A Matter of Oaths (26 page)

“Possibly,” Rallya conceded brutally. “There isn’t any
certainty in this, Joshim, but it’s the only chance we’ve got. Rafe’s life is
the least important thing at stake now,” she added ruthlessly. “Julur’s broken
his Oath. At least one member of the Council has broken hers. If we don’t act
against them now, we can say goodbye to the Guild that we know. And we can’t
win against opposition like that without support from an Emperor as well as
from within the Guild. And we have to have something ready to fill the vacuum
that will be left when we’ve won. Which means we need Ayvar.” She laughed
without humour. “Not that I think he’s any better than the other one. He may
even be worse. But he’s the only Emperor I’ve got left to play.”

“You’re talking about giving both Empires to Ayvar? About
changing everything?” Joshim breathed.

His doubts helped to ease Rallya’s own. “If necessary,” she
said more confidently. “If there’s no other choice. Most people live their
entire lives without caring how many Empires there are, or who claims to own
them. It only makes a difference to damned aristos like Rafe who get themselves
involved with matters above their heads. And it’s long past time the Guild
stopped shoring up a ridiculous war whose sole purpose is to stop two immortal
fools from getting bored.”

Joshim inhaled deeply, then let his breath go in a rush. “The
worst thing is, Rafe would agree with you about this,” he said grimly. “Well,
if we’re going to change the shape of history, we’d better get started. I’ll
take over from Vidar in the web. You go and tell the web-room what’s going on.”

Rallya nodded, then took his wrists affectionately.

“Don’t,” Joshim said, refusing the comfort she wanted to
offer.

* * *

Rafe splashed cold water on his face, dribbled it over
his head, temporarily driving back the unmistakable after-pain of a sleepbeam. A
stateroom was the last place he had expected to wake; neither the provosts not
Security habitually provided such accommodation for their guests. Which left a
very large question to be answered: whose guest was he?

Or rather, whose prisoner. When he tried the door of the
stateroom, it was locked. There was an intercomm on the wall that might yield
the answers, but he ignored it in favour of a rapid examination of the rest of
his surroundings. Standard model luxury stateroom, the storage units empty
except for a selection of clothes that were suspiciously close to his size and
had the look of new fabric. An inactive console, hidden behind a decorative
panel of real wood. A range of personal items in the san, all new. Nothing that
suggested how he had arrived here, or why.

He remembered being trapped between Security and the provost
sergeant, catching the edge of a sleepbeam as he moved to avoid it. After that,
his memory was less clear. A condition he should be accustomed to by now, he
jibed at himself. There was a vague impression of being supported by somebody,
then the deadening sensation of another sleepbeam. Then nothing until this
stateroom.

He contemplated the intercomm. Notify his captors that he
was conscious, or wait for them to come to check? Or did they have the
stateroom under observation, and already know that he was awake? It might be
informative to wait, to confirm that he was being watched. He lay back on the
spacious bed.

Wherever he was, he was not aboard a ship in transit; the
almost subliminal vibration of a ship’s drive was absent. Still at Central
then. Or had they kept him unconscious long enough to take him elsewhere, he
thought in an instant’s panic. No. If they wanted to keep him unconscious so
long, they would have used drugs, not a sleepbeam. His headache had the heavy
overtones that only a sleepbeam left behind.

“They could have provided me with some painkillers,” he said
experimentally.

Had Joshim escaped? If he had not had the same bad luck as
Rafe, there was an excellent chance that he had, Rafe decided with relief. Which
meant that
Bhattya
had the evidence
of Yuellin’s record. My old record, he corrected himself, although Yuellin’s
memories still did not seem an integral part of him. That would come, Joshim
had promised; it was the gaps that caused the illusion of distance.

The stateroom door opened with a whisper. Rafe opened his
eyes and looked at the woman who stood there. Ten lengths of gold lace, one of
the provosts had said, and Braniya Lady Rujur was still wearing it. He
remembered the moment in the library when a memory had almost returned and was
only slightly surprised.

“Did you bring the painkillers?” he asked impudently.

She inclined her head courteously. “I did.” She placed two
tablets on a convenient surface. “Should I introduce myself?”

