As they neared Dehya’s house, she asked, “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes, thank you.” Kelric enjoyed visiting his kin.
The door within the scrolled entrance arch shimmered and vanished as they approached. It looked lovely, but Kelric knew many deadly systems had monitored their approach before letting that door open. Inside, sunlight slanted through the windows, gilding the empty living room. A glorious singing greeted them, coming from some other room. Kelric recognized the voice; it was his brother, Eldrin, Dehya’s consort, the man the Traders had given up for Jaibriol Qox. Eldrin’s spectacular baritone filled the house.
Dehya stopped and sighed. “He hasn’t sung much since he came back from the Traders.” Her small fist clenched at her side. “He could barely talk at first, his voice was so hoarse.”
Anger surged in Kelric. “I’m sorry.”
She made a visible effort to relax. “It is over now. That is what matters.”
Kelric knew her anger wouldn’t release any more easily than his. Yet incredibly, she was right: it was over. Against all the odds, Eldrin had come home.
The singing eased into silence. Dehya headed toward an archway across the room that opened into a hallway. She had only gone a few steps when Eldrin stepped into the hall. It didn’t surprise Kelric; his brother had probably picked up their mental signatures when they entered the house, just as Kelric picked up his now. Kelric didn’t think his brother really understood the positive effect he had on people. Eldrin’s mind was like the swells of an ocean, but warm, with waves that rocked in deep, soothing motion. If Kelric was strength and Dehya finesse, Eldrin was warmth.
Eldrin met Dehya in the archway, and he took her hands. “My greetings.”
“And to you,” she murmured.
It gratified Kelric to see how much better his brother looked now compared to when he had first come home. Thinking of Eldrin’s captivity and his own experiences as a provider, he found it hard to imagine talking peace with the Traders. And yet—Corbal Xir had freed Eldrin. Kelric couldn’t reconcile that with the Highton who had so cavalierly crippled the peace process by abducting a Skolian. The Allieds could claim from now until forever that they had orchestrated the trade of Eldrin for Jaibriol III, but that wouldn’t change the truth; when Dehya had tracked Eldrin to Delos and come for him, the Allieds hadn’t even known his identity. Jaibriol Qox had orchestrated that trade himself.
Did Qox truly want peace? It seemed impossible to believe.
The house EI said, “Councilor Roca is here.” In that instant, the door chimed.
Dehya started, turning around. “Let her in.”
The front door shimmered open, revealing a woman. Her eyes were gold and her hair fell over her arms in gold and bronze waves. Seeing her in the entrance, Kelric relived the moment on Earth when she had thrown open the doors at Allied United Centre and run to him, the son she had believed dead for eighteen years. He had been blind then, but she had created such a vivid impression that he had seen her in the minds of everyone else in the lobby. He remembered his tears. Joyful tears.
Eldrin walked into the living room with Dehya. “Greetings, Mother.”
Roca joined them. “Gorgeous day outside.” Her disgruntled tone contrasted with her cheery words.
“Is everything all right?” Dehya asked.
Roca scowled at Kelric. “Light of my life, my youngest, sweetest child, it pleases me more than I can say to see you today.”
Kelric blinked. He was about as sweet as iron shavings. “What’s wrong?”
She glared at him. “Far be it from me to suggest that my impressive Imperator son is ignoring his wife.”
What? Jeejon was always in his mind. “Is she all right?”
“So you remember you have a consort.” Roca crossed her arms. “Good. It’s a start.”
Exasperated, he touched a panel on his gauntlet, keying in the code for Jeejon’s palmtop. After waiting, he glanced at his mother. “She’s not answering.”
“She doesn’t want to disturb your work.”
“I’m not working.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Surely she knows she can talk to me.” His face relaxed into a smile. “I like to talk to her.”
Roca relented a fraction. “Kelric, all she knew before she met you was life as a low-level taskmaker. She was a slave, and now she is married to one of the most powerful men alive. Of course she’s having trouble with it. She didn’t even know, at first, that when you disappeared for days at a time, you were working in the web.”
Gods. What kind of empath was he, if he hadn’t picked up on his wife’s distress? He understood why his mother noticed, though; since the death of his father, she had mourned deeply, her grief sensitizing her even more to the loneliness of others. He strode toward the door.
“Kelric, wait,” his mother said.
He turned back. “Yes?”
Roca sighed. “You are a brilliant man, my son, when it comes to military strategy or mathematics, but with women you could use a bit more subtlety.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Help her adjust.” She spoke quietly. “So far you’ve protected her from publicity. But you can’t much longer. It will soon become known that you married a Eubian taskmaker.”
Kelric frowned. If anyone had a problem with his wife’s common birth, they could go to the devil. “I stand by her.”
Her voice softened. “I know. She is the one having trouble dealing with it. For her entire life, since before her birth, she was molded, trained, and designed to think of Aristos as godlike and of herself as nothing. Now she has to face them as your consort, possibly soon, if the talks go forward.”
“Why didn’t she say anything to me?”
“You know Jeejon. She never complains. She thinks it would be ungrateful of her to disturb you.”
