A Few Good Men (6 page)

But there was nothing. Just talk of everyday, humdrum events. And I wanted to bite my nails. It ruined my enjoyment of my third cup of coffee. There was only one reason I could think of for this kind of silence, and that was that Father meant to entrap me—to get me feeling safe, to . . .

But that didn’t make sense. This wasn’t even Father’s seacity. Here his power was at most limited by whatever influence he might have over Good Man Jean-Batiste St. Cyr. I didn’t remember the two even being particularly friendly. My father associated with Good Man Sinistra and Good Man Rainer, mostly. Not St. Cyr. Which was why the joint raid on our lair had shocked me so much.

By the time I’d finished my food, I was dying for news. Daily news, the sort of news that would be available. Oh, they’d be censored. Most news outlets had been throughout the centuries except for a mythical time, in a mythical place. But you still could glean a lot from what was said. And what wasn’t.

I looked in the menu, hoping to find it, and there it was. In the better establishments, even fifteen years ago, you could call up the daily news on your table top for free, but in this level of establishment, you had to pay for your news. I guessed it kept the price of food lower. I ordered up a newsreader, loaded with the news of the last year—because if I was going to read, I might as well get myself up to date. I ordered the cheapest one, reading and not virtus, and the robot delivered a small, square, greasy unit, which I wiped with a napkin before activating it.

The holographic letters formed in front of my eyes, though they’d look unreadable to anyone else, mere shadows on my face.

There was nothing in the reports about my escape, or anyone’s escape, or any prison. There weren’t even any bulletins for any escaped persons. There was talk of rebels and attacks by something called Sons of Liberty, which sounded like a pretentious name for a broomer lair. Then I found an article where they were identified as the fighting arm of the Usaians which almost made me wonder who was crazy. The Usaians were religious nutters waiting for their prophet to come back, when their land would be restored to them by miraculous means. I’d never heard of their doing anything related to violence. From the stories, though, maybe that unrest justified the price of burners and brooms. At least I was going to assume the usual censure applied and that the Good Men were not as blameless in the face of ruffians as they made themselves appear. So . . . a low-level civil war was going on.

I flipped backward through the date pages, trying to find the date of this rebellion and what might have sparked it. And froze looking at the news a day back, feeling as though I were dreaming, because the headline was
Good Man Keeva Found Murdered
.

For a moment, I rejoiced, thinking the old bastard was dead. No wonder he wasn’t chasing me. But then I thought of Mother and Max. Max would be very young. Eighteen? Nineteen? Around there somewhere. Had he inherited? Was he prepared for it? I didn’t want to take the rule away from him—I doubted that I could make a claim, with my criminal record and all. Too easy to discredit. I was sure the old man had written me out of his will. If Max wanted to rule, he was welcome to it, but on the other hand was he ready? Or was he scared? And would he greet his older brother come back from the dead, as friend or foe?

My mind in turmoil, I read on, and froze again. It wasn’t Good Man Dante Keeva, but Good Man Maximilian Keeva who had been found practically dissected, in such a way forensic investigators were sure he’d been kept alive until the last possible moment while his body was taken apart piece by piece.

I stared at a holo of Max just before his ascension to the honors of Good Man, which apparently had occurred a year ago. A picture of my face as I remembered it, but perhaps more open and happier than I’d ever been, smiled back into my eyes. He’d been chubbier than I’d been. Not fat. Just better padded features, the ruddy tan of a healthy, outdoorsy young man and a smile that could drown out the midday sun.

Something like a tidal wave of grief hit me, submerging me. Oh, Max, Max, damn it. In my mind, he was a little boy, of four or five, playing around me, trying to get my attention, clambering onto my lap to be read to. Falling asleep in my arms at the end of the day, while Mother smiled at both of us, a happy protective smile.

How could this happen? And why? And what must Mother feel? And why would the best one die young, while the irredeemable son would stay alive, persist in living despite all?

