The old man sighed.
“Yes, he’s very lonely.”
He returned the knife to David.
“My granddaughter thinks I ought to escort you to the Emperor, and I’m of a mind to take at least part of her advice. But I want to make something clear from the start. This is not the proper way to present yourselves at the Imperial Court, much less to the Emperor himself. You must request an audience and have your request approved, and you must put the meat of what you want to say in writing—but no more than a single page. And when you arrive, you announce yourself to the guards at the front gate and arrange for your message to be conveyed to His Imperial Highness. Then, you’re escorted into his presence, along with everyone else who’s been granted the privilege that day, and when your turn comes, you’re allowed to speak—but no more than a few words—and he may answer or he may not, depending on the subject. He usually replies, of course, but etiquette does not require him to. And if you say something that pleases him, he may present you with a token of his appreciation. But it happens very quickly, and when it’s over you’re expected to leave as expeditiously as possible. That’s how it’s usually done.”
“But there are no guards at the front gate,” Zoë pointed out.
“No guards? They were there earlier this morning—at least one of them. And I thought Gratan was someone we could trust,” he added sadly.
“But now Gratan appears to be gone,” Jon explained.
The old man sighed once more.
“That means the only guard on duty is my granddaughter. And she’s not ‘official,’ if you know what I mean. However, as you can see, she carried out her responsibilities by barring your entrance and asking for my advice, and that advice is for you is to go back the way you came. It’s not safe in Kar—not safe for anyone but traitors. No doubt you’ve come to ask for help from the Emperor, but he’s in no condition to help anyone today. As I said before, I’m inclined to take my granddaughter’s advice and allow one of you to see him, but, if you expect aid from him, you are sure to be disappointed.”
“We came not to ask for aid but to offer it,” Jon replied.
“Yes,” David said. “We’re here to give our services to the Emperor.”
“We have no favors to ask,” Zoë added. “But we have information the Emperor may find useful.”
The man stood in thought, looking carefully at their faces. Then he spoke.
“I’ll bring one of you to the Emperor, but, as I said, just one. The others must stay here.”
He looked to David as he said this, assuming that the oldest member of the party was its leader; however, David quickly disabused him.
“It’s my sister who’s led us,” he explained, pointing to Zoë.
“But it is Jon who was delegated to speak for the Foresters,” Zoë reminded him.
“But you’re the one who’s a real Forester,” Jon said. “Not me. I want to speak to the Emperor, but it’s only right one of the Foresters be there, too. He may have questions that I can’t answer.”
“You’re as real a Forester as I am, Jon.”
“Zoë, you found me in the forest.”
The old man smiled.
“Perhaps there would be no harm in my bringing both of you young people to the Emperor. I’m sure he’ll be interested in meeting someone who was found in the forest, as well as the young lady who found him there. But only the two of you. Ellen, watch the rest and see that they go no further into the palace.”
Ellen raised her pike once more.
“Follow me,” he said to Jon and Zoë.
▲
“I told you that you weren’t the first Foresters I’ve seen,” the old man said as he led them through a high-ceilinged hall. “Years ago, I traveled south with Prefect Alexander and observed his meeting with the Foresters at Bridgetown. I’ve been as far south as Bridgetown, you see, and not many people in Kar can say that. Is Bridgetown where the two of you come from?”
“No,” Zoë told him. “Alice, the other woman in our party, comes from Bridgetown, but I live in a valley almost a week’s journey south of there.”
“And I come from the Valley of Women, which is farther away than that.”
The old man stopped and looked at Jon.
“From the Valley of Women? That’s remarkable. You come from the Valley of Women and now you’ve traveled all the way to Kar. You’re a young man—you don’t mind my saying that, since it’s only the truth. But you’ve already traveled farther than I ever have. Not much farther, of course, but enough to make a difference. But you’re not the first person I’ve encountered from the Valley of Women. Long ago I met someone else who told me she came from that faraway place. A woman who sought permission to use my library.”
