Poul Anderson: A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

“My poor young nephew, that I inherited the Dukedom from, was among the casualties,” Niccolini droned on. “That roused the jolly old instinct o’ self-preservation, I can tell you. To blinkin’ many hazards as is. Not that I flatter myself I’m a political bull’s-eye. Still, one never knows, does one? So tell me ’bout this place you found. If it sounds intriguin’, I’ll see ’bout gettin’ a sensie.”

Flandry was saved by a courier in Imperial livery who entered the arbor and bowed. “A thousand pardons, your Grace,” she said. “Sir Dominic, there is an urgent message for you. Will you please follow me?”

“With twofold pleasure,” Flandry responded, for she was young and well-formed. He couldn’t quite place her accent, though he guessed she might be from some part of Hermes. Even when hiring humans, the majordomos of the new Emperor’s various households were under orders to get as many non-Terrans as was politic.

Whoever the summons was from, and whether it was terrible or trivial, he was free of the Duke before he could otherwise have disengaged. The noble nodded a vague response to his apology and stood staring after him, all alone.

His Imperial Majesty, High Emperor Hans Friedrich Molitor, of his dynasty the first, Supreme Guardian of the Pax, Grand Director of the Stellar Council, Commander-in-Chief, Final Arbiter, acknowledged supreme on more worlds and honorary head of more organizations than any man could remember, sat by himself in a room at the top of a tower. It was sparsely furnished: a desk and communicator, a couch upholstered in worn but genuine horse-hide, a few straightbacked chairs and the big pneumatic that was his. The only personal items were a dolchzahn skin on the floor, from Germania; two portraits of his late wife, in her youth and her age, and one of a blond young man; a model of the corvette that had been his first command. A turret roof, beginning at waist height, was currently transparent, letting this eyrie overlook an illuminated complex of roofs, steeples, gardens, pools, outer walls, attendant rafts, and finally the night ocean.

The courier ushered Flandry through the door and vanished as it closed behind him. He saluted and snapped to attention. “At ease,” the Emperor grunted. “Sit. Smoke if you want.”

He was puffing a pipe whose foulness overcame the air ’fresher. In spite of the blue tunic, white trousers, and gold braid with nebula and three stars of a grand admiral, plus the pyrocrystal ring of Manuel the Great, he was not very impressive to see. Yet meditechnics could not account for so few traces of time. The short, stocky frame had grown a kettle belly, bags lay beneath the small dark eyes, the hair was thin and gray on the blocky head: nothing that could not easily be changed by the biocosmetics he scorned to use. Nor had he ever troubled about his face, low forehead, bushy brows, huge Roman nose, heavy jowls, gash of a mouth between deep creases, prow of a chin.

“Thank you, your Majesty.” Flandry settled his elegance opposite, flipped out a cigarette case which was a work of art and, at need, a weapon, and established a barrier against the reek around him.

“No foolish formalities,” growled the rusty, accented basso. “I must make my grand appearance, and empty chatter will rattle for hours, and at last when I can go I’m afraid I’ll be too tired for a nice new wench who’s joined the collection, no matter how much I need a little fun.”

“A stim pill?” Flandry suggested.

“No. I take too many as is. The price to the body mounts, you know. And … barely six years on the throne have I had. The first three, fighting to stay there. I need another twenty or thirty for carpentering this jerry-built, dry-rotted Empire into a thing that might last a few more generations, before I can lay down my tools.” Hans chuckled coarsely. “Well, let the tool for pretty Thressa wait, recharging, till tomorrow night. You should see her, Dominic, my friend. But not to tell anybody. By herself she could cause a revolution.”

Flandry grinned. “Yes, we humans are basically sexual beings, aren’t we, sir? If we can’t screw each other physically, well do it politically.”

Hans laughed aloud. He had never changed from a boy who deserted a strait-laced colonial bourgeois home for several years of wild adventure in space, the youth who enlisted in the Navy, the man who rose through the ranks without connections or flexibility to ease his way.

But he had not changed either from the hero of Syrax, where the fleet he led flung back the Merseians and forced a negotiated end to a short undeclared war which had bidden fair to grow. Nor had he changed from the leader who let his personnel proclaim him Emperor—himself reluctantly, less from vainglory than a sense of workmanship, when the legitimate order of succession had dissolved in chaos and every rival claimant was a potential disaster.

A blunt pragmatist, uncultured and unashamed of it, shrewd rather than intelligent, he either appalled Manuel Argos or won a grudging approval, in whatever hypothetical hell or Valhalla the Founder dwelt. The question was academic. His hour was now. How long that hour would be, and what the consequences, were separate puzzles.

Mirth left. He leaned forward. The pipe smoldered between hairy hands clenched upon his knees. “I talk too much,” he said, a curious admission from the curtest of the Emperors. Flandry understood, though. Few besides him were left, maybe none, with whom Hans dared talk freely. “Let us come to business. What do you know about Dennitza?”

Inwardly taken aback, Flandry replied soft-voiced, “Not much, sir. Not much about the whole Taurian Sector, in spite of having had the good luck to be there when Lady Megan needed help. Why ask me?”

Hans scowled. “I suppose you do know how the Gospodar, my sector governor, is resisting my defense reorganization. Could be a simple difference of judgment, yes. But … now information suggests he plans rebellion. And that —where he is—will involve the Merseians, unless he is already theirs.”

Flandry’s backbone tingled. “What are the facts, sir?”

“A wretched planet in Sector Arcturus. Diomedes, it’s called. Natives who want to break away and babble of getting Ythrian help. Human agents among them. We would expect such humans would be from the Domain, likeliest Avalon—not true? But our best findings say the Ythrians hold no wish to make trouble for us. And our people discover those humans are Dennitzan. Only one was captured alive, and they had some problems with the hypnoprobing, but it does appear she went to Diomedes under secret official orders.”

Hans sighed. “Not till yesterday did this reach me through the damned channels. It never would have before I left, did I not issue strictest orders about getting a direct look at whatever might possibly point to treason. And— Gott in Himmel, I am swamped, on top of all else! My computer screens out lese-majeste cases and the rest of such piddle. Nevertheless—”

Flandry nodded. “Aye, sir. You can’t give any single item more than a glance. And even if you could pay full attention, you can’t send the big clumsy Imperial machine barging into Tauria, disrupting our whole arrangement there, on the basis of a few accusations. Especially in your absence.”

“Yes. I must go. If we don’t reorder Sector Spica, the barbarians will soon ruin it. But meanwhile Tauria may explode. You see how an uprising in Sector Arcturus would be the right distraction for a traitor Dennitzan before he rebels too.”

“Won’t Intelligence mount a larger operation?”

“Ja, Ja, Ja. Though the Corps is still in poor shape, after wars and weedings. Also, it has much other business. And … Dominic, just the Corps by itself is too huge for me to know, for me to control as I should. I need—I am not sure what I need or if it can be had.”