A Prison Unsought (8 page)

“Brandon!” Her voice was clear and
musical as she sank into a profound bow. “Permit me to say how very glad I am
to find you here, and safe.”

“Vannis,” Brandon said, raising
her. “Permit me to return the sentiment.” His grip shifted, and he carried her
fingers to his lips, where they lingered, the woman smiling brilliantly up into
his eyes, before both dropped their hands.

She said, “As it happens, I preceded you by some weeks, and
most of the company is known to me. Would introductions be agreeable, or do you
prefer to receive alone?”

Brandon paused a heartbeat, and said, “Whom shall we greet
first?”

Jaim knew he’d missed something. Vahn said,
(‘Receive’ implies he’s ready, at least
socially, to declare himself head of the Arkads. It could be construed by some
as the first step in forming a government.)

Jaim watched Vannis move with the assurance of one born to
lead; she seemed unaware of the susurrus of tiny gasps and whispers as she took
her place at Brandon’s side.

Brandon and Vannis began circling the room. Vahn explained
further that Brandon had two choices: he could choose a position and force
people to come to him (something the former Aerenarch would have done), or he
could move himself, going to the person with the highest rank. That would cause
the rest to fall into rank order, as they had when greeting Brandon on his
arrival off the
Mbwa Kali
.

But he had chosen to circle, sidestepping questions of
preference—and political intent.

Jaim followed, listening to their pleasant voices
complementing one another—his baritone, her soprano—in the slightly singsong
Douloi cadences. In spite of Vahn’s explanation, Jaim began to sense that
Brandon had an intent.

Their progress was slow enough to permit Jaim to take in his
surroundings, a complication of marble, semi-precious stone, and costly
draperies, glittering chandeliers floating above the guests, and a low, faux
balustrade behind which stretched an immense, real-time vid of Ares seen from
space. The illusion was nearly perfect, as though the back of the immense hall were
open to space. The massive Cap with its scattered ship bays—each capable of
half-swallowing a seven-kilometer-long battlecruiser—loomed over the slowly
rotating oneill attached to its underside like the stem of a mushroom, the
whole surrounded by a glittering cloud of ships.

As long as Jaim deferred to the Douloi, they ignored him as
if he were invisible, as Vahn had predicted.

Jaim was grateful for the reprieve.

It wasn’t their looks that he found intimidating, in spite
of their fine, old-style clothing. The glitter-crowds on Rifthaven, with their
wild augmentations and body art, were far more entrancing to the eye. Vahn had
said that the Tetrad Centrum Douloi fashions were for biological simplicity—no
modifications. Each person as born, to the color of eyes and hair. What they
prized most were family resemblances.

The intimidation lay entirely in their movements, which
reminded him of the ripple of the breezes through the reeds at the lakeside.
How did such a crowd know when to sidestep, when to come forward, and when to
defer? They did it with those smooth, stylized gestures that were indeed
dance-like, the smiling faces with their watchful eyes so like masks.

Brandon and Vannis greeted the guests as if they had been
doing this together for years. Brandon received obeisance after obeisance,
lightly touching the open hands sometimes with his palms, sometimes mere
fingertips; perforce the guests must greet Vannis in a similar manner.

Jaim began to pick up subtle signals that she had won some
kind of invisible duel. As for Brandon, there was nothing but politesse in his
words or manner, but Jaim had been sparring with Brandon for weeks, and knew
the subtle tells of eye, the twitch of shoulder, the tension of wrist that
indicated intent.

Other patterns began resolving out of the stylized dance.
The most noticeable was the segregation of Downsiders from Highdwellers.
Downsiders required more interpersonal distance than Highdwellers, so that
mixed groups naturally tended to break up. Only Highdwellers lingered along the
low balustrade fronting the vid of Ares—the Downsiders were apparently less
comfortable with the illusion.

Jaim sighed. It seemed so futile. Even were there not the
grievances between Downsiders and Highdwellers that, according to Vahn, the
late Aerenarch Semion had encouraged for political gain, something so simple as
a psychological preference could divide people.

Those who see naught
but a single road have no choice in where it takes them,
Jaim’s mate, Reth
Silverknife, had once said.

