The Service of the Sword woh-4 Read online

  On Grayson a man did not mistreat a woman because she was precious. On Masada, theoretically, a man might treat any woman as harshly as he wished. Most were wise enough not to exercise this right because to do so would be to invite similar treatment of their own property. Individual owners might abuse their women as much as they deemed right to preserve the sanctity and order of their households. Most did.

  One did not bother to educate property on Masada. On Grayson, higher education and formal degrees might be denied to women, but basic literacy and math were routinely taught. They had to be, if only because the daily maintenance of household technology in such a hostile environment required it.

  Masada's less lethal planetary environment obviated that need, and no good Masadan patriarch was about to waste education on a mere female. Judith's parents, scions of a merchant family with ties outside the Grayson system, had begun her education earlier than most. They'd decided to have her educated beyond even the normal Grayson standards for a variety of reasons. One of these was that they did not wish to seem backward in the eyes of those with whom they sought to do business. Another was that they were good, God-fearing people who did not see how the ability to contemplate God's wonders and mysteries intellectually, as well as with the blind obedience of faith, could hurt anyone. Especially not in a faith which enshrined the doctrine of the Test.

  Finally, there was an element of practicality. Even though propriety meant that a girl would not be exposed to the prying eyes of strangers, that didn't mean she had to be useless. A girl who could read, write, and work sums could help with the business. When her parents discovered that Judith had an almost preternatural quickness with mathematics and logic patterns, they delighted in giving her puzzles and games meant to enhance this ability.

  But Judith's mother understood, as her father might not have done, the danger that knowledge placed the girl in when the Masadan raiders took their ship. Despite her tender years, Judith understood her mother's warning. Even within Grayson society she had been encouraged to conceal just how much she knew. Indeed, as she grew older she had concealed from her parents just how much she had learned, fearing they might view her education as complete.

  That habit of secrecy and the knowledge it concealed was why Judith didn't kill herself, why she didn't kill the man who called himself her husband, lord, and master. She had something else in mind. Something that would hurt Ephraim Templeton a great deal more.

  Judith began training for her revenge during the first years of her captivity, continued after her marriage, focused more intensely once Ephraim began to try to father children upon her. She hoped to put her plan into action before he could tie her to Masada through their children. What she had never realized was that she would care about those little lives, even those never born.

  On the day she learned that the child she carried was a girl—a girl Ephraim did not plan to let live—Judith knew she had no choice but to put her plan into action.

  Even so, she knew it was unlikely that she could save this baby. Her hope was that she could save the next.

  "I simply don't see how we can pretend to forget that his sister is the Queen," said Lieutenant Carlotta Dunsinane, assistant tactical officer of Her Majesty's light cruiser, Intransigent.

  "Carlie, a slew of instructors and classmates at Saganami Island have been pretending it for the last three and a half years," replied Abelard Boniece, Intransigent's captain. "Now it's our turn."

  "But still . . ."

  Lieutenant Dunsinane let her voice trail off. In her inflection was a wealth of unspoken knowledge, the awareness that the young man whose dossier glowed on the screen between them was next in line for the crown of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. True, Michael's sister, Queen Elizabeth the Third, was married and her firstborn child would undoubtedly replace him as Heir in due time. But Michael Winton had been the Crown Prince for the last nine years. His social and political rank were not easy things to disregard.

  Then there was the uncomfortable resemblance between Midshipman Michael Winton and his father, the much-loved King Roger III. The latter had died long before his time, victim of a freak jet-ski accident that had left the Star Kingdom grieving, and thrust Elizabeth and her brother into the public eye.

  For Elizabeth, just a few years short of her majority, this scrutiny was something for which she had some training. For thirteen year-old Michael, still at an age when traditional forbearance shielded him from the greedy eye of the newsies, there had been little preparation.

  The resemblance between father and son came across despite Prince Michael's apparent youth, extending beyond the Winton's clean-cut features and strikingly dark skin. It had something to do with the set of the youth's jaw, the manner in which he carried his head straight and square on his shoulders, even in the way he seemed unaware of the myriad gazes that flickered in his direction and then politely away again—an unawareness that was never rude or rejecting, simply unaware.

  To be fair to Prince Michael—Midshipman Winton —Carlie reminded herself with the fierce determination of one who is certain it is only a matter of time before she screws up, part of Carlie's own uncertainty had nothing to do with Michael Winton himself. The midshipman's dossier had given no indication that Michael Winton expected privileges or had been given them, but Lieutenant Carlotta Dunsinane couldn't quite believe this was so, and deep inside she was steeled for trouble.

  To make matters worse, as part of the RMN's on-going naval expansion, Intransigent's middy berth was filled to bursting—and suddenly, cynically, Carlie realized the reason why there had been a couple of changes in those assigned to her care. Doubtless there were those in a position to learn of Mr. Winton's new assignment in advance, those who saw an advantage to having their son or daughter serve on the Crown Prince's middy cruise, an advantage that nothing as trivial as a sudden change in posting could make impossible.

