The Mandate of Heaven (30 page)

Her heart was thundering now; he wasn’t sure whether in fright or passion.  He prayed for passion.  He decided to chance it and slid his tongue along her lips, wetting them, relishing their taste, gently, insistently, begging for entry.  And just when he thought he would never breathe again, she opened.

His body all but seized in excitement.  His own heart was matching and outdistancing hers.  By the High-Lords, it was just a kiss.  He couldn’t remember when last he’d spent so much time simply exploring a mouth.  But this mouth was special.  Breaching these defences was a triumph.

Slowly, he leaned back, bringing her with him so that she half lay on top of him.  He turned his head to fit her mouth better, moved his hand so that he could winnow his fingers through the silk of her hair, cupped her face with his other hand and, as gently as possible, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth and plundered it.

He felt her hands come up as if to push away.  He refused to stop, searching out the hot, slick recesses of her mouth.  He tasted wine and cinnamon and something smoky.  He inhaled her surprised little gasps.  He fought to control himself, in case she truly meant to stop him.  But her hands, hovering just a moment between them, settled on his chest as if seeking balance.  Her arms curled around his neck.  Her body began to melt against his, even when he could almost hear her instincts crying out for caution.

It was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done before, but he held his passion in check.  Still as his own body screamed for more, his fingers ached for her breasts, her belly, her sleek, strong legs, as his heart thundered in anticipation of climax, even as he savoured the lightning unleashed by the flicker of her tongue against his, he began to gentle his movements.  He drew back from her, stroking her lush hair, dropping kisses along her forehead, her closed eyes, her ear, her throat.

She whimpered in protest when he drew her head down to his shoulder and just held her.  He could feel her body tremble with the passion he’d stirred.

“We need, no must, stop Jessica.  For if we go further I’ll be breaking my promise to you, and one I intend for your father, that you’ll be released, unharmed.  You need to be given the chance to decide your own fate.  If I take that from you, I’ll be no better than Stanton.”

Removing himself from her embrace was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he knew if he didn’t now, while he was still strong, he would never be able to walk away from her.  Therefore, paying no heed to his own nudity, he stepped from their bed, reaching for his trousers.  He had only just finished fastening them, and was reaching for his still damp shirt, when a gasp from behind had him turning around.  He only had a glimpse of her, a vision in white, with the sheet wrapped tight around her, when he felt her light touch on his shoulder.

“Your back,” she breathed in horror.  “What happened?”

He cursed softly, having long forgotten about the scars, not used to being unclothed, at least not during the day.  They no longer bothered him, not like the injury to his side, which still hurt like the devil in the cold and damp.

“A faint reminder of my time spent in prison, nothing more,” he replied casually, raising his arms to slip on his shirt and hide the wounds, but Jessica would have none of it.  Pushing his arms aside, she ran her fingertips along the length of the wounds.  There were exactly seventeen of them and he had counted them, one at a time.  Hard not to really, when each lash landing on him felt like his very soul being shredded.

“What sort of prison were you in, where they whipped their inmates?” she demanded, with such outrage on his behalf that Alex couldn’t help but smile.

“It wasn’t a regular occurrence, or even an officially sanctioned one, I can assure you.  Instead it was done by my fellow convicts, to convey a message to me, from somebody on the outside.”

“Why?  What was the message?”

“That even there he could still reach me, that nowhere was safe from his retribution.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t appreciate being their whipping boy and tried to fight them off.  I broke at least one of their noses, which didn’t go down well.  As a reward they stuck a shank in my side, to subdue me, while they finished delivering the rest of the message.”

“A shank?”

“The name for a knife in prison, in this case, a three inch shard of broken glass.”  Alex pointed to the jagged scar on his waist, just above his hip, but below the ribs.  “Fortunately its shape meant that once they’d speared me in the side, it got trapped and they couldn’t withdraw it.”

“You call that, fortunate?”

Alex turned to face her, touched by the concern and anger, in her expression.  “Yes, fortunate,” he continued on quietly.  “As unable to retrieve it, they simply abandoned it there.  While I couldn’t pull it out either, I was able to break off a substantial piece that was still sticking out of me.”

