Deathstalker Destiny (45 page)

“You always did take things too personally,” said Chantelle, shrugging prettily. “I just go with the flow, darling. You were In, then you were Out, and now you’re In again. That’s how things go, in Society. One day even I may fall from grace, for a time, and then it’ll be your turn to crow. It’s a question of style, you see. But then, you and style have never been friends, have you? I mean, that silver dress you’re wearing is so déclassé. And you really should find the money for a new nose. Now then; I have work to do. Busy, busy, busy. Shouldn’t you be holding Robert’s hand, or something? I’m told the poor dear is in a very nervous condition. Hardly surprising, after what happened at his last wedding.”

“He can manage without me for a few minutes. I thought it important we have this little chat.”

“You can’t touch me, Adrienne. I have friends.”

“No you don’t. I’d wager good money you’ve never had a friend in your life. At best, you have allies. And I’m going to take them all away from you.”

Chantelle smiled serenely. “Dream on, darling. Recent rebel heroes might be In at the moment, but heroes and politics come and go, while the old powers remain. Don’t bank too hard on your relationship to the new King. All kinds of things may change, once he discovers the true political realities of his situation. Now you must excuse me; I have a lot of people to shout at and I’m behind in my schedule. I was sorry to hear about Finlay.”

“But not sorry enough to go to his funeral.”

“Oh, I detest funerals, darling. They’re depressing. Those frightful Family dos afterwards ... and besides, black was never my color. But I do miss Finlay.”

“You know very well you couldn’t stand him.”

“Not for long, true. His conversation was very limited. But he made a perfectly adequate lover, for a while.”

And with that final devastating sally, Chantelle bestowed a last perfect smile on Adrienne, and went on about her business.

 

Not that far away, Toby Shreck and his cameraman Flynn had been getting it all on film. They were both wise enough not to broadcast it live, but you never knew when footage like that might come in handy. Normally both ladies would have detected a camera’s presence through sheer instinct, but they were so taken up with each other they’d completely missed Flynn’s camera hovering silently just behind a waiter’s shoulder. The picture might be somewhat limited, but there’d be nothing wrong with the audio. Flynn grinned as the camera flew back to perch on his shoulder again.

“Recriminations, threats, and sheer bloody-mind edness, and the day’s barely started. God knows what we’ll have on tape by the end of the day.”

“We probably won’t be able to use most of it,” said Toby. “If we want to keep our dangly parts where they’re supposed to be. But just the threat of owning footage like that should be enough to pry some useful quotes out of those two later on. As confrontations go, I was hoping for something a little more dramatic, involving raised voices and a certain amount of open violence, but that little tit-bit about the late Finlay Campbell will do very nicely as future leverage.”

“You have no ethics at all, do you, Boss?”

“Of course not,” said Toby. “I’m an award-winning journalist. Now let’s see if we can find someone else to sneak up on.”

A pair of Elves began wandering purposefully in their direction, and Toby and Flynn immediately decided to make themselves hard to find for a while. The Elf espers had been brought in from New Hope to provide top-level security, under their current representative, Crow Jane. The gestalt telepaths had a lot of experience as battle espers, and a complete willingness to kick anyone’s ass if he looked like he needed it. Permanently in telepathic contact with each other, armed to the teeth, and possessed of powers that unnerved even standard espers, they made perfect security guards. They also made sure that everyone was exactly who he or she was supposed to be.

The Mater Mundi gestalt had provided living esp-blockers, who strolled quietly through the crowds, inside and out, ensuring that no one but the security Elves could use any form of esp. Now that all espers were part of a single conscious gestalt, the threat of rogue espers was pretty much eliminated, but no one was taking any chances.

Crow Jane strode restlessly back and forth, checking everything over and over again, down to the smallest detail. A tall, strapping brunette in chains and leathers, with colors on her face and ribbons tied in her hair, she wore a bandoleer of throwing stars across an impressive bosom, and a scowl that could shatter steel at twenty paces. Wherever she walked, people hurried to get out of her way. She had made up her mind that the wedding and investiture were going to be absolutely perfect, and God help anyone who got in the way of that. It helped that Crow Jane took no shit from anyone, whether it be the highest members of Society, or the lowliest flunky. Even Chantelle found pressing reasons to be somewhere else very quickly when Crow Jane was on the prowl.

