The Goblin Emperor (16 page)

“Who else was I supposed to choose?” Too late, he heard the rawness in his own voice. He shut his eyes, lowered his face into his hands. His eyes were burning; he told himself it was just tiredness.

“Serenity,” Cala said, his voice gentle, “we did not see the evil, either. We—
I
—I was pleased and proud, and so I always shall be. But the Adremaza is right. We are here to guard you. We are your nohecharis. We cannot be aught else.”

“We understand,” Maia said, forcing the words past the ache in his throat. He threw himself down with his back to Cala. “You are right. We should sleep.”

“Serenity,” Cala murmured.

Maia lay with his eyes tight shut, forcing his breathing to stay slow and even despite what felt like rocks in his throat and chest, and although eventually he slept, his sleep was not restful.

When he woke again, it was half past nine, the sun was streaming in the window, and Esha was leaning over him, saying, “Serenity? Serenity, your secretary is without and says he must speak to you urgently.”

Maia struggled up out of bed, sleep, and sullen hurt. “Did he say what matter?”

“No, Serenity.” Esha helped him into a quilted dressing gown with shagged velvet cuffs and collar. “Only that it was important and that it would not wait.”

“Thank you,” Maia said, lifting his night-braided hair free of the collar and letting it flop down his back. And he went out to see what was agitating his secretary.

Csevet, because he was Csevet, made a proper formal bow, but he was clearly distressed, his ears twitching despite his best efforts to maintain his poise. Maia stifled a yawn and said, “What’s toward?”

“Serenity,
what
did you say to the Princess Sheveän?”

“That we would speak to her today regarding her concerns about the body of her husband. Why?”

“She waits in the receiving room, breathing fire. She says if you will not see her, she will seek redress from the Lord Chancellor.”

Cursing was for commoners, both Chenelo and Setheris had said, the recourse of those with neither breeding nor education. Maia clenched his teeth against a number of words he’d learned from Haru, and said, “She wishes to stampede us.”

“Serenity?”

Briefly, Maia told Csevet of his interview with the Princess of the Untheileneise Court the night before. “We see,” he finished, “that we were unwise not to specify a time, but we did not think…”

“That the princess would stoop to such low tactics?” Csevet said, an eyebrow quirked.

“We were perhaps naïve,” Maia said, and Csevet murmured, “Serenity!” in mock horror.

He cannot be thy friend, either,
Maia thought, and pulled his dressing gown closer against a chill that was not in the air. He said, “We do not think any good will come of the princess accosting the Lord Chancellor.”

“No,” Csevet said. “We are inclined to agree.”

“Can you … detain her? We cannot grant an audience to the Princess of the Untheileneise Court in our dressing gown.”

“Serenity,” Csevet said, bowing deeply. “We will do our best.”

He departed, and Maia returned to his bedchamber to tell Esha he needed to dress in a hurry.

The edocharei were, he thought, a little miffed at his impatience, though he made the deduction only from the tight-lipped, low-eared silence in which they went about their work. Their efficiency and care abated not in the slightest; although he was dressed very simply (for an emperor) when he descended the stairs of the Alcethmeret to the receiving room, he was immaculate, every hair and crease in place.

The Princess of the Untheileneise Court stood in the center of the vast room, still dressed in full mourning. She was alone; she had not bothered with Osmin Bazhevin’s negligible support. She put her veil back at his approach and curtsied, though not deeply. “Serenity.”

“Sheveän. We trust you slept well.”

“We have not slept,” she said, as if only a heartless monster would imagine she could have.

Maia allowed a pause, an acknowledgment of the rudeness of her response, then said, “Please. Sit down.”

She sat, her back stiff as a poker, her eyes fixed on him with unwavering suspicion. Maia sat as well and, seeing no way around it, said simply, “The
Wisdom of Choharo
was sabotaged.”

He thought at first she had not understood him; then she said, “Yes?” and he realized that she did not in any way consider that relevant to her complaint.

“We must find out who murdered our father and brothers,” he said. “For that, we need a Witness for the Dead.”