I realized there were tears dripping from my chin, and wiped them, hastily, with my sleeve. This was neither the time nor the place to engage in public displays of grief. A large and intimidating man in broomer leathers I might be, but if I sat here crying like a little girl, people would get the idea I was an easy mark. Besides, something my father had trained me in, despite all, was deportment in public. The Good Man was the face of his territory. He should display neither happiness nor sorrow, neither confusion nor embarrassment. He should be always impassive, confident and composed, so the people knew he wasn’t one of them: not a simple mortal man, at the mercy of his emotions, but someone born and bred to rule. Father said that that feeling of separation was better protection than all the bodyguards in the world.

I got the tears to stop after a while. I tried to retreat into my mind, to achieve that state in which I’d convinced myself that Ben’s voice, his memory in my mind came from elsewhere, that they were in fact his ghost. But Ben wasn’t there. And if he’d truly been a ghost, wouldn’t he have told me Max had died?

I bit the inside of my cheek till that pain distracted me from the less physical pain.

What to do now? I had half thought of hanging around in this kind of area, until I could afford surgery to change my features, and then perhaps get some manual labor somewhere, until I could acquire some useful occupation. Any useful occupation. I liked learning and had a turn for organizing things. I’d been sure I could support myself.

But now everything had changed. My father and Max were both gone. The article said that the Good Men would gather shortly—perhaps as early as a month—to decide who got Olympus.

This had happened five or six times in history. A family died out without descendants and another Good Man annexed their territories. It was what happened with Shangri-la. What it meant in practice was that the city left leaderless became subjected to the other city. Its hereditary retainers were despoiled of their positions and, over time, the absorbed territory lost its economic status and its wealth, as the absorbing territory claimed pride of place and everything of any value.

Ben’s family were second only to mine in Olympus, but that wouldn’t last. Not if another Good Man took over. And they weren’t the only ones. There was a never-ending hierarchy under them, most of it hereditary. They’d immediately become subordinate to even the lowest servants of whoever took over. Their homes would be taken, their possessions looted. And though it was never mentioned in the news, and would be denied if it had been, there were stories one heard. Intrigues and assassinations. Even the widows of Good Men weren’t safe. Anyone who might wield the smallest amount of power by tradition or custom would be despoiled, reduced, removed, until the people were left leaderless and ready to accept the new leader.

My life wasn’t worth much. And my rule would be worth even less. I’d never been trained in it. But if I claimed the isle, I could protect Olympus. Now that there were no other candidates of the blood left to rule, no one could really dispute my right.

I could at least protect Mother and our retainers. And I could find out who had killed Max. I read the description of how they’d found him and shuddered. If this had been done by the Sons of Liberty, they’d answer to me. I’d personally destroy them one by one.

The one thing I knew for sure was that Max might look like me, but, having known him when he was very young and unable to disguise what he was, I could tell that there had been no malice in him. I knew he could not possibly have grown up to deserve this fate. And I would find the ones who had killed him and I would relish wielding the power of the Good Man of Olympus if it meant I could torture them as they’d tortured Max.

I stood up from the booth and got ready to claim my inheritance.

Long Live the Good Man

Olympus Seacity is, perhaps appropriately, more vertical than most seacities, climbing up to a high summit where my ancestral palace was, occupying the center of carefully tended gardens, surrounded by high walls. Around it, in almost defensive array, stood the mansions of our favored retainers.

I knew several ways into the palace. Ben and I had started getting around security, probably with Mother’s behind-the-scenes help, when we were very young, but by the time we were teens, we knew how to exploit real security flaws.

There was a way to go around the back, over the wall, into the trees in the garden, and then to a spot where there were no cameras, and from there to my room. For a moment I considered it, but it would be insane.

If anyone in there remembered me—well, the retainers would and I hoped Mother did too—most would think I was long dead. One doesn’t come back from the dead by sneaking into one’s old room and pretending to simply have overslept by fifteen years or so.

No, when returning from the dead it behooves the newly alive man to make as much of a splash as possible. Knock on the doors, rattle the windows, demand that his shocked retainers put silk attire on his back and rings upon his hands. At least that’s how every fairytale treated the lost prince.

