Corkoran meanwhile was extremely irritated. Everyone seemed to be conspiring to stop him getting to work on the ideas his students had given him. First it was the high priest. Almost as soon as he was back in his lab, a healer appeared to say that the high priest’s broken leg was more comfortable today and that he wished to be returned to the Holy City. Now.
You did not argue with high priests. Their gods could make things extremely uncomfortable for you if you did. So that meant that Corkoran had to find Finn and then Dench and take them over to Healers Hall, along with the ingredients of a transport spell. Holy City was a long way north, and it took three wizards to supply strength for the translocation. And it took the rest of the morning.
Corkoran rushed back to his lab, only to find the porter waiting for him with the news that a party of important dwarfs wanted to see him at once.
Corkoran sighed. “I’ll see them after lunch in the Council Chamber,” he said, and sent out for lunch at once, before anything else could happen. But he and his lunch had barely arrived in his rooms before he found one of the secretaries showing an Empire centurion through his door. This man saluted him, Empire fashion, with a violently outflung arm that made Corkoran start backward, and announced that the two noble senators of the Empire, Antoninus and Empedocles, were presently in the city and craved instant audience with him. Corkoran irritably decided to see them at the same time as he saw the dwarfs. Get both lots over with at once. “After lunch,” he said. “In the Council Chamber.” This way he might save at least a quarter of the day to get to work in.
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 ann