Five Hundred Years After

by Steven Brust

  Khaavren looked into Vernoi's honest face, and remembered the look of the empty encampment, and the orders he had given, and the broadsheets he had read, and even the faces he had seen as he traversed the streets.

  Then he dropped his voice and said, "My lord, if you care for your wife and your unborn child, then lose not a moment, but send her out of the city at once."

  Vernoi looked at him solemnly, then bowed once and walked back into the Palace. He was running by the time he reached the door.

  Chapter The Twenty-Second

  Which Treats of How Pel Treats Investigation,

  How Mica Treats Srahi to Dinner,

  How His Majesty Treats with His Advisers,

  And How the Physicker Treats Wounds.

  By the time khaavren caught up with His Majesty, the Emperor had finished his supper, which Khaavren considered a stroke of luck; for the supper, and Her Majesty's annoyance, would not have prevented Khaavren from causing himself to be announced at once, yet must have led to an unpleasantness that Khaavren would, to say the least, not have enjoyed—the more so because, after overhearing her conversation with Daro, he feared that he would have no small difficulty in restraining his tongue should the Consort direct any ironic words in his direction. We should add, however, that this reflection, involving as it did the concept of supper, did make Khaavren realize that he had not eaten that day, and he resolved to remedy this omission as soon as possible. His Majesty, escorted by the Consort and by Thack, was on his way to the baths when Khaavren found him.

  The Emperor, upon hearing Khaavren's gentle cough, turned, and cast his gaze over the Captain's grim countenance, dust- and blood-covered clothing, pale complexion, and trembling posture. "Well, my dear Captain," he said. "You seem to have met with some misfortune."

  The Consort, turning at the same time as the Emperor, also looked upon Khaavren's worn visage and grim countenance, and she took a single step to the side, realizing, no doubt, that a matter of some urgency was about to be discussed, and that she should therefore stay out of the way; yet Noima was, for her own reasons, unwilling to allow whatever intelligence was to pass between Emperor and soldier to also pass out of range of her hearing.

  Khaavren, we should add, paid no attention to the Consort except to bow to her before addressing His Majesty, which he did in these terms: "Yes, Sire, I have met with a most grievous misfortune."

  "And that is? If there is a question of misfortune, I wish to hear about it at once."

  "Sire, I have failed in the task you did me the honor to assign me."

  The Orb darkened, and with it, His Majesty's countenance. "How, you failed, Captain?"

  "It gives me pain to confess it, Sire."

  "And yet, you have never failed before to my mind."

  "Sire, everything that happens must, on some occasion, happen for the first time, and there is little that will never happen at all."

  "You are a philosopher, Captain?"

  "Yes, Sire, or a soldier, if it please you; 'tis hard enough to choose between them."

  "How so? Please explain, for you perceive these observations interest me exceedingly."

  "The soldier thinks with his sword, the philosopher kills with his pen, yet each is ruthless enough."

  "Well, I understand what you are saying."

  "In fact, Sire, I am saying that, to-day, Your Majesty would have been better off with a philosopher who could ride and fence, rather than a soldier with a ready wit."

  "You say that because, there being an occasion for everything, on this occasion you have failed."

  "Yes, Sire."

  His Majesty sighed, as if attempting to calm himself, although the Orb remained a dark and brooding red. "Tell me how it happened."

  "Sire, my thought was to proceed alone to effect Adron's arrest."

  "Alone? And why alone, Captain?"

  "Because, Sire, he is surrounded by an army."

  "Well, of this I am aware. And so?"

  "Sire, it seemed to me that, should he wish to do battle, all of my battalion together would be insufficient, and if he did not, well, I would not require anyone else."

  "Well, I understand. Then I take it that he did not choose to be arrested?"

  "He did not, Sire. He posted soldiers at the entrance to his camp, and they prevented me from passing."

  "They prevented you?"

  "Effectively, Sire."

  "How many?"

  "They numbered three."

