A Mere Formality Read online

  He took the card from the reader and offered it to her, but she closed his fist about it. “It belongs to you.”

  Before he could say anything else, she shook her head. “I understand, Lord Nagrad. I truly do.”

  “I suppose you despise me.”

  “No. I admire you.” She walked away so he wouldn’t see her face.

  Chapter 8

  The evening brought a cup of fragrant tea and a knock on Deirdre’s door. “Come in,” she yelled, wishing with all her being the visitor would go away. Nina Carrest entered the room. Dressed into a soft robe that looked like it had been slept in, her hair pulled back from her face in a hastily made pony tail, Nina looked radiantly beautiful.

  It was simply not fair that a woman should do absolutely nothing and look this good.

  “I’m not sure why I’m here.” Nina shifted uncomfortably.

  “Please come in.”

  They sat on the soft circular couch and drank tea together. “I feel responsible.” Nina rubbed her left temple. “I don’t want you to think that I came here because I feel guilty and I want you to tell me it will be fine and it’s not my fault. I just it should’ve been me.”

  “It would’ve been me anyway.” Deirdre sat her teacup back onto the table. “The Reigh had hacked the Orbital’s database. I’m apparently the only one who didn’t know this. Robert fed them my research on purpose. Lord Nagrad very much wanted to meet me. He would’ve found an occasion to do so, one way or the other.”

  “Still, I fed his father that appetizer.”

  Deirdre offered her a smile. “I wouldn’t worry about that. The old Lord Nagrad didn’t die from an allergic attack. He was terminally ill and had taken poison so his son would have pretext to ask the Empire for the monetary compensation. His son was right there among the guards. He watched him die.”

  Nina paled. “That’s monstrously cold bloodied.”

  Deirdre sighed. Some things were harder to explain than others. She pulled her portable to her. A small part of her rebelled against interfacing this late. She had wanted the evening to last, to drink her tea, and enjoy the few minutes of comfort, to work on herself by being still. But the need to explain nagged her into dipping her hand into the liquid metal. She watched it creep up to mid-palm no need for more and waited until the sensation of stretching subsided enough to speak.

  “The first colonists to have settled on some of the Reigh worlds pre-Second Empire were the Sureks. The word ‘lahiko’, the Reigh’s substitution for “clan”, is thought to have been a corruption of Surek Luh-iko, meaning literally ‘branch.’ However, if you ask a Reigh to pronounce it, he will say, ‘Lehgio.’ An almost perfectly preserved, true Latin pronunciation of legion.”

  Deirdre played with the interface and it projected a small map of the Reigh territory. “During the Melasyan conflict, a large part of Melasyus’s army broke off, upset by his failure to secure peace. At this point they had been unpaid for over five standard years. They hadn’t seen their families. Most of them didn’t have families since the Planars had wiped planet after planet with their toxins. They’d had enough and they took their ships and left. Seven legions.”

  She highlighted the home worlds of the seven branches of the Reigh one by one. “They were hardened veterans, disciplined, supreme warriors, whom Melasyus strove to make into ‘New Romans’. All they wanted was peace.”

  Nina’s gaze was fixed on the map. She refilled their cups without looking.

  “They came here?”

  “I think so. There are more factors in play here than just a single word. For example, these branches on Nagrad’s standard. If we take off the leaves” she called up a standard and swiped the abundance of stylized leaves from the branches.” and we have the Roman numeral XXVI. The twenty-fourth legion. And so on. My theory is that the legionnaires put as much distance as they could between themselves and Melasyus’ ambitions and settled here, mixing with native Surek population. Thirty years ago they were found. Only eight generations since they had left. They are paranoid, extremely martially proficient, and ruled by a doctrine of personal discipline and distrust of outsiders.”

  “I see.”

  “The legionnaires had stripped several worlds before they perpetrated their escape. Their descendants stretched those supplies for a long time,” Deirdre continued. “But they lacked the expertise to really build an industrial base. I’ve pulled the logs of their known purchases and ran a projection analysis. They are adept at keeping the fleet and armaments going, but they are rapidly depleting their supplies. Chances are they don’t have access to tech developed in the last two hundred years. Also the fact that Lord Nagrad hadn’t undergone a genetic screening leads me to believe they’re running out of medical equipment. They need vaccines. They need production facilities. They need new tech, but they don’t have an overabundance of natural resources nor do they have access to some unique goods. They can’t make their money in trade. In fact, the only resource they can export is themselves they are superior warriors. Unfortunately their doctrine forbids them to do exactly that. They must fight for a cause. If this continues…”

  “They will be overrun by the Vunta,” Nina said.

