The Goblin Emperor (31 page)

He bit the words back and looked next to the Witnesses
vel ama,
the Witnesses who gave voice to the literally voiceless; there was one for the river and one for the game preserve that had become embroiled in the dispute. They were clearly very junior Witnesses; both of them looked despairing and overwhelmed. If the representatives of town and manor had not been so biased, they could probably have done a better job of Witnessing than these two.

Maia requested a new map, one without lines drawn on it by anyone but the cartographer. The Witness for Nelozho and the representatives of Thu-Cethor and the Dorashada all became very silent and wide-eyed; he couldn’t tell if it was trepidation or outrage. The Witnesses
vel ama
began to look a little less squashed. On a clean map, without the dotted lines and shaded areas and bewildering arrows, the situation was much plainer.

“This tributary of the Cethora…”

“The Upazhera, Serenity,” said its Witness.

Maia nodded. Just as the great rivers of the Ethuveraz—the Cethora, the Evresartha, the Athamara, the Tetara, and the Istandaärtha—were considered in law the property of the emperor, so the waterways in each principate were considered the property of the prince. In this case, that aspect of elvish law contributed to the problem, as the Upazhera ran through part, though not all, of the disputed territory. The solution proposed by the Dorashada was for the emperor to grant the Upazhera to them along with the surrounding land. It was by far the most straightforward of the various schemes put forward, but Maia thought it showed an unbecomingly greedy and encroaching spirit, since if nothing else was clear to him, the fact that a significant portion of the disputed land had originally belonged to Nelozho Township was very clear indeed.

On the other hand, it was also clear that the town had been grazing their sheep on a pasture that belonged to the Dorashada, for which the Dorashada had not been fairly compensated. And both sides had been poaching in the Veremnet Preserve as well as treating the Upazhera as if it were commonheld. The representative of Thu-Cethor had been indignantly eloquent on the subject of waterwheels, and fish farms, and bridges that disappeared whenever the prince’s circuit rider came to Nelozho, and the Witness for the Upazhera had nodded dispirited agreement.

And, on yet a third hand which he did not have, he was not pleased with the conduct of the Cethoreise government, either. Someone—what was worse, more than one someone—had clearly been bribed at some point in the past for the official paperwork to be in the peculiar state it was in, and any number of persons seemed to have been turning a blind eye to the behavior of either Nelozho or the Dorashada as struck their particular fancy.

Maia pinched the bridge of his nose and stared dolefully at the map. The only thing he could be sure of was that any decision he reached would make at least one of the disputants unhappy. As he traced the course of the Upazhera with one finger, that thought abruptly upended itself:
If I must make at least one of them unhappy, and if it cannot be determined that any one disputant deserves to be made unhappy more than the other two, then the only answer is to make
all
of them unhappy.
And if he was not trying to juggle three sets of competing and conflicting demands, the solution was easy.

He straightened his shoulders and said, “We reject all of the claims brought before us.”

That won him a chorus of yelps and protests. He waited until they had died away and said, as if they had not happened at all, “The Veremnet and the Upazhera belong to the Prince of Thu-Cethor, as ever they have.” The Witnesses
vel ama
bowed gratefully. “On the other hand, there is no evidence that Thu-Cethor has any claim or right beyond that, whereas the claims between the Dorashada and Nelozho Township are so hopelessly entangled that we see no point in considering them further. We are greatly displeased that
anyone
has sought to use this unhappy conflict to enrich their holdings.” He glared at all three representatives impartially. “All land in the territory under dispute which is east of the Upazhera we rule belongs to Nelozho Township in common. All land in the territory under dispute which is west of the Upazhera we rule belongs to the Dorashada. We stipulate that Nelozho Township and the Dorashada will work out a fair agreement, acceptable to both sides, for the use of the pasture called the Forty Reach, an agreement which they will present, written, signed, and witnessed, to a representative of the Prince of Thu-Cethor by Winternight. We further stipulate that the Dorashada and Nelozho Township will form a cooperative militia to patrol the Veremnet against the poachers and bandits which apparently haunt it. And finally, we stipulate that the Dorashada and Nelozho Township in cooperation, each bearing an equal share of the cost, will build a bridge over the Upazhera; each will appoint a toll collector, and the toll monies will
not
go to Thu-Cethor, but first to the maintenance of the bridge and second to the relief of the poor of Nelozho. Both these endeavors are to be in place and demonstrated to the prince’s circuit rider before midsummer.”

