Morgan frowned. "In that case, I guess we'll just have to take the Palace apart and find him." He narrowed his green eyes. "Somehow, Andy, I don't think that's what's been bothering you. I can read your uneasiness like a book. You're telegraphing like you telegraphed your punches in our first boxing match back at Warrior's Hall."

"That obvious, huh?" Andrew sighed heavily. "Somewhere down there on Sian, I'm going to run into Justin Xiang. I know that if I see him, I'll have to try to kill him." Andrew looked up at his friend. "I know he's the enemy, and my face still burns when I think of how easily he dealt with me on Bethel, but there's still part of me ..."

Morgan held up a hand to stop Andrew. "I know exactly what you're saying. You're angry at him not so much because he's the enemy but because you feel he betrayed you. He taught you a great deal while you served under him in the Kittery training battalion, and you stuck by him during his treason trial. But then he tried to have you assassinated on Kittery, and he defeated you in a 'Mech battle on Bethel. Part of you wants to fight him and beat him, but part of you doesn't want to lose the friendship you felt for him."

Andrew saw sadness in Morgan's eyes. "Yes, that sums it up almost perfectly. How did you know?"

Morgan folded his arms across his broad chest and leaned back against the DropShip's hull. "When I was a boy, my father taught me to play chess. We'd play once a week or so, and those games became very important to me. No matter what problems my father had to deal with at court, he refused to miss our game. He always encouraged me and told me that when I could finally beat him, I would become a man. Yet, try as I might, I could not win and felt myself smaller in his eyes for my failure."

Morgan glanced away, focusing his malachite eyes beyond the ship's metal shell. "Finally, when I turned fourteen, I took to studying chess. It became an avocation for me, and was sufficiently martial for my tutors to indulge my desires. During this time, my father was called to New Avalon, so we did not play for three months. But when he returned, the first thing we did was to face off across a chess board."

Morgan lapsed into silence for a moment as pain and confusion passed fleetingly over his face. "It was no contest, really. I had become very good in his absence, and I beat him even before I knew it. When I announced, 'Checkmate!' I expected congratulations from him, and to be seen in a new role as an adult."

Andrew moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. "What happened?"

Morgan shook his head ruefully. "He swept the board and pieces from the table. He demanded to know who had conspired with me to humiliate him. He grabbed me and tried to look into my ears to see if I was wearing a radio earpiece because he couldn't believe he'd been bested by 'a half-grown whelp.' "

The Lion of Davion met Andrew's stare. "I've not played chess since because even the idea of a game reminds me of what that last match cost me in the loss of intimacy between me and my father. For years, I thought I'd done something wrong. I beat him, and he hated me for it. After a while, I realized this conflict would probably have developed one way or another, no matter what either of us would have chosen to do about it. My father had become a different person, and I had to deal with him on that basis."

Andrew thought for a moment, then nodded grimly. "What you're saying is that Justin's responsible for the changes in his life. I've got to make sure to keep the past in the past, because dwelling on it will get me killed in the here and now."

"Yeah," Morgan said with a grin. "That's what I'm saying. I don't know what sort of a reception we're going to get down there, but I don't want anyone thinking about anything other than the mission. We get our man and get out."

Andrew nodded. "Get our man and get out. Right." That means, Justin Xiang, that I'm looking for someone different than everyone else. When I settle with you, I'll consider my mission accomplished.

47

Castle Lestrade, Mount Curitiba

Summer, Isle of Skye, Lyran Commonwealth

23 October 3029

Clovis Holstein eased himself from the shadowed corner of Aldo Lestrade's library and moved into the light as the Duke made his way toward the crystal service on the sideboard. Clovis made no noise, but the Duke, as though sensing the emotions raging in the dwarf's breast, whirled unsteadily. Clovis stopped. "I have come for you, Duke Aldo Lestrade."

Lestrade jammed both fists onto his hips and screwed his face into a grimace that looked like the prelude to a furious outburst. Then his eyebrows tipped up in a mocking expression. The short, squat Duke threw back his head and laughed raucously. "Does Morgan Kell hold me in such contempt that he sends you to kill me? Be off with you before I find a stick and beat you to death as I would any other vermin."

"He doesn't even know I'm here," Clovis said. "If Morgan Kell truly wished you dead, he'd have crushed you beneath the hell of his Archermonths ago. He would gladly have killed you for any of your attempts against the life of the Archon. With Duke Frederick gone, Morgan assumes you are no longer a threat."

Lestrade's jovial expression grew darker, and Clovis took secret pleasure in the change. Yes, Duke Lestrade. I know of Duke Frederick's demise. I am privy to highly secret information. This makes me an unknown quantity in your eyes, doesn't it? I am a mystery to be unraveled before you destroy me.

Lestrade frowned, then crossed to a massive wooden sideboard and poured himself a brandy. "Duke Frederick's loss is a blow to my plans, but it matters little. Alessandro Steiner is dying, and Ryan, his heir apparent, will still need a political mentor to wrest control from Melissa. It may take ten or twenty years, but I will be there to see my plans come to fruition."

Clovis unzipped the Kell Hound flight jacket he wore. "All your planning will be for naught," he said, a cruel smile tugging at his mouth. "The same raid that killed your father, the raid that took your left arm and destroyed your left hip, maimed you in another way. Reconstructive surgery is wonderful, but even the best in the Successor States could not give you back the ability to sire a dynasty, could it?"

Lestrade's face drained of color. He swirled the brandy in his snifter, then gulped down the amber liquid. It restored sanguinity to his cheeks, but the haunted look in his brown eyes remained. "How do you know that? Who are you?"

Clovis's laughter clearly irritated the Duke, so the dwarf lashed him with it mercilessly. "How did I know you were castrated in that raid? I've been in your castle for two days now, and I've sorted through every piece of data in your computer system. What other conclusion could I draw from the fact that one of the greatest womanizers in the Lyran Commonwealth has testosterone derms sent to him from a dozen different sources? You've never had an heir and never even been involved in a paternity suit. As I suggested before, reconstructive surgery can be wonderful, but some things it cannot rebuild."

Lestrade, slightly unsteady, eased himself into a green leather wingback chair. He stared at Clovis, appearing almost mesmerized. "You broke my security? The computer security system I created?"

Clovis nodded patronizingly. "I've a knack for that sort of thing. Some say I inherited it." The dwarf's smile grew as he looked around the dark, cavernous room filled from floor to ceiling with shelves of valuable, leather-bound books. "As for your other question, I am offended that you do not recognize me. I didn't think I had that much of my mother in me."