31

A Conspiracy Unearthed

In the Verven’theileian, Maia found Lord Berenar and Captain Orthema engaged in a heated debate, while Captain Vizhenka watched resignedly. Csevet was consulting with a pair of secretaries whom Maia recognized but could not put names to. Everyone stopped and bowed as Maia came in, and he thought he had better make use of the interruption before Berenar and Orthema started in again.

“Captain Orthema,” he said, “we remember that the Untheileneise Guard has been stationed to prevent anyone leaving the court.”

“Yes, Serenity.”

“Would you go and find out whether your men have actually had to stop anyone? We feel that that information might be very interesting.”

Orthema hesitated only fractionally before saying, “Yes, Serenity,” which, given the glare he directed at Berenar, was much to his credit. He bowed and departed, and Maia asked Berenar, “What were you and Orthema arguing about?”

Berenar sighed ruefully. “He wished to have all of the Tethimada currently in the Untheileneise Court arrested, along with the men Captain Vizhenka observed talking to Dach’osmer Tethimar. And while we do indeed see and sympathize with his point of view, we could not countenance it without Your Serenity’s direct order.” He gave Maia a cautious look, as if worried now that Maia would support Orthema.

“No,” Maia said. “We do not think we have reason yet to arrest anyone—although we would very much like to speak to the men to whom Dach’osmer Tethimar spoke.”

“Serenity,” Csevet said, interrupting politely. “The Count Nethenel and Mer Reshema have expressed their desire to cooperate and are waiting in the public meeting room across the hall. The Count Solichel’s manservant informs our page boy that he is ill and cannot speak to anyone.”

“A very sudden illness,” Lord Berenar said.

“Indeed,” said Maia. “And Dach’osmer Ubezhar?”

“Cannot be found, Serenity. Although perhaps Captain Orthema will have news of him when he returns.”

“Perhaps. Very well. Let us speak to the Count Nethenel.” Maia sat in his accustomed seat at the Verven’theileian’s long table, and Csevet slipped out, returning almost immediately with Pazhis Nethenel, the Count Nethenel, who was nearly gray with strain but otherwise composed.

The House Nethenada, Maia remembered from Berenar’s lessons, was a minor house of western Thu-Tetar, noted principally for their centuries-long stewardship of the Nethen Ford, where by a combination of causeways, dredging, and some fortuitously placed islands, they maintained the only reliable crossing of the Tetara for well over fifty miles. The current Count Nethenel was some six years older than Maia and had been named for the Empress Pazhiro, although if this had been an effort to curry favor with Varenechibel, it could not have been said to have succeeded. The Nethenada were one of the least wealthy families of Thu-Tetar, for of course the Tetara belonged to the crown, and the Nethenada could not charge tolls without permission which had never yet been granted. Maia, examining the ferret-faced lord in front of him, thought that perhaps a little more consideration was due the Nethenada than they had ever received.

“Count Nethenel,” he said, “thank you for agreeing to speak to us.”

“Serenity,” said the Count Nethenel with a jerky bow.

“We do not suspect you of anything,” Maia said as gently as he could. “We merely wish to know what Dach’osmer Tethimar said when he spoke to you this evening.”

Nethenel swallowed hard. “It was … it was in the nature of a threat, Serenity.”

“A threat?” said Lord Berenar.

“We…” Nethenel coughed and began again. “The House Nethenada and the House Tethimada have been in disagreement for some time about … well, about Dach’osmer Tethimar’s political ideas. We had only this summer again refused him our support in a complaint he was bringing to the emperor. This evening, he said that we would soon be sorry for our loyalties.”

He coughed again, and Maia said, “Some water for the Count Nethenel, please.”

Csevet poured a glass from the carafe sitting beside the samovar and brought it over. Nethenel’s hand was shaking when he took it, and he sipped it carefully. “Thank you, Serenity. We regret that we are … we are a little overcome still.”

“We do not blame you,” Maia said, and as it had with Idra, the wry understatement worked with Nethenel, for he managed to meet Maia’s eyes and even to offer a shaky smile.

