Midnight in the Garden

Chapter 2: If Someone Had Known

"The Sith. What do you know about the Sith?" Anakin asked, praying she knew the facts of the basic situation. The truth was going to be hard enough for her to believe without Anakin having to introduce the wildly improbable idea of an extremely powerful Sith master controlling everything, for the first time here tonight.

Lady Valorum ran her hands over her face. "Jedi Skywalker. It's nearly the twenty-second hour. Tell me what you're fishing for?"

Anakin leaned forward. "Do you know about the master?"

"Ah, yes. The Sith master. The one who trained Count Dooku."

"You're aware that the Jedi Council has spared no effort to identify this ... person?"

"Yes."

Anakin's throat worked. To say it out loud made it seem more real. An image of Palpatine's face, kindly smiling at him, flashed before him. Anakin blinked it away.

"We've been concerned for some time that the Sith master has access to the highest levels of the Chancellor's office."

"Senator Organa said he had been tracked --"

"He told you? To 500 Republica."

"He told Finis. He said there was a state of the art communications room under the subbasement there."

Now it was Anakin's turn to run his own hands over his face.

"Right. Lady Valorum ... I saw Chancellor Palpatine tonight. And I discovered the identity of the Sith master we've been looking for."

She waited, her russet eyes bright and expectant.

Anakin made himself say it. "It's Chancellor Palpatine."

She gazed at him for a second with a thick, blank expression. Then she said, "What?"

"It's Chancellor Palpatine. He identified himself to me."

"To you? I can't possibly believe that. Palpatine, a Sith lord! I never heard anything so ridiculous! And why would a Sith lord choose you to reveal himself to? Jedi Skywalker, why are you doing this? What is it the Jedi want in sending you here to probe me and my personal history with Palpatine?"

"That's not what this is about, I assure you. I did see Palpatine, and this did happen. You had no idea?" He shook his head. "No, of course not. Of course, you wouldn't."

Lady Valorum's face set in the hardest expression Anakin had ever seen on a woman. "Obviously you're here on Jedi business. Tell me what it is, without the games, or I'll have you escorted out."

Frightened now, Anakin held out his hands. If she should contact the Council --

"I'm not here on Jedi business, I'm here on personal business, my lady, and this is no game. What the Chancellor said to me this evening was real. I know you can't begin to understand that, but understand this. I can't go back to the Temple with this. I can't go to any of the senators. I can't go to anyone. If I do, the Council will send a team of masters to the Chancellor's office, and they will kill Palpatine. They will kill him, do you understand! And I can't do that ... I can't have that, and I can't decide what to do! I have to --" Anakin's throat tightened at the thought of Padme and their baby, and he felt his face redden and the tears start in his eyes.

Lady Valorum gave him a wary expression, as if he were a poisonous snake coiled in the middle of the table. Clearly she did not believe, but she knew the tears were not an act.

"This is ridiculous. Even if he were a Sith lord, why would he tell you?"

"I have a personal relationship with Palpatine. He's ... taken an interest in me, mentored me, ever since I came to the Capitol --" It hit Anakin in the gut, making the pain even worse. Was their entire friendship an act? Was it all only to use him? Had anything about it been real? He put his head in his hands and moaned, "Oh ... oh, no ..."