A Dubious Peace

by Olan Thorensen

  “And also welcome to your friends, Paramount. Stories about them traveled back to Seaborn after the battle of Orosz City and through the limited exchanges we have with the rest of Caedellium.” More than a hint of a smile cracked Seaborn’s otherwise stern face. “And I believe we would have recognized Carnigan Puvey even without your introduction.”

  A deep bass grunt came from over Yozef’s left shoulder. He didn’t need to look to identify its owner. “Yes, Carnigan is unique.”

  Yozef wondered whether Seaborn had ever met anyone that much taller than he was and almost twice as wide. Those characteristics were enough, but the hair redder than the Seaborn family’s and the large, double-edged ax Carnigan had brought along were additional giveaways.

  “I know I won’t need the ax,” Carnigan had said when Yozef questioned the need to bring the weapon. The big man could swing it like a baton with one hand, while other men had trouble using two arms—with perhaps the exception being Mark Caldwell. “We don’t know these people, and a little extra intimidation is never a bad idea. I’ll also have Mark’s destrex cannon.”

  What are you going to do with those monsters? Yozef had thought. We’re not leaving from Brudermyn, so you’ll have to carry the ax and that .90 caliber rifle everywhere we go.

  Seaborn stood to one side and gestured for the mainlanders to accompany him. “We’ll take carriages to a residence we’ve prepared for you and your party, Paramount. It’s very close to where I live, and you will be dining with my family this evening.”

  “Uh . . . two squads of Pewitt dragoons are aboard the Fuomi sloop. I’m afraid I was overruled when I didn’t think we needed them, Yulan. If I may call you by your first name, Hetman?”

  The Seaborn leader grunted. “I believe the Paramount can call anyone anything he wants.”

  “Then it’s Yulan. And you must call me Yozef. Titles and last names are barriers to friendship.”

  The hetman cleared his throat. “Very well . . . Yozef.”

  Before they got to the carriages, Yozef had a question.

  “Yulan, I noticed a couple of two-masted sailing ships in the harbor as we approached. They didn’t look like a Fuomi style. I assume they must be traders? From where?”

  “They’re Iraquinik. We see an occasional Iraquinik trader here or at the harbor on the south coast of North Island. Usually, they’re from Aro or Ponomyna, less often from Gympo. Right now, there’s a ship each from Kolinka and Ponomyna in the harbor. They bring us finished tools, and we trade with them our grain and meat. That’s here in Brudermyn. From the port at Arglar on North Island, we trade with ore from a mine. The Iraquiniks purify lead and silver from the ore back in Kolinka. Before the Narthani came, the ore trade had just begun, and it’s started again in the last few months.”

  Yozef glanced at Maera and raised the eyebrow opposite from Yulan to catch her attention.

  “So, you don’t process the ore yourselves?”

  “We don’t know how it’s done. That’s one of the topics I wanted to discuss to see if you know of the procedure. I don’t know how the Iraquiniks found out that this type of ore is on North Island because it was news to us when an Aro trader talked with us about it. All we knew before was that we had a certain type of North Island rock.”

  I wonder if he’s talking about galena? thought Yozef. I vaguely remember that’s the most common type of ore for lead on Earth. Hell . . . it’s one of the few ores I know anything about. I’ll bet Mark knows more.

  As he recalled, the mass of lead that could be isolated from galena was something like two orders of magnitude more than silver, but silver was the main economic product because it was so much more valuable than lead—at least, on Earth.

  “Anyway, the Kolinkan ship you saw arrived earlier today. It’s been sailing back and forth between Brudermyn and Penmawr the last few months carrying cargo and passengers. This is the first time we’ve seen it in the last month, and we wondered whether something had happened. I haven’t followed the details, but I hear the trading has been odd. They’ve been buying cured meat, wheat, and barley. One day, the Kolinkans seem willing to pay higher prices than expected and the next day do not seem interested in buying at all. When available, sometimes they buy furs, even if of poor quality. He says they transfer the cargo to another Kolinkan ship in Penmawr, and that one returns to Iraquinik. We’ve wondered whether Kolinka is having a famine. Whatever . . . we appreciate the gold they bring.”

