"Sir," Toralk said, despite Harshu's warning, "I don't see how any reasonable individual could have interpreted his instructions to mean anything of the sort. Certainly not in light of the verbal briefings he gave both of us before he deployed us forward!"
"Klayrman," Harshu said in a chiding way, shaking a finger at him, "you're letting your opinions run away with you again."
Toralk clamped his mouth shut, and Harshu snorted harshly.
"The interesting thing is that if you read his written instructions without those verbal briefings of his, they can actually be interpreted exactly the way he's interpreting them at the moment. While I would never wish to impute duplicity to a superior officer, I find that I can't quite shake the suspicion that the discrepancy between his current very clearly expressed views and what you and I understood his instructions to be isn't . . . accidental, shall we say?"
"Sir, I don't like what you seem to be saying."
"I'm not overjoyed with it myself. In fact, the thing that bothers me most right now is that I can't decide whether mul Gurthak is simply trying to cover his own ass now that the shit's hit the fan, or if he deliberately set us up—well, set me up, at least—from the start. Did he simply shape his written instructions this way so he'd be covered if something went wrong, or did he want us to do exactly what I went ahead and did, but clearly—for the record, at least—without his authorization?"
Toralk started to open his mouth again, but Harshu's raised finger stopped him. Not, the Air Force officer reflected a second later, that it was really necessary for him to say what he was thinking.
But why? Why would mul Gurthak want us to start a shooting war out here "without his authorization"? He's still the senior officer in command, even if he did delegate the field command to Harshu. Ultimately, surely the Commandery is going to hold him responsible for what happens in his command area. So why go to such elaborate lengths?
The thoughts flashed through his brain. He had no answers for any of the questions, but he was sinkingly certain that if he'd had those answers, he wouldn't have liked them.
"Of course," Harshu continued in a lighter tone which fooled neither of them, "Two Thousand mul Gurthak is not yet aware that we've managed to kill the heir to the Ternathian Crown, is he? That's going to be just a bit unexpected, I imagine. As is the way the Sharonians are going to respond to it."
He showed his teeth in a smile which contained no humor at all, and Toralk winced. Unlike Harshu, he'd actually met the senior Sharonian officers at Fort Salby. There wasn't much question in his mind about how the Ternathian Empire, at least, was going to respond.
He looked across the table at Mayrkos Harshu and wondered if he looked as sick as he felt.
* * *
Rof chan Skrithik stood stiffly to attention as the haunting bugle notes of "Sunset," the call the Ternathian Empire's military had used to close the day for almost three thousand years, floated out under the smoldering embers of a spectacular sunset.
It was a beautiful bugle call, with a sweet, clear purity that no soldier ever forgot. And it was also, by a tradition so ancient no one even knew when it had begun, the call used at military funerals.
The last sweet notes flared out, and chan Skrithik inhaled deeply, gazing out across the neat rows of graves. At least a third of them were marked with the triangular memorial symbol of the Triad. Others showed the horsetails of Arpathia, or the many-spired star of Aruncas of the Sword.
And out there, in the midst of the men who had died to hold Fort Salby, was the young man who had died to save Fort Salby.
Chan Skrithik reached up, gently stroking the falcon on his right shoulder. For millennia, since the death of Emperor Halian, the House of Calirath's tradition had been that when one of its own died in battle, he was buried where he fell. Buried with the battle companions who had fallen at his side, and with his enemies. Chan Skrithik would have preferred to send Janaki home to his mother. To let him sleep where he had earned the right to sleep, beside Erthain the Great. But like Halian himself, Janaki chan Calirath would rest where he had fallen, farther away from Estafel and Tajvana than any other Calirath.
And where he slept would be Ternathian soil forever.
"It doesn't seem right, Sir."
Chan Skrithik turned. Chief-Armsman chan Braikal stood beside him, looking out across the same cemetery.
"What doesn't seem right, Chief?"