  "Well, I can hardly fault you for failing to defeat three of Lord Adron's best soldiery. And yet, it seems that if you had brought a good company, matters might have fallen out differently."

  "That may be true, Sire. And yet, if I may be permitted to disagree with my sovereign, His Highness was expecting me to appear with support, and had posted the three Dragonlords there only to give warning—Your Majesty may recall that the Breath of Fire Battalion, above all else, is skilled in moving and attacking quickly. Moreover—"

  "Yes? Moreover?"

  "Your Majesty did me the honor to say that I could not be expected to defeat three of His Highness's soldiers."

  "Yes, and if I did?"

  "Alas, Sire, if my only goal was the defeat of these soldiers, I should feel naught but triumph."

  "How is that?"

  "Well, Sire, I still live, and they—"

  "Yes, and they?"

  "They do not."

  "How, you killed all three of them?"

  "I had that honor, Sire. Yet, in the course of the discussion, which I assure Your Majesty grew tolerably warm, they wounded me so that for several moments I knew nothing, and were it not for a friend who came to my aid as I lay on the ground, I do not doubt that I should still be there, dead or alive, as chance would have it."

  "I see." His Majesty sighed once more. "So, we have been checked, and Adron is a rebel."

  "Yes, Sire, Adron is a rebel. And it is true that we have been checked, although—"

  "Yes?"

  "I have only failed for the moment—the final throw has not yet been played."

  "Indeed, Captain? Please expand on this statement, for you perceive I find it of great interest."

  "Sire, Adron has left with his entire battalion, and, moreover, I was, as I have had the honor to explain, attacked as I attempted to carry out Your Majesty's order. What I have not yet told Your Majesty is that I was given, in his name, a message to deliver to Your Majesty."

  "A message?"

  "Yes, Sire."

  "And the message takes what form?"

  "Sire, His Highness will submit to arrest, he says, when he is offered an apology from Your Majesty for the insult he pretends you have done his daughter by having her rooms searched and her property seized."

  The Orb darkened still further, and Khaavren noticed that the Consort, who had been listening intently to the conversation, took half a step backward and quickly drew in her breath, while simultaneously covering her lips with her fingers, as if she had committed an indiscretion at dinner.

  "That is what he said?" demanded the Emperor, with a certain tone of amazed disbelief.

  "His very words, Sire, as they were relayed to me by the impudent soldiers who then proceeded to so effectually puncture my epidermis, though not without cost to themselves."

  "Yes? And yet?"

  "Sire, as Your Majesty has done me the honor to say, this is nothing short of rebellion; hence, it would seem appropriate to engage the Warlord, and to call out Imperial Troops. That is why I say the game is not yet over."

  His Majesty pondered this for some few moments, while the Orb returned to a calmer hue. Then he said, "Give me your opinion, Captain: Does Adron think he can survive against the military might of the Empire?"

  "Sire, His Highness is a military genius, and, moreover, a powerful sorcerer. I do not know what would be the final result of such a decision on Your Majesty's part, yet I cannot but believe Your Majesty would be unwilling to permit him to escape Imperial justice. He may well know this; in fac
t, he probably does. Perhaps it is to him a matter of principle, or perhaps he is merely stubborn, or perhaps he expects rescue from some source of which we are not aware, or perhaps he merely has such confidence in himself and his troops that he believes he can defeat the Empire. I do not know. And yet—"

  "Yes? And yet?"

  "If it is a matter of confidence in his troops, well, I do myself the honor to believe that we have today somewhat shaken this confidence."

  "Yes, I believe you are right." The Emperor considered for another moment, then said, "You are exactly right about one thing at least, my Captain. He will not be allowed to engage in such blatant rebellion while I still have the power to bring him to Imperial Justice."

  The Emperor waved to a servant, who attended him at once. "Find Jurabin and Rollondar, and have them meet me and Lord Khaavren in the Seven Room in an hour."

  The servant bowed and hurried off on his errand. The Emperor turned to his wife and said, "My dear, I'm afraid—"

  "Your Majesty need say no more," said the Consort. "I understand entirely, and I shall not look for you until you have appeared."

