As the subtle whine of the Royal Raptor shuttle’s grav-engine scaled down to standby mode, Ensign Prince Matthieu Sinclair shut down his pilot’s station, trying to keep his mind off seeing Melody for the upcoming Midsummer Birthday Bash so he wouldn’t make any mistakes in front of his last instructor. Logging off the control computer, he glanced at Commander Jeffries in the co-pilot’s seat. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No, you did a superb job, Ensign. We might as well wait until the grunts are done unloading.” Rather short yet muscular, with blond hair lightly greying at his temples, Commander Jeffries made some final notes on his palm pad. “I’m recommending you for pilot officer. Your skills at the simulators are legendary, but you have a real flair for efficiency. Did your uncle Christian train you?”
Matthieu emitted a brief chuckle; Jeffries was friends with Christian, so it was a natural assumption for him to make. “Some, but it was Brian who taught me the most about piloting. I got him to take me with him on tours of Sentinel Regional Support Centers for three or four summers. He would fly through the worst low-level terrain challenges he could find on the way to whichever duchy, and then teach me how to navigate them flying back to the Urban District.”
The commander snorted. “I suppose that was the least of your unofficial training.”
“Indeed.” He decided to say no more. Two years and twenty training cycles had convinced every officer in the Service that Matthieu’s skills were no fluke. At this point, to say he would rather pilot any vehicle in existence than allow someone with lesser ability to do so would sound arrogant.
Weapons, tactics, stealth, close-quarters combat, field engineering, emergency procedures, wound management, intelligence, space ops—he had obtained the top ranking in every training cycle but outdoor survival, and for those two rotations, he had studied numerous books in preparation. After all, he was going to be the Emperor some day.
From his father’s first tours through Sentinel Command and the bomb damage that had destroyed a third of the old Palace when Matthieu was only six, through his grandfather Emperor Victor Sinclair’s descriptions of Dalanov’s Coup 58 years before that, he had developed a galloping paranoia about security and was subsequently determined to survive at all cost. He not only had combat training with watchmen and Sentinels on a regular basis, but many of his father’s nine siblings on-planet had helped him learn about their specialties.
When he was thirteen, he had asked his grandmother Empress Felice Sinclair to establish ‘summer seminars’ taught by her personal computer laboratory manager and Matthieu’s aunts, uncles, and their spouses in all kinds of procedures for him, his six siblings, and the multitude of Imperial cousins. To his knowledge, the seminars were still going on.
Once the maintenance crew notified Commander Jeffries of their approach, he gave Matthieu permission to exit the cockpit and kibitz with his fellow officer trainees in the separate flight deck, where Lieutenant Commander Makov had supervised their final duties on this training cycle. Dwight Sonderman, bombardier for this run, jested, “Hey, Sinclair! I think I felt a bump on approach. You knocked my last strafing run off-target by an entire meter!” As his cohort laughed along, Matthieu shook his head and grinned at the irrepressible Sonderman.
Jeff Brady, flight engineer for the trip, proceeded to praise various deities from several planets for the fact that Sonderman had been stuck with a simulator, or the entire shuttle port would have been potted with smoking holes instead of smoking aircraft. Matthieu flung a few verbal darts at his buddies as he moved to look out the window. Two Palace ground cars and three Sentinel ground cars waited some 20 meters distant until the last of the enlisted men cleared the duffels from the cargo holds and piled into the trams. Once the trams trundled off, the Imperial ground cars moved forward.
Matthieu was happy to see his brothers Theo, Richard, and Domenic line up to greet him with their father, Crown Prince Zhaiden Sinclair, along with a platoon of Sentinels and watchmen. The tram for the training officers and Matthieu’s six fellow ensigns pulled up beside them as he disembarked to hurry into Father’s arms.
He gave his brothers quick hugs as Father nodded and waved to the other Servicemen. Watchman Ferris already had Matthieu’s duffel in hand as the Sentinels herded the Crown Prince and his sons toward the Palace ground cars. They piled into the back of one, leaving the other as a decoy.
“So, how was your tour?” Father always seemed to save his biggest smile for his children, topped by green eyes glittering with pure love.
“Father, a training cycle isn’t a tour,” Matthieu demurred. “Although we work the assignments like apprenticeships, the second cycles are still considered training. My next assignment will be an actual tour, and I don’t know what that’ll be, yet. I’m supposed to find out July 2nd, like everyone else.”
