Queen of Candesce

10

“What is this?” Jacoby Sarto glared at the rickshaws clustering in the courtyard below the Buridan estate’s newly-rebuilt entrance. It was seven P.M. and Candesce was extinguishing itself, its amber glories drenching the building-tops. Down in the purpled courtyard the upstart princess’s new footmen were lighting lanterns to guide in dozens of carts and palanquins from the crowded alley.

Someone of a minor noble nation had heard him and turned, smirking. “You didn’t receive an invitation?” asked the impertinent youth. “It’s a gala reception!”

“Bah!” Sarto turned to his companion, the Duke of Ennersin. “What is she up to? This is a feeding frenzy. I’ll wager half these people have come to gawk at the legendary Buridans, and the other half to watch us drag her out of the place in chains. What does she gain out of such a spectacle?”

“I’m afraid we’ll find out shortly,” said the duke. He was as stocky as Sarto, with similar graying temples and the sort of paternal scowl that could freeze the blood of anyone under forty. Together the two men radiated gravitas, to such an extent that the crowds automatically parted for them. True, most of those assembling here knew them, by sight and reputation at least. The nations of Sacrus and Ennersin were feared and respected by all—all, it seemed, save for newly reborn Buridan. These two were here tonight to make sure that this new situation didn’t last.

“In any case, such entertainments as this are rare, Jacoby,” continued Ennersin. “It’s sure to attract the curious and the morbid, yes. But it’s the third audience that worries me,” Duke Ennersin commented as they strode up the steps to the entrance.

Sarto glared at a footman who had the temerity to approach them at the entrance. “What third audience?”

“Do you see the Guineveras there? They’ve been keeping Buridan’s horses for generations. Make no mistake, they’d be happy to be free of the burden—or to own the beasts outright.”

“Which they will after tonight.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said Ennersin. “Proof that this Amandera Thrace-Guiles is an imposter is not proof that the real heirs aren’t out there.”

“What are you saying, man? She’s been in the tower! Clearly it’s empty after all. There are no heirs to be had.”

“Not there, no… But don’t forget there are sixteen nations that claim to be related by blood to the Thrace-Guileses. The moment this Amandera’s declared a fake the other pretenders will pounce on the property rights. It’ll be a legal free-for-all—maybe even a civil war. Many of these people are here to warn their nations the instant it becomes a possibility.”

“Ridiculous!” Sarto forgot what he was going to say next, as they entered the lofting front hall of the Buridan estate.

It smelled of fresh paint and drying plaster. Lanterns and braziers burned along the pillared staircases, lighting a frescoed ceiling crawling with allegorical figures. The painted blues, yellows, and reds were freshly cleaned and vibrant to the point of being nauseating, as were the heroic poses of the men and half-clad women variously hanging off, riding, or being devoured by hundreds of ridiculously-posed horses. Sarto gaped at this vision for a while, then shuddered. “The past is sometimes best left buried,” he said.

Ennersin chuckled. “Or at least strategically unlit.”

Sarto had been expecting chaos inside the estate; after all, nobody had set foot in here in centuries, so Thrace-Guiles’s new servants would be unfamiliar with the layout of their own home. They would be a motley collection of rejects and near-criminals hired from the dregs of Lesser Spyre, after all, and he fully expected to see waiters spilling drinks down the decolletage of the ladies when they weren’t banging into one another in their haste to please.

There was none of that. Instead, a string quartet played a soothing pavane in the corner, while men and women in black tails and white gloves glided to and fro, gracefully presenting silver platters and unobtrusively refilling casually tilted glasses. The wait staff were, in fact, almost mesmerizing in their movements; they were better than Sarto’s own servants.

“Where did she get this chattel?” he muttered as a man with a stentorian voice announced their arrival. Lady Pamela Anseratte, who had known Sarto for decades and was quite unafraid of him, laughed and trotted over in a swirl of skirts. “Oh, she’s a clever one, this Thrace-Guiles,” she said, laying her lace-covered hand on Sarto’s arm. “She’s hired the acrobats of the Spyre Circus to serve drinks! I hear they rehearsed blindfolded.”

Indeed, Sarto glanced around and realized there was a young lady with the compact muscled body of a dancer standing at his elbow. She held out a glass. “Champagne?” Automatically, he took it, and she vanished into the crowd without a sound.

