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After the unreasonably calm Emperor has been taken back to the Alcethmeret by a slightly hysterical mishmash of guards and attendants, and Prince Idra has been escorted to his sisters, and Princess Sheveän is ushered shouting away… there is only Csevet, the Untheilenese Guard, and Chavar.
Chavar picks a fight with him, obviously. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Csevet has chosen his side, and it is not Chavar’s; besides, everyone heard Orthema say that it had been Csevet who had suggested looking for the Princess and the Lord Chancellor.
Also, he wouldn’t be Uleris Chavar if he didn’t pick a fight— and he would be remiss if he were to let what might be his final chance to hurl abuse at Csevet go unused. Csevet is almost impressed. Almost.
“What, minion?” Chavar is saying. His voice is steadily getting louder, building himself up for an explosion— and it will be truly exceptional, because he has not a shred of decorum left to preserve, now. He has kicked at the stripling Drazhada cats in the corner, and found out exactly how hard they can bite, after all. Lord Chavar, bulwarked by an eighteen year old and a fourteen year old. It’s bitterly amusing. How the mighty fall. “What? Nothing to say for thyself?”
Csevet watches him, watches his screwed-up eyes and his quivering ears. Chavar can roar like a one-man army— more than once Csevet has found new Chancery couriers weeping in the servant’s corridors after a rant from the Lord Chancellor. He usually gives them ginger toffee and reminds them that Chavar is just a man. He suggests to them that they try to empty their minds when Chavar is on a useless deriding rant, to think of something else, like a poem or a prayer or a wonder-tale— but if they cannot, and if they wish it, he will see to it that they are reassigned to the Treasury, with the generally mild-mannered Lords Treasurer. But they never do wish it, because couriers are a hard-headed breed, and the horror of not being up to a task is fed into them. And so he lets them blot their faces and then vanish back to their next assignment as if it had never happened at all. It is the best way, and possibly the only way. Else they never would survive.
But it is a precedent, and those are powerful; they do not have to like him, or agree with him, or even care about him, but they know he cares about them. They come creeping out of the shadows to tell him of this Osmer who grabbed the new Judicate couriers, or of that Dach’osmer who threw a glass at the couriers the Prelacy sent, or of the scrap between Treasury and Presider of Blood couriers which turned violent… and Csevet will manage it. He does the necessary wheedling and manipulating which constitutes rearranging assignments, he ensures senior couriers and Volsharezh are keeping people apart, and he spreads warnings to steer clear of certain men.
Once, nose running and eyes wide, Irieno had said;
“Csevet, thou’rt not afraid of anything. The others say thou wert kissed by Salezheio and given her blessing above all other couriers, so thou wilt never be afraid, and can run forever and ever.”
Csevet had merely smiled, and said, “Well, well. Wouldn't that be nice?” Well-meant blasphemy, but he is no prelate. “Ginger toffee or marchpane? We have marchpane for Winternight, ‘tis festive…”
Besides, sometimes he thinks someone must have led him, that night in Eshoravee— and ‘tis only Salezheio that apparently ever bothers with couriers. There is a wonder tale about how she came to be their patron, how the couriers came to be. Not one of the popular ones, but it is the one he learned his letters from, so he knows it inside and out.
Once, there was a poor young man named Cseva…
Lots of vulnerable young women name their children with the Cse- prefix. It’s thought to be lucky— and Anmura knows Dalero Aisavin has certainly never been in a position to pass up a bit of extra luck.
“We should have known it would be thee,” Chavar is saying— which is ridiculous, because Csevet doubts he ever gave him any more thought than absolutely necessary before he came back from Edonomee. “Always lurking, always scraping, always watching. The perfect courier, art thou? We knew better.”
Csevet gives up on Cseva— he is too irate to recite wonder-tales. Besides, there is nothing to fear from Chavar, now. And he might bark and strut, but the fact is— and he knows this, and Csevet knows this, and Orthema and his men know this— that Csevet is the perfect courier. Whether or not Chavar likes the perfect courier, on the other hand, simply does not signify.
“Accusing us? Sending guards to seek us? We, who gave thee bed and board and pay and everything above thy station?” Chavar is seething. Csevet decides not to point out that it’s hardly unfair to accuse him of something that’s immediately turned out to be true. “We, who raised thee from petty Osmer’s runner to Chancery courier? Thou wouldst betray us? We ne’er should have sent thee to Edonomee, thou wretched viper. Snake in the grass. In our service for six years, and this is our thanks? We should have known thou would’st seize thy chance, thou’rt no better than the rest of thy tramp class. No doubt thou didst melt the seal open on the steam vents to read the business of thy betters, planned how thou wouldst ingratiate thyself with the Archduke— oh yes, we know thy tricks…”
Not the steam vents, thinks Csevet. It would wet the paper. The hot pipes, yes— but not the vents. He would only use a steam vent if he wanted to bleed the ink onto the external sheet and claim inclement weather, and that almost never can be gotten away with inside the court.
Captain Orthema is saying Lord Chavar, leave Mer Aisava, but Csevet knows Chavar will not move for love or money now, not until he has said his piece:
“The Emperor not cold in his grave! The court in chaos! And when I look around, where do I find Csevet Aisava? Already flinging himself at the feet of the goblin Archduke, scraping for favour! Then all of a sudden, everywhere we turn, we find thee — in our way, blocking us, always before us with thy blank white face and thy effusions. Archduke Maia says, stop him, Csevet, and thou turns thyself upon us like a fickle wind, spins thy wheedling and double-dealing against us— but we know what thou art, oh yes.”
Does he indeed?
“Imperial Secretary now— and perhaps thou wilt take our job next, for thou hast seen to it that the goblin Archduke loves thee so— but we tell thee Csevet Aisava, and we tell thee well. Thou wilt ne’er be more than a courier, a base courier, sent hither and thither at greater men’s whims— a runaround, a dog.”
No dog I, Lord Chavar, thinks Csevet. Too common and underbred for a dog. Something more base and commonplace than that. A hare, or a rabbit. A donkey.
A fox.
“For all-gods sake, man, have some dignity!” Orthema is saying, but Chavar is practically steaming with indignation:
“Well! Well! What hast thou to say for thyself, Aisava? Will we finally hear what's contrived in the nasty little brain behind that prim mask? Eh? Eh?”
