"Viktor will fight, with all the legal knowledge he has—but the Familias Regnant has no formal Constitution. Stefan will start by hoping for the best, but if Hobart angers him sufficiently he will lead his Family in opposition. He is not a man of great vision, however. He counters the obvious attack, but does not see the oblique one that covers."
"Why, I wonder, did they elect him head of the Family?"
Hostite cleared his throat. "Of the posssibilities, he seemed least likely to interfere with the others' lives. Lord Thornbuckle was already Speaker, in any case—he did not want the Family leadership as well. His younger brother Harlis was not well-liked. Viktor didn't want it. And although the Familias is far from strict on the gender issue, few of the great Families have women at the head. None of the Barraclough women were dissatisfied enough to make a run for it."
"They have no renegade women?"
"They do, but their tastes run to inconsequentials. Lady Cecelia de Marktos, for instance, breeds horses."
"She was on Xavier," the Chairman said, with a cold contempt that almost loosened Hostite's bowels. He should have known that; he had been listening to what her family said about her. "She might be just a horse breeder, but she has been inconveniently near several disturbances in our plans. She was on Sirialis when Lepescu was destroyed—"
"Lepescu was ours?" Iagin asked. The Chairman gave him a look Hostite would not like to have received.
"No. I would not use that filth. It is one thing to kill—even to maim, as a lesson—but quite another to treat an enemy as less than human. No, what I'm remembering is that Cecelia de Marktos was the one who took the Crown Prince back to his father, and meddled. I did not authorize our agent's attack on her—women are simply not reliable, and I suspect personal jealousy of some sort—but she showed up again interfering with the Patchcock situation. It passes chance that she—a woman never previously far from a horse—should be right at the scene of problems so many times."
"Heris Serrano," Hostite murmured. "The commander was there also."
"Yes. And the Serranos have always had the reputation for neutrality in the Familias. Here they are linked to a Barraclough repeatedly . . ."
"Heris Serrano had resigned her commission; she began her association with Lady Cecelia as a hireling." That was Iagin.
"Easy enough to contrive that, if one wanted to form a duetto." A bonded pair hunting together, that meant.
"Thank you both," the Chairman said then, nodding. "Master, if you will wait a moment . . ."
Hostite backed away from the Chairman's desk until he felt the ridge in the carpet that signalled the correct distance, then turned to go.
Somewhat to his surprise, he lived to cross the threshold. He and Iagin strolled back to the vesting room, and Hostite felt the languid ease that always followed a moment of mortal danger survived.
The Chairman eyed the Master of Swords. "Hostite is our oldest Swordmaster, is he not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Unusual for a Swordmaster to live this long. And yet—extraordinary, would you say?"
"In his way, yes."
"He has a clean stroke," the Chairman said. "He never misses his mark, and I hear from all sources that he is sober and submissive."
"That is true, Chairman."
"Yet—?"
"Yet I cannot warm to him, Chairman."
"No. And that is why I insist he has not reached his end; I must have one Swordmaster whom the Master of Swords does not like."
The Master bowed. They both knew this; they had said it before.
"I find the news of Hobart Conselline disturbing, however. Such a man might do anything, if he felt endangered. We thought the discovery that their rejuvenation drugs were so easily contaminated would slow down the rate of rejuvenation . . . why would someone risk insanity, senility, just for the chance of unending life?"
"They fear death?"
"It is not just that. They do it when they are years from death, just for pleasure. I told myself it was their decadent class structure, that rejuvenation would spread to the professionals and workers only rarely and later. But no. They do not want eternal life . . . they want eternal youth. That is not the same."
"No, Chairman."
"We did not realize that at first; we had no comprehension of their desires. And without the comprehension of desires, there can be no shaping of policy. It is beyond the understanding even of Holy Father, except as another example of their sinful nature. It poses a great problem for us. The strategy which we prepared for use in one situation may be useless in another . . ." His voice trailed away, and he turned to look out the window. Children. They were aging children, who did not want to earn anything or learn anything, who abhorred the discipline of faith. How could he influence aging children? He had a terrible vision of Hobart Conselline as he appeared in the data cubes, still spoiled and smug a hundred years hence, when he himself was dead and in his grave. His successor's sucessor might be dealing with that one, and all the rest—and how many there would be by that time.
It would not do. He must find a solution, and soon. His family, his vast extended family, the entire Benignity of the Compassionate Hand, relied on him to keep them safe and prosperous and orderly. It was his duty, and he was Chairman precisely because he had never yet failed in his duty.
"I may need to speak to Hostite Fieddi again," he said. "Please inform him to remain in the compound. I also need your analysis—is there anyone in the Seated Families who has refused serial rejuvenation, and if so . . . why? Are there any sane members of their Council?"
"Yes, Chairman."
When the Master of Swords had gone, the Chairman turned to look out the window again. Aging children . . . senile children, if a merciful God limited the number of rejuvenations with even the best drugs. A terrible prospect, that great empire full of aging senile children. And in the interim, all that energy and expertise . . . their great space navy with admirals wiser than his, replenished constantly by commanders wise as admirals. But not enlisted personnel. At least they had taken care of that. Still . . . a grave, a very grave situation.
He would have to pray for Hobart Conselline. He would have to pray a very special prayer for the soul of Hobart Conselline . . . and for the soul of Hostite Fieddi, it might be.
In the Boardroom, the Chairman faced his Board, and explained what he had learned.
"So the Familias will be in even more turmoil?"
