"They don"t really mind, Sarabian. They"re busy someplace else."
"Can you even begin to follow them?" Ehlana murmured to Sparhawk.
"Sort of. They"re both thinking about the same thing, so they don"t have to finish sentences."
Emperor Sarabian laughed delightedly. "You"re the most stimulating conversationalist I"ve ever met, your Royal Highness," he said to the little girl in his lap.
"Thank you, your Imperial Majesty," she replied. "You"re not so bad yourself, you know."
"Danae!" Ehlana said sharply.
"Oh, mother. Sarabian and I are just getting to know each other."
"I don"t suppose-" Sarabian"s tone was speculative.
"I"m afraid not, your Majesty," Danae replied. "I"m not being disrespectful, but the crown prince is much too young for me. People gossip when the wife"s older than the husband. He"s a sweet-natured baby, though. But I"ve already decided who I"m going-"
"You have? So young?"
"It avoids confusion later on. Girls get silly when they reach the marrying age. It"s better to decide those things while you"ve still got your wits about you-isn"t it, mother?" Ehlana blushed suddenly. "Mother started setting traps for my father when she was about my age," Danae confided to the Emperor of Tamuli.
"Did you, Ehlana?" Sarabian asked.
"Well, yes, but it"s not nice to talk about it in public."
"He didn"t mind being trapped, mother," Danae said. "At least not after he"d got used to the idea. All in all, they make a fairly good set of parents-except when mother starts throwing her rank around."
That will do, Princess Danae," Ehlana said in her official tone.
"You see what I mean?" Danae grinned at the Emperor.
"Your daughter"s going to be a remarkably gifted queen," Sarabian complimented them. "Elenia"s going to be a lucky kingdom to have the two of you on the throne one right after another. The problem with hereditary succession has always been those lamentable lapses in talent. A great king or emperor is almost inevitably succeeded by a hopeless incompetent."
"What"s the customary procedure here in Tamuli, Sarabian?" Ehlana asked. "I know that you have nine wives. Does your first-born become the crown prince, no matter what the race of his mother?"
"Oh, no. Certainly not. The throne descends to the first-born son of the first wife. She"s always a Tamul, since a Tamul princess is always the first one a crown prince marries. I was married at the age of two, actually. I married my other wives right after I was crowned emperor. It was a group ceremony-eight brides and one bridegroom. That eliminates jealousies and arguments about rank. I was absolutely exhausted the following morning."
"You mean that-?"
"Oh, yes. It"s required. It"s another way to avoid those jealousies I mentioned. And it all has to be finished by sunrise."
"How do they decide who"s first?" Ehlana sounded very interested.
"I have no idea. Maybe they roll dice for the privilege. There were four royal bed-chambers on each side of a long corridor. I was obliged to go down that endless hallway and to pay a call on each of my new brides. It killed my grandfather. He wasn"t a young man when he ascended the throne, and the exertion was too much for him. "
"Do you suppose we could change the subject?" Sparhawk asked.
"Prude," Ehlana chided him.
"I wonder if Dolmant would let me have more than one husband," Danae mused.
"Never mind," Sparhawk told her very firmly.
The others arrived, and they all gathered around a large table set with a lunch consisting of unfamiliar delicacies.
"How did you find Subat, your Grace?" Sarabian asked the Primate of Ucera.
"We went to his offices, and there he was, your Majesty."
"Emban," Sephrenia chided the fat little churchman, who was looking suspiciously at an undefinable meatcourse.
"Sorry, your Majesty," Emban apologised. "Your prime minister still seems to be a bit set in his ways."
"You noticed," Sarabian said dryly.
"We definitely noticed, your Majesty," Vanion replied. "His Grace here turned his thinking upside down for him just a bit, though. He suggested that what the world really needs is a Divine Emperor or an Imperial Archprelacy. Both offices are incomplete as they stand."
"Me? A G.o.d? Don"t be ridiculous, Emban. I"ve got enough problems with a government. Please don"t pile a priesthood on top of it."
"I wasn"t really serious your Majesty," Emban replied. "I just wanted to shake up his thinking a bit more. That talk you had with him opened his eyes right enough, but we still have to open his mind."