“Your library?”
“Yes. I am the Emperor’s Librarian. But there’s no way for you to have known that.”
“I thought you were the Emperor’s Prime Minister,” Jon said.
The man laughed softly.
“The Emperor’s Prime Minister—what an idea! No, I’m only a librarian—the Imperial Librarian, to be sure, but whether the title means anything anymore is doubtful.”
“Does the Emperor have a large library?” Jon asked.
The man paused before he answered the question.
“The largest library in the world, I’d like to think. There may be other libraries in the lands far to the East or beyond the Equatorial Sea. We have books from those places—although no one can read them anymore. But I’d be surprised to learn that they have a library as extensive as the Emperor’s. Five thousand, four hundred and twenty-three volumes—more books than you could read in a lifetime.”
“The Foresters have a library at their Mountain House. They have over three hundred volumes,” Jon told him. “To be exact, they have three hundred eighteen.”
Jon was glad he’d thought to count the books and had remembered the precise number. He felt sure it was the kind of fact that would ingratiate him with this remarkable man who was leading them to the Emperor.
“Do they really? Do they really? Just think—three hundred eighteen volumes. That’s very interesting. I’d love to see that library. If they have books that are missing in the Imperial collection, we have a right to requisition them—did you know that? But I’d be very surprised to discover that they had any. Where is the house you speak of?”
“Not far from Bridgetown,” Zoë told him. “It’s where we spend the winters. I’ve been in the library, but I’m not a reader like Jon here—or like my brother John used to be.”
“That’s too bad. It’s good to be a reader—you learn so much about the world that way. Imagine,” he muttered, “a library that size in so remote a place.”
Resuming their journey, they’d left the hall and made their way down a long corridor. Then they turned and ascended stairs to a high-ceilinged room with no furniture except for one tall, severely plain chair placed against the far wall.
“This is the throne room,” the man said. “I guess that’s obvious. It doesn’t get used very often. Not at all now, of course, but it wasn’t used much even in the old days. Neither this room nor the state dining room directly below us. The former Emperor hated formality—although, when it was called for, of course, he did what was right—and, as for the new Emperor—well, there hasn’t been time for him to sort things out yet. He will, naturally. An Emperor always does.”
Zoë stopped. Her surprise was evident.
“There’s a new Emperor?” she asked.
“Of course. There’s always an Emperor. If something happens to one, his successor takes his place immediately. The Empire cannot exist without an Emperor. They’re two sides of the same coin—an Emperor and an Empire. You can’t have one without the other.”
So what kind of man is this new Emperor? Jon wondered.
“I was speaking figuratively when I spoke about coins,” the Librarian continued. “But in a way what I said is literally true. For one side of the coins that
the Imperial Treasury mints shows the Emperor’s face, while the other is stamped with the symbols of empire. Of course there hasn’t been time to make coins showing the present Emperor. It took six months after the last Emperor was crowned for the first coins to be issued, and the present Emperor has occupied his throne little more than a week. And now, who knows what will happen?”
Zoë was silent, but Jon felt her worry. What did this talk of portraits and coins have to do with the enemy soon to be at the gates of the city—gates, he reminded himself, that were open and unguarded.
Passing through the throne room, they ascended another flight of stairs and entered another corridor, this one with a series of doors along one side and windows to a courtyard on the other. The old man stopped at the last door and coughed. Then he bobbed his head quickly.
“Your Imperial Highness,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Here are two Foresters to see you.”
“Foresters? How can that be, Lawrence?”
“They come to offer their service to Your Imperial Highness. One of them told me of a library the Foresters have in the South—near Bridgetown. I thought you might be interested in speaking to them.”
“Tell them to enter.”
Lawrence turned back to Zoë and Jon and smiled.
“His Imperial Highness will see you.”