"It doesn't seem right that he's not here, Sir." Grief clouded the chief-armsman's voice. "None of us would be here without him, and—"
Chan Braikal broke off, and chan Skrithik reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder.
"It was his choice, Chief. Remember that. He chose to die for the rest of us. Never let anyone forget that."
"No, Sir. I won't." Chan Braikal's wounded voice hardened. "And none of us will be forgetting how he died, either."
Chan Skrithik only nodded.
Division-Captain chan Geraith's entire First Brigade had marched past Janaki's body. Every surviving man of the fort's PAAF garrison had done the same, and Sunlord Markan had personally led his surviving Uromathian cavalry troopers past the bier in total silence, helmets removed, weapons reversed, while the mounted drummers kept slow, mournful time.
Janaki chan Calirath's death had done more than save Fort Salby. Rof chan Skrithik already understood that. Janaki had been added to the legend of the Caliraths, and the fighting men of Sharona would never forget that the attack which had killed him had been launched in time of peace by the very nation which had asked for the negotiations in the first place.
He wasn't the only victim of their treachery. In fact, chan Skrithik never doubted that Janaki would have been dismayed—even angry—if anyone had suggested anything of the sort. Yet it was inevitable that the young man who would one day have been emperor of all Sharona should be the focal point for all the grief, all the rage—all the hate—Arcana had fanned into a roaring furnace.
"I Stand Between," chan Skrithik thought. Well, you did, Janaki. You stood between all of us and Arcana. And you stood between me and the gryphon that killed you. It's a hard thing, knowing a legend died for you. But that's what Caliraths do, isn't it? They make legends. They become legends, and, gods, the price they pay for it!
Taleena made a soft sound on his shoulder, and he reached up and stroked her wings once again.
"I know, My Lady," he said gently. "I know. I miss him, too."
Taleena touched the back of his hand very gently with her razor-sharp beak, and chan Skrithik looked across at chan Braikal once more.
"His horses and his sword are going home, Chief," he said. "And you and his platoon are taking them."
"Yes, Sir." Chan Braikal's voice was husky again.
"Tell them for us, Chief." Chan Skrithik looked into the Marine's eyes. "Tell them all. This fort, the cemetery, it's ours. He bought it for us, and no one and nothing will ever take it away from us."
* * *
"I can't believe she did that." Alazon Yanamar shook her head. "What was she thinking?"
"You know exactly what she was thinking, love," Kinlafia chided her sadly.
The two of them stood in Alazon's office in Calirath Palace, surrounded by her collection of horses as they gazed out the windows. The lamps were turned low, the sun had set hours ago, and a silver moon drifted over the palace gardens. It was a serene and beautiful sight, utterly at odds with the chaos and confusion which had enveloped the people who lived and worked in the palace.
"You just don't want to admit that she was right," Kinlafia continued.
"Right?" Alazon stared at him in stark disbelief. "Gods, Darcel! She's seventeen! And she's a Ternathian! The youngest of that bastard's sons is twenty-nine, and they're all just as bad as he is! Can you imagine what will happen to her when she marries one of them? Especially after humiliating his father the way she did this morning? Why not just invite him to rape her on the floor of the Conclave and be done with it?!"
"Yes." The wor
d came out harshly, but Kinlafia met her angry eyes levelly. "I can imagine exactly what will happen. Vothan! Do you think I like the thought? But that doesn't change the fact that she's right. That we've got to unify, and that we don't have time to give Chava the opportunity to reopen the entire unification debate."
"Yes we do!" Alazon protested. "And if Chava's going to open the door then I say we should use the opportunity he's given us to delete that entire subsection from the Act!"
"You know better than that." Kinlafia regarded her sternly. "In fact, I know you know better than that—you've been the one teaching me to think in strategic political terms for the last two weeks! Do you really think Chava would have opened this entire subject if he wasn't prepared to announce that Uromathia would use the pretext of Janaki's death and the 'invalidation' of the Act to justify refusing to accept unification after all unless it's revised once again? This time to give him more power, more room to spin his webs? And do you think he waited until after the Emperor detailed his requirements by accident? He wanted every member of the Conclave to accept, gut-deep, just how serious the threat is. And then he issued his demand.
