And behind them swept the sharks of the family: Anastasi, with a colorguard of blacklegs trailing him, his quick dark eyes darting over a hawk's nose, checking out everybody and everything in sight, including the rafters of the College hall above their heads.
To his left was m'sera Secretary, Her Excellency, Tatiana, arguably the most beautiful woman in Merovingen, if you liked them arch and harsh, with shadows under flaring cheekbones and a mouth born for giving orders. Her nose was thin and its nostrils dilated suddenly.
Then she smiled and stepped out of the family procession, instead of passing by them. "Chance, I was hoping to see you here."
"I thought I was here by your command," said Magruder with a distinct bow of his head that didn't humble the sudden sparkle in his eye.
"No doubt you are," Tatiana said, "m'ser Ambassador. We've a question or two for you regarding the paperwork on our desk for the departure of the Det Queen, and we wouldn't want the ship held up, would we? Perhaps after this is over we could..."
"I'll leave you two..." Chamoun started to back away.
"Oh, no. Young Chamoun, isn't it? Stay and tell us what your wife is going to say tonight, so we won't be surprised. We hate surprises."
The fact that Chamoun knew Tatiana and Magruder to be an item obviously wasn't lost on Iosef Kalugin's daughter, who was locked in a power struggle with her brother Anastasi for Iosef s legacy.
Chamoun stumbled back into the conversation: "I don't know what she's going to say, m'sera Secretary. Wish I did. My wife's doing this under the guidance of the College cardinals...." He shrugged, not knowing if he should complain to Tatiana overtly, or let Magruder take over from here. Or even if .he'd already said too much.
Chance's expression gave him no hint. Over Magruder's shoulder, Michael glimpsed Iosef and Mikhail, the reed-thin son who'd have been an engineer or an inventor if only he'd been born a Nev Hetteker. They were taking seats on the low dais reserved for the governor's family, while blacklegs descended on the buffet like skits with Anastasi, to bring the best of the delicacies to the family where it sat.
And then Tatiana responded to Chamoun's comment and he lost interest in the other Kalugins: "We're concerned about the College's involvement. We'd like to take your comment to mean that you are, too, m'ser Chamoun. As Cassiopeia's husband, we'd like to feel free to call on you from time to time for an assessment of her health and welfare—given the delicacy of the situation, of course."
Oh shit. "Of course, m'sera Secretary. Whenever and as often as you please." Chance, it wasn't my fault. Please, man, don't blame me. But he'd walked right into Tatiana's clutches.
He looked to Magruder openly, pleadingly, and Chance's face didn't give him a hint of how bad the damage was. "Don't you have to remind Vega about Cassie wanting you right by the stage, Mike?"
"Yessir, I mean, you bet. I'm on my way." Blindly, Chamoun backed out of proximity to the Kalugin woman, whose face was equally as unreadable as Magruder's.
They didn't look angry. They looked like a couple of cats who'd found and emptied a milk pail. But you never could tell. . .
Find Vega, fool, Chamoun told himself, afraid now that if he said or did anything out of the ordinary, Tatiana's eagle eye would see and he'd wake up in a Justiciary holding cell where Chance kept worrying they'd both land....
Mondragon was the last person Chamoun had expected to bump into, and he would have pushed by the outlaw agent.
But Mondragon put out a restraining hand. "How's the deathangel business, Chamoun?"
"I ought to ask you the same, traitor," Michael said, voice low enough and temper high enough to risk it. If there was someone in this room vulnerable and more despicable than himself, it was Tom Mondragon. "And while I'm at it, how's your canal slut? Still blaming Megary for something that was all your fault?"
"You know, kid, if anything happened to Chance, all this brave talk of yours could stick in your craw and kill you."
"It'd take a man to do that," said Chamoun, his pulse pounding in his ears. This was no place for a fight with an ex-agent who was still, Chance thought, a passable duelist. "Out of my way, crud; go slime over somebody who thinks you're worth the trouble."
