451 - Blusher and Sparky

There were runners from the counting desks to the flag posts and the lights shining on them were lit, as were all the lamps and torches upon the roof.  It made the long twilight into day again and the Square’s lamps, with additional lights, were lit early.  Every building all around the square was lit in almost every window, the Temple’s lights blazing bright, the University lit as if for Mikas and Risae’s holy festivals.

The flags began to move almost immediately.  And it was obvious that it would be a race between Kallijas and I, and Adamas Kallen, just as everyone had predicted.  I tried to be calm, but paced the roof.  Gan came over to walk with me, making me moderate my pace to match him, so I must have been moving a lot faster than I thought.  The crowd went more quiet, waiting, watching.  I did not want to be still.  It was as though I was part of the Press, but unhooked from any useful work, spinning, spinning.

I circled Kallijas who seemed to be meditating, calm as if he were a statue in the sweeping red velvet that made him look so tall. Chevenga went to the other candidates to touch combs... or rather like Yeolis, to shake hands.  He spent more time with Mil than with Kin and Mil seemed happier about the whole thing.

Kall smiled at me as I came around next time and I slowed and he said. “It’s already decided, lad.  You needn’t worry.  The battle is over. We’re just waiting till the dust settles and all the bodies are counted.  Take a breath... perhaps have some of the tea you drink to settle yourself?”

I looked over the edge of the roof and watched a couple of sets of Sereniteers break up a fight in the plaza below, between Adamas supporters and Kallijas and mine... Mostly banner pulling.  Chevenga came up just as I gritted “This is worse than the Mezem,” through my teeth.

“At least no one’s going to die,” he said and I blinked at him, gut clenching hard.  My life, and Ili’s life and my mother’s life all rested on this vote. Kallijas looked between the two of us, wondering quite what he meant.

“Minis, I’m sorry… I meant…”  He looked over at Kall, then back at me.  Of course he was probably thinking I would win. That had to be why he didn’t think anyone would die.  “In truth, no one need die, no matter who wins. Your mother might swear to Adamas, in the end.”As unlikely as the Empire unanimously voting Kin Immen Kazien onto the throne.  I looked down at the slate at my toes.  “It could be foreknowledge that made me say that. It sometimes expresses itself in clumsy ways.” It was nice of him to try and reassure me.  It must, because Chevenga is so seldom clumsy.  I can hope.

I said that. “I can hope so.” But the flags painted a picture already.  Kallen’s was higher than ours, though that could be the city vote, since that was how the votes were being tallied... first in, first counted.

“Lad, go for a swim. You don’t have to be here, and the count won’t go any differently depending on whether you are. They’re counting out of city now”— He knew.  Someone must have told him.  “It may be that when you come back from swimming off the fear, you’ll be ahead.”

“I… I… don’t know,” I wasn’t sure he heard me. “Ch’venga... might I bring my mother up to the roof?  So she may see?”

“Of course, lad –“ “Shefen-kas!” a writer interrupted us. “With Adamas winning, are you concerned about the implications of Imperial Compartment Verbal 14 Segment 8 with regard to those who have run whom you count as your friends?”

“I’ll go,” I said, and faded back before the writer could turn on me.  I could hear Chevenga telling the man how unconcerned he was fading behind me as Kyriala said that she and Farasha and Gannara would keep me company and we could send someone to inform my mother that she was allowed onto the roof to see the count.

I swam till I was dizzy and my head reeling in circles from my round of the pool.  Gannara and Farasha came in with me, naked and Kyriala, in her swimming costume, had Farasha show her more about swimming.  I kept being distracted by trying to see what the girls were practicing over in the tepid pool, while Gannara and I were in the cold one.  Perhaps that is what they intended.

My mother wanted to make herself presentable first, of course, so wasn’t yet escorted upstairs by the time we got back onto the roof, tired and more water-wrinkled.  Kallijas and my colours were gaining on Kallen’s when I emerged.

