A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Meanwhile Ylo must justify the prince’s trust and his judgment. He must also show the world that the Yllipos had owed their success to more than historical good fortune, and show them he would.

  For the past hour he had been clicking the coding sticks, deciphering a missive from the imperor. He had whistled softly as the meaning began to emerge. And then—inevitably just as he was coming to the really interesting part—the text had degenerated into gibberish. Muttering curses, he checked his work. He found no error. That meant that the unknown clerk in Hub had made a miscalculation, or skipped a word in the key, or blundered in any one of a dozen ways. Ylo might need hours to find the glitch, by guess or by Gods. At worse, he would have to admit defeat and ask for a repeat, which might take weeks to arrive. God of Patience!

  He leaned back and rubbed his eyes, then frowned around the big room, searching for similar signs of slackness or inattention in his minions, but they all seemed suitably engrossed. Sunshine streamed through the huge windows and soft sea breezes rustled the papers. Another beautiful day… he was long overdue for some time off.

  “Good morning, Signifer,” said a rustly, dry-leaves sort of voice.

  Ylo jumped and then frowned at the unimpressive presence of Shandie’s political advisor. He did not rise—he was a soldier and Acopulo was not. “Morning.”

  Acopulo was a small, birdlike man, one of those impish zealots who refused to wear anything but standard Hubban dress, no matter what climate they might be inhabiting. Now his silvery hair was plastered to his head by sweat and dark patches soaked his doublet. His legs within his hose were thin as rice stalks. He regarded Ylo with disapproval.

  “Any mail for me?”

  “None today.”

  “Ah well—patience is a divine virtue.” The little scholar not only looked like a retired priest, he often sounded like one, also. He had an inexhaustible supply of platitudes. “Any news at all?”

  “Well…” Ylo rubbed his chin, frowning at his inkstand. “Back in Hub… No, that’s just hearsay. No value until it’s confirmed.”

  “Suppose you do your job and let the do mine?”

  “My responsibility is not to pass on rumors. Sir Acopulo.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  Ylo tried to think of some other delaying tactic, but he was too sleepy this morning to play the game with real enthusiasm. “There’s a report that Count Hangmore is to be the new consul.”

  The little man’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “I predicted that weeks ago. Have you nothing better than that to offer?”

  Ylo gritted his teeth. “Nothing I am at liberty to reveal.”

  “You mean nothing at all, then.” Acopulo had been a teacher, one of Shandie’s childhood tutors, and at times he treated Ylo like an excessively stupid pupil. “From the expression on your face when I approached, you have a garbled cipher to unscramble. I shall leave you to it.” He stalked away, leaving an angry signifer glaring after him.

  Ylo bent back to the accursed message. He had made no progress when another, more extensive, form shadowed his desk.

  Chief of Protocol Lord Umpily would probably have melted into a puddle of pure oil had he tried to wear a doublet in Qoble. Instead he was robed in a loose Zarkian kibr of unbleached cotton that made him resemble a runaway tent. Nevertheless, the dark eyes that peered out through the rolls of fat were sharp—and exceedingly inquisitive as he inspected Ylo for signs of wear.

  “Which was it? The succulent Opia, or the luscious Effi?”

  Pretending to ponder, Ylo rested his arms across the paper in front of him, because he strongly suspected that Umpily could read words upside down. “I’m afraid I have no idea to what your Lordship refers!”

  It had been both, actually. He felt very good this morning. A little weary, perhaps, but very good overall.

  Umpily sighed wistfully, jowls quivering. “Enjoy it while you’re young, my boy.”

  “Oh… I do, I do!” Ylo said with a satisfied smirk.

  Umpily looked at him thoughtfully and lowered his voice. “You know Legate Arkily?”

  “Not well.”

  “His sister?”

  “The young one?” Ylo said with some enthusiasm. “Not nearly as well as I should like.”

  “Her husband has left town again, and I don’t know where he’s gone.”

  “You think he’s up to no good?”

  “Acopulo does. I think he’s just smuggling.”

