The Sundering (19 page)

“I’ve been assuming the wrinkles on the contract are the whole point of the marriage,” Martinez said, “since I hadn’t till last evening actually seen the joyful couple together, or heard the groom so much as mentioned.”

“You would if you hadn’t spent so much of the last few days asleep.” Roland stepped to the front door, put a hand on the polished brass knob, hesitated, and then turned to Martinez. “But why be surprised that they don’t know each other particularly well? Why be surprised that marriage is about money and property and inheritance? Why else bother with it?”

“That carefree, fey romantic spirit of yours,” Martinez said, “will get you in trouble one day.”

Roland gave a grunt of annoyance and launched himself out the door. Martinez followed.

“So what gems are going to fall into our collective laps as a result of this alliance?” he said as he fell into stride with his brother.

“Lord Oda is the nephew of Lord Yoshitoshi,” Roland said, his eyes fixed forward. “Lord Yoshitoshi had two children—the eldest, Lady Samantha, has been disinherited for reasons that have never been disclosed publicly, but which are assumed to be…” He searched for words.

“The usual,” Martinez finished.

“Yes. The usual.” Roland frowned. “The youngest child and heir, Lord Simon, died at Magaria. That leaves Lord Yoshitoshi’s brother Lord Eizo as the heir. And Lord Oda is
his
eldest child.”

“And the presumed heir to Clan Yoshitoshi. Very good. But presumably Lord Oda’s increased prospects didn’t escape the attention of other clans with eligible women. How did we happen to land him for Vipsania?”

Roland’s stolid face took on an expression of grim satisfaction. “Lord Oda’s only the
presumed
heir,” he said. “The elder Yoshitoshis are very strict—remember the disinherited daughter?—and Oda’s got some younger siblings who want the title. Oda also has some debts he preferred his father and uncle not know about—”

“Debts?” Martinez began to choke on laughter.

“The usual.” With a sidelong smile.

“So you bought up his debts, and…”

“The debts will be canceled after the marriage ceremony,” Roland said. “The only thing holding us up was that Lord Yoshitoshi insisted on interviewing Vipsania personally. He let us know just yesterday that she passed her audition.” He smiled. “Now we’ll see how Vipsania runs a video company.”

Martinez tried to stifle his rising hilarity. “Video company?”

“Clan Yoshitoshi and its clients own a majority interest in Empire Broadcasting. That’s two entertainment channels, four devoted to sports, and one to information, broadcasting in all of forty-one solar systems not counting the ones the Naxids currently occupy. We’re going to ask Lord Yoshitoshi to let Vipsania run it. We think he will—he considers broadcasting a plebeian pursuit, nothing like the high culture here in the acropolis that really matters to him.”

Surprise quelled Martinez’s laughter. “Vipsania knows how to run a major broadcasting corporation?”

“She’ll
hire
people for that.” Irritably. “The point is that she’ll be in a position to influence the public about…” He made an equivocal gesture with his hand. “…about whatever we think suitable. As, for example, why you aren’t being given a meaningful command.” He shot Martinez a shrewd glance from under his heavy brows. “You won’t have a problem with an adulatory documentary about your exploits, will you?”

Martinez felt a waft of pleasure at the idea, immediately followed by caution. “Perhaps,” he said. “But it won’t be the public who decides my assignments.”

“I’d prefer something more subtle myself, but we can always keep the broadcast in reserve.” Roland nodded to an acquaintance passing on the street. “The wedding will be very soon, by the way—we’re starting to get the point where I want to get as many of my kinfolk off the planet as possible.”

“I’ve been telling you that for over a month.”

Roland chose to ignore the comment. Passing down the walkway, he and Martinez negotiated their way through a pack of glits—fashionable, decorative young people who chattered their way past, leaving behind a waft of laughter and hair pomade. Glits had been in the mode before the Naxid revolt, but the seriousness of the war seemed to have suppressed them: these were the first Martinez had seen since his return.

“If only we can get you and Walpurga married before the time comes to leave,” Roland continued, after the glits had passed.

Martinez only smiled. Roland gave him a sharp look. “Do you actually have someone in mind? Someone who isn’t a
warrant officer,
that is?”

Martinez increased what he hoped was the mystery of his smile. “Perhaps I do. How are Walpurga’s prospects?”

