You may have noticed that in venting all this passion upon you I did not stop to draw distinctions between Gaje and Rom. Indeed. We have our differences, yes-how great those differences are, the Gaje don't begin to suspect!-but we have our great similarities too, and I never allow myself to forget that, either. They are human and we are human. This ocean in which we drift is very wide and we are very small; and all of us need whatever allies we can find. The Gajo is the enemy, yes: so we are taught from childhood. But the Gajo is also the only friend. It is a very perplexing business. Most important matters in life are like that. We Rom have kept ourselves apart, an island in the vast Gaje sea, for if we had not done that we would have been lost; and yet we have joined hands with them also, as much as is possible, for if we had not done that we would also have been lost. We are a Kingdom outside the Imperium, but we are of the Imperium as well. That is not easy to understand. It was not easy to achieve, either. But I tell you this, that the death of the Gaje emperor diminishes us all, even us Rom. No man is an island.
2.
I HEARD RUMBLES AND DISTURBANCES WITHIN the building. Maybe they were moving furniture, maybe they were tearing down walls: I had no way of telling. The noise continued for a day and a half and it began to sound like something more serious than sliding couches around. But for me, in my isolation, it was just one more day and a half of gluttony: fantastic sauces and creamy desserts and glittering wines. A culminating orgy of fantastic food, as it turned out. On the evening of the second day I got no dinner at all. The robots failed to show up, and the noise outside grew much louder. Now I was certain that something serious had to be going on.
My first inkling of the truth came when I heard footsteps in the hallway, the sound of running feet. Then shouts and alarums, a siren or two, the unmistakable hissing of imploder fire, the dull boom of heavier artillery. I put my ear to the door. There was fighting going on out there, yes, but who was fighting whom? I couldn't tell a thing.
At first I thought that Polarca or Valerian had arrived with an army of Rom loyalists to overthrow Shandor and set me free. God save me from that. If I had wanted to push Shandor aside by force, I would have tried it long ago instead of going through this whole elaborate charade. Rom should not lift hands against Rom.
But if this was a Rom invasion, what was Julien de Gramont doing mixed up in it? Obviously it was Julien who had been preparing my meals these past weeks; no one else would have had the skill. Perhaps it was Julien who had opened the gates to let the invaders in. He and Polarca were well acquainted: old whorehouse buddies on many worlds, in fact. Had they concocted some sort of alliance? Why? They seemed like odd allies. Julien was sympathetic to all things Rom but essentially he was the creature of Lord Periandros. Polarca had no use for any of the lords of the Imperium.
I have never wished so profoundly that it could be possible to ghost forward in time as I did at that moment. Only five minutes, or maybe ten: just enough for me to find out what in the name of the Devil was going on in the house of power of the King of the Gypsies. But all I could do was stand with my ear to the door of my chamber and guess madly at ungodly alliances and conspiracies.
Then the door burst open and five armed troops in the pale green uniform of the Imperial Guard came rushing in.
They were native of Sidri Akrak. I saw that right away, in their blank emotionless Akraki eyes and their glum downturned Akraki mouths and the stiff-jointed tight-assed Akraki way that they moved. But in case those hints weren't enough, they were wearing splashy armbands emblazoned with the garish vertical stripes of the Akraki flag and a big scarlet monogrammed P. For Periandros, of course.
The officer in command-she had the epaulet of a phalangarius on her shoulder-strode up to me and said in that brusque flat way of theirs, "What is your name?"
"Yakoub." I smiled. "Rom baro. Rex Romaniorum."
"Yakoub what?"
"King of the Romany people."
The five Akrakikan exchanged solemn glances.
"You assert that you are the Rom king?"
"I do so assert, yea and verily."
"Is this so? Demonstrate your identity."
"I don't seem to have my papers with me. As a matter of fact, I happen to be a prisoner in this place. If you don't believe I am who I say I am, I suggest you call in any Rom you can find and ask him my name."
