The Goblin Emperor (39 page)

“Y-yes, Serenity.” Telimezh was still badly rattled, but he bowed and said, “Our thanks, maza.”

The Ulimeire of the Mazan’theileian was much larger than the Ulimeire of Cetho, but very nearly as shabby. The walls were undressed stone, and all the furniture was worn and much mended, sometimes by skillful hands and sometimes not. There was a cluster of mazei, all blue robed, with their heads bent in prayer; a little distant from them, the Adremaza knelt, alone, but he looked up as Maia entered and then got to his feet.

He was haggard and unkempt, as though he’d been digging his fingers into his hair, but he bowed and said, “Serenity, you are welcome here,” with gentle tranquillity.

“Thank you,” Maia said. “We would not intrude, but—”

“Dazhis asked you. It is a great kindness in you to agree.”

It was guilt, not kindness, but there was no need to distress the Adremaza by saying so. “Where may we sit and not be in the way?” Maia asked instead, and the Adremaza showed him, with Telimezh and Kiru following, to a prayer bench along the west wall. Maia settled himself gratefully; for the next two hours he would not have to speak to anyone or guard his expression or behave like an emperor.

He knew only a few of the Barizheise prayers to Ulis, for his mother—perhaps superstitiously—had given him minimal instruction in Ulis’s worship. One of the prayers he knew was inappropriate, being intended for a sickbed; of the others, he chose the one of which he was most sure. It took him some time to settle, but he remembered that it was always so after a break in custom, and he persevered without worrying, repeating the prayer carefully and mindfully, trying as best he could to mean it. Even if he could not truly forgive Dazhis, he did not wish either his death or what came after to be …

Any worse than thine own would have been, Edrehasivar?

Maia shuddered away from that thought; he had been trying for two days now not to imagine how he would have died—if Sheveän would have instructed her men to make it look natural, or like an accident, or if she would have disdained subterfuge, safe in the knowledge that no one would dare protest. He was quite sure she would not have cared whether his death was painful or peaceful, fast or slow. There would have been no chance for him to make amends with those he had wronged.

Dazhis had no thought of murdering me,
he rebuked himself, but the rejoinder came instantly:
Would he have said a word to prevent it?

He forced his attention back to the words of the prayer. It didn’t matter what Dazhis would or wouldn’t have done in a situation that had not come to pass.
No, what he
did
do is quite bad enough.

Maia winced as if those unforgiving words had been spoken aloud.
I cannot afford this anger. The Emperor of the Ethuveraz cannot become vengeful, for once begun, there will never be an end of it.

Ulis,
he prayed, abandoning the set words,
let my anger die with him. Let both of us be freed from the burden of his actions. Even if I cannot forgive him, help me not to hate him.

Ulis was a cold god, a god of night and shadows and dust. His love was found in emptiness, his kindness in silence. And that was what Maia needed. Silence, coldness, kindness. He focused his thoughts carefully on the familiar iconography, the image of Ulis’s open hands; the god of letting go was surely the god who would listen to an unwilling emperor.
Help me not to feel hatred,
he prayed, and after a while it became easier to ask that Dazhis find peace, that Maia’s anger not be added to the weight against his soul.

When the canon rang the great deep-voiced revethahal, the death bell, Maia felt as close to serene as he thought could ever be possible under the circumstances, and he followed Kiru to the Lesser Courtyard with nothing in his heart beyond that prayer for peace.

The Lesser Courtyard looked like an accident of architecture; it was a narrow quadrangle between the main building of the Mazan’theileian and an obvious addition, made even narrower in perception by the height of the walls on every side. Its primary purpose was clearly as a water collector, as the gutters, the pitch of the flagstones, and the grated drain in the center showed, but that made it ideally suited for a revethvoran, as well. It would be easy to wash away the blood.

It was bitterly cold; Maia pulled his hands back into the shelter of his quilted oversleeves and wished the imperial regalia ran more to woolly hats than diamond chokers. He shifted a little to whisper to Kiru, “You do not have to stay out here, Kiru Athmaza. We do not wish you to freeze.”

“Thank you, Serenity,” she murmured back, “but we are fine.” There was nothing else she could say, and he knew it, but at least he had tried.

