The Lone Warrior (63 page)

 

 

THREE WEEKS LATER BALLYNEWHAVEN, GREEN IV

 

Gravel crunched as the carriage swept down the long curved drive of the Lord-Scion Harte’s town house. In the dim interior of the luxuriously appointed vehicle, Rose smoothed her long, trailing sleeves, conscious of a sense of trepidation so acute it approached exquisite. Every nerve tingled. Sister in the sky, how long had it been since she’d felt such a pure sensation?

Deliberately, she pulled in a long breath. She’d never been offworld before, but as the Technomage starship speared away from Palimpsest, she’d lain quietly in the safety webbing, staring out at the vastness of space. Tears of awe had sprung to her eyes. She and all those she cared for, they were no more than the merest specks, born alone, dying alone. It gave her mission a certain perspective.

She shivered, reaching up to rub the nape of her neck, but carefully. It wouldn’t do to disturb the coiffure, not when it had taken the combined efforts of two maids to achieve it.

The carriage slowed, drawing to a halt. Hooves stamped, tack jingled. Rose’s lips curved with pure pleasure. Four matched grays. Only the highest sticklers and the most wealthy on Green IV still used horse-drawn vehicles. Between them, Queen Sikara and the Left Hand had spared no expense. The rest was up to her.

She gathered serenity around her, shrugging into it the way she would have donned a cloak. This was her business, her profession—and by the Sister, she was very, very skilled.
A true courtesan creates a persona
, she told her apprentices again and again.
Achieve a certain mystique, make it look effortless, and you’ll be irresistible.

A bewigged footman opened the door and extended a gloved hand. Light from a myriad of glowglobes in fancy sconces washed into the carriage, a wave of sprightly music tinkled in the softly scented air. With considerable satisfaction, Rose observed the footman’s eyes widen as he took in the picture she presented, but he was too well trained to do more than bow and murmur, “Scionelle?”

Hide in plain sight.

Tenderly, the man assisted her to alight. Together, the tips of her fingers resting on his serge-clad forearm, they climbed the imposing stairs, Rose’s gem-studded heels rapping on the flagged stone like a delicate military tattoo.

The great house shone with light and music and laughter, its clean Palladian lines soaring up in a perfection of architectural rationality. As they passed through the columned portico, an impeccably suited majordomo appeared at Rose’s elbow.

He bowed, betraying not a single flicker of surprise or censure. “Scionelle, what name shall I say?”

Rose gave him a contained smile. “I am the Noblelady Rosarina of Caracole.” The queen had insisted on making the title real. Rose’s mouth twisted a little. Ironic when she had a perfectly good title of her own, unused for twenty years and no more than a trifle tarnished.

“Thank you, Noblelady.” Another bow. “I will announce you.”

The ballroom glittered with the cream of the Sciony, the men wearing the pale breeches and fitted evening jackets dictated by convention, the women a bower of tropical flowers, each clad in yards of billowing silk. As they moved in the precise measures of a formal dance, all she could think of was the toy she’d had as a child, a tube filled with shards of colored glass. Shake it and everything shifted, but somehow the patterns always fell into a perfect symmetry. So pretty. So ephemeral.

The dance was drawing to its graceful conclusion, the musicians in the gallery slowing the pace of their plucking and fiddling. Already heads were turning.

Good. Standing at the top of the curving staircase, Rose lifted her chin.

As the last notes died away, so did the conversation. One by one, a hundred people turned to stare. Rose favored them with a tranquil smile, tilting her head as the majordomo pronounced her name. The man didn’t even need to raise his voice. Truly, the acoustics were extraordinary.

The moment she took the first step, the murmurs began, as if a playful breeze had swept across a garden, setting all the flowers to nodding and swaying.

A middle-aged man with sandy hair detached himself from the throng and took the stairs two at a time, meeting Rose and her escort not far from the bottom.

