Sir Gjerdrum scowled. “That’s not true. It’s just that I’ve got other things to do. Colonel Abaca or General Liakopulos could have sat in on this for me.”
Nepanthe noted the Colonel and General among the two dozen or so people she knew only by sight.
Sir Gjerdrum kissed her hand while clicking his heels. They had developed an innocent flirtation when he was younger and less world-wise. He played their old game half-hearted court with a weak suggestion. “Let me treat you to dinner after the little one comes.”
Nepanthe raised an eyebrow. What had become of the indefatigably cheerful Gjerdrum of years gone by? Had he been crushed between the millstones of duty? Or was this just a mood?
She glanced around the room. Her friends had all aged, had all grown tired of their responsibilities. Nothing dulls the enthusiasm like the inability to make visible progress, she thought.
She was not unique, then. The same despair-inducing nemesis breathed down the necks of all her friends.
“Where’s the King?” she asked. She and Varthlokkur hadn’t seen Bragi yet, though they had reached Vorgreberg the previous afternoon.
“I don’t know,” Gjerdrum mumbled. “You’d think he’d be on time, wouldn’t you? After calling us here... He dragged me in all the way from Karlsbad.”
Varthlokkur moved to the room’s huge fireplace and stared into the prancing flames. He looked troubled. Nepanthe joined him. She wondered why he was so moody lately.
The gathering fell under a pall. Only Michael and Aral remained immune. They chattered like best friends who hadn’t seen one another for years.
Mist took a seat near the head of the huge table which filled half the room. Nepanthe studied her. Exile had made of a once savage conspirator a quiet, gentle woman. A knitting bag lay open before her. A small, two-headed, four-armed demon manipulated her needles at an incredible pace. Its legs dangled off the table’s side. Occasionally one head would curse the other for making it drop a stitch. Mist would shush gently.
The door opened. A splendidly attired young officer entered. Nepanthe remembered him as Dahl Haas, the son of a mercenary who had followed King Bragi into Kavelin during the civil war. For an instant she wondered if Dahl had had babies who would follow Bragi in their turn.
“Stand by,” Haas said. “He’s on his way.”
Nepanthe moved nearer the door. The King pushed through. His gaze met hers. He winced slightly, then enfolded her in a gentle, uncertain hug. “How are you?” he asked. And, “I’m sorry I couldn’t see you last night. This wart of a kingdom don’t give me time to catch my breath. Hello, Varthlokkur.”
King Bragi was a tall, powerfully built man. He wore the scars of nearly three decades of soldiering. Nepanthe noted grey in the shag at his temples. Time was gnawing at him too.
He whispered, “I’ll try to put on a private supper tonight. You’ll want to see Fulk.” Fulk was his six-month-old son, whom she had never seen.
“How is Inger?”
He gave her an odd look. Her tone must have betrayed her thoughts. She could not get used to his having remarried. His first wife, Elana, who had died during the war, had been her best friend. “Fine. Full of pepper. And Fulk is just like his mother.” He moved away, shaking hands, exchanging greetings. Finally finished, he said, “I hope this thing hasn’t gotten anybody fired up... I see it hasn’t. Just a roll call, anyway, so to speak. I won’t really need you for a few days yet. For now, let me just say that we’ve had word from Derel.”
He explained that his personal secretary, Derel Prataxis, was in Throyes, east of the Mountains of M’Hand, negotiating with Lord Hsung, the commander of Shinsan’s army of occupation there. In the three years since the cessation of hostilities not one trade caravan had crossed the mountains. The easterners had kept the one commercially viable pass, the Savernake Gap, locked up tight. Now Prataxis reported a dramatic shift in attitude. He expected the negotiations to be brief and their outcome to be favorable.
The discussion was prosaic and dull, and Nepanthe didn’t pay much attention till the King asked Sir Gjerdrum for his guess as to why Shinsan would suddenly alter its policy.
“Hsung over there is a hard-liner,” the King said. “He wouldn’t do anything that would help Kavelin more than it would his own team.”
