The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [14]
“Thank Erebus,” Valdore said, seated on the edge of the rude stone cot where he had slept for the past several weeks. “Waiting down here for my appointment with the executioner had begun to grow tedious.”
Neither of the spectral white faces confronting Valdore betrayed any sign of amusement. Of course, Remans weren’t known for their keen sense of humor. “Come with us,” the guard on the right growled as his silent counterpart bared his fangs, manhandled Valdore to his feet, and affixed a set of stout manacles upon his wrists. Valdore looked up from his shackled wrists and noticed that both Remans stood a full head taller than he did.
“Let’s not make this take any longer than it has to, my brothers-in-arms,” Valdore said. Being executed was by far preferable to slowly rotting away or starving in such a godsforsaken place as this.
As his armed escorts marched him through the convoluted stone drabbik warren of the cell block, Valdore closed his eyes, walking blindly as he listened to the echoing clatter of the uniformed Remans’ boots, which utterly drowned out his own rag-wrapped footfalls. Concentrating on the sounds, he tried to imagine exchanging his tattered, ill-fitting green prison attire for a standard military uniform, but couldn’t quite get his mind around the idea. The realization threatened to overwhelm him with despair. Has confinement so diminished me that I can no longer even visualize what I once was?
Valdore had lost track of the exact number of weeks that had passed since the start of his confinement, no doubt partly because of the windowless cell to which the First Consul had banished him. Being spared a return to those cramped confines was a blessing, no matter the reason; the prospect of his own imminent death gave the disgraced Romulan admiral only a sense of relief.
Next came a growing hollow pang of disappointment as the guards conducted him up from the intricate maze of subsurface catacombs into the vast, cathedral-like spaces of the Hall of State. Valdore knew by then that his disgrace was not destined to end in so tidy and merciful a fashion as he had allowed himself to hope.
Unless First Consul T’Leikha had lately taken up the practice of dispatching her political prisoners in the midst of the finery of her richly appointed audience chamber.
Valdore said nothing as he was marched roughly toward the silver-haired, aquiline-faced woman who was seated in an attentive, almost vigilant pose on the raised dais before which he and the guards had come to a halt. Still bound in wrist shackles and flanked by the armed Remans, Valdore was made to stand perhaps a dozen long paces away from the First Consul.
Somewhat closer to the First Consul, and guarded closely by another pair of raptor-eyed Reman soldiers, stood a second prisoner. Valdore blinked for several moments before he realized that he recognized him, despite the man’s thinning white hair, averted gaze, and defeated, stoop-shouldered posture.
Senator Vrax? Valdore thought, not willing to tempt fate by speaking aloud unbidden in the presence of the First Consul. I, too, am only a prisoner now, he reminded himself.
“Jolan’tru, Admiral,” said First Consul T’Leikha.
A bitter laugh escaped Valdore’s lips in spite of himself. “I am no longer an admiral, First Consul. Perhaps you read of it in the newsfeeds.”
T’Leikha chuckled, her smile gleaming like a burnished Honor Blade. “I have decided to correct that injustice, Valdore. As has a majority of my colleagues in the Senate, several of whom have the ear of the Praetor, just as I do. It seems, Admiral, that the Romulan Star Empire once again urgently needs your service.”
The First Consul appeared content to wait silently for his reaction. Valdore said nothing, hoping that he wasn’t revealing just how nonplussed he was by this dramatic change of fortune. Remus had circled the Motherworld several times since he and Vrax had been removed from their respective posts and imprisoned as punishment for their discovery and defeat by the Earther-allies against whom they had been working in secret. Neither