“We would speak to Mer Reshema, please,” Maia said to Csevet.

“Serenity, he knows nothing of this!” Nethenel said in sudden desperation. “Please. He didn’t even know who Eshevis was.”

“We have no suspicions of him, either,” Maia said, puzzled. “But he is also a witness.”

The Count Nethenel looked as if he wished to protest further, but Csevet had already left the room.

Mer Reshema turned out to be barely older than Maia. He was, in fact, the young man in courier’s leathers whom Maia had seen dancing with Vedero. He was part goblin; although his skin was somewhat paler than Maia’s, his hair was black and his eyes were fiery orange. He had a better command of himself than the Count Nethenel, and Maia wondered, looking from him to Csevet, if couriers were chosen for their unflappable calm or if it was part of the education Csevet had spoken of. Mer Reshema confirmed Nethenel’s account: “He was gloating, Serenity. We thought—the Count Nethenel and ourself—that he must have gained some important concession from you, although we could not imagine what.”

“We did not expect,” Nethenel put in anxiously, “that he would—that he meant to—”

“How could you have?” Maia said. “We admit, it does not improve our picture of Dach’osmer Tethimar that he would stop on his way to murder us to indulge in petty gloating, but certainly you could not be expected to discern that he would go from petty gloating to murder.” He looked at Lord Berenar. “Have you any other questions for these gentlemen?”

“No, we do not think so. It is Dach’osmer Tethimar’s friends from whom we must seek further answers, not his enemies. Thank you, gentlemen.”

“Yes,” said Maia. “Thank you. We appreciate your help.”

“We only wish we could be of more help, Serenity,” said Mer Reshema, and the Count Nethenel murmured agreement. They bowed and departed.

“The Count Nethenel was very nervous,” Maia remarked.

“He should be,” Lord Berenar said. “The Winternight Ball is one thing, but bringing your baseborn lover to it is quite another.”

“What?” Maia said.

“Did you not know, Serenity? It seemed to us even the sparrows were gossiping about it. The Count Nethenel has been making an unseemly spectacle of himself since the spring equinox.”

“We found nothing distasteful in Mer Reshema.”

“And we know nothing to the young man’s discredit,” Berenar agreed. “It is Nethenel who is teasing the quicksand. And truly, that is neither here nor there, for imprudence is a far cry from treason, and the Nethenada have always been stupidly loyal.”

“We beg your pardon,” Maia said in mock outrage and was pleased when Berenar laughed.

“We did not mean in respect to yourself, Serenity. But previous emperors have … well, Varevesena for one gave them no reason to love him. But no matter. The question is what to do about Solichel and Ubezhar—once Ubezhar is found, of course.”

“We believe,” said Csevet, tilting his head, “that that may even now be happening.”

Maia heard it, too, a commotion in the corridor commingled of the chink and scrape of armor and a voice yelling indistinguishable words. Csevet opened the door just as the tumult reached the Verven’theileian; two soldiers entered, half-dragging a third man between them—not out of any desire to be brutal, but because he was struggling against them. By his clothing he was a courtier, and Maia guessed from his clear unwillingness to be brought before the emperor that he was the elusive Dach’osmer Ubezhar. Captain Orthema brought up the rear.

“Serenity.” The soldiers saluted—a little awkwardly because of their need to keep a grip on their prisoner. Captain Orthema stepped fastidiously around them, and Csevet closed the door and then stood with his back to it. Dach’osmer Ubezhar became abruptly silent—and intensely focused on the task of straightening his clothes.

“Serenity,” said Captain Orthema, “Dach’osmer Ubezhar was discovered in the south stables, attempting to bribe a groom to open the gate. We commend Khever, the groom, to your attention, for he refused most vehemently, and our corporal says that he threatened to punch Dach’osmer Ubezhar in the nose.”

“We have nothing to say,” Dach’osmer Ubezhar announced—which was interesting, Maia thought, as no one had yet asked him to say anything at all. He was not a prepossessing man, with none of Eshevis Tethimar’s power, and his attempt at hauteur fared badly, although it would have been hard for any man to carry it off with his hair coming down.

