45 - We bear what has happened

I was still healing from the wound. That meant desperately wrestling every aer of work from Kaninjer; between being bedridden and the trip to Yeola-e I was criminally behind in putting together the constitution and everything related.

At least I could work when I should have been training; I gained a little more time by wearing my faibalitz skates during the day, as I could show Kan that it was easier than walking. Each day, of course, I skated a little faster than the day before; going all out in those necessary distances between chambers and offices would give me that much more working time, though it was either watch out for the miniature donkey-carts or leap over them in the last instant. Half a moon out I began with very light training, once every four days. Boring; but it wasn’t as if I was allowed to spar anyway.

Haians have a way of measuring how much air your lungs can hold, which involves taking as deep and full a breath as you can and blowing into an instrument. All the time he’d been my healer, he’d checked it now and then, telling me that by the luck of how I was built, it was high for one my size, and that this was part of why I had good endurance.

When I’d got back from Yeola-e, he’d begun doing it every four days; he didn’t tell me the results at first, and I didn’t ask. He’d said “Breathe in gently,” so I knew I wasn’t drawing in as hard as I could anyway. It was improving as the lung healed and cleansed itself of wound-residue, he told me, and when it ceased improving we’d have our answer.

It was high summer and about a month and an eight-day after I’d taken the wound when he said, “It’s been the same for four times, now, Chivinga,” and put his arm around my shoulders. That bad? I’d been increasing exercise, as I’d promised myself, and it hadn’t felt very different; I had not yet gone all out, though. I fought down nervousness. “If what you had before was a hundred,” he says, “you’ve lost about five.”

I took a deep breath. Five… leaves ninety-five… it’s a negligible difference… “You will never notice it when at rest or sitting or standing or even walking,” he said. “In extreme exertion, you’ll feel it, though it won’t be… huge.”

When I’m fighting, I thought. It will lose me my edge in endurance, at least. I intoned the old warrior’s adage: we bear what has happened, and invoked the old warrior’s thought-strategy of remembering others more unfortunate than me. At least I hadn’t lost a thumb, like my shadow-parents, or my life, like Kamina, Nyera, Mana, Sachara and so many others.

I’m planning never to fight again, anyway. Losing a bit of my wind no longer mattered.

“This also means you’re cleared for exertion,” Kaninjer added. “But you know the cautions; if there’s pain or you’re suddenly short of breath, quit right away and get yourself to me, and so forth. And of course you must adhere to Surya’s rules.” Of course. Healers are nothing if not a tight conspiracy.

†

Alas, an Imperator’s life cannot contain only healing, but must have politics in it.

Officially, the resolution to delete Compartment Verbal 14, Segment 8 had come from two Servants of the Arkan Assembly, each representing districts of the City Itself, arguing on the grounds that 14.8 was now a legal aberration, vastly beyond the Imperator’s currently-designated powers, and would almost certainly be contrary to the constitution, once it was ratified. But of course, just as when I’d been a child and the grown-ups all knew I was behind every prank, everyone accurately detected my hand in it. The moment we revealed Minis, they had their answer as to why now.

As their authors had more time to think of them, the electoral barbs grew cleverer. Minis was a devious intellectual, able to beguile and seduce with silver-tongued words, the spirit of his father strong in him, however well-hidden. Kallijas was a simple-minded sword-buck, loyal to whoever near him was strongest. And me… well, my sanity had been suspect for a while; now the world had seen the final proof of its defectiveness.

These words came out of Mil Torii’s camp first, I began to notice, and would quickly be picked up by Adamas’s and Kin Immen’s. I caught Inatalla Shae-Krisa’s scent on it the moment I heard “madness, the danger of brilliance.” The Yeoli hawks had honed their skills at this more than anyone else.

Not that Minis and Kall’s opponents didn’t have things to say about each other. The accusation that Mil Torii wanted to be Imperator just to throw parties in the Marble Palace very much stuck; he really didn’t shake it for the entire campaign.

Kin Immen Kazien was accused vaguely of sexual irregularities, with a tone of ‘We can’t give details because they are so sleazy and disgusting,’ which ensured there would be a thousand fanciful lurid tales on the street.

