The Guns of Empire Read Online Free Page B

as it might be, she couldn’t, not without driving the Borels away from the conference table. Whatever their true intentions, they couldn’t allow the capture of a guest under their protection.
    â€œNo,” Raesinia said. “But you’d better stay clear.” Sothe had once been one of Orlanko’s best killers, and Raesinia had no idea if he was aware of her current role.
Easier to play it safe.
“I’ll keep Barely and Jo with me. Have the Guards keep an eye on their foreign counterparts.”
    Sothe nodded. At the entrance to the ballroom, she and the Grenadier Guards peeled off, and Raesinia continued to the double doors with only the two women from the Girls’ Own for escort. Footmen pushed the doors open, and a butler with a carrying voice announced, “Her Majesty Queen Raesinia Orboan of Vordan!”
    I must be getting used to this.
She hardly flinched at the introduction, or the sudden stares from everyone in the big room. Once, the suffocating blanket of official attention might have driven her to flee; now she only had to take a deep breath before gliding forward, her old court training automatically making her steps careful and smooth.
    The ballroom, like the hotel, was dressed up to look like something it wasn’t. Gaudy hangings covered the walls, and a hundred lamps hung from the ceiling. But there was no way to disguise the awkward, boxy lines of the room. Raesinia pictured it being used for cattlemen’s rustic dances once the dignitaries had departed.
    No dancing seemed likely today. Small tables were covered with food and tiny glasses of wine, and hotel staff circulated among the guests, offering pastries. There were soldiers, in the uniforms of four countries—Vordanai blue, the yellow and black of Hamvelt, Borelgai mud red, and Murnskai white. Men in shabby suits were probably clerks, while those more impressively attired were civilian officials of their governments. Raesinia had the feeling that she, Barely, and Joanna were the only women in the room.
    It was easy to see where the nexuses of power lay, just by watching the movement of the crowd. Lesser lights orbited dense knots of conversation the way that philosophers said the world went around the sun, drawn in by their gravity but unable to penetrate to the inner circle. The largest group was also the loudest, a mob of wasp-colored soldiers and men in long-tailed coats engaged in such energetic argument that it seemed like punches might soon be thrown. The Hamveltai were in the most precarious situation of all the attendees, having suffered grievous reverses the previous year—their field army smashed and their greatest fortress forced to surrender, while their ally Desland had actually been occupied by Vordanai forces.
    Evidently they haven’t figured out what to do about it.
Raesinia decided to let them stew for a moment. She walked instead toward the Murnskai delegation. This was mostly soldiers, spotless white uniforms dripping with gold braid and trimmed with fur at the collars. Their tight circle opened at her approach, revealing a tall, broad man at its center. His uniform was the most impressive of all, both sides of his chest studded with medals alongside a cloth-of-gold sash, and he wore a long cloak of flowing white fur.
    Prince Cesha Dzurk
, Sothe’s briefing had supplied. Second son of the Emperor of Holy Murnsk, and reportedly favored by his father over the diligent, bloodless crown prince. Dzurk was a man of legendary appetites and little tact, but his word supposedly carried great weight with the emperor.
At least he’s not a religious fanatic like his brother.
    â€œYour Majesty,” the prince said, offering her a shallow bow. “It is a pleasure.” His Vordanai was passable, but his accent was atrocious, so broad that Raesinia wondered if he was doing it deliberately.
    â€œPrince,” Raesinia said. “Welcome to Vordan.”
    â€œThis is the first