Chamoun turned and muscled his way through the crowd, past the Kamats in their magnificent finery, and found Vega in the shadows where cardinals came and went..
"Vega, is she handling this well enough?" said Chamoun to his father-in-law without preamble.
"We were just about to send someone for you, now that you're through mingling." Vega's tone said that Chamoun ought not to be talking to the sorts he'd been talking to—but he knew that.
"I'd be happier backstage with Cassie," he offered.
"She wants you where she can see you," said Vega Boregy heavily. His dark hair was startling against his pale skin tonight. Above their heads were chandeliers, and on either side of the curtained stage were oil lamps on tripods as tall as Chamoun.
For the first time he really looked at the stage, at the gold-leaf carvings and the red velvet curtains heavy with braid—at the scenes from Revenantist theology bracketing the stage.
What was he doing here? Michael Chamoun was a poor kid from Nev Hettek who happened to have parents who got mixed up in the revolution, and who happened to look like someone Chance Magruder could use for an operation so risky no professional would volunteer for it.
He didn't belong here; his whole life here was a lie. There wasn't any Chamoun Shipping line, at least there hadn't been until Karl Fon and Chance Magruder generated enough paper to create one. There wasn't any Michael Chamoun, really—not the Chamoun that the Merovingians knew.
But there was a baby, he reminded himself. And there was his wife.
At that moment, he wanted to cut and run because his wife was a drug addict controlled by the Revenantist College and soon enough Magruder would see that. And when Magruder saw that, Michael Chamoun was going to become expendable, having failed resoundingly despite all the time and money put into his cover and his mission....
"Hey, Captain," said a soft voice by his ear.
"Rita! What are you doing—?" With yet another stupid question half out of his mouth, Michael Chamoun closed it with a snap. Rita Nikolaev smiled and took his arm, snuggling it against her breast because she was that kind and these Revenantist women were loose as women came.
He hadn't understood that at first, or he'd have saved himself endless misery. Now that he did, Rita was less desirable. But she was very accomplished, and that stirred him.
His body remembered the tryst in the boat with her, though his mind told him he ought to let things lie.
But her warm, soft breast was telling his arm things that telegraphed down the length of his trunk and precipitated a reaction that his Merovingen short tunic and leggings weren't meant to hide.
He disengaged from her. "I'm worried about Cassie," he said severely, trying to get another message across.
She took his arm a second time and squeezed it. "So am I, dear; so am I. But I told you I'd help you. It's really only the two of us who know the extent of the danger—who were there at the beginning, so to speak."
Was she threatening him? She did know way too much, and he hadn't been completely honest with Magruder about the night he and Rita had found Cassie doped into a stupor and thrown her in a cold shower, then walked her, then... Well, that was what he hadn't told Magruder.
He kept envisioning Rita's hps parted in passion and then he shut his eyes so he could concentrate on what she was saying.
"So, Michael, any help you need from Nikolaev House, just ask. As long as we're all still friends, and Cassie remembers that, I'm sure whatever she's into with the College can only benefit those friends. Aren't you?"
"Aren't I what?"
"Sure," she said. Her body went out of contact with his. "Tell me you're sure, Michael. No one wants to perceive this turn of events as a threat to business as usual."
"Or as a threat to Cassie's welfare," he added carefully. On his
own level, he could play this game. Chance hadn't schooled him personally for nothing. "I'm most concerned about our baby. We're bringing in an obstetrician from Nev Hettek for her."
"Really? Well, should I be relieved?"
"Depends on what your concerns are. Want to talk about this later?" he offered as the lights started to dim, because that was what Chance would want him to do. And because, given that his wife was going to be high as a kite for the next several hours, he didn't mind. He had to make sure that relations stayed friendly. It was a sacrifice for the Cause he was glad to make.
"Later, then," she said and drifted away.
Then Ito was coming out on stage, between the claret curtains, and Michael's heart nearly stopped beating entirely.
