Master of Formalities Read online

  “Terrible,” Lady Jakabitus said. “More than we’ve lost in decades to this ridiculous stalemate.” She paused for a moment, then turned to Wollard, her eyes wide. “Gint!”

  “Yes,” Wollard said.

  “I sent him to the front.”

  “You had no idea how dangerous it would be, Milady.”

  “We have to get him out of there,” Lady Jakabitus said.

  “A tempting idea, to be sure,” Wollard said. “But think of the message it would send. You would, essentially, be telling the very soldiers you were trying to honor that their reward is being rescinded because it’s exposing someone you know personally to the exact danger you expect them to endure.”

  “I’m afraid I agree,” Kriz said, “but I shouldn’t be too worried for the boy. When taken as a percentage of the forces we have on the ground, our losses have been quite manageable. Besides, the Hahn have lost nearly twice as many soldiers as we have.” Kriz’s voice was stern and composed, but tears continued to trail down his cheeks, just as they did whenever he discussed fatalities on either side of the conflict. “We’ve already begun enhanced training, and with your permission, we’d like to enact the emergency loss-retardant measures our research branch created.”

  “Of course,” Lady Jakabitus said. “It’s just so utterly senseless. Why would the Hahn persist when it’s costing them so dearly?”

  Kriz smiled. “It’s cost them more than you know, Milady. I didn’t come here to deliver statistics. I have good news as well—news I wanted to tell you in person. For reasons that are beyond my understanding, one of the incursions was led personally by a member of the Hahn ruling family. We managed to capture that Hahn alive, along with one of his personal servants.”

  “We’ve captured a Hahn?” Lady Jakabitus asked, astounded.

  Wollard heard Phee’s papers shuffling behind him. He expected that she was looking up the protocol for such an event. He lifted his papers to do the same.

  “Yes, Milady,” Kriz said. “Hennik Hahn, the son of the undisputed ruler of the Hahn home world, Lord Kamar Hahn, and his spouse, Inmu Hahn. The prisoner is also, as you know, the brother of the leader of all Hahn armed forces, Shimlish Hahn, popularly known as Shimlish the Pig.”

  “I still can’t fathom making your teenage daughter fight in a war, let alone as the commander of your entire military,” Lady Jakabitus said. “It’s horrific.”

  “What can I tell you, Milady? They’re our enemies for a reason.”

  “Are there any other offspring?” Lady Jakabitus asked.

  “No, just Hennik and his sister.”

  “Kamar Hahn’s only son,” Lady Jakabitus said quietly, while looking at the far wall. She was mostly saying it out loud to make sure she understood what she’d heard. “And we have him. This is great news.”

  Kriz agreed. “Yes. The boy could be a powerful tool. We could use him to end the current violence, maybe the entire war.”

  “How?” Lady Jakabitus asked.

  “Well, there are various options, Milady.” General Kriz took out his own papers to refer to what was clearly a prepared list.

  “I bring these first few up only so you can dismiss them,” Kriz said. “That way, you can later say you honestly considered all of the options. A few of my more reactionary commanders have suggested that we could retaliate for the Hahn’s recent uncivilized attacks by taking it out on the boy and his servant, then sending their remains back to Kamar Hahn.”

  Wollard looked to Kriz’s eyes. No tears, which was good. He didn’t seriously hope for the indecorous plan to be approved.

  “Why would we do that?”

  “It’s thought that it would send a message, Milady.”

  Wollard shook his head so subtly that the gesture was obvious to all who could see him. “Undoubtedly it would, and the choice is yours to make, Your Ladyship, but I know you don’t need to be reminded that it would have serious ramifications. Perception of House Jakabitus could be seriously damaged. Such a message reaches not only one’s enemies, but one’s allies as well.”

  Lady Jakabitus said, “Of course that’s true, Wollard. And what if the Hahn failed to get the message?”