  Yozef filed away thoughts of Kolinkans and galena for later. They arrived at the first two carriages, and Yulan held the door open. Yozef glanced over his shoulder. The Pewitt dragoons were following about thirty yards behind, two men abreast, carrying weapons, packs, and bags with clothing changes. By arrangement, the men would not continue with the Paramount’s party after the South Island tour. The Fuomi ships returning the Paramount’s party to the main island would take them and Penmawr before Yozef continued on the north provinces tour.

  “I fear we did not bring enough carriages or wagons for the Pewitt dragoons, Paramount,” said Yulan. “I’ve sent for more, and we’ll have to wait until they arrive.”

  “How far will we be traveling?” asked Yozef.

  “No more than a mile and a half.”

  “No need then,” said Yozef. “Dragoons should be able to do that, carrying everything with them at a run.”

  Yozef intended to make a serious inspection of the Seaborn dragoons during the visit. It didn’t hurt to remind Hetman Seaborn about the expected condition of the clan militia’s ready units.

  In contrast to the relatively sparse reception at the harbor, people lined the Brudermyn streets. Many waved small flags matching the banners hung from buildings—banners and flags for the Seaborn Clan and the green and silver stars of the Caedellium symbol, which was seen more and more often.

  The size of the crowd impressed Yozef, but the dearth of vocalizations surprised him. An occasional child yelled out, often immediately shushed by adults who waved, bowed, curtsied, or stood silent. Maera gave a slight shrug when he glanced at her.

  As they moved from the harbor area, the number of buildings made of the white stone increased until they reached the Penmawr center. Yulan pointed out the clan headquarters, the province’s main registrar office, the cathedral complex, and buildings whose names he gave without describing what went on inside.

  I guess we got the quick tour of the city, thought Yozef when the carriage left the city center. Structures of wood and other stone increased in frequency as they ascended a low hill where the streets zigzagged toward a top with more white stone structures.

  “Our family compound is on top of Bildorn Hill,” said Yulan. “Nearby are residences of prominent citizens and the home where you will stay. We weren’t expecting the Pewitt dragoons, so it will take some time to clear space in an adjoining structure.”

  The carriage passed through a stone wall and pulled up to a building. Three men and three women stood waiting, lined up on both sides of the main door.

  “These people will be your servants while you’re in Brudermyn,” Yulan stated. “They will help in any way they can.”

  He then said something to those six. Yozef couldn’t quite make out the words, but the three men rushed to the rear of the carriage where baggage was stowed. The second carriage had transported the four Kolsko bodyguards. Yozef raised his left eyebrow and looked down at Maera when the three servant women went to collect the guards’ baggage. She shrugged.

  An angry woman’s voice rang out. Yozef looked to see one of the women trying to take possession of a large bag Carnigan held after already removing it from the second carriage. The big man was speaking to the woman, but Yozef couldn’t tell what he was saying because her voice was so loud. Yozef was uncertain whether he should intervene, not knowing Seaborn customs. Carnigan solved whatever the problem was when he released the bag, which immediately hit the ground. The woman failed to pick it up after several tries and began dragging it toward the residence’s door.
Carnigan let out a booming laugh, picked up the woman and the bag, and walked to the door, which was now opened by a man carrying bags from the first carriage. The woman had quit speaking, apparently satisfied that she had possession of the bag, irrespective of the exact mechanism of the bag’s transport.

  Yulan gestured and led the way. When they reached the ornate wooden door, Yozef got his first close look at the white stone.

  Some kind of marble, he thought. He ran a hand across the surface and leaned closer for a better look. When he’d seen it from the sea and while passing through the city, he had thought it was the same as the marble in Keelan. Now he saw that it lacked the fine, gold-colored veins of marble in Caernford. This marble was pure white, smooth, and unpolished, which he’d at first assumed. Must be very fine-grained. It also somehow looks familiar.

