He said something unfamiliar, coarse and sharp; no doubt it was a curse. And then, upon seeing me, he reached out to grab my arm with unfathomable familiarity. I recoiled before remembering myself, my duty, and what I had done earlier to shame my lord.
The man’s face was foreign, which meant that he too was a member of the diplomatic envoy. I couldn’t afford to offend anyone else so soon. Perhaps he only needed to be led back to his part of the palace. I wasn’t among the servants assigned to herd the Volstovics hither and yon as though they were stray peacocks and not people at all.
“You’re lost,” I said, though it was plain that at least half the men and women from Volstov did not understand our tongue. Interesting, then, that we should have worked so hard and so diligently at learning theirs.
This one seemed to, however, or at least he straightened up and began looking about back and forth, as if confused as to which direction he’d come from.
“Your quarters are this way,” I added.
A firm hand could sometimes bridge what language could not.
Since the man demonstrated no desire to let go of my arm, I curbed my temper and began the task of leading him down the hall, past the servants’ quarters, and out of the prince’s wing entirely. He said something in Volstovic, and he stumbled once when I rounded a corner too swiftly, but the drink had made him amenable. No doubt he was not used to the strength of Ke-Han wine.
We passed the very same room in which the Emperor had conducted his talks, as well as the great hall that led up to the Emperor’s private quarters. There had been some furor over housing the delegation from Volstov so close to the Emperor, but Iseul himself had declared it be so, stating that he was not afraid and nor should any of us be, since the Volstovics were there on a mission of peace and diplomacy, and hospitality alone could rebuild what centuries of warfare had undone.
To house them elsewhere would have betrayed a lack of conviction on our part.
We had only just rounded the corner, my charge and I, when I caught the first glimpse of soft lanternlight. The servants had doubtless been instructed to stay about later in this part of the palace, perhaps to see to it no diplomat from Volstov lost his way as the man by my side had done.
I took the man’s hand from my arm. He seemed to calm once he’d noticed the lantern up ahead. He made a sluggish gesture, starting down the hall before pausing—an inelegant lurch in his motion—to turn around.
“Thank you,” he said, halting and crude in our language.
I bowed as low as was proper and watched to make sure the servant up ahead had taken notice of him.
We were in an important stage in our country’s rebuilding, perhaps the most important. I knew it as well as any other man in the palace. Still, as I turned to make my way back to the other end of the palace, I couldn’t help thinking how I would welcome the day when the delegation from Volstov left us forever. As things stood, their presence was too much like the threat of a headache lingering at the back of my mind.
When I reached the center point of the palace there was a gentle light spilling down the corridor that led to the Emperor’s suites. I felt the same curiousness that had overtaken my heart at the dinner—a nameless dread, all the more powerful because it was nameless as of yet.
I couldn’t see any lantern-bearing servants, which meant the light must have been coming from the Emperor’s rooms somewhere up ahead. I wondered if perhaps another man or woman from Volstov had become turned around. If that was the case, then it was my duty to ask the Emperor what service I might do him. It was possible, too, that my apprehension came solely from the drunkard’s invasion, from knowing that a foreign diplomat could easily stumble into the Emperor’s chambers. Whether he meant to do ill or had merely swallowed too much wine at dinner did not seem to matter much.
I had no wish to spend my night ferrying diplomats from one end of the palace to another, but my duty had nothing at all to do with what I wished.
There were no servants lining the hall to the Emperor’s private audience