David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

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 swamp portal with rifle in hand, who had faced down brigands and outlaws, fought off claim jumpers and raiders, and stood his ground against charging bison, Ricathian cape buffalo, and even an infuriated grizzly bear, decided that the only thing to do was run. He was a fleet-footed man. If he started now, he could be all the way back to the train station in no more than twenty or thirty minutes.

And from there-

The chamberlain's cleared throat interrupted the Voice's brief fantasy of escape. Kinlafia looked at him, and the chamberlain twitched his head at the open doorway. For an instant, Kinlafia actually considered backing away, but he discovered that he lacked sufficient nerve to chicken out at the last minute. And so, he nodded back to the chamberlain, and followed the palace staffer through the doorway with a surprisingly steady tread.

The room on the other side was on the small side-indeed it was positively tiny-by the scale of Calirath Palace, which meant it was no more than twenty-five or thirty feet on a side. It was furnished with surprisingly worn, overstuffed armchairs and a long, comfortable looking couch. A coffee-table which appeared to have been made from driftwood stood in front of the couch, and an old leather-topped desk sat before the wide bay window which looked out over the sun-soaked palace gardens.

Bookshelves lined the wall opposite the window, and the priceless artwork so much in evidence elsewhere in the palace had been replaced by what were very good but obviously amateur watercolors and oils of a land whose soft, misty greenery was far removed from the sunbaked heat of Tajvana.

All of that registered instantly, but almost peripherally. It couldn't have been any other way, when the man who'd been seated behind that desk stood and held out his right hand.

Kinlafia froze. No one had ever instructed him in formal court protocol and etiquette, but he had a shrewd notion that one didn't simply walk up to the Emperor of Ternathia, say "How the hell are you?" and shake hands with him. On the other hand, he had an equally shrewd notion that one didn't refuse to shake hands with him, either.

"Voice Kinlafia."

Zindel chan Calirath's voice was a shade deeper than his son's, but it sounded remarkably similar, and the physical resemblance between him and Janaki was positively uncanny. The crown prince stood eight inches over six feet, and he and his father were very much of a size. If anything, Zindel might have been a fraction of an inch the taller, and his shoulders were definitely broader. Aside from that and the strands of gray beginning to thread themselves through the dark, gold-shot hair of the Caliraths, the Emperor looked far more like Janaki's older brother than his father, the Voice thought. Then he gave himself a mental shake as he realized he was keeping the Emperor of Ternathia-no, the designated Emperor of Sharona-standing there with his hand held out.

"Your Majesty," Kinlafia got out. It sounded a little strangled to his own ears, and he drew a deep breath, then reached out and gripped the hand of the most powerful man in Sharonian history.