The emperor’s sob startled her from her trance and, realizing what she had done, she transformed the music once more into geantraí, pivoted by progressions out of the seventh mode and lessening his black bile with the eighth. It was intricate fingerwork, finding the right cadences so as to shift without dissonance. When she had finished, she laid her hand flat against the strings to still them; though it seemed to her that the strings still wanted plucking and vibrated softly even so.
“I did not mean to upset you, Jimmy,” she said.
“No, no, quite all right. Chin-chin. Emperor should be upset now and then. Tedious business, remaining always in balance—always in harmony.” A quick smile and with a nod toward the harp. “As you must know.”
“Perhaps I can play a song of your own world. Thistlewaite. Something pleasant and hopeful.”
“World hopeless. Keeps breaking.”
“And yet you persist. My mother always said courage was one of the Four Great Strengths.”
“You mother. Yes. What other three?”
“Prudence, justice, and moderation.”
The emperor nodded. “Those good strengths for ruler.”
“How does your First Cautionary Book begin? I could try to set it.” Méarana’s fingers poised ready to wrest a melody from her strings, and Jimmy began to recite in a singsong voice.
“In day of gods, seed-ships come.
Out of night eternal, to quicken life
And stir our olive seas. Oh, beam it down,
Oh, beam it down, brave captains say.
So yang from sky meet yin on ground.
Thrusting deep within….”
Afterward, Méarana said, “This worm trembles that she must leave so soon.” She did not sound much like a trembling worm, having had little practice in the art.
Jimmy laid a hand on her bare arm. “Do not go,” he said with eyes as wide as sorrow. “How else I hear such distant places? Duty pin me forever to Jenlùshy like butterfly to board. You stay here. Be empress. Bring songs of places I never see.”
Méarana slid her arm gently from his touch. She adjusted the green shawl around her shoulders. “I cannot. I would be a prisoner here.”
“In chains of gold,” he told her. “In velvet bands.”
“Ochone! Are chains of gold chains no less? I must go. It is a geasa upon me.”
The emperor of the Morning Dew slumped a little in his seat. “Obligation. Yes, I understand. You must find her.”
She said nothing for a time, stroking the strings of her harp, but without striking them, so that they only murmured but did not speak. “How did you know?”
The emperor gestured elegantly toward the harp. “What else? Such sorrow come only from death or loss. And death not drive you to cross whole Spiral Arm.”
Méarana closed her eyes. “No one has heard from her in three metric years. Many search, myself most of all.”
Jimmy Barcelona lifted his teacup to his lips and his eyes searched the courtiers who lined the walls out of earshot, engaged in faux conversations. “Then,” he said, dropping his voice, “I, too, search. I go with you…”
Méarana had expected the invitation to stay; but not the offer to go. “Ye… Ye cannae,” she said, falling into her native accents. “Jenlùshy needs you. Mother selected you because of your expertise in infrastructure. You must stay here and rebuild the Morning Dew so that it can survive the next thistlequake.”
But Jimmy dismissed that with a wave of the hand. “No build so strong but Thistlewaite stronger. This miserable worm, engineer. Lay pipe, calculate sewage by ancient rules. Estimate building loads and construction costs. Bridges… Was happy build bridges. Never ask for this.”
The harper touched the strings of her harp. “No one ever does,” she said quietly, running her fingers down the cords.
“I give orders. Modify systems; implement fault tolerancing and redundancy; increase reliability of infrastructure. Ministers… make up numbers to please me, and always build as always. Ancient rules. One day, all come down again. No. Better one seek Bridget ban across whole Spiral Arm. There, perhaps, success.”
To maintain the harmony of heaven-below by trying to impose the regularities of astronomy on the behavior of humans was very nearly the definition of madness. And yet mystics throughout the ages, from astrologers to computer modelers, had sought it. They forgot that even the heavens held surprises.
