Chương 33: Palacio de las Orquídeas

New Toledo, Vidako Imperium Stellarum October 4, 2847 To Arc's surprise, they were not the only grav-car to arrive at the duke's palace—though they were the only guests to be escorted onto the property by two mechs and a convoy of military vehicles. Once they'd passed the gates leading onto the grounds of the estate, he saw that a veritable parade of elegantly shaped, subtly armored transports crept forward, one by one, to deposit each glittering and glamorous cargo upon the steps of the duke's home.

The palace itself—or at least the facade—was constructed of boldly veined white marble, carved into a series of abstract, geometric patterns. A row of pillars extended out from either side of the top of the marble steps, supporting a gracefully arched walkway along the outside wall. There were black leafed, potted plants set among the arches, and Arc imagined that, when both of Vidako's suns were high in the sky, the entire affair would provide a shaded place to stroll among the flowers.

Now, in the dark of evening, light spilled out from the portal which led into the palace itself. More of the duke's guards waited at the top and bottom of the steps, and at the entrance into the building, though they were overshadowed by the imposing presence of two additional mechs, placed to either side of the marble steps. There was hardly room for the line of grav-cars to squeeze past their enormous feet, but the mechs showed no sign of moving.

"Another Tagma," Cassie remarked, leaning forward to crane her neck against the tinted window of the car. The motion exposed her bare back, and Arc had the sudden urge to run his fingers along the delicate line of her spine. By the time he tore his eyes away, Jessica was glaring at him.

"And a Mangonel, it looks like," Arc said, after clearing his throat. He decided that he would simply ignore the bodyguard unless she said something to him.

"That gives him a full squad. Do you think he has more in a hangar somewhere?"

"I doubt it," Cassie scoffed, shaking her head.

"He's already fielding obsolete mechs. That tells me this is the best he could get his hands on. If he had something better, it would be out here to put on a show and impress all the guests."

"Huh." Arc couldn't help doing math.

"There's just under two hundred pilot candidates at the academy, and so far as I understand the commandant's got enough mechs to put every one of those pilots in the field, if she needed to. That makes the academy far and away the most powerful ground force in this system, doesn't it? I can't imagine he likes that, either, on top of the whole space-elevator thing." One-hundred and ninety-four, Iceni broke in, helpfully.

Though of course your class couldn't be considered ready for the field yet, reducing the number somewhat.

"One-hundred and —" Cassie broke off.

"They both said it at the same time, didn't they?" Arc couldn't help but laugh. For a moment, it distracted him from the motion of their grav-car slowly drifting forward toward the steps, and the line of guests entering the palace.

"She did, yes. But the point stands—the commandant could casually take control of the planet, with those numbers."

"It's the sort of thing that makes a duke think twice about defying the emperor, isn't it?" Cassie asked him.

"While at the same time assuring him that he has our support in defending this system. Though honestly, the fact he managed to tempt four pilots away from fleet is impressive enough on its own. Anyway, Arc—we're about there. Are you ready?" Suddenly, as if her question had made it real, his throat felt so dry that he couldn't swallow. Just looking up at the marble facade of the palace, lit by floodlights from the ground, was enough to drive the point home that he had no place at all among these people.

Every one of them would know it the moment he left the grav-car, wouldn't they? He might be dressed like an officer, but he wasn't even really that yet—just a kid who'd managed to win a tournament with a few lucky moves, and who'd been just stubborn enough not to wash out as a cadet yet.

"Arc." Cassie wrapped her fingers around his hand. They were cool and soft, and the touch of her sent sparks of electricity up his arm.

"Breathe." He was squeezing back on her hand before he'd even realized he'd done it. With a nod, Arc closed his eyes and took one deep breath, then held it for a moment. The motion, the feel of it, brought back the memory of going to the Taaran Temple in Avataran Shahar with Teo. The monks had been making a mandala from colored sand, and at the time Arc had never seen anything like it before. He remembered breathing in the incense, hearing the chanting, and watching as each precise curve was poured out in turn.

He could have sat there for the rest of the day. Sometimes, he thought he could have lived the rest of his life like that. He moved his mouth, silently shaping the syllable the monks had used that day, as he let it go. He could almost feel the vibration of the word 'om' as it passed over his lips. Somehow, with Cassie's hand in his as a kind of life-raft, it helped.

"Alright," Arc declared, opening his eyes.

"I'm ready."

"You're certain?" she asked. He nodded.

"Wait for me to go first," Jessica said.

"Then follow. My drones have been with us the entire way, and I don't see any problems, but there's going to be a lot of cameras." Then, the imperial guard opened the car door and slipped out. The moment that the seal between the door and the body of the car was broken, a cacophony of voices broke upon Arc and Cassie like waves on the shore. There was only a moment of waiting before Jessica signaled them over the group chat that it was safe to duck out of the car.