“I think,” said Captain Orthema, and no one in the room was foolish enough to think his use of the familiar-first was in any way friendly, “that you will find that you do.”

“Captain,” Maia said—not quite a rebuke, but definitely a warning. Orthema gave him a grudging nod and came around the table to stand by Berenar’s chair. But neither he nor Maia ordered the soldiers to step back.

Dach’osmer Ubezhar said, “Are you a boggart to frighten children, Captain? We are not a child.” His sneer was too clearly a copy of Tethimar’s, and Maia thought that under the bluster he was badly scared.

“Dach’osmer Ubezhar,” Maia said, and waited until Ubezhar was at least looking in his direction—although not coming even close to meeting his eyes. “We regret if we are the first to inform you, but Dach’osmer Tethimar is dead.”

Dach’osmer Ubezhar said nothing, although Maia could see it was an effort. He did not seem at all surprised.

Maia said, “He spoke to you this evening.”

If Ubezhar had had the wit or the nerve to stay silent, Maia was uncomfortably aware he would have been at a stand, with Orthema’s solution all too tempting. But Ubezhar said, instantly defensive, “Doubtless he spoke to many persons.”

“Including us,” Maia agreed, and was unworthily pleased at Ubezhar’s wince. “We have spoken already to some of the others and will speak to the rest, but that is no concern of yours. What did he say to you?”

“Surely that is a private matter between us and our dead friend.”

“Not when your dead friend went from your side to an assassination attempt,” Lord Berenar said.

Ubezhar winced again, although Maia, watching him closely, thought it was more for Berenar’s lack of tact than for the idea that his friend had intended to murder the emperor.

“If he spoke to you of unrelated matters, we will—”

“He did!” Ubezhar said, much too eagerly. “Nothing to do with … that is, we had no idea that…”

“Because,” Orthema said silkily, “if you had known, you would—of course—have stopped him.”

“Of course,” Ubezhar said, but he was not a good liar.

“Dach’osmer Ubezhar,” Berenar said, “do you know the penalty for treason?”

“Treason?” Ubezhar said, his voice squeaking.

“That is generally what the murder of an emperor is called.”

Ubezhar went white and blurted, “I had nothing to do with it! It was all Eshevis’s idea!”

Berenar raised his eyebrows. “The murder of Edrehasivar the Seventh? Or the murder of Varenechibel the Fourth?”

Ubezhar stared at Berenar in mingled fury and panic, and then wrenched free of the soldiers and lunged for the door. And Csevet, making good on the groom’s threat, punched him in the nose.

Once Ubezhar cracked, he cracked completely and the details came pouring out around the bloodstained handkerchief pressed to his face: Tethimar’s dissatisfaction, shared as it was by many nobles of Thu-Athamar and Thu-Tetar; their increasing impatience with Varenechibel’s refusal to heed them. “It was never like this under Varevesena,” Ubezhar said indignantly, although he was not old enough to remember for himself. Tethimar had had little difficulty in gathering a number of like-minded men about him, little difficulty in convincing them they were ill-used. And from there, it required unfortunately little imagination to follow the path they had taken to murder and treason. Sick at heart, Maia said to Berenar, “Is our presence needed?”

Berenar looked started, then something illuminated his face that Maia shied away from understanding. “No, Serenity. Not at all. Please, go and sleep.”

And Maia had no strength left to resist kindness. It took all his attention to get back to the Alcethmeret without falling over his own feet, and there he found himself an obedient puppet as his edocharei undressed him, bathed him, offered him food which he could not face, and put him to bed. He lay and stared at the wrestling cats and was so exhausted that the room seemed to be spinning very slowly around him, and he could not sleep.

After what felt like a very long time, a voice said softly, “Serenity?”

Kiru. He had never figured out how his nohecharei decided which of them stayed in his bedroom and which did not, and it seemed somehow rude to ask. “Yes, Kiru Athmaza?” He was careful not to look at her.

“You are not sleeping,” she said, a gently voiced statement of fact.

