A bitter game of consequence
Chapter 2 – Party
A/N: Thanks for all the nice reviews. I hope you like the next chapter.
Disclaimer: Still not mine. I'll alert you if that state changes.
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Ocato's initial assumption had proved true. It was a long evening. The counts weren't always easy to deal with separately, all on one heap they were almost unbearable. Not all of them of course, but combined it was a real strain on the chancellor's nerves.
He had managed quite well so far, at least he believed he did. He had managed to fend off Narina Carvain's misplaced interest in him as well as he could so far and the conversation between the two of them had ended rather quickly.
All of the count's were busy talking among each other, since they barely met, but each time he was finished talking to someone there was always someone else ready to talk to him at the next chance. He felt as if they were all jumping at him, looking for a chance to talk to him privately. Or at least as privately as was possible at a reception like this.
They were actually in a better mood than he had expected for the most part. Andel Indarys, the Dunmer count of Cheydinhal was friendly towards everyone and seemed to be quite happy, completely oblivious to the nasty glances some of the Imperial count's were shooting him. They were obviously still disapproving of the fact that a Dunmer had become count a cyrodiilic city, but that mattered little to Ocato, and Indarys didn't seem to mind either. He was quite pleasant company.
The countess of Anvil was in an exceptionally good mood as well. Millona Umbranox' husband Corvus had recently returned after having been vanished completely for several years. Ocato had absolutely no idea where the count had been or how he had come back, but it was evident that his wife couldn't be happier about it. She was constantly smiling and being nice to everyone. She also never let go of her husband's hand, whom she dragged everywhere she went. He seemed to be a little lost at her behavior and feeling awkward at being pushed around all the time, but Ocato saw him looking at his wife with a smile on his face every time she didn't look at him. They made an impression of being teenagers who had freshly fallen in love, and the high chancellor wouldn't be at all surprised if at the end of the evening he found the two of them kissing in some corner. Also both of the representatives of Anvil had congratulated him enthusiastically on how well he had handled the Oblivion crisis.
The chancellor couldn't exactly tell what Arriana Valga of Chorrol was thinking of him, but it mattered little to him anyway, still she was oddly distant and closed up when he had talked to her. This confused him a little since all the others either openly showed their disapproval of him or told him of their support. She was apparently trying to keep neutral, but he wasn't exactly sure why she did that. On the other hand her behavior was amusing to watch. She was the oldest countess around and behaved as if she was everyone's mother, a fact that seemed to be highly embarrassing to the countess of Leyawiin who was in fact the older woman's daughter.
The recently married Alessia Caro had a somehow conspirative air to her. She was talking politely to everyone, but when she believed no one was looking she whispered lowly to her husband who just seemed to nod at everything. Ocato had the feeling in this relationship the count was definitely not the one in charge. But that didn't concern him. What did concern him was that both of them seemed to have a lot of things to criticize about the way he led the empire. They had come to talk to him several times, always whining about how little support Leyawiin received from the Elder's council. It was not like that information was new to him, since he received letters from the count almost every week, ever since he had married Alessia Caro. He definitely didn't like the influence the woman had on the man.
Regulus Terentius of Bravil very openly disliked the chancellor and he informed everyone on his views on that topic in a lowered voice that was still clearly audible. Even when talking to the chancellor he had a looking-down expression on his face that informed Ocato rather clearly of what the man was thinking about him. Their conversation hadn't lasted long. A little later Ocato had noticed him whispering enthusiastically with Alessia Caro, probably sharing embarrassing stories about everyone in the room and sharing their mutual dislike of the chancellor, while count Caro stood next to them, nodding sometimes, even though neither seemed to notice his presence.
The count of Bravil and the countess of Leyawiin would probably make a much better couple than the countess and her actual husband. Of course she couldn't simply leave one count and marry the next, but if it were possible she probably would.
The chancellor did his best to ignore Narina Carvain. He hadn't talked to her anymore, but whenever she looked in his direction she waved and smiled at him. Ocato was beginning to find her behavior really obnoxious, but as long as she didn't make any more open attempts at flirting (which she was bad at) he believed he could tolerate it.
Ocato had had short, polite conversation with every count so far. Except for one. That one was a special case.
