The Goblin Emperor (8 page)

“Don’t you
sleep
?” Maia said, more waspishly than he had intended.

“Serenity,” said Beshelar. “There was not time yesterday, but today it is hoped the Adremaza and Captain Orthema will be able to choose seconds for Cala Athmaza and ourself. Assuming they are acceptable to Your Serenity, we will then be able to guard you in shifts. But we,” with a sudden access of ferocity and the plural to include Cala, “are your First Nohecharei.”

Maia could have lowered his head into his hands and wept. Here he had been resenting Beshelar, while Beshelar had been shouldering a burden he, Maia, had not even had the wit to recognize.
Thou grow’st arrogant already,
he said to himself.
Accepting it as ordinary that those who guard thee should be on duty constantly.
A smaller, darker voice added:
As thou art.
Maia moved with sudden decisiveness to get out of bed.

As if they had only been waiting for their cue, Esha and Avris came in, telling him that his bath had been drawn, that Dachensol Atterezh and his apprentices had labored all night and sent several sets of garments with assurances that His Serenity’s coronation robes would not be delayed in the slightest. There was no comfort in their words or their ministrations, but Maia followed where he was led, noticing with bitter amusement what he had been too fatigued to see the night before: the emperor was granted the illusion of privacy by certain cunningly placed panels of frosted glass; he bathed, dressed, allowed Avris to dress his hair—although he dismayed his edocharei greatly by refusing all jewelry. “Not until we are crowned,” he said. In truth he would have preferred to wear no jewels at all. They reminded him of his father.

He sat down to breakfast with both nohecharei in attendance and the same shy server he had had the night before. With his first sip of tea, the door opened to admit Csevet, burdened with another great stack of letters, and Maia, whose mind had been running moodily on jewelry, forestalled whatever Csevet might have said by asking, “To whom do we speak about our imperial signet?”

“Serenity,” Csevet said, setting down the stack of letters at the end of the table; the server fetched another cup. “That is traditionally the purview of the Lord Chancellor.”

“Is it?” Maia said thoughtfully.

“The Lord Chancellor is the Master of Seals,” Csevet said carefully, almost uneasily.

“What did you use to seal our letters yesterday?”

“The Drazhadeise house seal,” Csevet said. “We think it unlikely that anyone will claim they are forgeries.”

“Most unlikely,” Maia agreed, and Csevet seemed to relax slightly. “But Lord Chavar surely does not design signets himself.”

“Oh! No, of course not. That is the work of Dachensol Habrobar.”

“Can you … that is, do we summon Dachensol Habrobar to our presence, or…?”

“We will take care of it, Serenity.”

“Thank you,” Maia said. “We see you have brought us more letters.”

“Yes,” Csevet said. “The Corazhas are not the only ones made uneasy by an emperor who does not parade himself before them.”

“Ought we to?” Maia said. “Parade ourself?”

“No, Serenity,” Csevet said. “It does your courtiers no harm to be a little unsettled. They will see you soon enough.” He coughed politely and said, “There
is
a message from the widow empress.”

Maia had almost forgotten about the widow empress in the press of other concerns, but a glance at the clock showed him he would have to face her in an hour. “We have agreed to give her an audience at ten o’clock,” he said. “She wrote yesterday.”

“Your Serenity is very kind,” Csevet murmured, and passed him the widow empress’s letter.

Maia broke the seal and read:

To the Archduke Maia Drazhar, heir to the imperial throne of Ethuveraz, greetings.

We are greatly disappointed with your coldness and fear that much of what the late emperor your father said of your character, which we dismissed as an old man’s prejudices, must indeed be true.

We will come to the Tortoise Room at ten o’clock.

With great hope and compassion,
Csoru Drazharan, Ethuverazhid Zhasan

Maia considered this missive carefully, and then said, “What sort of lady is the widow empress?”

“Serenity,” Csevet said with another polite little cough. “She is a very young lady and somewhat … wild.”

“Csevet, we beg of you, speak plainly.”

Csevet bowed. “She is spoilt, Serenity. She is young and very beautiful, and the late emperor treated her as a doll. She got her way with tears and tantrums, and when those palled, as they would on a man who was tired and old and had buried three wives, she turned to illnesses—fainting spells, dizziness, nervous prostration. She wished for power, but he was too wise to give her any.”

