“He’s playing it cagey. He wants to be covered both ways. He’s got the Michael shakes. He’s never gone against the King before.”
Mist gnawed a cuticle. “Go on.”
“That damned Mike! He’s like a ghost anymore. You never know where he is or what he’s doing, or even if the guy next to you is maybe working for him. I spend half my time looking over my shoulder. Hell, Mike is just plain bad for business. And now that damned wizard is back, and he and Mike have always been thick. What Mike can’t find out for himself Varthlokkur will dig out for him. All he has to do is ask. I don’t mind telling you they’ve got me spooked.”
“Has Cham asked for anything?”
“No.”
“Don’t offer. Let him come around his own way. I don’t want to do business with people who have to be bribed. Other people can bribe them too. He’ll just have to settle for secure trade.”
Dantice nodded. “Far as I’m concerned, trade is the whole point of the exercise.” Once a less belligerent, more commercially oriented regime was established in Shinsan, the riches would flow in rivers. All Kavelin could fill dippers in the stream-the way it had been before the Great Eastern Wars.
Aral believed in what he was doing. He was a patriot. His conscience was healthy. He’d had a bad moment when he learned Prataxis was making headway with Lord Hsung, but Mist had calmed him, and had assured him that Hsung was playing diplomatic games, that he had no intention of relaxing his stranglehold on the trade routes.
“What is happening in Shinsan?” he asked. “The wizard had something on his mind.”
“I really don’t know. They’re restructuring army commands and shuffling legions. Lord Kuo’s people give the orders. They don’t explain. My friends can’t tell me much.”
“Or won’t?”
“I’ve thought of that, too. There’s always a chance they’re working the other way, or both ways. I’m considering bypassing them. I have other resources.”
Aral shuddered. He had seen some of those resources during the war. She was one of the great wielders of the Power, a fact emotion tended to obscure.
“I’d better get back. When I’m away too long the whole shop goes to pot.”
She touched his hand lightly. Her eyes misted. “You’re sweet, Aral. You’re not quite real. Valther was that way too.” She sounded wistful.
If only he were a tad more bold. It had been four years since Palmisano and her husband’s death. She should be ready.
Aral took his leave. He tried to distract himself with debate on how to bet the day’s Captures matches.
4 Year 1011afe
A Flashback to the War
IT WAS ONE of those mornings when Spring became an insidious disease spreading disaffection and restlessness. It communicated an undirected desire for action, for movement, for the doing of anything but the task at hand. The dawn breeze off the Kapenrungs had been cool, piney, and invigorating, virile with the seed of unrest. Now the air was still and warm, incubating ill-considered actions.
Nepanthe stood at the window of her second-floor bedroom in her brother’s Lieneke Lane home. She stared at the towers of Vorgreberg, visible between the tops of the trees. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she whispered. “I’m going to go crazy if I don’t.” Her gaze touched the palace. Maybe Bragi could arrange for her to move in there.
Her thoughts turned to her husband, Mocker, who had been gone for a year. An erotic image sprang into her mind. She pushed it away, disgusted with herself. She wasn’t that kind of woman. Base physical desire was the mark of a street wench.
She pounded a fist against the windowsill. “I really am going mad,” she whispered. And, “Bragi, why couldn’t you just leave us alone?” Poor Mocker never did have any sense when it came to Bragi or Haroun. They’d put him up to the stupidest things... This time it had been some kind of spy work for Bragi. And he hadn’t come back.
There was no proof that he was dead. Not even a rumor, Bragi claimed. But... if Mocker were alive, he would have come home long ago.
The door to her room creaked open. Her son stood there, looking at her, a confused look on his face. At twelve he already showed a lot of the man that would be.
There was little of his father in him. Mocker was short and fat and brown. Ethrian would stand a hand taller, and would have the broad shoulders and hard muscles of the masculine side of his mother’s line.
A rush of sentimentality hit Nepanthe. She wanted to wrap him in her arms, and keep him there forever, safe from the wrath of the world. “Ethrian? What is it?”
