A Prison Unsought Read online

  “But not the power,” Willsones said.

  Nyberg’s memory flashed to the iconic statue in the gardens of the Palace Minor, seen only once in person. He flicked his fingers over the admiral’s stripes on his sleeve. “That’s number two: this uniform makes me officially powerless.”

  Willsones sat back, musing. “I wonder what Eusabian thought of the Laocoön, if he’s seen it?”

  Her statement, unsettlingly parallel to Nyberg’s, demonstrated once again why rumors of telepathy had dogged her entire career, despite her null certificate from Synchronistics.

  One hand strayed lightly across her blanked compad. “Do they have snakes on Dol’jhar?”

  Nyberg appreciated her attempt at humor—release—a moment to mentally regroup. Before he left this room he was going to have to make a decision. They both knew it.

  He snorted. “Probably. With fur, no doubt.” The tightness between his shoulder blades eased a fraction.

  “Ours run more to silk and jewels, don’t they?” She uttered a dry laugh, more like a cough. “This vid will be like whacking the whole ball of them with a stick. Just don’t give them time to think.”

  Nyberg straightened with decision. “Right. We’ll release the vid at 1800 hours, or whenever Brandon leaves the Enclave for Burgess Pavilion. But the senior officers will view it first. And . . . ” He knew his duty. “Damana, you knew the Kyriarch Ilara, I believe.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and the precision returned to her voice. “Yes. Through my daughter. They were at school together, before my daughter chose Minerva and the Navy, and Ilara caught Gelasaar’s eye.”

  “I’d like you to invite the Aerenarch to join us in the Situation Room. This is not an order. Merely a request.”

  Willsones inhaled and laid her hands carefully to either side of her compad, hearing in Nyberg’s voice the unspoken apology for such a trespass. But she could not deny that she was perfectly placed for such a duty.

  Times were too desperate for resentment, and so she did not ask him why he didn’t do it himself. What is it you fear seeing in young Brandon?

  With most other officers, Willsones would suspect that personal fears of career suicide might override anything short of outright riot. But she’d known Nyberg since the Academy. She’d be surprised if his concern here was himself.

  “I’ll do it.” She let out her breath. “Ilara was a remarkable young woman. Her death unmoored all of Gelasaar’s sons, none worse than Semion.” She looked directly at Nyberg. “ I admit to some curiosity about how much of her inheres in Brandon Arkad.”

  “Good. This may shock him into talking, and the simplest solution for all of us would be if he talks to you. Tells you what happened on Arthelion, and then we will get a better sense of, ah, who he is. How we must act.”

  She uttered a strangled sound that bore no resemblance to a laugh, though she’d meant to keep her sense of humor. “An apolitical in a situation positively mined with political fallout?”

  With that she rose to her feet, trim and decisive in her movements in spite of her age. “I’d best comm the Enclave immediately.”

  Nyberg rose with her, tabbing his boswell as he walked her to the door. His punishment for loading this task onto her was the daunting pile of urgent communiqués building. “I am in your debt, Vice-Admiral,” he said, formality—and the clear obligations of duty—restored.

  o0o

  Jaim, once a corridor rat of Rifthaven and now sworn man to Brandon vlith-Arkad, reflected that the Arkadic Enclave might look like an old-fashioned villa designed for recluses, but there was nothing outdated about the gymnasium beneath the main chambers.

  Since Brandon had cut their sparring practice short to meet with a tailor that some nick had sent, Jaim used the time freed for a private workout.

  It was there that the former Douloi neurosurgeon-chef who called himself Montrose found him.

  Jaim was aware of the big man standing, fists on hips, as he looked about with an appraising air. Jaim continued the two-sword kinesic without missing a beat.

  Montrose, in his turn, took the opportunity to watch the young engineer. Montrose had been worried about Jaim ever since the Telvarna had returned from their triumphant raid on Arthelion to discover their secret moon base on Dis replaced by an enormous crater in a moon cracked in half, and their other ship left as a taunting abattoir. No one had survived.

  Including Jaim’s beloved Reth Silverknife.

  “Montrose?” Jaim asked.

  “Done?” Montrose asked.

  Jaim indicated the energy weapons. “I was going to run the holo and do some shooting.”

