«Oh, indeed,» Yeliif agreed. «I remind him of the time when the world did not turn at his bidding, when he was small and weak and impotent.»
For a eunuch to use that particular word, and to use it with such obvious deliberation, was breathtaking in its own way. Maniakes got the idea Yeliif had done it to throw him off balance. If so, he'd certainly succeeded. «Er—yes,» the Avtokrator said, and dismissed the exiled ambassador from Makuran.
«I thought you'd want to go on longer, your Majesty,» the secretary said after Yeliif had gone.
«So did I,» Maniakes said, «but I'd had about as much spite as I could stomach of an afternoon, thank you very much.»
«Ah.» The scribe nodded understanding. «You listen to him for a while and it does kind of make you want to go home and slit your own wrists, doesn't it?»
«Either your own or your neighbor's, depending on whom he's been telling tales about,» Maniakes answered. He glanced over to the scribe in some relief. «You thought so, too, did you? Good. I'm glad I'm not the only one.»
«Oh, no, your Majesty. Any milk of human kindness that one ever had, it curdled a long time ago.» The secretary sounded very sure. But then, in meditative tones, he added, «Of course, losing your stones, now, that's not the sort of thing to make you jolly and ready for a mug of wine after work with the rest of the lads, is it?»
«I shouldn't think so,» Maniakes said. «Still, I haven't known any of the eunuchs here to be quite so—» At a loss for words to describe Yeliif's manner, he gestured. The secretary nodded once more. Having heard the beautiful eunuch, he did not need to hear him described.
Maybe his beauty had something to do with the way he was, Maniakes thought. He would surely have been pursued at the court of Mashiz, very likely by men and women both, his loveliness being of a sort to draw and hold the eye of either sex. What had being the object of desire while unable to know desire himself done to his soul?
When the Avtokrator wondered about that aloud, the scribe nodded yet again. But then he said, «The other chance is, your Majesty, you don't mind my saying so, he might be a right bastard even if he had his balls and a beard down to here and a voice deeper than your father's. Some people just are, you know.»
«Yes, I had noticed that,» the Avtokrator said sadly. He dismissed the scribe: «Go have yourself a cup of wine, or maybe even two.» The man left with fresh spring in his step. Watching him go, Maniakes decided to have a cup of wine himself, or maybe even two.
When Kameas started to prostrate himself before Maniakes, the Avtokrator waved for him not to bother. To his surprise, the eunuch went through the full proskynesis anyhow. To his greater surprise, he saw a bruise on the side of Kameas' face when the vestiarios rose. «What happened?» Maniakes asked. «Did you walk into a door, esteemed sir?»
«Your Majesty,» Kameas began, and then shook his head, dissatisfied with himself. He took a deep breath and tried again: «Your Majesty, may I speak frankly?»
«Why, yes. Of course, esteemed sir,» Maniakes answered, thinking that might have been the most unusual request he'd ever had from a court eunuch. He wondered whether Kameas could speak frankly, however much he might wish to do so.
By all appearances, such unwonted effort wasn't easy for the vestiarios. But then, after touching his bruised cheek, Kameas seemed to steady on the purpose for which he had approached the Avtokrator. He drew in another deep breath and said, «No, your Majesty, I did not walk into a door. I received this… gift at the hands of another of your prominent servitors.»
At the hands of another eunuch, he meant, prominent being the next step below esteemed in their hierarchy of honorifics. Maniakes stared. Eunuchs' squabbles were commonly fought with slander, occasionally with poison, but… «Fisticuffs, esteemed sir? I'm astonished.»
«So was I, your Majesty. I must say, though,» Kameas added with a certain amount of pride, «I gave as good as I got.»
«I'm glad to hear it,» Maniakes said. «But by the good god, esteemed sir, what on earth set you and your colleagues to boxing one another's ears?» That sort of display of bad temper was a vice of normal men upon which eunuchs usually looked with amused contempt.
«Not what, your Majesty, who,» Kameas replied, his voice going surprisingly grim. «The reason I have come before you, the reason I am violating propriety and decorum, is to request that you—no, to beg that you—find some way of removing this serpent of a Yeliif from the palaces, before it comes to knives rather than fists. There. I have said it.» It couldn't have been easy for him, either; his breath came in little gasps, as if he'd forced his fat frame to run a long way.
«What on earth has he done, esteemed sir, to make you ask something like that only a couple of weeks after he got to the city?»
«Your Majesty, that Makuraner eunuch is a snake with a skin of honey, so that, his bite being at first sweet, one does not feel the venom till too late. He has, in the little space of time you named, set all who dealt with him in any way at odds with one another, playing with the imperial eunuchs as cat plays with mouse, making some hate the rest—» Kameas touched his cheek again. «—and every one of us suspect everyone else. Had Skotos risen from the eternal ice—» Kameas and Maniakes both spat. «—he could have worked no greater mischief among those who serve.»
«What is he up to?» Maniakes asked. «Does he think that, by sowing discord, he'll make me want to supplant you as vestiarios? If he does, esteemed sir, believe me, he's mistaken.»
«Your Majesty is gracious.» Kameas bowed. «In point of fact, though, I would doubt that. As best I can see, Yeliif stirs up hatreds for no better reason than that he enjoys stirring up hatreds. It being winter, there are no flies whose wings he can pull off like a small, nasty boy, so he torments the servitors around him instead.»
That was franker speech than Maniakes had ever imagined from Kameas. «We'll get to the bottom of this,» he assured the vestiarios. «Summon the esteemed Yeliif. I will not condemn him without hearing what he says in his own behalf.»
«Guard your ears well against his deceits, your Majesty,» Kameas said, but he went off happier than he had approached the Avtokrator.
As they had been whenever Maniakes saw him, Yeliif's manners were impeccable. After prostrating himself with liquid grace, he inquired, «In what manner may I serve you, Majesty?»
«I am told,» Maniakes said carefully, «you may have something to do with the recent discord among the palace eunuchs here.»
Yeliif's large, dark eyes widened. He looked convincingly astonished. «I, Majesty? How could such a thing be possible? I am but the humblest of refugees at your court, beholden to you for all the many kindnesses you have been generous enough to show me. How can you imagine I would so repay that generosity?»
«Considering the way you talk about everyone you knew back in Mashiz, esteemed sir, I must tell you these reports don't altogether astonish me,» Maniakes said. «The next good word you have for anybody will be the first.»
The beautiful eunuch shook his head in vigorous disagreement. «Majesty, like so many others, you misunderstand me. I speak nothing but the truth, the plain, unvarnished truth. If this pains people, am I at fault?»
«Maybe,» Maniakes said. «Probably, in fact. Have you ever known anyone who prides himself on what he calls frankness but only uses that frankness to tear down those around him, never to build them up?»
«Oh, yes,» Yeliif replied. «I have suffered at the hands of such scorpions many times—and now, it would seem, again, or why would you have called me before you to tax me with these baseless calumnies?»
Had Maniakes been listening to Yeliif in isolation, he might well have been convinced the beautiful eunuch was telling the truth. He was convinced Yeliif thought he was telling the truth. Musingly, he said, «One measure of a man is the enemies he makes.