David Weber - The Road to Hell

“No, not Krethva.” Thaminar broke into her red-tinted thoughts. “It was some other VBS Chava-ite. Any interest?”

Shalassar pressed away her emotions. “Sure, why not? Maybe I’ll finally be able to get the VBS to take a reasoned stance on respecting cetacean funeral rites.” She didn’t continue. Thaminar was well aware of her long-standing complaints about the string of Uromathian coastal villages who made toys out of whale bone. She suppressed a shudder. “So creepy.”

Thaminar speared another vegetable and ate it. The whales didn’t seem to care what happened to their remains after life left their bodies, but any market for cetacean body parts concerned the Cetacean Embassy. The Uromathians on Haimath Island also made memorials of their own ancestor’s remains, and Thaminar didn’t bring that up either. But his silence spoke volumes, and tight marriage bond or not, she already knew by heart the points he’d make.

He and Shalassar had feared they might outlive their daughter when she and Jathmar had become portal explorers, but they’d assumed that even in that horrific eventuality they’d have her remains brought home by the Portal Authority and properly buried. The flags were a thing Shalassar had invented because they had no normal way to mark their loss. And other families had had the same need.

Families of the Fallen Timbers portal exploration crew had started it by making their own flags, with Shalassar sending the first batch of them to her friends among the other families. The beginnings of a sob formed deep in her chest and she forced herself back to the last non-painful thing she could think of.

“I suppose we should tell people to support Darcel.”

Thaminar nodded. “He seemed like a decent enough young man. I hate to see anyone like that go into politics, but maybe he can do some good.”

They ate the rest of lunch without much more to say.

Back alone in her office, Shalassar sewed one more flag herself. She sealed the package and addressed it to Tajvana Palace. Empress Varena could display it in memory of Crown Prince Janaki Calirath or not, but Shalassar would give her the political prop if she needed it.

* * *

Campaign travel schedules were always hectic. Making them run smoothly was a formidable task, fit to challenge the best staff, even at the best of times. The New Farnalian winter harvest season, with the railways in high demand to transport food to the more frozen parts of Sharona, was not “the best of times” by any stretch of the imagination, and unplanned interruptions didn’t help at all. Unfortunately, they happened anyway, and at the moment, the backup engine with its bright “Elect Kinlafia Now” paint job was stalled somewhere behind the aquarium train stuck at the Whitterhoo platform.

The news crews who’d been running commentary stories about Darcel since the campaign began had a field day. One crew reported he was providing a gentlemanly right of way to the cetaceans. A competitor news organization claimed he was being pushed around by a few silly dolphins. They all showed the forlorn little engine alone, without any trailing cars, stuck behind a massive glass-sided aquarium train.

Few reports spared even a few moments for the field abutting the train track, shining with ripe winter wheat. The dolphins watched the harvest with interest while their long-suffering young interpreter attempted to explain why humans went to such lengths to eat plant roe when the oceans were so abundantly supplied with fully matured fish.

December 13

“Excuse me, Your Highness, but what are you doing at my desk?”

Her Imperial Highness, Crown Princess Andrin Calirath, started guiltily and dropped the page she’d been trying to read in the dim pre-morning light. Her elbow barked the edge of the desk and nearly toppled one of the stacks of paper filling the half dozen in-boxes of her father’s first councilor, Shamir Taje.

The man himself stood in the doorway to his offices in the Tajvana palace, and she felt a flash of guilt go through her. He wasn’t merely her father’s first councilor; he’d also been her tutor in many things related to the power and might of the imperial government back when she’d merely been studying to support her brother’s eventual reign.

“Did you need something?” Taje cradled his first cup of dark morning tea and blinked groggily at Andrin. “Why isn’t the lamp lit?”

Because I was trying to sneak a look at these papers without drawing any attention , Andrin thought but did not say. Lazima chan Zindico, her personal guardsman, stood at the side of the room and waited quite politely for the crown princess to explain. She looked up at her old teacher’s tired face, feeling her face heat, and drew a deep breath.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Too much to worry about-I needed to see for myself.”

Taje looked at her, sleepy, and suddenly very old to her eyes. He’d see a young princess with a mess of Calirath black hair shot with gold strands, too tall for proper elegance, and with deep bags under her eyes, she thought, and brushed her hair back with one hand in an automatic attempt to smooth it.

Miss Balthar would have seen to making Andrin’s appearance sleek and regal if not actually beautiful and elegant…if Andrin had actually woken her staff for proper dressing before slipping off to check on the Privy Council’s work. She knew she really should have, but she’d been too impatient, too jumpy within her own skin, to worry about “should haves,” and she’d seen no reason anyone else should be dragged out of bed at such an unholy hour. Even Finena, her imperial peregrine falcon, was still back in the rooms resting with her night hood on-the poor bird would squawk enough to deafen a full wing of the Great Palace if she woke with Andrin missing from the room-although at least she hadn’t quite been foolish enough to go anywhere without an armed guard.

That much of the duty of a Calirath she’d not failed at this morning.

“Never mind, Shamir. I shouldn’t have come out here.” She rubbed her own eyes feeling the weight of the lost hours of sleep. “I’d hoped to see the list of marriage candidates, but it was probably foolish for me to come involve myself. I’m sure your council has everything well in hand.”

The concern didn’t leave the first councilor’s face. “Did you have some reason to think it wasn’t? Did you have a Glimpse?”

“No.” Andrin hastened to reassure him. “Just simple marriage jitters. It’s nothing, really. Please, forget I came.” At the deepening furrow in Shamir Taje’s brow, she added, “I just needed to be sure there’d be at least one good choice on the list.”

She lifted her eyes to the first councilor, hoping he would understand all the things she couldn’t articulate, sometimes even to herself. Janaki had trained to be her father’s heir all his life. Andrin hadn’t, and she felt horribly ill-prepared. At this particular moment she felt more like a little girl than a woman about to turn eighteen and make a dynastic marriage to secure the Empire of Sharona.

Taje nodded slowly and took a long sip from his cup, regarding the crown princess with more understanding-and sympathy-than she might have believed he could. But the list she was looking for, the list of all the eligible Uromathian princes from which she must select her future consort, wasn’t in the unprotected open on his desk.

The office’s security was good enough he could probably have left even so important a document and all its related notes in plain view, but he had far too much concern for Andrin’s future-and Sharona’s-to do anything so careless. Even in an interior office in the Calirath Palace, with windows that opened only to the secure courtyard and hallways patrolled by the Imperial Guard, some horrible mistake might happen.