134 - Three Things At Once

Dear Papa,

I am so thrilled that I can write you openly and so quickly!  I am ever concerned over your health and hope that you will be able to come to see me at the Sunrise Loggia soon.  My friends are all a twitter over the revelation!  His Radiance has acknowledged Mariush’s baby as his, though he is not saying she is any kind of siwion!  It was a shock to the court when some horrid assassin tried to kill both the Imperial concubine... she is reinstated as his zardukar and is living with him once more... and the baby... Homa Raghnall, Great Hive child, is not in the Sunrise’s nursery but with his Radiance and her mother constantly now.

It is such a shame that his Radiance is so tired.  He apparently had an episode last week and has taken to his bed, though his secretary comes to him every day.  His doctor says that he is not allowed to get up yet, so the court comes to him, in the bedroom!

My husband says it is horrid that his Radiance insists on overstretching himself like this when he should be husbanding his resources, getting well again after his break-down... right at the same time that Mariush and the baby were attacked, would you believe it?  He is very solicitous to his Radiance and is at his right hand contantly. Especially since our beloved Emperor lost his loyal vizier so treacherously, and so recently.  I am with my husband as much as I can be, though he is annoyed that I have your grandchild still in a mother-sling with me.  He says she fusses too much, and smells.  So funny.  She is his third child and he cannot remember that babies do that.

Papa, I confess that my husband grieves me.  I am with him as much as I can be, to try and make things right, but I can only do my part.

I realize that you cannot come to visit at a moment’s notice and I am a grown woman who cannot have her daddy running to hold her hand.  But sometimes this woman needs to have her hand held.  You’ve been away so long you haven’t even seen your newest grandchild.  Please let that be the incentive to bring you.

Your honourable and obedient daughter,

Shashi

_____________

“A letter from your daughter, Amir?  She’s an attendant for his Radiance?  Wooo Hooo, yer fambly’s reachin’ high fer an ass hmmm?”

That was the problem with the Lin.  Everyone could read what surfaced on it, no matter who it was addressed to.  Couriers were obviously still vitally necessary for anything that you didn’t want every ‘kulu and their maiden aunties to know from here to the moon, faster than a bird could run.  But Shashi was as subtle as she ever was, so that no one would suspect on either end.  From the sending end, if anyone saw... she was obviously writing her invalid father in his Loggia in Dacharu.  If anyone saw it on this end they’d figure a social climbing career officer had gotten his little girl into the Great Hive as an attendant of some kind.

“Ayah.  She does well.  Married a pitter tho’.  Got her a good place.  Ahy may hafta punch mah married-in son when ah get back.”

“Sorry tah hear thet.  Hev a good day, Amir.”  He nodded at the Lin clerk and stepped out of the line.  The pages were being pulled out every few minutes, hung to dry and passed on to the proper person, a whole stack to be distributed on the desk behind the counter.  Some people were bringing fibre for two or three letters per day.  In the storm it was a whole new past-time, actually talking to their friends and relatives across the whole empire.

He passed a whole wall of cute fluffy and cat and dog pictures, sent out as massive, useless mailings but people kept the endarkened things and even passed them around more than once!  He shook his head.

This storm couldn’t end quickly enough.  Now that everybody was speculating on how high a Brilliance Kyrus the elder was, and the new baby as Kraghanz... There could be two at the same time, but if Diryish was truly so ill that he had to stay abed, he might not be able to clear up the line of succession.

Fark you, old man.  You need to come back out of that bed before any of these people are in a position to defend themselves.  This assassin... has been subtle for years.  For some reason now he’s getting bolder.  Probably because you’re weaker.  I have to get these boys to Lainz, to you.  You have to approve and introduce them to the Hive or we’re screwed.  Screwed sideways, and from every orifice.  De Molfe and his co-conspirators think they are undiscovered.

I begin to suspect Nadian and Billiph both.  Shashi as much as told me so.  ‘Holding her hand’ does not mean what it seems.  It would be unfortunate if she felt the need to kill her own husband, as little as she likes him.  It’s not an honourable thing to do, but we Pahgemar have done worse to protect the Empire.

‘So funny.’ She says.  A bad sign. One of our codes for dangerously crazy. It’s not good to have her write me a letter at all, even in my guise as Amir.  I need to get us back to Lainz as fast as possible... once this farking ownering endarkened storm quits.

And I haven't seen my grandchild yet, as she says.  Perhaps after all this is over I shall retire and write letters to people that don't have to mean three, four or five things at the same time.