the_imperium: (Pasha)
It was a lovely day, temperate with a breeze, perfect for sitting on the patio for afternoon tea at the quite fashionable Cafe Inez. One could watch Panjim's harbor with its cluster of maritime and aero ships, the traffic going around Imperial Circle, then up and down Empress Boulevard, a mixture of stately carriages and up scale delivery vehicles.

The ox and donkey carts, along with the heavy motor vans from the harbor, were restricted by law to travel along Shoreline Quay to the north and west.

Snapper sipped his Lapsang Oolong and studied his fellow patrons. Like him, the men were all wearing nearly identical white linen suits, though they also wore wide brimmed white hats, colorful ties, and were freshly shaved.

Snapper absent absentmindedly rubbed a days worth of stubble.

The women wore various types of diaphanous calve length flower patterned sun dresses, restrained jewelry, and large sun hats, usually with brightly colored bands.

The patio was filled with chatting, smiles, and polite laughter.

Cafe Inez was very popular with the upper middle portion of the Anglo-Indian Ascendancy, the 'prime managers' of the Imperium who numbered about three million out of the Ascendancy's twenty plus million. They tended to be of more European blood than Indian, but, like the rest of this polyglot creole class, were all firmly Imperialist and largely Tamist, worshipers of the Nine Fold Tara, the Goddess directly inspired by the Queen-Empress herself.

For decades, Goa, and its capital, Panjim, had been a backwater. It had been purchased by the British Crown during the darkest days of the Franco-Iberian Revolutionary Wars, along with the rest of Portugal's overseas empire. Except for Brazil, of course. The Braganza's needed somewhere to hang their crown while their homeland was being occupied.

As the Imperium's fortunes lay mostly upon India's eastern coast, Goa languished. But in the 1840's, being the personal property of the British monarch, it was the perfect place for the Queen-Empress to initiate her Imperial Citizenship project. From then on, it flourished.

Because of that, in the nearly three and half decades since, it had become – in Snapper's opinion – one of the most civilized places on earth. That also made it a prime target for the operations of the SIR, the Sluzhba Inostrannoi Razvedki, Czar Michael's Foreign Secret Service.

That was why Snapper was here having High Tea at the Cafe Inez, besides the fact that he liked the place. He was mixing business with pleasure today.

Snapper's full name and title was William Frederick Dudley Pennington, Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy Reserve. Most called him Freddy. Only a very few called him Snapper. For those who paid attention, one could see that he was a dangerous man, though he played at being 'a gentleman of leisure' quite well. His official, but 'non-existent', job was, as he had once said with a smile, “doing unpleasant things to unpleasant people.”

He casually perused his copy of the Goa Morning Times while keeping an eye on a handsome, ruddy faced man with a close cropped reddish-blonde beard. The man spoke with soft affection to a beautiful dusky young creole woman who gazed at him with adoration.

The chap called himself Tadeusz Biezanko and was officially from Silesia, a state of the Germanic Confederation, the Imperium's main European ally. But Snapper knew he was an SIR operative named Vladamir Borisenko and that he ran a blackmail operation.

Much was publicly allowed in the Ascendancy; mistresses, drug and alcohol addition, even discrete homosexuality. But pedophilia and incest were 'simply not done', although the former was endemic. Child sex trafficking was wide spread. The security services spent a fair amount of time cleaning up the mess.

Biezanko's front was lumber exporting, fine and exotic woods to be exact. But he funded at least three child sex rings that Snapper's 'employers' knew of. Ordinary clients were generally blackmailed only for money and then not too harshly. But they had snared a few Big Fish and those they were extorting for political purposes.

At the moment, Biezanko was here on his honeymoon, the young woman his bride, the daughter of a wealthy, socially ambitious Bombay merchant who saw Biezanko as a way to move some grand children up the ladder.

Snapper was here to kill him. “Too bad,” he thought, “They might actually be in love.”

Snapper looked across Empress Boulevard at the image of the only woman to whom he had ever been faithful.

