Shades of Empire (ThreeCon)

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  “His sister obviously has revolutionary tendencies. How do we know that Count Barranca doesn’t share her sympathies?”

  “She’s only his half sister,” Antonio said, miffed that Paznowski was contesting his choice. “And he must be a good ten or fifteen years older.”

  Paznowski seemed to realize that he was pushing his luck. “Very well, Excellency, if you’re certain he’s a safe choice, I must, of course, bow to your decision.”

  Antonio shrugged. “I’m not worried. We can ensure his compliance by keeping his sister alive but in custody. And in a few years, when Vinnie has had enough sons to guarantee the succession, it may well be that she would prefer to be a widow.”

  Paznowski stroked his beard and looked at his new Emperor with admiration. “I can see that we should deal extremely well together, Excellency. It will indeed be a pleasure to work for you.”

  Antonio waved a hand dismissively. “You set it up for me, Paznowski. The state funeral for my parents is tomorrow, and my coronation the day after that. I shall be busy with both the rites. I want the marriage to happen in a week. You can announce the engagement as a joyous occasion that ensures the continuation of my family.”

  “Shall I retain my title from your father’s administration, then?”

  “Certainly,” Antonio said carelessly. “It’ll make it easier for you to deal with Count Barranca. Make certain,” Antonio said, leaning over in his chair, “that the man understands the limitations of this marriage. I’ll speak to Beaumont and ensure that the sister isn’t abused any further, just in case we need to produce her. We should probably keep her arrest quiet, too.”

  Paznowski bowed deeply. “All shall all be as you desire, Excellency.”

  Antonio watched his new retainer’s retreating back and reflected with a touch of irritation that all would not be as he desired until they found Cassandra.

  • • •

  Alexander put a plate of spicy blue eggs down on the table and sat down to eat breakfast. They were eating rather late, as he had passed a restless night and had overslept.

  Cassandra sat across from him, her eyes downcast and her face expressionless. She had hardly said a word since the night before, when Alexander had shown her to an upstairs bedroom, handed her some bed linens, and left her on her own.

  “Eat something,” Alexander ordered.

  She served herself an egg and a piece of bread and began to eat.

  “Can’t you talk at all?” Alexander said in exasperation.

  She shot him a quick look. “I thought you didn’t want me to talk. I thought you didn’t like me.”

  “I don’t even know you,” Alexander said. It sounded strange to him when he said it, and he realized why. “Why is it that I never saw you before?”

  She swallowed a bite of egg and considered the matter. “I don’t know. Before my mother was banished, I lived in the concubines’ quarters with her. After she went away, my father ordered that I should live in the family quarters, with Vinnie and the Empress. If you didn’t go there, I suppose you wouldn’t have seen me.”

  “You were in the concubines’ quarters the day of the attack,” Alexander said.

  She nodded and cut the remainder of her egg into small pieces. “I was hiding from Antonio. He trapped me a few times recently, and I wanted to keep away from him. He’s not allowed—he wasn’t allowed in the concubines’ quarters.”

  “What happened to your mother?” Alexander asked, curious in spite of himself. “Why was she banished?”

  She nibbled on her bread. “She argued with my father. She wanted him to agree that I could marry where I chose and not be given away as part of some political deal. After a while, my father got angry and sent her away in disgrace. He wouldn’t let her go back to Perrault, where her family still lived. He made her live all alone in a little village in the mountains north of Shugart. She died a few years after that. I think it was from loneliness.”

  “Do you still have family in Perrault, then?”

  She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. My father never allowed me to communicate with my mother’s family, not even after she died. He told me they were peasants, and I shouldn’t concern myself with them.”

  Alexander said nothing, but he poured himself a cup of tea. Cassandra picked up her cup and waited expectantly, but he didn’t pour a cup for her.

  Instead, he pushed the teapot across the table toward her. “I’m a peasant, not a servant. You can pour your own tea.”

