Lukas Wolff felt older — far older — than his 66 years. Whenever he moved, it seemed like he received an urgent message from every torn ligament, every abused muscle, every broken bone that had been allowed to heal crooked. His body had rejected the replacement fingernails, and his dental implants never felt right.

Even so, his extensive physical injuries weighed him down less than the wounds to his mind. To his soul. He had survived the fires of hell itself, but no one walks away from the flames unchanged. He had little life left in him, and almost no will left to go on. But there was something he needed to do before letting go.

One last thing.

Brown had come to his door two days earlier, and no one did that on purpose. No one knew who Lukas was, or who lived in the apartment around the corner from Quentin Cromwell. The image of the man at the door looked like a harbinger of the end of days – high forehead, long, wiry beard, deep-set eyes, austere coat – so after he’d sent him on his way, he’d had his AIPA use facial recognition software to determine who his accidental visitor had been.

A Truth Speaker? Really, Clara?

Seeing Brown now, standing motionless in the passageway, he was even more irritated at Clara’s unwillingness to handle this herself. “Sit down. I don’t like staring up at you.”

Brown stepped into his living room like he was entering a mine field and lowered himself into a chair facing Lukas. He sat as far forward as possible without falling off, and his back remained ramrod-straight. “Mr. Wolff.”

Lukas knew enough about the New Apostles to tweak the man who was invading his space. “Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?”

“No, thank you.” Brown still looked tense, poised for instant motion.

“AIPA, two Lagavulin’s, neat.” Lukas looked at his guest, daring him to object.

“I don’t drink,” Brown said mildly.

“I know that,” Lukas snapped. “They’re both for me. I’m guessing we’re going to be a while, and I’m not going to enjoy it. The drinks will dull the pain.”

Brown cocked an eyebrow. “You know who and what I am, and you think this will be unpleasant. I’m your guest here; what is it that you think I’m going to do?”

You’re going to sit there like a Goddamned judge, Lukas thought sourly. But what he said was, “You’re going to ask me questions, which I hate, and I’m going to answer them, which I hate even more. Especially since I already told Clara the story.”

“Then why tell it? Did Cromwell ask you to?”

“Quentin? No. He managed to keep everything secret from everyone but my sister, and was more than happy to have it stay that way after he died. But I went through the passage to see him one night, six weeks ago, not realizing that Clara had decided to sleep over.”

“Awkward.” Brown’s tone was carefully neutral.

“Quentin was asleep, so I brought her back here. Told her the story . . . mine, and Quentin’s. I figured she could decide whether anyone else needed to know . . . after.”

“Since she invited me in here, I’m assuming she decided the world should know,” Brown observed.

Lukas gave a snort. “Sure – she just hoped you’d figure it all out on your own, and she’d have squeaky clean hands. No such luck, I guess.”

The autoservitor arrived and gave Lukas his drinks.

Brown took the opportunity to ease back into his seat. He was eager to fill in the gaps he’d identified in Cromwell’s story, but he was too experienced to ask about them directly. One of his earliest instructors had impressed upon him the danger of becoming so wedded to a narrative that you fail to examine things that don’t seem relevant to it.

He stayed with his usual approach. “So . . . what is the story that you and Quentin Cromwell kept quiet about?”

“I don’t suppose you’ll be satisfied with the short version,” Lukas huffed.

“Probably not,” Brown agreed. “But it might help to start with it.”

“Think so? Fine.” Lukas was finding Brown’s equanimity annoying. “Quentin Cromwell was a transwoman.” He pounded back one entire shot of scotch — a truly shocking waste of a storied single malt — and glared at the Truth Speaker. Fundy freak. “How’s that?”

Brown froze, truly stunned for the first time in a very long time. His first instinct was complete disbelief. He felt an almost overwhelming desire to challenge the bitter, angry old man. At very least, to argue with him. To demand proof.

He managed — only just — to check himself. Years of discipline forced him to question his emotional reaction. To think. To consider. To speak truth, you must first seek truth.

He thought about the penthouse apartments. This one seemed to fit Lukas Wolff like a glove, as if it had been designed solely for the comfort of an elderly bachelor, or widower. Uncluttered, simple, masculine. Around the corner, Cromwell’s sterile apartment, so generic that it might as well have been a Comfort Inn, bearing no imprint at all of the person who had lived there for close to two decades. And connecting the two . . . .

Connecting the two, completely hidden from the outside world, with no door of its own to the top floor corridor, were rooms that were beautifully decorated and lovingly cared for. Adorned with keepsakes that whispered stories of their own — mementos from a long and interesting life. Rooms that were as full of character and personality as Cromwell’s apartment had been devoid of it.

It was obviously a woman’s apartment. He had subconsciously assumed that Cromwell might have had a secret lover. Maybe even a second wife. Part of him wanted to believe that still. Maybe Cromwell and Wolff had loved the same woman?

