Poisoned Blade

  The shout is taken up by soldiers streaming out of their compounds to cheer as we pass. Many of these are mercenary companies hired for the duration of the war, and I wonder what Kalliarkos has done to make men who fight for pay hail him as a hero in a battle that was a disastrous defeat for our forces.

  When I glance inside the mercenary compounds I see, amid tents and cook-fires, soldiers polishing weapons and repairing their kit, women sewing up tunics and cooking, and big children hauling water while little children run about at play amid the guide ropes that brace the tents. The people in these mercenary companies are not just Saroese but people from all around the Three Seas: straw-haired Soldians, Amarans with their hair concealed by turbans, bowlegged cavalrymen from the plains of Dey, and the island-dwelling Tandi whose women carry weapons exactly like the men. A few wear the complicated braids famous among the Shipwrights, and I think of Agalar, and then Bettany.

  Kalliarkos says, “What’s wrong?”

  But I can’t utter her name. I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to tell Father, and now I don’t have any more time. We pull up before the entrance of the central command compound.

  The guard captain makes a salute. “Lord Captain! The general awaits you.”

  Grooms take the horses as Kalliarkos climbs down from the carriage. I hang back, three paces behind. This is not a Fives court where I want the crowd’s attention. My palms start to sweat. What will Father say when he sees me?

  At the center of the command compound stands a tent flying the gold banner belonging to Prince General Nikonos. As we pass I recognize Sergeant Demos slipping in a back entrance. I know it is him because I’ve been marveling at that beard for days, wondering how any man can endure the bugs and grit that must get caught in it.

  Kalliarkos has already reached the entrance to a huge tent flying a firebird banner beside the winged fire dog flag of Garon Palace. The guards salute with hand to chest when they see him. He walks in without waiting to be announced, me hurrying after so I don’t get trapped outside. The tent is so large it is divided into multiple interior rooms by curtains. In the outermost area seven officers stand around a table on which a map has been unrolled. His back to the entrance, Father is addressing his subordinates.

  “By luring the enemy into a pitched battle here, in the ravines east of Port Selene, we will force them to narrow their front line.” He points to a spot on the map with his command whip. “That way they cannot bring their greater numbers to bear on our smaller ones. Also, the rocky terrain will slow them down when they try to spread out and wrap around us.”

  He turns, hearing our arrival. “Lord Captain Kalliarkos. A runner brought the welcome word that you and your scouts have arrived safely back with no losses—”

  He chokes on his next word as he recognizes me. But Father is a man famous for never letting any battlefield disaster rattle him, so he coughs as if it were just a tickle in his throat. “Your report, Lord Captain?”

  “A drink and some food would not go amiss,” drawls Kalliarkos. “I am parched, General. We made a forced march.”

  When he pulls his scarf off his head, sand spatters everywhere. Dirt makes his short hair stand on end, and his skin is so coated with dust that his complexion has taken on the reddish-brown cast of the desert soil. I see an unspoken communication pass between the two men, as if in a mere four months they have learned to know and trust each other well enough to become confidants. Father pretends not to notice me although the officers give me curious looks.

  “Dismissed,” he says to the officers. “We’ll meet again at dawn when I will have Lord Captain Kalliarkos’s full report.”

  The moment we are alone Father fixes on me a gaze so harsh it melts my feet into the ground. I couldn’t move even if I thought it wise to bolt.

  “I can explain why she is with me,” says Kalliarkos hastily, looking much less the bold captain and much more a sheepish youth.

  “I expect a thorough explanation,” says Father. “Haredas!”

  His senior steward steps forward. He too is giving me a disapproving look, as if I have done something wrong!

  “Bring tea and bread. Have Lord Kalliarkos’s steward draw bathwater. And for this one—”

  He doesn’t even say my name!

  “—she will need a bath and respectable clothing. Bring Ganea to assist her.”

  “Yes, General.” Haredas brings us a tray of drinks and a platter of bread. Then he goes out, and we three are alone.

  “Now, your report, my lord,” says Father.