  Deirdre nodded and shrugged the interface from her hand. “They must find a way to obtain financial resources without breaking the foundation of their society. Or they must give up being who they are. Lord Nagrad came up with a short-term fix. I believe his solution cost his son a great deal of pain.”

  Nina looked at her. “Tell me about him.”

  Deirdre thought about it. “Very smart. He has very light eyes, grey with a little bit of green. He’s tall. He bends slightly toward you when he speaks. He has large hands and almost never gesticulates. When you speak to him, you get a sense that if he hates you, he’d kill you in a second, but if he likes you, he would do all he could to keep you from harm. It’s a curious feeling.”

  Nina was smiling.

  “Did I say something funny?”

  “Not at all. Will you really marry him?”

  That was a question she had successfully avoided asking herself for two days now. “I don’t see how I have any choice in the matter. If I didn’t have to marry him, I would’ve requested an extension anyway. The research material I had compiled here is my best work. I want to know more about them. Looks like I’ll get to, just not in a way I had planned.”

  The comscreen behind her erupted in a series of beeps and almost immediately somebody hammered on her door. She ordered it open, and Robert burst into the room.

  “Get dressed! The Vunta overbid us!’ “What?”

  “The Vunta just offered Nagrad the thirty billion he wanted in a Brotherhood Pact. He gets exclusive rights to raiding on the fourth world of the Colchida Cluster. We must bid higher, but I have to get approval before I can commit. It will take the com launch at least twenty eight standard hours to reach us with the answer. We must stall until the Treasury approves the expense. We have eight hours until the sun rises to come up with a plan.”

  Deirdre crossed her arms on her chest. “What do you mean stall?”

  “He’ll want this matter concluded now, before the Vunta back off, but he can’t just back out of the marriage, so he’ll demand a higher amount and when we fail to deliver, he will claim to be gravely insulted.”

  “She could pretend to be sick,” Nina said.

  “No, then he’ll claim we’re insulting him by withholding her. It has to be something else, something he can’t weasel out of.”

  An idea snapped together. So simple and so ironic. Deirdre smiled. “Robert?”

  “What?”

  “How much smut do we have in our databanks?”

  Chapter 9

  “I feel dirty.” Fatima laid her head back. “I don’t think I can take anymore.”

  “Found another one,” Michel Rashvili announced. “The man on the back, legs bent, the woman holds his hands on the sides and squats onto his…”

  “The amazon,” Deirdre
and Nina said at the same time.

  “Did that one,” Robert said.

  “I thought the amazon was the one in a chair.” Michel yawned.

  “No, that’s side-saddle.” Nina yawned too.

  “Has anyone actually done the amazon? I mean like in real life?” Michel wondered.

  “I have.” Duke of Rodkil yawned. “It’s overrated.”

  Deirdre blinked her eyes, trying to stay awake. Whatever embarrassment she had possessed had fled hours ago.

  Robert surveyed the room strewn in pornography sheets and sex toys. “It looks like we had an orgy.” He stifled a yawn, gave up and yawned. “Now look what you’re started, Rashvili. Don’t you know yawning is contagious? We all need a nap.”

  Nina put her head down and snored.

  “Highly appropriate post-orgy, I would say,” His Grace murmured.

  The comscreen flared and the face of the chief of security came into the view. Nina jerked awake.

  “We have contact with the Reigh. They want the bride and they want her now.” Timur squinted. “What exactly have you all been doing?”

  Chapter 10

  The booster shot coursed through Deirdre’s veins, spreading a slightly cool sensation all the way from her toes to her scalp. She felt light as a feather. Twelve hour from now she would pay the price by passing out, but for now she felt fantastic.

  The elation evaporated when she entered the meeting room. The Reigh guard had been doubled. Nagrad’s face promised a storm.

  “Are you prepared to accept my terms?”

  The question wasn’t aimed at her, but the harsh tone lanced her anyway.

  “Of course, Lord Nagrad,” Jason smoothly said.

  “Thirty billion?” The disbelief was plain on Nagrad’s face.

  “Indeed. However, before the moneys and the lady can exchange hands, there is a small matter that requires your attention. A mere formality.”

  “What matter?”

  The Duke smiled. “In accordance with the formal union contract, the bride requests a full accounting of her duties.”

  “I’ve delivered the full accounting during our first meeting.”

  Not even a single glance in her direction. I am just an animal to be sold and bought.

  “Yes, but the accounting states, and I quote, ‘…and to not shun the husband’s request in the bedroom, lest she sabotage the begetting of an heir.’ This fails to specify the exact nature of your attentions.”

  “This was also covered in our first meeting.”

  “But my lord,” she said, keeping her voice as sweet as she could. “That was but a very small part. The subject must be explored fully before I commit to you. I have a right to know what is required of me.”

