Torsten looked at himself in the mirror, making sure everything was perfect about his uniform. Like zu Arlo had done earlier in the day, he wore a simple day uniform, in blue rather than the formal dress rig he kept for parties.
This wasn’t going to be a party, by any stretch of anyone’s imagination.
He found himself slowly rocking back and forth, unconsciously testing his balance against a leg that wasn’t likely to unexpectedly shift from underneath him in awkward settings. Didn’t sweat and swell.
The pain was all phantom these days. And he had always healed quickly. The doctors at the various hospitals he had known since the accident generally all agreed that it was one of the reasons he had survived.
That and an unyielding will.
Nobody would have ever expected the skinny boy in those early, teenage pictures to turn out like this. He would have laughed at anyone making such prognostications.
Might still.
Duty could only take you so far. There had to be want.
And now, he might be thwarted.
Captain Torsten Wald, Imperial Navy, PhD, Palace Economist, Fribourg. It had a nice ring.
He wondered who he would be in an hour.
For a moment, Torsten let everything show through the façade he normally kept around him at all times. The pain, the anger, the desire. Everything.
The reflection he caught in a picture’s glass startled him. Normally he was composed. A stranger looked back.
Torsten took a deep breath, shoved those feelings back into their respective boxes, and locked the gates behind them. He checked that the last button on his jacket was perfect, and that his curly, brown hair was short enough and behaving.
He turned to inspect the suite he had been assigned.
Suite.
For visiting ambassadors.
Torsten remembered commanding an armed pinnace, early in his career, that had a smaller interior volume. He had not yet grown accustomed to it, but the decadence had been a pleasant change from every other starship he had known.
Two bags waited by the exterior hatch. Travel suitcase and shoulder bag to keep his nice uniforms smooth.
If things went bad after this, he could vacate this room in seconds and be gone forever.
If the Grand Admiral ordered him home.
If he let the Grand Admiral order him home.
Obviously, Wald had probably failed in his duty to keep Lady Casey from…what? Becoming a scandal? A bigger scandal? Dreaming?
The only outrage Torsten could see was the scandalously-bad precedent the woman was setting. Every young lady would want to become the next Lady Casey, the next Jessica Keller.
Still, he could testify to his success as a chaperone. No man or woman had threatened her dignity or marriage prospects. Those who might have, had been subtly deflected by himself, by Moirrey, or by one of the others. Not that there had been many such people good enough for her to even notice, locked into the orbit of hero worship around Jessica.
And that left Jessica.
Torsten knew that the Grand Admiral had plans. Had hinted at them, probably far more than he realized around an econometricist who could parse text just as easy as numbers.
And he hadn’t lied to zu Kermode. There had been four semi-private dinners with Jessica. Talk, wide-ranging, but nothing more.
He might have found someone even more closed than he was, which was frankly rather astonishing. Public face. Private face.
He had never seen Jessica’s private face, only suggestions at odd moments when she relaxed, however briefly.
Would she order him home?
Torsten shook himself once and brought his focus back. Imperial officer on the Command Staff. Veteran of naval intrigue and palace maneuvering.
Warrior.
He took a breath and keyed the outer door.
The Grand Admiral’s suite wasn’t all that far away from his, all the diplomats being in one compact area for negotiations and security concerns. As Commanding Admiral, Jessica should have been nearby as well, but she had a much smaller suite close to the Flag Bridge, while Admiral Whughy, Fleet Centurion Whughy, worked from an ambassadorial suite.
How did these people manage, when they constantly colored so far outside customary margins?
Not today’s problem.
A security marine guarded Wachturm’s door. A woman, no less, although there was nothing feminine about her right now. Until she smiled when he approached, and it lit up her whole face.
Did Imperial marines ever smile?
She reached back and pressed a button in the wall beside her, without otherwise moving or speaking.
Lt. Commander Tifft opened the hatch.
“Captain Wald,” he said. “Please enter.”
Torsten followed the younger man into a vast space almost identical to his own, differing mostly in the color of the carpet and walls, and the placement of the large desk the Grand Admiral was seated at.
Emmerich Wachturm looked up from a stack of papers he had apparently been editing by hand.
Editing?
“Thank you, both of you,” he said gravely. “Tifft, go off duty for a while. Have some down time and I will see you tomorrow morning at the usual time.”