In a puzzled tone, the boy said, “There’s a man downstairs. He says he has a message from Father.”
Something with violent claws grabbed her heart. She babbled questions.
“I don’t know, Mother. He just said to tell you Father sent him with a message.”
“Where is he?”
“Down on the porch.”
“Get him inside. Into the library. Don’t let anybody see him.” Intuition told her to be circumspect. Mocker wouldn’t have sent a messenger had there been no need for caution. “I’ll be right down.”
She whirled to her dressing table, mind aroil, telling herself to stay calm. She failed utterly to take her own advice.
The messenger was a strange one, a hard, dark, silent man with a big white scar across one cheek. He radiated a chill which made Nepanthe shudder. She ignored the reaction. All Mocker’s friends were a little bizarre.
Once the man had identified her to his own satisfaction, he said in difficult Wesson, “I am sent at the command of your husband, Lady, to bring a message important. First, two tokens of faith, that I may be known as friend and not a liar thought. He says you will know the true message they carry.” He handed her a ring of plain gold and a small dagger with a tiny silver three-armed swastika inlaid in its hilt.
Nepanthe collapsed into a chair, one item in each hand. Yes. She understood. The messenger had to be genuine. Who but Mocker would know how much these meant? The ring she had given him in token of love soon after their wedding. There was a love charm graven in invisible characters round the inner face of the band. The dagger had been a tenth anniversary gift. It had belonged to her father, and to his father before him, a token of the power of a once mighty family. Someday it would belong to Ethrian. Yes, only Mocker would guarantee a message by sending those. “I accept you as the real thing. Go ahead. What’s the message?”
Ethrian demanded, “Where is my father?”
“Be quiet, Ethrian. Go stand outside the door. Warn us if anyone comes.” The messenger had chosen the perfect day to appear. Almost everyone was out of the house.
The courier produced a sealed packet. “I am to give you these letters. Read. Then we will talk.”
Nepanthe ripped at the packet, fumbling in her eagerness. Finally, she got to the first letter.
It was not written in Mocker’s hand. She wasn’t surprised. Her husband could write, but unless he worked with uncharacteristic patience his penmanship remained impenetrable even to himself. Anything he wanted understood he would have someone write for him.
The letters were crazy. Bizarre, paranoid, unbelievable. Rambling, tortuous, and only partially coherent.
He flatly accused Bragi and Haroun of plotting against his life. He was in hiding in the middle east, where he had friends. He wanted her to slip away and join him before Bragi took the next logical step and imprisoned her and Ethrian.
It made no sense. He’d never mentioned having friends in the east. And what reason would Bragi or Haroun have for trying to kill him?
The messenger asked, “Have you finished?”
Startled, she looked up at his cold assassin’s face. “Yes. What’s it all about?”
“Lady, I am sorry. I was not told. I was sent to bring you to him. I have two friends with me. We are to guard you during your journey to Throyes. We are to avoid notice by local authorities. That is all I was told.”
“But... “
“I am sorry. Will you come?”
“Yes. Of course.” She rose, surprised by the haste with which she had made her decision. It was as crazy as Mocker’s letters.
“Pack quickly and lightly. We will travel by horseback, in haste, lest our enemies discover us and give pursuit.”
“Yes. Of course.” Of course. That was Mocker’s way of life. Travel in the shadows, work in the shadows, always moving fast and light. Live and die in the shadows. Don’t look back because something might be gaining.
She burst out of the library. “Ethrian, pack some things. We’re going to your father. No. Don’t ask questions. Just do what you’re told. And hurry.” She left him looking baffled.
She threw things together with little thought for the journey she faced. Her mind was wholly taken with the puzzle of what was happening.
“Keep up, boy!” Scar snarled. In all the weeks of travel Nepanthe had learned no name for Mocker’s messenger. He was in a vicious temper today.
She didn’t blame him. His wounds had to be hurting him terribly.
