by Victor Milán
“But I—”
La Madrota held up a hand. “Do you think you need to persuade me? Really?”
“No.”
“Good. Now: this is Auriana.”
The woman who stepped forward from the doubtful shade of a scrub cedar was of medium height, midway between tall Melodía and tiny La Madrota, and medium build as well. She wore a brown springer-leather jerkin over a white linen blouse, loose black trousers, and boots, much as Karyl had in the field, or Melodía when she rode with the jinetes. Her square-cut hair was dark gold and apparently natural, like Montse’s, though her skin was darker than Melodía’s, and her eyes were so dark a brown as to approach Rosamaría’s black ones.
“Hello, Melodía.”
“No ‘Princess’ or ‘Your Highness’?”
“I am Maestra Auriana. Or simply Maestra. You are Melodía, or whatever I choose to call you. Whether ‘hey, you,’ or something more evocative.”
“So it’s to be that way then.”
Auriana gazed calmly at Melodía. The dark eyes never even flicked toward La Madrota. “It is.”
“Fine.”
The Maestra held out a square, scarred hand to shake. Melodía, whose always-strong grip had only gotten stronger in the field, was for some reason seized with an urge she’d never felt before: to play the knuckle-crushing game. She smiled broadly as she enfolded the smaller, darker hand in hers.
“Is this a piece of dinosaur shit pressing into my cheek?” she asked a moment later. “It’s damp. And the grass is poking me kind of close to my eye.”
A shadow fell across her where she knelt with her arm twisted up behind her and her face almost in the packed dirt of the yard. “Why, yes,” La Madrota said, “I believe it is. Tormento has his bodily functions, like us all. Perfectly natural. You should beg la Maestra to let you up.”
“So I should say, sorry?”
“Will that suffice, Maestra Auriana? Splendid. Yes, you should.”
To make an apology was no small thing for a grande or grandeza, potentially compromising not just his or her individual honor but that of their familia as well. Given who was telling her to apologize, Melodía reckoned she was safe on that latter score, anyway. Along with her personal dignity, the honor of Torre Delgao was pretty much what Doña Rosamaría said it was.
Melodía drew a deep breath, squinting when she was afraid that made the straw endanger her left eye even more. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart, Master Auriana. And I won’t try that again.”
Auriana let go her wrist and stepped back. “A shame,” she said with a laugh. “That was fun.”
“You’ll get your chance again,” Rosamaría told her. “Mora Auriana isn’t just a dinosaur knight and instructor in all the skills necessary to become a proper one but a full weapons-master. Not on a par with your old boss, Karyl; no such one exists on the Tyrant’s Head that I’m aware. But she’s as close as I’ve been able to discover. And as you should realize by now, smart girl as you—mostly—are, I have reasonably extensive resources. Now, quit wincing and rubbing your cheek; it’s thoroughly dry, and plant-eating dinosaur turds aren’t any more odious than horse apples. It’s time to begin your lessons.”
Still openly grinning, Auriana pivoted away from her victim and gestured sharply at Tormento. Having seen Jaume and his Companions often make the same signal to their own war-hadrosaurs, Melodía knew what to expect. The two-and-a-half-ton sackbut promptly lowered his russet belly to the dirt.
Melodía blinked up at his back, which started relatively low and climbed toward his rump—opposite to that of a Corythosaurus like Jaume’s Camellia, which started high around the shoulder and tapered back. His shoulders were still dauntingly tall. And—
“But he’s going to stand up,” she said doubtfully. “With me on him.”
“He is,” Rosamaría said. “That’s rather the point, you know. You’ve ridden horses all your life; you already get the basics.”
“But I’m going to fall off!”
“Repeatedly,” Rosamaría agreed. “So, best get to it! And now I shall leave you children to your healthful exercise.”
