Shades of Empire (ThreeCon)

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  “My god,” Alexander said with feeling. “I can see why she wanted to keep you close.”

  “Yes. And of course, some of the other concubines were a little scary, too. Some of them had been shut up there for years, you know, and if my father seldom sent for them, they were often bitter or bored enough to find their own amusements. I know at least two of them slept in the same room every night. I don’t think they were just lonely, either.”

  Alexander almost dropped the spoon, he was so surprised. “How can you know things like that? How can you have grown up in that terrible place and still be so naive?”

  “I am not naive,” she protested.

  “You’re a baby. You’re completely innocent.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said indignantly. “I know very well what men and women do in bed. I used to listen behind a sofa while the concubines talked about it.”

  “Bah! You listened to gossip from forty women shut up with only one man among them, and you think that makes you knowledgeable of the way of the world. Hah!”

  “I do so know what I need to know!” Cassandra said, sounding incensed. “I knew as soon as you asked for Celia that you were her lover. I knew that’s why you came back for her—so you could take her away and make love to her.”

  “I barely knew her,” Alexander said. “I was never her lover. I came back because I felt I owed it to her. I never loved her.”

  She stared at him in shock and confusion. One hand went to her mouth in a gesture of remorse. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “You’ve been very kind, and I had no right to pry.”

  He turned away and busied himself with serving the soup. They ate in near silence, and after dinner, Alexander sat in the parlor, well away from the com, and listened to the news without bothering to watch it. When he got up to go to bed, Cassandra jumped up at the same time.

  “Alexander?”

  “Yes?”

  “Could I ask a favor?” she said in a rush. “Could I keep your shirt to sleep in?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you.”

  He went into the ground floor bedroom and closed the door. In a few minutes, he heard her footsteps going upstairs to bed.

  He lay thinking for a long time before he went to sleep. Cassandra’s questions had reminded him of Celia. He hadn’t thought about her lately, he realized, and he felt almost guilty about that. He tried to put her out of his mind while he fell asleep, but she came back to haunt him in his dreams.

  He was back in the palace. It was dark, the middle of the night. He held Celia’s hand as they crept through the corridors, trying to avoid detection.

  And then they were caught.

  Alexander flinched in his sleep as he remembered his interrogation. He had disgraced the Corps and betrayed his oath. The men looming over him had taken his betrayal personally. The Colonel had given the order to beat Alexander even while he held the tube of nempathenol in his hand that would make force unnecessary. Alexander had tried to pull away when the hypospray was pressed against his neck, but he was bound and helpless, and once it had taken effect, he had told them everything.

  Alexander remembered being dragged aboard the life pod, with Emperor Lothar himself watching as the technicians strapped Alexander down and hooked him into the life support couch. The Emperor’s eyes held a pleased glint when the hologram played the first time, and Alexander saw and heard what they had done to Celia.

  “Alexander.”

  A voice was saying his name gently.

  “Alexander.”

  He sat up suddenly. There was a dark shape in his room. She moved, and in the dim light of Gaulle’s one moon he could see that it was Cassandra.

  “What is it?”

  “You were screaming,” she said. “You frightened me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said curtly. “Go back to bed. I’ll try not to do it again.”

  She didn’t move. “Are you all right?”

  The obvious concern in her voice touched him. “I’m fine. It was just a nightmare. Go back to bed, Lady Cassandra.”

  She still hesitated. Far from moving away and leaving the room, she seemed to move closer. “Could I sleep with you, Alexander?”

  “What?” he said aghast.

  “You don’t have to make love to me,” she said in a rush, “but could I sleep in your bed with you? Please, Alexander? It’s lonely upstairs all by myself.”

  “No!”

  “Why not? I won’t bother you, I promise.”

  “No!” he said forcefully. “You’re not twelve anymore, Lady Cassandra. You can sleep by yourself now.”

  She sniffed a sad sniff. “But I’m cold.”

  “Take another blanket with you.”

  “Please, Alexander?” she said again. There was a break in her voice, and Alexander could tell that she was near tears.

  “Oh, all right,” he said in exasperation.

  He moved over, and she slid under the covers with him.

  “Now, go to sleep!” he said.

  She murmured something and snuggled up next to him in a way that he found very disconcerting. She was so trusting, and so obviously eager for physical nearness that he suddenly found that he had become intensely, almost painfully aroused. He stifled a groan and thought that he would be lucky to get any more sleep that night.

  He lay there tensely for several minutes, and then her voice came out of the darkness again.

  “Alexander?”

  “Yes? What is it now?”

  A hand stole across the bedclothes and slipped under the sheet to rest on his chest.

  “I just wanted you to know,” she said, her voice so low he could barely hear her, “that if you should care to make love with me, I would quite like it, too.”

  His heart was pounding wildly but he tried to keep himself under control. “You’re being foolish again. You’re an almost-princess, and I’m a peasant and a deserter.”

  “I don’t want to be an almost-princess,” she said breathlessly. “I just want you.”

