Free Tales of Neveryon by Samuel R. Delany Page B

such murderous games.’
    ‘I was a miner, working sixteen hours a day in a pit that would have killed me in ten years. I’m now … favored at the High Court of Eagles. What else
could
I want?’
    ‘But you see, you have just moved from the next-to-highest level of play to the
very
highest. You come into a party to which you – and your protectoress – were specifically not invited, dressed like a barbarian; and in five minutes you won a word from the Empress herself. Do you know that with fifteen minutes’ proper conversation with the proper people, who are here tonight, you could parley that into a governorship of a fairly valuable, if outlying, province – more, if you were skillful. I do not intend to introduce you to those people, because just as easily you could win your death from someone both desperate for, and deserving of, the same position who merely lacked that all-important credential: a word from Her Majesty. The Empress knows all this. So does Krodar. That indeed may be why he frowned.’
    ‘But
you
spoke with –’
    ‘Friend, I may speak with the Empress any time I wish, She is my second cousin once removed. When she was nine and I was twenty-three we spent eight months together in the same dungeon cell, while our execution was put of day by day by day – but that was when she was still a princess. The Empress may
not
speak to me any time she wishes, or she risks endangering the subtle balance of power between my forces at Yenla’h and hers at Vinelet – should the wrong thane or princeling misconstrue her friendliness as a sign of military weakness andmove his forces accordingly. My approaches to her, you see, are only considered nepotistic fawning. Hers to me are considered something else again. Gorgik, you have amused me. You have even tolerated my enthusiasm for botany. I don’t want to hear that your corpse was pulled out of a sewage trough or, worse, was found floating somewhere in the Khora down at the port. And the excuse for such an outrage need easily be no more than Krodar’s frown – if not the Empress’s smile.’
    Gorgik stepped back, because his gut suddenly knotted. He began to sweat. But the Baron’s thin fingers dug his shoulder, pulling him forward:
    ‘Do you understand? Do you understand that, minutes ago, you had nothing anyone here
could
have wanted? Do you understand that now you have what a third of us in this room have at least once committed murder for and the other two-thirds done far worse to obtain – an unsolicited word from the Empress?’
    Gorgik swayed. ‘Curly, I’m sick. I want a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine…’.
    The Baron frowned. He looked around. They were standing by the table end. ‘There is a decanter, there is a loaf. And there is the door.’ The Baron shrugged. ‘Take the first two and use the third.’
    Gorgik took a breath which made the cloth of his tunic slide on his wet back. With a lurching motion, he picked up a loaf in one hand and a decanter in the other and lumbered through the arch.
    A young duchess, who had been standing only a few feet away, turned to Inige. ‘Do you know, if I’m not mistaken, I believe I just saw your inelegantly dressed companion, who, only a moment ago, was conferring with Her Highness, do the
strangest
thing –’
    ‘And do
you
know,’ said the Baron, taking her arm,‘that two months by, when I was in the Zenari provinces, I saw the most remarkable species of schist moss with a most uncharacteristic blossom. Let me tell you …’ and he led her across the room.
    Gorgik lurched through the drear vestibule, once more unhindered by the guard; once he stopped to grasp the hangings, which released dust dragons to coil down about the decanter hooked to his thumb and his dribbling arm; he plunged into the stairwell.
    He climbed.
    Each time he came around the narrow circle, a sharp breeze caught him on the right side. Suddenly he stopped, dropped his head, and, still holding the decanter by his thumb,