She turned and walked back toward her light two-wheeled carriage with the fringe on top. She climbed into the driver’s box, picked up the skinny shaft of a driving whip, and touched its tip to the long green-feathered tail of the Gallimimus harnessed to it. The six-meter bipedal dinosaur jumped in surprise and squawked, bobbing its head and the ridiculous sun bonnet that shaded its head. Ignoring its display of outrage, La Madrota took up the reins, clucked to it, popped the lash above its rump, and set it trotting across the dry dirt toward the long ramp of Glory Plateau, leaving her distant descendant to the tender mercies of the dark-gold-haired knight.
Who smiled at her toothily, like a velociraptor spying a mouse trapped in a corner.
* * *
“So it seems that the young Archduke Antoine gave a fair summation of the reasons a naval war is madness,” Rosamaría said. It was late at night in her secret apartment in the cliff cleft high above the great courtyard of the Imperial Heart. As always, Melodía was alone with the Great Matriarch to report on the evening’s doings at her father’s court.
“Yes. It was all pretty obvious stuff: the Basileia’s navy is bigger than ours, and the Sea Dragons themselves frankly admit it’s better. They’re probably the greatest naval power in all of Aphrodite Terra.”
“Indeed. But from your manner I gather he didn’t stop there.”
“Oh, no. No, he most certainly did not.” She drew a deep breath. “He went to advocate a land war instead.”
Rosamaría raised a brow. It reminded Melodía of Karyl.
“He did what?”
“He said the only way to avenge the honor of the Empire and of our own family was to carry the war directly to Trebizon by land. Where they’re strong but not unbeatable.”
“Across the Shield Range, and thousands of kilometers of desert and steppe on the Ovdan Plateau?”
“Yes. He acknowledged those were difficulties. But he claimed that the Empire in its just righteousness could surmount them. He—he even invoked Jaume’s name as the commander of just the genius necessary to pull it off.”
“Well, if anyone could do so, it would probably be your boy. Given that Duke Karyl was unavailable.”
“As I’m certain he would be. He’d see fallacies in the plan the Archduke of Lumière couldn’t conceive of.” Nor Jaume, she acknowledged to herself; her fiancé admitted he was not strong as a strategist. Karyl was; from all she could tell he was master of every phase and level of the combat arts. Though less a master of himself and his dark moods.
She felt at once aggrieved and relieved Jaume wasn’t in the Heart. It would have been good to have his support. But, somehow, though his account of his defeat at Laventura had been vindicated, the taint on his reputation lingered. As did the blemish on her own for lowering herself to fight as a peasant.
I’m still pissed at him for losing Montse, she thought. But like my fear and grief for her, that’s just something I need to put aside to carry on.
“Did that nitwit Antoine address the small issue of what the Padishah of Gran Turán might have to say about a full-scale invasion by his ancient enemy?”
“He said that High King Ertuğrul would naturally choose to aid us.”
“Really?”
“He said that the Padishah would surely recognize the justice of our cause. After all, he said, Turán shares a far greater stretch of readily crossable frontier with Trebizon than it does with us, and while there’s no current state of war, what prevails between them can’t be called ‘peace,’ either. Finally, he claimed that the benefits of the peace which has existed between our Empires were as obvious to Ertuğrul as to us, and so naturally he’d opt to support us, in order to strengthen that peace.”
“He made, then, in reverse order, a superficially persuasive argument, a sound one, and a load of fatuous titan shit. He didn’t say anything about rescuing you
r sister, I take it?”
“He seemed to regard her as just as expendable as you do.”
La Madrota let that pass by.
“And what did you say?”
“Nothing.” Melodía blinked at sudden tears. “It’s not as if I don’t know blundering into Ovda would ruin us. I feel so useless here!”
“You are not,” Rosamaría said, almost gently, “except when you’ve surrendered to self-pity. I advise you to get over that habit completely; it never did me a shrew shit of good. Did anyone rise to argue against him?”
“The Duque de Mandar did.”
“As well he should.” As a cousin of the king of Spaña, Duke Francisco was a somewhat more distant cousin to Felipe, hence to Melodía and her sister. Though friction frequently occurred between the families, in crisis Torre Ramírez was expected to stand with the Delgaos. And usually did.
