Year of the Griffin (21 page)

The centurion flung an arm out again and departed. Corkoran ate his lunch slowly, making notes about his moonship as he ate and wishing he had stayed longer with his students. Ruskin had not said nearly enough. He would have to arrange some kind of special tutorial and get Ruskin to talk about the moonship some more. Eventually, sighing at this waste of his time, Corkoran set off down the stone stairway to go to the Council Chamber.

He was halfway down the stairs when the legionaries, followed by the senators, followed by more legionaries, began streaming extremely quickly across the hallway to the Council Chamber. These were followed by a slow and stately group of dwarfs. Corkoran stopped where he was, struck by how magnificent they all were. He had intended to interview them all in his usual T-shirt and his comet-decorated tie, to show them how busy he was. But now he had serious second thoughts.

These people are rich, he thought. I sent both lots a request for money, and this is probably why they're here. I have to meet them looking as stately as they do, to show them what a fine and august place they'll be giving their support to. He sighed again as he conjured his official robes to him and climbed into them on the stairs. Ever since the tours, when Mr. Chesney had insisted that wizards all wear robes all the time, Corkoran had hated the wretched garments. Nevertheless, he went grandly down the rest of the stairs, wearing the red of a Third Level Wizard, with the hanging hood of ermine that showed he was a high official of the University, and feeling hot and disgruntled.

In the Council Chamber they all bowed to him, and he was glad he had bothered with the robes. The two senators were in the full pomp of their Imperial senatorial purple, red borders, laurel wreaths and all, and the spacious chamber seemed crammed with all their legionaries. The dwarfs took Corkoran's breath away, with their gilded, jeweled armor, ceremonial weapons, and the precious stones swinging in the braids of their hair and beards. Two of them, whose hair was white, wore exquisite platinum coronets on their snowy heads.

Corkoran was awed by all this wealth, though he tried not to show it. He went briskly to the other side of the Council table and sat down facing them all. At this the two senators creakingly lowered themselves into seats, while the legionaries stood in massed ranks behind them. The two white-haired dwarfs also climbed into chairs, jingling faintly, and the other dwarfs crowded behind them on foot. So these standing ones were there to make the sitting dwarfs look important, just like the legionaries, Corkoran thought.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said pleasantly, but in a brisk, I'm-really-very-busy tone. “What can I do for you?”

“Who are you?” demanded one of the dwarfs who were standing up.

Corkoran blinked a bit. “I'm Corkoran, Wizard Chairman of the Governing Board of the University. And you are?”

“I am Antoninus,” said the left-hand senator, deftly cutting in, “Senator of the Empire. Beside me sits my colleague Senator Empedocles, and we have urgent business—”

Corkoran nodded pleasantly and turned to the dwarfs. “And you gentlemen?”

“We,” said the right-hand dwarf with the coronet, “are all forgemasters from Central Peaks fastness, and we are our own soldiers.” His green eyes swept sneeringly over the rigid legionaries. “We have no need to bring protection with us. I am Dobrey, son of Davelly, son of Dorkan, son of Dwain, who was founder of the tribe of forgemasters. Beside me sits Genno, son of Gart, son of Graid, son of Dwain, and behind me to my right stands Hordo, son of Harnid, son of Hennel, son of Haman, son of Dwain. And to his left stands Clodo …”

Corkoran listened unbelievingly as every one of the ten dwarfs was introduced by name and by descent. Senator Empedocles leaned toward Senator Antoninus to whisper, “This need to recite one's pedigree puts one in mind of a horse fair.”

“What can one expect of nonhumans?” Senator Antoninus whispered back, shrugging.

Corkoran began to see he might have made a mistake to put these two groups together.

“… And we have come here—” continued Dobrey.

