The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1)(62)

Point five: Vrenna Claremont was utterly impossible to find. She’d gone to ground—but not before sending Ghreni a note from her personal address, which read, in its entirety:

Don’t sleep in the same bed twice.

Ghreni had read Vrenna Claremont’s service history. He was aware this was not at all an idle threat.





Which brought him to

Point six: The call he’d gotten from Sir Ontain Mount, operations chief of End’s Imperial Station, which started, without preamble, “What the hell is this I’m hearing about you kidnapping Marce Claremont?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir,” Ghreni said.

“Really.”

“Of course. That’s a very serious allegation. I’d like to know who is slandering me.”

“Reputable sources, Lord Ghreni.”

“It’s ludicrous. For one thing, as I understand it Marce Claremont has left End. On the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby.”

“This would be the ship my marines tell me was tracked and almost attacked by a privateer just a few hours ago,” Mount said.

“I couldn’t say,” Ghreni replied. “I have no knowledge of these things. We’re rather busy enough down here, sir.”

“Your duke’s not doing very well at the moment, is he?”

“We’ve had setbacks, but nothing we can’t handle.”

“You’re not making a convincing case for the last part, Lord Ghreni,” Mount said.

“The assistance of the emperox’s marines would be appreciated,” Ghreni suggested.

“I’ll repeat what I tell you every time you hint, which is that the Interdependency considers this an entirely local matter.”

“Excepting the arms parliament authorized.”

“For use by the duke’s troops, not mine.”

“A distinction perhaps without a difference.”

“There’s a difference to me, which is what matters. Either your duke will take care of this problem, or soon some rebel or another will petition me to be the new duke when all your nonsense is over.”

“And what will you do then?”

“I suppose that might depend on whether the current duke’s head is still on his shoulders. Until then, a friendly admonition, Lord Ghreni. The Count of Claremont and his family and his lands are under the emperox’s protection. Which means they are under my protection. If I hear any more rumors of you interfering with them, either at the behest of the duke, or under your initiative, I promise that you will see what imperial intervention looks like, and you will not be happy about it. Are we clear?”

They were clear.

And then there was point seven, which was the coded note Ghreni had received from General Livy Onjsten, leader of the rebellion, which read:

Where are those weapons? You said you would have them to us by now. We undertook this last offensive on the basis of you getting those to us. We have our asses hanging out here. If we don’t get them soon—or if the duke’s troops get them instead of us—we’re in real trouble.

Remember what I told you when we started this on your behalf. You’re in this with us. We rise, you rise. We fall, you fall.

If we fall because of you, you will fall so much harder.





—LO


Why is everyone threatening me today? Ghreni asked himself.

Well, and the answer to that was because he’d overleveraged himself—and his house, and all their assets on End—in order to topple the current duke and install himself as the Duke of End. He’d overleveraged himself, and now all his precisely timed, precisely laid plans were on the verge of teetering over and collapsing.

This is what happens when you risk it all, Ghreni thought. It’s never going to run smoothly.

True enough. But it shouldn’t be this rough. Not now. Not all of a sudden.

At least the Duke of End wasn’t yelling at him.

His tablet pinged. It was the duke calling. “You’re kidnapping nobles now?” he yelled.

Ghreni smiled grimly in spite of himself. “That’s not quite how it happened, Your Grace.”

“Don’t ‘Your Grace’ me, Ghreni. I just got an earload from Sir Ontain about it. Says you grabbed young Lord Marce Claremont right off the street in front of his apartment.”

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I asked Lord Marce to meet with me in order to see if I could get him to convince his father to be more active in defending End.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he was leaving the planet within hours and was not in a position to plead our case.”

“How did Sir Ontain get kidnapping out of that?”

“I may have been slightly overzealous in trying to convince Lord Marce to assist us. The conversation became heated. The rest of it is our enemies exaggerating and that exaggeration getting back to the Count of Claremont, and, I imagine, him complaining to Sir Ontain, and then him complaining to you. He did the same to me, sir, just a few moments ago.”

“What did you tell him?”

“What I just told you, in slightly less detail with slightly fewer affirmations.”

“We can’t be going about antagonizing the nobles, Ghreni. Not now. And especially not Claremont. Ontain and his marines are practically the count’s bodyguards. And if word gets around to the other nobles that we’re trying to strong-arm the count, or threatening his children … well. We need their support right now, is what I’m saying.”