The most subtle pattern was that caused by the flash and
glitter of the signet on Brandon’s finger, beginning with Vannis’s reflective
gaze. Others noted the ring, then glanced away to meet other gazes. Jaim could
not read those looks, but he sensed a question spreading among them.

Ah. Brandon’s intent: the Naval officers, dressed in full
uniform.

The massive form of Ares’s commander, Admiral Nyberg, was
instantly identifiable from
novosti
coverage, but who were the rest of
them? He bozzed Vahn a query.

(Tetrad Centrum Douloi, attending as members of their
class,)
came the answer. Then Jaim became aware of the Douloi movements,
subtly at odds with what he understood of Naval rank. A kind of space was
opening up around a tall, slender officer whose dark good looks were flattered
by the white uniform. He stood to the right of Nyberg, face impassive, his body
still with tension.

As Brandon approached, the surrounding Douloi gazes
flickered covertly from his ring to that officer.

Another query.

(That’s Commander
Anton vlith-Faseult. Chief of Security.)
Ah. Brother and heir to the Archon
of Charvann who, the elder Omilov had said, had died at the hands of Hreem the
Faithless, and whose heraldry was on the ring now drawing every eye. Neural
induction could not hide Vahn’s tension.

Before Jaim could frame his next question, a tall,
silver-haired, bearded man crossed the room with consummate assurance to
intercept Brandon and Vannis. His spare frame, clothed in dark blue, conveyed
the impression of great physical strength, as the sheath of a rapier implies
its edge; Jaim knew here was another Ulanshu master
. (Vahn?)

(Archon Tau Srivashti.
Head of one of the most powerful Downsider Families.)
The rhythm of Vahn’s reply hinted at danger—as if
Jaim could not sense it on his own. Jaim edged a foot forward, flanking
Brandon. He tried to be subtle, but the Archon’s slack-lidded gaze flicked his
way, then narrowed in amusement before his lined face smoothed into urbane
Douloi politeness.

“Welcome, highness,” the Archon
said, his voice a husky murmur just above a whisper. “After weeks of grim
tidings, your restoration to the living has been welcomed as a miracle.”

“Thank you, your grace.” Brandon briefly
touched the offered palms.

(Used the honorific
for Archon, not his territorial name,) came Vahn’s voice. (Srivashti lost
control of his planet Timberwell, forced to withdraw to the Highdwellings.)

Srivashti was taller than the Aerenarch. His light eyes, a
curious yellow-flecked light brown common to his family, narrowed slightly, and
Brandon said, “Thank you for the loan of your tailor.”

“She did not please you?”

Brandon smiled. “She nearly killed herself in her efforts to
finish a truly memorable design—” Jaim wondered if the hesitation he heard
before the word “memorable” was really there, or only his imagination. Brandon
gestured deprecatingly down his length and added, “But I believe the
circumstances warrant a private mourning.”

“Ah.” Srivashti bowed low.
“Entirely correct.” He cast an amused glance at Vannis, who bowed.

Brandon also bowed. And then the Archon disappeared in the
crowd.

Jaim found that he’d been holding his breath.

From Brandon’s side, Vannis watched Srivashti gather his
admirers around him. Controlling her nerves from hairline to toes, she hid her reaction;
his mouth had smirked with amusement, but she had seen anger tighten that
slack-lidded gaze, for a single heartbeat, when it first rested on Brandon. The
Srivashtis were as old a Family as the Arkads, and their fates had been long
entangled.

And so the dance of
power begins
, she thought as she and Brandon reached the Naval officers.
She took a discreet step back, expecting Brandon to publicly offer the Faseult
ring to the new Archon.

With the Archon gone, Jaim remembered his question.
(Why is everyone watching
?) Jaim asked.

(If the Aerenarch
presents the ring and bows as if to a new Archon, then he is taking his
father’s place in all but name, with a first order.)

(I don’t understand.
If this Faseult, or vlith-Faseult, is the heir, then how is that an order?)

(We didn’t make it
clear? No Archon or Archonei can hold command in the Navy or Marines. If the
Aerenarch greets him as the Archon—an appointment that only a Panarch or
Kyriarch can make—then at that moment, Commander vlith-Faseult’s career ends,
and he becomes a civilian. And the Aerenarch takes the first step toward
claiming his father’s prerogatives.)