“Still, what did you do that was different?” Thirteen-year-old Domenic, as fair as his mother Renee, was fairly bouncing in the seat across from Matthieu.
“Well, all sorts of things. I got to do norm-space navigation for a week while we practiced battle formations and movements, and I got to help do some actual maintenance on the hulls of three ships in a space suit.” Matthieu grinned as Domenic emitted excited noises. Discussion of those two activities took them to the Golden Gate of the new Imperial Palace.
As they circled to the east side of the Imperial Palace to access the Imperial Family’s personal underground parking garage, he finally wound down. “I’m so happy to have twelve whole days for leave, though. I want to call Melody tonight and rest a couple of days before the Birthday Bash.”
At the sudden silence and stares between Domenic and Richard, as well as Theo’s glare at their two younger brothers, Matthieu’s suspicions were roused. “Okay, what is it? You might as well tell me; you know I’ll find out sooner or later.”
Father put his hand on Matthieu’s shoulder. “Melody has been dating someone else. She’s kept it very secret, but you know we’ve had a discreet Sentinel detail on her since you started bringing her to Family Night.”
Stunned, Matthieu couldn’t form words until the ground car parked. “Who?”
“Does it matter?” his father asked reasonably.
As Sentinels opened their doors, Matthieu realized it truly didn’t.
◊ ◊ ◊
Matthieu knew the person knocking on the door of his suite was probably his step-mother, Renee. At dinner, the hall filled with almost every relative on-planet, he had managed to thank everyone for their congratulations and answer the occasional question, but his subdued attitude was apparent to all. It was obvious all the adults and several of the older children already knew about Melody, for no one mentioned her. When Grandmother had everyone move to the Crystal Salon to continue the party, Matthieu went with them but slipped out after half an hour to curl up on his bed and clutch a pillow.
His Sentinels let Renee in after her third attempt to gain his attention. She sat behind him against the headboard of the bed and stroked his hair for several minutes.
Matthieu finally asked, “Why?”
Renee’s voice soothed him like no other. “You would have to ask her. If I had to guess, I’d say she realized the press of your duties would always take precedence over your relationship with her.
“Ladies her age tend to think they’re skin-starved, that they must have continuous physical and emotional support from their loved ones. Regardless, it’s indicative of her self-esteem that she could look beyond the most brilliant and eligible man on the planet for a constant source of renewal of her self-worth.”
“Eight weeks. She couldn’t wait eight weeks,” Matthieu groaned.
“She only dated him for three, about in the middle of your training cycle. And there’s no evidence they slept together,” Renee informed him.
“Who was it?”
“Lord Jonathan Gottlieb.”
“Shit.” Matthieu scooted over so he could lie on his back and look into Renee’s warm, amber eyes.
“He’s always been jealous of me. In school he would always ask what I got on an exam, gloating if he scored better than I did. Although we were never good friends, he would hang around just to get to know all the ladies who crowded me and Vic and Eric. I guess he was pretty good friends with Vic before I started Northbridge.”
Renee nodded and placed her hand on his shoulder. “You know, it doesn’t matter whether you choose to overlook it or not. Everyone will understand, either way, especially because she was extremely discreet. But if you do decide to break up, you should really do it in person.”
Matthieu looked away. “She’s the only lady I’ve ever bedded. I know I could have almost any lady I want, though it might take some time for her parents to agree. But I don’t want to get a reputation, either.”
Renee let a silvery giggle escape. “Your father’s reputation never did him any harm. If anything, he learned a great deal from having so many partners in his youth.”
He granted that the snort it deserved but grew serious. “I can’t help but want what I see all around me, though. You and Father, all my aunts and uncles, Grandfather and Grandmother, all I see is devotion. Love unsurpassed by any fear or threat or separation. It took Josef and Roberta nine years to get married, yet they never had eyes for another.
“How do you find that in a person? What do they do or say to make you realize they’ll always be true to you?” He felt tears gathering but didn’t suppress them; as a licensed child psychologist, Renee had heard and seen his every emotion for seventeen years, since before her marriage to Father.
She sighed. “Devotion is something you must build together. Remember your boot camp? The overall purpose of it was to develop a trust so automatic, between you and your fellow cadets as well as your officers, that to disobey an order or abandon a brother soldier is unthinkable.
“Devotion between a man and a woman is similar but usually without the pressures you were subjected to in training. Although your father claimed to be devoted to me some three months into our relationship, it was only after the abduction that I truly knew it, deep in my bones.”