“And then what?” she asked, holding his gaze.

“Then I stuck it into the throat of the man holding me down.  He suffocated to death, drowning in his own blood.  I then, forcibly, took the whip from the other and strangled him with it.  It took a dozen guards to finally subdue me, but by then it was too late, he was already dead.  They charged me with murder for both of the deaths.  Fortunately, capital punishment wasn’t permitted and having already been sentenced to life imprisonment, all they could do was put me in that dark, six-foot-by-four cell, all alone and, as you so eloquently put it, threw away the key.”

“I threatened to have you thrown back, where they did this…” Jessica ran her fingers along the puckered skin, which demarked the very edge of the injury.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Which pleases me more than you could possibly imagine, as I wouldn’t wish such a fate on anybody.”

“Not even the one that sent you that message?”

“No.  For that would make me just as vile as him.  Instead, I will kill him with my own two hands, as I have no need to send another.  Now, I will leave you to get dressed.  Mary will be up shortly if you need any help, but I would suggest you first return to your own room.  Trust me when I say, I’ll never hear the end of it if she finds out that you slept here last night.  I’ll see you at breakfast and then we will depart.”

“Depart?  Where?”

“You’ve a long overdue call with your father.  Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

She shook her head, this time refusing to look him in the eye.

“No, I didn’t think so,” he said softly, closing the door behind him.

Elysium Fields.

Homer’s final resting place for the souls of the heroic and the virtuous Greeks. Ironic really, that along with being home to the worst cesspool of humanity, it was also where I grew up.

—From the journal of
Lord Alexander Greystone
.

Location - Unknown.

Lady Jessica Hadley, betrothed of High-Lord Stanton, heiress to at least a dozen star-systems, stared outside in complete and utter rapture.  Surely, this was the closest that one could get to Heaven?  The stars seemed so bright, so close at hand that she could almost reach out and touch them.  She actually tried doing so, but was blocked by the aluminium silicate glass, a thin partition between her and the universe at large.  Her father’s ship of choice for Faster-Than-Light travel was a sleek frigate, almost two hundred meters long, with a crew of two hundred and a top speed of one-point-two light-years per hour.

It was fast and economical, but spartanly furnished.

But here she was, roughly twenty light-years from the nearest celestial body, in a shuttle less than a tenth of that size, with only its present owner for company.  He was waiting, impatiently she assumed, in the main living quarters of the ship, surrounded by luxury that her father could only dream of.  From hand carved oak panelling, thick Aubusson carpets to a massive silk draped bed.  She knew that some families possessed ships, several times larger, who travelled in equal luxury, but surely none had a view quite like this?  For seated alone in the cockpit, she was surrounded on all sides by an encompassing, wraparound window that gave her an unimpeded view.  With no flight controls or instruments in sight, she could bathe in the starlight, seemingly floating along with them.

Just another star, lost amongst their multitudes.

Involuntary her eyes slid closed and she took a deep breath, releasing it slowly, feeling all the tension ebb and flow out of her, for her own problems seemed to pale in comparison, insignificant, but not unforgettable.  Sighing, she opened her eyes and raised her right hand.  Summoned by her gesture, as efficient as any servant, the flight computer appeared hovering by her side.  She still marvelled at it, being far more efficient than the endless displays and consoles on her father’s ships.  She wondered why nobody else had thought of it before.  She picked out of mid-air the communication sub-system, entering the personal code for her father.  Her finger hovering over the virtual keypad for a second longer than necessary when, with a further sigh of acceptance, knowing she was just delaying the inevitable, she activated the communication system.

The view from outside instantly dimmed, surrounding her in darkness, but only for a second, as a light appeared a few feet in front of her, a pin-prick at first but rapidly grew larger to nearly fill the cockpit.  Jessica shook her head in disbelief, why talk to someone dozens of light-years away, when she could transport herself there, virtually, instead?  Her father also possessed such technology, which was the size of a large house, but here, on this ship, it seemed almost mundane.

“Father,” she announced in greeting, suppressing a laugh at his startled expression.  To have a daughter, missing for several weeks as a result of a violent kidnapping, suddenly appear in front of you, in your own home, would rattle even the most composed individual.