“Are you going to introduce me to your mother?” Chevenga said as I stepped over to him.  Skorsas, at his back, kneaded his shoulders and gave me a smile.  “Do you think she’d be comfortable being introduced to an Imperator—for a pair of beads -- to whom she hasn’t sworn?”

“My… mother?”  He wanted to meet my mother?  Now? “I… well, I’d love that. Her… I don’t know. Muunas… I feel completely wrung out, and we still have our speeches to do.”  I looked over at the flags and took a deep breath.

The green flag and the red and silver were exactly even when my mother came out, flanked by two guards.  I had a chance.  I’d always known that often the city led the Empire, but it wasn’t a perfect bellwether.  Arko had only had enough votes to have people speculate on things like country versus city and eastern empire versus western... Kallijas was loved in the west where he’d made his champion status but people would only be voting for two years of him and a lifetime of me. I actually had had more holdings in the east when I was the brat which might have been good or bad.

I stepped over to meet her.  “Mother.  I would like to introduce you to the current Imperator.”

She nodded and I escorted her over.  Chevenga rose up as she came.  “I’m pleased to meet you,” he said, and extended his hand in the Yeoli way.  

Mother nodded at him. “Fourth Shefen-kas,” she said flatly, and equal to equal. “I am not sure how to answer you. I cannot acknowledge you the way my son wishes.”

“You needn’t,” he said and tucked his hand away. “You, he and I have our agreement.”

“I am completely without direction and guide and am unsure what is correct,” she said with enough snap for her words to be clear over the noise of the crowd.  I stood watching them, looking at the two poles of my life. Him in the white and gold, with a short black, curly head.  Her dressed dark as a shadow with bright elaborate braids cascading in an ornate and intricate network, her hands perfectly folded. “I do know that I am able to acknowledge my own child and for that I have you to thank. Thank you.”

“You are more than welcome,” He looked away and we all ended up glancing at the flags.  Were Kall and I higher than Kallen now?  If so it was by one increment, not really visible from here.

“How can you bear this… uncertainty?” Mother said and pointed with her chin, to the flags. “Never knowing who will be in control?

“But I always know who is in control,” he answered her calmly. “The people.”

“A mob cannot pilot a ship or direct a horse. How can the mass of them direct a country?” How could she dare just to speak like this?  Argue with Chevenga?  “Mother I shall fetch you a cordial, shall I?”  I didn’t wait for her answer.

When I came back with a glass for her it was just in time to hear her say “... rst Amitzas confirms this thinking.” Whatever Grandfather had confirmed, had made Chevenga smile. He likes this.  He likes to argue with her? It seems to give him pleasure to do so. Yeolis.

“Many Yeolis wouldn’t like to admit the truth of that. Ultimate and unquestioning loyalty: exactly the same. The sacrifice of my life if I am asked to, that too; it’s woven into all the customs. There are very strict laws governing what I do, and thoughts considered correct and incorrect. We even have our forms of correction, albeit less torturous.” I formally sipped the glass in front of her and handed it to her.  She nodded at me and put her lips on the same spot on the glass.  I saw Chevenga catch the old formality.  He might ask me about it later.

“I’ve even heard that when you are not in the Imperial white-and-gold,” mother said after she’d sipped.  “That you have a taste for onyxine.” Was that an honest double-entendre? Chevenga did like a lot of Mahid, including Grandfather and Ilesias and I.

“I’ve been known to. Something I’ve always wanted to say to you, Inensa, and I hope the case is extreme enough that I may be forgiven for speaking ill of the dead: for having been married to 2^nd Amitzas Mahid, you have my sympathy.”

“Rest he in Selestialis,” she said grimly, her mouth tightening as her jaw clenched in memory. Proper to the exact line, still.  “How far do you intend to take your vengeance against him?” Inensa asked, looking at Chevenga like he was an opponent in a snow-fight and she aiming between his eyes.

“I’m done. He’s dead. Why?”

“I carry his child in my body.”

I turned to stare at her full on.  Oh my Great God and Goddess. I could feel my face stiffen to hide what I felt.  “M-m-mother… you didn’t tell me that!” What on the earthsphere did she mean by telling him and me this, now? I took a deep breath.  Just because a father was a fool and a psychotic monster did not necessarily mean the child would be.  I should know.  

