by Dave Duncan
Every morning—or almost every morning, because a Seven had many duties—Irona met after breakfast with Daun Bukit and Sazen Hostin to plan her day and other days ahead. They were a good team, those two, a matched pair of opposites: Daun as honest and straightforward as a javelin, Sazen as ugly and devious as a spider.
One of Sazen’s task was to keep track of the votes coming up in the next week or so. One day he said, “Election of a Seven. Taulevu 666’s term is ending.”
Ah! Irona thought for a moment. “When we get to the Palace, would you ask Chosen Ledacos to drop by my office sometime? At his convenience, of course.”
Daun looked appalled. “You’re not thinking of voting for that rodent, are you?”
Sazen chuckled. “Of course she is. After three losses, he will never get elected to the Seven. But she’ll offer to nominate him, and in their present mood, the Seventy will certainly give her whatever she wants. He still has a stable of fifteen or twenty clients, and this way he’ll have to tell them to follow her lead or he’ll be seen as a monstrous ingrate. Combining his clients and hers will let her run the Empire for the next two years.”
“Sazen,” Irona grumbled, “you are too fornicating sneaky for your own good.”
Before she even left Sebrat House, though, Irona had to receive Velny Lavice, who was waiting outside the study door. She was clearly in great distress. Perched on the edge of the stool, she had great trouble getting to the point, gabbling about trivialities, while all the time her hands clawed at the lace apron that was the formal symbol of her housekeeper status.
Eventually Irona had to prompt her. “Is this about Puchuldiza again?” Her protégée was more trouble than a whole shipload of trogs.
Velny nodded, biting her lip. “She’s been upsetting, I mean asking … Hayk and now Sopoetan. …”
Sopoetan was a footman. “Who’s Hayk?”
“The new garden slave, ma’am. He didn’t feel he could refuse her, and now he’s terrified what you may do to him.”
“I shall do nothing to him. Praise him for telling you, but instruct him that if she tries it again, he must report it to you right away. Did Sopoetan ’fess up too?”
“Um … when I asked him, ma’am. He looked so guilty.”
Velny sighed. She had an empire to run and that was easier than handling a stupid, spoiled, oversexed child.
“Where is she now?”
“Still in bed, I believe.”
“Then I will go and see her myself,” Irona said. “I shall need a bucket of cold water and a stout leather belt.”
An hour or so later, at the Palace, Ledacos 692 entered Irona’s office with his chin high and a smile that could have been waxed on his face by Veer Machin.
“Goddess bless, Your Honor! Purple suits you. You look lovelier than ever.” His eyes flickered around the big room appraisingly.
Irona offered him a chair, which he accepted, and wine, which he declined. Then he asked what he might do for her.
Grovel was one possibility. Vly, I am doing this for you.
“Taulevu 666’s term is ending in a few days.”
Ledacos’s smile vanished. He had known perfectly well why she sent for him. “And you are gathering votes for … ?”
“I am willing to nominate you.”
He scowled. She had been his client and was now offering to be his patron. “You cheated me last time, so why should I trust you now?”
“Don’t be childish, ’92. I did not cheat you; I was drafted without prior warning. But I promised to nominate you then, and I am willing to stand by my promise now.”
“You have the seat in your gift, don’t you? You have the Seventy eating out of your hand.”
“Probably, but it won’t last long. I suspect that they’ll give me a chance to bring an ally on board to keep me company, just this once. Soon there’ll be a new leader to follow over the cliff.”
“Two baby Sevens at the same time? The old guard will—”
“The old guard will not dare provoke an open split between the old and the young, because then their power will inevitably start to dwindle. I can deliver enough votes. Do I ask my clients to cast them for you or Dilivost 678?”
Ledacos looked as if he had just bitten into a maggoty samosa. He must know, as she did, that a candidate rejected three times would almost certainly never succeed. This was his last and only chance to make the inner circle.
“All right. Yes, I want to wear purple, even if I must accept it as Irona’s gift. Now can we celebrate our reconciliation by going to bed together?”
“No. I find hairy men too ticklish.”
He left without a word of thanks.
She hoped that Vly would have approved. She would give Ledacos his heart’s desire and make it worthless to him, because it had been a gift from her.
Days like that one seemed never-ending. More and more Irona found she was counting the hours until she could go to sit for Veer Machin.
His father was senior designer in the Republic’s shipyards. Not surprisingly, his paternal grandfather had been a Chosen. Veer was the Vlyplatin Lavice story one generation on, son of a child who had been educated with the gentry but left without inheritance. Irona probed gently: unmarried, no children, casual affairs that never lasted long. He owned a slave, he explained, who boarded with a family downstairs, brought up meals for him, and kept his room tidy. Irona did not ask the slave’s gender.
Veer was incredibly clumsy. Anything that could fall over would do so as soon as he entered the room. He was, Irona decided, so intent on looking at the world that he became a disembodied point of view.
