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  Bargaining Power

  The Royal Court

  (black & white)

  KING Emil II

  PRINCE Emok

  CHANCELLOR: Lord Rodrigue Thomas

  CHAPLAIN: Rev. Abraham Beck

  ROYAL SECRETARY: Lord Évariste Mendes

  SEIDKONUR: Madame Ebba Lundquist

  SKALD: Keir Skuli

  The Prefectures

  AVIOR

  Prefect: Lucio Winter

  Ivory & sapphire blue

  BATATA

  Prefect: Joel Pinho

  Beige & dark brown

  CANOPUS

  Prefect: Therese Ferro

  Wine red & gold

  EDENFIELD

  Prefect: Bo Holst

  Midnight purple & ice blue

  FJORDLAND

  Prefect: Calixto Victor

  Colors: Indigo & rose

  HEMMEL

  Prefect: Claes Bager

  Pumpkin orange & russet brown

  LINDO

  Prefect: Graça Silveira

  Turquoise & dark gray

  SILVERTIP

  Prefect: Otto Ostberg

  Silver-gray & leaf green

  TEY

  Prefect: Tobias Nilsen

  Cardinal red & sky blue

  Contents

  Prelude

  Fratricide

  Burglary

  Interlude

  Under-the-Table Dealing

  Extortion

  Arson

  Interlude

  Breaching the Peace

  Perverting the Course of Justice

  Harassment

  Theft

  Assault

  Battery

  Homicide

  Spoilation of Evidence

  Interlude

  Perjury

  Prison Break

  Human Hunting

  Intimidation

  False Accusation

  Conspiracy

  Battery

  Manipulation

  Interlude

  Espionage

  Cruelty to Animals

  Impersonation

  Misinformation

  Threatening

  Disorderly Conduct

  Sedition

  Apostasy

  Mutilation

  Profanity

  Baiting

  Invasion

  Interlude

  Child Abuse

  Cannibalism

  Regicide

  Postlude

  Translator’s Note

  The primary language of the Island of Argo Navis is Plishan, a complex amalgamation of Portuguese and Norwegian with fragments of French, Japanese, and English.

  Argo Navis doesn’t show up on most maps, not even satellite images, and so most of the world doesn’t know it exists. Argo Navis’s isolation is further emphasized by the surrounding ocean, which is extremely treacherous. Ships that manage to cross to it seldom return, and those that do are crewed by confused sailors who can provide no clear picture of where they’ve been or how to get back there. This explains a great deal about ships from which cargo disappears and why the people of Argo Navis have access to some modern technology.

  The curious nature of this geography has enforced a distinct history on the island: It is populated almost exclusively by the descendants of people who meant to end up somewhere else. In several cases, we can guess who these people were. At some point, there was definitely a Norwegian (or possibly French-Norwegian) expedition to reach the South Pole that became trapped on Argo Navis. (Keep an eye out for mentions of flyte or flyting—a game of insults extremely popular in the fifth through sixteenth centuries in the Norse, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon worlds.) We additionally can guess that part of Carina’s and Vela’s high Brazilian populations moved there after the Portuguese arrived in Brazil, some four hundred years ago, because Portuguese is the language that influenced Plishan.

  Not much is at present known about Argo Navis, but it is my hope that, by translating this account and sharing it with the general public, I may inspire further academic interest in its unique history and culture.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BARGAINING POWER

  Copyright © 2019 by Deborah J. Natelson.

  Cover design by Nada Orlic.

  Map by K. Futterwacken, https://mischieviousfairie.wixsite.com/kfutterwacken

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from this book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Thinklings Books

  1400 Lloyd Rd. #279

  Wickliffe, OH 44092

  thinklingsbooks.com

  BARGAINING

  POWER

  Power Trips #1

  Deborah J. Natelson

  Thinklings Books, LLC

  Wickliffe, OH

  Prelude

  No king can maintain his power long without the consent of his people and the support of his lords. Just because a man puts a crown on his head and stomps around bellowing orders doesn’t mean people listen to him.

  King Emil II of Carina seldom stomped or bellowed, and so had no opportunity to see whether anyone obeyed. His advisors called him “sire” and his lords bowed their heads, and it never occurred to him that he might not rule as peaceably for the next decade as he had for the past two.

  Chapter 1:

  Fratricide

  Coolly defiant of traffic laws—not to mention common decency—the limo stopped every few feet and then started again, decisive as an errant breeze. Other cars clustered behind it, eager to get away from the lunatic but making no move to swerve or offend. From my perch on the sill of the second-story window, I didn’t hear a single honk.

  “He’s back again,” I said. “No—he’s stopped.”

  My boss didn’t answer immediately. He was bent over the cipher he’d been attacking for days—some dreadful new system devised by Akter to torment our cryptanalysts. My boss, being my boss, thought Christmas had come early. He’d hardly surfaced for air in hours.

  “Sr. Nordfeld,” I said. “Sr. Nordfeld! Excuse me, please!”

