The Goblin Emperor (5 page)

“No,” Maia said.

“Who is this?”

“Our Master of Wardrobe.”

“Then he hasn’t sent a maza, either.”

“No. Cousin, what—?”

“We will see to it,” Setheris said. “And we would advise you to replace your Lord Chancellor as soon as you may. Uleris seems to be growing forgetful in his old age.”

Since Setheris and Chavar were of an age, the insult was a pointed one—enough so that Maia realized this was not mere officiousness on Setheris’s part, nor angling for Chavar’s position. “Cousin, explain.”

“Serenity,” Setheris said, reminded by the imperative. “The Emperor of the Elflands has both the right and the obligation to be attended at all times by the nohecharei, the guardian of the body and the guardian of the spirit. And especially if you intend to persist in this lunatic idea…” He waved a hand at the cloth draped over Maia’s shoulder.

“We do,” Maia said. “We are sure the Lord Chancellor has much on his mind. If you would see to the matter, we would be grateful, and when you return, we will be pleased to receive your wife.”

“Serenity,” Setheris said, bowed, left.

Maia knew—everyone knew—about the emperor’s nohecharei, the guardians sworn to die before they would allow harm to come to him: one, the soldier, to guard with his body and the strength of his arm; the other, the maza, to guard with his spirit and the strength of his mind. Edonomee’s cook could sometimes be coaxed into telling stories, so Maia even knew about Hanevis Athmaza, nohecharis to Beltanthiar III, who had entered a duel of magic with Orava the Usurper, the only magic-user ever to attempt to take the throne. Hanevis Athmaza had known Orava would kill him, but he had held the usurper off the emperor until the Adremaza, the master of the mazei of the Elflands, had reached them. Orava had been defeated, and Hanevis Athmaza, horribly injured, had died in his emperor’s arms. In his early adolescence, Maia had dreamed of becoming a maza, of becoming perhaps his father’s nohecharis and earning his love, but he had shown no more aptitude for magic than he showed (Setheris said) for anything else, and that dream, too, had died.

He had never dreamed of becoming emperor.

Atterezh continued with his task, the only sign that he had even noticed the conversation being that his discussion with himself was now inaudible rather than merely under his breath. Maia hoped his father had chosen his household staff for their discretion, for there was no part of that exchange with Setheris that he wished bruited about the court. But to say so would offend Atterezh and shatter the precarious fictions by which servants and nobles protected each other.

“Serenity,” said Atterezh, climbing slowly to his feet. “I will have clothes in readiness for you at two o’clock, if that will please?”

“Yes. We thank you, Atterezh.”

Atterezh bowed, released Maia from his draperies, and departed. Maia observed gloomily that thus far the life of an emperor seemed chiefly to involve sitting in a small room and watching other people come and go.

That’s more variety than thou hadst at Edonomee, where there was no one either to come
or
to go,
he thought, and managed a smile at his own foolish self-pity.

He sat down wearily, wondering if there might be time for a nap before he had to dress for the funeral. The clock gave the time as quarter of ten (which seemed either too late or too early, although he could not tell which). Esaran would not love him better if he demanded a bed made ready at ten in the morning.

He rubbed his eyes to keep them from drifting shut, and here was Setheris again, bristling with energy and spite. “Serenity, we have spoken with the Captain of the Untheileneise Guard and the Adremaza, and they will see to the matter. They wished us to convey to you their apologies and contrition. No slight was meant, for they were expecting the Lord Chancellor to inform them of your arrival.”

“Do you believe them?”

“Serenity,” Setheris said, acknowledging the justice of the question. He considered a moment, his head tilted to one side, his eyes as bright as a raptor’s. “We are inclined to believe they speak in good faith. They are men with many other concerns, and we, too, expected Chavar to inform them.”

“Thank you, cousin,” Maia said; although those words were grimed with years of sullen irony, he said them as lightly, as gently, as he could. “And your wife?”

“Serenity,” Setheris said, bowing.

He turned and beckoned. Maia heard the click of shoe heels and rose to his feet. Hesero Nelaran stopped in the doorway to drop a deep and magnificent curtsy, the old-style honor that the Empress Csoru had made unfashionable. “Your Serenity,” she said, her voice as smooth as Setheris’s was sharp.