With another sigh, she crossed her arms against her chest. “I really feel for you because your father has been my only lover, so I can’t counsel you about Melody’s betrayal from personal experience. If you choose to move beyond her, every lady will think the devotion you gave her will be theirs if they take you to bed.
“I’ve never contemplated leaving your father, but after the abduction, I did think about what my expectations for a man would be like if I had chosen not to marry him. Comparing the men I’d dated before him to him was so ludicrous that I knew I would never marry anyone but Zhaiden.
“Most ladies say they want that kind of relationship, and I suspect they’re speaking the truth. Yet the pressures upon a Royal dating an Imperial are not to be believed; ask any of your aunts and uncles and their spouses.
“If I were you, I would consider dating or bedding any lady who pleased you only after assuring her you’re simply playing the field and have no intent to marry for a good, long while. That way, if the pressures are too great for them, she’ll have a face-saving excuse to move on.” She smiled. “Your diplomatic training should get a good workout, too, whether you’re assigned ship duty or not.”
“Yes, mustn’t forget Grandfather’s unit on diplomacy,” Matthieu said blithely with a rueful twist to his lips.
Renee turned sober. “So, what do you plan to do about Melody?”
He turned his head away again. “I don’t know. I turned off my vidphone because I don’t want to face anyone yet. But if I don’t call her to arrange for her to come to the Birthday Bash, she’ll know something’s wrong.”
He looked straight into her face. “I know it’s rank cowardice, but if she calls you or someone else to check up on me, and asks to come see me, would you have Sentinel deliver her here? I want it to be her move.
“If she realizes I’ve heard about it, she might not make the effort, after all. And I most certainly don’t want to be the one to make the first move. You know I still have abandonment issues.”
Despite being a child psychologist, she had never managed to get him to move beyond the absence of his mother from the time he was two and a half. He loved Renee with all his heart, and her help over the years had contributed mightily to his stability, but this was rooted so deeply, he dreaded to think he might stay with Melody out of his desperate need for secure female companionship, unable to break up with her at all.
The pity in her face was belied by her firm, clinical tone. “Either way, your move or hers, it is abandonment.” She stood and straightened her skirts. “But I’ll do as you ask. Try to get some rest.” She left after a last, gentle touch on his hand.
After another hour of brooding, Matthieu went to the vidphone to scan his messages, ignoring Melody’s for the moment. He worked up a one-minute video thanking his friends for their welcome-homes. “I’m sure I’ll see you all at the Bash,” he concluded before sending it to everyone on his personal friends list, including Melody.
Opening up his computer, he scanned all his news feeds to see what he had missed the last eight weeks. Then, with some trepidation, he went to the Hourly Herald, one of the most virulent gossip-sheets on Sinclair Demesne, and ran searches for Melody and Jonathan separately, interspersed with a few other friends so as not to generate too obvious a connection to the data managers at the Herald. Father was right; he could find no connection.
Despite the fact that it was barely 25:00, he went to bed.
◊ ◊ ◊
Matthieu made his way to breakfast at 06:30. Father and Grandfather, Emperor Victor Sinclair, had a business breakfast to attend, so Renee sat next to his grandmother, Empress Felice, and Matthieu’s six sibs sat beside them. He made sure to give his sisters Aimee and Desiree and youngest brother Louis a lot of attention, since he hadn’t spoken more than a few words to them yesterday, but all he did was ask them about their studies and give encouraging comments.
“Why did you leave the party so early, Matthieu?” Aimee finally wanted to know. “Kayla was being a snot as usual, and of course Grace was acting weird—”
“Aimee, don’t talk about your cousins in such disparaging terms,” Grandmother said with That Glare. Matthieu suppressed a snort.
Aimee grumbled, “But I can’t stand them, and otherwise the boys are always teasing us. The only people I had left to talk to were Desiree and Lynette, except the kids.”
Renee asked, “Why do you think the boys tease you?”
“Because they do!” Aimee rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, but it’s so easy.” Richard mimicked her voice precisely.
“Richard, I could use your help today with the seating arrangements for the Bash,” Renee said calmly.
“Nooo, Mother! Please? Alex is having a seminar this morning, and I really want to go to it,” Richard begged.
“Nevertheless, Lady Rosetta and I need assistants, so you and Aimee will help us,” Renee countered firmly. “While we work, you’ll be getting your first lessons in diplomacy. If you can’t maintain peaceful relationships within your family, how can you expect to do so with outsiders?”
