“That’s no fault of mine,” Kamal answered sourly.
Draco’s eyebrows rose. “No fault of yours? I think it is.” He lowered his voice as if half the men in the command box were not telepaths. “If you changed allegiance we could see a lot of each other. I appreciate a good man and a real orc. As it stands, you command a legion but have no seat in the council of your commander. With me it would be different.
“By the way, I don’t see our friend Ahmed here. Is he sick? Surely every orc is here unless duty forbids, or mortal illness.”
Kamal’s expression was grumpy. “I’m a soldier, not a power seeker or politician. I have no wish to sit on any man’s council. I’ll let others decide what should be done, as long as they give me a share in the doing.”
Draco’s mouth smiled. Kamal, he thought, you non-psi dog, you screen as well as most telepaths but you’re a poor liar. Your only guile is silence. I not only know how you think, old comrade, but often what you think, without needing to read you.
“No wish for influence? I can’t believe that. You haven’t fully considered your answer. You have a sense of right and wrong. You know the plans the Master had and what he held to be important. This, for instance.” Draco gestured about at the stadium. “He had it built while the army still lived in tents. It had priority over dwellings; only the palace preceded it. Before either of us was born, he presided here. The games and entertainments are to demonstrate our superiority, and in his time, attendance was compulsory. Now that the Master is dead, your dear Ahmed is above the law and doesn’t trouble to come. Not surprising perhaps—his father was a slave, not an orc, and he grew up in the comfort of his father’s apartment, not an orcling pen. How can you stomach a man like that?”
“I have no complaint with him. He is a strong and able leader, and he gave me my legion.”
“Hah! You led the Imperial Guard cohort, the elite of the army! Are you sure it was you Ahmed wanted? Or did he want your cohort, promoting you to gain them? With me you’d have influence along with rank. I have real orcs for counselors, too, not a fat eunuch slave like that damned Yusuf. And I haven’t abandoned the Master’s dreams and plans.”
“The Master himself had slaves as counselors; Ahmed’s father was one of them.”
“The Master was the Master! There is no comparison!” Draco almost hissed now with intensity. “Listen, old comrade, I know the kind of orc you are, and I hate to see you back a swine like that. I knew you when we were boys together. And when we were centurions in the same cohort I saw the kind of man you’d grown to be, the kind of leader you were becoming. A real orc, but not a common orc. An orc with high intelligence and a sense of destiny, providing his own discipline, thinking beyond the next orgy.
“You should sit in the councils of power. Don’t let go the Master’s dreams and give yourself to the ambitions of a slave’s son who abandoned the Master as soon as he was dead.”
Kamal answered coldly. “Perhaps I know Ahmed better than you do. His heart is an orc’s even if his stomach isn’t, and his brain is an orc’s. He is as loyal to the Master as anyone is.”
Draco’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure? Who did the Master entrust the empire to when he went to war, and who was it he took along to keep his eye on? Think about it.
“And which of us did he plan to make his chief lieutenant? Who did he give Nephthys to?” His voice softened, his words slowed. “Now there was a gift. You can’t imagine. She is like a banquet, and the others are dry bread. When she touches me . . . ” His shiver seemed involuntary.
“It’s too bad I don’t have others like her, to reward my chief lieutenants with. Sometimes I wonder if I should share her. It was to me she was given of course, and a gift like that should not be used carelessly. But on the other hand I am the consul, and a man of great power. I can take or give as I see fit.”