“I don’t want to talk,” I say.
He twists a jamRing on his finger. A pop censors all noise beyond his bubble. “Didn’t come to talk. I came to eat.”
He begins his campaign against the food. When he’s finished and the servants have carted the remains of two huge salmon away from Ajax, I pour us glasses of wine. He hesitates before drinking. “I’m hardly in a position to poison you, even if I wanted to,” I say.
“No, I just promised myself I wouldn’t drink this month.” He considers the wine. “I killed thirty-one people today. Slag it.” He sips and sighs. “So, you kneeled after all.”
“How did you know?”
“She gave you my cook.” Presumptuous as always, Ajax helps finish the bottle and begins inspecting my gifts. He frowns at a fragile ivory scepter. “I remember when she used to give me presents.”
“Have them. You know what she’s doing. How insincere it is.”
“It’s sincere,” he says. “That’s the problem. Long as I’ve known her, I’ve wondered what goes on in that head. It’s a world unto itself. Inscrutable from without except by its seasonal weather patterns. For me it’s autumn. For you, she wants it to be summer, but you seem intent on making it winter.”
“Autumn, eh? The waning season.” I watch him for a time. “Do you love her?”
He shrugs. “Don’t have to love oxygen to need it.” He stands abruptly to fetch more wine. When he returns, he comes back with three bottles, and we migrate to a lower patio set into the cliff. Waves crash against effigies of water dryads that hang off the patio’s edge. They crash in silence. Nothing can be heard beyond the jamField.
“She’ll have a fit about this,” Ajax says, wiggling his jamring. “I’ll be punished. Who knows, maybe she’ll take the cape from me.”
“Do you want that?”
He shrugs and asks, “Who does she have of yours?”
“Glirastes,” I murmur, fixed on the soundless waves.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“It’s easier to make me out to be some callous heel, isn’t it?” he asks.
“It’s your defense mechanism. You tell me. I never know when you’re being sincere.”
He shrugs, because he knows it’s true. The husky, mild-mannered boy lives on only in his mind, in mine, and in Atalantia’s. If he can only be made to realize that, how she abuses that boy inside and how I cherish him, maybe I can reclaim him from her. “She will honor her word. You can protect him.”
“Do you want Atalantia to sit on the Morning Chair?” I ask him. “Do you believe that is what is best for the Society and its people? Do you think it’s best for you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” he says. “You’ve both made that clear.”
“I think it does.”
“Do you?”
I don’t answer for a time. Lights glow over the sea. Warships taxi. The Twins of South Pacifica twinkle high above. The guns were scuttled by the garrison when Diomedes seized the orbital station with his Lightning Phalanx, but I have heard rumors that mysterious Rim physanikos, that cabalistic subset of their Orange caste, have been spied studying the structure.
“Are you familiar with the ghost raptors of Varazana?” I ask Ajax. “It’s a species of bird on Callisto. There’s said to be less than thirty left. Chameleonic feathers, top speeds of two hundred and thirty kilometers per hour. It has a curious trait. If caged, it will maul itself to death with its own talons. Do you know why?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me. I don’t read. I train.”
“Before her death, Varazana confessed that she designed the bird to have a certain psychology. It was the most perfect thing she’d ever made. And Varazana would rather see it dead than be kept as anyone’s pet. It was made to be the emperor of the sky.” I sip my wine. “Do you remember when Atalantia came back from her tour of the Rim?”
“I was visiting Mercury with Grandfather, I believe.”
“That’s right. Sorry. The wine. Well, she brought back pets she captured for her menagerie. Included among them was a solitary ghost raptor. She’d branded out its eyes so it couldn’t see it was caged. Octavia was horrified. She had Aja put it down. Said Varazana was right. Some beasts are too noble to be caged.”
“Ah,” he says. “So, I am a noble bird now? Or are you referring to yourself?”
I shrug, down the rest of my wine, and watch the waves noiselessly thrash upon the rocks below. His hand closes on my shoulder. “Lysander. I know this might not mean much coming from me. But I do not want you to die. I want you to live.” He nods to the coastal mansion behind us. “This cage isn’t so bad. Is it?”
“She killed my parents, Ajax.”
He freezes. His eyes a thousand kilometers away. Then he stands and looks down at me. “She said you’d say that. The problem with loving you two is that you were both meant for the Palatine. I never was. You’re both too good at lying.”
He departs.
16
LYSANDER
The Two Hundred
SUN BAKES THE TRANQUIL parklands around the Roman ruins, but it is cool in the shade of the Colosseum. The morning events at Atalantia’s summit of the Two Hundred had started with summer showers, floral tea, handshakes, and power politics in the restored Temple of Hercules Victor. There, I was able to sneak a moment with Horatia alone to tell her what must be done. With the Irons watching us, she hastily confirmed the dockyards deal I teased to Valeria is already complete. She flashed me a holocube and we drifted our separate ways. Then, after the subsequent breakfast at the Temple of Juno, the heads of the Gold houses made their ritual procession to the Colosseum for the main event. By then the skies had cleared and a lazy warm wind was already rolling in from the Italian interior.
The outside of the Colosseum gleams white. A golden awning has been erected over the top. The inside of the Colosseum has also been refurbished for gladiatorial games Atalantia plans to host. But today in place of the fighting sands, Atalantia has laid down travertine marble. Marble risers for the Two Hundred sit beneath the actual viewing stands and lie in a U-shape at the north end. When one stands on the rostrum—an iron triangle on the floor—to speak, the Irons are to their left, the Moderates directly ahead, the Reformers to their right, the Rim delegation even further to the right, and the black chair of the Dictator on the floor about fifteen meters in front of the rostrum.
After taking our seats, we heard a briefing regarding the Ascomanni warlord Volsung Fá’s raids on Republic strongholds in the asteroid belt—a welcome consequence of the Republic’s chaotic internal divides. I sit listening amongst Atalantia’s hardliners, the diamond in her Iron tiara.
After the briefing, Cornelius au Carthii assumes the rostrum. Cornelius, a loquacious and handsome man, uses all of his oratorial prowess to bemoan the injustice of the conflict still raging on the Dockyards of Venus, indict the scurrilous character of Apollonius, and extol the virtue of his family’s show of arms even while begging the Two Hundred to help them defeat a numerically inferior foe: With millions of men under arms, we Carthii will not lose, but Apollonius is cementing his place in the pantheon of premier field commanders by ripping the men we send against him to bloody shreds. Surely ship production is a common cause! Surely property rights still matter! The truth is plain as day to everyone listening. Those docks were built by us, kept by us, they are ours, but needed for the common good. Cornelius surrenders the rostrum with a plea for unity and respect for law and order. The irony of these sentiments coming from a haughty Carthii is reflected in the little smiles shared around the room.