“Nothing concrete, though there are a number of possibilities.”

“Get her and Vipsania and Proney and yourself off the planet. Do it
now,
whether they’re married or not.” He tried to put all his urgency into the words. “Bad things are going to happen here. I think the Fleet’s going to get another pasting.”

Roland gave a grim nod. “Yes. I think you’re right.”

And where do your schemes go then?
Martinez wanted to ask. But the words never passed his lips: he was afraid that Roland might admit that had been betting on the Naxids all along.

“Which brings us to the reason I’m following you down the street,” Martinez said. “I need an interview with Lord Chen, and I need it as soon as possible.”

Roland gave him a frowning look. “This isn’t about your posting, is it?”

“No. It’s about…” Martinez realized how absurd this sounded even as he said it. “I have a plan to redeploy the Fleet and save the empire.”

To Martinez’s surprise, Roland stopped dead on the pavement, then raised his arm and engaged his sleeve display.

“Personal and urgent from Lord Roland Martinez to Lord Chen,” Roland said. “I need you to meet my brother, and the meeting must be at once. Please respond.”

He lowered his arm and looked up at Martinez.

“Right,” he said. “Now it’s up to you.”

“And you developed this plan yourself?” Lord Chen asked. He had received Martinez—graciously, under the circumstances—in his garden, amid the scent of the purple lu-doi blossoms growing on either side of the walkway. The afternoon was well advanced, and the garden largely in shade, overhung by the sunlit, winged Nayanid gables. It was growing chilly.

“I—” Martinez hesitated. “I developed it with Lady Sula.”

Lord Chen nodded. His dark eyes were thoughtful. “Our two most celebrated officers,” he said. “That speaks well for these ideas. But you realize that this isn’t simply a military decision. It’s political, and of the highest possible order.”

“Yes, my lord.” It
had
occurred to him that the government leaving Zanshaa for the first time in twelve thousand years was very possibly an act of some significance.

Chen frowned. “I’ll send the plan to my sister, for comments.”

Martinez had hoped he would. Squadron Commander Chen had been orbiting the system for over a month now, staring into the oblivion of Wormhole 3, through which the Naxids would come from Magaria with annihilating force and missile batteries blazing. It was very possible that she would welcome any plan that would enable her to evade that confrontation.

“I’ll presume on Squadcom Do-faq’s patience and send the plan to him as well,” Martinez said.

“Very good, Lord Gareth. Ask him to copy any comments to me.”

“I’ll do that.”

A subtle smile played about Lord Chen’s lips. “Blow up the ring,” he said, half to himself. “The idea has a certain barbaric vigor.” He rose. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have several clients waiting.”

Martinez pushed back the chair, made of a long spiral of wire, and stood. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

Chen waved off the inconvenience with a movement of his hand. “I was happy to oblige your brother. Give him my best wishes when you next see him.”

Martinez turned at the sound of soft footsteps on the gravel walkway. He saw a young woman holding a tray with teacups and a teapot. She was tall and black-haired and wore a soft, nubbly suit of an autumnal orange, with a white rosette and its dangling mourning ribbons pinned with pleasant asymmetry to one shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to bother you,” she said in a soft voice. “But I heard you had company, and so I thought…”

She made a subtle movement that called attention to the contents of her tray.

“That was very good of you,” Chen said. He turned to Martinez. “May I present my daughter, Terza? Terza, this is—”

“I recognize Lord Captain Martinez, of course,” she said. Her dark eyes turned to Martinez. “Would you like tea, my lord?”

“I…” Martinez hesitated. His meeting with Chen was clearly over, and it seemed absurd to stop for a cup of tea now.

“I can’t remain,” Chen said, “but if you’d like to share a cup with Terza, by all means stay.” He looked at Terza. “I have Em-braq waiting in the office.”

“I understand.” She turned to Martinez again. “By all means stay, if you have the time.”

Martinez agreed to remain. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. He had no idea who exactly had died, but there were many Peer families who were wearing white after Magaria.

She poured tea, the movements of her hands pale and elegant in the shadowed courtyard.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m told that he was very much admired by his crew.”

“I’m sure he was, my lady,” Martinez said.