  “Then we’re back where we started,” General Kriz said. “A plan like this is sort of a one-shot deal, Your Ladyship.”

  “All right,” Lady Jakabitus said, “I’ve considered that proposal, and am rejecting it. Next idea?”

  “It’s a modification of the first idea. We’d avoid the all-or-nothing nature of the first proposal by sending a substantial portion of the boy back to the Hahn. That way, we’d have more portions to send if—”

  “I reject that proposal as well,” she said before he could continue.

  “The next proposal stipulates that we start with the servant—”

  Lady Jakabitus waved her hand dismissively. “I hereby formally reject any proposal that calls for the murder or mutilation of the boy or his servant. We are not savages, General. Is that clear?”

  “Indeed, Milady. All options that involve harming the boy or his servant are off the table.”

  “Good.”

  Kriz took a moment to skip a great many lines down in his list, then said, “We could keep the lad and his servant in a safe secure location, then lie to the Hahn and tell them that we’ve killed—”

  Lady Jakabitus said, “General!”

  Kriz cringed, crumpling his papers slightly. The instant his hands unclenched, any creases they’d left in the papers smoothed out, seemingly on their own. The days of objects becoming worn with age were long past. Of course, some items were allowed to remain worn simply to remind people of their age. Those items were rare, and the majority of them were located in the Palace.

  Wollard coughed, theatrically. He would never interrupt Lady Jakabitus or the general, but to divert their attention now, when they were interrupting each other, could defuse the situation, and as such, was perfectly acceptable.

  “If I may interject,” Wollard said, folding his papers and tucking them in his pocket. “I have a suggestion, one supported by multiple precedents, which may end the active hostilities on Ophion 6, ensure the safety of both the Hahn boy and his servant, and send the message we want to send—both to the Hahn and to the other great houses.”

  Wollard glanced at Phee, who had been scanning the same list of protocols he had, and judging by the amazed look on her face, had recognized the same possibility. This was not a surprise. Phee was a very fast reader, which was a necessary skill for any Master of Formalities.

  “What is it, Wollard?” Lady Jakabitus asked. “What is your suggestion?” Now that she had officially asked, he could continue, but he’d need to choose his words carefully.

  3.

  Over an hour later, the doors to Lady Jakabitus’s office swung open as Phee and Wollard walked backward out of the room.

  “Yes, Milady,” Wollard said, bowing. “I will begin making the arrangements.”

  “Thank you, Wollard, and please tell Frederain to come see me. He should hear this news directly from me.”

  Wollard stopped at the door’s threshold. “Indeed, Milady. His Lordship will be in the training room, preparing Master Rayzo for his sports meet this afternoon. I’m certain His Lordship will ask if you plan to attend.

  “Please tell him I cannot, Wollard.”

  “Of course, Your Ladyship. I understand, but His Lordship will be disappointed.”

  “I know,” Lady Jakabitus said, “but I can’t bear to watch Rayzo compete. I just feel so . . .” She trailed off, trying to find a word that would be neither insulting nor dishonest. Eventually she settled on, “Embarrassed.” She did not look happy with her choice.

  “I understand, Milady.”

  “Thank you, Wollard.”

  Wollard stepped backward over the threshold. The door swung shut, and he turned to face Phee, who
could finally drop her carefully curated façade. She looked amazed.

  “She’s going to do it!” Phee gasped.

  “So it would seem,” Wollard replied.

  “This is tremendous!”

  “Potentially,” Wollard allowed. He walked out of the vestibule at his usual pace. Phee had to rush to keep up.

  “Wollard, you may have just ended the war.”

  “No, Phee,” Wollard said as he stepped onto the escalator for the trip back to the tower’s lower levels. “I did nothing of the kind. Her Ladyship may well have just ended the war. I merely suggested a possible course of action that would allow House Jakabitus to make the best of this situation without breaching etiquette.”

  “Of course, there was no way that Lady Jakabitus would have ordered the Hahn boy’s death.”