“No doubt on a very great errand,” Senator Empedocles slid in deftly. Corkoran could see he was a senior veteran of committees. “But ours is pressing, Wizard. As you must know, our great Empire is the cradle and nurse of democracy, throughout all its classes and many distinctions. The Senate, to which I have the honor to belong, is but the highest of our democratic institutions, being selected by the votes of all the people on a five-yearly basis and thus being the supreme voice of the will of the people. The Emperor himself, not being so elected, on many occasions discovers the aforesaid will of the people through the votes of the Senate and is of course swayed by it. Thus I may say—though with all due diffidence, Wizard—that I and my senatorial colleague beside me represent the revealed will of the Emperor. If you follow me.”

Corkoran did not follow Empedocles. He had no idea what the fellow was on about. Dobrey, sitting with his massive braceleted arms folded over his breastplate, said contemptuously, “He means his Emperor hasn't told him to come and probably doesn't know he's here. Right, Senator?”

Empedocles's wrinkled mouth pinched furiously at the corners, but he inclined his head politely to the dwarf. “This being so”—Antoninus smoothly took over—“it follows that it is imperative that you, Wizard, understand our position, or stance, if I may put it that way. Our nobly democratic institutions can only keep their integrity, integrity that is our most precious asset, if they preserve the integrity of the entire people, of our whole Imperial family, by ensuring, for their smooth operation and the maintaining of our high standards, that we take such measures toward cleanliness, unity, and normalcy as we can. Any tinge—I will not go so far as to call it a taint—of what might loosely be called anti-Imperial is to us a thing to be deplored and expunged at all costs.”

Antoninus was worse than Empedocles. Corkoran looked involuntarily toward Dobrey. Dobrey's eyebrows were up, wrinkling his bulging forehead all the way up to his coronet. “Lovely,” he said. “Intricate. Wizard, I think this one's on about not wanting to mix their breed. But he's said it so tangled up that he could turn around and tell you he was saying just the opposite if he needed to.”

Antoninus gave Dobrey a steady snakelike stare. “My good dwarf, do you wish to make my statement for me?”

Dobrey waved a massive hand. “No, no. Carry on. This is amusing.”

“We don't like half-breeds either,” Genno remarked from beside him.

Corkoran suddenly discovered what they were talking about. “You mean, you've come here about Claudia,” he said.

Two laureled heads gravely bowed at him. “An understanding having been reached,” Empedocles said, “we can now proceed to outline our position more precisely. Our Imperial ruler, gracious Emperor Titus, is still quite young and has so far regrettably failed to provide for the advancement of the griffin through another glorious generation—”

“Emperor won't get married,” Dobrey translated.

“And as matters stand”—Empedocles continued, ignoring this—“the chief person to profit from the reversion of the Imperial title and honors is this most unfortunate half sister. You see our problem, Wizard. Without in the least wishing to go against the august preferences of the Emperor, we would want rather to preempt them by annihilating any threat of mixed blood at the heart of the Imperium.”

“With this in view,” Antoninus put in, “we in the Senate were exceedingly interested in the discovery that this University is currently, and we hope temporarily, suffering a slight shortfall in its funding. The Emperor would, I am sure, in the right circumstances, be happy to put it to the vote in the Senate that the Empire relieve, to some extent, the embarrassments of a worthy institution, so that matters can be adjusted to the satisfaction of all parties.”

Dobrey chuckled. “And now he's offering you a bribe.”

“To hand her over so that they can snuff her,” Genno explained.

Two laureled brows turned and lowered at the dwarf party.

“Or you can snuff her yourself if you'd rather,” Genno added.

“This is infinitely crude,” said Antoninus.

“But moderately accurate,” said Empedocles.

But I think I'm going to need Claudia for my moonshot! Corkoran thought. I've never seen anyone calculate as fast as she does. This morning he had felt nearer to getting to the moon than he had ever felt before. On the other hand, there was no denying that the University needed money badly. The two different needs pulled Corkoran this way and that like the rope in a tug-of-war. He could tell Claudia to work for him or he'd let the senators have her. But there was no guarantee that Claudia was as good as she seemed. He could take the senators' money and use some of it to hire someone else who could calculate equally swiftly. But there was no guarantee that he could find anyone who could. No—hang on! There might be a way to keep Claudia
and
get the money. The senators, thanks to the dwarfs, had let him know that the Emperor had no idea they were here.