"What happened to your arm?" Vanion asked the woman he loved. Sephrenia had just turned back her sleeve to reveal her bandaged wrist.
"I sprained it," she replied.
"On a stubborn Styric head," Zalasta added, chuckling.
"Sephrenia." Vanion stared at her.
"I used my Pandion training, dear one," she smiled. "Someone should have told me that I was supposed to kkl my wrist, though."
You actually hit someone?" Kalten asked incredulously.
"She did indeed, Sir Kalten," Zalasta grinned. "She knocked him half-way across the room. She also threatened to kill him and even went so far as to begin the death spell. He grew very co-operative at that point."
They all stared at her in disbelief.
"Oh, stop that," she told them. Then she laughed softly. "It was a great deal of fun actually. I"ve never bullied anyone before. It"s very satisfying, isn"t it?"
"We like it," Ulath grinned.
"The Styrics will co-operate fully," she told them.
"How was the army?" Emban asked Tynian.
"I don"t think we should expect too much there, your Grace," Tynian replied carefully, glancing at the emperor. "Their function"s primarily ceremonial."
"They come from the very best families, Sir Knight," Sarabian said defensively.
"That might be part of the problem, your Majesty, that and the fact that they"ve never had to actually fight anybody. We"ll be depending on the Atans anyway, so we won"t really need the Imperial Army."
He looked at Engessa. "is the local garrison up to standard, Atan Engessa?" he asked.
"A little soft, Tynian-Knight. I took them out for a run this morning, and they began to falter after twenty miles. I gave some orders. They"ll be fit by the end of the week."
"Things are falling into place," Vanion approved.
"The palace servants have all the usual vices, Lord Vanion," Khalad reported. "They love to gossip. Alcan"s making much better progress than I am-probably because she"s prettier."
"Thank you," the girl murmured, lowering her eyelashes.
"It"s no great compliment, Alcan," Talen told her. "My brother"s not a raving beauty-none of us are. Our faces are designed for wear, not for show."
"I"d guess that by the end of the week we should have gained their confidence sufficiently to start picking up secrets," Khalad surmised.
"You Elenes amaze me," Sarabian marvelled. "You all seem to have an absolute genius for intrigue."
"This is a rather select group your Majesty," Emban told him. "We knew before we left Chyrellos that our major task here would be the gathering of information. We chose people who were skilled at it."
"I came across one of the scholars in the contemporary affairs department at the university," Bevier reported. "Most of the rest of the faculty has already established reputations based on this or that past event. Resting on one"s laurels is one of the failings of academics. They can coast along on a single monograph for decades. Anyway, this fellow I mentioned is young and hungry. He"s come up with a theory, and he"s riding it for all he"s worth. He"s absolutely convinced that all the present turmoil"s emanating from Arjuna-perhaps because no one else on the faculty"s staked out that particular ground yet. He"s also convinced that Scarpa"s the man behind the entire conspiracy."
"Who"s Scarpa?" Kalten asked.
"Zalasta told us about him," Ulath reminded him. "He serves the same function in Arjuna as Sabre does in Astel and Gerrich does in Lamorkand."
"Oh, yes, now I remember."
"Anyway," Bevier continued, "our scholar"s gathered a huge ma.s.s of corroborating evidence, some of it very shaky. He"ll talk for hours about his theory to anybody who cares to listen."
"Is anybody else at the university working on any alternatives?" Emban asked him.
"Not actively, your Grace. They don"t want to risk their reputations on false leads. Academic timidity"s urging them to take a wait-and-see position. My young enthusiast doesn"t have a reputation, so he"s willing to take some risks."
"Stay with him, Bevier," Vanion said. "Even negative conclusions can help to narrow the search."
"My feelings exactly, Lord Vanion."
"Do you suppose I could impose on your Majesty?" Stragen asked the emperor.
"That"s what a host is for, Milord," Sarabian grinned. "Impose to your heart"s content."
"You did know that there are criminals here in Matherion, didn"t you?"
"You mean other than the members of my government?" Stragen laughed.
"Score one for you, your Majesty," he said. "There"s a world below the surface in every major city in the world," he explained. "It"s a world of thieves, pickpockets, burglars, beggars, wh.o.r.es, swindlers and murderers. They eke out a precarious existence by preying on the rest of society."