“Well, we’ll credit the woman with being a genius in domestic matters,” he growled. “But surely you haven’t been taken in by her act, Pamela? She’s an imposter!”

“That’s as may be,” said the lady with a flick of her fan. “But your imposter has just forgiven Virilio’s debt to Buridan. It seems that with interest it would now be worth enough to outfit a small fleet of merchant ships! And she’s just erased it! Here, look! There’s August Virilio himself, drinking himself into happy idiocy under that stallion statue.”

Sarto stared. The limestone stallion appeared to be sneering over Virilio’s shoulder at the small crowd of hangers-on he was holding forth to. He was conspicuously unmasked, like most of the other Council representatives. The place was crowded with masked faces, though—some immediately identifiable, others unfamiliar even to his experienced eye. “Who are all these people?” he wondered aloud.

“Debtors, apparently,” said Lady Pamela with some relish. “And creditors… everyone who’s taken care of Buridan’s affairs, or profited by their absence, over the past two hundred years. They all look… happy, don’t you think, Jacoby?”

Ennersin cleared his throat and leaned in to say, “Thrace-Guiles has clearly been doing her homework.”

Despite himself, Sarto was impressed. This woman had confounded his expectations. Was it possible that she might continue to do so? The thought was unexpected—and nothing unexpected had happened in Jacoby Sarto’s life in a very long time.

He resisted where this line of thought led; after all, he had his instructions. Sarto dashed his champagne glass on the floor. Heads turned. “Let her enjoy her little party,” he said in his darkest voice. “Amandera Thrace-Guiles, or whatever her real name is, has about one hour of freedom left.

“And no more than a day to live.”

Venera strode through the crowd, nodding and smiling. She felt unsteady and vulnerable, and though her headache had finally faded she had to rein in an automatic cringe-reaction to bright lights and loud sounds. She felt hideously unready for the evening, and had overdressed to compensate. Most of the people in Spyre wore dark colors, so she had chosen to dress in red—her corset was a glossy crimson inset with designs sewn in scarlet thread, with a wide-shouldered, open jacket atop that. She wore a necklace from the Anetene hoard. Her skin was still recovering from the burns she’d suffered near Candesce, but the contrasts were still effective. To hide the scar on her chin she’d adopted one of the strange local skullcaps, this one of black feathers. It swept up behind her ears and down to a point in the middle of her forehead, where a single red Anetene gem glowed above her heavily drawn eyebrows—but it also thrust two small wings along her jawline. They tickled her chin annoyingly, but that was a small distraction compared with the sensations that the ankle-length skirt gave her. Dresses and skirts were considered obscene in most of Virga, where one might become weightless at any time. Back home, the prostitutes wore them. Venera wore a pair of breeches under the thing, which made her feel a bit better, but the long heavy drape still moved and turned like it had a mind of its own.

The one spot of white in her apparel was the fan she held before her like a shield. Nobody but Garth would know that its near side was covered with names and family trees, drawn in tiny spiked letters. She hadn’t had time to read the complicated genealogies and financial records of Buridan and its dependents; this fan was her lifeline.

As she recovered from her migraine in the last day or so, the reconstruction work had caught up and the servants learned where everything was. To her relief Garth had orchestrated the ball without supervision, making sometimes brilliant decisions—twenty years of pent-up social appetite, she supposed. The estate’s pantries had been cleared of rats and spiders and restocked; the ancient plumbing system had been largely replaced (not without messy accidents) and the gas lines to the stoves reconnected.

In a way, she was grateful for having been laid low these past few days. This afternoon she’d had a brief moment with nothing to do, and into her mind had drifted memories of Chaison. Standing in her chambers, her hand half lifted to her hair, she was suddenly miserable. Pain and anxiety had masked her grief until now.

She had to battle through it all—play her part. So now she marched up to a tight knot of masked nobles from the mysterious nation of Faddeste and bowed. “Welcome to my house. Speaking as someone who has seen few human beings in her life, outside her immediate family, I know how much it must cost you to attend a crowded event such as this.”

“We find it… hard.” The speaker could be a man or a woman, it was impossible to tell. Its accent was so thick she had to puzzle out the words. Tall and thickly robed, this ambassador from a ten-acre nation flicked a finger at the sweeping dancers now beginning to fill up the center of the hall. “Such frivolity should be banned. How are you so calm? Not raised to this, crowds should frighten.”

