David Weber - March Upcountry

"The Prince isn't eating!" the king whispered angrily.

"He's eaten enough," Mirzal Pars responded. The old mercenary clapped his hands and grunted in humor. "They're so smart, but they don't even recognize miz poison. It may be tasteless, but you can see the leaves clearly. Everyone knows about it... except these humans ." He grunted another laugh.

"But will it be enough?" Radj Hoomas demanded. The plan had to be executed flawlessly, for the power of these humans was terrifying to contemplate. Holding onto it would be like holding an atul by the tail.

"It will be enough. They've all eaten more than a large enough dose. If we withhold the antidote, they'll die within a day."

"And the guards are ready?"

"Assuredly," the commander chuckled. "They look forward to it."

The celebration had moved into the throne room, where the king presided over the conversation swirling around him from his throne. Much of the court had excused itself after the dinner, pleading the excuse of work to complete, and the majority of the room was sparsely filled with the prince's party and the representatives from the surrounding city-states.

Eleanora sipped from a cup of warm, flat water and squinted at the representative from Pasule.

"The king is the sole landowner?" she asked incredulously. Even in the most despotic regimes in Earth's history, power had been more diffuse than that.

"Yes. Radj Hoomas owns not only the agricultural land, but all of the buildings of the town, and all of the houses of the Council outside the city wall." The representative, Jedal Vel, was short for a Mardukan, but he still towered over the chief of staff. She'd ended up talking exclusively to him after finding him a mine of information. The "simple trader" from Pasule was a student not only of commerce, but of government and history. He was, naturally, biased towards Pasule's oligarchical form of government, but having Marshad as a horrible counterexample would tend to do that.

"Two generations ago, in the chaos after the fall of Voitan, there was a great rebellion among the Houses of Marshad. Three of them were the most prominent, and the king of that time, Radj Kordan, Radj Hoomas' grandfather, allied with one of them against the other two. It was a terrible battle, but the king finally prevailed over all but his single surviving ally. Most unfortunately, he was, in turn, assassinated shortly after the end of the war by a son of one of the defeated Houses. He had intended simply to reduce their power, fine them heavily, and strip them of guards, but his son, Hoomas' father, killed every member of the defeated Houses. Then he forced a marriage with a daughter of the single surviving ally, and absorbed that House, leaving the House of Radj as the only power in Marshad."

The representative sipped his wine and gave a lower handclap, a Mardukan shrug.

"Pasule's actions in this were not the best. We supported both sides, trying to drag the war out and damage Marshad as much as possible. We've always seen the city as a rival, and since the fall of Voitan it's come to war more than once. But when Radj consolidated all the power under itself, it was clear we'd made a serious mistake. Since then, Radj has taken more and more power and treasure, and left less and less for others.

"The only thing that Marshad exports anymore is dianda , but it makes a tremendous profit on it. The crop is hard to grow, and takes up valuable land which might otherwise be used to grow food. Naturally, Radj Hoomas could care less. The land produces barely enough food to support the farmers; the city poor are left to starve and work the looms."

"It seems like a situation ripe for a revolution," O'Casey said. "Surely there's some group that might rise up?"

"Perhaps," Jedal Vel said carefully. "However, the profits from the dianda trade also permit him to support a large standing army. Most of it is composed of mercenaries, but they recognize that they need Radj in power as the only way to preserve their own positions. They've crushed the few attempted rebellions easily."

"I see," O'Casey said. Take the army out of the picture though , she mused silently, and things might change. She glanced at the guards lining every wall. Another, separate contingent formed a half-moon crescent around the throne, and the ostentatious display of force finally made sense to her.

"Millions for defense, not a penny for the poor... ." she murmured with a low chuckle.

"Pardon?" the Pasule asked, but it was only an absent courtesy, for he was looking towards the throne. Radj Hoomas had called over the guard commander, and it looked like he might finally be ready to make the announcement that would permit everyone to leave gracefully.

Pahner nodded to the prince as Roger walked up to him. The squad parted as the prince neared the captain, and the Marines expertly swallowed up both officers in a protective ring.

"Roger," the captain greeted him, and glanced at Despreaux. The Marines had been specifically tasked with eavesdropping on the king and his guard captain, but the sergeant shrugged her shoulders. Nothing clear to report.

"Radj is definitely planning something," the prince said, tucking a stray hair back into line. "But so far, so good."

"That's what the jumper said as he passed the thirtieth floor," Pahner pointed out. He looked at Despreaux again. "What?"

"Just something about the guards, Sir," the sergeant said. "Maybe something about poison, too, but that wasn't clear."

"Joy," the company CO said.

"I don't like being surrounded like this, Sir," she added. "We could take the king if it dropped in the pot, but I'm not sure we could keep the Prince alive."

"If that happens, Sergeant," Roger said quietly, "take the king. That's your primary mission. Understood?"

Despreaux glanced quickly at Pahner, but the captain only looked back at her without expression.

"Yes, Sir. Understood," she said.

"Let's be on our toes," Pahner suggested as conversation died down and the king climbed to his feet. "Looks like time to party."

"We are gathered here tonight," Radj Hoomas said, "to honor the brave warriors who crushed the Kranolta and reopened the road to Voitan. Puissant warriors, indeed," he said, and his voice echoed hollowly through the wood-paneled hall.

"Puissant warriors, indeed," he repeated, and glanced around at his own massed guards. "I ask you, Your Royal Highness, Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock, could your puissant warriors defeat all the guards in this room? Before you fell yourself?"

"Possibly," Roger replied calmly. "Quite probably. And I would be trying very hard to survive."

The king gazed at him for a moment, then glanced at one of his guards... who stepped forward, and, with a smooth motion, shoved his spear into the back of the representative from Pasule. Jedal Vel screamed in a froth of aspirated blood as the bitter steel spearhead emerged from his chest, but the guard only grinned cruelly and twisted his wrist as he jerked his weapon free once more and the envoy thudded to the floor.

"Are you so confident?" the king asked, grunting in humor.

"What?" Roger asked, with a smile he didn't feel, as O'Casey recoiled towards the Marines and away from the twitching corpse at her feet. "You think that the 'puissant warriors' who defeated the Kranolta have never seen blood?"

He booted up the assassin program he'd used in Q'Nkok, and as the aiming reticle appeared, superimposed on his vision, he dropped it onto the forehead of the laughter-grunting guard captain.

It required more than well-written software to be truly phenomenal with an assassin program. Even with hard encoding, it required smooth, practiced muscles that could handle the high twitch-rate strains placed upon them. But Roger had practiced, and the pistol came up with the blinding speed which had so surprised Pahner in the Q'Nkok banquet hall. The weapon simply materialized in his hand, and the supersonic crack of the bead's passage blended with a meaty thump as the decapitated guard captain hit the floor.