“But I want to be a stargate scientist,” he stated. “I won’t need diplomatic training for that.”
Grandmother, the creator of the ultra-private and family-controlled stargate technology, turned her piercing blue eyes upon him. “First, you would, because diplomacy is essential to every endeavor, especially out in the galaxy. Second, I don’t think you can handle the training if your grades don’t improve. Third, I wouldn’t accept you at this point.”
Her face was grave at Richard’s astonishment. “Grace is obviously going to qualify, and if you can’t treat your sisters and female cousins with the respect they deserve, I refuse to let you into the program. The least you can do is learn enough diplomacy so you can be Matthieu’s social secretary some day. Or social director, if you’re lucky.” Even ten-year-old Louis cringed; Grandmother had never dealt out such a harsh criticism before. Richard flushed with shame.
Everyone ate in silence for a while before Matthieu asked, “Why do you say Grace is weird?”
Aimee replied with hesitation, still stunned by Grandmother’s revelations. “She doesn’t talk very much.” She eyed her mother Renee and Grandmother as they giggled to each other.
Matthieu set his muse free. “Although I don’t know Grace well at this point, I would say she’s probably very quiet because Aunt Anne is very quiet. Just because we happen to live in the same household as the two most remarkable diplomats to have ever existed on the planet, and hear their discussions at the table almost every day as well as some evenings and Family Nights, we’re used to thinking the ability to speak our minds freely and with an advanced vocabulary are preeminent signs of intelligence.
“If Grandmother already plans to train Grace in stargate science, she must be incredibly intelligent. As a result, the intelligent thing for you to do is get Grace to talk to you and disgorge her observations, so you can see for yourself how important it is to maintain silence when needed.” He finished off his toast before he looked up.
Renee and Grandmother were smiling at him, Theo was nodding thoughtfully, and Aimee and Richard bore frightful stares as if he had condemned them to slave labor. Domenic, Desiree, and Louis all appeared to have been enlightened by his observations, gazing at him in some kind of awe.
Looking directly at Aimee, Matthieu addressed the other issue she had brought up. “And the reason you probably think Kayla’s a snot is because you act like you have a higher social stature as the daughter of the Crown Prince, as if we had absolute primogeniture in the first place. Whereas, if we were to follow the rule of the fourteen galactic polities that have categorical primogeniture, of our generation I would be first, Kayla would be third since she was born before you, and you would be seventh, though overall we would rank 13th, 15th, and 19th.”
Noting Aimee’s flabbergasted look, he added, “Don’t worry; you’ll learn all that in history class next year. Besides, we follow the system of male primogeniture anyway, so you wouldn’t be included in any line of succession unless every male Sinclair died first.”
“Yes,” Grandmother said silkily. “I’ve often wished we followed the rules of absolute primogeniture. But if you, your brothers, Kayla, and Grace are so at odds with each other, I’m rather glad we do not.”
As all his sibs slowly recovered from their collective paralysis, Grandmother asked Matthieu if he had any plans for the day. He said he intended to ride before lunch and visit the gym after lunch, but planned to rest after dinner. Not one of his sibs had said another word by the time they were ready to head to the seminar or, in the case of Richard and Aimee, to Lady Rosetta’s office with their mother.
◊ ◊ ◊
After Theo had determined he had heard Alex’s seminar before, he joined Matthieu for his ride, lunch, and workout. The brilliant green eyes and black Sinclair hair they had inherited from Father and Grandfather always made Matthieu feel like he and Theo were twins three years removed, all the way down to their attitudes and thought processes. By the time they had finished discussing Matthieu’s dilemma over Melody, Theo had an idea.
“Tell you what. I’ll keep the kids busy until the Bash in case Melody comes over. That way you won’t have to have a scene in front of anyone, because you know they’ll blab to all the cousins at the Fêtes if they witness anything.”
“Thank you. That would be welcome.” Matthieu nodded. “I wonder if Renee will assign some behavioral psychologists to the Greater Fête, just to keep Aimee from freaking on anyone.”
Since the completion of the new Imperial Palace six years earlier, children between the ages of twelve and fifteen of a major ball’s attendees were invited to the Greater Fête, a kind of mini-ball held in what was the former Palace’s Throne Room, which gave them the opportunity to put their dance lessons to the test. The Lesser Fête, held in the former Small Ballroom for the younger children, held their attentions with games, storytellers, acrobats, and magicians. For security purposes, all balls were still held in the magnificent Grand Ballroom of the old Palace, which was slowly coming to be known as the Stargate Compound.
