The Goblin Emperor (21 page)

“His method is rather clumsy,” Maia said, thinking again of Nurevis.

“Dach’osmer Tethimar is not a subtle man,” Csevet said. Maia thought he had meant to say it lightly, but it came out flat and dark; there was a pause long enough to be awkward before Csevet looked very deliberately at the clock and said, “We had best go, Serenity. It looks ill for the emperor to arrive late to give an audience.”

Every stiff line of Csevet’s body was begging Maia to let himself be chivvied on to his next task: to let the question of Eshevis Tethimar go. Maia, despising his own curiosity, said, “Tell us again: who will come first?” And he pretended he did not notice Csevet’s almost inaudible sigh of relief.

Audiences had to be held in the great, cold, brooding Untheileian. Maia was oppressed by its empty echoing vastness, and he pitied his petitioners, who had to make the long walk from the doors to the throne under an imperial scrutiny that they could not know was benevolent. Many of them, in fact, seemed to assume it was hostile. There were stammered apologies from the commoners and shows of bravado from the courtiers, and always Maia kept his patience and remembered to smile. In the back of his head, he began composing a prayer of compassion for the living. The requests and questions presented were no difficulty, thanks in large part to Csevet’s careful coaching; it was simply a matter of listening through the distractions and defenses to what was actually being asked. Maia was surprised to discover this was something he was good at: he was able, in his turn, to ask the right questions to make the matter clear in both his mind and the petitioner’s. Nothing could have been more different from the guilt-ridden bewilderment of attending the meeting of the Corazhas, and although Maia did not exactly relax, he felt a measure of confidence that made it easier to keep his spine straight and his hands still through the long afternoon.

Dach’osmer Tethimar was the last petitioner of the day, whether through some subtle design of Csevet’s or mere chance. In either case, the wait had clearly irritated him, for he strode the length of the Untheileian at such a pace that his sister could not keep up.

It was a poor auspice, Maia thought, watching Dach’osmin Tethimin struggle down the hall. She had not the confidence to simply choose her own pace, but keeping abreast of her brother would have required her to trot—possibly, judging by the fierce staccato of Tethimar’s shoe heels, to run—which would have been a terrible breach of propriety. And if one left propriety aside, between the tightness of her long sheath skirt and the height of the heels on her shoes, she couldn’t have run if her life had depended on it. Maia felt horribly sorry for her, even before she made it close enough that he could see she was shaking with fear.

Paru Tethimin was a pretty girl, though she lacked the strength of feature that made her brother’s handsomeness so eye-catching. She had been dressed in the elaborate and sophisticated fashion favored by the widow empress’s circle, which did not suit her: she looked like a child caught playing in her mother’s wardrobe. Maia tried dutifully to think of her as a possible empress, but aside from her obvious terror, there was nothing to distinguish her from any of the other girls that age whom he had seen at the wake and in the halls of the court.

“Serenity,” Tethimar began with a sweeping bow, and then realized his sister was not beside him. For a moment, the expression on his face was more than merely irritated, a there-and-gone look that made Maia’s fingers clench on the arms of the throne. Then Tethimar turned and stood watching his sister; Maia was reminded of Setheris and his pocket watch. By the time Dach’osmin Tethimin reached the foot of the dais, she was mortified as well as scared, the perfect elvish whiteness of her skin showing red in unbecoming blotches.

“Serenity,” said Tethimar, making his sweeping bow again. At his side, Paru Tethimin made her own bow, quite gracefully—but then, of course, Maia thought with an uncomfortable twinge of cynicism, she would have been well taught. “May we present to you our sister, Paru Tethimin?”

The temptation to crown this disaster by saying no, was so severe that Maia was unable to get any other words out. The patchy flush drained away from Dach’osmin Tethimin’s cheeks; he saw in her unguardedly horrified stare that by some evil chance of empathy she knew what he was thinking. Even Tethimar was beginning to look concerned by the time Maia finally managed to stammer, “We are most pleased.”

He beckoned them closer, even though he felt he was being cruel to make Dach’osmin Tethimin climb the stairs. Now, at least, Tethimar was supporting her with a hand under her elbow, so Maia did not have to worry that she would fall.

