Chimes rang out, and the bustle in the chamber quieted. A last few Members came scurrying in, swiping at their wet clothes. The chimes rang again, and the king picked up the gavel. Grand Council was about to begin.
The king had not recognized Lady Cecelia in the lithe redhead who stalked down the aisle as if she owned it. Not until she sat at that Table, in that Chair, not until her name lit on his screen of Members Present. Then, as if his vision had suddenly cleared, he recognized Heris Serrano with her. Where was the prince? Panic gripped him suddenly; icy sweat broke out all over him; he felt himself trembling. If the prince were alive, she would have brought him; the conclusion was inescapable. Dead.
He could see, as if part of his brain had turned into a tiny viewscreen, the concatenation of errors that had led him to this place. One time after another, he had done the convenient thing, the expedient thing; he had let himself be led from one folly to the next. Jared’s assassination, Nadrel’s duel, Gerel’s drugs, the clones, the secrets and countersecrets, the lies and evasions. He had lost his power; he had lost his sons; worst of all, he had lost the respect of those two women and everyone like them, all the decent men and women in the realm. His former allies would certainly disown him and his policies now, even as they scrambled to save their influence. He had thought Cecelia immature, with her strong enthusiasms, her blunt honesty. Now that immaturity seemed far wiser than the sly counsels he’d convinced himself represented maturity.
He wanted to break into tears; he wanted to throw his gavel down and leave. Tears would not help; he had nowhere to go. If Gerel had come back, he might have stood against the Question already before the meeting, but no longer. He knew what he had to do.
Lorenza could not shake the uneasiness that had become her constant companion. That stupid goon on Rockhouse Major had attacked the wrong girl, and thereby raised suspicion. No one had seen Thornbuckle’s daughter; no one had seen Lady Cecelia. Berenice had complained that Ronnie was spending all his time with his regiment; he had run out on the opera party over some ridiculous little chit of a girl, and now he never came home. She knew that George, too, had not been home for weeks. The men she hired could not locate them anywhere.
Piercy had come home with vague stories of great unrest here and there. The Benignity was upset, Aethar’s World . . . she had tried to listen, but all she could think of was Lady Cecelia. Lady Cecelia awake, alert, able to walk and see and speak . . . worst of all, Lady Cecelia able to remember. She wasn’t supposed to be able to remember, but then she wasn’t supposed to be able to achieve legal competency, either. Lorenza found herself seeing Lady Cecelia everywhere when she went out. None of them were, of course. The tall woman in the store had had the wrong face when she turned around; the woman with the short graying-reddish hair had been too short when she stood up at the reception. It was just nerves, she told herself. If she comes, then she comes, and then . . . and then kill her. She began carrying a weapon, a tiny thing that fired darts tipped with poison.
Yet no sign of Lady Cecelia—the real Lady Cecelia—showed up before the Grand Council meeting. One informant tried to tell her that Lady Cecelia’s yacht had come into Rockhouse Minor—but the database had an entirely different listing, and a more reliable source on Rockhouse Major reported a conversation between Arash Livadhi and another R.S.S. officer, one known to be hostile to Serrano. She had that recording. It could be, she thought wistfully, that Lady Cecelia was afraid to come, that she and that renegade captain had gone off together somewhere.
She didn’t believe that for a moment. She had dressed that morning as if for her last appearance; she had her jewel case hidden in her raincoat; she had her pearls under her dress. If she had to flee, if she couldn’t use her credit cubes, she would have something . . .
For a moment, just after getting out of the limousine, she had been sure Cecelia was near. She had looked around, at the little clumps of people who wished they were rich enough to be Familias, to have Chairs and votes. In the rain, it was hard to tell . . . one tall woman with red hair reminded her of Cecelia, but she was forty years younger, at least. And she was prettier than Cecelia had ever been.
Lorenza took precautions anyway. She would sit with the Buccleigh-Vandormers, to whom she was distantly related, claiming an upset stomach. She could leave quickly if she had to; she had a reservation on the noon shuttle to Rockhouse Major under another name, and she knew the number to call when she got there. They owed her plenty of favors.
Even with all her caution, she did not see Lady Cecelia until the king struck for order with his gavel. Her eyes checked the tables: there was Piercy, looking stuffy. There was Abelard, and Berenice, and . . . the back of a red head, a tall woman. The woman turned, and looked her in the eye . . . and smiled, a slow smile of absolute delight. Lorenza almost fainted; her fists clenched on the table before her. Cecelia. The bitch was not only recovered but rejuvenated . . . and she remembered.
She forgot the weapon she carried. She heard nothing the king was saying; in a scramble she grabbed her raincoat and rushed the door, pushing past the row of pages. “Madam!” she heard behind her; she shoved the tall door open and strode across the wide lobby, trying not to run. Behind her she heard the roar of upraised voices, cut off by the closing door. The guards, alert to stop intruders, did not move as she went out the glass doors of the building, down the rain-wet steps. She was on the street, drenched, before she remembered she was carrying a raincoat. She dragged it on over her wet dress and looked for the nearest transportation.
Cecelia half-rose when she saw Lorenza bolt; Heris grabbed her wrist. “Not now—she won’t escape.” Between Livadhi and Bunny, Lorenza would find no transportation farther than the stations. If she bolted that far, they might find out who her allies were.
“Right.” The king was speaking, his voice sounding flat and tired. The ritual welcome, to which he had given some grace and humor in years past, sounded as stilted as it actually was. Piercy, at the Crown Ministers’ Table, was staring at the door through which Lorenza had left with a worried expression. The moment the welcome ended, Bunny stood for recognition. He was very much Lord Thornbuckle in his formal suit.
“If you’ll wait a moment,” the king said. It was more plea than direction, and that lack of control released a buzzing hum of conversation.
“There is a Question before the floor,” Bunny said.
“I know that,” the king said. “But I have a preemptive announcement.”
“May I request the floor when you have made it?” That was not so much question as command; the king nodded. Bunny sat down, stiffly.
“Members of Familias,” the king said. A long pause, during which curiosity rose again, expressed as a crisp ruffle of subdued talk. “I wish to announce . . .” another pause. “My resignation. Abdication. I . . . am not able to continue.”
“Why?” bellowed someone from the far right corner. “We don’t want that.”
“Yes, we do!” yelled someone else. Other voices rose, louder and louder, in argument. The king banged his gavel, and the noise subsided.
“I cannot—I have reason to believe . . . my last son is dead. In my grief—I am aware of failings that—” He laid the gavel down, shook his head, then put it down on his desk. Profound silence filled the chamber; Cecelia saw puzzlement, anger, and fear on the faces around her. Bunny stood again.
“I was promised the floor to address the Question, which all of you have been sent. The king has indeed preempted that Question, which called for his resignation. I move we accept it, without further inquiry.”
“How can we vote, without a Chair?” someone asked.