“I think Aimee started her cycles recently. She’s become pretty judgmental these past two months,” Theo informed him. “I’m glad Renee’s giving Richard a good reason to shape up, too. For the life of me, I look at them all and wonder if we ever went through such a phase, and I can swear we didn’t.”
“Yeah. I think it’s because we know we’re the focus of the Imperial succession, and they know they aren’t,” Matthieu observed. “Plus, Renee always had it easy, being the youngest, the only girl, and otherwise treated with kid gloves by her family because of her childhood trauma. I don’t think she’s ever had to deal with real adolescent nonsense before.”
“She’s too close. I think we should suggest she have other people deal with the kids,” Theo stated. “Grandmother’s too busy and getting frail. Renee’s too busy and at a loss half the time. Perhaps the girls need a supervisor and the boys… what would you call such a position for a man to deal with them?”
“Tutor? Grandmother had tutors for the boys, and governesses for the girls, though I think they were more like attendants than teachers. Renee has always wanted to raise her children personally, so she’s tried to do everything herself. You know Grandmother, though. Better have the governess called a tutor, too.” Matthieu grinned.
“Too right.” Theo grinned back as they separated for their individual suites.
◊ ◊ ◊
After dinner, Matthieu was blissfully alone, reading a real book on his bed, when he heard a knock at the door to the suite. He ignored it; if the Sentinels were to let anyone enter, it would either be Father, Renee, or Melody at Renee’s behest.
Indeed, after the third knock, the door opened and closed. He tucked the book under a pillow and lay back, eyes closed and hands clasped over his solar plexus.
“Are you okay?” came the dulcet tones of his lover. Matthieu had spent the three hours between his workout and dinner analyzing the 79 minutes of messages Melody had sent him during his last training cycle. He had pinpointed the first message after Melody’s first date with Jonathan before he even asked his uncle Brian, a major at Sentinel Command, to confirm the date.
The first words of that message had been, “I miss you so much,” with almost none of the emphasis she had formerly given them. Here, now, with his eyes closed, he considered her current tone. She knew that he knew, but she was going to try to put a good face on it somehow.
So Matthieu remained silent. Melody curled up around him on the bed, but he didn’t move his arm to accommodate her. Soon she was weeping, right into his shoulder, even though she knew he detested tears. Instead of soothing her, though, he let her sob.
“God, I missed you so much,” Melody murmured after she had calmed down, and it did hold the ring of truth. As Matthieu held his silence, she apologized profusely, eventually even telling him where, when, and how she had managed to disguise herself for her six dates with Jonathan.
She wound down her explanations but started crying again, though this time she had her face buried in a pillow. He kept his eyes shut because he knew if he were to look at her lush, light brown beauty and waves of wild red curls, he would lose his resolve.
“Three years,” he finally said. “You were my first, and I was your first. I waited for you until you were seventeen because your father asked me to. I’ve done nothing but treat you with the absolute honor and respect I see among all the men of my family toward their wives.” Melody cried harder with every word. “If there’s anything at all that I did to cause you to doubt me, I would like to know.”
“No. No. I was just so lonely, so bored. And Jonathan kept calling,” she moaned. “I went out with him the first time just because he had tickets to that galactic show that had sold out in 20 minutes. I’d been wanting to see it; I had planned to buy six tickets for my girlfriends to go with me.”
“And the other five times you went out with him?”
She turned up the tears again. “I felt bad about it, I really did, but I had such a good time with him. He really understands me,” she wailed.
“So I suppose you feel like I didn’t?” Matthieu felt like this was the important issue.
“No. Yes. I mean, you do understand so much. But you’re going to be away so often, so long. Most tours of duty are four months long, and I could barely stand two months without you.”
“Well, it’s obvious you’ve never understood me. You know my duties. You know I’ll need a lady in my life who’s more than a socialite. Yet you pissed away the chance to become Empress because you were bored,” he said as distantly as possible.
With that, Melody fled. He heard the door open but not close. He opened his eyes.
The door closed some ten minutes later, and soon Father came to sit beside him on the bed. “Would you like to talk about it?”
He continued staring at the ceiling. “Maybe someday. I think I need to process everything as best I can, first.”
Father nodded, clasped his hand, and left.
Matthieu called in servants to change the tear-soaked covers and pillows on his bed as he shed his clothing and donned pajamas. Depressed over her betrayal but relieved it was over, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the new pillow.