They did not have long to wait. First the Adremaza appeared on the opposite side of the courtyard, and then Dazhis came out, flanked by the canons. He was shuddering violently; Maia couldn’t tell if it was from fear or cold. But he saw Maia and managed something that was almost a smile.

There was no spoken ritual: the canons escorted Dazhis to the center of the courtyard, where first one and then the other bowed to him and retreated to stand beside the Adremaza. Then the Adremaza stepped forward. He said something to Dazhis that Maia couldn’t hear, then handed him the revethvoreis’atha and stepped back.

The revethvoreis’atha glinted in the lantern light. Its blade was long and narrow, its haft unadorned. Dazhis stared at it for a long moment; then he lifted his head, searching out Maia again. Maia still could not imagine how his presence could mean anything but more guilt to Dazhis, but he could not deny that somehow it must, for Dazhis’s mouth firmed with what looked like genuine resolution, and he bared his right arm to make the first cut.

The revethvoreis’atha slid through his flesh like water.

In theory, a revethvoris or revethvoro was to make five cuts: across each wrist, along each forearm, and the fifth cut across the throat. Few, however, were strong enough for the fifth cut, and it was not considered profanation of the ritual if they did not make it. Dazhis didn’t. The revethvoreis’atha fell from his hand halfway through the fourth cut and was lost immediately in the spreading, glinting blackness of his blood. He kept his feet barely any longer, falling in an awkward sideways sprawl which had little dignity but did keep his face clear. His breath was coming in whimpers, but they did not form words. Maia forced himself to watch, forced himself to see that his anger was unnecessary. Presently, Dazhis fell silent; some time after that, the canons came forward again, kneeling without compunction or repugnance in Dazhis’s blood to confer over him. One of them touched his face, then his throat; the other lifted his right wrist, apparently inspecting the cuts. They nodded to each other, then rose and returned to the Adremaza. A brief colloquy, and the Adremaza said in a carrying voice, “The revethvoran is completed.”

Maia became aware that he was shivering and that Telimezh was saying, “Come inside, Serenity,” in an anxious voice. It was hard to obey; he felt as if he’d frozen solid to the ground. But he forced himself to move, to return to the shocking warmth of the Mazan’theileian, where the Adremaza appeared out of nowhere to ask, “Are you all right, Serenity?”

Was
he all right? Maia had his doubts. “We are fine, thank you.”

The Adremaza didn’t look convinced; he said, “We must thank you again for witnessing, Serenity. We were afraid Dazhis would not…”

Maia didn’t want to make him finish that sentence, so although he’d sworn not to, he asked, “He said he didn’t have anyone else. Was he an orphan?”

“No,” the Adremaza said with a tired sigh. “He was exaggerating.”

“Oh.”

“We are unfair. We beg your pardon. Dazhis was the third of eight children of a schoolmaster in eastern Thu-Athamar. We believe he was not happy as a child. He did not visit his parents after he was accepted as a novice to the Athmaz’are, and so far as we know, he did not correspond with them. He did not write to them today, although he was encouraged to.”

“And no friends?” He knew
nothing
of Dazhis, nothing save his betrayal and his death.

“None who would witness a revethvoran,” the Adremaza said, almost brusquely.

“No, of course not. Forgive us—it was a foolish question. Good night, Adremaza.”

“Good night, Serenity,” the Adremaza answered, bowing, and Maia walked back to the Alcethmeret in cold silence.

He did not sleep that night—could not, and could not bear to try. There would be no wake for Dazhis, and this was not one either. This was pent-up rage and grief and fear that had no outlet. He could not stay cold, much as he longed to, and he paced from room to room of the Alcethmeret, up and down its echoing staircase, only barely choking back the urge to scream at his nohecharei, merely for doing their jobs. He was sure they were grateful when morning came and they could escape.

Beshelar was as picture-perfect as ever; Cala was pale and tired-looking, but no longer seemed distraught. They did not attempt to speak to him, but somehow he found himself herded into the dining room, where the samovar was singing its odd little song and Isheian was waiting to pour him a cup of tea.

