The Goblin Emperor (29 page)

Celehar turned away, both hands pressed against his face. He said, muffled, reverting to the formal “you” instead of merely the plural, “You can imagine how filthy the story becomes when it is told by…”

Csoru,
he did not say. “By someone to whom it is nothing but scandal,” Cala said gently.

“Yes,” Maia said. “We understand why you did not want anyone else to tell us this truth.”

A dry, broken chuckle. “Serenity, we did not wish you to be told this truth at all. We
are
marnis. If we had not resigned our prelacy, we doubt we would have been allowed to keep it. The Archprelate is a man of generous mind, but many of the great hierophants feel as our hierophant in Aveio did. We do not blame them.”

Maia was not sure how he himself felt about marnei. He had never met one before, knew nothing of them save what Setheris had said, most of it unflattering at the least. He had learned, perforce, the trick of putting something aside to think about later. For now, it would have to be enough that Celehar had done no harm to anyone that Maia knew of, and that he had, however unhappily and at such great cost, held to his duty over his unnatural love. And he was the Witness for the Dead, and as such, the emperor needed him.

“We cannot take you into our household,” Maia said. “For it would be said that our favor influenced your findings. But we will speak to Csoru Zhasanai if you wish it.”

“Serenity. There is nothing, we fear, that can profitably be said. If you will but assure the widow empress that you command us, and in full knowledge of our unfortunate past, it is more than we have any right to ask from you. We should not have lied.”

A painful admission for a man to make, and to a boy fifteen years his junior. Maia said carefully, “Insofar as there was a trespass against us, we forgive it. We leave you to make your own peace with the widow empress.”

“Serenity,” Celehar said. He prostrated himself again, and as he rose, said, “We are your most grateful and loyal servant.”

He left with his head up, and Maia felt obscurely better.

20

The Proposal of the Clocksmiths of Zhaö

In truth, Maia was not sorry to be late to the Corazhas. Even with Lord Berenar’s help—and Berenar was a better and more patient teacher than Setheris could ever have imagined being—Maia felt as if he were trying to stop the Istandaärtha with a handful of pebbles. He knew
some
of the history of the Ethuveraz, but his knowledge could hardly be called systematic, and it was in no way a sufficient foundation for the fifty years of policy decisions that Berenar was really trying to teach him to follow. Even with the progress he’d made, he
still
understood half or less of the Corazhas’ debates, and asking questions was only getting harder—he felt as if he were accusing Berenar with his ignorance, and his increased consciousness of the interwoven responsibilities of the Witnesses meant that he knew how valuable their time was and how much of it was wasted when he asked for an explanation of something everyone else in the room already understood.

He had stopped asking.

He was ashamed, and angry with himself, but the foreknowledge of another humiliation was like a sword, and he could not force himself to fall on it. He had to trust—he
did
trust—that Csevet would tell him if there was something wrong.

In the middle of an impenetrable debate between the Witness for Foreigners and the Witness for the Parliament about the northern borders, a page brought Maia a note. He recognized Nurevis’s paper and signet before he opened it, and was aware of a slight, guilty tingle of pleasure, enhanced by the deliberate withdrawal of his attention from the Corazhas in order to read what Nurevis had written.

It was an invitation to a private dinner with dancing to follow, and Nurevis had added in his own hand:

We know Your Serenity does not deign to dance, but we thought perhaps your evening’s entertainment would be sufficiently assured by the presence of Min Vechin. She says she is most eager to see you again.

Blushing, partly with embarrassment and partly with delight, Maia wrote across the bottom,
We will be pleased to attend,
and handed it back to the page to deliver.

After the Corazhas finally closed, the issue between the Witness for Foreigners and the Witness for the Parliament still unresolved, Maia made his way to the Alcethmeret to change from court robes to something suitable for an informal gathering like Nurevis’s.

But he was only just past the great grilles of the Alcethmeret when Beshelar broke stride to catch up with him and said, “Serenity, you must tell Osmer Chavar not to send you party invitations when the Corazhas is in session. It reflects not well on you or on him.”