Csevet gazes at Chavar, thinking of every unkind comment or impossible task the Lord Chancellor has ever tossed his way, about the countless times he has called his couriers mutts or staggering fools or expendables, about how he once shook Macha so hard that he wept. About how he himself had, very recently, endured a lecture on how it pleased Chavar to second him to the Emperor's service— as an unrefined man like the young Emperor would see nothing in bringing a low-born courier into his council and his service— but how certainly he should not impose himself or express his opinion, for he would only be making trouble with his betters. He thinks about how Setheris Nelar called him Chavar's lapdog, and how the Emperor called him this gentleman.
Chavar stares back, panting, sweating, waiting. He wants him to argue back, he wants the satisfaction of a clean fight— vindication, proof at last that Csevet hates him. He has always suspected it— he is not a completely unintelligent man, oh no— but he wants proof.
Csevet takes one step forward. To Chavar’s credit, he doesn't move; he stands, very red, almost twitching in his ire.
“We think, Dach'osmer…” says Csevet, very quietly, “That you shan't be needing this any longer.”
He reaches out and yanks the Lord Chancellor's chain of office from about Chavar's neck, pulling it just enough that it sticks, makes Chavar stagger— before the clasp gives and crumples the ring of hammered gold into a sagging, jingling line.
Chavar lunges— Orthema's men haul him back. “Dach’osmer? Give me my title, upstart whoreson!”
“Your title, Dach'osmer?” says Csevet. “Your title of Lord Chancellor will be stripped— along with your court apartments, your coffers, and the very shirt from your back.”
“If I e’er see that about thy neck, Aisava,” Chavar snarls, bucking in their grip. “I'll strangle thee with it.”
“Have no fear, Dach'osmer Chavar,” says Csevet. “You won't see it.”
He turns and begins the long, dark walk back up to the Alcethmeret.
“Self-serving baseborn!” Chavar roars after him.
“I serve the Emperor, Dach'osmer— as indeed we all must,” says Csevet, disappearing into the stairwell. “And woe betide the man who does not.”
The servant’s halls are full of couriers— both those on jobs, and those just wanting to know what’s happening. They rattle past Csevet and pound up the stairs or out into the main halls, cramming notes into his palm or shouting choice bits of information at him:
“Go east, the Zhasanai is having exaggerated hysterics on the promenade—”
“Stano Bazhevin confessed the whole—”
“The Mazan'theileian is in chaos—”
These are his people, his tramp class, worth a thousand Chavars. There are couriers here he has known since he was ten years old, lived with for a decade or longer. They thrive in close quarters, in chaos like this— they dip between the main halls and the servant’s corridors, copy notes up against walls, recite arguments word-for-word, stand in the corners and witness screaming matches, completely unnoticed.
A gaggle of Chancery couriers accost him on the stairs:
“Csevet! Is’t true? Is Lord Chavar arrested?”
“Yes,” says Csevet, pressing himself to the wall so that the sundry messengers and couriers behind him can carry on down the staircase. “Captain Orthema has him in custody.”
A cheer rises at the news. The Chancery couriers like to be from the Lord Chancellor’s office, like to have a community and the highest office, short of the Alcethmeret— like Csevet, they’re all vain, or ambitious, or precocious, or all three. But they never did consider Chavar himself a particular perk of the job. Who would?
“Whose men are we now?” says Macha eagerly.
“You serve under Captain Volsharezh, thou knowest,” Csevet says. “Until there is a new Lord Chancellor whom you might attend.”
“They’re saying it’ll be Berenar.”
“Quite possibly,” says Csevet. It would be a sensible choice, and the Emperor likes him— and indeed, the Chancery couriers are nodding, relieved. Berenar is unobjectionable.
“Chavar was never our man anyway,” says Irieno passionately.
“We will serve the Emperor’s will and at the Emperor’s service,” declares Themeris. “For we know who will dispatch it, an he is our man. Master Secretary!”
He claps him on the back and vanishes down the stairs, and the others go with him.
An I keep my job, thinks Csevet, moving up to the third floor. They all know his provenance is the Chancery. He thinks it unlikely the Emperor will hold him responsible, but he has already had the thought to offer his resignation.
A flash of red, and Amaru is there keeping pace with him, the ribbons in his braids askew.
“Nelar?” says Csevet.
“Not implicated. Wants an audience with the Emperor.”
“He'll have to wait,” snaps Csevet. He does not want Setheris Nelar around this. He does not suspect him of treason, but the man is a cur and a tyrant, and he will not place him in front of the Emperor unless he is explicitly commanded to. He had listened, at Edonomee, leant at the fireplace after Pelchara had muttered that the flues were open for cleaning, and he had overheard moon-witted hobgoblin and the well-trodden reply of yes, cousin clearly enough. He had seen, too, the Emperor's baulking response, the trembling effort of staying in one place, when Nelar had confronted him. He knows what it is to be so afraid of a man you cannot stand to be near him.
“So I said to the courier he sent,” says Amaru patiently. He has endless patience for Csevet's primness and prickliness.
“I thank thee,” says Csevet, and Amaru shoots him an amused look, obviously hearing the apology in it. He squeezes his arm briefly.
“Arbelan’s man is around,” he says.
“He'll only be checking the temperature. Tell him what's toward, but in as little detail as possible.” Csevet doesn’t suspect Arbelan Zhasanai, who hasn't been entirely minding her own business, but has been forbearing to meddle in the business she overhears. Besides, she seems rather fond of the Emperor— but he doesn’t want excess information abounding, right now.
“To be sure. And a note has gone between the Archduchess Vedero and the Dach’osmin Csethiro Ceredin, but we cannot read it, the Barzhad hand…”
It is handed over; Csevet is one of the few who has learned to read both the Barzhad alphabet and Dach'osmin Ceredin’s often deliberately impenetrable handwriting.
“...tis only a request for information, again,” he says, handing it back.
“She's probably afraid she's going to become the next Stano Bazhevin,” murmurs Amaru, taking it back. “I do not blame her. Thy lord is a precarious sort of master.”
This world, Csevet thinks, is a precarious sort of world.
But he has always been light on his feet.
