“Wasn’t wrong, but I won’t have Glirastes defamed. Ever.” I look over so he sees how much I mean it. “You were not informing me. You were playing politics. Now, let us move on.”
He nods and goes back to business.
“Our spies on Venus report Carthii Institutes are churning out young Peerless,” he says. “The Saud are not too far behind. Still, if you ask me, you chose the right Color to invest in.”
He eyes the thick band of Grays that claim the front rows around the racing sands.
I agree and scan the promenade level in distaste. Though Atalantia is occupied solidifying her hold on Earth and laying siege to Luna, little escapes her gaze, even less her taxes. Her Gold allies, and they are many, populate nearly half the boxes of the promenade level. The boxes were to be sold at auction to help finance these costly games. Instead, Atalantia helped me spiral toward bankruptcy by insisting none of her friends be required to pay.
“Ravenous lot, aren’t they?” a voice murmurs. I turn to see a slender, deeply tanned woman of middling height. Horatia au Votum, Cicero’s younger sister, is not a warrior despite the Peerless Scar on her heart-shaped face. A master administrator, her narrow eyes shimmer only for numbers. She’s far more at home amidst a coterie of Coppers than she is on a warship or battlefield. “They’ve not come for games. They’ve come to see us fail.”
She means they’ve all come to see the Lightbringer launch, or rather not launch. As the project manager in charge of refurbishing Darrow’s crashed ship, she takes that personally. More liberal and political than Cicero, Horatia has assumed their father’s place of prominence amongst the Reformer bloc in the Two Hundred. Our politics are strikingly similar but hardly popular. We pray we’re not naïve for believing that’s only because the tyrants of Atalantia’s Iron bloc have the lion’s share of war prestige and military might. “The wine you’ll buy for these Golds alone would buy armor for half a legion. To say nothing of the food.”
“Or Pinks,” I reply.
“Or Violets.”
“They’re not our worst guests, I think,” Rhone says.
“No?” Horatia is not over-fond of smiles, but she graces Rhone with one. “So which guest of honor holds that claim? Rath or Carthii?”
“The Venusians. Always.” With a sour look, Rhone glances behind us at the brood of House Carthii lounging in my box drunk on my wine. I’d rather have hosted the Rim deputation, especially their rising hero, Diomedes. But Consul Dido’s reply to my invitation was a single line: MARS MUST FALL. So instead of honorable, worthy Peerless knights of the Rim I’m beset by Carthii philistines so cultured they’ve forsaken the use of manners.
Horatia leans in. “I’ve done some…reconnoitering with my friends on Earth. The Carthii are…as you said they’d be. Unofficially unaffiliated. They’re furious Atalantia let Rath keep their dockyards.”
“So available.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Available,” I confirm.
In Atalantia’s decade of war and her lifelong quest to claim the Sovereign’s chair, she’s relied most on the Carthii shipbuilders of Venus. That has changed. After Apollonius stole the Carthii dockyards, Atalantia alienated her old allies when she signed the détente with Apollonius to ensure his stolen Carthii ships keep flowing to her armada.
All rather messy. I, of course, was only too happy to broker the deal.
While politically conservative, opposed to reform, and generally insidious, the Carthii are powerful and very wealthy. Winning them would be a political and military coup, but also as safe as bedding a viper.
I smile when I spy the best mark of those Carthii present—meaning the richest and most ambitious of the lot—sizing me up from amidst a clutch of her brothers.
Barely twenty-seven, Valeria au Carthii, like many of the ruthless young Golds of her generation, has found war to have a catalyzing effect on her prospects. She has ascended past many of her more famous brothers to become a third-place contender in the expansive and often fatal sibling rivalry to become their ancient father’s heir. With her father, Asmodeus, well past a hundred years old and still replacing lost progeny like it’s funny, she’s likely in need of a powerful new friend.
I nod to her. She tips her glass my way. Bottom first. A slight Venusian flirtation.
“Where’s your brother?” I ask Horatia.
“Cicero?” She frowns. “Even I can’t track that variable. I’ll inquire with the grooms.”
“He promised he wouldn’t race.”
“I’ll inquire with the grooms.”
Valeria au Carthii sways toward us before Horatia can leave. “Lysander, I’ve just looked at the program, and I must say it’s terribly Aurelian of you not to include the gladiatorial matches.” She slurps the flesh from an oyster and discards the shell on the floor for the servants. “Or are you to blame, Horatia?”
“I fear it’s a collective statement,” Horatia says. “Excuse me.”
“Reformers. Ugh. Such prudes.” Valeria wrinkles her nose. “Chariot races and pegasus jousts are all well and good. But truly, what are the stakes if no one’s dying?”
“I think the people of Heliopolis have seen enough death,” I reply.
At a nod from me, Rhone slips back under the awning to keep watch on me from the shade opposite Kyber. Valeria watches after him. “Shouldn’t let your dogs sit at the table, Lysander. They’ll eat the food off your plate.”
“Praetorians are hardly dogs. Falcons perhaps.”
She chuckles. “I hear Horatia is responsible for that delusion of grandeur to the south?”
“She is,” I reply. “It was her idea to use the wreckage of the White Fleet to repair the Lightbringer.”
“Votum’s building ships. If I thought that possible, I’d be offended. It looks like a monster, far too heavy in the front. Not even painted.”
“Horatia says paint is a luxury our budget can’t afford.”
“Hilarious woman. So serious,” Valeria says. “Are you fucking her? Or is it her brother you like? Both?”
“Like I said, we’re not on Venus today,” I reply.
“Mhm.” Her eyes glide to Rhone, then down to the Praetorians in the stands. “I heard you were a student of our ancient ancestors. A virtuous shepherd of the people.” She busies herself shucking and slurping oysters. “Still. We all wonder when you’ll grow tired of this orgy of equitas and come to join the real circus.”
“I’d like nothing more than to join the war. But without a military appointment from the Dictator or the Two Hundred, I must tend my duties here on Mercury. The last thing I want to do is meddle in politics.”
“What a law-abiding young citizen you are.” She smiles. “Imagine my father’s relief when he learns that you don’t consider lobbying Atalantia to exploit our stolen docks to be meddling in politics,” she says.
“The Battle of Mercury cost us dearly, and Julii and Augustus are putting up a…rather impressive fight,” I say. “The war requires warships to replace our recent losses, no? That your family lost your dockyards to a madman and a handful of soldiers is hardly my fault. Actually it’s more an indictment of how your father treats his workers and citizens. I hear your own people rallied to Apollonius and helped him take the station. I merely helped Atalantia and Apollonius remain focused on the greater interest of our people—winning the war.”