A Matter of Oaths (31 page)

It would be a relief to have his certainty, Joshim thought
with longing. Not to live with the misery of not knowing. Not to lie awake in
the dark cataloguing the possibilities. Maybe he
was
right; the gods knew, there was nobody else qualified to
understand the workings of an immortal’s mind. Or maybe Rallya was right, and
Ayvar was as far from sanity as Julur was, if in a different direction.

“What are you thinking?” Ayvar asked.

“You’re right, or you’re insane, and I can’t tell which.”

“And you’ve no talent for believing something because you
want to believe,” Ayvar said sympathetically.

“I’m an Aruranist,” Joshim said, amused. “I’ve heard it said
that that’s wishful thinking.”

“About reincarnation, I wouldn’t know. But the rest…
somebody gave you my face and put you into Lin’s life so that he would remember
me.”

“Maybe.” Joshim had had the same thought himself. “Maybe
they put you into Rafe’s life so that he would recognize me when he found me.” He
ran a hand over his chin, trying to remember when he had last depilated it. Four
days ago, on New Imperial. He must look as disreputable as he felt. “He isn’t
an Empire to be divided up by treaty,” he said angrily, knowing what Ayvar
really wanted to discuss.

“That wasn’t what I intended,” Ayvar said. “I just don’t
want to make it any harder for him than it has to be. Julur won’t kill him, but
he won’t be gentle to him either. He’ll need time to recover, when we get him
back. He’ll be in no condition to make a decision between us.”

“So you want to make it for him now.” Joshim was still
furious.

“Not that either.” Ayvar sighed. “He makes his own
decisions. He always has, and they’re often not the decisions I’d have him
make. Like staying in the Guild. I’ve asked him to leave before. I shall be
asking him again. This time, perhaps he’ll agree. He’s always said that his
Oath binds him, but if the Emperors’ Oaths can be rewritten, his can be
dissolved.”

“He won’t give up webbing,” Joshim said confidently. “If you
could web with him, you’d know that.” He felt a tinge of jealous pleasure at
the knowledge that Ayvar could never do so.

“He needs the power it gives him,” Ayvar admitted, “but
there are other ways he can have that.”

Joshim shook his head, although there was truth in what the
Emperor said. Power would always be a lure for Rafe, the power of the web or
the power hanging in the air around Ayvar which would call him like a sailfly
to a flame. But webbing was not only power. There was the magic inherent in
sharing that power with others, in guiding a junior who was learning their
first skills, or working in the web in perfect concert with a team. Nothing
that Ayvar could offer would give Rafe that joy, or the trust and companionship
of a full web-room.

“You don’t know him as well as you think you do,” he
observed.

“I know that he’ll be grateful to you. To everybody who
helps to rescue him. And he’s obsessive about paying his debts.”

So he may be generous to me, out of gratitude? The Rafe I
know… could be that stupid, Joshim realized painfully. What if it
was
my face that attracted him, if he
thought he loved me because of his love for Ayvar… Gods, it was too tangled to
see a way through. Especially at Ayvar’s persuasive prompting.

“I’m not fighting over him,” he said flatly. “He isn’t mine
to fight over, any more than he’s yours. And neither of us can be sure what he’ll
feel, what he’ll do. After ten years as Rafe, he isn’t the Lin you knew, and
once he’s remembered Lin, he won’t be Rafe either.”

“That may be true,” Ayvar conceded. He was silent for several
seconds, then shrugged gracefully. “Go to bed, Joshim. And be glad you’ve got
something useful to do. Having given your Commander a fleet and pointed her at
Julur, there’s nothing for me to do except wait. And Lin would tell you, that
isn’t my favourite role. It makes me bad tempered. Makes me want to settle the
things that I can settle.” He laughed briefly. “And the things that I can’t.”

It was an apology of a kind, or a peace offering. An appeal
for sympathy. “You are worried,” Joshim realized.

“The thought of Commander Rallya with a fleet at her back
and an Emperor as her target would make any sane man worry. What if she decides
she does want control of the Guild? And of both Empires? What would be the cost
of stopping her?”

