o—o—o
I found the Chara alone on the balcony of his room, his eyes on the land before him. The morning sun was bringing sweat to his face and neck, and he had taken off his emblem brooch, perhaps in order to open his tunic to a slight breeze that had slid its way into the city. As I came to stand beside him, he said, "Do you remember when we looked out of Lord Carle's window and talked of the black border mountains? It's odd to see them from the other side and to know that our homeland lies back there." I said nothing, and after a moment Peter's eyes slid over toward me. He said easily, "I couldn't find you last night. I assumed that you must be staying overnight with John."
"John was away on business all last night," I said. "I was with Ursula."
Peter's eyes were suddenly guarded, for no reason that I could understand. But all that he said was, "I suppose I don't have to worry that you were causing trouble in this land by bedding your blood brother's wife."
That he should raise this topic puzzled me, but I knew better than to treat this as the insult it would have been if such words had come from Lord Carle. Deciding that it would be difficult to answer Peter's comment in any honest way, I said directly, "Chara, Ursula took me last night to see an old friend of mine who told me that he had information concerning the Jackal. He declined to send a message to you by me, saying that he must give the information to you himself. He asked me to bring you to see him, but alone and without anyone knowing where we are going."
Peter took this statement in, and then said, in a matter-of-fact manner, "Andrew, I know that you are skilled in diplomacy rather than military matters, but even you must know that such an arrangement usually leads to a trap."
"Chara . . ." My words failed. Then, gripping my courage as though I were plunging a dagger into my own heart, I said with sincerity, "This man was a close friend of mine, and I trust what he says. He explained enough to me that I know why it is he needs secrecy to give you the information you want. I cannot tell you what he said, but I can say this: on my oath as an Emorian, talking to him will not bring you to any harm, and I believe that it will be of help to Emor."
Peter looked once more toward the mountains, as though he were wishing he was back home. After a minute, he said, "Well, I trust you." He spoke the words casually, as though they need hardly be said. Then he added, "But I will wear two daggers, one openly and one in my thigh-pocket, in the manner of spies. You're a good judge of men, but even friends can betray, and I don't trust your old friend not to betray you."
I kept my eyes fixed on the mountainscape at the horizon as I said, "Can you come now? I have made arrangements for him to meet us."
"Yes, now is the appropriate time. The only reason I'm taking this risk – other than because you believe that the risk is worth it – is that I have desperate need of information. I haven't found here what I wish to know, and perhaps this friend of yours will be able to supply me with the information I'm seeking. But let me go first and see whether I can find Lord Carle. Don't worry," he added as I made a slight movement. "I'll say nothing to him of this. I want to make sure that he'll be safely hidden away with the governor this morning and won't notice our absence."
He left me, and I returned to the Chara's room. I found Peter's bony dagger first and set it aside. Then I brought out his leather thigh-pocket, which is hidden by being strapped to the leg under the tunic. I slid my fingers into the narrow confines of his thigh-pocket. The pocket was empty.
I kept the pocket covered with my hand as Peter returned. He paused and said with a smile, "This is like the old days, seeing you bring out my clothes again. My brooch must be around here somewhere. . . . Well, leave it for now. Did you find my thigh-dagger?"
"I have everything ready. Did you speak with Lord Carle?"
Peter shook his head and allowed me to lace on the thigh-pocket without bothering to check it himself. "He is nowhere to be found, but it's of no importance. If we can find the information I need, it won't matter how Lord Carle spends his morning. Thank you," he added, as I clipped his bony dagger to his belt. "You ought to wear a weapon yourself, this once."
"I have little experience in using a blade," I replied. "If we find ourselves in danger, I will borrow one of your daggers."
"And will suddenly learn how to fight, in that case," Peter said. "Fear and love are the two things I know that force a man to learn new skills. Well, lead the way – whether we are going to meet a friend, or an enemy who wishes our deaths, at least we will be together."
I stepped into the corridor, beyond Peter's sight, and used the few seconds before he joined me to control my expression.
o—o—o
When we reached the gods' house, Ursula awaited us outside. Looking only at me, she said, "He's waiting for you in the sanctuary." Then she turned to lead, but Peter stopped her, laying a hand gently on her shoulder. As she looked up, he asked in quiet puzzlement, "How is it that you come to be involved in this matter, Ursula? I wouldn't want to see you harmed. Perhaps you should wait for us in the city."
Ursula made no reply. I hastened to say, "Wait for us at the other end of the house, at least. Then, if we walk into danger, you will have time to take care for yourself."
Ursula met my eyes as she touched my hand briefly before turning to walk to the end of the house where the Jackal's other thieves were hiding.
I took one final look at Peter. He smiled at me with love and reassurance. Then I ushered him in to where John awaited.
John was standing in the middle of the sanctuary, wearing the mask of the Jackal. As Peter saw this, he halted, unsheathing his dagger. I took several steps forward to bring us beyond reach of the doorway; Peter, his eyes on the Jackal, had no choice but to follow. Then I reached out and took the Chara's dagger.
