Earthly Crown Read Online Free Page B

she said, careful to give the words no earth-shattering sentiment, only simple politeness.
    “You played Zabina, did you not?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “She comes to a rather bloody end.”
    Diana chuckled. “Yes, she does, poor thing. But I suppose that I’ve always felt more sorry for Zenocrate.”
    He looked suddenly and acutely interested. “Why is that?”
    “Because once Tamburlaine had marked her out as his, she didn’t really have much choice but to fall in love with him, did she? Not that he coerced her as much as—” She shrugged, and was abruptly aware that both Soerensen and Marco regarded her intently, as if she were revealing some long-sought-after secret to them. She faltered, realizing that the entire retinue had stopped to listen, some with polite interest, some with no interest at all, but none with the piercing attention of the two men. With an effort, she gathered together the shredding fabric of her self-confidence and drew herself up. “A man like that would be hard to resist,” she finished, with dramatic flourish.
    “Bravo,” said Marco, sotto voce.
    Soerensen smiled. “But I particularly enjoyed your performance as Grusha in the Brecht play. I look forward to seeing what Owen and Ginny come up with for their next experiment. If you’ll excuse me.” He nodded, collected the attention of his retinue with unconscious ease, and went on his way.
    Marco lingered. “I must go,” he said again, although he made no move to follow the others.
    “I must, too,” she replied. “Really.”
    “I’ll see you on the ship, perhaps.”
    “Oh, we’ll be rehearsing the whole way out. Owen and Ginny are rather dragons about that, when they’re developing new material.”
    “Then in Jeds.”
    She smiled and finally disengaged her fingers from his elbow. “If there’s time.”
    “In Jeds? Believe me, you’ll have plenty of time in Jeds.”
    “For what? Sight-seeing, I suppose. I’m bringing a journal with me, real paper, bound, and pen and ink, to write down what I see.”
    “Pen and ink?”
    “Rhui is an interdicted world. What isn’t there already, we aren’t to bring.”
    “Golden fair, you astonish me.” He took her hand in his and bent to kiss it, his lips lingering longer on her skin than was, perhaps, warranted by the briefness of their acquaintance.
    Diana withdrew her hand from his grasp and blew him a kiss as she retreated through one of the double doors that led into the house. “‘And if thou lovest me, think no more of it.’”
    Marco laughed, delighted. “Do all actors quote?” he called after her.
    But she let the door swing and click shut behind her without answering him.
    “Di! There you are.” From the stage, Yomi called out to her. “Double time, girl. No loitering. Where’ve you been?”
    Diana walked swiftly down the aisle and up the steps onto the stage.
    “Ah hah!” said Yomi, coming to meet her. “Isn’t that Marco Burckhardt standing up there in the VIP box? Watch your step, Di. He’s a notorious womanizer, that one is. So they say. Don’t dive into water if you can’t swim.”
    “I can swim,” retorted Diana, affronted.
    “Certainly, my dear. Come on. The meeting’s ready to start. Anahita is howling about the lighting for the curtain call. And she was furious that Gwyn got called out alone. As for Hal—”
    Diana followed Yomi out stage right. She risked one final look back, to see Marco standing in the box that Soerensen and his party had inhabited. He leaned with his hands on the railing, watching her go.

CHAPTER TWO
    U NDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, ANY human might have forgiven Charles Soerensen for taking a private aircar rather than using public lanes like everyone else. Any human except Charles himself. On Earth, in human space—what had once been human space—Charles never took advantage of the privileges granted him by his rank as a duke in the Chapalii Empire, as the only human elevated above subject status in the convoluted