The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(29)
“Yes.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because it’s totally insincere?”
Kiva squinted at Fundapellonan. “Do you get out much?”
Fundapellonan was flustered at this. “Apparently not?”
“It’s just sex, for fuck’s sake.” Kiva said. “I wasn’t planning to fucking propose. You offered, you’re cute enough—”
“Thanks,” Fundapellonan said, dryly.
“—and I haven’t gotten laid that much since Marce Claremont traded up to the emperox. And it’s not like I was going to say anything to you about my business.”
“You mean, our business.”
“Well, that’s what today’s meeting will be about, anyway,” Kiva said. “My point is, it was a safe enough opportunity to get laid.”
“I don’t know how to feel about that,” Fundapellonan said.
“It’s not like you didn’t get anything out of it,” Kiva pointed out.
Fundapellonan smiled at that. “True enough.” She paused. “This is the first time I’ve ever done something like this.”
“Had sex with someone because your client told you to.”
“Yes.”
“How was it for you?”
“Mostly okay?”
“Well, good,” Kiva said, and patted Fundapellonan’s shoulder. “Because you’re about to get fucked by me again, this time in front of the emperox.”
*
The Countess Nohamapetan was definitely someone who wanted all the bells and whistles and shiny fucking spangles, so her audience with the emperox was held in the formal receiving room. It was cavernous enough that you could probably land a shuttle in it, although Kiva supposed, given who was both asking for and giving this little farce of an audience, any snippy quips about a shuttlecraft would not be appreciated.
Kiva glanced over at the Countess Nohamapetan and was not impressed. The countess, conspicuously ornate, had overdressed for this particular emperox. Grayland had been overdressed exactly once in her life, at her coronation, and since that event had included a bombing and the murder of Grayland’s best friend, it hadn’t been exactly a sterling moment in fashion history. The countess’s advisors might have told her that Grayland preferred a more understated look. Either they hadn’t, or the countess had ignored them, and now she was looking like a grenade went off in a drawer of metallic ribbons.
Kiva’s own attire was rather more subtle, a formal suit of merchant black and gold with a pendant that showed off the colors of the House of Lagos: red, yellow, light and dark blue. Kiva thought the formal suit made her look like a waiter or a fucking servant, but it wasn’t up to her what to wear to see the emperox, so she just dealt with it.
The emperox herself, as Kiva recalled, preferred a suit rather more like Kiva’s than whatever sad monstrosity it was that the countess was wearing, tailored exquisitely (because it would be, wouldn’t it) and in the dark imperial green that shouldn’t have looked good next to Grayland’s skin tone, but managed to look just fine anyway. Being emperox meant everything looked good on you, maybe. A nice perk of an otherwise thankless fucking job.
Kiva, the countess, and Senia Fundapellonan—who was wearing the same nice, conservative suit that Kiva had peeled her out of earlier in the day—all stood in front of the dais that held the throne Grayland would perch upon. Neither the dais nor the throne were particularly ridiculous, which meant they were out of place in the room, but in keeping with Grayland’s own sensibility.
From well behind the dais, a door opened and Grayland entered the room. She did it without handlers, which Kiva understood to be increasingly her custom. She accepted bows and handshakes from Kiva and Fundapellonan, and a more elaborate curtsey-bow-whatever-the-fuck-it-was from the countess. Then she stepped up the dais, sat herself into the throne, and smiled.
“We are ready to hear you, our dear Countess Nohamapetan,” she said. Kiva noted the use of the royal “we,” which was the first time she had personally heard that from Grayland; when she’d met her before, Grayland was all “I” and “me.” That said, the last time she’d seen Grayland, the emperox was getting over being attacked with spaceships. It was possible she was not entirely herself.
The countess did whatever that fucked-up bow-curtsey thing was again. “Let me begin, Your Majesty, by assuring you of the unending loyalty of the House of Nohamapetan. I am aware—we as a house are aware—that you have recently had ample reason to doubt the sincerity of this loyalty. I understand that the only way to regain that trust is to earn it again, slowly and with difficulty. It will be the mission of my house to do so. And in earnest of that mission, and as the first small step in recompense, I am pledging all Nohamapetan in-system profits this year to the Naffa Dolg Foundation.”
Kiva almost choked on her tongue at this bullshit. To begin, the countess fucking well knew that she couldn’t pledge those in-system revenues to anything; they were under Kiva’s control, and she had the final word to how they could be used. Since Kiva had been in control of Nohamapetan’s local businesses, all revenues had been placed into accounts that Kiva had made accessible to the Ministry of Revenue as a sort of permanent audit. The only way the countess could do anything with the revenues without Kiva’s consent was for the emperox to give back control of local operations. Which was something the countess undoubtedly knew as well as Kiva. So either this was the opening gambit to removing Kiva, or it was an attempt to make Kiva the asshole of the day. Which would also be the opening gambit to removing Kiva.