The cardinal said, "Friends and colleagues, we have promised you a revelatory evening, and we are as good as our word." Ito had on one of his most ornate robes, and it glimmered in the light with an ethereal brilliance as he raised his hands to chest level and held them out to the crowd. "A wondrous event has befallen us, as the Ancestors predicted. Lo and behold, from our midst a prophetess has been given unto us, and that mantic seeress long foretold is none other than our own Cassiopeia Boregy."
Ito paused for the crowd to make its noises. Some clapped, some murmured, some merely shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what to do now that rumor had been confirmed.
"Boregy House and the College together have decided that this gift is one that should be shared among us all. The wisdom coming through this humble girl of Merovingen is too crucial to our futures for it not to be accessible to all. So, without further ado, and with the single advisement that private counseling by Cassiopeia Boregy may be arranged through your cardinals, I give you the jewel of the College, our special gift from God, Cassiopeia Boregy."
Michael's neck was hot. He was glad no one could see him blush. How must Cassie feel? What a bunch of tripe.
He wished he could see Magruder's face, but he dared not turn around.
Ito was holding back the curtains for Cassie.
And even Michael was astonished at what he saw.
Cassie was in a white gown, riding on a litter of gold and glittering stones, held high on the shoulders of red-robed cardinals—not acolytes, but actual cardinals— in full regalia, including ceremonial headgear that made them seem as if their heads came to points.
Not a one of these old charlatans wanted to be upstaged, or to have it thought that he had less access to Cassie's "wisdom" than any other, Michael realized.
And there was his wife, herself, slumped upon the litter, eyes half closed, head lolling sideways.
Chamoun felt his nails digging into his palms. How much had they given her? She couldn't have stood unsupported if her life depended on it.
But she didn't have to stand. The cardinals lowered the litter in a practiced minuet and stepped back on either side of her. He saw the lips of the closest cardinal move, and realized it was some sort of prompt, though he couldn't hear the words.
As Cassie started to speak, Michael got a glimpse of Ito, hands in his robes, beaming as if she were his daughter, not the child of Vega, who stood beside him, in the wings.
Cassie said, "People of Merovingen, beware! Beware the canalers, who will rise up in flames. Beware the children of the Det, who come with their treachery and blandishments."
Great. Terrific. Michael was going to wring her neck, if Chance didn't wring his first.
"Beware your own selfishness," Cassie continued in a voice that seemed too large for so small a girl. "Beware the demons within. And the sharrh who are hiding beyond the clouds. The sharrh will come and we must make ourselves ready! The sharrh are full of guile, and we must be more canny!"
That threw Michael into a quandary: what was she saying?
"And we must learn our pasts, in order to shape our futures," said the woman in the trance, who was his wife but didn't sound anything like her now. "We must find our previous lives, and our future lives, and our current lives as well. We must take control of our destinies. We must gird our loins. We must root out the venal and the criminal among us! And we must put the canalers in their places or drive them from the city! Beware the poorest and the meanest of us, for they have torches that will light Merovingen like a beacon to the sharrh! When those flames rise, our doom is nigh! So heed me and join together with me, or all is lost. I have seen it! It is your future! It need not be your present! But listen to my voice, listen only to my voice. Listen. Listen. Listen...." Her head fell forward.
One of the cardinals, and then another, began to clap. Uncertainly the crowd took up the ovation, as cardinals closed around Cassie, shielding her from public view.
Michael had heard most of this before. He was surprised only at the reaction of the crowd around him—surprised that anyone could take this ranting seriously.
Then he realized that the people in this room, the powers of the city, wanted to believe Cassie's warnings and Cassie's demands for harsher controls and disciplinary measures: they'd been looking for an excuse to tighten their rule here in any case.
He eased back, away from Rita, who was buzzing excitedly to one of her own family about private militias, and heard others taking up the cry for more personal security, for less leniency in dealing with the lower tiers, for all the paranoid measures that Cassie, as a Boregy, would naturally dream up when stoned out of her conscious mind.
They were afraid, he realized—everyone in this room but him and Magruder. And they were afraid of him and Magruder, though they didn't have the names and faces right. They were afraid of the Sword's revolution, that was all.
