13

New London
Skye
9 October 3134

Following Niccolò GioAvanti down the corridor and around a corner from the closed door and the two security agents, Alexia Wolf quickly and quietly padded up a set of wide green marble stairs only a few steps behind him. The intense young merchant shot her a measuring stare, which she returned with interest. But he said nothing, which suited her as well.

She had no idea what he was up to. Only that she felt certain he would not take to being shut out of the father-and-son discussion. In the short time she had known him, Niccolò had proved himself resourceful, spirited, and utterly devoted to Jasek.

One of Jasek’s greatest draws, in fact, was the quality of men and women he kept around him, and his means of doing so. It was the first measure of a leader’s intelligence and strength, to see what kind of advisers he kept. Jasek Kelswa-Steiner did not suffer fools or sycophants. He searched out strong-willed people who challenged him.

Meritocracy might be an Inner Sphere term, but it was a concept that all Clan warriors understood.

“. . . the devil’s own charm . . .”

The snatch of conversation whispered to her at the head of the stairs. She turned her head, searching for more, but if it had been there at all, it was lost now.

Niccolò stealthed ahead of her, down the narrow third-floor corridor, without any reaction whatsoever. Alexia followed, thinking rapidly on what she thought she’d heard. It could have been Jasek’s father. Certainly it described Jasek. One glance was enough to cause her heart to pound in her throat and set her skin tingling with anticipation. The duke’s son had a raw, powerful magnetism that attracted men and women equally. She recognized this, though that did nothing to prevent her being affected by it. She at least did not confuse it with the self-serving righteousness many of Jasek’s soldiers wore like a protective mantle.

Or love, which was also an Inner Sphere term but a concept not wholly unknown among the Clans.

More snippets of conversation whispered in her ear as she chased after GioAvanti. “. . . Stone’s philosophies . . .” and then “. . . our people . . .”

“. . . about my own wife now?”

She was certain this time. Something about the library’s acoustics formed an echo chamber, dumping tidbits of the conversation taking place below into this deserted upstairs corridor.

Alexia guessed where Niccolò was leading her even before they passed through a small sculpture gallery and then stepped to either side of a door that opened onto the mezzanine level above the Commonwealth Room. A wide parapet ran around three sides with shelves of books guarding the walls and a balcony rail overlooking the center of the room. The warm scent of so many leather-bound volumes was stronger up here. She tasted paper on the back of her tongue. Staying close to the wall, they were invisible to the lower level, but they had a perfect vantage point for eavesdropping.

Niccolò slouched against a shelf of books.

Alexia adopted a modified parade rest.

The two stared at each other across the open doorway. It became a kind of game, to see who could react the least to what was being said below. She caught a glimpse of amusement on his pinched face when Duke Gregory admitted that he could not touch Niccolò because of his family ties. Alexia thought he should have been more concerned that Jasek’s father saw the merchant as an obstacle to overcome.

And she did not doubt that he noticed her eyebrow twitch when Jasek talked about finding Anastasia Kerensky and her Steel Wolves. Then the conversation turned back toward the idea of Jasek approaching the Lyran Commonwealth.

“I’d rather see Skye burning around my ears,” the lord governor gritted.

“If it comes down to a choice between the Steiner fist and the Jade Falcon raptor,” Jasek asked, “which would you rather live under?”

Silence followed Jasek’s question. Alexia doubted that either man noticed that at this moment, both stood under the House Steiner banner that hung suspended beneath the room’s skylight.

The clenched gauntlet was familiar to Alexia from her time with the Wolf enclave on Arc-Royal, but it had never meant much to her until Jasek made it important. This was the reason she had sought him out, followed him to Nusakan and now back to Skye. Jasek was a leader, and offered her direction as well as this second chance at a warrior’s life. On Arc-Royal, when she failed to test out, it had been because she thought that being a warrior was enough. The end-all of her life.

It had taken a rebellious Republic noble to give her a measure of true purpose. Maybe not her own, not yet, but it was a start.

Finally, from below, Jasek’s father answered, “I do not accept your terms. One choice must be to remain under The Republic’s banner.”

“The Republic sent you a battered command and one out-of-favor Paladin. This does not show a great deal of confidence in the Exarch’s ability to protect his own.”

“You are selling the Countess extremely short.”

“Not at all,” Jasek said. Alexia could almost see him shaking his head with adamant resolution. “Tara Campbell has performed miracles. I’m not denying it. But she cannot make the difference all by herself. Even she knows that.”