Vannis stood a little back, waiting for Brandon to claim
power, using the emotional leverage of grief. But Brandon bowed in the mode of civilian
to service as he spoke a polite greeting.

Vannis and Jaim were both aware of the almost subliminal
universal sigh as Brandon moved on.

(Vahn, what just
happened? What does it mean?)

(Nothing. And no one
knows,)
was the curt reply. Jaim watched Commander vlith-Faseult’s still
profile tracking Brandon as the Aerenarch walked on to continue his circle. So
the Navy could not approach the Aerenarch at a civilian function, just as the
civs could not intrude on the Navy. Interesting balance, Jaim thought.

At that moment the unseen steward signaled the orchestra to
strike up the prelude to a waltz.

Vannis was not about to let the moment pass. She smiled up
at Brandon and opened her hand in the gesture her tutor had taught her was
called the
blossom of appeal
. “Shall
we dance?”

Brandon bowed and held out his arm.

Around Jaim the Douloi paired off, whirling with practiced
ease about the gleaming floor. In the center Brandon and Vannis turned and
stepped, their plain clothing marking them out from the bejeweled whites and
grays and blues and lavenders around them.

Jaim sensed someone on the periphery of his safety zone, and
sidestepped, hands ready but dropping again when he recognized Osri Omilov, the
gnostor’s son. The dark eyes that had been so hateful during the long
adventures aboard the
Telvarna
were
now perplexed.

Jaim remembered his role, and bowed, the correct degree for
the heir of a Chival.

Osri’s heavy brow wrinkled in confusion, then he
acknowledged with a curt nod. “Have you—”

He broke off as a susurration of alarm caused a surge in the
crowd. For once the elegant Douloi parted with rather more haste than grace,
revealing the frail-looking white-furred Eya’a, their blue mouths open, faceted
eyes throwing back the light from the floating chandeliers. They walked
quickly, without looking directly at any of the humans, their gossamer-light
robes fluttering. Behind them, tall, straight, and forbidding, strode Vi’ya,
her ubiquitous plain black flight suit so out of place in this environment that
Jaim grinned.

Her head turned, her long, glossy tail of space-black hair
swinging past her hips, and her black eyes caught Jaim’s gaze. Unsmiling, she
gave a slight nod of recognition, and then shock burned through Jaim when two
of her fingers brushed against her thigh as she walked on.
Meeting: ASAP
.

Osri drew a breath. “What is she doing here? Surely they
don’t let her loose.”

“Interpreter,” Jaim said. “Only one
who can communicate with the Eya’a. But she’s got a shadow.” More than one,
from the looks of the three unobtrusive figures flanking her at a discreet
distance.

“I should have said, what are they
doing here?” Osri muttered.

Jaim grinned again. He was used to the Eya’a, who, despite
their fearsome reputation for psi powers, had never harmed anyone aboard the
Telvarna
.

“They have ambassadorial status,”
Jaim said. “Though nobody knows if they know it. I guess they’re allowed to
wander anywhere, except the Cap.”
Vi’ya
must have got them to come just so she could signal me.
Alarm accelerated
his heartbeat, but he hid it as he moved obliquely through the crowd, keeping
Brandon and Vannis in sight.

Vannis knew they were being watched, but she trusted to
Brandon’s various watchdogs and enjoyed the moment, shutting out the rest of
the room; she hadn’t danced with Brandon for close to ten years, and had
forgotten how good he was. He seemed to like speed. It took skill to weave so
adroitly between the slower twirling pairs.

She could almost hear her casual words to Rista being
repeated from lips to ear—
We are at war,
time to retrench
—and rejoiced in having managed to wrest a social triumph
from incipient ignominy.

Tonight she reigned in her proper sphere. She had to stay
there, and the most expeditious method was to flatter Brandon into the place
she wanted him. His clasp was light and impersonal in spite of their speed, his
attention somewhere beyond her.

She flicked a glance in that direction and discovered a pair
of small sophonts moving through the humans, their twiggy feet brushing over
the marble floor in a way that gave her shudders. These were supposedly the
ones who could fry brains from a distance. She was vaguely aware of the tall,
dark-eyed unsmiling woman behind them, but dismissed her as a Naval or civil
hireling.