Scene 5: A Royal Summons Comes to 202 Green Street
I did not have much to pack, just some clothes I had bought when I arrived in Capital City. I had a few things from Ptolemy City. I packed them carefully. I stared at my credentials for private investigation. I had thought to make that my profession when I settled here, but I discovered no one wanted to use a private investigator. Private investigator collect information. Collecting information is dangerous. I would be in competition with the Royal Information Keepers and, basically, that is illegal. So the thing I knew how to do is illegal here. I do not know much of anything else and any inquiries I have made for employment have been rebuffed. I am, after all, a foreigner. I do not know how this happened, but like Mrs. Farnesworth, everyone think I come from the Democracy of Rock and Roll which makes me, for all intents and purposes, untouchable. I was closing my bag when a forceful knocking began at my door. This was strange. No one knocked at my door. Both Daniels and Gwennore interacted with me on the landings. Mrs. Farnesworth watched the front door. No one came to my door. The knocking persisted.
I stepped to it. Should I ask who was there? The pounding continued. This person would not go away.
I opened the door.
An Area Boy faced me. These are typically young men who run in packs and threaten people. They back off if they are given money. Pinned to his dirty shirt was a Claude pin. This must be n official visit.
“You Ronnie Camberwell?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“This is for you,” he said and shoved a document into my face. Then he left.
I stepped back from the doorway and closed my door. Then I looked at the document. It was definitely an official document.
“Bring this with you when you appear at the Palace. Come immediately.”
A royal summons. Why? Should I be worried? Did this have anything to do with the dead swan? That was the day before yesterday.
I reached for my coat. There was nothing for it. I had to go.
Gwennore met me on the stairs. Of course she had seen the Area Boy coming and going.
“So you’re off to the Palace are you?” she asked.
“I have no choice,” I said, planning to brush right past her.
““You want to be a sheep sent to the slaughter, don’t you now.”
///this was more statement than question.
“I was lawfully summoned,” I said.. “If i did not go, I would be a fugitive and a criminal.”
That may or may not have been true. I certainly consider myself a law-abiding person. Admittedly, I come from a world where there are few regulations and where murder and mayhem are commonplace.
“Be warned,” Gwennore said, “they can put thoughts in your mind there and not everybody comes home who goes there.”
As crazy as this sounded, this may be the most coherent thing Gwennore had said to me. I shivered as I went down the next flight of stairs and not from the chill of the house.
“Mind the rent is due tonight if you want to stay,” Mrs. Farnesworth said as I opened the front door.
I wanted to say I was never coming back, but then I remembered my carry bag on the bed and Gwennore’s warnings. I held my tongue.
Scene 6: Responding to the Summons at the Palace
I proceeded to the Palace as quickly as I could. I was not anxious to go inside per Gwennore’s warnings, but I was also curious and cold. The wind was blowing steadily. It felt so much colder and I had no idea where I was going when i collected my bag and left 202 Green Street. Maybe there would be someone at the Palace to advise me. Maybe an Information Keeper could tell me what became of the homeless. I had never seen a homeless person in Capital City come to think of it. They must go somewhere. Maybe, i thought, with a certain amount of gallows humor, being kept at the Palace overnight wouldn’t be so bad.
I went through the large gateway with its huge gates standing open and very official-looking folks standing on either side, and looked around the large courtyard. I spotted the the flag for the Information Keepers. I showed them my document. At first the Information Keeper smile at me, but when she read my document, her manner became somber. Quietly she directed me to an inconspicuous doorway near her booth. My stomach clenched. This was not a simple matter. Maybe there was some truth behind what Gwennore always said.
I knocked on the door. It was locked. I waited. A panel in the door slid open. I showed my document. The window slid shut and the door creaked open. I walked through. No one was there to greet me. I wondered who opened the door. I wondered who looked at the document.
I was in a long stone corridor. Torches lighted my way. There seemed nothing to do but to walk forward. I came to another locked door. Before knocking, I looked back. I could no longer see the entrance door. One by one, each torch was extinguished but how this was happening I could not say. I realized, if the process continued, I would be standing in the dark soon. I knocked on the door. I heard a clicking sound. Quickly I reached for the door handle and pulled it open.
To my astonishment, I stepped into a lighted room much like any in Ptolemy City. In one step I had moved from a period on Old Earth to the modern day.
The only person occupying this ante chamber, for I could see immediately that the room was small, was the man who had spoken to me on the Old Stone Bridge, the one who had asked me if I was planning to jump.
“Hello, Ms. Camberwell,” he said. “We are expected. Please follow me.”
Bewildered, I followed him through yet another door, and into a busy corridor. I was walking past offices where people interfaced with all the modern conveniences I knew at home. Finally, we passed through yet another door into a conference room. Several people awaited us.