Creases appeared at the corners of appreciative blue eyes. “I am Harte,” he said in a soft brogue. Raising her hand, he brushed it with his lips and gave an exaggerated sigh. “Ah, the beautiful Dark Rose of Caracole. You are even more . . . spectacular than your reputation promised.”

Rose gazed into those clever eyes. “Thank you, Lord-Scion. I am greatly in your debt for the invitation.”

“I had no idea doing a favor for my old friend Purist Deiter would be so delightful.” Harte twinkled. “I am most thoroughly at your service, Scionelle.”

This man had to be a wizard nearly as powerful as Deiter. What sort of hold did the old reprobate have on the Lord-Scion? It must be godsbedamned good, because Magick ran deep and strong in the Harte blood. Aloud, she said, “Forgive me, Lord-Scion, but the correct form of address is Noblelady.”

After an infinitesimal pause, he said, “Of course. And though technically I’m entitled to be called Purist, I prefer Lord-Scion.” She caught a glimpse of teeth.

He offered his arm. “Come, Noblelady. Favor us with your delightful company.”

It wasn’t a request.

“Will you attend the masque at Fitzgerald Court, good sir?” The little blonde twined a shining ringlet around one finger.

The top of her head was about level with Quin’s starched cravat. Scowling, he subdued the impulse to rip the neck-cloth off so he could breathe. For Science’s sake, didn’t these people have any concept of comfort in dress? The fitted jacket of dark green encased his shoulders so tightly he could barely move, while the cream breeches felt indecently snug. The only parts of him remotely happy were his feet. He flexed his toes. The boots were a marvel of engineering, made by hand, or so he’d been assured.

“But how silly of me! The Fitzgerald is your sponsor. Of course you’ll be there. You simply mustn’t miss it, such fun, you know, all in costume. It’s a rural theme, so quaint.”

He’d never liked the slick feel of the Technomage shoes that conformed automatically to the shape of the wearer’s foot. They were made of transplas, whereas real boots—made of real leather—weren’t that easy to come by, let alone in his size. He should order a couple of pairs to take home to Palimpsest, but not in this over-the-knee style. He glanced down. Made a man look ridiculous. Once the job on Green IV was done, he could return to his familiar whites, to his quiet lab and his prototypes. Ah, but the job . . . His pulse kicked up a notch.

“I have a milkmaid gown, all in blue, very simple, very charming. If I wear my hair down, the effect . . .”

As the girl’s voice tinkled on, Quin let his mind wander to the great Machine a mile beneath their feet, the beating, humming heart of Green IV. Now that was a marvel indeed, occupying most of the interior of the planet, drawing power from its molten core to create the atmosphere. Millennia ago, the Machine had been created to gift a barren rock with air and life, with fertile soil and pure water. Without it, none of this—his lips quirking in a cynical grin, Quin studied the silks and satins, the glowglobes sparkling in the chandeliers, the tables laden with elegant morsels and pale wines—none of this
frippery
would be possible. Did the Sciony understand the precarious nature of its existence?

The blonde had apparently run out of breath. Out of the corner of his eye, Quin watched her pretty tits rise and fall beneath the modestly cut bodice as she inhaled. He was bored, not dead.

“Blue’s a good color for me, don’t you think?” She swished her cobalt skirts in a meaningful sort of way.

“Mm,” said Quin, leaning against the plinth of the statue behind him, the marble cold against his flesh even through the layers of garments. The perimeter of the ballroom was littered with the useless things, chilly maidens coyly covering their privates, proud warriors with stony chins and frozen genitalia.

“What’s it like being a real Technomage?” The girl fluttered her lashes.

Quin grunted. He had no ear for music, and no time for it either, but he suspected the musicians were winding down. Good. “Ask a Fitzgerald or better yet, a Callaghan. Look, there’s one over there.” He gestured at a stocky youth hovering near the supper table, but the girl curled a pretty lip.

“Joey Callaghan?” she said with scorn. “I’ve known him all my life. He’s like all the rest of them—such a bore, nothing like a real Scientist. What’s it like to live in a Technomage Tower and have a number for a name? Wait a minute . . . Quintus . . .” Her brow creased. “That’s a word. Didn’t they give you a number?”

