I looked around, seeing if I could spot Astrid over the assembled notables, and Boleslaw laughed again. “She’s not here yet. Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to gawk at her, but let’s keep your former affair between you and me. State secrets, you know.”
I acknowledged Boleslaw with a disappointed nod. I wanted to do more than gawk at her. I wanted to take her to a quiet room and question her. I wanted to know why she hadn’t come back to me before the war. Or, since she had apparently won the Emperor’s throne, why had she not called me to her?
Boleslaw pulled me into the crowd of assembled notables. It looked like I was the last person to arrive. There were representatives from every Allied nation. Several Despotate lords commander strutted about, their full-dress tunics glittering with extraneous gold braid and clinking medals. Noble Federation magnates preferred boxy civilian suits so pricey even royals from smaller star kingdoms couldn’t afford them, but they expressed their wealth in the cheapest way possible, with garish color combinations and large, gaudy jewelry. The League representatives wore outdated court garments: long tailcoats and elegant gowns which nonetheless impressed with the ancient traditions they represented.
Colonel Boleslaw mingled perfectly with every one of them, saluting lords commander, shaking hands with magnates, bowing courteously to League royals. Everyonesmiled to see her, but their eyes had only to glance at my shiny new sky captain’s bars before their interest in me waned.
“You’re very good at this,” I said after several such interactions.
Boleslaw gave an amiable shrug. “It’s a skill. Like any other, it improves with practice.”
“Seems you’ve gotten a lot of practice.”
“As will you, if everything goes well here,” Boleslaw said.
I wasn’t certain I liked that thought. I was not particularly comfortable in high society. The idea of juggling a half-dozen cultural ideologies without offending anyone made me break out in a cold sweat. At least shield machinery in a supply depot took no offense if you stored it next to the lancer rifles. Already, I’d been too informal when talking to militaristic Despotate officers, too formal when bowing to Federation equites, and too modern when smiling at a pretty League princess. I was no good at interacting with any of our allies.
And then there were the Imps.
I’d seen worse during my decade of war. These guards were commoners, barely nine feet tall, with scales instead of chitinous plates. They wore ceremonial armor, worthless in anything other than staged combat, but impressive to politicians who’d never been in a real fight. Most unnerving to me, they carried ordinary steel weapons.
“Don’t worry about the guards. They’re not here to threaten us,” Boleslaw said.
“I wouldn’t call them a threat,” I replied.
“What would you call those stonking great halberds, then?” Boleslaw asked.
“An insult,” I said, my voice firmer than I’d intended. “Look closer at those halberds.”
Boleslaw gave them as long a glance as she gave anything. Her eyes focused intently for a moment, taking a mentalholograph, then moved along. “They seem potent enough to me.”
“They’re made of steel. Not zeroblades. They pose no more threat to a shielded noble than a feather duster. Imperials openly carry weapons as a sign of respect. The deadlier the force they show, the more they think of you. These Imps see us carrying active zeroblades, and they wield ceremonial props? They think we cannot possibly hurt them, blades be damned. Only children rank so low in Imperial society. Young children.” The thought made me shudder. This was a battlefield, and despite the broadsword and dagger at my waist, I felt horribly outgunned.
Boleslaw considered for a moment before asking, “Are you sure?”
“When Baroness Astrid showed up for our first date, she wore two swords, a dagger, and had her claws unsheathed as a sign of respect.”
“And did you feel respected?” Boleslaw asked, slightly taken aback.
“Fall, no. I was bloody terrified.”
Boleslaw laughed, back in her usual zone of comfort. “Then why didn’t you get out of there?”
I desperately yearned for the drink Boleslaw had promised me. It might make all this socializing easier. “When a blisteringly intelligent and blindingly beautiful woman asks to buy you a drink, you forgive a few eccentricities.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Boleslaw replied, before her attention was drawn by a monocled man in an overly decorated Despotate uniform. “Ah, Lord Commander Vojislav. How’s the vineyard?”
I watched as Boleslaw effortlessly disarmed the scarred, brutal-looking man, and turned his crooked slash of a mouth into a lopsided grin in little more than a minute.
“How is it you can remember everyone’s name?” I asked as we moved towards a different knot of people. “Another skill?”
“Ah, that one, my dear Captain, is a gift,” Boleslaw said with a smile.
“A gift I wish I possessed,” I groused. “I can never remember anybody’s name.”
“Well, here is a name I’ll bet even you’ll remember. Captain Levar Boylan, meet Lady Bridgette d’Lyre.”
A woman turned towards us, and my higher brain functions were momentarily disabled. Lady d’Lyre was stunning. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen beautiful women while at the front, but those women had worn combat fatigues over a three-day coat of sweat and mud. Lady d’Lyre wore a chic cocktail dress and a pair of stilettos impractical for any place outside a palace, and her alabaster skin was decorated with tasteful eyeliner, lipstick, and blush. Her blue-black hair was shimmering clean, styled in sweeping waterfall-like curls, instead of braided tightly against the head and out of the way like the army women I was familiar with. Her perfume was clean, floral, and seductive, as far from the stench of a trench soldier as one could imagine.
