Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [70]
Zoësophia sighed. “He is the most perfect expression of male beauty I have ever seen, not even excepting Michelangelo’s statue of David in the Caliph’s private collection. It is ironic. He is as desirable in his way as I am in mine—and yet he and I are perfectly useless to one other.”
“Does he never wake?” Surplus asked.
“Were he to stand, his great heart could only support the body for a matter of hours before bursting,” Chortenko said. “So, of necessity, the Duke of Muscovy reigns in a state of perpetual sleep.”
There was the sharp click of heels as a servile messenger hurried by and mounted the steps of a railed platform by the duke’s head. He leaned forward and in a rapid monotone began reciting a report. When he was done, the duke nodded wordlessly, and he left.
“Now that all of your questions have been addressed,” Chortenko said, “I shall go to learn the answers to my own. Do not attempt to approach the duke, for the guards will not permit it.”
As always, Chortenko felt a secret thrill of excitement as he mounted the stairs to the dais by the sleeping giant’s ear. There was no telling what he might learn, if only he asked the right questions. He gripped the wooden rail, worn smooth by many a thousand hands, and said, “Your Royal Highness, it is your servant Sergei Nemovich who speaks.”
“Ahhh… yes… the ambitious one,” the duke murmured quietly, as does one who speaks in his sleep. His voice was astonishingly small, coming from such a titanic body.“It was you who arranged matters so…that none of my other…advisors…could approach me.”
“True, Majesty. It was you who told me how.”
“I slept. Awake, I would not…have aided your conspiracy.”
“Since you will never awaken, that is irrelevant. I have brought with me the Byzantine ambassador, and one of the women the Caliph sent you as a present.”
“I have been dreaming… of food riots in Uzhgorod. Wheat must be sent… to prevent…”
“Yes, yes, that is most commendable. But it is not what I have come to speak with you about.”
“Then speak.”
To the far side of the room, Chortenko saw one of Surplus’s ears twitch slightly and had no doubt that, though an ordinary human could not have overheard him from such a distance, the dog-man could. The woman he was not so sure about. She appeared to be lost in thought. Well, let them eavesdrop. Nothing they heard would give them much comfort. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “Our friends below are coy about their plans. When will they make their move?”
“The market for tobacco is down slightly, while the demand for illegal drugs of all sorts has declined steeply.… Absenteeism in the officer class is up, prostitution is booming, and there are reports of vagrants seen pushing wheelbarrows full of human feces. Taken together with various promises that have been made, you can expect an invasion of Moscow within days. Possibly as soon as tonight.”
“Really!” Chortenko, who had thought it a matter of months at a minimum, could not have been more astonished. But he composed himself. “What preparations should I make that have not yet been done?”
“Eat well and rest. Move all artillery units out of the city and make sure that all known rakes and libertines have been flensed from your own forces. Have Baron Lukoil-Gazprom killed.”
“Good, good.” Chortenko rather liked the baron, insofar as he liked anybody, for the man’s blunt, bluff predictability. But he could see how the baron’s twin propensities for unthinking action and reflexive assumption of command in an emergency might get in his way.
The Duke