“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 you. 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 grocer.
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 I 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 there. Maya would have to stay behind in Hub. She was too young, too vulnerable, too important, to go journeying.