“Yes,” she said with the impatience of a woman speaking to an idiot. “And Lord Chavar himself assured us that the Witnesses had viewed the bodies with due reverence and that the funeral would be in no way impeded. And
then
we learn that Edrehasivar has interfered, delaying the ceremony and inconveniencing everyone—not to mention showing disrespect to his father—by bringing in Csoru’s
cousin
!” Her fury overcame her, and Maia wondered, in that cold, snide corner of his mind that sounded like Setheris, whether she was angry because of the disruption to the funeral or because of the perceived favor to the widow empress’s kinsman.

His heart was hammering in his throat; he felt as small and sick as he had ever felt before Setheris’s wrath. But he remembered Csevet saying,
It is not Canon Orseva’s place to dictate to you,
his own determination not to let Setheris rule him. It was the same thing, the same necessity.

“Princess, we can only assure you, again, that there was no desecration. You may speak to the Witness, if you wish.” He heard the shake in his voice and could only hope she didn’t.

“Yes,” she said, flat and cold, and Maia had no choice but to summon a page boy and ask him to request Thara Celehar to attend upon the emperor.

The stony silence between them was unbroken while they waited. To Maia’s great relief, Celehar was prompt; he realized he did not know where the Witness had his rooms. Celehar was dressed in shabby mourning, as he had been the day before. He and Sheveän were strangely well matched, with their white masklike faces and eyes like cinders.
Whom has he lost?
Maia wondered even as he was gesturing Celehar back to his feet and trying to think of a way to explain the situation that would not come out sounding like:
The Princess of the Untheileneise Court has all but accused us of grave-robbing.

He said, “Mer Celehar, the princess desires assurance that her husband’s body was treated respectfully in your…”

Celehar might be acting as Witness against his inclination, but he was not cruel. He bowed to Sheveän and said, “Princess, we offer our most sincere condolences.”

“We thank you,” she said coldly.

“We are both a prelate of Ulis and a Witness for the Dead,” Celehar said. “Though we have renounced our prelacy, we are still sanctified. We alone placed our hands on your husband’s body, and we assure you we did so reverently and with prayers. Please, speak to the Archprelate if you are in the least doubtful.”

“
You
are a Witness for the Dead.”

“We are.” He did not react to the scorn in her voice; Maia wasn’t even sure he heard it.

“Then why were you not asked to be part of the Lord Chancellor’s investigation?”

“We understand that the Lord Chancellor prefers judicial Witnesses,” Celehar said.

“We see,” said Sheveän. “We suppose we should have expected as much from Edrehasivar.” Her glance at Maia was pure poison, and he understood perfectly that she had just called him a superstitious lout.

He did not care; he merely wished this confrontation to be over. He rose and said, “Sheveän, if you have no more questions for Mer Celehar, we are busy this morning.”

She stood, obedient to etiquette if not necessarily to the emperor. “Yes, so we had heard. Serenity.” She swept him a curtsy without an ounce of genuine respect in it, and left.

“Serenity,” Celehar said, “did we say the wrong thing?” He even sounded worried.

“No. No, Mer Celehar, we fear we had taken care of that long before you arrived. It is no concern of yours, and if the princess should … should harry you in your searching, you must tell her to come speak to us. She is our problem.”

“Serenity,” Celehar said. He hesitated, then said, “We wish, as we said, to visit the Ulimeire of Cetho. We would be grateful if you could write a letter of introduction for us.”

“To the prelate? But you…” Maia faltered before the glare Celehar gave him, like the snarl of a wounded animal. “We will be pleased to write you such a letter, Mer Celehar.”

“Thank you, Serenity,” Celehar said, bowing.

“Will you wait? We will write it now if that suits.”

“You do us undeserved honor,” Celehar said, too blandly. Maia was glad to leave him in the receiving room while he ducked into the Tortoise Room to write the letter.

Given Celehar’s apparent objections to identifying himself as a fellow prelate, Maia kept the terms of the letter as general as he could, merely asking the prelate of the Ulimeire to give all reasonable aid and assistance to the bearer, one Thara Celehar, who was acting as an agent of the emperor. It was not elegantly worded, but it was functional, and he was naggingly aware that somewhere in the Alcethmeret, Csevet was lurking with a list of things the emperor had to attend to, and that that list would not be getting shorter for the delay.