  Ylo reflected on Legate Arkily’s sprightly sister. “If my duty requires the to stoop to undercover work, then I suppose I must.”

  “You think you can get to the heart of the matter?”

  “At least reveal the bare facts.”

  Umpily waggled a cucumber finger. “Business before pleasure, now!”

  “No. Regrettably, the pleasure has to come first. It doesn’t work otherwise.” Ylo exchanged smirks with the chief of protocol, then reached for a small sack under the desk. “You have a full net this morning, my Lord.”

  Umpily seemed to correspond with half the imperor’s subjects and thousands of other folk, as well. He was a one-man gossip factory. Beaming happily, he rolled away with his loot and again Ylo returned to the coding sticks.

  Any day now Shandie would become imperor. Then Umpily would almost certainly be put in charge of the Bureau of Statistics, which was the intelligence arm of the secret police. Acopulo was probably hoping to be Secretary of State. And Ylo… Ah, what joys would the future hold for young Ylo? Any day now. It could not be long.

  Then he heard a rustle of excitement out in the antechamber. Muttering complaints to the Gods, he looked up to scan the big room. He located Centurion Hardgraa easily enough, and a handful of his swordsmen, but he could not see Shandie. Puzzled, he rose to his feet and scanned twice more before he spied the prince. He was wearing civilian doublet and cloak, which was unusual, but the remarkable thing about Shandie out of uniform was that there was absolutely nothing remarkable about him. He could have been any well-dressed young man in the whole Impire.

  Ylo had been hoping for more time to work on the cipher. He hated reporting incomplete work, but he would have to mention what he had discovered. He watched as Shandie moved through the crowd of well-wishers, flashing greetings just cordial enough not to offend yet formal enough to deter conversation. His memory for names and faces was unfailing. In a few minutes he had escaped from the jungle and came striding in, to pause at Ylo’s desk.

  Ylo saluted.

  “Morning, Signifer.”

  “Good morning, Highness.”

  As usual, Shandie’s face gave away no more than a dwarf’s, but he registered Ylo’s excitement. “And you’ve got something important!”

  “Yes, sir —“

  “My wife? She’s coming?”

  “Er… No, sir. ’Fraid not.”

  The prince sighed and frowned. For months he had been begging his grandfather to let Princess Eshiala come and join him here in Gaaze, but the old man would not even acknowledge the requests anymore. “Did I ever mention that she is the most beautiful woman in the world?”

  “I think you did, sir.”

  Oddly, though, that was about all he ever did say of her. He had never said that she enjoyed dancing or music or travel—or anything. Nor that she disliked them, for that matter. Shandie seemed curiously blind to women. At the previous night’s dance, for example, at least six had indicated their availability, yet he had shown no sign of even noticing the signals. He was a great leader of men, but either his extraordinary self-discipline controlled even his love life, or he was just unbelievably innocent. Had he been anyone else, Ylo might have offered him a few lessons.

  “What’s the big news, then?”

  “The second half is garbled, sir. The first half is your promotion to proconsul.” Ylo presumed upon his growing sense of friendship to add, “Congratulations!”

  Shandie had inhuman self-control, or perhaps such an honor meant little to a man destined to be imperor. “Thank y
ou. Let me know when you have it worked out. Until then, we’ll carry on as usual.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  “I know you will. Any clues so far?”

  “I think it’s another campaign, sir. Against the elves this time.”

  The prince muttered something crude, spun around in a swirl of cloak, and stalked away into his own office.

  Ylo was left with his mouth hanging open.

  His ears had deceived him, hadn’t they? Surely the prince could not have referred to his liege lord and grandfather, Imperor Emshandar IV, as a bloodthirsty senile old bastard?

  2

  Princess Eshiala detested formal dinner parties. She turned down most invitations automatically, but she could not refuse the imperor. Fortunately this was a very modest affair, strictly family. Emshandar never threw banquets anymore; he was rarely seen in public at all. Tonight there were only eight around the table. His elderly cousin, Marquise Affaladi, was being squired by the Guardsman with whom she had been creating such a scandal lately. The old man had assumed that the brash youngster was one of her grandsons, and no one dared correct his error. His own grandson Prince Emthoro had brought a current mistress, who had the face of a child and the poise of a centurion.