She was a year or two younger than her husband, crow’s-feet showing behind her maquillage. Her clothes were the black of proper court mourning: a floor-length dress trailing a train like a snake’s tail; a quilted and elaborately embroidered jacket, plum on black, frogged with garnet clasps like drops of blood. Her hair was dressed with black lacquer combs and tashin sticks and strands of faceted onyx. She was not beautiful, but through sheer force of elegance she contrived to seem so.

Since his mother’s death, Maia’s personal acquaintance with women had been limited to Edonomee’s stout cook and her two skinny daughters who did the housework. Although he had studied the fashion engravings in the newspapers with great care, there had been nothing that could have prepared him for Hesero Nelaran; he felt his composure shatter and fall to the floor about his feet.

“Osmerrem Nelaran,” he managed finally, stumbling over his words like any callow youth, “we are very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“And we are pleased to make yours. We are also more grateful than we can say that you have allowed our husband to return to the Untheileneise Court.” She sank again, this time not merely into a curtsy, but into a full-length prostration every bit as graceful as Csevet’s. “Serenity, our honor and our loyalty are yours.”

He said inadequately as she rose to her feet again, “We thank you, Osmerrem Nelaran.”

“May we not count ourself your cousin, Serenity?”

“Cousin Hesero,” he amended.

She smiled at him, and he melted in the warmth of it, barely able to keep his wits together sufficiently to realize that she was speaking, asking about his coronation. “Midnight on the twenty-fourth,” he said, and she nodded with grave approbation, as if she had been worried that he might choose some other, less suitable time.

“Serenity,” Setheris said, “you must not allow us to impose on you.”

“We have much to do,” Maia said to Hesero, partly out of habitual obedience to Setheris’s obliquely worded commands, partly because he did not think he could sustain the audience much longer without making an utter driveling fool out of himself. “But we will hope for an opportunity to speak to you again.”

“Serenity,” they said. Hesero curtsied again; Setheris made a stiff, jerky little bow like a clockwork toy. She swept out with the same grace with which she had entered; she had one thin milk-white braid falling down her back past her hips, following the line of her spine. Setheris hurried after her, and Maia sank back into his chair, now abruptly breathless as well as fatigued.

Thou hast no head for dalliance,
he said to himself, and began to laugh. He tried to stop, but it was beyond his power; the laughter seized and shook him like a terrier with a rat. The best he could do was to keep his vocal cords silent, suffering the paroxysm with no more noise than the occasional gasp for breath. It was as painful as choking or the terrible rattling cough of the bronchine, and when at last it released him, he had to wipe tears off his face.

And then he looked up, straight into the eyes of a sober-faced young man dressed as a soldier and with a soldier’s topknot, but wearing the Drazhadeise seal on a baldric across his chest. “Serenity,” he said, and knelt. His disapproval was palpable.

Maia wondered in horror how long he had been standing there, waiting for his emperor to be in a fit state to receive him. “Please rise. You are one of our nohecharei?”

“Yes, Serenity,” the young man said, standing straight again. “I am Deret Beshelar, Lieutenant of the Untheileneise Guard. My captain has ordered me to serve as a nohecharis—unless Your Serenity is not pleased to accept my service.”

Maia wished he could say,
No, we are not pleased,
and be rid of this disapproving wooden soldier. But he could not offend the Captain of the Untheileneise Guard without giving a reason, and what reason could he give?
He caught me laughing the day after my father’s death.
He could not say that, and he read in Lieutenant Beshelar’s vast disapproval an equally vast probity, and that, he felt, he would need more than the man’s friendship.

“We see no reason to be displeased with the captain’s choice,” he said, and Beshelar said, “Serenity,” in such a flat, withering voice that Maia knew he had heard the phrase as an attempt at flattery.

Before he could decide whether he could say anything to ameliorate the wrong-footedness of the conversation, or whether he would merely dig himself in deeper with the attempt, another voice said, “Oh, damn. I did so hope I would get here first. Serenity.”

