Free Sword of the Lamb by M. K. Wren

with Ivanoi’s ytterbium franchises. He needs a special grant from the Board of Franchises.”
    “And he wants you to use your influence with the Board?”
    “Yes. He’s offering me a long-term contract on the processed crystals at a very attractive rate.”
    “Will you support him?”
    “Certainly. He’s hemmed in with freight costs—his major markets are in the Solar System—and Orin is putting pressure on him. If he doesn’t get support from some of the major Houses, he’ll be forced into an alliance with Selasis. Orin is already making the first overtures toward a marriage between Karlis and Eliseer’s eldest daughter. The Eliseer are invited to the Selasid Estate this afternoon.”
    “The same daughter you’re considering as my bride?”
    Woolf laughed briefly. “The very same.” Then he looked at his watch again. “I must go if I’m to have any time with Rich. At any rate, tomorrow morning your mother is entertaining Lady Galia Eliseer and her daughter in the rose garden salon, and of course this will be—well, very casual.”
    “Yes, Father, I know,” Alexand said with a faint smile. “No doubt so casual as to seem accidental.”
    “No doubt. But I don’t want you to feel under pressure. The choice of your bride is a vitally important decision both for you and the House. An Elite marriage is, after all, a lifetime commitment—: ‘. . . and unto death.’ One doesn’t enter that kind of covenant lightly or without a great deal of consideration.”
    Alexand nodded. “I didn’t expect you to bind me in the chains of matrimony this early in the game.”
    Woolf gave that a brief, rueful laugh. “I think you’re far more sensible about this than Elise and I. We haven’t yet recovered from the realization that you’ve reached an age where we must consider such decisions at all.” He paused, resting his hand on Alexand’s shoulder. “We’ll talk about it further, but now I must be on my way.”
    Alexand looked out at Concordia, listening to Woolf’s retreating footsteps.
    . . .
and unto death
.
    Next year, after his sixteenth birthday, by hallowed tradition, he would make the tour of Concord Day balls as the escort of the Serras.
    He wondered who it would be.

3.
    Spotlights sent probing, multicolored shafts up from the Plaza of the Concord into the night sky, flashing on the firefly motes of aircars beading the invisible webs of the Trafficon grids. Alexand studied the scene through a flexsteel-reinforced window as the Faeton-limo sloped sedately down toward the Plaza. They were passing over the Cathedron, and Alexand, who had never stood in awe of the dogmas of Mezionism, was still awed by that magnificent structure. Its dimensions staggered conception, yet it was so elegantly proportioned, its reticulated arches and heliform buttresses leading so inexorably and perfectly to the culmination of its triple spires, that it seemed to rest weightlessly upon its massive foundations, especially when seen at night shining against the galaxy of Concordia’s lights.
    The Hall of the Directorate loomed ahead, a white shaft that bespoke power and solidity, while the Cathedron suggested the ethereal. Yet there was power in the Cathedron’s soaring complexities, and grace in the Hall’s seeking lines; they had been designed by the same architech, John Valerian, and Alexand always thought it unjust that he hadn’t been rewarded with a Lordship for these creations of genius as Orabu Drakon had been for another kind of genius. But Valerian’s only reward had been his Guild’s title of Supreme Master—a title only he had ever held—and a solid niche in history.
    The Faeton was descending over the Plaza now, a great rectangle five hundred meters long, one hundred wide, as light as day in the glare of helions, sparkling with floating banks of colored shimmeras, and brimming with close-packed humanity, the House colors of Bond tabards tending to broad, double-hued splashes interspersed with the more