to remind the company that a Duke is above spitting. “Don’t be absurd. Andō was not yet a Director then, and I had never set foot outside this house. How could we use a system we had not even heard of? Merion Kraye was a villain and a coward and I needed no assassin to deal with a worm who would not even face me in an honorable duel!”

  Director Andō half released the Duke, as if testing to see if his haughty calm was real or feigned. “Merion Kraye was, as you say, Foster, a politician,” Andō confirmed, “a young European, and a client of Madame’s, on the middle level. They sought Danaë’s hand but, realizing I was the stronger suitor, they … disgraced her.”

  “You mean they raped her?” Carlyle translated.

  “No.” MASON’s bronze face set statue-hard, but other faces in the chamber seemed unsure.

  Carlyle scowled. “Isn’t that what ‘disgraced’ means in your crazy ancient prejudice?”

  Andō’s stern face turned sterner. “Kraye broke Danaë’s heart. Kraye wooed her, lured her, made promises to her, pressured her into an illicit meeting—with a solemn vow that it would be an innocent one—and there, when the lady would not satisfy Kraye’s mad jealous demands of eternal and monogamous fidelity,” here he glanced at golden Ganymede, “Kraye attacked her. He was caught in the act, her blood on his fists, and would not accept the consequences like a gentleman, kept abusing her with slanders no gentleman should utter. Ganymede and I were only two of the many who offered to duel to avenge the lady’s honor, but Kraye refused. When DNA proved the child was Kraye’s they went mad with rage, attacked the lady, and Madame, and others. Madame dismissed them forever from this house, and Kraye killed themself soon after.”

  Carlyle scowled. “That’s not an answer, it’s a penny dreadful.”

  “Tut,” Dominic warned, his voice deferent here among the princes, but still with its growling undertow. “There, little Cousin, thou malignest our philosophe; Diderot never sold for a mere penny.”

  Carlyle turned to Dominic, hot. “You knew, didn’t you? All of this?”

  Dominic needs to work on hiding his smiles. “Come, this is good news. Thou art a prince, and, with Ganymede childless, next in line to be the Duke. If thou’rt acknowledged thou mayest use one of thine uncle’s lesser titles. I looked it up for thee: Count of Laval is the obvious choice, but thou couldst make a case for Marquis de Royan.”

  Carlyle glared, the true blue diamond sharpness of a scion de la Trémoïlle finally awakening in his eyes. Yes, reader ‘his’; this is the moment for which I was commanded to use ‘he’ for Carlyle. Such are the deplorable laws of aristocracy that a bastard niece might matter little to the Duke, but a nephew, with a nephew comes inheritance, and barbarian blood upon the ducal throne.

  If Dominic had another taunt, MASON silenced it with the raising of his merciful right hand. “Cousin Foster,” he began again, “I understand you have been to this house before. You know what is practiced here. Madame and those employed here know how to lure people into their moral palette, as well as their sexual palette. The Merion Kraye affair was a stock, archaic tragedy dredged back from darker ages, but stock, archaic dramas are why people come here, and they choose it knowingly.”

  “And you just let Madame do this to people?” the sensayer half shouted.

  “I am the law in Alexandria,” MASON pronounced, “not here. Madame and those within this house are Blacklaws. Members who patronize Madame’s establishment do indeed break laws sometimes, as Kraye did by committing assault, against the laws of Europe, but for the residents of the house itself, only the Eight Black Laws stand here. If here Madame wields sex as a weapon, Romanova has no Universal Law to contradict. If here affairs of honor are resolved by dueling, and those who refuse the combat, as Kraye did, are expelled from the establishment, Romanova has no Universal Law to contradict. To ask me to intervene is to ask my Empire to raise its hand against Romanova; this you do not want, for a thousand reasons.”

  That fear—a thousand times the scale of petty Seven-Ten lists—made the Cousin pause.

  “Exactly!” Ganymede confirmed. “This is a civilized house. My sister did nothing wrong. It was that monster Kraye—that criminal—who brought the poison, Kraye who broke the law, assaulted my sister, and tried to destroy her, and my family honor!”

  “That isn’t true!” Casimir Perry
could hold back no more.

  Ganymede’s eyes flashed murder. “What would you know, Outsider?”

  “What do I know?” Perry seethed. “I know the two of you conspired to ruin an innocent man. I know Hotaka Andō paid a king’s ransom for your services, bought you from Madame, set you up in the outside, built your mansion at La Trimouille, arranged your art contacts, your political career, all in return for what you did. I know that whore lying on the sofa over there is not the pure, virginal victim you all pretend. I know Madame knew it all, let it all happen, may even have planned it all themself. And I know that child is not my son!”

  No one breathed.

  Faust moved first, smiling as he checked his gilded pocket watch. “Seventeen minutes, twenty-one seconds, Madame. I win the bet.”

  Madame gathered her skirts, the lacy sea tangling as she attempted to navigate around a tower of cheeses. “Oh, were we counting from when you and Perry arrived, or from when we were all assembled? By the latter count it’s under ten minutes, so I win.”

  Perry bristled like a cornered boar. “What bet?”

  Madame’s fan hid what must have been a smile. “You were doing so well, Merion. All you had to do was sit quietly through this and no one would have known. You’d finally made it back inside.”

  “You knew?” He paled. “You knew it was me?”

  “You think I don’t check all comers to my house? All comers to this room?” The Lady blinked. “A suicide is easy to fake, a face, a voice easy to change, but there are always traces. I never lose track of anyone.” Delicately as a hummingbird teasing the nectar from a flower’s heart, she lifted the silver cover from a tray to reveal a layer cake frosted with the chocolate greeting: “Welcome Back Merion Kraye.” Faust alone contributed applause.

  I heard a hiccupped gasp across the line from the Anonymous, to my relief, and saw raw and innocent astonishment on Caesar’s face, Kosala’s too, Earth’s Mom and stony Father stepping close to one another, as if ready to battle back-to-back for their Hives and poor Earth’s sanity.