“Where do you spring from, Csevet?” says Kiru Athmaza not long after, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the Alcethmeret kitchen. “We do not believe we ever came across you.”
Csevet likes her, this new nohecharis; unpretentious and straightforward, but very shrewd. She is looking at him with her head a little on one side, smiling. The others are peering, interested— Ebremis, Echelo and Isheian, Telimezh, the edocharei— for they do not know either. He is so tight-lipped, he knows he is. Kiru, it seems, likes to chat— which is well, for Csevet likes to listen. But he likes less to answer.
He shrugs, slitting a seal open.
“Where all couriers spring from, Kiru Athmaza. We’re born running, like colts, and our first steps are always to the door of some rich Osmer— our first words are of a kind, too, for they are always half-zashan for your letter, Osmer, half-zashan for your letter…”
Kiru smiles good-naturedly, but she presses;
“Well, then— in which part of the Ethuveraz did you take your first steps to the door of some rich Osmer?”
It is an unthreatening smile, Kiru’s. It promises nothing but friendly, stout, cheer. But she was a nurse and a cleric, and looking unthreatening before they stick you with something painful is their entire profession.
“...Nelozho,” said Csevet.
“Which part?”
Csevet says; “The worst part.”
“Fair enough,” says Kiru, amused— and to her credit, does not push further. Perhaps as a cleric, she also knows how much pressure is too much.
Csevet spent his childhood in an attic above a farrier’s shop with only his mother for company; the Aisavada— if a mother, a great-uncle in Vorenzhessar, two cousins in Cetho, and Csevet himself can possibly be called the Aisavada— are nothing and no one, unravelling scraps of a family line.
Dalero Aisavin has been a lot of things— some things she has not ever been, are married, monied, or lettered. And so it was necessary that the day the courier recruiters rode into town, Min Aisavin’s prim little son should join the brawling mess of children looking for training.
It had been chaos— elbows in faces and shoving and shouts of we will, Osmer, we will do it, as half the poor men's children of Nelozho scrambled for a job. Csevet had squirreled his way through the crowd, then stood very still at the front, eyes down, trying to be jolted as little as possible— until boots had stopped in front of him, and he raised his eyes to the recruiter, a tall elven man in an excess of silver jewellery.
“Name?”
“Csevet Aisava, Osmer.”
The recruiter frowned, then bent over him, examining the lines of his face and his ears, his posture. Csevet stood and fixed his eyes on the grocer’s sign opposite so he would not be accused of staring.
“What does thy father do?” the recruiter said, still squinting at him.
“We do not know our father, Osmer.”
“Whoreson!” someone had shouted from the back. Csevet kept his face and ears very still.
“What does thy mother do, then?”
“Our mother works in a factory making parts for engines, Osmer.”
“Hmm.” The recruiter stood back, scratching his jaw. “Lettered?”
“No, Osmer.” They didn't like it when young couriers were lettered, because they preferred them not to be able to read what they were carrying. Csevet had talked to the couriers who came to the farriers, and they had told him everything.
“Know horses?”
“Yes, Osmer. We help the farrier sometimes.”
“Good. Good.” He rubbed his hands together, nodding— then produced a token inscribed with an icon of Salezheio, and handed it to Csevet. “They’ll come and fetch thee from here tomorrow morning. Show the man that. Thou wilt get half-pay for each job until thy training’s finished, then the standard— with a portion docked for bed and board at the barracks every month, of course. Unless the recipient or the sender want to give thee more, but— hm! ‘Tis not so common.”
Csevet mentally ran the numbers. Then he said;
“We will do it, Osmer. We will do anything.”
“Yes thou wilt, Michen Aisava,” the Osmer had said, already turning away. “Hah! By Salezheio, thou wilt…”
The Osmer was right. Couriers are anything, everything; spies, informants, moles. Couriers can go into any servant's stair and listen. They can spread rumours, and then the next day go out and discredit them. Local couriers are hired as visitor’s guides for rich couples. When children go missing, couriers run out ahead of the search parties, no lantern and no dogs. They're disposable, you see; Csevet has known couriers make fortunes from running into burning buildings for children or pets, for going out first onto ice, for bringing in rampaging horses. For every one who retires early (or retires at all), there's three pinned under a burning beam or gone through thin ice or kicked in the head by a gelding, but that's the gamble. Plenty of his fellows have no family save the fleet.
There is no end to his talents. Most of them, he decides, the Emperor does not need to know about. Some of them, he observes in the Emperor; the deliberate silences to let people rant themselves into impotence, and the playing stupid to avoid an unfortunate implication. Edrehasivar learned some courier lessons at Edonomee, if few in governance or rhetoric. Still, as they're reminded when they're trained: competence can be taught. Character cannot.
But there’s so many more, most of them unsavoury. Where to put your fist, where to put a blade. Where to put your mouth, and when to keep it shut. How to climb, how to ride, how to fall, and how to land when you do. How to open letters discreetly and re-seal them just as neatly. How to forge seals and signatures. They teach each other to read, then practice until they can read so fast that they get the gist before the Osmers have passed the perfunctory greetings— but they still all learn to memorise, word-for-word, what's been said to them and around them. A thousand other skills. Memorising maps. Unobtrusiveness. Holding their liquor. Sense of direction. Making a statement to a Witness. Csevet certainly cannot resent every lesson the fleet taught him. Besides, it had been necessary. The pay had been what they had needed.
Necessary, yes, they both knew it— but it did not stop Min Aisavin from crying and crying when they took him away to train at the barracks in Cetho. Since she was unlettered, she collected for him penny postcards and pressed flowers and sweets rather than writing, and gave them all to Merrem Nalchenin across the landing, who was lettered, and could post them. And she could read Csevet’s letters to her, once they started coming, once he had cajoled some of the older boys into teaching him to read and write. He told her about how they ran long distances, were taught to ride, and practiced their manners. He did not tell her that his Nelozho accent was quashed by force, not by time, nor that most of the seniors disdained them all as low-lives and petty thieves who needed their bad habits wringing out of them. She was effervescent every time he came home to visit. He sent her money. He sent her presents. He did not tell her about Eshoravee.