  Montrose eyed Jaim, whose tight-leashed energy seemed scarcely abated, though sweat dripped from the mourning chimes in his braided hair. “I’ve been worried about you,” he said.

  “No need,” Jaim responded, as Montrose had expected he would.

  “Well, I am,” Montrose continued imperturbably. “Ever since Dis.”

  “I would worry about Vi’ya,” Jaim said as he wiped down the swords and carefully replaced them. Beautiful weapons—he wondered which old Arkad had had these made. “You know it’s always bad when she goes silent. And Lokri. Locked away by the nicks under some kind of death sentence. And Ivard, out of his mind from that Kelly ribbon.”

  “Ivard is in good hands. Or will be, when the Kelly chirurgeons do whatever it is they do to get that ribbon of their Archon’s out of his DNA. It looks like they think Ivard is stable enough to endure it, maybe even as soon as tomorrow. But you . . .” Montrose lifted a hand toward the ceiling. “You always prized your independence, more than any of the crew. Yet here you are, shadowing young Brandon. I’m not saying it’s wrong, or I wouldn’t be running his galley. I agreed to it for my own amusement, and because the kitchen here is the best I have ever seen. What chef could resist? But you. Is this where you want to be?”

  Jaim set the last weapon in the case, touched the control that slid the swords back into the wall, and turned toward the door.

  Montrose persisted. “I can’t help noticing that you haven’t been performing your Ulanshu rituals. Except for the fighting.”

  Jaim bowed his head, permitting the pulse of anger to fade before he spoke. “I was once a Seeker of the Ulanshu Path. Now? I don’t know. I won’t turn my back completely on the faith that Reth and I shared. To utterly deny it would be to deny her.”

  Montrose tabbed the door open. “I don’t see that.”

  Jaim made a warding motion. “Perhaps because you never understood.” He lifted his head, met Montrose’s gaze, and watched the impact in the older man as he said, “Reth’s faith never faltered. Not even in the ugly death Hreem the Faithless forced on her. I saw it. In little signs. She held to the Flame to the end.”

  Montrose recollected the desecrated body, preserved in vacuum, and dropped his gaze.

  Jaim said softly, holding his finger to the control so that the door wouldn’t close, “But she is gone. Once we believed our spirits would be forever united, but there is no sign of her. And so, for me, the Flame has burned out.”

  Montrose nodded slowly.

  Jaim continued in that soft, cold voice. “One day I shall exact a price from Hreem for that murder. That vow is part of my present path, the Path of the Warrior. But my purpose, as sworn on Desrien, is to guard Brandon Arkad.”

  Jaim’s mind flickered back to the quiet cathedral on Desrien. Eloatri, the religious leader who seemed to understand the Path in all its variety, had said that Brandon would have need of him.

  Montrose said skeptically, “It might have made sense if we’d been dumped back on Rifthaven. But now Brandon’s got the entire Panarchic Navy to babysit him. What’s left of it.”

  Jaim acknowledged, then walked toward the galley. “True,” he said. “But.”

  He considered his words as they traversed one of the pleasant, if utilitarian, servants’ corridors under the Enclave. The Navy had been relatively decent, the Marine solarch, Artorus Vahn, who’d been assign
ed as guard to Brandon, readily answering questions and even undertaking to teach Jaim something about the bewildering intricacies of nick life. In specific, the Tetrad Centrum Douloi, elite among the elite.

  “But?” Montrose prompted as they entered the galley.

  Jaim considered their stay so far. The inmates of the Enclave had been left to recover—officially, it was mourning—though Jaim was beginning to perceive the discrepancies between official words and fact.

  Another ‘so far’: Brandon did not appear to question the fact that Solarch Vahn or his team accompanied him everywhere, insisting that security required a schedule with search-and-sweep beforehand. He had not tried again to visit the Telvarna’s crew, housed in some detention center, after being politely told that security was still being arranged, though he’d sent back to Ivard the two Arkadic dogs they’d rescued from the Mandala, and he’d made a request for daily reports on Ivard’s well-being.

  Jaim understood this much: although Brandon was the highest ranking civilian on the station, it was a Naval station. The Navy could not command civilians—neither could Brandon command the Navy.

  “But today, everything is going to change,” Jaim said.

