‘Good. We’ll see. I want to spend a little time with you, to see how you deal with the world of Government House. Will that be all right?’
‘Sure.’ Vida hesitated, then blurted. ‘But I don’t see why you’d bother. There’s not even anything I can do for you.’
‘Believe it or not, sometimes people do things just because they’re right.’ Romero suddenly laughed. ‘I can see that my stay here’s going to be interesting. I’m not like the cardinal, you know. I don’t believe that children are pawns for politicians. They are precious, all of them. They’re the living stars of God.’
‘Of course, Sister. How long before you’ll issue the permit?’
‘At least six months after your marriage. At least.’
‘Standard months or Palace months?’
‘Standard.’
‘Well, at least that’ll be a little shorter.’
‘Quite a lot shorter, actually. But I’m not making you a promise, mind. If it takes years for you to grow into your position, then you’ll wait years. Standard-and Palace.’
Vida pressed her lips together tightly - choking back anger or tears?
‘One last thing,’ Romero said. ‘Your implant. It must be standard procedure for girls in Pleasure Sect, getting their anti-conception implants. I just wanted to make sure you’ve had yours.’
‘Yes. My guardian made sure of that, as soon as I started my periods.’
‘Good. Some women have tried to take them out themselves. I don’t care how good a scalpel you use, it’s dangerous and it leaves scars.’
Reflexively Vida clamped a hand over her left side at her waist - the standard location for birth control implants. ‘I’d never do that, Sister!’
‘Good. The wound can go septic, and then you’re faced with telling a med technician what you’ve done.’
‘I won’t do it. I promise.’
‘Good. You can go now, Vida.’
‘Thank you, Sister.’ Vida rose with a small bob that leaned toward a bow. ‘You’re right, you know. I hadn’t thought about any of this.’
‘Well, now’s the time to start.’
Vida trotted down the long room, but at the door, she turned back to Romero. ‘Why doesn’t anyone care about the children in Pleasure Sect, Sister? Why aren’t we precious?’
Without waiting for an answer, Vida left. Romero spent a long time afterward considering both what she’d said and the sort of person she must be to say it.
* * *
‘Renting the suite went very smoothly.’ Samante patted her shoulder sack. ‘I’ve got a printout of the lease. But what happened with Sister Romero?’
Vida considered the question while she chopped a chunk of melon into bits. The two women were having breakfast in a restaurant in East Tower, on a level known as the Mercado, where little shops and restaurants clustered around tiled courtyards or lined curving alleys, deliberately narrow and shadowed to ape the mysterious bazaars of Souk. From their blue plush window seat they could look down at the roofs and gardens of Centre Sect, stripes and squares of grey or green far below.
‘Well,’ Samante said after a moment, ‘Something must have happened. You looked really troubled when you came out.’
‘Did I?’ Vida said. ‘Do you know anyone who’s pregnant?’
‘What? Well, let me think. I do, yes, a woman I made friends with on my last job.’
‘Can I meet her?’
Samante frankly stared.
‘I want to ask her how she feels,’ Vida went on. ‘Talking with Sister Romero - well, I feel so ignorant. It’s really loath.’
‘Ah. I see. Romero’s pretty intimidating.’
‘No, it wasn’t her. Not exactly.’ Vida considered the mangled fruit on her plate. ‘What else do I have to do today?’
‘Lots,’ Samante said. ‘First, we need to make a start on choosing your entourage.’
‘What? Why do I need an entourage?’
‘To take care of the administration of your estates and deal with the grids and the bureaucracy. Once you’re seated on Centre Council, you’ll need a political secretary, too.’
Vida sighed and leaned back against the plush, looking around while she chewed on a bread-hook, a bit of baked dough dipped in a spicy candy coating, then touched with salt. She was aware of the flow of traffic in the restaurant: customers, mostly human, heading for their tables or strolling out; waiters, mostly Leps in starched white kilts, trotting back and forth to serve them. Whenever this eddying river of activity flowed near their table, it slowed. The customers seemed to find some reason - a coat button, a dropped sling-sack - to linger near Vida, to glance at her sideways or even straight on. The waiters swung out a little further, as if they wished to distance themselves from this L’Var, this newly-hatched member of the family whose treachery had swept their people up in grief.
‘Let’s go,’ Vida said abruptly. ‘I can’t stand this.’
‘All right. We need to get a start on the entourage, anyway. You have a formal dinner tonight with the Peronidas.’
‘Oh no! I can’t face Vanna again so soon.’
