The day of Her Ladyship's Magnae Accessio had gone splendidly, and the ball that ended it was something out of a dream: beautifully formal, but not stuffy, and I got to spent hours on end with the whole of my family — my children's children, and their own grandchildren! For the first time, perhaps, we all felt our new nobility. New to me, that is, as I am the shameless upstart who started it all, and those young whippersnappers never knew the struggle to rise by one's own valour! But they all do share my ethics, I feel, and I just couldn't go to bed. Which was just as well, because in the small hours of night, when one is giddy for the decision to not sleep at all and instead revel and rejoice, Peri, the lord-captain's aide, came for me, with the air of one who had dozed off in her uniform while waiting for the festivities to conclude.

'Seneschal, I do apologise for interrupting,' she said. 'The lord-captain voxed me and asked, and she insisted on the words, that if you're still up and not too tired, she would very much like your presence, but that if you cannot come or wish to enjoy your family it's quite all right and she'll see you in the morning.'

Now that was a worrying message, and not only because Her Ladyship ought to have been asleep after taking her leave two hours ago! She sounded uncertain, and Her Ladyship is never uncertain. Whatever had rattled her must have been an event of tremendous import, so of course I immediately excused myself from the younger Werserian crowd and made for her study, where Peli said I would find her.

The lights, over her desk, were too bright; at this time of the night, they almost hurt. Her Ladyship was sitting on her great chair, still in her evening gown. Her elbows rested on her desk and her face was buried in her hands. Hurrying to her, I clicked my heels and saluted.

Oh, her eyes when she lifted her face! So empty — dead eyes set in a mask of horror and dismay! Puffy and red — she had cried, and when she took a deep breath in order to speak a great shiver took her that resolved in a sob. Her teeth chattered under her attempts to control herself. Damn propriety — I dashed to her before I had time to think and held her tight. She pressed her head against my chest and grabbed the back of my tunic as if her life depended on it. Convulsive sobs shook her. It was a messy affair, full of snot, too, but as a family man I have been cried, puked, pissed, and even on occasion shat upon by those dear to me, so Her Ladyship's breakdown was nothing I was unprepared for.

'Hush, Katov, hush,' I whispered, cradling her. Her hair was very soft, like a child's. I smoothed it in regular strokes — those always did wonders for my sons, even in their adult age.

Little by little, her trembling assuaged. Her breath evened. She tried to say something — and then here we went again. Her distress broke my heart; I wondered if someone dear to her had died. But she was already an orphan, had been since childhood, and as far as I knew van Calox was fine… Which put me on track, of course.

We stayed in a hug for a little while. When Her Ladyship pulled away, I handed her a clean handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.

'May I ask what happened, lord-captain?'

Her Ladyship shook her head and put her finger on her lips. Rising, she needed to steady herself on her desk, and gestured me to follow her. She led me to her bedroom and asked me to wait a bit before disappearing behind a door. I heard running water, more nose-blowing, and she came back with a clean face, her beautiful gown replaced by pyjamas and a bathrobe. A hidden panel in the wall opened at her touch of a gene scanner; we went through it and I was surprised to discover a hidden parlour. The door — a thickly armoured thing — closed noiselessly.

'We couldn't speak over there,' said Her Ladyship, her voice hoarse. 'Xavier Calcazar spent Emperor knows how many hours alone in my apartments. We need to assume they've been bugged.'

All fire had gone out of her. Her shoulders drooped. She waved me to a set of sofas and made a beeline for a drinking cabinet. I watched disapprovingly as she poured herself a double or triple shot of what looked like rahzvod and gulped it down. She offered me some, but I refused.

'I know I'll regret rahzvod on an empty stomach,' she said sombrely, vying for time, unwilling to yet recall what had turned her in a shell of herself.

'Are you saying the Lord Inquisitor broke into your private apartments?'

'Yes. But it's not the worst of it.'

