Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds (21 page)

The sound system blared a processional, and the Grandam Tiajo entered, followed by a covey of attendants and hirelings. She was decked out in intricate formal robes and a cloak, a slender old woman with a mountainous hairdo and a baton that strobed softly with a maroon light. The crowd applauded.

She reached the table at the front of the long hall, so far away that they had to stand to see her. She wore an Inheritor's belt larger and more elaborate than the others.

Redlock and Dorraine were among those waiting to greet her. Alacrity gazed around and could spot no other table but theirs and his own where there was more than one belt. The highest and the lowest, he supposed.

Tiajo spoke into an invisible pickup. "Thank you, thank you, my friends and
guests.
"
Floyt could've sworn she said that directly downrange at the riffraff. The applause gradually died.

She resumed, "As you know, my dead brother wanted no sadness, no melancholy, after his passing.

Thus there will be none; we rejoice in our coming together, and in his full life, as he did. I will tell you what Caspahr would have said, if he were here."

Necromancy in reverse; she's putting words into the mouth of the dead,
Floyt mused.

"He would have said"—Tiajo threw her arms wide, holding her baton high—"
welcome
!"
More applause sounded, polite and brief.

Slight anticlimax, Floyt thought, but she was a somewhat over-painted woman well aware of her mortality, and she no longer had her brother to lean upon. She hadn't done too badly.

Uprange, at her end of the room, Tiajo had the rulers of planets and starsystems, envoys from most of the human-ruled portion of the galaxy. Weir's death meant a reshuffling of power, territory, wealth, and authority in local space, but the nineteen-system realm was a place of growing strategic importance. At a table near Tiajo's sat Seven Wars and Sortie-Wolf, the two Severeemish representatives, watching everything closely.

"There will be games, and the Hunt," Tiajo announced. "And then the Thorn Cup, and my brother's last rite, followed by the Willreading."

Alacrity sighed unhappily.

"But for tonight, avail yourselves of the hospitality of Frostpile."

A celebration at Frostpile was something to experience, Floyt decided, as course after course came at him.

The food was delightful, strange, some of it undefinable; the Terran made it a point not to inquire too closely as to just what certain things were. He knew a guilty regret that he would never again taste anything like that food after he returned to Earth.

There seemed no limit to the quantity or variety of food and drink that
human
servicers would bring promptly. Alacrity attempted to order an intoxicant that they couldn't provide, and failed happily. Brother Grimm made the acquaintance of ice cream produced right in Frostpile's kitchens; no one objected when he passed up all other food to gorge himself on it, ingesting an astonishing amount in eight or ten flavors.

Kid Risk asked Stare Skill to dance, when music began to play, but she refused. But it wasn't that she was being rude, Floyt saw; after so many years among her beloved Djinn, she'd simply lost the knack of mingling with her own species.

Sintilla had taken advantage of the general milling and socializing to go table-hopping, seeking more grist. Billy Risk was explaining to Alacrity the story behind Redlock's flagship, the
King's Ransom.
It had been just that—the ransom of the monarch of a minor world, whom the duke had captured. Among the terms of the peace treaty had been surrender of the ship, then known as the
Versailles.

Floyt discovered that the journalist's vacant chair had been reoccupied, by one of two girls. The second was standing behind her. They were identical, two brunette sylphs who looked several years younger than Floyt's daughter. They wore enormous wrist orchids and apparel consisting mainly of a few big, crucially located spangles. The seated one began, "I'm Cosset, and this is my clone-twin, Dandle."

Floyt raised his eyes imploringly to the ceiling.

"Are you the Terran historian?" she went on. "We'd so very much like to ask you some questions!

You see, we're researching our family tree."

Dandle nodded agreement, batting her eyelashes, tresses bobbing. Floyt found himself embroiled in a complicated attempt both to explain that he wasn't a scholar and to field their questions. They listened attentively, wide-eyed. He didn't notice that Alacrity had left the table until he became aware of a weird, nasal chanting-singing nearby.

"Ning-ning-a-ning!
Oh, Lord Admiral Maska's the most alert of commanders! (Frequently stays wide-awake through most of the battle!)
A-ning!"
Of course, it was the breakabout.

