Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future Page 9
The day was wintry cold with a sharp wind blowing, but apparently no building in town was large enough to host this gathering. The honored guests were provided with raggedy blankets on which to rest while the rest of the crowd sank down on the icy ground. They had to be hardy folk, he determined, to survive this climate.
Great chunks of roasted meat were handed around and though they did have cups to hold the scalding black liquid that served as a drink, no plates, platters, bowls or service-ware were to be soon.
He tried not to observe the less than clean hands of the servers, focusing instead on their friendly, sometime toothless grins, and nibbling at the food more from good manners than from hunger.
Claire refused the meat and contented herself with the vegetables, but he noticed her daughters were only making a show of eating. He doubted that more than a bite of food passed their lips.
Neither of the princesses was as attractive as Claire, at least not in his opinion. The taller one looked forbidding and the other one with her fuzzy white-blonde hair reminded in of the late emperor, a man for whom he had come to feel a certain respect as well as long term resentment.
Speeches were made verbally in Claire’s honor and during the course of the meal, several violent outbreaks were quickly quelled on the edges of the crowd.
His head hurt, he felt nauseated, and was afraid he might faint like a girl at any minute. So much for playing the rescuing hero.
By the time they finally boarded the cruiser, he had to be assisted on one side by Claire and on the other by the captain.
Once again he was placed in the luxurious cabin he’d occupied on the way over and, to his dismay, slipped instantly into heavy sleep.
Once her girls were settled in their rooms and eating the elegant food with which they were familiar, Claire didn’t bother even with the shower where she longed to indulge her body. First she had to check on Jamie.
She tiptoed into his cabin, looking around in disapproval at the furnishings which were so much less comfortable than the ones she and her daughters enjoyed. She supposed, though, it would have to do. These were the quarters her daughters used to occupy when they traveled as a family. Now they stayed in the imperial suite with her.
She didn’t want to awaken him so she moved quietly to his bedside. He hadn’t even taken off his boots, but lay sprawled in evident exhaustion on the top of the coverlet.
He lay so limply that for a moment she was frightened that it had all been too much for him and he’d died right here on the bed. But when she bent close, she relaxed a little to see the rise and fall of his chest.
His skin tone was chalky and his breathing labored. Drawing a chair close to the bed, she determined to keep watch until he wakened.
THIRTEEN
The room was dark around him and for a bit Jamie could not remember where he was. Then as he became accustomed to the dim light, he saw Claire slumped in sleep in a chair beside his bed.
He recalled coming back on board the cruiser and that Claire and her daughters had come with him. They were headed back home to Sanctuary so everything would be all right now.
He chuckled to consider what his buddies in New London would think when he got back there with Claire in tow. He had no doubt Isaiah and Mack would be pleased. She had been part of their original group and they’d never really approved of her marriage with the emperor.
No doubt they’d welcome her back with hearty approval and be glad to meet her daughters as well. The princesses were about the same age as Isaiah’s Alice and Mack and Karen’s two sons.
Karen! He told himself that the two women had never actually had a chance to get acquainted. Of course they’d gotten off to a bad start in the early days, but things would be different now.
For just an instant his weary thoughts flickered from this dream of Eden he was allowing himself and reality set in. The Gare would be coming for them again. It was sure to happen with the new little emperor showing signs of speaker ability.
He closed his eyes and determined that, for this one night at least, he would not worry about that. He was too tired, his health too fragile, tomorrow would be soon enough to consider the uncertain future they all faced.
“Jamie?” A sleepy voice made him open his eyes again. “You still alive?”
“So far,” he answered cautiously.
He could hear her yawn. “I’m so tired.”
“You don’t need to stay here. I’m fine.”
“No, you might go and die while my back is turned.”
He felt her movement on to his bed as she proceeded cautiously, as though afraid of jarring him and causing pain. She curled up somewhere near his feet and sank into the mattress with a sigh.
“Thanks for coming to rescue me, Jamie.”
“Yeah, big fat help I was, finding you with half the planet at your back.”
She laughed softly. “It was dicey and it was a whole lot less than half the planet. Things changed moment to moment and it was really Adaeze who managed more than me. She’s only a little girl, but in some ways she’s always been grownup. I have to work hard to keep her aware I’m the mom and still in charge.”
“Most kids are like that. Mack and Karen’s boys are fairly sure they could run things better than the adults around them. I’ll bet your girls are about the same as Charlie and David. Isaiah’s Alice is different. Quiet, you never know what’s she’s thinking, but then she lost her mom when she was just a tot.”
“I can’t take it quite in. The boys I knew with children of their own. So Mack and Karen are together? I thought maybe you and her would hook up.”
“For a while, but we were a bad match. The two of them have been together practically forever. They almost think the same thoughts.”
“You’re not the leader anymore?”
“Kevin Hartley’s the man.”