The statue of Queen Alexandra as Boadicea was ubiquitous. There were easily three hundred of them in various locations throughout the Imperium. The one in Panjim's Imperial Circle was typical, polished bronze and three times life size.

Originally done by the emigre' genius Berney when she was in her twenties, it depicted her as the legendary Celtic warrior queen, standing upright in a war chariot drawn by four fierce steeds, her hair streaming in the wind from under an Imperial diadem . She wore an armored girdle around her midriff over a fur tunic, with a double headed axe hung from a wide belt strapped upon her hips. With her left hand, she held a trident up high. With her right, she grasped the horses reins. Her expression was exultant.

Around the pedestal in large letters it read; “Alexandra Queen of Great Britain Scotland and Ireland Regnant Lord Protector of The Grand Dominion of America Empress of India Africa Asia and Oceania”. She did have over two hundred other titles, but it was those three affirmed her as the acknowledged ruler of half the world's population and a third of its landmass.

If you came here at dawn, you could see devotees of the Nine Fold Tara clamber up onto the statue to place flower garlands around her neck and on both arms. They removed the wilted garlands from the previous day and tied on fresh ones. This happened every day without fail, even during Monsoon, when silk flowers were used.

Some of the devotees were Very Important People, but out there, upon the bronze body of Her Earthly Manifestation, princes and beggars were equal. Snapper had done it a few times himself, for reasons he was not really sure of and did not care to examine. He was wearing a red Tam pinned to his lapel, symbol of The Red Tara, Her Warrior Aspect that also brought good fortune.

The statue's ample cleavage and long bare legs had scandalized 'proper' society when it was first unveiled a quarter of century ago. But the people loved this frankly sexual representation of their queen in all of her youthful beauty. It shouted Power and Fecundity.

Snapper didn't think it did her justice. Even in her late fifties, she was still an alluring Amazonian figure and truly a great monarch, as well. She had personally sat in on two of Snapper's debriefings after especially delicate missions. She kept a close watch upon her domains and used her servants well.

It was said that Czar Michael had been madly in love with her and when she rejected his offer of marriage after the death of Prince Hedrick, his loved turned to hate. But then his timing had been hideous. Alexandra had been deeply in love with the Prince Consort and his body was not even cold when the Czar has made his proposal. And at Hedrick's state funeral, no less.

The Russian Empire and the Anglo-American Imperium had been rivals before – it was only natural – but after that, the rivalry took on the aspects of a blood feud. That circumstance had been the impetus to create the 'non-existent' government bureau that now employed Snapper in his 'non-existent' job.

In those regions where their respective spheres of influence overlapped, Central Asia and the northern Far East, an endless series of vicious little proxy wars ebbed and flowed. Many believed that an open full scale global war was only a matter of time.

However, until then, the two empires dueled in the shadows.

Tea time was getting close to its crescendo, the combination of sugar, caffeine, and good company. While still seeming to read his newspaper, Snapper gently grasped the elegant walking stick that leaned against his chair. He raised the tip, pressed a small pip, and an internal spring mechanism made a soft 'ting' that was lost in the ambient noise.

A soluble resin dart with a ricin core pierced Biezanko's Achilles tendon. He yelped and knocked over his teacup. Only a half dozen people noticed. He looked around, his face calm, but his eyes full of fear. He knew he was dead. He glanced at Snapper for a second, then seemed to dismiss him.

Pulling several bills from his wallet, Biezanko tossed them on the table and dragged his bewildered bride off the patio. Many more noticed that and whispered comments.

He'd be in a coma in a few hours and be dead in a few days. But Snapper suspected he would make time to contact his handlers and let them know he'd been murdered in broad daylight during High Tea on the patio of the Cafe Inez. That would send a message to St. Petersburg on several levels.

Satisfied that the Imperium was just a bit safer than it had been a moment before, Snapper poured himself some more Lapsang Oolong and turned to the sports page for the baseball scores. One of his favorite teams, the Hyderabad Pearls, was having a damn fine season.

© 2008 Michael Varian Daly

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