  “We’ve taken the liberty of preparing a short list of all ‘duties’ known to the bride.” With elegance of a dancer, Jason slid the reader card onto the table. “All that remains is for us to examine each entry and to determine whether or not it will enter into accounting. Should you require anything beyond what is detailed here, we will do our best to incorporate it into our list.”

  Nagrad slid the card into his reader. It took him a good minute to scroll to the end of the list. His eyes blazed. “How many entries are here?”

  “Five hundred and forty five.” The Duke’s voice couldn’t have been sweeter.

  “I request all of them,” Nagrad said.

  “In accordance to entry two hundred and three, will you then submit to having a cast of your anal canal so the dildo employed to penetrate your anus can be made to perfect proportions?”

  The Reigh bodyguards froze.

  Nagrad read the entry. “I won’t be requesting that one.”

  Deirdre leaned forward. “With all due respect, my lord, I insist you review each one to avoid such misunderstandings.”

  He finally turned to her. “I refuse to submit to this idiocy. The list could take days to review.”

  “It’s my right under the law. You must review the list with the witnesses present. You have made an offer of a formal commitment. It cannot be withdrawn lightly.”

  She could almost hear him grinding his teeth. “You are not a Reigh. You have no rights.”

  “Yes, I do. You gave them to me when you delivered the statement of full accounting of my duties and requested a dowry. You have followed the law up to this point as if I was a Reigh bride. Does the doctrine exist only until it suits you, my Lord?”

  For a moment she thought he’d reach across the table and strangle her. Instead he sat back. His face relaxed it must’ve taken a monumental effort of will on his part and the Reigh lord picked up the reader. “Very well. The first section is titled ‘Terms and Devices’. I believe we can skip that one.”

  “Would my lord care to define the term anal plug?” Deirdre asked. “How about the difference between the soft and a hard one?”

  If his eyes could shoot lightning, she would’ve been fried on the spot.

  “Very well then.” His Grace announced with a placating smile. “Term number one: penis. Also known as dick, cock, Johnson, lance, sword, thruster, little soldier.”

  Deirdre leaned toward. “You may want to call for some refreshments, my lord. It will be a very long day.”

  Four hours later Nagrad tossed his reader onto the table. “I need some fresh air.”

  He strode onto the balcony. Deirdre rose, stretching, and went outside also.

  The second she stepped out of the room, Nagrad took her by the elbow. “Come with me, my Lady.”

  His touch on her arm was very light, yet she knew with absolute certainty she couldn’t get away. He led her to the farthest point of the balcony out of the ear shot of the bodyguards within the room. “It’s you,” he said. “I know it’s you. You came up with this farce.”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “You were gloating in every second of it. Why are you doing this?”

  “I simply want to know what’s required of me.”

  He turned away from her, plainly trying to keep control of himself. “This matter could be settled later. It’s of no consequence.”

  “It’s of a great consequence to me. You opened the door, all I had to do was walk through it.”

  “I opened the door?” he snarled.

  “Temper, temper, my Lord. I’m sure your guards would rush to my rescue if you were to choke me. Patience is a virtue.”

  He stared at her. “God preserve the man who makes an enemy of you.” He turned on his heel and stalked off.

  Deirdre sighed and went back to the room. As she slumped into her chair, His Grace leaned to her. “How did it go?”

  “My future husband hates me with a passion of a thousand stars,” she said.

  The Duke gently patted her hand. “We’ll get through this.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Chapter 11

  “Entry number three hundred and twelve: Multiple partners.” The Duke droned on.

  Deirdre put her head onto her hands. Post-booster cooldown required at least twelve hours of sleep. She barely got eight before the Reigh demanded her presence. Her head hurt. Her ears were filled with something soft and mushy. Across the table Nagrad looked exhausted. The two Reigh witnesses, picked by him from the bodyguard, didn’t look much better.

  “Subsection A. Two male partners and one female partner.”

  “Pass,” Nagrad called. There were deep bags under his eyes.

  “Let it be known that Lord Nagrad abandons all claim to the act described in entry number three hundred and twelve, subsection A and all the subsequent positions described or listed under subsection A.”

  “So noted,” the witnesses intoned.

  Everyone made the appropriate notations in their copy of the list.

  “Subsection B: Two female partners and one male partner.” The Duke waited for a moment, but Nagrad appeared absorbed in his reader.

  “Position one: the male partner assumes horizontal position with his back to the
surface. The first female partner kneels.”

  Deirdre rolled her eyes. Just pass now, you know you can’t take it in front of the witnesses. Nagrad listened to the description with the look of somber concentration. “Pass,” he said finally.

  “Let it be known that Lord Nagrad abandons all claim to the act described in entry number three hundred and twelve, subsection A, position one.”