The Goblin Emperor (34 page)

“True enough,” said Pashavar, “but not an excuse for encouraging every crazed gear-head he came across.”

“We have spoken to the gentleman of the Clocksmiths’ Guild,” Maia said. “We do not think he is crazed.”

“Oh have you now?” said Pashavar, and Maia braced himself. But Pashavar did not seem displeased. “We have thought you were too rule-abiding to be a good ruler—a paradox, you see—but perhaps we were wrong.”

“But you’re the Witness for the Judiciate!” Maia protested, which made everyone laugh.

“We said
rule,
not
law,
” Pashavar said tartly. “There is a difference, Serenity. An emperor who breaks laws is a mad dog and a danger, but an emperor who will never break a rule is nearly as bad, for he will never be able to recognize when a law must be changed.”

“We see,” Maia said, although he was not entirely sure he did.

“We do not by any means condone it as a
habit,
” Lord Pashavar said.

“It would be very disruptive,” Maia said with deliberate demureness, and that made them laugh again.

“So,” said Pashavar, “you have spoken to the clocksmith. We suppose this means you wish the clocksmith to speak to the Corazhas.”

“Yes,” Maia said.

“And you would prefer we did not stand in your way.”

“Yes, we would.”

“Have some brandy, Pashavar,” Lanthevel said. “It will make it easier to swallow your objections.”

“If your brandy were not so excellent, Lanthevel,” Pashavar said, “we would refuse on principle.” He said to Maia, “This does not change our opinion.”

“Of course it does not.”

“And it does not change either our advice or the vote we will cast.”

“We would not expect it to. We merely wish the clocksmiths to have a fair hearing.”

“Hmmph,” Pashavar said, mostly to his brandy snifter, but Maia took it as a capitulation, and indeed, at the next meeting of the Corazhas, when he took his courage in both hands and brought the matter of the Clocksmiths’ Guild and the bridge forward again, Pashavar did not block him, and the Corazhas agreed that the clocksmiths’ ideas should be heard. It was not a unanimous agreement, but Maia had never expected it would be. What mattered was that, without Pashavar to back him, Bromar could not rally enough support to manage the
veklevezhek
Merrem Halezho had spoken of.

It was an accomplishment on a day that was otherwise full of frustrations. First, Chavar had had to be pinned into confessing that the investigation into the wreck of the
Wisdom of Choharo
was making no headway. “They just need more time, Serenity,” Chavar said, and Maia thought that earnestness sat very badly on him. And then Maia had had an audience with Lord Bromar that went nowhere and achieved nothing except confirming Maia in his opinion that Bromar was an idiot—and, no doubt, confirming Bromar in his opinion that the emperor was a madman. Peace with the Nazhmorhathveras was not even to be considered, and if the Anmur’theileian was built on a barbarian ulimeire, Bromar’s blank expression said even before he opened his mouth that he had no idea why Maia considered that either distressing or important. The idea of negotiating with the Nazhmorhathveras didn’t even get far enough for the Corazhas to ridicule it.

Maia returned to the Alcethmeret that evening tired and frustrated, but he reminded himself to be pleased that at least he had gotten the clocksmiths their hearing. Mer Halezh would be pleased, too, and Merrem Halezho. He did not know if Min Vechin would be pleased, and he shied away from wondering. Better not to think about her.

Winternight was less than two weeks away; Maia dined privately with Arbelan Zhasanai for the final time until after the last of the guests and dignitaries had left the Untheileneise Court—which would be a week or more after the solstice. “The celebration keeps expanding,” he said. “Like the story about the weaver-woman’s cat.”

“Yarn around every stick of furniture in the house?” Arbelan said, smiling.

“Exactly,” Maia said.

“Did your mother tell you that story?”

“Of course,” Maia said. “She had a picture book with many wonder-tales in it—destroyed, we suppose, along with her other things when she died. She had brought it from Barizhan.”

“You miss her,” Arbelan said.

“Of course,” Maia said again. “We loved her very much.”

Arbelan was silent for a moment, contemplating the wine in her glass. “We miscarried once,” she said.

Maia managed not to stare at her, developing a rapt interest in his own glass, and she continued, “It was as close as we ever came to giving Varenechibel a child. He never knew of it.”