Firmly, he reminded himself that what he wanted to believe had no part in his task. Indeed, wanting to believe something was an impediment to seeking truth.

He realized that he been gazing into space as his mind whirled. Returning to the present, he saw that Wolff was nursing his next scotch, watching him with sardonic eyes.

“Tell me.”

“What, everything?” Lukas made it sound like a threat.

Brown refused to be intimidated. “Yes. From the beginning.”

“The beginning? That would be Columbia, of course. I came to New York in ’14. It’s hard to imagine, now, but back then, it was still the city, and America was still the place where everyone wanted to be. I thought I was something, coming there at 20 with my bright, shiny Bachelor der Wissenschaft. But one of the first people I meet is this kid – he looked like a kid – who was all of eighteen, and had already earned his BS summa cum laude. I wanted to hate him. Everyone wanted to hate him.”

Brown cocked his head. “I gather you didn’t.”

Lukas snorted. “It was impossible. He was interested in everything, taking classes he didn’t need, just because they caught his attention, and surpassing students who had focused on the same fields for years. But his enthusiasm, his wonder, his sense of fun, disarmed everyone.”

Lukas proceeded to describe how they had grown increasingly close as they both pursued their advanced studies – the best of friends – and likely would have remained so, but for the global pandemic that hit in early 2020, the year before Brown was born. Lukas had suggested that Quentin share his apartment so they could quarantine together and continue their work.

“He laughed, and said he couldn’t possibly. Not without sharing his deep, dark secret.” Lukas grimaced. “I pushed him, of course, certain that after all the years we’d been close, he had no secrets. He tried to laugh it off again. I was angry. Offended that he refused. I guess he felt so bad about it that he changed his mind. Two nights later, he showed up at my apartment. Or rather, she did.”

“And you’d never guessed?”

“No. Or at least, not consciously. That’s just it . . . I mean, I was tall, then. Strong. A star tighthead prop at my Gymnasium. Quentin was so short I could rest my chin on the top of his head. And he was . . . I guess you’d say, ‘delicate.’ You know – fine bones. Thin. I told myself it was natural that I felt protective of my friend. I wouldn’t – couldn’t – admit that what I was feeling wasn’t just friendship. I wouldn’t let myself see the woman who’d always been there.”

Lukas paused to cough, dry and harsh. He took a sip from his drink, as if scotch would help, before continuing. “When she showed up, though?” He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “God, you should have seen her. Bright blue dress. Full skirt. Hair glossy, eyes huge, perfect makeup. She was petite and pretty – Clara looks a lot like her. But she was nervous. Scared. And just like that, I couldn’t deny it. Any of it. Who she was . . . or how I felt.”

“Did he . . . .” Brown paused, then forced himself to use the pronoun Lukas had introduced. “Did she feel the same way that you did?”

Lukas’ eyes gleamed with wicked humor. “Just how much truth can you handle, Truth Speaker?

Brown stood at the window of his hotel room, his tired eyes taking in the last light of day kissing only the tallest skyscrapers.

Truth alone can set us free. He had dedicated his life to that belief. Since the day he’d raised his hand to freely take the Truth Speaker’s oath, he had never been so much as tempted to stray from its path.

Until today. Until now.

Lukas hadn’t spared him a thing; indeed, he’d take great delight in shredding Brown’s religious sensibilities, giving him all the details that he hadn’t wanted to hear.

“Oh, yes.” Lukas had grinned, visibly relishing the memory. “We’d come home after hours in the lab — hours when I was struggling to keep up with him. Straining to match his brilliant mind. Knowing we were going to be rich and famous! But when we’d close the door behind us . . . that’s when we flipped the script. That’s when he vanished, and she returned.”

Brown’s efforts to redirect the conversation, to assure him that he didn’t need the graphic details, just spurred Lukas on. “Picture her like she was then — perfect skin. Narrow waist and shoulders. Long, smooth legs. Imagine her in makeup and a slinky nightgown. And imagine me there, right behind her. Bare ass naked, hard and hot, lifting her lingerie. . . .”

But Lukas’ taunting details hadn’t disturbed Brown; not really. A Truth Speaker heard lots of stories, after all, and few of them were free of the earthiness of human existence. When Lukas described his years of captivity, though, Brown had been unable to keep his professional detachment.

The Empire’s jailers had demonstrated contempt for “deviants” in every degrading way imaginable. It hadn’t mattered to them that his lover was, in his own eyes, a woman. That Lukas had been her man. No. They’d made him dress as a woman. As a slut. And then they’d forced him to act like one.

In the Empire, every accusation had been a projection.

Telling that part of the story had torn Lukas apart, giving Brown a glimpse of the shattered wreck he’d been at the end of his captivity. Reliving the memories left the old man shaking like he had a fever, weeping from pain and loss, shame, fear, and wrath. Brown would have spared him, out of pity, but Lukas would not have it. “Look at me!” he’d raged. “Look, you bastard! You want truth? This is fucking truth!”