Jimmy Barcelona at least could see the futility of his efforts, even if he was not quite clear on why they were futile. Méarana almost told him that her quest was no less so, but that was something she had not yet told even herself.
And so she spoke truth to power. “Ye maun seek Bridget ban for her sake, not because you want to shuck your own responsibilities.”
Power didn’t like to hear that; or else he knew she spoke truth, which was much the same thing. “If purpose same,” whispered the emperor, “what matter, different motives? Keep smile. We pretend talk small nothings. Courtiers cannot hear. Listen. If Bridget ban now lost, approval of sky lost, too. So order in heaven-below, in Jenlùshy not maintain, and all become chaos above.”
“That’s absurd, Jimmy! What happens in the Spiral Arm does not depend on how well you maintain the Morning Dew!”
“This Thistlewaite. Nothing absurd. You know Garden of Seven Delights?”
“What? But…” Was this a shift back to “small talk”? “Yes. Donovan and I have eaten there several times. The food is…”
“Listen. Garden have back door. I come tonight, at Domestic Entertainment Hour. I come in front, lock door on entourage, run out back. You wait by back door with fast flitter. Rent most fast in whole sheen. I come out back door, jump in, and you ‘light a shuck for Texas,’ as your friend say. Go so fast as possible to Hifocal Big Town in next sheen. We take shuttle. Once buy ticket…” At this point he relaxed and sat back in his chair. “Port Authority protect. Then you, me, your Donovan, we fly across sky, go… maybe Texas, maybe find Bridget ban.”
The harper took her napkin and dabbed at her lips. High Tea was coming to an end and the servitors were gathering to take down the café table and set the throne room back to rights. “I must confer with my friend.”
The emperor, too, glanced at the approaching staff. “No time. No confer. Decide.”
Méarana took a deep breath, exhaled. “Second night hour. Behind the Garden of Seven Delights.”
“With most fast flivver. Now,” he rose from the table and raised his voice a bit so others could hear. “No need more play. Tomorrow, come back, sing of High Tara.”
Méarana rose, showed leg in a graceful bow, and swept up her harp case. “Your worship commands; this worthless one obeys.” And she slung the case across her shoulder and strode for the door.
She wondered what Donovan would say about this latest development; but she thought she could guess.
“Have you gone mad?” Donovan demanded.
The sleek Golden Eagle flivver floated up Double Moon Street on a cushion produced by the magnetic field in the paving. “You better hope not,” the harper said. “I’m driving.” To the west, the Kilworthy Hills had darkened, but their highest peaks still caught the un-set sun from over the horizon and flashed a brilliant white and gray.
“Kidnapping the emperor? Tell me that’s sane.”
“It’s not a kidnapping. It’s his idea.”
“Then you don’t know Thistlewaite. He may be the emperor, but ‘custom is king of all.’”
“Donovan, listen to me. He may be subject to custom—that’s what he wants to escape—but he’s certainly capable of keeping the two of us here under lock and key and demanding I play escapist music for him every afternoon for the rest of my freaking life! And then how would I find my mother?”
“Uncle Zorba told me to keep you out of trouble. I guess he didn’t think you’d be the one starting it.”
“The emperor would let you go. You have no songs for him.”
A part of the scarred man’s mi
nd flashed with anger and Donovan chuckled. Was that you, Fudir? Insulted that she expects you to abandon her? I’m shocked.
The Fudir told him what he could do with his shock.
We needn’t smuggle Jimmy off-world, the Silky Voice suggested. We need only spirit Méarana from the emperor’s clutches.
Ah, said the Brute. You take the fun outta everything, sweetie.
It would not need much, whispered another voice. A slight tap on the temple and she’ll wake up on the shuttle halfway to Harpaloon.
Donovan said nothing aloud. Brute, do you think you can do it without injuring her?
No problemo.
Yeah? Do you want to tell Uncle Zorba about it, or should I? said the Fudir. If we stiff the emperor, he’ll seal the borders. And even if we make it across somehow, Snowy Mountain would be happy to hand us back.
