The Marshal Is My Mate novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: SS
The Bureau's great hall held two thousand people by noon.
Word had gone through the city in a morning: the Marshal's husband, the C-rank, was to be tested again before the Empress's examiner.
Lucan stood at the foot of the dais in a plain dark coat with his gloves in his pocket.
Garrick stood at his shoulder with his own hands bare.
The machine in the center of the floor was a brass ring taller than a man, with a black glass plate in the middle.
Beside it stood the Bureau's Director, with a silver scale pinned to his chest and a damp, worried face.
"Majesty," the Director said, bowing to the gallery. "I protest. The Duke was tested here and the result is on file. A second reading is a waste of the court's time."
"The Duke's file has two pages," the Empress said from her high seat. "I have read both. Proceed."
A woman in a gray robe stepped out beside the machine.
She was the Empress's examiner, small and old and unbothered, and she carried her own instruments in a leather roll.
"I will bring my own plate," she said. "The Bureau's plate has been tampered with in the past."
A murmur went round the hall.
The Director's mouth tightened.
Lucan walked up to the ring.
Ansel stood at the rail of the gallery, in his pale gray coat, with his hands folded.
He smiled when Lucan looked up.
It was a small, sorry smile, the one he had worn when he told Lucan, three years ago, that he'd be happy for him.
"Hands on the plate, Duke," the examiner said.
Lucan laid both bare palms on the glass.
It was cold.
For a moment nothing happened.
"C," the Director said loudly. "Plainly."
"Be quiet," the examiner said.
Under Lucan's hands the glass began to warm.
It went from cold to blood heat and then to a heat that made the nearest clerk step back.
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