Senator Taylar was of the opinion that breakfast was a meal best taken alone, served as it was at such an uncivilized hour. Lunch was another matter entirely.
The real work of the Galactic Senate, as with most great political systems, was rarely conducted within the walls of the structure expressly built for that purpose. The great compromises necessary to the survival of democracy were not mediated in the halls of the Senate, but hashed out at lunch counters or vigorously debated in elegant private dining rooms. Loyalties and alliances were sworn and foresworn around coffee tables in senatorial apartments and over drinks in exclusive Coruscanti clubs. The real votes were decided, on the strength of merit, money or coercion, long before they were cast from hover pods in the Grand Convocation Chamber of the Senate.
The Senator naturally considered a solitary luncheon a wasted opportunity. As for dinner, well Taylar would have been truly distressed if the number of his dinner guests fell below the essential minimum requisite of eight.
But this morning, as always, he breakfasted alone.
He drank from a steaming cup and smiled to himself. His breakfast was served in a small sitting area just off his sleep chambers. The table was elegantly set with formal serving ware embellished with the ornate crest of some local nobility and offered a tempting array of sweet breads and fresh fruit. The senator was fully dressed and groomed, needing only to replace his dressing gown with his outer jacket, which had been brushed and pressed and carefully laid out for him on the bed by his personal attendant droid.
The stim caf was excellent and the pastry buttery soft, but neither the food nor the other fine amenities of his guest quarters were wholly responsible for his excellent mood. He was very well pleased with himself. Had he not worked so hard to cultivate a meticulously refined musical taste he might almost have allowed himself to hum the small tune that bubbled up in his mind half remembered from humble beginnings so effectively concealed and rewritten that even he sometimes had trouble recalling the true story of his own childhood.
The negotiations had gone well, very well indeed, but Taylar had expected that. And he was too savvy a politician to try to claim more than his small share of the credit. No, the credit here belonged to a better man. A great man. The whispered tales of Dooku's forsaken heritage, of the immense wealth and power of the Serenno family were all very impressive, but these were nothing compared to the man himself.
It pleased Senator Taylar to no end to have his name thrown together with greatness, even if only by slight association. He was not above a bit of name dropping if tastefully done. But this was not what made the Senator smile this morning as he stirred a bit more sweetener into his stim caf.
That the Senator was a valuable source of information was common knowledge to just about everyone on Coruscant, from the great political power brokers down to the mettlesome prying gossip columnists. But just how he came by this wealth of information was a mystery that no one could make out.
Taylar had found that the simple mistake most people made was to go looking for information. In the Senator's experience this more often than not came to nothing. For the best secrets, secrets of any value were too carefully guarded, or too high priced. Taylar had found over the years that the easiest way to pry loose even the tightest held secret was simply not to pry. It was not enough of feign disinterest, one had to truly be disinterested.
Now finding the interested party, one with the willingness and resources to pay, that was the real trick, and not the work of a day. As was knowing when someone was trying to conceal something of value.
Novices to the game of sabacc are often fooled into believing in the luck of the deal and fate of the randomizer, whereas the veteran knows the true art of the game lies in reading your opponent's cards in their face.
This was Taylar's natural born talent. It was in his blood. What a shocking revelation this would be to his friends and colleagues in the Senate, but it was all right there in the genealogy page of his Senate biography on the Holonet. His official family history ran rather long on words like entrepreneur, organizer, businessman, speculator and financier and rather short on perhaps slightly more accurate words like hustler, sharpie, con, crook, fraud, hustler, shark, and swindler. But it was there if you read with a careful understanding.
And although the Senator imagined himself to be far removed from the sordid occupations of his predecessors, he was not so very different. He was really just swimming in a bigger pond, with bigger fish.
Like the true gambler that he was Taylar understood that it was not the cards you are dealt, for what he currently held in his hand appeared, at face value, to be of no consequence.
All he possessed was an observation. A careful observation of a man, a very powerful man, who did as all powerful men do, he walked the path of his choosing regardless of the consequences. His discreet examination had revealed an ambitious man, but all great men are ambitious. That this man was a Jedi and supposedly held himself to loftier ideals was interesting, but of no real value to Taylar or his constituents.
No, what had caught the Senator's attention was something much more trivial, no more than a passing look, a fleeting emotion, hardly worth mentioning. Taylar only took note of it because Dooku worked so carefully to conceal it. He had guessed at Dooku's hand and would not take odds against what he surmised. He had seen what Dooku valued above all else, possibly even above his own ambition. He knew what Dooku carrier close to his heart.
The Senator was aware that this knowledge might never be of any value, but his gambler's instincts told him otherwise. He also knew that it was how you played the cards you are dealt that really mattered.
For as any real sabacc player is aware, the stakes can change in an instant.
Life is a game of skill as much as chance. When the randomizer strikes you must be in position to gain the advantage.
And if you played your cards right, you could sit at the high stakes table, be an insider in a city where exclusivity is everything. All it takes is the patience to wait and see how the game plays out.
Twelve years later…