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OKAY my elves, we need to talk. I know most of you have seen this. 1/??
[Link to the portrait "An Uninvited Guest" by Esro Paluvar, painted in the thirteenth year of Edrehasivar VII's reign. The style is overly formal and more characteristic of Varevenesa's reign, rather than the more modern, avant-garde styles that flourished under Edrehasivar VII. Nevertheless of historic relevance because it was one of the first portraits to portray a goblin in a formal, heroic pose, as the rightful emperor facing an unjust assassin.]
You all know who THESE people are. 2/??
[Close-ups of the face of Edrehasivar VII and the disheveled body of Eshevis Tethimar, as they appear in the portrait.]
And you recognize THESE two. 3/??
[Close-ups of Deret Beshelar and Cala Athmaza. Beshelar is badly wounded, and his depiction is realistic. Cala is surrounded by a blue glow, representing the force of the revethmaz; this is an artist's interpretation.]
But have you ever looked at THIS man? 4/??
[Close-up of an elf gaping in horror from the foot of the dais.]
WHAT is he doing? WHY is he here? It almost seems like he's about to jump up onto the dais. But he's obviously not a co-conspirator. 5/??
We know this was during the visit of Avar Sevraseched and there were a lot of goblins among the visiting dignitaries. But this person is definitely an elf. What's going on?? 6/??
Well for THIS we have to go back to the sources. And the first set of sources here are the memoirs of one Vadyan Isthanaran. 7/??
Vadyan spent most of her life at the university in Ashedro, and her memoirs are a great read if you want to learn about the petty academic politics of Edrehasivar VII's era. But the reason she comes up now is because she began her life as Vadyan Tethimin. 8/??
That's right, she was the sister of the elf we just saw trying to assassinate the emperor! 9/??
Don't worry, btw, while Vadyan's father and brother were guilty as sin, she had nothing to do with this, being...seven years old at the time. 10/??
The story that she's citing actually took place before she was born. 11/??
(So how can we be sure she's a reliable source? Excellent question, I love all my budding historians. The truth is, we don't. 1/??
BUT we know her sister Paru was at the Untheileneise Court during the early months of Edrehasivar VII's reign, and Vadyan's recollections of things she heard from Paru secondhand accord with the other records we have access to. 2/??
So we can be *reasonably* confident that she had useful information about the unlamented House Tethimada. 3/??
At least more useful than someone who was born after the house was disbanded and only knew them as traitors. 4/??
But, yes, some of my theorizing is speculative and you can take it with a grain of salt. It doesn't change the solution to the original mystery of "who's the elf at the foot of the dais," though.) 5/5 of the tangent.
OKAY back to the original thread. Vadyan, among her descriptions of academic life, sometimes talks about Eshoravee. 12/??
Eshoravee was the kind of manor like the one where Edrehasivar VII was relegated before his coronation. Technically owned by royalty but also a terrible, miserable, isolated place where nobody wanted to spend any time. 13/??
But apparently, young Eshevis *liked* spending time there. Did his family realize they had a future assassin in their midst and relegate him? 14/??
Hahahaha no. He enjoyed it there because he and his friends "found amusement in games of 'fox and hounds' with visiting couriers." 15/??
I had to do some research on this one because maybe Vadyan meant it literally? Did the nobleman and his aristocratic friends invite lowborn messengers to go hunting with them? 16/??
No. It's a sex thing. The "hounds," plural, chase down the "fox," singular, and whoever "catches" him gets to "enjoy the spoils." 17/??
Did the foxes actually consent to this? I don't know. Some of the references I've found from places like Csedo make it seem like it was a fun orgy time. 18/??
Others, from Puzhvarno, make it sound like couriers were just the class of people that could be treated as sex objects, whether they wanted to or not. 19/??
Knowing what we know about the Tethimada I'm pretty inclined to assume the latter, but we can't be sure. 20/??
(And remember, Vadyan is probably *more* sympathetic towards Eshevis than later sources.) 21/??
Anyway, she notes matter-of-factly that one of the "foxes" her brother knew was Csevet Aisava. 22/??