Scene 7: A Meeting with the Queen
“Please sit down,” the man at the other end of the table said. “I am Lord Stern.”
His appellation fit him. I thought, “Here it comes. Whatever I have done, things are not going to go well with me.”
“You are here,” Lord Stern continued, “because of the death of a royal swan.”
I was thunderstruck. I had not killed the swan. I only saw the swan dead on the path. I said as much to Lord Stern.
He said, “Then can you explain to me why your name was found near the swan’s body?”
He produced no evidence.
“No,” I said, “I never saw anything with my name on it, only the note signed by The Rebel Horde.”
“And you have no association with this body?” Lord Stern asked. Dare I say he asked me sternly?
“No,” I said. “I did not proceed past the swan. If my name was there, I did not place it there.”
“And this does not belong to you, then?”
Lord Stern produced a small case. I recognized it immediately. Captain Star Runner had purchased it for me and had my name inscribed on it. Of course it said “Detective Ronnie Camberwell” because that is what Star called me. I was a police officer at the time. I wondered where the little case came from. I had not brought it with me to Marathon. For all I knew, it was still sitting in a box in my flat in the Womyn’s Cooperative back in Ptolemy City.
“This is my case,” I said very slowly, “but I did not bring it to Capital City with me.”
I wondered exactly what these people knew about my past, who I was, and that I came from outside their star system. I was fairly confident they knew all this. The modernity of their offices suggested the Royal precinct operated differently than the rest of Capital City.
I need to work out the military arrangements for patrolling the space or at least the extraction point or points for the three planets. To have working spaceships, there has to be a place where they are built and manufacturing to support the building of the spaceships and the training of the personnel. How do the disparate governments on the settled planets interact to do this. I suppose they could cooperate enough to have a land mass where this is done away from the backward other areas. How did this come about? In part as a practical manner, I am sure. There was not enough resource or expertise on the first ships that came to this space and they had to recreate their society and keep people from starving or killing each other off. But why doesn’t the society progress? Is this a function of the high ups who can manage the masses more effectively if they are kept technologically backwards. Additionally, does this keep them more hidden from the Coalition? That seems a likely possibility and a way to explain what is going on. The richer people in Capital City keep information about the Royal Precinct quiet to protect their own interests. Severe penalties must accrue if any of them share too widely. The death penalty and torture must be in effect here. A nasty business. —–“So you are saying you had nothing to do with placing your case near my dead swan,” the only other woman in the room said.
Was this the queen? She looked nothing like any pictures I had ever seen of her. But she had said “my swan”.
“No, ma’am,” I stammered. What a fool I was making of myself. “I was horrified to see the dead swan. I enjoy going to the island in the lake and seeing the swans there.”
I was babbling. Surely this was not a good sign.
I kept looking at the woman. She was young, not old like the pictures.
“Victoria is the public face of royalty,” the woman said. “I am the Royal Province of Debussy-on-La-Mer’s queen, but my name is not Victoria. However, for public consumption, I am old, widowed and called Victoria.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I repeated, feeling awkward and dull-witted. I was continually blindsided by what went on behind closed doors in this city.
“Teddy,” Lord Stern said, turning to the man who had escorted me into the conference room. “Can you comment?”
“I have no testimony to give,” the man called Teddy said. “I stayed on the hillside to use the woods as cover.”
Then Teddy followed me that day. Why?
“Teddy,” the queen explained, “is your Shadower.”
“Shadower?” I repeated. What was a shadower?
“We employ many people to shadow persons of interest,” Lord Stern informed me. “As you see, surveillance cameras would be problematic.”
Indeed.
“So you employ people to follow other people around,” I said, “like private investigators.”
“A similar concept,” Lord Stern said, “but they are more akin to police officers than private investigators.
“You are of interest to us, Ms. Camberwell,” Lord Stern continued. “We were shocked to find your case near the rebel declaration. Teddy had not reported anything unusual about your habits and your associates. We wondered, of course, if you had co-opted him, but we are satisfied that you have not.”
Thanks for small favors, I thought.
“But we still have the matter of my dead swan,” the queen said. “Lord Stern, how can this matter be resolved.”
“I am doubtful, Your Majesty,” Lord Stern said, “that Ms. Camberwell killed your swan, but as there are no witnesses that she did not kill your swan, I am unwilling to recommend the death penalty.”
Death penalty. I had not realized this was a trial and that sentence could be passed. I did not know that my answers would determine whether I lived or died. No charges had been formerly brought. I had no counsel. Surely this was barbaric and very unfair. Gwennore’s warnings came to mind. Maybe people disappeared all the time. Maybe that was why there were no homeless people around. Maybe they just executed them daily. I began to shiver again.
“The penalty must be satisfied,” the queen answered.
This was a conversation that included neither me nor the shadower, Teddy.
