A Memory Called Empire

by Arkady Martine

  Nine Maize turned out to be a sturdy man with a slim beard, paler than most Teixcalaanlitzlim, his eyes wide set over flat, broad cheeks. Mahit hadn’t seen many people from this ethnic group—northern, cold-weather adapted, blond—in the City. There’d been a few on the subway, and a few in Central Nine, but they were the eighth most common in the census numbers—she’d done her research before she’d arrived. People who looked like Nine Maize might have been born here on the City, or come from a planet with more cold weather and less subtropical heat—or his parents might have. Or his genetic material might have, and had latterly been selected by some City-dweller as being suitably interesting and compatible with their own, when it was time to make a child. Three Seagrass had introduced Nine Maize as patrician first-class—unfashionably pale or not, he was Teixcalaanli.

  “Is it true,” Mahit asked him, “that you are reciting a new work tonight?”

  “Rumors travel so quickly,” Nine Maize said, looking not so much at Mahit as at Three Seagrass, who blinked at him as if the very suggestion of her complicity made no sense to her.

  “Even to foreign ambassadors,” Mahit said.

  “How flattering,” Nine Maize said. “I do have a new epigram, it’s true.”

  “On what subject?” said another of the patricians eagerly. “We’re due for an ekphrasis—”

  “Out of fashion,” Three Seagrass said, under her breath but just loud enough to be heard. The patrician made a little show of ignoring her. Mahit tried her best not to spoil the effect by smiling like a foreigner, wide and genuinely amused. An ekphrasis—a poetic description of an object or a place—did seem to be old-fashioned. None of the Teixcalaanli poetry which had come to Lsel lately had been in that style.

  Nine Maize spread his hands and shrugged. “The buildings of the City have been described by better poets than me,” he said, which Mahit suspected was a slightly more politic version of exactly what Three Seagrass had said. “Do you like poetry, Ambassador?”

  Mahit nodded. “Very much,” she said. “On Lsel, the arrival of new works from the Empire is celebrated.” She wasn’t even lying—new art was celebrated, passed around through the Station’s internal network; she’d stayed up late with her friends to read new cycles of the latest imperial epics—liking Teixcalaanli poetry was just being cultured, especially when one was barely an adult and still spending all one’s time getting ready for the language aptitudes. Nevertheless she disliked Nine Maize’s acknowledging smile, the condescension in his nod: of course new works were celebrated in backwater barbarian space. For that dislike, she went on, “But I’ve never before had the honor of hearing one of your pieces, patrician. They must not be distributed off-planet.”

  The way Nine Maize’s expression shifted—he couldn’t answer that insult, not from a barbarian—was perfectly satisfying.

  “You’re in for a treat, then, Ambassador Dzmare,” said a new voice.

  “I’m sure I am,” Mahit said automatically, and turned around.

  Thirty Larkspur was unmistakable. The multistranded braids of his hair were woven through with ropes of tiny white pearls and glittering diamonds; another strand made up the band around his temples, to imitate the bottommost part of a Teixcalaanli imperial crown. He had the wide Teixcalaanli mouth and the low Teixcalaanli forehead and the deep hook of the Teixcalaanli nose: the model of an aristocrat. Pinned to his lapel was an actual fresh-plucked purple flower: a larkspur.

  How obvious, Mahit thought. She should have realized. (And realizing, noticed that she felt no echo of Yskandr while looking at this man: he hadn’t known him, not during the five recorded years her imago had lived here. Thirty Larkspur was a mystery to her: she didn’t even have an emotional ghost to rely on. The dead Yskandr must have known him, but he was dead—and she was both damaged (sabotaged!) and out of date.)

  Maybe she’d get to come up with her own opinion. That felt frightening, and a little exhilarating, as a possibility.

  She bowed deeply. “Your Excellency,” she said, and then let Three Seagrass run through Thirty Larkspur’s titles for her. He had his own epithet, of course. He who drowns the world in blooms. Mahit wondered if he’d picked it.

  Straightening, she said, “It’s an honor to meet a person associated to the Imperium such as yourself.”