There was something in Jasek’s voice when he spoke Tara Campbell’s name that tweaked a nerve with Alexia. A depth of respect and admiration that she had never before heard in the young leader, not even in praise of his own Stormhammers. She wrote it off as a meeting of equals—two faction leaders with genuine respect for each other’s abilities and strengths. Nothing more, she assured herself.

Jealousy was another Inner Sphere concept. It had nothing to do with her.

“You seem to be the authority these days on what other people know and believe. Would you like to know what I believe, Jasek? That you’ve chased a childhood fantasy of romantic heroism and Lyran destiny to the point where if you do not make it happen yourself, then you would rather see Skye in the hands of a true enemy. Because otherwise you have to face the failures piling up behind you. Failing your converts. The Republic. Our people. Failing me and your mother.”

“Leave her out of this.”

“You brought her into this, boy. Choose your battlefields more carefully next time. The fact is you were born to privilege, and with that came certain obligations. To serve the people before you served yourself. To honor the family line, and continue it. But you haven’t even attended to that, have you? You’ve thrown over every match we ever tried to make for you. No wife. No heir. No future!”

This kind of argument would not help matters. Worrying about offspring on the cusp of battle? Alexia was freeborn herself, but here again she recognized the superior ways of the Clans, that they had long ago divorced themselves from the need to seek immortality through procreation. Clan warriors distinguished themselves in duty and glory first. And even if they died, their lines were continued through the breeding program.

“The future takes care of itself.” Jasek sounded truly angry now. She had heard his temper simmering beneath his words the entire time, but now it threatened to explode. “Isn’t that what you taught me? Study the past and work toward the now?”

“And The Republic shall provide,” Duke Gregory finished with a wounded snarl. “Yes, I said that. But it won’t provide Skye with an heir. Your selfish manner notwithstanding, I’d think that even you could have figured out the political necessities by now.”

Personal abuse would accomplish nothing. Alexia moved for the door, looking to Niccolò to see if he would follow. He merely shook his head, slowly. He was obviously going to stay, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation in the room below. His pale blue eyes showed neither avarice for gossip nor the cunning mask of one who looked to turn such knowledge to his own advantage. He was a blank slate, absorbing all he could for later benefit.

Alexia saw no benefit. Not in a military sense, anyway. She shrugged, and stepped back into the adjoining gallery just as Jasek said, “I’ll produce your heir with the right woman, not just a politically expedient one.”

It was not the banner under which Alexia had thought to meet up with Tamara Duke, who leaned against the wall just inside the doorway.

Tamara’s green eyes widened only slightly at her discovery. Or at seeing Alexia come through the door when the only person she could have been able to see from her vantage point was Niccolò GioAvanti. Had she followed them up, or discovered the surveillance point on her own?

How much had she overheard?

“Too bad.” The lord governor’s voice carried into the room quite strongly, losing little of the sarcasm. “I suppose this means it is too much to even hope that you’ve sired a bastard along the way? I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

Which could mean any of half a dozen women who had been in the company of both Jasek Kelswa-Steiner and his father over the last four days. But the way in which Tamara’s eyes narrowed accusingly, the kommandant obviously pegged Alexia for it.

Alexia wondered. Tamara Duke wore her feelings on her sleeve, after all. Though no doubt the junior officer thought she was cagey about it.

Jasek did not help. “I don’t know who you are talking about,” he claimed.

If he didn’t want to admit anything to his father, even in their supposed privacy, then both women could only be left wondering.

There was no rank in this room. Not even a moral high ground. Not when both had caught each other listening in on a conversation that should have been private. Alexia met the challenging stare with a blank face. When Tamara Duke stepped toward her with a sharp, determined stride, she tensed the muscles in her calves, her arms, ready for violence.

But the other woman stopped short of raising a hand to her. Staring through her, Tamara simply bit off every word as she warned Alexia, “Stay out of my way, Wolf.”

Turning on her heel, Tamara strode from the gallery without a glance back.

Behind her, Jasek maintained his position and his father pressed. Niccolò glanced only once into the gallery, again showing none of his own thoughts. Cataloging. Considering.

Alexia shook her head. In public, in private, in banter or in battle with Skye hanging in the balance. Everyone had his or her own agenda, and she would be well advised to keep a ready eye on her own.

That was not a thought to cause surprise, it was simply a fact of life.

In the Clans, or in the Inner Sphere.