come from. If I die, any number of others might rise to be his chief enemy — or all combine against him. My brother feels so secure on his throne that people say he ties himself to it sometimes, lest he slide off in a moment of weakness.’
Uctebri chuckled. ‘And your brother has many concubines but, I understand, no children. Not even bastards. Remarkable.’
‘He has all of his issue killed at birth,’ she said, ‘or so I have heard. Bastards have no standing, but even so he will not take the risk of one growing up to be used against him.’
‘And no lawful mate. No legitimate issue. A man concerned about his own longevity, should any child grow to manhood. You are his prisoner, but no more than he is his own. Ah, the foolishness of it all.’ His voice seemed to be drifting further away. ‘Still, you must see why he has, in the end, come to consider my proposal.’
‘And what is that?’ she asked. ‘What is your proposal? You may as well tell me. What am I able to do about it?’
‘I have told your brother I can allow him to live far beyond the few years normally allowed to your kinden. Perhaps even for ever? An immortal Emperor of the Wasp-kinden, for ever wise and loved by his subjects. He rather likes the idea, however much he doubts its possibility. He likes it enough to have me try.’
‘And should he ever believe he is immortal, I will die that very day,’ admitted Seda.
‘Ah, alas, your demise would come some moments sooner than his ascension.’ He was now speaking right in her ear. ‘My people understand blood, for blood is the darkness within our veins. Blood has power. Especially the blood of our kin. Sister and brother, close as close, Your Highness.’
She stiffened as she felt something sharp at her neck, like the razor edge of a tiny blade. She closed her eyes, clenching her fists, and willed it over soon.
There was the slightest arrow of pain, a tiny cut, and then the blade was gone, and for a short while Uctebri remained quiet. Then he said, ‘You have quite the sweetest blood I have tasted for some considerable time, great lady.’
‘My brother is mad to believe you,’ she spat at him. ‘You are mad to tempt him with it. After living in fear for eight years I am to be killed on this lunatic’s errand?’
‘Oh that
With a start she felt the buckles over her wrists loosen, first one and then the other, and after that he was crouching at her ankles, still speaking. ‘I rather suspect that he would be a dangerous man to have around for ever. Or even for much longer. My concern, you see, is for my own kinden and their future, and I cannot say that it would be best served by the Emperor Alvdan. He strikes me as a man neither gracious nor grateful towards those who have helped him ascend to power.’
She was free of the chair now, so at any moment she could leap from it, but she stayed there, transfixed by his words. ‘Just what are you saying?’
‘Treason,’ he explained, and she knew he was standing right before the chair, as if a supplicant. ‘Or it would be if I were actually a subject of His Imperial Majesty. You may quibble that I am his prisoner, but ask yourself how long that state of affairs might persist if I did not wish it. No, rather the crown is currently serving me, in requisitioning some piece of desiderata that I have long coveted. What I am proposing is that, whilst I am quite capable of delivering what I promise, the crown of immortality would find a fitter home on another brow than your brother’s.’
She did not believe, for a moment, that he could do any such thing. He was a prisoner, and was bargaining for his life with these dreams of longevity. It could even be a trap set by her brother, save that he needed neither excuse nor pretext to have her killed. But possibly, just possibly, it meant that Uctebri the Sarcad represented both an ally and an opportunity.
‘I find your words favourable,’ she said, and extended her hand into the darkness. When he kissed it, she felt his sharp teeth scratch her skin.
And yet her life had always been bound, not to her own world-view, but that of her brother. If his beliefs led him to the conclusion that she presented a threat, her life would be cut short on the instant. If his beliefs were that she was better off alive, then she would live another day, but only each day at a time.
After Uctebri was done with her she had considered his madness very carefully, while she sat before the glass and repaired her face. This was a whole gaping abyss of madness, like nothing she had ever experienced. Like all the other madness that had so far dominated her wretched life she had to understand it, though. She needed to speak to someone, and that could be no Wasp-kinden. It was not merely a matter of trust, but because her own people could not have advised her, in this. She was beyond all maps.
There was only one name, an old slave of her father’s, that she could call upon, so she did so.
He came almost timorously to her room: a lean, grey-skinned man with a long-skulled bald head, his cheeks lined and his head banded with pale, slightly shiny stripes. He always wore such an attitude of melancholy, as though the woes of all the world had come to him. When she was a child he used to make her laugh, when once she had still laughed.
‘May I enter, madam?’ he asked, his voice quavering. Seda could not suppress a smile at his hesitancy.
‘I sent for you, Gjegevey,’ she acknowledged, ‘so please come in.’
Her prison was a grand one. She had her own chambers decorated with whatever she could get, whatever she could cajole and plead for. There were threadbare tapestries blocking off the blank stone of the walls. She had some plants arranged before the narrow window, in Spider-kinden fashion. Two couches faced one another across a ragged rug of uncertain origin. She had two rooms, this one for receiving guests and, through a doorway guarded only by a hanging cloth, her bedroom. This was the extent of the Empire that Alvdan had left to his sister. His other siblings had fared worse.
The old Woodlouse-kinden stooped to enter her room. He was hunchbacked and inclined forwards, but still he was perilously tall. She knew that his people hailed from the north of the Empire, and that beyond the imperial borders there were said to be whole tribes of them living in giant forests, amongst trees that decayed for ever and yet never fell. She could not imagine there being any other of his kinden than him. How could such stilting awkwardness produce warriors, farmers or anything but vague philosophers?
‘You are reckoned a wise man, Gjegevey,’ she told him. He waved the compliment off dismissively.
‘You are, mmn, kind to say it, madam.’
‘You play the doddering old man, Gjegevey, and yet you have been an adviser to emperors since my father’s days in power. No slave could survive so, without wisdom.’
He smiled, thin-lipped, never dispelling the eternal sadness that his grey face lent him. ‘But there are fools and, mnah, fools, madam.’ He pursed his lips appreciatively as she poured him a beaker of wine. ‘I know my place, and it is this: that when there is an, mmn, idea in the mind of all my peers, my fellow advisers, that none wish to say, then I speak it. It may then be, mmm, dismantled and matters proceeded with. If I were to ever voice an opinion that none could destroy then no doubt I would be, hrm, killed on the spot. It is a delicate path for a man to walk, but if one’s balance is accomplished, then one may tread for many years upon it.’
‘Many years,’ she agreed, passing him the beaker. He sipped and nodded, and she asked, ‘How old are you, old man?’
‘I stopped counting at the age of, mnn, one hundred and four, madam.’ The wistful smile came back at her wide-eyed expression. ‘We are a long-lived people — longer-lived, in any event, than your own. And I am not young, even for my kinden.’
‘I want to ask you something. I cannot think of anyone else who might even offer an opinion,’ Seda told him, inviting him to sit with a gesture. He perched precariously upon the couch across from her, still sipping at his wine. ‘A fair vintage this year,’ he murmured, but his eyes were watching her keenly from within their wrinkles.
‘On magic, Gjegevey,’ she said.
‘Mmn. Ah.’
‘An interesting response. Most would declare, without prompting, that there was no such thing, that it was a nonsense even to raise the matter.’
‘Is that what you wish me to say, madam?’
‘If I had wished such an opinion,’ she said, ‘I would not have called you over to speak to me. You are an
