Walter Jon Williams - Dread Empire's Fall 02 by The Sundering (v5.0)

Author:The Sundering (v5.0) [Sundering, The]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_action
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

Martinez wandered through the Yoshitoshi Palace in a kind of daze, his mind unable to manage thought, exactly, but swept instead by erratic surges of pure feeling: black anger followed by weird hilarity, detached irony by profound disgust. The disgust and the irony tended to predominate, passions so strong he could taste them.

Irony tasted like used coffee grounds, and disgust like copper.

Behind the grace and the fine manners, he thought, behind the tailored uniforms and the brocade and the seams sewn with seed pearls, there was nothing but the circle of fat, hairless animals, molars grinding, jowls running with the thick juices of the common trough.

He wanted to shriek at them.Shriek. But they wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t hold off their gorging even when the Naxids loomed and threatened to knock down the whole foul sty.

Martinez found Terza standing by a Devis paper screen, white with one panel of pale blue. Her gown was a radiant contrast to the austerities of the Devis mode, in the ornate high style so popular since the war had begun, deep gold with a pattern of green vegetation and brilliant scarlet flowers, all flounces and fringes, and slashed to reveal the satin underskirt. Terza’s hair was bound with white mourning thread, and covered with an intricate net of tiny white starflowers. She was with a group of her girl friends, and listening to them with what appeared to be careful attention.

Martinez hesitated at the sight of her, then made his way to her side. She turned to him, and her lips parted in a shy smile. “Captain Martinez,” she said.

“My lady,” Martinez answered. He turned to her friends. “I’m afraid I must beg your pardon for taking Lady Terza away from you.”

He drew her away, down a side corridor. His nerves flared with contrary impulses: to laugh, to whimper, to tear off his clothes and fly screaming down the hall. Instead he asked, “Has your father spoken to you?”

“Yes.” Her voice was soft. “Just before we left home.”

“You got the news before I did.” Terza moved with perfect grace in her elaborate, rustling gown. Martinez tried a door at random, found it opened on a kind of bed-sitting-room, a somber bed in white and black and a desk of pale cinder-colored wood with paper, glass calligraphy pens, and a stick of ink ready for use. He drew her inside and closed the door.

“I’m sorry about the mourning threads.” Terza’s hand made a vague gesture by her hair. “I knew I shouldn’t be wearing mourning when we’re engaged, but my father only talked to me after I’d dressed.”

“That’s all right,” Martinez said. “From everything I’ve heard about Lord Richard, he was someone worth mourning.”

Terza looked away. There was an awkward silence. Martinez took a grip on his thoughts.

“Look,” he said. “If you don’t want to do this, we’ll call it off. And that’s that.”

Faint surprise marked her features. “I—” Her lips shaped a word that she failed to utter. Her eyes darted to Martinez. “I don’t object,” she said.

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