Meanwhile, a quick investigation of the rest of Tomás’ family revealed that his sister had come with her husband to the Council building on that final, fateful day, curious to see the process of naming a new Empress, and had died in the destruction.
James Robert Staffordshire, Junior, and Inez Rodriguez Staffordshire, Tomás’ parents, had died of natural causes some five years before. James Robert Junior had been two decades older than his beautiful, rather exotic trophy wife, but that wife had not handled the birth of her children well, partly due to a poor upbringing and malnutrition on one of the lesser planets in the Catalonia Sector, and her body had finally deteriorated and given out. Her husband had not long survived the death of his beloved wife, and the family heirs had moved to a different branch of the Staffordshire lineage.
James Robert Staffordshire Senior was still alive… barely. He was nearing one hundred years of age, but was both frail and entering senility – the result, according to the doctors, of a rather dissolute lifestyle through most of his life. Those same physicians were doing all that money could buy, which was why he was still alive… but not even money could buy him health. And, the inspector decided, it didn’t look to buy him additional life for much longer. And given the medical reports, Ashton decided he was unlikely to be able to obtain any reliable testimony from Staffordshire Senior, due to the rapidly advancing senility.
It did turn out that Staffordshire Senior had known Falmouth’s father, which likely explained the marriage between their families… but it brought Ashton no closer to finding out whether or not Falmouth had ordered Ilithyia the First’s demise hastened – much as he, along with other members of the Council, had done for Ilithyia the Second – or whether the matter had simply been poor bookkeeping on the part of the compounder.
It certainly looked extremely suspicious, and if he could, he’d have brought Dr. Staffordshire into custody and interrogated him – most likely with Daggert’s assistance – by way of determining what had really happened. But with no one left to question on the matter, Ashton had no way to verify the matter, let alone determine motivation or even any actual connection.
And, he thought, anyone who might have been involved was long gone, anyway.
Ashton sighed in something close akin to disappointment.
In the end, Ashton’s report was read by Director Carter, General Daggert, Consul Saaret, and the Emperor and Empress. Unfortunately, while he could demonstrate beyond doubt that the late Empress’ heart condition had almost certainly been caused by the receipt of medications that she should not have been given, over an extended period of time, and the failure of the compounding agency – specifically named as Tomás Staffordshire, rather than his colleagues, or the company as a whole – to provide medication of appropriate dose subsequent to the cardiomyopathy, Ashton could not demonstrate cause. Nor could he demonstrate a positive connection or conspiracy between the Staffordshire brother and sister and Lord Falmouth. More, given the certainty of the few remaining persons who knew Dr. Staffordshire, it might as well have been systematic errors in calculation.
That said, everyone who read the report was left with a sneaking suspicion that there had indeed been a conspiracy to hasten Ilithyia I’s death.
“…Which is why,” General Daggert told Ashton and Carter in a follow-up meeting in his virtual office, “the Palace medical staff is making a very specific change. They are training several of their nurses in the science of compounding medications, and looking to hire someone with the specific skill who is capable of meeting our security requirements in all facets. We are not going to let any outside agencies compound medications or supplements for the Throne and its immediate dependents in future.”
“That’s a good plan,” Carter decided. “After reading that report, I can’t help but think Ilithyia I might have lived a good few years longer, if all that… pardon me, but shit… hadn’t been given to her.”
“If there was anybody left alive to interrogate, I would,” Ashton said with a sigh. “I’m convinced Tomás Staffordshire did it, and hoodwinked the other compounder by seducing her.”
“It’s definitely possible, maybe even probable,” Daggert agreed. “Especially given the family connection to the Council. But if that’s the case, I’d say the perpetrators got what was coming to ‘em anyway.”
“Looks like it,” Carter concluded. “At the hands of the new Emperor, no less – and, I suppose, a just Maker. At least in the case of Tomás Staffordshire.”
“Alla that,” Ashton averred.
Moving On
“…I don’t know, Amanda,” Dunham said, as they stood looking out over the Mall, more than two years later. “I think we still have a potential problem.”
“What do you mean, Bobby?”
“Did you hear about the three different contacts to Palace staffers in the last, oh, month?” Dunham asked. “Of the ‘we need you to do something secret inside the Palace’ variety? Sound familiar? And oh, by the way, according to the Imperial Guard, as well as our contacts in the ICPD and IPD, not one of them was legit…”
“No, I hadn’t heard,” a shocked and horrified Peters said. “Shit. Here we go again.”
“Exactly, Amanda. The empire I rule now is not anywhere close to the empire I ruled when I first ascended, after Dee was assassinated. As a result, I’ve brought in a lot of management people – the people who were running the various polities – and left them in positions of leadership. That’s mostly worked out pretty well, I think. But maybe some of
