Gil located the Princess of Sapne without much trouble, once he knew what he was looking for. The tall girl in frosty green wore a plain metal circlet around hair already twisted high up on her head in a shimmering, pale-yellow crown, but what first caught his eye was her stillness. The rest of the throng in the atrium milled about, collecting in groups and splitting up again, but the girl in green stayed in one spot, with a grey-haired avuncular gentleman keeping watch on her left hand and a sable-gowned duenna hovering on her right. Marchen’s party guests came to her, it was clear, and not the other way around.
She wasn’t bad-looking, either, in a thaw-me-out ice-maidenish sort of way. Marchen Bres got two smiles out of her while Gil watched, and went off looking like a man ready to sell company secrets just to get another one. Time to circulate a bit more, Gil told himself. Maybe I can find somebody who’ll introduce an overworked baronet living on his Space Force pay to a planetary princess.
He stood away from the wall, and was making ready to ditch his now-empty plate when he heard the doorman’s voice echoing across the indoor garden.
“His Royal Highness Jamil, Crown Prince of Sapne!”
The Princess turned her head sharply, looking back over one shoulder toward the door—and Gil froze. He set his plate down on a passing waiter’s tray with a nerveless hand, while his mind played back first one picture and then another: Beka Rosselin-Metadi, age seventeen, looking out at the camera from the holocube on General Metadi’s desk, her hair the same moonlit blond and her dress the same light green . . . and Captain Tarnekep Portree, age unknown and habits unsavory, caught by a Security camera in the act of glancing back over his shoulder with just that air of damn-your-eyes arrogance.
“Good afternoon, sister dear. How’s the party?”
“Boring,” said Beka.
Jessan smiled and gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek. “D’Caer’s on his way here now,” he murmured.
Beka felt a warm glow that had nothing to do with the kiss. Finally, she thought.
That night of all-out war back on Pleyver had been a bad mistake on the part of the other side—or failing to win it had been, which amounted to the same thing. And while Tarnekep Portree and his copilot didn’t have access to the social circles traveled in by the rich and regal, the Royal House of Sapne-in-Exile turned out to be another story.
“Is our driver ready?” she asked.
Jessan smiled, and tapped the comm link built into one mother-of-pearl cuff button. “He awaits our departure, dear sister—but we can’t leave just yet, I’m afraid. I promised a good friend an introduction to my lovely sibling.”
Beka looked down her nose at him. “That was a trifle presumptuous of you, wasn’t it, Jamil?” She turned to the Professor. “Uncle—must I?”
“I’m afraid so, my dear, if Jamil has promised.” The Entiboran gave Jessan a look of faint disapproval. “You shouldn’t be so free with your sister’s company, Your Highness. Dare we hope that this time, at least, your friend is a gentleman of good family, and not another of the local merchants?”
“A very rich merchant, Uncle,” Jessan said. “And very lucky at cards.”
“Oh, Jamil,” wailed Beka softly, “you can’t have gambled away all your pocket money again!”
Jessan gave her and the Professor a scapegrace grin. “ ’Fraid so, Berran. And the news got round after Uncle stopped my allowance the last time—he wouldn’t take my note-of-hand.”
The Professor’s faint disapproval changed to a stern frown. “Do you mean to tell me, Your Highness, that you made your sister the object of a public wager?”
“Caught, by the gods!” said Jessan, with a reckless laugh. He looked over at Llannat, standing by in her modest black gown. “Tell me, Cousin Lana—will you have me if they cast me out?”
Llannat only sniffed. Too wrapped up in her illusion weaving to do anything else, Beka supposed. Well, thanks to her, everybody else in the room is getting the impression of a royal family spat—in Sapnish.
The Professor was doing a good job of it on his end, too. “Your Highness, you have overstepped the bounds of what is permissible, even for one in your privileged position. We leave for home as soon as this affair is concluded.”
“Oh, Uncle,” Beka pleaded, “must we? Home is so dreary.”
“I’m afraid we must, my dear,” the Professor said. “If your brother will not learn responsibility on his own, he must be taught. We will keep the promise which he so rashly made in your name, and then make our farewells.”
Jessan laughed a second time and chucked her under the chin. “Cheer up, sister mine . . . my friend Ebenra’s charming as well as rich. You might even enjoy his company, if you can get away from Uncle and Cousin Lana long enough to appreciate it.” He bowed and kissed his hand at them all. “I’m off to the punch bowl, dear hearts—collect me when it’s time to leave in disgrace.”
The man’s wasted as a medic, Beka thought, smiling after him. He should have gone on the stage.
Commander Gil leaned his shoulders against the atrium wall. Right now, frankly, he could use the support, and never mind the cultivated air of negligent idleness he’d been trying to convey earlier. So Beka Rosselin-Metadi is Tarnekep Portree is—the Princess of Sapne. Let’s have another look at the rest of them, why don’t we, Jervas?
