Стивен Браст: Tiassa

I took one step, and he said, “No!”

I stopped and turned. “Hmmm?”

“Please.”

“Then tell me why you get so upset when I bring it up? I’m not asking for the big secret, you know. I just want to know why it bothers you so much.”

Here’s where I could give you all sorts of crap about watching the internal battle going on behind his eyes or something, but, really, no. No battle. He crumbled.

“All right,” he said. “It’s because it, what happened, was my fault.”

I nodded. “Go on,” I said.

Pulling information out of someone who knows how not to give it involves, first, finding the right lever, then teasing each bit and snippet out, using what you know to get what you don’t. A guy like Harro is different: once you get him started, you’ll get everything; all you need to worry about is what you want and in what order. In this case, I didn’t have to worry about that either. It just came spilling out.

You must understand, sir, that service is a tradition of my family. As far back as the last Issola reign, when so many of our House acquired holdings and lived as landlords, my family never did. For us, service to others has always been the greatest joy. Most of my family were killed in the Disaster, but I, with a few others, was in the Duchies and so escaped the immediate effects. We wandered, and looked for those who had survived and whose houses needed putting into order. Eventually, late in the Interregnum (though of course, we didn’t know it would end soon) a Dragonlord named Kâna instituted a post service for sending and receiving messages, and that is how I learned of Housetown. Not long after I came here, the previous butler stepped down and I took his place and I have had the honor to occupy this position ever since. Honor, m’lord, and if I may say so, pleasure. My mother used to say, “There is satisfaction in doing something well, and satisfaction in having done something well, and they are not the same.” For me, it is the former that gives me pleasure. Does that help you understand, sir?

My duties, as a rule, have to do with attending my Lord Zhayin and supervising the other servants, but before, when we lived at Housetown, we would often receive guests, and it was then my honor to see to them, as I am attempting to do with you, m’lord. Other concerns would arise from time to time, but it was mostly a matter of doing what I was used to, what I knew how to do. I know many would find this tiresome, but I did not. Indeed, I must confess that I became uncomfortable when, on occasion, there would be a requirement to do something outside of my duties. Once I was tasked with feeding the horses while the stable-boy was being married and the others were at the wedding, and, as simple as it was, with all of the directions neatly explained, I still recall the sweat on my palms. You may laugh if you wish, but it is true. On another occasion, I had to act as valet to Prince Ferund when he made a sudden visit to our home, and, well, I was in a state of near panic the entire time—not because he was a Prince, but because I was unused to being a valet.

That is how I am, sir. It is my nature. I think it important for you to understand this if you are to make sense of what happened.

We felt the Disaster as it happened, of course—the family here, and I, in the grasslands near Suntra. But the most remarkable thing about the Interregnum, from what they tell me, was what little effect it had on this household. My lord would still receive the occasional commission, and had sufficient savings that they had no need to concern themselves with such vulgarities as money.

So it was when Lord Zhayin’s son was born, early in the Interregnum, and so it was a little more than a Turn later, when I came here. The birth was, from all accounts, a joyous event for all the household, as I’m sure you can imagine, though I cannot speak from personal knowledge. My Lord hired a wet-nurse and a dry-nurse, and, after a certain amount of disruption, the house settled into a routine. The young gentleman grew, as children will, and a tutor was hired as well. He was a bright, inquisitive child who loved to draw, of course, and also enjoyed looking into corners and closets; I am told he kept his nurse busy, as you may imagine, but he fit into the household in his own way.

I arrived and took my position. Housetown is deep in the Blue Valley, north of the Guinchen region, and so was isolated from the worst of the effects; food was readily available, and the plagues passed us by. There were, of course, illnesses here and there as medical sorcery was no longer effective, but the local physickers were able to treat these well enough.

As for my lord, the loss of sorcerous ability turned out to be a stroke of fortune. Many sorcerers, of course, received educational benefits from the absence of the Orb. My understanding is limited, you understand, as I am not a sorcerer myself, but it is well known that the requirement to reach directly into the amorphia without the Orb’s intervention has forced many to learn a great deal. My Lord Zhayin was no exception. In his case, he made certain discoveries in necromancy. Are you familiar with it? It is the study of unreal paths to real places, or real paths to unreal places. It begins with death, you see—that transition through which we all pass. The studies of my Lord Zhayin, aimed at eliminating the boundary between a structure and a location, or, to put it another way, between where one stands within a structure and where that position is exclusive of the structure, has necromancy at its heart. It may help if I explain that to do this—to integrate the pathways between worlds with the structures within a world has been a goal of Vallista architects for tens of thousands of years. My lord, then, as you can imagine, made great progress in this.

You recall, sir, that I mentioned the occasional illness. We were all struck by these at one time or another, and they were an intolerable annoyance. More, we were all terrified for the child, as we were told by the physickers that the young are more vulnerable to disease than adults. We exercised what care we could, and the child was never in danger. And so it went, until the dry-nurse became ill with the grippe, and before we knew it, she had infected the tutor and the second cook. It was for this reason that the child became, for a time, my responsibility.

It was the most difficult thing I have ever attempted, sir. Not for the reasons you might, perhaps, expect: learning to interact with a child is simply a more extreme case of what I have always done, that is, learn to interact with every individual as best I can for the comfort of that person. A Vallista Prince, or, if you will forgive me, a Jhereg Easterner, it is a matter of sensitivity, observation, and flexibility. So, no, learning to care for the child was by no means beyond my abilities. What made it difficult was that I was so weary. So very tired. I still had all of my own duties. I ate while walking, when I ate, and rested when I could. It is astonishing how quickly one becomes exhausted. After a week I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Have you been that weary, sir? I look at you, and—I hope you do not think me impertinent—I think you have a wide variety of experience, so I suspect you know what it is like to go through a day with your eyes never fully opening, where half of the things you do you don’t recall and can only hope you did them properly, when your thoughts are focused on the next time you sleep. If you haven’t had that experience, I can’t describe it, and if you have, I don’t need to.

You must already know what I’m going to say, yes?

I fell asleep. Or, I suppose, “nodded off” is more precise. I was watching the child, and I closed my eyes, and then suddenly came awake, my heart pounding, as happens at times like that. The child was gone and the door open.