Part IX Nasedo's POV
That girl is more trouble than she is worth. It's not like she had any real power at home. It's not like she mattered there—I don't know why They even decided to send her.
I was an elder at home. I was a well-respected councilor. They sought my advice and my wisdom on many important issues. Now I'm a glorified nanny. None of the political wheeling and dealing that was my lifeblood for thirty years or more. None of the high stakes games that people with too much money and time and not enough responsibility play.
I was against their marriage you know. She wasn't even really a lady of the court—It was my firm belief that King Zan should've wed a princess to ensure the stability the people and the economy needed so desperately.
He refused. All the elders, and the counsel were in agreement: he must wed a foreign dignatary, preferably a princess whose world had a military we could enter into an alliance with. The minister of propaganda wanted her to be young and beautiful.
To be brief, he wanted a moral Princess Vilandra. Vilandra was undeniably the most beautiful woman in the court. The commoners had a short love affair with her. I emphasize short. They loved her beauty, her grace, her style. But they grew sick of her shortly. She was profligate. She spent and spent and spent. She had so many lovers no one, probably not even herself could keep track of them all. The people began to hate their wasteful, foolish princess.
Their young king warned her, and the dowager queen rebuked her harshly—but Vilandra was spoiled and too used to her own way to change. Perhaps if he had been given time, the king's second, Rath, could have changed her. They were moving well in the right direction—the people had begun to love her again. They saw in these two a fairy tale—a princess and a warrior. And though war tore at us all, the brave valiant hero would return to his faithful beloved. And the minister of propaganda outdid himself selling this story. He did such a good story, members of the counsel believed it. Vilandra herself believed it for a time.
King Zan refused. He refused his elders, disregarded his counsel, and even disobeyed his mother, the Dowager Queen. He would not marry a princess he did not know for the sake of an alliance that might not be necessary. He had fallen helplessly in love with Avadalia fa Torendior. Even at the time, I disapproved.
She was too little, too much of a fading flower or a shrinking violet. She was like a slender thread, pulled taut by thousands of pounds of media pressure. The Minister of Propaganda worked his magic, turning their story into a Cinderella story. The money was not there for a fairy tale wedding, but it happened anyway. They said that morale raised planet wide. The people trusted their leader, young as he was, and they toasted his delicate bride for making him happy.
The trouble as I saw it, was that she wasn't good for anything. She had the manners of a court lady. Her family was old and respectable. She had the breeding that she could've been a courtier, but for the stubbornness of her family to avoid the court. She was a quiet girl, fond of her books and music and painting. When she became queen she was in an alien world, where everyone wanted something from her. She was naïve, but Zan nursed her through the beginning.
She sat in on war counsels and was soundless, except for questions to her husband in a voice never as loud as a whisper. She always seemed to be underfoot, just a pesky little fly. At least when Vilandra was there, things picked up. The room crackled with Vilandra's presence.
Avadalia was quiet and completely unobtrusive. Then why did she irritate me? At the time, after I got used to having been slighted and not being consulted over the marriage, I thought her a cute little thing. I regarded her the way I would regard a puppy. I patronized her, explaining the details of a political deal to her the way I would explain it to a precocious child. When the war started to go badly and the scientists prepared the royal four, I assumed that it would be Zan, Rath, Vilandra, and the head of intelligence. The head of intelligence was kept an absolute secret, even from the counsel, but ideas were always plentiful and varied as to who it was. Those in the know assumed it was one of the servants—after all, they were overlooked like furniture. Some said the royal tutor, others the head of the palace guard.
It was none of them.
Perhaps you have guessed by now. For those who have not guessed, I will tell you. It was Avadalia, the Queen.
We all felt like we'd been snubbed when it was revealed—after all, with the act she put on she seemed to have about the intelligence level of a child's plaything. Indeed, she didn't seem to have any functional purpose—most of us just assumed she was the king's plaything. She turned out to be positively brilliant. She rooted out the spies among us with deadly accuracy and efficiency—for them of course. One plant, she did not find. It was their downfall.
I never liked her. She was a woman's in a man's world. She played the games of a courtier far too well, with far too much skill. She was entirely devoted to Zan. She would've risked anything, actually did risk (and lose) everything for him. She played the game, and she won. For that I resented her.
When I got to the pod chamber, and she was the only one waiting there, I resented her more. I'd waited forty years for them to come out of the pods so I could educate them and get home. I mis-timed it by a day and a half. She was the only one waiting there, and she couldn't even speak. She didn't know where the others were. So I took her with me, determined to find the others. It was supposed to take days, not years.
But it has been years, and she has thrown one of those fits of tantrum I dreaded. She got away from me, in of all places, Roswell New Mexico. She even got me arrested. Escaping was not difficult. I was once held by the United States military. A sheriff's office in a poky little town like this was no great difficulty.