“We cannot,” he said bleakly. “It is all … If we close our eyes, we see him again.”

“Tethimar.”

“Yes. The look on his face—” He shivered and then found he was unable to stop.

“Serenity?” Kiru’s voice was closer.

“No!” he gasped. We cannot be your friend. “We are all right. Just … just cold.”

He could tell by the quality of her silence that she did not believe him, but if there was an advantage to being emperor, it was that she could not call him a liar to his face. He rolled onto his side, facing away from her, and curled himself into the tightest ball he could manage. Just cold, he told himself. Just very cold.

Quietly, Kiru began to sing. Maia didn’t know the song—something about dead women luring faithless lovers to drown in the Tetara—but it didn’t matter. Kiru’s voice was soft and rather rough, but she held strongly to the melody, and the kindness of it made his throat hurt in a way that Min Vechin’s beautiful voice never would. If he made any betraying noises, Kiru gave no sign of hearing, and when he finally fell asleep in the gray stormy daylight that crept around the curtains, she was still singing.

He slept heavily for four hours and woke feeling better than he thought he had any right to. Over a late luncheon, Csevet told him of the progress being made against Tethimar’s conspiracy. Two of the men Ubezhar had named had killed themselves before they could be arrested, but the other four were in custody, and only one, Dach’osmer Veschar, was attempting to claim innocence. Moreover, Mer Celehar had arrived on the noon airship from Amalo and wished to see Maia as soon as possible.

“Did he say that?” Maia said before he could stop himself, it being quite contrary to his experience of Thara Celehar.

Csevet cleared his throat. “He is very distressed, Serenity, that he was not fast enough to prevent Dach’osmer Tethimar’s attempt to murder you. We believe that he does, indeed, wish to see you so that he may beg your pardon. Also,” and Csevet was now very carefully not looking at Maia, “we have heard that Csoru Zhasanai has thrown him out.”

“Oh dear,” Maia said. “For it is our fault.”

“Serenity,” Csevet said, not quite agreeing. “We do not, however, believe that Mer Celehar will mention that fact if you do not force him to.”

“Thank you,” Maia said. “When will we have time to see him?”

“Um,” said Csevet, consulting part of his inevitable sheaf of papers. “If you will grant him an audience now, Serenity—we have told everyone else that you will not be available until your nohecharei have changed shifts again.” He gave an odd, one-shouldered shrug. “Unlike an hour designated on the clock, it does not allow of arguing that five minutes earlier cannot hurt.”

“Do you, er, suffer a great deal from such arguments?”

“It is our job, Serenity,” Csevet said, and smiled at him. “Will you see Mer Celehar now?”

“Yes,” Maia said.

He took a fresh cup of tea to the Tortoise Room and sat as close to the fireplace as he could; as if to make his half lie to Kiru a truth in earnest, he was bitterly cold and could not seem to get warm. Celehar must have been waiting for the summons, for he was almost immediately there, prostrating himself on the floor.

Merciful goddesses, not again. “Get up,” Maia said. “Please. We do not wish for—”

“We failed you, Serenity,” Celehar said, unmoving.

“You failed … what?” Maia pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mer Celehar, making all allowances for the upsetting nature of what happened last night, we cannot understand why you would say such a thing.”

Celehar looked up. “But—”

“No.” He had to stop, as surprised as anyone else by the brusque power of his voice. He tried again: “You are not responsible for Dach’osmer Tethimar’s self-love, nor for his remarkably poor judgment. You did what we asked you to do, and you did it very well. Nothing else is within your responsibility, and we ask you, most sincerely, not to pick up further burdens.”

Celehar finally got up; he looked simply bewildered. “But if we had not … it was clearly our investigations which caused Dach’osmer Tethimar to…”

“If it hadn’t been you, it would have been something else,” Maia said. “We think he was not quite sane, and he would never—that is, he had come much too far to accept anything less than complete compliance with his wishes, and he would never have achieved it. In fact, we are grateful to you, for if your investigations had not threatened him, he might have taken the time to come up with a better plan. As he did in murdering our father.”

“Serenity,” Celehar said, appalled.

