To Ride the Chimera by Kevin Killiany

Author:Kevin Killiany [Killiany, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780451461940
Google: In43GQAACAAJ
Amazon: 0451461940
Barnesnoble: 0451461940
Goodreads: 1660126
Publisher: Roc
Published: 2008-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

33

Cendar Estate

Zletovo, Lesnovo

Rim Commonality

3 April 3138

Elderly. Elis watched as Michael Cendar received a verbal report from a force commander with oddly colored hair at the edge of the veranda. Why did I ever consider him elderly? Have I aged so much in two years?

Sipping her iced herbal tea, she admitted to herself it was possible. The politics of Oriente tended to accelerate the aging process.

More likely it was a maturing of her perceptions. She had learned from her mother how to observe political adversaries and allies; to weigh their potential threat or utility to the gram. From that perspective, Michael Cendar had been breathtakingly beautiful. But as the young woman Elis looking at the man Michael, she had mistaken the weight of responsibility for the burden of age.

Now, lounging in what Michael called an Adirondack chair—a far more rustic bit of furniture than anything found at cousin Gen’s estate—enjoying a purposeless conversation as a long summer Sunday afternoon wound toward evening, she was discovering her future husband was much more vital and entertaining than the prime minister she remembered.

He’s of an age with Thaddeus, she thought generously. And a good bit less stuffy. Practically an untamed spirit by Rim Commonality standards.

Elis intended to do a bit to alter the standards of Rim Commonality society herself. In her role as the daughter of a distant duchess visiting a cousin twenty-one months ago, her refusal to wear corsets and insisting on only half the standard volume of fabric had been a quirk that amused social columnists. Now she was the fiancée of the prime minister, and her uncompromising stand on fashion was being viewed with alarm by the bulk of Commonality society.

If you find what I do to your couture disturbing, Elis thought toward the matrons of distant Zletovo, wait until you see what I do to your government.

“Good news, I see,” she said as Michael returned. “Always something to be hoped for when mysterious soldiers appear.”

“Forgive me.” Michael’s smile disappeared. “I am so used to keeping my duties separate from…”

His voice trailed off.

From the women you bring to your private retreat, Elis finished mentally. Fortunately for both of us, a successful marriage of state does not require virginity.

“Prime minister is not a hereditary title,” Michael said. “A vote of no-confidence could be called at any time, and I could go back to being merely Lord Cendar.”

“With your approval rating perpetually mired somewhere north of eighty percent through twenty years in office, that could happen at any moment,” Elis agreed solemnly.

Michael laughed, a remarkably easy sound.

“What I meant was, administration of the Rim Commonality has always been something apart from the family life of the prime minister,” he said. “We are about to usher in a new era in Commonality politics.”

Elis nodded. The captain-generalcy of the Free Worlds League had once been an elected office, open to anyone. How many generations—and how many missteps—before it had become a Marik monopoly? People believed in blood, trusted heritage. The time was not too distant when only Cendars—or Marik-Cendars—could hold the highest office in the Rim Commonality.

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