The Kalif watched as Leolani Thoglakaveera stepped into the room. For a moment her uncertain eyes were on him. Then, walking toward the chair obviously meant for her, she glanced around, finding no one else.
He'd sent out not only his guard but Jilsomo as well, a last-moment act he couldn't have explained, except that it might help her speak more freely.
She stopped beside the chair, and he gestured. "Please be seated, Lady Thoglakaveera."
He watched her sit down, which she did as any well-trained aristocratic young woman might have: with the grace of a practiced act, but without the deeper grace of the accomplished dancer or gymnast. She was pretty, and more. Even ill-at-ease as she was, he sensed an obvious strength of character that was more than willfulness and the assurance that so often comes with noble birth and nurture. And he was confident that, unlike many other aristocratic young women of nineteen years, she could talk intelligently about things of relevance.
The colonel chose better than he may have realized, the Kalif told himself, and threw away more than he thought with his lust.
"Are you comfortable?" he asked.
"Yes, Your Reverence."
"Good. I understand you're a friend of the alien woman, Tain Faronya, who was brought to Klestron by Sultan Rashti's exploration force. Is that true?"
"Yes, Your Reverence."
"We suspect that her lost memories may include some of considerable interest and importance to Klestron and the Empire. It may be that these memories are lost irrevocably, but perhaps they're not."
He paused, waiting for whatever she might say. Realizing this, she replied, "I would hope they are not, Your Reverence. As it is, she is—incomplete."
The description took him by surprise, though it seemed highly apropos. "Have you heard her say anything that suggests some old memory not far beneath the surface of her mind?"
Leolani focused inward for a moment, considering, then shook her head. "Nothing that seemed that way to me, Your Reverence."
The Kalif focused inward, too. And found exactly what he was going to say next, though not why. "Have you heard the rumors about her and your husband?"
Her eyes sharpened, sparked. "They are not rumors, Your Reverence."
"You mean he did, actually, take an apartment for her and keep her there?"
She nodded once, sharply.
"And you would like to have your husband's love again?"
She blazed. "I have never had his love! No one has. Not me, not Tain. To him, she was something to use. Not someone; something. And vulnerable, having been wrested from her family. He took her from the ministry to bed her, nothing more. Two days before our wedding! I want nothing further to do with him." She paused, suppressing her fire. "I hope you will grant me a bill of divorcement. It is within your power."
Her outburst stopped him for a long moment. "Your feelings and your wish are both understandable," he said, then paused again. "And you're not angry at the woman Tain?"
Leolani shook her head. "She is blameless in this. Unless you wish to fault her for her beauty. In the room where she was kept in the Ministry, cameras were concealed, and men of the intelligence division would gather in the monitor room to watch her. Watch her disrobe, dance, bathe! And lusted for her. Disgusting men! Then, one night, Veeri disabled the monitors for her room and went there and told her that other men were going to come and rape and kill her if she didn't let him take her away. She was so frightened then that when he threw her down on her bed, she didn't resist."
Leolani's eyes blazed at the Kalif. "When she told me, her tears flowed like rivers, but she didn't sob. She was too deeply hurt. If he had been there then, and if I'd had a gun, I'd have killed him! Not for his treachery to me, but for what he did to her!"
The Kalif nodded, impressed by the young noblewoman's anger. And disappointed. He realized now what he'd hoped—that somehow the colonel hadn't gotten around to bedding the prisoner, that she might still be a virgin, eligible to be the wife of a Kalif. It was a strange realization, objective, as if it applied to someone else and not himself. "I appreciate your feelings," he said. "So she told you all this and you took her home with you. To your father's home, that is."
"She told me enough of it. Some she told me only afterward."
"And you believed her."
"I did! She is guileless! And when Veeri tried to talk me into coming back to him, and I accused him, he didn't deny it. He told me he couldn't help himself, that no healthy man could have. He expected me to forgive him!
"If it had been some willing doxy, perhaps I could have, though I doubt it. But to take her the way he did, using fear and humiliation! That was vile!"
"Unarguably. Well. Have you talked about this with anyone? Other than the colonel and Tain?"
She darkened. "No one. Oh, enough to my father that he understands why I left my husband."
The Kalif straightened. "Good. Continue your silence. Above all, do not tell the colonel of our talk. If you're patient, perhaps you'll have not only a divorce, but other satisfaction as well."
Leolani stood up, her face still darkened by her anger. "Thank you, Your Reverence. I will be both silent and patient. And hopeful."
She left then, and Coso Biilathkamoro, Kalif of the Karghanik Empire, sat wondering what in the world he was doing. Switching on the commset in his chair arm, he spoke to his secretary. "Partiil, when Lady Thoglakaveera has gone, send one of the pages to bring her husband over. I want to talk further with him."
The colonel felt quite comfortable when he sat down before the Kalif again. It seemed to him he'd said all there was to say about Terfreya and the enemy there, in his debrief and his first interrogation. Therefore it seemed possible that His Reverence had been impressed with his answers and war record, and wanted to know him better. Quite possibly with some appointment in mind.
