Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy) (34 page)

He despised this room, and his father knew it. A damn jungle, rife with the cloying odors of exotic, suffocatingly lush verdure. There were even flocks of jewel-bright parakeets in its fan-vaulted, glass-domed heights. He could never tolerate the proximity of birds.

“Father, for the God’s sake—”

But Orin Selasis, from the depths of his green-cushioned chair, waved him to silence without a word, without so much as a glance, his hand, once in motion, taking up the languid rhythm of the claripipes.

Karlis went to a chair near the windowall and slumped into it, his fair features suffused with a deep flush.

His father didn’t have to treat him like a stinking Bond. Not in
front
of a Bond. He didn’t have to show that—that
contempt
. There was no other word for it, and it had become increasingly manifest since . . .

Karlis’s mouth tightened against the quivering of his lips. It wasn’t fair, when a man needed a father, needed
someone
to show a little understanding. Did he think it was easy bearing up under this, did he think it didn’t tear him up inside?

Damn that Outsider whore! It must have been that one, what did she call herself? Why couldn’t he remember? They had drugged him. They must have. But if he ever found that girl . . .

He lapsed into black fantasies, elaborating on details of vengeance formulated in previous fantasies. It was all that was left him.

Impotent.

The very word made his stomach turn. The other part of it wasn’t so bad; his father had always insisted on maintaining a sperm reserve, and to hell with what the Board of Succession thought of “unnatural” conception. But
impotent
—that was intolerable.

He shifted in his chair, the subtle cadences of the claripipes as cloying in his ears as the scents of bizarre and fecund plants in his nostrils. He turned his attention, and frustrated anger, on the source of the dulcet melody that seemed so engrossing to Orin Selasis.

The boy was perhaps fourteen; a Bond, but skilled enough at the ’pipes. He sat cross-legged on a green velveen cushion by Selasis’s footstool. A well formed boy, Karlis had to admit, nicely muscled, smooth, fair skin, blond hair curling around his face, blue eyes shadowed with long lashes. He was naked except for the lamé trunks and the gold chains looped around his shoulders, and oblivious to everything beyond the instrument at his lips.

This was no time for pretty Bond boys
.

But seeing his father’s single eye half closed, his faint smile of absorbed pleasure, Karlis waited in resentful silence. Perhaps it was to be admired, this ability to seem so totally at ease in the face of disaster. But something
must
be done. His hands knotted into fists as his frustration found a new focus.

That black-eyed bitch! To walk out on Karlis Selasis on their wedding day—it was incomprehensible.

And no doubt she thought herself very clever, playing on his sympathies.
I’ll be all right, Karlis . . . just let me rest until after liftoff
. No, she didn’t need anyone to stay with her. Only Mariet.

Then that seeming afterthought.
Oh, Mariet, I’ve lost the pills Dr. Perralt gave me. They must be in the ’car
.

And after liftoff . . .

Gone. Vanished into vacuum.

The cabin empty except for the rings on the bedside table, the betrothal and wedding rings. And the tape spool; Adrien’s parting gift. It might as well have been a bomb.

A final rising scale and a fillip of a slide recalled his attention. At long last the piece was finished. The boy lowered the ’pipes and looked up at Selasis.

“Ah, Lalic, nicely done.” He leaned forward, smiling obliquely as he cupped Lalic’s chin in his hand and tilted his face up, his thumb moving slowly across his smooth cheek.

Lalic only looked back at him, blue eyes expressionless, the pupils reduced to black points, and Selasis’s massive body quaked with soft laughter.

“Oh, yes, very pretty . . . the song.” Then he leaned back with a wave of dismissal. “You may go.”

The boy obediently came to his feet and bowed, first to Selasis, then to Karlis.

“Good day, my lords.”

Karlis watched him walk to the double doors, bare feet soft on the marblex floor, wait for Selasis to press a button on the table console by his chair, and when the doors opened, walk on, eyes straight ahead.

Karlis turned abruptly to Selasis. “Damn it Father, how can—”

“Karlis, if you’re thinking of commenting on the way I choose to use my time, I’d advise against it. I’d also advise you to control your tendency to panic.”

Karlis bit back a caustic reply, contenting himself with a cool, “I think we should at least discuss the matter.”