▲
The Emperor was sitting at a wide desk covered with books, rolled-up maps and piles of documents. He’d pushed them away to create space enough for a sheet of paper, on which he’d been writing; and he held a pen in his left hand as he turned to glance up at his visitors. Jon and Zoë stood in the doorway, uncertain what protocol demanded, for their guide had slipped away and the scene was nothing like either had expected. The Emperor was dressed simply, in dark blue, with no marks to indicate his rank—unless it was the fabric of his clothing, which shimmered as he moved—yet something about the man’s demeanor set him apart.
“Come in, please. Sit down,” he said, placing his pen on the table and pointing to a bench by the door. “Not very comfortable, but it’s the best I can offer. This is my study—it’s been so for many years—my favorite room, really. But, as you can see, it’s not a place for formality.”
Jon and Zoë looked at one another. Were these the words they expected from the most powerful man in the world?
“Please,” the Emperor repeated, rising from his chair. “I’m not an ogre.”
He’s not that much older than I am, Jon thought. Twenty-two or maybe twenty-one—not even John’s age. But how tired he looks—and frightened. He wants to be kind, but he’s terrified—not of us, but of something else. Yet it can’t be the Chosen, because he’s not afraid to die. He reminded Jon of the half-naked waif who’d pointed out the way to the palace. Was it because the boy had seemed like a creature trapped in an invisible cage?
How he knew that much about the Emperor, Jon didn’t understand. But his heart went out to him—not because he was the Emperor, but because he was in need. Jon knew at once that he’d have to save this man, and he was certain that he’d be able to do it. And that certainty was the strangest part of the experience. For a moment, Jon believed himself capable of anything.
Zoë, on the other hand, remained disconcerted. She, too, had expected someone different, but, unlike Jon, she was merely baffled by discovering the Emperor no idol on a pedestal.
“Lawrence—my librarian—says that you’ve come to offer your services. That’s generous—especially now, when most of my staff have run away. But there’s little I can offer in return. My father would have been pleased to see you. He was always pleased when men and women came from distant corners of the Empire to pledge their fealty. He had special days when he met with them, and he tried to make each individual understand their importance to him. My father was good at speaking to strangers. He found exactly the right words. But to me, I must confess, it seems impossibly difficult.”
Despite his obvious weakness, this man was honest—Jon felt that in his blood.
“It would have been an honor to meet your father,” he told him. “A great honor—just as it is now an honor to meet you.”
“You are kind to say such things about me. But you would have found it a greater honor to meet his first-born son.”
Jon understood the Emperor’s meaning, but he wanted him to put it into words, so he said nothing in reply.
“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t be so oblique. By ‘first-born son’ I meant my older brother. He was killed in battle, too, alongside my father. In fact, we don’t know which one of them died first. If it was Father, then my brother was actually Emperor himself for a brief time. The men who keep records have a puzzle there. But I don’t suppose you heard about any of that.”
“No, Your Majesty. We’ve heard little. But I’m sorry to learn of both deaths.”
“Of course you are. We’re all sorry—no one more than I. It’s the end of everything.”
The Emperor moved away from the table, running his fingers through his hair. Extraordinarily slender fingers, Jon noticed. Fingers with perfectly manicured nails.
“Father had prepared him to be Emperor when he died—my brother, I mean. And he would have been a great ruler. But now both are gone. That’s why it’s hard to know how to react. I’d never imagined losing both of them at once, and I’d been certain they’d return victorious. I’d thought they would live forever.”
The last statement struck Zoë. It put into words what she’d felt about her own brothers. She’d been looking at the table; now she turned to the Emperor.
“Two of my brothers were killed in the war as well,” she told him.
“Two? That’s doubly terrible. And their father—is he still living?”
“No—at least I don’t think so. He left us when I was very young. He was to have returned in a few weeks, but we never saw him again. I used to believe he was still alive—but now I’m certain he must be dead.”