Somehow? said Donovan. Where was there ever a border you or I found un-crossable?
Alone, and not with a naïf of a harper in tow.
And not, said the Sleuth, who had been silent until then, with a pause for debate at every juncture.
Méarana shook his shoulder. “Fudir. We’re there.”
The scarred man gathered his thoughts and looked around the service alleyway. The paving here was not magnetized and Méarana had switched over to ground effect, which blew the litter about in swirls. Cans clattered; paper whipped. The narrow lane was unlit, and what illumination spilled across the roofs from Gayway Street did little to lift the shadows. On the right, dustbins stood by each door along the back walls of the Gayway shops. On the left, a stone wall enclosed the residential lots. The emperor had made a good choice for his abduction. Except for the Garden, the other shops were closed up for the night. Blocked from the Garden, his entourage would be forced to run to the far ends of the block to reach the alley, by which time the flivver would be long gone.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” said Donovan.
“Of course, I am,” said Méarana. “It’s our only way to get off this planet.” Then, realizing that the question was not meant for her, she favored him with a searching look. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said the Fudir. “I promised Zorba that I’d watch out for you.”
“I’m not without resources. Mother taught me a trick or two.”
“Actually, he said he’d hunt me down and kill me if anything happened to you.”
Méarana laughed. “Uncle Zorba is a great kidder.”
The Fudir said nothing. Zorba was not that great a kidder. He raised the flivver’s gull-wing, and hopped into the alley. The ground effect was just enough to keep the chassis above the paving. “Keep the turbines at hover.” Then he crossed to the utility door of the Garden of Seven Delights, ready to hustle the emperor into the waiting vehicle.
Where do you think they’ll be? asked the Sleuth.
“Shut up,” Donovan explained.
He heard the distant blast of the trumpets from the palace walls, and pole-speakers about the city carried the Voice of the Sheen’s announcement of Domestic Entertainment Hour. Clever timing, thought the Fudir. Most of Jenlùshy would be indoors with their visors active, watching the evening installments of their favorite shows.
Shortly after, he heard the whine of flivvers pulling into the restaurant’s parking lot on the Gayway side of the building, followed by the hiss and chunk of doors rising and closing. “Get ready,” he told Méarana.
He heard the front door slam, rapid footfalls approaching, then the utility door flew open and Jimmy Barcelona rushed out into the alley. The Fudir pushed a large dustbin in front of the door to impede pursuit and took the emperor by the elbow and hurried him toward the car.
At which point, a dozen men dressed in black rose from the surrounding shadows and leveled hand stingers at them.
Yes, said the Sleuth, that’s where I thought they’d be, too.
The Fudir cast about for an escape route, torn between Inner Child’s impulse to run and the Brute’s impulse to fight. Donovan, who had been stung more than once in his career, raised the scarred man’s hands. The Silky Voice wept over their failure. Pulled thus in half a dozen directions, the scarred man remained motionless at their average.
Inside the flivver, the harper sat with her hands clenched on the control yoke. Rage dueled with sudden relief in her features. Her hands moved a fraction and the turbine’s pitch subtly increased. Donovan, who knew the capabilities of man and machine, thought it a desperate ploy, but one with a hairsbreadth chance of success. Cut losses, abandon allies.
It’s what he would have done.
But the flivver’s whine dropped into silence. Méarana turned open-faced to the Fudir and the scarred man read her fears writ there.
Flivvers approached from either end of the alley and came to a rest, neatly boxing them in. The doors of the one facing them arched open and Morgan Cheng-li stepped forth, followed by White Rod bearing the Yellow Cope.
“Ah, Majesty,” said the Grand Secretary. “This worm abases himself for interruption of such clever evening entertainment, but Monthly Tattoo waits August Presence on parade ground.” He showed leg and, with a sweep of the arm, invited Resilient Services to enter the flivver.