  The guests of honor, though, were Senator Oupshiny and his new bride, the lovely Ashia. Ashia qualified as a member of the imperial family because she was Eshiala’s sister. She was also Duchess Ashia of Hileen now, Oupshiny being a duke as well as a senator. Her first husband had been a shoemaker’s apprentice, and undoubtedly still was.

  Candles blazed, gold plate glittered, and an army of servants moved like white ghosts in the background. The little orchestra behind the screen played very softly, not interfering with conversation.

  The cost of the guests’ attire and adornments would have outfitted a legion and kept it in the field for a year. Old Emshandar had become quite eccentric in his dress lately, but tonight his doublet was as lavish and sumptuous as any, loaded with jewels and orders.

  Eshiala was the sole exception, as usual. She wore a simple white kirtle with a gold trim and almost no jewelry. When she had first come to court she had been ignorant of the madcap carousel of fashion, so she had disregarded it and gone her own way. That had been her first and only rebellion, and it had been forced upon her because she had been quite unable to manage hooped dresses and haystack hairstyles and heels like stilts. Shandie had told her she could wear anything she wanted, and the imperor had said she looked gorgeous and that had been that.

  Anyone else would have been ostracized for such presumption, for anyone who did not join in the game could be suspected of mocking it. A lady was expected to spend a fortune every month on her wardrobe and furnishings; many had one attendant to look after earrings and another for shoes and so on, just as a gentleman might have one special valet to tie his cravat. Every week saw some new fad in fans or lace or sleeves, and anyone who did not adopt the latest craze instantly would be suspected of economizing. That was utter ruin. One whiff of frugality would do more harm to a reputation than would open incest.

  But the court could not just ignore the wife of the prince imperial. They could not reasonably whisper that her husband was falling on hard times and must be out of favor. Her lowly origin was common knowledge, so it could not be maligned further—she was beyond the reach of the dowagers’ claws. They dared not make an open enemy of the future impress. They detested her, but they tolerated her because they had to. She had no friends, though.

  At times she would catch the eye of one of the other diners and read the contempt in it and the hatred. Peasant go home!

  She was glad to see that Emshandar was having one of his better days—on a bad day he looked as if he had been dead a month. Tonight, maybe a week. He nibbled listlessly and sipped sparingly. His teeth were all gone, so that his nose and chin almost met. There was nothing at all between his bones and his skin, and he could not recognize a face at arm’s length. His eyes lurked in tunnels and twisted around erratically as he struggled to follow the talk.

  She almost liked the old man. He was the only person in the court who said whatever he liked. She was perhaps the only person in the court who did not fear him. She was loyal to the Impire and did her duty, and her conscience was clear.

  To her immediate right, the old senator was flushed and raucous, his white hair tousled and his face shiny. He welcomed all the innuendoes and topped them, laughing loudly at his own vulgarity.

  Opposite him, his lovely young wife was flirting with everyone—even the imperor, which was no mean feat—enchanting the men and infuriating the women. Ashia had mastered fashion, or thought she had. No one commented when she mispronounced a word or misunderstood an allusion, especially not her besotted husband. No one asked her what the old fool’s grandchildren thought of her.

  How could two sisters be so unalike? Ashia was the real beauty of the family. Eshiala had always known that. She was taciturn and timid, Ashia vivacious and voluptuous.

  Eshiala was being quiet, as was her way. She responded courteously to her neighbors’ conversation and was careful to use the tableware exactly as the true aristocrats did. She did not let her words wander onto dangerous topics or reprimand her sister for behaving like a trollop. She projected calm and reticence, raising her voice only when addressing the deaf old mummy across the table from her, and everyone had to yell for the imperor.

  None of them would know how her head throbbed, or how terrified she was that she might throw up. She detested being on display. At the moment she was supposed to be eating some tiny bird-thing concealed in a rich sauce, dissecting it like a surgeon, when she could not even see it properly. Everyone else seemed to be managing. The imperor had been given something he could eat with a spoon.