Janus Hassildor of Skingrad had never attended this annual meeting as far as Ocato knew. He couldn't be entirely sure since this meeting hadn't really been much of his business when the emperor had still been alive, but he did remember that every year a letter in neat handwriting had informed the emperor of the fact that the count of Skingrad could regrettably not attend. The chancellor had always suspected there was some personal reason to this, and the moment he had first met him this afternoon when he arrived he knew what it was.
He doubted the other counts had realized, since it was not very visible when count Hassildor was standing alone in a shady corner of the room, which he did. Every time one of the other counts had attempted to talk to him, he had been tight lipped and none of these conversations had lasted longer than a few minutes. Even the ever so happy countess of Anvil hadn't managed to get more than a few sentences out of the man.
At the moment the other counts seemed to be content with talking amongst each other, so Ocato decided to go and meet the doubtlessly most interesting of them.
"You never came to one of these meetings before," Ocato said when he arrived next to the vampire. "Now I can clearly understand why."
"I figured you'd notice. Mages always see that kind of thing," Janus Hassildor said. He spoke matter-of-factly and didn't seem to be too concerned that the chancellor knew about his secret now.
"Then if you knew I would notice, why did you even come? You never did before, no one would have asked a question."
"To make you notice," the count answered. Ocato waited for him to add something to his statement, but he didn't.
"And why would you want that?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"It's better if you know it now, under these circumstances than if you find out under less favorable ones," the count stated.
"Do you expect circumstances to turn unfavorable?" Ocato asked with an unreadable expression.
"That is actually the second reason why I'm here. I have some information concerning you that I believe could be important," Hassildor said.
"And what kind of information would that be?" For some reason Ocato was quite aware of the counts teeth when he talked. They were small in comparison to those he had already seen on other vampires, and yet they were somehow unsettling.
"I have a lot of informants. They observe the mood in the people for me, when I myself can't go out to ask them. Lately that mood has worsened. Ever since the Emperor's death there has been a darker mood around. Not just because of the Oblivion crisis, but also because of the uncertainty of the future. Almost all of my informants believe that there is going to be a civil war. Soon."
The chancellor nodded grimly. These information were no news to him. He was very aware of the possibility of a civil war, and the whole point of everything he had done since the Emperor's death was meant to prevent that.
"But I guess you already know that. I'm here to warn you of something else. Apparently there are already parties forming for that war, everyone with a different agenda, but all of them have one thing in common. You," the count informed him.
The Altmer's eyebrows shot up. "Me?" he repeated.
"Yes. Most of these parties seem to believe that influencing you could be the key to success. If you do what they want they think it's easier to gain dominion of the Empire," The counts voice was very serious.
Ocato had so far not even thought about the fact that these troubles of the Empire could become quite personal to him. Still, what the count said made sense. He was de facto ruler of the Empire and he did have the power over a lot of things. Up to now he had never really seen himself as very important, but suddenly he was very aware of how important he actually was.
"I'll be careful," he said warily.
"I hope you will," Hassildor said.
For a moment neither of them talked. Then Ocato felt the need to change the subject. "Did the Emperor know about your… condition?"
The count looked to the floor. Apparently this was not a topic he was eager to discuss. "Yes," he said and his voice seemed considerably weaker than before. "The mages guild knows too."
"figures they would." Again there was silence between them. "Well, if the Emperor was okay with it, and the guild is too, I guess I don't mind either."
"Thank you," the count said gratefully.
Without saying more, Ocato left the count standing in his corner where he seemed to be quite comfortable. Everything was said. He didn't like what the count had told him. He had somehow hoped that this kind of trouble at least wouldn't haunt him today, but he knew he couldn't flee the situation and it was ready to follow him anywhere. Tamriel was going through trough a difficult time and he was unfortunate enough to be right in the middle of trouble.
His mood had definitely dropped considerably by now.
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The annual meeting with the counts was actually not something that carried great significance. There was a reception in the evening and the counts spent the night in the palace, afterwards the counts left in the morning. It wasn't actually a big thing in politics, but it was more of a courtesy to keep the counts happy and the atmosphere well.
There was a lot of good food and a lot of talking but there was also a lot of good wine.
It was noon by now, and the slight headache the chancellor had received from drinking just a little more than his share of said wine had by now developed to be a major hangover. Each of the counts had chosen their own moment to leave so they could all get one last word with the chancellor. He had taken notes after saying goodbye to each, because he didn't feel up to remembering everything all of them had said in his current condition.
