The Oubliette, page 12
Shifting the table aside revealed the hidden door, and Tanzeg almost laughed.
He produced the luminator globe from his pocket and made his way cautiously down the staircase. A vault of heresy wasn’t so shocking. He’d have been more surprised not to find one in the home of a ruling family, although the lower-class greves could hardly boast any heresies worth speaking about. A hidden dungeon, though? That was something far more interesting.
His experienced nose detected the scent of offal long before he reached the bottom of the staircase. He recognised the distinct squelch as his boots left the stairs and sank into something gelatinous at the bottom. He lowered his luminator-globe to his knees, curious as to what could be scattered about down here.
‘Well, that’s interesting,’ he said. He recognised Lostrovsky’s silly little spectacles, the lenses smeared with a thin, greasy film. The rounded end of a tibia protruded from a slab of rotting meat a hand’s breadth away. He scanned the ground slowly, mentally accounting for most of his servant’s remains.
How delicious. He’d suspected the Matkosens had some sort of dark secret from the outside world, but this was beyond his wildest expectations. To the warp with what his mother wanted: if Ashielle was capable of this, he would be willing to play the long game. He’d shift tactics, present a more charming front, but he would find a way to win her heart. He held his luminator aloft and set off through Lostrovsky’s remains. He was curious what Ashielle had done with his assassin’s head. He couldn’t begin to guess what she could have used it for, but he found the very idea that she had absconded with it more interesting than anything else she’d ever done.
The labyrinth was intriguing. Fortunately, Lostrovsky had left a trail for him to follow. Most likely unintentionally, as the trail consisted largely of the assassin’s own blood, but the Vaneisen heir could overlook that. It looked as though Lostrovsky might have been worth his hiring fee after all.
If there was anything that Ashielle truly appreciated about the Adeptus Mechanicus, it was their devotion to efficiency. Where all her other dutiful citizens had come with fawning assurances of loyalty or unctuous attempts to hitch their fortunes to her own, the representative of the Priesthood of Mars had been blunt, curt and dryly technical.
‘Would you think less of me if I confessed I didn’t understand a word of that?’ Hanrik asked. He kept his voice low, but Ashielle couldn’t suppress a smile. ‘I caught something about oceans and mining, but that was about it.’
The ball guests might look as though they were paying attention to their food, or to the music, or to one of her many artistic displays, but all such distractions were merely blinds that hid the true object of the guests’ attention: the governor herself. Ashielle knew that all eyes were on her, judging her, trying to determine what direction her administration might take.
The sensation of being a stranger in her own home wasn’t new to her. The ballroom was packed with members of the Grevenate and their families, as well as various adepts, luminaries, and other citizens wealthy or influential enough to merit an invitation. Coronations and state funerals were sombre affairs, laden with gravitas and ceremony, but the Devotional Banquet following the installation of a new lord governor was a true celebration, and for many a once-in-a-lifetime event. The crowd was arrayed in their finest, with most nobles dressed in garments that cost more than any of their servants would make in their entire careers. Fine silks, neotex collars and triphidian feathers were on display, along with materials more exotic yet, all crafted by the most elite tailors and haberdashers on the planet.
If the reception was to be her introduction to the nobles of Ceocan, her chance to make an opening statement, she had decided early it would be a declaration of conservative plenty. The Colonnadium Mecenate, the enclosed columned hall that surrounded the Darhaver Ballroom, had been refitted with the finest art pieces the Matkosens owned. Paintings, weavings, furnishings and sculptures from the breadth of the planet, many older than the noble houses represented in attendance, were on display for all to admire. Her chefs had not crafted any new or bizarre dishes, had imported nothing from off-world, and had designed no titanic displays of culinary theatre. Instead, the food she had served showcased the entire palette of Ceocan cuisine, from hearty Kostoci steak to salted Pellucidian fish pastries. Two separate instrumental ensembles, staged at opposite ends of the ballroom, alternated music in a variety of styles popular throughout Ceocani history.
Despite being surrounded by those anxious to get her measure, she drew some small comfort having Hanrik by her side. He was a supportive presence: distant for twenty years he might have been, but he was nonetheless a family member she had known from childhood, who shared her blood and at least the core of her values. At the same time, his presence had a transient quality that added to his safety – he wasn’t going to be staying for more than a few days, so he had no worth to any long-term plans of potential rivals. It was a strange combination that ultimately made him more comforting and trustworthy than anyone else around her.
‘I got most of it,’ she said, watching the magos amble away. ‘He asked for us to divert fishing in the northern ice bays while his teams conduct a mineral survey. At least the Priesthood of Mars is direct in their approach. This will probably be the only time Magos Crofeld sees me all year unless I summon him, which the governor generally only does if there’s an emergency. So, logic dictates he make any request he has now. To tell the truth, I prefer the directness.’