“It would eliminate the possibility that I’ve guessed
incorrectly,” Rafe told her, sitting up and reaching for the tablets.

“Guessed?”

“I don’t recall that we’ve ever met.” Rafe examined the
tablets. They looked like the painkillers they were said to be and he dissolved
them in his mouth gratefully.

“Braniya Lady Rujur, your host,” Braniya confirmed. “And you
are Rafell, a member of the Guild of Webbers. Or you were until your recent
death. And you’re correct. We have never met.”

“I shall have to take your word for that, Lady Rujur, since
I have trouble with my memory from time to time.” Rafe bowed politely. “Including
the period covering my arrival here, and the reasons for it.” Had Braniya
discovered his identity before she intervened, or afterwards?

“You’re here because it suits me to have you here. And since
you are officially dead, the Guild cannot reclaim you,” Braniya added with cold
humour. “Which is to your advantage as well as mine, since there are certain
interests within the Guild who would wish to turn an official fact into
reality.”

Rafe grinned back. “I had noticed,” he said plainly. “It can
be dangerous to be associated with me.”

Braniya took a seat, her lace rustling around her. Armour-cloth,
not lace, Rafe realized. And there was the faint glow of a field-shield around
her head. A powerful woman with her own enemies. Rafe shivered without moving. Braniya
knew too much about him for hers to be a recent interest. Was she the one who
wanted him alive, but identity-wiped? He would have to guard every word, in
case she realized how much he had remembered. Aide to the Old Emperor… A ferreter
in corners, an enforcer of secret policies? Gods, was he part of one such
secret policy?

“We could amuse ourselves indefinitely, fencing with each
other for information,” Braniya said when she was comfortable, her hands
clasped incongruously on her lap like a highbred child. “However, for reasons
which need not interest you, I have a desire to learn certain specific facts
from you and no others. In return for your answers, I offer equally specific
answers to certain of your questions.”

“And if I don’t take your bargain?”

“Then you will never receive your answers, but I will
receive mine, eventually.”

“Whether I wish to give them or not,” Rafe deduced. “Tell
me, Lady Rujur, do you conduct your own interrogations?”

“I have said, there are things about you I have no wish to
learn. But you will be interrogated, yes.” She frowned momentarily. “Or perhaps
not. The decision is not mine.”

“Whose decision is it?”

“Answers for answers, Rafell.”

“What happens if I inadvertently tell you something you’d
rather not know?” Rafe asked mischievously..

“At the worst, I would have to submit to a partial
memory-wipe,” Braniya said calmly.

“I don’t recommend it,” Rafe advised. “It’s an unpleasant
state in which to live.”

Braniya smiled wintrily. “It is nevertheless a state of
living. My predecessor made the mistake of trying to learn too much about you;
it lead to his death. I shall not repeat his error.”

Or at least, not when there is a chance of it being
discovered, Rafe thought cynically. Braniya did not seem to be somebody who
would accept willingly a restriction on her curiosity. And it would be
instructive to learn how she knew about her predecessor’s mistake.

“Were you the one to report his transgression?” he asked
provocatively.

“Your profile says that you’re clever,” Braniya conceded. “Clever
enough to accept my bargain?”

“Or fool enough,” Rafe agreed, lying back on the bed with
his hands under his head. “Your questions, Lady Rujur?”

“Clever and cocky,” she said measuringly. “Why are you at
Central?”

“Because there have been two attempts on my life. To my
knowledge,” Rafe added thoughtfully. “I may have missed others. Or they missed
me.”

“Two attempts only,” Braniya said confidently. “The attempt
to destroy
Avannya
, and the
malfunction in
Bhattya
’s web.”

“Which you believed had succeeded,” Rafe said casually.

“Which I was investigating.” That was all that Braniya would
admit. “Whose idea was it to report you dead?”

“Not mine. At the time, I
was
very nearly dead.”

“
Bhattya
’s
Commander,” Braniya decided. “She’s got a good reputation, in her limited
field.” She would not say that if she had ever met Rallya, Rafe thought with
bleak amusement. It was a slight comfort to think that Braniya was
underestimating one of her enemies. “Why did you come to Central?” Braniya
continued.