“No. Not Rallya,” Joshim said positively. “You’d have to
back her into a corner with no choices left before she’d accept any of it. And
even then, she’d probably find a way to wriggle free.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Want to tell me what you’re really worried about?” Joshim suggested.

Ayvar looked at him quizzically. “Lin always said that
Webmasters could read minds.” He linked his fingers together, stared at them. “What
will you do, if what we get back isn’t Lin or Rafe but something that Julur has
twisted or emptied?” he asked abruptly. “Something mindless or insane.”

Joshim shook his head in distress. “I don’t know. There
would be ways of healing him…”

“I hope so, yes. Could you be part of that, Joshim, if you
were needed? For as long as it took?”

Gods, that was a question. Joshim took a deep breath, let it
out without speaking. Was that the measure of how much he cared for Rafe, that
he hesitated to give up the web for him?

“I don’t know,” he said finally.

“That’s an honest answer.” Ayvar took Joshim’s face in one
hand and studied it as if he would find a different answer there. “We could be
twins. I wonder how deep it goes…”

There was a knock on the door. Ayvar released Joshim’s face.

“Come in,” Joshim called.

“General broadcast, just received,” Fadir said excitedly. “The
Captain said you’d want to see it at once.”

“Thank you.” Joshim took the flimsy that the apprentice was
clutching, scanned it rapidly. “Did he tell you what it meant?”

“He said we’d be fighting at Central, sir. If Commander
Carher has declared
Bhattya
renegade,
it means she’s decided to oppose us.”

“She has no choice,” Ayvar said harshly. “If she runs, one
of her supporters will execute her for Julur. But she thinks she’ll have
something to bargain with if she fights and wins.” He laughed contemptuously. “It
won’t be enough, but she won’t find that out until it’s too late. If Julur
doesn’t kill her, I will.”

“Couldn’t we tell her that?” Fadir asked.

“In my experience, Fadir, things are rarely that simple,”
Ayvar said kindly.

“The Commander will have thought about it,” Joshim promised.
“But Carher wouldn’t believe us, and it would do her no good if she did. The
best she could hope for from us is identity-wipe, and I doubt the Commander
would be that merciful.” He sighed. “You’d better start packing, Fadir. The
Commander may take us out early, before Carher gathers too much support.”

“Do I have to stay behind, sir?”

“Yes,” Joshim insisted.

“I shall be needing somebody to carry messages for me,”
Ayvar said. “Can I borrow Fadir from you?”

“Do you mind?” Joshim asked the apprentice.

“No, sir. I suppose it will be better than doing nothing,”
Fadir said dejectedly.

“Good.” Ayvar smiled generously. “If you remember to call me
Lord Dhur in public, you can call me Ayvar in private.”

“Really?” Fadir swayed in shock. “Is he, sir?” He looked to
Joshim for confirmation.

“He is,” Joshim said.

“But only you and your Captain and Webmaster know that,”
Ayvar warned. “And Commander Rallya, of course.”

Fadir nodded gravely, the effect spoiled by the fact that he
was blinking so rapidly that his eyelashes were almost a blur. “I’ll remember,
sir,” he promised.

“Good. I’ll wait here for you while you pack,” Ayvar
offered.

Fadir paused on his way to the door. “Can I bring Rasil with
me?” he asked. “Two of us will be more useful than one, don’t you think?”

“You’d better bring Rasil then,” Ayvar agreed.

“That was kind of you,” Joshim said when the lad had gone.

“The three of us can be miserable together,” Ayvar dismissed
it. “Don’t worry. I won’t lay a finger on them. I only make my mistakes once,
and anyway, they can’t have half the charm that Lin had at that age. At any
age.” He lifted the pendant that hung around Joshim’s neck to examine it
closely. “Will the Commander respond to that broadcast?”

“She’ll have to, or we’ll be fighting ships at Central that
think Carher is telling the truth.” Joshim grimaced. “We probably will anyway.”

Ayvar let the pendant fall. “What will she send?”

“I’m guessing,” Joshim warned. “A broadcast accusing Carher
of Oath-breaking. Of murder. Of unlawful identity-wipe. Of conspiracy with
Julur.”

“She can’t,” Ayvar said tautly. “If she mentions Julur, he’ll
know I know about Lin.”