  Alexander decided he had made enough of an effort to be chivalrous and high-minded. He rolled over and put his arms around Cassandra, pulling her tightly against him. When he kissed her, she melted against him, opening her mouth and gasping with eagerness.

  “Oh,” she said. “This is much nicer than sleeping alone.”

  Alexander didn’t answer, as he was busy pulling open the fastenings on the shirt she wore. He was pleased to find, once he got the shirt open, that she was indeed naked underneath it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Peter Barranca waited by the window of a large reception room in the Hall of Justice and wondered if he, too, were under arrest. He sighed and hoped fatalistically that Helena wouldn’t suffer too much before they killed her. He had no hope of saving her. Not all his family’s wealth would persuade the new Emperor to spare a woman who had actively abetted his parents’ assassination.

  Peter took a moment to berate himself mentally, for not realizing what Helena was doing. He had known she hated the du Plessis dynasty, but he hadn’t connected her frequent absences from home with her political leanings. He had thought instead that she was spending time with a lover who was socially beyond the pale. As he considered the matter, it came to him that Helena herself had subtly fostered that notion. He hadn’t thought she could be clever enough to fool him so thoroughly, or foolish enough to become involved in so hopeless and fatal a cause as a revolt against the Emperor.

  The door opened, and Peter turned to see who it was. The well-dressed man who entered the room was a good fifteen years older than he was, and Peter didn’t know him, although there was something familiar about the short, neatly trimmed beard. Peter had steered clear of politics for years. He wished now he had followed the specifics of the late Emperor’s administration more closely instead of dismissing all politicians as iniquitous servants of an evil master.

  “Good afternoon, Count Barranca,” the man said pleasantly. “My name is Sergei P
aznowski.”

  The name clicked in Peter’s memory. He remembered seeing Paznowksi on the news bulletins, announcing the death of the Emperor and Empress. He had also made a proclamation denouncing the traitors and requiring a higher quota of enlistments for the army.

  Peter waited, reluctant to make any opening statement before the other man told him what had happened to Helena.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Paznowski said. “We have rather a lot to talk about.”

  Peter took a seat in a chair by the window. “What do we have to talk about?”

  “Many things,” Paznowski said with a smile. “For one thing, your sister is in a great deal of trouble.”

  “I know that,” Peter said, wondering where this was leading.

  “She’s been charged with treason,” Paznowski said, as casually if he were talking about a sporting event. “The trial is set for next week, and the execution the week after.”

  Peter made no comment on this confirmation that the trial would be a sham. He waited instead to see what it was this stranger had to say about Helena.

  “The Emperor is debating the method of execution,” Paznowski went on. “Tradition favors hanging, but he rather feels beheading would have a more salutary effect on those inclined to support the rebels. Sort of a clever warning—don’t lose your head, don’t you see?”

  Was Paznowski an idiot or was he trying to provoke Peter into some foolish action? Peter got to his feet. “Am I under arrest?”

  “Please, sit down. Of course you’re not under arrest.”

  “If I’m not under arrest, then I’m leaving.”

  The older man smiled. “I think you should stay, Count Barranca. You do want to help your sister, don’t you?”

  Peter stared at him. “How can I help Helena?”

  “Sit down, and I’ll tell you.”

  Peter sat and waited.

  “The Emperor is, of course, devastated by his parents’ deaths,” Paznowski began. “And yet, he’s put aside his grief to think of what’s best for his dynasty. Although there is no way that he can bring himself to contemplate matrimony in his present state, he wants very much to arrange a suitable marriage for his sister, the Princess Vinitra.”

  Peter fidgeted with impatience, wondering what Antonio du Plessis could want with him.

  “The Emperor must find someone from a suitably exalted family,” Paznowski went on smoothly, “but not someone too closely related. Emperor Antonio is very sensitive to charges that the imperial family has become too inbred.”

  “Doubtless,” Peter said impatiently. The late Empress had been Lothar’s cousin in three different ways. “What does this have to do with me or with Helena?”

  “Your family has an extensive heritage here on Gaulle, Count, and yet they have in the past rejected offers of imperial connections. In consequence, you are not in any way related to the Princess that I could determine.”

  Peter’s eyes opened wider in astonishment. Whatever was the man leading up to with this discussion of the Barranca family tree? “I assume there’s some point to this?”

  “Emperor Antonio must be very harsh with poor Lady Helena,” Paznowski went on as if he hadn’t heard the question. “He has no choice, really, because to show her clemency would make him appear weak—unless of course, the recipient of his mercy was a relative.”

  “You just said we’re not related in any way.”

  Paznowski smiled superciliously. “Emperor Antonio would be bound to listen to pleas for clemency if they were to come from say—a brother-in-law?”

  It took Peter a second to figure it out. “You’re proposing that I should marry Princess Vinitra?”

  “That is certainly what I’m proposing, Count Barranca.”

  Peter was too dumbfounded to be subtle. “Why?”

  “I’ve explained the Emperor’s reasons,” Paznowski said smoothly. “I don’t feel obliged to go into it any further.”

