“Ohhh . . .” She sank with him, still watchful until his hand loosened and dropped his weapon. Then she dropped her own sword, grabbed at his shoulders. “Noooo. . . . ! Pedar! NO!!”
Cecelia heard the cry as she came through the door, and saw Miranda, recognizable by both form and the golden hair that spilled out the back of her helm, facing away from her, clutching at the shoulders of her opponent, who was collapsing. She moved forward quickly. Was it Pedar, or someone else?
Miranda was scrabbling at the other person’s mask, trying to get it off.
“Miranda—let me help. Call medical—”
“It won’t come off—it won’t come off!” Miranda seemed frantic, her gloved fingers clumsily yanking at some kind of latch. Now Cecelia could see the blood trickling out where the mask had given way, and the blood on the broken short length of blade. “I told him! I told him it was dangerous! Bunny always said no one should use the old blades, or trust the old armor, but he wanted to—he insisted—”
Cecelia discovered that her mind was already working again, when she recognized all this as elements of alibi. She worked at the other side of the man’s helm, wondering why the ancients had made everything so complicated. Surely this hadn’t been made before the advent of pressure locks.
“What happened?”
“The blade broke—I was lunging—and it just shattered—”
Cecelia looked, but could see only the shadowed shape of Miranda’s face behind her mask.
“I thought you said fencing was safe.” Pedar had said that too, at the Trials. As long as it is only steel, he had said.
“It is. It’s—he wanted to use the old blades, the ones Bunny would never use. He knew Harlis wouldn’t allow it, but . . . then he said, why not the old helms. He was in one of his moods—you know how Pedar is. He’d brought me a lace scarf. He began with the Courtship, in the Ten Fingers.”
Cecelia had one side of the helm loose now, and began working on the other.
“You didn’t call for medical help.”
“Cece—when a blade goes in the eye, there is no help.”
“In the eye?”
“This old helm—the face mask failed. My blade went straight through, into his eye. You know how it is—well, you don’t, but when you thrust, if your blade snaps, you’re already moving, you can’t stop. I tried—but all I did was make it worse.”
“How?”
“The blade had already pierced his eye and the orbit—of course I yanked it back, but it was already in his brain. I didn’t realize—it was so awful—”
She had the other side of the helm open, and lifted it away. There was Pedar’s face, one eye open but dulled already with anoxia, and the other a bloody hole.
“Miranda.” Cecelia looked at her, trying to see through that mask. But sunlight blazed on the metal, and behind it was only shadow. She looked down at the gloved hands, one streaked with blood . . . at Miranda’s neck, where the high collar of her fencing habit hid her pulse.
The door slammed open now, and a crowd of servants rushed in. Where had they been all this time? Was it a plot?
“Milady! What happened—”
“We were fencing, and the blade broke . . .”
Miranda took her own mask off slowly, her hands trembling. Tears had streaked her cheeks; she looked paler than usual, with red-rimmed eyes.
“You cried—” Cecelia said.
“Of course I cried!” Miranda glared at her.
“I’ve never seen you cry before, except for Bunny—”
“You didn’t see me when I heard about Brun’s capture. Or when the babies were born.” She turned to the man in the gray suit; Cecelia did not recognize him. “Sammins, we’ll need a doctor, though I know it’s too late, and the militia. This man is—was—Minister of Foreign Affairs; we’ll have to have an investigation.”
All though the questions that followed, Cecelia sat quietly to one side, watching Miranda, listening to the timbre of her voice. Pedar had been coming to fence twice weekly since arriving on Sirialis. Pedar had initiated the practices; he had also come to talk business, and—she hesitated, and a faint color came into her cheeks—to propose a Familial alliance. On that day, they had begun as usual, but Pedar had asked—as he had before—about the antique weapons in the hall. Where were they going, and who would inherit them? He had wanted to handle them, fence with them. Bunny had never allowed it, but Pedar had begged—
And she had given in, agreed to fence with the old weapons, though they had not been inspected.
She must have scan data, Cecelia realized. She would not dare go into such detail if scan would not support what she said. And therefore—it could be an accident, just as Miranda said. Or she was even cleverer at arranging matters.
Slow anger churned her stomach. These had been her friends—or at least people she had known, people of her class. Wealthy, urbane, sophisticated . . . she had known them all her life. They collected fine art; they supported composers and artists and musicians; they had beautiful houses and landscaped grounds. They dabbled in this or that—china painting, horse breeding, designing exotic space stations—in between power plays in Family politics and acquiring more money and more power and more possessions. They wore beautiful clothes, and indulged in elaborate games of social intercourse.
And now they were killing each other off. Lorenza, trying to poison her. Kemtre, agreeing to poison his own son. Someone—Pedar, by his bragging—arranging to kill Bunny. Miranda killing Pedar.
Were they all crazy?
And if they were . . . why? And who benefitted?
She could not find her way through that maze, except in terms of the familiar, beloved world of equestrian sports and horse breeding. If she’d had a stable full of highbred horses, all carefully brought up, schooled . . . and if they had suddenly begun to act strange, to attack grooms and each other . . . what would she think?
Somebody got at the grooms.
Fine, but rich people didn’t have grooms.
Her mind stopped short, like a horse overfaced by a huge, unfamiliar obstacle on the cross-country.
Yes, they did have grooms, and veterinarians. They called them maids and valets and doctors and nurses. They all depended on pharmaceuticals for rejuv. They had all been rejuved multiple times. Lorenza, Kemtre, Pedar, Miranda, even her own sister Berenice. Some had access to other illicit drugs, like the neurotoxins Lorenza had poisoned her with.
Once she’d known Lorenza was dead, she’d given no serious thought to the source of that drug. Lorenza was a mean, vicious, sadistic woman . . . that was the threat, not the drug. It’s not the weapon, it’s the person who misuses it.
But . . . she knew. She knew about Patchcock, though she’d put it out of her mind when Ronnie and Raffa were safely married. Bad drugs. Bad rejuvenation drugs, and who knows what else, and the fallout might be worse than anyone had thought.
Was Miranda sane? Were any of them sane? The Grand Council of the Familias . . . without Bunny at its head, or Kevil Mahoney to advise, with Pedar—evil as she now believed he was—dead and stiffening on the floor in the fencing salon . . . what were they going to do? Was there anyone she could trust?
Those who had never been rejuved. Those who had been rejuved only . . . somewhere the drugs were reliable. Marta Saenz? But just because Marta was a biochemist herself, with her own labs, did that mean her drugs were good?