The phalangarius gestured to one of her subordinates. "Find a Rom," she said. "Bring him here. We will ask him this man's name."
I could still hear explosions in the distant reaches of the building.
"While we're waiting," I said, "would you mind telling me who you are and what's happening around here?"
She gave me a sour look, as close to an expression as an Akraki is capable of mustering. She scarcely looked human to me. She didn't look much like a woman, either, with that close-cropped hair of hers and her stiff Akraki movements. Only the barest hint of breasts beneath the uniform provided any clue to her sex. That she was human I would have to take on faith.
"I will interrogate you. You will not interrogate me."
"Am I right, at least, that you're imperial guards?"
"We serve the Sixteenth Emperor," she was kind enough to reveal.
"The Sixteenth?" I gasped. I wasn't prepared for that. "But when… how… who…?"
"You knew him formerly as Lord Periandros."
I blinked and caught my breath. So it was all over, then? The struggle for the throne that we had dreaded for so long had taken place while I lay stashed away in here, and somehow little tight-assed Periandros had emerged as emperor?
What a jolt it was. The whole grand apocalyptic galacto-political drama had been played out so quickly. And behind my back. Me not even on the scene to cheer the heroes and boo the villains. Or maybe cheer the villains and boo the heroes. I had missed all the excitement. I felt left out.
But of course I was jumping to conclusions-and not the right ones. The struggle for the throne wasn't over at all. It was just beginning, though I had no way of knowing that then.
I brimmed with questions. How had Periandros managed to shove Sunteil out of the way? What had happened to Naria? Why were there imperial troops in the Rom house of power? Where was Shandor? Where was the Due de Gramont? But I would have done about as well asking questions of my own elbow as I did trying to get information from this blank-eyed Akraki. She stood there looking at me in complete indifference, as though I were some dusty moth-eaten relic that had been stored in this room for the last five hundred years, some old overcoat, some pile of discarded rags. Meanwhile her companions were searching through my few pitiful possessions in a sluggish but methodical way, hunting for God knows what cache of hidden weapons, or perhaps the manuscript of some scandalous memoir. It seemed like forever before the one who had gone in search of a Rom to identify me returned.
When he did return, though, he was accompanied not by a Rom but by the Due de Gramont.
"Mon ami!" Julie cried. "Sacre bleu! Ah, j'en suis fort content! Comment ca va?"
With enormous passion and verve. With the kiss on both cheeks, with the joyous clapping of hands against my shoulders, with the whole great Gallic embrace. And then turning to the five Akrakikan, gesticulating vehemently at them with both his hands as if they were so much vermin.
"Out of here, you! Out! Vite! Vite! Salauds! Crapauds! Bon Dieu de merde, out, out, out!"
The phalangarius stared at him in disbelief.
"Our orders are to guard this man until-"
"Your orders are to get out. Vite! Vite! You miserable emmerdeuse, je l'emmerde on your orders! Out! Fast!"
I thought he would throw her out bodily. But that turned out not to be necessary. He simply drove her from the room with thunderous fusillades of obscene outrage in a wild mixture of Imperial and French and even a little Romany. "Va te faire chier!" he cried. "Fuck off, hideous lesbian bitch! Kurav tu ando mul!"
The Akraki fled, taking her astounded subordinates with her. I collapsed on my couch. I th
ought I would have my death of laughter, right then and there. It was a long time before I could speak.
"You know what that means?" I said. "Kurav tu ando mul?"
"Of course I know what it means," said Julien with immense hauteur. " 'I defile your mouth,' is what it means. The pity of it is that she does not know what it means." He shut the door of my cell, taking care not to lock us in, and crossed the room to sit beside me. "Ah, mon vieux, so much has happened, so very much! You know I have been on Galgala these many weeks now? Secretly employed in this very building?"
"The meals they were bringing me had your signature all over them."
