Star of Gypsies

"Well, Yakoub? Now we understand each other totally, is that not so?"

Periandros had asked me the same thing, I recalled, the day I had ascended the crystalline steps for my audience with him atop the throne-platform. Without hesitation I gave Naria the same answer I had given his predecessor.

"Perfectly, Your Majesty," I said. Though I doubted that very much. But at least I understood him, better than ever before.

"Then there is no need of further talk. You may go. When you have Sunteil, return to us."

This, said to a king! Incredible. Utterly incredible.

"And then we will have much to discuss," he went on. "The new order of things, eh? The emperor and the Rom baro. It is our intention to make many changes, as the Imperium enters the time of prosperity and grandeur that the old phuri dai has foretold. And we will need your cooperation, eh, Yakoub? Emperor and Rom baro, working together for the good of mankind."

"As always, Your Majesty," said I obligingly.

"Good. Your first task is to bring us Sunteil. Nothing else matters until that is done. Go, then. Go now."

Grandly-yes, imperiously-he waved us from the room.

"Can you imagine it?" Polarca exclaimed. We were making our way warily through the shattered city. Sirens sounding, blurts of gunfire breaking out randomly here and there. "He tells you what to do, and then he tells you that you can go. A little wave of his imperial fingei. Dismissing a king the way you would a stablehand."

There were implosion craters everywhere. Now and then a screening bomb went off, blanketing a whole zone of the city with dark clouds of communications-muffling murk. Or an explosion far overhead would send down showers of brilliant golden metallic threads, as though this were not a war but some sort of grand merry pyrotechnikon.

I said, "King, stablehand-it makes little difference to me, Polarca." "Less than a stablehand! You wouldn't even talk to a stablehand that way!"

"No, I wouldn't," I said. "But I am not Naria."

The threads were clusters of picosensors: espionage devices, gobbling up data in mid-air as they floated. Sunteil's little spies? Naria's? Who could tell? Perhaps the doppelganger generals of the doppelganger emperor Periandros were the ones who had ordered them to be dropped.

And still the sky-banners of the three emperors rippled like auroras above us. And on the horizon, too, the brilliant purple light-spike that was the mark of the Rom baro, telling all the world that that great personage was in residence at the Capital in this very hour. Which I was beginning profoundly to wish was not the case.

Polarca was still furious. He couldn't let go of it. "You aren't angry at being treated like that, Yakoub?"

"Angry? What good is being angry? Will it make him more courteous? Naria does as Naria must."

"The bastard. The pig."

"If I allow myself to become angry," I said, "I lose sight of what a formidable adversary he is."

"You think he is?" "Can you doubt it?"

"Just an arrogant boy, puffed up with his own importance. How old is he? Fifty? Sixty? Not even. Sitting there in that glass box on display like the wonder of the galaxies. Calling himself 'we,' and handing out orders to kings. Going out of his way to let us know what a big deal he is. Playing games with you, leading you around by your nose. I'm surprised you put up with it like that, Yakoub."

"He is emperor," I said.

"That pimp? That fop? You call that an emperor?"

"He has the palace and the army," I reminded him. "And is very quickly going about the business of consolidating his power. Periandros is dead and Sunteil, who everyone thought would reach out and take the throne like a ripe fruit the moment the Fifteenth departed his body, runs and hides. And Naria knows how many doppelgangers there are of Periandros; he knows that Sunteil came visiting us in secret this morning. I think we need to deal with him as though he is truly the emperor, Polarca."

"What do you mean to do, then? Will you recognize him? What about Sunteil?"

"What about Sunteil?" I asked.

"He, at least, pretends to treat us as equals. Naria treats us like dogs." "You prefer the pretense?"

"We live by pretense," said Polarca. "And what we pretend is that the Gaje respect us, when we know that they merely fear us, because they need us, because they depend on us. But the pretense of respect feels better than the reality of contempt. I like Sunteil's style better than I do Naria's."

"So do I," I said. "We may have no choice, though." "Will you give Sunteil to Naria as he asks?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, Polarca. It's not a notion that pleases me a great deal."

Our cavalcade of cars came to a halt. We were at the palace of the Rom king, in the Plaza of the Three Nebulas. Suddenly I had a profound wish to be alone. For an instant I almost wished I was back on white glittering Mulano, squatting by the Gombo glacier and trawling for turquoise spice-fish with a vibration net. Far from all this, far from everyone, the wagging tongues, the clamorous ambitions, the murderous schemes, the noise, the blood, the idiocy.