"He wanted them to know how big a pistol he was prepared to hold to all of their heads. If he claims the Act is nullified, if he refuses to acknowledge Zindel's rightful coronation, then what happens to all of the preparations we need to make? Do you think for an instant that once that sack of snakes was untied, there wouldn't be enormous pressure from other members of the Conclave to give him more of what he wanted in the first place if that was the only way to get him to sign back up quickly now that the Arcanans have proven they're a genuine, immediate threat?
"He might as well have handed us a written memo about his new strategy, Alazon! The way he saw it, he won either way. Either he got to name Andrin's husband under the terms of the Act, or else Zindel told him to go straight to the Arpathian hells before he gave one of Chava's sons his daughter. And if that happened, if Zindel refused to honor the Act's terms, then Chava could declare that Zindel's decision to invalidate the Act absolved him of his agreement to surrender the sovereignty of Uromathia to Zindel . . . and that would have given him all the leverage in the world, unless we chose to fight that very civil war the Emperor told me last night he wanted to avoid!
"It's obvious from the Voice reports and print articles you've had me Watching and reading ever since I got back that Chava never really regarded the original Arcanan massacre as a genuine threat. He was doing his best to game the situation then, and he's doing exactly the same thing now. He's just changing technique, using the threat everyone else sees as genuine to frighten them into conceding the points they refused to give him before. If he can simultaneously frighten the other members of the Conclave badly enough and appear sufficiently intransigent, he'll get at least some of his demands—maybe even most of them. And he won't give a good godsdamn how long he delays unification, how much damage he does to our ability to deal with the Arcanans, as long as there's a chance of improving his position."
"But—"
" 'But' nothing, love," Kinlafia said softly, sadly. "You know that's what would happen. And so does her father. My gods, Alazon, you know how much he loves her, and you saw as well as I did what he was prepared to do out there today! Yes, it was her decision, and I know as well as you do that she never even warned him she was going to do it. That she deliberately didn't give him time to think about ways to stop her, or for the father in him to find some justification—any justification—for keeping her from doing this. But if he hadn't realized in the end that she was right, he would never have let her get away with it. Never."
"But there has to be another way." Alazon was no longer protesting or denying. She was almost pleading. "We can't just let her do this, Darcel. We can't!"
Tears glittered in the Privy Voice's eyes, and Darcel put his arm around her and hugged her tightly.
"I don't see how we can stop her," he said, and in the back of his brain he saw once again the image of Andrin weeping. "I'm finally beginning to understand—really understand—what sort of price being born a Calirath can exact. She's going to do this. The only person who could stop her is her father, and he won't—he can't. He'll do everything he can to protect her, but this is the one thing he can't stop her from doing."
"It will kill her," Alazon said softly. "Maybe not physically—not quickly. But it will kill her." She looked up at Kinlafia, and a single tear broke free and trickled down her cheek. "I never really knew her until this entire impossible crisis just exploded in our faces. But now that's changed. And if she marries someone like one of Chava Busar's sons, it will just destroy her inside."
Kinlafia nodded, hearing the pain in her beautiful voice. That pain, he knew, was the reason someone with Alazon's sharp intelligence and grasp of politics could insist that Andrin had to be stopped. And gods knew she was right. If there'd been any way to avoid this . . .
"We're just going to have to hope she's stronger than that," he said. "I've read the entire Act since you gave me a copy. If I could see any way for her to—"
He paused suddenly, and Alazon stiffened in the circle of his arm as she Felt a sudden, incredible cascade of thoughts and emotions tumbling through him. Then he inhaled sharply and looked into her eyes.
"Gods!" he half-whispered. "That's it."
"What?" Alazon demanded.
"I've just had an idea," he told her. "My gods, it's what Janaki Glimpsed!"
"What's what Janaki Glimpsed?!"