I didn’t know how I’d deal with it, if the front gate had been closed, but it wasn’t. Even stranger, the guards normally stationed at it didn’t stop me, or even look at me twice as I walked up the long drive that led to the front door.

I’d heard it said that some Good Men’s palaces were architectural witnesses to hereditary madness. Syracuse’s for instance is almost a declaration of paranoia in cement and stone, with staircases that lead nowhere, sudden drops at the end of a passage, and all the style and taste of a brothel. A cheap brothel.

Our family’s madness seemed to be of the more controlled kind. The kind of control in a fist that clenches tight over the levers of power and will never let go.

It was rectangular and sprawling, and perfectly symmetrical, its front displaying a broad, white dimatough staircase leading to a shining door that looked like crystal, but was translucent dimatough.

I’d never seen the door closed during the day, but it was closed now. Maybe this explained the gate being open, or the inattention of the guards. Or perhaps it was that they didn’t have anything real to guard anymore. After all, the Good Man was dead. Both of them. But I wasn’t going to think about that, because this truly was not the time to cry over Max.

Instead, I gritted my teeth and walked straight up to the door, and thumbed the comlink lever next to it. Looking through the slightly green-tinted sheen obscuring the doorway was like looking through a heavy sheet of falling water. It took a moment for anyone to respond, and I thought when they did that I’d ask to speak to Patrician Isabella Keeva. Best to be admitted to Mama’s presence, and explain everything to her, then let her make the announcement to the family and get the lawyers to deal with the legal issues.

I wasn’t sure how Mother would feel about me, but grieved and horrified though she might be, I couldn’t imagine a time or place where she wouldn’t love me or be on my side, even if I’d turned into a monster.

But when a voice said, “What do you wish?” creakingly, from the other side, my body apparently had different plans from my carefully thought out ones. I heard the words that came out of my lips in utter disbelief, “This is Good Man Lucius Keeva. Open the door.”

There was a long silence, then an almost scared squeak, all the stranger since it sounded like it came from a grown man. “What?”

“I am Good Man Lucius Dante Maximilian Keeva. Open the door.”

From the scuffles and sounds and the shifting shadows and movements on the other side, the squeaky-voiced man called a hysterical woman, who called a booming-voiced man, who in turn called another man, who called a woman, who called another woman.

As the discussion on the other side reminded me of nothing so much as three catfights going on all at once, another voice came in. At first I couldn’t hear it at all, just the sort of vibration that indicated someone was speaking in normal tones and at a reasonable volume in the middle of the cacophony.

Strangely, this caused the other voices to stop, and I heard what seemed the last words of his sentence. “No, he’s not dead. Yes, of course it could be him.”

The squeaky-voiced man said in the tone of someone accusing someone else in a crime, “He looks just like Patrician Maximilian Keeva. Older.”

“Yes,” the controlled, patient voice said. “He would. About eighteen years older.”

And even through the door, attenuated, I’d recognized the voice. It was Samuel Remy, Ben’s much older brother, my father’s steward and man of affairs, and the only person who’d ever treated me like a son.

I heard locks slide and bolts pulled, and wondered why they were barricaded in the house. Then I remembered the seacity was up for grabs, and it wouldn’t be the first time nor probably the last that a Good Man solved that kind of issue by force, ahead of official meetings and declarations.

Finally, a pale face looked up at me. It was endowed with two dark eyes, and the hair above it was mostly white, but I remembered it mousy brown, and the face found a place in my mind as Savell, my father’s butler.

“Hello, Savell,” I said, smiling. “It’s certainly been a long time.”

His eyes widened at me. Whatever instrument he’d seen me on before—I seemed to remember a holo viewer just inside the door, to screen visitors, though the door was never closed and anyway I didn’t open the door myself, ever—must have failed to get the full effect of my scarred face, my bulk, and my attire. Now he gave me a quick up and down look, and seemed just a little scared.