"I hoped you would realize that. I would have sent you a note, but I thought the risks were too great. If Shandor somehow had discovered my true identity-ah, it was dangerous enough simply preparing such meals for you. But to the robots it was all the same, rat stew or jambon au Bourgogne en croute, so I could play my little game. Ah, Yakoub, Yakoub!"
"Is Periandros the emperor now?"
"You know that, then?"
"The phalangarius told me so. But that's all I know. I need to have all the rest of the news. What's been going on here? I've been hearing sounds of fighting for hours."
"It was the decision of Lord Periandros to rescue you from this captivity," said Julien. "This in the final days of the life of the Fifteenth. As the emperor lay dying, the Lord Periandros saw the turmoil that would surely ensue if an imperial succession took place at a time when the Rom kingship was in the hands of a person so volatile, so unpredictable, as your son Shandor. You will recall, mon ami, that I hinted at this when I visited you on that world of ice. But you were adamant in your wish to retire from the fray. Nothing I could say would move you to return to the Imperium at that time, although I see that you did later change your mind, for reasons that I do not know."
"Damiano came to me right after you and told me that Shandor had made himself king. It wasn't ever my intention to clear a path to the throne for Shandor, of all people. So I came back." I could hear a fresh round of gunfire, seemingly not far away. Julien seemed untroubled by it. "Where is Shandor now?" I asked.
"He has fled with his bodyguard to another part of the Aureus Highlands. We took him utterly by surprise when we struck. Very gradually did we move our troops into position surrounding the royal compound and he was not in any way prepared."
"Akrakikan troops only?"
"Yes," said Julien quietly. "We could take no chances."
"No thought was given to having Rom in the rescue party?"
"This was an imperial mission, cher ami. And I know that you have an aversion to the spilling of Rom blood by Rom hands. The invading troops were entirely Akrakikan, of Lord Periandros' personal force."
"And Rom blood was spilled, then?"
Julien studied me a moment. "Evidently there are Rom who are loyal to your son, Yakoub. God knows why that should be, but it was the case. In any event one usually does not invade a royal palace without encountering staunch defense. Please understand that we held the casualties to a minimum."
A minimum, yes. But that meant some. Bleak news. I sighed.
"Those who guarded your son were informed that the new emperor did not recognize him as king. They were offered a chance to lay down their weapons peacefully. Many of them did."
"Some did not."
"Some did not," Julien said.
"Well, so be it," I said after a time. "They were serving the wrong man. Who does Periandros recognize as king? Me?"
"He will. You will be taken to the Capital and there will be a ceremony of reconsecration. I think it will be necessary for you to have the decree of the great kris also, will it not? But that can be managed. I have spoken with Damiano and with Polarca. You will be king again, Yakoub. I ask only this, that this time you do not amuse yourself with another abdication."
"The abdication was a carefully considered gesture," I said. "It's not one I'll need to make a second time." I was still for a moment, considering the things Julien had told me. Something seemed off key, but in the rush and flow of our conversation I had not noticed it at first. Now it returned to trouble me. "Wait a moment," I said. "You told me that the rescue mission was an imperial enterprise, Julien. But you also said that Periandros had decided on it while the old emperor was still alive. And that he had sent his own soldiers to carry out the job. The whole thing sounds more like a private project of Periandros' than any sort of governmental action. Which was it? He wasn't emperor yet when you came here, was he?"
"No," said Julien.
"Why rescue me, then? So that in my gratitude I'd support his claim to the throne?"
"Oh, Yakoub, Yakoub-"
"That's it, isn't it? But what if I didn't want to be rescued? Did Polarca happen to tell you that I put myself into Shandor's hands voluntarily? That I had political objectives of my own to gain by letting him imprison me? And I told you when you came to Mulano that I wasn't going to take any public position favoring Periandros' claim to the throne."
"The Lord Periandros is emperor now, Yakoub."
"So the Fifteenth did manage to name a successor after all?"
Julien shook his head. "No."
"Then how did Periandros become emperor? What happened to Sunteil? To Naria?"