He paused, raising his eyebrows at the Witnesses
vel ama
. They, unlike the disputants, had the right to protest his judgment; he was not surprised to find that neither of them was inclined to do so.

“Very well. If any of these stipulations are not met, or if this matter is ever brought to our attention again, all of the disputed territory, including the Veremnet and the Upazhera, will be forfeit to the imperial crown. Have we made ourself clear?”

Representatives, Witnesses, and secretaries alike were suddenly very eager not to meet his eyes. He waited long enough to be sure no one was going to attempt to argue and then, very gratefully, spoke the closing formula: “As we have spoken, so will it be.” The emperor’s word was law.

He did not bolt out of the Michen’theileian, although he wanted to. He waited while the representatives and Witnesses bowed their way out, followed by their secretaries; waited while his own secretaries—merciful goddesses, there was a
flock
of them, and he didn’t know their names—cleared the tables and bowed and departed, except of course for Csevet, who came up on the dais and said, “Serenity, you have—”

“No,” Maia said. “We have not. We are going back to the Alcethmeret, where we will see no one outside our own household until tomorrow morning, and as few of them as possible. We have a sick headache, and so we bid you tell anyone who may be concerned.”

Csevet looked as if he were going to argue, but he must have seen that Maia meant it, for he bowed and said, “Yes, Serenity.”

“Thank you,” Maia said more fervently than he had wished to.

He maintained a decorous pace through the halls of the Untheileneise Court, though it was fortunate that no one attempted to stop him, for he would not even have slowed. In the Alcethmeret, with the great grilles closed behind him, he felt some portion of his tension recede and was able to speak to his edocharei without snarling as they divested him of his jewels and formal robes, and it was in a less viciously unhappy frame of mind that he descended again to the Tortoise Room and thought suddenly, prompted by nothing, between one step and the next,
If thou canst wrangle townships and petty lords and the representative of the Prince of Thu-Cethor
and
canst deliver a judgment they do not like—for in sooth it did not kill thee—then thou canst surely deal with the Corazhas.

He was not stupid and he was not incapable. He remembered the moment when his thoughts had inverted themselves—that shift from not being
able
to please everyone to not
trying
—and the way that change had enabled him to see past the maneuverings and histrionics of the representatives to the deeper structures of the problem, and it was the same with the Corazhas. The surface of their words, which intimidated him so much he had all but given up, was not what he needed to see.

Maybe I
can
do this,
he thought, and he slept better that night than he had expected to.

He began to ask Berenar a different kind of question, began to pay better attention in meetings of the Corazhas to the patterns of the arguments. The Witness for the Judiciate, the oldest of the seven, was contrary and cantankerous; he would disagree reflexively with any proposition put forward by the Witness for the Parliament, but he deeply disliked the Witness for Foreigners, and was liable to become captious when forced into too close an alliance. The Witness for the Prelacy was Chavar’s creature, even more than the Witness for Foreigners; Lord Bromar, the Witness for Foreigners, might share Chavar’s politics, but Maia came to realize that he shared them out of principle, not out of any thirst for power. The Witness for the Athmaz’are rarely said anything and even more rarely took sides; he often looked as if he were not attending, but none of the traps laid for him by the Witness for the Universities and the Witness for the Prelacy ever succeeded in discomfiting him.

