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She walked to the door, then past him, moving quickly unless he changed his mind. Glancing over her shoulder, she called out, “Thirty minutes. I need to touch up my makeup, too.”
Forty-five minutes later, she, Hugo, and Lancelot knocked on the door to the fleet admiral’s chambers, Lancelot murmuring, “He’s going to kill us.”
The door flew open. “The fucking is supposed to happen after the—” Eric’s rebuke stopped mid-rant when he saw Sylvia. She’d curled her hair, taken special pains with her makeup, and donned her purple dress.
Hugo had disappeared for a few minutes, then returned with a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers for her to carry. She’d encouraged Hugo and Lancelot to change as well, and while they’d both had limited choices in their luggage, they’d managed okay, Hugo wearing a pale blue button-down and navy slacks, while Lancelot had found a crisp white golf shirt and dark jeans.
Eric smiled at Sylvia, then, to everyone’s shock, he bowed. It was perfect—his back straight, the movement precise. For a moment, she saw him not as he was, but perhaps as he might have been—a knight clad in gleaming silver armor, his sword at his side.
Lancelot would look good in armor, but his would be dusty and bloody.
“You look lovely, Sylvia.” There was no sarcasm or mockery in his tone.
“Thank you…Fleet Admiral.”
He straightened, and the moment was gone. “Next time you make me wait forty-five minutes, I’m chopping pieces off that one.” He pointed at Lancelot.
Sylvia swallowed. “You’re joking. He’s joking, right?”
“I run fast,” Lancelot assured her.
“He can still be a knight with nine toes. Hurry up. I’m tired of marrying people in the midst of disasters. Except we’re always in the middle of a fucking disaster.” He stepped back and they entered his chambers together.
Sylvia glanced around the room, not certain what she’d expected to find in the lair of a man like Eric. Part of her half expected to find stark furnishings, black leather, cold ceramic tile floors, and whips and chains hanging from the walls, though she was torn between whether he might use those instruments for torture or sex.
Instead, she was pleasantly surprised. The room was actually quite inviting, with comfortable furniture, Oriental rugs, a huge oak desk near a window that was piled up with paper, files, and books, and framed photographs on the wall of beautiful color shots of nature. There was something about them that convinced her Eric had taken the pictures of waterfalls, mountains, and dramatic mountain landscapes himself during his travels.
“So,” she said, turning to the fleet admiral. “How does this work?”
Eric gently took her bouquet and lay the flowers on a side table. “First, you join the Masters’ Admiralty. Then the marriage ceremony.
“Sylvia Hayden, you are called before me to join the Masters’ Admiralty. Do you stand before me today of your own free will and accord?”
“I do.”
“Raise your right hand.”
She lifted her cast. Eric studied the purple thing for a moment, shaking his head, clearly amused.
“Do you hereby pledge your life to the ideals and principles of the Masters’ Admiralty? Will you obey the rules and decrees, maintain the honor and integrity of our society, encourage creative, original thought, and strive to improve the world?”
Sylvia looked at Lancelot and Hugo, both of whom were smiling at her.
She nodded. “I will.”
“Repeat after me. Morumque scientia servabo.”
Sylvia appreciated it when Eric repeated the words, one at a time, so that she could say them back correctly. She glanced in Hugo’s direction, curious.
“It means you will preserve knowledge and morality.”
Eric went to the bookshelf and pulled down a large, ancient book, stirring up a fair amount of dust when he opened it, flipping through hundreds of pages. Then he grabbed a pen and what looked like a dagger encased in a scabbard.
He handed her the pen. “Sign your name here.”
Sylvia stepped next to him, awkwardly adding her signature—broken fingers sucked—to what appeared to be a list containing thousands of names. What would she give to flip through these pages to read the names of members dating back hundreds of years? What names would she find there? Michelangelo? da Vinci? Beethoven?
Once she’d signed and dated her name, she started to hand the pen back to Eric. He’d unsheathed the dagger, the gold handle embossed with a triskele, and reached for her left hand. Before she could react, he’d poked the sharp tip of the blade into her index finger.
