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The original surfaces of the rooms, halls and chambers of the Gebbi Senafa had not been visible for centuries. Layer upon layer of paint, gilding, sculptures, tapestries and furnishings had provided a thick patina of opulence to the interior of the palace. And this was only the latest of the royal dwellings, an earlier one having been abandoned long ago.
In only one small room of the Gebbi Senafa did the walls remain bare of ornamentation. Unlike the other rooms of the palace, this one had no formal designation. Its sole function was to serve as a sanctum for Matile monarchs at times when they needed solitude.
Dardar Agaw, the Emperor who had salvaged the remnants of the Matile Mala at the end of the Storm Wars, had been the one who set aside this austere chamber. According to his writings, which his successors had studied with varying degrees of diligence, Agaw had needed a place in which he could be free, even for a short time, from the entreaties and machinations of his courtiers and advisers. The tactic had proven successful for Agaw, at least in terms of his reign as Emperor. History credited him with preventing a complete collapse of the Matile people in the wake of the disaster that had befallen them.
Now, Dardar Alemeyu was the one who sat on Agaw’s plain, granite bench – the only furnishing his predecessor had permitted in the chamber. The decision Alemeyu pondered was not nearly as momentous as the ones with which his distant ancestor had been burdened. Agaw’s meditations had shaped the future of the Matile. Alemeyu’s task was only to consider the fate of the Fidi.
The room in which he sat was small, little more than a cubicle. Its walls were made of granite slabs, featureless save for scratch marks that were all that remained of the decorations Dardar Agaw had ordered to be removed. The overall effect of the chamber was more reminiscent of a prison cell than an Emperor’s refuge. But sometimes, Agaw had written, the entire palace was a prison for the one who sat on the Lion Throne. There were times when Alemeyu agreed wholeheartedly with his predecessor’s view.
A single candle provided the only illumination in the windowless room. It cast a weak, wavering light on the Emperor’s face as he sat on the hard, stone surface of Agaw’s bench. The bench was much less comfortable than the Lion Throne. But comfort was the last consideration on Dardar Alemeyu’s mind.
The Emperor was not wearing his crown. Still, the black-and-gold chamma that swathed his body symbolized his rank, and his inescapable responsibility.
He had come to Agaw’s sanctum soon after a meeting with the Leba and his daughter in the Chamber of Audiences, with only his palace guards in attendance. As he sat with his hands clasped beneath his white beard, Alemeyu remembered what had been said after Gebrem and Tiyana had told him what had happened during their latest encounter with the Fidi sorcerer.
For a long time after the two had finished their tale, Alemeyu had looked at them without speaking. Then he asked a single question.
“Do you believe what this man has told you?”
“Yes,” Gebrem answered without hesitation.
Alemeyu turned his gaze to Tiyana.
“So do I,” she said.
“Why?” Alemeyu asked them both.
An uncomfortable span of silence followed the Emperor’s question, as though the Leba and his daughter were struggling with knowledge that was easier to understand than to articulate. Amply aware of the limited patience reflected in the Emperor’s hard-eyed gaze, Gebrem tried to formulate an answer that would enlighten, not irritate, the irascible monarch.
“We touched the Fidi at a level beneath what the eyes can see,” the Leba said. “And when mind touches mind, Emperor, there can be no deception.”
Tiyana nodded agreement.
“The Fidis’ ship nearly killed me, Mesfin,” she said. “That gives me more reason as anyone to be suspicious of them. But I saw the same honesty inside the sorcerer that my father did.”
“So you trust him, then?” the Emperor asked.
“I ... distrust him less.”
Alemeyu willed a smile from reaching from his lips. Despite the long-standing tension between him and Gebrem, he sometimes wished Tiyana were his daughter, not his cousin’s. This girl had the makings of an Empress ...
He pushed that thought aside and hardened his voice. But his thrust was directed more at Gebrem than Tiyana.
“But you have said this man has great ashuma power. How do you know he is not using that power to deceive you into accepting his tale?”
Gebrem and Tiyana looked at each other. There was only one honest answer they could provide, and Gebrem gave it.
“We do not know, Mesfin,” he said through tightly compressed lips.
“Just so,” Alemeyu said.
He waited a moment before continuing. It was a moment similar to many in the two men’s lives: yet another opportunity for Alemeyu to reassert his superiority over his younger cousin, the son of his father’s brother. He remembered that the relationship between his father and his uncle was not dissimilar to the one he now endured with Gebrem.
Perhaps it will always be so, between an Emperor and a Leba, he mused.
“I must think on this matter in solitude,” Alemeyu said. “Wait here.”
And with that, he left Tiyana and Gebrem in the Audience Chamber.
Before he had departed from the chamber, Alemeyu already knew what his decision would be. However, Gebrem needed to be reminded – yet again – that he was not the Emperor. The Leba’s leading role in the interlude with the Fidi might well have inflated his perception of his status. A long wait in the Audience Chamber would remind Gebrem of his true place, which was several levels below that of the occupant of the Lion Throne.
Now, Dardar Alemeyu looked at the candle burning in Agaw’s sanctum. The Emperor had used the time to think about many other matters, including whether or not it was time to put Issa aside and find another woman to give birth to the next Emperor or Empress. When the candle was finished, he would tell Gebrem and Tiyana what he had in mind for the Fidi.