II. ...And its Reward
"Ah, Kaddar," said the Emperor, "here you are at last."
"I beg Your Majesty's pardon," said Kaddar, bowing deeply to his uncle, and trying not to display the nervousness that he was accustomed to feeling whenever he found himself in the Imperial presence. His uncle rarely called for him in the middle of the day. The last instance, he thought, had been when the news of Barca's capture had finally come. But then he had been summoned to the Emperor's privy chambers, not to this blandly elegant receiving room. Mythical scenes, fashionable a generation ago, and now charmingly obsolescing, still adorned the walls, the couches were stiff and shiny, and the carpets plain. Mistress Kingsford called it 'gentle' – the appropriate chamber for hearing high-level but unimportant petitioners. So he was to be one more item on the imperial schedule, today.
Emperor Ozorne waved the apology away. "I remember my days at the University – never a moment's rest from study. I'd wager these are the first words you've heard all day not in Old Thak."
Kaddar admitted that this was true, but demurred that it should not have kept him from an Imperial summons and then reiterated his apology, because the situation seemed to require something else to be said. The couches looked lovely. Two hours of debating in the morning and then a wrestling bout made standing at imperial attention less than comfortable.
"Your forbearance yesterday," continued the Emperor, "deserves some reward. Ghazanoi would have done no less."
"Truly, then," said Kaddar, "that is the reward itself: to know that I have lived up to his standard. They were formal words, yesterday, but not idle ones."
"No, no, Nephew: this is but your just due." The Emperor snapped his fingers, and two of the Emperor's Guard entered with an enchained boy, whom they forced prostrate in the Imperial presence. "Barca's get," observed Ozorne. "It's rather surprising that he could whelp such a pretty boy, isn't it? ''Neath godlike hides they hide deceitful hearts' indeed."
"Um," said Kaddar. "Yes, sir." The boy did appear well formed, although he found it hard to judge, not being able to see his face. Not that Kaddar necessarily had any erotic interest in such a thing at all. But he did look like the most artistic sort of emblem of a Subjugated People on the walls of the Imperial University. There was not much resemblance, Kaddar thought, between the boy here and yesterday's criminal. One might say something there about evil and the changes it wrought in a man, perhaps.
"You gave up the father to justice; the son is yours. You may kill him, if you like, or sell him – only do not let him escape. It would be a terrible shame if Ghazanoi's son were the instrument of undoing Ghazanoi's work." He smiled at Kaddar, who inwardly shivered at the implication. But there was no real fear there. He might be a university student, prone to impractical humanitarian philosophizing, but he was no wild-eyed boreaphile who would set free a captured and criminal slave. Certainly not Barca's son, much as it might be preferable to keeping him about. But the emperor continued to muse. "It might be better, indeed, if you didn't sell him. Proud little princes, after all, should serve princes." This last seemed more than half directed at the boy on the floor. It occurred to Kaddar that his words had really not been idle: the emperor had been grossly offended by the rebellion.
"There was a girl, too," continued the Emperor, before Kaddar could more than stammer a confused mix of thanks and assurances. "A very comely little thing. But I think that your studies would hardly benefit from that distraction as well, eh?"
Kaddar was unsure whether to agree or not. He could hardly say yes, but he could hardly imply that he enjoyed Yamani Practices, either. He thought that it was unlikely that his Imperial Uncle would care about either kind of admission; he would probably even enjoy the hearing. But in normal circumstances, which Kaddar liked to pretend he was in, one did not discuss this sort of thing with one's uncle and guardian. Or one's emperor, for that matter. So he merely nodded, with what he hoped was a rueful but sufficiently insouciant smile.
"I have kept her for myself, I'm afraid," the Emperor added off-handedly. "I believe my little birds will enjoy her care." Kaddar bit his lip, half amused and half horrified at the half-heard rumors the comment brought to mind. Theboy on the floor stiffened and raised his head in a vicious glare.
The Emperor ignored him. "Excellent then. Now I shan't keep you from your studies – each to his proper duties, made even more onerous, I'm sure, with all of this tiring fuss." Kaddar would have bet this new and unwanted gift that his uncle was fonder of the 'tiring fuss' of banquets and festivities, or at least of the public acclaim that attended them, than he might pretend. On the other hand, he would have happily bet Barca's son on the least plausible chance, after having mortally, so to speak, offended the Graveyard Hag. Although the goddess would likely make him win, in that case, considering what motive he had for the stakes...
Kaddar had to forcibly unknot his brain from this train of thought to pay attention to the emperor's continued speech. "...But I hope you will dine with me tomorrow, Kaddar, in private. It's the only respite we shall have for some time."
Kaddar found his voice at last: at least this had an obvious and unexceptional answer to it. "Gladly, Uncle. I am newly at Your Majesty's disposal with gratitude." Every other night this week was a court dinner, and he and Zaimid Hetnim had been going to spend tomorrow in revision for Master Lindhall. It was some comfort that his large oration for the mock-trial would be over by then.
Ozorne laughed and waved away his parting salutation.