I established a pattern, getting arrested and escaping four times in as many months. I made sure that the reports got to Roswell. I was using it to lull their Sheriff, Jim Valenti, into a sense of security. I wanted him to think I was far away and no threat. I made a detour to New York, where we (I and the Minister of Propaganda, known here as Nicholas) stashed the second set of the Royal Four. They are progressing as we expected. They are the defective set, though it is helpful to know what to look for.
They will look similar as far as facial features go. But God willing they will act differently. I do not believe in any of these human religions, but it is sometimes a comfort to believe in a higher power. I pray that the other set will be different than this. This set could never pass as royalty. They are so uncultured; I would despair at turning them into decent servants. The one who took the name Zan is their leader, though it is contested by Lonnie and Rath. The only one they got even remotely right is the simpering, clinging Ava. She is as loyal here as she was there. I wonder why I got the spitfire, instead of the mouse. Which side of the mirror is more accurate to what she was? I cannot see this cringing piece of gutter trash as a future queen. But it is… satisfying to see the one who humbled me, herself so humbled.
I have established the pattern, I have completed my duty as guardian to the rejects. I will fetch Ava…known here as Tess, and we will continue our search. I am sure she will agree that she has had enough of suburbia. I do not understand humans. What is the point of ripping out all the trees in a certain area and then naming things after them? For example, Elm Street, Oak Avenue etc.
She will have asserted her power and will be feeling superior. I will crush that with long hours, little sleep and only the amount of food she needs to survive. She will have been lulled by her time with the humans. She will not expect it, but she will come willingly. I have inculcated in her the desire to return home, to do her duty, to find the others. She does not like me, but will try to use me as a tool to get home. I will let her feel superior, but will use her skills and talents more effectively than she can use mine.
I am passing the 'Welcome to Roswell Sign.' It really is ridiculous, this town. It disgusts me as an example of the sheer wasteful tastelessness, barrenness, and stupidity of humanity.
I have my orders from Nicholas. He was the Minister of Propaganda back home. He know all the Royal's faults failings and foibles. They told him willingly so he could gloss them over. Except for Avadalia. She did not trust him, but had no proof. She said nothing.
Maybe if she had we would have discovered that he was Khivar's plant.
Nicholas told me that after the death of the Royal Four he deliberately let it leak out that Vilandra and Khivar had been lovers. He used it to topple what was left of the royal throne and to install Khivar as the people's dictator. He also told me that it was all a lie—Vilandra had never been unfaithful to her beloved.
While his betrayal sickened me initially, I have resolved it. Forty years on a planet of people no more advanced than the fictional Yahoos from the satire Gulliver's Travels will do that to you. I have even come to admire the ruthless brilliance hidden behind that child's face. Appearances are deceptive, and Nicholas uses that to his benefit.
I am at the public records office now. I go inside, and look through adoption records, foster care records, school registrations, looking for Tess' name. It is time to move on. I informed her before this to be ready to go at the appointed hour.
She is waiting when I get there. "I knew you were coming." She says, dully. She carries a small suitcase, and a backpack.
"Get in." I wave at the car. "We've lost a lot of time on our search already."
"Why can't I stay? You'll know where I am. When you find the others you can come back for me."
I snort. She's a foolish child here, not the poised woman who deceived my wisdom and Nicholas's relentless intellect. Nicholas resents her more than I do. He is trapped in the body of a child, so his intellect is all he has left. He can not bear that she deceived him. He is driven nearly out of his mind when he contemplates that a girl of tender years, whose only claim to the palace was the heart of the king defeated the wily and cunning noble accustomed to court intrigues and battles of wits. He was a lusty court figure then, notorious for wild love affairs with violent ends. His lust for women extended to power. He always seemed to walk the wire, just short of being dismissed for plotting treason. The only thing that saved him was his influence at court among the higher up nobles—the commoners certainly hated him. Had reason, too.
Avadalia bided her time silently. Eventually, Nicholas gave himself away. Avadalia got the evidence she needed. She presented it to Zan. He in turn told Rath and Vilandra of the plot to destroy the people's newfound faith in her. They confronted Nicholas, and Khivar. They were preparing to denounce them to the press, when a strike force attacked the palace. They died moments later. Nicholas' enmity against the girl who nearly destroyed his power has grown deeper and more bitter in the years we have been stuck here. And stuck we are. The Royal Four must unite, find the granolith, and activate it before any of us can leave the planet.
I sometimes think Nicholas resents her most for that. Simply by being born the way she was, she has powers and abilities he does not have. She can survive here. He can not survive without the granolith. He resents everything about her. Sometimes I believe that he cares more about getting revenge on her for what she and Zan did in the past than he cares about returning home. I have never let them meet. It is not because I particularly like Tess. It is my duty to protect her, to shape her as a proper queen. And even more important, I want to go home. If they ever meet he will destroy her. And my chances of getting home.
I have severed ties with Nicholas. He is dangerous. I am bringing Tess with me on a search for the real Royal Four. I will not allow her to die at the hands of the madman who could so easily worm his way into her life. I beckon her into the car. She stares out the window, and waves goodbye to life as the sheriff's daughter.