The man saluted silently, turned, and vanished.
Torsten found himself falling to parade rest, facing the legend himself again.
Wachturm studied him for several, long seconds, eyes almost squinting.
“I have seen the medical reports, Wald,” he began, apparently at random. “I could not tell you why we have never considered using implants like this as a standard. Would you recommend it for future cases?”
Torsten fought to not rock back and forth, testing the movement of his weight on his hips.
“Without reservation, sir,” Torsten said. “Recovery time to normal locomotion is faster and the pain is much more controllable. I am told that the electronics Aquitaine uses also cut rehabilitation time considerably.”
“And yet, you went with only the titanium alloy, Captain,” Wachturm noted, eyes zeroing in hard. “Why is that?”
“I do not believe that Imperial culture would find that aspect of the surgery…palatable, Grand Admiral,” Torsten answered, almost evasively. “I wished to retain the option to return to St. Legier and active duty service, in the future.”
Silence.
Sharp eyes, as if the Grand Admiral tried to see through Torsten to read his secrets. Torsten had just spent a year watching Jessica, Casey, and Moirrey out-maneuver people.
Best of luck, sir.
“Do you wish to return to St. Legier with me?” the Grand Admiral posed the question carefully. “Aboard Firehawk?”
Torsten almost grinned, but it would have told the man too much.
“No, sir.”
Nothing more. Nothing less. Hard, calm, emphatic.
Not even with a marine strike team dragging me kicking and screaming into the shuttle.
Definitive.
Pause.
“And if I chose to order it, Captain?” the Grand Admiral continued, still dancing along the edge of the words.
Torsten let the words settle into the carpet and evaporate.
“I would find that…problematic, Grand Admiral.”
Short, concise, bland. Hopefully.
“And will I receive a request from Aquitaine to remove you?” Wachturm leaned forward, ever so slightly.
He knows.
Torsten squelched that thing he suddenly discovered was his greatest fear. Invisible until this moment.
That Jessica would simply send him packing, with no explanation. No resolution.
Done.
“I do not believe so, sir,” Torsten bit the words off lest he color them with emotion.
Pause. Appraisal.
“Would you go?”
“I know my duty, Grand Admiral,” Torsten said. There was no way to keep the anger entirely quiescent, much as he tried.
Pause. More assessments.
“Captain, that would have been the first thing Jessica Keller did after I came aboard, if she was going to,” he said. “I know her that well. At ease, and try to relax. Take a seat and let’s talk. There are things you need to know now that you didn’t before.”
Torsten fought to invisibly unlock joints that had gone rigid with tension and fright. He managed to move without lurching, sit without collapsing, breathe without gasping.
Barely.
“I’ve studied that woman for nearly a decade, Wald,” the admiral began, leaning back and turning into a college professor all of a sudden. “And I know many of her people well enough that any one of them would have felt comfortable quietly slipping me a note, if they thought you should be removed from the situation. To say nothing of the ones who might have taken matters…into their own hands, if they perceived you to be a threat to her.”
Deep breath. Slow the heartrate to something closer to human.
Calm.
“The Emperor, as you should know, considers me a close cousin, and his best friend,” Wachturm continued as Torsten let the surge of adrenaline burn itself out into his toes and ears. “We did not make the decision to send you lightly. Nor Princess Casey.”
“She prefers Lady Casey, Admiral,” Torsten spoke up. “Actually, she prefers Centurion zu Wiegand, but it’s Lady Casey in general company. Same with Lady Moirrey. Arlo prefers to answer to his last name alone, whenever possible.”
“Noted,” Wachturm said with a wry smile, an unspoken acknowledgement of how much Torsten had learned about these people, and been accepted by them, to know that.
Accepted by them.
Yes, he supposed being personally threatened by Lady Moirrey probably was the highest compliment he could get.
Arlo wouldn’t give any warning.
“So I will presume that you belong here for the time being, Captain,” Wachturm continued. “Does that please you?”
And that is what a trap looks like.
Still, he had asked for this duty. Taken this risk.
“It does, sir,” Torsten replied neutrally.
No comment about how one might camp in the street out front of her parents’ house until she came out and told you to leave. Or asked you to come inside.
No clue to the Grand Admiral how you really felt.