In the quietness of those last hours of night, Her Ladyship — curled up on an armchair, biting her nails, half-drunk as the strong alcohol diffused in her blood — told me all about van Calox's treason. Not everything at once: it took her time, angry sobs and a good many swearwords. Her usually organised mind was all over the place, and more than once I had to ask her to backtrack and clear up some detail or other. In the end, she gave me a good idea of the scene that had unfolded in her office. An appalling affair from beginning to end. And she even allowed that wretch to stay in her retinue! My blood boils even as I write these lines. He didn't even give her the courtesy of a warning something of this nature was to come!

That van Calox reported to Calcazar was a given, yes, but a gentleman does not kiss and tell. Even worse, too, if Her Ladyship's assertion is correct and he manipulated her affections to better spy on her! Although this I have a hard time to believe, and I told Her Ladyship as much.

'You didn't see his face when Calcazar hinted at this,' she sighed, rubbing her face. 'Cold and cunning and mathematical, he called him, and that's exactly what he looked like. He didn't even have the grace to appear embarrassed.'

'Not to play Horus's advocate, lord-captain, but van Calox never was an expressive man. You alone appeared able to read emotion in him.'

'And how fucking wrong I was.'

A white dawn was creeping through the windows. All the elation of the previous day had deserted me. Her Ladyship looked like something the grink dragged in, with dark circles under her eyes and her mouth taut. The bells of Saint Drusus's cathedral rang Lauds in the distance. There only remained one thing to do, and I told Her Ladyship as much. She stared at me, puzzled.

'What do you mean, Abelard, by throwing your glove at him?'

'The man has taken advantage of your honour and trust for nefarious ends. I shall challenge him to a duel,' I explained.

'I forbid it,' Her Ladyship immediately said.

'Lord-captain, you cannot let such a slight go unpunished. A Rogue Trader does not allow lackeys of the Inquisition to make a fool of her. Now you yourself, of course, cannot exact revenge for diplomatic reasons, but as your seneschal I do believe…'

'No.' And then, more softly, she added: 'He's not worth putting a target on your family's back, Abelard. Besides, it's on me for trusting him. He calls Calcazar his mentor and never hid it. I should have known.'

There was an ineffable sadness in Her Ladyship's eyes — she had wanted to trust, I could see that, she had chosen to believe in something other than mere physical urges, and had been deceived. From what I gather, hers isn't the pain of innocence hoodwinked, but that of faith disavowed; a deeper anguish, certainly. A flash of pain contorted her features, all of a sudden: she had bitten the quick of her nail and forced down her mangled hand. I suggested that she tried and got some sleep, as she had two hours left before we needed to leave with Janris Danrok for the Administratum.

'I'll sleep on the shuttle,' she said, absent-mindedly bringing her fingers back to her teeth and wincing again.

'I must insist, lord-captain… please. Your nerves are hanging by a thread.'

Quite reluctantly, after some more pleading, Her Ladyship accepted that I accompany her back to her bed, to tuck her in and turn the light off when leaving her bedroom. Sheer exhaustion, I hoped, would down her for a while, and I resolved to engineer some mishap that would allow her to rest an hour more yet. Her ladies in waiting in charge of waking her would be as late as I could make them.

What wasn't my surprise then, when half-an-hour before Terce Her Ladyship's aide Peli voxed me again, informing me that the lord-captain was ready to go and was looking for me! I found her in her office, once again in her simple dark uniform; af Putnam would have kittens when he learned she had scorned the outfit he had readied for the occasion. Tall and straight she stood, quite pale, the dark circles under her eyes worse than ever, but she had regained her composure and was showing a middle-aged man around, cool and calm as can be. She introduced him to me as a painter whose name I previously heard from lady Cassia and informed me she wished to commission a grandiose painting to replace the old battle scene that currently occupies half a wall.

'And what will the subject be, lord-captain,' I asked.

'The moment just before I pulled the trigger and blew out the brains of the Lord Inquisitor Phreon de Tharaal.'

'Oh,' I said. The artist had the forced smile of a man who wonders whether he will be covered in fame and riches, or grisly murdered and his body dumped somewhere in the lower hive — and could suffer both fates in rapid succession. 'I am sure Master Bosit's work will be stellar.'