  The Emperor pressed her hand, after which she departed down the corridor. As she left, His Majesty looked at Khaavren, frowned, and said, "But, Captain, are you in any condition to sit through such a discussion as we must have? You are wounded, are you not?"

  "Yes, Sire, though not grievously. If I may have leave to find something to eat, I believe I will recover sufficient strength to survive two words of conversation on so vital a matter as we are facing, for, if we are to plan a campaign, there are things I must say that will not wait."

  "Let it be so," said His Majesty.

  Khaavren bowed, and hurried off as quickly as his condition permitted to find victuals with which to repair his long abstinence. He made his way to His Majesty's kitchen, a prodigious affair taking up three floors in back of the Imperial Wing. Here, after searching for only a few minutes, he found a servant, and, after making a few discreet inquiries, Khaavren was shown where to find bread and cheese, of which he availed himself with a fine passion.

  "The bread," he remarked after swallowing the first bite, "is famous, warm as it is, though I admit that the color surprises me, and the cheese produces a sting upon the back of the tongue that I find quite pleasing."

  "I am glad the food pleases you, my lord," said the pastry chef, who had done himself the honor of serving Khaavren personally, "for the bread is of my own fashioning, and uses, in proportions which are my particular secret, rednuts which have been ground to a powder mixed with the wheat flour; it is these that account for the color, as well as for the texture. As to the cheese, I can claim no credit save for selecting it. It comes from the vassals of Lord Dunn, and—my lord? Are you well? You seem pale and are pitching most alarmingly, and I beg you to—hullo? My lord? Help, someone! Help! The Captain has been taken ill!"

  We cannot but think that the reader's imagination will adequately supply the confusion and consternation caused by Khaavren's unceremonious collapse—the running of messengers in search of His Majesty's physicker, the excitement in Khaavren's offices caused by subordinates desperate to learn their Captain's condition, the annoyance of His Majesty who had counted upon the Tiassa's cool head and long experience in deciding how best to face the crisis brought about by Adron's abrupt rebellion. We will not, therefore, dwell on these matters, but will, instead, turn the reader's attention to certain events of which he must otherwise remain ignorant—that is, to our old friend Pel, who was, just as Khaavren was being carried to a chamber commanded by the physicker, emerging from the Underside in the company of Tazendra.

  "And yet," said Tazendra as they walked toward the Palace at a speed that seemed entirely out of character for Pel, who was dressed again in his cavalier's costume, "I do not comprehend why our errand has such urgency."

  "How, you do not?" said Pel, glancing at her in surprise without breaking stride.

  "None in the world, I assure you."

  "And yet, you were standing next to me when we entered the murchin-shop—"

  "How, a murchin-shop? Is that what it was?"

  "What you had thought it was, Tazendra?"

  "Why, I hadn't any of my own thoughts; it was not, you perceive, my shop."

  "Well, that is true," said Pel. "Nevertheless, you were there—"

  "Oh, I do not deny that."

  "—and you stood next to me while the shopmaster explained about the deceased assassin, whose name appears to have been Chalar—"

  "Certainly, I heard that."

  "—and where he might be found—"

  "That puzzled me, because, he being dead—"

  "—you perceive we followed on his trail—"

  "—it follows that where he was could not be of interest to us—"

  "—finding at last a place he has been known to frequent—"

  "—and, in fact, we never did find him—"

  "—where we also learned with whom he has been seen—"

  "—which is just as well, for I have seen corpses, and have never enjoyed looking at them—"

  "—and we received, eventually, very good descriptions of his cronies—"

  "—so that I do not comprehend why we even went to those places—"

  "—and learned that two of them were Jhereg—"

  "—and spoke with Jhereg about I know not what—"

  "—after which we spoke with certain acquaintances of mine—"

  "—although you seemed to be on good terms with them, which I wonder at—"

  "—and gave these descriptions to them—"

  "—and then they said two words about each—"

  "—and when we learned that they were both known assassins—"

  "—after which we set off at this furious pace—"

  "—we set off as fast as we could, because there is no doubt—"

  "—with you claiming—"

  "—that Khaavren's life is in danger—"

  "—that Khaavren's life is in danger—"

  "—and you still do not comprehend why?"

