| |
Wedgewood
––––––––
The matriarch awoke to the sound of steel clashing against steel. It was an unmistakable: swords against swords. Yet there was no alarm. Her escort had not come to shift her back to the ship. The battle drones, cape-covered lethality, sat quietly in their corners, the recon and defense bots hung undisturbed on the ceiling, and the Alexis soared aloft, mute. The clashing of the weapons came from outside the window. It had a repeated, rhythmic pattern followed by muffled grunts. Dawn, filtered by the Ungerngerists, suffused the room in a peaceful radiance. She lifted the covers and eased out of bed. Tip-toeing to the window, a floorboard creaked.
“Andy?” Margret sought with her hand underneath the covers and then opened her eyes. The matriarch, still naked, was attempting to look out the window without being seen. “Andy?” Margret asked again, this time propping herself up on an elbow.
“Shsss,” the matriarch whispered, “go back to sleep.”
Margret looked uncertain, so the matriarch left the window, pressed the palm lock on her in-country bag, and dragged it back to the bed. “I’m going to go for a walk. No need for you to bother. Get some sleep. You need to attend the Auro Na trials. It will not be easy.”
The counselor watched the matriarch, sitting on the bed, pull on her synth-tec body armor. It looked like thick silk, but it could stop bullets, blades, and resist—for a brief period – medium-strength lasers. The armor fit her like a second skin. Over that, she slipped on her energy-displacing plasma deflector vest but left the front open. Around her upper arms, she clipped plasma deflector bands designed to look like Auro Na signets of high office. She reached into her bag and made to pull on the larger deflector bands that went around each leg. Conscious that Margret watched, the matriarch pivoted and brought a long leg up on the bed. She held out the thigh band. “Want to put it on for me?”
Margret offered a grudging smile. Grasping the band, she reached along the matriarch’s long, synth-covered leg. Lifting the matriarch’s knee up to her shoulder and holding it there, Margret reached to where she could feel the warmth of the matriarch’s bottom. Managing the clasp, she clipped the band around the matriarch’s upper thigh.
After a moment, the two women looking at each other, the matriarch said, “You didn’t have to strap it on so high.” It was more of a tease than a rebuke.
“Sorry.” Margret reached back and slowly pulled it down to mid-thigh.
They repeated the process with the other leg, and the matriarch rolled over onto her belly. She was staring out the window, listening to the clash of swords.
Margret laid her head back on her pillow. The matriarch’s perfectly manicured feet were at her face. Their trip to Dianis was well within ULUP guidelines and laws, but the matriarch’s gear and protection services were not. Ivan had balked at bringing her in-country, not so much because of who the matriarch was, but because of how she looked. He’d specifically remarked, nay demanded, that the matriarch wear boots, not sandals, fearing the stir they’d cause if someone saw painted and manicured toenails. The Auro Na cloak and in-country tunic and trousers would cover the illegal—on a Class E world—body armor, but they’d filed for an exemption for the gear, which ULUP granted for the matriarch.
“Should we have invited Breia?”
Margret shifted her focus from the matriarch’s feet to the question. “Invite him to what?”
“Bed.”
“Hmph, no. He’s such a stiff, and not in the right way.”
The matriarch pulled her legs up, set them on the floor, and stood. “Good. It’s hard for me to know, sometimes, who I should keep happy.” She gave a secret smile to her envoy to Dianis. “How about Ivan?” It was another tease.
“You’d never make him happy. The man is impregnable.”
“Good. We need him that way.”
“I love you, Andy.”
The matriarch’s face turned thoughtful. They were conscious of each other, their minds wrapping together. Their thoughts twisted and revolved around each other in an invisible dance of pursuit, flight, and tease. Then, abruptly, the matriarch turned and walked to the window. “Thank you for that,” she said, looking out the window. “It means much to me.” Leaning back, she pulled on the window frame, trying to open it. It was an alien design, at least to her, some sort of clever hinge mechanism. Puzzling over it, she said, “Andromeda, scan and resolve, please.”
Her AI, connected via the optic nerve implant, scanned the mechanism and responded with instructions.
The matriarch lifted and pulled the window up, and it dutifully tilted over her head, making a creaking noise. The sound of swordplay stopped.
She ducked below the frame and leaned out. Margret, from the bed, was appreciating the rearview.
The warriors in the courtyard, two stories below, were looking up at her. “Good morning, High Priestess. Fear tell, have we awakened her graciousness?”
Not caring if her synth-tec bodice and vest were odd-looking, she offered the oligarch a good view. She wore no bra under the synth-tec, and male and female warriors alike gave her their attention. There were twenty or so Oridian lancers and Timberkeep axmen in the courtyard, which had been commandeered as a practice ground for the oligarch’s personal guard. They had been taking turns training against each other, and as happenstance would have it, the oligarch himself was at center ring facing a burly Timberkeep she recognized from injection learning. “Good morning, my lord,” she paused, making eye contact with all, “and ladies and gentlemen, defenders of Wedgewood. The victorious and the humble. What an auspicious gathering. Please forgive my interruption.”
Bowing low, the oligarch, with a flourish, indicated his combatant. “Yes, I struggle against none other than Ogden, master weaponsmith, warden of the Second—”
“Ula,” Ogden interrupted him, “if you keep wasting your breath, I might actually be able to beat you.” Ogden stood a hand shorter than the oligarch, but his barrel chest and corded muscles stretched his chain mail armor. He wielded a massive double-bladed war axe and had been sparring against the oligarch’s cavalry saber, the practice version with a dulled blade. Ogden’s long hair was bound behind, and his dense beard cropped short lest the forge fires singe it.
“Are there none of your vaunted Life Defenders? I’ve been so hoping to meet them,” the matriarch asked with genuine respect.
“Noi,” Ogden made to advance on the oligarch, “they were here but trained early. Now, if I can just—”
“Ha!” The oligarch laughed, struck at Ogden’s upraised ax, and danced away. “Shall the High Priestess deign to come down and visit with us? Perhaps I can get a stroke or two at her mercenary captain.”
Dogged, Ogden stalked the oligarch around the ring.
“Perhaps,” she replied, leaning back and stretching her arms to work out a morning kink.
Ogden caught the oligarch’s distraction and pounced.
“Ha,” the oligarch laughed. “You are a dog, mastersmith.” He blocked, dodged, deflected, and otherwise fled from a flurry of ax swings.
“The good weaponsmith may be a dog, but I think he is more of a wolf, my lord,” the matriarch said. Testing her injection learning, “If the poets have it right, lore says it was his ward that counter-attacked the Drakans from those gates,” and she pointed at the Hall Gate.
“Yes,” the oligarch answered, staring with respect at his opponent. Then he shoved his blade tip into the dirt, signaling the match was over; he ceded it. Turning to the balcony window, “Will the High Priestess break her fast with me? I meet with Woodwern and Sedge, and it would be an honor to have you seated at our table.”
The matriarch considered the offer. She tilted her head and leaned back out the window. “It will have to be abbreviated, I am afraid. We’ve had a change of plans and need to depart this morning, but I will visit with you nonetheless.”
She watched the oligarch give a flourished bow, and she stepped back and closed the window.
Margret was still watching her. “Will I have to share you with him?” She teased.
The matriarch acted surprised and waggled her head in typical Avarian fashion. “Why Margret,” she sauntered to the bed and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead and whispered, “That would be consorting with a provincial.” Their noses were touching.
Margret replied, “And we know how you feel about that.”
