A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (12 page)

Finesz did not believe in making moral judgements, but she took seriously her responsibilities as an inspector in the Office of the Procurator Imperial. It was her job to investigate and indict those who committed felonies. And treason against the emperor was the most heinous felony of all.

The atmosphere about Linna had been thick with it.

Much as she liked her fellow plotters—Casimir Ormuz was a fascinating young man; Captain Rinharte, despite her stiff neck, could be warm and friendly; the Admiral was… well, an Imperial Princess… In spite of her feelings, Finesz found herself uncomfortable amongst the conspirators. She had spent most of the last ten weeks on Linna, and made only infrequent forays to the fleet in orbit. While technically resident in Rusko Palace, she’d spent much of her time at the ducal aerodrome, in the company of her prisoner and lover, Commander Abad mar Mubariz, Baron Mateen.

It was no surprise, then, that Finesz felt freer of spirit once
Lantern
had left the Linna planetary system and was travelling to Shuto. She did not confine Mubariz to a cabin, since there was nowhere he could go. If
Lantern
’s crew thought giving Mubariz freedom of the ship was odd, they said nothing. Finesz no longer cared—the last year had been one long journey across burnt bridges, from the moment she’d disobeyed her superior, Gyome mar Norioko, Baron Kanban, on Darrus and continued to investigate the murder of Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo.

So much had changed since then.

She had caught her suspects. No, that was not strictly true. She now knew who had killed Regimental-Lieutenant Merenilo: the knights sinister. But at the time, she had been convinced the crew of the data-freighter
Divine Providence
were crucial to solving the mystery. And so they were. Ormuz, erstwhile cabin-boy, was now the fulcrum around which a plot to defend the Imperial Throne revolved. A plot in which she, Inspector Sliva demar Finesz of the Office of the Procurator Imperial, had become a valued member.

Norioko would have her hide for that.

Footsteps in the gangway caused Finesz to look up from the cup of coffee on the table before her. There was little enough to do when ships were in the toposphere—no scenery to admire, for certain, just endless formless grey. She had been enjoying a hot drink in the wardroom, thinking on her course of action once
Lantern
eventually reached Shuto. She had plenty of time: it would take her almost half a year of travelling to reach the capital.

Commander Mubariz appeared at the table. It had been his footsteps she had heard. Briefly, she wondered how she had failed to recognise them. His slow steady tread was quite distinctive. Her mind had been elsewhere, she decided.

“Abad,” she said, smiling up at her prisoner. “Won’t you join me?”

Mubariz looked for’ard but there was nothing to see except the ladder leading up to the crew quarters and control cupola. He pulled out a chair, sat down opposite Finesz and gazed placidly across the table at her.

“We are heading for Shuto?” he asked.

Finesz nodded.

“Directly?”

“As directly as we can.”

The commander frowned. “And what is to be my fate once we have arrived?”

“Fate? You make it sound far too melodramatic, Abad.” She paused. He was not biting: his face retained its serious expression. Finesz sobered. “Your fate is your own,” she said. “You were a prisoner of the Admiral, not of the OPI. I couldn’t hold you if I wanted to.”

Of course, she hoped she could hold him, but not in any legal sense.

She continued, “I suppose you’ll report to the Imperial Admiralty as soon as we make land-fall?”

“If it still exists.” He said it in a matter-of-fact manner, as if he fully expected Admiralty Fort to be a smoking ruin and the Lords of the Admiralty dead and scattered.

“Why in heavens should it not?”

Casimir Ormuz had explained to her that the Serpent, Ariman umar Vonshuan, Duke of Ahasz, planned to launch an attack on the Imperial Palace—had very likely attacked already. She thought he was unlikely to succeed. What army could he take to the battle? Half a dozen battalions of the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls? Against the knights stalwart, knights militant, Emperor’s Own Cuirassiers, Imperial Navy, and who knew what other forces currently on Shuto? It would be a rout, the Serpent’s assault was sure to be defeated almost immediately.

The battle on Geneza, however, was an altogether different matter…

“Sliva,” Mubariz replied slowly, “you have not spent the last six years fighting the Serpent’s conspiracy. While I disagreed with the Admiral’s methods—there was no need for her to mutiny—I recognised that the Serpent was a very real threat to the Imperial Throne. I think it likely he will succeed.”

