The Chosen

plenty of nice girls there.'

'Oh.' Sallys tone wavered a little at the thought. 'Nice Imperial girls. Well, I suppose. .' She shrugged.

She looked downslope in her turn. There were fortifications there, everything from the bastion-and-ravelin systems set up centuries ago to defend against roundshot to modern concrete-and-steel bunkers with heavy naval guns.

'John seems to think that there's going to be war,' she said. 'Jeffrey, too.'

Maurice nodded somberly. 'I wouldn't be surprised. War between the Chosen and the Empire, at least.'

'But surely we wouldn't be involved!' Sally protested.

'Not at first,' Maurice said slowly. 'Not for a while.'

'Thank goodness Jeffrey's in the army, then,' she said. The Republic of Santander had no land border with either of the two contending powers. 'And John's safe in the diplomatic corps.'

* * *

'You dance divinely, Giovanni,' Pia del'Cuomo said. 'It is not fair. You are tall, you are handsome, you are clever, you are rich, and you dance so well. Beware, lest God send you a misfortune.'

'I've already had a few from Him,' John Hosten said, keeping his tone light and whirling the girl through the waltz. The ballroom was full of graceful swirling movement, gowns and uniforms and black formal suits, jewels and flowers and fans. 'But He brought me to Ciano to meet you, so he can't be really angry with me.'

Pia was just twenty, old for an Imperial woman of noble birth to be unmarried, and four years younger than him. Also unlike most Imperials of her sex and station, she didn't think giggles and inanities were the only way to talk to a man. She was very pretty indeed, besides, something he was acutely conscious of with their hands linked and one arm around her narrow waist.

No, not pretty-beautiful, he thought.

Big russet-colored eyes, heart-shaped face, creamy skin showing to advantage in the glittering low-cut, long-skirted white ballgown, and glossy brown hair piled up under a diamond tiara. Best of all, she seemed to like him.

The music came to a stop, and they stood for a moment smiling at each other while the crowd applauded the orchestra.

'If jealous eyes were daggers, I would be stabbed to death,' Pia said with a trace of satisfaction. 'It is entertaining, after being an old maid for years. My father has been muttering that if I wished to do nothing but read books and live single, I should have found a vocation before I left the convent school.'

John snorted. 'Not likely.'

'I would have made a very poor nun, it is true,' Pia said demurely. 'And then I could not have gone on to so many picnics and balls and to the opera with a handsome young officer of the Santander embassy. . '

'A glass of punch?' he said.

Pia put her hand on his arm as he led her to the punch table. The white-coated steward handed them glasses; it was a fruit punch with white wine, cool and tart.

'You are worried, John,' she said in English. Hers was nearly as good as his Imperial, and her voice had turned serious.

'Yes,' he sighed.

'Your conversations with my father, they have not gone well?'

Even for an Imperial commander, Count Benito del'Cuomo was a blinkered, hidebound. . With an effort, John pushed the image of the white muttonchop whiskers out of his mind.

'No,' he said. 'He doesn't take the Chosen seriously.'

Pia sipped at her punch and nodded to her chaperone where she sat with the other matrons against one wall. The older woman-some sort of poor-relation hanger-on of the del'Cuomos-frowned when she saw that Pia was still talking with the Republic's young charge d'affaires. They began walking slowly towards the balcony.

'Father does not think the Land will dare to attack us,' she said thoughtfully. 'We have so many more soldiers, so many more ships of war. Their island is tiny next to the Empire.'

'Pia-' He didn't really want to talk politics, but she had reason to be concerned. 'Pia, their note demanded extraterritorial rights in Corona and half a dozen other ports, control of grain exports, and exclusive investment rights in Imperial railroads.'

Pia checked half a step. She was the daughter of the Minister of War. 'That. . that is an ultimatum!' she said. 'And an impossible one.'

John nodded grimly. 'An excuse for war. Even if your emperor and senatorial council were to agree to it, and you're right, they couldn't, then the Chosen would find some new demand.'

'Why do they warn us, then? Surely they are not so scrupulous that they hesitate at a surprise attack.'

'Scarcely. I have a horrible suspicion that they want the Empire to be prepared, so you'll have more forces in big concentrations where they can get at them,' John said.

They walked out into the cooler air and half-darkness of the great veranda. Little Adele and huge Mira were both up and full, flooding the black-and-white checkerwork marble with pale blue light, turning the giant vases filled with oleander and jessamine and bougainvillea into a pastel wonderland. The terrace ended in a fretted granite balustrade and broad steps leading down to gardens whose graveled paths glowed white amid the flowerbanks and trees. Beyond the estate wall, widely spaced lights showed where the townhouses of the nobility stood amid their walled acres, with an occasional pair of yellow kerosene-lamp headlights marking a carriage or steamcar. Westward reached a denser web of lights, mostly irregular-Ciano had a street plan originally laid out by cows, except for a few avenues driven through in recent generations. Those centered on the Imperial palace complex, a tumble of floodlit white and gilded domes.

From here they could just make out the glittering surface of the broad Pada River; the dockyards and warehouses and slums about it were jagged black shapes, no gaslights there. Above them two lights moved through the sky, with a low throbbing of propellers. An airship, making for the west and the great ocean port of Corona at the mouth of the Pada.

'Chosen-made,' John said, nodding towards it. 'Pia, your soldiers are brave, but they have no conception of what they face.'

Pia leaned one hip against the balustrade, turning her fan in her fingers. 'My father. . my father is an intelligent man. But he. . he thinks often that because things were as they were when he was young, so they must remain.'

'I'm not surprised. My own government tends to think the same way.' If not to quite the same degree, he added to himself.

They were silent for a few minutes. John felt the tension building, mostly in his stomach, it seemed. Pia was looking at him out of the corner of her eyes, the beginning of a frown of disappointment marking her brows.

'Ah. . that is. .' John said. 'Ah, I was thinking of calling on your father again.'

Pia turned to face him. 'Concerning political matters?' she asked, her face calm.

An excuse trembled on his lips. Yes. Of course. That would be all he needed, to add cowardice to his list of failings. A crippled soul to join the foot.

'No,' he said. 'About something personal. . if you would like me to.'

The smile lit up her eyes before it reached her mouth. 'I would like that very much,' she said, and leaned forward slightly to brush her lips against his.

probability of sincerity is 92 % ±3, with motivations breakdown as follows-Center began.

Shut the fuck up! John thought.

He could hear Raj's amusement at the back of his mind. Damned right, lad.

Jeff's voice: God, but that one's a looker, isn't she? He must be getting visual feed from Center, through John's eyes.

Will you all kindly get the hell out of my love life?

'Giovanni, there are times when I think you are talking to God, or the saints, or anyone but the person you are with!'

John mumbled an apology. Pia's eyes were still glowing. 'The only question is, will he consent?'