“The water’s cold,” Kate Briarley said. “I’d get cramp.” The Lone Star Confederation Ranger had changed into a swimsuit, but had a towelling robe around her shoulders. Her datapad and comunit were beside her, as well as one of her many weapons, this one a black-matte needler.
“You’d get exercise,” Brun said. “Your whole planet can’t be warm.” Kate grinned, but shook her head. Brun rolled over and swam down the pool again. The water wasn’t cold; the water was just right, as long as she kept moving. On her way back, she saw Kate was sitting up, talking into a comunit. Brun ignored her and flipped into a turn for another lap. She needed to work off tension anyway. Soon—in a day or so anyway—she would have to do something about her mother. And she had no idea what. She stretched, revelling in the feel of her body’s strength and agility, the flow of cool water past her shoulders, her hips, her legs.
As she came back down the pool, this time in sidestroke, she saw Kevil Mahoney come out of the house. He walked better now, without any aids, but unevenly. Would a rejuv help that? He couldn’t afford it, not until they straightened out his financial problems, but she could provide it. She made a mental note to talk to the family medical advisors about it as she rolled into a crawl, and powered off the last fifteen meters, hoisting herself at the end with a rush of water.
“Breakfast out here?” she asked. Then she blinked the water out of her eyes and saw their expressions. “What now?”
“Hobart’s dead.”
“What?”
“Hobart Conselline is dead. At the hands of a visiting fencing master, if you can believe that.”
Brun grabbed a towel from the stack and scrubbed her head with it. She dropped that one, grabbed another to wrap around her shoulders. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“And we’re only finding out now—?”
“His sept put a lock on the news, to locate all the Barraclough Chairholders before it was announced.”
“His sept—!” Brun clamped her teeth together for a moment. “I see.” She reached out to the table already set for breakfast, and touched its pad. “Staff—change of plans; we’ll be eating inside, in the library. I’ll be going in to the city as soon as I’ve dressed and eaten.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Kate asked.
“I’m sure it’s necessary.” Brun looked at Kevil. He said nothing—he wouldn’t, outside in an unsecured field—but his expression ended any doubts she might have had.
It still felt strange to her, this sense of mastery that had come during her first Grand Council meeting after her father’s death. It felt strange to walk into Appledale as if she owned it, even though she did, strange to feel no guilt about leaving wet footprints on the Issai carpets as she hurried upstairs. “I’ll need a secure comlink to Buttons,” she said to the guard on station in the entry hall—an innovation of Kate’s that she now recognized as necessary.
Upstairs, in the room she had always occupied, she toweled off, and stood a moment scowling at her wardrobe. Pregnancy had changed her body enough that many of her old clothes didn’t fit. Dark mourning made her look sick; she needed to look healthy and competent. Finally she chose a tailored suit in steel gray, and tucked a blue-patterned scarf into the neckline.
When she came down, Kevil and Kate were in the library, already loading their plates from a serving table. Kate had changed from the red swimsuit into one of her less-flamboyant Lone Star suits, this one pale blue. Her high-heeled fringed boots were beside her chair; her stockinged feet looked absurd in the deep carpet.
“It’s clean,” Kate said, waving at the room. Brun checked the scans and fields herself anyway and saw Kate nod approvingly.
“So—a fencing master went bonkers and killed Hobart. What else?”
“His sept claims it’s conspiracy. By the Barracloughs—by you, in fact.”
“What, in retaliation for my father’s murder?”
“Except that they don’t admit having him killed.” Kevil prodded a sausage and sighed. “I’m not supposed to eat these things.”
“Oh, live dangerously,” Kate said, around a mouthful of bacon. Brun glanced at her. Kate had never been pregnant; maybe that’s why she could eat the way she did, lounge about while Brun exercised, and not gain an ounce.
“I did,” Kevil said, with a grin. “That’s what got me in this mess.” But he forked up a bite of sausage.
“Since I know I didn’t hire any fencing masters to cut Hobart’s head off—” Brun got that far and noticed that the others weren’t moving. “What?”
“That’s how it was done. Decapitation.”
Brun looked at them, one after the other. “You’re serious? His head—? Yes, I see you are. And so, he had his head cut off, and I mentioned it, and now you think—”
“No,” Kevil said. “I don’t think that. It’s not your style, hiring someone else. But there’s another complication.”
“Which is?”
“Your mother.”
“Oh, be reasonable, Kevil. She’s off on Sirialis; she can’t have come back here to behead Hobart.”
“No, but she is Bunny’s widow, and the evidence we unearthed about your uncle’s dealings with the Consellines might be construed as giving her a motive. The very fact that she’s off on Sirialis could be considered suspicious.”
Brun shook her head. “Not Mother. She feels deeply, of course, and if we’d caught Dad’s killer, she might have slapped his face, but I can’t see her conniving at assassination.”
Kevil shook his head. “Nor can I, exactly, and yet—your mother’s a lot more complicated than you know, Brun. Back when we were young, she and my wife were close friends, and I heard more about the young Miranda than most.”
Brun wondered suddenly what had happened to Kevil’s wife, but didn’t ask . . . whatever it was, now was not the time. “Still, if she was going to have anyone killed, I’d bet on Uncle Harlis for the designated victim—”
“Don’t joke, Brun,” Kevil said. “Right now, for the sake of the sept, you must hope your uncle stays healthy.”
“For all of me, he can,” Brun said, scooping marmalade onto a slice of toast. “Now that we’ve got his sticky fingers off Dad’s estate—or at least put a kink in that—” She gave Kevil a questioning look.
“A kink, certainly. I’m afraid Hobart’s murder, unless the motives become clear, will weaken your case. When you talk to Buttons, be sure to tell him to be especially alert for unexplained movement in the holdings of peripheral companies, will you?”
“Of course.” Brun glanced around. “Where’s George? I can give him a ride into the city—”
Kevil nodded at a crumb-covered plate. “He left an hour ago.”
“Your secure link to Lord Felix, milady.” The security tech gestured from the doorway. Brun rose and then closed herself into the family’s combooth, entered her personal codes and touched the screen with the datawand that confirmed both her ID and her codes. Buttons’ face appeared, looking even more like her father’s than the last time she’d seen him.
“I’m glad you called,” he said. “Bad news—”
“I know,” Brun said. “We just heard an hour ago—but I didn’t think you’d have heard yet.”
“Why not?” Buttons asked. “I’m a lot closer—”
“What? Not to Castle Rock—or are you talking about something besides Hobart Conselline’s death?”
“Conselline’s dead?” Buttons looked startled, then more grave than ever. “When?”
“Yesterday afternoon; they just released the news this morning, local time. You didn’t know? Then what bad news did you have?”
“Pedar Orregiemos—Conselline’s foreign minister. He’s dead too.” Buttons flushed, then paled again. “Mother. She . . . er . . . killed him. By accident, of course . . .”
“Mother killed a Crown Minister?” Brun hardly knew what she said. It came to her like a sudden rupture in the foundations of a familiar tower . . . the sagging away of the wall . . . she pulled her mind back. “Mother . . . herself?”