Free The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison Page A

he did not feel, “Are there any of those letters which we ought to read before our audience with Csoru Zhasanai?”
    There were, of course; he bade Csevet come down to the Tortoise Room with him, and there Csevet ensconced himself at the secretary’s desk while Maia sat by the fire and Cala and Beshelar patiently guarded the door against nothing.
    It was easier to deal with the letters today. He felt that the depths of his ignorance had already been revealed and so had no compunction about asking for information. And with Csevet’s guidance—Csevet who had been an imperial courier (he admitted when asked) since he turned thirteen—Maia was learning to decipher the elaborate flatteries and circumlocutions and how to answer in kind. And to recognize when not to. It was a little hard not to resent Csevet’s easy familiarity with names and factions and cherished causes, but Csevet put that knowledge unreservedly at Maia’s disposal, and if he wished to be angry at someone, it was not Csevet who deserved his anger.
    The most important of the letters, its significance apparent to Maia even without coaching, was that from the Barizheise ambassador. It stood out among the neat stack of correspondence, not merely because it was written on vellum—many of the older courtiers still preferred parchment to paper—but because it was rolled rather than folded. The cord that held it was plum-colored silk, threaded through an ivory toggle and elaborately knotted. Csevet regarded it a little helplessly.
    “Your Serenity must know more of Barizheise customs than we do,” he said.
    Maia shook his head, wincing at Csevet’s raised eyebrows. “Our mother died when we were eight. She did not speak Barizhin with us, nor did she tell us much of her homeland. We think she had been forbidden to.” He remembered with perfect clarity every tiny moment of rebellion, but there had been too few of them.
    Csevet frowned, his ears dipping. “We know that the use of a nesecho—” And he flicked the ivory toggle with a plain-lacquered fingernail. “—is of great meaning to goblins, but we know not what that meaning is. Nor do we know anything about goblin knots.”
    “Is there anyone in our household who might?” Maia asked, thinking of the number of dark-skinned servants he had seen in the Alcethmeret.
    “Serenity,” Csevet said, rising with a bow that, Maia thought, expressed appreciation of a helpful idea. “We will ask.”
    He returned a few minutes later, bringing a middle-aged man in his wake. “This is Oshet, Serenity,” said Csevet, as triumphant as a retriever presenting his master with a dead duck. “He is one of your gardeners. He came to the Untheileneise Court with the ambassador five years ago, and his service was presented to your imperial father because of his gift for rose-growing.”
    “Serenity,” murmured Oshet, going to his knees and bowing his head. His skin was almost perfect black; he wore his hair shaved rather than merely cropped, which made the steel rings in his ears—steel, as even Maia knew, being the mark of a sailor—impossible to miss.
    “Please,” Maia said. “Stand.” Oshet rose obediently; he was a full head shorter than Csevet, stocky and densely muscled. His forearms were crisscrossed with scratches old and new, his fingernails rimmed with dirt. He had the heavy underslung jaw and protuberant eyes typical of goblins; Setheris had always been very pointed in his comments about Maia’s luck in inheriting his father’s bones.
    “Did Mer Aisava explain our question?” Maia asked.
    “Yes, Serenity.” Oshet’s eyes were a vivid orange-red, disconcerting against the blackness of his skin. Maia knew his own eyes, the pale Drazhadeise gray, were just as bad. “Is nesecho, yes?”
    “Yes.” Maia took the roll of vellum, with its adornments, from the table and handed it to Csevet, who handed it to Oshet. The gardener’s thick-fingered hands were delicate of touch; he traced the lines of