He did not write to her immediately when he was appointed, not until he had done two things. First, he had suggested to the Emperor that he be replaced, and he was rejected with a desperate fervidity that he had quite expected. The Emperor knows no one else for the job, for better or worse. The (fairly significant) part of Csevet which is vain is happy with this, because he knows there is no one who might do a better job than he.
Secondly, he had attended on the Treasury office to organise his own salary, and ended up seeing Berenar, who argued with him on the matter; Csevet had ended up with more than he dared suggest and more than was technically reasonable, considering his bed and board and food are provided by the Imperial household. He had briskly organised a large percentage of it to be parcelled off to his mother, and ignored Berenar's look of kind cognizance. Berenar always means well, but he has been Dach'osmer Berenar since birth.
Then he had written to her, enclosing the official letter of appointment (which he had to organise for himself) and a bottle of the Cetho wine she only ever buys at Winternight because it is so expensive.
He receives a reply far faster than he expected. She has some difficulty with her vision from a year’s work in the silk factories, and her hand is unsteady, but determined. She writes of how excited she is, how relieved she is he will no longer be travelling so far, how she went to make an offering to Salezheio in thanks. She says she told the entire building, all the other washerwomen at her current job, everyone at the market; Imperial Secretary, my Csevet, Master Secretary! Master Secretaries, Csevet knows she must be thinking, do not get hauled off their horses and beaten to death in remote towns, or killed by jealous lovers, or strangled and robbed, or assaulted.
But if remote towns and the road are dangerous, the court is dangerous too. Amaru is right— Edrehasivar is a vulnerable master, and therefore their jobs are vulnerable jobs. Csevet thinks he understands poor Telimezh’s constantly sagging ears when he is off-duty, considering the man his life is tied to is no more hale than a sapling. Guarding him must feel like guarding a priceless vase in hurricane force winds.
Still, they have made it through this first squall, just barely. Chavar and Sheveän will be dealt with. They have sat in the Alcethmeret kitchen and made countless plans of how they will stop another betrayal coming from within. It can be managed. It can all be managed.
When it comes, Csevet is prepared for the question of the Courier General— what he is not prepared for, is to be asked for his thoughts on the matter of the Chancery couriers, whether or not they are honest, reliable. He is not supposed to have thoughts— he is not supposed to be any sort of person at all. No one ever seems to have told Edrehasivar this, admittedly, nor does it seem very likely Edrehasivar will come to the conclusion on his own.
But more pertinently, he was one of them. How can the Emperor possibly think he will be told the truth?
“Serenity, we do not—”
“Would you?” presses Edrehasivar. Csevet stares at him, wondering— how might he say, yes, Serenity, for they are not his men— they are mine?
And now he must lead them out.
“...yes, Serenity.”
But he must know, if he is to lead them, where he is leading them. To what end. To what lord. Once and for all.
Csevet looks closely at Edrehasivar, sees nothing but that benign, expressionless face. He unsettles the younger couriers, because they do not know how to read him, they do not know how to anticipate what he is going to say. They are perplexed when he is mild to them, alarmed when he is kind to them.
Csevet says: “Couriers, Serenity, are not like clerks and secretaries. For one thing, a courier does not have to be able to read.”
Edrehasivar says nothing to this. He knows when it behooves him to say nothing, and chooses to do it more often than not. Csevet nods— he approves that trait in him, rarely observes it in noblemen. “Those who can't are taught by their fellows, as with any other piece of education they might need. But, for all of us, the courier system gave us a chance, sometimes our only chance, at an honest job. And one where we did not have to work on our knees. Or our backs.”
Still, silence. The Emperor’s expression has creased a little, thought more in thought than anything else. Csevet thinks, he will listen, he must listen, he must understand, and presses;
“While couriers are as prone to petty dishonesty as any other group of people, none would think of theft or blackmail or anything he understood as treason. And all couriers have the insatiable and impertinent curiosity of ferrets.”
The Emperor seems to turn that over, for a moment. He says, tone bland, as if he's merely vaguely interested:
“That night at Edonomee, had you read Chavar's letter?”
Csevet hesitates. Will he really run out under the axe?
He stares at Edrehasivar. Edrehasivar stares back.
Then he says: “Yes, Serenity.”
The Emperor nods. Csevet is sure it was obvious he had, if one bothered to think about what he had said, what he had done.
“Thank you,” says Edrehasivar. And— “And we do not blame you for it.”
There is more than an absolution for the letter in that statement, if he thinks to reach for it.
“Thank you, Serenity,” says Csevet, and he decides: We will. We will do it.
Until now, he has been— what? Staggering under a sudden burden, scrambling after an equally affrighted master, both of them dragging the other up with them on their inexplicable ascent. Csevet had thought, after Edrehasivar had been kind to him— the couriers, my couriers. An Emperor with a shred of respect for the courier fleet could be everything— and really, he would have done anything to escape Chavar. It had been a waiting game, after that. Csevet has watched, waited, and tested him; audacious, to test the Emperor, especially when the Emperor knows he's being tested, but it has been worth the risk. Now Csevet knows that he can serve this man with every nasty, underhanded trick in the book, and he can trust that it will be worth it, and that he will be right to do it.
Later, in possibly the only idle moment they might get until this entire Chavar mess is over, the Emperor ties together the ends of some stray ribbon from one of the stacks of over-elaborate letters professing innocence. He loops it around his hands, pulls it taut, turns over his fingers, makes a surprisingly complicated looking pattern of it. It seems intentional; he removes his ring fingers and tightens his thumbs, and it becomes something else, a different pattern. He sees Csevet watching, and looks embarrassed.
“Tis only a child's game,” he says, as if to dismiss it. “Our— our mother taught it to us.”
He almost never talks about Chenelo Zhasanai, but her influence is obvious and pertinent.
“We have never seen it played before,” says Csevet, interested.
“We think it is Barizheise. It can be played with more than one person but… we only ever learned it alone.” Edrehasivar looks down at his hands, and frowns. He releases the tension and the string crumples into a heap on the table.
“‘Tis only silly,” he says, frowning. He turns away, takes to rubbing his knuckles unhappily. Avris is worried he has joint pain he will not mention— but Csevet thinks the Emperor merely does not care for his hands. Which is a shame, because he has never known them to be anything but palm-up, open, charitable.