  Thirty Larkspur said, “I know, it’s the only thing anyone can think when they look at me in this getup. Trust me, Ambassador, Nine Maize’s epigrams are more interesting than a co-heir—I’m sure I’m not the only one you’ll meet tonight.”

  “But you’re the first,” Mahit said. It was difficult not to flirt back with the man, no matter how actually uninterested she was in everything but what opinions Thirty Larkspur held concerning her predecessor and Lsel.

  “I do have that pleasure, Ambassador. I assume I’ll have to make a decent showing of myself. Is this your liaison?”

  “The asekreta Three Seagrass,” Mahit said.

  “We miss you at the salons, Three Seagrass,” said Thirty Larkspur, “but I assume everyone has to work sometime.”

  “Invite me when I’m off-duty,” said Three Seagrass, serene and too expressionless for Mahit to know if she was flattered or insulted or pleased, “if you can’t do without my orations.”

  “Of course.” Thirty Larkspur extended his arm to Mahit. “You won’t be able to hear properly from the center of the floor, Ambassador,” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to come with me and stand where the acoustics are better.”

  Mahit couldn’t come up with a good reason to refuse, and there were several good reasons to say yes: further distancing herself from being seen as Nineteen Adze’s pet prisoner, a chance to ask Thirty Larkspur something about Yskandr, actually hearing the poetry itself instead of everyone’s commentary on the poetry. She put her palm on Thirty Larkspur’s proffered forearm—the blue-and-silver fabric of his jacket was stiff with metallic thread—and let him pull her away from the group, Three Seagrass at her heels. “It’s very kind of you,” she said.

  “Can’t a person want to show off the best of his culture to a stranger?” Thirty Larkspur asked. “This is your first night at court properly.”

  “It is.”

  “The previous ambassador was such a mainstay! We miss him. But perhaps you like poetry more than he did.”

  “Was my predecessor not fond of epigrams?” Mahit said lightly.

  They had stopped further toward the central dais. Thirty Larkspur made a gesture that reminded her of nothing so much as Nineteen Adze dismissing an infograph, and summoned up an attendant with a tray of drinks in deep-belled glasses. Mahit bent her head over hers to smell it: violets, and alcohol, and something she thought might be ginger or another aromatic root that only grew in soil.

  “I believe Ambassador Aghavn preferred epics,” said Thirty Larkspur. He raised his glass. “To his memory, and to your career, Ambassador Dzmare.”

  Mahit imagined drinking and dying, poisoned, in the middle of this enormous room—drank, and was only poisoned so much as to discover that she absolutely hated the taste of violet liqueur. She swallowed and kept her face appropriately expressionless. “To his memory,” she said.

  Thirty Larkspur spun his glass in his hand; the violet swirled. “I’m glad that Lsel Station has provided us with a new ambassador,” he said. “Let alone one who is genuinely interested in epigrams. But you should know, Ambassador Dzmare—the deal is off. There’s nothing I can do about it. Do trust me that I made an attempt.”

  The deal is off?

  What deal? Mahit pressed her lips together—surely she could express disappointment visually—buy time—everything still tasted of violets—What deal, Yskandr! And with who!—and nodded. “I appreciate your candor,” she said.

  “I knew you’d be reasonable about it.”

  “Could I be otherwise?” Mahit said.

  Thirty Larkspur raised both of his eyebrows so that they nearly met his hairline. “Oh, I imagined all sorts of unfortunate reactions.”


  “How pleasant for you that I’m not inclined to hysteria,” Mahit said, as if she was operating on autopilot. What deal, and why would Thirty Larkspur be the person to tell me it was off, and all the time just talking in proper high-register Teixcalaanli, like a glittering veneer over her distress.

  “I hope I haven’t ruined your evening,” Thirty Larkspur said. “It really is going to be a wonderful epigram—Nine Maize is something special.”

  “Perhaps he’ll take my mind off of it,” said Mahit.

  “Fantastic. To your enjoyment of your first imperial oration contest, then.” He lifted the violet again, drank again, and Mahit imitated him. She was never going to get the taste out of her mouth.