Venera bowed. “I lived in my imagination as a girl.” That much was true. “Lacking real people to talk to, I invented a whole court—a whole nation!—who followed me everywhere. I was never alone. So perhaps this isn’t so strange for me.”

“Doubtful. We don’t believe you are of Buridan.”

“Hmm. I could say the same—how do I know you’re really from Faddeste?”

“Sacrilege!” But the robed figure didn’t turn away.

“Whether either of us is who they say they are,” said Venera with a smug smile, “it remains a fact that Buridan owes Faddeste twenty thousand Spyre sovereigns. Imposter or not, I am willing to repay that debt.”

Now she stepped in close, raising one black eyebrow and glancing around at the crowd. “Do you trust the pretenders in the crowd to do the same, if they acquire the title to Buridan? Think hard on that.”

The ambassador reared back as though afraid Venera would touch it. “You have money?”

“Go see Master Flance.” She pointed at Garth who, despite being masked, had characteristically surrounded himself with women young and old. All were laughing at some story he was telling. Seeing this, for a moment Venera forgot her worries and felt a pulse of warmth for the aging dandy. She turned back to the Faddestes, but they were already maneuvering across the dance floor like a frightened but determined flock of crows.

She blew out a held breath. Seven or eight more minor nations to bribe, and only half an hour to do it in. All the members of the Spyre Council were here now. It would all be decided soon, one way or another.

Before she could reach her next target a majordomo in the livery of the Council approached and bowed. “They are ready for you upstairs, madam,” he said coolly.

She kept her gaze fixed on the top of his head as she bowed in return. All eyes were on her, she was certain. This was the moment when all would be decided.

As she clattered up the marble she tried to remember the lines and gambits she had crammed into her head over the past day or so. It hadn’t been enough time, and the hangover of her migraine had interfered. She was not ready; she just had herself, the passing lanterns, the looming shadows above, and the single rectangle of light from a pair of doors in the upstairs hall. She told herself to slow down, control her breathing, count to ten—but finally just cursed and strode down the newly laid crimson carpet to pivot on one heel and step into the room.

Jacoby Sarto’s leonine features crinkled into something like a smirk as he saw her. He was placing the final chair behind the long conference table in the high-ceilinged minor reception hall. Damn him, he’d moved everything!—Where Venera had contrived a single long table with chairs along two sides, with her at the end, Sarto—or somebody, but it sure looked like him from his posture—had turned the table sideways, crammed all the seats on one side of it (behind it, now) and left one solitary chair in the center of the carpet. What had been a conference room was now a court, with her as the defendant.

The rest of the council was standing around behind Sarto as the servants finished the new placement.

She had an overwhelming urge to pick a seat behind the table and put her feet up, then point to the solitary position and ask, “who sits there?” Only memory of how badly her recent outbursts had gone stopped her.

Well, he had won this round, but she wasn’t going to let him revel in it. Venera stopped one of the servants and said, “Bring me a side table, and a bottle of wine and a glass. Some cheese might be good too.” She sat graciously in the exposed chair and draped her skirts as she’d seen the other ladies do. Then she locked eyes with Sarto, and smiled.

The others began to take their places. There were twelve of them. Jacoby Sarto of Sacrus, who was rumored to be merely an errand boy to the true heads of the family, sat on the far left. The arch-conservative duke Ennersin, who had conspicuously arrived with Sarto, sat next to him, frowning in disapproval at Venera. She could count on those two to oppose her confirmation. Of the others…

Pamela Anseratte was smiling at something, but wouldn’t meet Venera’s eye. Principe Guinevera was trying to meet her eye, and apparently attempting to wink; he took up two spaces at the table and his fleshy hands were planted on the tabletop as if he were, at any second, about to leap to his feet and proclaim something. Next to him sat August Virilio, who looked contented, half asleep even—and probably was, after the heroic drinking he’d gotten up to after she forgave his nation’s debt. These three were on her side—or so she hoped.

