Hero of the Imperium, page 10
‘Reminds me of a bordello we used to visit when I was an officer cadet,’ she replied, determined to match my blasé exterior. I grinned.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Remember we’re soldiers. We’re not impressed by this sort of thing.’
‘Absolutely not,’ she agreed, straightening her jacket unnecessarily.
There was a lot of the building not to be impressed by. It must have covered over a kilometre from end to end, although of course much of that area would be given over to courtyards and interior gardens currently hidden behind the outer wall. Buttresses and crenellations protruded like acne from every surface, encrusted with statuary commemorating previous governors and other local notables no one could now remember the names of, and vast areas had been gilded, reflecting the firelight from outside in a manner which was to prove eerily prophetic had we but known. At the time, though, it simply struck me as one of the most stridently vulgar piles of masonry I’d ever encountered.
Jurgen pulled up outside the main entrance, halting at the end of a red carpet as skilfully as a shuttle pilot entering a docking port. After a moment the truck pulled up behind us and our honour guard piled out, deploying on either side of it a full squad, five pairs of troopers facing each other across the crimson weave, lasguns at the port.
‘Shall we?’ I extended an arm to Kasteen as a flunkey dressed as a wedding cake bustled up to open the door for us.
‘Thank you, commissar.’ She took it as we emerged, and I stopped for a moment to have a word with Jurgen.
‘Any further orders, sir?’ I shook my head.
‘Just find somewhere to park, and get yourself something to eat,’ I said. Strictly speaking I could have had my aide accompany us, but the thought of Jurgen mingling with the cream of the Gravalaxian aristocracy was almost too hideous to contemplate. I turned to the noncom in charge of the honour guard, a Sergeant Lustig, and tapped the combead I’d slipped into my ear. ‘You too,’ I added. ‘You might as well be comfortable while you wait for us. I’ll contact you when we’re ready to leave.’
‘Yes sir.’ A faint smile tried to form on his broad face before discipline reasserted itself, and he inhaled.
‘Squad... Atten... Shun!’ he bellowed, and they snapped to it with nanosecond precision. No surprise that they’d won the extra drink ration this week, I thought. The crash of synchronised heels caused heads to turn all around us, minor local nobles looking mightily impressed, and their chauffeurs even more so.
‘I think we’ve made an impression,’ Kasteen murmured as we gained the elaborately carved entrance doors.
‘That was the idea,’ I agreed.
Inside, it was exactly as I’d anticipated, the kind of vulgar ostentation too many of the wealthy mistake for good taste, with crystal and gilt and garish tapestries of historic battles and smug-looking primarchs strewn around the place like a pirate’s warehouse. The high arched ceiling was supported by pillars artfully carved to mimic the bark of some species of local tree, and my feet sank into the carpet as though it were a swamp. It took me a moment to realise that the weave would form a vast portrait, presumably of the governor himself, if viewed from the upper landing, and I noted with faint amusement that someone had trodden on a dropped canapé making it look as though his nose was running. Whether it was a genuine accident, or the act of a disgruntled servant, who could say? Kasteen’s lips quirked as she absorbed the full opulence of our surroundings.
‘I take it back,’ she said quietly. ‘A bordello would have been done out in far better taste.’ I suppressed a smile of my own as another flunkey ushered us forward.
‘Commissar Ciaphas Cain,’ he announced. ‘And Colonel Regina Kasteen.’ Which at least established who we were. It was pretty obvious who the unhealthy-looking individual sitting on a raised dais at the end of the room was. I’ve met a good few planetary governors in my day, and they all tend towards inbred imbecility,16 but this specimen looked like he should take the prize. He somehow contrived to look both undernourished and flabby at the same time, and his skin was the pallor of a dead fish. Watery eyes of no particular colour goggled at us from under a fringe of thinning grey hair.
‘Governor Grice,’ I said, bowing formally. ‘A pleasure.’
