by Blaze Ward
“Should I fix you a drink now?” Stephaneria asked in a polite voice. “Docking should take perhaps an hour. There will be time to prepare for him.”
“Yes, please,” Athanasia nodded. “But remember that Iulianus Palaiologos must prepare for me. I have already laid the trap. He will either step into it, or around it, but that occurs now.”
Stephaneria nodded silently and busied herself with bottles and glasses as Athanasia took a seat on the sofa and allowed a deep breath to calm her. It was almost as dangerous a situation as preparing annual budgets with the Solarians had always been. But she would prevail here, as she had there.
Her consort returned with two glasses and handed her one.
“Sit in the chair,” Athanasia commanded lightly.
Otherwise, the woman might kneel at her feet and rest her head on Athanasia’s knee. Such was the relationship they had settled into. Fire mixing with fire in the sleeping chamber, but much more controlled and shielded elsewhere.
Athanasia studied the lithe, former librarian who had transformed herself into the second harpy of the ancient trinity of vengeance. Idly, Athanasia wondered if she should recruit a third, just to complete the symbolic coven. Perhaps tomorrow.
“Our quest continues,” Athanasia began, watching the impact of the words on the other woman.
“I faced decades of declining relevance and spinsterhood, my lady,” Stephaneria replied softly. Not wistful. Perhaps a terrible rage carefully banked down like the blacksmith’s forge fires. Athanasia wasn’t sure how much of what she saw in the woman was rage, and what portion insanity. Stephaneria might not know. “The possibility of an occasional encounter with travelers, much as my uncle sometimes allows himself, but I am well past the age when a younger man would look upon me with naked lust. If vengeance on Tarasicodissa is to be the thing that sustains me, I look forward to bathing in his blood.”
Yes, she may have been twisted beyond all recognition by those that might have once known her, but Athanasia knew how few friends the Librarian of Bohrne Station had accumulated. No other lovers since her divorce, leaving her emotions raw and easy to tap.
A fire that had been kept hidden.
Not for the first time, Athanasia wondered about the fool that had let a woman of such passion and intellect get away, but she supposed that those same things could intimidate a lesser man or woman. Perhaps drive him to find a bubbly teenager with large breasts and not even such brains the Creator gave a sheep.
Men were like that. Unwilling to invest in the patience to unearth diamonds hidden in the stone. Intimidated by a woman smarter than they were. Or more capable.
And so the man had cast this amazing woman onto the ash heap of history for a floozy, without ever considering how much pleasure could be derived from those quiet passions.
“And after we sate our vengeance?” Athanasia asked.
She had to remind herself that there was a brilliant intellect there, however much the emotions had been warped over the short term. A woman smart enough to be appointed a Librarian. The Keepers of Knowledge, if not wisdom.
Stephaneria shrugged and took a sip of her drink. Athanasia did the same. Whiskey with a sweet/sour layer both above and below. Tart enough to keep you focused. Mellow enough to sand the edges off.
Yes, this woman understood the coming situation far better than she let on. Far better than anybody not in this room probably understood.
What else was she hiding?
“What will you do, with your purpose fulfilled?” Stephaneria asked. “You cannot imagine that the Dominion will welcome you back, even with Dave Hall’s head on a spike.”
“Indeed,” Athanasia agreed. “They would fête me for a time, then retire me off to a quiet planet, far from the centers of power. Or perhaps arrange a quiet accident when nobody was watching.”
“So you will remain in Wildspace,” Stephaneria said. It was not a question, but an observation. And a keen one. “You will carve out your own power base here, presumably by building an empire or conquering one, and then live out your days as a queen. Perhaps you will be in need of a librarian. Perhaps not.”
“And you have no strong feelings, one way or the other?” Athanasia asked carefully. Not surprised, but also not assuming anything, since everything was shortly in flux.
“I was hollow,” the librarian said. “You found me, and filled me with purpose. Or fanned that anger that was already there when he left me for his floozies, but you gave me something greater to look forward to than brooding in anguish. I serve your body and your mission now, and in turn serve my own. I do not know what I will do. What place is there, for a middle-aged woman divorced and cast aside?”
“There is vengeance,” Athanasia offered with a knowing smile.
She was also middle-aged and cast aside.
“Yes,” Stephaneria agreed. “And I suppose that I might spend the rest of my life exacting it on the innocent men around me, or your Court if I chose that outcome. I could bathe in fresh blood regularly and teach them to fear all women, and not just the grand, evil Widow.”
She laughed throatily, and Athanasia joined her. Had they time, she would have considered dragging the woman into the sleeping chamber to again tap that exquisite depth of emotional power. Were Stephaneria a man, Athanasia might find fulfillment in her alone, but there were still times she desired a different sort of pleasure instead. Perhaps as well.
But Dominion-427 was waddling slowly into dock. Captain Palaiologos would join them shortly, and either be initiated into their conspiracy or cast from it bodily.
Athanasia hoped it was the former. He could serve her other needs far better than Butler Vidy-Wooders, she suspected. Most of them, anyway.