At close range, he could see how young she was, and not just chronologically. His nephew Idra was her age, but Idra had been raised at court and formally introduced to its society over a year ago. Maia remembered someone saying Tethimar had “fetched” his sister to court, and he wondered if she had been fetched from somewhere like Edonomee.

Maia knew his duty; he was trying to choose a platitude, such as he had been spouting like a fountain all afternoon, when Tethimar took a step closer and said in a low voice, “We have heard, Serenity, that you favor the Bazhevada over us.”

“We do not know how you could have heard such a thing,” Maia said, “for it is not true.”

“And yet you are considering their suit, when you know—for we distinctly remember telling you—that the late emperor was negotiating with our father. What other reason can there be, Serenity?”

His use of the honorific was like a slap across the face.

Maia’s fingers tightened on the arms of the throne, but he was sick to death of being bullied, and his own voice had an unaccustomed snap when he answered: “Our sister, the Archduchess Vedero, is in deepest mourning for her father and brothers. We will not arrange her marriage until she has had time to grieve, not with you, not with Osmer Bazhevar, not with anyone else. And we do not consider ourself bound by any private agreements our father may have reached. We were not in his confidence and thus cannot rely on anything that has not been put into writing. We regret it extremely if you read into this some judgment upon your person that was not meant.”

There was a long, long silence. Tethimar was staring at him, his face blankly unreadable, but Maia could see, just at the downward edge of his vision, Tethimar’s hands clenching white-knuckled into fists. Knowing that he was not going to change his answer, and knowing that Tethimar could not actually attack him, Maia waited, and finally, stiffly, Tethimar bowed his head. “Serenity. We are relieved to hear that we are not in disfavor.”

“Not at this time,” Maia said, and could not help a tiny, malicious flicker of pleasure at the way Tethimar’s head jerked back up. “And we are gratified by this evidence that not all of our subjects disdain the old forms of courtesy.” He looked very pointedly past Tethimar at Dach’osmin Tethimin, who looked—if possible—even more terrified. “We are delighted to meet you, Dach’osmin Tethimin. Thank you, Dach’osmer Tethimar.”

It was a dismissal—he had gotten very good at them very quickly—and Tethimar had no choice but to accept it. Maia was then, blessedly, free to return to the Alcethmeret, where he could replace some of the more uncomfortable layers of his clothing with a heavy fur robe before retiring to the Tortoise Room and Csevet’s ever-replenished stack of correspondence.

But there was a matter that had to be addressed first.

“We must speak to you regarding our sister Vedero’s suitors,” Maia said as he sat down.

“Serenity,” Csevet said, bowing his head. “We are at your disposal.”

Csevet had a great mass of information about the two proposed candidates for Vedero’s hand; he was very careful to distinguish between fact, hearsay, and mere gossip in his telling. Eshevis Tethimar, Varenechibel’s choice and persistent thorn in Maia’s foot, was the son and heir of one of the most powerful and wealthy landowners in the southeastern quadrant of the empire. Teru Tethimar, the Archprelate, was a cousin in some degree, though not in the current Duke Tethimel’s line; Csevet offered to trace the exact genealogy and Maia politely demurred. Eshevis Tethimar was thirty, had distinguished himself in the border wars with the northern barbarians ten years ago, was known as an avid sportsman and something of a political malcontent. “The nobility of the southeast tends that way,” Csevet said, and Maia nodded, storing that fact away.

Hearsay and rumor said that Tethimar was an ambitious man, an evil-tempered man, and a man who was carrying a grudge his family had been nursing for generations. “As the then–Duke Tethimel was a great favorite of Edrevechelar the Sixteenth,” Csevet said, “so it was inevitably the policy of the first Varenechibel to favor the Tethimada’s rivals, the Rohethada and the Ormevada in particular. The Tethimada have never resigned themselves to that loss of power. The current Duke Tethimel and his heir, Dach’osmer Tethimar, have been maneuvering and campaigning for years. The rumors we have heard are that Dach’osmer Tethimar would marry a spavined cart horse if it increased his power at court.”

“Why would our father wish a match with him?”

