Was there then any question of punishment for his deed, any thought of gunning him down? No. We instantly became as loyal to him as we had been to his father, Stanley Eight, and now are to his son, Stanley Ten. We are the Service of the Empire, not of any one particular emperor. Whoever sits on that throne is the Empire.’
‘Of course, sir. But what … ?’
‘Now comes some off the record material. Have you ever heard of Banion the Bastard?’
Jules thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think so, sir,’ he said. Yvette also shook her head.
But this time Helena began to nod ever so slightly, and said, ‘Oh oh – a light beginneth to dawn.’
Ignoring his daughter, the Head went on, ‘I didn’t think you two had. The whole affair took place a good many years ago, and has been hushed up quite well since then. Not too many people now alive would remember the name. But, in point of fact, that name is the crux of our problem today.’
He went back to his desk, sat down and took a sip of his drink, collecting his thoughts and wondering how best to phrase the history lesson. ‘Stanley Nine’s weakness was women, particularly young ones. Even before he ascended the Throne so abruptly, his love life had been speculated upon in the scandal sheets and had he not been next in line of succession there were even juicier stories that could not have been squelched. By the end of 2378, just a few months after assuming the Crown, he had gotten married – and to a very beautiful, intelligent girl, I might add. No matter; her hold on him was never any more permanent than that of innumerable others, both before and after. By the middle of 2379, Empress Odina was of as little importance to Stanley Nine’s life as the drapes in the Imperial Ballroom. He visited her occasionally to try to produce a legitimate heir, but otherwise she was almost a ghost in the Imperial Palace.’
‘Poor woman,’ Yvette sighed softly.
‘Yes, quite so. Meanwhile, with the Emperor on the loose again, as it were, others saw their chance to profit from his weakness. In particular there was one Henry Blount, Duke of Durward. He was thirty years old at the time – just four years senior to the Emperor – and a bachelor, and eager for power. He saw in Stanley Nine’s womanizing a chance to influence the Throne itself. If he could just place the right woman in the Emperor’s bed, he would have Stanley Nine’s ear and shape his policy. But not just any girl would do; the woman who would be the Imperial courtesan must have very special talents.
‘Duke Henry scoured his entire planet, and of course found the perfect woman for his plans. Her name was Aimee Amorat…’
‘The Beast of Durward,’ Helena interrupted, looking over at the d’Alemberts with a special eye toward Jules. ‘Surely you’ve heard of her.’
Neither Jules nor Yvette had.
‘You must remember, my dear,’ her father said gently, ‘that court scandals are kept alive on Earth a great deal longer than they are on the farther planets, merely because this is where they occur. As the size of the Empire increases, our internal communication becomes fuzzy, and … but this isn’t meant to be a lecture on imperial logistics, so let me continue with my story.
‘Gospozha Amorat was precisely the woman Duke Henry was looking for. She was young- twenty-two, I believe – and had beauty enough for three women, according to the legends. She was extremely intelligent. She was an aspiring actress so that, while being sexually experienced enough to cater to the Emperor’s tastes, she could act coyly enough to cater to his fantasies. And, one of the primary points in her favor, she had not a scruple to her name. She was as cold-blooded, vicious and hard as Duke Henry himself. She well earned her nickname.
‘She and Henry quickly came to terms and set their plots in motion. He brought her here to Earth and financed a tremendous social debut at the next Grand Imperial Court. Of course she was unknown, which in itself made her intriguing to the young Emperor. Once she turned her charms on him, he never had a chance – and when she sank her claws in, they were there to stay.
‘With Duke Henry’sfull backing and her own considerable guile, she managed to keep Stanley Nine on the hook longer than any other woman was ever able to. Their romance was the talk of the court for five months before an even more important topic supplanted it – the Beast was pregnant with the Emperor’s child.
‘Stanley Nine had had illegitimate children before; you could populate a planet with his less than-legal offspring. Normally, the mothers were just given a stipend and sent along their merry way – but Aimee Amorat was not one to be dismissed so lightly. She had turned the Emperor’s head so far that rumors of divorce were actually flying through the Court. Fortunately, as I mentioned, the Empress Odina was a pretty smart woman herself. The vast majority of the Court was on her side – they all hated the usurper from Durward — and she rallied her support and persuaded Stanley Nine to keep her. But even with this play foiled, Duke Henry and the Beast were not entirely out of the picture.
‘When Aimee was about seven months pregnant, the Duke married her – with Nine’s full approval. Thus her son, Banion, was born in wedlock as the first child of – and the direct heir of – the Duke and Duchess of Durward. That wasn’t enough for the schemers, however. Stanley Nine was still blindly infatuated with the extremely talented Beast and, at her insistence, issued a Patent of Royalty, admitting his paternity and bestowing upon the infant the unique title of “The Prince of Durward”. This Patent also authorized a coat of arms as follows
‘ “Purpure, quarterly three dragons rampant or, in chief sinister a bend sinister or, in dexter…” ‘
‘Wait up, Father!’ Helena broke in. ‘You’re not getting through to me at all, and I don’t believe that’s our guests’ language, either.’
The Head laughed. ‘Excuse me- I sometimes forget that heraldry isn’t for everybody. Basically, it’s gold dragons rearing on purple enamel. The bar sinister, which need not be a mark of illegitimacy, in this case definitely was. It goes on that way for a couple of hundred words, only a few of which are pertinent. “Bordure gules, charged thirteen bezants sable.” Poor heraldry, really – color on color and an unlucky number of spots on a background of blood – but that and the fact that the Patent was dated Friday the thirteenth of June, 2380, are perfectly in keeping with the Duke’s vicious sense of humor.
‘Things went on this way for three more months, until suddenly the Duke’s plots came crashing unexpectedly down around his head. Empress Odina was pregnant, and there would be a legitimate heir to the throne.
‘All at once, Stanley Nine came to his senses. Here was a man who had wiped out the rest of his Royal Family just to attain the Throne, and yet he himself had been foolish enough to establish a pretender to the Crown with a perfectly valid claim. The taste of that must have been pretty bitter. He could not, of course, allow that Patent to stand. He ordered the Service to kill the Duke and Banion, and to destroy the Patent; but he was far too late. One of Duke Henry’s spies at court had already informed him of the Empress’s pregnancy, and the Duke and Duchess realized immediately what he meant. By the time the
Service could act, they had disappeared completely – with the Patent.
‘The Patent, of course, was the most important thing. It was handwritten and signed by Emperor Stanley
Nine himself, on Imperial parchment, with the signature driven into the parchment by the Great Seal of the Empire of Earth. The Patent was revoked and erased from all record; the people involved were proscribed: but that wasn’t enough. The actual physical document had to be found and destroyed but it wasn’t. Banion the Bastard had to be found and killed but he wasn’t.
‘Those are the crucial facts, though there were a few developments since then. With their success gone, the Duke and the Beast quarreled. Apparently she tried to lead a rebellion against him; her hope was to kill him, renounce the Patent and try to get back into the Emperor’s good graces. But her coup failed, and she barely escaped with three vital things: her life, her son and the Patent. There has been no official trace of any of them since.
‘Duke Henry, on the other hand, was captured in 2383. lie was questioned quite severely about the location of the Patent and the child. He genuinely didn’t know their whereabouts, and so Stanley Nine had to settle for executing the Duke for treason.’