‘You have to. It’s a holo op. I can see the grid coverage now: Palace’s first family dines out.’
‘Oh all right, then. And that reminds me. I got a message from Karlo this morning. He wants me to sign Wan’s contract next week.’
‘Next week? That’s way too soon. You need to deliberate over the offer.’ Vida felt herself sigh in sharp relief.
‘That’s what I mean about the staff,’ Samante went on. ‘You need a lawyer, and I think we’ll hire one today.’
The head waiter himself brought the check, which Vida accepted by pressing her thumb on a sensitized square. As they made their way through the crowded tables, Vida was aware of more stares, more whispers, more heads turning to watch them leave. Just beyond the heavy glass doors stood a fountain made of emerald green tiles; in the centre rose an enormous bronze flower, its tiered petals overflowing with water. Hiding behind it, it turned out, was a pix, a human male in a striped smock. As soon as Vida walked out, he leapt forward, pointing and clicking.
‘Stop it!’ Samante swung her shoulder bag up like a shield and stepped in front of Vida to block the shot. ‘Go away!’
The pix dodged to one side, still shooting.
‘Come on!’ Vida snarled. ‘He’s too stupid to listen.’
She took off, walking as fast as she could, making Samante trot to keep up. The pix followed, saying nothing, not even pleading with her, but she could hear the constant click of his implants, as if he hoped she’d turn around. At the lift booths they finally lost him. Vida hurried into a car down and kept the door open for Samante, who ducked in just as Vida hit the ‘close’ icon hard. With a hiss the booth shut and moved, leaving their pursuer behind.
‘What a nuisance!’ Samante said.
‘Yeah, and I bet there’s going to be more of them.’
Thankfully no pix were waiting when they left the lift booth at their floor, but as they were walking back to the guest rooms, Vida kept a sharp watch. Down an intersecting corridor she did see a commotion of sorts. Over Samante’s complaint she drifted that way to take a look. Out in the middle of the hall stood a neady-dressed woman, her black hair tied in tringlets much like Vida’s own, though she wore no headband. In one hand she held a tablet, in the other a scriber, which she kept jabbing in the direction of a pair of human men who wore the green jumpsuits of Peronida staff.
‘Are you ignorant as well as stupid?’ the woman was saying. ‘This is guildmaster Hivel Jons y Macconnel. You can’t expect him to work in a shabby little hovel like this!’
Since the door to the suite stood open, Vida could see dozens of foamstil boxes on autoforks, piled just inside, and beyond them a stretch of pale pink rooms. Se Hivel himself trotted out, waving a roll of what seemed to be floor plans. Right behind him came Rico, dressed in his journeyman’s piped trousers and a pale blue shirt, open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up halfway. She’d not noticed at the reception what an attractive colour his skin was, a light brown verging on copper. Vida stopped across the corridor to rubberneck.
‘Jevon, hey, we can make do,’ Se Hivel was saying.
‘Se Hivel!’Jevon snapped. ‘There’s no reason for you to have to make do.’
The two staff men ambled as slowly as possible into the suite, with Jevon following, berating them all the while. Hi hurried after her, but Rico stayed, hesitating in the doorway, looking Vida’s way.
‘Vida,’ Samante said. ‘We’ve got so much to do.’
‘Oh, I know. But - but I want to have a word with Se Hivel.’
‘What about?’
‘Hiring a bodyguard. No, that isn’t as dumb as it sounds. I’ll explain later, if you just want to go on ahead.’
Muttering to herself about schedules, Samante did just that. Vida walked halfway across the corridor before her confidence deserted her. For a long moment she stood watching Rico watch her, until all at once he smiled and stepped forward.
‘We’ve never been introduced,’ he said. ‘But I’m Rico Hernanes y Jons.’
‘How do you do?’ Vida automatically held out her hand. ‘Vida L’Var y Smid.’
They shook hands, and she liked his grip, decisive and firm but not some exaggerated strongman act. For a moment he let his hand linger on hers. When he let it slip away, she felt disappointment so sharp that she could think of nothing to say. Neither could he, apparently. They stood in the middle of the hall, lost in the sight of each other, until Hi’s sudden voice brought them back to the moment.
‘Well, good morning, Se L’Var.’
‘Se Hivel.’ Vida felt as if she should shake herself awake. ‘Uh, I just stopped by to ask you something.’
‘Ask away.’
‘The bodyguard you got for me? Jak? Is he still available? To hire, I mean?’