Gjerdrum flashed his scowl. “Maybe the legions are up to strength again. Maybe they want the pass open so they can run spies through.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Mist countered. “They have the Power. Anyway, if they did have to have an agent physically present, they’d send him in over the smugglers’ trails.” Her glance flicked to Aral Dantice. “He’d set up a transfer portal so he could bring in any help he needed.”
“All right,” Bragi said. “Then you give me a reason that does make sense.”
“I can’t.”
Nepanthe became aware of a subtle tension in the room. There were undercurrents here sensed only by a few.
King Bragi stared into infinity. “Why do I feel like you’re not telling me everything? Can’t you guess out loud?”
Mist stared at her knitting. The imp’s needles became silvery blurs. “I don’t feel Lord Ko Feng anymore. There may have been a coup.” Cautiously, she admitted, “A few old supporters got in touch last summer. They thought there was something in the wind.”
Trebilcock snorted. “Something in the wind? Crap! Ko Feng got his butt thrown out. They stripped his titles, his honors, and his immortality. They as much as accused him of treason because he kept his army intact instead of trying to finish us off at Palmisano. A corps commander named Kuo Wen-chin replaced him. Anybody who had anything to do with the Pracchia got swept out along with Feng. All reassigned to Northern and Eastern Armies. What amounts to internal exile. Ko Feng vanished completely. None of the new bunch were involved in the Great Eastern Wars.” Trebilcock’s glance flicked from Aral Dantice to Mist, as if daring contradiction.
Michael is a strange one, Nepanthe thought. Dantice and Gjerdrum are his best friends, andthey say he’s weird. Only Varthlokkur seems to understand him.
She wasn’t sure what her husband saw in the younger man. She did know he liked Michael, and found him intriguing.
The King asked, “Mist?”
“Michael’s connections are better than mine.”
Bragi made a slight gesture. Nepanthe caught it. She watched Michael respond with a tiny shrug. The King said, “Varthlokkur, don’t you have anything to contribute?”
“I haven’t been watching Shinsan. I’ve been busy.”
Nepanthe stared at the tabletop and blushed. She had mixed feelings about her pregnancy. Excitement and eagerness and way too much worry. She was too old... But she had to try, to replace the son she had lost during the war...
“But... “she started, then shut up. It was entirely her husband’s business if he wanted his east-watching kept mum. Still, why should he lie?
Varthlokkur said, “I could send the Unborn, of course.”
“No. That would just provoke them.” Bragi eyed the group. “My best friends. My advisers and boon companions. Why are you such a moody bunch today? Nobody wants to talk, eh? All right. Be that way. So. That’s it. Check your contacts, people. I want to know what’s happening over east. Those people won’t hurt us again. Not while I have any say.”
His tone startled Nepanthe. She took a closer look. Yes. There were tears in his eyes. He had an almost fanatic love for Kavelin.
For a moment she envied him. Would that she had something with as much meaning for her.
The ambitions of eastern princes had cost them both. Him his brother. Several of his children. His first wife, who had been her best friend. His best friend, who had been her first husband, Mocker. And whom he had been compelled to kill himself, because poor tangle-witted Mocker had been convinced he had to make a choice between Bragi and his son... “Damn!” she spat, and slammed a fist against the tabletop.
Everyone turned. She winced. Softly, she apologized. Sh
e didn’t explain.
It was not just the past which compelled her now. Something about this nonevent of a meeting argued portent, cried out about bad times coming. The restless armies of the night were stirring. An ill fate was marshalling fresh forces. Dark clouds gnawed the horizon. The air had begun to crackle with foreboding.
King Bragi was crossing a courtyard, headed for the stables, when he spied Varthlokkur pacing the east ramparts. The wizard was engrossed in the distance. The King altered course.
He approached the wizard from behind, settled himself between two merlons. “Care to talk about it?”
Varthlokkur spun. His response so startled the King, he nearly flung himself backward off the wall. Varthlokkur seized one flailing hand. “Don’t sneak around like that.”
“Like what? Who was sneaking? I walked up and sat down. What the hell is wrong with you?”
