450 - You are Worm-Food, Boy

AN:  Sorry for the delay today... March Break and all.  There will be another post later today, I promise.
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I managed to clasp my hands behind my back and put on a calm face as I watched the last of the preparations by the Ministry of Celebratory Bounty. The Presentation Platform would be far too small for counting and announcing. Everything had been set up around the amoyawa landing circle on the roof of the Marble Palace.

Four of the front turrets of the Palace had been claimed as flag markers for all of us, the poles marked out in lines designating a thousand votes each.  Our red and silver were on the left of Kallen’s green.  Mil’s blue and Kin’s orange flags were both on the outside two, probably because the Ministry liked a nice symmetry and were assuming that both those candidates would have lower counts than either Kallen or Kallijas and I.

The whole Presentation Square sparkled with gold ribbons and mixes of all the candidates' colours.  The Ministry had begun decorating the instant the water had dropped from the Washing of the Streets.  I had seen them from the Heir’s balcony, gray shadows, matte against the damp gray cobbles under the street lights.

The Mezem gong had been crated and moved to the Presentation platform where the orchestra would sit.  The crowd waiting on the results and the speeches tonight was thicker even though we weren’t at noon yet.  Various buildings around the square showed signs of people as well, Aitzas either using their friend’s connections to get the more private, high seats, or renting places for their servants to set up comfortable chairs and buffets for them while they watched.

“Serin?”  Sinimas, the writer, stood at my elbow.  He was early, but there were a number of writers already on the roof, under the sun-awning that someone sensible had realized would be necessary.  He held his lap-desk under one arm and a broad-brimmed hat, perfect for shading his page shadowed his smile.

“Ser Menden.”  I tried to smile pleasantly at him, even as I twitched in startlement, inside. Outward shows of surprise 2^nd Amitzas had trained out of me.

“Might this one ask you a question?”  When have I ever said no and when has that ever stopped you?

“Of course, Ser Menden, that one certainly might.”  I found my tongue more easily followed Kallijas’s slightly old-fashioned politeness, a certain less harsh version of one-down, rather than Chevenga’s insistence of equal to equal, though I was hearing more and more an odd version of a meld of the two. He had his wrist pad tight and shuffled his lapdesk to bring his pen to bear, to quote me.”

“If the Ser and the Serin do not win, does that one believe the new Imperator will attempt to enact fourteen-eight immediately?”

“The new Imperator, should we not win, might certainly try, however there are a number of legal questions that I would want to see answered before it came to that pass.”

“Would you stand as a pretender for the Ritual of Ascension should you not win?”  I turned and looked at him.  I had actually thought of that, wondering.  I hadn’t pursued it, thinking that it was a problem I might not have to think about. Depending on what happened tonight.  Then I’d have sixty days to figure it out.

“Should things come to pass so, I would have to ask the Fenjitzas and the Fenjitza their opinions of whether the Gods had not already expressed Their will through the vote.”

“Of course, Serin.” He took a breath to ask more

I cut in, before he could decide how to work his next question, “If you would excuse me, Ser.  I shall be available to speak later.”

I’d caught him at the right moment of inhale and I nodded at him and made my escape, downstairs, dodging around a group of servants bringing up more desks and a group of palace guard, led by my relative, Ilesias Mahid.  He looked efficient and cool but his Mahid rigid and blank look was softened to something a great deal more human, I noticed.

**

I actually tucked myself into an alcove, behind a gigantic bust of Nuninian the Feckless, just off the main kitchens for a while and eavesdropped on the staff.  They were thrilled with how much of a celebration this was turning out to be, since the Yeolis seemed determined to just suck all the drama out of this solemn and singular occasion.

“Like Jitz is goin’ another day this one time...” one said, as they hauled a sealed box of dainties over to the access ramp to the roof for later, for the dignitaries to sample.  My gut cramped solid.  I didn’t think I would eat today.  At least not until late tonight.  And not then if I lost.

“Yup.  The Thunder Master has a whole string of fire-works to set off for each candidate.  Blue fer one, Red and Silver fer another... Green... Kinda hard to get orange but s’not likely he’ll need the solid red set...” someone down the hall must have been listening because someone whinnied and another made a set of clip-clop noises that faded down the hall to laughter.  I leaned my head against the wall behind me and looked at the fine, straight hair of the back of the bust in front of me.