“Jessica, darling,” he cried, instinctively taking a step towards her.  He said her name with such heartfelt relief that it brought a tear to her eye.  Alex had been right all along; she had been terribly selfish to wait so long before contacting him.

“I’m fine,” she blurted out, to hurriedly reassure him.  Not wishing to draw out his torment a moment longer.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you earlier, but things have been, well, crazy.” Which was certainly the understatement of the century, she thought.

“We’ve been so worried…where are you?”

“Right now, I’m not entirely certain,” she replied truthfully.  As while Alex had given her access to the flight computer, he’d withheld access to the navigational systems.  Not that she needed his permission to know that currently they were in the middle of nowhere.  She had decided not to mention where she’d been, with Alex and Sheriff Abercrombie’s conversation about battle fleets still at the forefront of her mind.  While she had resented Alex’s plan, she acknowledged that it was far more prudent.  Too many innocent people would be caught in the crossfire if she let slip the whereabouts of his home.

“Well, if you don’t know where you are, at least tell me who has you?”

On this topic Jessica felt on even more shaky ground, as Alex had been vague about what to discuss, beyond insisting that she pass on his message.  He’d left her alone with the reminder that he would be monitoring their conversation closely and wouldn’t hesitate to terminate the connection if she mentioned anything she shouldn’t.

“He calls himself Lord Greystone,” she answered cautiously.  “I’ve never seen or heard of him before,” she added truthfully, purposefully trying to put an end to the topic.

“But what does he want?” High-Lord Hadley asked, bewildered.

“Money Dad, nothing else.”  She didn’t need to hide the anger behind that declaration.  If Alex was monitoring the communication, then this wouldn’t come as any surprise to him.  Certainly it was all she meant to him, a walking, talking, pot of gold.  He even admitted that she would return home, in
exactly
the same condition as he found her.  Probably worried he might not get paid, she thought.

“That won’t be a problem,” another, far colder voice suddenly interjected into the conversation.

A shiver ran down Jessica’s spine as another man stepped forward, into the projection.  From a distance he shared more than a passing resemblance to Alex, tall, broad shouldered, but with blond hair, compared to Alex’s darker hair.  He was also considerably paler, almost albino, devoid of all colour.  Alex was more bronzed, probably from all his time spent outside, Jessica realised, recollecting Alex, covered in sweat, swinging his axe against the tree.  Shaking her head in disbelief, she recognised that she shouldn’t be comparing Alex with her fiancé, as while they’d never met in person, she instinctively recognised the figure of High-Lord Stanton.

“My Lord,” she straightened instinctively.  “I wasn’t aware that you personally knew of my situation.  Your participation isn’t necessary; this is most decidedly a family matter—”

“Your father, quite rightly, immediately informed me of the situation and requested my assistance in retrieving you.  We’re betrothed and therefore practically family, hence my involvement.  Now what are the terms of your release?”

Jessica bit her lip, torn by indecision, but in the end she had promised Alex to deliver the message.  After all, even if she requested to speak to her father, alone, it was likely that he would relay the message to High-Lord Stanton anyway.  She wondered why her betrothed being involved suddenly filled her with such fear.

Even this far out on the very edge of the Imperium, I’ve heard the rumours that Greystone and Stanton have
—
history.

Sheriff Abercrombie’s statement in his office continued to rattle around her head, while she repeated the message that Alex had insisted that she deliver, word-for-word.

“You are to meet us, three days hence, in
Elysium Fields
.  If you want me returned safe and unharmed, you are to come alone and bring fifty million credits, in raw Al-Keishi pearls.  If you don’t—” she trailed off, refusing to say the words, not with the firm gaze of her intended staring intently at her.

“I think we can assume the worst,” High-Lord Stanton said dryly.

“Lord Greystone said that he’ll return me to you anyway but, I quote, High-Lord Stanton certainly will not marry you.  He won’t want soiled goods.”

At these words her father turned a deathly shade of grey, having to reach out for a table to steady himself, but High-Lord Stanton’s reaction was nothing more than a brief flicker of surprise in his eyes, before they returned to their usual steely-grey.

With a brief glance in the direction of High-Lord Hadley, Stanton nodded his acknowledgement of the message.

