Lady Verun's request for a private meeting arrived at the sixth bell of a Wednesday morning, which was early enough in the day to indicate that whatever she wanted to discuss had been on her mind since before the working day officially began.
Daven went at the seventh bell, because the request had been framed as convenient rather than urgent, which he interpreted as intentional on Verun's part: she was signaling that he would be coming to her on her terms rather than responding to a summons, and the distinction was the kind she maintained carefully.
Her office was in the advisory section, organized with the efficiency of someone who had worked in a single space for long enough to have developed an exact relationship with every object in it. The notebook on her desk was a different one from the one she carried, larger and more organized, the permanent record rather than the active one. The window faced south. The chair she indicated for him was across the desk from hers, which was the standard configuration and which positioned him correctly for a conversation in which she was going to ask something.
She asked it without preamble, because preamble was a thing she apparently found inefficient.
"I want to discuss the Veil Oath," she said. "Specifically, the possibility of its formal removal as part of the public narrative around the Bond."
He said nothing, because she had not finished.
"His Majesty is receptive to the idea," she said. "The removal of the Oath, in a public ceremony or a formal acknowledgment, would complete the narrative of a Bond fully accepted. A Commander who has maintained the Veil Oath for ten years, removing it because of this Bond, is a story that the empire can understand and respond to. It would strengthen the public case for the Bond's legitimacy in a way that the current presentation, while effective, does not fully achieve."
She folded her hands on the desk.
"I am aware that this is a personal matter," she said, which was the acknowledgment that made the request possible to make in a professional context. "I am also aware that the public dimension of the current situation has made many personal matters relevant to the institutional response. This is one of them."
He had been listening with the complete attention he brought to conversations where what was said and what was meant were not always the same thing, and here what was said and what was meant were actually the same thing, which was somewhat unusual for a conversation with Lady Verun and which he registered.
"No," he said.
She looked at him. Not with surprise. With the expression of someone who had anticipated this response and was now determining whether the explanation would change anything.
"The Oath is mine," he said. "It's not a political instrument. It's not a signal I can send on behalf of the institution or the empire or the narrative around the Bond. It's a decision I made at sixteen and that will be resolved by a decision I make now, and neither of those decisions is available for use as a public statement."
"Even if the public statement would serve the investigation's purpose?"
"The investigation's purpose is to understand and address the Fading. The mechanism we've identified is about genuine choice, not performed choice. A public Oath removal on imperial request would be the exact opposite of what the mechanism requires. It would be performance rather than decision, and if the mechanism is correct, the Registry would know the difference."
This was a longer answer than he usually gave to proposals he was declining, and he was aware of this, and he was also aware that Lady Verun was the person most likely to understand the length of it rather than simply filing it as refusal.
She looked at her notebook. At the desk. Then at him. "You intend to resolve the Oath independently."
"I intend to resolve it when I've resolved what needs to be resolved before it."
"Which is."
"My own business."
Another person would have found this answer insufficient. Verun found it sufficient, which was one of the things he respected about her: she recognized the difference between information she was entitled to and information she was seeking, and she did not confuse the two.
"Understood," she said. "The offer remains, if you change your mind."
"I won't, but I take note of it."
He left.
Reth was in the corridor outside, which was either coincidence or the result of Reth's consistent practice of being where he was likely to be needed. Daven had long since stopped distinguishing between these two explanations for Reth's locations.
"She proposed the Oath removal," Reth said.
"Yes."
"And you declined."
"Yes."
Reth walked beside him in the direction of the Veil Guard section. "For the reason you told her or for the other reason?"
"Both," Daven said, which was what he had said about the midnight record room, and which was the honest answer: two reasons that were both real, operating simultaneously, and that did not conflict.
"The reason you told her is correct," Reth said. "If the mechanism is right about choice, then a performed removal is the wrong thing in addition to being yours to manage."
"Yes."
"And the other reason," Reth continued, and then paused. "The other reason is that when you remove it, you want to be removing it because you've decided to, and you want the person who is there to be there because she's there. Not because an imperial ceremony put you both in the same place at the same time."
Daven was quiet for a moment.
"Yes," he said.
"Right." Reth opened the door to the administrative section. "For what it's worth, I think that's the correct order of operations."
"Thank you for the assessment."
"I give them whether they're requested or not. You've had eleven years to adjust to that."
Daven went back to his work, and the afternoon progressed, and the Oath remained where it had been for ten years, which was on his left wrist under black cloth, patient and present, waiting not for an imperial ceremony or a political narrative but for the specific kind of readiness that could not be manufactured and could not be performed and could only be arrived at by the slow and sometimes frustrating process of learning, as a person who had spent a decade not practicing it, how to actually want something for yourself.
He was not there yet.
But he was closer than he had been when the investigation started, and that was a direction rather than an arrival, and directions, in his experience, were more reliable than arrivals because they persisted regardless of whether you had reached the destination.