The wizard grumbled, “Nothing concrete. Not yet. Something in the east. Without the stink of Shinsan. But I could be wrong.”
“Any tie-in with Hsung’s change of heart?”
“The world consists of patterns. Mostly, we misread them. In Hsung’s case, though, he really wants peace. The question is why.”
“You didn’t say that before.”
“Nepanthe.”
“Think I missed something there.”
“The years have robbed her of too much. Her brothers. Mocker and Ethrian. Even Elana. I don’t want to crucify her on a false hope.”
“You’re not making a lot of sense.”
“It’s Ethrian. He might be alive.”
“What? Where?” This was staggering news. His godson alive? He owed that boy an incalculable debt.
“Easy,” the wizard said. “I don’t know anything for sure. It’s a touch of a feeling I get lately. Something one hell of a long way off that has his aura. It’s like catching one sniff of fresh bread while you’re walking down the street, then trying to find the baker. The only resource I haven’t tried is the Unborn. I won’t unless there’s another overpowering excuse to send him that way anyway.”
The King sneered his disgust. The thing called the Unborn was a monster which should never have been created. “He’s in the east, then.”
“If it’s him. The far east.”
“Prisoner of Shinsan?”
“Lord Chin took him.”
“Chin is dead.”
“Just thinking out loud. Lord Chin and the Fadema took him. We’ve assumed they delivered him to the Pracchia, who used him to twist Mocker’s arm. But maybe they didn’t have him after all.”
“They had him. You couldn’t bluff Mocker. You ought to know that. They did some fancy convincing to make him attack me.”
The wizard peered into the misty east. He did not reply, though he could have admonished the King about romanticizing his one-time friend, or about listening too closely to the guilt he bore.
The King mused, “We never had proof that Ethrian died.”
The wizard was proud that he had no scales over his eyes, yet he did have his blind spots. The man Bragi had slain, and whose wife the wizard had later married, had been his son. Sometimes that fact got in the way.
Bragi shifted ground. “Was there anything else?”
“Anything else?”
“Your claim to be preoccupied was unconvincing.”
Varthlokkur shifted his attention from the distance to the man. His basilisk eyes crinkled. “You grow bolder with age. I recall a younger Bragi shaking at the mere mention of my name.”
“He didn’t realize that even the mighty are vulnerable. He hadn’t seen the dread ones in their moments of weakness.”
Varthlokkur chuckled. “Well said. Don’t take the notion too much to heart, though. The Tervola won’t give you a decade to find the chinks in their armor.”
Bragi stood. “I’ll try this conversation when you’re feeling more pellucid. Maybe you’ll deal some straight answers.”
Varthlokkur faced the east. His eyes lost focus. “We will speak later, then,” he said.
Bragi frowned, not understanding. The wizard had changed languages. He shrugged, left the man to his mysteries.
The road called Lieneke Lane drew its name from the civil war which brought mercenary captain Bragi Ragnarson into Kavelin. Ragnarson had destroyed then Queen Fiana’s enemies. A key victory had occurred near the town of Lieneke.
The road meandered amongst the homes of the wealthy. A lone, rain-soaked rider pursued it westward. A park appeared at his right hand. To his left the homes grew larger and wealthier. He glanced at one. The survivors of the King’s family by his first marriage lived there, neither in penury nor in ostentation nor fame. The horseman averted his face. He left the lane just a few houses beyond the King’s.
A footman braved the drizzle, took his animal. “The lady just arrived, Mr. Dantice. She said to wait in the library. Bette will be there to serve you.”
“Thank you.” Aral scampered across the porch. He shed his rain cloak and left it with the doorman. Ambling toward the library, he watched for Mist’s children. Usually they were too much in evidence, and too filled with curiosity. He did not see them today, though, and wondered if Mist had moved them elsewhere. Despite the best coaching, little tongues would wag.
“Good morning, sir,” the maid said.
“Good morning, Bette. Could you bring me something light? Butter, bread, and preserves, say? I haven’t yet eaten.”
“The cook has a nice grouse, sir.”
“I don’t think so. I shouldn’t be here long enough.”