But he likes the game. He lies in bed and recreates it with a piece of packing string from his endless mail. Here is Lord Chavar, in this corner, and here is Princess Sheveän. Here too is Eshevis Tethimar. Csoru Zhasanai. The Duke Tethimel. Dazhis. Here is the Emperor, in the centre. He will move one here, another there, until they are where they are needed, seen for what they are. Then he will draw shut the loop.
A leash on the hounds. Pull, pull.
What is not so easily managed is the issue of Setheris Nelar, because the Emperor will not let them manage it in their way.
Well, Beshelar’s way would have been to snap off Nelar’s arm and beat him to death with it, but Csevet should have liked to exile him again, and even Cala mutters that he should have been left in the Esthoramire at least a little longer.
“How can he— and how could he— and a child!” Beshelar is still steaming even two hours later, glowering over the pot of tea Ebremis had put out for them. “He should be beheaded— I have a sister that age— he should be lucky Chenelo Zhasanai is not alive to see it— if the Great Avar finds out, Nelar will be rended limb from limb—”
“The Great Avar will not find out, Deret,” says Cala flatly. He is uncharacteristically subdued. “Who would tell him?”
Certainly the Emperor will not, Csevet thinks. He had not even told the men charged with guarding him; surely, surely, it would have been reasonable to tell your guards, here is that man who beat us routinely for ten years— we would have him kept away from us. Even euphemistically, it would have been understood. But Edrehasivar has had opportunities to say it, and he has not taken them, and so Csevet can only assume that had not Hesero Nelaran shoved him over the precipice, he never would have said anything at all. If he had the power to have Tethimar locked away at a whim, Csevet thinks, he should have done it in a heartbeat. But Edrehasivar is not that sort. He acts through inaction. He says, we see, one of his favoured nothing-said phrases, and Csevet has learned to understand it as a red flag; he will remember this, he will think of it when he sees you again, he will take it as a lesson. It is a habit which set Csevet’s hackles rising, at first. An insecure master is apt to be manipulated, and given to unreliability and fickle self-indulgence. He once ran messages for an Osmer on the outskirts of Cetho who was a narrow, miserable sort of man; less clever than his wife, less handsome than his brother, less athletic than his sons and his father. One walked on eggshells around him as he examined every piece of your demeanour, looking at you as if you were a mirror, expecting you to reflect back an insecurity, a flaw. When he found one, he would shout. Csevet had developed his poker face something lovely there.
Edrehasivar, too, seems to look for slights, expect them— sometimes even when they aren’t intended. But when they do arrive, they are collected with a slight weariness and silently stowed somewhere behind that grey, fathomless stare. He knows when he is being insulted or mocked— even when people think he does not— but rarely does he do anything with the knowledge. He puts it away somewhere; perhaps he examines it later. It falls to the nohecharei and Csevet to bristle on his behalf, for very often he does not react at all. He waits as if he was still waiting for the blow to land.
Well, now they know why.
Csevet had read plenty into I hate him and I will not have him near me, but Csevet has the necessarily overactive courier’s imagination, and saw how the dynamic worked in Edonomee. The others did not have the same ability to make presumptions.
As such, they have not been able to reason out keeping it from the rest of the household. Csevet has kept his inkling of it quiet long enough— they need now to form ranks. They are supposed to work as one, not in factions with some knowing this and others knowing that— especially not now. It does not make it easier to grit out, but it must be done— and it cannot be Beshelar, who is wound up like the toy soldier he is, and Cala has simply gone quiet.
So it is Csevet who tells them the whole, and poor loyal Nemer bursts into tears and almost sets off Isheian while he’s at it— Avris goes pale, and mutters something about how he had wondered… well, it is not what he had feared, but he despises the alternative— Esha sits and grinds his teeth like a stressed rabbit. The edocharei must have seen the scar, but they are by trade trained not to say anything, and they did not know its real provenance. Perhaps the Emperor lied to them about it; more likely he said nothing about it at all. Ebremis leans on the stove hood and stays very quiet— and Echelo is more silent still, hands gripped tightly on the tabletop.
“We were thinking of sending Nelar to be a judiciar,” says Csevet. “One that reports to Pashavar, not Berenar or the Emperor. Something honourable but menial, that will not require him to appear anywhere the Emperor may encounter him. We will enquire.”
“Swift as ever, Csevet,” says Ebremis.
“As necessary, Ebremis...”
Echelo says, quite stiffly and quite abruptly: “Did the Emperor— the Emperor that was— did he know?”
“His Serenity said he has no idea if Varenechibel was ever told,” says Cala. “He said if he was, he did not care.”
Echelo purses her lips tightly. She says, merely: “Ah.”
Poor Echelo. She was the perfect servant to Varenechibel, so perfect she survived one Emperor and persisted to serve another, and Csevet genuinely believes her one of the best stewards he has ever seen. And now she is served up a reckoning with the worst parts of her former master— a man at worst dispassionate, and at best actively cruel. Csevet could have told her that it is the nature of almost all elvish noblemen— open hand in one direction, closed fist in the other.
But it wouldn’t help, and he is sure she knows that, really— it would just be unkind. So he pours her a fresh cup of tea, and decides to take the Emperor’s preferred method— he says nothing.
Csevet arrives late to the Winternight Ball, having met up with Amaru at The Farrier's Cart first, and they are still trying to get their collars and hair back in order by the time they arrive at the ballroom. Still, no one is looking at them— the Great Avar is taking up plenty of attention himself, and the Dach'osmin Ceredin is on the dais with the Emperor, talking emphatically about some trifle or other— she holds the ironical look of someone who does not quite put stock to what they are saying, but persists in saying it anyway. She is very chatty, very quick, and Csevet has always felt he should like to gossip with her. Perhaps he will now get the chance.