The other great families were represented by minor members and, in three cases, by ambassadors. Two of the ambassadors were cloaked and masked; the families in question, Garrat and Oxorn, were mysterious, isolate and paranoid as only the ancients of Greater Spyre could be. Nobody knew what their nations produced—only that it went for fabulous prices and threat of death on exposure in the outside world.

Three out of twelve for sure. Maybe three others if her reckless divestment of Buridan’s wealth had done what she hoped. But it was a big if. She was going to need every ounce of cunning and every resource to get through the evening free and intact.

The Council all sat and waited while Venera’s new servants placed decanters of wine and tall glasses on the table. Then Pamela Anseratte stood and smiled around the table. “Welcome, everyone. I trust the nations are well and that the hospitality of our host has been sampled and appreciated by all? Yes? Then let’s begin. We’re gathered here tonight to decide whether to reinstate Buridan as an active nation, in the person of the woman who here claims to be Amandera Thrace-Guiles, heir of said nation. I—”

“Why are you alone?” Duke Ennersin was speaking directly to Venera. “Why are we to take this one person’s word for who she is? Where is the rest of her nation? Why has she appeared here, now, after an absence of centuries?”

“Yes, yes, we’re going to get to those questions,” soothed Lady Anseratte. “First, however, we have some formalities to clear away. Amandera Thrace-Guiles’s claim is pointless and instantly void if she cannot produce documents indicating her paternity and ancestry, as well as the notarized deeds and titles of her nation, plus the key.” She beamed at Venera. “You have all those things?”

Silently, Venera rose and walked to the table. She placed the thick sheaf of papers she’d brought in front of Anseratte. Then she unscrewed the heavy signet ring from her finger and placed it atop the stack.

This was her opening move, but she couldn’t count on its effect.

“I see,” said Lady Anseratte. “May I examine the ring?” Venera nodded, returning to her seat. Lady Anseratte took a flat box with some lights on it and hovered it over the ring. The box glowed and made a musical bonging sound.

“Duly authenticated,” said the lady. She carefully placed the ring to one side and opened the sheaf. Much of its contents were genuine. Venera had found the deeds and titles in the tower. It had been the work of several careful days to extend the family tree by several centuries and insert herself at its end. She had intended to use her own not-inconsiderable talents at forgery but had been indisposed, but Garth had come through, displaying surprising skills. He was not just a gigolo in his previous life, evidently. As the papers were passed up and down the table Venera kept a bland expression on her face. She tried the wine, and adjusted the fall of her skirt again.

“Convincing,” said Jacoby Sarto after flipping through the papers. “But just because something is convincing that doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s merely convincing. What can you do to establish the truth of your claim?”

Venera tilted her head to one side. “It would be impossible to do so to everyone’s satisfaction, sir, just as it would be impossible for you to prove that you are, without doubt, Jacoby Sarto of Nation Sacrus. I rather think the onus is on this council to disprove my claim, if they can.”

August Virilio opened one eye slightly. “Why don’t we start with your story? I always like a good story after supper.”

“Excellent idea,” said Pamela Anseratte. “Duke Ennersin asked why it is that you are here before us now, of all times. Can you explain why your nation has hidden away so thoroughly for so long?”

Venera actually knew the answer to that one—it had been written in the contorted bodies of the soldiers inside the tower, and in the scrawled final confessions of the dead woman in the bedchamber.

Steepling her hands, Venera smiled directly at Jacoby Sarto and said, “The answer is simple. We knew that if we left Buridan Tower, we would be killed.”

This was gambit number two.

The council members expressed various shades of surprise, shock, and satisfaction at her revelation. Jacoby Sarto crossed his arms and sat back. “Who would do this?” asked Anseratte. She was still standing and now leaned forward over the table.

“The isolation of Buridan Tower wasn’t an accident,” said Venera. “Or, at least, not entirely. It was the result of an attack—and the attackers were two of the great nations present at this table tonight.”

August Virilio smiled sleepily, but Principe Guinevera leapt to his feet, knocking his chair over. “Who?” he raged. “Name them, fair lady, and we will see justice done!”

“I did not come here to open old wounds,” said Venera. “Although I recognize that my position here is perilous, I had no choice but to leave the tower. Everyone else there is dead—save myself and my manservant. Some bird-borne illness took the last five of our people a month ago. I consigned their bodies to the winds of Virga, as we have been doing for centuries now. Before that we were dwindling, despite careful and sometimes repugnant breeding restrictions and constant austerity… We lived on birds and airfish we caught with nets, and supplemented our diets with vegetables we grew in the abandoned bedrooms of our ancestors. Had I died in that place, then our enemies would truly have won. I chose a last throw of the die and came here.”