He let his gaze move from one member of the Sapnish party to the next. After that first revelation, the rest was easy. The grey-haired gentleman, for instance, could only be the copilot of Pride of Mandeyn, the one known around the spaceports as the Professor. And as for Crown Prince Jamil—if that wasn’t Nyls Jessan playing royalty as if to the manner born, then Gil was never going to trust a Space Force ID file flatpic again. He gave a slight smile and an inward chuckle. I could solve the mystery of the vanishing medical station right now if I wanted to, just by asking.
The chaperone, though—that rather plain, unremarkable face didn’t belong to anybody involved in the Pleyver affair. But the Pride had snatched an Adept off Nammerin along with Lieutenant Rosselin-Metadi, and Mistress Llannat Hyfid was a small, dark woman not unlike the princess’s duenna. Very like, in fact. Gil thought about General Metadi and the questions he was careful not to ask, and hurried on to the next topic.
If the Adept is with Captain Portree . . . ah, Beka Rosselin-Metadi, then Ari Rosselin-Metadi must be somewhere hereabouts as well, and I haven’t seen him. He’d certainly stand out in this crowd—right. That big chauffeur out by the parking bay. No wonder he looked so familiar.
Gil accepted another glass of the sparkling pink stuff from a passing waiter, and stood sipping it while he watched the Sapnish contingent over the wafer-thin crystal rim. The family seemed to be having a bit of a tiff right now—Funny, thought Gil, I know who they are, but they’re speaking a language I don’t understand. For all I know, it might even be Sapnish.
He took another swallow of the pink-and-sparkly, wishing that his conscience would let him switch to something stronger. What he’d seen went a long way toward explaining some of the mysteries he’d encountered lately, but left him staring at an even bigger one—just what were the General’s daughter and her grab-bag crew up to on Ovredis?
As he slipped his drink and mulled the question over, the doorman’s voice boomed out yet again.
“Gentlesir Ebenra D’Caer!”
A stir and a hum went through the crowd in the atrium, and all eyes, even those of the Sapnish contingent, turned toward the door. Gil wasn’t surprised. The head of the D’Caer Combine might be only a common Gentlesir, and not even a Guildhead like Marchen Bres, but he still counted for more than all the local nobility and imported royalty put together.
D’Caer hadn’t changed much since the last time Gil had chanced into his orbit, during a home leave nine or ten Standard years before. He was still tall and hatchet-faced, he still dressed with the same insulting plainness for office work and social occasions alike, and he still traveled with a bodyguard even taller and broader in the shoulders than he was himself.
I wonder if he stills feels up young ladies at parties? wondered Gil—who’d been amazed, on that long-ago leave, by the things a girl would tell an older brother who could be reliably sworn to secrecy.
Right now, Beka Rosselin-Metadi was looking across the atrium at D’Caer with a smile that for some reason made Gil remember CC2 Peyte’s report on the fight in the cargo bay—and the comptech’s description of Tarnekep Portree, white shirtfront soaked from neck to waist in somebody else’s blood, standing in the line of fire and smiling as he took aim.
Whatever she’s holding against D’Caer, thought Gil, it’s got to be something worse than roving hands on the dance floor. Bad enough to get help from her brother, and from the CO of a Space Force Station, and from an Adept. Not to mention General Metadi’s tacit approval . . . and maybe Master Ransome’s as well.
Commander Gil could only think of one offense that warranted all that. “Damn,” he muttered aloud to the dregs of his punch. “What am I supposed to do now?”
He’s here, thought Beka. A chill of anticipation ran down her back as she looked over toward the door, and she smiled in spite of herself.
She smiled again at the sight of Jessan ambling back through the atrium, brushing cake crumbs off his fingertips with a napkin as he came. Jessan paused, gazed languidly around the room, and then started toward D’Caer with a cheerful cry.
D’Caer bowed, and Jessan did the “stand up, friend” routine with the hand that held the napkin. The older man straightened, and his dark eyes flicked about the room. The head of the D’Caer family had a hungry-predator look to him that made Beka wish for a moment that she’d come to the party as Captain Portree instead of the Princess of Sapne. Tarnekep knew how to deal with types like that, but the Princess Berran . . . I wish that knife was easier to get to.
His gaze hit on her, and took in her circlet and her little entourage. She forced herself to give him a courteous “have I met you?” smile in response. He turned to Jessan, and said something or other. Calling in his debts, probably.
Yes, that was it; here they both came. Gracious, my girl, Beka reminded herself. Act gracious. And don’t mess things up this time!
“Sister dear,” said Jessan, with a mischievous smile, “allow me to make known to you my good friend Gentlesir Ebenra D’Caer, of the Rolny D’Caers. Ebenra, this is my sister, Her Royal Highness Princess Berran of Sapne.”