There had been more, much more, and Lukas had refused to let him look away from any of it. And he’d had the receipts, too — letters and texts, photos, videos, and holos. All of it. For two whole days, they had gone through it all.

Brown had recoiled, but Lukas had compelled him to see that the physical bond between Quentin and Lukas — the bond his church condemned as sinful — was a natural, essential, and fundamentally beautiful part of the all-consuming love that they shared. That became especially clear when Lukas described the time they’d had together after he was released from prison.

“It must have taken us a year . . . maybe two.” Lukas had been standing by the window of his apartment, watching another sunset like he was counting down the ones he had left, his voice hoarse from talking. Shouting. Weeping. Now, exhausted, his words crawled out slowly. Painfully.

“I wanted all those years back. To be tall and strong again, a man to his woman, just like it had always been with us. But I was weak as a newborn possum. Scared of my own shadow. Jumping at loud noises. And she was . . . HE was . . . Quentin Cromwell. THE Quentin Cromwell.”

Brown had asked whether Cromwell had ceased to be trans.

Lukas had been silent for a long moment, staring out the window and thinking. Then he’d sighed. “No. It’s not that. We’d both done what we had to do, been who we’d had to be. For years, you know? I’d had to make myself into whatever those sadistic guards had wanted, every minute of every day, just to survive. I learned to grovel. Simper. Prance. Crawl. To smile and clutch and moan . . . .” His voice shook and he ground to a halt, unable to go on.

Brown had gone to get him a glass of water, and had waited while he managed to drink. Gently, he’d completed the thought Lukas had been unable to finish. “And while you were doing all that, Quentin Cromwell became an inventor, an entrepreneur, and even a statesman. A great man.”

Lukas had nodded. “And a husband and father, too. Don’t forget that. Play a role long enough, and it’s hard to tell where the mask ends, and you begin.”

“Was it all a mask, do you think?”

“For me it was – and even I had trouble finding myself again, after. Cromwell was . . . more complicated. The brilliant inventor, the polymath who loved to play with ideas? He’d always had that in him. But the woman I’d loved was still there. And she wanted our time back, as much as I did. Maybe more, even. It just took us a long, long time to get there.”

Lukas had been completely credible, and Brown – a man not easily fooled – was convinced. He knew the truth about Quentin Cromwell. His duty should have been clear.

But the cost of revealing that truth was shockingly high. Lukas Wolff had let Cromwell’s own daughter decide whether to go public, and she had passed the responsibility to Brown like a live grenade. She couldn’t even tell her siblings.

They’d all worshiped their father. Tried to honor him, each in their own ways, by living good lives. Meaningful lives.

They’d barely known him.

You could not understand Quentin Cromwell without knowing of the side he’d kept hidden. And it would hurt them — each of them — to know that the father they’d loved hadn’t trusted them with the truth.

“That was Anna,” Lukas had said, talking about his sister. “She’d wanted the kids to have normal lives – or as normal as the times would permit. Quentin deferred to her where they were concerned, but I think he agreed with where she came out. He’d wanted a bit of ‘normal’ himself; he wasn’t going to rob them of a chance for it.”

Hard as it was, though, it wouldn’t be the first time Brown had delivered a Truth Speech that had caused pain to those left behind. It was never his intent, but sometimes it was, sadly, an inevitable byproduct. The very possibility was one of the reasons why few people outside of the Congregation of the New Apostles sought their services.

But speaking the truth in this case could cause harm far beyond Cromwell’s own family. It would stoke the fires of division in Brown’s Congregation, certainly. But the impact on civil society could be more harmful still.

While Justice Kokkoris could indulge in hard-bitten cynicism, Brown knew that the Second Republic needed its heroes. Only fourteen years after it was founded, with bitter memories of the troubles still tearing at the fabric of society, there were few people whose legends served to unify the nation. Quentin Cromwell had been one of them. Discredit his memory, and the whole edifice he had helped to build would be threatened.

In his mind’s eye, Brown saw Rodrigo Garcia’s hard face; saw the ecstatic, militant crowds. He could practically hear him shouting, the Charter was made by deviants, for deviants. Down with the Charter!

In fifty years . . . maybe even in twenty . . . the world might be ready to face the truth.

Not today.

He wanted to reach out to Sarah, almost desperate for the comfort of her wisdom. But the final writing of a Truth Speech was, by both its nature and by tradition, a solitary task. And he knew, in the end, what she would say. What she would have to say.

It was the same thing he had said to Clara Cromwell, as they sat together in the empty space her father had inhabited when he presented as male. “Your conscience is your link to our common Sovereign. Yours – not mine.”

Could he buy the world a few more years? Was there a middle ground? Truth, of course . . . but less than the whole truth?

– To be continued.

Author’s note: Kudos, Greybeard. Good sleuthing? ;-)

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