“But the war of which you speak… it was centuries ago,” said Lady Anseratte. “Why did you suppose that you would still be targeted after so long?”

Venera shrugged. “We had telescopes. We could see that our enemies’ nations were thriving. And we could also clearly see that sentries armed with machine-guns ringed the tower. I was raised to believe that if we entered the elevator and tried to reach Lesser Spyre, those machine gunners would destroy us before we rose more than a hundred meters.”

“Oh, no!” Guinevera looked acutely distressed. “The sentries were there for your protection, madam! They were to keep interlopers out, not to box you in!”

“Well.” Venera looked down. “Father thought so, but he also said that we were so reduced that we could not risk a single soul to find out. And isolation… becomes a habit.” She looked pointedly at the ambassadors of Oxorn and Garrat.

Sarto guffawed loudly. “Oh, come on! What about the dozens of attempts that have been made to contact the tower? Semaphore, loudspeakers, smoke signals, for God’s sake. They’ve all been tried and nobody ever responded.”

“I am not aware that anyone has tried to contact us during my lifetime,” said Venera. This was true, as she’d learned in the past days. Sarto would have to concede the point. “And I can’t speak to my ancestors’ motives for staying silent.”

“That’s as may be,” Sarto continued. “Look, I’ll play it straight. Sacrus was involved in the original atrocity.” He held up a hand when Guinevera protested loudly. “But gentlemen and ladies, that was centuries ago. We are prepared to admit our crime and make reparations to the council when this woman is exposed for the fraud that she is.”

“And if she’s not?” asked Guinevera angrily.

“Then to the Nation of Buridan directly,” said Sarto. “I just wanted to clear the air. We can’t name our co-conspirators because, after all this time, the records have been lost. But having admitted our part in the affair, and having proposed that we pay reparations, I can now continue to oppose this woman’s claim without any appearance of conflict.”

Venera frowned. Her second gambit had failed.

If Sacrus had wanted to keep their involvement a secret, she might have had leverage over Sarto. Maybe even enough to swing his vote. As it was he’d adroitly sidestepped the trap.

Lady Anseratte looked up and down the table. “Is the other conspirator’s nation similarly honorable? Will they admit their part?” There was a long and uncomfortable silence.

“Well, then,” said Pamela Anseratte. “Let us examine the details of your inheritances.”

From here the interview deteriorated into minutiae as the council members pulled out individual documents and points of law and debated them endlessly. Venera was tired, and every time she blinked to clear her vision, she worried that a new migraine might be reaching to crush her. Pamela Anseratte conducted the meeting as if she had boundless energy, but Venera—and everyone else—wilted under the onslaught of detail.

Sarto used sarcasm, wit, guile, and bureaucracy to try to torpedo her claim, but after several hours it became clear that he wasn’t making headway. Venera perked up a bit. I could win this, she realized—simultaneously realizing just how certain she’d been that she wouldn’t.

Finally Lady Anseratte said, “Any further points?” and nobody answered. “Well,” she said brightly, “we might as well proceed to a vote.”

“Hang on,” said Sarto. He stood heavily. “I’ve got something to say.” Everyone waited.

“This woman is a fraud. We all know it. It’s inconceivable that this family could have sustained themselves and their retainers for centuries within a single tower, cut off from the outside world—”

“Not inconceivable,” said the ambassador of Oxorn from behind her griffin mask. “Quite possible.”

Sarto glared at her. “What did they do for clothes? For even the tiniest item of utility, such as forks or pens? Do you really believe they have an entire industrial base squirreled away in that tower?” He shook his head.

“It’s equally inconceivable that someone raised in such total isolation should, upon being dropped into society and all its machinations, conduct herself like a veteran! Did she rehearse social banter with her dolls? Did she learn to dance with her rocking horse? It’s preposterous on the face of it.