“Then it is probable that power is what she seeks now?”

“Yes, Serenity, very probable.”

A silence, cold and hard like a granule of ice. Maia took a deep breath and said, “What did our late father say of us?”

He saw Csevet’s appalled glance cross Beshelar’s and knew he did not wish this knowledge. But … “We must know. We cannot face those who have heard his opinions an we do not know them ourself.”

“Serenity,” Csevet said unhappily, and bowed his head. “He loved not your mother, as you know.”

“Yes,” Maia said, all but under his breath. “We know.”

“He did not discuss her—or yourself, Serenity—in public, but there was always gossip. Some of it from servants. Some of it, we fear, spread by the Empress Csoru herself.”

“Why?”

“Boredom. Petty malice. The joy of scandal. Most of the stories were not credible, and we most earnestly beg Your Serenity to dismiss them utterly from your mind.”

“But the others?”

He was backing Csevet into a corner, and he was sorry for it.
This is what it is to be emperor,
he thought.
Do not forget it.

And Csevet capitulated as gracefully as he did everything else. “The late emperor said—and this occasionally in public—that the Barizheisei were degenerate, given to inbreeding. In private, so the rumors go, he said that the Empress Chenelo was mad, and that you had inherited her bad blood. He frequently used the word ‘unnatural,’ although the stories differ on what he meant by it.”

“How much credence has been give to these stories?”

“Serenity, everyone knows how much the late emperor loved the Empress Pazhiro. And it is common knowledge that marriage with the Empress Chenelo was pressed upon him by the Corazhas and was not of his own choosing. But it is also true that your … isolation at Edonomee has caused comment, and more so in recent years.”

“For all the Untheileneise Court knows, we
are
an inbred lunatic cretin.” He could not choke back a laugh bitter enough to make Csevet wince.

“Serenity, they have only to look at you to see that you are not.”

“The question being,” Cala murmured, “how many of them will look.”

Beshelar glared at him, but the apologetic look Csevet gave Maia told him that Cala’s remark was honesty, not cynicism.

Continuing this conversation as matters stood would only make him despondent to no purpose and possibly cause Csevet and his nohecharei to feel put-upon and ill used. He said with a note of briskness he did not feel, “Are there any of those letters which we ought to read before our audience with Csoru Zhasanai?”

There were, of course; he bade Csevet come down to the Tortoise Room with him, and there Csevet ensconced himself at the secretary’s desk while Maia sat by the fire and Cala and Beshelar patiently guarded the door against nothing.

It was easier to deal with the letters today. He felt that the depths of his ignorance had already been revealed and so had no compunction about asking for information. And with Csevet’s guidance—Csevet who had been an imperial courier (he admitted when asked) since he turned thirteen—Maia was learning to decipher the elaborate flatteries and circumlocutions and how to answer in kind. And to recognize when not to. It was a little hard not to resent Csevet’s easy familiarity with names and factions and cherished causes, but Csevet put that knowledge unreservedly at Maia’s disposal, and if he wished to be angry at someone, it was not Csevet who deserved his anger.

The most important of the letters, its significance apparent to Maia even without coaching, was that from the Barizheise ambassador. It stood out among the neat stack of correspondence, not merely because it was written on vellum—many of the older courtiers still preferred parchment to paper—but because it was rolled rather than folded. The cord that held it was plum-colored silk, threaded through an ivory toggle and elaborately knotted. Csevet regarded it a little helplessly.

“Your Serenity must know more of Barizheise customs than we do,” he said.

Maia shook his head, wincing at Csevet’s raised eyebrows. “Our mother died when we were eight. She did not speak Barizhin with us, nor did she tell us much of her homeland. We think she had been forbidden to.” He remembered with perfect clarity every tiny moment of rebellion, but there had been too few of them.

Csevet frowned, his ears dipping. “We know that the use of a nesecho—” And he flicked the ivory toggle with a plain-lacquered fingernail. “—is of great meaning to goblins, but we know not what that meaning is. Nor do we know anything about goblin knots.”

“Is there anyone in our household who might?” Maia asked, thinking of the number of dark-skinned servants he had seen in the Alcethmeret.

“Serenity,” Csevet said, rising with a bow that, Maia thought, expressed appreciation of a helpful idea. “We will ask.”