"We"re aware that such people exist, of course," Sarabian said. "That"s why we have policemen and prisons."
"Yes, your Majesty. Those are some of the minor inconveniences in the criminal"s life. What isn"t generally known, however, is the fact that the criminals of the world co-operate with each other to some degree."
"Go on."
"I"ve had some contacts with those people in the past, your Majesty," Stragen went on, choosing his words carefully. "They can be very useful. There"s almost nothing that goes on in a city that some criminal doesn"t know about. If you make it clear that you"re not interested in their activities, they"ll usually sell you the information they"ve picked up."
"A business arrangement then?"
"Precisely. It"s something on the order of buying stolen goods. It"s not very nice, but many people do it."
"Of course."
"Now, then. This co-operative spirit I mentioned doesn"t exist here in Matherion. Tamuls don"t cooperate very well for some reason. Each profession here keeps strictly to itself. They"ve even formed guilds, and they view other criminal professions with contempt and suspicion. We"re going to have to break down those walls if those people are to be of any use to us."
"That stands to reason, Milord."
Stragen seemed to breathe a bit easier. "I"ve made some arrangements, your Majesty," he said. "The leaders of the various criminal guilds are going to come here. They respect you enormously, and they"ll obey if you tell them to do something." He paused. "That"s as long as you don"t command them to become honest, of course."
"Of course. You can"t ask a man to give up his profession, I suppose."
"Exactly. What you can order them to do, though, your Majesty, is to abandon these caste bariers and start talking to each other. If they"re going to be of any use, they"re going to have to be willing to pa.s.s information to one central collecting point. If we have to contact the head of each guild, information would be stale long before we" got our hands on it."
"I see. Correct me if I"m wrong, Milord Stragen. What you want me to do is to organise the criminals of Matherion so that they can prey on honest citizens more effectively in exchange for unspecified information they may or may not be able to pick up in the street. Is that it?"
Stragen winced. "I was afraid your Majesty might look at it that way," he said.
"You needn"t be fearful, Milord Stragen. I"ll be happy to have a chat with these loyal criminals. The gravity of the current crisis over-rides my natural revulsion for having dealings with knaves and rogues. Tell me, Milord, are you a good thief?"
"I guess I"ve underestimated your Majesty," Stragen sighed. "Yes, actually I"m a very good thief. I hate to sound immodest, but I"m probably the best thief in the world."
"How"s business?"
"Not so good lately, Emperor Sarabian. Times of turmoil are very bad for crime. Honest men grow nervous and start protecting their valuables. Oh, one thing, your Majesty. The criminals you"ll be addressing will all be masked. They respect you enormously, but they"ll probably want to hide their faces from you."
"I can understand that I suppose. I"m rather looking forward to speaking with your friends, Stragen. We"ll put our heads together and come up with ways to circ.u.mvent the authorities."
"That"s not really a good idea, your Majesty," Talen told him. "Never let a thief get within ten feet of you. He raised his hand to show Sarabian a jeweled bracelet. The startled emperor looked quickly at his naked right wrist. "Merely a demonstration, your Majesty," Talen grinned. "I wasn"t really going to keep it."
"Give him back the rest as well, Talen," Stragen told the boy.
Talen sighed. "Your eyes are unwholesomely sharp, Stragen." He reached inside his doublet and took out several other jewels. "The best plan is not to have anything of value on your person when you talk with thieves, your Majesty," he advised.
"You"re very good, Master Talen," Sarabian complimented the boy.
"It"s all in the wrist," Talen shrugged.
"I absolutely love you Elenes," Sarabian said. "Tamuls are a dull, boring people, but you"re full of surprises." He smiled archly at Melidere. "And what startling revelations do you have for me, Baroness?" he asked her.
"Nothing really very startling, your Majesty," she smiled. "The swishing back and forth through the corridors has earned me several fairly predictable offers and a fair number of pinches. Tamuls pinch more than Elenes, don"t they? I"ve learned to keep my back to the wall, though. A pinch or two in the spirit of good clean fun is all right, I suppose, but the bruises take a long time to fade."