  I’m impressed with the efficiency of Kalliarkos’s report although it is hard to keep my full attention on his story as I gulp down mint tea sweetened with honey. With as much self-control and dainty good manners as I can muster, I devour two entire rounds of warm, delicious flatbread by ripping them into small pieces between drafts of tea.

  Father asks only a few clarifying questions before turning to me.

  “So. Jessamy.” That bland voice is the rock that hides a scorpion’s sting. “It is no exaggeration to say I am surprised to see you. And by no means pleased to see you in the company of Lord Kalliarkos after you were expressly forbidden from speaking to him ever again.”

  My gaze strays to Kal just as he glances at me. We both look away. My cheeks get hot.

  “Well? What do you have to tell me?”

  He never stands with anything except perfect posture, at a soldier’s readiness, but by the flexing of his hands I can tell he is anxious about far more than my misadventures. All my life it’s always been the first thing he wants to know: if Mother is well since his last news of her. But he has sworn to never again speak of her, and anyway here he stands next to his wife’s brother.

  I meet Father’s gaze and nod once, firmly: a silent message to let him know Mother is alive and well. He nods in reply, understanding my message, and allows himself to relax just a little.

  “May I have your whip, Father?” I ask.

  He opens his lips to question me, then hands it over. We three are alone in this part of the tent but I am well aware of how sound carries through cloth walls. I make a circuit of the curtained chamber, poking his whip along the cloth to make sure no spies hide behind to listen.

  I give him back the whip and in a low voice I tell him—and Kalliarkos—about Menoë and Nikonos plotting in the garden of Garon Palace, the grain shortages in Saryenia, Menoë taking her ladies to visit the queen, the spark that saved Prince Temnos, the king getting false news of a victory at Pellucidar Lake, the gold bullion hidden in Lord Menos’s tomb and how they can never mention it to Gargaron because Gargaron doesn’t know I know.

  “I think it likely Lord Agalar has guessed that the missing gold is somewhere in the tombs, so we must assume the enemy has already returned there and found it. There’s another thing. It may just be coincidence, but in the final skirmish with the East Saroese cavalry, Sergeant Demos almost stabbed Lord Kalliarkos in the back. It could have been a mistake in the heat of the moment but just now I saw him enter Prince Nikonos’s tent.”

  “You are suggesting that Prince Nikonos sent a deliberately false message to the king,” says Father.

  “Maybe it wasn’t false. He just said it was a victory, for him. He didn’t say it was a victory for the king, or for Efea.”

  “That implies he is colluding with the enemy. This would be treason.”

  “Lord Gargaron’s plans to overthrow the king and queen and place his niece and nephew on the throne are treason too, are they not? Who knows how long Garon Palace has been altering the manifests and stealing the royal gold?”

  “Good Goat,” mutters my father. “Lord Kalliarkos, did you know about this?”

  “I did not. Garon Palace is rich, and my grandmother already gets a cut of the royal bullion. Why steal more?”

  It seems so obvious to me! “So the king and queen don’t have it. If the king and queen can’t supply hungry people with bread and can’t pay their troops, but Garon Palace can, that will m
ake the populace look kindly on Lady Menoë and her brother, won’t it?”

  “Lady Menoë said nothing to me about hidden gold,” muses Father.

  “Why would she confide in you?” To think of her and my father conversing as wife and husband boils my blood.

  Kalliarkos is quick to pick up on my agitation. “My uncle didn’t tell me, so maybe he didn’t tell her either. She blurts out the most outrageous and angry things. Uncle Gar might not have trusted her with such a secret.”

  Father shakes his head. “Lady Menoë and Lord Gargaron are both deep in this conspiracy. She is a good strategist, my lord. Do not underestimate your sister because she speaks sharply out of impatience. Intelligence may chafe when it wishes to gallop and is being held to a walk.”

  To hear him praise the woman he abandoned my mother for makes my tongue burn. “She said such disrespectful things about you to Prince Nikonos, Father!”

  “Of course she did. She told him what he expected to hear.”

  “Are you excusing her? She murdered her first husband! You’ll be next when she decides she doesn’t need you anymore.”