“Discuss it? You and I? I’d prefer to waste my time on a bit of music. There’s no
discussing
to be done. There are a number of decisions to be made and carried out, most of which I’ve already attended to. At the moment, we’re waiting for Master Hawkwood. He was busy with another matter in Coben when I called him last night, but he should be here in a few minutes.”

Karlis frowned. Bruno Hawkwood. At least something was being done, but Hawkwood was such a strange man . . .

“Don’t pout, Karlis,” Selasis said curtly. “Holy God, that Eliseer girl has more pluck than you do.”

“Pluck? I can think of more appropriate terms.”

“Can you? Try
courage
. And don’t balk at that. You must always recognize the capabilities of your opponent, or you enter the circle blindfolded, and we’re already entering this circle with one hand shackled.” He fixed his single eye on his son, and Karlis was hard put not to flinch. Then he turned away, making no attempt to conceal his disgust as he muttered, “Damn it, how many times did I tell you to stay out of those Outsider serallios? And don’t try to tell me that isn’t where you picked up that—that disease!”

“Dr. Monig said it could’ve been—”

“Dr. Monig said a great deal too much, apparently. I have one disaster stepping on the heels of the next, and you—” He sagged back in his chair, and in profile there seemed something peculiarly sharklike in the sleek curves of forehead and hair, in the drawn line of his mouth. “We’ll be damned lucky to pull out of this with the House intact, Karlis, but take this as an oath—I
will
pull out of it! A few may fall by the wayside, but I won’t see the House brought down by a conniving wench like Adrien Eliseer!”

Karlis smiled with grim satisfaction; here, at least, he was still on common ground with his father.

“She’s got a lesson coming, and I’d damn well like to give it to her personally—and whoever’s in this with her. She couldn’t have engineered this—this disappearing act by herself.”

“Don’t underestimate her. Who do you think engineered her disappearance? Loren Eliseer?”

“He must have. Or Woolf. He’s part of this. You heard what he said to her yesterday—‘If I can be of assistance to you in
any
way . . . ’ Damn him! And he had the gall to wear black. Black at a wedding!”

Selasis sighed ponderously. “The God help me, I’ve been given an idiot for an heir. With Adrien Eliseer, I might have gotten an heir worthy of . . . but that’s counting birds flown. Karlis, we can’t be sure of Loren Eliseer yet, but there’s one thing we
can
be sure of: Woolf is
not
involved. If he were that concerned about Adrien, he’d have backed Eliseer in a challenge to your virility
before
the wedding. He wouldn’t risk getting found out in a subterfuge so dangerous and desperate as this.”

Karlis subsided, his eyes narrowing. “What about Eliseer? It’s even more of a risk for him.”

“Yes, and that makes me wonder if Adrien wasn’t telling the truth about him. He didn’t have the courage to demand a Board of Succession investigation when the rumors were running rampant, why would he take this even more dangerous course—” He stopped at the sound of the door chime and turned on the vis-screen on the table console. “Well, perhaps Bruno can find the answer to that. Here he is.”

Karlis turned to the opening doors a little uneasily. Hawkwood didn’t like this room, either, so his father had told him. The Master of Shadows was uncomfortable in a room where the artificial jungle made so many hiding places.

Selasis smiled almost cordially as Hawkwood entered. “Ah, my dear Bruno, you’re looking well. Coben’s climate apparently agreed with you.”

Hawkwood didn’t smile; he seldom did. He was dressed in dark brown, as he always seemed to be, with silent, soft-soled shoes, and no jewelry except a narrow wedding band and a gold medallion in the shape of a seven-spoked wheel. Tall, lean to the point of emaciation, eyes of a pale, tawny brown set in a long, narrow face whose skull-like contours were emphasized by a head shaved clean, its curved planes catching the light like molded bronze.

A religious fetish. Hawkwood belonged to the Order of Gamaliel. Karlis had only the vaguest idea what that meant, and he regarded that shaven head with distaste. What kind of religion asked a man to disfigure himself like that?

Hawkwood inclined his head to Selasis in what for him sufficed for a bow.

“Yes, my lord, Coben’s climate is agreeable. The matter of interest to you there was concluded successfully a few hours ago. Would you like a report now?”

