“What do you mean Nadashe Nohamapetan is dead?” Grayland II asked Hibert Limbar, head of the Imperial Guard. She set down her morning tea, for which she had budgeted exactly five minutes of time in one of her private gardens before she was hustled off to her next meeting.
“There was an escape attempt made this morning,” Limbar said. “From the security feeds it looks like it went horrendously wrong. Everyone was killed including the person trying to break out Lady Nadashe. And, ma’am, the person trying to do it appears to have been Lord Teran Assan.”
“What?”
“There wasn’t much to go on—the transport’s batteries ruptured and incinerated nearly everything inside—but the evidence we have is pretty conclusive. Lord Teran had been in contact with Lady Nadashe’s personal lawyer fairly extensively recently. I’ve got people liaising with the Hubfall police, the Corrections Ministry and the Ministry of Investigation on this. We’ll pick up Nadashe’s lawyer and see if he wants to try to extract himself from this mess.”
Grayland nodded at this. “Has someone informed the Countess Nohamapetan?”
“I understand the MoI has taken the task of informing her and getting a statement from her on themselves, and I am willing to let them have that honor.” Limbar’s tone very subtly made the point that it would not actually be an honor at all, but rather a real trash fire of an event, and Grayland couldn’t argue the point.
“I should send a note of condolence to her,” Grayland said. Limbar made a small, odd sound at this. Grayland caught it. “No?”
“Lady Nadashe was accused of attempting to assassinate you, ma’am,” Limbar said. “Sending a condolence note might appear disingenuous. The Countess Nohamapetan is known to perceive insult where none was given, and to hold grudges. Perhaps a public statement acknowledging the deaths of the lady and Lord Teran, plus a regret that justice was not served in this case.”
“You’re right, that’s better,” Grayland said. “Thank you.”
“There’s another small matter to be aware of, ma’am. Rumors have already begun that you had a hand in this event. That Teran wasn’t acting on his own, for his own reasons, but that you had hired him to act as an assassin on your behalf, because there is growing evidence that the attempt on your life was spearheaded by Amit Nohamapetan, not Nadashe.”
“That’s ridiculous. Particularly the part about Amit planning the assassination attempt.”
“There are news reports that suggest he had dealings with some less-than-reputable characters over money issues,” Limbar said. “Among other things.”
“I was with Amit literally seconds before he died,” Grayland said. “I’m not a mind reader, but I can assure you the look he had just before he was murdered was not one of someone who had a master plan to kill me or destroy his own ship.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
Grayland narrowed her eyes ever so slightly at this response. “You don’t believe there is anything to those reports, do you?”
“What I believe is someone has been making a concerted effort to introduce as much doubt into Lady Nadashe’s culpability for your attempted assassination as they can. Before this, I would have chalked this up to the lady’s defense team doing everything they could to open up an alternate theory of the case, to try to gin up reasonable doubt. But this latest bit makes me concerned that there is something else going on.”
“It’s conspiracy mongering.”
“I agree. But not all conspiracies crop up because someone forgot to adjust their tinfoil hat, ma’am. Sometimes they’re part of a disinformation campaign. And, you will forgive me for saying so, you’ve given some cause recently for people to stoke disinformation campaigns.”
“You’re talking about my visions.”
“Yes, among other things. I’m not here to doubt them, ma’am. I am saying they muddy the waters in ways that work against you as much as they work for you. But to be honest I’m less worried about that than the rumors swirling about your upcoming address to the parliament.”
“Ah,” Grayland said. “The one where I will be declaring martial law across the Interdependency.”
“That’s correct.”
“Our press people have already knocked down that rumor.”
Grayland sensed rather than heard Limbar’s reproving sigh at this comment. “Your Majesty, it is certainly true that no one expects you to confirm that you are going to announce martial law, until you actually announce it.”
“I take your point, Sir Hibert. But the fact remains that martial law is not on my parliament address agenda. I and my messengers have been very clear about this. I don’t know what else can be said about it.”
“That’s the point of rumors. They’re not based on anything, so nothing is very effective against them. Truth is no defense, and the people fielding these rumors know it.”
“You believe someone is leveraging all this to work against me.”
“You are the emperox, ma’am. Someone is always working against you. It’s in the job description.”
“To what end?”
“Probably several. I have people working on it. The point of telling you was not to make you worried or paranoid, ma’am. Merely to inform you what is out there, to help you craft your own messaging.”
“Yes, of course.” Grayland picked up her tea and sipped it. She put it back down and looked up at Limbar. “Do you believe Lady Nadashe is actually dead?”
“At this point we have no reason to believe otherwise.”
Grayland smiled. “You have a way of not directly answering the question.”
“I have no reason to believe otherwise, either,” Limbar said. “I’m also aware the bodies at the site were incinerated to the point where they are almost impossible to identify by forensic means. Everything is ash and denatured bone. And that is very convenient.”
“How paranoid do I need to be about this, Sir Hibert?”
“You should not be paranoid of anything, ma’am. The paranoia is my job. Leave it to me. I and my people will discover the truth, whatever it is.”
“Thank you,” Grayland said. Limbar bowed and excused himself and was immediately replaced by Obelees Atek, who would shuttle her off to her next meeting, and the next, and the next, forever and ever, amen.
Except this time Atek did not shuttle her off. “Archbishop Korbijn is here and wants to speak to you. I believe this is regarding Teran Assan.”