  My boss blinked up at me, baffled as an edenbear emerging from hibernation. “Did you need something?”

  I grimaced. “Let’s just say that Prefect Avior’s done pretending to be lost.”

  He blinked again, and the distant concentration snapped into radiant presence. Up he gathered his papers; into scrupulous piles they went. His tie was adjusted in a moment, his cuffs in two moments. His hair was smoothed, his mouth wiped. Then back down went his head and out came his pen, the perfect government employee at work—until you saw the brightness in his eyes and the focused, ready lines of his back.

  “Keep your phone with you,” he told me, without looking over. “If I do not return in twenty minutes, call.”

  We’re not supposed to use our phones inside security. Heck, we’re not supposed to have phones inside security. “Of course,” I said. I was opening my mouth to say more when a knock on the door stopped me.

  The green-clad messenger on the other side dropped to one knee and covered his temples. “Forgive me, senhor, but Prefect Avior—”

  “Has come to see me,” my boss finished. “Yes, I expected as much.
Lead on, messenger. I will come immediately.”

  The messenger flushed and scrambled for words. “Honored senhor!” he cried. “Forgive me, but the summons is for Miss Cartier.”

  I flinched and said “You must be joking” before I could stop myself. The messenger kept his eyes assiduously on the threadbare carpet. Very proper, but messengers have ears and brains too. “I mean,” I corrected, sounding plaintive to my own ears, “whatever would he want to see me for?”

  “Dismissed,” my boss told the messenger, who bowed the door shut.

  “How would he even know I exist?” I continued. “You never mentioned me in your emails to his brother. Or did you?”

  My boss’s lips turned down into a deep, thoughtful frown that creased cheeks and chin and neck. He wasn’t the sort of man to fidget; instead, he went statue still—so still you wanted to shake him to make sure he remained alive. “Aristocrats are often fed information outside their jurisdiction, simply because people are afraid to refuse them anything,” he said finally, ponderously. “That he has chosen to meet you instead of me is a reasonable precaution. More reasonable than I would have expected from a man like Lord Winter.”

  “Men like Lord Winter,” I said, “are why I carry pepper spray and a personal alarm.” But even as I spoke, I was gathering up my handbag and heading out to meet him.

  Because, you see, people are afraid to refuse prefects anything.

  Two minutes later, with half a wave and a handful of empty words to our security guard, I was stepping outside into the chilly autumnal smog. Cars signaled and leaves skittered along the gutter.

  Double-parked in front of the Carinan Security Service building purred the sleek sapphire-blue limo of Avior Prefecture. On the sidewalk by it, a man waited. He was massive: nearly two feet taller than I and three times as broad, with hands like shovels and a chin to match. His ivory and sapphire-blue uniform proclaimed him an Avior knight, and the stars decorating his collar labeled him head knight: Avior’s second-in-command, answerable to no one except his prefect.

  “Miss Mercedes Cartier?” he demanded.

  It doesn’t do to mess with head knights any more than to mess with their prefects. Besides, I had an image to maintain. I clutched my handbag timidly and bowed, not making eye contact. “I am she.”

  The head knight nodded politely and opened the limo door.

  I rocked back as perfume and alcohol gusted out. Red leather seats glistened under dim LEDs, which fit exactly what I’d heard about Gil Winter. But the smells were old and stale, and no rave music thundered at me, and that didn’t fit in the least.

  “Get in, please,” the head knight said, looming close behind me.

  I bobbed another timid bow and in no way pointed out that this was Silvertip Prefecture, not Avior, and that he had no business ordering me around. Instead, I got in the limo like a good little personal assistant. And when the door shut behind me, it was no harder than necessary. And when the lock clicked, it was only because we’d begun moving.

  “Miss Cartier,” said the man in the shadowy, lime-and-raspberry-lit depths of the limo. “Thank you for joining me.”

  The voice was . . . almost familiar. Strange. I’d have thought I’d have known Lord Winter’s voice from television. I’d have thought, in person, that it would sound charming and confident.

  Keeping my expression neutrally polite, I peered down the throat of the limo, trying to see past the distortion of the neon lights. But try though I might, I couldn’t make out my host’s face until he leaned forward. Then I inhaled sharply.

  He was five-foot-seven, forty-six years old, and had the unhealthy, prematurely aged skin of a man who lived off mayonnaise and potato chips and didn’t believe in fresh air or sunshine. Unlike his brother, who had a certain rough charm, this was the sort of man most women instinctively avoided—unless, like this man’s wife, they were so desperate for elevation that they would sell themselves to the Devil if he came knocking.

  I dug my fingers into red leather. The temperature had jumped about twenty degrees. “I don’t understand,” I said distantly. It was an automatic response, a placeholder while I struggled to wrench my rational mind back into place. “What is this? I thought Prefect Avior wanted to talk to me. Are you bringing me to him?”

  My host watched with detached interest. Dim lights carved out the hollows around his eyes and stained his teeth. He had no reason to hurt me. No reason to think I knew anything. He said, “I am Prefect Avior.”