  At that moment—as Montrose was reaching his hand out to pour a cup of freshly ground coffee for Jaim—the alert toned, and on Montrose’s galley console, the vid flickered to show a spare, elderly woman in a subdued uniform. An ID floated above her head: Vice-Admiral Damana Willsones.

  “Hello, I suspect those changes are happening right now,” Montrose said. “Here. Take these sandwiches I was making for lunch. And the coffee. Whatever is going on, there is always a need for refreshments.”

  Jaim carried the tray to the inner reception chamber where Brandon was dealing with the tailor.

  As yet Jaim didn’t know what the huge party the Tetrad Centrum Douloi were throwing in Brandon’s honor really meant, and Brandon hadn’t told him. They talked about many things as they drilled in Ulanshu kinesics every day and then sparred, or shared meals, but never the future. Or the past before they met at the hideout on Dis.

  Jaim had set the sandwiches down when Solarch Vahn led Damana Willsones to the inner reception chamber.

  Willsones had never been in the Enclave before, and looked around with curiosity. The little she saw had been designed with Tetrad Centrum Douloi style and attention to comfort, but with maximum security in mind.

  “Thank you, Solarch,” she said, appreciating how silently and efficiently the Marine jeeved. He managed to seem nearly invisible as he took up a stance in the least significant corner of the room, from which he had clear lines of fire on all three doors.

  In the center of the octagonal chamber, she found the Aerenarch Brandon vlith-Arkad standing patiently under the fussy ministrations of an elderly tailor. The Aerenarch inclined his head in silent apology for the delay, then he looked up as the woman’s deft fingers twitched at the high collar of a tunic jacket. Nearby, a tailor’s dummy displayed a magnificent formal mourning outfit, a vivid contrast with the severely plain civilian mourning white the tailor was fussing over.

  Against one wall a buffet offered beautifully presented little sandwiches, and hot coffee, from the smell; beside it stood the Rifter, Jaim, whom the Aerenarch had taken as his sworn man. In defiance of all convention, as might be expected from someone who had grown up in the anarchy of Rifthaven, he lounged next to the buffet: seemingly casual, but his was the second position that commanded a clear field of fire.

  Jaim’s gaze met hers without the deference of a servant: dispassionate, considering. His stance, too, conveyed his lack of acquaintance with or his disregard for Douloi expectations. A proper servant would have exerted himself to remain invisible.

  Jaim selected a sandwich and popped it into his mouth, an absolute breach of protocol for a servant to the Douloi.

  The tailor paused, looking inquiringly from Willsones to the Aerenarch.

  Willsones said, “I can wait.” She didn’t care if Brandon’s pet Rifter stayed, went, or hung from the ceiling and hallooed, though her opinion of Brandon dropped a notch. Why would he take a Rifter as personal sworn man?

  She pondered this question as the grateful tailor resumed her twitching and tucking, muttering in an urgent under-voice to a point somewhere between the Aerenarch and her assistant. A lover could be politely ushered out. A bodyguard could only be commanded by Brandon, but why this Rifter? It was too easy to assume that Brandon was setting up a favorite, the fiction of bodyguard to place his lover outside the rules. Yet so far, Vahn reported, there was no sign of intimacy, and the Aerenarch slept alone. Then there was the fact of a second Rifter having been put in charge of the kitchens—a former Douloi, chef and surgeon both, a bit of detritus from Tau Srivashti’s abominable rule of Timberwell.

  Damana Willsones recalled Brandon nyr-Arkad as a boy, trotting behind his brother Galen, the tall, thin poet who so strongly resembled Ilara’s father. Semion had been a throwback to Gelasaar’s father. Brandon, at first glance, resembled neither of his parents closely, though details evoked one or the other, such as those blue eyes so like Ilara’s.

  From a purely aesthetic perspective, the presumed heir was at his best, standing there in shirt and trousers and boots. Rumor for the past decade had done little to flatter him, but there was no sign of gluttony or debauchery in the clean lines of his body, the contour of muscle not completely masked by the loose linen sleeves, or in the clear gaze. But Willsones knew debauchees who appeared to advantage, as if leading the most abstemious of lives, Tau Srivashti being one of them.

  Brandon’s dark, curling hair, that was the Arkad heritage. What was going on between those fine ears lying so flat to his head?

