Death and the Emperor

Book 3 Chapter XXI: A Right Royal Row

You remind me of an old cat I once had. Whenever he killed a mouse he would bring it into the drawing-room and lay it affectionately at my feet. I would reject the corpse with horror and turn him out, but back he would come with his loathsome gift. I simply couldn't make him understand that he was not doing me a kindness. He thought highly of his mouse and it was beyond him to realize that I did not want it. -- P. G. Wodehouse, Something Fresh

After the stress and drama of the last few months, Kilan found the sudden peace and quiet unsettling. All right, so perhaps "peace and quiet" wasn't the right description. A royal tour would never be very quiet, and there certainly wasn't much peace to be found when cameras were flashing and crowds were staring everywhere one went. But the fate of his empire was not -- at present -- hanging in the balance, so this was peaceful in comparison.

Two days into the royal tour, nothing had happened but the typical routine of visiting places and meeting people -- though not the places or people Dilves had hoped. Kilan had made his thoughts on that very clear, and the tour was given a new itinerary before it was formally announced. And now he and Qihadal were in the city of Sunuwenlyo, visiting an old museum. Tomorrow they would travel to another city in a different province to officially open a new hospital.

It should have been tiring to have to face so many people and smile for so many cameras. And Kilan had to admit that he was glad when evening came and he and Qihadal could go back to their hotel. But compared to what his life had been like recently, he found this was infinitely easier to cope with.

He kept telling himself this as he sat through an interminable dinner at a duchess's house. It didn't help much.

At first glance one would have thought boredom was impossible in such a setting. The table was covered with a brilliant silver tablecloth embroidered with jewels. Candlesticks were placed at intervals among dishes filled with delicacies from all parts of the empire. Kilan didn't recognise half of them. And among the guests were every aristocrat and politician in the province, all dressed in their best clothes and wearing enough jewellery to fill a decent-sized treasury. Kilan had rarely seen a more headache-inducing sight that the lights reflecting off so many diamonds all at once.

Seated next to him was a bore of a baronet who was quite overwhelmed at being so close to the emperor. He showed how overwhelmed he was by babbling an endless stream of nonsense. One minute the man spoke of fishing in some lake, the next about the price of tea. Kilan listened only enough to know when he was expected to make some reply.

He found quickly that he only needed to say "Indeed" or "Yes" to satisfy the baronet. Some part of him that derived fiendish amusement from seeing this idiot make a fool of himself turned it into a game: how many times could he say the same thing without his neighbour realising it? The answer so far was "frequently".

Qihadal seemed to be fairing much better. She sat opposite Kilan, beside their hostess, and appeared to be deep in conversation with the duchess. From the few words he overheard of their discussion, they were talking about the history of the duchess's family. Well, that would certainly be more interesting than the baronet's rambling on about windmills.

A sudden chill in the air warned him of Death's arrival a minute before she appeared. As she so often did, she materialised behind him, where he couldn't see her unless he obviously turned around. Doing that would have prompted questions from puzzled dinner guests, so Kilan settled for trying to catch a glimpse of her reflection in the plate metal decanter in front of him.

"What a splendid collection of bores!" she exclaimed after a long moment in which she appeared to be listening to the conversations around her.

Kilan had to agree. Even if he didn't, he was hardly going to say so here, when everyone would want to know who he was talking to.