“Your Highness,” murmured D’Caer, making a bow even lower than Marchen Bres’s as he kissed the hand she held out to him.
“Gentlesir D’Caer,” she said, as demurely as she could manage, and looked up at him from under her eyelashes while blessing the years-ago schoolmate who’d showed her how.
I can’t remember the last time I thought about Jilly. She’ll never know her eyelash trick finally did me some good.
It appeared to work as advertised, too. D’Caer showed no intention of moving on to the buffet tables or joining any of the other groups scattered all about. Instead, he made innocuous small talk with Jessan and the Professor and glanced from time to time in her direction—nothing she would call offensive, but probably heady stuff for a sheltered princess. She made a point of catching his eye the next time he looked over at her that way, and then she did the eyelash bit again. The effect was even better the second time around.
Thank you, Jilly Oldigaard—I’ve got him hooked. Now to maneuver him off alone—but how is a sweet little innocent thing like Berran going to manage that? And right under the noses of her uncle and her chaperone, too!
As if on an unspoken signal, Llannat Hyfid sagged against Beka’s right side with a gentle moan. “Oh, dear, Your Highness . . . ”
Beka slipped an arm around the shorter woman to support her. The Adept had gone pale under her dark skin, and tiny drops of sweat beaded her forehead.
“Cousin Lana!” Beka exclaimed. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
Llannat’s drooping eyelids lifted. “I feel . . . unwell, Your Highness. The room is so hot . . . ” The eye on the side of the Adept’s face away from Ebenra D’Caer closed, and then opened again, even as her faint voice went on, “Does Your Highness think it could have been the shellfish salad?”
D’Caer gave a harsh laugh. “It’s possible, by heaven, as long as Bres keeps on trying to serve it out of season.”
“Damned inconsiderate of him, I call it,” said Jessan. “Cousin Lana, light of my life, let me take you away from these crowds to recover yourself.”
The Khesatan held out his arm, and Llannat took it with another little sigh. “Your Highness shouldn’t go on so . . . but if you sister is able to spare me . . . I do feel most peculiar.”
The two faded off into the greenery of the atrium garden, leaving Beka alone between the Professor and Ebenra D’Caer.
“Your Grace,” D’Caer was saying, “I’ve long hoped for the chance to pay my respects to your niece. If I could presume to ask the favor of a stroll about the atrium in her company?”
The man certainly knows how to take advantage of an opening, Beka thought.
At her left, the Professor was going grave and protective again. “I’m afraid that with her companion taken ill—”
There’s my cue. “Please, dear Uncle?”
Her “uncle” managed to appear indulgent and concerned at the same time. “I don’t know what your mother would say, Your Highness.”
“I’m sure,” said D’Caer, “that a noble and kind-hearted lady such as she must be would say that no harm could possibly come of it.”
The Professor smiled at Beka. “Very well, dear child—but only in the downstairs rooms, mind you, and don’t stray out onto the grounds. It wouldn’t be seemly without your cousin.”
“Yes, Uncle,” Beka said as she took the arm D’Caer held out to her. “We won’t be long, I promise.”
Not long at all, she thought happily, now that we’ve got him.
At his post against the atrium wall, Gil nursed along yet another glass of the sparkling pink punch—something put together, he suspected, from a recipe labeled “suitable for maiden aunts and Space Force commanders”—and watched the Sapnish royalty weaving their net around Ebenra D’Caer.
Right now the Princess of Sapne, a shy blush coloring her cheeks, was flirting with D’Caer like a schoolgirl. Knowing what he knew about Beka Rosselin-Metadi, Gil wasn’t sure whether the sight made him want to laugh or gave him the cold shivers.
I wish I knew what they plan to do with him, Gil thought. Then I’d know whether I ought to stop it, or just stand back and watch the fun.
Without warning, the Princess’s companion put a hand to her forehead, swayed, and collapsed against her royal mistress. Good move, thought Gil, after the colloquy that followed resulted in the Crown Prince Jamil leading the drooping chaperone out of the atrium. Let’s see what happens next.
He watched as D’Caer spoke with the grey-haired gentleman. The Princess said something on a note of entreaty; the grey-haired gentleman seemed to waver; D’Caer spoke again, and it was settled. The older man withdrew, and the Princess took D’Caer’s arm with a smile.
He works fast, thought Gil, frowning. And so do they. Neither Lieutenant Jessan nor the Adept had reappeared, and the man called the Professor had effaced himself as soon as D’Caer strolled off with the Princess. Whatever they’re planning, it’s going to happen soon.
