Joniel looked down. “I am very proud. I do not deserve her. Prince Anathorn is going to ask for Aliniel, Arla is going to take the Rite of the Warrior. Prince Anathorn has gone to speak with Aliniel to ask her views.”

  His mother smiled. “Well you got something right then. I admire the Prince’s courage for doing that and if she agrees I admire his wisdom more. They will be a good match. Well if any of us survive this I will be very surprised but if we don’t I’d be very disappointed. I must now go to change and wash, I appear to have spilled something on my dress. I am sure you will make her more comfortable. Her wound will be healed by tonight. Take more care of her next time. You have lived here long enough to know that nowhere is safe.”

  Joniel looked worried. “Arla was treated in the infirmary. Do you think she will be alright?”

  His mother laughed. “Yes, and you have a dead doctor to prove it. As she was in the infirmary I had one of my nurses there keeping an eye on her. It seems that one of the doctors was a little too enthusiastic with one of his doses and to show him the error of his ways she permitted him to experience it himself. Didn’t you wonder why it took Kyla such a long time to heal such a minor wound? I had assumed she was in your care so I didn’t have to worry about such matters. Really my son, sometimes you can be so dim. But thankfully most of the time I am immensely proud of you.”

  Joniel looked at his feet. “No, well yes. I’ve been too distracted by other matters. I thought she was alright.”

  His mother was washing the blood of her face and neck but she stopped and glared at him, walked over to him and slapped him across the face. “Never abandon your duties to your wife and your family. They must come first. You nearly lost your love tonight because of your own foolishness. Don’t let it happen again. Don’t expect her to know or be as cautious as you should be, or your daughters either. This is not their world. They need you to protect them, to see these things coming. You are punishing yourself, now you have been punished as no doubt that hurt. So get over it and concentrate. This is no place to be off in the clouds. We all make mistakes, it is how we learn from them that is important, you know that.”

  Kyla woke up and looked around the room at the blood on the sheets and walls. “What happened?”

  Joniel’s mother sat on the bed beside her daughter in law. “Don’t worry my child. It was only an assassination attempt, nothing out of the ordinary.” She stroked Kyla’s hair. “Your back will heal up by tonight and we will have a beautiful dress for you to wear.” She turned out of Kyla’s sight and glared at her son. “I must go now. Joniel will take care of you. Joniel, get someone to change those sheets, they are dirty.” She stood up and walked gracefully out of the room.

  Anathorn passed her in the corridor and was slightly shocked to see the blood on her dress, face and hands. She curtseyed gracefully as she passed him. He couldn’t help admiring her beauty or her cleavage. She noticed him looking and glared at him. As she passed him she smiled to herself though. He entered the private rooms and was about to shut the door when two men in velvet court livery walked up the corridor carrying replacement doors for Joniel and Kyla’s bedroom. It took them minutes to repair the damage and they left without a word.

  Joniel was sitting in a high backed leather chair. The doors to the room were left open and he was watching Kyla sleeping. The Prince stopped when he saw him. “What’s the matter? You look deathly pale. Well more pale than you usually do.”

  Joniel shook his head. “I was a fool and I nearly lost her.”

  The Prince looked stunned. “What do you mean?”

  Joniel buried his head in his hands. “Her bandages were poisoned. We nearly lost her.”

  Anathorn stepped back in horror. “But this is your home.”

  Joniel looked up at him. “This is what we are like. Why do you think I let my daughters grow up away from here? Take my daughter away with you and keep her far from this place. Don’t let Aliniel be a part of all this. I’m regretting bringing Kyla back here. I wish we could just leave now.”

  The Prince looked stunned. “Not in the morning?”

  Joniel wiped his face. “Do you seriously want to spend a night in this place when my family and the court are still here? Do you have a death wish? Trouble is that we’re stuck here until the Ball. I was going to ask you to set up a reason to go. Perhaps to get us called out of the ball after we have done the presentation of the girls. I had this idea that you could take Aliniel with you, take her as your own and we’d sort out the technicalities afterwards. Oh if you could get the girls out tonight.”

  Anathorn looked stunned. “You think there is a possibility you might get killed in your own home?”

  Joniel raised an eyebrow. “With my family and the court here, very likely.”

  The sleepless night passed without incident. Joniel was exhausted and he couldn’t think straight. He needed to watch Kyla all night just to make sure that she was alright. That and his head being running with the many and convoluted possibilities and possible political goings on that could be happening. He didn’t’ know where to start, for the first time in his life, he couldn’t think of a plan as nobody had shown their hand. If there was anything going on, he didn’t know what. All he could think of was that it may well involve his mother and with a mother and two daughters unattached as well as Kyla now publicly claimed by him officially, he was in a very difficult position. Plenty of people wanted his position and his fleet. Plenty were just waiting for him to make that big mistake.