"You first, and then help me out," Cassie told him. Arc stood, as much as he could inside the car, with his back and knees bent and his cap in his left hand. He climbed out, straightening as soon as his shoes were on the pavement, and fixed the cap back on his head before turning to help Cassie out. The flash of dozens of digital cameras, from a roped off area to which the duke had apparently consigned the press, created almost a strobe effect.

The moment she took his hand and climbed out of the car, the shouting began. There was no way to avoid it as they made their way along the carpet to the steps—media personalities, every one of them genetically engineered to be thin, youthful and beautiful, stretching out microphones over the velvet rope as they called out one question after another.

"Princess Cascada, who is that escorting you this evening?" a man in a sharp suit and stylish, tinted spectacles asked.

"Cadet Fourth Class Arcturus Sandhurst," Cassie said, taking Arc by the arm so that when she leaned in toward the microphone he had to go with her.

"He's a classmate of mine."

"Just a classmate?" the man asked, but she was already moving forward.

"Your Imperial Highness, are you here to support Duke Montalban's initiative for a New Toledo space elevator?" a woman with perfectly coiffed blonde hair asked. Her teeth were so white Arc couldn't bring himself to believe they were real. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I'm here because the duke was kind enough to invite me to dinner," Cassie said, and laughed. A graying, but still handsome man, held out a microphone just as they were reaching the bottom step.

"Princess, what do you say to the people who question the emperor's decision to send Imperial troops, our own sons and daughters, to risk their lives defending a species who has only just joined the Imperium? Are the LeShaii taking advantage of us?" Arc could actually feel the moment Cassie hesitated.

"I've been here on Vidako for eight weeks," she said.

"And most of my time has been spent running and doing pushups or marching in the jungle. If you expect me to be briefed on ongoing military maneuvers, I'm sorry to disappoint you," she said.

"I wasn't asking for classified information," the man insisted, before they could escape.

"I was asking for your opinion." And this, Arc saw, was why she hated it all. What did they expect—that she was going to speak out against her own father? When she'd been forced to be here in the first place, and would have been happier staying out of sight at the academy? He had the sudden feeling—and he knew it was unjust, even as the thought came into his head—that Jessica and the rest of the imperial guards should have put as much work into protecting her from this as from an assassin.

He was speaking before he could think better of it.

"Are they members of the Imperium?" he asked, leaning over toward the microphone.

"Yes, but only recent members —" Arc didn't let the man finish.

"Then you've answered your own question," he said.

"Fleet exists to protect innocent people. You think the children on that planet don't deserve our protection, because their parents didn't finish negotiating six months earlier?"

"We're due inside," Cassie said, and tugged him up the stairs.

"Sorry," he murmured, leaning in to speak in her ear as they took one step after the next.

"I didn't like seeing him put you on the spot like that."

"You just said what I wanted to. Don't apologize. But you know it's going to be all over the planetary net before the night's over, don't you?" He had to hide a flinch at that, and she patted the top of his arm. At the top of the steps, beneath the carved arch of marble which ornamented the entrance to the palace itself, warm light spilled out from the chambers within.

A slim, sharply dressed man with a neatly trimmed beard and a fall of carefully arranged dark hair over one eye waited, a woman in a red dress on his arm. Lined up next to them was a boy only a few years younger than Cassie and Arc, and a girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen.

"Your Imperial Highness, Princess Cascada," the man said, raising his voice so that it projected down to the crowd of media personalities below, "it is my very great honor to welcome you to Vidako, to New Toledo, and to my home, El Palacio de las Orquídeas. I am Alvarez Velasco Montalban, Duke of Vidako."

"It is my pleasure to join you here this evening," Cassie said, extending her left hand.

"Thank you for your very kind invitation, Duke Alvarez." Montalban took her hand in his, bowed over it, and straightened. Every movement was graceful, practiced to the point of being almost rehearsed, and yet there was something almost predatory about how the man moved, Arc thought. It reminded him of the tree cat they'd had to shoot in the jungle.

"My wife, the Duchess Nicté Lucia." The woman in red stepped forward and exchanged kisses on either cheek with Cassie.

"Thank you for coming to our home, Princess," Nicté said.

"My children—Santiago Xavier, our eldest. He is studying architecture, and we think he has a good chance of being admitted to the Académie at La Cité des Étoiles. I believe your mother attended?"

"She did," Cassie confirmed.

"Before my parents met. You must be very talented, Santiago." The poor boy gaped for a moment, and then visibly shook himself. Arc couldn't blame him—he'd been there when Cassie was trying on dresses, so he'd had some idea of what to expect. This kid probably didn't have the slightest idea what he was really in for when his parents dragged him out onto the steps.