“What’s the schedule?”
“Your next several meetings are meet-and-greets. I can clear them for you.”
Grayland frowned. “Don’t clear them; just push them back. I have a half hour for lunch scheduled. Put them there.”
“You need to eat, ma’am.”
“I can skip an occasional lunch, Obelees. Bring along a protein bar. I can shove it into my face between you taking one group out and another in.”
Atek smiled at this. “I’ll bring the archbishop right in.” She exited.
Grayland finished her tea and frowned to herself.
She was having a bundle of contradictory feelings about the death of Nadashe Nohamapetan. The first, and she had to admit it, was relief. Nadashe had been an irritant literally since the beginning of her reign.
And not just Nadashe; the entire Nohamapetan family had been on her, unpleasant and sticky, the whole time. Nadashe with her plotting, Amit with his unappealing stolidness, and now the Countess Nohamapetan with what seemed like inexhaustible anger.
Grayland recounted her meeting with the countess once more. Grayland couldn’t deny her intent had been to roll over the countess, and she’d done just that. But she’d also extended the proverbial olive branch to the countess by offering clemency to Nadashe and placing her in the closest thing the imperial penal system had to a four-star hotel. Grayland had hoped this smallest offering of goodwill would be appreciated; instead the countess could hardly keep her rage in check. Grayland was aware she had missed a step in there somewhere, but for the life of her she couldn’t understand where she had.
Nadashe’s death, whatever else it did, cleared all of that away. No more worrying about Nadashe out there plotting; no more of the countess’s fury on her daughter’s behalf.
Don’t count on that, that annoying part of Grayland’s brain was telling her, and she had to admit that the annoying part of her brain was probably right about that. Limbar had told her that rumors were already spreading about her having Nadashe killed. They were ridiculous, and Limbar was correct that it wouldn’t matter, especially to someone like the Countess Nohamapetan. If the countess could get enraged when Grayland was showing her daughter mercy, she’d probably be a volcano of fury at the thought she had her killed.
The second feeling Grayland had at the death of Nadashe Nohamapetan was sadness, and that was a fact that confused her and made her a little angry. Nadashe, it was clear, had never thought much of Grayland. Grayland had met her once when she was still Cardenia Wu-Patrick and her brother Rennered was the crown prince. Nadashe, who had been in the early days of dating Rennered, had sized her up, figured out the absolute minimum amount of courtesy she needed to provide the bastard sister of her royal boyfriend, and provided exactly that. Cardenia had not been emotionally sophisticated enough at the time to understand why she felt vaguely hurt and unhappy around Nadashe that day. Even now it was disquieting to her.
And perhaps that was the reason for her sadness. Had Nadashe been even a tiny bit kinder, or more wise, or simply fractionally better as a human being, she and Cardenia (and also Grayland II, now in all her glory, waiting with her empty teacup for yet another meeting) could have been friends, and perhaps even more than friends. Confidantes.
Even now, Nadashe represented positive things to Grayland. She was smart and confident and beautiful and all the other sorts of things that Grayland had always had a hard time seeing in herself, and still did. To have won the friendship and the confidence of such a creature would have meant the world to her. To have missed that because Nadashe simply couldn’t see her, and didn’t feel like she was worth seeing, felt like a genuine tragedy.
You just miss having friends, Grayland’s brain said to her, and that was true enough. She thought back to her dear and departed Naffa, who had been all the things Nadashe could also have been, had Nadashe wanted that. Grayland’s heart ached for Naffa, not in a sexual or romantic way, just in the way you miss your dearest friend, the one person who just gets you.
Marce gets you, said the part of her brain that was a fifteen-year-old girl. And, well. Maybe he did at that. Grayland thought back to their first night together and was warmed with an almost languid happiness at the memory. The two of them had been ridiculously awkward with each other and then suddenly they weren’t, as the Oh God what is happening is this actually going to work commentary track was replaced by the Holy crap this is actually working and in fact is pretty amazing commentary track, which in turn was replaced by no commentary track for once, thank God, just happiness and contentment. For the first time since the loss of Naffa, and in a completely different way that was not unexpected and yet still entirely unanticipated in its scope, Grayland felt her whole self again.
Marce did that for her. Naffa had done that for her. Grayland sensed that Nadashe could have done that for her too, given all her strengths, which would have complemented Grayland’s own.
But Nadashe was … Nadashe. She was not the sum of her qualities. She was something else apart from that. Something that didn’t want what Grayland had to offer, except for her position, and what it could do for the House of Nohamapetan.
Obelees Atek reentered the garden, with Archbishop Korbijn in tow, Korbijn wearing a simple and conservative suit rather than her full archbishop’s finery. Grayland smiled at this. Korbijn was sending her a message that she was paying attention to Grayland’s own muted sartorial choices.
Grayland smiled and rose to greet her visitor and put Nadashe and the entire House of Nohamapetan out of her mind. Nadashe was gone now, and everything she had ever wanted for herself and her family was in the past tense, and everything she was or could have ever possibly been to Grayland had now slipped into the past as well. Grayland allowed herself to feel both the relief and the sadness she felt at Nadashe’s passing, and then put it aside to deal with Korbijn, and her real and present concerns.
Goodbye, Nadashe, Grayland thought. I wish you peace now. And I hope you will stay dead.