“Something Sajan said before she died.” Rafe saw the
briefest frown on Braniya’s face. She did not know about Sajan, but she was not
going to admit it. “I reminded her of somebody she knew in the New Empire. An
aristo called…”

“Not the name,” Braniya said sharply.

Rafe considered giving it to her anyway, out of spite. But
the woman had information he wanted, and might withhold it if he provoked her
too far.

“An aristo from the New Empire,” he continued. “I came to Central
to see if I could read this aristo’s records. Which I couldn’t,” he added
flatly. “The rest you know.”

“Your companion?” Braniya waited a few moments, then
accepted that Rafe was not going to answer. “Your Webmaster lover, no doubt. You’ll
be pleased to hear that he escaped. A shuttle left the station shortly after
you both escaped from the provosts, and joined a ship just over the border of
the Disputed Zone. The ship — which I assume to have been
Bhattya
— jumped within an hour of the shuttle’s return, without
making any attempt to contact Central about a missing crew-member. You wouldn’t
care to speculate about their plans?”

Rafe shook his head. “I couldn’t begin to guess what Rallya
will do,” he said truthfully. Rallya had the evidence that Rafe and Yuellin
were the same person, and that Yuellin could not have been lawfully
identity-wiped. Was she going to gather support from within the Guild, thinking
that Rafe was being held by Central Support, and thus losing his trail when
Braniya took him…?

“Where do you intend taking me?” he asked.

“To the Imperial Palace.” By which she meant the Old
Imperial Palace; like most aristos in the Old Empire, she only admitted the
existence of one Palace.

“For the Emperor, or am I not quite that important?” Rafe asked
with a pretense of arrogance. The idea unaccountably started his stomach
churning.

“For the Emperor,” she said imperturbably. “As you’ve
discovered already, you’ll travel in comfort. The Emperor has ordered that you
come to no harm.”

“Was that before or after the efforts to kill me?”

“There will be steps taken against those responsible,”
Braniya promised. “Elanis Lord Khalem is already enjoying my hospitality.” She
smiled again, with her mouth alone. “Not as much as you are, I assure you. And
he will enjoy it even less, now that his guilt in this in proven.”

Nobody had told Elanis that the Old Emperor was involved,
Rafe guessed; the arrogant aristo would never have had the nerve to go against
Julur’s wishes. But he would get no sympathy from Rafe; for Churi’s death, he
deserved whatever punishment Braniya planned.

“I may give Danriya Lady Carher her freedom a while longer,”
Braniya said thoughtfully, unclasping her hands. “She will make a suitable
diversion to occupy your Commander.” She nodded with satisfaction. “Yes. Carher
will fight for control of the Guild, for the power she hopes will save her. And
while the Guild tears itself apart, who will be looking for a long-dead
Oath-breaker?”

Rafe withheld his reaction, knowing too well that what she
planned was possible and the repercussions would be disastrous. A prolonged
power struggle within the Guild would destroy the impartiality on which its
strength was based, giving the Emperors a chance to gather up the fragments. He
was chilled by the thought of the Guild split between the Emperors, carrying
the war out of the Disputed Zone into regions where people lived. Gods, would
Rallya see the risk? Even if she did, and abandoned the battle before it began,
Carher had nothing to lose.

“Have I answered all your questions?” Braniya inquired.

“What does the Emperor plan to do with me?” Rafe asked. “Or
is that something else he won’t let you know?”

“I can’t say,” Braniya said haughtily. “He has a certain
regard for your physical health, but I expect you to undergo a new
identity-wipe. And perhaps cosmetic surgery to alter your appearance before you’re
placed in a new environment. That will be my recommendation.”

“Recommend another twenty cents in height, would you?” Rafe
asked cheerfully. “I’m getting a pain in my neck looking up at you.”

When she had gone, Rafe closed his eyes and for a moment
gave in to despair behind them. By the time Rallya had wrested control of the
Guild from Carher — and he had to believe that she would do so because the alternative
was too bleak to consider — his memory would have been ripped from him again. And
his face, and his web, he realized bitterly. And this time there would be no
mistakes made in the identity-wipe, no loopholes left through which memory
could return. Under interrogation he would reveal all that he had remembered —
nobody could hold out against the truthseeking drugs — and they would finally
and irrevocably steal him from himself.