The next supplicant was already approaching them. Ashielle sat apart from the dancers and diners, upon a raised dais of ebbulite marble, the stone’s natural luminescence dulled to a faint yellow glow by the centuries that had passed since its mining. Those who wished to speak with her had to ascend the wide, shallow steps and ascend to her level, to address her as she sat in the great padded seat which served as her throne. Blood-red velvet atop ferenwood dredged from the Trenkovi bogs. Age had darkened the wood to a glossy black. The tree that had provided the wood had been extinct before humans had set foot on the planet, preserved and petrified in the moss-choked mud for thousands of years. The specific trunk that would one day become the throne of Ceocan would have sprouted, grown and died when the skies and oceans of Holy Terra still ran blue.
Margreve Lagaret Gavozny was a woman Ashielle had never personally met, but had heard much about. Paola and Ashielle had, during many long conversations at university, confided their personal opinions of their own family members to one another. Paola’s father had been, like Ashielle, the second child of the ruling member of his house. Unlike Ashielle, his elder sister had survived, and had become margreve shortly after Hanrik’s birth. The Gavoznys had made their fortune in chemical processing, most specifically dyeworks, although they had expanded as the years had rolled on. From what Paola had told her, her aunt Lagaret was a single-minded woman, who had never let loyalty, mercy or empathy get in the way of lining her family’s coffers.
‘Lord Governor Matkosen,’ said Lagaret as she reached the last stair. ‘We thank you for your generous hospitality. May I present my own daughter, Quelevea Gavozny.’
The Margreve Gavozny was a stout woman, short and thickly muscled. She did no manual labour that Ashielle was aware of, and instead had perfected her strong physique only for herself. From what Paola had told her, the margreve had been a successful bare-knuckle brawler in her youth, and was not above using her physicality to intimidate some of the idle, perfumed nobles with whom she had business dealings.
In many ways, Quelevea was the opposite of her mother. Her hands were folded in front of her, her gaze lowered timidly. She was small and withdrawn, and when she mumbled an echo of her mother’s thanks, her voice shook with fear.
‘So lovely to have you both,’ said Ashielle. ‘May I offer you a sweet?’ She gestured to the servitor standing next to her, holding a tray of ice-cold cubes of shivering Marcorellian gelatin. The servitor, like all the others navigating the crowd with trays of food and drink, was a pinnacle of cybernetic craft. The flesh was clean and dressed in Matkosen servants’ livery, the artificial components oiled, maintained and silent. The slack faces had been covered by porcelain masks made to honour the faces of long-serving former employees of the palace. They were particular points of interest for the guests. The works aboard the Callistonian Haven absorbed most of the servitors produced on Ceocan, and the agri-works took the majority that remained. Most noble houses could afford only a single servitor, and many had none at all.
‘You’re most gracious, my lord, but no.’ Margreve Gavozny had a grim half-smile. Ashielle wondered what manner of game the woman was playing. ‘It is my daughter who has a request of you.’ She turned to Quelevea. ‘Don’t just stand there, child. The lord governor has a busy evening.’
‘So sorry, your excellency.’ Quelevea seemed unsure what to do with herself, and made do with a curtsy. ‘However, I’m old enough now to enter into holdings of my own.’
‘I see,’ said Ashielle. She smiled and leaned forward, trying to relax her posture to be as unintimidating as possible.
‘There is, ah, significant demand for our family’s goods,’ the young woman said, eyeing her mother uncomfortably. ‘However, my elder family members have the demand sufficiently covered.’
Ashielle understood the girl’s plight: she didn’t want to earn her mother’s disapproval by spelling out the naked truth. Fortunately, she was up to date on the economics of Ceocan, and already knew that the Gavozny fortunes were stable, but had no room for expansion at the moment. The expanding population required housing, not fabric dyes.
‘Did you have something in mind?’ Ashielle asked. The traditional holdings of a noble family were the most common occupation for its members, but by no means the only one available to them.
Quelevea nodded. ‘Yes, excellency. I have a partner, my betrothed, Theole Arclaven, who is a vintner by trade.’ The name wasn’t familiar to Ashielle, which meant the partner wasn’t a member of any of the ruling families. Quelevea was a third child, however, which meant her family would have no concerns allowing her to marry outside of her class.
Ashielle saw the trouble, however, and the trap Margreve Gavozny believed she was laying for Ashielle. The family trades associated with each noble house might not be a requirement for them, but they were protected industries, by law. Food production was the undisputed territory of the Matkosens. Vineyards occupied a legal grey area. Some court rulings had found them to be classified as food or beverage enterprises, and thus the province of the Matkosens. Others, particularly the smallest and most elite, had been ruled as artistic endeavours, and thus belonging to no house as a default matter of law.
To make matters even more tricky, all the best land for the growing of vitiberries was prime arable land, and thus owned by the Matkosens unless otherwise granted. If Ashielle wanted to help Quelevea Gavozny, she would need to give away a portion of her own land, and cede a business enterprise that could arguably be considered hers, to a noble house that did not operate in her favour. If she refused, she could be seen as petty, holding on to a small scrap of land she wasn’t using, and undermining the empathetic and reasonable image she had cultivated for herself.
‘What a lovely idea,’ Ashielle said. She looked Margreve Gavozny in the eye. ‘I believe I could, conditionally, spare a few square miles outside of Trenkovi Bay. Say, fifteen?’
