source, I would have taken up all my weapons, in spite of the terms of the diplomats’ treaty, and hunted the men behind it down like criminals and dogs. As with all prior attempts, my lord Mamoru would never have known the precariousness of his own life in these dark hours.
But Iseul’s words were spoken for the good of the empire, and I was merely a servant. What was my will worth, against that of an emperor?
CAIUS
It was my first evening with the Ke-Han, and already the second prince’s bodyguard had tried to kill me. Things would have been much more intriguing if it had been the second prince himself, but when one was in the midst of exotic, curiously refined savages, one took what one could get.
Alcibiades, however, was still having a fit of pique over it.
As he made it very plain that he actively disliked me—he hadn’t come around just yet, and he was stubborn as a mule and smelled like one, too—I had no idea why he was making such a fuss over it.
“In fact,” I was in the middle of explaining, “everything’s gone rather better than I thought it would have by now.”
As a response, Alcibiades managed an indelicate grunt. I’d learned, however, the sound was his particular and special form of communication. One had to adapt if one wanted to find any sort of conversation at all. I had already garnered a reputation among some of the other diplomats, so Alcibiades—grunting, mulish aroma and all—would have to suffice for the moment.
I did what I always did: I continued talking. “Why, didn’t you expect the sparks to fly?” I asked, knowing full well I would get no more than a grunt in return. From what I gathered, not only was Alcibiades in a poor mood, he was also hungry. He’d barely touched his food at dinner. No doubt he’d expected bread and cheese and bleeding meat, and was disappointed to discover the subtle flavors of Ke-Han cuisine. Either that, or all the half-raw fish. “If it wasn’t someone else who gave the first offense, I thought for certain it would be you.”
That seemed to surprise him. “Me?” Alcibiades demanded. Although it sounded distinctly gruntlike, it was almost certainly a word; I counted that as a triumph, and made a mental note of the time and place. Late evening, my quarters in the palace. When we’d returned after the lovely meal, I’d immediately opened the adjoining door between our rooms so that we might chat better.
“You were wearing red,” I pointed out.
“Good color,” he replied.
I sighed, though I wasn’t really exasperated. He was more than just a character, the recently promoted General Alcibiades; he had an interesting sense of what was allowed (offending all the Ke-Han by wearing Volstov’s colors in the midst of a diplomatic mission) and what wasn’t (admiring the second prince’s very fine jade necklace).
“One almost thinks you want to be recalled,” I said slyly.
Alcibiades looked at me sharply, and I wondered if I hadn’t hit the mark, after all. Something about his expression reminded me of how the second prince’s bodyguard had seized my arm. You wouldn’t think it to look at men so solidly built—that they could do anything so quickly—but there were Alcibiades and the bodyguard, both proving me wrong.
There was nothing so wonderful as being proven wrong. It gave one all manner of chances to adapt and solve the riddle, that one might be right the next time. I relished the thought.
Alcibiades’ stomach made a loud and unruly sound.
“Perhaps,” I ventured, “you might abandon your dreams of being recalled in favor of actually eating some dinner occasionally?”
“It wasn’t even cooked!” Alcibiades proclaimed. A full sentence this time. Perhaps the hunger was forcing him to let his guard down. The theory, if it proved true, was rather a thrilling prospect. Why, by morning he would be speaking in paragraphs!
“At least you can rest assured that at breakfast there is very little likelihood of your bowl containing more fish. They don’t seem like the type to repeat a performance—or a meal, for that matter.”
Alcibiades rubbed his stomach, almost like the great shaggy dog I’d first imagined him to be. “I’d even settle for rice, at this hour,” he said.
I looked out the window. I hadn’t noticed it before, since it operated in much the same way as the sliding doors, yet wasn’t made of rice paper but dark, polished wood. The moon hung like a slice of some pale exotic fruit in