  The tailor fretted to herself, then glanced one last time at her boswell as she muttered, “It will have to do. . . .” She stood back, surveying her work with what unease, then glancing eloquently at the tunic on the dummy. “I do not know how I will explain this to the Archon.”

  “Archon Srivashti will be apprised of my entire responsibility for the situation, and my total satisfaction with your efforts,” said Brandon. “Thank you.”

  Interesting that he rejected Srivashti’s gift, Willsones thought.

  The tailor bowed, hesitated when she glanced again at the splendid outfit on the dummy, then she gestured to her assistant, who took the tunic jacket Brandon shrugged off and bore it to the team waiting in an antechamber to hand stitch the final adjustments.

  Willsones advanced, and then, instead of a formal military salute, which would precede a military briefing, she offered her hands in the formal Douloi greeting.

  (So this is not a Naval visit, but civilian), came Vahn’s bozzed voice in Jaim’s inner ear. (Different rules.)

  Brandon straightened, his beautiful manners revealing nothing as he lightly touched fingertips to Willsones’ palms. She glanced from the Faseult ring to the bland mask of Brandon’s face.

  “Admiral Willsones,” Brandon said. “My mother introduced us, did she not? Aren’t you related to the Lieutenant Willsones who ran nav on her yacht?”

  “My daughter.” Willsones watched the lift of his dark brows in recognition, then the quick contraction of sympathy as he realized that Lieutenant Willsones had died with the Kyriarch Ilara when the Dol’jharians had murdered the Trucial Commission twenty years before. That quick, instinctive sympathy—that was Ilara’s.

  He said, “I’m sorry,” and then, before she had to say anything, he indicated the Rifter who was eating another sandwich. “This is Jaim, my bodyguard.”

  What did he mean by introducing the Rifter bodyguard as if he were a guest? Willsones found her first impression veering back toward favorites. Either Brandon’s well-publicized excesses had rotted his brain entirely, or was this an indirect invitation to state her business? He knows his position is anomalous. Even a drunken sot who had been raised on the Mandala, political center of the Panarchy, would perceive that much.

  So she stepped outside of Naval and
Douloi patterns of interaction, staying within the context of familial connection as she said, “You know that the Navy scans the cryptobanks of all incoming ships now, not just what they discharge as their DataNet obligation. One held a vid that Admiral Nyberg thought you should see before it is released. I am here to escort you to a secured briefing room, if you wish to accept the Admiral’s invitation.”

  “I am at your disposal,” the Aerenarch said. “Lead on.”

  o0o

  Silence gripped the briefing room.

  Commander Sedry Thetris clasped her hands tightly behind her, careful to keep her sweaty palms away from the wall. At her left and right, a captain and another commander breathed harshly, their tension heightening her own.

  Before them a holographic view of the Emerald Throne Room on Arthelion appeared, familiar to nearly every citizen. But in the huge, tree-like throne there sat instead of a small, dapper, silver-bearded man a tall, broadly built one with a grim, hard-boned face, every line of his body glorying in triumph.

  The unknown Dol’jharian with the ajna swept the view away from the throne to the long approach leading down from the huge double doors. Small at first, but instantly recognizable, the Panarch—dressed in prison garb and wearing a shock collar—was brought forward by a smirking Bori.

  Sedry, who had spent fifty of her sixty years working actively for revolution, controlled the twitch in her fingers; she longed to rip that Bori’s lips off his gloating, sniveling face.

  “Kneel,” the Bori said to the Panarch, and the ajna showed the Panarch kneeling obediently at the left of the throne.

  “Eusabian is broadcasting this for a purpose,” Nyberg had said when they first filed in. “I will remind you all that we cannot be certain that anything we see really happened the way it appears.”

  The Bori stood forth and addressed a long line of Privy Councilors and other exalted Panarchists, all prisoners. Sedry expected to feel triumph at their downfall, but felt nothing. She was still angry that the imminent revolution, so long needed to rid the Tetrad Centrum Inner Planets of the rule of debauched aristocrats and get power back into the hands of the people, the imminent revolution that had superseded her own group’s careful plans, had turned out to be a blind: what she had helped contrive, so willingly and high-heartedly, was this Dol’jharian betrayal.