He returned to the receiving room, gave Celehar the sealed letter. Celehar bowed his thanks and left. Maia was left alone with Cala and Beshelar. He hovered for a moment on the brink of saying something to them, as he would have the day before, but remembered Cala saying flatly,
We cannot be your friend.
He walked past them, not meeting their eyes, and ascended again into the private section of the Alcethmeret, his nohecharei following dutifully behind.

13

Bargaining

In the event, the duty with which Csevet ambushed him was the first meeting of the Corazhas of the reign of Edrehasivar VII. The Corazhas met in a long, southern-facing room called the Verven’theileian, the Hall of Consultation; Maia went and sat and watched the snow through the arched windows, while Csevet, positioned at his elbow, took frenetic and copious notes. He felt helplessly, hopelessly out of his depth; the Corazhas might as well have been speaking a foreign tongue most of the time, and their brisk, efficient tones made it clear that interruptions from an ignorant emperor would not be welcome.

Thou must learn to rule,
he said to himself.
Thou must learn these things.
But he could not pry his teeth apart, too aware of what the Corazhas would think of him, too aware of Cala and Beshelar standing like statues.

I will ask Csevet later,
he promised himself, and continued to feign attention to the workings of his government. The Corazhas asked him no questions, seemed to have no interest in his opinions or ideas.
They know thou hast none,
he thought scathingly. Certainly, he had no opinions about the principal matter under debate this morning. He had never heard anyone suggest bridging the Istandaärtha before; he had a hard time believing it was possible.

In fact, that was one of the points of contention: the Witness for the Judiciate flatly refused to believe that the Istandaärtha could be bridged at all, and certainly not above Cairado. The Witness for the Parliament was at a disadvantage, for while he staunchly asserted that the proposal was feasible, it was clear that he himself did not understand the mechanics of how the widest and fastest river in the Ethuveraz was to be bridged.

“And what about river trade?” demanded the Witness for the Treasury. “What are the barges from Ezho supposed to do? Leap this marvelous bridge like frogs?”

“It is to be a sort of drawbridge,” said the Witness for the Parliament, and went red at the disbelieving snort from the Witness for the Judiciate.

“A drawbridge two miles long?” said the Witness for the Universities. “Deshehar, we fear you have been gulled.”

“We assure you,” the Witness for the Parliament said stiffly, “there is no doubt of the honesty and earnest good faith of those who brought this proposal to the Parliament. We do not do their ideas justice, and indeed all they asked was the opportunity to appear before the Corazhas.”

“But why should they bring it before the Corazhas?” asked one of the Witnesses whom Maia had not been able to keep straight. “Should it not properly go to the Universities?”

“We have wasted enough time on this nonsense already,” said the Witness for the Judiciate, forestalling what looked like an imminent explosion from the Witness for the Universities. The Witness for the Prelacy, a pinch-faced man old enough to be his Archprelate’s grandfather—and Maia wondered if that, in truth, had something to do with the pinch—said, “Hear hear.” Maia bit his tongue and tried not to look as if he would have liked to ask other questions.
Thou wouldst only make a greater fool of thyself,
he thought, and waited in dismal silence for the meeting of the Corazhas finally, finally to come to an end.

And even when he escaped the Corazhas, it was merely to be ambushed by another obligation. Setheris was waiting for him in the hall.

“Cousin Setheris,” Maia said, stopping short.

“Serenity,” Setheris said, bowing. It was only with a great effort that Maia kept himself from backing away. His rational knowledge that he had nothing to fear from Setheris now, and never would again, was swamped by ten years’ accumulation of blows and jeers, the old burning pain in his left forearm, the instinctive duck of the chin to avoid looking Setheris in the eyes.

“Serenity,” Setheris said, straightening, “we have been seeking an audience with you for some days.”

Maia caught himself, lifted his chin—and the flattened ears might be taken for irritation rather than fear. “We have been busy, cousin.”

“We understand that, Serenity, but the matter is pressing, and—”

At that moment, Csevet emerged into the hall. He moved at once to interpose himself between Maia and Setheris. Maia was able, gratefully, to move back and to take a proper breath. Csevet and Setheris bristled at each other like fighting dogs, and although Maia wanted nothing more than to run—he was the emperor, after all, and who would stop him?—he said, “Csevet, please arrange an audience for our cousin at the earliest convenient time. We are returning to the Alcethmeret.”