Maia blinked at this second young man, now kneeling in the doorway. He, too, wore a baldric with the Drazhadeise seal, but it looked almost incongruous over his shabby blue robe. As he stood again, unfolding a remarkable length of bony leg, Maia saw that he was taller than Beshelar, as gawky as a newborn colt. The pale blue eyes behind their thick round-lensed spectacles were myopic, gentle, and the one beauty in a face dominated by a long, high-arched nose. His untidy maza’s queue did nothing to flatter him, but he was clearly not the sort of man who would ever care. He said, “I am Cala Athmaza. The Adremaza sent me.”

Beshelar let out a slight pained noise, not quite a sigh and not quite a snort. But the maza seemed to find nothing insufficient in his introduction, merely stood blinking benevolently at Maia, and Maia found nothing insufficient in his introduction, either.

“We are pleased,” he said. And to both of them, “We are Edrehasivar, to be crowned the seventh of that name at midnight of the twenty-fourth.”

“Serenity,” they said together, bowing, and then Cala said, “Serenity, there is a young man on the landing who looks as if he does not know whether he ought to stay or leave.”

“Show him in,” Maia said, and Cala and Beshelar stood aside.

Appearing between them, Csevet said, “We beg your pardon, Serenity. We did not know if you required our services for anything else.”

Maia hid a wince. He had forgotten about Csevet, which was thoughtless and arrogant. “Have you other duties?”

“Serenity,” Csevet said, bowing. “The Lord Chancellor has been so good as to intimate that he will second us to your service, if it would be pleasing to you.”

“That is very kind of the Lord Chancellor,” Maia said, meeting Csevet’s eyes in a moment of shared, pained amusement. “Then we would be very grateful if you could…” He gestured for a word that was not there. “If you could organize our household?”

He heard the plaintive note in his own voice, but Csevet disregarded it. “It shall be as Your Serenity wishes,” he said, bowing more deeply. “We will begin with…” He consulted his pocket watch. “Luncheon.”

4

The Funeral at the Ulimeire

The Ulimeire was on the outskirts of Cetho, the city that circled the Untheileneise Court like a crescent setting for a pearl. Descending from the embarrassingly large imperial carriage after Lieutenant Beshelar and Cala Athmaza, Maia thought unhappily that it might as well have been in another world.

The temple and the wall around the graveyard were made alike of crumbling red brick. The pillars of the temple portico were in need of a coat of whitewash, and their capitals were shaggy with abandoned birds’ nests. Weeds thronged the cracks between the paving stones of the walkway from gate to temple, and the grass in the graveyard had grown so tall that the tops of the gravestones appeared like small, barren islands in a tempestuous and brittle sea.

“Serenity,” said Beshelar, “are you sure—?”

“Yes,” Maia said. “Their deaths weigh no lighter on the earth than our father’s.”

As Cala opened the gate, a stout black-robed prelate, as shabby as his temple, appeared in the doorway. He stared mouth agape beneath his dented moon-mask, and then all but threw himself down the stairs. He prostrated himself, and from the dark interior of the temple, there was a great soft rustling as the congregation did the same wherever they happened to be standing.

Thou must grow accustomed,
Maia said to himself as he followed Beshelar and Cala toward the temple.
Thou art emperor, as Setheris told thee. And at this juncture, truly, thou canst be emperor or thou canst be dead. Which dost thou prefer?

“His Imperial Serenity, Edrehasivar the seventh,” Beshelar announced; Maia wished he wouldn’t.

“Please,” Maia said to the prelate, “rise. We wish only to pay our respects to the dead.”

The prelate stood up, rubbing his hands anxiously on the skirts of his robe. “Your Imperial Serenity,” he said. “We had no idea … that is, we weren’t informed…”

And someone should have been sent to inform you,
Maia thought wearily. He had imagined somehow that he would be able to slip into the back of the temple and listen to the service without announcing his identity, but that had been a child’s wonder-tale, nothing more.

He said, “We are sorry, truly.”

“Serenity!” Beshelar hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

“We wished only to acknowledge the loss,” Maia continued, raising his voice so that the people inside the temple might hear him clearly, “that all of you have suffered. We did not wish that to be forgotten. We did not wish you to feel that … that we did not care.”

“Thank you, Serenity,” the prelate said after a pause. “We … that is, the temple is very small and not what you are used to. But, if you—and these gentlemen—would like to share in our worship, we—” and he used the plural, meaning both himself and the congregation.”—we would be…” He trailed off, searching for a word. “It would be an honor.”