4 Eating One’s Words
EATING ONE’S WORDS
THE IMPS WERE all on their knees. Costume guards, waiters, the noble presenters, everyone except the four Imperial guards had fallen prostrate when the Emperor walked through the portal.
The Allies, in contrast, stayed on their feet.
Seated persons rose from their chairs, but there was no abject bowing.
I could feel the friction between the two factions, the hatred emanating from bowed Imperial heads and the contempt from upright Allied individuals, but did not know which side I should side with.
Dropping to one knee would be the appropriate sign of respect, but would it weaken the Commonwealth’s position at the negotiating table?
I did not know, so I followed Boleslaw’s example and remained standing.
The Emperor – Astrid, I could hardly believe – scanned the silent crowd.
Her eyes passed over my face, but no flash of recognition flared within.
I don’t know what I had expected – she would never have walked down and re-instigated our abrogated romance – but I’d never thought she would have forgotten me.
Perhaps I had changed in the intervening ten years.
I was more weathered, broader about the middle, more wrinkled around the eyes, but I had not imagined the differences were so pronounced as to render me unrecognizable.
After allowing the silence to stretch on uncomfortably long, the Emperor spoke.
“Thank you all for celebrating the twelve-year anniversary of my glorious reign. Your presence speaks to the solidarity all post-Fall people share, regardless of genetic lineage or political affiliation. I hope over the following decades of my rule, we can work together to restore the glory our forebearers saw when they first settled the stars.”
With that, she sat back onto her throne of pearly horns. Her black-gloved hands curled around the clawed armrests, and when she leaned back, the ornamental silver crown adorning the throne’s headrest perfectly framed her head, further stressing her regal status.
“Just to be clear, that is the woman you knew?” Boleslaw hissed, her voice an urgent whisper in my ear. She’d come from nowhere, but I was too awed by Astrid’s presence to be startled by Boleslaw’s sudden appearance.
I nodded. “I could never forget that face.”
“Step aside,” a low, gravelly voice commanded. I looked up to see an eight-foot-tall demon wearing servant’s garb glaring at Boleslaw and myself. He along with two other footmen, were carrying a long dining table. Boleslaw pulled me away, and the Imps went about setting up the hall for dinner.
“Boleslaw, here. Our seats,” Prince Aureli called before we could talk further, and a scaley hordling tugged on my sleeve, pointing me to a chair. Another scaled hordling grabbed Boleslaw’s sleeve and pulled her towards a different seat far down the table.
Boleslaw grimaced. “We’ll talk after dinner, but for Fall’s sake, keep quiet and don’t tell anybody you dated her.” She let herself be led away, and I followed the directions of my hordling to my straight-backed wooden chair several seats down from Boleslaw and the prince.
A thin pale lord with a thin pale mustache sat to my left, between me and the prince. He fussed with his midnight blue civil service mess dress before turning an inquisitive eye towards me. “I don’t recognize you. Are you new?”
I extended a hand. As he was a civilian, I did not have to salute him, but as a lord, he was still owed respect. “Sky Captain Levar Boylan, at your service.”
“Captain?” the noble said, his voice full of the bored surprise certain nobles had perfected.
“Yes, Sky Captain Boylan. And what’s your name?” I prompted, trying to get this noble to remember his manners.
Annoyed, the noble placed his hand in mine, limp as a dead fish.
“Sir William Blandesky, of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Corps.
” I pumped his hand with a firm military grip, but before I could say anything, Sir Blandesky asked, “What on Earth is an army captain doing here… Oh.” He gave me another once-over, this one more disdainful than the last. “Ah, yes, the lover boy. The one with no training, no diplomatic experience.”
I did not know what to say, so I sat silent. Sir Blandesky needed no reply.
“Well, I’m certain you’ll be a credit to the diplomatic corps,” he said without any genuine feeling, then pointedly turned his back on me to talk with the higher-ranking officer to his left.
Belatedly, I realized Sir Blandesky’s entire introduction might have been a political gambit, a bit of theater meant to put me in my place. But we were both on the same side, so why did he feel the need to denigrate me in public?