Corkoran raised his head with a regretful, sad smile. “Alas, gentlemen. You should have come and talked to me a week ago, before my fellow tutors discovered that the young lady in question, though a half-breed, is their most promising student for years. The University has already decided to award her a scholarship. Talent counts over blood here, you know. We have to retain the young lady on our books.”

The senators turned and looked at one another. Antoninus raised an eyebrow. Empedocles nodded. Both old men got up. “Then we won't waste any more of your valuable time, Wizard,” Empedocles said, “but merely remind you, in view of your resolve to retain the young person in question, that the Empire never sleeps, never rests.”

Bother! Corkoran thought, watching the legionaries form up smartly in squads and smartly march out of the chamber with the senators pacing in their midst. That was a warning. It almost certainly meant more assassins. Still, they had dealt with one lot of assassins, so they could probably handle another—except that this time Corkoran was determined that the Emperor was going to help them do it. Just get rid of the dwarfs first. He waited until the doors had boomed shut behind the last legionary and turned to the dwarfs.

Dobrey grinned at him. “Oddly enough,” he said, “we're here on a rather similar matter.”

“But
we
don't beat about bushes,” said Genno. “We want that Ruskin back. We'll pay in treasure or in gold bars, whichever you prefer. So how much?”

Now that the senators had left, the other eight dwarfs clearly felt no need to pretend to be an honor guard. They pulled out chairs and hopped up into them with sighs of relief. “Oh, my poor feet!” said one, Hordo, Corkoran thought, and leaned his elbows on the table. “Name your price, Wizard. You need the money. Everyone in town was telling us that your roofs leak and about how Bardic College and Healers Hall both refused you a loan last summer.”

This was true, unfortunately. Corkoran was still smarting, when he thought about the matter, about how rude the bards had been. He could see no way out of this demand. And he was exasperated because he was fairly sure that he needed Ruskin to work on the moonship even more than he needed Claudia to calculate its course. He thought of losing the chance of all the exquisite dwarf handwork Ruskin could do for him and almost ground his teeth. He could
make
Ruskin do the work by threatening to sell him to these forgemasters, but only if he could see some way of inducing these dwarfs to let him keep Ruskin here. It was fairly clear that they were too blunt and shrewd to believe him for a moment if he suggested another scholarship for Ruskin. “Why?” he asked, playing for time. “What do rich, high-caste dwarfs like you want with a measly runt like Ruskin?”

“That's the nubbin of it,” Dobrey said. “We're all Sons of Dwain here. Forgemasters. Artisans like Ruskin are our slaves—legally. They
belong
to us, Wizard. All the lower tribes do.”

“And we can't have a slave running off like this,” Genno explained. “He
has
to be taken back and publicly executed as an example to the rest, or they'll
all
think they can run off.”

“Yes, I see that,” Corkoran said. “But I met a lot of dwarfs while I was on the tours, forgemasters and artisans, too, and nobody ever suggested the artisans were slaves.”

“Western dwarfs,” Dobrey said dismissively. “Different customs. Dwain made
our
customs when he took over Central Peaks five hundred years ago. Did it legally, too, with Wizard Policant for witness. Came all the way here to this University to make sure it was lawful.”

“Look in your library,” said Hordo with his elbows on the table. “You'll find that agreement in your Inventory. We brought our copy with us, just to make sure. That Ruskin
belongs
to us, and you've got to give him back.”

“Let's see your copy then,” Corkoran said, still playing for time.

Dobrey, who was obviously the senior forgemaster, fetched a folded parchment from the front of his ornamental gold breastplate. It was brown with age and almost clattered with stiffness as Corkoran took it and spread it out. Yes, there it was, all in order, with Policant's crabbed black signature beside the University seal at the bottom and a swirl that deciphered as “Dwain” at the other corner. “Artisans, miners, drudges … agree to form clans, these clans to be the sole property of forgemasters … this agreement in exchange for certain spells of protection donated by the University in consideration of one ton of gold … said spells only known to forgemasters and of proven value against the demons of the deep....”