  Then he remembered. It looked close, if not identical, to the marble used for the outside of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. One summer, his family had flown to visit relatives just south of Baltimore. They stayed a week and twice went into the capital. One day, they visited the Lincoln Memorial. For some reason, Yozef could recall reading a description of the memorial in a travel book, both the history of its building and the source of the materials. The outer marble was chosen for its known hardness and weather resistance. It was called Yule (pronounced You-lay) marble from Colorado. Whereas most types of marble came from open-pit mining, this marble was from an enormous formation inside a mountain and had been obtained in tunnels that had originally been dug by silver prospectors.

  “Yulan, the stone reminds me of one particular building where I came from. It was a memorial honoring a great leader of our past. I might like to talk with you about getting some of this sent to Orosz City. Are there other places in Caedellium that have the same stone?”

  “Well . . . I haven’t visited all the clans since I became hetman. When I was the heir, I spent a month traveling the main island but only got to twelve provinces. I didn’t see any other stone like what we have here.”

  “Maera, what do you think?”

  “I can’t be positive, but this seems much whiter and smoother than the building stone I’ve seen in other provinces, although, like Yulan, I haven’t visited everywhere.”

  “You will have to let me know how much of the stone you would want, Paramount. It’s not easy to transport. You see many buildings made of the stone here in Brudermyn, but they are structures built over a century. It’s mined from the center of North Island and has to be transported first over very difficult terrain and then only a few blocks at a time to South Island. We don’t have large ships.”

  Yulan Seaborn stopped at the top step of the structure. He and Yozef were the last ones outside.

  “I’ll leave you for now. We’ve arranged a meal and a social occasion next door at our home. I know you and Sen Maera are probably tired from the voyage, but we’ll keep it short . . . if that’s agreeable with the Paramount. Reezo will come to you in about an hour.”

  Yozef would have preferred a quick meal and bed, but duty was duty. “That sounds fine, Yulan. We look forward to it.”

  I hope such little lies don’t add up, he thought, in case there actually is some kind of judgment day.

  An hour later, after a quick rinse and a clothing change, Yozef and Maera, arm in arm, were led into the entry hall of the hetman’s residence. They passed a receiving line of people and were given introductions, most of which he promptly forgot, again confident Maera would remember every detail.

  I really should pay more attention, he thought. I get too blasé about her taking care of such things.

  At the end of the introduction line was a large room with more people, these not introduced, and tables with trays of food.

  “Snack items, you call them,” said Maera, eyeing food with a markedly similar appearance to what had been served at the Kolsko Manor “mixer” for Reezo and Zalzar.

  “Looks like the son gave his father a detailed report on the proper evening format for a Paramount,” whispered Yozef. “Hope this doesn’t go on as long as ours did.”

  “Well, I don’t know about you,” said Maera, “but I’m famished. I couldn’t eat while we were rocking on the ship, but I seem to have recovered. And after all, I’m eating for two.”

  He patted the arm he held and steered them toward a table of sustenance.

  When the evening event ended, Yozef and Maera were gratified it hadn’t lasted as long as they’d feared. As promised, Hetman Seaborn had moved the occasion along. After a few minutes at a table of savory tidbits, the hetman had shepherded them to brief conversations with those whom they assumed were the more prominent clansmen. This small talk lasted perhaps three-quarters of an hour before a smaller group moved elsewhere in the residence for a meal.

  Finally, Maera sagged onto the bed.

  “I admit I overate. Plus, I think my feet puffed up. My shoes feel too tight. That’s what happened in the first months when I carried Aeneas, but it didn’t happen with Anida.” She smiled. “Does this mean it’s a boy?”

  “I’m afraid that for us to be sure of the relationship between our children’s sex and your swollen feet, it would take more children than even you and Anarynd might wish for.”

  “We’ll see. But what about the schedule for this visit? We added a few extra days to the proposal that Reezo took back to his father . . . in case there were delays. There weren’t, so we’re here for what? Two sixdays?”

  “That plus one day,” he said. “I expected it would end up less than that, but everything went smoothly getting out of Orosz City and on the trip here, so we’re stuck. The date arranged for the initial semaphore message is unchangeable. Something of an irony. If we had telegraph contact with Penmawr, we could move the event forward a few days, which we can’t because we don’t.”