At least that was the scenario he'd been rehearsing, walking over.
"Thank you for coming, Colonel," the Kalif said. "I have some rather different questions for you this time."
"It is my pleasure, Your Reverence."
"Good." He paused, and somehow the colonel tightened with misgiving. "You are aware, I suppose, of what The Prophet said and wrote about monogamy and the nobleman? And the treatment of women without husband or father or brothers to shield them?"
The questions hit the colonel like a sandbag.
"Yes, Your Reverence."
"I've been told that you took carnal knowledge of the prisoner, perhaps against her will."
The colonel shook his head vehemently. "That's not true, Your Reverence! On my mother's name it's not! I did not take carnal knowledge of her, either against or with her will. I am a marine officer, a colonel, and a son of the Thoglakaveera family!"
"Ah. Then—why did you remove her from detention and set her up in an apartment?"
"Your Reverence, I—" He looked around as if for help, and saw only the fat exarch. "She was without family or even friends. Vulnerable." The colonel's mind raced; he hadn't prepared for this. "And she seemed so innocent," he went on, "so tragic." He shrugged slightly. "I suppose my feelings seem unlikely in these times, but when I saw her there in the ministry, she was as innocent as a child. Because Kargh had seen fit to erase whatever sins she had; I suppose there must have been some, at least minor ones..."
His words had slowed. Now he paused. "Also she's very pretty, Your Reverence, and it seemed to me that someone might take advantage of her." He spread his hands. "As you seem to believe I did. So I provided her with a comfortable place to live, and two loyal servants to ward her, a man and his wife of about the age her parents might be. Until my wife was able to come and take her home, and off my hands. It was nothing more than that, sir. Nothing happened between us."
There was a moment of silence between the two men. "Um. Tell me," said the Kalif, "do you believe she was chaste? Before she was brought to the empire? Might she have been raped when taken prisoner?"
"She was not raped, Your Reverence. It was I who picked her up at the field base and took her to headquarters, from where she was shuttled to the flagship. I asked her about that, when she was turned over to me at their detention module, and she told me she had not been. It is in my debrief. And there seemed nothing wrong with her memory then.
"Of course, before her capture—who knows? A physical examination might or might not shed light on that. It seems beside the point now. The Blessed Flenyaagor tells us it's the soul which bears the soil and burden of our sins. And surely her soul was purified when all memory was taken from it."
"Hmm. An interesting viewpoint, Colonel. Meanwhile, though, your action invited rumor."
"Yes it did, Your Reverence. I can see that now. And I regret it. The rumor has hurt my poor wife till she doesn't know what to believe."
"Indeed? Well. Another matter: I understand that as a marine officer you have proven skilled, and except for the matter of the alien woman, discreet. I will want to talk with you again soon."
Relieved, the colonel got to his feet and bowed. "It will be my pleasure, of course."
When the colonel was gone, Jilsomo grunted. "Your Reverence, as a rule you do not like unasked-for advice."
The Kalif smiled. "True. But if you're patient, I will ask. What do you think of our good colonel?"
"Much as you do, I suspect, even though he did swear by his mother's name. I would certainly doubt his claimed altruism in the matter of the female prisoner. He may have been a good marine officer, but I suspect that in general he acts in his own perceived interest."
"Indeed." The Kalif got to his feet. "I need to get out in the open. Let's walk in the garden, and I'll tell you the version of the story that I have from the colonel's wife. And—I have thoughts on what to do about them—he and his wife. And the female prisoner, Tain."
Alb Jilsomo nodded soberly as he followed his Kalif through floor-length curtains and sliding glass doors into the garden. It was the season of warmest weather, but the exarch was distressed for other reasons than preferring to keep his bulk indoors where it was air-conditioned. He had a bad feeling about what the Kalif was going to say.
To start off, the Kalif recounted what Leolani had told him about the colonel and the prisoner. Jilsomo was not surprised.
"So what I think I'll do is preempt the colonel for the imperial government. Assign him as my military specialist to the Klestronu embassy. It will be a promotion of sorts, and I'm sure Rashti will be pleased. It should remove any pressure the young man's father may be applying. And conversely his father-in-law."
"Um." Jilsomo nodded, holding his peace, waiting for what might come next. When nothing did, he asked his question: "And the purpose of preempting him, Your Reverence?"
Instead of answering, the Kalif went on. "And then, instead of granting his wife the divorce she wants, I'll annul the marriage."
"Annul it? That would make it as if it had never been. The grounds for annulment are, um, somewhat more restricted than the grounds for divorce."
"Ah! But his inability to consummate the marriage in bed is all the grounds I need."
The exarch stood dumbfounded. "What makes you think he failed to consummate it?"
"Presumably he did consummate it. I simply intend to say he didn't. Wasn't able to; impotent, you see. And he won't deny it—not if he has any sense at all. It's either agree or I'll charge him with malfeasance—the use of his position for gross immorality, and tampering with an intelligence source for personal benefit."