  The glimmering lights in the ribs of the vaulted ceiling dimmed to twilight and then brightened again, a flickering and rapid migration of glowing points. The loud chatter of the courtiers diminished. Mahit looked over her shoulder at Three Seagrass, who nodded reassuringly—this was expected, then—and back over at Thirty Larkspur. He put his drink down on the tray of a passing attendant and murmured, “I ought to go stand in the right part of the room, Ambassador. So good to make your acquaintance!”

  “Of course,” Mahit said, “go—”

  He did. Three Seagrass came closer. Mahit said, “Please get me another drink?” at approximately the same moment as Three Seagrass said “What deal?”

  “I don’t actually know.”

  Three Seagrass looked at her with an expression that Mahit hoped wasn’t pity. “A stronger drink than that, then.”

  “Also without violets?”

  “In a minute,” Three Seagrass said. “You don’t want to miss this.” Very gently she took Mahit’s elbow and turned her to where the imperial dais was—

  —to where the imperial dais, which she had thought was a slightly raised oval on a raked floor, was rising from the ground, unfolding. Mahit thought of the City, trapping her in Plaza Central Nine—thought of Thirty Larkspur’s epithet, the world in blooms. The throne rose on soundless hydraulic engines, an unfurling sunburst like a thicket of golden spears, a reified echo of the lights running through the ribbed vault of the ceiling. To the right of it Thirty Larkspur stood exalted in refracted illumination; to the left was a woman Mahit assumed was Eight Loop, stooped in the shoulders and balanced on a silver cane but not any less illuminated—her version of the imperial-associate partial crown glowed bright even against her silvered hair.

  In the center of the sun-spear throne, revealed like a seed in a flower or the core in the heart of a burning star, Mahit got her first glimpse of the Emperor Six Direction.

  She thought, He’s not imposing except by position—he was short, sunken-cheeked, the long fall of his hair more dirty steel than silver even if his eyes were sharp—and then The position is more than enough, I am being devoured by my own poetic imagination.

  Six Direction was old, was small, looked fragile—brittle-boned, too thin, as if he’d been ill and was now just barely recovered. And Six Direction was in command of all this ceremony, or commanded by it—the emperor and the empire were the same, weren’t they? As close as the words for empire and world were, or nearly—and he claimed the attention of every Teixcalaanlitzlim. The exhalation of breath that sagged through the room when he lifted his hand in benediction was like a physical blow.

  Smoke and mirrors and refracted light, and the weight of history in a glance—Mahit knew she was being manipulated and couldn’t find a way to stop being. At Six Direction’s side was a child who must be the ninety-percent clone. A small, serious boy with enormous black eyes.

  And if that wasn’t a declaration of where the succession would eventually fall, Mahit didn’t know what was. It wasn’t going to be a true tripartite council: it was going to be a child-emperor and two regents for him to fight with. That poor child, with Thirty Larkspur and Eight Loop for co-regents. Abruptly she wondered which people in the ballroom were One Lightning’s supporters—if any of the people so prominently wearing purple larkspurs were in fact covering for a less politic choice—and, for that matter, where Ten Pearl from the Science Ministry was, and when he’d approach her.

  “Are you ready to be presented to the Emperor,” Three Seagrass asked archly, “or are you going to stare for a while first?”

  Mahit made a wordless noise, helplessly amused. “What did you feel like, the first time you saw the throne rise?”

  “Terrified that I wasn’t good enough to be here,” Three Seagrass said. “Is it different for you?”

  “I don’t think I’m terrified,” Mahit said, finding her way through how she felt as she framed the sentence, “I think I’m … angry.”

  “Angry.”

  “It’s so much. I can’t not feel—”

  “Of course not. It’s meant to be like that. It’s the Emperor, who is more illuminate than the sun.”

  “I know. But I know I know, and that’s the problem.” Mahit shrugged. “I will be very honored to meet him. No matter how I feel.”

  “Come on then,” Three Seagrass said, holding on to her elbow more firmly. “It’s one of your ambassadorial duties, anyhow! You need to be formally acknowledged and invested with your post.”

  There was a receiving line at the foot of the dais, but it was shorter than Mahit assumed it would be, and His Majesty Six Direction spent no more than a minute with each petitioner. When it was her turn, Three Seagrass announced her again—more quietly this time, but no less clearly—and she climbed the steps to the center of the many-petalled sun-spear throne.