  As supervisor of Intransigent's middy berth, Lieutenant Dunsinane was under conflicting pressures. She had to simultaneously guard and direct her young charges, yet try to break them if there was anything in them that needed breaking. This was never an easy task, but it was going to be made more difficult with a middy berth overloaded with scions of rank and privilege.

  Then there was the ATO's acute awareness that the RMN desperately needed good officers—with the emphasis on "good"—but there were those who thought that any officer was a good officer with the fleet spread so thin. So Carlie knew that there would be those in the command structure who would fault her for breaking any of those who had survived the gruelling three and a half T-years they'd spent at the Academy—not to mention fault her for wasting the money invested in that training.

  And fault her even more if one of those whose training didn't pan out was the carefully watched, highly observed Prince Michael Winton. Yet she'd also be faulted if Midshipman Winton passed his cruise without proving himself.

  Carlie swallowed an impulse to offer her resignation here and now.

  "Mr. Winton will be reporting to you in just a few days, so you have time to prepare yourself," Captain Boniece continued. "May I offer you a word of advice?"

  "I would accept your advice gladly, Sir."

  "Give the young man a chance to prove himself before you condemn him."

  "I'll do my best, Sir."

  Carlie Dunsinane meant every word. She also knew how difficult keeping those words was going to be.

  As she was leaving, she saw Tab Tilson, the head communications' officer, coming in with the latest dispatches. Before the door slid closed, she heard him say:

  "More changes, Sir, I'm afraid."

  The door slid shut before Carlie could hear what those changes were, but she sincerely hoped they had nothing to do with her already overcomplicated middy berth.

  Ephraim Templeton ruled his household with an iron rod—or more literally a very flexible whip and a willingness to use it. However, much of how he regulated his household was based on certain assumptions.

>   None of Ephraim's wives could read. Therefore, no effort was made to secure the library against them. None of his wives could use the computer beyond activating the simple pictorial icons used for routine household chores. Certainly, none of them could manage anything as complicated as programming.

  Judith, however, could read. She was familiar with the more complicated computers used by the Graysons, and her parents had taught her elementary programming. This last, combined with ready access to Ephraim's household databanks, made it possible for Judith to continue her education.

  Her mother's dying warning had also provided a hint as to along which path lay Judith's freedom. If the Masadans did not want her to know anything, then she would seek to know everything—and to keep her acquisition of that knowledge from them.

  Judith's programmed safeguards would not have stopped a careful security check, but where there can be no mice, no one sets mousetraps. She had another advantage as well. She was not her husband's favorite wife. Indeed, in many ways she was his least favorite, but Ephraim did not dispose of her because she was a prize.

  To his fellows, who hated the Graysons with singleminded fanaticism, Judith was presented as a soul redeemed from sin, a vessel who would carry within her womb those who would prove the undoing of their own forbearers. For this reason, Ephraim often took Judith with him when his duties took him away from home. She was a trophy: living, breathing proof that the Masadan struggle to conquer Grayson would not be in vain.

  Initially, Judith, then only twelve, had hated these voyages. They forced her into increased intimacy with her husband, for Ephraim didn't bring any other of his wives. However, once Judith realized that during her voyages on Aaron's Rod she was free from observation—for jealous Ephraim kept her locked in the captain's quarters lest she incite unholy lust among his crew—she took advantage of her isolation.

  Hacking into the ship's computer was Judith's first challenge, but one for which her education on Grayson's more sophisticated systems had given her the tools. Once she had access to Aaron's Rod's computer, and safeguard programs in place, Judith immersed herself in the joys of forbidden knowledge.

  While she was supposed to be praying or memorizing scripture, Judith familiarized herself with the ship's systems, starting with the basics of life support, engineering, and communications, moving from these into the more arcane specializations of weaponry and astrogation. Later, when she was fourteen, she began studying elementary tactics.

  Had Ephraim but known, his youngest wife at fifteen was as well-educated—at least in theory—as any member of his crew. Instead he thought her something of an idiot, for her inability to memorize the scripture passages he set for her—even with the incentive of a beating for her failure—was nearly beyond belief.

  But Ephraim didn't have energy to waste worrying about the deficiencies of a woman who, after all, hardly needed a mind to serve her purpose. As he had been when Aaron's Rod took the merchant vessel that had carried Judith and her parents, Ephraim continued to serve as a Masadan privateer.

  Ephraim was very careful which ships he hunted. Most of the time he was content to masquerade as an armed merchantman, even to the extent of carrying regular cargos. The missile tubes and laser batteries that were part of his vessel could be turned to other purposes than self-defense, however, and when the situation was deemed propitious, unarmed ships fell before Aaron's Rod's might.

  Judith, of course, did not take part in these battles. When Aaron's Rod went into battle, she remained locked in the captain's quarters. Ephraim valued her sufficiently to provide a vac suit lest she die from a breach in the hull, but that suit was an uncertain refuge. Ephraim had no wish to have Judith become some other man's prize, so tied into her vac suit was a version of the dead man's switch, rigged so that if Ephraim died, or even if he viewed their situation as hopeless, Judith would also die.