  She flushed unhappily and ducked her head. “It’s not what I think or what I said. I would have been glad to know my mother’s family. After my mother died, there was no one who really cared about me except Vinnie, and once she knew about Antonio’s feelings for me, she hated me.”

  Alexander weighed this claim against what he knew. “What about the Emperor? He was your father, and he cared enough to give you noble standing.”

  She shook her head. “Not really. He did it mostly to make the Empress angry, and to give himself a bargaining chip in his dealings with the noble houses. Once I was an ‘almost-princess,’ to use your words, I was a valuable commodity.”

  “So,” Alexander said, studying her across his cup, “what are you going to do now?”

  She looked up at him with her eyes wide in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Alexander said distinctly, “what will you do now? Where will you go?”

  “Go?” she said, her eyes growing wider. “You mean I have to leave here?”

  He gave her a mildly disgusted look. Really, she was unbearably naive. “I don’t own this house. I only rented it for a month. Even if your brother’s soldiers don’t succeed in tracking me down, I can’t stay here forever.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He shrugged. “I might try to reach a space station and then sign on as a crewman on a freighter. It would be easier without this,” he touched the tattoo on his cheek, “but I might still make it.”

  “You mean, you’d leave Gaulle?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes were wide with wonder now, her fear temporarily forgotten. “I’ve never been out of Montmartre,” she said breathlessly. “I never left the palace until yesterday.”

  “Then where will you go now?” Alexander said, forcing her to confront the situation.

  Her face reflected her dismay. “When do I have to leave?”

  Something in the complete panic in her expression made Alexander soften his position. “Not for a few days. I don’t intend to go out at all until things are a little calmer. People in Montmartre are a little skittish right now.”

  She gave a little sigh of relief and returned to eating her breakfast. After a few minutes of watching Alexander finish off his eggs, she asked him a question. “Couldn’t I stay with you?”

  He dropped his fork onto his plate. “No!”

  “Why not?”

  He gave a large sigh of exasperation. “Because I’m not a babysitter. I have to earn a living, and you need someone looking after you constantly.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re helpless, just like a baby.”

  She was plainly stung by this criticism, but she didn’t respond to it. Instead she finished her food quickly, jumped up and cleared her plate and cup from the table, and put them into the sink. Then she stepped back and stared at the dirty dishes with a forlorn expression on her face.

  Alexander rose and carried his own plate over to the sink. “Move out of the way. I’ll wash them.”

  She put her hands over her face. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair! You don’t like me because I don’t know how to do things like this, and it’s not my fault.”

  Alexander handed her a dishtowel. “Here. You can dry.”

  She was mollified, and if she needed instruction even in how to do this simple task, at least she was willing to learn.

  Once they had cleaned everything up, she looked around the kitchen with satisfaction. “What do we do
now?”

  Alexander dried his hands on the towel she had hung up. “I’m going to watch the news bulletins. You can please yourself.”

  She trailed after him as he went back into the parlor.

  The only com Alexander had brought with him was very small, so they were obliged to sit quite close to it to see the screen. Alexander couldn’t help noticing that the faint odor of the garbage cart still clung to Cassandra’s hair and clothes.

  “You know,” he said, “you need something else to wear. You can’t go around like that all the time.”

  “Why not?” Cassandra said, a little miffed. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

  “They’re too elaborate for every day. And they’ve spent the night in a garbage canister.”

  First she looked appalled, and then she looked as if she were going to cry.

  “We can put them in the clothes fresher,” Alexander said hastily. “There’s one in the pantry. I’ll give you something else to wear while they’re being cleaned.”

  She looked away and bit her lip. “Thank you,” she said, stiff with mortification. “Is it all right if I take a bath?”

  “Of course. There’s soap in the bathroom, but I forgot to buy any bath towels, so you’ll have to use a blanket.”

