accomplish eludes me, of course, but five reliable witnesses-six of them, counting the Five Hundred himself-all agree that the prisoner managed to get his hands on one of the guard's weapons and that Five Hundred Neshok killed him in self-defense.'
Sarma's jaw dropped. He couldn't help it … but he managed, somehow, to stop himself before he actually said anything.
Carthos' expression hardened ever so slightly, but the thousand kept his own voice level.
'I commend you for your obvious desire to see to it that Two Thousand Harshu's standing orders extending the protection of the Kerellian Accords to any prisoners we take are adhered to, Fifty. And I assure you that any possible violations of the Accords will be investigated most carefully. In this case, however, given the existence of half a dozen witnesses, all of whose testimony corroborates one another's, I suspect that you've overreacted to a situation in which you weren't privy to all the facts.'
Sarma got his mouth closed again, locking his teeth against the protests which hammered upon them from behind. Gotten his hands on another guard's weapon, had he? Then perhaps Thousand Carthos could explain Just how that had happened when the dead man's hands were still chained behind him as he was dragged out of the interrogation room like so much slaughtered meat. Or explain where those screams had come from, or the reason for the savage beating the first prisoner had obviously sustained.
But those, Jaralt Sarma knew now, were questions he dared not ask. Not now, not here. Perhaps never, but definitely not today.
'I see, Sir,' he heard his own voice say levelly. 'You're right, of course. Obviously, I wasn't aware of all the details. Nor was I aware that you were already so well informed about the incident. I … apologize for wasting your time at a moment like this.'
'Nonsense, Fifty,' Carthos replied. 'No officer is ever guilty of 'wasting' his superiors' time when he believes that something as serious as you obviously thought had happened has occurred. A deliberate violation of the Kerellian Accords?' The thousand shook his head. 'The Articles of War themselves are quite specific about the responsibility of any Union officer to report something like that, after all.'
'Yes, Sir, they are. I still appreciate your being so understanding, though.'
Sarma was distantly surprised that he could get the words out without gagging, but he managed.
'Don't worry about it, Fifty.' Carthos' smile somehow failed to reach his eyes, Sarma noticed. The thousand paused for a moment, then arched one eyebrow.
'Was there anything else, Fifty Sarma?'
'No, Sir,' Jaralt Sarma said. 'Nothing else, Sir.'
Chapter Ten
'Voice Kinlafia?'
Darcel Kinlafia's head snapped up, like a startled rabbit exploding out of cover, as he turned to face the assistant chamberlain. His movement wasn't quite sudden enough to count as 'whipping around,' he realized an instant later, but it was too sudden for any other description.
'Yes?' His response came out half-strangled, and he cleared his throat, blushing furiously.
'If you'll come this way, please,' the assistant chamberlain said with a small smile. Kinlafia didn't have to touch the man to feel the sympathy-and understanding-behind that smile, and a trickle of comfort flowed through him. Obviously, he was far from the first visitor to the Great Palace to wonder if his blood pressure was going to survive the visit. He supposed that the fact that most of them appeared to have made it through the ordeal intact should have been comforting, but somehow it didn't actually make him feel all that much better as the chamberlain led the way down the broad, marble-floored passageways with the walls adorned with paintings and tapestries, any one of which was probably worth a prince's ransom.
Don't be silly! Kinlafia scolded himself. Most of them are only worth a duke's ransom, you twit, whatever the cliche says! And it isn't 'the Great Palace,' any more, either.
He'd been more than a little surprised by the name change. For the better part of three centuries, this enormous, glittering fairyland had been known as the Great Palace, or the Grand Palace, depending upon how one chose to translate the Shurkhali. Now, though, it had reverted to the name it had borne for over two thousand years: Calirath Palace, the ancient and future home of the Calirath Dynasty.
The change in names had not met with universal approval. The Palace had been renamed by one of the early seneschals who had been restored to rule after the Ternathian withdrawal from Othmaliz. It had been widely proclaimed as a gesture of Othmalizi pride in its restored independence, and Kinlafia had no doubt that at least some Othmalizis had seen it as a poke in the eye for the dynasty which had ruled over them for so long.
Of course, what none of them realized at the time was that the seneschal in question only got away with it because the Caliraths themselves agreed to it. It's amazing how few people knew the family never actually surrendered ownership. I suppose that's because it's been imperial policy for almost three hundred years to allow the Othmalizi government to use it as if it owned it. But given the most recent seneschal's track record, it's probably also the only reason it didn't get sold-or turned into a rescort hotel!
None of the seneschals had gone out of their way to make known the minor fact of who actually owned the place (or the fact that it sat on what was technically still Ternathian territory, under the terms of the Empire's withdrawal from the rest of Othamliz and Tajvana), and Kinlafia suspected that had the Great Palace belonged to anyone else, some seneschal would have seized title by force long-ago. No one was quite stupid enough to do that to the Caliraths, however, and Kinlafia wondered how badly it must have irked generations of Othmalizi rulers to realize that they were living in someone else's house on sufferance … and that they couldn't even collect property taxes on it.
Judging from the current Seneschal's reaction to 'his' parliament's decision to revert to the ancient and original name for the most historic single edifice in Tajvana, it must have irked them badly, indeed. The Seneschal had put the best face he could on the decision, but his mouthpieces had inveighed furiously against the entire notion in his usually tame parliament. Their failure to vote down the proposal had constituted a major political defeat for the Seneschal, and his irritation had been obvious despite his flowery speech of approval when the change became official.
Now Kinlafia remembered some of Shaylar's pithy comments about the Seneschal and surprised himself with a quiet chuckle of genuine amusement as he reflected upon how inordinately pleased she would have been by his current discomfiture.
The chamberlain glanced back at him, and this time Kinlafia's smile felt far more natural and unforced.
The chamberlain gave him a slight nod, as if approving the change. Then they reached a huge, ornately carved door with the ancient motto of the Caliraths-I Stand Between-etched into the stone lintel above it. An armed guard in the green-and-gold of the Calirath Dynasty's personal retainers stood outside it, and the Voice felt something as the guard looked him up and down.
Kinlafia wasn't certain what he'd felt-or, rather, Felt. He'd never experienced anything quite like it before, and he found himself abruptly wondering if the occasional whispered rumors about the Ternathian imperial family's bodyguards and their Talents might not hold at least a kernel of truth, after all. Certainly there was something going on as the guard's eyes swept over him. Kinlafia could Feel a peculiar sort of … probing. Or testing, perhaps. Whatever it was, he couldn't put his mental hands on exactly the right label, but he knew it was there … whatever it was.
It lasted for no more than one or two heartbeats. Then the guard came to attention and nodded respectfully.
'Voice Kinlafia,' he said quietly. 'You're expected.'
Kinlafia wondered if he was supposed to say anything in response, but before he could, the guard reached back-with his offhand, not his gun hand, Kinlafia noticed-and opened the door behind him.
The Voice hesitated. He knew who was waiting for him on the other side of that threshold, and he abruptly discovered that even 'call-me-Janaki's' letter of introduction wasn't nearly enough to preventthe butterflies in his midsection from launching into a complicated Arpathian drum dance.
In that moment, Darcel Kinlafia, who had accompanied Company-Captain chan Tesh's troopers through the
