It had to be asked, but all eyes, even Faust’s, flinched slightly in the silence before Jehovah’s slow and lifeless answer. “You are all murderers,” He pronounced, “you and your whole world. We had thought that, if humanity left the trees far enough behind, you could leave the war of all against all with them. We were wrong.”
I sobbed here. So did Caesar, once, the sob stifled stillborn in his throat like a too-hard swallow. He saw it too, I think, the specter of Apollo stirring in Jehovah’s words like a harmonic, played by no one but rising unbidden from the perfection of a chord. We will never be free of you, will we, Apollo? We had not heard these words since Death and I extinguished what we thought was the vital part of you, yet here we hear your voice again, the stronger since it rises from His lips. I choked.
MASON was stronger. “Mycroft, is Ganymede a murderer?”
Stares tortured me for three long seconds. “Yes, Caesar. Yes, he is.” Should I not have answered him? I have thought long about it. By law I must answer the Emperor, but it is by choice that we obey or break the law. It is not as if I think the Duke’s guilt would not have come out had I stayed silent. But the choice won me another enemy. Until that moment, Ganymede had thought all the Powers were equally my master, Caesar no more than he, all second to Jehovah. Now he knew otherwise. The Duke does not forgive in general, and certainly not me.
“Would you like a copy of the list, Princesse?”
Martin and Dominic had not brought a copy for the lady, but an aide had followed them in, sliding quietly around the back in a monk’s habit much like mine, dull as dust against the gold. Smiling her silent thanks, Dana? reached for the list, then screamed like a rabbit ripped in twain by hounds hot in the hunt, and slipped into that kind of lifeless faint which made Homer call Sleep and Death twin brothers.
“Dana?!” Husband and brother cried her name together, but Ganymede’s scream tasted of a special panic, as a conjoined twin might scream seeing his other half die first, knowing that he will follow.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” The aide’s hood fell back to reveal a red and seething face. “Dana? is my mother.”
“Carlyle Foster!”
I barely had time to throw myself between the Duke and sensayer before Ganymede seized a dagger-long pin from Dana?’s golden hair and lunged. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed. “Parasite! You stay away from my sister! Away!” The steely needle inched close to my throat, while the Duke’s other hand raked me with fingers fierce as talons—better me than Carlyle. “You planned all of this, didn’t you!”
I seized the Duke’s wrists, sleek as ivory, and forced him back until Andō could grasp him from behind.
“Ganymede, control yourself!” Andō ordered. “The child didn’t plot this, they know nothing.”
The Duke strained against our grips, his gold mane bright as fire against Andō’s black. “Get that creature out of here!” he ordered. “And I want whoever let it in here flogged! No, bring the one responsible to me, I’ll do it with my own hands!”
Lounging against the shelves of toys and Plato in Jehovah’s corner, Dominic could not entirely suppress a smile.
“Carlyle, come with me.” Kosala reached for the sensayer’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Don’t tell me I shouldn’t be here, Chair Kosala!” Carlyle slapped Kosala’s hand away like an intruding insect. “I’m the one who gave Papadelias the evidence to expose this whole conspiracy. I’m the one who was almost killed last night by Thisbe Saneer trying to cover it up. I’m the one all of you have been trying so hard to keep in the dark, even you! When we met here before you told me you were just here as an outside inspector.” Carlyle’s hot eyes ranged her tight-corseted bodice, custom made. “You lied.”
Bryar had a few inches on Carlyle and used them, glaring down with the stern authority of Teacher, Queen, and Mom combined. “It’s my job to protect you, and yours to listen to me. I wish you had.”
Carlyle’s throat convulsed. “I was happy as a Gag-gene. I didn’t want to know. But I was trying to save you and the CFB. This is the price I paid.” Carlyle winced, feeling tears leak. “You can’t leave me with half the truth. I was born here, wasn’t I? I’m part of this … I won’t call it a bash’.”
Kosala swallowed hard. “Please wait outside for me. I’ll come as soon as I can, but we have more important things to—”
“No,” MASON judged, “we don’t.”
Bryar’s frown looked hurt. “Cornel…”
A true modern like you, rational reader, would not perhaps allow such melodrama to distract you from Earth’s crisis, but decades at Madame’s have taught even Caesar to think in terms of sentiment and honor. “Foster may be a Cousin, Bryar, but that doesn’t make this your decision. I am the Praeses Maximus. I guard the list of Gag-genes in the Sanctum Sanctorum, and if anyone had told me Carlyle Foster had set foot in this house, I would have summoned them at once to warn them of the danger. It’s too late now.” He stepped a short pace toward Kosala, his limp as bad as I had ever seen. “Foster is in pain, Bryar, the greatest pain they’ve ever experienced.” He glanced at his Good Son, the Source of this strict kindness. “Nothing else is urgent enough to justify extending that.”
Kosala hesitated. “I know, Cornel, I just … not here in front of everyone.”
“Why not?” Carlyle’s eyes shot from Power to Power, these distant faces, seen so many times on screens. “Why not in front of everyone? I get the feeling I’m the only person in this room who doesn’t know.”
I did not know, but did not contradict.
“What do you know already?” Caesar asked. I knew this voice of his, a special tone reserved for courtrooms, where office makes MASON play the cruel judge, while in another chair he might be merciful.
Carlyle looked to the princess curled on the couch, tresses leaking from her fallen hair like molten sun. “Dana? is my mother. Is anyone going to deny that?”
All saw the sheen of gold too strong for the brown tints of Carlyle’s hair to overwhelm, and stayed silent.
“And my father was some rival of Director Andō’s for Dana?’s hand, yes?” Carlyle continued, each word aimed at Ganymede like a dagger. “Some other young politician Madame was trying to corrupt? But there was some deal made between Director Andō and President Ganymede.” Even in rage, the good-hearted Cousin would not drop their titles of respect. “The two of you used the Saneer-Weeksbooth assassination system to eliminate my father, didn’t you?”
Ganymede laughed, as if to remind the company that a Duke is above spitting. “Don’t be absurd. Andō was not yet a Director then, and I had never set foot outside this house. How could we use a system we had not even heard of? Merion Kraye was a villain and a coward and I needed no assassin to deal with a worm who would not even face me in an honorable duel!”
Director Andō half released the Duke, as if testing to see if his haughty calm was real or feigned. “Merion Kraye was, as you say, Foster, a politician,” Andō confirmed, “a young European, and a client of Madame’s, on the middle level. They sought Dana?’s hand but, realizing I was the stronger suitor, they … disgraced her.”
“You mean they raped her?” Carlyle translated.
“No.” MASON’s bronze face set statue-hard, but other faces in the chamber seemed unsure.
Carlyle scowled. “Isn’t that what ‘disgraced’ means in your crazy ancient prejudice?”