“And we all know why her claim has any chance of success. It’s because she’s bought off everyone who might oppose it. Buridan has tremendous assets—estates, ships, buildings, and industries here and on Greater Spyre that have been administered by other nations in absentia, for generations. She’s promised to give those nations the assets they’ve tended! For the rest, she’s proposing to beggar Buridan by paying all its debts here and now. When she’s done Buridan will have nothing to its name but a herd of gangly equines.”

“And this house,” said Venera primly. “I don’t propose to give that up.” There was some stifled laughter around the table.

“It’s a transparent fraud!” Sarto turned to glare at the other council members. “Forget about the formal details of her claim—in fact, let it be read that there’s nothing to criticize about it. That doesn’t matter. We all know the truth. She is insulting the name of a great nation of Spyre! Do you actually propose to let her get away with it?”

He was winning them over. Venera had one last hand to play, and it was her weakest. She stood up.

“Then who am I?” She strode up to the table and leaned across it to look Sarto in the eye. “If I’m a fraud I must have come from somewhere. Was I manufactured by one of the other nations, then? If so, which one? Spyre is secretive, but not so much so that we don’t all keep tabs on one another’s genealogies. Nobody’s missing from the rosters, are they?

“And yet!” She turned to address the rest of the council. “Gaze upon me and tell me to my face that you don’t believe I am noble born.” She sneered at Sarto. “It’s evident in my every gesture, in how I speak, how I address the servants. Jacoby Sarto says that he knows I am a fraud. Yet you know I am a peer!

“So then where did I come from?” She turned to Sarto again. “If Jacoby Sarto believes I did not come from Buridan Tower, then he must have some idea of where I did. What do you know, Sir Sarto, that you’re not telling the rest of us? Do you have some proof that you’re not sharing? A name, perhaps?”

He opened his mouth—and hesitated.

They locked eyes and she saw him realize what she was willing to do. The Key to Candesce was almost visible in the air between them; it was the real subject of tonight’s deliberations.

“Sacrus has many secrets, as we’ve seen tonight,” she said quietly. “Is there some further secret you have, Sir Sarto, that you wish to share with the Council? A name, perhaps? One that might be recognized by the others present? A name that could be tied to recent events, to rumors and legends that have percolated through the principalities in recent weeks?” She saw puzzled frowns on several faces—and Sarto’s eyes widened as he heard her tread the edge of the one revelation Sacrus did not want made public.

He looked down. “Perhaps I went too far in my accusations,” he said almost inaudibly. “I retract my statements.”

Duke Ennersin leaned back in his chair, openmouthed. And Jacoby Sarto meekly sat down.

Venera returned to her seat. If I lose, everyone learns that you have the key, she thought as she settled herself on the velvet cushion. She took a sip of wine and kept her expression neutral as Pamela Anseratte stood again.

“Well,” said the lady in a cautious tone, “if there are no more outbursts… let us put it to a vote.”

Venera couldn’t help but lean forward a bit.

“All those who favor this young lady’s claim, and who wish to recognize the return of Buridan to Spyre and to this Council, raise your right hand.”

Guinevera’s hand shot up. Beside him, August Virilio languidly pushed his into the air. Pamela Anseratte raised her own hand.

Oxorn’s hand went up. Then Garrat’s ambassador raised his.

That made five. Venera let out the breath she’d been keeping. It was over. She had failed—

Jacoby Sarto raised his hand.

His expression was exquisite—a mixture of distaste and resignation that you might see in a man who’s just volunteered to dig up a grave. Duke Ennersin was staring at him in total disbelief, and slowly turning purple.

Lady Anseratte’s only show of surprise was a minute frown. “All those opposed?” she said.

Ennersin threw his hand in the air. Five others went up.

“And no abstentions,” said Anseratte. “We appear to have a tie.”

Jacoby Sarto slumped back in his chair. “Well, then,” he said quietly. “I move we take the matter to the Council investigative team. Let them visit the tower and conduct a thorough—”

“Don’t I get a vote?”

They all turned to stare at Venera. She sat up straighter, clearing her throat. “Well, it seems to me…” She shrugged. “It’s just that this meeting was called to confirm my identity and claim to being head of Buridan. Confirmation implies a presumption that I am who I say I am. I am Buridan unless proven otherwise. And Buridan is a member of the Council. So I should have a vote.”

“This is outrageous!” Duke Ennersin had had enough. He threw back his chair and stalked around the table. “You have the temerity to suggest that you—”

“She’s right.”