Taming a physical, intimidating monster like the M’Rai the hard way, breaking him to the bit, would be a grand adventure Athanasia looked forward to. And the first step to bridling all the other men she encountered.
She shared a devious smile with Stephaneria, wondering if the woman was sane enough to eventually become her successor.
Or just another victim.
14
Iulianus
Iulianus faced the door with some level of trepidation. The woman within might not be a true praying mantis, but there was still risk. He must enter her lair now and convince this dangerous, dangerous woman of his sincerity in joining her cause.
If he failed, she would probably just send him home, where his mission would be a fiasco. If he betrayed her later, it would be an interesting question if he could sway enough of the crew to support him, or if his head would hang from the ship’s bowsprit as a warning.
There would not likely be any middle ground available tomorrow.
Iulianus pressed the buzzer that would announce him. The door opened immediately, but those inside had felt the minor earthquakes that accompanied docking, so they had known he would be coming.
Inside the salon he walked, as far into her chamber, her life, as he had ever entered.
Again, that could change. It was possible she would demand physical submission, as well as emotional. It helped that the woman was still physically attractive. He could remain interested in her body.
The Widow stood in the middle of a space formed by two sofas and a chair. Cozy enough for conspiracies, which were only successful when they were kept small.
She had not changed clothes from the ankle-length belted tunic and leggings she had worn earlier, a dove gray cloth that hinted at impenetrable mists hiding cliff edges. The Widow’s blond hair was up in a triple-braid today, with those in turn loosely tied together.
He had never seen her hair down, but it must come nearly to her knees unbound. Iulianus would only ever discover that after they were intimate.
If he survived.
The other woman was not present. The assistant they had brought aboard at Bohrne Station, so long ago emotionally. All the doors were closed, forming a compact conspiracy of two for now.
“Madam,” Iulianus said as he came to
the correct distance and bowed his head the precise amount her station demanded.
More would be too much right now. Less would be an insult best not delivered today.
“Captain,” she replied in a cool voice. “Sit here, we must talk.”
She gestured him to the near sofa, rather than the chair. It would allow her to sit close later, if she chose.
He risked it.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked in a lighter voice, pretending that this was merely another social call.
“That would be preferred,” Iulianus replied.
He would not drink so much as to impair his judgment, but a hint of alcohol right now would probably serve to lubricate the coming trial. At least she remained dressed like the warrior matriarch she was, rather than having changed into something perhaps intended to seduce his eyes.
Mind first. Body second. Soul never.
He watched her move with interest. Her face was too cold and precise, but when she turned away, she displayed the hard muscles in her back and bottom, those of a woman trained to the sword. That had not faded, regardless of the woman being nearly two decades older than he.
She glanced up from her bottles with a knowing smile on her face and in her eyes, as if she had displayed herself to him for exactly this reaction. Iulianus allowed himself to smile back, ever so fleetingly.
He could not imagine remaining in her employ, as mutineers or pirates, without some level of physicality. They were not children to shy away from such a thing. While he had never taken a wife, Iulianus had very little doubt who the woman’s previous husband had been. No intelligent man would dare fornicate with such a woman.
At least, before.
Now, who was to say?
If his mission required abject stupidity on his part, at least her smile promised that he would enjoy it.
Two glasses mixed. Both tasted briefly as she worked, confirming that the taste was correct. Hopefully, also that she had taken the correct antidote, if that was the agenda, and his death by poisoning would be quick and painless.
That might still be a preferable ending.
Iulianus smiled as she handed him a glass and returned to the chair, folding her feet under her gracefully, like a cat.
He sipped enough for the poison to presumably take hold. Whiskey with juice. Quite well done, too.
She smiled. He smiled. They drank and stewed in silence.
“How much latitude do your secret orders allow?” she asked abruptly, cutting through nearly thirty minutes of conversational gambits and evasions normally called for here.
Because he had spent the last tenday preparing for this conversation, Iulianus did not sputter denials or choke on the drink that he was taking as she spoke. That would also tell her things.
Perhaps she had already guessed at his purpose, or read his mind. Or was just that devious. But then, he already knew how dangerous this woman was.
“More than normal,” he deflected the question, hopefully far enough to one side that he didn’t end up bleeding afterwards.
“I can never officially return to the Dominion,” Athanasia stated. “I think we can dispense with any charades to the contrary. If I remain here, I will need competent men and women, those I can trust, in key positions.”
Iulianus nodded. She hadn’t asked a second question. Hopefully, the other woman wasn’t sneaking up on him right now with a garrote or something similar.
“Would you continue to serve me in some capacity?” Athanasia asked in a careful, sidelong way that seemed to track his mental evasions like a cobra watching the piper play.
Not Will. Would?
“I might,” he offered. “Depending.”
There. No more. No less. What do you demand? What will you offer?
“Empire,” the Widow cast the words out into the hollow space between them, perhaps to see if the chasm would swallow them. “I have decades left in me, Captain Palaiologos. And wealth enough to walk off this deck and buy a ship of my own. From there, I intend to carve out my own place, rather than return to the Dominion as a beggar, hat in hand.”