But at any rate it does not truly matter what she is saying, because the Emperor clings to kind attention of any sort, and he is listening very hard to whatever trifle he is being regaled with, leaning forwards slightly, ears pricked attentively. This marriage may work yet. Csevet hopes it will. He was sorry for her– though one is not supposed to be sorry for nobility– sorry she had been shoved out in front of the pack and handed off to the Emperor she had never exchanged five words with. Any reasonable woman would at least have privately bridled, but especially the Dach’osmin Ceredin, who had punched Lord Merivar and broken his nose at last year’s Summernight Masque for grabbing one of her sisters. She had only gotten away with it because it had been ostensibly anonymous, but frankly Csevet thought she would have done it unmasked, too. Perhaps they can sic her on Nelar, and make impotent and actively useless attempts at stopping her, then say oh dear, oh no— well, we tried, and send someone to put all his bones back in incorrectly. There’s a happy thought.
Csevet and Amaru linger behind a pillar, watching Emiro Ceredin, younger sister of the future Empress, flirting with a hopelessly smitten Dach'osmer Doreshar. Csevet has seen them before, knows she teases him something terrible and calls him Dorey, as if he is not the future Count Doreshel. Poor thing— but he takes it bravely on the chin, and brings her flowers when he might, and is (probably wisely) rather afraid of the other Ceredin maids, especially Csethiro. Perhaps the Marquess Ceredel will have to shell out for two weddings in one year. At least the crown will cover one of them.
The mood is, as it ever is, exaggeratedly raucous and drunken. The couriers are capering, tumbling, generally being overexcitable. They shall have to get into practice for the Courier’s Artifice at Summernight. Is Csevet too high and mighty to dance it, now? But even the retired couriers come for it— and none can courante like he. Besides, he is sure the Emperor, in his generalised benevolence and his perplexed disregard for convention he does not think much of, will not mind.
Csevet peers out at the dancers, leaning on the wall. He may not dance with Amaru here, but they have had their fun— besides, he can see poor Marano standing alone on the sidelines, wearing her pretty blue party dress and a downcast expression.
“I told thee that bastard would stand her up,” murmurs Csevet, tugging on his cuffs and his lapels. Amaru presses down on his shoulders and gives him a gentle shake.
“Stop fussing,” he says, but he is looking over his head. “Poor pet. And in her best party dress, rather than her leathers? Fie.”
“Go and dance with her,” says Csevet.
“Thou'rt a better dancer.”
“But she is afraid of me, and she is not afraid of thee,” says Csevet. Amaru sighs.
“I tell her thou'rt not scary, and she says, he is so stern, Amaru—”
“That’s a kind synonym for priss,” says Csevet. Amaru ignores him:
“...and I say ay, ay, tis the very point— for any man too sweet is none for me, I must be made to do such work for his favour…”
“Go to, Amaru,” sighs Csevet, but Amaru tips him a wink and a pinch before trotting off to sweep away Marano. He knows that Amaru does not really think him prissy, but many of the other couriers do find him uptight, and indeed always have. Oh, he can be charming when he wills it, and it is not as if he does not have friends— but Amaru said once, crossly, that he should always compete with Good Mistress Duty for Csevet's attention. Csevet could not find, and has not ever found, anything to say against that.
When he turns, he sees Arbelan Drazharan sitting a little way away, watching the dancers with something like to wistfulness. Back in her day, so it's said, she danced like the Night Empress. Every masque, every ball. It made her popular.
He wonders how long it has been since she was last asked to dance.
She laughs at his offer, but it's not unkind, and it's not rejection.
“Seeing an old woman in need of flattering, Mer Aisava? You courier, you,” she says, shaking a finger at him. She is wearing a nice, but not extravagant, gown of holly-green velvet, and jade earrings. Csevet knows her secretary and her steward; they are wickedly competent and have done some magic with accounts to provide a wardrobe worthy of a Zhasanai. Old allies of hers have been sending her jewels, too. “Buttering us up? Thinking to do us a favour?”
“You would do us the great honour, Zhasanai. We are but a courier, especially in our connections and our circles— a Zhasanai is a mighty partner.”
“Hm, well, that is not true,” snorts Arbelan. She likes to be sparred with, he knows, and this pleases her. “Csoru, perhaps, if you are apt to feel like you are dancing with a petulant girl— but us?” She shakes her head vaguely, peering at him. “A little fantastical. Still…”
Finally, she accepts his hand, rising with an immense grace, despite her age.
“Silly boy,” she says, but it’s amused. “We confess we are curious about you, Mer Aisava.”
“Many people are curious how such a base man has such a mighty job,” says Csevet neutrally, leading her to the floor.
“Ah, but we do not wonder that,” says Arbelan. “Right place, right time, right master. We do not mean to demean you, but ‘tis so.”
Well, she is right, it is so. Arbelan continues: “What we wonder is how it is that you do all that you do. We know ‘tis no easy job. Varenechibel had a revolving door of secretaries, all kicked out once they displeased him. You do four men’s work like ‘tis nothing.”
She really is a good dancer, even in her sixties; they are an excellent match, and she does rather seem to be enjoying herself.
“We have our ways,” says Csevet.
“We do not doubt that,” says Arbelan, eyes gleaming. “We were at Cethoree for a long time, and we frequently compelled couriers to speak with us by playing the hand of a lonely old woman eager to chat. You are a resourceful profession, clever people. We think you will do what Varenechibel’s secretaries would consider beneath them, use methods they consider base, take views they never would have considered. Do not misunderstand us, Mer Aisava— you are so unbelievably proper they could put you in the margin of dictionaries next to the entry for mannerly. But if one bothers to look at you lurking by doorways and at side tables, one might see the cogs turning.”
“Zhasanai,” said Csevet simply. “You are very clearsighted.”
“When one has lived in the courts of three Emperors, now— well, one learns what to look for,” says Arbelan mildly. “It was very kind of Edrehasivar to invite us to come back and amuse ourself as we will. We are rather enjoying being at court without the obligation to deal with the court.” She laughs. “We have been very frivolous— we have spent our time gossiping, riding, and meeting old friends.” She looks at him and smiles mischievously. “But of course, we are sure you know that, Master Secretary. You have been keeping tabs on us, have you not? We see your little runners going hither and thither. We know one of our kitchen boys is a man of yours.”
“Most of the low born men in court know each other, tangentially,” says Csevet neutrally. Arbelan ignores the objection.