There was no point, he thought wearily, in refusing comfort. He sat down, accepted the teacup, and tried to find some of the cold and quiet peace he had achieved in the Ulimeire. He did not think he was notably successful, but when he had drunk his tea, he went up to his rooms and let his edocharei bathe and dress him, and when he descended again for the day officially to begin, he no longer wanted to scream at anyone, so perhaps that was progress.

But then, as Csevet was edifying Maia’s breakfast with an account of all the things that had to be accomplished, starting with a meeting of the Corazhas and ending with increasing the emperor’s household budget to account for Idra and his sisters, a page boy brought a message from Hesero Nelaran, imploring him to grant her an audience, and Maia realized there was one consequence of that unsuccessful coup with which he had simply and utterly failed to come to grips.

His cousin, Setheris Nelar.

25

Matters of the Aftermath

Maia received Hesero Nelaran in the Tortoise Room. It had been, he thought, a month and a half since he had first been introduced to her, and he was almost, oddly, sad to find that she no longer overwhelmed him as she had his first day in the Untheileneise Court. She was still a beautiful, sophisticated woman, but he had been surrounded by women like her for weeks, and she no longer stood out for him except by virtue—if “virtue” was what one ought to call it—of being Setheris’s wife.

“Serenity,” she murmured with a low and exquisitely graceful curtsy. “We thank you for granting this audience, which we know we should not have presumed to ask for.”

“Osmerrem Nelaran, we don’t—”

“Please,” she said, and she smiled a brave, fake smile at him. “Did we not agree we were cousins?”

“Cousin Hesero,” he amended. “What is it you wish?”

“Serenity, please, we ask that you grant an audience to our husband, your cousin.”

“Why should we?”

“He is your cousin,” she said, frowning.

“And the princess is our sister-in-law.”

“He raised you!” she protested. “Serenity, we know you do not favor him, though we do not understand why, but can you not see past whatever grudge it is you hold against him? Is it just of you to—”

“Grudge?”
He could hear that his voice had risen, but he could not find the wherewithal to care. “Osmerrem Nelaran—Cousin Hesero—we hold no
grudge
. We have tried our most desperate best not to act from spite or malice. We did not send him back to Edonomee, although we could have. We offered him a position that was honorable and useful. What more could we do?”

“Serenity—”

“No.” He realized distantly that he was trembling. “We could not.
I
could not. He bullied me. He reviled me. He beat me—not for discipline, but for his own anger and helplessness.” He fumbled with his left cuff, shoved the sleeve up to show the scars, thick silver lines on slate-gray skin. “This is his handiwork, Cousin Hesero. And while I … I understand, truly, and I forgive him as best I may, I will not show him favor. Nor do I think it
just
that he demands it of me.” He choked the words off, ashamed that he had said that much, and bent his head to fasten his cuff again. But his fingers were too unsteady for the tiny pearl buttons, and he was about to forsake it when a voice said softly, “Serenity, will you permit me?”

It was Cala. Maia could not meet his eyes, but he extended his wrist. Cala’s long white fingers were quick and deft; he had fastened the last button before Maia registered his use of the first-familiar. He looked up, and where he had feared to find pity or contempt, Cala said, “I could not be as forgiving,” and bowed deeply before returning to his place beside Beshelar.

Later,
Maia told himself.
Think about it later.
He had the threads of another conversation to pick up; Hesero had backed away and was staring, stricken. Maia had wondered if Setheris had ever raised his hand against his wife, and now he supposed he had his answer in her horror-filled eyes and ashen face.

“Sit down, Cousin Hesero,” he said.

She sat, the first graceless motion he had seen from her. “He was cruel to you?” she said in a bare, breathless whisper.

“Yes,” Maia said. There was no point now in trying to soften the truth. He sat down himself, suddenly uncertain whether his legs would hold him if he remained standing. “I am sorry. I should not have—”

She shook her head dazedly. “No, it isn’t—that isn’t … I cannot—Serenity, I do not understand how we can be speaking of the same person.”

“I am sorry,” Maia said again, helplessly. “I don’t understand either. But … he was very unhappy. We both were. And we were very isolated.”

Although she was trying to meet his eyes, her gaze kept going back to his left forearm. “It was a firescreen,” he said. “He … he didn’t mean to.”