CANTO IV
"… a fair, saintly Lady called to me
In such wise, I besought her to command me.
Her eyes were shining brighter than the Star;
And she began to say, gentle and low, …
'A friend of mine, and not the friend of fortune,
Upon the desert slope is so impeded
Upon his way, that he has turned through terror,
And may, I fear, already be so lost,
That I too late have risen to his succor.'"
~ Dante's Inferno, Canto II
"Welcome, my dear." He steeples his hands in pleasure. "I had hoped you would join me today."
She has appeared often over the years. Sometimes in the halls of the Senate, mourning some new exertion of his power; sometimes in the chambers of the Palace, the secret grieving witness of the latest atrocity her unwitting former husband is parading before her; once in her own tomb on Naboo, silently bearing his public lies and private jeers. What she gains by it he neither knows nor cares; she has no power over him, and it pleases him to have her as the private, helpless witness of his power. Today she has joined him in his throne room; for the moment, his only company. Save one other translucent figure.
He follows her gaze to the holoprojector. It is playing back, for his viewing pleasure, the maiden address of the recently instated Senator of the Sovereign System of Alderaan.
"I thought you might take an interest in her. Her father was such a favorite of yours." A gratuitous insinuation, as they both know; but it amuses him the way she abides even the cheapest insult. A reliable object of scorn is Padmé Amidala. "I had hoped she would fare better than the last pretty little brunette to grace that exalted body, but it seems she is already…tainted goods, shall we say?"
Rather to his surprise, a splinter of mischief sparkles in the late Padmé Amidala's eyes—the first he's seen these eighteen years. "She chose her words well, I thought."
He has heard before that the Princess of Alderaan is bold as brass. He can well believe she possesses the moxie to deliver, thinly disguised as her maiden speech, a barrage of criticism against Tarkin's decisive actions—as Her Highness so tactfully puts it, his massacre—at Ghorman.
He is surprised to discover that she has the sheer durasteel nerve to compose that criticism exclusively using quotations taken from his own state addresses.
"High praise, my lady, coming from you." He conceals his wrath, allows her instead one of the polished smiles he has not troubled to use overmuch since his lesser days. He may easily allow some slight nostalgic pleasure in discussing politics for a moment with his late protégé. For all her pointless weaknesses, Padmé Amidala had been a gifted demagogue. Like this little Alderaanian, she'd known how to push the line, how to finesse it and contort it and confront it without ever quite crossing beyond the pale. In the recording's wide-frame segments he can see less daring Senators shifting nervously in their ranks, casting anxious gazes at stormtroopers and Imperial Guards stationed around the vast chamber, but that firm, fiery alto marches onward. By the order of Lord Vader, who had been supervising the Senate that morning, no one stops her.
A cunning stratagem, of course. All his advisors for once agree with Lord Vader: better to be amused by this tiny rabble-rouser. To show anger would be to betray that she had managed to disconcert the might of the Empire. To shut her up so publicly would be to admit that he feared what she might say.
The door of the throne room groans open. Heavy steps fall like hammerstrokes on the granite. Durasteel knees crash before the throne.
The only difficulty with this interpretation of events is that Lord Vader is not famous for his subtlety. Rather the reverse.
"What a little firebrand the Alderaanians have sent us, Lord Vader." He releases his apprentice from obeisance with a generous gesture. This is not the moment for a stick.
Vader casts a cold glance at the still-grandstanding holographic form of the Empire's newest senator. "Indeed, my master."
Ah, she flinches. She hates to hear that word from him, she who would have kept him tied to the Jedi's puppet strings.
He grins, doubly pleased that his apprentice does not know what he finds so entertaining. "Who would have thought Organa had it in him to raise such a dissident?"
Vader shifts, arms crossing impatiently. "He dissembles well enough, my master, but it is clear where his loyalties lie."
"So you have said for many years, my friend." His voice consoles, strokes, as he has taught it well to do. "Perhaps I should have listened to you sooner. Patience has its place, and I had hoped…but I fear with this new representative, Alderaan has cemented its antagonism." He shakes his head, the picture of righteous regret, a loving but stern father.
Vader's hand hovers by his blade. Bail Organa reminds him of much he prefers to forget. "An alteration in leadership may soon remedy their perspective."
"Oh?" he purrs. "Perhaps you are right again." He turns back to the projected Princess, heaving a dramatic little sigh. "And yet I would so regret it. Perhaps it is the foolishness of an old man, but does she not…remind you of someone?"
Stillness holds while the impassive insectoid gaze dissects the passionate Princess inch by inch. Shrouded from the eyes on which she gazes with such longing, Padmé Amidala mouths Anakin.
"No one who deserves my remembrance," Vader replies flatly.
His tissue-thin lips stretch merrily over his teeth, his satisfaction complete. The bald lie pleases him far more than the truth ever could; for the lie is obedience. It is what he wants to rub in Padmé Amidala's face—proof that he owns this man soul and body. Tears slip down her ghosting cheeks.
"I envy you your objectivity, my friend. However, we will soon have a more…emphatic means of dealing with Alderaan. If it must be made an example, I would not have its sacrifice be without meaning." How he is anticipating it, his near-finished Death Star; how glorious the power of the death and fear it will generate for him. "You were wise to let the little Princess have her say. We will bide our time a short while longer."
He dismisses his well-leashed servant, and turns a cruel eye to Padmé Amidala. "Ah, the fleetingness of love," he sighs airily, feigning compassion. "And life. And, dare I say, whole worlds?"
With a gesture of his hand the projector and young Leia Organa erupt in prophetic flames.
She makes no answer but one, quiet and predictable and empty. "There is still good in him."
tbc