  What Ephraim didn't realize was that Judith knew all about the switch, and had disabled it while leaving the circuit sufficiently intact to hide her tampering from routine equipment checks. She re-checked the suit every time she put it on, reassured in the knowledge that the suit was only issued to her when the situation was critical, and her captors too distracted to do more than scan the telltales.

  Thus Judith came to revel in her shipboard time.

  As her confidence grew, Judith didn't restrict her education in ship systems to when she was aboard Aaron's Rod. Ephraim had purchased training simulation software for the use of his sons. Both the software and the VR rigs used for the most realistic training were expensive beyond Ephraim's usual prudent parsimony. However, he dreamed of one day commanding a privateer fleet with his sons as captains. The actions of this fleet would make the name Templeton famous throughout Masada, earning the clan a posting at the forefront of the action when the day came to make a decisive strike against the heretics on Grayson.

  Fourteen year-old Judith discovered the best times to extract a VR rig from the lockers. Unlike her stepsons, who gloried in battle scenarios, she concentrated on the boring programs: Piloting a ship. Preparing for a hyper translation and adjusting to post-translation nausea. Checking and understanding astrogation coordinates. Scanning for communications.

  In careful secrecy, Judith forced herself to learn how to get the most out of each of the preprogrammed routines that ran the essential ship stations, knowing that when her time came she would likely have to do without much in the way of a crew.

  Judith was working her way through a particularly complicated scenario dealing with the aftereffects of a power surge following a return to N-space, when the VR rig was jerked off her face.

  "What do you think you are doing?" Ephraim's senior wife hissed.

  Like every other member of his graduating class, Michael Winton was given an opportunity to visit his family before reporting to his new assignment. It was good to be home, though Michael's suite at Mount Royal Palace seemed unnecessarily large and rather empty without Todd's explosively effusive companionship.

  Empty, that was, unless Beth's son, Roger, came exploding into the room. Roger was three T-years old, with all the energy and curiosity that could be wished for in that delightful age when a baby is becoming distinctly a little boy.

  When Roger reached his sixth Manticoran birthday—which would make him just over ten, by standard reckoning—he would be subjected to a comprehensive battery of physical and mental tests meant to guarantee that he was suited to be the next king. Until then, Michael would continue to hold the title Crown Prince and be next in the succession. Remembering his own encounter with a similar battery of tests, Michael had no doubt that Roger would pass with well over the minimum requirements.

  Seven more years to go, Michael thought without the least trace of wistfulness. Then I can be just plain Prince Michael again—and if Beth has another kid or two, I'll drop so far down the succession I'll be like Aunt Caitrin, just another superfluous noble.

  He grinned at the thought, swinging a delightedly shrieking Roger around and around in circles. He thought there was probably no one less superfluous than Duchess Winton-Henke, his late father's younger sister, but he knew she'd enjoy the joke as much as he did.

  All in all, Michael didn't mind having someone else make his bed, having the luxury to sleep late, the opportunity to wear something other than his uniform. The business of the Star Kingdom did not precisely stop because the Crown Prince was home from school, but Beth found excuses to avoid several formal engagements in favor of quiet evenings with her brother.

  Even when Beth couldn't get free, Queen Mother Angelique might be available, and Roger always wanted a chance to play. For a few days, Michael could almost forget that his was a family any different from any other.

  One evening after Justin had gone to put Roger to bed, brother and sister sat playing chess. Their only audience was Beth's treecat, Ariel, who sprawled drowsily across his human's lap. To Michael's complete surprise, Beth extended one long finger and tipped over her king, conceding the
game to him.

  "I haven't checkmated you yet!" Michael protested.

  "You would have in two moves," Beth said, "and I have something I need to discuss with you."

  Michael heard an odd twang in his sister's voice, a barely suppressed tension that warned him that the Queen was going to confide in him information that at least some of her advisors would rather she didn't—and that she was worried that their judgement, rather than her own, might be right.

  Michael kept his observation of Beth's mood to himself, reaching instead for the chess pieces and beginning to methodically fit them into their velvet-lined niches in the polished hardwood box.

  After a few moments, Beth continued, "I know where Intransigent is being sent."

  Michael cocked an eyebrow at her. He'd been told that his new posting, the light cruiser Intransigent, was being sent to Silesia. He didn't know which sector, but he expected they'd be taking over one of the standard anti-pirate patrols. If that was the case, though, why did Beth look so thoughtful?

  "Don't be a pig," Michael prompted when her silence stretched on. "Give."

  Beth smiled at the bantering note in his voice.

  "Intransigent isn't going to Silesia," she said, "at least not right away. She's being diverted to deliver new orders and relief personnel to a diplomatic contingent we have negotiating with the government of the Endicott System."

  "Endicott?" Michael asked, not certain he had heard right.

  Beth nodded. Stealing a few chess pieces from their velvet niches, she worked up a makeshift map on the board that still rested between them.

  "This queen," she said, setting the carved ebony figure at one extreme, "is the Star Kingdom. This," she said, setting the white king at the other extreme, "is the People's Republic of Haven."

  "They wouldn't appreciate your using a king," Michael teased. "They're a republic, not a decadent, top-heavy monarchy like us."