Maia had to clear his throat. “How far along?…”

“Four months, maybe? Only just long enough that we knew for certain it was a miscarriage. Long enough that we had begun to dream—not of Varenechibel’s approval, for we had then been married to him ten years and we did know better, but of the child. Of the stories we would tell our child, the songs we would teach him. Or her.” She stopped, then said fiercely, “We would have cherished a daughter.”

She knew, then, of Varenechibel’s disregard for his daughters and granddaughters. “Our mother,” Maia said carefully, “told us once, very shortly before she died, that she did not regret her marriage to Varenechibel because it had brought her us. We have never been sure that she should have felt that way, although we know that she told us the truth. She, too, would have cherished a daughter.”

“Yes,” Arbelan said. She sounded satisfied, as if he had answered a question that had been worrying her, which made him hope that perhaps she would answer a question for him in turn. He said, “Do you know your great-niece Csethiro?”

“The one who is to become your empress?” Arbelan said, her eyebrows raised mockingly. “We do not know her well—we know none of our family very well anymore, for while they were not
forbidden
to visit us at Cethoree…”

“Yes,” Maia said, remembering what Berenar had told him about Arbelan’s brother.

“We know nothing to Csethiro’s discredit,” Arbelan said, watching him now as if she was not sure what he wanted from her.

“No, we are sure not,” Maia said. “We just wondered what sort of a person she is.”

“Ah. We are sorry, Edrehasivar. She wrote us a most dutiful letter upon the signing of your marriage contract, and we hope that perhaps we may come to know her better, but we can tell you nothing except she is our brother’s grandchild and she is two-and-twenty.”

Three years older. It was not so much, really, although it felt like a yawning abysm. And
dutiful,
which he had witnessed for himself.

“Thank you,” Maia said, and hoped he did not sound as desolate as he felt. Dach’osmin Ceredin had warned him about Min Vechin, but he wanted a dutiful companion no more than he wanted a mercenary one. He wanted a
friend,
and that, it seemed, was exactly what he could not have.

He retired to bed early that evening. Nemer and Avris braided his hair while Esha tidied away the day’s jewels and fetched a hot brick for the emperor’s bed. Maia said good night to Dazhis, who guarded the outer chamber this evening, and then good night to Telimezh, who took his preferred position in the window embrasure and said softly, “Sleep well, Serenity.” Maia then lay and silently repeated the prayer to Cstheio until he fell asleep. It was as close to meditation as he could come.

His dreams were chaotic nonsense; he woke suddenly and was not sure what had woken him. Some noise—a choked cry? It was pitch black in his bedroom, no hints of dawn creeping around the curtains. He held his breath, straining to hear, but there was nothing.

“Telimezh?” he whispered into the darkness, telling himself that he was a fool, a coward, as bad as a little boy … but Telimezh did not answer.

At that moment, Maia stopped trying to believe nothing was wrong.

“Telimezh?” He sat up, shoved the bedclothes back. He knew without any need to wonder that if Telimezh had had to leave the room for any reason, Dazhis would have taken his place. Therefore, Telimezh was in the room, but unable to answer him; Maia was thinking confusedly of the fits suffered by one of the men who had sometimes helped Haru in the grounds of Edonomee, and his principal concern, as he groped for the bedside lamp, was to be sure Telimezh was not asphyxiating on his own tongue.

But then the door slammed open, and he realized that he was worried about the wrong thing. The light was blinding; he got one hand up to shield his eyes, struggled upright, and immediately fell over Telimezh, who was lying on the floor, either insensible or dead.

Hard hands grabbed him, dragging him to his feet, and he had a blurry glimpse of the Drazhadeise crest before a bag dropped over his head. His hands went up to it automatically, but they were caught and pulled back down.

“None of that, Your Grace,” said a voice he did not recognize. “We’ve no orders to hurt you, nor desire neither, but we won’t hesitate if you make it necessary. Understand?”

Maia tried to answer and got a choking mouthful of the bag. He nodded, and the voice said, “All right, then—let’s go.”

He did not know where they took him. There were hallways, and stairs—down which he nearly fell—and a doorway they bent him double to shove him through, and more stairs, narrow and cold, and the scent of stone and water, and then a raised door lintel that he stubbed his toes on and fell, sprawling on cold flagstones. He was lifted to his feet again and the bag was jerked off his head, leaving him blinking at his sister-in-law Sheveän Drazharan, Princess of the Untheileneise Court.

