Burning Bright

Chauvelin glanced one last time around the narrow room, at the plain black silk that lined the walls, at the low table with the prescribed ritual meal—snow-wine; a tray of tiny red-stained wafers, each marked in black with the graceful double-glyph that meant both good fortune and gift; a molded sweet, this one in the shape of the nuao-pear that stood for duty—laid out in the faint shadow of a single perfect orchid in an equally perfect holder carved from a natural pale-purple crystal. His own clothes were equally part of the prescribed ritual, plain black silk coat over the pearl-grey bodysuit that served humans like himself for the hsai’s natural skin, a single knot of formal ribbons tied around his left arm, the folded iron fan set on the bright carpet in front of him. He glanced a final time at his reflection in the single narrow window, checking his appearance, and found it acceptable. It was night out still, the sun not yet risen; he suppressed a certain sense of injustice, and glanced again at the technician. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes, Sia Chauvelin.”

“Then you may go.” Chauvelin looked back at the screen, barely aware of the murmured response and the soft scuffing sound as the technician bowed himself out and closed the door gently behind him. The remote was a sudden weight against his thigh, reminding him of his duty; he reached into the pocket of his coat to touch its controls, triggering the system. The hidden speakers hissed for a moment, singing as the jump-satellite bridged the interstellar space between the local transmitter and an identical machine on maiHu’an, and then the screen lit on a familiar scene. Chauvelin bowed, back straight, eyes down, hands on the carpet in front of him, heard a light female voice—human female—announcing his name.

“Tal je-Chauvelin tzu Tsinraan, emissary to and friend-at-court for the houtaof Burning Bright.”

Chauvelin kept his eyes on the fan, dark against the glowing red of the carpet, staring at the five n-jaocharacters of his name carved into the outer guard. There was a little silence, and then a second voice answered the first, this one unmistakably hsaia, inhuman and male.

“I acknowledge je-Chauvelin.”

Chauvelin leaned back slowly, raising his eyes to the screen. Even expecting it, the illusion was almost perfect, so that for an instant he could almost believe that the wall had dissolved, and a second room identical to his own had opened in front of him. The Remembrancer-Duke Aorih ja-Erh’aoa tzu Tsinraan sat facing him in a carved chair-of-state, hands posed formally on the heads of the crouching troglodyths that formed the arms of the chair. His wrist spurs curved out and down toward the troglodyths’ eyes, their enameled covers—done in a pattern of twining flowers, Chauvelin saw, without surprise—glowing in the warm lights.

“This person thanks his most honored patron for his acknowledgment,” he said, in the hsai tongue that he prided himself on speaking as well as any jericho-human, any human born and bred inside the borders of HsaioiAn. “And welcomes him with service.”

Ja-Erh’aoa made a quick, ambiguous gesture with one hand, at once accepting and dismissing the formal compliments. The stubby fingerclaws, painted a delicate shade between lavender and blue to match the enameled flowers of the spur sheath, clicked once against the carved head, and were still again. Chauvelin read impatience and irritation in the movement, and in the still face of the human woman who stood at ja-Erh’aoa’s left hand, and braced himself for whatever was to follow.

“I would like to know, je-Chauvelin, what you meant by this report.”

For a crazy second, Chauvelin considered asking which report the hsaia meant, but suppressed that particularly suicidal notion. The Remembrancer-Duke had shifted from the formal tones of greeting to the more conversational second mode, and Chauvelin copied him. “My lord, you asked for my interpretation of what the All-Father and his council should expect from the elections. I gave you that answer.”

“You recommended that we support, or at least acquiesce in, Governor Berengaria’s reelection.” Ja-Erh’aoa’s hand moved again, the painted claws clicking irritably against the troglodyth’s low forehead. “Am I mad, or do I misremember, that she supports the Republic quite openly?”

Chauvelin winced inwardly at the mention of memory—ja-Erh’aoa implied that he had implied an insult—and said, “It is so, my lord.” He kept his voice cool and steady only with an effort: he had known that this would become an issue of an’ahoba, the delicate game of status and prestige, but he had counted on ja-Erh’aoa’s support.

“Then why should we not stand in her way?”