“Succeed?” she scoffed. Treason might well be a serious matter, but she still could not credit that the Admiral and her officers took the Serpent’s treason seriously. The Imperial Palace was a mountain. Not some indefensible wooden lodge. She said as much, and added: “And if he should succeed, well, then the Admiral and Casimir will travel from Geneza to Shuto and knock him off the Throne he’s taken.”

The commander shook his head. “They might very well be out-matched.”

Ormuz had told her what forces he expected to meet on the Old Empire’s capital world and she mentioned it to Mubariz. After all, while he had spied on the Admiral, it had not been for the enemy.

“You think Casimir’s…” She trailed off. What should she call it? Not a rebellion. Ormuz was not revolting against the Imperial Throne. It was the Serpent who was doing that. Certainly, Ormuz’s actions—and those of the Admiral, too—were illegal. The Emperor had made it clear, through various agents, that he disapproved of his daughter’s “crusade”. That thought prompted a memory of Finesz’s run-in with the knights sinister. The Order of the Left Hand had come to Linna to take Mubariz into custody. Finesz had fought them off.

She smiled wanly. No. Troop-Sergeant Assaun had fought off the knights sinister.

“You find it amusing?” demanded Mubariz. He leaned forward, brows lowered, his great bear-like hands flat on the wooden table-top.

“What? No, not at all. I was just remembering Sudnik—you know, the knight sinister who tried to take you from me.”

Mubariz grunted. “Perhaps you should have let them do so.”

She stretched out a hand and laid it atop one of the commander’s. Against his enormous hand, her narrow palm and long fingers seemed to belong to another species. She stroked his knuckles lightly with her finger-tips. “You are mine, Abad,” she said softly. “I’ll not let you go.”

For a long minute, he said nothing, just stared at her hand on his. Then he slid his hand from beneath hers. “I never asked you why you chose to follow the Admiral,” he said.

“I’m not sure I know myself.” She gazed with disappointment at his withdrawn hand. “I may not have been fighting the Serpent for the past six years but I was investigating a conspiracy that seemed to include the highest reaches of Imperial society. Fiscal malfeasance, corruption, abuse of privilege… Oh, I could tell you of millions paid for battleships which exist only on paper, cruisers on patrol being paid for three times more crew than they actually carry… It’s endemic—No, it’s
systemic
. There are Imperial regiments with more battalions on the Rolls than in the barracks, OPI bureaux that delegate their policing to local constabularies and pocket the excess in their budgets. And the Electorate—they’re just in it for what they get. It’s not about government anymore, it’s about fattening their own coffers. At the expense of the Empire.”

“It has always been this way,” Mubariz replied heavily. “It is the… price we pay for our freedoms.”

Finesz let out a brittle laugh. “Oh, Abad. Do you seriously believe that?”

“I have studied history,” he replied stiffly.

At times like this Finesz wondered what she saw in the man. His integrity, his deep sense of personal honour, was appealing. She had known no one like him during her years as a courtesan in the Imperial Court. But sometimes…

It was, she realised, a brittle shell with which the commander armoured himself. And she seemed to have a talent for creating cracks in it. It amazed her he seemed to return her feelings.

“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching across the table. She let her hands fall before they touched the commander’s blue coat.

“You plan to release Norioko?” Mubariz asked.

She accepted the change of subject gratefully. “If I can.”

“If he is in the custody of the Bailiffs, it will be for good reason.”

Finesz shrugged. “Not necessarily.” In fact, she knew full well that only politics could be the cause of Norioko’s incarceration. The man was a staunch supporter of the Imperial Throne and above reproach.

“You believe he is involved in this conspiracy?”

Was Mubariz fishing? Finesz wondered. He had enough to report to the knights signet on his arrival on Shuto. But more intelligence would certainly not go unrewarded. She squashed that thought: the commander had not chosen sides for the reward.

“Do I think he’s helping Ahasz? No, not at all. But he’s involved in something. I’m sure of it.” She gestured vaguely. “He hates corruption as much as you seem to accept it. That’s probably what prompted his arrest: he has evidence that some high noble has his paws in the coffers and they’ve retaliated.”