I did not know, but despite being surrounded by diplomats, it seemed I would be eating alone. Morosely, I waited for the first dish to arrive.
Astrid – no, I had to think of her as the Emperor now – sat alone on her throne, a private table set before her already laden with food and wine.
I wondered if she still preferred spiced reds or if she’d ever warmed to the fortified brandywines I’d enjoyed in school.
Had we been back at the Academy, we would have occupied a corner table and quietly mocked the most pretentious people present, but we were not free to do so here.
Here, there were rules, more serious than the societal norms we’d felt free to flout at school.
Here, we could not be ourselves, but had to play the roles of diplomat and Emperor.
Here we had to be strangers. I wondered if Astrid enjoyed being Emperor now more than she’d enjoyed being herself with me twelve years ago.
I wondered if she felt as isolated as I did.
The soup arrived, a thick green liquid in a shallow bowl.
I was momentarily happy for a distraction from the monotony of secondhand conversational chatter until I looked at the silverware before me.
My heart fell further. I’d known all of these spoons once, back when I was an Academy cadet, but that had been twelve years ago.
For the last decade, I’d dined on military rations with cheap campaign utensils.
As I stared at a half-dozen spoons of various sizes, trying to remember which was the soup spoon versus the table spoon, there was a tiny, polite nudge against my right arm.
I had paid little attention when the person to my right sat down, aside from recognizing her old-fashioned gown of League court dress.
Now, I saw her copper skin, brown-black hair, warm brown eyes, and demure smile.
Meaningfully, she placed her right hand on a spoon with an almost circular bowl.
I grabbed the identical spoon set before me, and she nodded, then lifted a spoonful of soup to her mouth.
“Thank you,” I said under my breath. “It’s been a while since I’ve attended a court function.”
“I’m afraid it’s about all I’ve attended these last ten years,” the woman replied, her voice soft, her face slightly concerned, as though I would judge her harshly.
“You’ve probably had more impact on the war than I. You diplomats keep the Alliance together. Without Allied troops, we would have lost this war years ago.”
“You’re too kind,” she replied, blushing.
“Not at all.” I bowed in my chair towards her. “Captain Levar Boylan, at your service.”
She gave me her hand, and I took it, gently brushing my lips against her knuckles. “Princess Marie-Christina of Stelsylvania.”
I pored through my memories. “Stelsylvania. I fought alongside your soldiers, about four years back on New Danube. They’re good. Tough. Know what they’re doing.”
“Thank you, Captain. It’s good to know my countrymen are respected by our allies.
” She fell into silence, and I could tell something was going unsaid which I was expected to intuit, but I was unaccustomed to these sorts of conversations.
The only thing I could think of was Marie, a princess of a sovereign nation, felt insulted being seated next to such a low-ranking Commonwealth diplomat.
“I’m sorry you must sit next to a lowly sky captain,” I said, trying to correct my nation’s faux pas.
Princess Marie graciously inclined her head. “It is not your fault. The Imperials seated everyone with their national compatriots. Usually, we would be mixed among each other, to facilitate intercourse.”
I choked on my bite of food, then quickly recovered. “Your Commonwealth Basic is excellent, but I think that word may mean something different than what you meant.”
“Does it not mean conversation, or discussion?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But it also has additional connotations.”
I decided to change the subject. “So did you receive an invitation to this particular party?”
“It seems everyone did.”
“I didn’t. I was chosen as part of Prince Aureli’s retinue.”
“Well, your nation has more power than mine. I came to ensure Stelsylvania is not forgotten.”
“You’re one of our most steadfast allies. I certainly haven’t forgotten about you.”
“That’s kind of you, but now that the League is essentially dissolved…”
“It is?” I asked, honestly perplexed.
“Yes. Look across the table. Archduke Darius sided with the Empire before the war started. His betrayal allowed the Empire to invade the League from within. And of the League allies, how many representatives here still have a nation, as opposed to a defunct government-in-exile?” I looked around at the long parallel tables, but I could not tell one League diplomat from another.
Instead, I visualized something more familiar: the star map of the battlefront.