“I have an alternate proposal,” Lord Stern advised her.
“Tell me,” the queen said, leaning forward.
“It regards another matter,” Lord Stern said.
The queen slapped her hand on the table. “Lord Stern, mind the death of my swan.”
“I am, Your Majesty,” Lord Stern said with exaggerated patience as if he was speaking to a petulant child and perhaps he was.
“I have been looking into the matter of The Rebel Horde. Your Majesty will remember a notice was found by the body of your swan. In my humble opinion, the swan’s death and this notice are related. Because her case was found by the swan’s body, I believe Ms. Camberwell is somehow related to both the notice and the swan’s death. I don’t know how yet, I confess, but I propose she and the shadower be directed, under my authority, to find out. If they can adequately explain how these three things, the note, the case and the swan are related, they will be removed from Royal Suspicion. Otherwise, their lives will be forfeit. Is that acceptable to you, Your Majesty?”
Now I was shaking violently and I clasped my hands tightly together. I was under a death sentence now and I had nothing to do with the swan’s death or the notice or even my case’s appearance, all the way from Ptolemy City. This was outrageous.
I did not speak. It was not because I was exercising any prudence in the matter. I did not speak because my throat was so dry and tight I did not think I could have spoken if anyone asked me to speak which of course they did not.
“Do whatever you think best, Lord Stern,” the queen said, rising to her feet, “I am only interested in finding my swan’s killer.”
“With all respect, Majesty,” Lord Stern said, “I think you would be wise to take warnings from this organization seriously.”
“No way,” the queen said. Her tone was childish. “You and my brother can figure all that out. I just want someone to pay for my swan’s death.”
And with that she flounced out of the room by a different door than I had used to enter.
Scene 8: Prince Hollis’s Plan
Lord Stern sighed, then collected himself.
A young man entered the room from yet another door and sat opposite from where the queen had sat.
“Well, Stern, how did it go?” he asked.
“With poor grace, Your Royal Highness.”
The young man sighed. He turned to me. “Ms. Camberwell,” he said, “I am Hollis, the queen’s brother.”
“Prince Hollis runs the government,” Lord Stern explained. I was impressed. Lord Stern dained to explain something to me.
“Hollin enjoys playing her part,” Prince Hollis continued, “but she cannot see reason when it comes to the swans. Otherwise she is a fair and rational person with many gifts and more than my equal in many important ways.”
Lord Stern looked like he had eaten a very sour piece of fruit.
“What I am interested in,” Prince Hollis continued, speaking to me, “is getting to the bottom of this matter. You did not bring this case with your name on it to Capital City, more specifically, to this part of space.”
Okay. Everyone in this room knows I am from the Pharaoh Star System or at least that I am from outside of their region of space. That is a relief. I can speak freely, at least about this matter.
“As far as I know, the case should be back at my flat in Ptolemy City,” I said.
“And Captain Star Runner would not have brought it to you?” Prince Hollis asked.
Okay. He lows about Star and probably that Star is a Pantheran.
“I have not seen Captain Star Runner since my initial arrival on Marathon,” I said. “As far as I know, she is off on one of her space voyages.”
“I see,” Prince Hollis said.
Ronnie will need to refer back to this point. This is the first information Prince Hollis holds back from her. I need to think more about Prince Hollis’s motives and goals.
I stared at the prince. Events were moving quite quickly. Apparently I had escaped execution today and now, whether I liked it or not, I was finding a way to avoid execution in the future. Well, I had wanted a job and saving my own life was as good a job as any. I could not tell yet if my inevitable fate would be execution no matter what I did. The longer I stayed alive the better.
To answer the prince’s question though. I knew so few people in the city.
“Gwennore,” I said. Gwennore was a crazy person, but she had rightly figured out what was happening to me. Maybe her insight would be helpful.
“Gwennore,” Prince Hollis said her name thoughtfully.
“A resident at Ms. Camberwell’s boarding house,” Teddy said. “She has been a frequent resident at the asylum.”
“An odd choice,” Prince Hollis said to no one in particular, “but allowed under the statute. Gwennore will be advised of her civic responsibility.”
“You have two weeks to produce results,” Lord Stern told me. “I will authorize payment of your rent and some living expenses. I understand you have no resources.”
They certainly knew a lot, a lot more than I did. I wondered, with a death sentence hanging over me, if I would make any progress at all. And with a shadower always at my heels, I wondered if escape was possible.
“If you fail,” prince Hollis said,, “sentence will be carried out.” He smiled. His smile was neither friendly nor sinister. “It is unfortunate that your friends are all off-planet. They could have been useful to you.” He push back his chair and rose, walking to the door. “I wish we had met under other circumstances, Ms. camberwell. I would have liked to chat with you about other worlds, but unfortunately, I doubt we will have the opportunity.”