“Very well, sir. Tea?”
“Anything hot. This rain will give us all the rheumatism.”
Dantice prowled nervously after the woman departed. So many books! They represented so much wealth and knowledge they intimidated him. He had no formal education. His limited literacy skills he had garnered from his father, who had troubled to learn only because he was too mean to hire clerks.
Aral was sensitive about his ignorance. His contacts with the court had shown him the value of literacy. His association with Mist had underscored it. She had opened his eyes to uncounted new ideas...
Aral Dantice called himself a realist. He did not believe in the free lunch. His peculiar romanticism lay askew from that of his acquaintances. His relationship with Mist was an alliance of convenience. They were one another’s willing tools... so he told himself when he worried.
So why this untamed interest in matters neither commercial nor political? Why did she take time to teach him when the lessons were so elementary they had to be excruciatingly boring? When his long-run value was severely limited and localized? Why did he?... It had come at him from his blind side. It had jumped and mauled him, and had left him with feelings and visions that were new to him. And he was frightened. This was not the right time. And Mist was not the right woman.
She was old. She had been old when his grandfather was a babe. Maybe she had been old when Varthlokkur was a pup, and the wizard had stalked the world for four long centuries. And she was a princess of the Dread Empire. No cosmetic could hide that fact, no term of exile change it. The cruel blood of tyrants coursed her veins. Even now she barkened to its roar.
But she was the most desirable woman alive. When her melting eyes poured fire on a man, he couldn’t help but become their slave. Only some gonadless creature out of the same devil’s jungle that spawned her could ignore her.
He wondered, perhaps for the hundredth time, just what went on behind her perfect mask of a face. The male thaumaturges of the Dread Empire concealed themselves behind hideous beast dominoes. She hid behind beauty.
He scanned all the titles and finally selected the book he chose each time he came here. Bette brought bread and butter and tea. He sipped and nibbled while studying meticulously prepared, hand-pressed woodcuts of the architectural wonders of the age.
He had seen the real structures during the war. The representations were woefully inadequate. “Damn!” he swore softly. “There’
s got to be a better way.”
Michael claimed there were painters in Hellin Daimiel who could portray people perfectly. Why didn’t they try place portraiture?
“Aral?” Her voice was soft. Its edges tinkled like tiny silver bells. Her beauty punished ugliness for existing. He rose, gulped.
“Sit down, Aral.” She took a chair beside him. He imagined he felt the heat of her burning across the foot of air separating them. “That book again. Why?”
He swallowed. “The technical challenge. There has to be a better way to illustrate.” Did his voice sound like a frog’s croak? How could she do this to him? He wasn’t a kid anymore.
“Did you talk to Michael?”
“We went riding. He didn’t say much. He was even more cryptic than usual. I did get the feeling he was trying to warn me off.”
“How so? You think he knows?”
“I couldn’t tell. He must suspect something. But he isn’t sure. Not yet. He kept changing the subject to landscaping and betting on Captures.” He thought, I’m talking too fast, and probably too much. He knew he wasn’t in love. Not really. It was all in the glands. But it was powerful. She destroyed reason by inflaming the urge to mate.
“He knows more than he told the King, Aral. That was obvious. He knew too much about Lord Ko Feng and Lord Kuo not to have known more. He has a good contact east of the mountains. Possibly somebody who’s caught wind of us. You’d better have your smuggler friends find out who it is.”
“Do we have to do it this way? Mike could help a lot if we let him in.”
“He could get us killed, too. I don’t trust him, Aral. He’s too much his own creature. He doesn’t form loyalties, he makes temporary alliances. He’s the kind who can change horses without a qualm. I don’t think it’ll be long before the King is sorry he hasn’t kept Michael on a shorter rein.”
“Yeah. The riots in Throyes. He admitted he was involved. And he’s under orders not to irritate Lord Hsung. The King wants trade reopened bad.”
“What about Cham Mundwiller? Is he still sitting the fence? We don’t have to have backing from Sedlmayr, but I’d feel better if we did. They could finance another battalion, and that would make my friends a lot more comfortable.”