Mubariz bridled. “I do not ‘accept’ corruption, Sliva. I will not have it in my fief. I simply recognise my limitations.” His expression of offence settled into a glower. “As you do not.”

“I’m not in your position, Abad. I have no fief to lord it over, I have no world of my own to make over according to my principles —”

“A city, not a world.” The commander grunted. “A small city.”

“Never mind.”

Finesz sat back, recoiling from the chasm which was opening between them. Until now, their difference in social rank had never occurred to her. Perhaps that had been foolish. Mubariz was a baron and she a mere yeoman. She could rue the man’s often insufferable rectitude, all the while admiring him for the fixity of his moral compass; but she would not have her own principles disparaged. No matter how elastic they might be.

“I find you a contradictory creature,” Mubariz said, apropos of nothing. “It is both your least acceptable aspect and your most beguiling.”

Finesz crossed her arms tight across her bosom and glared mulishly at her prisoner. “I don’t even know what that means,” she said, pouting.

“You intend to release your patron, Norioko. To do so would be to break the very laws you are sworn to uphold.”

That was all Mubariz had meant? For one brief moment, Finesz had suspected him of flirtation. But no.

“A greater good, Abad,” Finesz returned lightly.

“Immaterial,” he argued. “A system exists and you have given your oath to perpetuate it. Would that we all could ignore those laws we felt were unfair or wrong.”

“You really do see everything in black and gold, don’t you, Abad?” marvelled Finesz. “A law may be morally wrong, but it’s a greater sin to break that law because it is the law.”

“It is the foundation of Imperial society.”

She laughed. “Rubbish! I thought you said you had studied history?”

“Your cynicism is equally unattractive, I might add.”

Finesz slid out from behind the wardroom table. Rising to her feet, she looked down at Mubariz. “I think I’ll go. I have reports to write. Or something.”

She left the commander gazing at Finesz’s abandoned cup. He had clasped his hands on the table before him, and was alternately squeezing and releasing his fingers. Let him stew, she thought. He was astute enough to realise he had upset her, and it would have him feeling uncomfortable for a while. She knew him well enough to know that. Perhaps he might tread a little more lightly around her in future. She had spent the weeks since her seduction of him being sensitive to his feelings.

It was time he reciprocated.

The pall of smoke drifting across the Imperial Household District could not dampen the spirits of the officers ambling across the back-slope of Palace Road. The blasted earth and scorched grass could not spoil their mood. White-hot bolts from the Imperial Palace’s cannons, scoring the sky twenty feet above their heads, exploding grass and burning-hot soil when they hit the ground, could not silence their chatter.

This was, after all, the greatest adventure of recent history.

The Duke of Ahasz, arms folded, watched them from the entrance to the trenches he was having dug. He did not share their excitement. No matter, he thought sardonically, that he was responsible for it. Perhaps there had not been a “good war” for generations, perhaps not even since the Pacification Campaigns of the Empire’s first three centuries. Attachment to the Imperial Army Abroad or Boundary Fleet did not always result in combat. Not that Ahasz himself had ever been in battle—in fact, this was his first. As a young man, he’d served with the Imperial Gold Watch, but as the heir to a powerful noble family he had been kept far from harm’s way.

An air-searing beam from one of the Palace’s cannons shot overhead and hit dirt twenty yards away. A Housecarls regimental-major flinched at the explosion and then laughed self-consciously. Another pushed him and he stumbled on the lip of an old crater beside him. More laughter rang out.

Scowling, Ahasz turned about and regarded his sappers’ handiwork. They had cut a trench into the ground, gently sloped to a depth of eight feet. It led to a T-junction, with a trench leading off to left and to right, both one foot in from the edge of the highway facing Mount Yama. Carpenters had put up wooden revetments over the packed-dirt walls. Above, more sappers had broken up the surface of Palace Road and used it to construct a parapet.

Colonel Tayisa approached along the trench, stepping high over carpenters’ tools and materials. He exhibited none of the warlike enthusiasm of the Housecarls officers: he had seen combat, most recently when Ahasz had sent troops into the Marquis of Nevola’s fief. That invasion had been a fierce and dirty conflict. Calling it a “liberation” had proven no defence from the law—