Beneath his robes, the emperor had been wearing a simple day suit: a cutaway cloth coat of dark blue possessed of brass buttons over a plain buff waistcoat and matching pantaloons. His feet were shod in riding boots with golden spurs; and at his throat was gathered a stiffly starched cravat. He took the seat at the head of the table and, with a flick of his wrist, dismissed his ministers and staff. These scurried to the walls, where they stood in various poses pretending to converse with one another, but watching always for a summons from the Presence.
“Tea?” the Presence said, holding a cup under the samovar.
He proceeded through the ceremony with meticulous detail. One lump or two? Cream? Scone? Jam? Each motion practiced; each stir a precise radius and number of revolutions.
The Fudir supposed this was the Thistlean equivalent to the Terran ceremony of bread and salt. More elaborate, of course, in that mad and fussy Thistlean fashion.
When all had been served by the emperor’s own hand, Resilient Services intoned formally, “We shall now make small talk.”
The harper was uncertain how to begin; but the Fudir said easily, “How do matters stand since the great thistlequake, your imperial majesty? Recovery proceeding apace, I hope?”
“Oh, yes. Quite, thank you,” the emperor responded. “And for duration of Tea, you call me ‘Jimmy.’ Port Tsienchester not yet fully operational; but perhaps by end of sixmonth. You.” He pointed at the harper. “I mistake you for another. She, too, from Kennel. She give mandate to rule. How I curse that day.”
“Bridget ban can be very persuasive,” said the Fudir.
“Ah. You know her.”
“She is my mother,” said the harper.
“And I have been charged to escort the daughter to her.”
The emperor cocked his head. “And where that?”
“I regret, ah, Jimmy, that the information is privileged. You know the ways of the Kennel.”
“Why do you curse the day my mother made you emperor?” the harper interjected. “She made you emperor of one of the Fourteen States.”
“That curse.” Jimmy turned a little in his seat. “See sigils over throne? Love-heaven. Person. Protect. Heaven-below. In ancient tongue: Low tyen chay, pow tyen-sha. It say that man who love heaven-sky will protect empire. But heaven perfect. Never fail, never fall. Heaven-below, Sheen Jenlùshy should be imitate that perfection. Never does. But if emperor love heaven good enough, everything fine below, too. Never fail, never fall. One Man must be regular as sky, must be never-changing. I move in orbit, like planet. Go here, go there. All same ceremony, all same word. All pest black-fly ministers buzz round me. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Do this, do that. All ‘veddy propah.’ No mistake. Mistake in heaven-below cause mistake in heaven-above. Very bad. Calf stillborn. My fault. Did not recite sunrise prayer proper. Bandit rob exchequer in Bristol-fu. My fault. Did not make proper ablution. All universe connected through dough. Everything affect everything. Mountainslide in Northumberchow Shan…”
“Your fault,” said the Fudir. “We get it. I can see cosmic oneness has its drawbacks. If you forget to clip your toenails, who knows what horrors might be unleashed? I can see why none of the Fourteen States wants to conquer the others. Considering what can go wrong in one day in any one sheen, being emperor of the whole kit and kaboodle must have been hell on wheels.”
Jimmy frowned. “Please?”
“Never mind him,” said the harper. “He’s a Terran.”
The emperor shook his head. “Only here in tea ceremony, two three other times, is emperor become Jimmy again.” He turned abruptly to the harper. “Tell me of home world, Mistress Harp.”
“Dangchao Waypoint? It’s a small world, a dependency of Die Bold. Mostly open prairies on Great Stretch continent, where we raise Nolan’s Beasts. A few big towns. When we go to Die Bold, we say we’re going to ‘The City.’ May I have one of those finger sandwiches? What is the spread?”
“Pimento and Devonchao cream. Made in Praefecture of Wild Violets. I hear of planet in Wild, out in the Burnt-Over District. They talk of ‘The City’” He waved an imperial wrist. “Out past Ampayam and Gatmander. Somewhere.”
“The ‘Burnt-Over District,’” the harper suggested.
“Traveler tales. Suns go nova now and then. Burn up cities.”
“If their suns went nova periodically,” the Fudir said, “it would burn up more than their cities. There’d be no one left to spread travelers’ tales.”
“The Wild,” said the harper, “is a region of romance. Anything can happen there.”
“Even romance,” the Fudir replied. “But what usually happens out there is death or bankruptcy. Or both. Most of the worlds are uncivilized. A few have spaceflight; none have rediscovered sliding. Their cities are smelly and dirty, and you’d be lucky not to come away diseased. Romance,” he concluded, “is best considered from a distance.”
“You have harp with you, mistress? Of course. Ollamh never far from instrument. You bring with tomorrow. Play songs of your Dangchao, so far away.”
Méarana put her cup carefully on its saucer. “Well… Donovan and I have some business to conduct…”
“Oh, no,” said Resilient Services. “I must insist.”
And there was something hard in the way he said it that caused the harper to hesitate and glance at her companion.
“I had planned to visit the Corner,” the Fudir said. “You can entertain the emperor while I do that.”
“Yes,” agreed the emperor of the Morning Dew. “You do that.”
The next morning, as Méarana prepared for her command performance at the palace, the Fudir prepared to enter the Corner of Jenlùshy For this, he did not dress as he had for the palace. Indeed, he barely dressed at all. Around his waist he tied a simple blue-and-white checkered dhoti. On his feet, sandals. His upper body he oiled.
“Easier to slip out of someone’s grip,” he said with a leer. Save for secreting various weapons in unlikely places, that completed his toilet.
The harper looked him over before he departed. “That’s no more than a long towel wrapped around you,” she said, pointing to the dhoti. “How do you bend over in that thing?”
“Very carefully. Be sure to keep the emperor happy. I think he’s a little taken with you. But remember: no hint of anything wrong ‘up in the skies.’”
“How many times will you tell me that, old man? Just be careful in the Corner. The concierge told me it’s a dangerous place.”
“Full of Terrans. You be careful, too. There aren’t any Terrans in the palace, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.”
He slipped out the service entrance of the hotel and followed the Street of the Tin Smiths to the Street of the Plastic Injection Molders, where he turned left and entered the Corner.
He had never been to the Corner of Jenlùshy, but he knew it when he was in it. Thistlewaite buildings tended toward the ramshackle, even without the help of a ‘quake, but as he proceeded farther along Beggars’ Lane they grew positively sketchy. Many did not bother with such vanities as walls. What could a wall ever do except collapse? If curtains and tapestries did not exactly bar entry to the burglar, neither did they hurt as much when they fell on you. And what might be within such hovels as to tempt a burglar?
Granted, this was no more than an accommodation to the geophysical realities, but by Alfven! A Terran ought not care if walls came down on him! Compared to the expulsion of their ancestors from Olde Earth, what harm could a few bricks and beams do? Nor ought they ape the dress of the Thistles quite so closely, nor speak that unadorned dialect of Gaelactic favored here. On Jehovah, the Terrans of the Corner spoke the old patois among themselves, and spoke it proudly.