“He made the obvious counters, as well as pointing out that even if all went as the Archduke proposed it would, our army would be one misunderstanding, honest or otherwise, away from war with our hosts. And then they got into the predictable wrangling about how even our Empire could muster an army sufficient to challenge the Basileus in his own realm, and the inordinate difficulties supplying it—even assuming the Padishah’s help.”
“And what was the outcome of all of this?”
“Sentiment ran in favor of Antoine and against us. It seemed to help Lumière’s position that his wing beat the Horde knights at Canterville, though he attacked without permission, whereas Mandar was defeated, through no fault of his own, as he found his cavalry and dinosaurry outnumbered.”
“And your father?”
“He looked grave—the face he gets when he’s hearing things he doesn’t like. And he had that witch the Dowager Duchess literally hanging on him and whispering her poison in his ear the whole time. But you know how he is when he’s made up his mind. He still says no war.”
La Madrota grunted.
“Shouldn’t you have been in court, arguing the case yourself?” Melodía asked.
The ancient woman sighed theatrically. “If you contemplate long and hard, girl, you may one day see that playing the role of power behind the throne entails staying behind the throne. Pretty much by definition.”
“But you made a splashy enough entrance when you arrived! Why did you come here, anyway, if you prefer to stay so far behind the scenes?”
“That’s a fair question, at least. The answer is that there’s a limit to how quickly information can come to me in my own lair. And limits on its quantity and quality, inevitably, no matter how finely tuned my network of spies and informers is. Things had clearly come to a crisis here. I needed to be able to monitor events as they happen.
“As for my openly arriving, this is your father’s house and yours. But I am Torre Delgao, and I belong here as thoroughly as whichever of my offspring sits on the Fangèd Throne, and his or her close family. I wasn’t going to sneak in like a burglar. Nor did I think as cunning a bruja as Margrethe would fail to discover I’d arrived. So I chose to make a noisy entrance. Anyway, it was fun. It’s always enjoyable cussing in front of the courtiers, especially those noxious deputies from the Diet. They always look as if somebody’s grabbed the stick up their asses and given it a good stir.”
“Why do I only ever see you here?”
“Because this is the only place I chose to have you see me. Enough chatter. Tell me who supported the one, and who the other.”
Dutifully, Melodía began to list them.
La Madrota promptly interrupted. “Wait a moment—did you just say Condesa Estrella de Hierro supported the new proposal to march on Trebizon overland?”
“Yes,” Melodía said. “It surprised me too, frankly. I thought it was pretty bold of Countess Ironstar to turn up at La Majestad to bring a suit against … the Duke von Hornberg for killing her husband. Given that I heard Hornberg took off Count Desmondo’s head for spreading defeatist talk in my father’s own presence during the battle at Canterville. Which my father had given the Duke orders to do earlier, I’m told.”
“Ah. Felipe seems to have cast his nets of amnesty wide. Not that I blame him, given what he found himself facing on the battlefield.”
“Am I being too forward to suspect that the new ruler of County Ironstar has reached a … private settlement with the Hornberg family?”
“You’d be backward not to. As I am backward for not already knowing about it. Proceed.”
Melodía did. The list of grandes and Deputies supporting Antoine’s new war plan—or war by whatever means, since some were patriotically unready to concede Treb control of the sea—outnumbered those opposed by such a margin that each name felt like a new lead weight sinking to the bottom of Melodía’s stomach.
“So many,” Rosamaría said when she had done.
“Yes.”
“I’ve gotten complacent. Lazy. I’ve assumed I still had control of strings that have been snipped.” She shook her head. “I’m tired. Maybe I’m getting too old at last.”
“It can’t be an easy job running the Empire.”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? I don’t run the Empire. I don’t really run Torre Delgao, either, just do what I can to keep it together and planted firmly on the Throne. In fact, nobody runs the Empire. It’s a sort of machine designed to run itself, put together out of interlocking self-interests. If it makes most people happy, from the highest to the lowest, there’s little incentive to rebel.”