“We cannot blame you,” she says, “It is very shrewd, in fact. For certainly Csoru, Sheveän, and Stano have shown their new head of house very little gratitude, and so it is quite reasonable to assume that the other Drazhada women should be so ungrateful, yes? But for our part, as we are sure you have been told, our backing is with lovely young Edrehasivar Zhas.” She saw Csevet’s face and almost cackled. “We cannot help but patronise him slightly, we are afraid. An old woman’s habit— we must patronise all you nice young men of scalding competency in the Alcethmeret, for we never did have a son of our own. We would have volunteered to take him when his mother died, had we not known Varenechibel would say no. Bundling an unwanted son off with an unwanted wife? Not when we might have taught him to despise his father. Better he felt nothing towards him at all, no?”
“That does… seem to have been Varenechibel’s favoured method,” says Csevet, thinking of Edonomee.
“Oh, yes,” says Arbelan quietly. “Varenechibel was very, very good at careful detachment. Do you know— we never called him Nemera, towards the end? There was none of Nemera Drazhar left to call upon.”
Csevet looks at her. Arbelan says;
“If the Emperor— or any of the Alcethmeret, for that matter— ever wishes for anything from us, Master Secretary… know that we will do it. We are not so entertained with our trivial matters to have forgotten what it is to be young and vulnerable and new at a game that everyone else has been playing for so long.”
“You are very gracious, Zhasanai.”
“We are old and cynical, Master Secretary,” smiles Arbelan—
There is a crack like a tree felling, suddenly, Three trembling heartbeats; Csoru Zhasanai screams.
“What’s toward?” says Csevet, almost shouts it. They are shoved aside— guards are streaming down through the crowd, making at a run towards the dais. No one runs in the court. The last time people ran in court, the Wisdom of Choharo had gone down.
“Uli’s’lid,” Arbelan swears, tall enough to see over the crowd.
“Zhasanai,” presses Csevet, and his voice cracks.
“Someone’s tried it,” says Arbelan. “Someone’s dead, that was a revethmaz. Someone on the ground. Not the Emperor, but— I can’t see him either, damn, there’s so many guards—”
Her face is hard and drawn, when she turns and looks at him—
“ A dagger, Mer Aisava?” she says, grimly amused. “Where have you pulled that from?”
“Tis a letter opener, Zhasanai,” says Csevet numbly, turning the grip over and over in his hand.
“If you wish’t, Master Secretary.” She looks at him, then says; “Do as you must.”
She releases his arm, and he vanishes into the crowd, elbows in people's ribs, ducking under arms. We will, Osmer, we will do it—
And what is it that he will do? If Maia Drazhar is dead, what is it that Csevet should do? He will not be allowed to slink back into the shadows, courier once again, no— not by Tethimar, who will get his dogs to flush any creatures of Edrehasivar’s out into the light. And it will be Tethimar; he will no doubt try to get his claws into Idra and Vedero again— and this time, who will get in his way?
If Edrehasivar goes to Ulis, and his nohecharei go with him, Csevet will follow his customary two steps behind— but by Anmura, he will have Eshevis fucking Tethimar with him.
“Serenity—!”
Csevet gets to the top of the dais and almost trips over the body.
“It is all right, Csevet.”
It is not alright, but it is the Emperor who has said it— the Emperor, who does not even seem to notice the blade in Csevet's hand. He is sitting on the very edge of the throne, elbows on his knees, staring nowhere in particular. He looks very afraid, and very young, and the nohecharei are fussing. But he is obviously unharmed; it is Beshelar's blood on him, Csevet deduces quickly. He must have practically flung himself into the Emperor's lap to get in the way.
Unbidden, an inappropriate urge to laugh takes hold of Csevet— poor Beshelar, so obsessed with propriety— but he is far too well-trained to let it get anywhere.
Besides, the urge is killed too, killed stone dead, once he looks down at the body of the would-be assassin.
Eshevis Tethimar is still lying where he has fallen. The dagger has slipped from his hand and half-skittered under the throne, and it looks as if he may have struck his head on the foot of the throne when he went down. There is not a mark on him— what of his face Csevet can see is bloodless and waxen, a mere model of a man.
Csevet feels he stares for a long time, though his internal clock makes it only a few seconds. He finds his voice is rather thin, when he says.
“Is he— dead?”
“Oh,” says Cala. “Yes. Very dead.”
His voice is unnatural, edged, and his veins have taken on a horrible shiny pallor. When he glances over at Csevet, he smiles, and it is meant to be reassuring— but his eyes are ringed with a filmy black line, fading quickly. Csevet has heard of such things, but never seen them. The side-effects of the death-spell. Revethmaz.
Later, the people closest to the dais claim to have seen Cala cast it, and say that it was awful to behold, that Cala's face was terrible, and that the light moved unnaturally, as if it reached of its own accord. They say that Tethimar screamed, and made no sound.
A leash on the hounds.
Csevet looks back down at Tethimar, shifting his stance to accommodate for the sudden locking of his knees. He crouches slightly, or tries to make it look like a crouch. Clearly somebody isn't fooled, though, because there is a hand at his elbow. At the time, he assumed it was Cala’s— later, he thinks it might have been the Emperor's. But neither of them seem to remember, if it was.
“Order!” Lord Berenar is roaring from somewhere beyond the dais. “Order, order!”
Csevet stands unsteadily, turns hastily to the outside of the dais, which is bristling with guards. What is he doing, crouched here? He has— a job. A duty.
We will, we will do it…
He slips his letter opener back into his sleeve and marches up to the edge of the dais, puts two fingers in his mouth to whistle. In no time at all there are six couriers crowding the dais, clammy, desperate faces turned up to him, waiting for their dispatches. They’re all the young ones, the ones who still run in pairs… but they're his couriers, the Chancery couriers, first to come to his call. And he can see their older counterparts in the crowd, conspicuous in their leathers and their stillness, in their waiting. They will be told. It will spread.
“The Emperor is unharmed,” he says. “Lieutenant Beshelar and Cala Athmaza have done their duty. Eshevis Tethimar made an attempt on the life of the Emperor and he is— dead. Revethmaz. Tell the guard captains, the pneumatics operators. Tell the other couriers. The diplomats. Tell everyone. We want no misquoting and we want no panic-mongering. If you hear of any nobles spreading rumours, anybody attempting to escape, anything suspicious… you will send to us, and we will box their ears.” A few feeble, nervous smiles. As if he could. But oh, he would. “Go. Now.”