The main stroke against Adamas was the family denseness. It turned worst for him when Abatzas magnanimously decided to aid in campaigning—“a loving uncle does no less, brilliant, brilliant,” he was quoted as saying—and wouldn’t quit no matter how much Adamas abjured him.

Of course Abatzas decried Kallijas as a traitor; that opened the way for Kall to tell in detail how it had been to serve under him, and that I had taken Kall prisoner to save him from Abatzas’ death order. That of course opened the way for me to speak to it, including that I had only risked challenging Kall to the duel because I’d known his morale had been weakened by his general.

Meanwhile Minis and Kallijas flew all over the empire to speak. “No, not together,” I said when we were planning it. “Separately, but each of you speaking for both.” In this way they could, in essence, outnumber all their opponents by double.

†

I had almost never seen Surya outside his office, even now that it was in the Marble Palace; but one day around then I ran into him, or more exactly glided up behind him, in a corridor. Of course he had clearance to be anywhere, including the Imperial section.

“I have to say, that does look enjoyable,” he said, as I slowed down to pace him for a time, to be polite. We talked ice against wheels for a bit, and then I said, “I would have thought you’d rather walk out in the city; has the corrupt opulence of the Marble Palace finally infected your soul?”

“No,” he said, with a chuckle. “I’m not allowed, by order of your admirably-protective security captain.”

I sighed, and switched from rolling on one foot to the other. “I’m sorry… a long time ago, I suppose, I should have warned you that would happen.”

He made the brush-off sign. “No matter, Chevenga. Don’t apologize. Everything is going as it should.”

“You always say that… but, this is new, right? Why’d he tighten on you? I can say something to him, if you like.”

“No, you need not… everything is going as it should.”

I got a prickly feeling down my back. He hadn’t looked at me as he’d said this. “Surya, did something happen?”

Now he looked at me, and, quickly, my aura. “No one can hide anything from me, as you know,” he said, “but you’re not bad at same yourself. It was nothing, though; no one came to any harm.”

I cut in front of him and did a circle turn on my skates so I was facing him, going backwards. “Surya… I want to know, and I think I should.”

He shrugged. “Just a murder attempt.”

I was shocked, though I shouldn’t have been surprised, by the jolt of fear that shot through me. Right now, his life was mine. “In the Marble Palace?”

“No, I was on my way to shop for groceries at the Agora Celestia. That’s why Krero won’t let me outside again.”

“What…” My mouth was very dry; he glanced again at my aura, and pursed his lips. “What happened? And who was it, who sent him?”

“Them… I’ve already been—”

“Them? How many?”

“Chevenga, I’ve already been fully debriefed by Krero, and he’s dealt with it completely and diligently,” he said.

“Except that he told me absolutely nothing.”

“That was on my recommendation. You have enough to deal with.”

I took a deep breath. “All right… fine… I trust him implicitly, so I can be sure he’s done everything precisely as he ought. I needn’t even know who; it could be anyone who wants me to die, and they are plenty. But tell me this… you had no escort, right? And you don’t go armed—because you’re asa kraiya, right? How is it you’re all right?”

“I defended myself.”

I stared at him, and he gently took my shoulders and steered me away from the chryselephantine statue of Dimae Triumphant I’d been about to skate backwards into. “How?”

“Let’s leave it at ‘I defended myself.’”

“In the asa kraiya way.”

“Yes.”

“That I can’t possibly understand yet, unenlightened kraiyaseye that I am, so you’re not going to tell me.”

“Exactly.”

“How many?”

“Just two, Chevenga, watch out for the donkey-cart.”

I swerved around it gracefully, I like to think. “Then I should ask you no more. But I can’t help but ask one more thing—sorry, two. You’re entirely all right…?”

“Yes.”

“And… how did they end up? Aside from arrested and questioned within a finger-width of their lives under truth-drug, which I’ll assume. I mean… what condition did you leave them in?”

“No longer willing to fight me.”

That is, of course, one of the two forks in the definition of victory; rendering the enemy unwilling or unable to fight you. He walked forward and I skated backward in silence, for five or six of his strides. I knew he would tell me no more. “Chevenga… it will all come clear in time. You’ll understand it all. Will you trust me on that?”

“With my life,” I said, and skated away from him.

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