The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1)(85)

She shushed it and turned to Amit. “Are you ready to begin the tour, Lord Amit?” she asked.

“Of course, ma’am,” he said. Cardenia held out her hand, in a formal but not unfriendly position. Amit gratefully took it and they walked out of the bay, followed by her retinue.

A tenner is a large ship, and there was quite a bit of walking planned. The tour would include the bridge and engineering capsule, in the main body of the ship, and then the cargo holds and factories in the rings. It was during the part in the cargo hold that Amit and Cardenia would be alone, with her guards positioned in the ring sections behind and in front of them. Her people would have already been on the ship for hours, making sure it was entirely secure before she set foot on it, of course. It would be relatively low risk for her to walk a hundred meters with Amit by herself.

The whole tour would take just under two hours, followed by an intimate tea service, also just between Amit and Cardenia. At which, Cardenia suddenly decided, she intended to tell Amit that he could forget about the whole marriage thing. That decision being made, Cardenia hoped she wouldn’t be too awkwardly quiet during the course of the tour.

Ten minutes into the tour, however, it was clear that if either of them was being awkwardly silent, it was Amit Nohamapetan. He was offering the bare minimum of banter required before letting crew members stationed at their tour stops take over explaining the functions of the ship. Amit didn’t ask any questions, which might be interpreted as politeness, except for the level of distraction he was showing; he seemed not to be paying attention at all to the crew members’ explanations of their stations and duties. At one point Cardenia had to discreetly nudge him to get him to acknowledge and thank a crew member for their time.

By the time the two of them slipped through the door of the cargo hold, the vast expanse of which was clearly placed into their itinerary to give the two of them a few moments of alone time, Cardenia decided she’d had enough. “Lord Amit, if this tour was meant to show your warm personal side to me, I’m afraid you’re failing considerably,” she said, as they walked.

Amit smiled ruefully. “Yes, Your Majesty. Believe me, I am very well aware of that.”

“Is there a cause for this?”

“I received quite a lot of bad news today, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Was it something personal?”

“In a way. Mostly business, although as you know, business is often personal.”

“I understand that better than most, I have to say.”

“I have no doubt that you do,” Amit said, and they walked a bit more in the cavern of the hold, quietly.

When they got to what Cardenia expected was the dead center of the cargo bay, Amit stopped and turned to her. “You don’t want to marry me, do you, Your Majesty?”

Cardenia opened her mouth to say something placatingly but then “No, no, I really don’t,” popped out, and, well. There it was.

“All right, good,” Amit said.

“Wait, what?” Cardenia said, entirely surprised. “Begging your pardon, Lord Amit, but I was under the impression, from your sister most of all, that I was here to be charmed and wooed by you. You now being visibly relieved that I don’t wish to marry you is … unexpected, to say the least.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

“I’m not,” Cardenia said, and it was Amit’s turn to be surprised. “I’m relieved that this tedious bit of politicking is over with. It means we might actually enjoy our tea together.”

Amit laughed at this.

“But I don’t understand why, after more than a year of a full push by your family, and by you, that you’re now relieved to learn that I have no interest in marrying you.”

“It’s complicated,” Amit said.

Cardenia motioned around them as if to say, We are totally alone; this is the time.

“The short version is that we have been made aware that other houses believe we already exercise too much influence over you. At this point we run the risk of losing influence rather than gaining it, through close association with you.”

“Well, I don’t know quite what to make of that statement, Lord Amit.”

“I understand, Your Majesty. Suffice to say that guild and parliamentary politics are complicated enough now, and we have reason to believe they are about to become even more complicated in the future.”

A warning went off in Cardenia’s brain. “How so?”

“The matter of End, in the near term.”

“And in the longer term?”

“Well, who can say in the longer term,” Amit said, and started to walk again.

“No,” Cardenia said, and stayed where she was, obliging Amit to stop walking. “Excuse me, Lord Amit. I don’t believe you’d throw away your path to the throne because of the rebellion on End. I don’t believe your sister would do that, either. There’s something more to it, isn’t there?”

Amit Nohamapetan looked for all the world like a child caught raiding the cookie jar.

“And this calling off of the marriage attempt isn’t something that you want, is it?” Cardenia asked. “Which is to say, this isn’t your idea. You’re being made to do it. By your sister?”

“Not by her,” Amit said.