It was easy for a Seven to learn that Machin was probably the only portraitist in the Empire who could earn more than an artisan’s meager wages. Now he had caught the attention and patronage of the First himself, but he still wasn’t rich, and probably never would be. He seemed to want little more than his art. Music, perhaps. He spoke lovingly of music, of the temple choir and the rare free concerts he could attend. The really worthwhile performances were privately sponsored, admittance by invitation only.
Irona also enjoyed music, when she could find the time. So the seed was sown. By showing favor to Nis Poul Dvure, she had created a problem. Now other rich families were clamoring for her attention, but she no longer had Vly to be the escort that social convention required. She could buy herself a male animal, like Trodelat’s Jamarko, but the prospect sickened her. She could pick up some cultivated idle rich boy, but his relatives would swarm on her like ants, wanting preferment. So why not Veer? His manners were passable, and he had his own career, which she could neither make nor break. Recommending his art was not going to cheat the Republic of anything, not like granting building contracts to a gigolo’s cousins.
“The king of Genodesa’s personal orchestra is in the city,” she remarked.
“I wish,” Veer muttered, with his nose very close to his spatula.
“I’m invited to a concert at the Castovets’,” she said. “But I have no one to escort me.”
Pause … Then Veer’s left eye scowled around the edge of the panel on the easel. “Is that an offer or an order?”
“Which do you want?”
“Either. But what happens when some grande dame asks, ‘And what do you do, citizen?’ What then?”
“Say you’re an artist.”
“Why not say I’m a drain cleaner?”
“Wouldn’t be true.” Irona knew she was grinning and didn’t care. “Besides, I’m looking forward to her reaction just as much as you are. Tomorrow evening? I’ll send a chair to pick you up. Sevens get the best seats in the house.”
His behavior at the concert was very close to perfect. He did knock over one statue but managed to catch it before it hit the floor. His lack of jewelry was understandable when Irona wore none.
When she arrived at h
is yard two days later, he let her see what his second attempt had produced. It was complete, all smooth and perfect. It was breathtaking. Her chin was raised, her lips tight together, so the lioness was not truly roaring, but the glare in her eyes ought to have melted the wax right off the wood—there were hints of flame in the background. Her neckline was far lower than she ever wore it, which showed up the jade collar, and Caprice herself could not have seemed more terrifying.
It would dominate the entire Treaty Hall, now and forever.
Irona stared for a long time, and finally whispered, “It’s … it’s incredible! I really look like that?”
“Sometimes. I could paint you as a mother, talking of your child. Or just a very beautiful woman, laughing. Or a seductress to drive men out of their minds.”
She was aware that he was standing very close. He had performed a miracle for her, and sunlight sprinkled his big arms with gold dust.
“I don’t think I have that much bosom.”
“Yes, you do. What I would really like to do is to paint you in the nude.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be interested to see what you’ve got.”
He held her gaze for one beat to make sure he understood. Then he grabbed his smock with both hands and hauled it off over his head.
“Couldn’t ask for more,” she said. “I assume you have a bed where I can pose?”
He ran to open the door to the shed. The slave’s work showed, for it was not the pigpen she had feared, but clean, tidy, simply furnished, and decorated in excellent taste. Thick stone walls had kept it comparatively cool. The bed was narrow for two, but that was not going to matter. She shed her tunic and sandals.
“How do you want me?”
His face was flushed scarlet, but he was grinning. “I prefer to be on top, but you decide.” He wrapped those big furry arms around her and kissed her. By the end of that kiss, they were both on the bed and he was on top.
It had been a long time for her, but she hadn’t forgotten how.
“I needed that very much,” she murmured eventually. “In fact, I need it often. I can offer you a studio in my house.” She pushed herself up on one elbow to look down on him. “Or build one on the grounds.”
“Wouldn’t work. I go crazy if anything keeps me from my work.”
“And I could not tolerate a consort who kept trying to use my power to do favors for his friends and relatives. But you have your own career and I have mine. I offer you a home, a workplace, and the best food I can buy. My only claim on you would be that you do what you have just done frequently, and sometimes escort me to concerts, balls, temple services. We can set a limit on how many evenings I claim.
“I’m not asking for a gigolo,” she added, suddenly worried. “It would be a partnership of equals.”
He nodded, still doubtful. “I’d hold you to that. I won’t be made to feel like a servant.”
“You feel like a great hunk of man,” she said. “And if we’re equal partners, it must be my turn on top.”
Late in the fall, when Irona had caught up with her duties, she was able to deal with a few things she had been putting off. One of them required a private audience with the First.
Knipry received her in a private sitting room she had never seen before. A fire crackled on the hearth although the sun shone in the windows and the air was not especially chill. His appearance shocked her, for he seemed to have shrunk in the three days since she had last seen him. His face was pasty, his collar hung loose on his neck. He noticed her reaction and smiled without comment.
The Benesh were fatalistic about death and generally spoke of it as the ebb tide, because they gave their dead to the sea. Some poets sang that the tide would return them in another incarnation, others that it would bear them to a better land. The bulk of the people just seemed to trust their goddess to do whatever was best for them.
“Purple suits you, my dear. Sit, sit!”
“Thank you, but what I want to show you, Your Reverence, would be seen best on a table.”