  “I sincerely doubt it.”

  “If she had harmed him, it would have been a disaster.”

  “Most likely, both in the long run for House Jakabitus, and in the short term for the Hahn boy.”

  Phee said, “You were wise to let Lady Jakabitus dismiss General Kriz’s suggestion about harming the boy on her own. Of course she knew that she couldn’t do such a thing.”

  Wollard looked at her, but said nothing.

  They reached the circular promenade that formed the tower’s second level and disembarked. Phee had assumed that they were going to the training room, as they’d told Her Ladyship, and was unprepared when Wollard abruptly stopped walking. Phee took two full steps before she noticed, then stopped and turned to see why her mentor was no longer beside her.

  Wollard stepped toward the nearest door, which led to the library.

  He opened it and said, “Phee, would you please step in here for just a moment?”

  Phee’s cheeks blazed a bright red as she walked into the library. Wollard followed her in, closing the door behind him.

  The library was, like all of the rooms in the palace, so ornate as to overwhelm the senses. When decorating a room, it was commonly agreed in Apiosan society that adding no decorative detail gave the impression of a deliberate choice to avoid ornamentation. Adding a little gave the impression that a little ornamentation was all the builders could afford. Adding too much made a room feel cheap and desperate. Adding four times that amount created the overall aesthetic effect achieved in the palace. The grand-scale, extravagant design and opulent finishes were taken to such an excessive degree and applied so uniformly to every surface that one simply stopped noticing it, perceiving it as an extremely fancy shade of beige.

  The library was a large room filled with comfortable chairs, many of which were astonishingly old and valuable, and bookcases made of rare, exquisitely carved wood. The leather-bound paper books that lined the shelves were all far too valuable to risk damaging by putting them to their intended use.

  Wollard loved the library. It was the perfect place to have stern discussions with his protégée. It reminded her of the amazing history and importance of their post, the incredible privilege they had in executing that post, and it also had the advantage of being private, as nobody else seemed to remember it was there.

  Wollard said, “Phee, I am displeased.”

  Phee blanched as if she had been struck. “Wollard, I’m sorry! What have I done to displease you?”

  “To start with the most recent incident, what did you just say?”

  “That I’m sorry?”

  “Just before that.”

  “I said that you were wise to let General Kriz make his suggestions.”

  “Wise because?”

  “Because Her Ladyship knew . . .” Phee trailed off, seeing her error.

  Wollard stepped forward and lowered his voice. “You said that Lady Jakabitus couldn’t do a thing. Do we ever tell anyone that she or he cannot do a thing?”

  Phee said, “No.”

  “Are you telling my shoes, or are you telling me?”

  Phee looked into Wollard’s eyes. “No, Wollard. We never tell anyone that she or he cannot do a thing.”

  “Why not?”

  Phee recited the most basic yet crucial tenet for a Master of Formalities, passed down by the Arbiters from when the great houses had first agreed to Arbitration. “Because anyone is free to attempt anything, as long as she or he is willing to accept the consequences.”

  “And what is the duty of a Master of Formalities?”

  “To inform those around us of what those consequences will be, and at times, to suggest a course of action that will be less . . . consequential?”

  She knew all of this, of course, but she was flustered, and everyone needed a reminder from time to time.

  Wollard said, “I would have said damaging, but the point stands.” He turned his back and pretended to study the spines of some books on a shelf, but Phee had his undivided attention, whether he was looking at her or not.

  “We deal in etiquette, Phee. We see to it that proper form is maintained and the Formalities are respected. Why is etiquette important?”

  “Because it maintains civility, making it possible for people from different worlds to interact with a minimum of unnecessary conflict.”

  “No,” Wollard said. “That is what etiquette does. Why is it important?”

  Phee felt a renewed pang of embarrassment when she realized what Wollard was getting at. “Because everyone agrees that it is.”