“Assuming the two of you are serious, Wald, things will change.”
“Sir?” Torsten asked carefully.
The ice under his feet had apparently gotten thin enough to be almost transparent when he wasn’t looking.
“You will, of necessity, likely become privy to the inner workings of the Imperial family,” the Grand Admiral continued. “Likely be adopted into the House in some vague and not-easily-explainable manner. It will be for your own safety.”
Torsten felt the ice start to go, dropping jagged pieces into that cold, endless, watery death underneath.
Still, it made sense. Lady Casey was here, and Torsten knew she would probably never have an Imperial husband. Once the Crown Prince started a family, Lady Casey could find herself a husband in the Republic, itself a marriage of the type used to seal grand alliances.
And Jessica…
The Empire’s new Red Admiral.
With a consort?
Was that what the Emperor had planned?
Would they allow it?
Would she?
Would I?
Econometricist. Expert in numbers as movement, as power. Trends and patterns as colors on a page, rather than as stark columns of data.
Tides moving.
Torsten saw end-games suddenly clear, although they were still years, decades, away. Saw the points where the slightest twist could alter the course of empires and republics. Saw the future.
His was not the power to effect those changes, but Torsten realized he was seated across from someone who could, discussing a woman who also had that power.
He blinked as whole new patterns fell into place like jigsaw puzzle pieces.
“Assuming the Peace, how far will you draw her into Imperial politics, Admiral?” Torsten asked.
Wachturm’s squint hardened, for a moment, replaced a moment later by a slight grin.
He knows what I can do. It’s part of why he sent me. Not spy. Oracle.
Torsten felt the ice give way completely, and found he was floating in the air rather than drowning in the icy waters below.
“Joh knows that we cannot continue business as usual,” the Grand Admiral replied. “Casey and Jessica will hopefully provide an alternate path, deflecting some of the energy away from revolution.”
“Joh?” Torsten asked carefully.
“His Sovereign Imperial Majesty, Karl Johannes Arend Wiegand, Hereditary King of St. Legier, Emperor of Fribourg, Captain,” the man replied. “Karl VII.”
Oh. Working at the very peak of the pyramid.
“Does she know?” Torsten asked. There were two women in that conversation, but only one that really mattered.
“Jessica is an exceptional woman, Wald,” the admiral said. “I am sure she could figure it all out in a few moments with sufficient…motivation. I’ll go further: I’m confident that she already has, to some extent. I wanted to know if you were prepared to go down that road. It is not something we would order.”
“What should I know about her, Admiral?” Torsten asked, trusting his intuition to leap into darkness.
“I watched the sparks between the two of you, the night you met,” Wachturm replied. “And I knew Daneel Ishikura at close range for nearly a year. He eventually achieved the calm that you have had since the accident. And, to some extent, even before, according to the records and the people I have interviewed. Solemnity and solidity. You remind me of Arlo in that, although Arlo is only now learning to get past his own doubts. I took a chance on including you with Casey’s mission, because I believed that it was the right thing. I have seen nothing since I arrived to change my mind.”
“zu Kermode personally threatened me last week,” Torsten said with a sudden smile. “So I believe the others involved understand, and accept me.”
“Did she now?” the Grand Admiral’s voice rose in tone and weight. “Good.”
Torsten waited as the Grand Admiral studied him for several moments, possibly with new eyes.
“Understand two things, Wald,” he continued. “One, I have seen Jessica at her best, and her worst, and I consider her a friend. I want her to be happy as a person, as well as an ally.”
Something sour must have shown in Torsten’s eyes. The Grand Admiral’s squint was back, harder this time.
“What?” he demanded in a simple tone.
Torsten let the words seek themselves, rather than push. They might be the culmination of the day, and his career. Possibly his life.
Floating in air, instead of drowning.
“What if the Peace does not hold, sir?” Torsten finally asked. “What if the war returns?”
The angry bear across the desk relaxed, even smiled.
“I did not say this aloud, Wald,” Wachturm commented dryly. “However, I would expect that you would do something crazy like immediately resign your commission and possibly steal a courier, if you found yourself on the wrong side of the border at that moment. The Empire can survive with one fewer economist on staff.”
Good. He understands the stakes.
Torsten nodded. Everyone else had come to realize how serious he was.
Now he only needed to convince her.