  “What?” I shot back. “No you aren’t. I know what Gil Winter looks like—I used to live in Avior Prefecture. What’s really going on? Who are you?”

  My host laughed, genuinely amused. “Gil,” he said, “was my brother. I’m Lord Lucio Winter, the new Prefect Avior.” He displayed his heavy signet ring, and I scooted close enough to see. He smelled of incense, sulfur, and body odor. And upon his finger, sure enough, was the engraved Avior bat.

  Softly, I asked, “Gil Winter is—dead?”

  “He was bound to die eventually,” said the new Prefect Avior. “It’s no secret that he drank like a storm drain. The wonder is that he didn’t totter off a balcony years ago.”

  He spoke casually, as if his brother had meant no more to him than a drop of rain to the ocean. My eyes flew up to his, and behind his words I saw the glee of violence, the thirsty self-satisfaction of triumph. And in that moment, I knew as clearly as if he had confessed it in court that this man had killed his brother—and that my life depended on him not realizing that I knew it.

  Sweat prickled my eyes like tears. I clutched my hands before my sternum. “You poor thing!” I cried, three parts nice and seven parts stupid. “You don’t have to be brave for me; I can see how deeply you’re hurting. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “A thousand thanks,” he said, “but I didn’t actually drive a hundred miles to Silvertip to talk about my brother.”

  “Of course!” I exclaimed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think—I’m sorry.”

  Avior cleared his throat. When he spoke again, he’d infused his tone with false jollity. “You’re not in trouble, Miss Cartier—I promise. I came because I wanted to talk to you.”

  He’s putting me at my ease, I thought absurdly, and let the nervous giggle escape unchecked.

  “I believe—correct me if I’m wrong—but I believe you went to university in my prefecture. You studied—what?”

  “History, my lord.”

  “Ah, yes! I remember now. I saw one of your papers on warfare. Hardly an appropriate topic for a girl!”

  The title of my 80,000-word dissertation had been, “The Applicability of Ancient Tactics in Modern Warfare.” It had taken me two years of concerted research to write.

  I shrugged and tittered again.

  “How did you end up as a cryptanalyst’s personal assistant?” Avior asked. “If you didn’t want to marry straight out of school, you could always have become a teacher. Or were you planning to join the military?”

  He was joking, but enlisting was exactly what I’d planned. I’d have done it, too, only I’d failed the vision requirement and didn’t have the cash for eye surgery. That’s why I’d gotten my current job: to save for it. I had put away enough money nine months ago, but somehow, I’d never gotten around to taking the next step.

  “Oh, no!” I exclaimed, channeling one of my brother Francis’s girlfriends—#14, I thought: the one who’d thrown up from watching us play Zombie SlashHouse III. “I could never join the military. Wait . . .” I placed one delicate hand to my lips. “Oh, that’s not why you came, is it? But, you see, it’s different on paper. You don’t have to see the—the—the blood and—and all the rest of it.”

  He patted my hand kindly. “No, no. I only wanted to understand you—to understand what could have drawn you to your current position. I thought it might have to do with your employer. Jon Nordfeld sounds like quite an extraordinary man.”

  “Oh, yes!” I cried, cycling to Francis’s Girlfriend #29, the enthusiastic one. �
��He’s brilliant, truly. Amazing. I’ve never met anyone like him.”

  Avior nodded encouragingly. “I can see you’re a perspicacious young lady. Go on.”

  I twirled my hair, deciding where to begin. “Well . . . he’s brilliant, like I said. You can’t be in the same room with him for ten seconds without seeing that. It’s in his eyes, you know? And . . .” I stole a quick, shy look at him. “And I’ve never had any problems with him. He’s never—never come on to me, if you know what I mean.”

  “You’re a very pretty woman, Miss Cartier.”

  His approval meant so much.

  “He sounds,” Avior coaxed, “like the sort of man who likes to talk about himself.”

  I shook my head in chagrin. “Hardly ever. He’s incredibly private. I’ve worked for him for three years, driven him to and from his apartment building every day—and I’ve never even seen inside the front door!”

  This part was true, unfortunately. My boss had made it extremely clear from the start that we were to have no contact outside of work, and that I had no right to any of his personal information. I didn’t know how he spent his free time, although I suspected he read a great deal. Nor did I know if he had any family, whether he lived alone, or where he’d grown up. Flattering attentiveness could get him to expound upon any other subject, but his personal life remained a void.

  “Sometimes,” I sighed, as vapid as the hated Girlfriend #42, “I think I’ll never understand him. He’s too smart. It’s like he’s beyond normal people. But you don’t mind, do you?” I added earnestly. “You won’t be disappointed in him, I promise. He always delivers.”

  The change might’ve been funny, if it weren’t so terrifying. In an instant, Avior went from friendly to draconic: tension stretching his torso taut and contorting his fingers into claws. His voice rattled harsh and low, and I shrank from him as he demanded, “What has he told you?”