  A Teixcalaanlitzlim would have dropped forehead to the floor, bent over their knees in full proskynesis. Mahit knelt but did not fold—bowed only her head, stretching her hands out in front of her. Stationers didn’t bow, not to pilots nor to the governing Council, no matter how long their imago-lines were, but she and Yskandr had come up with this solution in the two months they’d spent in transit to the City. She’d seen illustrations of the pose in infofiche scans of old Teixcalaanli ceremonial manuals: it was how the alien diplomat Ebrekt First-Positioned had greeted the Teixcalaanli Emperor Two Sunspot on the bow of the ship Inscription’s Glass Key, during the official first contact between the Teixcalaan and the Ebrekti people. (Or, at least, how a Teixcalaanli artist had rendered the pose of a person whose limbs were arranged for quadrupedal locomotion.)

  That had been four hundred years ago out on the edge of known space, after Inscription’s Glass Key had leapt through a new jumpgate unexpectedly, while Two Sunspot was fleeing the usurper Eleven Cloud (Two Sunspot had eventually beaten her and her legions back, and remained Emperor—there were several novels about it, and Mahit had read them all). The Ebrekti had been good neighbors ever since: quiet, keeping to their side of the one gate that connected their space and Teixcalaan. She and Yskandr had calculated what it would say, to bow like this—a respectful statement of distance from the Empire.

  Yskandr had told her that he’d chosen the same pose himself, when he was presented to Six Direction.

  Only now, with her hands stretched out, supplicant but straight-spined, did Mahit wonder if she was repeating a mistake, making all of Lsel inhuman by virtue of one symbolic allusion—

  The Emperor closed his hands around her wrists and lightly pulled her to her feet.

  She was still two steps below the throne, which made her his equal in height. His fingers wrapped around the bones of her wrists were shocking, unexpected. They were hot. The man was burning with fever, and yet Mahit would never have known if he hadn’t touched her. He was wearing some kind of citrus and woodsmoke perfume. He looked straight at her, straight through her—Mahit found herself smiling, helplessly, fighting back a rush of familiarity that wasn’t hers. She thought for a moment it was the beginning of another memory-flash, her failing imago-machine spinning her out of time, back to Yskandr—but no, no, this was all endocrine response.

  Sense memory was one of the strongest carryovers down an imago-line. Scents. Sound, sometimes—music could cue memory�
�but scent and taste were the least narrative, the most encapsulated kinds of memory, the most easily shifted from one person to the next down the line. Perhaps Yskandr was—was less gone than she’d thought, she could hope for that, through the dizzy strangeness of someone else’s neurochemical mirroring.

  “Your Majesty,” she said. “Lsel Station greets you.”

  “Teixcalaan greets you, Mahit Dzmare,” said the Emperor. Like he meant it, like he was glad to see her—

  What the fuck had Yskandr done here?

  “And invests you with your diplomatic office,” Six Direction went on. “We are gratified by the choice of ambassador, and express our wishes for your service to us to be to our mutual benefit.”

  He was still holding her wrists. There was a thick scar on his palm, pressed against her skin, and she thought vividly of that first memory-flash, of Yskandr slicing his own palm open to swear an oath, and wondered how many oaths an emperor swore with blood over the course of his life. The hot pressure of his hands was intense, and she was still caught in the rush of oxytocin happiness that didn’t belong to her and wouldn’t she just like to interrogate Yskandr as to what exactly he’d meant to the Emperor of all Teixcalaan? Somehow she managed to nod, to thank Six Direction with correct formality, to bow and back down the steps of the dais without tripping.

  “I need to sit down,” she said to Three Seagrass.

  “Not yet you don’t,” Three Seagrass told her, not without sympathy. “Ten Pearl is headed straight for us. Are you going to faint?”

  “Do people faint after audiences often?”

  “It’s more a thing in daytime dramas that come over the newsfeeds, but the strangest things end up being repeatable—”

  Mahit said, “I’m not going to faint, Three Seagrass.”

  Three Seagrass actually took her hand and squeezed it. “Excellent! You’re really doing fine.”