Before the conversation could progress any further, though, Magos Pasqal entered Her Ladyship's office. She greeted him with effusion and ushered everyone else, including her person, out.

'Thank you, Pasqal,' she called out loudly by the door, 'for agreeing to search yourself for listening devices in my quarters while I'm away. Don't hesitate to pull out the panelling if you feel the need to.'

Our red-robed cogboy chirped a binharic reply, followed by something about the Quest for Knowledge being best served by honesty. I do not think tech-priests consider spying a sin or a breach of trust in itself — if one does not take the appropriate steps to protect sensitive data, after all, then it is fair game to them. However, they hold very strict views about authorisations and such: once uncovered, knowledge ought to be protected from the lay. Her Ladyship probably had very little convincing to do before Magos Pasqal agreed to defeat the sneaky Inquisition for her.

Those last two days have been interesting, to say the least. Word of van Calox's misbehaviour spread through Her Ladyship's retinue after she confided in Mistress Heydari, and reactions were mixed. Dear lady Cassia was most distraught; she nearly cried when discussing the matter with me, saying that never had she gotten an inkling of it, that van Calox's colours had perfectly matched those of the lord-captain in rose and silver hues. She was shaken to her core to find out her visions can be wrong. Sister Argenta, on the whole, sided with van Calox, citing sacred duty to one's masters — but she promptly shut up when I asked what saint Argenta's stance was on twisting facts into blackmail material, not even to mention weaponising intimacy. Magos Pasqal remarked that such were the failings of biology and that none of this would have happened to people devoted enough to the Omnissiah to replace most of their organic parts with steel. Mistress Tlass, on one of her rare moments away from the bar, just shrugged, and of course Mistress Lanaevyss considers the whole affair with the detached curiosity of a higher being watching cockroaches fight on a kitchen floor. Mistress Heydari, meanwhile, has taken to defending the lord-captain against the ills of brooding; Sirocco the lacerax is more often than not found outside Her Ladyship's apartments, growling at passersby. Mistress Heydari says she has instructed the creature to bite van Calox's calf away should he prowl around, and considering Sirocco's intellect she might just have understood the assignment.

Some time during the day, though, we got word that the Lord Inquisitor's shuttle had departed, and Her Ladyship lost no time in sending out a sternly-worded summons to his acolyte. She asked me to assist her in the confrontation, which I was initially reluctant to do as plenty of intimate and dirty laundry would surely be aired, but she needed support, so of course I relented.

The meeting was held in the late afternoon in Her Ladyship's thoroughly debugged office (Magos Pasqal has removed four cleverly hidden devices, one of which he said must have gone back to lady Theodora's days). The overcast weather outside made the room a gloomy one. Her Ladyship sat behind her desk, once again in her simple uniform, biting her lips. When van Calox was shown in by one of the palace secretaries, she didn't flinch and watched him cross the length of her office with narrowed eyes.

'Rogue Trader,' he saluted — quite primly, considering the circumstances. His countenance was severe, wholly changed from before, and I did grasp then what Her Ladyship meant the other night. He was sullen and withdrawn, but also proud. He had added a few devotional seals to the collection hanging from his pauldrons.

'Interrogator,' she replied, and in that single word she put more venom than others do in whole treaties. 'Would you care to explain to my Seneschal and I the circus you were part of on the night of my Magnae Accessio?'

'You met with the Lord Inquisitor. Over the course of the conversation, His Lordship appraised your adherence to dogma and your willingness to cooperate with him in defending the Koronus Expanse against the threats it faces. Quite natural and, frankly, to be expected from a man in his position when a new, powerful figure rises.'

Van Calox spoke in a detached, factual tone — almost dismissive.

'Is that all you have to say?'

'Yes. What else would you have me comment upon?'

Oh, the anger and the hurt that fought on the lord-captain's face! She remained silent for a while, gritting her teeth, until she spat: 'He — you — all of your band of spies — you ambushed me. You — your bloody mentor accused me of heresy, based on your reports that you made to him, just so that he could bully me into submission. You twisted my words, my actions, to serve Calcazar's goals and you expect me to take this calmly?'

