“Are you willing to meet with the Emperor?” Boleslaw asked before the prince could open his mouth.
I nodded. “If it will help us negotiate a peace, then yes.”
Aureli glared at his aide, then back at me. “Well then, I guess you’d better change into walking gear.”
I stood, saluted, and started back towards my small room. “Do I have walking gear?” I quietly asked Wiktor.
“I tailored something just this evening,” Wiktor replied.
“Before or after you received this letter from your Imperial counterpart,” I asked.
Wiktor slightly pursed his lips. “A good servant anticipates his master’s needs.”
I decided not to pursue Wiktor’s dodged question. So long as I had the correct clothes, I didn’t care how Wiktor had learned I needed them. Much.
Twenty minutes later, clad in plus fours, sturdy walking boots, and puttees wrapping my lower legs, I exited the palace’s back door. A pavilion large enough to host several hundred dancers looked out over an extensive park of perfectly manicured gardens. The flanking forests grew tall overhead, but in the gardens, orderly rows of flowers and sculpted hedges lined paved paths winding from fountain to fountain, providing pleasant views to enhance any relaxing stroll.
Wiktor led me through the gardens to a far corner, where a pleasing wilderness artfully shaded a naturalistic fountain spitting water over a crooked tree’s roots. The Emperor sat, a silver-grizzled black fur stole wrapped around her shoulders against the evening chill. It looked a more stylistic accent than a necessity. Her demon guard had donned no additional clothes that I could see.
“Perhaps you should return to the palace,” I whispered to Wiktor, pausing out of earshot as the Emperor rose.
“I would be a poor servant who left his master alone withunfriendly persons in enemy territory,” Wiktor replied.
“You left me in the Emperor’s chambers.”
“That was different. No assassin could strike you there,” Wiktor said. “I see three locations here I would use to take you down should I be so inclined.”
“How do you expect to protect me unarmed?” I asked.
“Whatever led you to believe I am unarmed?” Wiktor asked. I gave him a once-over and saw nothing, but Wiktor arched his eyebrow as if to question my judgment of him. He did not show me his weapons, but I had the distinct impression that he carried more than a concealed zeroblade about his person.
Leaving my valet to trail me at a respectful distance, I approached the Emperor and bowed. I did not speak, uncertain how to begin following the previous evening’s outburst.
The Emperor saved me. “You fought well today.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I replied. “I was lucky in my opponent.”
“It seems you do not need luck to defeat your opponents. You took that Federation fool as easily as you did my former servitor.”
“An overexaggeration. Count Gretsky was far more challenging a foe than Senator Orsey. Although you prevented me from proving the point.”
Astrid smiled, her first this evening. “I couldn’t let you set a bad precedent. Allow one duel, then every fool with a sword and a grudge will spill blood all over the place. I couldn’t tolerate that at my jubilee.”
“I’d hate to ruin your party, but honor must be satisfied,” I said.
“Satisfy it elsewhere. Here, you must only satisfy me,” Astrid replied.
I fell silent, not knowing what to say. Astrid and I walkedalong, past a bed of white lilies shining blue-silver in the light of the planet’s rings until we reached a marble fountain spilling into a raised pool. Astrid sat on the marble ledge and motioned for me to sit beside her. After a moment’s hesitation, I did so, keeping a respectful distance between us.
“Is your party everything you’d hoped for?” I asked.
Astrid smiled on one side, the sardonic mirth not rising to her eyes. “In some ways. In others, not at all. Most unexpectedly, I find myself presented with an opportunity I did not expect and don’t know how to accept.”
I thought she was talking about me, but it would be presumptuous to assume. “What holds you back?”
Astrid leaned back and looked at the sky. The stars were shrouded by the rings, aurora, and rising moon. “It’s an affair of the heart, which would interfere with my affairs of state. I want nothing more than to pursue this person, yet my position as Emperor has duties which do not include him.”
I squirmed. I did not need to come on a late-night promenade just to receive an official rejection. “Your Majesty, is it safe to speak of such things in the open?”