“We’ll be there, with the money.”

*****

It was almost thirty minutes later when Jessica stepped from the cockpit into the main living quarters.  She wasn’t surprised to observe Alex reclining in a chair, with his feet propped up on a table, intently focused on a data-pad.  Probably what he’d been using to monitor her conversation in real-time, she surmised.  However, she was amazed to see that he was still paying such attention to it, her conversation having finished several minutes before.  He seemed to have failed to observe her entrance, so intent on the device in his hands.

Curious to know what he was studying so attentively, she quietly approached and just as he registered her presence, she flicked out her hand, snagging the device from his grasp.

“Hey, I was reading that,” Alex said irritably.  “If you want to read it, go and find your own.”

Jessica twisted the data-pad around until the text was the right way up, blinking in surprise, when she read the title.

The Three Field System applied to Tidally Locked Planets.

“You’ve been reading this?” she demanded, angrily.  “The whole time?”

“Yes, now give it back.  It’s got some really useful suggestions of how I can increase my crop yields with the
minimum
of expenditure.”

“You said you would be monitoring all my communications!”

“No,” Alex said, “I warned you that I
could
monitor your communication.  Which I could, if I knew how.  I’m sure that I could
,
probably by accessing the communication sub-system from this device and piggybacking the carrier signal onto it, but frankly I’ve got absolutely no idea how to go about doing that.  This ship didn’t exactly come with an instruction manual,” he added grumpily, snatching the device back from her.

“But I could have told my father anything.  Who you really are, where you live, how to find me.  You could have a fleet of warships on their way to your home, right this very minute.”

“Did you?” he asked curiously, swiping at the data-pad to turn the page.

“No.”

“Didn’t think so,” he said smugly.  “And how is Dad?”

“Fine,” she hesitated, before taking the vacant seat next to him. “He was worried about me.”

“I told you he would be.  I’ve no children, but I imagine that if I did, and one was taken from under my roof, I would be
extremely
concerned.”  He flickered to the next page, turning the device upside down, making neither head-nor-tail of the diagram, scratching his nose in puzzlement.

“High-Lord Stanton was there,” she suddenly blurted out, before snapping her jaw shut.  She had no idea why she said
that
out loud, especially after he’d just admitted to not listening in, but perhaps it was because he
hadn’t
listened.

Alex tensed for a moment, before shrugging, turning the page.  “How is your fiancé doing?  Probably relieved to have you home soon, so he won’t have to go to all the trouble of rescheduling the wedding.”

“I told him what you said.”

“I see,” Alex replied coolly, “and what did he reply?”

“He didn’t say anything, really,” she shrugged.  “He just looked, surprised.”

This response seemed to incense Alex.  For he discarded the device, angrily tossing it onto the desk, before dropping his feet to the floor and jerking his chair back.

“What?” she demanded, taking a step back as she could feel the anger emanating from him, a terrible, tangible thing.

“You don’t even know any better, do you?” Alex derided.  “Or perhaps you just don’t care.” He turned away from her, back towards the cockpit.

“What is your problem with High-Lord Stanton?” she shouted after him.  “Whenever I mention him you ignore me, or change the topic.” Perhaps this was why she’d really brought up his name, because this time she was determined to get an answer.

“My problem with Stanton?” Alex replied angrily, pivoting back round to stare heatedly at her.  “Is that he doesn’t even care enough to fight for you.”  He stalked over to her, trapping her against the chair, putting an arm either side of her to stop her escaping.  “For your future reference, the correct response when being told that somebody you care about, no, somebody you
love
, is in danger; are shock, anger and outrage.”  As if to reinforce the point, he made a fist and punched the arm of the chair.  “You look that person you love in the eye, and tell them you
will
find them.  No matter how long it takes, or the cost.  That you’ll tear the galaxy apart, system-by-system looking for them if that is what it takes.  You’ll never stop and, when you eventually find that person who you love so much, you’ll take them into your arms, to protect them from all the ills in this universe, and never, ever, let them go.”

“You would say that?” she asked, shocked.

“Yes, for that is what it means to be in love.  To care for another, above all else.   Why, what would you say?”