“I’m not Privy Voice anymore, Madam Ambassador.”
Shalassar dropped her voice. “If Our Emperor doesn’t have you back in service of one kind of another the very instant it’s politically feasible, he’s a fool. And I hope to Vothan he’s the furthest thing from a fool.”
She stood, nodded once, and flowed away into the crowd once again, more like a dolphin than ever. Alazon Yanamar watched her go, then rose from her own chair and worked her way through the gala towards Darcel, glad Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr was on their side.
* * *
The unexpected guests of the evening didn’t end with the Cetacean Ambassador. A Simian Ambassador arrived as well, but unlike Dr. Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr, he wasn’t on the guest list. Darcel suspected the man had snuck in through the staff entrance while the overworked caterers were distracted.
He introduced himself to both of them as Soolan chan Rahool, followed by a series of clicks and a puffing out of his cheeks. Then he reddened and switched to a more normal conversation mode.
“I’m sorry about that, but my clan is very particular about certain things. They’ll ask if I introduced myself properly, and by that they’ll mean by the name they’ve given me and all that.” He shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it, but talking to weak-arms, I mean humans, well it does sometimes put people off.”
Chan Rahool seemed to feel badly out of place in his present surroundings, so Alazon offered him one of the appetizer trays as a distraction while he composed himself. His eyes lit immediately.
“Oh! You understand.” He selected a bacon wrapped plum confit and crunched it with relish. “I do so love working with people who understand simian relations.” He licked his lips. “Quite delicious, too. I will have to have the name of your caterer later. If I bring them back a sample of the food you greeted me with, they’ll be oh so pleased with you and encouraged by the warm reception.” The man fairly beamed at them both.
Darcel immediately denied any knowledge at all of simians other than what any school boy gathered from elementary school about the great apes-the mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, baboons, some of the higher monkey species, and so on-though Darcel did admit to dedicating one summer to an attempt to reproduce a triple canopy jungle tree house.
“Good thing you didn’t manage it.” chan Rahool shook his head mournfully though it was clear from his eyes he regretted it not at all. “A little two-story treehouse combined with a minor Voice Talent, and my whole life went straight to the monkeys.” He winked. “Now, would you like your hair checked for lice?”
Alazon began to suspect the man had an incurable sense of humor.
“Why help yourself,” Darcel replied, “Just promise us we can wrap anything you catch in bacon before you eat it. I wouldn’t want to damage relations with the New Farnal simians by offering substandard bugs.”
Chan Rahool chuckled. The chuckle was genuine, but Alazon suspected he had something rather more serious than badinage on his mind, and so did Darcel. Her fiance might be new to politics, but no one could accuse him of lacking wits.
“I thought the great apes didn’t much care what we did,” he said. “And you came from Ricathia, not New Farnal. Why would they have any interest in me?”
“I was actually hoping to speak with your wife.” Chan Rahool lifted his arms in an overlarge shrug that made him look something like a chimp himself. “And who can say why the other sentients do anything? Sometimes their motives are as clear as a human toddler’s interest in a new toy. But when the grandnanas get involved I often end up wondering if we aren’t the less intelligent species.”
Alazon blinked.
“Oh, on average we’re definitely smarter, but not everyone is average…on either side.” The ambassador flapped a wrist at her. “Not an official reporting for the Emperor or anything. Just that the Minarti are matriarchal. There’s a grandmother that runs everything season by season, but there’s also a group of older women who don’t seem to be necessarily related to the grandmother at all.
“When the first reports of the Arcanans came in-by which I mean your report, of course-” He nodded to Darcel. “I was very concerned and tried to tell the grandmother about it. Some of the Minarti have split and established new clans in the nearer universes, and I thought if a war went poorly there might be great apes cut off out there thinking an Arcanan was one of us.” The man grew serious as the lines on his face showed just how deeply he feared for the simians he worked with. “The lady chimp just patted me on the head, like she usually does, and told me to go have more babies.”
“I thought that was the end of it, but last week a delegation of silverback gorillas and their matriarch came to me with a message. They tried to explain things to me, and I’m…Well, this sounds insane, but as near as I can figure the simians do have some kinds of Talents themselves just as we humans do. And the lady gorilla gave me a near Voice-style sending for our human clan leaders.
“Oh and they want you to tell Empress Varena-they’ve never quite accepted that Emperor Zindel’s in charge; they seem to think it’s a polite fiction-that they’re concerned about the war. In fact, they’re much more concerned than I’d realized, and some of them want to go colonize the border universes. I think they meant to fight.”
“Also…” He winced. “The gorillas have offered nursemaid services and open foraging to human females with young to help support wartime population expansion. That’s an extremely generous offer, you understand.”
Chan Rahool finished his recitation with palms held up.
“I know none of it makes any sense from a human perspective, but I’m their ambassador too. They wanted the message delivered, so I needed to take it to Empress Varena.”
He looked pleadingly at Alazon. “I heard you’d stepped down as Privy Voice, but perhaps you still have contacts? If you could just take the transmission, I could say I’d given it to a woman in the Empress’s service. I think the gorillas would accept that.”
Darcel handed the now obviously distraught ambassador the rest of the appetizer tray and sent his wife a speaking glance. This was clearly a question for the former Privy Voice, and Alazon sighed.
“I can relay your gorilla’s message and this conversation exactly as we’ve had it to the Emperor…and,” she added at his cough, “to Empress Varena as well. But you’ll have to explain to them that humans don’t order other humans to procreate the way it sounds like the simians can.”
“Yes. Yes. Already done three times over.” The ambassador said. “But at least I can tell them I passed on the message. They don’t normally cling to things this long. I thought sure migrating for the dry season would put it out of their minds, but almost a full month since the last rain and they’re sending me off with messages like I’m one of their teen boy chimps. That’s what the clicking and cheek blowing means you know: human grandmother’s little boy chimp.” He winced. “If you must tell the Emperor about that bit, please do include that I had no idea at all what it meant when I first agreed to the name.”
Alazon nodded gravely, trying very hard to keep her lips from twitching in amusement.
“They’re willing to change the name for me,” chan Rahool continued, “but they insist that I should kill a tiger with a spear I carved myself first. And then I’ll be an adult and the male chimps have said they’ll need to fight me from time to time just to help me keep in shape.
“I’d really rather not complicate the ambassadorship with all that, if you didn’t mind terribly.”
Chan Rahool’s head turned following a tray of food in a passing waiter’s hand. “Say, do you have any more of the crunchies?”
Chapter Seventeen
January 9
Garth Showma.
Jasak had forgotten how much he loved it…until an unwary glance out the slider window snatched him up out of the briefing he’d been conducting for his shardonai. The sight of the first cluster of snow-draped forest pulled the heart-hunger up into his throat, with a fierce power made even stronger by how many terrible things had happened since his last visit home, and he stared out that window, unaware of emotion which had transfigured his expression in that moment. The winter struck trees of the ducal estate, which ran in forests thirty miles on a side, had been lovingly maintained in their pristine, virgin condition over most of its vast extent, and he drank in their icy beauty like strong wine. Despite two full centuries of settlement, Garth Showma was a jewel of natural beauty, punctuated by the massive Showma Falls.