  “That is enough, Jessamy!” His tone cracks down over me, and I flinch.

  Kalliarkos makes a business of rubbing sand off his chin. He and I are both still filthy, and the crust of sand distracts. “I’ve heard enough about Menoë, I pray you. Run these Rings for me, Spider. Why would Nikonos bribe Sergeant Demos to kill me?”

  “He wants you dead so he can rule as king with Menoë as his queen.”

  Kal shakes his head. “No, Menoë won’t betray me.”

  “So you believe.” What fools they both are! Menoë is poison all the way through, a blade aimed at both Father’s and Kalliarkos’s hearts.

  “Especially not in favor of Nikonos,” Kal adds.

  “Even if she wouldn’t, which remains to be seen,” I say, “that doesn’t mean Prince Nikonos doesn’t want you dead. I would say he has good strategic reasons to kill you.”

  Kal’s charming grin staggers me. “This is why you’re so good on Rings, Jes. You see every possible path.”

  Father clears his throat, and we both look away. “We are done for the moment, my lord. You and I will attend a feast in Prince Nikonos’s tent this evening. Notables from Port Selene are joining us, including several shipowners whose goodwill we must cultivate because we need to ship our wounded back to Saryenia and I haven’t the gold to pay them. Indeed, I am sorry if we have lost the most recent gold shipment, for the royal pay-chest is quite empty. Mercenaries who can’t be paid are likely to join the other side.” He gives us each a searing look, then adds, “You did well, Lord Kalliarkos. You surprised me at Pellucidar Lake by the calm way you took charge when the lord captain of the spider scouts was killed in battle.”

  “I did what any officer would have done to rally the scouts and cut off the enemy attack.”

  “I have seen many officers, my lord, and I must respectfully disagree. You acted with composure where another man might have panicked. You display a capacity for leadership that will serve Efea well.”

  Kalliarkos’s chin lifts. If a man could burn with two sparks giving him the greatest intensity of light and being, he would glow like this: shining with praise, and yet humble enough to take it without gloating. Then he looks at me to make sure I heard my father’s complimentary words.

  I feel the old warmth leap the distance between us and catch in my own heart.

  While my father watches.

  Too late I drop my gaze and pinch down my hopeful smile.

  “Lord Kalliarkos, I believe you and I have had in full the conversation about your relationship with my daughter.”

  Kalliarkos snaps to attention like the lowliest soldier. “Yes, General.”

  “That is all.” He claps his hands. Haredas and another steward appear. Thus dismissed, Kalliarkos follows the steward into another part of the tent.

  “You keep Lord Kalliarkos close by, do you not, Father?” I ask.

  “As is my duty, to keep him alive.” He twists the whip in his hand. “As your father, Jessamy, I have words to say to you on this matter, which evidently is not yet concluded. He is a member of the royal family. Do not reach for what you can’t have.”

  “Do you mean to scold me for having the same ambitions you have yourself? After what Lord Gargaron tried to do to our family, you still affiliate yourself with him to pull yourself higher. You support his bid for power.”

  “I serve Efea.”

  “Yes, how grandly you serve Efea! You began life as a humble baker’s son in a provincial town in the old country and now you command the Royal Army of all Efea and are married, besides, to a woman of the same royal blood I am told I can’t reach for. But I’m just a mule, aren’t I? Even to you!”

  “I have heard enough rude talk from you, Jessamy! Now you sound like Bettany, scolding me for injustice without any understanding of the complicated nature of our lives.”

  I bite my lip and say nothing. Even after all this, I’m not ready to tell him about Bettany. It’s still too raw. I just can’t bear to hear what he will say.

  He goes on without seeming to notice my grimace. “We are at war, and yet we are ruled by a king who spends his days reading plays from seventy years ago and who arrests poets for writing unkind words about his ancestors. You wonder if Prince Nikonos is a traitor, but at least Nikonos is fighting. I find it far more likely that King Kliatemnos received news of our defeat and ordered it to be announced as a victory.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he is a weak, selfish king who cares only about the story people tell about him. Did you read the message yourself to know what it said?”

  “No. But the scholar Thanises did.”