“I see from the morning reports that your sister is marrying Lord Oda. Please give her my congratulations.”

“Oh. Do you know Vipsania?”

“Of course. Our families have been acquainted for some time now, while you’ve been off-world making your name.” She smiled. “Under the circumstances, we can’t expect you to know all your sister’s friends.”

Martinez raised the fragile tea cup with its leafy decoration—Sula would be able to tell him its lineage, he knew—and breathed in the smoky fragrance of the tea. He was about to remark that he hadn’t seen Terza at last night’s party, then realized she wouldn’t have attended, she was in mourning.

He sipped the tea to give himself time to think of an appropriately neutral remark.

“Lovely tea,” he managed.

“From our estate in the To-bai-to highlands,” Terza said. “It’s a first cutting.”

“Very nice.” He sipped again, the tea warming him in the growing chill.

Martinez left after half an hour with a vague memory of pleasant twilight conversation with a graceful, soft-voiced woman amid the fragrance of smoky tea and sweet lu-doi blossoms.

Had he met Terza a year ago, he reflected, he would have made a point of calling on her again. But now, as soon as the door of the Chen Palace closed behind him, his mind turned at once to Sula.

He had made plans to join Sula for dinner, then a show or a club. After which they would return to her apartment, the bed, and the scent of Sandama Twilight.

Once back at the Shelley Palace, Martinez started the water steaming into his bath, added a hops-scented bath oil, and then remembered that he intended to send a message to Squadron Commander Do-faq. Since there was a degree of urgency involved, he thought he’d better turn to the message immediately.

He brushed his hair and buttoned his uniform tunic, and faint alarm rang through him as his fingers missed the disk of the Golden Orb from its place at his throat. He checked his pockets, then remembered where he’d last seen the disk—dangling on its ribbon from the erect phallus of one of the Sevigny figures arched over Sula’s bed.

Well. It had seemed funny at the time.

Martinez decided to send the message without the medal. He sat at his desk and activated the camera set into the mirror, and composed a deferent, mildly flattering message to go along with the plan. “We would be interested in any comments you may care to make,” he said.

He watched his words print themselves across his desk, and he made a few changes, then rerecorded the whole thing, without the hesitations and with more polished phrasing. He appended a copy of the plan he downloaded from the sleeve memory in his tunic, then sent the message on. It would take three or four hours for the transmission to reach Do-faq where his squadron was zooming around the other side of Shaamah, and that there would be no reply till morning at the earliest.

His duty toward the salvation of the empire complete, Martinez stripped and settled himself into his bath. The scent of a hops floated to his nostrils. Steam rose. Heat soaked into his limbs.

He thought of Sula, the candlelight glowing on the curves of her body. The touch of her lips. The fine, mad frenzy in her eyes as she helped him draft the operational plan.

He wondered if it were possible to live any longer without these elements in his life.

The comm chimed, a two-tone effect in his bedroom and bathroom both. Martinez thought about answering, but didn’t. He decided he deserved a few peaceful moments in his bath.

The chime ceased. There were a few moments of silence, and then his sleeve comm chimed, a higher-pitched tone than the room comm. Martinez decided that whatever the message was, it wasn’t worth climbing out of the bath, let alone getting his tunic sleeve wet while answering.

There were another few minutes of silence. Martinez told the tap to turn on again and added more hot water to the bath. He’d closed his eyes and was on the edge of slumber when the heavy teak door of his room slammed open. The house trembled.

“Damn it, Proney, I’m in the bath!” he roared in his captain’s voice. These interruptions from Sempronia were becoming annoying.

If she started throwing things again, he thought, he’d make a fine sitting target in the tub.

“I’m not Sempronia,” said a frigid voice. Martinez looked up in surprise from his bath to see Vipsania standing in the door.

“Don’t you ever answer a page?” she demanded. “There’s an urgent family conference downstairs. It’s a crisis—a bad one.”

Vipsania turned and stalked away. “Marriage contract not going well?” Martinez asked after her, but there was no reply.

He toweled, threw on some casual clothes, and bounded down the stairs to find Roland, Vipsania, and Walpurga in one of the parlors. Roland turned his head as Martinez entered. His expression was grim. “Close the door behind you,” he said. “I don’t want anyone outside the family hearing this.”