Author's Note: KatLady, please contact me at my new email--I can't help it if my castle is one giant Portkey with an unknown activation sequence (damned house-elves)! I am also not responsible for half the hot-tub contents sloshing out during the sudden jolt of Portation... Anyway, at least you and your fellow Mob of Irate Laser-Wielding Fans should be happy; I'm updating this thing a lot sooner than anticipated...and actually working on finishing the rest of it! ~Lotm
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It was hideous. Confirming Ambassador Crellan's opinion that the new king of Astorra was not up to being more than a barely adequate king. First his admission that his duties were swamping him so much he needed to wait until the first post-coronation rush passed to study the tariff-lowering treaty, then his admission that part of the problem was his spending so much time with his new concubine, a distraction no Ruyikan ruler worth his weight in Occampan pearls would have admitted, let alone permitted. And now this...this personal display of utterly bad taste in gift-giving.
Crellan wasn't even sure
what
the object was, other than it was raggedly, asymmetrically, approximately three feet tall, writhed this way and that, was made of gilded, glossed ceramic, and sported exaggeratedly endowed, naked women wrapped in—of all things—frogs and snakes in all the strategic places. None of them in anything very close to a 'natural' shade for their coloring. There were openings that looked like they could be used as vase mouths for flowers, but they were shaped like lamprey mouths, replete with gilded, glazed rings of 'teeth' in an undercoat of dull and murky versions of mustard, from yellowish to brownish, all on a dull, pale beige background. And there were a trio of arching, eel-like fish that looked rather phallic, except they had serrated fins on their backs and under their arched bellies, and that ruined them for handles, if that had been their purpose for being a part of the...thing.
That was not all there was, though, on the almost sublimely hideous sculpture.
Zeerdorqs
, with their six legs and three snakes springing symbolically from between each pair of legs, cavorted here and there among the disproportioned women and frogs. What one of the
zeerdorqs
was doing to one of the fish, making the whole piece look even more lopsided, the ambassador did
not
want to know.
"Lord Ambassador." One of his entourage servants bowed low before him, thankfully providing a distraction. "Our Queen summons you to speak."
Grateful to leave the hideous thing out of his sight, he entered his private chamber and sat down in front of the private communications relay smuggled into the suite for secure, coded conversations. The message, travelling through nilspace, a place so small that all messages were instantaneous, but too small for ships to travel through, took no time at all to switch from the holding pattern to the face of Queen Astrida the moment the machine had scanned his thumbprint and genetic code.
"Your Celestial Sovereignty. How shall I serve you?"
"Report. The treaty?"
"He says that he is overwhelmed by the duties of his new office, Sovreign," Lord Crellan offered, eyes lowered in deference to her sanctity. "My observation is that this may very well be true. The concubine-slave I purchased for him is occupying more of his attention than is prudent, though I have observed that Astorran men are more...vigorous than most. But he should have more self-control to be a successful ruler. He also has...poor taste in his gift of appreciation for our gift of the slave, another indication that his judgement may not be as keen as that of his predecessors."
"What you tell me is not encouraging. Tell me something encouraging, Lord Ambassador," Queen Astrida ordered him. When he chanced the briefest of glances up, her eyes, the only part of her visible from behind her disguising coif and veil, were not angry. Yet.
He did his best to keep them from turning angry. "Celestial Sovreign, he has admitted the treaty idea is interesting, which is far more than his brother or father considered it. Their refusals were outright and blunt, as were my discreet probings into a potential marriage-alliance between our realm and theirs. And that brings me to my second encouragement, my Queen."
"That would be...?"
"The first night after his coronation, King Daemon was supposed to be introduced to eligible young women. Noblewomen from Astorra from the most part, but there were some princesses from within and from without his kingdom. The banquet and ball have been set back, and will occur in three weeks from now. At that time, he will be expected to start selecting his future queen. If your Celestiality were to propose a royal visit to coincide with this event..."
"I could present my suit more directly..." She considered his suggestion. "Arrange it, Lord Crellan. Make sure my arrival is timed to arrive just a little before this ball, so that I am fresh in his mind when I am presented again at it. Will there be any other eligible queens attending?"
"Not as far as I've heard, Sovreign."
"I will have no one disrupt my standing. Make sure no others of my rank attend."
He bowed to her as she ended the connection. Her last request would be extremely difficult to fulfill, but Crellan had enough spies in the palace proper still that could get their hands on the guest list for him. He didn't think any other queens eligible for marriage would be attending, but he would have to make sure. Queen Astrida was not known for her tolerance of mistakes, especially not if she felt her status as a queen was being slighted.
Tovedd
"The only thing I will
pay
for the information I want is your
life
," Ragor snarled, the humming, jeweled vibroknife in his hands threatening to touch the slave master's throat. "The slave woman, Sundrea Dannonee—who did you sell her to?"
"I'm afraid I can't remember any Dannonee," the slavemaster countered.
Ragor pressed his knife in, touching the very edge of the blade to the other man's throat. The flesh parted with very little pressure and started bleeding. "Try again—slave, describe her!"
"She was there when you bought me, twenty-five or so days ago. Five foot six, aquamarine eyes, dark auburn hair, and freckles," Saunders recited, glad it wasn't his throat that knife was at. The sooner the Matrix was found, the sooner he would have his freedom.
The slaver blinked. "The woman with the freckles, the Craidan?"
"That's her," Saunders confirmed.
"I sold her for eighty times her worth, to an ambassador. Lord Crellan of Ruyikan. He mentioned something about giving her as a concubine gift for a coronation."
"Who did he give her to?"
"I have no idea. But there aren't that many kings being crowned every day that have a culture that accepts concubines. Check back over the past month, and you should find her." He eyed the pirate's thoughtful expression. "That is all I know. Now, you can either leave, and we can resume our normal business association, or I can release this button under my desk, here, and let the robot blasters drop down out of the ceiling and fry you to Imperial ash."
Ragor removed his knife. He even pulled out a scrap of cloth from his clothes and passed it over to be pressed into the other man's cut. "Next time, answer my questions more quickly."
"Next time, ask ones that give me enough information to answer. And next time, expect to pay...or expect to die. If you had not given me pleasure this day, you would be dead."
To Saunder's hastily concealed shock, the slave-trader's left hand was palming the ridge tenting up from his lap.
The man is aroused by a vibroknife to the neck?
Not for the first time, he silently cursed his capture. Not for the first time, Saunders imagined with vicious detail what he would do to his captor, and the slave-merchant, for making him a slave.
No, wait, the merchant would probably enjoy it too much...
The self-proclaimed pirate king grinned, heading for the door. "Always a pleasure doing business with you, Obrian."
The grunt that came from the merchant was something that stained the mind and the ears. "...Ohhh, yes. And you, Ragor."
