Bad to the Throne, page 33
part #15 of The Good Guys Series
“That way is back to the gate, right?” he asked, pointing.
“It is.”
“You think we just keep going straight?”
I peered into the distance along each wide street. Not much difference left to right. But ahead of us, still to the north, it looked like there might be trees. Or at least, it appeared as if there were things growing in a reasonably structured sense. Something that also seemed to give off a mild illumination.
“I see something ahead I’d like to get a better look at,” I said, “but I’m pretty open.”
He turned to see what I was looking at, but given how he looked, I could tell he wasn’t seeing what I saw.
“Up there, bit of light?”
“Okay,” he said, maybe placating me, maybe actually seeing it. “Let’s go.”
84
It seemed like we had found the remains of a park.
Or maybe a market. Some place that had enough of an organic base that various ‘things’ had since taken root and grown. And, to an extent, thrive.
Granted, these were not pretty trees. It was an accumulation of molds, slimes, and fungi. Slimes, in this case, being the kind that were like primordial plants, not the semi-magical, monstrous beings that were more akin to demonic Jell-O. Which, when you think about it, might have been a better choice for a Cosby sponsorship.
What looked like trees from back at the intersection were actually big mushrooms. The traditional style with a wide cap and a thick stalk, except super-sized. Tree-sized, twenty-plus feet tall. Strings of mold grew thick over stone left there by the ruins. And there were lots of weirdly shaped fungi that waved gently in the breeze I no longer felt. It was pretty disturbing, because as we got closer to them, the waving fungi waved and leaned in our direction. Little tendrils of something started going across the ground, or growing across the ground. Like a slime mold growing to find food.
“We might want to move past this part faster,” I said.
“Agreed,” Clyde replied. He was standing quite a bit farther away, giving it all a very wide berth.
As we went deeper into the city, I tried to visualize any sort of difference between blocks. I was willing to keep going north because the ruins seemed to have larger and larger openings, where there had been, at one point, rooms. It was very much an assumption on my part, but I figured that having more personal space was probably always seen as a benefit when looking at a large group of individuals living together. And so if rooms were getting larger, we were going to nicer areas of the former city.
“You never answered my question,” Clyde said suddenly.
“What question was that? About having a competition?”
“Things you miss.”
“I mean, I try not to think about it.”
“Because you miss things?”
“Of course I miss things. But it’s nothing big or interesting. There’s no love of my life pining away. I’d hit rock bottom — I had nothing and no one. But I still miss things. Little things. Radio. That perfect song coming on when it’s out of your control, but it fits the soundtrack of your life perfectly. The wind in your hair, riding without a helmet. The smell of gasoline and the heat of exhaust. Warming my hands near a tail pipe. It’s the incidentals I miss more than anything. Or maybe it’s just the incidentals I miss, period.”
“Incidentals?”
“Little things, man. Stuff I don’t think about until I do. Like shitty commercials that had great jingles. Like sitting on a couch and being able to watch TV, but, like, background TV. I miss that. Just dropping onto some bit of soft furniture, not the slightest bit worried it would break, and putting on the TV. Not tuned to anything in particular — just having something on. Finding something that is innocuous to watch. Or just fill space. There’s not exactly a background here, you know? I can’t just let Law and Order run while I’m half-napping. Catch little bits of a mystery here and there that make me wonder about shit. I want a mystery now, I got to read a book. Actually pay attention to it. Go see a play. Pay attention to it. There isn’t that sort of story osmosis that used to happen. And there just aren’t enough answers. It’s like a multitude of fucking questions — always more questions — and there just aren’t answers. I miss fucking Google. Or, you know, Wikipedia.”
“I hadn’t really thought of that.”
“Yeah, like I said, stuff I didn’t know I was missing until I thought about it. Clearly, you want me to ask what you miss, so what do you miss?”
He gave me a half-smile, as if he thought I wouldn’t catch that he’d been pushing for me to ask him that question.
“I guess kind of the same. But maybe also I miss being safe. It’s constant danger here and I feel like I’m always on watch? I’m always trying to save everyone and I don’t know that I can.”
“You miss the safety of home.”
“I guess. You don’t?”
“It wasn’t ever really that safe for me.”
“Right.”
“You can’t save everyone, you know.”
“I can try.”
“Of course. You have to try. I think that’s the only way we can be… what we are.”
“Have you lost someone?”
“Many someones.”
“Does it get easier? Do you forgive yourself for the failures?”
“No. And no. Why are you asking all of this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Don’t play dumb, and don’t make me pretend to be smart. I suck at it. I’m not someone you talk to about problems — I’m someone who tries to solve the problems and just makes bigger problems until the really huge problems destroy each other and at that point, everyone hopes they’re still upright and alive.”
“I just worry that I make things more dangerous.”