  After the episode with Janko Nyvaks, Yozef had been concerned about not keeping all the clans connected. That gave him the idea to accelerate plans for a semaphore connection to Seaborn—as the fallback because an undersea telegraph cable was far in the future. Hetman Seaborn had confirmed the date for sending the initial semaphore messages from the Pewitt station northwest of Penmawr to a mountaintop at the easternmost point of South Island. The two stations stood at 2,000 feet and 3,000 feet, respectively, and were separated by 32 miles. Yozef didn’t know what the longest distance between optical semaphore stations had been on Earth, but he doubted it was even close to 32 miles. He felt confident it would be practical here for only three reasons: the altitude of the two stations, the assurances that prevailing winds and infrequent coastal fogs lay lower than the stations, and the unobstructed line of sight over water. Even then, it required two specially made ten-foot-long telescopes produced by a dedicated shop in Norwyt, the capital of Hewell Province. Despite tests done by the craftsmen and later at Orosz City, Yozef was only moderately sure the magnification and the lens’s clarity were sufficient.

  The telescope for the Seaborn end of the semaphore gap was still aboard the Fuomi sloop. Tomorrow, care would be taken to move it to land for its trip to its mountaintop home, accompanied by one of the Hewell craftsmen who would supervise the telescope’s installation in an enclosing structure designed to minimize movement from tremors caused by nature or humans. In theory, problems would be worked out before the Paramount’s tour party met Hetman Seaborn at the station peak on the day of the inaugural message exchange. Even then, the weather was the uncontrolled factor. Yulan Seaborn had confirmed his son’s assertion that the Seaborn Straight, the stretch of ocean between Seaborn and Pewitt provinces, was clear most days this time of year.

  Southern Coast of South Island, Seaborn Province

  At sunset, Frenko Holuska reached the hilltop. It was one of several sites he had selected, scattered around South Island, where he could light a signal fire. His excuse for being on this part of the island was to explore potential additional ports besides Brudermyn. His reason was weak but not bad enough to raise excessive suspicions in
a naïve populace.

  On that first trip to this site, he had gathered enough dead wood for a fire that would be seen ten to fifteen miles at sea. At that time, he then scattered the wood on the unlikely chance that someone would stumble upon this exact location and wonder why a person had gathered wood at this remote, uninhabited piece of the Seaborn Clan’s South Island.

  Getting to the spot had been strenuous. He’d left his horse a mile away, it being faster to go on foot alone, rather than attempt to ride or even lead a horse up the steep, rock-strewn slope on the eastern side of the hill where he now stood. He gave himself a few minutes to recover, took several long swallows of water, and broke off a hunk of dry cheese. He chewed it while he gathered the wood again. He estimated he had two hours until he needed to light the fire. Although Holuska had no timepiece, he was naturally adept at estimating time’s passage. He would tend the fire for three hours, keeping the flames at least eight feet high in the air. The single ship in the Kolinka squadron was supposed to be on station two hours after sunset. There would be no acknowledgment from the ship. After those hours passed, he would use dirt to smother the fire and scatter the remains enough that only someone walking directly over them would know there’d been a fire—and even that was a remote possibility.

  CHAPTER 31

  A PARAMOUNT/HETMAN DÉTENTE

  The next day’s schedule called for attending a special service at St. Elfin’s Cathedral to allow Abbot Rupasz to bless the Paramount and his first visit to Seaborn. Hundreds of people more than there was seating for crowded inside and stood or sat on the floor. Outside, several thousand more attendees packed the cathedral complex square. Rupasz had promised a short service, acknowledging that the Paramount had limited time and a packed schedule of activities the rest of the day. The abbot started with a prayer, followed by charges to the faithful and the congregation’s responses. It was similar but not identical to services Yozef had attended in other provinces. Rupasz then followed with what had come to be a statement of God’s grace in sending Yozef Kolsko to Caedellium in its time of greatest need. Yozef had heard the basics so many times, he had almost ceased to be as uncomfortable as the first times he’d heard of his savior status. Almost.