The count of Skingrad had actually left right after the end of the reception and chosen to travel at night, which was understandable after all. Everyone else had used their chance to benefit of the Imperial palace's luxury. In the morning Millona and Corvus Umbranox of Anvil had been suspiciously happy and relaxed, and the chancellor guessed they had taken full advantage of the large bed the guestroom they had slept in (if they had) was equipped with.
By now they were all finally gone, the last to leave had been Narina Carvain who had still annoyed him greatly by hinting she would soon invite him to visit her in Bruma. He planned to be unavailable at the time, and considering his workload that was probably not too hard to accomplish.
He had barely had 5 hours of sleep that night, because the reception had been long and he had been forced to get up early to deal with everything else he worked on. By now he had realized that it had actually been over 2 months since the last time he had been able to sleep a night properly. Realizing that had definitely not helped brighten his mood.
For the second time in two days Ocato was completely unable to concentrate on the mess of documents before him. He knew he finally had to do something about this. If he wasn't able to do his best for the future of Tamriel he would only make everything worse. No matter how important and urgent his work was, he desperately needed to change something to be able to do something about this entire situation he had on his hands.
And he knew just the best thing he could do, to achieve just a little relaxation.
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Why not trim the hedge to take up the shape of a dragon? It would fit so well, a nice way to work the huge dragon statue of the Temple district into the layout of the arboretum. Kjariel had spent the better part of the morning trying to convince the chief gardener of this notion, but he would have none of it. In his opinion one large dragon was enough for one city, not counting the dragon statue in the middle of the elven garden district.
Kjariel sighed and continued trimming the hedge into a boring shape, namely a large sphere. Her idea had been good, and she knew it. But it didn't matter much, because even if she started now to change the hedge's shape to one of a dragon it would become a quite pot-bellied one, and that was something she really didn't desire.
He thoughts drifted away from her exciting hedge sphere and towards her display of utter lack of intelligence the day before. How could she have not noticed? The question had plagued her thoughts almost the entire night. She felt so idiotic. But her sister was right. She would never meet him again anyway.
"Hello"
The sound of a familiar voice startled Kjariel so much that she dropped the hedge clippers she had been using. She turned around quickly and was met by the smiling face of the most powerful man of the Empire. The heat that immediately rose up to her face was her indication that the color of her face now probably resembled more that of a large tomatoe than of a Bosmer.
"Ch… chancellor," she stuttered. "How… unexpected." Mentally she kicked herself for her stupidity. By now he probably thought she was the most stupid person of Tamriel.
His smile lost a little of its intensity at the sound of his title. Kjariel didn't exactly know what to make out of that reaction, but she didn't care too much and instead started talking in a speed that was just a little too fast, which made her voice seem somehow high pitched.
"I'm so sorry that I didn't recognize you yesterday, I should've known and I'm deeply sorry, and I hope I haven't been too disrespectful or so, I… I," she was completely at loss for words, actually. She didn't exactly know what she was really trying to say.
"That's no problem, really," the chancellor said.
"Really?" Kjariel asked warily.
"Really. I actually liked it that you treated me normally. I was actually hoping you wouldn't stop that," he answered with a hint of regret in his voice.
"Huh?" Kjariel asked while her eyebrows shot up. She knew it wasn't the most witty thing to say, but she could think of nothing else.
"Well, you know, everyone is always just addressing me with chancellor and so on. I sometimes get the feeling that except for my job I don't have a real identity. It was refreshing to meet someone who just talked to me like a friend," he explained. She was completely surprised that he talked to openly to her.
"Oh," she said. She had never thought of the fact that maybe people in his position could be unhappy. Now that she considered it she realized that believing just having a certain position would make people happy was rather stupid, but somehow her mental image had always been that nobles were always happy whereas everyone else in the population had problems. She had absolutely no idea where that believe came from. "Well, if you want me to, I can still treat you like just any other Altmer walking around the garden, chancellor."
"I'd love that," he answered with a smile, "but don't call me chancellor. To you I'm Ocato."
She chuckled a little. "Well then, Ocato, how come you're here again? You told me yesterday that you barely had the time to get a little time to yourself."
"I don't, actually. But I just couldn't stand the palace anymore", he said. While they were talking they moved towards one of the benches and sat down. Kjariel had completely forgotten about trimming the hedges.
"Why not? I thought it's beautiful," she asked. She had never actually been inside the Imperial palace, even though she could've gone there, but she had never had any reason to do so.
