Karl Schroeder - Queen of Candesce

“What’s that?” She paused to look at herself in a faded mirror. Somewhere downstairs she heard things being moved; they had hired a work gang to clean the building, just before fatigue had caught up with her and forced her to take refuge in that mildewed bed-chamber.

“There’s a second delegation waiting for you,” Diamandis explained. “A pack of majordomos from the great families.”

She stopped walking. “Ah. A challenge?”

“In a manner of speaking. You’ve been invited to attend a Confirmation ceremony. To formally establish your identity and titles.”

“Of course, of course…” She started walking again. “Damn, they’re a step ahead of us. We’ll have to turn that around.” Venera pondered this as they trotted down the sweeping front steps. “Garth, do I smell like smoke?”

“Alas, my lady, you have about you the piquant aroma of a flaming curtain.”

“Well, there’s nothing to be done about it, I suppose. Are those the challengers?” She pointed to a group of ornately dressed men who stood in the middle of the archway. Behind them, a motley group of men in workclothes milled uncertainly. “Those would be the horsemen, then.”

“Gentlemen,” she said with a smile as she walked past the officials. “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said to the horsemen.

“Ahem,” said an authoritative voice behind her. Venera made herself finish shaking hands before she turned. “Yes?” she said with a sweet smile. “What can I do for you?”

The graying man with the lined face and dueling scars said, “You are summoned to appear—”

“I’m sorry, did you make an appointment?”

“—to appear before the—what?”

“An appointment.” She leaned closer. “Did you make one?”

Unable to ignore protocol, he said, “No,” with sarcastic reluctance.

Venera waved a hand to dismiss him. “Then take it up with my manservant. These people have priority at the moment. They made an appointment.”

An amused glint came into his eye. Venera realized, reluctantly, that this wasn’t some flunky she was addressing, but a seasoned veteran of one of the great nations. And since she had just tried to set fire to her new mansion and kill her one and only friend in this godforsaken place, it could be that her judgment wasn’t quite what it should be today.

She glanced at Diamandis, who was visibly holding his tongue.

With a deep sigh she bowed to the delegation. “I’m sorry. Where are my manners? If we conduct our business briefly, I can make my other appointment without ruffling feathers on that end as well. Who do I have the honor of addressing?”

Very slightly mollified, he said, “I am Jacoby Sarto of the nation of Sacrus. Your… return from the dead… has caused quite a stir amongst the great nations, lady. There are claims of proof that you must provide, before you are accepted for who you are.”

“I know,” she said simply.

“Thursday next,” he said, “at four o’clock in the Council offices. Bring your proofs.” He turned to go.

“Oh. Oh dear.” He turned back, a dangerous look in his eye. Venera looked abjectly apologetic. “It’s a very small problem—more of an opportunity, really. I happen to have become entangled in… a number of obligations that day. My former debtors and creditors… but I’m not trying to dodge your request! Far from it. Why don’t we say, eight o’clock P.M., in the main salon of my home? Such a date would allow me to fulfill my obligations and—”

“Whatever.” He turned to confer with the others. The conference was brief. “So be it.” He stepped close to her and looked down at her, the way her father used to do when she was young. Despite herself, Venera quailed inside—but she didn’t blink, just as she had never reacted to her father’s threats. “No games,” he said very quietly. “Your life is at stake here.” Then he gestured sharply to the others and they followed him away.

Garth leaned in and muttered, “What obligations? You have nothing planned that day.”

“We do now,” she said as she watched Sarto and his companions walk away. She told Garth what she had in mind, and his eyes widened in shock.

“In a week? The place is a shambles!”

“Then you know what you’re going to be doing the rest of the day,” she said tartly. “Hire as many people as you need—cash a few of my gems. And Garth,” she said as he turned to go, “I apologize for earlier.”

He snorted. “I’ve had worse reactions first thing in the morning. But I expected better from you.”

For some reason those parting words stung far more than any of the things she’d imagined he might say.

“You haven’t talked about the horses,” he said late that evening. Garth was pushing the far end of a hugely heavy wine rack while Venera hauled on the near side. Slowly, the wooden behemoth grated another few inches across the cellar floor. “How—oof!—what did you think of them?”

“I’m still sorting it out in my own mind,” she said, pausing to set her feet better against the riveted iron decking that underlay her estate. “They were beautiful, and grotesque. Dali horses the handlers called them. Apparently, a Dali is any four-legged beast raised under lower gravity than it was evolved to like.”

Garth nodded and they pushed and pulled for a while. The rack was approaching the wall where the little cell of rebels had made their entrance—a hole pounded in the brickwork that led to an abandoned airshaft. Garth had explored a few yards of the tunnel beyond; Venera was afraid the rebels might have left traps behind.

“It was the smell I noticed first,” she said as they took another break. “Not like any fish or bird I’d ever encountered. Foul but you could get used to it, I suppose. They had the horses in a place called a paddock—a kind of slave pen for animals. But the beasts… they were huge!”

Voices and loud thuds filtered in from the estate’s central hallway. Two of the work gangs Garth had hired that day were arguing over who should start work in the kitchens first.

Shadows flickered past the cellar door. The estate was crawling with people now. Lanterns were lit everywhere and shouted conversations echoed down, along with hammering, sawing, and the rumble of rolling carts. Venera hoped the racket would keep the neighbors up. She had a week to make this place fit for guests and that meant working kitchens, a ballroom with no crumbling plasterwork and free of the smell of decay—and of course, a fully stocked wine cellar. The rebel gang had removed all evidence of themselves when they retreated, but had left behind the hole by which they’d gained entrance. Because the mansion only had one entrance—the back doors had not yet been uncovered—Venera had decided it prudent to keep this bolthole. But if she was going to have a secret exit, it had to be secret; hence the wine rack.

“Okay,” she said when they had it about three feet from the wall. “I’m going to grease the floor under the hole, so we can slide the rack to one side if we need to get out in a hurry.” She plonked down the can she’d taken from one of the workmen and rolled up her sleeves.

“We’ll have to survey for traps some time,” he said reasonably.

Venera squinted up at him. “Maybe, but not tonight. You look like you’re about to collapse, Garth. Is it the gravity?”

He nodded, wincing. “That, and simple age. This is more activity than I’ve had in a long while, when you factor in the new weight. I thought I was in good shape, but…”

“Well, I hereby order you to take two days off. I’ll manage the workmen. Take one day to rest up, and maybe on the second you tend to the… uh, that matter that you won’t talk to me about.”