Two days earlier they’d had a brush with bandits, just when Scar was beginning to relax because they were nearing Throyes. His comrades had both been killed.
“It’ll only be a little while longer, Ethrian,” she promised. “We’re almost there.” They were among the farms which supported Throyes. A hazy patch of horizon lay ahead. “We should spot the city walls any minute now.”
“No walls at Throyes,” Scar said. It was one of the few times he’d said anything remotely conversational. “Three hours, we be there.”
He was close. Only a few minutes over three hours later they were dismounting before a home as stately as any Nepanthe had known in Lieneke Lane. A grossly fat man met them. He did not seem pleased to see them. He and Scar argued, then Scar terminated the discussion by mounting up and riding away. The fat man fumed and sputtered and threatened his back.
Nepanthe asked, “Can we see him? Is he here?”
The fat man frowned. He thought for a moment. Then, in Wesson worse than Scar’s, he said, “Not here. Gone now. On to Argon. You go there too. Yes?”
Nepanthe sagged. “Oh, no. Really? I can’t travel another foot.”
“You rest. Yes? One, two day maybe. Arrangements to make. Trustful guards.” The fat man spat on Scar’s backtrail. “Unable to do simple job. Two men lost.”
“You’re lucky any of us got through. Bandits were after us for days.”
The fat man spat again. “Inside. You stay out of sight. Eyes of enemies everywhere these days.”
Eager as she was to see Mocker, Nepanthe was disappointed when it took only two days to assemble a new escort.
“My god,” Ethrian said. “Mother, it’s huge.” They were wending their way over pontoon bridges and low delta islands, slowly approaching the city Argon, which stood on an island near the mouth of the River Roe. The high city wall reared in the distance, and just grew more massive as they drew nearer.
Nepanthe came out of her preoccupation with weariness, heat, and humidity long enough to be properly awed. She tried distracting herself by telling Ethrian what she knew about Argon. That didn’t help.
The wall was sixty feet high where they crossed a last pontoon and entered a city gate. Ethrian was so bemused he lost all thought of his father. Nepanthe was too miserable to feel more than the smallest flutter of excitement.
Their escort guided them through densely peopled streets to a huge fortress-city within the city. Nepanthe guessed this to be the Fadem, the citadel from which the Queen who called herself Fadema ruled the great city-state. Mocker seemed to have found powerful friends.
They were expected. A platoon in livery met them. The gentleman in command spoke flawless Daimiellian, thelingua franca of the western educated classes. “Welcome to Argon and the Fadem. I hope you find our hospitality warmer than that of the road.”
“Just point me toward a bath and a bed.”
“Can we see my father now?” Ethrian demanded.
The gentleman looked puzzled. “I know only that you’re guests of Her Majesty, young sir, nothing of your business here. Someone closer to the throne will deal with that. My Lady? If you’ll accompany me? An apartment has been prepared. I’ve been bid tell you that once you’ve bathed, eaten, and rested, dressmakers and tailors will be sent to help you form a new wardrobe.” They all walked while he talked. Nepanthe soon became lost in the complexities of the fortress.
Ethrian asked another impertinent question. She hissed, “You behave yourself. Understand? We’re guests here, and this isn’t the Quarter.” The Quarter was the slum where Bragi had found them living before he’d dragooned Mocker into undertaking some harebrained mission.
The apartment was high in a squarish tower. It reminded Nepanthe of her childhood. She’d had her own tower then. This apartment, though, came with a staff of five servants, one of whom was a cook and none of whom spoke any language Nepanthe knew. The gentleman commanding the escort bowed his way out. The servants closed in, using gestures to indicate that a bath was waiting. Nepanthe told Ethrian to go first.
She stood at the one window and stared out over the city’s sprawl, now splashed all orange and red and shadow with the light of a setting sun. She was eighty or a hundred feet above street level. In an apartment with its own staff, none of whom spoke a familiar tongue. It was almost as if she were a prisoner.