“You might. I’ve had to kill way more people and things than I ever thought I would. It’s not fun. It sucks. Maybe you’re young enough that you’re coming to the realization that caring about people is both the only way to live and the only way to truly hurt. But here we are. You want to go home? You claim to know the way. So make the choice. But once you’ve made that choice, don’t dick around with the idea. Don’t think that it might get better. It probably won’t.”
“You’re really making me feel better.”
“You need me to make you feel better?”
“No, just…”
I paused, thinking.
“You and Nadya,” I said, “that’s the thing. That’s the someone.”
“What?”
“That’s who you’re– that’s the person you’re worried about. The one you’re willing to stay here for, right?”
He didn’t say anything.
“I think that’s a good thing,” I said. “I think that’s the right sort of, um, relationship to remain in this world for. Anything else… I don’t know. But it does complicate things.”
“Damn right it does,” he said, stopping.
“I mean, she’s got a chance at being the next Emperor. Gotta be a bit weird–”
“Are you voting for her?”
“So far I am.”
“So far? Who’d be a better choice?”
“Valamir.”
“Sure, but he’s not running. Actually, speaking of the vote, isn’t there another one soon?”
“In the morning.”
“It is the morning.”
“Is it?”
He pulled out a notebook and scribbled something. Then he sort of just rested the pencil he’d used loosely in his hand, graphite point resting on the paper. Then the pencil started to move.
“It’s morning,” Clyde said, reading off the page. “Close enough that we should probably hurry back.”
“How much of a hurry?”
“We should go.”
85
On the plus side, I got to the Senate on time. And in order to make it, I had to skip sitting down with Dunt Pomeroy to give him the post mortem on our trip.
On the down side, I wasn’t even allowed into the Senate building until I took my armor off and put on more ‘respectable’ clothing. Which was annoying, because I had to borrow Valamir’s valet and have him go fetch ‘respectable’ clothes for me from a nearby clothier, who, it seemed to me at least, got the bulk of their business from supplying idiots with the last-minute outerwear necessary to do government work. And since I’m not really an off-the-rack sort of girlie, I wore what was available, which was something blue in the robe/muumuu family. Seriously ‘respectable.’
I managed to get seated just prior to the cut-off point where I wouldn’t be allowed to vote, scrambling into the room and hurrying across the floor to drop into my chair before the chamberlain banged her gavel.
She gave me a look.
My chair broke, and I fell to the ground.
I got a lot more looks.
But I didn’t make a noise; I just carefully and gingerly picked myself up off the ground and moved to the next seat. No demerits given.
There was no other new business, just voting for the Emperor. A little thing.
This time, the ballots were handed out with a pink pastel crayon. Also of note, Lodbrook was no longer on the ballot. I was incredibly curious about what he’d been offered for his votes, and likely those of his supporters. And whose offer he’d accepted.
I stared at the ballots, all twenty of them, thinking through things. I knew I needed to vote for Nadya, but I wasn’t really feeling her as a ruler. She just seemed young. And given the environment she’d be forced to rule within, I just couldn’t see how she would be successful unless she just followed what Valamir told her to do. And in that case, why not just have Valamir doing the damn job…?
Still, voting for him wasn’t going to do a damn thing.
So I voted for Nadya. Then I held my votes up and allowed them to be collected, and I started to lean my chair back before I remembered that I was dangerously close to hitting the double digit mark in Senate Chair Destruction.
The vote takers took their time getting all the votes together into the vote collection and bringing said vote collection up to the chamberlain’s podium, whereupon we could all, collectively, go through the rigamarole of listening to the votes.
It was about as fun as it was last time.
“A vote for Princess Regina.”
“A vote for Princess Regina.”
And so on, until all the votes had been read aloud and tabulated.
Which gave us the following:
Three votes for the Mayor’s Neighbor Dave, which was two more than before, a pretty big boost for the guy.
Which matched me. Because I got three votes.
Valamir got seven.
Katja gained a few, coming out with eighteen this time.
Edgemond got twenty-one, lost two.
The big winner, however, was the princess, because she walked away with thirty-six votes to Nadya’s thirty-three. So most of Lodbrook’s people went to the princess. Not all of them, but a good amount. And those who’d voted for Nadya the first time, had mostly stuck with her, except one. She lost one.
It didn’t look great, which weighed on Valamir, considering his grim look.
The votes were put into a box, and the box top was colored. Then it was set next to the first votebox, available for anyone to look over.
After a moment where I think we all thought we might have to vote again, no other new business was brought forth, and we were dismissed for the day.
Edgemond, young asshole that he was, could not hide his displeasure. While I sat deciding how to spend my afternoon, he was being held back from crossing the room and screaming at Lodbrook. Who was doing his best to hurry out of the Senate chambers unnoticed. Perhaps the old guy had overplayed his hand, promising his votes to two people and yet obviously being forced to deliver to but one.
I skipped the group chat taking place in the food room, and discovered that there were lockers for the Senators, specifically to handle the sort of issue I’d come up against — a place to store ‘respectable’ clothing for government meetings. So I got to ditch the muumuu.
It’s the little things that make the days tolerable.