‘I think so, yeah. I’ll just ask his brother. He’s around here somewhere.’
‘Good. I’m feeling like I need my own bodyguard, not just someone who works for the Peronidas.’
‘Smart move.’ Se Hivel turned away, glancing into the suite. ‘Let me just see if Nju’s still in here. He might have gone out through the other door.’
Vida and Rico followed him for a few steps, then paused, lingering near the wall out of the way of the passers-by in the corridor. Yet Vida was always aware of being noticed, looked at, whispered about. Rico seemed aware of it, too; he stood completely tongue-tied, glancing every now and then at someone walking past, but always his gaze returned to her.
‘Uh well,’ Vida said at last. ‘Looks like your uncle’s factor is a little upset.’
Rico grinned, and the smile made her feel as warm as a rare shaft of sunlight, falling through Palace’s clouds.
‘Yeah, Jevon can be fierce when she thinks Uncle Hi isn’t getting the proper respect.’ Rico hesitated. ‘Uh, so, you’re going to be living here in the East Tower now?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
‘You don’t sound too happy about it.’
‘Well, I wasn’t given much choice.’
‘Yeah, that’s true. Neither was I. Uncle Hi kind of commandeered me for this new Caliostro project, and we need to live here to work on it.’
‘Oh.’ Vida suddenly laughed. ‘Well, you know, this is dumb of me, but here I was thinking that someone who didn’t live in Pleasure Sect could do anything they wanted, any time they felt like it. I didn’t even know I was thinking it, I mean, till just now.’
‘Huh, I only wish! Once you’re apprenticed to a guild, you do what the guild wants. Period. No arguing.’
‘Yeah? Well, I can see that.’
She smiled, he smiled, the silence fell between them again. All at once Rico shoved both hands into his trouser pockets, turned slightly and looked away, troubled.
‘Something I need to ask you,’ he said. ‘Did you know my cousin?’
‘What? What’s his name? Or is it a her?’
‘Uh, well, he was a he.’
‘Oh! I saw the news - that cousin?’
Rico nodded, staring down at the floor. Vida laid her hand on his arm.
‘I’m so sorry. It must be horrible, losing him to drugs and now this.’
Slowly, very slowly, Rico took his opposite hand out of his pocket, looked at her, then just as slowly laid it over hers, still resting on his arm. She could feel him trembling.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It was.’
Out of the corner of her eye Vida saw someone striding up to them, someone military, carrying a tablet. She broke away from Rico’s touch and turned to smile at Dukayn.
‘They’re waiting for you inside,’ she said. ‘Good morning.’
‘Morning to you, Se Vida.’ Dukayn ran his cold-steel glance down Rico and up again. ‘You are?’
‘Rico Hernanes y Jons, journeyman of the Cyberguild.’ Rico seemed to be surveying him from some great height. ‘I take it you’re the factor responsible for this mix-up?’
Dukayn stared, only briefly but long enough to award Rico the point.
‘I usually get blamed for everything around here, yeah,’ Dukayn said. ‘Where’s your uncle?’
‘I’ll take you to him.’ Rico glanced her way. ‘Vida, maybe later -’
‘Yes, of course, and do thank your uncle for me. I appreciate his help about that bodyguard.’
Before Dukayn could turn his attention her way, Vida strode off. By the time she dared to glance back, Rico had led the factor inside.
The pix caught her again at the turning of the hall, two of them this time, clicking, pointing, cajoling her in soft voices. ‘Please Se Vida, just turn this way, please, just look at us, just for a moment.’ Vida dodged round them and ran all the rest of the way back, but she could hear them running after, hard boots on the shiny floor, voices loud now, begging and whining. She slammed her hand onto the doorplate and burst through the door, whirled round and slammed it shut manually just in time.
‘You were right to start asking about bodyguards,’ Samante said. Vida nodded, panting for breath. Samante was standing in the middle of the little gather, her hands on her hips, glaring at an empty grey vidscreen.
‘What’s wrong?’ Vida said.
‘Listen to this.’ Samante pitched her voice to the screen. ‘Replay message.’
Vanna appeared, dressed in her full Fleet uniform, sitting casually in a leather chair worth a week’s average salary on Palace. Her smile dripped enough acid to etch glass.
‘I’m sending you a little gift, Vida dear,’ Vanna’s image said. ‘Most likely you need someone to clean up after you.’
The image froze, then faded.
‘Bitch!’ Vida snapped. ‘What kind of gift? Bet it’s poisoned.’