He did not resist my move; he was still watching John. I knew that the only reason he had not yet attacked was because he saw that the Jackal was unarmed. Other men might be in the house, though, and the Chara would know that he must imprison the Jackal before their arrival. As I walked over to the wall next to us, Peter moved his hand to his thigh.
Perplexity crossed his face as he felt the empty pocket. Even then he did not look at me. His gaze fixed on the dangerous man before us, he began to move slowly sideways to aid his friend who had so little experience in wielding a blade.
At that moment, the Jackal spoke softly under his sinister mask: "I am the Jackal. The Chara has said that we could not speak together until I was his prisoner or he was mine. It is for that reason that I have had you brought here."
A soft sound behind us caused Peter to whirl round. In the corridor was a cluster of armed thieves. One of the thieves was in the process of closing the sanctuary door. As he did so, a single figure slipped into the sanctuary. For a moment, Peter's gaze lingered upon Ursula. Then he turned to see what she was watching.
The Jackal stepped forward to me at the wall. I looked at John, watching me silently through the eyeholes of his mask, and handed him the Chara's dagger. Then I looked over at the Chara.
For a moment still, his look of trustfulness lingered, as though he expected me to explain this peculiar behavior. But as the Jackal turned away, he reached up to the mask with no flourish and pulled it away to reveal his face. Peter's gaze travelled from John to me and then, within blinks of the eye, his face grew cold and formal, as it did when he wore the Pendant of Judgment.
He kept his gaze fixed on me for a moment longer as his face returned to normal. John went over to the window and laid the mask and dagger there. Then, dismissing me from his look as though I were of no importance, Peter turned to John and said dispassionately, "Andrew learned in his years with me to serve as a mediator between myself and those who wished to communicate with me. Whatever his motives for bringing me here or the constraints placed upon me by this meeting, he has done me one final service by allowing me the opportunity to speak with the Jackal. He said that you had information for me. If he spoke truly, then I would be interested in hearing it."
/> Ursula walked over to stand beside me. I placed my arm around her shoulders and pulled her back against my chest.
Neither the Chara nor the Jackal took notice of us. They were standing straight and motionless, as though issuing a challenge to each other. John said, in the same neutral voice that Peter had used, "Most of the Koretian people blame the Chara for all the troubles of this land, but those of us who have had many encounters with Lord Alan know that the governor is as much a trickster as the Jackal. For fifteen years now, Lord Alan has profited through the deaths of men: he arrests Koretian noblemen on slim pretexts, and then he tortures them into offering false confessions that they are my thieves. Once the noblemen have confessed to their supposed crimes, Lord Alan is free to execute them and confiscate their land and goods for his own use."
John paused for a second to sweep the hair back from his eyes. That one small gesture seemed to contain all the proof that the Chara would need that he was dealing with a man rather than a god. Having seen John as both, I could sense how, even at this moment, John's godly powers lay simmering below the surface like a hidden fire. But the Chara had not seen that side of John, and I remembered what the Jackal had said about the Emorians' inability to recognize the god. John was left with only his human wit with which to fight his enemy.
The Jackal concluded, "The governor's brutality and the Chara's outlawing of the gods' law, as well as my own activities, have brought this land to a point of explosion. You can no longer continue to hold this dominion as you have in the past. War will be here at any moment."
The Chara was silent for a while. Ursula had turned her face from what was happening; she rested her head on my chest, her eyes closed. I held her softly against me, my eyes still on the men.
"When Andrew was with me," Peter said slowly, "he may have thought he was privy to all of my thoughts, but he was not. Some facts I kept from him, not out of distrustfulness, but in an effort to protect him. I know the information you have just given me, both the governor's activities and the imminence of war. They are the reasons I travelled here myself, rather than send an ambassador. No time existed to send messengers back and forth; I needed to be here on the spot to find a solution to both problems."
"Give us our freedom," said John succinctly. "That will solve the problems."
"Will it?" Peter continued to stand as motionless as he did when he was sitting in judgment; his face, though, had not returned to stone. I had asked Peter once what he felt when he took on the look of the Chara. He had been quiet a long while. Then he had said, "As though I become someone else." That was all that he had offered, and I had not pressed him further on the matter. I knew better than to prise secrets from him, though I had believed that his secrets from me were few.
Now Peter said, "Will it solve Koretia's problems to return it to the state it was in when Koretia attacked Emor twenty-seven years ago? Koretia had no strong central government; it had been torn apart by civil war; its people had no law courts to turn to in order to settle their grievances peacefully. Many people believe that my father fought against the Koretians for twelve years purely in order to exact vengeance for the destruction of the borderland villages. In fact, many more Emorians died in the Border Wars than were killed in the villages. That incident alone was not reason enough to fight. My father continued to fight because he believed that it was the only way to bring peace, not only to Emor, but to Koretia as well. That peace I am sworn to uphold."
