Five Hundred Years After (Phoenix Guards) by Steven Brust Read Free Book Online Page A

unacquainted with my recent history.”
    “Your recent history? That is true, I know nothing whatsoever except that you have been studying the Art of Discretion.”
    “You know that?” said Pel. “Then are you unaware that, when one begins this study, one falls out of touch with the day-to-day goings-on in the world?”
    “What?” cried Khaavren. “You mean you know of nothing that has happened in the Empire for the last five hundred years?”
    “Nearly,” said Pel. “Rumor reaches us of skirmishes in the North, and a war fought at sea in the West, but other than “that—”
    “Other than that—?”
    “Why, we remain inside our walls, which are out past the Athyra Wing, barely in the Palace at all, and we rarely leave, nor does news reach us. You yourself know that we have hardly even seen each other in all that time.”
    “That is true,” said Khaavren. “I had even remarked upon this fact to myself.”
    “So, you see.”
    “Yes. Well, my friend, ask your questions.”
    Pel studied the ensign in silence for a moment, during which Khaavren would have given a great deal to know what thoughts were passing through the Yendi’s subtle mind. Then Pel said, “What do you think of His Majesty’s humor of late, Khaavren?”
    Khaavren frowned. “His humor?”
    “Yes. You perceive that I am most anxious to know.”
    Khaavren nearly asked why, but he remembered his old friend well enough to realize that this question would elicit either a lie or an evasion. He said, “His Majesty has, I think, been pensive of late.”
    “Pensive?”
    “So I would say, Pel.”
    “Do you assign a cause to this?”
    “Do I? My friend, you speak as if I were a minister. I assure you, I am only an ensign in His Majesty’s Guards—and, moreover, having been an ensign for nearly five hundred and fifty years, I expect to remain one for the next five hundred and fifty, after which I shall, no doubt, be promoted to Captain and given Orders of Nobility, after which I shall retire and marry the daughter of the mayor of some village in the Northeast, which will give me the income from two pensions and allow me to raise a family, which I will set about doing with the same thoroughness I formerly displayed in skewering anyone who looked at me in a manner not to my liking. When this happens, I will, no doubt, hear rumors of all that is passing in the capital, and, thanks to those rumors, I will know a great deal more of what is passing in His Majesty’s mind than I do now—or, at least, I will think I do, which counts for just as much when one is as isolated from policy as a rural baron or an ensign of the Imperial Guard.”
    Pel listened to this monologue—which was, to be sure, the longest Khaavren had uttered aloud in scores of years—with a sad smile. When the Tiassa had finished, Pel said, “Come Khaavren, do you still care for our old friendship?”
    “The Gods, Pel! As someone with no future, I already, like an old man, live in the past, and our friendship is the best part of it!”
    “Well, then, for the sake of that friendship, won’t you be a little more frank with me? You tap your heels at His Majesty’s door for hours every day, and I know that your mind is not the slowest in the Empire; you must have some suspicions about what is passing in his heart. I do not ask for state secrets, Khaavren, only for as much as you can tell me without fault to your duty or your conscience. But, truly, I must know, and I can think of no one else who would both know and be willing to tell me. Open your heart, my old friend, and tell me what you know; or, at any rate, what you guess.”
    Khaavren heaved a great sigh. Hardened as he’d become, he could not hear such an appeal from one of the few who personified the happiest time of his life without being moved, and, more than moved, affected. He said, “His Majesty is, I believe, worried about the number of Heirs and Deputies who have withdrawn from the Meeting of Principalities,