  That was it! That was his answer. If he could convince his enemies that they would get what they wanted by doing what he wanted now, that would be the trick. It made sense in a moment. He was going off to fight with the True Prince and to many that would seem like a suicide mission. Eventually someone would kill him and then they would have all that they wanted. If they believed that then they may let him go away in peace. It was his mother who was the problem, she was an issue that he had to address. She wasn’t going to like it but he had to arrange for her to be bonded with someone. It had been enough years since his father had died, it was time that she was no longer alone. But, who would he accept as a father. That took even more thought.

  Who was a likely candidate? It couldn’t be anyone with political motivation as his potential new father would have greater status than himself after the bonding. So it would have to be someone who would sympathise with his views and the way he ran his flagship. Granted, the flagship and fleet would still be his, but it was the other power he wanted to hold onto. The ability to speak directly to the High King, something he would have to do sooner rather than later.

  It was a pressing problem and one he couldn’t easily solve. His mother was headstrong, beautiful and a prize that many in the enclave would dearly want. That wasn’t a son’s pride, it was his assessment as a political player. He didn’t want to use his mother as a pawn and he wouldn’t but he certainly wasn’t going to let anyone else do so either.

  So he had to think, who would actually love his mother. He almost laughed. A creature like him, a political player trying to think about who would love his mother. The answer then came to him. There was only one person he could think of who had loved his mother truly through all the years, even when she was married to his father. It hadn’t been a romantic love but it had been a caring love that had brought them together on many an occasion sorting out the many difficulties that the families had faced.

  He slipped out of bed, slipping on his silky satin robe and went to his writing desk. He lit a candle, the flame flickered slightly and then stood tall and true, illuminating a bubble of brilliance as Joniel reached into the wooden drawer. He pulled out a piece of vellum, gold in colour and edged with gold leaf. The spiralling knotwork that framed the sheet shone slightly, reflecting the candle light. He pulled a quill from the pot where they stood. He opened the ink bottle with his immaculately manicured fingers and set the lid down beside the bottle. He took the quill and dipped it thoughtfully into the ink, feeling the slight resistance as the quill pierced the skin of the ink. He felt the resistance of the ink as he swirled it around slightly, picking up the red pigment and he brought it slowly out of the bottle, still thinking. He dragged it slightly on the lip, allowing the excess ink to run back down into the bottle and held it for a moment, that one last thought before he began writing.

  The quill nib scratched over the vellum leaving an elegant spider like string of words in its wake. Words that would make or break him but words that he knew he had to write.

  When done he rolled the vellum, folded it flat and folded in the edges to meet in the middle so it was impossible to read what was inside without opening it. He then took a stub of wax with a wick down the centre and held it into the candle flame so that the wick burned on its own. He held it so the wax dripped copiously onto the join in the vellum and sealed it with his signet ring. The deed was part done. He flicked open a communicator and pressed a blue button. He placed the message into a bag, sealed that with a mechanical device, set the combination and time before liberally covered the bag with contact poison.

  The messenger knocked gently at the door and Joniel handed the message in a bag to him, holding just the string. The messenger took the bag as he knew he must, knowing that it had the poison on it. He then ran as fast as he could to deliver the message before the poison killed him. Joniel sent a message to the recipient with the number for the poison that he had used, knowing that the messenger would be given the antidote when he safely delivered the message within the time frame Joniel had given him and knowing that only the recipient could open the message as the code to disarm the device was also sent with the message.

  Joniel still couldn’t sleep and it was now made worse as he was worried he’d done the right thing. There were other decisions to make and other political moves he could, would and should make. It was sorting out which were the right ones from the ones that would lead him into difficulties that was difficult. That he wouldn’t be here made it doubly hard. He knew that Jaz could run the ship but he didn’t want to leave him in a vulnerable position either. Every decision had to be well thought out and there wasn’t anyone he could talk it over with. He didn’t want to trouble Kyla with it and much as he loved her there was no way she could comprehend many hundreds of years of inbuilt hatred and the way some of the people even in his own family worked. No, this was something he had to work out alone. Or perhaps he didn’t have to do it completely alone.

  He flicked the intercom and pressed the button programmed to call his mother. If she was sleeping it would be on message, if not he’d get straight through. He got straight through.

  “Joniel, why are you not asleep?”

  Joniel hesitated for a moment. “I can’t sleep. There is too much to think about. Can we speak?”

  The line went dead and a few minutes later there was a gentle tap on the door. He opened it and his mother was standing there, dressed in a long black velvet dressing gown with ruffles around the neck as elegant as any ball gown. Her hair was immaculately brushed and her make up perfect. She drifted in and Joniel offered her a chair. He quietly closed the door to the bedroom, rendering it soundproofed so neither Kyla and as the door to his chamber was shut too, the Prince, could hear what they were saying.

  His mother took a seat and he offered him some of his Trilurian Brandy. She accepted the offered crystal glass, her long red nails making a slight “tink” noise on the fine glass. “So my son, what would we speak about at this hour?”

  Joniel sat down after pouring himself a glass. “I would speak about what I should do.”

