Burning Bright

Chauvelin had come away from the windows when the wind got bad, waited now in one of the smaller rooms that overlooked the gardens, his back to the shuttered windows and the storm. The walls, dark red trimmed with gold, gleamed in the warm light; he could not feel the household generators whirring on standby through the thick carpet, but a glance at the monitor board told him they were ready should city power fail. He glanced away, took a few restless steps toward the door and then back again to the desk, looking down at the files glowing in the display surfaces. The first draft of his formal letter to the Remembrancer-Duke waited in the main screen, ready to be transcribed into n-jaoscript, but he could not make himself concentrate on its careful phrases. Damian Chrestil had given him the excuse he had needed to break ji-Imbaoa’s power. If he and the Remembrancer-Duke played the game right, the incident could have effects as far away as Hsiamai and the All-Father’s court itself. At the very least, the je Tsinraan would lose face over this, a Speaker for the court embroiled in common commerce, tripped up by a smuggling scheme: a more than acceptable outcome. And that didn’t take into account the effects on Burning Bright itself. Chauvelin smiled, savoring the double victory. At the very least, Damian Chrestil would not become governor in the next elections, nor the ones after that; at best, he would never be governor, and the tzu Tsinraan would not have to contend with an ally of the je Tsinraan in control of Burning Bright. And I may still be able to keep some hold over Damian Chrestil, even after all of this is over. That would be the best of all.

A chime sounded in the desktop, and he reached to answer it, touching the flashing icons. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sia,” je-Sou’tsian said, “but it’s Na Damian. He says it’s urgent.”

“Put him through,” Chauvelin said, and felt the fear cold in his stomach. Something’s gone wrong—The picture took shape in the desktop, blotting out the open files, and Damian Chrestil looked out at him, his face strained and white.

“N’Ambassador.”

“What’s happened?” Chauvelin asked, suspecting already, dreading the answer. In the screen behind Damian Chrestil, out-of-focus shapes bent over another shape crumpled on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Damian Chrestil said. “Ransome’s dead.”

I knew it. Chauvelin bit back anger, the instinct that would have had him calling out the garrisons on Iaryo, on Hsiamai, to launch the missile strike that would obliterate the summer house and everyone, everything, in it… “How?”

“The Visiting Speaker,” Damian said baldly. He was telling it badly, and he knew it. “He attacked him. Ransome went past him, to get his medicine, and the Speaker attacked him. He was killed almost instantly.”

“Like hell,” Chauvelin said. “I-Jay wasn’t that stupid, he would never have gone within reach—” But he might have, the cold voice of logic whispered at the back of his mind. Ransome never did fully appreciate just how much that clan line hated him. And he always underestimated ji-Imbaoa.

“It was none of my doing,” Damian Chrestil said.

Chauvelin looked at him for a long moment, recognizing the truth of his words in the shocked look on the younger man’s face. I-Jay’s dead. “Where’s ji-Imbaoa?”

“Locked in the cellar.” Damian Chrestil managed a strained, mirthless grin, gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. “I’m sorry, Chauvelin. He claimed your jurisdiction.”

Chauvelin made a noise that might at another time have been a bark of laughter. “What a fool.” He paused then, considering, the habit of cold calculation carrying him through in spite of himself. There was nothing he could do for Ransome, and nothing more Ransome could do for him, except that in his death he would bring down ji-Imbaoa and most of the je Tsinraan with him. Ji-Imbaoa had overstepped himself. Even under the old codes that the je Tsinraan professed to believe in, this killing, this murder, cut across too many kinship lines, impinged on his, Chauvelin’s, rights as Ransome’s patron and lover. “Fool,” he said again, not sure if he was thinking of ji-Imbaoa or Ransome or himself, and made himself focus on Damian Chrestil, white-faced in the screen’s projection. “Hold him for me. He claims hsai law, he’ll get it.”

Damian Chrestil nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

Chauvelin said, “I’ll keep our bargain, Damian. But it’s because I want the Visiting Speaker.”

Damian nodded again. “I accept that.” He looked away briefly, made himself look back at the screen. “I’ve not yet spoken to Na Lioe, I don’t know how she’ll take it.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Chauvelin said.

“Are you sure?” Damian asked, involuntarily.