86
Hat tip to Valamir, who managed to work some magic with the carriage situation for me. Because even though I thought I was just catching a random cab, it was actually waiting there specifically to bring me from the Senate to a small bathhouse on the western side of the Imperial Palace, right along the border of LegionHome. Which, considering I was now both an honorary and official member of the Legion, I could visit without issue.
The Troubled Bubbles was the sort of place that looked like a hole in the wall from the outside, but only because it hid its opulence and luxury under a thin veneer of filth. I went past the dirty lobby, through a tiny hallway that seemed to be carpeted in rodent carcases, and into a beautiful private room where I could disrobe and store my things. I was given the sole key to the place that I could wear around my neck.
I took their largest towel and wore it around my waist, following a delicate young woman out of the room to a moderately large bath currently occupied by two men. One I knew — Clyde Hatchett — and one I didn’t. A tall, well-muscled man with a curvy mustache under a big nose, with dark eyes and the brooding look of someone who’d been deep in the shit. I had the sense that both Elfboy and friend were nude, but they were in the water and somewhat hidden under the turbulent bubbles.
“Clyde,” I said.
“Duke,” Clyde replied.
At my title, the other man stood up from leaning against the edge.
“Your grace,” he said, bowing his head a little.
“No need to do that,” I said. “Tell him he doesn’t need to do that.”
“He’s going to do that regardless.”
“It is protocol, your grace. I appreciate that you may believe we may interact as equals, but it is not the case.”
It was a sentiment made doubly poignant being that I towered over the man, as I stood outside the bath and he was down in it.
I took my towel off and dropped into the water. I still towered over him.
“Matthew Gallifrey,” Clyde said, “Duke Montana Coggeshall.”
I grabbed his hand and pumped it. A good solid handshake that seemed to throw Matthew off.
“Are you–” I managed to get out before I heard the slight squeak of the door and felt the mild change in air temperature as someone else walked into the bath.
Valamir.
“Your highness,” Matthew started.
“As ranking member of the Empire here,” Valamir said, tossing his towel to the side and casually stepping down into the water, using the stairs as one would normally do so instead of leaping into the deep end, “that there shall be no more usage of titles or honorifics amongst us. It is a waste of time, something I fear we could be preciously short on.”
“See?” I said.
“I shall do my best, your—” Matthew caught himself.
“I presume you are Master Hatchett’s associate, Matthew Gallifrey?” Valamir asked.
“Isn’t Master a title?” Clyde asked.
“Quiet,” Matthew snapped. “And yes, I am.”
“What I know of you is intriguing,” Valamir continued. “I appreciate your willingness to work with us on this pressing issue.”
“If it is for the good of the Empire, I am willing to do most anything.”
“Excellent. I fear the voting did not go particularly well for us. The princess saw some impressive gains. Although, to be fair, there was quite a bit of life in Baeder’s camp and within Edgemonds. I no longer think my prediction of Edgemond bowing out is likely, and I am concerned what Baeder has done to make her willing to go the distance.”
“You think she’ll keep going?” I asked.
“Neither I nor my agents have seen any indication she is stopping. Rather, I have heard that she is sending out some feelers toward a few institutions I would rather remain neutral during this.”
“Such as?”
“The Wharf Rats,” Matthew said. “The Butcher Boys. Bucket ‘o Blood. She has lined up meetings between her shadow council and a number of the more violent gangs in the city.”
“Exactly as I have heard,” Valamir said. “And I would not put it past her to move this conflict from purely cold and political to more hot and bloody.”
“Killing someone?” Clyde asked.
“Or someones.”
“Nadya,” Clyde said, his jaw clenching
“She is a likely target, although I would imagine any attempt to take out either of the Glaton candidates is problematic. Between the two of them, they have a majority.”
“Someone find this Dave, the neighbor guy,” I said.
I was ignored. It was not a group who appreciated humor. At least not then.
“Edgemond?”
“That is more likely. Though it is never a grand idea to poke the Edgemonds.”
“They do tend to react violently,” Matthew agreed. “Do you have any safeguards present for yourself?”
“Of course. Though I am not concerned with myself as I am a terrible target at the moment–”
“Do you think–”
“I think we should focus upon the cult. Tell me what you have discovered.”
“It’s both a lot and a little,” Clyde said. “And I’d love to know why we’re meeting here, because I’d really prefer to have put some papers down.”
“I do apologize for the lack of a solid surface. But it is rather challenging for anyone to listen to us here. The water disrupts most attempts at scrying, the turbulent surface makes it a challenge for eavesdroppers, and the steam prevents anyone from looking at us.”
I looked over at the edge of the bath and noticed that steam was starting to flow in.
“Might be easier to poison us,” I said.
“I doubt I would be poisoned in a bathhouse I own, but I suppose, yes, it is a possibility.”
“How many places do you own?” Clyde asked.
“Only slightly more than you, dear boy. Now, let us return to the topic that brings us together.”