The Kalif sounded grimly pleased with himself. Jilsomo was stunned and confused. "But—Your Reverence, those actions were on Klestron. Your charges would ordinarily fell to Sultan Rashti to prosecute."
"Ah, but I have the right of preemption, when the interests of the empire are involved. And she is a potential intelligence source. Rashti won't challenge me in this."
Jilsomo said nothing; nothing came to him. Walking in the sun, he'd begun to sweat freely, and wished he were back inside. More than that, he wished he knew what this was all about—why the Kalif intended to do as he'd described.
After a few seconds the Kalif went on. "His sexual impotency," he said, "is probably not permanent, you understand. It may well disappear within a few months, and the colonel can find another wife or mistress.
"His report on the fighting at the marine headquarters base, on the Confederation world, includes his comment that he fought hand to hand with an enemy soldier and was injured before killing the man. A report we have only from him, I might add; it may or may not be true. The injury, I've decided, was a kick in the groin, after which the colonel managed to shoot him. Before long the colonel was back aboard the troopship and in stasis, en route home. When he woke up, his ship was parked off Klestron, and very soon afterward he was courting the archdeacon's pretty daughter. They married, and then to his dismay, he discovered he was unable to carry out his husbandly duty. His bride was patient, but after several weeks, with no sign of recovery, she felt betrayed, and petitioned me for an annulment.
"I will consult with the colonel, who'll be too disheartened to oppose her request. Thus their marriage will be annuled."
The two prelates walked on a little farther, the Kalif waiting for the exarch's comment. "Your Reverence," Jilsomo said at last, "it may well work. But—why? Why this charade when you could simply grant the woman a divorce?"
"Because the colonel was impotent, he could not have fornicated with the female prisoner. Of course, it's just possible that he didn't anyway. And if he did not fornicate with her, then so far as we know, she's a virgin. And if she's a virgin..." The Kalif looked hard at his deputy. "If she's a virgin, then I can take her to wife."
The two men were approaching a grove of flowering vaasera when the Kalif said this, and Jilsomo, stunned, stepped aside to sit down on a cushioned marble bench in their heavy shade. The Kalif sat down beside him. "You have misgivings," he said, almost accusingly.
Jilsomo nodded. "It sounds contrived, Your Reverence. People will say you set this all up so you could marry the beautiful foreigner."
"Possibly. But I'll take care of that by waiting before arranging the marriage. Long enough that any suspicions will not seem compelling."
Jilsomo gathered his wits and looked at the situation. He was, after all, expected to advise. "Hmm. That would work, if you waited a year, say, or maybe half a year. But a few weeks won't be long enough. Someone, no doubt various someones, will say, 'Look at what the Kalif has done!' And the accusation will spread like wildfire; most people will at least wonder."
The Kalif said nothing, but his jaw was set.
"And—Forgive my saying it, Your Reverence, but you do not know the young woman."
The jaw muscles clenched, standing out like un-shelled pecans.
"You're angry at me," Jilsomo said matter-of-factly.
"I'm not! ... Yes I am. I am angry. I'm still a young man, thirty-six, and I have never been in love before. Now I am, and I deserve to have her. If she is willing."
He turned to face the big exarch, almost glaring. "Haven't I given the empire its best government in more than a century? That's what they say of me—the professors in the university and even some of the noble delegates. Even Tariil has said it, and he resists half the things I propose, as if I were Shatim. At least I've made a case for it, whether it's true or not. Even my opponents, most of them, will give me the benefit of that."
Jilsomo shook his head. "Your Reverence, many undoubtedly will. But others will say, 'Look! The Kalif has done a dishonest act for his personal benefit! Why can't we then?' And, 'How can he punish these others?' "
"They will get their answer," the Kalif said sharply. "I will punish corruption as harshly as ever." Chodrisei "Coso" Biilathkamoro looked challengingly at his lieutenant for a long half minute, then sagged, looked away, and spoke quietly.
"Thank you for speaking your mind, good friend. And forgive my temper. But I am going to do it. And you will back me, and see that others do.
"We fear too much what people will say. I will do it, and most of those who disbelieve me will say 'the Kalif is human, but he is a very good Kalif,' and wish me well."
Perhaps, he's right, Jilsomo thought. Or more right than wrong. No Kalif in living memory, probably no Kalif since Papa Sambak, has ruled so well. And many people, most people, will be tolerant. But it will give his opponents in the Diet a stick to jab him with. "Nothing I can say will sway you then?" Jilsomo asked.
The Kalif didn't answer, and after waiting, the exarch spoke again. "Well then, you will do it. And I will back you. Because of our friendship and because you're right when you say you're the best ruler the empire has had in a long time. And if it becomes a question before the College or the Diet, I will see that others back you, too; as you said."
He paused. "Perhaps I am making too much of this. But till now..."
"Yes?"
"Till now your ethics in office have been unstained, and the people have had government by law. Conditions greatly to be desired and admired. And your strongest points before both the College and the Diet."
The Kalif's mouth pursed. "Good friend," he said quietly, "they haven't yet seen my strongest point."