“That is a good solution…” The blushing mother smiled slightly, her fingernails playing across the creases of the Emperor’s palm. “I know the depths of your affection for me, Caesar, but I can’t help wondering why you would give this gift so freely, if not to have my child in your power.”
MASON’s shoulders twitched, a gesture Faust claims was common in years closer to the harsh Masonic testing which robbed Cornel of his foot and younger self. “All that I have I will share with our child,” he answered, hollow-voiced. “You have less reason to attack what you can freely exploit. I ask no more.”
“But will you love him?”
MASON is hard to blindside. “Love?”
“You can’t expect me to trust my child to a father who will not love him. It wouldn’t be healthy, not to mention proper.” Madame laughed brightly as she placed her right hand palm over Caesar’s left against the hot skin of her belly. “Will you love him?”
A hush; as centuries are too rough a measure for the passing of an age, so seconds cannot track the tides of emotion which flowed across Caesar’s face, eroding away his masks of stone and iron and baring something human. “We both know I will have little choice.”
“In that case, Caesar, you have made me the happiest woman in the world.”
*
? Hilliard Wolfe? ?
? Confirmed dead at Parliament. ?
? Fisher Yilmaz? ?
? Confirmed dead at Parliament. ?
? Aster Zinc? ?
? Dead in their bedroom. ?
? This can’t be happening. ?
? Have we heard back about Peckory Ingrams yet? ?
? Dead in their home, Papadelias just confirmed it. Clubbed with a shovel. ?
? That’s it for the current Commissioners. What about the Justices? ?
? That’s no good, Perry called them into the session too. ?
? This can’t be happening. ?
? Did they all attend? ?
? We may as well go through them. Cooper Aubrey? ?
? Confirmed dead at Parliament. ?
? Sol De Léon? ?
? Confirmed dead at Parliament. ?
? Lindy Gaylord? ?
? This can’t be happening. ?
? Would you stop saying that! ? The others could only take it so many times without snapping. ? Get a grip, Czerwinski! You’re not helping! ?
Jay Czerwinski, personal assistant to the late Vice President of the European Economic and Social Committee, was, in fact, rocking forward and backward in her chair hugging her knees, an activity only minimally less helpful than those of many others in the office, who twitched and shuddered as they scanned videos of the still-flaming wreck of the European Parliament. On screens around them, lists of the dead and missing were too long to do anything but blur into one horrific alphabet. Seven others remained with Czerwinski: two speechwriters, the personal assistant to the Prime Minister’s Deputy Chief of Staff, a Deputy Counsel, two security guards, and the scheduling secretary for Tuesday through Thursday. The rest of the staff of Prime Minister Perry’s offices were dead with their master in the flames, had fled from the mobs, or were simply gone, empty cabinets and blank hard drives testifying to cold premeditation. Feeds replayed footage from Romanova: DeLupa, Kosala, Helo?se, ex-Censor-Anonymous Ancelet, their desperate faces positively cheerful contrasted with the ashen cheeks of these few who remained in Brussels’s inner sanctum. Wind batted a litter of papers across the office floor, and in and out through the shattered mouth of what had been (before the riot) a most charming window, ceiling-high with a magnificent view of the Parliamentary Hall, whose carcass still belched smoke into the sky.
? This is pointless. They’re all dead! All of them! ?
? Shut up! ? Courtesy was dead too. ? There are hundreds of people in the line of succession, we won’t know until we check them all. Lindy Gaylord? ?
? Confirmed dead at Parliament. ?
? They’re all dead! They were all at the session, and the ones who weren’t were murdered in their homes. It’s a conspiracy! It’s O.S.! ?
? It’s not O.S., idiot, O.S. is on our side. There must be something else we can do, an emergency protocol, somebody we’re supposed to call to summon special forces. ?
? I don’t know how. ?
? The security database was just deleted an hour ago, can we restore it? ?
? I don’t know how. ?
? Maybe there’s a hard copy in Perry’s desk. Can anyone unlock it? ?
? I don’t know how! ?
? The Director of the Registry of Gifts has a copy of the desk key; their extension should be listed in the purple book on the bookstand in the corner under the Picasso. Next call the Brugmann and Saint-Pierre Hospitals, they both have emergency teams trained in case something happens here, and call Professor Erasme Torbert Bordet at the VUB history department, they’ve retired now but they were the officer in charge of emergency forces when I was in office, they should still be able to get us started. ?
? Your Majesty! ?
A sun-bright angel, flaming sword and all, could not have brought more joy to the tear-streaked cheeks of these survivors than the King of Spain, who alighted straight from his car through the shattered window. Half his old staff followed shortly, some of his cabinet too, former Secretaries of State, Treasury, an ex-Justice, an ex-Auditor, and a pack of seasoned clerks, who found their old desks as comfortable as familiar horses.
? We thought we might be of some assistance. ? King Isabel Carlos II faced each volunteer in turn, not smiling but assessing them with solemn, grateful calm. ? Who is in charge here? ?
? Ge … eh … we … ? After a quick scan of her panicked fellows, the Deputy Counsel Marden Navarro settled on, ? We don’t know, ? but her silent eyes answered just as clearly, ? You are now, Your Majesty, ? perhaps adding, ? praise God. ?
Spain’s nod thanked her. ? Chair Kosala should arrive shortly with disaster relief. Meanwhile, we should forget the EU lines of succession and start to examine the lines of succession of the nation-strats to find substitutes to repopulate the Parliament and European Council, and arrange a broadcast to calm the press. Scaliger and De Vries ?—even Perry’s people he knew by name—? can you two help my former Press Secretary draft a statement? ?
? Of course, Your Majesty! ?
Further commands from Spain and Spain’s staff rained like healing dew upon the room. Panic turned to action as experienced hands plucked out folders and backup discs, not much changed from their arrangement of five years before.
“?Everyone’s dead, Your Majesty!” Navarro lapsed into Spanish with her King, as if that small comfort might soften the news. “?Even the ones who weren’t at Parliament? Council Members, MPs, and others. ?They’ve all been murdered!”
? I know. It was Merion Kraye. That is Casimir Perry. ? The King did not chide his subject, but would not let his royal title hijack any facet of that office: not its powers, not its titles, not its French. ? I received a message from Kraye just after the first missiles hit. It’s a prerecorded confession. I have already sent it on to Papadelias. Kraye intentionally gathered as many officials as they could at Parliament before the attack, and published the whereabouts of others on the net so mobs could find them if Kraye’s own agents failed. ?
? Then Kraye—Perry—planned the missiles! ?
? They expected an attack. We can’t be certain yet if they arranged the missiles or trusted public wrath to do so, but the rest of the deaths, those who weren’t lured to Parliament, those I’m sure they planned. ?