Mallorca and Menorca, of Murcia, of Algeciras, of Seville, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Gibraltar, of the Algarve, of the Two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, of Sardinia, of Corsica, of the Indies and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, of the Islands and Mainlands of the Ocean Sea, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, of Athens and Neopatria, Count of Barcelona, Count of Flanders, Lord of Biscay and of Molina, and former Prime Minister of the European Union.”
We will forgive the King of Spain if tonight of all nights he did not have the patience to wait through his full list of titles before entering. He nodded in geritocratic order to the others, first to Faust, then Bryar, then the Anonymous, and last the trio, pausing to frown his sympathies at Dana?, but all these he passed, stopping only at Perry. “Welcome inside, Prime Minister.” He offered his hand. “You have worked very hard to get here. I hope to see that energy do the world much good.”
Perry trembled as he took the king’s hand. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I doubt you can believe me, but I’m sorry I had to come here at your expense. I have far more respect for you than for anyone else who’s ever set foot in this room…”
“Careful,” Faust objected.
“… and I hope I’m right that you will see brighter days when this is over.”
Spain accepted the glass of manzanilla I had waiting for him. “Thank you, Prime Minister. Membership in this circle represents a common hope that we with power may do more good for the world as colleagues than as adversaries. I hope you will embrace that.”
Duke President Ganymede is never so cross as when he is forced to sit through the titles of a true king. “If Your Majesty wants Perry to dig their claws out of your heir,” he jabbed, “you should just beg and have done.”
“Ganymede!” It was Andō who scolded the Duke this time, though Dana? too dug reproachful fingers into her brother’s lace. “Spain is not our enemy.”
“No, but dynastic troubles are. If Perry really meant well by His Majesty, he’d get his claws out of the Crown Prince. Do you know how many nights this month Leonor Valentín has—”
The crier’s voice rose once again. “His Imperial Majesty Cornel MASON, Princeps Senatus, Pater Patriae, Praeses Maximus, Dictator Perpetuus Imperatorque Masonicus, and Madame D’Arouet.”
The hostess entered on the Emperor’s arm, the breadth of her skirts keeping him at a civil distance. MASON always seems grim at Madame’s, his suit of imperial gray transformed from grave to ominous as military flaps and cording replace the plain Masonic cut. Today the darkness spread to Madame as well, the salmon damask of her gown trimmed with festoons of black lace, as when a state funeral fills a mourning city with its trappings.
“Dearest friends,” Madame began, her chilling portrait face offering its perfect portrait smile. “You are, you know, my dearest friends in the world. I cannot say how much it means to me to have you all gathered around me like this. I like to think this little world I have created enables communication which would otherwise be segregated by the walls that protocol erects between us. Here you are friends, not governments. You can speak honestly, care, cooperate, help each other as friends should, with patience and compassion instead of laws and faceless treaties. I hope to see you all remain friends tonight, setting aside personal allegiance and vendetta to help each other weather these grave days.”
“Madame!” Kosala cried, red-faced. “You shouldn’t share other people’s secrets with the company without asking them. I don’t want—”
Madame shushed the Cousin Chair with an open palm. “I was not speaking of your situation, Bryar. We are all of us, I think, aware that something is threatening the Cousins. We love you, Bryar. Not just Déguisé, we all love you, and owe you and your Cousins an incalculable debt for your help and charity and most humane activities around the world. You know you have but to ask for help for it to be yours, and the time for that will come soon. But, for the moment, I was not speaking of your trouble, but of something graver.” Her eyes turned on the Outsider with a glistening and fragile sympathy. “I am sorry, Prime Minister, to load crisis upon you on your first visit. This should have been a time for you to enjoy the warmth of friendship, not to see it tested right away.”
Perry nodded stiffly, his nub of ponytail hissing against his velvet collar like a drummer’s brush. “It is all right, Madame. I did not join this company for the company. Go on.”
Gratitude in tear form sparkled in the corners of her eyes. “There is no one in this room, our newcomer aside, who has not at some point employed my Son, not in the individual offices He serves for each of you, but as a polylaw. He investigates what no other can be trusted to investigate, and we rely on Him to settle in secret what is best kept secret. He has found an exception.”
“An exception in whose opinion, Madame?” Andō challenged. “Yours?”
She shook her head. “Yours. We all drafted the rules together of what crimes were too great to remain concealed even if exposure might harm the commonweal.” Madame’s throat quivered like a puppy’s as she swallowed hard. “Remember, friends, we are friends.”
“His Imperial Highness,” the crier called at last, “the Prince D’Arouet.”
Are you surprised the crier stops short, reader? That no encyclopedia of titles trails after Jehovah’s name? A list of His offices in every Hive would fill a paragraph, and with His full name and the styles bestowed by His pedigree the list would outstrip Mason’s and approach Spain’s. I think in early days it was Madame who chose not to remind each Power how many others laid claim to the Child, but it is now Jehovah’s preference; He is offended enough by the time it takes to move from one location to another, and cannot stand to lengthen the delay.
Jehovah entered smoothly, His suit pure black as always, black buttons, black lace, black striped minor’s sash, even the embroidered vine-work black on black and restful to the eye like shadow. “The illusion that the human race is capable of peace is over.”
Doubt and fear shot from eye to eye around the room like electricity; hyperbole does not come from His lips.
“What do you mean, Epicuro?” It was Spain who spoke first, Spain least shaken, perhaps because all the others had secrets enough to fear that He referred to theirs.
“For two hundred and forty-four years peace between the Hives has been maintained by the Humanists and Mitsubishi, by employing the Saneer-Weeksbooth transportation network as an assassination system.” He did not look at anyone, nor raise His voice as He spoke the revelation flatly. “Europe joined the conspiracy one hundred and twenty years ago. The victims total two thousand, two hundred and four. Your long supposed peace is made of murder. The Seven-Ten list theft was engineered to lead us to this truth.”
How fiercely all in the room wished they could imagine that Jehovah would joke.
“What is this, Jed?” Kosala asked first, mumbling like one not fully wakened from a dream. “An assassination system? You mean criminals inside the Hives are—”
“The Hives themselves. Their leaders.” Still He looked at no one, but His gaze seemed to accuse the air itself, and the defective race that breathed it.
“Whom have they been killing?” Caesar asked.
Jehovah turned slow eyes upon his Imperial father. “Human beings.”
“Why?”
“World stability.”
“You have proof?”
“Yes.”