“Ugh! I remember him. Nothing much with a loud voice.”
“And strong opinions. But I guess you could say the same for me.”
She lay quietly for a while and the problems of New London were once more prominent in his mind. She would probably be able to tell him more about what the Gare had in mind for his community, but he wouldn’t ask tonight.
He felt movement again as she squirmed up to his side. He began to feel hot and bothered and figured that wasn’t good considering his current state.
“Jamie,” she said, sounding fully awake now. “You can’t know about my girls, but they’re rather special.”
“Everybody thinks their kids are special. You should see Mack with his boys.” He was evading the real issue and knew it. He didn’t want to get political tonight, but he owed her his honesty. “Somebody was tracking our every move on the cruiser through the captain and I don’t suppose it was you. One of your girls inherited the far speaker talent from their dad.”
She sighed again and he remembered how old Sylvie used to drive him crazy by sighing all the time. “Both of them, though so far Adaeze, she’s the older one, has the most ability. She could not only communicate with the crew, she could see what was happening through their eyes. She described you to me when you were standing outside New London talking to Captain Thereon.”
He hardly knew what to say. Were congratulations in order or sympathy? He supposed he’d rather have normal kids, but maybe this was normal for the Gare and Claire had lived with the Gare for a long time now.
“It’s a big taboo,” she went on. “Like the kind where you’d be a major hero if you rid the world of one or both of them.”
“That’s just stupid. The whole empire is based on the connections made by the far speakers and it sounds like your older girl has extra special abilities.”
“Male far speakers,” she returned glumly. “I didn’t know anywhere to take them, but to New London. And they may just draw lightning to the community.”
“Awww, we’ll stand for them. After all, they’re half human, they’re our own kids.”
“I hope so.” She sounded doubtful, but
he felt himself being drawn inevitably to sleep. He couldn’t resist much longer, he knew as his eyelids grew heavy and a warm blanket seemed to settle across his brain.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” she said. “But I have a feeling that Adaeze will benefit New London. Things are turning bad, Jamie.”
Those words were the last he heard before he surrendered to his need for sleep.
When he awakened in the morning, Claire was gone and he wondered if he’d dreamed the whole thing with her. A medic was at his side and to his relief, told him he could get up and walk around this morning.
He managed to dress himself and to stumble from the cabin. For a cruiser, the little ship was designed along spacious lines. Not only the imperial family, but the crew as well seemed to live comfortably.
Such a ship would be a serious addition to New London’s assets.
He followed the scent of food to the ship’s galley and at the captain’s nod joined him and other crew members for a breakfast of strange, but good tasting food.
Surprised to find himself hungry for the first time since his injuries, he took that as a sign he was recovering. Good thing, he needed to be at his best when they came down in New London because no telling what he would find going on there.
They ate breakfast at the familiar table in their suite, a table designed just for the four of them, the seat Mathiah had occupied conspicuously vacant.
Claire’s chair had been especially designed to fit the scale of her body so that she didn’t have to feel like a child in the larger furniture the Gare demanded.
She wasn’t feeling too comfortable this morning, however, not with Lillianne chatting away like a babbling brook and Adaeze avoiding her gaze.
She’d returned this morning to find both girls awake and worried about her. “Where have you been?” Lillianne cried out the words in a kind of panic.
“You were with him,” Adaeze accused.
“He’s badly injured,” Claire responded, feeling like a kid being called on the carpet by irate parents. “He needed somebody to look after him.”
Adaeze’s dark eyebrows rose sharply, expressing her disbelief.
“Dammit, Adaeze, the man can’t even sit up. He’s hardly a threat to me.”
“Not that kind of threat,” the girl retorted.
“You’re thirteen years old and you’re telling me how to run my life?”
“I come from an older and wiser race,” Adaeze said, getting up with stony dignity to go back to her sleeping room.
Claire was left sputtering. For the first time in her life, she was bereft of words. Adaeze, the perfect princess and her father’s darling, had just insulted her in the worst way possible. She had put down her mother’s heritage from Earth.
Appalled, she looked to her other daughter. Hastily, Lillianne stuffed her mouth with food and chewed busily. Obviously she didn’t want to comment and just as obviously, she knew her mother was likely to turn her wrath on the one daughter left in the room.
Claire waited, letting the seconds move by while Lillianne chewed. Finally the girl took a gulp of her iced drink, then looked up at her mother. “She’s jealous for father,” she tried to explain.
“There’s nothing like that between Jamie and me. We’re old friends, that’s all. And you may not have noticed, but your father isn’t around anymore.”
She didn’t realize until the words were out of her mouth that she’d said something terribly cruel. Lillianne burst into tears. “I miss him so much. He was the best father.”
She could have shot herself to so have hurt her little girl. “Lillianne, darling.” She tried to pull the girl into her arms, but Lillianne struggled against her embrace.