"Well, the palace itself is. It's more about all those stupid political problems that are waiting for me on the inside," he told her.
"Why so?"
"The Empire is a mess. There were tensions before the Emperor died and now it's worse than ever. All the Provinces seem to suddenly develop a thirst for Independence and it 's my job to keep them all together. Not a pleasant thing. By now I'm really sick of politics."
"What's the problem with politics?", Kjariel asked interested. She had never really considered any of those problems since they hadn't really concerned her, but she felt fascinated by what the chancellor was telling her.
"It's all about discussion and compromises. But there's also a certain falsity to everything. You're polite to everyone, even though you know they hate you and you hate them. You always have to try to gain everyone's favor even if you don't like them, everything you do has to be well considered even the most negligible details. It's all about deception sometimes. And the more I have to do it the more I hate the fact that there's no real honesty in all of this."
"And now that the emperor is dead I'm suddenly being blamed for everything that goes wrong. I'm really sick of it by now. Not to mention all the tedious and unnerving dinner parties that are part of it, that are supposed to be casual and in reality are all just another part of this idiotic business"
"Do you have a lot of those dinner parties?"
"Almost every day," Ocato snorted. There was nothing he hated more than these stupid receptions. "Yesterday all the count's of Cyrodiil were there - an obnoxious lot, really – and today there's a large delegation of Summerset Isle who are all dead set on getting away from the Empire while I have to keep them."
"Well, if you have so many parties, why don't you use them?"
He stared at her for a moment. "Use them for what?"
"Well, you need some relaxation, you need to blow off some steam. Why not do that on one of those parties? I heard parties are good for relaxing. Have some fun!"
Before he could answer the two of them were interrupted by a loud voice behind them.
"Chancellor!"
Both of them turned around. Behind the bench there was a man wearing the ornamented armor that was unique to the palace guards and the guard captains. He had a look of worry and disapproval on his face. Ocato rolled his eyes theatrically and said, "Can I help you, Mr Civelli?"
"Didn't you listen to me yesterday? About the security?", the Imperial asked, completely ignoring Khariel's presence.
"I tried not to, no," Ocato answered in a calm voice that betrayed his annoyance.
"Someone like you should not go anywhere without protection," the guard captain said, ignoring the chancellor's statement.
Ocato turned to Kjariel and pointed at the man. "You know, guys like him are another part of my job that I don't particularly like."
Kjariel chuckled, but was quieted immediately by the large man's glare.
"I'm coming," Ocato said with a sigh. "Goodbye, Kjariel"
"Goodbye, Ocato" she answered. She looked after him as he left the garden apparently arguing with the Imperial.
She picked up her clippers again and continued to work on her hedge. She hoped Ocato would visit her again sometime. He was from a completely different world apparently that the one her life took place in and she was oddly fascinated by him. She sighed.
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The chancellor's robes for this evening were blue. Once again he stood in front of the door of the room where the reception was to take place. The delegates from Summerset Isle were already inside. This was supposed to be a casual meeting, before the negotiations tomorrow. Ocato had no illusions. There was nothing casual about this kind of meetings, regardless of what Kjariel had suggested.
He straightened his robes and entered. Inside it was already loud and uncomfortable. To his luck several representatives of the Elder's council were there, too, so today he wasn't as alone as usually.
The evening passed quite uneventfully. It was an oasis of small talk in which everyone participated. Ocato didn't exactly listen to most of the things he was told since they were of little relevance anyway and the things that he told were as useless as everything else, too.
One thing however was special about this evening. Most of the delegates from Summerset Isle were male, and old, too. The women weren't too interesting either, since most of them were already quite old.
Except for one of them. The entire evening Ocato had spared glances for the youngest of the delegates. She wore a not too spectacular dress of blue and green silk, that had little ornaments, but none were needed. She was beautiful, regardless of any jewelry or clothes.
Her long black hair was tied back in a neat ponytail and every now and then Ocato noticed her looking at him with almost as much interest as he had for her. He didn't know her name and hadn't had talked with her so far, but now as she didn't have someone to talk to she went over to him. Her dark eyes caught his, and he couldn't look away from her, even if he had tried.
"Good evening, chancellor," she said in a low and soft voice that somehow did even more to charm him. He suddenly remembered what Kjariel had told him to relieve his stress. Have some fun.
"Good evening," he answered.
And a sudden impulse told him exactly that tonight, he was going to have fun.
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