22
BY THE TIME I arrived, Kiggs had debriefed the Queen and Comonot and had taken himself off to bed. I felt his absence like a punch in the stomach.
The Queen’s study reminded me of my father’s, though it had fewer books and more antique statuary. The Queen sat behind a broad desk, precisely where my father would have sat. Ardmagar Comonot took a thronelike chair near the windows; behind him, the sky was beginning to glow pink. They’d each brought a little entourage, who stood along the walls as if guarding the books from our grubby hands. We three miscreants were not offered seats.
I was relieved that no one had thought to notify my father. He would have been furious with me, but maybe that wasn’t obvious to others. Maybe they feared he’d turn his baleful lawyer’s gaze on them.
Orma showed no concern for my long absence, although he did sniff rather loudly when I drew near. He would notice I was bleeding. I had no intention of discussing it.
“One request,” said Orma, speaking first, way out of turn. “Excuse Basind from these proceedings. Allot his blame to me. He’s a newskin, inexperienced and singularly stupid. I am supposed to be teaching him; he merely followed my lead.”
“Granted,” said Comonot, raising his jowly chin. “Newskin Basind, go.”
Basind saluted his Ardmagar and left without so much as a nod to the Queen.
“Prince Lucian has given us his account of your encounter with the dragon Imlann,” said the Queen, frowning as she followed the newskin with her eyes. “I would like to hear your version, Maid Dombegh.”
I told all I could, underscoring our commitment to the peace and our desire to uncover the truth, the better to protect the Ardmagar.
The Queen listened impassively; Comonot seemed touched that we’d undertaken to measure this threat. One might almost have taken them for their opposites: Comonot the sympathetic human, Queen Lavonda the dispassionate saar. Perhaps those qualities were what had enabled them to reach an agreement after centuries of distrust and war. Each saw something familiar in the other.
“Maid Dombegh has committed no material violation of the treaty,” said the Queen. “I see no justification for holding her. Possession of a transmitting device is against the law, but I am inclined to overlook that, if she gives it back.”
I plucked the earring from the cord around my neck and handed it to Orma.
Comonot addressed Orma. “By rights, I should revoke your scholarship and travel permissions for your unauthorized transformation. However, I’m impressed with your initiative and your drive to protect your Ardmagar.”
Apparently I’d lent sufficient color to that part of the story. Orma saluted at the sky, saar fashion.
“I elect to waive your penalties,” said Comonot, glancing sidelong at the Queen as if to gauge her reaction to his magnanimity. She looked merely tired. “We shall discuss the best course of action at council.” A lone malcontent poses little threat to me, thanks to the fine security of my hosts, but he is still in breach of treaty and must be apprehended.”
Orma saluted again and said, “Ardmagar, may I take advantage of this unexpected audience to petition you privately?”
Comonot assented with a wave of his thick fingers. The Queen and her attendants left for breakfast, leaving Comonot with just a small retinue of saarantrai. I made to leave also, but Orma’s hand on my elbow restrained me. “Would you dismiss your retainers as well, Ardmagar?” said Orma.
The Ardmagar complied, to my astonishment. Orma must have seemed particularly harmless, despite his notorious father.
“All in ard,” said Orma. “This involves the Censors, and I did not wish—”
“I do not see that your family could sink much further,” said the Ardmagar. “Quickly, if you please. I find this body gets irritable without its breakfast.”
Orma squinted without his spectacles. “I have been hounded by the Censors for sixteen years: relentlessly tested, monitored, retested, my research sabotaged. How much is enough? When will they be satisfied that I am all I should be?”
Comonot shifted warily in his seat. “That is a question for the Censors, scholar. They fall outside my jurisdiction; indeed, I am as subject to them as you are. That is as must be. Their neutrality keeps checks on us when we descend into the monkey mind.”
“There is nothing you can do?”
“There is something you could do, scholar: voluntary excision. I have one scheduled myself, almost as soon as I get back.” He tapped his large head; his plastered-down hair gave it the appearance of a seaweed-covered rock. “I shall have all emotional detritus removed. It’s unexpectedly refreshing.”