Csevet shrugged uncomfortably. “Serenity. We do not know. But we would guess that it is part of the ongoing difficulties between the Untheileneise Court and the southeastern landowners. There have been petitions and representations in recent years with which Varenechibel was most displeased, and which he was most loath even to consider. Perhaps he hoped that the marriage would placate Dach’osmer Tethimar and his allies, and also that it might give the emperor a way of controlling the Tethimada. When one’s wife is an archduchess, one must tread more carefully.”

Yes,
Maia thought,
because that tactic worked so very well for my mother’s father.
“What of this other gentleman, the Count Bazhevel’s nephew?”

“Dalera Bazhevar, Serenity. Insofar as we have been able to discover, he has nothing to recommend him
beyond
being the Count Bazhevel’s nephew. He is a gentleman of good lineage, moderate fortune, and no particular attainments or distinctions.”

“Would he make our sister a good husband, do you think?”

“We know nothing to his discredit,” Csevet said cautiously.

Maia sighed. “Will you write to both the Duke Tethimel and the Count Bazhevel, please? Tell them that due to the great bereavement suffered by the archduchess and the House Drazhada, we cannot contemplate a marriage alliance between our sister and any house for at least a year.”

“Serenity.” Csevet stopped, opened his mouth, closed it again, then said, “Are you saying that you are rejecting
both
of them?”

“We reject no one. But we will not negotiate a marriage while the archduchess is in mourning. We are not that heartless. And”—he caught Csevet’s gaze—“as we told Lord Chavar, we do not feel bound by any promises our father may have made or implied. Having never spoken to him, we cannot accept any evidence of his wishes except for what has been written.”

Csevet’s eyebrows went up in mingled admiration and consternation. “They will be furious, Serenity.”

One of them already is,
Maia thought, remembering that flash of black rage on Dach’osmer Tethimar’s face, remembering that long silent stare before he bent his head to the emperor’s will. “We will not marry our sister to either a malcontent or a nonentity simply because they do not like our politics or think they can gain advantage over us.”

“Yes, Serenity. We will write the letters as you wish.”

“We thank you. If you will bring us paper and pen, we will write to our sister ourself.”

His letter to Vedero was simple, unadorned with titles or formulas:

Study the stars.—M.

16

News from Barizhan

Maia slept well that night, eased by his certainty that he had done the right thing, but in the morning he paid the price: a pile of angry pneumatics from the Count Bazhevel, the Duke Tethimel, Eshevis Tethimar, Dalera Bazhevar, all the Witnesses of the Corazhas, the Lord Chancellor, and a great many other people who Maia thought had no business even knowing the decision he had made, much less giving him their opinion of it. “It is the nature of the Untheileneise Court, Serenity,” Csevet said. “Trying to stop the wind from blowing would be no more useless.”

There was no message from Vedero; Maia had not expected one, but it still stung a little to have no word of thanks amidst the torrent of rebuke.
Let it go,
he told himself angrily and proceeded to the Michen’theileian, where Chavar appeared to scold him all over again in person.

Maia reiterated everything he had said to Csevet and to Tethimar and to Chavar himself, but he knew full well Chavar wasn’t listening, too focused on his own catalog of grievances. Maia would have let him talk himself out, as he had always done with Setheris, but he happened to look at Csevet and he saw by Csevet’s deepening frown and the mulish set of his ears that he was about to explode at his former master.

Maia, startled, realized that not only did he have no obligation to let Chavar scold him like this, but he actually had an obligation to stop him, for the sake of Csevet and the other secretaries and every other member of his government who would never dream of berating the emperor in public.
They have the right not to be ruled by a coward,
he thought with a flick of self-contempt, and said sharply, “Lord Chavar, enough!”

Chavar’s mouth shut like a portcullis. Maia kept staring at him until he finally bowed his head and muttered, “Our apologies, Serenity.”

Csevet was swift to seize the opportunity to move on to other business, but the atmosphere continued strained and thunderous. They maintained a respectable degree of efficiency, though, until they reached the investigations into the wreck of the
Wisdom of Choharo,
which the Lord Chancellor was notably reluctant to discuss. Maia had no difficulty deducing that this meant there had been no immediate and dramatic success, but he persisted in the question—more out of a grim desire not to let Chavar evade him than any wish for the details—and finally Chavar turned and stormed at one of his secretaries for not having brought the correct file, and a page boy was sent running to the Chancellery to retrieve it.