Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘Of course.’ Fulcher returned the smile, in the faintly condescending manner of someone who’s known from birth that they’ll always be the most important person in the room, and made vaguely introductory gestures in the space between us. ‘Milady Amberley Vail, a delightful transient from outsystem, the celebrated Commissar Ciaphas Cain, of whom we’ve heard so much.’

‘All of it greatly exaggerated, I’m sure,’ I said, accurately enough, and inclined my head in a formal greeting. That fitted the impression the governor had already formed of me, and I was frakked if I was going to caper about like a mummer in mystery play91 trying to copy the local customs.

‘No doubt,’ Amberley said, with a mischievous smile. She slipped an arm through the crook of my elbow, and began steering me away from the governor with firm but subtle pressure. ‘If you’ll excuse us?’ She turned her face back towards mine. ‘There’s someone I’m simply dying to introduce you to.’

‘Have fun,’ Fulcher said, with a faintly indulgent smile, and immediately began to converse with a group of local aristocrats who’d been hovering while we’d talked, no doubt loath to interrupt us – a few of the younger-looking women (although given the aristocratic fondness for juvenat treatments, that wasn’t necessarily the most reliable indication of their actual vintage) shooting resentful glances at Amberley’s back as we retreated.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, inflecting it casually in case we were overheard, but Amberley merely gave a barely visible shake of her head by way of reply.

‘Not here.’ She turned, apparently looking for someone, then nodded in quiet satisfaction at their evident absence. ‘One of the side rooms.’

‘Won’t the governor mind?’ I asked. She might have been on first-name terms with the fellow, but that didn’t necessarily mean she had the run of his palace.

‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,’ Amberley said, although in my experience it’s what you don’t know that does the most damage. She changed course a little to fetch up against the buffet table, and began to fill a plate. ‘Better stock up while you can. This could take some time.’

‘Should I get Kasteen and Broklaw over?’ I asked, raising a hand to tap the comm-bead in my ear, but Amberley shook her head.

‘Let them have their fun while they can,’ she said, adding a couple of palovine pastries to the heap of viands she’d already selected. ‘I’m not sure they’ll want to know about this anyway. You can fill them in afterwards if you disagree.’

‘Right.’ I nodded, even more convinced that I wasn’t going to enjoy the conversation we were about to have, even if the company could hardly have been more congenial. I began to fill a plate for myself, spooning up a large dollop of salma kedgeree, which I hemmed in with a slice of cottleston pie and a palovine pastry of my own. I hesitated over a platter of smoked meats, rejected them, and went instead for a slice of soft cheese which, in terms of aroma, gave Jurgen’s socks a good run for their money. Reasoning that I’d almost certainly be needing a clear head for the next couple of hours I reluctantly passed over the amasec bottles, settling instead for a beaker of ploin juice, which at least went some way towards counteracting the cheese with its own, more fragrant odour.

‘Sure you’ve got enough?’ Amberley asked, with a faint smile, although she seemed to have selected at least as much as I had.92 She turned away, still speaking, and began to weave her way through the crowd of guests as lithely as a dancer. ‘This way.’

Lacking her grace and mobility I settled for walking determinedly forwards, letting my reputation and the sight of my sidearms clear the way for me, which it did almost as effectively as Jurgen would have done had he been there. Protocol would have permitted me to be accompanied by my aide, of course, but I’d left him to get my quarters sorted out, confident that he would have picked me a prime billet and have everything squared away by the time I needed it. He would hardly have blended in here, that was for certain, not to mention the fact that I hadn’t been entirely sure whether Amberley intended bringing her pet psyker along or not;93 if she had, the last thing we needed would have been Jurgen’s gift being revealed by Rakel having a seizure in front of the governor and half the aristocrats on the planet.