John's hand rested lightly upon his empty belt. With his back to the window, his face was mainly in shadow. "Peace is something we both want, Chara," he said quietly. "But you cannot buy peace by enslaving a land." He hesitated. I remembered him sometimes stopping in childhood as though he were drawing upon his visions of the gods to know what to say. Through the window came the everlasting song of the cicadas, growing louder as the heat of the day grew greater.
John continued, "If you had talked to the Koretians during your visit rather than staying in the governor's palace most of the time, you would know that my people appreciate the benefits of Emorian law. The great strength of Emorian law is that it is rigid and unchanging; the great strength of the gods' law is that it is flexible. The two complement each other – I know that you do not agree with his, for you do not worship the gods and see the benefits of their manner of judgment. But you will never convince the Koretians to live as Emorians. The best you can do for the Koretians is to free us and allow us to retain what is good about Emor, while bringing back what is good about Koretia. Free us, Chara, and you will have true peace in this land."
"It is not that simple," replied Peter. He paused, and I remembered the pauses he would make during dinner conversations and council meetings and other times when he must subtly assess the man speaking in order to determine whether he was a friend or enemy. He continued in his carefully courteous manner, "You say that Koretia can take over her own affairs without dissolving into civil war. As I have said before, that would require a ruler who could work with both Emor and Koretia, and I have not yet found a man in this land whom I would entrust with that task. That is one difficulty."
His eyes slid over toward me, binding me momentarily, so that I lost all awareness of the woman in my arms and felt only the Chara's cold, pitiless scrutiny. Then his gaze travelled back to John. "The other difficulty is one that Andrew may have mentioned – or would have, if his mind had not perhaps been on other matters. I know, from the questions he asked me at the time, that he was researching this matter immediately before we left Emor . . . out of service to me."
Again, that brief, cold look, and then the Chara returned his attention to the Jackal. "I am not entirely a free-man," he said. "I am bound by the law of my people. I may be a tyrant, as you say, but my tyranny is placed under careful restraints by the rules of my land. If this were fifteen years ago, and Koretia had no governor, I could do as I wished in this land. But Koretia has a governor, who receives his orders from the Great Council rather than me. The governor's appointment is for life, and I may not remove him from office except with the council's consent. As long as Koretia is ruled by its governor, I am powerless to make great changes in this land without permission from the Emorian council. And the council will not give me the power to free Koretia. I know, because I asked it to do so."
Ursula suddenly lifted her head to stare at the Chara. John's face did not change; it was as solid as a mask. He said in a detached voice, "You are saying that you want to free Koretia?"
"I wanted the power to do so. Whether I did so depended on whether I could overcome that other difficulty I mentioned. But the council's word is final in this matter. I cannot overrule it without truly becoming the tyrant I am supposed to be."
"Then, since you could not free the Koretians, you came here to find a way to break their will," said John flatly.
"Yes. Or to find another way to free them." As I watched, Peter came to some sort of judgment about John. His expression softened somewhat, and his voice, already courteous, became cordial. "Before deciding to come here, I asked Andrew what he could tell me about his land. He confirmed what I had learned from one of my spies, that the governor is stealing from the Koretians. I knew that if I could uncover evidence that the governor was defying the Chara's orders to treat the people here with mercy, and if I could also show that he had been stealing goods that rightfully belonged to the dominion, then I would be able to have him sentenced to the high doom for disobedience. With his death certain, I would have the power to decide Koretia's fate. So I came here to get that evidence."
"And did you find it?" asked John.
Peter shook his head, and his hand went briefly up to finger his neck-flap. Then, discovering that his emblem brooch was not there, he let his hand fall once more. "No. If he is indeed breaking my commands, he has covered his tracks well. You notice that I did not ask you whether you had the evidence I need. I know that such evidence is in the palace somewhere, in places where even your thieves cannot go. So if you wish to see Kor
etia free, I can suggest only two solutions: my freedom or my death. Since I have no heir, my death will plunge Emor into civil war, and the Emorian soldiers will have no time to hold Koretia. My freedom may allow me to obtain the information I need to free Koretia – if that is what I decide to do."
John wore a slight smile as he listened to the Chara's candid words. Then his smile faded. "I cannot risk letting you go. I do not trust you enough to be sure that you will free Koretia if you gain the power to do so. As for your death, I have no wish for that to occur. But by tomorrow, the governor and the Koretians will know that you have been kidnapped, and the war here will have begun. We will have to leave here when that happens. And as I already explained to Andrew, we cannot take prisoners with us."
The Chara stood motionless. His expression did not change. In a voice much colder than before, he said, "Then you and I will have to do much thinking this day to find a solution. It is not only my own life that hangs in balance here."
The Jackal nodded. His command, spoken in a softly raised voice, brought two of the thieves into the sanctuary to take the Chara away. As he walked out, Peter passed me without a word; I was still cradling Ursula against me. Peter reached the door, and then hesitated a moment, looking back at us, before allowing himself to be led away.
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