Maia looked at him. His color was bad and his eyes bloodshot. “Mer Celehar, when did you last sleep?”

“Um.” Celehar rubbed his face. “We do not … what is today?”

“We believe it is still the twenty-second,” Maia said.

“Ah.” Celehar frowned. “We must have slept on the twentieth. Yes, for we remember the Vigilant Brotherhood offered us the use of a cell.”

“Then you need to sleep,” Maia said. “We feel sure that none of this will seem so much like your fault when you awake.”

The hesitation before Celehar said, “Yes, Serenity,” was perfectly palpable, and Maia wondered how much of Celehar’s willingness to accept blame for things which were not his fault was due to Csoru Zhasanai and what must have been, at best, a very unpleasant scene.

“We will take you into our household,” he said, “for as Csoru Zhasanai is our kinswoman, so must you be our kinsman, and you have done us, moreover, a great service. Csevet, will you ask Merrem Esaran, please, to grant Mer Celehar a room?”

“Of course, Serenity,” Csevet said. “This way, Mer Celehar.”

Celehar stood frozen for a moment, then he said, his broken voice barely more than a whisper, “Thank you, Serenity,” and let Csevet herd him out of the room.

Maia sighed with relief and turned his attention to the documents Csevet had brought him, a neat summation from Lord Berenar of the progress of the investigation. Csevet had told him most of it already, but he read carefully anyway, and was glad to see that Berenar had already begun to establish innocence as well as guilt; although Eshevis Tethimar’s father was as guilty as his son, the rest of the Tethimada seemed to be guilty of nothing more than trusting the head of their House to be honorable, and Dach’osmerrem Ubezharan was distraught with horror at her husband’s scheming. Berenar added that he had advised her to petition for a divorce—scandalous advice from a Lord Chancellor, but Maia agreed; if she was not part of Ubezhar and Tethimar’s plot, she did not deserve to be left holding the burden of their shame.

And he was deeply, dizzyingly relieved that the Archprelate was not implicated. It was more than bad enough that his reign had begun with two attempted coups, one led by his Lord Chancellor, without having the Archprelate of Cetho involved as well.

When Berenar was admitted—hard on the heels of Cala and Beshelar, and Maia remembered what Csevet had said about “five minutes earlier”—he told Maia the rest of what Ubezhar had said: “The wreck of the Wisdom of Choharo was not, as it turns out, Tethimar’s plan.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Do not mistake us, Serenity. Tethimar intended the emperor and his sons to die. But not then. He intended them to die after his own wedding.”

“We beg your pardon?”

“Tethimar’s plan,” said Berenar, “was that the emperor’s airship would be destroyed as it returned to Cetho from Puzhvarno, the city nearest to the Tethimada’s manor of Eshoravee.”

“We know of it,” Maia said with a glance at Csevet, who gave him a grave nod in return. “Do you mean, then, that he had indeed been promised our sister Vedero in marriage?”

“It seems so, Serenity. Certainly he and his allies thought he had been. They intended the Wisdom of Choharo as … as practice.”

“Practice?”

“Ubezhar said that Tethimar wished to be certain that the device could indeed be hidden successfully. The plan was that an object of the same size and shape should be placed on the Wisdom of Choharo, and if it reached Cetho undetected, they would know that the actual device would be secure. But there was some miscommunication.”

“So he intended,” Maia said slowly, “that he should marry our sister, and then our father and brothers should be killed.”

“Putting Eshevis Tethimar in an ideal position to assume the regency for Prince Idra,” Berenar agreed.

“But then what did he intend to do with us? For he cannot have imagined that we should be allowed to attend his wedding?”

Berenar coughed, his ears dipping. “We believe, Serenity, although Ubezhar did not exactly say so, that Tethimar had all but forgotten about you. You were not regarded as a threat.”

“A lunatic inbred cretin,” Maia said sourly, and Berenar’s ears dipped even farther before he recovered himself.

“But the device wrecked the Wisdom of Choharo, and Tethimar was not only not married to the archduchess, he didn’t even have a signed marriage contract. You were coronated more quickly than anyone expected. And Tethimar’s attempts to regroup were blocked.”