“Well, I haven’t quite washed away yet,” he said, and heaved himself out of his chair. It was clearly an effort, though, and he kept a hand on her shoulder as he shuffled across to the table. A Chosen’s life, supported for many years by Source Water, ebbed in a riptide.
A servant entered with the bowl Irona had requested, followed by another with the jug of water. They put the bowl on the table and filled it, and then they departed. Knipry watched with interest.
“I am intrigued,” he murmured. “Party tricks? Proceed!”
“When I went to Udice,” Irona said, “in the dead of winter, some of our little boats were scattered by the wind. That happens, but almost all of them turned up safe in the end. When I was coming back from Vult in one of the navy’s best galleys, we spent four days on a beach and almost starved. Because of fog.”
He waited, smiling at her recital.
“My father was a sea hunter. Sea hunters and fishermen know a secret that the navy does not.”
“Indeed? I assume you have convincing evidence?”
“Watch!”
She produced the crude little wooden boat that she had made. Veer had tried to help her and inevitably had cut his finger. She laid the model on the water and it slowly turned through a right angle. She turned it back again. It repeated its trick.
Knipry was showing his teeth in a grimace of fear. “A fix!”
“No, Reverence! This does not come from Vult or the Dread Lands. There is a little island called Kadowan, west of Vyada Kun. The fishermen pick up black pebbles there. They call them ‘mating rocks’ and they play some odd tricks, but a black stone is just a black stone, like copper ore, nothing to do with Maleficence.”
She had brought along a few pieces to let Knipry play with, but his reaction was not what she had expected.
“It’s a fix! Maleficence!”
“Your Reverence, the sea hunters use it in boats! Fixes won’t work over water.”
“Ha! Prove that. I never believed that and I don’t believe it now. Get rid of the horrible—” His voice broke off in a spasm of coughing.
“It does good!” she protested, feebly. “It saves hundreds of lives. Every sea hunter and I suppose every fishing boat, carries one of these little floats with a scrap of the black rock inside it, and it always points to the north! That is how they can find their way in the dead of winter, when they cannot see the sun or stars.”
“Put it away!”
“But the navy needs—”
“No! No! No! Put it away. Show that around Benign and they will send you to the sea death, Chosen or not. Even a Seven!” Then he fell to coughing horribly.
If Knipry 640 could not believe, then there was no hope. The men whose lives were at stake might feel otherwise, but it was people like Knipry who made decisions for the fleet.
That was the last time she saw him.
She had never wept in public before, but the wind was sharp and would have put tears in her eyes on any occasion. Grief did the rest. Knipry had been more than a patron to her. At her first assembly, he had given her a breakwater for Brackish. He had promoted her career more than Trodelat or Ledacos had. He had recognized the hand of the goddess upon her.
In the mouth of the bay, centered in Main Channel, the state barge rocked and tugged impatiently at the anchor cable slung over its stern. The motion was clumsy and made Irona queasy. Waves slapped at it, and another rainsquall was sweeping in around the Mountain across the bay. All the Chosen were aboard, paying their last respects, and dozens of other craft had braved the weather to join in the farewell.
The ebbing tide had turned the barge to face seaward, eastward, so the time had come. Rasny 650, the most senior Seven, and likely to be the next First, gave the captain the signal. Drums and trumpets struck up a slow march as marines lowered the coffin over the bow,
then tossed the cords in after it. It floated, but Irona knew, as few people did, that it was designed so that it would sink in an hour or so.
The current drew it seaward, rocking gently in the lead-gray waters, bearing Knipry out to sea for the last time, to the waiting arms of his goddess. When it was out of sight, the crew raised the anchors, dipped oars, and the state barge headed back to the city.
The Year 719
Irona did not, as Sazen had predicted, rule the Empire during her first term as a Seven, but she performed well enough to be reelected unopposed as soon as her one-year deferral was up. By then she was recognized as a leader within the inner circle. Running the Empire turned out to be child’s play compared to running her child. Podakan did not improve with age except in the sense that he grew better at doing what he enjoyed doing.
Less than two weeks after she completed her third term as a Seven and could look forward to having a little spare time again, the various threads of her life suddenly came together and tied her in knots. Career, motherhood, love, and even the painful memories of her failure as a tutor all seemed to reach out to tangle her emotions.
“The court will come to order,” announced First Rudakov.
Irona raised a hand. “As I was once the accused’s tutor and may therefore be considered an interested party, I ask the court to recuse me from this case.”
“This court considers such cases so rarely that we have no precedents to guide us,” the First said, having been warned that Irona planned to raise the matter. “I ask guidance from the other learned judges.”
One of the two Sevens required to sit on the board was Ledacos 692, wearing his sympathetic smile, of course. “It is my understanding that all the charges against the accused relate to the period after her tutelage ended, and therefore the point seems irrelevant. Was she ever our honorable friend’s client?”
“Never.” Irona sighed. No one had ever accepted Puchuldiza as a client.
“Then I think the decreed makeup of the court must be preserved,” Ledacos said, keeping most of the snide out of his voice. “An odd number is vital in case of a split decision.”