"We've got to go find Andrin," Kinlafia told her. "And be sure you bring your copy of the Act!
* * *
Andrin Calirath sat on her bedroom window seat, staring out into the moon-soaked gardens of Calirath Palace, and wept.
Her tears were nearly silent, and she sat very still, watching the moonlight waver through them. She wept for the brother she would never see again. She wept for her parents, who would never again see their son. She wept for all the other mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and daughters who would never see their loved ones again.
And she wept for herself.
In the cold, still hours of the night, it was hard. She was only seventeen, and knowing that what she must do would save thousands, possibly even millions of lives—even agreeing that it was what she must do—was cold and bitter compensation for the destruction of her own life. She was frightened, and despite her youth, she had few illusions about what sort of marriage Chava Busar and his sons had in mind for her. She knew her strengths, knew the strength of her parents' love, how fiercely they would strive to protect her. Yet in the end, no one could protect her from the cold, merciless demands of the Calirath destiny. At best, it would be a marriage without love, without tenderness. And at worst—
She folded her arms, trying to wrap them around herself, not because she was physically cold, but because of the chill deep inside.
She was going to spend her life married to the son of her father's worst enemy. Her children would be the grandchildren of her family's most deadly foe. She could already feel the ice closing in, already sense the way the years to come would wound and maim her spirit, and she wished—wished with all her heart—that there could be some escape. That Shalana could somehow find that single, small scrap of mercy for her. Could let her somehow evade this last, bitter measure of duty and responsibility.
But Shalana wouldn't. She couldn't. "I Stand Between." How many Caliraths had given themselves to that simple, three-word promise over the millennia? Janaki had given his life to that promise, and Andrin could do no less than sacrifice her life to it, as well.
"Sho warak, Janaki," she whispered. "Sho warak. Sleep, Janaki. Sleep until we all wake once more. I love you."
She put her head down on the back of the padded window seat and let her tears soak into the upholstery.
She never knew how long she wept into the window seat's satin, but somehow, despite her determination not to, she must have made some sound. She had to have, because her bedroom door opened a
bruptly, with absolutely no warning, spilling lamplight into the darkened room. She jerked upright, spinning towards the brightness, but her angry rebuke for whoever had dared to intrude upon her died unspoken.
Lady Merissa Vankhal stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. There was a chair just outside the door behind her, one which hadn't been there when Andrin went to bed, with a blanket tossed untidily across it, and Lady Merissa herself was clad in a silken sleep robe over her night dress, devoid of the least trace of make-up, her hair all awry. Andrin had never seen—never imagined—her fussy, propriety-obsessed chief lady-in-waiting in such disarray, and she wondered what fresh cosmic disaster could have driven Lady Merissa to her bedroom in such a state.
Yet before she could even start to frame the question, Lady Merissa crossed the bedroom to her and, to her utter astonishment, Andrin found herself enfolded in a tight embrace.
"Oh, my love," Merissa whispered in her ear. "Oh, my poor love. I didn't hear you—I didn't know."
Andrin felt herself beginning to crumble in that totally unexpected, immensely comforting embrace. Lady Merissa sat down on the window seat beside her, and a corner of Andrin's brain wondered just how ridiculous they looked. She was a foot taller than Lady Merissa, yet Merissa cradled her as if she were a child, and Andrin abandoned herself to the comfort of that touch.
"There, love," Merissa murmured, stroking her back while she sobbed. "There, love."
Andrin clung to her, as if the fussy, fluffy, irritating lady-in-waiting were the last solid rock in her universe, for that was precisely what Lady Merissa had become.
And then someone knocked gently on the bedroom door.
Andrin stiffened, and Lady Merissa's spine straightened with an almost audible snap.
"Really!" she huffed. "Is this a grand imperial princess' bedroom, or is it the waiting room down at the local train station?!"
She set Andrin aside gently, then came to her feet, straightening her robe, and stalked across the enormous bedroom towards the door, muttering as she went.