“Repeatedly,” Csevet said with audible satisfaction.

“You would not agree to his marriage to the archduchess. The Lord Chancellor made his own attempt to seize power. The investigator you sent to Amalo discovered the man who made the device. Tethimar spent the past several days, according to Ubezhar, in seeking some way out of the snare he had laid for himself. And when he could not find one … well, Ubezhar did not want to say, but, Serenity, we believe that Tethimar had come to think that you were the author of all his problems. The last thing he said to Ubezhar was that he was content to die if it meant that you would die with him.”

“It did seem that he hated us,” Maia said, and was embarrassed by the thinness of his own voice.

“Well, no matter,” Berenar said briskly, changing the subject. “He is dead, and we believe his conspiracy will die with him.” He explained, lucidly and completely, the plans he and Orthema had made to be sure that the conspiracy was not merely uncovered, but entirely uprooted. “We advise, Serenity, that the next head of each implicated house be required to come and swear his loyalty to you personally. And we advise most strongly that the House Tethimada be extirpated. Let its holdings be divided among Eshevis Tethimar’s unmarried sisters, so that each may have a generous dowry, and let it be heard of no more.”

“How many sisters had he?” Maia said.

“Four. But the eldest, of course, is married to Prince Orchenis.”

“Yes,” Maia said uneasily. “Berenar, have you … that is, we do not believe that the prince is in any way … we do not wish to…” He subsided, unable to make himself ask, Are you satisfied that the Prince of Thu-Athamar was not conspiring against us?

Berenar waited politely until it was clear Maia was not going to find a way to end his sentence, then said, “We do not feel that there is any reason to doubt Orchenis’s loyalty. We would recommend that you summon him and his wife here, as it is rather too important a matter to be left in any way doubtful—in fact, from our knowledge of Orchenis, we feel that he will wish to tell you, personally and unequivocally, that he is loyal—but … well, Serenity, if Orchenis had been part of the plot, we would have expected him to raise his banner upon your father’s death.”

“Ah,” Maia said. “Yes. We see what you mean.” He shook his head to clear it and said, “How old are Dach’osmer Tethimar’s unmarried sisters?”

“Serenity.” Berenar cleared his throat. “Fifteen, twelve, and seven.”

“And he had no brothers?”

“There was a younger brother, Serenity, but he died some years ago. A hunting accident, we believe, although we do not remember the details.”

“It matters not. Who becomes the girls’ guardian, then?”

“Serenity?”

“Their brother is dead; their father soon will be. Is their mother—?”

“Dead, Serenity. In childbirth of the youngest daughter.”

“And if they are to carry the wealth of the Tethimada to other houses, one does not wish to put them in the care of a Tethimadeise cousin,” Maia said. “Their mother’s house?”

Berenar looked pained. “Ubezhada, Serenity.”

“Ah. No.” He had a vision of the nursery of the Alcethmeret filled with the children of his enemies, and then the solution came to him: “Prince Orchenis.”

“Serenity?”

“He is their uncle by marriage. And if, as you say and we also believe, he is loyal, there can be no more suitable person.”

Berenar was silent, as if contemplating the idea from several sides, and then he nodded. “Yes. We concur. It will do very well.”

“Are there other matters?” Maia asked.

“We have spoken with Mer Celehar,” Berenar said, “and with the officers of the Vigilant Brotherhood who accompanied him and the prisoners.”

“The prisoners?” Maia said sharply.

Berenar consulted his notes. “Shulivar, Bralchenar, and Narchanezhen. The persons responsible for the device which destroyed the Wisdom of Choharo. They have been remanded to the Judiciate, but we wondered if … Serenity, it would be entirely legal to forgo trial and execute them tomorrow. The officers tell us that they do not deny what they have done, and offer no defense.”

“No,” Maia said instinctively and so harshly that he said immediately, “We beg your pardon. But no. We will not stoop to vengeance. But—”

“Serenity?”

He heard his own words and only barely believed them: “We wish to speak to them.”