Context (68 page)

Even the air seemed purer, to
energize with every breath.

It was strange, and it was
wonderful...

But he felt no closer to finding
Elva.

Six
soldiers escorted Tom along a gold-chased boulevard, and into a transverse
hallway patterned in deep brown and crimson. At the end, they stopped before a
silver membrane.

‘Your quarters, my Lord.’ The
officer-in-charge bowed formally.

‘Very good.’ Tom heard the
patrician tone which had resurfaced in his own voice, and hated it. ‘Carry on.’

‘Sir.’

As the escort left, Tom stepped
inside, and found himself in a round, marble-floored foyer where a young man in
servitor’ s livery was kneeling, head bowed, soft black cap in hand.

Oh, Fate.

‘Who are you?’

‘Adam Gervicort, sir. Beta-plus
servitor.’

At that, six women filed in
between nacreous pillars from the next chamber—bright and airy, filled with
holosculptures—and lowered themselves to their knees on the silvery marble.
They bowed in full forehead-to-floor obeisance.

This, to a man born beside a
humble market chamber, who had lived more recently in fearful squalor for two
Standard Years, out of his mind, surviving by drunken cunning and the pity of
strangers, sleeping by day in derelict tunnels where nights were dangerous…

‘Just get up.’

They rose quickly, like soldiers
called to attention, and stood frozen in blank-faced acceptance: awaiting
punishment for an infraction whose nature they did not understand, but for
which they accepted responsibility.

Chaos ...I’ve forgotten so much.

Softening his tone: ‘I’m not...
very big on ceremony. Are you all, er, assigned to me?’

‘Yes, sir.’ It was Adam Gervicort
who spoke. ‘Your personal servitors.’

Tom looked around at the richly
appointed antechamber. A platinum-inlaid glowcluster floated near the ceiling —
decorative rather than utilitarian, for the wall panels glowed with a softly
pervasive, diffuse illumination—and elegant statuettes filled small niches
between the panels.

It was sumptuous, decorated with
objets d’art whose price could feed entire families for lifetimes, and it was
merely the entrance to his apartment.

‘How many other chambers,’ he
asked, ‘does this place have?’

‘Thirty-five, sir.’

Tom quelled internal laughter.

‘I suppose ... I’ll be able to
make do.’

A
wide green lake nestled in a crystalline cavern, only a few minutes’ walk from
Tom’s new home. Nature and artifice combined in frosted-mint intricate pillars,
joining gentle emerald waves to the sculpted ceiling above. Brightly coloured
sailplanes floated just above the water, and even from here the laughter of
carefree lordlings at play was audible.

There were even some swimmers,
bobbing among the waves.

Leaning against a pillar on the
marble shore, Tom watched. Beside him, his new chief servitor, Adam Gervicort,
stood stiffly to attention. Adam was maybe twenty SY old—two-thirds of Tom’s
age—and suddenly that seemed awfully young.

There was a shout above the
waters, then good-natured name-calling, as two sailplanes narrowly avoided a
collision.

“The nobility at play,’ Tom
murmured.

‘My Lord?’

‘Nothing. Who are they?’

There was a group of twelve
runners further along the shore, dressed in olive-green long-sleeved leotards,
running to a cadence.

‘Soldiers, sir. From General d’Ovraison’s
Akademía del’Guerro.’

‘It’s a military school?’

‘Um ...’ Adam’s shoulders
stiffened, as though he had been about to shrug, but servitor reflexes stopped
the gesture. ‘Everyone calls it the Academy, but it’s more than a training
school. It’s Strategic Command for the sector.’

‘I see.’

Tom wondered just what he was
doing here. Change was not necessarily progress.

‘Listen, Adam . . .’ He
hesitated, then: ‘In private, why don’t you just call me Tom.’

‘OK, I—’ Adam reddened. ‘Sir.’

Tom sighed. What kind of ulterior
motive did Adam suspect him of?

Yet if Corduven has lovers, they’re
surely not female...

He put that thought aside. If the
local mores were anything like the noble milieu he was used to, his knowledge
of Corduven’s preferences was a dangerous secret.

Tom was sure—pretty sure—that
Corduven was not the kind to abuse servitors; but that could not be said for
all nobility.

He looked Adam in the eyes.

‘I was born a long way down, my
friend. When the authorities sold me to Lady Darinia, I entered servitude as
delta-class. I’d ask you to drop my title in public, as well as privately,
except that it would rebound on you. They’d find a way to make you suffer.’

Adam was silent for a moment. Out
on the lake, youthful Lords and Ladies dived from sailplanes into the waves,
and struck out for shore.

‘I knew you’d been promoted...’
Adam swallowed. ‘But to rise that far ...’

Tom nodded.

‘All the way,’ he said.

He
had lunch at the apartment. Surprisingly, no-one batted an eyelid—two
servitrices came at Tom’s summons—when he ordered gripple yogurt mixed with
soycheese.

‘I’m not one for fancy food,
either.’

After lunch, Tom washed in his
bath chamber’s minty aerogel-pool—he stayed submerged for nearly twenty minutes,
breathing directly from the gel—then padded into the master bedchamber, where
Adam had laid out clothes for him to wear: dark tunic and trews, black cape
lined with emerald silk.

Good taste. And he’s got the
sense to make himself scarce.

There were noble-born High Lords
who required servitors to help them dress. They might revel in the power they
held; to Tom, it revealed a childish dependence on others.

But everything we perceive,
he reminded himself,
is
content within context.

And his background was rather
different from that of other nobility.

Halfway through dressing he
stopped, noticing a small floating bedside table. On it, atop a small cushion,
a sapphire-decorated thumb ring lay.

From Corduven?

It was a Lord’s signet ring, and
Tom’s original—as presented by Lord A’Dekal—had been lost for years. Mixed
emotions washed through him as he slid his thumb inside, and the ring adjusted
itself to fit.

There
were no messages from Corduven. Yet this apartment had been made available,
according to Adam, on Corduven’s direct order.

Tom tagged his cloak fast, then
left the chamber. He passed by a series of angled mirrorfields, noting that the
cloak billowed though there was no breeze.

Smartfibre: he would disable it
later.

‘My Lord?’ Adam was waiting in
the antechamber.

There were six servitrices
present—Adam had been double-checking their inventory—so Tom did not complain
about the honorific.

What the Chaos am I doing here?

But, ‘Come on,’ was all he said. ‘I
want to see this Academy.’