  "—and I still do not comprehend why."

  "Tazendra, were you listening to me?"

  "I beg your pardon, my dear Pel, I was muttering to myself, for I am still tolerably confused. Attend—"

  "Well, it is of no moment; you must trust me. Khaavren is in great danger."

  "Bah! He? Impossible!"

  Pel shook his head and gave up on the notion of attempting to convince his friend; on Tazendra's part, she knew, in spite of her protestations to Pel, that the Yendi had a subtle and clever imagination, and could see into deep matters that would baffle ordinary minds, wherefore she matched him step for step as they raced toward the Imperial Palace.

  At the same time, some distance away, were taking place events that were not as unrelated to all of these other matters as the reader might, at first, suspect. In the Hammerhead Inn—which, as the reader may recall from certain events which occurred there in our earlier volume, was located quite close to Khaavren's house—the next step in a romance was being played out: To wit, Mica, after taking careful account of his personal treasury, was buying a good dinner for himself and for Srahi, to whose company he had grown more and more attached as the days went by.

  Mica's generosity extended to roasted fowl, dripping with fat and positively smothered with mushrooms, short-grain bread baked with sweet peppers and half-garlic, and a bottle of sweet white wine; all of which were treated by Srahi with the reverence they deserved, both for their intrinsic quality and for what they cost (for, as the reader is doubtless aware, cost is not absolute, but relative—this same dinner, at the same price, would have been a mere trifle for Tazendra, yet it was nearly a fortune for poor Mica, who habitually lived on the leavings from his master's plate).

  To complete the satisfaction provided by this veritable feast, Srahi endeavored to make pleasant conversation. We use the word endeavored because at first she had to make an effort to do so, yet we should ad
d that, very quickly, because of the natural agreement in the character of these two individuals, no effort was required, but, rather, the conversation proceeded across the table as smoothly as the victuals proceeded in the opposite direction.

  It is not our intention to weary our readers with details of this conversation—it is sufficient to say that it befit two worthy Teckla who were discovering, amid pleasant surroundings, how agreeable they found one another's company (far more agreeable, we should add, than the servants of the Hammerhead found their presence, for it is an invariable law that the most unpleasant sorts of patrons to an inn are, in the first place, those with so much wealth and power that they believe everyone ought to answer to their least whim, and, second, those who are so poor that they believe, as they are spending so much of their hard-won money on their repast, that it ought to be as important to the servants as it is to them).

  As they neared the end of the meal, discussing their masters, those tasks they found most annoying as well as those they found most agreeable, the interesting color of each other's eyes and hair (all four samples of which were, in fact, a nearly identical nondescript brown), the value of white meat versus dark meat and the importance, in the case of the former, of insuring it was sufficiently moist, and so on, Mica gave a loud, imperious call for bread, with which he intended to soak the remaining juice from the broad, wooden platter upon which the fowl had been presented. A servant brought a loaf of coarse black bread, and accompanied it with such a resentful look that Mica could not help but notice.

  "Bah!" he said. "Did you mark the servant, and his ill-favored countenance."

  "I did," said Srahi. "Cha! What manners they have!"

  "Had I my bar-stool, well, I assure you I should have words with him."

  Srahi gave him a puzzled look. "Had you your what?"

  "My bar-stool. Surely you recall the stories good Lord Khaavren told, of—"

  "Ah, yes! Indeed, I do recall. I was merely startled, for I had not realized that you still thought of such implements as weapons."

  "Well, I do not in general, but my own is different, for I am so used to it. Indeed, I assure you that, whenever I venture out upon a campaign, I would not think to leave it behind—it is, after all, the weapon with which I am most familiar."