Jimmy Barcelona slumped and he looked at Donovan, and then at Méarana. “What I say? This Thistlewaite. All plans fail.”
Two of the Shadows led Resilient Services to the flivver where White Rod waited.
By this time, the harper had come to stand beside the scarred man. “Are you all right?” she asked him in a whisper.
The Fudir did not know what to tell her. That he had frozen when fast and decisive action might have been most necessary? That it was just as well that they had not escaped because he would not be reliable in a pinch? The sum of his parts was less than the whole he had once been. Donovan answered for him. “No worries,” he said. “Hush, here comes Jingly.”
The Grand Secretary bestowed a slight nod and sweep of the arm. “You should not have indulged him,” he said in Gaelactic. “He is needed too much here.”
“He threatened to hold me captive if I didn’t,” the harper said.
A wave of a jeweled hand. “That contrary to Treaty of Amity and Common Purpose. Fourteen States all signatories to League Treaty. You think we want Hounds come here, tear down prison to free you?”
Donovan did not know if The Particular Service would go that far; at least not for his sake. Though they might for Bridget ban’s daughter.
“You spy on your own emperor?” he said.
Jingly looked surprised. “Of course! You know ‘Shadows’? Provincial Surveillance Commissions duplicate Provincial Administrative Commissions. Yang, yin. Each official, each prefect, each dough-rider has shadow. Shadows report piety and harmony to Imperial Censor.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“So. Who need harmony more than emperor? All balance depend on him. I say ‘balance,’ but no word in Gaelactic mean same.”
“I understand.”
“No,” said Jingly. “You not understand. Only Thistles understand. Our star, central star of whole universe. Microwave ‘walls,’ same distance, all direction. Heavy burden, balance whole universe on shoulders. No man have such strength. Often bend, sometimes break. Like today. No one man manage all. But all Morning Dew, all Thistlewaite unite in this. All share burden; all help emperor. Like today.”
Behind him, White Rod placed the Yellow Cope on the emperor’s shoulders and bowed him deferentially toward the waiting car.
“You go now,” said Jingly “You not come back Jenlùshy”
Méarana bowed and Donovan bowed and, rising, she saw behind the yellow-garbed August Presence, the trapped eyes of Jimmy Barcelona, who had wanted of all things only to build bridges.
AN AISTEAR
&n
bsp; The throughliner Srini Siddiqi, Megranome for Harpaloon, is by every measure a finer ship than Curling Dawn, but neither the harper nor the scarred man are in a position to appreciate it. Donovan does not want the trip to show on the Kennel’s accounts, so they have paid their own way and have taken quarters in steerage; and from steerage, all liners look the same.
“Just once,” says Méarana when she has stowed her trunk into the locker provided on board, “I’d like to travel in a little luxury.”
“It does seem a shame,” the Fudir admits, “to be on the arm and not squeeze the most out of it.”
The harper slams the locker closed with a little more force than required to latch it. “But a dormitory…”
“Think of it as an opportunity to make new friends. At least you don’t have to share a bed. One time on a transit from Salàmapudra to Nigglesworth, I berthed on a tramp freighter and…”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
The dormitory is a large open area. The beds line the walls in racks of three and the gravity has been dialed down to half-standard to facilitate the luckless travelers in the top bunks. The center of the common area holds dining tables, game tables, and various other means to occupy one’s up-time. The room is already crowded when they enter. Men and women and children occupy bunks and tables or run about the room laughing and causing the harper to dodge their career.
Several men spot the harper and call out to her. Children clap in anticipation. Emigrant families smile. Even those driven to the frontier by the ghosts of their pasts emerge from their introspection and wonder if this might provide the balm their hearts require. There is something about the way she carries herself and carries her harp case that promises uncommon melodies. Troubadours are always welcome. Enemies will suspend their quarrels with knives already pressed to throats to gather like brothers at their feet.
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