“It’s not a very peaceful place.”
“We contain and channel the violence as best we can. We can’t dispense with the martial nobility, even if Creators’ Law allowed it. They’re our last resort for keeping control, as well as protecting what we have against an envious world. That’s what your father doesn’t understand, the poor befuddled dear. In escalating violence from the center he risks destroying a delicate equilibrium. May even already have destroyed it.”
“What about our duty to the people?”
“There’s no such thing. We rule. My duty is to keep it that way. The Empire is set up to benefit enough people enough that they will by and large serve us willingly.
“In the abstract I wish it were otherwise. I’m like you: I love kittens and puppies and vexer chicks and wish everyone was happy and full and never sad. But rule is for the rulers, though most of them hide the fact to spread the comforting lie that they’re the guardians of the people, rather than simply masters. The people of Nuevaropa are lucky that Juana and Martina chose to set things up that way rather than rely on simple despotism. Not like the Trebs, say. They don’t practice simple despotism; nothing about the Basileia is simple. But they tread much closer to it than we do.
“But in the end, if I’d sacrifice my own flesh and blood—or myself—for the good of La Familia, how much compassion do you think I have to lavish on the common people?”
Melodía felt tears streaming down her face. Do I have to become like you to survive? she wanted to shout.
She didn’t, not because she feared La Madrota’s response to being asked the question. Because she feared her answer.
“I understand how you feel. Youthful idealism runs strong in our family and dies hard. Felipe is not the first among us to be butt-stubborn. His stubbornness is more pronounced than most. But in your father you can also see the consequences of choosing to cling to such ideals, even when they’ve been proved wrong.
“And now, since you’re crying already, I’m afraid I have some bad news of my own to impart, my child.”
Chapter 32
Rasguñador, Scratcher.…—Various small, domesticated (and feral) species of Oviraptor. Though some foreign wild types grow much larger, Nuevaropan Scratchers range from less than a meter to 1.5 meters long and 10 kilograms. True omnivorous dinosaurs, named for their habit of scratching with hindlegs in farmyards for insects, grubs, and seeds, they are distinguished by big, sharp, toothless beaks. Breeds vary widely in plumage and color. Prized worldwide for t
heir egg-laying as well as their meat.
—THE BOOK OF TRUE NAMES
Beneath an already clouded-over sky that still awaited the sun’s arrival from the west, Rob sat on the low stoop of his Tertre Herbeux manor house, strumming his lute and composing aloud.
“He said, ‘You won’t!’ to the Angel’s will,
Alone on the field of Canterville.”
He paused to wet his whistle with a long draft from a wine bottle. A Luciferian vintage—from Lumière, which they called Lucero in Spañol—to judge by the wood-block-printed label pasted to it. He hoped vaguely that Bergdahl wasn’t splurging too much silver on fancy tipple, when frankly almost any random slop from a village vintner’s would suit his palate as well. And get him as drunk, more to the point.
Especially now.
“Well, that’s some awful doggerel, Rob Korrigan,” he said aloud to the predawn crickets. He raised the half-empty bottle in salute. “And here’s to it! It’s kept my meat on my bones, more often than not.”
He wondered how well he could recast the wordplay into Spañol. Though he’d been raised to speak the universal Imperial tongue, Irlandés and Traveler or not, he still thought more readily in his native Anglysh. Which meant he wrote lyrics better in that tongue.
“It flows. It suits me. Fuck it.” He strummed a minor chord.
“My lord.”
Rob leaned back, then craned his head back farther. My seneschal looks none the more appealing upside down, poor blighter, he thought.
“Ah, Bergdahl. I trust I didn’t rouse you with my singing. To give it a name it scarcely merits this fine morning.”
“It’s poor practice for a servant to eavesdrop on his master.”
“I reckon it’s poor practice for a Baron to sit on his porch before sunup, swilling wine and making up shit he calls a song, too, yet here we are. And please, if you must call me something other than my own name, don’t call me your bloody master.”