That was what Cassie was talking about!
Suddenly, Chamoun needed to see Magruder, just touch base, get a look at Chance's face.
Rita forgotten, he headed off through the electrified crowd to find Chance, thinking as he eavesdropped his way that wisdom wasn't what got people excited. What got people excited was hearing what they wanted to hear, was having license to do what they'd wanted to do all along: was, in short, more absolute power, more control over everyone not in this room.
More of what they already had was what they could gain from tonight, and gain it with the College's sanction, as a religious mandate.
Michael Chamoun wanted to be sick. This was all his fault. If he hadn't undertaken that first, damnable regression that got Cassie started, none of this would have happened. He wouldn't blame Chance if Magruder took him down to the docks and cut his heart out.
But when he finally caught sight of Chance Magruder, who was leaving with Tatiana, already holding her cloak for her, Magruder waved and contrived, during the wave, to give Chamoun the high sign. Chance's mood wasn't show, then: Magruder was pleased.
Michael was nearly reeling with relief and confusion. He seemed to be in a world of his own where all these people around him were insubstantial ghosts. None of them could touch him, feel him, hear him, and they were all immaterial to him.
Until Rita found him, he felt that way. Her magic touch burst his bubble, and the offer she made him was real and opportune, tactically as well as personally. He needed to know what she thought of Cassie's performance; Chance would want to know.
But first, Rita wanted to see Cassie. "Oh, Michael, please can't we go backstage and talk to her? They'll let you back there, surely."
It was a matter of prerogatives, he realized. Rita wanted to be seen as a close confidant of the Cassiopeia Boregy, the emergent power of the moment in Merovingen.
"Sure, I guess. If it's okay with Vega and Ito..."
He led her up into the wings as if he had every right in the world, which he did: Cassie was his wife. When they found her backstage, where they were led by a maddeningly proprietary acolyte who had to "check with cardinals, m'ser and m'sera, of course you'll understand," someone was in Cassie's dressing room before them.
The door was open. Rita and Michael weren't eavesdropping. In fact, the man within beckoned them from where he sat on the dressing table. The mirr
or behind it reflected Cassie, slumped and staring distractedly at her hand, and the man who had that hand in both of his own and was talking fervently to her, his face aglow.
"Wasn't she, as I said, just wonderful?" said the man. "So wonderful, Cassiopeia, that I feel as if my whole life has changed. You've made a new man of me, a man with clear and resounding purpose. You must grant me a private interview, and guide me through my own past lives. Please. Please say you will."
Rita's hand closed on Michael's arm even as he came up behind his wife as if he could somehow, at this late date, protect her. He touched Cassie's shoulder. It was clammy through her robe.
He looked at the man who was begging for an audience and said, "Mikhail, Kalugin or not, you'll have to let her rest until tomorrow. When she's ready to give private readings, I'm sure you can be the first."
"And who are you?" Iosef Kalugin's designated successor asked archly.
"I'm her husband, m'ser. Her husband."
Rita was tugging on his arm. And from behind him he could hear Vega, calling his name.
Chamoun knew he either had to leave or face the consequences of cold-cocking Governor Kalugin's son. The idiot was going to make a terrific first adherent to Ito's little politico-religious coven.
Wait until Chance heard about this.
But Chance wasn't going to hear about it right away. Rita was insistent that he keep his word and come with her and her cronies to Nikolaev House, "where we'll get a few minutes alone, I promise."
Ito and Vega wanted him out of the way as well. "Be a good son-in-law," Vega told him in a tired and flat voice. "Let me take care of the delicate matters here. You go deal with your peer group and let Ito and me handle ours."
So he was ousted from his wife's presence, and he wasn't even sure she'd known he was there.
She'd looked so frail and tiny there, so exhausted, so pathetic with her dilated pupils and her loose hps.
He couldn't banish the memory of Cassie sitting there letting Mikhail Kalugin pump her limp hand. She had his child in her belly. What did they think they were doing?