She was currently responding to a number of complaints and not a few hand-wringing pleas, to do something about the choir. These handpicked young vocalists, chosen for the purity of their voices, were currently running amok, and causing more sheer havoc than a Grendel with hemorrhoids. The choristers might look like little angels in their frilly starched surplices and delicate ruffs, but, secure in their own importance, they had seized the chance to behave like little devils.

To be fair, the oldest of them was only eleven, and though they’d all had the solemnity and importance of the occasion drilled into them, it had only taken about ten minutes’ exposure to the total chaos to plunge them straight into overexcitement and out the other side into sheer let‘s-see-what-we-can-get-away-with mode. They ran back and forth like little windmilling dervishes, shrieking and name-calling and getting under everyone’s feet, and sneaking into the kitchens faster than they could be thrown out. Two had developed a quite remarkable skill as pickpockets, two more had started a dice school and were challenging all comers, and another was being sick over a potted plant through sheer excitement. One little cherub had smuggled in a paint-stick, and was industriously covering a low level of one wall with fortunately incomprehensible graffiti, while behind him another chorister was taking advantage of his absorption to set fire to the back of his surplice. The choirmaster ran back and forth, bleating pathetically, ignored by all.

And then Crow Jane arrived. The choirboys took one look at her, knew real trouble when they saw it, and tried to scatter in all directions, but somehow there was always an Elf in just the right place to grab them. Crow Jane retrieved a handful of wallets and other valuable items and returned them to their startled owners, confiscated the paint-stick, and emptied a bottle of the cheaper wine over the smoldering surplice. She then had a short but vehement heart-to-heart with the assembled choir before sending them off into an adjoining private room to wait till they were called. No one else caught what she had to say, but no one had ever seen the color drop out of so many faces simultaneously. When Crow Jane finally let them go, they headed immediately for the private room, huddling together for protection, followed by a relieved but equally shaken choirmaster, who made the sign of the cross at Crow Jane’s back when he thought she wasn’t looking.

And standing well back from all the turmoil and din, watching everything with a calm, cold gaze, was the priest chosen to perform the wedding. Cardinal Brendan. Neither Robert nor Constance had wanted such an openly political creature in charge of their wedding, but their own preferred choice, Saint Beatrice, had politely declined to leave her Mission on Lachrymal Christi, where she felt she was needed more. Everyone else involved in planning the ceremony heaved quiet but heart-felt sighs of relief. Saint Bea was beloved by all, but no one would have felt comfortable coming into close contact with someone who voluntarily lived among lepers. Saints should keep their distance. All kinds of clerics were suggested, by all sorts of religious and political factions, for all kinds of reasons, but in the end Cardinal Brendan emerged as the chosen candidate. He was well known and well liked, and more importantly, he was Blue Block. And as in so many things, what Blue Block wanted, Blue Block got.

Brendan himself didn’t give a damn about the forthcoming ceremony. He knew that the real business of the day was to be concluded before the wedding or the investiture, right here, in a private room off the floor of the House. Where he could quietly explain the real facts of life to Robert, and if need be, Constance. That just having a crown placed on your head meant nothing where Blue Block was concerned. King and Queen would bow down to Blue Block. Or else. Brendan smiled at the thought. He’d already had one little chat with Robert, but apparently that hadn’t taken as strongly as he would have liked. So this time, he was calling in the heavy artillery. And either Robert submitted to what they had planned for him, or there would be no wedding.

Brendan moved unhurriedly through the crowd, bestowing smiles and blessings as he passed, untouched by the general riot, until he reached his chosen partner in crime. Chantelle was talking earnestly with Donna Silvestri, a broad, motherly figure and one of the Empire’s more subtle movers and shakers. The Silvestri had risen to prominence in her Clan by the usual methods of treachery and murder, but always in such carefully planned ways that no blame could ever be traced to her. Now people jumped to obey her every murmured word, inside and outside her Family. She had a gift for intrigue, and enough quiet malevolence to ensure that her will always took precedence over others‘. She ran things from the shadows, and liked it that way. She was, of course, Blue Block.