“Ungrateful?” He gave her an incredulous look. “Gods, she saved my life. I would never have made it back to Earth without her help. I was dying. I’m the one who owes her.”
“For saints’ sake,” his mother said. “I hope you didn’t tell her you married her because you were grateful.”
“Of course not.” He thought back to his proposal, when he was lying in a hospital bed on Earth. “I told her we had a good neural resonance.”
Dehya, who had been standing with them, laughed. “Now that was romantic.”
Kelric scowled. Jeejon, if he recalled, had made a similar comment, and in about that same tone of voice. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Kelric.” Eldrin took his arm and led him away from the women. When Roca started to follow, Dehya intercepted and herded her over to a recessed window across the room. Kelric picked up enough from their minds to know Dehya was distracting her with talk of politics. Perhaps they would solve the Eube-Skolia conflict while he and Eldrin grappled with the more difficult question of wives.
Despite Kelric’s several past marriages, he had a remarkable lack of experience in certain ways. Most of his marriages had been against his will or arranged, where he hardly knew his wife on his wedding day. Even when he had been offered a choice, the woman had been the one to court him. He had been pursued, seduced, coveted, kidnapped, bought, and sold, but only once in his life had he sought the relationship—with Jeejon. And that hadn’t involved courtship. He had no experience with wooing a woman, either before or after they said their vows.
Eldrin spoke without preamble. “Do something to show Jeejon that you think she is special.”
“I do that all the time.”
“How?”
Kelric squinted at him. “I think about her a lot.”
The corners of Eldrin’s mouth quirked up, though he tried to hide his smile. “Oh, well, that ought to do it.”
“It’s true.”
“You know that saying women have, ‘I can’t read your mind’? Well, my wife can read my mind, and it doesn’t make a whit of difference. You have to show them.”
Eldri
n was too tactful to add, you’ve never had to work at this, but Kelric caught the thought from Eldrin’s mind. “What do you suggest?” Kelric asked.
“What does she like?”
“Me.”
Eldrin looked like he was trying not to laugh. “If you want to make your wife feel desired, I suggest you could come up with something more than, ‘Here I am. Aren’t you lucky?’ ”
Kelric winced. “I didn’t mean that.” He scratched his chin. “I could give her flowers.”
“Too generic. What can the two of you do together?”
“She likes to play those VR games.”
Eldrin grinned. “So take her to an arcade.”
Kelric regarded him dubiously. “As Imperator, it would be anomalous for me to go to an arcade.”
“You could have one installed at the house.”
Kelric considered the thought. “Yes, I do think she would like that.”
“Well, there, you have an answer.”
It seemed an odd answer to Kelric, to build his wife a VR arcade, but perhaps she would like it. “Very well.” He glanced at Roca and Dehya, who were standing by a window, bathed in light. They looked serene, but he doubted their argument was anywhere near as peaceful. Their tension emanated through the room.
Eldrin followed his gaze. “Perhaps we should find out what they’re talking about before they do something drastic, like declaring war on someone.”
Kelric smiled. “Only I can do that.”
Eldrin gave him a dour look. “Don’t be so sure.” Then he headed across the room.
As Kelric and Eldrin drew nearer, Roca turned to them and motioned irately at Dehya. “Perhaps you can talk sense into her.”
“About what?” Eldrin asked.
“I think we should go ahead with the peace talks,” Dehya said.
Kelric spoke. “No.”
“We must,” Dehya said.
“Not while they hold Ardoise prisoner.”
Dehya frowned at him. “That is exactly what ESComm wants, for us to pull out.”
“Jaibriol Qox controls ESComm,” Kelric said.
Eldrin spoke dryly. “He is eighteen. He’s probably lucky if he can control himself, let alone ESComm.”
“His advisers will be the ones with power,” Roca said. Grimly, she added, “And Corbal Xir.”
Dehya looked around at them. “I can’t give you proof Jaibriol Qox is sincere. It’s more my sense of what I found in the web. But I think he wants peace. If we let ESComm destroy the talks, we play right into their hands.”
“That may be,” Kelric said. “But if we go to those talks now, we’re telling them they can brutalize our citizens and we’ll still negotiate. We can’t undermine our position that way, especially not with Aristos.”
Dehya turned away and stared at the window. “We need those talks.”
Kelric wanted them, too. But he knew the Hightons. “We can’t give in on this.”
“Has Qox responded to our protest over the Ardoise incident?” Eldrin asked.
Roca answered. “Nothing.” She glanced at Dehya, who was still staring out the window. “Not a word.”
“What should he do?” Dehya said, more to herself than to them. “If he sends Ardoise back, ESComm will shred him.”
“If he can’t handle ESComm,” Kelric said, “then any agreements he makes with us mean nothing.”
“I know.” Dehya turned to them. “I had just hoped this time might be different.”
Kelric understood. For centuries, their people had hoped that someday, somehow, it might be different with the Traders. But it had never happened in the past, and it looked like it wouldn’t happen now either.