The eyes of the Gavozny women widened in shock. No vineyard of that size had ever been classified as an artistic endeavour before.
‘What conditions?’ Lagaret asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
Ashielle smiled. ‘Taxes paid at trade rate, until such time as the value of the property has been repaid. In addition to standard tithes and taxes, one per cent of your daughter’s production by vintage, to be diverted to the palace.’ She nodded at Quelevea. ‘We must keep our own stocks plentiful, after all.’ Turning back to Lagaret, she added another clause, as if as an afterthought. ‘And the labourers, both seasonal and permanent, to be recruited from a city of the governor’s choosing, in perpetuity. You can begin with, we’ll say, three hundred workers from Selpergam.’
Margreve Lagaret nearly laughed out loud. The terms were quite generous, but more to the point, they did nothing to harm the fortunes of the Gavozny family. They would, however, bode poorly for the Vaneisens, who had already accepted contracts to build additional housing in Selpergam, some of which would sit vacant now that a few hundred workers would be moved to another continent.
‘Thank you, your excellency,’ Quelevea gushed. Ashielle gave her a gracious smile and a wave as the young woman’s mother guided her down the dais and away into the crowd. Another petty trap of her enemies averted. At least that one had been relatively easy.
Hanrik grimaced as they watched the crowd, waiting for the next guest to approach. ‘They all want something. It’s all so… avaricious. I thought the evening was supposed to be a show of loyalty to you.’
She smiled again, this time openly and genuinely. The parade of supplicants had begun the moment she walked into the ballroom, and would likely continue through the night.
‘And most of them demonstrate that loyalty with pretty words and trivial gifts,’ she said. ‘Then, of course, they reason that they should immediately capitalise on that loyalty before I have the opportunity to divine whether or not they’ve truly earned it.’
The gifts meant little to her, save for those rare few that were personal and meaningful, like the embossed book of neo-legalist poetry that Paola had delivered earlier. That was the image she had attempted to convey. From the food to the music to the artwork, to the grand architecture of Darcarden that she had laid open to the Grevenate, it all spoke to the same message. The massive, arched ribs of the ballroom, the ancient throne, the goods both fine and mundane from every reach of her planet, told everyone present that nothing was beyond her grasp. It was no accident that she had chosen the Darhaver Ballroom for her Devotional Banquet. As the highest point of the palace’s northern side, the glass windows of the Colonnadium Mecenate offered a stunning vista of the palace to the south and east, and the rolling countryside to the north. To the west, the entire city of Kostoveim lay before the viewers, the lights stretching to the horizon to blend nearly seamlessly with the stars of the night sky.
The message, she hoped, was clear: this is a person who has everything. Not through ostentation, but through completeness, venerability and reliability, she showed that her means were as close to infinite as mattered on Ceocan. Her wealth so vast as to make her unbribable. If she had to make a single statement to begin her reign, she would make it a declaration that she could not be bought, for there was nothing she did not have, and little she could not afford to give in service to her world.
‘That’s appalling,’ said Hanrik, drawing her thoughts back to the conversation at hand.
‘Does it really work differently on Sorinoux?’ asked Ashielle.
‘Sorinoux is a shrine world,’ he said, ‘so the influential elite tend to be members of the Ecclesiarchy, and a little more focused on maintaining an appearance of pious loyalty.’
She might have hoped to continue the conversation for a while longer, as much to postpone the inevitable torrent of personal requests as to hear more about her brother’s new home, but Barrin’s arrival ended that. The group captain’s stern expression told her it was not mere social formality that brought him out.
‘Ma’am,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘One of the visitors was observed discretely sneaking into the servants’ corridors off the main room,’ he whispered.
Aware of how many eyes were upon her, Ashielle smiled as though he had told her something charming and innocuous.
‘Whom?’ she asked.
‘Tanzeg Vaneisen, and his guest.’
The thought of Tanzeg Vaneisen sneaking through the halls of her palace was disturbing enough, but the notion that he might have a greater agenda concerned her even more.
‘Where was he spotted, Fidal?’ She smiled and leaned in as if laughing at a private joke.
‘By the Draper’s Hall, ma’am.’
Inside, she fumed. Tanzeg creeping off into the shadows for a covert liaison with whatever woman he’d bribed into accompanying him she could see as being mere coincidence, but the same footman’s hall she’d nearly been cornered in? Her father had had a saying: When conspiracy goes abroad, coincidence is the mask it wears, and she was beginning to see the wisdom in it.
‘Then we should go and see if there’s anything he needs,’ she said as she stood.
Hanrik stood as well, confused. ‘A runaway guest? Does that warrant your personal intervention?’ he asked.
How much she could reveal to Hanrik still weighed upon her. To tell him everything, Jaezubiel and all, might be more than he could handle. He was an arbitrator, after all, and she couldn’t trust the bonds of blood to take precedence over the oaths he had taken. Still, she might need his assistance if things were to go too far awry.
‘The Draper’s Hall is the closest point to the corridor where I was attacked,’ she said. ‘If my assassin, or those who hired him, were to return to the scene of their attack to destroy evidence, or to ensure none remained, that’s the route they would take.’