  “Yes,” Wollard said, turning to face Phee. “The only reason etiquette is important is that everybody has agreed it is important. Would it have been difficult for Lady Jakabitus to have Master Hennik Hahn killed?”

  “No, Wollard.”

  “Correct. It would have been trivially easy. She could have said a word, and it would have been done. Of course, she wouldn’t have. We are fortunate, Phee. Lady Jakabitus is a genuinely decent person. Not every Master of Formalities is so lucky. I hope you don’t learn that the hard way when you move on to your own assignment. My point is: the people we deal with have real power. Those kinds of people don’t react well to being told that they can’t do things. If you tell the ruler of a world that she can’t do something, she may well do it just to show everyone, including herself, that she can.”

  Wollard studied Phee. She looked mortified, as well she should. Here she was, a protégée in one of the great houses of the galaxy, and her mentor had to reexplain the basic facts of their profession to her.

  Wollard took a breath and softened his tone. “Phee, it was long ago that the great houses agreed to Arbitration and created the Arbiters, who in turn created the Masters of Formalities. The cultures of the different worlds had grown so distinct that interplanetary communication was becoming impossible. Our job was to keep them from offending one another in order to prevent pointless conflict. We may have broadened our scope a bit since then, but that is still the core of our job, and we do it solely by talking to our leaders. If we ever give them a reason to stop listening to us, we’re finished. Understand?”

  “Yes, Wollard.”

  “Good. While we’re discussing the importance of listening, I noticed how enthralled you were in your papers during the early portion of the briefing. Were you tracking down some interesting historical precedent that I may have missed?”

  “No, Wollard. I mean, yes, I was trying to find precedents, but I found none.”

  “When I first noticed that you were preoccupied, General Kriz had not yet told us about the capture of young Hennik Hahn.”

  Phee said nothing.

  “So, for you to be searching for precedents would itself be rather . . .” Wollard paused and leaned in toward Phee. “Unprecedented.”

  Wollard was quite pleased with this little joke. Phee showed no sign of amusement, which made it even more amusing for him. He was not a cruel man, but when he knew the person he was observing would come out unscathed, he had no qualms about enjoying he
r discomfort.

  “One might have thought that you were reading some sort of personal correspondence during an official briefing, which would be quite bad form indeed.”

  “That’s not possible,” Phee said, with weakly feigned confidence. “All of my correspondence filters through you. You’d know if I’d received a message, and if I’d read it.”

  It was true. Wollard couldn’t read her messages, but as her mentor he was alerted whenever she received and read a message. The mentor/protégée relationship wasn’t meant to rob the protégée of privacy, but it did damage his or her autonomy.

  “Of course. And I know that you would not have been reading an official message during an official briefing. I wouldn’t be wasting my time mentoring you if you weren’t smarter than that.”

  There was a silent moment while Phee tried to figure out how to respond. Finally she said, “Thank you, Wollard.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  They stood looking at each other for a long moment. Phee was mortified and was having difficulty hiding it. Wollard was enjoying himself and also having difficulty hiding it.

  “You know,” Wollard said, “there is a rumor, one that has never been officially verified, that it’s possible for protégées to send and receive short, informal messages to one another without their mentors being alerted.”

  Wollard watched the color drain from Phee’s face once again.

  “It seems one protégée can edit another’s official curriculum vitae, causing the second protégée to receive an alert, which is not shared with their mentors. These minor edits can be approved or rejected, allowing two or more protégées to effectively have a remote conversation in real time without supervision. It’s a nasty little flaw in the system that the Arbiters have not seen fit to repair, but if a protégée is caught letting the abuse of this flaw interfere with his, or her official duties, the ramifications could be most severe.”

  Wollard stared down at Phee, who was pointedly staring anywhere but back at him. He thought, Every generation believes that they are the first to ever misbehave. They don’t understand that the reason their less-honorable activities upset we who are older is that we know from experience where those actions may lead.