Might I just hide here all the rest of the day?  And consider being a pretender if I didn’t win?  Ugly thought.  The good thing was that Ailadas and Sera Eren and I had talk about this.  If it happened, and the Gods killed me for blasphemy, then they had promised me they would get Ili out, and wouldn’t tell me how or when it would happen, so I could say – if truth-drugged – that I had no plans to get my little brother out.

I pushed away from the wall and went to get a drink of water.  “Oh, Serin... your friend... the Yeoli fellow and Serina Liren were looking for you.” I couldn’t remember the man’s name but I recognized him as one of Skorsas’s top team of servants.  “They are in the presentation and counting area on the roof.”

“Thank you.” No hiding for me today.

**

All day long I was up and down... wishing the roof were smooth enough for skates, not wearing any make-up for me to get in the pool and out again without spoiling someone’s careful work.  I had talked Skorsas out of having an enhancement artist follow me around.

The crowd in the square was larger and rowdier every time I went up.  Chanting at each other, mostly between Kallen and Kallijas and I.

The Sereniteers were out in force to make sure the altercations between rival factions stayed merely verbal but the crowd was in a grand mood.  They were going to have an Arkan Imperator once more, even if they were losing a good one, one they cherished... it was like a return to some kind of normal if the Son of the Sun were actually Arkan.

There were singers and dancers and people forming in circles around them, cheering them on.  The smoke of Arkanherb rose up in wafts and waves.  I tried to make Kallijas smile by joking that we could get intoxicated if this went on, but he looked alarmed and took me seriously.  Skorsas – the master of the event -- had to reassure him.  I saw him tilt his head toward his alesinas and go bright red.  I had the feeling that if everything went well I’d hear about this kind of ‘frivolousness’ on the training ground, later.

The crowd would scream and holler and yell every time a winger pilot landed with their cargo.  There were twenty-five who should come in today, the last of the hundreds who had served.  They had their honour riding on making to the city before rim sunset for that was the cut off.  If they were delayed, then their counts would not be included.  Kallen, hoping to win in the city wouldn’t try to interfere with any of these wingers, would he?

Chevenga finally came out, late enough that the sun was barely a half-fist over the Rim and the crowd made an incredible noise until he went to the front of the roof and waved, the seals flashing on his hands in the last of the light.  In the last of the sun, between the golden turrets of the Marble Palace, he looked like something out of a bard’s wet dream.

Skorsas and Kallijas, both in dark red, went to stand by him. Skorsas to hold him and Kallijas to hold him and make sure he didn’t go off the edge by accident or mischance, or the death in him that Surya had revealed.

The last winger dove down out of the clear, Haian sea blue sky, and set her feet on the Marble Palace slate just as the last of the sun disappeared over the edge of the Rim stones and the Mezem gong roared, along with two pure white fireworks rising into the sky to signal the beginning of the count.

All candidates were here.  And we all went to the front of the roof so that Chevenga, flanked by the Fenjitzas and the Fenjitza, could hear our oaths, though the crowd noise was so much we had to shout to be heard; I wondered if our oaths would be valid if they could not be heard, but the crowd, wanting to hear our words, our oaths, quieted.  A scribe stood by to transcribe what we said for our signatures afterward, to go into the archives.

I could hear Kallijas, next to me, and then it was my turn to bellow out, “I, Minis Kurkas Joras Amitzas Aan, do solemnly swear under the eyes of the Ten Gods of Arko, to submit to the true and fair count of the vote of the People of Arko.  I swear to abide by the results as I witness, this night.  I swear to obey the resultant call of the Arkan people whether it be to take up the Holy Office of the Crystal Throne In Clarity, or to prostrate myself to the One Son of the Sun, who is so called.”

Kin and Mil, didn’t give the whole oath but swore only to prostrate themselves to the One; realizing that the scandals had pulled them out of true contention.

Adamas, when he swore the full oath, glanced at me with a smile that knifed through to my guts.  You are worm-food, boy, when I am Imperator, that smile said.  It was smug with anticipation when he turned to finish his oath to Chevenga.

I kept my face still.  There was no way I was going to give that pile of Mahid war-horse leavings the satisfaction of seeing he’d affected me.

You are worm-food, boy.