‘On the contrary,’ he said, his voice quivering a little. ‘The pleasure’s entirely mine.’ Well, he wasn’t wrong on that account, but he was ignoring me entirely. He stood, and bowed to Kasteen. ‘You honour us all with your presence, colonel.’
Well, that was a new experience, being ignored in favour of a slip of a girl, but I suppose if you’d ever met her you’d understand it. She was pretty striking, if redheads were your thing, and I supposed the old fool didn’t get out much. Anyway, it enabled me to fade out of the picture and go looking for some amusement of my own, which I did with all due dispatch.
As was my habit I circulated widely, keeping my eyes and ears open as you never know what useful little snippets of information will come in handy, although the main thing that caught my attention was the entertainment. A young woman was standing on a podium at the end of the room, surrounded by musicians who sounded almost as well rehearsed as our regimental band, but they could have been playing ork wardrums for all I cared because her voice was extraordinary. She was singing old sentimental favourites, like The Night Before You Left and The Love We Share, and even an old cynic like me could appreciate the emotion she put into them, and feel that, just this once, the trite words were ringing true. Snatches of her husky contralto carried through the room wherever I was, cutting through the backbiting and the small talk, and I felt my eyes drifting in her direction every time the crowd parted enough to afford me a view.
And the view was well worth it. She was tall and slim, with shoulder-length hair of a shade of blonde I’ve never seen on anyone else before or since, hanging loose to frame a face which nearly stopped my heart. Her eyes were the hazy blue of a far horizon, and seemed to transfix me whenever I looked in her direction. Her dress was the same colour, almost exactly, and clung to her figure like mist.
Now, I’ve never believed in sentimental nonsense like love at first sight, but I can say without a word of a lie that, even now, after almost a century, I can close my eyes and picture her as she was then, and hear those songs as though she’s still in the same room.
But I wasn’t there to listen to cabaret singers, however enchanting, so I tried my best to mingle and pick up whatever gossip I could that would help us fight the tau if we had to, and keep me out of it, if at all possible.
‘So you’re the famous Commissar Cain,’ someone said, passing me a fresh drink. I took it automatically, turning a little to use my right hand and emphasize the sling, and found myself looking at a narrow-faced fellow in an expensive but understated robe which positively screamed diplomat. He glanced at the sling. ‘I hear you nearly started the war early.’
‘Not from choice, I can assure you,’ I said. ‘Just defending an officer who lacked the self-restraint to ignore a blatant piece of sedition.’
‘I see.’ He eyed me narrowly, trying to size me up. I kept my expression neutral. ‘I take it your self-restraint is a little stronger.’
‘At the moment,’ I said, choosing my words with care, ‘we’re still at peace with the tau. The internal situation here is, I’ll admit, a little disturbing, but unless the Guard is ordered to intervene, that’s purely a matter for the Arbites, the PDF, and His Excellency.’ I nodded at Grice, who was listening to Kasteen explain the best way of disembowelling a termagant with every sign of interest, although his retinue of sycophants was beginning to look a little green around the gills. ‘I’m not averse to fighting if I have to, but that’s a decision for wiser heads than mine to take.’
‘I see.’ He nodded, and stuck out a hand for me to shake. After a moment’s juggling, more to put him off balance than anything, I transferred the glass to my other hand and took it. ‘Erasmus Donali, Imperial Envoy.’
‘I thought as much.’ I smiled in return. ‘You have the look of a diplomat about you.’
‘Whereas you seem quite exceptional for a soldier.’ Donali sipped his drink, and I followed suit, finding it a very pleasant vintage. ‘Most of them can’t wait for the shooting to start.’
‘They’re Imperial Guard,’ I said. ‘They live to fight for the Emperor. I’m a commissar; I’m supposed to consider the bigger picture.’
‘Which includes avoiding combat? You surprise me.’
‘As I said before,’ I told him, ‘that’s not my decision to make. But if people like you can solve the conflict by negotiation, and keep troopers who would have died here alive to fight another enemy another day, and maybe tip the balance in a more important battle, then it seems to me that you’re serving the best interests of the Imperium.’ And keeping my skin whole into the bargain, of course, which was far more important to me. Donali looked surprised, and a little gratified.