“Five.” Was that a stir at the head of the stairs? Some aristocrat too lofty for punctuality.

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“I am the Quintus, the fifth.”

Two figures appeared at the head of the stairs, and though he wasn’t an imaginative man, Quin had the strangest fancy that they stood in a frame, as if posed for an oil painting, the kind hanging in the gallery on the floor above.

Over the growing hush, the majordomo’s voice rose clearly. “The Noblelady Rosarina of Caracole in the Queendom of the Isles.”

Without quite intending to, Quin engaged the Augmentation in his left eye, and the Dark Rose sprang forward, filling his vision and his head.

He’d thought she looked lovely travel-worn and weary at Lonefell Keep months ago, her nose pink with cold. Here, in full plumage, gowned for battle, she stole the breath from his body.

His companion gasped. “Saints preserve us! What in heaven’s name is she wearing? Who
is
she?”

“That,” said Quin, “is the Dark Rose, the most famous courtesan in Caracole.”

“But . . . her
gown
!” Now the girl sounded strangled.

“I like it.”

Quin adjusted the magnification, focusing on the glorious bosom and shoulders rising unadorned from the deep scooped neckline like a flower from a calyx. The dark honey of her skin made all the Scionelles look pale and ill. He knew little of fashion and cared less, but he had no difficulty recognizing sheer nerve when he saw it. Rose’s exotic garment was nothing like the billowing confections worn by every other female present. For a start, it was slimly fitted, the fabric richly textured in flowing patterns in every shade of warm red and soft pink with touches of gold and midnight blue. It looked both heavy and supple, hinting at the movement of shapely limbs beneath. Immediately below her breasts was a sort of broad belt, a band of darker gold-shot material, cinched tight. He could have spanned it with one hand, his thumb brushing the underside of a sweet curve, his smallest finger dipping toward the cup of her navel.

“And her
hair
!”

Blue black and glossy, it swept up to expose the slender nape of her neck, increasing the impression of vulnerability, making a man wonder whether she’d gasp when he ran a fingertip from the warm skin behind her ear all the way over the graceful struts of her collarbones and down into the fragrant shadow of her cleavage. She had the shining wealth of it gathered up in two large . . . knobs? Bunches? Something like that, anyway, and each was skewered with two slender jeweled shafts that winked in the light. A small golden headpiece with graceful upturned corners had been set a few inches back from her hairline.

Quin frowned, a vague resemblance niggling at his memory. Ah. The rooflines of Caracole, like pagodas. “It’s meant to be national dress—I think.” Turning, he blinked down at his companion, his vision filled with cavernous tunnels and hairs like tree trunks. It took him a couple of seconds of fierce concentration to pull the focus back to the blonde’s retroussé little nose. Really, that was too slow. Augmentations required practice.

“Oh look, that’s the Harte! Heavens, he just introduced her to his mother.”

Ah, he loved it when life took a right-angled turn. Fighting to keep the hunter’s grin on the inside, Quin closed his fingers over the cold toes of the stone maiden on her plinth. He knew for certain Rosarina of The Garden of Nocturnal Delights had never had a Technomage as a client or lover because from the moment of their brief meeting at Lonefell, he’d made it his business to uncover every fact about her. He might be a specialist engineer, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten how to research. Far from it. A night’s work and Rose’s history lay bare before him, every protector, every liaison, all the way back to the year she’d first appeared in Caracole—but no further. She’d been nineteen then and by all accounts, unbearably beautiful. The blank years, however, constituted a loose end. Quin did not approve of loose ends.

“Do you know her? She’s dreadfully bold, but oh my goodness, she’s lovely. I just adore those sleeves. So graceful.”

The girl sighed in unabashed envy, and for the first time, Quin looked at her with real attention. No more than a child, really, trying her wings. Pity she was such an empty-headed piece.