  “The king pays for Thanises’s house, food, servants, and books. Of course Thanises will say whatever he thinks the king wants to hear. We need leadership, not honey cakes. Our army is retreating because the king would not heed his generals’ requests for better training. He and the queen have not wisely managed their resources, leaving us without the means to enroll more recruits. We are fighting against a stronger enemy, and we are losing.”

  He pauses to let the dreadful truth sink in, then goes on.

  “I fight to save Efea, which is why I serve Lord Gargaron, and why you must as well. Do you understand, Jessamy?”

  Angry tears seep down my cheeks as I nod.

  “Haredas! Take her away and get her cleaned up.”

  “This way, Doma Jessamy.”

  Haredas leads me past a curtain into a small space furnished with a camp bed, a traveling chest, and a folding table on which incidentals are laid out: my father’s humble sleeping space. He gathers up the shaving gear and a folded uniform trimmed with gold braid.

  “Are we really losing the war, Steward Haredas?”

  He does not look at me. “Yes, Doma. We are horribly outnumbered. But our situation would be far worse if your father was not in command. I do not think any other commander could have held the army together for a controlled retreat as he has done.”

  “What about Prince Nikonos? Isn’t he in command?”

  “He is wise enough to leave strategy to the general. His royal presence gives heart to the men. But it isn’t enough. King Kliatemnos should have taken the field himself, a king facing other kings, not sent his younger brother and his young cousin. Is there anything else you need?”

  “No.”

  “Very good, Doma.” He leaves.

  An elegantly dressed Saroese woman enters.

  “I am Doma Ganea, and you are Doma Jessamy, the daughter of General Esladas,” she says in a Saroese accent that marks her as being from the old country. “What a striking girl you are! Your mother is the Efean woman?”

  Good Goat! Has my father been keeping a concubine while he’s been off at the wars, none of us the wiser?

  She gives me an acute look-over, as if she guesses my thoughts, and keeps on talking as servants carry in a tub and fill i
t with warm water. “Haredas always said General Esladas would not subject his woman to the rigors and insults of camp life.”

  “Are you my father’s—”

  “No, I am not. Yours is not a dainty constitution, that I can tell by looking at you, so I will speak bluntly. I have been Haredas’s lover for over ten years, traveling with the army. We call ourselves camp-wives, Doma. Women who follow the army. The soldiers become our lovers. Some become our husbands. Some of us bear children. We share the risks and rewards of war.”

  “I didn’t think soldiers took their families with them.”

  “When soldiers march for many years away from home it is natural they will wish for the comfort and trust a family brings. A pleasant bath like this one, for example.”

  The clean water does look tempting. Now that she and I are alone I strip out of my Fives gear, shedding sand everywhere. The glorious water embraces me, moistening and cooling my dry, hot skin.

  “Ah! This feels so good. My thanks, Doma.”

  “I will have the laundresses wash your clothing. Here is soap, Doma. I have brought several garments you may wish to try, although I will have to adjust the shoulders to fit you.”

  Cautiously I say, “Does my father have a camp-wife?”

  Her fingers brush her lips to cover a smile. “General Esladas? No, Doma. That is why his loyalty to the Efean woman was legendary.”

  She takes care of everything, just as Mother always did for Father’s comfort. In old Saro women wear layers of clothing quite unlike the light sheath dresses of Efea, and I like the feel of a loose inner shift beneath a bright blue wrapped jacket that reaches my knees, and a skirt with plenty of room to kick. As my hair dries she wraps it back behind my head in a sun-yellow scarf and pins a blue ribbon woven into the shape of a five-petaled star-flower behind my right ear.

  “To show you are an unmarried girl,” she says. “It’s the custom in the place where I grew up. Go out. I’ll be along in a moment.”

  By now it is dusk, and lamps hang from the tent poles in the outer chamber where Father waits for me. He has shaved and changed into court clothes, a long formal keldi and a gold-trimmed jacket with a general’s epaulets. He regards me a moment so very critically, like a general surveying his troops in the hope of finding them battle-ready. Then his mouth softens and he nods.