He was confronting a Srillan, a humanoid, resembling a sleepy, shambling anteater rearing up on its hind legs. The alien's long-haired brown pelt gleamed with the russet highlights of age. He wore an Inheritor's belt and a leg pouch, needing nothing else. The two were engaged in one of the aliens' affable mockery duels.

"Ning-ning!"
riposted the Srillan. "Alacrity Fitzhugh we know to be the greatest of lovers! (For those who prefer intercourse to a slow eight-count!)
A-ning-ning!"

They had, it seemed, heard of one another.

Maska and Alacrity were doing the prancing shuffle of their game in a subdued way so as not to disturb chatting, circulating guests. They were drawing attention anyway.

Onlookers were laughing. Alacrity's chance encounter with Maska was a welcome chance for both to show off a bit. Their respective ranks, even their species, counted little.

Cosset and Dandle had stopped their chattering; the blood had drained from the Terran's face. He glared at the antics of a creature whose kind had laid waste so much of Earth.

Floyt waited for one or the other to lose his temper as the simpering and gibing went on. He was unaware that to do so was an almost unforgivable breach of manners, an utter defeat in which the victor often took shame as well.

The admiral cooed, "So seasoned a breakabout! (Quick, give him a cookie!)
A-ning! A-ning!"

"Such a handsome-pelted fellow is this Maska! (Raises dust clouds when he walks—fetch the carpet beaters!)
Ning-a-ning!"

Floyt didn't realize that he'd half stood. "
Alacrity
!"

The younger man was shocked by the Terran's expression of loathing; he almost tripped over his own feet. Admiral Maska stopped too, and caught the look. He, like most informed parties there, knew from which planet came the man with the wondrous cutaway and Inheritor's belt.

Alacrity looked back to Maska and nose-sang, "I laughed with all your pleasantries!"

"I thank you for your pleasantries!"

They chorused, "It's good fun to share pleasantries!
Ning-a-ning-ning!"
They slapped palms with one another pattycake style. Then Maska strolled away, effortlessly reassuming an urbane dignity.

Alacrity wandered back to the table.

Everyone had conspicuously returned to their conversations. Stare Skill finally relented and let Kid Risk lead her out onto the dance floor. Alacrity, leaning down to pick up his drink, took advantage of a pause in the streaming details of the clone-twins' lineage.

"That war was over two hundred years ago, Ho," he said quietly, then backed away.

Floyt tried to ignore him, thinking,
Not for Terrans
! He therefore failed to notice that the breakabout was making his way toward the Nonpareil, who was momentarily unchaperoned.

"Hmm, you really
can
dance." The Nonpareil smiled, swaying in Alacrity's arms.

And he really could, not simply because he'd been taught and had practiced, but because he loved it, the bliss and dreamy elegance of it, and sharing it with a woman.

And in the case of the Nonpareil, it took one to know one.

There was still a proper distance between them, but her eyes closed as they glided. His opening line, earlier, had been a mere attention getter; this was a rite of courtship.

She was impressed by the fact that he didn't feel the need to talk, only to dance. They finished the rest of the number without another word. And the next. And the one after. The space separating them gradually vanished.

When the large, live orchestra paused, the pair parted just enough to talk comfortably. "May I call you 'The' for short?"

"My name to friends is Heart. I don't think I'm going to call you Al or Fitz. I like Alacrity better."

"Good. Then so do I."

Sintilla had returned to her seat, and the clone-twins had mercifully departed. The freelancer was describing to Floyt one Inheritor she'd pointed out, a strikingly handsome young man whom she referred to as Sir John of Idyll.

He'd just passed by, slender and dark, dressed in peacock-bright regalia of metallic thread suggestive of armor. Sintilla followed him wistfully with her eyes.

The people who'd ruined John's family when he was a boy, driving his father to suicide, had been Weir's enemies as well. The Director had helped the vengeful John, setting up and funding a cover organization, a philanthropic foundation.

"Since the boy was heir to a title of knighthood, Weir decided that the cover name should be the Surge On Foundation. Get it?
Sir John!"

Floyt had to admit that the audacious pun tickled him.

"The moguls fell all over each other trying to go swimming in the gravy. John ended up breaking them all; they'll be in prison for life," Sintilla added. They watched him making his way through the crowd. It chanced that Sir John passed the spot where Alacrity and Heart were dancing.