  She watched her ebullient sister perform like a one-woman circus in her gems and silks and could think only that the two of them had done very well, for the daughters of a provincial storekeeper.

  Marriage with commoners had become a tradition in the dynasty. Emshandar himself had married the daughter of a humble scholar at some small-town university and his son Emthoro a soldier’s daughter, whom the court had dismissed as a camp follower. Shandie had chosen the younger daughter of a grocer.

  “And how is Uomaya the First?” her left-hand neighbor inquired.

  Her left-hand neighbor was Prince Emthoro, Shandie’s cousin. He was a dark man, gaunt and saturnine, with a sharp nose that twitched when he was being malicious. He frightened her. His brown eyes were restless and shiny, and oddly slanted. She feared the ambition behind them, for he was third in line to the throne, after her child. Somehow she had come to believe that Emthoro, more than anyone, was likely to rip away her disguise and denounce her as the fraud she was.

  But he was third in line; she granted him her fourth smile of the evening. “Maya is very well, thank you.”

  “Growing like a troll, I suppose?”

  “Growing as fast as a troll.”

  The prince chuckled. “I did not mean to imply that she was growing to look like a troll. I’m sure that would be sedition. How soon will you join Shandie in Qoble?”

  Her stomach knotted. “That is entirely up to his Majesty to decide. He knows how Shandie and me feel.”

  Eshiala was by nature a recluse. Six weeks after their wedding, Shandie had gone off to the wars, and at times now she thought she had forgotten what he looked like. She had nightmares of being reunited with him and curtseying to the wrong man. Fortunately he had left her pregnant, and a princess was allowed to disappear from view during her confinement. Even after that excuse had been exhausted, she had continued to refuse as many invitations as she dared. After two years she was still a stranger at court.

  The last ten months she had spent blissfully rearing her baby. Although she had been forbidden to nurse her, she doted on little Maya. She would cheerfully just sit and hold her for hours. But now Shandie had been appointed proconsul in Qoble and he wanted her to join him th
ere. Maya would have to stay behind in Hub. She was too young, too vulnerable, too important, to go journeying.

  Emthoro must be reading her thoughts. “A woman’s place is with her husband, surely?” he asked in his silkiest voice.

  “Of course,” she lied. Why, why must she give up her baby to go and live with a man she hardly knew?

  “Eh?” the imperor bellowed. “What’s that you’re saying?” The rest of the table fell absolutely silent.

  The prince rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly, just enough that the other diners would see, but not Emshandar, of course. He raised his voice to a bellow. “We were talking about Eshiala going to join her husband, Sire! In Qoble.”

  “Shandie?” The old man worked his mouth for a moment. “He’ll survive, I’m sure. Lots of pretty girls in Qoble! A mother’s place is with her child!”

  Emthoro’s nose twitched. “That’s exactly what I was telling Eshiala, Sire!” he shouted back, and without a blush.

  Then the imperor pulled something out of his mouth and turned to the servants to demand that they take away this plate of unchewable tasteless rubbish and bring him another bowl of soup, with more spice in it this time. The other diners, deciding that he had nothing else to say, picked up their conversations again.

  Emthoro had not finished with Eshiala. “Have you ever visited the Imperial Library, Cousin?”

  She could not recall. The Opal Palace was so huge that she could not remember what parts she had been shown and what not. “I don’t know,” she admitted miserably.

  “Oh, I think you would have remembered. There’s a great hall with rows and rows of balconies and a huge rose window at one end.”

  “Then I’m sure that I’ve never been there.”

  Emthoro smiled mysteriously. “You haven’t heard of the Puin’lyn statues?”

  “Should I have?” He was obviously going to talk to her at length, so she would have to try to listen and eat at the same time. She resumed her attack on the lark, or whatever it was.

  “The Imperor Umpily III wanted some statues,” the prince explained, expertly dissecting a slice of flesh from the tiny carcass before him. “For somewhere public… I forget where… and commissioned the greatest sculptor of the day, Puin’lyn. That’s an elvish name.”