'Your anger is quite misplaced, Rogue Trader. You left the conversation with your life, all of your limbs, and retained all your privileges. I daresay things went very well for you.'

Ever since the first human being rose on their hind legs over a Holy Terra yet devoid of intelligent life — who knows how many thousands of millennia ago — no one has ever calmed down when told their outrage is illegitimate. Her Ladyship was no exception to this rule. She became very pale, and asked if van Calox was proud of having participated in this farce. He replied that he had done nothing but his duty. Her Ladyship rose, the feet of her chair scraping against the floor, and ran to him, standing with her fists curled in a tight ball, out of breath.

'And did your duty require for you to tell him all about us? What did you tell him, Heinrix? Does he know my favourite positions? The way he stared at me — he does. Did you fucking seduce me so that you could better spy on me, or to blackmail me, or was it just a perk of the job? Do you even fucking care about me at all, you regicide mastermind, or was it just an act?'

In the silence that followed, I will swear before the Emperor that I saw a flash of compassion over van Calox's face before he replied: 'You must understand, Katov, that there is no way to disobey the Lord Inquisitor's orders.'

'Groxshit,' she spluttered. 'Throne, I've spent my career watching people wiggle away from orders they didn't like and sometimes I even helped them pull it off. You never have to cooperate in full if you don't want to.'

Now van Calox had nothing to reply to that, and I hope that any shred of decency left in his soul curled up in shame under the lord-captain's burning gaze. He has nerve, I'll give him that: a lesser man would have balked when faced with Her Ladyship's wrath, but he stood still like a statue. The lord-captain went back to her seat, taking back her place, a slight tremor shaking her hands.

'When I next leave on the Emperor's Mercy, you will accompany me so you can make your fucking reports and I can keep an eye on you. Any onboard privilege you previously enjoyed is revoked. You shall be barred from the officers' mess and every place that is not either your cabin or the bridge. You want to go somewhere else? You ask for permission. Any and every external communication you make will have to be approved by myself, personally, and you better hope your encryption algorithms are good because I will pass everything on to Pasqal.'

What Her Ladyship didn't say was that I had in my possession a list of who the Lord Inquisitor's other spies could be, and that when the Emperor's Mercy next took to the Void those would be left stranded on Dargonus. The Vox Master and the master of the Astropathic Choir had worked hard on building that list and, while we didn't delude ourselves with the dream that it was complete, we still hoped to greatly reduce the Inquisition's overview of what happened aboard the flagship. Without a proper Master of Whisper, this was the best we could do.

'And of course,' concluded Her Ladyship with a cutting smile that was more of a snarl, 'our little tryst, as your mentor called it, is over. It's been over since you broke the promise you made in my bedroom ten meters from here. I will never betray the trust you have in me, those were your words. Liar.'

The pain this memory caused her was painfully obvious — no need to be a biomancer to see the courage she mustered to get this over without breaking down. A half-blind man could have read it in her taut shoulders, in the aggressive projection of her neck and chin. But the lord-captain is made of stern stuff. She clenched her jaw and stared down an Interrogator of the Holy Ordos until he lowered his prideful gaze. Now, van Calox looked annoyed — irritated, even.

'You do not understand, Katov,' he replied. 'You're making a mountain out of a molehi…'

'Shut up!'

Her Ladyship's fist had slammed on her desk as she shouted. Her breath was laboured. I stepped forward and informed van Calox the interview was over. He must have forgotten my presence, for my voice startled him, and he took a minute to reply.

'Of course. Rogue Trader, I stand at your service. Seneschal, I bid you good day.'

His steps barely made a sound over the carpet. When he reached the door, his hand resting on the handle, he turned back and nearly said something. His open lips closed again, though, when he caught a glimpse of Her Ladyship's stony expression, and he went through the door, shutting it behind him with a click of the latch.

END OF ACT 2