While the Emperor goes discreetly to throw up, Csevet himself is cutting through the little-used servant's corridor near the east side of the wine cellar, where the gaslamps have run dim, to fetch a courier to send for Kiru and Telimezh. Even down here, there are other couriers. It is too dark and too narrow to dodge one another, and so he nearly runs into someone several times— until he actually does, rounding the corner near the main barracks dispatch.
“Your pardon—”
“Csevet!” Amaru. He must have looped around from the pneumatics. “I thought thou wouldst come this way—”
He must feel how hard Csevet's hands are shaking, because he tuts and mutters and pulls him into the alcove used for storing Thu-Evresar reds.
“I have to get to—”
“Is't true?” Amaru presses. “Eshevis Tethimar?”
“Dead,” whispers Csevet. His voice is strange to him, raw and strangled. “Cala killed him.”
“Revethmaz?”
“Yes.”
Amaru pulls Csevet to him— they clutch at each other for a moment, listening to the rattling rhythm of other couriers running, in the halls above and beyond.
“I hope he suffered,” says Amaru, eventually.
Csevet says again, mindlessly: “I have to—”
“I know, I know, I've been sent to Pashavar—” He presses two urgent kisses to both of Csevet's hands, and says: “I will find thee later.”
“Twill be much later,” says Csevet, a little despairingly. Salezheio, there will be so much to do. There is a conspiracy here, if they care to examine it…
“I couldn't care if it was high noon.”
“Later, then—”
Their hands slip out of each other’s, and they run, in opposite directions, into the dark.
Tethimar is dead; who does that leave?
The dogs, Csevet thinks. The Tethimada men. Already complicit in so much cruelty, already sicced on petty foxes, surely they would have been loath to miss the chance to bring down a big cat. Unfortunately, hunting big cats with dogs tends to result in more dead dogs than anything else.
In some kind of cruel survival instinct, Csevet remembers the face of every man who had been in Eshoravee that night… and in a deliberate political move, he had learned the names to go with them. He cannot— and frankly, he would not— rule out the involvement of all of them. They will all be at court— sycophants, all, they will be here. He will bring them all in.
It leaves Ubezhar, who, when he tries to run, Csevet honestly cannot help himself— he hits him, and he hits him so hard he knocks Ubezhar reeling one foot to the other. Csevet seizes his collar, jerks him upright, and with the other hand he slides his letter-opener inside Ubezhar’s doublet, pressing just below his ribs.
Ubezhar jolts. He splutters. He knows the Emperor and the lords at the table cannot see Csevet’s arm, and did not see him draw.
He looks at Csevet, and he does not apparently see anything which says bluff.
He goes back to his chair and answers the questions, though he is an utter snivelling craven about doing so.
Who else does it leave? The Count Solichel, apparently, for he is named, though he feigns illness:
“We are bade to tell the Emperor’s man the Count is grievously unwell,” the Count Solichel’s edocharis warbles through the door.
“Tell thy master I promise he certainly will be grievously unwell, if he does not let us in,” snaps Csevet, jiggling the door handle. They are all, except perhaps Edrehasivar, pushed past common politeness and decency tonight, and Solichel is a traitor. “Open the door!”
The edocharis knows what’s good for him, and so he does. Another down.
It leaves two Tethimada cousins who argue with him; we know nothing, we have done nothing, we are innocent. It leaves three more who shriek at him, abuse him; vagrant, whoreson, profligate courier scum. It leaves another, who crumples in a dead faint at the sight of the guards and strikes down an expensive-looking wine jug, which smashes on the floor and seeps purplish-red into the floorboards.
“One wonders if he might have reacted so grandly to the sight of the Emperor slain,” says Csevet waspishly, watching as Orthema’s men seize him under the arms.
He stands on the promenade above the Untheliean and watches them be hauled off to the Esthoramire, one by one. Most of them will not come out again.
All hunting hounds falter eventually. And when they are liabilities, they are put down.
He feels wild and rabid and curiously light, in the odd detachment that always comes with exhaustion. His face is buzzing, and he does not seem to be able to breathe properly.
When a hand touches his elbow, he almost bolts, on pure instinct— but it is just Cala, off-duty, peering myopically at him.
“What are you doing here?” says Csevet.
“We’ve been to see the Adremaza,” says Cala. “And we saw you were still up here. Anmura, have you slept?”
“We are— working,” says Csevet uncomprehendingly.
“Edrehasivar will be most alarmed if you keel over on the clock,” says Cala. “And Amaru is looking for you.”
Normally Csevet might have been surprised that Cala knew Amaru by name, but he is too high-strung to think on it now— besides, Cala and Csevet have run in the same type of social circles for years, and he is a little more observant than he likes to come across.
“We are not finished,” says Csevet helplessly. “There is still—”
“No one will be getting an audience until the shifts change, Csevet,” said Cala. “Thou hast a few hours.” When he still does not respond, Cala takes him gently but firmly by the elbow, and says, “Csevet, go to bed.”
He tows him down the stairs and out into the servant’s corridor. Csevet is too exhausted to argue, and is struggling alongside him, when it occurs to him to say;
“Tethimar.”
“Dead as Ulis’s domain, as I tell thee.”
“Was it—”
“Fast?” says Cala. “Yes. Not painless, though, oh no. Research suggests ‘tis really very nasty. Like being struck by lightning, but exaggerated far beyond the power of one strike. And it leaves the brain til last. So you really feel it. In the Athmaz’are we call that particular incantation Traitor’s Death.”
He sees Csevet is faltering and clamps an arm under his, keeping him upright.
“I think we reacted that little bit faster for what thou hadst told us about Eshoravee,” he adds.
“Everyone knows he i— was scum,” says Csevet wearily.
“Ye-es,” says Cala. “But we knew after that there was nothing he would not stoop to, and so we were already tense when he approached— and frankly, Csevet, I was rather happy for an excuse to fry him inside out. For both thy sake and the Emperor’s.”
“Cala,” Csevet mutters, but Cala must read it as the gratitude it is meant to be, because he just smiles.
“What is it thou sayest? It is our job? Well— this is ours.”
He gives him a fond little squeeze, which is so painfully Cala it is ridiculous, and they stagger on.