The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson Page B

one’s installed, and behind that mask no one can tell the difference. It might be a new man every day. Do you ever wonder why that is?”
    â€œHe’s a figurehead. Parliament is the real power.” Except Cattlson hadn’t thought so. A theater for the mob .
    â€œThat’s a schoolchild’s answer.”
    His disappointment looked real and hard, not a pedagogue’s theater. Baru remembered things she had seen in his eyes, in years long past, and mastered a shiver. “You chose the school.”
    â€œYou’ve always been bored by history. It’s your greatest weakness.”
    â€œI am the Imperial Accountant of Aurdwynn,” she said softly, “and you are a merchant, Cairdine Farrier. No matter what I owe you or what patronage you’ve provided, now you must show me due respect.”
    She knew as she said it that it was a stupid and childish posture to assume, because he couldn’t be only a merchant. But she hoped to bait his pride.
    â€œWhen the revolution came,” he said, “all those years ago, we—I say we although I hadn’t been born yet—resolved to tear down the aristocracy and build a republic for the people. But no one believed a Parliament could rule with authority. No one believed they could act with unity and decisiveness when the Stakhieczi came down out of the north, or the Maia rose again, or the Oriati federations fell under one lord and found new ambition, or—forbid it—the whispers from east across the Mother of Storms came true. Parliament would dissolve into corruption, patronage, and graft. So the chemists offered a solution.
    â€œEvery five years we would choose a wise and scholarly citizen to be emperor, and he or she would drink a secret potion—a draught of amnesia .” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Behind the Emperor’s Mask, he would be unrecognizable; and behind the fog of that potion, he would not recognize himself . He would retain his knowledge of the world, its history and geography, its policies and pressures. But he would have no idea who he had been before he was Emperor.”
    Baru watched him, wondering if this was the pride she’d probed for, or the history she should’ve mastered. He sat back in theatrical satisfaction. “Clever, no? A man who does not know who he is cannot have self-interest. Without family or wealth to lure him from the common good, he would rule fairly. When his term ended and the potion wore off he would return to his station, whether pauper or merchant prince, suffering from or benefiting by his own policies. Behind the Mask, the Emperor could be just.”
    â€œBut the potion is a lie,” Baru guessed. “The chemists never learned how to make it.”
    â€œOf course.” Cairdine Farrier snorted. “The coronation of the Emperor is simpler than that—it involves a pick through the eye socket and a great deal of drool. But the mob believes in the potion. They believe in the Mask. They think the vegetable on the Faceless Throne is one of them.”
    â€œYou’ve written your own history.” The point was blunt but she fed it back to him anyway, although it was a concession. “And it gives you power.”
    He might have sighed in exaggerated relief, in another, more playful mood. But he did not. His voice was sharp, empty of ornament. “If you want to excel, if you want to have the station you think you deserve—” He gestured with his wineglass, and his eyes narrowed in the lamplight. “If you want to understand real power, the kind of power that made us lord of your little land, you will learn to manage all its forms.”
    The candles on the desk danced briefly in the draft.
    â€œWho are you?” she whispered, too curious to resist the direct approach. “Really?”
    He set down his glass and held up his empty hands. “Parliament,” he said, lifting his right palm; and then