  He gave her a shirt and a pair of pants, but when she came out of the bathroom with her dress and other clothes rolled up into a bundle, she was wearing only his shirt. It came down to mid thigh on her, and she looked a little embarrassed as she explained that the trousers were simply too big.

  Alexander took her clothes wordlessly and went straight to the pantry to put them into the fresher. Somehow, Cassandra looked like a different person wearing nothing but his shirt. She looked like more a child than a princess, and Alexander found it very hard to despise her.

  Alexander noticed as he was putting her gown into the fresher that Cassandra had also included all her underclothes in the bundle. He couldn’t stop himself from wondering if she were naked under his shirt.

  He tried not to think about it as he went back into the parlor. Cassandra was sitting on a hassock right next to the com, and he pulled up a chair and sat near her.

  She turned to him and flashed a smile of pure delight. “It’s good to be clean again. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” How would he keep her at a distance if she smiled at him like that again?

  They watched news bulletins and entertainment programs for most of the day. A highlight of the news was the plans for the double funeral of the late Emperor and his consort. The elaborate ceremony would take place in the cathedral in Montmartre and the new Emperor would attend, although it was announced that both of Emperor Lothar’s daughters were too grief-stricken to leave the palace.

  “Why would they lie like that?” Alexander asked. “You’re not even there, let alone grief-stricken.”

  “I don’t know,” Cassandra said, unconcerned by the lack of official recognition of her disappearance. “But lying comes naturally to Antonio. It was probably his idea.”

  Once her clothes were clean, Cassandra went upstairs to change back into them. When she came down, she marched into the parlor where Alexander sat and held out her clenched fist to him.

  “Here,” she said. “Take these.”

  “What?” he said, getting to his feet.

  “Take them,” she insisted, backing up a step.

  He held out his hands and she dropped two gold bracelets and a pair of ruby earrings into them. “What’s this for?”

  She looked up at him with an earnest expression on her face. “I want you to have them. They’re all I have to give you to say thank you. I’m sorry it isn’t more.”

  He handed them back. “You don’t need to thank me.”

  She didn’t take the jewelry. Her eyes sparkled again as she looked at him in distress. “Do you hate me so much that you won’t let me thank you?”

  “I don’t hate you!” Alexander almost shouted. “You don’t owe me anything. Keep your jewelry. You might need it later.”

  She flushed and held her hand out. When Alexander put her trinkets into her palm, his fingers brushed hers for a moment, and he felt a strange rush of excitement.

  “I have to go make dinner,” he said abruptly, and he wheeled around and started for the kitchen.

  Cassandra followed after him like a puppy tagging after a child. She watched him pull pans and food containers out of the cupboards, and then she asked a question.

  “Do you think you could teach me how to cook and clean?” she said, sounding unsure of herself. “I’ve been thinking, and if I could get a job as a maid, I might be able to stay hidden. Antonio would never think to look for me in a hotel or an inn somewhere.”

  This fanciful suggestion made Alexander smile. “No one in his right mind would take you for a chambermaid,” he said with finality. “And you’d probably get into a lot of trouble if you tried to work as one.”

  “Why?” Cassandra said, looking a little indignant.

  “Because you’re a very pretty girl,” Alexander said, doing his best to sound stern. “Male travelers are notorious for making advances to chambermaids.”

  “Are they?” Cassandra said, clearly intrigued. “Why?”

  “Agh!” Alexander said in irritation. “Don’t ask such foolish questions! Hand me that spoon.”

  She passed the required utensil and watched what he was doing. “Do you really think I’m pretty?” she said after a while.

  Alexander looked up from stirring a pot of soup to find her watching him intently. “Yes.”

  She turned a rosy, golden pink color. “Ama always told me I wasn’t beautiful, like my mother. I didn’t think I was pretty. My father’s concubines were all so beautiful, it was hard to think of myself as pretty.”

  “Who’s Ama?” Alexander asked, getting two bowls down from the cupboard.