Julien looked uncomfortable. He was too much the diplomat to let himself be seen squirming, but he must have been squirming desperately within.
"At the time of the Fifteenth's death," Julien said in a strangely remote way, "the Lord Sunteil had gone to the Haj Qaldun system to investigate certain disturbances on Fenix and, I think, Shaitan. As for the Lord Naria, he also was occupied at that time by matters of pressing importance on his own native world, which as you know is Vietoris."
I felt very somber now. My dear old friend Julien, who had sold himself long ago to Periandros, was here to try to buy me too. Quid pro quo, Periandros sets me free and I give my allegiance to him and he recognizes me as undisputed king. One quid, two quos, and none of them any good.
"It was a coup d'etat, then?" I asked. "The other two were away, and Periandros simply grabbed the throne?"
"The peers of the Imperium have confirmed his election."
"The same way the great kris of Galgala confirmed the election of Shandor as king?"
"Yakoub, mon cher, mon ami, I beg you-"
"Go on," I said, as he fell silent. "You beg me what?"
"We spoke of these matters on-what is that world's name, the icy one?-on Mulano. When there is a vacuum in the body politic, disruptive forces are set loose. Your own absence from the Rom throne and the apparent usurpation of Shandor, followed by your sudden return from retirement and your imprisonment here, had already loosed one set of disruptions in the Imperium. The death of the Fifteenth threatened to make matters catastrophically worse. In the judgment of the Lord Periandros the stability of the Imperium would have been in jeopardy had he not acted swiftly and decisively."
"And Sunteil? Naria? They've both acquiesced in Periandros' swift and decisive act?"
For a moment, only for a moment, Julien's eyes were no longer meeting mine. That momentary flicker of weakness was the most damning revelation of all.
"Not precisely," he said.
"Not precisely?"
"In fact, not at all."
"Neither of them?"
"Neither one."
"They both claim the throne?"
Julien nodded. I thought he would burst into tears.
"So we have not only a Sixteenth, but a Seventeenth and an Eighteenth as well? All at the same time?"
"No, mon ami. There is only a Sixteenth."
"But we don't know which one of the three he is?"
"The emperor is the former Lord Periandros, Yakoub."
"So you say. Because you've been on retainer from Periandros since the year six. But is his claim any better than Naria's or Sunteil's?"
"He is in possession of the Capital."
"Nine tenths of the law, eh? Well, Shandor was in possession
of our capital until you threw him out. What if Sunteil invades the Capital the same way?"
Julien was squirming now. A little muscle was flickering in his elegant Gallic cheek.
"Or both of them?" I suggested. "Striking a deal. Flipping a coin, heads I'm emperor, tails it's you, let's both throw Periandros out. What then?"
"These are terrible times, Yakoub."
"Indeed they are."
"The emperor wishes to help you because he knows that you can help him, yes. We are entering a season of chaos and flame. You and the emperor, standing together, could prevent the worst of it from happening."
"So we could, perhaps. But it would be the same if I allied myself with Sunteil or Naria."
"They did not rescue you, Yakoub. And they are not at the Capital now. Believe me, Yakoub: the Lord Periandros is emperor. However it was accomplished, it is the reality. Sunteil and Naria are insurgents. They mean to lead insurrections against the reigning emperor. If you throw in your lot with one or the other of them, Yakoub, you are not preventing chaos, you are in fact increasing it."
"And if I prefer Sunteil? Or Naria?"
"Why should you? You dislike them both. I know that."
"I have nothing good to say about Naria, true. Sunteil is a different matter."
"You can find something good to say about that Fenixi?"
"He's tricky and dangerous, yes. But he has charm. Periandros is absolutely devoid of charm, Julien. You must know that yourself."
"Charm is not the primary quality we seek in an emperor."
"But as king I'll have to deal with the emperor all the time. Do I want to deal with someone stiff and dull and humorless and heavy-handed when I could be crossing swords with the playful Sunteil?"