The emperor’s sob startled her from her trance and, realizing what she had done, she transformed the music once more into geantraí, pivoted by progressions out of the seventh mode and lessening his black bile with the eighth. It was intricate fingerwork, finding the right cadences so as to shift without dissonance. When she had finished, she laid her hand flat against the strings to still them; though it seemed to her that the strings still wanted plucking and vibrated softly even so.
“I did not mean to upset you, Jimmy,” she said.
“No, no, quite all right. Chin-chin. Emperor should be upset now and then. Tedious business, remaining always in balance—always in harmony.” A quick smile and with a nod toward the harp. “As you must know.”
“Perhaps I can play a song of your own world. Thistlewaite. Something pleasant and hopeful.”
“World hopeless. Keeps breaking.”
“And yet you persist. My mother always said courage was one of the Four Great Strengths.”
“You mother. Yes. What other three?”
“Prudence, justice, and moderation.”
The emperor nodded. “Those good strengths for ruler.”
“How does your First Cautionary Book begin? I could try to set it.” Méarana’s fingers poised ready to wrest a melody from her strings, and Jimmy began to recite in a singsong voice.
Afterward, Méarana said, “This worm trembles that she must leave so soon.” She did not sound much like a trembling worm, having had little practice in the art.
Jimmy laid a hand on her bare arm. “Do not go,” he said with eyes as wide as sorrow. “How else I hear such distant places? Duty pin me forever to Jenlùshy like butterfly to board. You stay here. Be empress. Bring songs of places I never see.”
Méarana slid her arm gently from his touch. She adjusted the green shawl around her shoulders. “I cannot. I would be a prisoner here.”
“In chains of gold,” he told her. “In velvet bands.”
“Ochone! Are chains of gold chains no less? I must go. It is a geasa upon me.”
The emperor of the Morning Dew slumped a little in his seat. “Obligation. Yes, I understand. You must find her.”
She said nothing for a time, stroking the strings of her harp, but without striking them, so that they only murmured but did not speak. “How did you know?”
The emperor gestured elegantly toward the harp. “What else? Such sorrow come only from death or loss. And death not drive you to cross whole Spiral Arm.”
Méarana closed her eyes. “No one has heard from her in three metric years. Many search, myself most of all.”
Jimmy Barcelona lifted his teacup to his lips and his eyes searched the courtiers who lined the walls out of earshot, engaged in faux conversations. “Then,” he said, dropping his voice, “I, too, search. I go with you…”
Méarana had expected the invitation to stay; but not the offer to go. “Ye… Ye cannae,” she said, falling into her native accents. “Jenlùshy needs you. Mother selected you because of your expertise in infrastructure. You must stay here and rebuild the Morning Dew so that it can survive the next thistlequake.”
But Jimmy dismissed that with a wave of the hand. “No build so strong but Thistlewaite stronger. This miserable worm, engineer. Lay pipe, calculate sewage by ancient rules. Estimate building loads and construction costs. Bridges… Was happy build bridges. Never ask for this.”
The harper touched the strings of her harp. “No one ever does,” she said quietly, running her fingers down the cords.
“I give orders. Modify systems; implement fault tolerancing and redundancy; increase reliability of infrastructure. Ministers… make up numbers to please me, and always build as always. Ancient rules. One day, all come down again. No. Better one seek Bridget ban across whole Spiral Arm. There, perhaps, success.”
To maintain the harmony of heaven-below by trying to impose the regularities of astronomy on the behavior of humans was very nearly the definition of madness. And yet mystics throughout the ages, from astrologers to computer modelers, had sought it. They forgot that even the heavens held surprises.
Jimmy Barcelona at least could see the futility of his efforts, even if he was not quite clear on why they were futile. Méarana almost told him that her quest was no less so, but that was something she had not yet told even herself.
And so she spoke truth to power. “Ye maun seek Bridget ban for her sake, not because you want to shuck your own responsibilities.”
Power didn’t like to hear that; or else he knew she spoke truth, which was much the same thing. “If purpose same,” whispered the emperor, “what matter, different motives? Keep smile. We pretend talk small nothings. Courtiers cannot hear. Listen. If Bridget ban now lost, approval of sky lost, too. So order in heaven-below, in Jenlùshy not maintain, and all become chaos above.”
“That’s absurd, Jimmy! What happens in the Spiral Arm does not depend on how well you maintain the Morning Dew!”
“This Thistlewaite. Nothing absurd. You know Garden of Seven Delights?”
“What? But…” Was this a shift back to “small talk”? “Yes. Donovan and I have eaten there several times. The food is…”
“Listen. Garden have back door. I come tonight, at Domestic Entertainment Hour. I come in front, lock door on entourage, run out back. You wait by back door with fast flitter. Rent most fast in whole sheen. I come out back door, jump in, and you ‘light a shuck for Texas,’ as your friend say. Go so fast as possible to Hifocal Big Town in next sheen. We take shuttle. Once buy ticket…” At this point he relaxed and sat back in his chair. “Port Authority protect. Then you, me, your Donovan, we fly across sky, go… maybe Texas, maybe find Bridget ban.”
The harper took her napkin and dabbed at her lips. High Tea was coming to an end and the servitors were gathering to take down the café table and set the throne room back to rights. “I must confer with my friend.”
The emperor, too, glanced at the approaching staff. “No time. No confer. Decide.”
Méarana took a deep breath, exhaled. “Second night hour. Behind the Garden of Seven Delights.”
“With most fast flivver. Now,” he rose from the table and raised his voice a bit so others could hear. “No need more play. Tomorrow, come back, sing of High Tara.”
Méarana rose, showed leg in a graceful bow, and swept up her harp case. “Your worship commands; this worthless one obeys.” And she slung the case across her shoulder and strode for the door.
She wondered what Donovan would say about this latest development; but she thought she could guess.
“Have you gone mad?” Donovan demanded.
The sleek Golden Eagle flivver floated up Double Moon Street on a cushion produced by the magnetic field in the paving. “You better hope not,” the harper said. “I’m driving.” To the west, the Kilworthy Hills had darkened, but their highest peaks still caught the un-set sun from over the horizon and flashed a brilliant white and gray.
“Kidnapping the emperor? Tell me that’s sane.”