“She has to mention Julur. None of the rest makes sense
without it. You won’t talk her out of it. She has as much responsibility for
the people that might die because they don’t know what’s happening as she has
for Rafe.” Joshim closed his eyes in despair. “You think it will stampede Julur
into hurting him.”

“The gods know. Julur knows the value of what he’s got. That’s
why he tried the identity-wipe first. He’ll move slowly while he thinks he’s
got the time. And he won’t believe that Rallya has the nerve to attack Old
Imperial until it happens,” Ayvar said hopefully. “If she does…” He put a hand
on Joshim’s shoulder and shook gently. “Get to bed, Webmaster. You’re dead on
your feet and I’m relying on you to keep Rallya pointed in the right direction.”

To all ships and stations:

Be advised that serious charges of Oath-breaking will be laid
against Councillor Carher at the first opportunity, to include: conspiracy with
the Emperor Julur to subvert the Guild; unlawful identity-wipe of a Guild
member; and conspiracy to murder Guild members. Evidence will be presented at
Central to support these charges. It is requested that Councillor Carher be
detained until that time.

…I will move to the deep levels of the palace immediately. The
prisoner will be transferred with me…

 
“The Emperor is
pleased that you keep yourself fit,” Braniya announced herself from the
entrance to Rafe’s stateroom.

He paused in the daily sequence of exercises that he had set
himself, to fill a little of the time while he waited. He did not have access
to a console; nobody visited him except the pair of silent guards who delivered
his meals. He had exhausted the possibilities for escape from the stateroom,
not by trying them but by satisfying himself that there were none. All that was
left for him to do was to be ready for the possibilities that there might be,
in other places, at other times.

“And the Emperor must be pleased at all costs?” He was
pleased that his voice was steady, without a trace of his apprehension about
her visit, his fear that it meant another session with Julur.

“Most people find his pleasure rewarding.”

“Faced with the prospect of a second identity-wipe — or
worse — to please him, I can’t share their enthusiasm.” Rafe stood up and
stalked through to the fresher to find a towel to dry his sweat. His legs were
surprisingly steady too. “Was the state of my health the only reason for your
visit?” he called back to her.

“No. You’re being moved. Immediately.”

“May I dress first?”

“Do. Everything else will follow you.”

Rafe chose breeches and a shirt at random. “Where am I
going?” he asked as he pulled them on.

“Down,” Braniya said succinctly. “The Emperor has chosen to
move to the deeper levels. You’re to go with him.”

“How deep is deep? This palace is rumoured to go a long way
down, and I’d hate to be trapped at the bottom by a surface strike.”

“Don’t alarm yourself unnecessarily,” Braniya advised. “The
life-support systems down there are good for a few hundred years, and the
planet would have to be destroyed to seal all access to the deep levels.” Her
lips twitched. “Accommodation down there is not a privilege extended to many.”

And you would dearly like to know why I am honoured, Rafe
thought with malicious amusement. It was interesting to know that Julur was
worried about an attack on his palace. Fear of the Guild might be enough to
make him scuttle for shelter, if he thought they knew what he had done. Rafe
tucked that speculation away for later examination.

“Do I walk or will I be carried?” he asked Braniya lightly.

“It would be quicker if you walked, and there are other
matters which require my attention.” Her lips twitched again. “I am allowed to
tell you that one of them is the execution of Lord Khalem.”

“You could tell the Emperor that there are gifts I’d like
better than Elanis’s death.”

“I understand that the news is the gift, not the death. Are
you ready?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“The Emperor requires you to be treated with courtesy.”

That was not the description Rafe would have used for the
interrogation Julur had carried out; but then the Emperor was exempt from his
own requirements. It had been a shock afterwards to wake in a luxury stateroom
with his mind — he believed — still intact; there had been no similar treatment
ten years ago. He distrusted it, as he distrusted this move, judging that it
was meant to unbalance him.

There were six guards waiting for him outside, anonymous
behind their visors. Rafe let Braniya set their pace, not bothering to conceal
his interest in the route she chose, just as she did not bother to conceal her
amusement at his interest. Not much profit in memorizing it, he reckoned, but
he did anyway, in the faint hope that there was a pattern that would help him
if he was ever free to chose his own route through the palace.