‘I can see your reputation is far from exaggerated,’ he said. ‘And I hope I can oblige you. But it may not be easy.’
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, you can be sure. But I shrugged, and sipped my drink.
‘As the Emperor wills,’ I said, a phrase I’d picked up from Jurgen over the course of our long association. Of course when he says it he means every word; from me it’s just the verbal equivalent of a shrug. I’ve never really bought the idea that His Divine Majesty can spare some attention from the job of preventing the entire galaxy from sliding into damnation to look out for my interests, too, or anyone else’s for that matter, which is why I’m so diligent about doing it for myself. ‘The difficulty, I take it, being the public support for the tau in certain quarters.’
‘Exactly.’ My new friend nodded gloomily. ‘For which you can thank the imbecile over there talking to your colonel.’ He indicated Grice with a tilt of his head. ‘He got so carried away counting his bribes from the likes of him...’ another tilt of the head to the far corner of the room, ‘that he hardly even noticed his planet slipping out from under him.’
I turned in the direction he’d indicated. A cadaverous, hawk-nosed individual dressed in unwise scarlet hose and a burgundy tabard was holding forth to a knot of the local aristocracy. Flanking him were a couple of servants in livery, who looked about as comfortable as an ork in evening dress; hired guns if I’d ever seen them. A scribe hovered next to him, making notes.
‘One of the rogue traders we’ve heard so much about,’ I said. Donali shrugged.
‘So he says. But no one here is entirely what they seem, commissar. You can certainly depend on that.’
Well he was right on the money so far as I was concerned. So I exchanged a few more inconsequential words and resumed circulating.
After a few more conversations with local dignitaries whose names I never quite caught, my glass was in need of replenishment, and I headed towards the table at the far end of the room where an enticing display of delicacies had been laid out. On the way, I noticed Kasteen had managed to extricate herself from the governor’s presence, and was working the room as though she’d been a habitué of high society since she could walk. The air of confidence she now radiated was remarkable, especially set against her earlier nervousness, but the ability to seem calm and in control whatever the circumstances is a vital quality in a leader, and for all I knew, she was shamming it as shamelessly as I was. It certainly looked as though she was enjoying herself, though, and I gave her a light-hearted salute as our eyes briefly met. She responded with a flashing grin, and whirled away towards the dance floor with a couple of aristocratic fops in tow.
‘It looks like you’ve lost your date,’ a voice said behind me. I turned, and found myself falling into the wide blue eyes of the singer I’d been watching before. Uncharacteristically for me, I was momentarily at a loss for words. She was smiling, a plate of finger food in her hand.
‘She’s, ah, just a colleague,’ I said. ‘A fellow officer. Nothing like that between us. Strictly against regulations, for one thing. And anyway, we’re not–’
She laughed, a warm, smoky chuckle which warmed me like amasec, and I realised she was pulling my leg.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘No time for romance in the Imperial Guard. It must be grim for you.’
‘We have our duty to the Emperor,’ I said. ‘For a soldier, that’s enough.’ It’s the sort of thing I usually say, and most civilians lap it up, but my beautiful singer was looking at me quizzically, the ghost of a smile quirking at the corner of her mouth, and I suddenly got the feeling that she could see right through me to the core of deceit and self-interest I normally keep concealed from the world. It was an unnerving sensation.
‘For some, maybe. But I think there’s more to you than meets the eye.’ She picked up a bottle from the nearby table with her free hand, and topped up my glass.
‘There’s more to everyone than meets the eye,’ I said, more to deflect the conversation than anything else. She smiled again.
‘That’s very astute, commissar.’ She extended a hand, slim and cool to the touch, the middle finger ornamented with a large and finely wrought ring of unusual workmanship. Evidently she was extremely successful in her profession, or had at least one wealthy admirer; I would have laid money on both. I kissed it formally, as etiquette demanded, and to my astonishment she giggled.