She slept only a few hours. Awareness of a subtle, unidentifiable wrongness set her to pacing the floor.
Someone tried the door, pushed through. Nepanthe settled onto the edge of her bed. The visitor stepped out of shadow, proved to be a woman.
“Good evening, Madame. I’m sorry you had to wait so long.” The woman’s Wesson was abominably accented.
Nepanthe rose. The words gushed. “Where is he? When can I see him?”
“Who?”
“My husband.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The men who brought me to Throyes. They said they were taking me to my husband. That he sent for me. They had a letter.”
“So that’s how they managed it. They lied.” The woman smiled mockingly. “Permit me. I am Fadema, Queen of Argon.”
“Why am I here?”
“We had to remove you from Vorgreberg. You might have embarrassed us there.”
“Who is us?”
“Madame.” Another visitor entered.
“Shinsan!” Nepanthe gasped. She’d seen enough booty after the battle at Baxendala to recognize a Tervola. “Again.”
The Tervola bowed. “We come again, Madame.”
“Where is my husband?”
“He’s well.”
“You’d better send me home. You lied to me... I have Varthlokkur’s protection, you know.”
“Indeed I do. I know exactly what you mean to him. It’s the main reason we brought you here.”
Nepanthe raised merry hell.
“Madame, I suggest you make the best of your stay. Don’t be difficult.”
“What’s happened to my husband? They told me they were taking me to him.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” the Fadema said.
Nepanthe drew a dagger from within her bodice, stabbed at the Tervola. He disarmed her with ease. “Fadema, move the boy elsewhere. To keep her civil. We’ll speak to you later, Madame.”
Nepanthe shrieked. She kicked. She tried to bite. She tried threats and pleas.
Silent as death, the Tervola held her. The Fadema took Ethrian away. Once the woman was gone, he said, “Your honor and your son are our hostages. Understand?”
She did. All too clearly. “I understand. Varthlokkur and my husband... “
“Will do nothing. That’s why you’re my captive.”
Nepanthe could not stifle a wan smile. He was mistaken. He didn’t know the men he wanted to control. Mocker would run amok. Varthlokkur couldn’t be blackmailed. He would accept his losses, if need be, and utterly destroy those who had inflicted them.
/> She was scared. With reason. “I’myour captive. Isn’t ither city?”
“She seems to think so. Amusing, isn’t it? One year. Behave and you’ll be freed. Otherwise... you know our reputation. Our language has no word for mercy.” He turned briskly and marched out.
Nepanthe dropped onto her bed, softly let run the tears she’d held at bay during the interview. “What a fool I’ve been,” she murmured. “I should’ve known when the letters said Bragi was trying to kill him.” Was Mocker dead or alive? “Ssst!”
The Tervola had said he was well. What did that mean? Nothing, really. They were notorious liars. “Ssst!”
She tried to recall details of the Tervola’s mask. Each mask was unique, they said. The time might come when she would want to identify this one. “Ssst!”
This time the sound registered. It came from the window. The window? It was eighty feet above nothing. She rose and approached fearfully.
There was a man out there, peering in at her. And he looked familiar. “What? Who are you? I... I know you.”
“From Vorgreberg. My name is Michael Trebilcock. My friend and I followed you here.”
She was astonished. Followed her here? All the way from Kavelin? “Why?”
“To find out what you were up to. Those men were the same sort who killed the Marshall’s wife. And your brother.”
My god, she thought. What was the matter with me? He was right. Exactly right. Scar fit the description perfectly. How could she have been so blind? She became extremely angry with herself. All her life she had had this knack for fooling herself.
The man who called himself Michael had a hard time calming her down. Finally, he said, “You’re in no real danger while they think they can use you to blackmail the wizard and your husband.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I thought about bringing you out the window. But they’ve got your son. You probably wouldn’t go... “
“You’re right.” The gods themselves wouldn’t pry her out of this place while Ethrian was being held here.