“Must we?” Maia stopped, turned to face him. “And who are you, Lieutenant Beshelar, to tell us how we must behave toward our friends?”

“
Is
Osmer Chavar your friend, Serenity? We ourself would not be quick to say so. And you must understand that favoritism toward the Lord Chancellor’s son—”

“Means nothing! Nurevis does not tell us what to do—nor has so much as asked for a favor. We realize, Lieutenant, that we do not measure up to your idea of an emperor, but do us the justice to believe that we are not entirely
stupid
!”

Beshelar actually went back a pace. “Serenity, we did not mean—”

“We know what you meant.” And without giving Beshelar another chance to speak, Maia resumed his progress toward his rooms and his waiting edocharei. He did not look to see what Cala thought of his ugly display of temper.
If wilt not be my friend, canst not speak to me of how friends behave.
He was glad—selfishly, vindictively, childishly glad—that the nohecharei’s shift changed while Avris and Esha were debating the rival merits of amber and cloisonné beads, and that when he emerged, it was Dazhis and Telimezh waiting for him.

The company in Nurevis’s suite was select; Maia had come to be tolerably familiar, if not comfortable, with Nurevis’s set, and he was not thrown utterly in confusion by the necessity of making conversation with those next to him at the table. It was still not easy, and he suspected unhappily that his dinner partners found him alternately boring and ridiculous. But he did not disgrace himself. When the floor was cleared for dancing, Min Vechin approached him, and after the initial exchange of courtesies, said, “Serenity, why do you not dance?”

His face heated. “We do not know how.”

“No? Truly, your guardian must have been terribly strict.”

Maia tried to imagine Setheris teaching him to dance and said, perhaps too quickly, “There was no one with whom we might have danced in any event.”

Min Vechin’s beautiful eyebrows drew together in a frown. “It sounds to us as if you had no pleasures at all.”

He looked down at his hands. Their ugly knuckles were half obscured with rings of silver and amethyst, silver and jet, and under Esha’s care, his nails were growing long enough to be worth lacquering; they almost didn’t look like his hands at all.

“Serenity,” said Min Vechin, “we apologize. We did not mean—”

She was within an inch of going down on her knees, and he said quickly, “You did nothing wrong. We were merely … discomfited by your acumen.” And when, startled, she met his eyes, he managed to give her a smile, although he knew it was crooked. “Osmer Chavar said you wished particularly to speak to us?”

She disclaimed instantly, her hands moving in a graceful, fluttering gesture. “It is of no importance, Serenity.”

Ordinarily, he would not have pursued the matter, but he was desperate to sink the topic of the emperor’s pathetic childhood. “Please. Is there some service we can do you?”

“It is not for
us,
Serenity,” she said, and he felt a pang of disappointment. “But we have a sister, most beloved, who would seek an audience with you. She is an apprentice in the Clocksmiths’ Guild of Zhaö. They have presented a proposal for a bridge—”

“Across the Istandaärtha. We remember it.”

“The Corazhas will not hear them, but Avro says the design will work and it is very important, and not just for the clocksmiths.” She was as animated as he had ever seen her, and he wondered if it was the bridge or the sister that brought forth this passion. “They know they cannot get a formal audience without the approval of the Corazhas, but we thought if you simply came to meet our sister, privately, this evening—”

“Tonight?” Maia said, both startled and more than a little displeased.

“When else may we be sure Your Serenity is free of obligations?” she said unanswerably.

Maia considered, and he tried to consider carefully. Although he did not like the way Min Vechin was trading on his attraction to her, he reminded himself that it was he who had pushed her, and thus he had no one to blame but himself if the favor she wanted was not the favor of his hopeful imaginings. And putting that aspect of the matter aside, he could not help but realize that this was an opportunity for him as much as for Min Vechin’s sister. He had wished to know more about the proposed bridge, and he had no one to ask whom he could trust to understand the mechanical aspects any better than he did himself.

“Very well,” he said, and pretended he did not feel a rush of warmth when she smiled at him. “Now?”