Her father? Jon had never heard Zoë speak about her father. What she was saying was new to him. She’d probably have told him the story if he’d questioned her, but it hadn’t occurred to him to ask. After all, no father had played a role in his own life. He found it difficult to imagine any father being an important person.
“But the two brothers—he lived to see them become men?”
“Yes—at least Karl, the oldest.”
“And he was proud of him?”
“I think so—that is, I’m sure he was.”
“That’s a good thing. A father should live to see at least one of his sons reach manhood. My father was proud of my older brother, but I gave him cause for worry. He expected me to be a warrior, but I wanted to be an historian. Yet he forgave my shortcomings because I had a brother to his liking. In his heart, he was a very kind father.”
He looked away for a moment, then turned back to Zoë, a polite smile on his face.
“I don’t know why I’m saying this to you. Emperors are not supposed to discuss their personal lives, but I won’t be Emperor much longer, so it hardly matters what I tell anyone.”
Zoë had been watching the Emperor intently as he spoke these flustered sentences. Jon knew she was trying to make up her mind about him.
“It does matter, Your Imperial Highness,” Zoë announced decisively. “What you say matters very much. Jon and I both respect you, not only because you’re the Emperor but also because you are a good man. And we are honored by your confidences.”
Struck by her words, the Emperor turned and walked over to Zoë. He looked at her full in the face, then raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gently.
“I will do my best to live up to your opinion,” he told her.
“Your Imperial Highness, I must remind you that time is passing.” It was the librarian. He’d reappeared as silently as he’d departed and now stood in the doorway—distant enough to preserve the Emperor’s privacy but close enough to be aware of what was happening.
“Lawrence, I th
ank you from the bottom of my heart for your service. But if it’s a question of time, then you and your granddaughter should use it to escape the city. Take Ellen where she’ll be safe. Everyone else has gone—everyone but the kitchen staff.”
He turned back to Zoë and Jon.
“That goes for you as well, my loyal subjects. You, too, should leave this palace as quickly as you can. It’s dangerous here for anyone who stays. Probably the most dangerous place on the planet. Kar as a whole is dangerous, too, but I suspect a person could manage in Kar, if he said the right things at the right time. But anyone found in the palace is sure to be murdered, no matter what explanation he gives. Or she,” he added, nodding at Zoë.
“Surely you both understand the situation. My father was killed in battle. My brother died at his side. Our army, what there was left of it, has fled. We’ve lost the war, and now the Chosen are marching on our capital city. They’ve taken their time about it. In their magnanimity, they’re allowing everyone time to escape. Or perhaps it’s not magnanimity at all, but a calculated effort to avoid combat in the streets. And that, you must admit, is sensible thinking for religious fanatics. If my father made an error, it was underestimating their intelligence—and the thoroughness of their planning.
“We made little effort to infiltrate their ranks, but they have spies here who report on a regular basis and also spread rumors on their behalf. Yesterday’s rumor was that the Chosen would arrive this morning and put all who remained in the city to the sword. And so, as you might expect, everyone who could leave did so. But I doubt they’ve gone far—a day’s journey perhaps, and then they’ll wait to see what happens. They may be afraid of the Chosen today, but tomorrow they’ll begin to miss the city—there’s nowhere else like Kar—and when they learn that their new rulers aren’t slaughtering the inhabitants wholesale, they’ll sneak back and pretend they never left.
“Lawrence thinks I should have been among those fleeing, but I chose to stay. Not to resist the conquerors, I assure you. Look at me. Do I look like the kind of person who could put up a fight—a man who’s spent his life reading books?”
Jon wondered why the Emperor thought a man who read books would be unable to defend himself. John had been a reader as well as a skilled fighter—hadn’t he taught Jon most of what he knew about self-defense? And the Emperor didn’t have the appearance of a weakling, whatever he said about himself. There was a softness to him, but he had the makings of a muscular body. Yet for some reason he imagined himself unfit for an active life.
The Flight from Kar (The Emperor's Library Page 29