If she was who he expected her to be, without any confirmation, she was unlikely to wish to bear more children as possible successors to her crown, in addition to the two he knew of back in the Dominion. The Librarian would be young enough. Or there could be others.
“And my place in your vision?” he asked simply.
There was no edge to the tone that might insult or anger the woman. Merely a man asking to clarify something he did not clearly understand the first time.
“I need someone like Butler Vidy-Wooders for his knowledge of Wildspace,” she said. “At least until I find someone better. Almost anyone will do at this point. I will never trust that man to command a ship I own. Bohrne Station clarified for me what kind of creature that M’Rai truly is. I need someone I trust to command a warship in my service. To command fleets, when I build them.”
She paused there, dangling the bait in front of him, probably just to see if his price was that low. Or if his secret orders left him that little latitude.
Iulianus shrugged slowly and deliberately. He watched her with flat eyes. The kind she probably saw in the mirror when she forgot to pretend she was someone else.
“I will have other needs, as well.”
Her voice had taken on a smoky tone now. A woman speaking, and not just an inviolate queen carved from the blue depths of an iceberg.
Iulianus allowed himself to study the woman as a woman now. Ogle her some, as she watched. If she was offering herself, he would need to understand what that quagmire promised. As much as he might enjoy her.
“I could simply depart with Dominion-427,” he smiled in a rough, biting sort of way. “Anything less would technically be mutiny on my part, depending on how they would interpret my various orders.”
Plural. Public and secret. Who knows what they told me to do?
“And what would you return to, Captain?” her own edges came out now. “Another decade or three of flying important busybodies around Dominion Space? Perhaps a desk job at some sector base where you count the days until you retire, and then the days until you die?”
“It is a safer bet than dereliction of duty becoming piracy, Madam,” he countered carefully.
“And a more boring one, as well, Captain,” she smiled. “Out here, there is the potential for danger, for wealth, for glory. If you wish to take it.”
“Is that all?” he drawled, allowing his eyes to show off the least amount of leer.
If you intend to seduce me into sedition, Widow, the price you pay will be so much higher than mere piracy. Nothing you can’t meet, but nothing you can wave off cheaply either.
Perhaps your soul.
Her smile suggested that the tendency of the conversation did not surprise her. Nor, possibly dismay her either.
“There are other rewards one might aspire to, Captain Palaiologos,” her voice drifted lower and became almost sultry as he listened. “But those require a deeper commitment.”
Yes, he had no doubts about that. Praying mantis. At least if he stepped wrong.
But at a deeper level, she was right. What did he have to look forward to? He would never command one of the great warships in battle. Never stand in high orbit over some prostrate planet as his assault squadrons fell from the sky. He would perhaps be rewarded by the Lords of the Armada for returning her head in a vacbag. Doubly so if he also had Dave Hall and the others with him at the time.
What would it gain him? As she had said, perhaps a notation in a file that the man was more dangerous than originally calculated. Or perhaps not. They had chosen him for this mission. Certainly a medal of some sort, then. Promotion to the ground somewhere, where folks might remark how important he was, as he slowly atrophied into senescence.
Retirement then. Death at some point after that. Nothing that would mark his passing.
Iulianus Palaiologos could not remember the passions of his youth that had
driven him to Dominion service. He had lived a careful, deliberate life and career for more than two decades. It had brought him here.
Wherever here was.
He recognized the precipice. Wondered if the Lord of the Dominion Armada would be surprised by his choices, or if they already knew his vision of duty would drive him to apostasy.
The Widow was offering herself as the ultimate reward for his loyalty. If they survived piracy, presumably there would be other things that might sate his fancy.
He would have to think up things to fill in that empty place in his soul that duty and service to the Dominion had once fulfilled. As she said, she could not return, any more than he could if he accepted.
“I will need to think,” Iulianus offered as an evasion, a delaying tactic.
As if he hadn’t already gamed this scenario out many times, with outcomes that ranged from him dead on the deck of poison to a rambunctious threesome in the main sleeping quarters with the librarian from Laurentia.
“You do not have long, Captain,” she purred at him, smiling as if she had already won. “My mission will not wait.”
“Please, call me Iulianus,” he said, moving them beyond the mere relationship of politician and servant to something darker. Deeper.
More dangerous.
“In private,” she said with a gleeful smile, as if she had already burned her brand into his shoulder. “And you will call me Athanasia, Iulianus.”
“Athanasia,” he said, tasting the power of her name and wondering where it would take them next.
But everything else was a performance now. He would allow himself to be seduced from his formal duty by dreams of lust and avarice.
He might even live to enjoy them.
15
Glaxu
Longshot Hypothesis was successfully away, and Glaxu was playing at being bereft and lonesome. Outermost had been moved to a cheap dock, the sort of long-term place where locals might store a vessel. It was a long walk from anyplace interesting, in one of the older, more worn sections of the station.