“If Your Serenity pleases,” she said, as if this were all somehow his idea. Maia beckoned to his nohecharei and followed her, first to take leave of Nurevis and then out of the room. Maia was careful not to meet Nurevis’s eyes more than briefly, and he tried, though without much success, not to think about the rumors that would have spread throughout the Untheileneise Court by midnight—rumors that would be all the more embarrassing for having not a shred of truth in them.

Graceful and self-assured as a swan, Min Vechin led him to one of the court’s many public receiving rooms. Maia had never been in one before—except maybe when his mother died? he couldn’t remember clearly enough—and he noticed that while everything was clean and in good repair, the room was austere to the point of hostility, without any decoration save the graceful arch of the windows. It was also extremely chilly.

Min Vechin’s sister bolted to her feet as she saw them, and Maia watched her realize that the skinny goblin boy behind her sister had to be the emperor. She bowed—not at all gracefully—and he also saw her kick the ankle of the seated man beside her. His bow was even clumsier, as he was clutching an awkward sheaf of papers to his narrow chest, but Maia did not think he had any intent to offend, for he was still blinking dazedly when he straightened, as if he had been lost in thought.

Min Vechin performed introductions. Her sister was Merrem Halezho; the man was Mer Halezh—not her husband, but her husband’s elder brother. He was also a member of the Clocksmiths’ Guild, of a much higher rank than Merrem Halezho, and although he was reluctant to put himself forward, Maia gathered that the design of the bridge was largely his doing. Certainly, he explained both the scheme for bridging the Istandaärtha and the hydraulic system that would enable river traffic to continue much more clearly and confidently than the Witness for the Parliament had been able to, and he was not stymied by any question Maia put to him. In fact, he seemed delighted; they ended up kneeling on the floor while Mer Halezh drew diagrams of cofferdams and waterwheels on the backs of his plans. Maia glanced over once and saw both Dazhis and Telimezh looking shocked, but neither of them had Beshelar’s self-righteous confidence, and they made no verbal protest. Merrem Halezho, kneeling next to her brother-in-law, knew a great deal about traffic on the river, and she explained the system they had already worked out so that barges from Ezho would be able to reach Cairado even in the thick of construction. She was the one who showed him exactly where the clocksmiths proposed building their bridge and explained their reasoning. Maia thought they had chosen well, although he was uneasily aware that he knew rather less about the politics of the situation than Merrem Halezho did.

Min Vechin took no part in the conversation, seeming content to sit on one of the padded benches and observe. Maia feared she must be bored, but he reminded himself that if she was, it was her own doing. And it was not as if this evening would make her
less
likely to want to … to do things of which he had only the vaguest understanding. Setheris had told him only as much as was necessary to be sure he fathered no bastards at Edonomee, and there had never been anyone else he could ask.

Nor is there now,
he thought, flinching away from the thought of having that conversation with Csevet or Cala. Or Beshelar.
Perhaps thou should have told Csevet to find a widow for thee to wed, so that at least
someone
would know what to do on thy wedding night.
That thought was even worse, and Maia shook his head sharply, realizing that his mind had wandered entirely away from the clocksmiths’ bridge.

“We beg your pardon,” he said to Mer Halezh and Merrem Halezho. “We are very tired, and we need to think on all that you have told us.”

“Of course, Serenity,” Mer Halezh said. “We are liable to get carried away in our enthusiasm. We did not mean to—”

“We have found it all most interesting,” Maia said, interrupting because he did not want Mer Halezh to apologize for having both genius and passion. “But—you understand that we can do nothing ourself? That any decision must be agreed upon by the Corazhas?”

“Oh, yes, Serenity,” Merrem Halezho assured him as the three of them stood up again. “We wished only to make our case that the matter
should
be decided by the Corazhas and not merely … Nedaö, what is the word?”

“Veklevezhek,”
Min Vechin said. “It is a goblin word, and it means to decide what to do about a prisoner by staking him below the tideline while you argue.”

“And
that
is what we wish to avoid,” Merrem Halezho said. “We know that the Corazhas frequently practices
veklevezhek,
for if they cannot agree whether to hear a matter—the matter goes unheard.”