He returned a few minutes later, bringing a middle-aged man in his wake. “This is Oshet, Serenity,” said Csevet, as triumphant as a retriever presenting his master with a dead duck. “He is one of your gardeners. He came to the Untheileneise Court with the ambassador five years ago, and his service was presented to your imperial father because of his gift for rose-growing.”

“Serenity,” murmured Oshet, going to his knees and bowing his head. His skin was almost perfect black; he wore his hair shaved rather than merely cropped, which made the steel rings in his ears—steel, as even Maia knew, being the mark of a sailor—impossible to miss.

“Please,” Maia said. “Stand.” Oshet rose obediently; he was a full head shorter than Csevet, stocky and densely muscled. His forearms were crisscrossed with scratches old and new, his fingernails rimmed with dirt. He had the heavy underslung jaw and protuberant eyes typical of goblins; Setheris had always been very pointed in his comments about Maia’s luck in inheriting his father’s bones.

“Did Mer Aisava explain our question?” Maia asked.

“Yes, Serenity.” Oshet’s eyes were a vivid orange-red, disconcerting against the blackness of his skin. Maia knew his own eyes, the pale Drazhadeise gray, were just as bad. “Is nesecho, yes?”

“Yes.” Maia took the roll of vellum, with its adornments, from the table and handed it to Csevet, who handed it to Oshet. The gardener’s thick-fingered hands were delicate of touch; he traced the lines of the knot, then the lines of the nesecho, lingering over the tiny pointed face of the animal carved into it. Then he handed the vellum back to Csevet and clasped his hands together behind his back.

“Well?” Csevet said.

“Is suncat,” said Oshet.

“We beg your pardon?” Maia said.

“Little animal. Is suncat. Live along southern coast. Friendly. Always curious. Kill snakes and rats. Many ships have suncat. Is very good luck.”

Maia held his hand out, and Csevet gave him the roll of vellum. He looked carefully at the nesecho, seeing the way the suncat had been carved to appear as if it were playing with the cords, seeing the bright happiness the carver had put into its face.

“What does it mean?” Csevet said impatiently.

Oshet’s massive shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “Is good luck,” he said. “Is friends. We have nesecho, given by closest friend on ship when we left.” He tugged a cord bound around his belt and pulled a nesecho out of his pocket. It was a little larger than the suncat, and Maia recognized it by the scales carved on the rounded back, even before Oshet turned it so he could see the squared, smiling, tongue-lolling face of a tangrisha. “Tangrisha is protection,” Oshet said. “Suncat is…” His face screwed up into a scowl as he tried to find the right words. “Is wish for great happiness.”

Maia wanted to ask more questions, about nesechos and about Oshet’s ship and about why the ambassador would be sending him a wish for “great happiness,” but Csevet pursued, single-minded, “And the knot?”

“Is knot for important message,” said Oshet, tucking his tangrisha back in his pocket. “But is message to emperor.”

“Are there protocols?” Maia asked hesitantly. “Is it wrong to cut the knot?”

Oshet’s eyebrows shot up, and the twitch of his ears made his earrings jangle. “Is no need, Serenity. Pull gold bead. Knot will untie itself.” He paused, then added, “Nesecho is gift, always.”

One of the strands of cord had a gold bead knotted at its end. Maia had assumed it was only decoration.
It is but one more chance to feel ignorant,
he told himself, and tugged the cord, surprised despite himself at how swiftly the knot unraveled. He freed the vellum from the cord and quickly tucked cord and nesecho in his pocket before anyone could tell him he ought not to.

“Thank you,” Csevet said to the gardener. “You may go.”

Oshet nodded to Csevet and bowed deeply to Maia. “Serenity.”

“Thank you, Oshet,” Maia said, remembering to smile, and only then turned his attention to unrolling the vellum.

The letter was written in a strong hand, the letters small and well formed, with elaborately swooping heads and tails. Not a secretary’s hand. The salutation was,
To our most serene imperial kinsman, Edrehasivar VII,
and Maia got no farther, looking up at Csevet in a certain amount of shock. “Kinsman?”

For once, Csevet was also at a loss. “The ambassador is not a blood relative of the Avar.”

“He must mean our mother’s mother,” Maia said. “But we know not her name, nor her family.”