No footnote or explanation. Maybe she expected her audience to recognize the name. But he's not in academia, he never published anything. 23/??
I'll spare you the tl;dr but it actually didn't take that much research to find him, he was kind of hiding in plain sight. Csevet Aisava was the imperial secretary under Edrehasivar VII. 24/??
Now, this in and of itself doesn't mean anything. Varenechibel IV had a secretary. Varevesena had a secretary. Every Zhas had a secretary. 25/??
BUT it pretty quickly becomes apparent that there's a vast difference between Mer Aisava and his predecessors. 26/??
Varenechibel's primary secretary, Odret Olchevan, was at the top of a pyramid of underlings. Briskly carrying out whatever Varenechibel wanted and being quick about it. 27/??
The amount of documentation we have from Aisava, written in his own hand, strongly suggests that Edrehasivar VII was being very conscientious about seeing to as many things as he could, personally. 28/??
(And remember that most of the time, especially in the first couple years, he was in way over his head and had no idea what he was doing!) 29/??
Aisava is speaking on behalf of the emperor in *every* field. Sending letters of condolence and goodwill to elves no previous emperor would have noticed, let alone corresponded with. 30/??
You all know why there are multiple sets of nohecharei--because guarding the emperor is a full-time job, when someone else goes off-shift someone else has to be on. 31/??
There was only one secretary! I don't know when Aisava could have slept?? 32/??
But I'm feeling pretty confident about *where* he slept. Because this, my friends? This is Mer Csevet Aisava. 33/??
[Repeat of the zoomed-in version from post #4.]
To recap: when Aisava was a courier, he was Eshevis Tethimar's boy toy and/or sex slave. 34/??
He then accompanies Edrehasivar VII to the Untheileneise and immediately becomes his right-hand elf. Writing his correspondence on every conceivable topic. 35/??
And a few months later, Tethimar tries to *murder* Edrehasivar VII, and Aisava is the first one on the scene. Closer than the emperor's betrothed or the visiting Barizheise or anyone. 36/??
The normal historical record theorizes that this was about a bid for the throne, or pent-up anger after the Wisdom of Choharo scheme. 37/??
But what if we had it wrong? What if this was just the Ethuveraz' worst love triangle? 38/??
Okay, I hear you say, we know Aisava and Edrehasivar VII were close. But that doesn't prove anything, it could have been strictly professional. 39/??
Well, there's one more piece of evidence that I think *finally* pulls this all together. And this comes from the diaries of none other than Csethiro Zhasan. 40/??
Let's set the stage a little. You probably know this picture, too. 41/??
[Link to the portrait "Dry Bones" by Khavo Polchin, painted in the twenty-seventh year of Edrehasivar VII's reign. It depicts stylized ghosts of the Nazhmorhathveras gleaming in bright colors, surrounding the Anmur'theileian at night. This style is more typical of the artistic trends of the period.]
It was very important to Edrehasivar VII to secure an honorable peace with the Nazhmorhathveras in a way that would see the latter retain guardianship of their sacred "Memory of Death." 42/??
As you know, it took him years to do this, wrangling the Corazhas into shape while also guarding the safety of the Thu-Cethor badlands. 43/??
We can imagine how relieved he must have been when the treaty was finally signed! 44/??
But we don't have to imagine, because Csethiro told us. 45/??
The only problem is, Csethiro wrote (even her private diaries!) in the barzhad. So it's sometimes illegible. 46/??
For a long time, people weren't sure what she was trying to say here, only that it related to Edrehasivar VII's relief. 47/??
"He said, 'I have not been so glad since Csevet did consent to theme.'" 48/??
"Consent to theme?" What does that mean? Did the emperor have to pick out some genre of music and need his secretary's signoff? 49/??
Okay, but, it's sometimes hard to read spaces between words in an unfamiliar alphabet. And some scripts elide double letters. 50/??
I think what she actually wrote is "since Csevet did consent to THEE ME." 51/??
Edrehasivar VII probably had to try time and time again to get his secretary to address him with the second-person familiar. And when he finally did, the emperor was *delighted.* 52/??
So delighted that he shared it with his wife, who was just as happy on his behalf. 53/??
Case closed. 54/54