The silence in the house seemed to echo, though logically Kelric knew that made no sense. He walked through the spacious rooms searching for Jeejon. When he found only empty space and polished stone, he grew concerned. Surely she wouldn’t leave. Not Jeejon.
Sensing what he wanted, his gauntlet activated its comm and paged his aide. A voice came out of the mesh. “Lieutenant Qahot here, sir.”
“Qahot—” Kelric paused, self-conscious. He pushed the words out all at once, before he could back out. “I need you to find out what it would require to install a VR arcade in my house.”
“Yes, sir. Certainly.” Qahot sounded amused.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Out.”
“Out, sir.”
Kelric winced. Saints only knew what his officers would think if the rumor spread that he wanted an arcade. Well, never mind. An Imperator and his wife had a right to relax once in a while.
He touched another panel on his gauntlet, and the house EI said, “Attending.”
“Comp, can you locate my wife?”
“She is outside, behind the house.”
Kelric went out the back of the house and crossed a slope covered by green grass. As he came over a swell of the land, he saw Jeejon seated on the hill, facing away from him, staring out over the ravine and the silver ribbon of a stream that wound along it far below. A breeze stirred her hair, fluffing the silvery curls.
As he reached her, she turned with a start. “Kelric.”
He smiled, warmed by her presence. Maybe no one else approved of his telling her that they had a good neural resonance, but it was true. Her mind affected his, making him feel good whenever he came near her.
Sitting next to her, he took her hand in his. The hill was steep enough that they didn’t need to lean back much to have its support. The slope rolled away more gently at their feet, almost flat, then plunged down to the river.
Kelric thought of his brother’s advice to express his emotions. “You look beautiful today.”
She snorted. “Have you been drinking?”
Laughing, he said, “No.”
Jeejon made a hmmmph noise, but she settled against him, her mood pleased even if she pretended otherwise. She said no more, in keeping with the terse dialect used by taskmakers where she had lived, a minimalist speech style that rationed words. It was one reason he liked her; she could be as taciturn as him.
Kelric put his arm around her shoulder and they sat enjoying the view. It took a while to decide how to phrase his question. Finally he said, “The peace talks may fall through.”
Jeejon sighed. “I am sorry. I know you had hopes.”
“Yes.” When she said nothing more, he tried again. “But we haven’t lost hope.”
“Good.”
“If they do proceed, we will meet on Earth. As VR simulacra, not in person.”
“Smart idea.”
“Jeejon?”
“Eh?”
“The talks won’t just be discussions. There will also be diplomatic-type events.”
“ ‘Diplomatic-type’?” She laughed. “What does that mean?”
“You know. Dinners. Receptions.”
“People need to eat in VR?”
Kelric smiled. “No. But the social aspect is part of the process.”
“It seems a waste of time.”
“I suppose.” He paused. “As my consort, you will be expected to attend.”
She went very still. “With you?”
“Yes. With me.”
“Wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Who wouldn’t? You or me?”
“Ha. Funny.” She didn’t sound amused.
“We have people who can help you adapt.”
“I feel like I would need a new brain.”
He brushed his lips over her hair. “The one you have is perfect.”
“Heh.” She started to speak, then stopped.
“Yes?” Kelric asked.
“What Aristos would come to the talks?”
“Emperor Qox. One of ESComm’s Joint Commanders. Qox’s advisers.”
“Ministers?”
“Some of them.”
“Like Finance.”
Kelric tensed. “Yes, Finance.”
She pulled her hand out of his. “The emperor needs financial advice to make peace?”
br /> He took her hand again. “Jeejon, she is the empress. She has to be there.”
His wife didn’t answer.
“It makes no difference to me,” he said.
“You still love her?”
He let out an explosive breath. “Gods above, where did you get the idea I loved that barracuda?”
“You think about her all the time.”
“Yes, I do. Every day I thank the saints I’m free.”
She said nothing, but he felt her disbelief.
“How do I make you believe me?” he asked.
“With the truth.”
Kelric knew she would see through any platitudes he tried. So he said, “Yes, I slept with her. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. They gave me drugs.”
“Drugs, pah.”
“I didn’t love her, Jeejon. I hated her.”
“You liked the sex.” She didn’t make it a question.
“It meant nothing.”
She turned in his arms, facing him, her face flushed with uncharacteristic anger. “She’s a Highton. I can’t compete with that.”
Kelric took hold of her shoulders. “She’s no one. And you don’t have to compete with her.”
She put her palms against his shoulders. “I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be.” He pulled her close. “I need you.”
“I don’t know how to help you.”
“Just be yourself.” He searched for the words to explain. “You settle me.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Maybe.”
“Jeejon—”
No answer.
Kelric laid his head on hers, knowing she would say no more. But he had felt a slight shift in her mood, less uncertainty and more optimism. He would continue this way, each day, until she believed him.
So they sat, two players in the twilight of a truce between Skolia and Eube that was dimming despite the best efforts of many people to make it work.
31
The Blue Room
Agonizing.
It was the only way Jai could describe the visit of his Joint Commanders to the palace. Being in the same room with Admiral Kaliga and General Taratus was agonizing, but he could show no sign of it, lest they perceive weakness in him.