‘A gentleman as well as an officer. You are full of surprises.’ Then she surprised me by dropping a curtsey, in imitation of the bovine debutantes surrounding us, the light of mischief in her dazzling eyes. ‘I’m Amberley Vail, by the way. I sing a bit.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘And very well too.’ She acknowledged the compliment with a tilt of her head. I bowed formally, entering into the game. ‘Ciaphas Cain,’ I said, ‘at your service. Currently attached to the Valhallan 597th.’ Her eyes widened a little as I introduced myself.
‘I’ve heard of you,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘Didn’t you fight the genestealers on Keffia?’ Well I had, if you count hanging around drinking recaf while the artillery unit I was with dropped shells on the biggest concentrations of stealers we could find from kloms away as fighting. I’d been in at the death, so to speak, and emerged with a great deal of the credit, more by luck than good judgement. It was one of the early incidents that had laid the foundations of my undeserved reputation for heroism, but my misadventures since had tended to overshadow what most of the galaxy still regarded as a minor incident on a backwater agriworld.
‘Not entirely alone,’ I said, slipping easily into the modest hero demeanour I could adopt without thinking. ‘There was an Imperial battlefleet in orbit at the time.’
‘And two full divisions of Imperial Guard on planet.’ She laughed again at my astonished expression. ‘I have relatives in Skandaburg.17 You’re still talked about back there.’
‘I can’t think why,’ I said. ‘I was just doing my job.’
‘Of course.’ Amberley nodded, and again I got the feeling that she wasn’t fooled for a moment. ‘You’re an Imperial commissar. Duty before everything, right?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘And right now, I think it’s my duty to ask you to dance.’ It was a transparent attempt to change the subject, which I hoped she’d put down to modest embarrassment, and I half expected her to refuse. But she smiled, discarding her plate of half-eaten delicacies, and took my uninjured arm.
‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘I’ve a few minutes before my second set.’
So we drifted across to the dance floor, and I spent a very pleasant few minutes with her head on my shoulder as we spun around to an old waltz I never learned the name of. Kasteen galloped past a couple of times, a different swain in tow on each occasion, raising an eyebrow in a way which forewarned me of some relentless leg-pulling on our drive back to the compound, but just at that moment I couldn’t have cared less.
Eventually, Amberley pulled away, with what seemed like reluctance unless I was succumbing to wishful thinking, and began to return to the stage. I walked with her, chatting to no purpose, intent simply on prolonging a pleasant interlude in what otherwise promised to be a dull evening, and it was thus that I noticed a quiet, vehement altercation between Grice and the hawk-faced rogue trader.
‘Do you know who that is?’ I asked, not really expecting an answer, but it seemed my companion was well-versed in the intricacies of Gravalaxian politics. It came with performing for the aristocracy, I supposed. She nodded, looking surprised.
‘His name’s Orelius. A rogue trader here to deal with the tau. So he says.’ The qualification was delivered in precisely the same tone of scepticism as Donali’s had been, and for some reason I found myself remembering Divas’s cloak-and-dagger fantasies from our night in the Eagle’s Wing.
‘Why do you say that?’ I asked. Amberley shrugged.
‘The tau have been dealing with the same traders for more than a century. Orelius arrived from nowhere a month or two ago, and tried opening negotiations with them, through Grice. It may just be a coincidence, but...’ She shrugged, her dress slipping across her slim shoulders.
‘Why now, with the political situation destabilising?’ I asked. She nodded.
‘It does seem a little unusual.’
‘Perhaps he’s hoping to take advantage of the confusion to strike a better deal,’ I said. Orelius turned on his heel as I watched, and marched away trailed by his bodyguards. Grice was pale and sweating, even more than usual, and reached out to pluck a drink from a nearby servitor with a trembling hand. ‘He’s thrown a scare into our illustrious governor, at any event.’
‘Has he?’ Amberley watched him go. ‘That seems a little presumptuous, even for a rogue trader.’
‘If that’s what he really is,’ I said, without thinking. Those depthless blue eyes turned on me again.