  His mother raised an eyebrow. “So, after all these years you actually want my advice?”

  “Mother, these are dangerous times and you know far more about what is going on. You have the least to gain from my removal from the situation. We have a good marriage between myself and Kyla. Honestly, I didn’t plan it that way. We have a good marriage well on the way to being a likelihood between the Prince and Aliniel, may the gods help him. Arla, well that may be a union I arrange just to get some peace within those who are fighting for the worlds. Kel is a problem, he was in love with Kyla, if I can get him to fall in love with Arla, that will remove a potential threat I obviously have there. There are my cards on the table.

  You have a problem here with the etiquette of having to take a husband. The choice there has to be yours but it is an issue. My brother is a threat and that has already been dealt with by my earlier marriage to Kyla.”

  “My son, I have informed your grandmother and those who need to know. They are keeping the information to themselves as by our tradition as you know it can only be announced at a public function. We are bringing the Ball forward to tomorrow night, that will allow you time to finalise your moves and get your friends to safety. I suggest you leave either at the Ball or very soon afterwards. If I may remain here I will add my flagship and fleet to yours. That will alleviate any threat from those present as between us we outnumber any fleet they can put against us. I will take a new mate, I just don’t know who yet.

  Your daughter Tagathian is becoming a player as well. I would watch her if I were you. She is not on board at the moment as she and her husband are visiting. I know where she said she was going, but she certainly didn’t go there as I have people there and they have informed me otherwise. She is yet to provide an heir to her lineage and I think that she tires of her husband. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has some sort of accident on their travels and she returns without him. She may have another lover in the wings. Those I have watching her have told me that Sessarius, of the Family Heliosath, has been paying her a fair amount of attention. It will do her no good, the Elders will not grant her a marriage to him, I have already assured that. It is a situation you will have to deal with as her husband is very popular. You have a choice, you can let it play out, and it may well have done so already. Or you can deal with her and maintain her husband within the family. I do not have the resources currently to undertake this and as she is your daughter you have the final say on the matter.”

  Joniel thought for a moment. The image of his fiery and feisty daughter flickered into his mind. He remembered when she was born and how she had been a real torment to her mother as a child. He took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. “She is my daughter and so far other than having an affair we are not certain that she will cause him harm. I would rather avoid the difficulties of his removal under suspicious circumstances and the possible implication of my daughter. She is a vicious player as you may have realised but she is not a rational one. She would not play her aces carefully and you are probably right, she will arrange an accident for him which will be blindingly obvious to all who know. She will count on the family name keeping her from harm and probably she is also relying on my intercession to ensure her second marriage. We have nothing to gain from this and much to lose. I will not have her removed, she has a lot to learn. I will summon her back to the family and I trust that in your capable hands she will have a stunning revelation and a renewed passion for her husband. In short I will call her back to the family and hold back the money that I give her for her support until she has spent some time with you. When you assure me that the situation has been diffused I will reinstate her finances and ensure that they are dependent on the longevity and good health of her husband.”

  Joniel flipped open his communication device, opened a channel to one of his ships and immediately its engines flared and it departed for his daughter’s last known location bearing the message that it was commanded to deliver.

  Joniel sat back in his chair. “That is one matter on its way to being dealt with.”

  Joniel’s mother smiled and took a delicate sip of the warming amber liquid. “You have done well. Your restraint is a valuable asset. May I suggest that you address the Commanders in your fleet and the hierarchical problem that seems to have arisen? There is no order of superiority in your fleet and it seems that your Commanders seem intent on creating their own. It is leading to a certain competitiveness in all walks of life and a few of them have started political manoeuvers in order to see other Commanders removed. I know that you like to reward or punish as events happen but in this situation I am speaking from experience. I had a similar problem with my Commanders a while back.”

  Joniel smiled. It had been something he had thought about. “What did you do to alleviate this situation?”

  His mother smiled and looked into the amber liquid. “I created a ranking system between them which they could climb as they achieved points and I made sure that there were many points lost for losing anyone in the fleet. They suddenly became very respectful and protective of their fellow Commanders.”

  Joniel took a drink from his glass and thought a moment. “That system I like and as it already has a precedent I will establish it. I am also going to give Jaz official command of this flagship while I’m away with full inheritance rights. I could be wrong but I think he is the least likely to remove me to make that situation permanent as he’s been doing the job long enough.”

  His mother looked thoughtful. “Jaz is a political player and if he gets what he wants by your continued wellbeing he is more than likely to be content with that situation. He has made various moves which have given him his own power within the fleet. This has been through many avenues that you may not have considered. He has been loaning finances to some of those who have gambling problems and picking up their debts from others. He owns a small proportion of my fleet that way. I’m doing nothing about it as it is keeping my troops from trouble but I know in a crisis he could call in those debts and I might find myself in difficulties. I would assume that the same situation is true with other families’ fleets as well but I have no evidence to back this up. If he is assured of his position here and controls them then you will have a good foothold in other families’ fleets as well.”

 

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