Orma dared not look disturbed; I hoped the little muscle working near his jawline was noticeable only to me. “That would not do, Ardmagar. They inevitably remove memories as well, and that would spoil my research. But what if I hunted Imlann down?” Orma seemed not to know when to quit. “Would that not prove where my loyalty lies, or put the state in my debt—”
“The state does not repay debts in this fashion, as you well know,” said Comonot.
The quickness of his interjection raised my hackles; he was lying. “Basind shouldn’t be here, but he is,” I snapped. “Eskar explicitly said it was a favor to his mother, for turning in her husband.”
“I don’t recall the case, but that is certainly not policy,” said Comonot, his voice a warning.
“Seraphina,” said my uncle, his hand hovering near my arm.
I ignored him; I wasn’t finished. “Fine. Call it an exceptional circumstance, but could not an exception be made also for my uncle, who has done noth—”
“Scholar Orma, who is this person?” asked the Ardmagar, suddenly on his feet.
I turned toward my uncle, openmouthed. His eyes were closed, his fingers tented in front of his chin as if he were praying. He inhaled deeply through his nose, opened his eyes, and said, “Seraphina is my nameless sister’s daughter, Ardmagar.”
Comonot’s eyes bugged alarmingly. “No . . . not with that . . .”
“With him, yes. The human, C—”
“Do not say his name,” ordered the Ardmagar, suddenly the most dispassionate of saarantrai. He considered a moment. “You reported that she died childless.”
“Yes, I reported that,” said Orma. My heart broke a little along with his voice.
“The Censors know you lied,” guessed the Ardmagar shrewdly. “That’s a mark against you; that’s why they won’t let you go. Odd that it was not reported to the Ker.”
Orma shrugged. “As you say, Ardmagar, the Censors aren’t accountable to you.”
“No, but you are. Your scholar’s visa is revoked, saar, as of this instant. You will return home; you will put yourself down for excision. Failure to report to the surgeons within one week’s time will result in a declaration of magna culpa. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
Comonot left us. I turned to Orma so full of rage and horror and sorrow that for a moment I could not speak. “I assumed he knew,” I cried. “Eskar knew.”
“Eskar used to be with the Censors,” said Orma softly.
I threw up my hands in futile despair, pacing around him; Orma stood very, very still, staring at nothing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “This is my fault. I ruin everything, I—”
“No,” said Orma evenly. “I should have sent you out of the room.”
“I assumed you intended to introduce me to him, like with Eskar!”
“No. I kept you here because I . . . I wanted you here. I thought it would help.” His eyes widened in horror at himself. “They’re right. I am emotionally compromised beyond redemption.”
I wanted so badly to touch his shoulder or take his hand so he would know he was not alone in the world, but I couldn’t do it. He would swat me away like a mosquito.
Yet he’d taken my elbow and wanted me to stay. I struggled with tears. “So you’ll be going home?”
He looked at me like my head had fallen off. “To the Tanamoot? Never. It’s not just a matter of sweeping away ‘emotional detritus,’ not for me. The cancer runs too deep. They’d excise every memory of Linn. Every memory of you.”
“But you’d be alive. Magna culpa means if they find you, they can kill you on sight.” Papa would have been shocked at how many times I’d played the lawyer tonight.
He raised his eyebrows. “If Imlann can survive in the south for sixteen years, I imagine I can manage a few.” He turned to go, then thought better of it. He removed his earring and handed it back to me. “You may still need this.”
“Please, Orma, I’ve already gotten you in so much trouble—”
“That I can’t possibly get into more. Take it.” He wouldn’t stop glaring at me until I’d put the earring back on its cord. “You are all that’s left of Linn. Her own people won’t even say her name. I—I value your continued existence.”
I could not speak; he had pierced me to my very heart.
As was his wont, he bid me no farewell. The full weight of everything that had befallen me, on this longest night of the year, landed squarely upon me, and I stood a very long time, staring at nothing.