Constantine tilts his head, curious. “Your grandmother survived the Barkazi Wars, yes?”
“Yes. My grandfather fought for the Holy League and ended up a prisoner of the Fastani, and Nana got her whole family out to a refugee center, then to Jaspeer. She raised all the children by herself. She’s tough.”
“I would like to hear her stories,” Constantine says. “I’ve spent years of my life at war, but I’ve always been a commander, relatively safe and comfortable. I try to visit the real victims, the refugees and the wounded, but it’s usually not safe to go out in public, unsafe not just for me but for the people I’m visiting, and now I share your situation—confined to the Palace—and move from one room to the next.”
Aiah remembers Constantine in her little apartment back in Jaspeer, the way he looked with such evident curiosity at the life of an ordinary person, and amusement tugs at her lips.
“And apropos of things Barkazil,” Constantine continues, “we have a brigade of Barkazil troops arriving at the aerodrome next week, and I’d be obliged if you will meet them and say a few words of welcome.”
Curiosity overcomes Aiah’s fear of speaking in public. “Barkazils? From Barkazi?”
“No. The Timocracy is running out of troops to send us, and so I have contracted with an agent in Sayven—another metropolis famous for exporting its soldiers. They are called Karlo’s Brigade—and Karlo, I recollect, is the Barkazil immortal.”
“Barkazils in Sayven?” Aiah frowns. “That’s nowhere near Barkazi. And Karlo’s Brigade—I wonder if that means they’re Holy League people.”
“Do those old factions still exist?”
“In Jaspeer the Holy League and the Fastani have become gangsters in Barkazil neighborhoods—they extort money from businessmen in the name of their old causes—but any actual veterans, unless they could afford life extension, would be ancient by now. They were always sitting in cafes when I was growing up, discussing the bad old days……”
“There are Barkazils on the Provisional Government’s side, too. Landro’s Escaliers, specialists in urban vertical assault and sniper work, from the Timocracy.”
Aiah gives a grimace. “I’m sorry to hear they’re on the wrong side. But whoever they are, I’ve never heard of them.”
Constantine shrugs. “I will send you to Karlo’s Brigade, and perhaps you can find out.”
“I will ask.” She considers. “I had a Barkazil apply to me today for a mage’s post. Came all the way from Jaspeer.”
“Will you give him the job?”
“He’s a young man—well, my age, actually. Wealthy family. He’s flying the nest in search of, oh, real meaning, or anyway the real something.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. Perhaps I won’t hire him. He’s getting scanned tomorrow; I’ll wait for the report.”
Constantine gives her a meaningful look. “I should think that any Barkazil in your division would be grateful to you for the job. Personal loyalty is not a small consideration, things being what they are.”
“He’s too rich and good-looking to have loyalties to a bureaucrat like me.”
Constantine’s laugh barks out. “He’s good-looking? You hadn’t mentioned that. Send him home!”
Aiah offers him an ambiguous smile. “Well. Perhaps I’ll hire him, then. If he makes you nervous, he may have his uses.”
Constantine gives a mock scowl. “I think I may learn to dislike this young gentleman.”
She takes her wineglass, rises, and walks to the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling window. “Do you think it would be unsafe,” she says, “if we looked out? You must be tired of blacked-out windows, and so am I.”
Constantine follows her, sweeps aside the deep blue drape at one side to look at the window mechanism, and nods. “It’s silvered on the outside,” he says. “I wish I could say the same for windows in the Palace.” He presses buttons, and with a stately electric purr the drapes pull back, revealing the window in its brushed-bronze frame. Aiah looks out through the almost-invisible bronze grid set into the glass, and a sudden singing pleasure makes her smile.
They are high in a granite tower, one of a cluster of white spears pointing at the Shield, each tipped with bright bronze transmission horns and ornamented with extravagant carved arabesques gilded with shining bronze. Shieldlight glows from tall columns of mirrored windows, and far below avenues stretch off into infinity, shadowed by tall brown-stone buildings crowned by roof gardens. A bright red aero-car, turbines rotating in their shrouds, descends slowly toward a pad below. Traffic fills the streets even at this late hour, Shieldlight winking from glass and chrome, and the walkways are full of people walking, browsing, shopping.
No gunfire, she thinks; no one hiding from shellfire or rockets. No plasm glow on the horizon to mark where mages are wrestling in midair.
And no water, either. The view is all brick and concrete and stone, like the vistas Aiah had known in Jaspeer.
How many of these people, Aiah wonders, have ever heard of Caraqui or its struggles? How many dream of the New City?
Practically none, she imagines. Everything she does, everything she fights for, is less than a dream to the people here, more unreal than the people in a chromo.
Constantine’s arms circle her from behind. She tilts her head back against his shoulder.
“I wish I could give you that month here,” he says. “Perhaps after the war. It’s something you deserve.”
She sips wine from her gold-rimmed glass. “After the war you’ll just give me another twenty jobs, and I won’t have time.”
“Am I that demanding a boss?”
A low chuckle invades her throat. “Oh yes, Minister. You are.”
“You must learn to delegate, as I do. After all, I trust you with some of the most important tasks.”
“And that’s precisely why I must do them all myself. If something goes badly wrong, would you accept my explanation that I delegated the job to someone else and he failed?”
He considers this a moment. “I would hope the situation did not arise.”
“So would I. That’s why I do everything myself.”
“And I appreciate your dedication.” He kisses her at the juncture of neck and shoulder, and pleasure shimmers along her nerves.
“I think I would like to sit and watch the world for a while,” Aiah says.
They drag a sofa to the window, and Aiah reclines against Constantine as she gazes at the city below. She looks at him from the slant of her eye.
“I’ve talked to you about my family,” she says, “but I don’t really know anything about yours. Who was your grandmother?”
He considers for a moment. “She was the mistress of my grandfather. She lasted a few years, but in the end he lost interest in her, so she had a child in hopes of getting a hold on him.”
“Did it work?”
“Of course not. He was a politician who won a rigged election with the help of the military, then betrayed his allies and seized sole power for himself. He would never have let a matter of sentiment get in the way of what he really wanted. But he was decent enough by his lights, acknowledged my father and brought him up well.” She turns, takes one of his big hands in both her own, looks up at him.
“Did you know your grandfather?”
“Oh yes. He was a complete political animal, all hunger and corruption, no humanity at all. Tall and thin, lived very modestly—he wanted all the power and wealth in the world, but wouldn’t have known how to enjoy it once he got it.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “Let me tell you a story. After he had been Metropolitan for twelve or fifteen years it seemed everyone had finally had enough of him, and there were strikes and unrest. He could see people maneuvering to replace him and thought it possible he might not win… so he gave up!” He laughs. “He announced he would step down and arrange for an orderly succession. He entered into a power-sharing arrangement with the people who wanted to replace him, allowing for the most inept of them to have the most power. They failed miserably, of course—he still had enough power to insure that they would—and their infighting paralyzed the country. So then, with the blessings of the people who had once wanted him gone, he stepped in to ‘save’ his beloved Cheloki, and ruled absolutely from that point on.”