He was not surprised to see her. The Drazhadeise crest had pointed to either Vedero or Sheveän, and aside from the fact that he would not have believed it of Vedero, her household, that of an unmarried woman still under the protection of the head of her house, did not include armsmen. And Vedero had never sought to deny his right to the imperial throne. Sheveän had, and his hope that her muttering and discontent would come to nothing had clearly been ill-founded.

He did not speak, aware that he must be a ludicrous figure in nothing but his nightshirt and with his hair braided down his back, and unwilling to give her further ammunition, either by saying something half-witted or simply by being unable to control his voice. Besides, he was wearily certain he knew what she would say. She stared back at him, her eyes hard, and they might have remained thus for some time, save that a door opened behind her and a man came in.

Uleris Chavar, the Lord Chancellor of the Ethuveraz.

Sheveän’s presence had not surprised Maia; Chavar’s did. But that was foolish and naïve: Chavar had been opposed to him from the first.

“Your Grace,” Chavar said stiffly. “We are sorry for this necessity, but we believe it is what the emperor would want.”

He meant Varenechibel.

“You are not fit,” Sheveän said furiously. “Consorting with goblins, dishonoring the dead.”

“Using your influence to promote the most ludicrous and impossible schemes,” Chavar finished. “We cannot let you bring the Ethuveraz into chaos and ruin, as you will most surely do if you are not stopped. We have the papers ready for your signature.”

“Papers?”

“For your abdication,” Chavar said impatiently.

“You will abdicate in favor of our son,” Sheveän said, her voice still tight with the fury she had been nursing for months, “and retire to a monastery in northern Thu-Cethor.”

“Dedicated to Cstheio,” Chavar said; he seemed reluctant to let Sheveän go uninterrupted for long, whether because she was a woman or for the very good reason that he was afraid of what she might say. “The monks take a vow of silence.”

The terrible thing, worse than anything else, was that he was tempted. Silence, austerity, the worship of the Lady of Falling Stars. No responsibility for anyone but himself. What stopped him from capitulating then and there, signing anything they wanted, was not desire for the throne, nor even care for his subjects. It was knowing in the cold marrow of his bones that no matter what Chavar promised—or even believed—Sheveän would have him murdered as soon as she could find someone to do it.

Then other considerations caught up to him: the fact that Idra was a child still; that regencies in the Ethuveraz were a tradition of disasters; that Chavar’s policies would lead to the ruin he accused Maia of fostering; that they still did not know who had blown up the
Wisdom of Choharo;
that, truly, the last thing anyone needed was another new emperor before Winternight.

He asked abruptly, “What did you do to our nohecharei?”

“Lieutenant Telimezh is unharmed,” Chavar said. “A soporific cantrip, nothing more.”

“And Dazhis Athmaza?”

Sheveän laughed, as brittle as new ice. “Who do you think performed the cantrip?”

Maia was swamped with the sick heat of humiliation and betrayal. If even his nohecharei turned against him, maybe Chavar and Sheveän were right. Maybe he merely deluded himself that his rule was preferable to their alternative.

Pull thyself together.
The voice was sharp, contemptuous—the voice he thought of as Setheris, but Setheris would be exulting in his downfall. Perhaps, he thought in half-hysterical whimsy, it was the Emperor Edrehasivar VII, rebuking Maia Hobgoblin as a steward would a scullery boy.

Pull thyself together. It is not for thy Lord Chancellor to decide whether thou art emperor or not—and even less for thy sister-in-law.

He stood straighter, look Chavar squarely in the face. “We would speak to Idra.” Chavar’s eyes bulged, and Maia found he was detached enough now to be gratified by it. “If you wish to maintain this charade of abdication, we will speak to our successor. Otherwise, kill us and have done with it.”

“Do not speak recklessly, Your Grace,” Chavar said.

“We do not, we assure you. Let us speak to Idra or murder us. It is your choice.”

Chavar and Sheveän retreated into a whispered discussion, quite heated, which resulted in a pair of armsmen being sent to fetch Idra. Maia was relieved by the evidence that Idra had not been involved in his mother’s plotting, and found himself thinking again about the nightmarish regencies of previous centuries. It was a rare child emperor who survived to see adulthood; he did not like Idra’s chances of joining their number.