"And even more acquisitive. I have the Master of Swords looking into the possibilities of a coup d'etat, but we will need a suitable successor."
"With due respect, Chairman, I thought our policy was to promote addiction—"
"You misunderstood." A breathless silence, while everyone waited for the Chairman's next comment. "We promote no vices; we do profit from them where faulty human nature allows them to flourish. But in this case, it was my most earnest hope that they would withdraw the drugs, either voluntarily, from shame, or involuntarily, as the evidence of the danger spread. We did not object to the damage done to their military, of course, but that damage was intended to shift their policy away from that process to a safer, more limited drug which merely prolonged life a decade or so."
"Our resources—"
"Are unequal to full-scale war with the Familias. Yes. We lost an entire assault group at Xavier, and another such loss would be unprofitable. We need a way to protect ourselves, without risking ourselves."
"To eliminate Hobart Conselline?"
"That's one possibility, certainly. Especially if the right man can be found to take his place, someone who understands that unlimited expansion brings explosive decompression in the end."
His Board looked back at him. He knew what they were thinking, and knew that they knew he knew. A hundred, a thousand stalks of wheat fall before the reapers, and no one knows one from another but the Almighty . . . but the fall of a great tree brings down those around it and shakes the very ground. Perhaps God cared as much for a blade of grass as for a tall cypress . . . but mere humans noticed one more than another. It was his decision, but on them would fall the consequences.
Miranda walked down the hill to the stables in a chill evening drizzle that did nothing to cool her anger at the dapper little man who had been so sure of his welcome.
She had tried to be fair. She had tried to be reasonable. She had told herself that Cecelia often got things wrong, in her hot-headed enthusiasms.
But Pedar Orregiemos seemed determined to push her past her limits. He had written, expressing his delight in his Ministry. He had written again, complaining of her daughter's "interference" in foreign affairs, when Brun had invited that Texas woman to be her guest at Appledale. He had called by ansible to insist that she be "fair" to Harlis. Because, he explained, she didn't really need all that property. He could provide for her, and advance her interests himself, as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
And today, he had arrived at Sirialis, smugly certain that he was telling her what she did not already know, when he brought the results of the judgement for Bunny's will and against Harlis. Smugly certain of his welcome. Smugly certain that he could comfort a widow he was sure needed comforting.
If only he had let her alone. She glanced around, and saw only the grooms busy with the last evening chores. They nodded to her, and she to them, as she ducked into the passage between the stable offices and the vet supply storage. No one would be surprised to see her here; she often came down for evening rounds, or after, with a few sugar cubes for Bunny's favorite mounts.
If only he had left her alone, she would have done nothing. If only he had not flaunted his power, his connections, and hinted so broadly at his involvement that she could not ignore it. What did he think? That she had always loved him secretly, that she had been hoping to slough off an unwanted husband and take a lover?
Was he really such a fool?
She opened the door of the old smithy where bits and stirrups and buckles waited for repair. Above the long counter with its burners and torch tips, bottles of chemicals in neat racks. A small forge filled the end of the room, which had been built around it when the new smithy—much larger, and suited to a stable with more horses—had been built in the other courtyard.
Brun's information had been more complete than Cecelia's. Pedar was linked to the Rejuvenants and to Hobart Conselline . . . but while Hobart had refused to intervene to protect Harlis's interests, he would not cooperate in his own downfall. Neither Brun nor that Texan Ranger thought that the evidence they had would stand up, since the Speaker could dismiss and appoint Ministers and higher-court justices at will.
"I'm sure Pedar planned it," Brun had written. "I'm sure he hired the killers, though Cecelia says he could not have done it himself; he was in Zenebra. Kate thinks she's found a money trail—a tenuous one—but in a hostile court it probably would not hold. But whether he did it on his own, as a way of currying favor with Conselline, or on Hobart's orders, we can't determine. The reward seems to indicate a payment for services rendered—why else would anyone appoint Pedar to Foreign Affairs?—but we can't prove it. Unless you've uncovered something in the archives, we're at a standstill."
The archives had thoroughly implicated Harlis Thornbuckle and his son Kell in financial chicanery, extortion, and intra-Family power plays—but not in the death of his brother, and not in connection with the Rejuvenants. At least, not that she'd found yet.
She moved about the room, then picked up a broken snaffle and sat down at the workbench. Was she sure, in her own mind, that Pedar had had Bunny killed?
Yes.
Was she sure, in her own mind, that he could not be brought to justice?
As long as Hobart Conselline was Speaker, and Pedar his Minister of Foreign Affairs, yes. Who would believe the hysterical accusations of a grieving widow?
Was she really willing to put herself at such risk, when nothing she did could bring Bunny back to life?
She thought about that, turning the bit over and over. If he would go away and leave her alone . . . no. No. He would not; it was not in his nature. He would wheedle and whine, year after year; he would act against her one way and another, to force her into his bed, as he had maneuvered when she was a young girl in love with someone else. But then she had had Bunny. Now she was alone, with no protection but her own wits.
She could do nothing about Hobart Conselline, the ultimate enemy, the one who, she was sure, had inspired Pedar to his actions, whether or not he had ordered them. But here, in her own house, she could deal with his minion.
She turned on the smaller torch, and played it over the bit in the clamps. She had first learned to work metal as a hobby, when she'd wanted a particular style of guard on her foil. Over the years, she'd learned how to make metal stronger, or weaken it; how to make it look old, how to make it look like something else entirely.