Death and the Emperor

Book 3 Chapter II: Confound Their Politics

I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you do not understand me. -- Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

Arásy's earliest memory was of sitting in her mother's dressing-room as her mother and grandmother prepared to greet a foreign dignitary. She had been only three or four, a quiet and introverted child more interested in climbing trees with her older brother than dressing up for parties. Her grandmother -- her mother's mother, for her father's mother[1] had died when he was born -- had found no end of things to criticise the little girl for doing or not doing. The minute her grandmother swept out of the room in a sea of fabric and perfume, Arásy turned to her mother and began to complain.

"It's not fair!" she had shouted, stamping her foot and folding her arms. "Why does she always pick on me? Why does she always tell me to smile and speak to people? Why does she tell me to stop playing with the servants' children? She never talks to Biënth like that!"

Empress Rangara sat down on the rouyao[2] beside her daughter. The Empress Consort had been considered a rather plain woman by the nobility, who never failed to find something to criticise in their rulers, but in Arásy's eyes she had been beautiful. If asked to describe her mother, Arásy would have said she was like a swan; graceful, elegant, and terrifying when angered.

"Your grandmother expects perfection from everyone," Rangara said in her quiet, musical voice. "And she is angry when she doesn't find it. She criticises you and not Biënth because your sister is still a baby."

"Why don't you tell her not to yell at me?" Arásy pouted as she remembered some of her grandmother's more insulting remarks. "You're the Empress! You can tell her what to do!"

Rangara's lips thinned and the faintest suggestion of a frown appeared on her forehead. "Yes, I am the Empress, but she is still my mother. I could not insult her by openly telling her what she may or may not say."

And that was all Rangara said on the subject. But Arásy noticed afterwards that her grandmother criticised her far less. She had been too thankful -- and too young -- at the time to wonder if her mother had said something after all. But now, all these years later, when her grandmother and her mother were long dead, she did wonder.

It seemed an odd thing for her to remember now, as she was on her way to the palace where she would collect her step-granddaughter. But her mind kept going back to that day, that room, the brightly-embroidered rouyao, the rustle of her mother's dress, and the scent of the rose perfume her mother wore.

Perhaps, she thought, someone is trying to tell me something.

She didn't believe in ghosts or messages from beyond the grave. She was a Caranilnav. While still a child she had learnt that to think too much of death was to invite madness. But she did believe in the gods and goddesses, and she believed that they might on occasion communicate directly with mortals.

She and her husband had their doubts about Kilan and Qihadal's way of dealing with this child. And now she remembered a time when her mother may have -- quietly and without causing a fuss -- spoken up on her behalf.

Arásy suspected there was a connection.

~~~~

Gialma had concocted a perfect explanation for his trip to Istogu. A merchant there wished to buy rubies from his family's mines. Gialma would take his steward and go to visit the merchant to negotiate a contract. No one, not even that meddling fool Nimetath, could find anything suspicious in this.