D’Caer and the Princess made a couple of turns about the atrium. D’Caer, Gil noticed, was doing most of the talking. After the two had made their second circuit, Gil saw D’Caer say something to the Princess that made her drop her eyes to hide some emotion or other—modest confusion, one might say, but somehow Gil doubted it. She made a little gesture of one slim hand toward the hallway, and murmured something that made D’Caer look like a hungry man who’d just smelled supper cooking. The two of them headed, not rapidly but with purposeful steps, down the long hall.
Time to circulate again, Commander, Gil said to himself. This could get interesting. He moved away from the wall and wandered down the hallway after them, glass of punch in hand.
By the time Gil rounded the corner into the cross-corridor, the Princess and D’Caer had almost reached the door of the last room along. With a curt gesture, D’Caer waved off his ever-present bodyguard.
He’s still the same charmer he’s always been, thought Gil, as the Princess disappeared through the door—a delicate antique hung on carefully restored hinges—that her escort opened for her. Doesn’t want witnesses.
The door started swinging closed behind the pair of them, apparently of its own volition.
Now they’ve got him, thought Gil.
He wasn’t the only one thinking. D’Caer’s bodyguard hadn’t gone farther than the intersection of the two corridors when the door swung shut, and he was evidently brighter than most of the breed. The man’s eyes widened as the significance of that quiet closure came home to him. He started down the hallway toward the suspicious door.
“Right you are,” muttered Gil, and moved out on an intercept course. In a few long strides, he drew even with D’Caer’s man, and then took one more step into a crashing collision that involved both the bodyguard and a passing waiter.
The three men went sprawling onto the marble floor—an effect that had required some last-minute contortions on Gil’s part, but with which he found himself inordinately pleased. The wave of pink punch that drenched them all was a happy accident, but one that Gil intended to give due thanks for someday when this was over.
“Oh, my dear sir!” he exclaimed, helping the bodyguard to rise. “Oh, my very dear sir . . . !”
Jessan had his arms around D’Caer and was lowering him to the floor as the man’s legs crumpled under him. The Khesatan looked at the lump beginning to form under D’Caer’s right ear.
“Amazing,” he said under his breath, “exactly how useful a first-rate medical education can be.”
Beka looked up from straightening her gown. “Let’s get him out of here before his bodyguard shows up.”
“As you will, dear sister.”
The two picked up D’Caer’s limp body between them and walked him, toes dragging, to the window that looked out onto the garden. Ari, impressive in his chauffeur’s uniform, stood waiting outside the open casement.
“Marchen’s head gardener is going to fall on his pruning shears when he sees what your big feet have done to his floral borders,” Jessan said.
Ari looked at Jessan and shook his head. “You’d make small talk at your own funeral.” He took D’Caer’s limp form and lifted it at shoulders and knees. “Got him. See you out front in five minutes.”
Jessan closed and locked the window, then crossed the room, opening a hand holoprojector as he did so. He flicked on the expensive toy. The far side of the room wavered like concrete on a hot day and changed into a facsimile of itself—quite hiding, he was pleased to note, the reality behind it, including Beka Rosselin-Metadi in a pale green gown.
“A very high quality holovid,” he murmured in satisfaction, and joined Beka behind the projection. With the illusion in place the room appeared empty, and the ribboned-off doorway to the back stairs stood open invitingly on the far side.
From where Jessan stood, he could watch through the projection as the door opened and D’Caer’s bodyguard stepped in. The big man was red-faced and his livery was in disarray. He looked as if he’d slept in his clothes and then given them for washing and pressing to an enthusiastic but untrained laundry maid. Jessan stifled a smile—the laundry maid had apparently used sparkling pink punch for cleaning fluid as well.
I wonder who we can thank for that? he thought. It doesn’t seem quite the Professor’s style, somehow, or Llannat’s either.
The bodyguard crossed the room to the window and checked that it was fastened from inside. From there he went to the stairway, stepped delicately over the scarlet restraining ribbon, and disappeared in the direction of the upper floors.
As soon as he was out of sight, Jessan clicked off the holoprojector.
“Come, Berran,” he said. “Our uncle is waiting.”
She took his arm. He opened the door, and the two of them walked out, side by side. The Professor was standing with Llannat in the atrium.
“Uncle, I am weary,” Jessan announced. “Shall we away?”
From Marchen Bres’s reception-room window, a Space Force commander in a rumpled and punch-stained dress uniform watched the Sapnish party emerge onto the gravel driveway.
The big chauffeur—plainly Ari Rosselin-Metadi in livery—stood waiting beside the gleaming hovercar, braced at a stiffer attention than he’d probably assumed since he left the Academy. He handed up first the Princess Berran and her companion, next the Crown Prince Jamil, and finally His Grace the Duke. Then he rounded the vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat. With a rising whine, the hovercar dashed away down the drive.
At the window, Commander Gil raised his too-small glass of wine in a silent toast.