  “She was a servant who looked after me when I was little. She slept in our room, my mother’s and mine. Whenever my father would summon my mother, Ama would take her place sleeping in our bed.”

  Alexander looked up in surprise. “You slept in your mother’s bed when you were small?”

  She nodded. “Not just when I was small. I slept in the same bed with her until she was sent away, and that was after my twelfth birthday.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” Cassandra said thoughtfully. “I think my mother worried about me all the time. It was easier for her to sleep when she wasn’t worried about me.”

  “What would she worry about?”

  She gave a borderline shrug. “There was the Empress. She was something to worry about, believe me. And then Antonio tried to molest me when I was ten. I told Mother about it, and she was afraid for me after that.”

  “You were only ten?” Alexander said with distaste.

  She nodded. “My mother took me to visit my father every so often. He was tired of her by then, but he wanted to see me occasionally. He wanted to see if I was growing up to be pretty and well behaved. He hoped to offer me as a reward to some noble, and a pretty and suitably meek ‘almost-princess’ was more of a prize than one who was homely and boisterous.”

  “So it was more of an inspection than a visit?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Only this time Mother was looking very beautiful, and Father was overcome with desire for her. He told me to wait on the sofa and then he took her into his bedroom.”

  “What happened then?” Alexander asked, both fascinated and repelled by the world in which she had grown up.

  “I was sitting there kicking my heels when a panel in the wall slid open. It seems there’s a secret door tucked away in an alcove in Father’s sitting room. It leads to a sort of tunnel, and Antonio stepped out of that door. He was about sixteen then, and Father had just told him about the tunnel, so he was trying it out.”

  “Really?” Alexander said, much struck by the implications of this circumstance.

  “Yes,” Cassandra said artlessly. �
��I wondered about it when you told me Father was dead. It seemed strange that he didn’t get away, but maybe he didn’t have time?”

  “Maybe,” Alexander said. “Anyway, go on with your story. What happened when Antonio came out of this hidden door?”

  “He saw me sitting there all alone, and he asked where my mother was. I told him, and he smiled that dreadful smile he has—it gave me the shivers. ‘So the whore’s earning her keep for once?’ he said.

  “I didn’t say anything because Mother had taught me never to quarrel with him but I must have looked angry because he seemed pleased. And then he asked me if I had ever been inside the secret tunnel. When I said no, he asked me if I wanted to see it. I was very young, and the idea of anything secret like that was very tempting. I said yes, and he took my hand and led me toward the alcove where the opening had been in the wall. He opened it by twisting a sort of spiral carving that was part of the molding, and we went in together.

  “It was dark for a second, and then lights came on as we walked. When we got to the end, Antonio opened the door, and I saw that we had come out in a parlor. It had two yellow sofas, and a big mirror on the wall. The hidden door opened right next to the mirror.

  “There were some carved figurines on the table under the mirror. I went over to look at them, and Antonio came up behind me. He slid his hands under my dress and tried to fondle me, but I pulled away from him. He smiled that evil smile again, and told me it was no use running away. He told me he was the Crown Prince, and I had to do what he said.”

  “What did you do then?” Alexander asked, horrified at her calm description of this adolescent assault on a child.

  “I picked up one of the figurines and threw it at him. It missed his face by a few centimeters, and he got angry at me. He called me names then. ‘I was just going to feel you up a little,’ he said, coming toward me, ‘but now I think I’ll teach you your mother’s business.’ He was scaring me, so I picked up an ornamental flower stand from the table, dumped out the flowers, and rushed at him. I took him by surprise, and managed to hit him right in the stomach with the point of one of the legs. I didn’t know to aim for the groin. Anyway, the blow was enough to knock Antonio down. When he started groaning in pain, I looked around the room and realized the mirror had the same spiral design on the border. In a few seconds, I found the right place to open the hidden door, and ran back to my father’s sitting room. Within a minute or so, my mother came out alone. She could see I was upset, but she wouldn’t let me tell her about it until after we were back in our own quarters.”