In person, Donna Silvestri looked like everybody’s favorite aunt, round and broad and always a few years out of fashion. She had an ear for every problem, and a shoulder for everyone who needed one, and if her warm smile never entirely reached her faded blue eyes, people were usually too preoccupied to notice. Donna Silvestri listened patiently, made all the right supportive noises, and forgot nothing. She stored everything away in her rat-trap of a mind until some muttered confidence might prove useful, at which time some poor fool would suddenly find Blue Block knew the one thing he would have sworn nobody knew. Nobody ever suspected the warm and kind and comforting Donna Silvestri. Suspecting her would have been like condemning your own mother.

Cardinal Brendan bowed to Donna Silvestri, and Chantelle, and they both nodded politely in return.

“Sorry to bother you, but I need a word in private, Chantelle,” said Brendan. “A minor problem, concerning Royal etiquette.”

“Of course,” said Chantelle. “We can use one of the private rooms. No one will disturb us there.”

She led the way, and Brendan followed demurely after her. There were a number of small private rooms leading off the main hall of the House, where by long tradition deals and discussions could be had in complete privacy. The rooms were soundproofed, guaranteed unbugged, had no windows, and only one door, with a first-class lock. More of the really important debates took place in these small rooms than ever occurred in the House itself. Real politics was too important to be practiced in public. Some of the rooms were already in use, as politicians and aristocrats fought out their new pecking order in the face of a constitutional monarchy. Everyone had his or her own plans for the future King and Queen. Even in the face of utter destruction by so many of Humanity’s enemies, Golgotha concentrated on what was truly important.

Chantelle had claimed one of the private rooms for her own personal use, and as in so many other things, no one felt secure enough to argue the point with her. She unlocked the door with her own personal key, ushered Brendan in, and then closed and locked the door behind them. The room was bare, save for a functional table and set of chairs. There were no comforts. This was not a room where people lived; it was just a meeting place; somewhere people passed through on their way to their respective destinies. Chantelle turned to face Brendan, and the Cardinal bowed low to her.

“All goes well, so far,” he said, just a little nervously. “The Elves are running security so tightly not even a ghost could walk in unchallenged. There will be no interruptions to what we have planned.”

“We?” said Chantelle icily. “Don’t flatter yourself, Cardinal. These are my plans. Everything that is to happen here, happens through my will.”

“Of course,” said Brendan quickly. “I mean no challenge to your authority.”

“Damn right you don’t. If I even thought you had a mind of your own, I’d have had you shot and replaced long ago. Now; let’s keep this short and to the point. I don’t want to leave Donna Silvestri in charge of things for too long. She has a good mind, but in the end she’s just another Blue Block drone, like you. I need to be on the spot, to keep things under control.”

“Of course, Chantelle. Robert and Constance have been separated, as you instructed. They’re now stewing in their own juices, in separate rooms.”

“Good,” said Chantelle. “I think it’s time they were brought here, so I can explain their true place in the real order of things. We’ll start with Robert. He has basic Blue Block conditioning. Constance is the real wild card. We can’t kill Robert; as one of the Hundred Hands, he’s too valuable to us. But Constance is another matter. If need be, she is expendable.”

“And that’s where I come in,” said Kit Summerlsle, uncoiling lazily from one corner of the room. Cardinal Brendan jumped in shock at not having noticed him, and then tried to look as though he hadn’t. Kid Death smiled. “I quite like the idea of killing a Queen. I got to chop off the Empress Lionstone’s head, but she’d already vacated her body, so that doesn’t really count.”

“You may get your chance,” said Chantelle. “Constance could be very useful to us, once she’s been properly conditioned, but she poses far too great a threat to Blue Block to be allowed to go on as she is. So, either she bows to Blue Block, one way or another, or you get to do what you do best, SummerIsle.”