Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [33]
“Norayan,” he said, rising and putting his chair aside.
“Will.” She rose, too, took the hands he extended in greeting. The warmth of her smile was genuine and only too welcome after the events of the last couple of days.
“It’s good to see you,” he told her.
“Yes. Too bad the circumstances couldn’t have been happier.” She sighed, let go of his hands, and sat again. “Then I might not have had to come to you in disguise.”
He placed himself beside her on the couch. “Why did you come? To see what kind of progress we’ve made? And why couldn’t you talk to your own retainer?”
She bowed her head. “I came to tell you something—something that will help your investigation.”
“You’ve heard something,” he concluded. “About Teller? Or the seal?”
“No,” she said. “You don’t understand. I’ve … I’ve come to make a confession, Will.”
Riker looked into her eyes. How could he not have recognized her, even with that veil? No one had eyes like Norayan’s. So wise. So regal.
“What the devil are you talking about?” he asked.
Her composure seemed to falter a little. In the average Impriman, that wouldn’t have meant anything. In a madraga official, it was the equivalent of going to pieces. But a moment later she caught herself and straightened.
“This isn’t easy for me to talk about,” she said, underscoring the obvious. “You and Teller and I were wonderful friends—do you remember?”
He nodded. “I still have fond memories. Lots of them.”
“As I do. It was a special time. I had not yet been named second official of Criathis. I was still free to pursue adventures I cannot pursue now. And I had two gallant Earthmen with whom to pursue them.”
“Yes,” said Riker. “We were quite a threesome.” Where was she going with this?
“Then you left,” said Norayan. “And it was just Teller and myself. And the nature of the adventures changed.” She paused. “We fell in love, Will.”
He hadn’t been prepared for that. Or had he? Had he seen it in her eyes even before she said the words?
And how did he feel about Norayan and Teller being lovers? A little jealous? Hell, it had always been the three of them. How could they have fallen in love without him?
“Really,” he said.
“I’ve shocked you,” observed Norayan.
“No,” he told her. “It’s all right. Go on.”
She frowned. “Of course we had to keep our love a secret. I was next in line for a position on Criathis’s council, and you know the rules. A council member must be chaste, lest he or she succumb to undue influences that might in turn affect the fate of the madraga.”
“Sexual blackmail,” Riker interpreted.
“Exactly. If my relationship with Teller had been made public, it would have cost me the opportunity to serve Criathis. And that is what I had been trained for all my life.”
“It must have been difficult.”
“It was. Every time we met, we risked everything—his future as well as mine. For what would the Federation have thought of a trade liaison who offended one of Imprima’s more powerful madraggi by bringing scandal to its doorstep?” A moment of remembering. “But in time Teller made it much less difficult: he made it impossible for us to go on.”
Riker looked at her. “How so?” he asked, though he had an inkling of what the answer might be. After all, the evidence had been piling up.
“He began smuggling,” said Norayan.
There—the final nail in the coffin.
“You see, Will, he started to change after you left—perhaps even before you left, though neither of us saw it. We Imprimans … we have a great love of wealth. By the standards of some races, I know, it would be called an obsession. But we have learned to live with it, to place limitations on it, so that our basic social fabric remains intact.
“Teller was exposed to our culture all at once. It was too much for him. He was surrounded constantly by riches and by individuals whose daily pleasure was to acquire more wealth. He finally became more Impriman than any of us, and he got into the game in the only way he could.”
“By taking advantage of his position as trade liaison—to spirit out historical