At least she didn’t run from the room as had her sister. Instead she jumped up and distanced herself from her mother, turning her back dramatically. Little girls were good at drama, Claire thought wearily. She had been herself.
“Sweetheart, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. You know I miss Mathiah terribly. He meant the world to me. Surely you saw how close we were.”
She could hardly remind the man’s child that the beginning between the two of them had been so negative. She didn’t need to hear that Claire had started out as his unwilling prisoner and that in fact she’d had little choice about marrying him. He’d meant to do her honor, releasing her from the imprisonment of serving as his catere, but her understanding of her position had not been the same as his.
She had married him to save her friends and over time had developed genuine love and respect for him. She sure as hell wasn’t glad he was dead. Instead she felt an unreasonable anger that he’d abandoned her to face the task of protecting their daughters alone.
All of this was way beyond her girls’ ability to understand. She became aware that Lillianne seemed to be waiting for something.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You don’t want to go to New London?”
“Not exactly. We’ll be strangers there. We won’t belong.”
“They’re my people, Lilli. You’re my daughters. You belong there as much as you do back on Aremia or in the Palace de Gare. And, at least, you won’t have to marry some creep just because he’s a close relative and you might produce gifted children.”
She didn’t mention the fact that both girls would be targets for assassination if their talents became known. Lillianne knew that already and Claire didn’t want to scare her to death.
It was bad enough that she was so scared herself. The truth was she couldn’t think about a single place where she could feel that her daughters would be safe.
“It’s not only that,” Lillianne turned to face her and Claire saw that tears streaked her face. Aremian girls were brought up to hide their emotions. Crying wasn’t allowed.
A tremor moved visibly through the girl’s slender form. “Something bad is happening there. I don’t know what it is, but I hear Adaeze’s thoughts leaking through. Something bad is happening in New London.”
Claire frowned. “How could she know that? The people of New London aren’t telepaths. She can’t communicate with them.”
Lillianne shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Claire went immediately to the bedroom the girls shared and knocked hard on the door. “I want to speak to you, Adaeze, right now. If you don’t come out, I’ll come in.”
It was ridiculous, but at this moment she felt almost afraid to confront her own daughter. The last thing she wanted was for either girl to realize how she felt; she would have utterly lost control at that moment.
She felt enormously relieved when the door slid open by about an inch and Adaeze peered out. “What do you want?” she asked sullenly.
“We have to talk, the three of us. We need to make plans.”
She turned to head back to the center room, not knowing what she would do if her daughter didn’t follow. “You don’t want to talk about that man?” Adaeze’s voice followed her and then, to her relief, she heard her footsteps against the floor as she obeyed her mother.
She chose to sit on a high stool, instinctively stationing herself to be above the girls as they settled uneasily into lower, more comfortable chairs. This was her first real trial of her ability to manage the girls without the assistance of their father.
For their sake as well as her own, she must be successful.
“Adaeze,” she said in a crisply authoritative tone, “when the time comes for me to make choices about my personal life, I will do that for myself. You can be sure that the best interests of you and your sister will be first in my mind.”
Adaeze opened her mouth to speak, but Claire lifted a restraining hand and the girl closed her mouth.
“What I want to talk about is what’s going on in New London and whether it’s safe for us to go there?”
Lillianne looked at the floor. Claire couldn’t let her sister know she’d tattled on her. “You can hear across distances, Adaeze. Surely you can give me some picture of what’s happening there.”
She continued to look questioningly at her daughter. “I might be able to hear from our people in Terrainaine,” she added in a voice so soft that Claire had to lean forward to hear her.
It wasn’t the time to argue about which was our people. “And what are the people of Terrainaine thinking and saying?” she asked gently.
FOURTEEN
After breakfast Jamie was given an official tour of the ship, seeing everything but the empress’s private quarters, and was even more impressed.
Isaiah would drool at the possibility of such a ship coming into their possession. At this point the only thing they had were a few aircars, good only for travel in short hops around Sanctuary.
He was treated as a VIP visitor with the greatest friendliness possible. He supposed the Princess Adaeze’s crew was more accustomed to normal speech than most Aremians since they were regularly in the company of the Empress Claire. No doubt Mathiah hadn’t left his wife to live in total silence. Or maybe they were just trying their best for him, concerned that he’d been injured on their watch.
He had seemed to genuinely care for her, even Jamie had to admit that.
After the trip through the compartments of the luxury ship, he had no choice but to excuse himself for a rest period. He still felt weak and sick and the last thing he wanted to do was collapse embarrassingly in front of these tall, strong aliens.
He hoped Claire would come to him, but when he’d lain down long enough to sleep a little and feel considerably stronger, he went looking for her.
He knocked at the door that had been indicated as off limits as the empress’s personal dwelling, half expecting that the imperial guards would come rushing to drag him away.