And Captain Dincrist, Heart's father, was bound straight in the couple's direction at flank speed.

"Brace for collision!" yelped Sintilla. Floyt scrambled out of his chair and hastened toward them with the freelancer trailing. By the time they arrived, the shipping magnate was railing at the breakabout.

"I do not care to hear any more! I will
not
have you speaking to my daughter or otherwise pressing your attentions upon her. Have I finally made that clear enough for even
you
to understand, you
nonentity
!"

Alacrity had fingers tensed and extended, in fighting style, at his sides, the muscles of his neck standing out. The Nonpareil's cool self-possession had been shaken, but her father was ignoring her efforts to insert a good word.

Dincrist looked to be in flawless physical condition. He was also completely self-assured, less because of the High Truce than because few had dared challenge his will in years.

Floyt and Sintilla broke through a coalescing crowd just in time to hear Alacrity say, "Not unless I hear that from
her
."

Invincibles appeared, then Dame Tiajo stalked into view, with an abrupt parting of the crowd. The Severeemish, Seven Wars, and Sortie-Wolf, were observing attentively, no doubt waiting for a contravention of the High Truce and their Usages.

"The truce," Sintilla hissed, her fingers digging into Floyt's arm. "Alacrity mustn't break it! Tiajo would throw you both off Epiphany!"

Alacrity had his weight divided, riding the balls of his feet. The Terran drew a deep breath and interposed himself. He was apprehensive, and the threat to his mission and the inheritance had his conditioning shrieking at him. And he was still angry at Alacrity's friendly display with the Srillan, Maska.

"My daughter has nothing more to say to you," Dincrist was telling the breakabout. "Now get away from her this instant!"

Alacrity looked as if he was about to make a fight out of it. But Floyt thrust his face up close to his companion's and shouted, "You're ruining everything! Do you hear me? I want you to stop this right now!"

As everyone watched, Alacrity seemed to have a minor seizure. Doubt crept into Dincrist's expression. Heart saw her breezy, flirtatious dancing partner transformed into a bundle of restrained rage.

His natural contrariness was locked in combat with the Earthservice conditioning.

They gazed on a frightening contest, seconds in duration, open to the world but between only Alacrity and himself. Quick, slight contortions changed his face, and tension locked his posture.

For a moment, it seemed that he would shatter like glass. Then it was over. Alacrity, the incandescent anger fled from him, turned and passed through the bystanders, heading for the table.

"See that you remember your place from now on," Dincrist called after the unheeding breakabout. He took the Nonpareil's arm and led her away. She looked in Alacrity's direction once or twice in a dazed way. The onlookers dispersed.

Sintilla and Floyt found Alacrity sitting in his place, staring fixedly at nothing. He made no sound; his fists were balled so tightly that they shook. The other guests nearby—including Brother Grimm—were pretending not to notice. Sintilla sat next to him, watching him worriedly.

The Terran was trying to decide what to say when a finger tapped his shoulder and a voice said,

"Citizen Floyt?"

Sintilla could hardly believe the sudden sideways flicker of Alacrity's glare, the breakabout making sure, even in his strange depression, that there was no threat to Floyt's safety. There wasn't. It was Tiajo's own high seneschal. "The Grandam Tiajo desires that you join her in the chambers of her late brother, Director Weir."

CHAPTER 12—PHYSICAL EDUCATION

In that part of Frostpile housing the Weir family complex, radiant mists circulated overhead like ground fogs that preferred ceilings, or neon smokes. They flowed and swirled, glowing in sulfur-yellow or electric blue, cinnamon and phosphorescent sea-green.

Weir's personal chambers were spacious, but would not overawe anybody who'd already seen the rest of his home. Floyt took in details of the master bedroom and worried about Alacrity, who, following dutifully behind, was still silent. Whether he was plotting revenge on Dincrist and/or Floyt himself or had simply accepted a repellent situation, the Earther couldn't guess.

One wall and part of the ceiling had been adjusted for transparency. Floyt gazed up for a moment at Epiphany's larger moon, Guileless Giles, and its smaller companion, the Thieving Magpie, with its bright flecks and shadow shapes. The Strewn couldn't be seen, due to the luminosity of Frostpile itself.