You've reached the end of this chapter
Lady Verun's request for a private meeting arrived at the sixth bell of a Wednesday morning, which was early enough in the day to indicate that whatever she wanted to discuss had been on her mind since before the working day officially began.
Daven went at the seventh bell, because the request had been framed as convenient rather than urgent, which he interpreted as intentional on Verun's part: she was signaling that he would be coming to her on her terms rather than responding to a summons, and the distinction was the kind she maintained carefully.
Her office was in the advisory section, organized with the efficiency of someone who had worked in a single space for long enough to have developed an exact relationship with every object in it. The notebook on her desk was a different one from the one she carried, larger and more organized, the permanent record rather than the active one. The window faced south. The chair she indicated for him was across the desk from hers, which was the standard configuration and which positioned him correctly for a conversation in which she was going to ask something.
She asked it without preamble, because preamble was a thing she apparently found inefficient.
"I want to discuss the Veil Oath," she said. "Specifically, the possibility of its formal removal as part of the public narrative around the Bond."
He said nothing, because she had not finished.
"His Majesty is receptive to the idea," she said. "The removal of the Oath, in a public ceremony or a formal acknowledgment, would complete the narrative of a Bond fully accepted. A Commander who has maintained the Veil Oath for ten years, removing it because of this Bond, is a story that the empire can understand and respond to. It would strengthen the public case for the Bond's legitimacy in a way that the current presentation, while effective, does not fully achieve."
She folded her hands on the desk.
"I am aware that this is a personal matter," she said, which was the acknowledgment that made the request possible to make in a professional context. "I am also aware that the public dimension of the current situation has made many personal matters relevant to the institutional response. This is one of them."
He had been listening with the complete attention he brought to conversations where what was said and what was meant were not always the same thing, and here what was said and what was meant were actually the same thing, which was somewhat unusual for a conversation with Lady Verun and which he registered.
"No," he said.
She looked at him. Not with surprise. With the expression of someone who had anticipated this response and was now determining whether the explanation would change anything.
"The Oath is mine," he said. "It's not a political instrument. It's not a signal I can send on behalf of the institution or the empire or the narrative around the Bond. It's a decision I made at sixteen and that will be resolved by a decision I make now, and neither of those decisions is available for use as a public statement."
"Even if the public statement would serve the investigation's purpose?"
"The investigation's purpose is to understand and address the Fading. The mechanism we've identified is about genuine choice, not performed choice. A public Oath removal on imperial request would be the exact opposite of what the mechanism requires. It would be performance rather than decision, and if the mechanism is correct, the Registry would know the difference."
This was a longer answer than he usually gave to proposals he was declining, and he was aware of this, and he was also aware that Lady Verun was the person most likely to understand the length of it rather than simply filing it as refusal.
She looked at her notebook. At the desk. Then at him. "You intend to resolve the Oath independently."
"I intend to resolve it when I've resolved what needs to be resolved before it."
"Which is."
"My own business."
Another person would have found this answer insufficient. Verun found it sufficient, which was one of the things he respected about her: she recognized the difference between information she was entitled to and information she was seeking, and she did not confuse the two.
"Understood," she said. "The offer remains, if you change your mind."
"I won't, but I take note of it."
He left.
Reth was in the corridor outside, which was either coincidence or the result of Reth's consistent practice of being where he was likely to be needed. Daven had long since stopped distinguishing between these two explanations for Reth's locations.
"She proposed the Oath removal," Reth said.
"Yes."
"And you declined."
"Yes."
Reth walked beside him in the direction of the Veil Guard section. "For the reason you told her or for the other reason?"
"Both," Daven said, which was what he had said about the midnight record room, and which was the honest answer: two reasons that were both real, operating simultaneously, and that did not conflict.
"The reason you told her is correct," Reth said. "If the mechanism is right about choice, then a performed removal is the wrong thing in addition to being yours to manage."
"Yes."
"And the other reason," Reth continued, and then paused. "The other reason is that when you remove it, you want to be removing it because you've decided to, and you want the person who is there to be there because she's there. Not because an imperial ceremony put you both in the same place at the same time."
Daven was quiet for a moment.
"Yes," he said.
"Right." Reth opened the door to the administrative section. "For what it's worth, I think that's the correct order of operations."
"Thank you for the assessment."
"I give them whether they're requested or not. You've had eleven years to adjust to that."
Daven went back to his work, and the afternoon progressed, and the Oath remained where it had been for ten years, which was on his left wrist under black cloth, patient and present, waiting not for an imperial ceremony or a political narrative but for the specific kind of readiness that could not be manufactured and could not be performed and could only be arrived at by the slow and sometimes frustrating process of learning, as a person who had spent a decade not practicing it, how to actually want something for yourself.
He was not there yet.
But he was closer than he had been when the investigation started, and that was a direction rather than an arrival, and directions, in his experience, were more reliable than arrivals because they persisted regardless of whether you had reached the destination.
You've reached the end of this chapter