I... would have a half sibling?  Ummm.  Ili would have a little brother or sister, through me... um.  I had to win tonight.  I had to.  I was reeling and I didn’t notice the chant at first.

Blusher and Sparky! Champion and bright hope, Itrean and Aan, re-kindle us!  Kindle us anew! Heyah, Blusher and Sparky! The crowd roar from below carried our chant over everyone elses’, including that for Adamas.

“I have no intention of harming his, and your, child,” Chevenga said.  

Our flag had overtaken Kallen’s by a clear margin.  “I thank you, Shefen-kas,” my mother continued as calmly as if she were ordering embroidery thread.  “It will be my son’s decision whether this child will be the beginning of his own Mahid, if the lead he now has sustains until the end.” I will have another brother or sister.  A brother.  Or a sister.  Half brother... half sister... doesn’t matter.  More family.  “In the meantime, Minis: I recommend that you never acquire a taste for administering Mahid’s Obedience to your bed partners.”  Oh, my professional... my Great God.  I... um... ick... I didn’t think I had any blood left in my face, perhaps none in my head either.

Chevenga took a deep breath, his red patches coming up on his face. “It may not be only the Imperator who decides what the existing Mahid will do, or whether there will be a new line,” he said. “There’s Assembly, now, too. My thought is that the Mahid should be what has always been best about them, and leave behind what was worst.”  Thank you for changing the subject, Chevenga.

“What were we, other than a weapon of the Imperator’s terror? Our loyalty was always what was best about us, in my opinion.”

“I agree. Insofar as you are loyal to something that is good, it’s a virtue.” I don't think I could have said anything at this point even if a writer had stabbed me with a pen.

“So you, who believe so firmly in the freedom of the mob as exercised through the vote, do not think that people who make themselves a blank page for a ruler to write upon freely can be dangerous?” I had to stare at my mother.  This was more than she’d said to me in eight-days.  Arguing?  Where was this madness, this wild, free-speaking woman from and what had she done with my silent mother? Perhaps it was election madness.

“They are a reflection only of him. They give up their own choices. Insofar as he is dangerous, they are dangerous. As I was, Yeoli Mahid that I am; I was the sword in my own people’s hand, with as little choice, against Arko.”

“That’s not what I understand,” she said, as dry and acerbic as Grandfather. “Some say it was your choice, and Yeolis followed their Enactor for once.  However, if the Gods will that the Imperator becomes the Reflection of the People then the Mahid could become a much larger reflection along with Him.”

“May the Mahid become that,” Chevenga said, solemn as a prayer. He glanced sideways at me, standing with my hands fisted in the small of my back. “Another thing,” he contined.  “I have wanted to tell you: I am proud of your son.”

“Minis,” my mother said. “Has very little of the darkness seeded in him, and I appreciate the lightness he radiates. I am also pleased you have seen this in him.” My mother thought this? Thinks this?  My mother believed...believes this?  She... I... she... um...

“It was obvious to me when he was ten,” Chevenga said. I started to wonder if I should freshen my mother’s glass if they were going to keep talking in front of me like this.

Blusher and Sparky! Blusher and Sparky! Blusher and Sparky!  The chant had completely overwhelmed Kallen’s “Tradition and Family!”  Our flag was a full flag-width above Kallen’s now.  I was starting to hear the rolling of hundreds of Dyer hand-drums.

My mother handed me her empty glass, looked at the flags above, and pulled a gold chain out of her skirt pocket.  It had her mother stone on it.  The one I had given her and she had accepted but never worn.  She raised her hands up to her high collar, under the network of hair.  “Assist me, my son.”

I caught my breath and blindly handed the goblet off to a servant as she held her hair out of the way so I might fasten the chain around her neck.  It settled, the thumb-sized yellow diamond, just under the square, silver, Mahid brooch.

Itrean and Aan, champion and bright hope, Blusher and Sparky! Blusher and Sparky!