The voice was quiet and languid, almost indifferent—but it stopped Ennersin in his tracks. His head ratcheted around slowly, as if pulled by unwilling forces to look at the man who had spoken.

August Virilio was lounging back in his chair, his hands steepled in front of him. “Article five, section twelve, paragraph two of the Charter,” he said in a reasonable tone. “Identity is presumptive if there is no other proven heir. And Buridan is a member of the Council. Its title was never suspended.”

“A mere formality! A courtesy!” But Ennersin’s voice had lost its certainty. He appealed to Pamela Anseratte, but she simply spread her hands and smiled.

Then, looking around him at Venera, she said, “It appears you are right, dear. You do get a vote. Would you care to…?”

Venera smiled and raised her right hand. “I vote in favor,” she said.

She was sure you could hear Ennersin outside and down the street. Venera smiled as she shepherded her guests to the door. She was delirious with relief, and was sure it showed in her ridiculous grin. Her soiree was winding down, though naturally the doors and lounges would be open all night for any stragglers. But the council members were tired; no one would criticize them for leaving early.

Ennersin was yelling at Jacoby Sarto. It was music to Venera’s ears.

She looked for Garth but couldn’t see him at first. Then—there he was, sidling in the entrance. He’d changed to inconspicuous street clothes. Had he been preparing to sneak away? Venera pictured him leaving through the wine cellar exit to avoid the council’s troops. Then he could have circled around to stand with the street rabble who were waiting to hear the results of the vote. She smiled; it was what she might have done.

There went Ennersin, sweeping by Garth without noticing him. Diamandis watched him go in distaste, then turned and saw Venera watching him. He spread his hands and shrugged. She made a dismissive gesture and smiled back.

Time to mingle; the party wasn’t over yet and her head felt fine. It felt good to reinforce her win with a gracious turn about the room. For a while everything was a blur of smiling faces and congratulations. Then she found herself shaking someone’s hand (the hundredth, it must have been) and looked up to find it was Jacoby Sarto’s.

“Well played, Ms. Fanning,” he said. There was no irony in his voice.

She glanced around. They were miraculously alone for the moment. Probably a single glance from under Sarto’s wiry brows had been enough to clear a circle.

All she could think of to say was, “Thank you.” It struck her as hopelessly inadequate for the situation, but all her strategies had been played out. To her surprise, Sarto smiled.

“I’ve lost Ennersin’s confidence,” he said. “It’s going to take me years to regain some allies I abandoned today.”

“Oh?” The mystery of his reversal during the vote deepened. Not one to prevaricate, Venera asked, “Why?”

He appeared puzzled. “Why did I vote for you?”

“No—I know why.” The key was again unspoken of between them. “I mean,” she said, “why did you come out so publicly against me in the first place, if you knew I had that to hang over you?”

“Ah.” It was his turn to look around them. Satisfied that no one was within earshot, he said, “I was entrusted with the safety of Sacrus’s assets. You’re considered one of them. If I could acquire you, I was to do that. If not, and you threatened to reveal… certain details… well, I was to contrive a murderous rage.” He opened his jacket slightly and she saw the large pistol he had holstered there. “You would not have had a chance to say what you know,” he said with a slight smile.

“So why didn’t you…”

“It is useful to have an acknowledged heir of Buridan controlling that estate. This way we avoid a nasty succession conflict, which Sacrus would view as an unnecessary… distraction, right now. Besides,” Sarto shrugged. “There are few moments in a man’s life when he has the opportunity to make a choice on his own. I simply did not want to shoot you.”

“And why tell me this now?”

His mouth didn’t change from its accustomed frown, but the lines around Sarto’s eyes might have crinkled a little bit—an almost smile.

“It will be easy for me to tell my masters that the pistol was taken from me at your door,” he said. “Without an opportunity to acquire or silence you, letting you win was the expedient option. My masters know that.” He turned away, then looked back with a scowl. “I hope you won’t give me reason to regret my decision.”

“Surely not. And my apologies for inconveniencing you.”

He laughed at the edge in her voice.

“You may think you’re free,” he said as the crowd parted to let him through, “but Sacrus still owns you. Never forget that.”

Venera kept her smile bright, but his parting words worried at her for the rest of the evening.