Lord Isthanar, the Witness for the Universities, was friends with the Witness for the Judiciate and could be counted on to follow Lord Pashavar’s lead whenever university policy was not sufficient guidance. Of all of them, he was the one who seemed to Maia to be most aptly confined by the official limits of his position, for it was clear he had not had an independent thought in decades, and aside from his status as Corazheise Witness, he was not a powerful man even in the University of Cetho. This put him in sharp distinction to and frequently at jealous odds with Berenar, who was in fact one of the five Lords Treasurer, only one step down from the Lord Chancellor. Berenar, who continued to come regularly to teach the emperor about his empire’s political history, had made it clear that there was no sycophancy in what he was doing. He expected no favors in return, and he had not the slightest hesitation in disagreeing with his emperor, either in private or in the Verven’theileian. But he was never offended when Maia’s opinion did not march with his own. Of all the Corazhas, Berenar was the one Maia trusted most to be able to see beyond the self-interest and rhetoric that filled the Verven’theileian like fog. And he thought it was not an accident that Lord Berenar so frequently supported Lord Deshehar, the Witness for the Parliament.

Deshehar, who would hold his position only so long as he held his seat in the Parliament, was the outsider among the Corazhas; he was most often the bearer of new ideas and unpopular opinions, and Maia began more and more to dread the day when he decided he had put up with the Corazhas long enough and resigned, for it was hard to imagine any replacement bringing so much enthusiasm to such a thankless role. But Lord Deshehar seemed happy to fight with Lord Pashavar and Lord Bromar, and never seemed in the slightest discouraged by his defeats. Of all of them, he was the one who did not need persuading to listen to the proposal brought by the Clocksmiths’ Guild of Zhaö, having championed their cause in the first place. Berenar would listen, Maia knew, and he thought the Witness for the Athmaz’are would, as well, although it was always difficult to know Sonevet Athmaza’s mind. The Witness for the Prelacy would oppose it because Chavar would oppose it, and Maia could see nothing to be done about that. Lord Bromar would also oppose it, but Maia thought he could be shouted down if a sufficient number of the others were in agreement. It was not, after all, as if he would be agreeing to do anything more than listen, and Maia could point that out as many times as necessary. The Witness for the Universities would follow Lord Pashavar, although he might be baffled at least into silence by evocation of the ideals of education and the pursuit of knowledge. No, the true problem was Lord Pashavar.

Diffidently, he asked Csevet for advice; he could not ask Berenar—that was too uncomfortably close to conspiracy—and he had no one else to ask.

“We will be happy to give you any advice we can,” Csevet said at once, and Maia told him the whole, starting with Lord Deshehar and ending with Lord Pashavar. Csevet listened intently, as he always did, and when Maia had finished, he said, “We cannot fault either your observations or your reasoning, Serenity. It is Lord Pashavar you need to sway.”

“Have you any suggestions?”

Csevet made a face. “Lord Pashavar is very difficult. Almost, we would suggest waiting for him to die, but that could take years.”

Maia was surprised into a snort of laughter. Csevet grinned back momentarily, then said, “Our strategy has heretofore relied on his deep dislike of Lord Chavar, but that will not serve in this instance.”

“No, if that were enough, he would already be an eager proponent.”

Csevet hesitated.

“What is it?”

“Well, from his point of view, Serenity, he is quite right to dislike the bridge. It will cause a great many changes.”

“Yes, but one cannot prevent change simply by wishing it not to happen,” Maia said, and did not add,
If one could, our mother would still be alive.
“And if the Istandaärtha
can
be bridged, as Mer Halezh is very sure that it can, we feel that the benefits are considerably greater than the disadvantages.”

“Not for the nobility of the eastern principates,” Csevet said, not arguing but merely observing.

It took Maia several moments to find the words for what he felt; finally, he said, “Of all our subjects, they are not the ones who need our help.”

Csevet’s ears dipped and flared with surprise.

“What? Should we not care about our subjects?”

“No, of course—we beg your pardon, Serenity. It is not a sentiment we expected from an emperor.”

“We cannot help that,” Maia said wearily.

“Serenity, we did not mean—”

“No, but others are bound to make the same observation, and they will say what you do not. They will say it is our mother’s Barizheise influence and deplore it. But it does not change that we must do what we think right.”

“Edrehasivar the Obstinate, they will call you,” Csevet said with something that sounded dangerously close to affection, and promised to think on the matter.