"You're—I mean I—thank you, Your Imperial Highness," Xavier managed to get out, after stumbling over his words. He ducked an awkward bow over her hand, then retreated three steps to make way for his sister.

"Itzia Maria." The duchess guided the girl forward with a hand on her back.

"You look beautiful!" Itzia was awkward and skinny, and when she grinned Arc saw that her teeth were still being straightened. Something about that made him relax and like her more. She, at least, wasn't faking her enthusiasm.

"And please allow me to introduce my friend and classmate, Arcturus Sandhurst," Cassie said, reaching up to place her hand on Arc's shoulder.

"From Zurah V."

"Ishaan Katari's world," Duke Montalban said with a nod. Arc absolutely believed that he knew the name of every duke, duchess, and senator in the Imperium. He accepted the duke's hand and found the man's grasp firm, but not overbearing.

"You must have done something impressive to earn his recommendation to the academy. You'll have to tell us the story at dinner."

"Actually, I don't have his recommendation," Arc said, before he could think better of it.

"I've never met him. I got in by winning the Imperial Tacticalis tournament." It was almost like there was a hitch in Montalban's programming, for the briefest moment. Something unexpected from outside this glittering world of the Imperium's elite had managed to sneak inside where it didn't belong, and that speck of dirt in the gears was Arc.

"Wonderful," Montalban said, with a renewed smile. If Arc hadn't been right in front of the man, he doubted that he would ever have caught the reaction.

"Shall we go in? I'd introduce you to my brother and his children, but Esteban will be a few minutes getting down from that mech of his." The duke turned and offered his arm to Cassie.

"Come—I have a few beautiful pieces hanging in the hall, here, that I think will interest you, Your Imperial Highness. You're familiar with Velázquez, I hope? La Venus del Espejo has a particularly interesting and eventful history, dating back centuries to Terra itself..." It was done so smoothly that Arc had no chance to object and was left grasping for what to do while Montalban ushered Cassie off into the palace.

He wasn't certain whether to simply follow on their heels, like some sort of kicked dog, or if he was meant to engage with the rest of the duke's family, somehow. Nicté Lucia solved the problem for him neatly by stepping forward to take his arm.

"My husband is so proud of his collection," she remarked, with a conspiratorial smile.

"We must allow him a moment's indulgence to show it off. Would you do me the kindness of escorting me into the parlor?"

"Of course," Arc said, and stepped into the palace. The duchess's perfume surrounded him in a cloud, as he moved beside her: rose and orange, vanilla and spice, a half dozen undertones that he couldn't even identify. She guided him through the hall, past paintings and sculptures to each side, and he couldn't help but tense up when she leaned in to speak with him in a low murmur.

"It is overwhelming at first, is it not?" the older woman said, as her children trailed along behind them and the calls of the crowd outside faded.

"I understand. I was only a dancer when Alvarez and I fell in love. I won't let you founder and sink tonight, pobrecito."

"You were?" Arc couldn't hide his surprise.

"I thought—I mean I assumed, from how you acted, that you'd grown up in all this."

"The daughter of some other duke, perhaps, on a different world?" Nicté Lucia laughed.

"No. I grew up right here in New Toledo, and not in the nicest neighborhood, either. Alvarez caught sight of me on stage one evening and decided that he simply had to meet me. The heir to the entire planet knocking on the door to my dressing room—it was not at all what I'd expected that evening, I can tell you that." With gentle pressure on his arm, she drew him to a halt just outside the entrance to what Arc assumed must be the parlor.

From within, he could hear the clinking of wine glasses, and he could just catch sight of the swirl of colorful dresses and dark suits which marked the upper crust of Vidakan society. Cassie hit the room like a stone thrown into still water: Arc could actually see the moment that every face in there turned toward her, like a star itself had come down to touch the ground.

"This is all political," Nicté Lucia said.

"The room is full of sharks, you see. We must let the two of them make a show of entering together, or rumors would spread of a rift. Doing it this way emphasizes the duke's support for the emperor, and the emperor's approval of him in turn. We will join them in just a moment, and I will see you safely reunited with your enamorada." Iceni? Arc cast about for a translation, and his AI didn't disappoint him. En Amor translates to 'in love,' Iceni responded without hesitation.

Her usage originated, so far as I can tell, on Terra several centuries ago, specifically in a defunct nation called the Republic of Chile. In the feminine adjective form, it indicates a woman with whom you are infatuated, or in love. I quite like the way it rolls off the tongue. Arc opened his mouth.

"We're classmates," he protested.

"Friends." The duchess gave a slight huff of a laugh.

"A woman doesn't wear a dress like that for a friend," she declared.

"Never mind a classmate. Come along, pobrecito. I'll make certain that any blood in the water this evening isn't yours."