Selasis waved a hand irritably. “No, I’ll take your word on the success of the conclusion. Right now, I have a matter of far greater interest to deal with.”

Hawkwood drew up a chair, seating himself without asking leave, and Karlis’s uneasiness turned to impatience. Hawkwood hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge his presence.

“Good morning, Bruno,” he said caustically.

Hawkwood’s amber eyes shifted in his direction. “Good morning, Lord Karlis.” Then he was silent, as if waiting for Karlis to come to a point.

He blurted, “Father told you enough about what happened. Do you really think this scheme is entirely Adrien’s?”

“At this time, I can’t say. I haven’t enough information yet.”

“But you think she’s capable of carrying off something like this—managing to disappear into nothing—without help?”

Hawkwood studied him with that unblinking, dispassionate gaze that stirred the centers of rage in Karlis’s mind.

“I think the Lady Adrien is capable of it; that doesn’t mean it was actually accomplished without help.”

Selasis turned his single eye on Karlis in a cold and unmistakable warning, then while Karlis sank into sullen silence, addressed himself to Hawkwood.

“I know my account was sketchy, Bruno, but so was my information at the time. Master Ranes, your second-in-command, performed admirably in your absence, by the way.”

Karlis smiled at that. It was a barb and a reminder, but that was more evident in his father’s tone than in any reaction it got from Hawkwood. He only nodded, as if the information came as no surprise to him.

“Master Ranes is an able man. Can you tell me more about Lady Adrien’s actual method of escape?”

Selasis raised an eyebrow. “Escape? I prefer to call it a flight. Yes, I can tell you exactly what happened. The Lady Adrien was apparently ill on her wedding day; she did a great deal of fainting, and the last occasion was when she boarded my ship. She was taken directly to the cabin prepared for the newlyweds. Karlis and I accompanied her, and by the time she arrived, she had regained consciousness.”

“Did you call a physician, my lord?”

“We had none on board, and the Lady professed to be recovering and nobly insisted we not delay our departure.”

“It was an act,” Karlis declared angrily. “The fainting, all the gasping and trembling—an
act
!”

Selasis sighed. “Of course it was, Karlis, but a very convincing one, you must admit. Even I was convinced, Bruno, and when she asked to be left alone to rest until after liftoff, I wasn’t at all suspicious.”

“You had no reason to be, my lord. She
was
left alone, then?”

“Yes, except for her attendant; a Bond girl. Adrien seemed strangely attached to her. I left her then, and Karlis followed soon after. We were only a few minutes short of liftoff. However, just before Karlis departed, she realized she’d left some pills given her by the Eliseer family physician in the ’car.” Then, with a withering glance at his son, “Wasn’t that it, Karlis?”

His face burned as Hawkwood’s tawny eyes turned on him.

“Yes,” he admitted truculently, “pills, and since she was so
sick
, I offered to send someone after them, but she said Mariet could go; she’d know where to look. And so—”

“And so,” Selasis said, taking up the narrative, “Karlis ’commed the guard at the lock and advised him that an Eliseer Bondmaid would be leaving the ship on a short errand. The liftoff lights were already on, so Karlis retired to another cabin, content to spend his wedding night under a psychimax mask, which, thanks to his recent adventures in the Outside, was all he—”

“Father!” Karlis surged to his feet, his hands fisted. “Damn it, you don’t have to—”

“All right, Karlis, all right!” He took a long breath, then when Karlis slumped back into his chair to glare at him in seething silence, he turned to Hawkwood, who observed this brief clash as he might an encounter between two ants simultaneously discovering a single crumb.

“The guard at the lock,” Selasis continued, his tone only a little less caustic, “didn’t notice that there were
two
Eliseer Bondmaids on Adrien’s errand—not one, as Karlis had told him. He waved them through without a thought, nor did he stop to think when he closed the lock for liftoff, that neither of them had returned. Admittedly, there was a great deal of confusion in the last minutes before liftoff, and there were Eliseer Bonds all around the ship. They’d been allowed at the port to see the Lady off. Eliseer is incredibly lax with his Bonds. But that didn’t excuse the guard’s blindness.” He paused, smiling coldly. “I thought it fitting that he should learn the price of metaphorical blindness with literal blindness.”

Hawkwood made no comment, seeming to record that piece of information as a fact, but one of no immediate interest.