  “How about my reasons?” Peter said, still not seeing any need for diplomacy. “Why should I do this?”

  “Emperor Antonio is prepared to give you his personal guarantee that Lady Helena Barranca will not be executed if you agree to marry his sister—on his terms.”

  This sounded both hopeful and ominous. “His terms?”

  “The Emperor is extremely fond of his sister, and in their present bereavement, he could not consent to her leaving home, even on the occasion of her marriage. You would, in fact, both reside at the palace.”

  “I see,” Peter said, thinking furiously. It sounded highly suspect to him. It was true his family was noble and he wasn’t related to the du Plessis, but surely there had to be more to this incredible offer. And why did they want him to live at the palace? “I should think the Emperor would choose someone nearer the Princess’s age. She’s only nineteen or so, isn’t she?”

  “Princess Vinitra is twenty, actually.”

  “Well, I’m thirty-six. She’ll think I’m some kind of old geezer.”

  “I doubt that. You were a war hero in the last rebellion.”

  “She was only eight during the last rebellion.”

  “She has read the histories,” Paznowski said. “This is mere quibbling, Count. Are you prepared to accept the Emperor’s offer of a marriage with his sister?”

  “It depends. Is that the only stipulation?”

  “No,” Paznowski said, looking at his hands. “Princess Vinitra has been raised in the seclusion of the women’s quarters of the palace, and thus has an exaggerated sense of modesty about being alone in a room with a man. You must agree to always keep the room dark when she, ah, visits you—quite dark.” He looked up as he said the words and met Peter’s amazed gaze with a level stare.

  Peter stared at him, a suspicion growing in his mind. He could think of only one reason for keeping the room dark, and that reason was a mystery in and of itself. Why marry the girl off so quickly if she wasn’t to be truly a wife? “She sounds excessively shy. Perhaps she shouldn’t get married just yet?”

  For the first time, Paznowski frowned. “It is essential to the welfare of the empire that Princess Vinitra be married immediately.”

  “How immediately?”

  “The wedding will take place in a week’s time.”

  Peter raised his eyebrows in surprise. For an Imperial event as important as a marriage, it was unheard of haste. Could she be pregnant, perhaps? It seemed unlikely, given her isolated upbringing, but on the other hand it certainly fit the need for haste. “Why such a rush?”

  “The dynasty is in jeopardy,” Paznowski said. His voice was smooth as silk, but Peter sensed a suppressed passion. With a shock he understood that the man was a fanatic. “Emperor Antonio intends that any sons born to his sister shall carry the du Plessis name. If you should have daughters, however, they can be called Barranca.”

  Peter felt a surge of hope. If the Emperor’s situation made him willing to extend this offer, then Peter might be able to save Helena—if he could live with the terms. “And what happens if I say no to this offer?”

  Paznowski made a small, careless gesture with his hands. “It would be unfortunate for Lady Helena and for your family. I believe you have a young brother at home?”

  “Ricardo is only fourteen!” Peter burst out, moving to the edge of his chair in agitation. “He’s not involved in any of this.”

  “Perhaps not. But the Emperor’s sense of justice demands that the family of a traitor must all watch her execution—every one of them. Beheading is very messy, you know, especially if one is obliged to watch it from quite close.”

  Peter stood up abruptly and walked to the window. He had very little choice, but he wanted to find out everything he could before he committed himself. He turned back to Paznowski. “And what happens if I say yes?”

  Paznowski held his hands out, palm up. “You marry the Princess and move to the palace.”

  “And Helena?”

  “Lady Helena would have to remain in custody. We really could not re
lease her, you know—not after what she’s done.”

  “For how long?”

  The imperial adviser shrugged. “Say ten years,” he said, as if the length of the sentence was of little importance. Why? What did they have planned that would make Helena’s sentence unimportant?

  “All right,” Peter said, making up his mind. He sat down again and tried to look relaxed. “I’m prepared to accept your offer and your terms, but I have two stipulations of my own.”

  “Stipulations?” Paznowski didn’t sound pleased at the word.

  “Yes. If you intend to keep Helena in custody, it must be house arrest. Secondly, I must be able to visit her when I wish, to be certain that she’s well.”

  “House arrest?” Paznowski said skeptically. “Barranca House is practically a palace. That hardly seems like a punishment.”

  “You can confine her to the attics if you wish, but it must be house arrest with visitation rights. I won’t accept your terms unless you accept mine. I don’t intend to marry the Princess only to be told the next day that my sister has committed suicide in some gloomy prison cell where the guards abused her.”

  “I will present these stipulations to His Excellency,” Paznowski said, rising to his feet.

  “You do that. And if he doesn’t accept them, then he can find another noble who wants to sleep in a dark room at the palace every night.”

  “It would be disastrous for Lady Helena if he did,” Paznowski warned.

  Peter let his bitterness show in his voice as he stood up. “It’ll be disastrous for her if she stays in jail. Do you think I haven’t heard what the imperial jails are like? It’ll be a miracle if she hasn’t been raped already.”