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Despite his massive, powerful build, her escort dressed like a fop, in dark purple silk with black lace spilling around his wide cuffs. There was cruelty in the sharp lines of his face, and his eyes looked too small, despite the eyeliner apparently intended to enhance them.
“They’re a gorgeous couple, aren’t they?” the woman said, her smile blinding.
“Not really,” Rance muttered. Zarifa’s expression was flat, almost doll-like compared to her normal intelligence and animation, and her smile looked strained. She might be engaged to Natalo, but she didn’t seem to like it.
“Maybe Lord Natalo can get some of her more outrageous behavior under control,” Corvin sniffed.
Yet another image flashed on screen: Zarifa, laughing hysterically, staggering as she climbed over the lip of a marble fountain. The spray splattered over her, dancing off her neck and shoulders.
“That’s cold!” she yelped, jumping up and down under the pattering water as it quickly soaked through her thin clothes. Bouncing in dizzy circles, she grabbed the hem of her silk shirt and jerked it off over her head before throwing it aside with a whoop. Her naked breasts quivered, white and full under the lights of the city square.
“Well, it was the empress’s twenty-fifth birthday,” the woman gossiporter trilled. “In accordance with her father’s will, she’ll officially take the reins of power this year on Our Lady’s Day.”
Corvin laughed. “Lady help us all. Good thing she’ll be marrying Lord Natalo the same day. She won’t have time to do much damage.”
The globe went black as the words “End File” flashed up.
Rance frowned and lay back on the bed, crossing his bare feet at the ankle. “Next file.”
The next story featured Zarifa sunbathing naked on a Throneworld beach, her red hair not quite covering her lovely backside. The gossiporters made all the appropriate sounds of scandalized titillation.
The third file was an interview she’d apparently conducted while under the influence. She kept giggling, and she couldn’t seem to construct a coherent answer to the gossiporter’s questions.
“Freeze image,” Rance snapped.
Zarifa cut off in midgiggle. Despite the silly grin on her face, there was something different going on in her eyes, something that had caught his attention.
Helpless rage and frustration.
It was as if she hated what was coming out of her own mouth, yet she couldn’t seem to stop what she
was saying.
Rance ran a thumb across his lower lip, staring at the simmie image. Drunk or not, she sounded nothing like the capable, intelligent woman who’d confronted Casus on his behalf. He wouldn’t have even known it was the same person.
But what really bothered him was the fact that the empire didn’t have freedom of media. If she’d wanted, Zarifa should have been able to censor these broadcasts. God knew Throneworld was quick enough to censor any other media report that was even remotely negative. Yet these stories had been permitted, despite the fact they made the empress look like a drunken slut.
That suggested someone in government wanted her reputation ruined. And there was only one man with that kind of clout: The regent.
The reason for that was obvious. If the public believed their empress was a drug-addicted idiot, nobody would complain when the regent continued to run the government—or when his son married her. What had the gossiporter said? “Good thing she’ll be marrying Lord Natalo the same day. She won’t have time to do much damage.”
“And if she dies in a tragic, drunken accident six months after the wedding, no one will ask too many questions,” Rance said aloud.
“You put that together fast,” Zarifa said from the doorway. “I have advisers who still have no clue, even after all these years.”
Apparently she’d taken advantage of one of the ship’s other heads. She was dressed in a one-piece, dark blue uniform, stark and plain compared to the red hunting jacket she’d worn to buy him. Even so, the suit made the most of her lean, intensely female body.
He watched as she walked in and sat on the bed beside him. “They’ve been drugging you, haven’t they? You’re not the type to play into their hands by drugging yourself.”
She snorted. “The regent didn’t have to drug me. He controlled my nanosystem.”
Nanos could induce intoxication, even hallucinations, without any drug use at all. It wasn’t unusual for people to become addicted to misusing them.
But to force such intoxication on someone else was supposed to be practically impossible. “How did he hack into your system? You’re the empress, for God’s sake. Your security should be better than anyone’s.” Elaborate antivirus and firewalls were a necessity for everyone with a nanosystem. Otherwise an attacker could paralyze or even murder you by having the nanos attack your central nervous system.
“I was fifteen when my parents died and Umar became my guardian.” Zarifa stared up at the simmie of her own frozen, enraged face with brooding eyes. “He had my system stripped and reprogrammed so I couldn’t defend myself. I’ve been his puppet ever since.”
“He did that to a child?” Rance stared at her, appalled. “Why would your father make a man like that your regent?”
