by Bunch, Chris
“Ah! That is good, Marán. You are right to want to be friends with men like myself. We are not only charming and handsome, but entirely trustworthy.”
Marán grinned. “I’ve heard stories.”
“Mostly lies. I shall tell you, Count — Marán, a Man of the Hills can be trusted in all ways, at all times, as long as there is not a woman, a horse, gold, pride, or plain boredom involved. Then no one can tell what might occur.”
Marán laughed loudly, and I realized it was days since I’d heard that silver cascade of happiness.
• • •
Two days after that, Amiel rode up to the palace. She had, indeed, been away, and Marán’s fears ill-founded. Countess Kalvedon was my age and very beautiful — tall, well built, with dancer’s muscles and black hair cascading down about her shoulders. The two greeted each other and burst into tears, and I found business in my library, having, like most many men, not enough understanding of women to be skillful with their problems.
I found out what was wrong that night. Amiel and her husband had withdrawn from Nicias to deal with a problem — her husband, Pelso, was having an affair. I puzzled, since the two had an open marriage and went to bed with anyone who caught their fancy, with no guilt or blame. Marán told me, though, that their understanding was based on an agreement: They could take any lovers they wished, so long as the attraction was purely physical. Pelso had shattered the arrangement by falling in love with his current bed partner. She was the sister of the governor of Bala Hissar, a coastal province to the far west, and was unmarried, with a lineage almost as noble as the Kalvedons'.
Amiel and Pelso had spent two weeks together, the situation getting more and more grim, then had a blazing row. He’d returned to Nicias and gone straight to the other woman’s apartments. Marán said Amiel tried to make light of what had happened, saying no doubt Pelso would come to his senses, and refused to talk about it any longer. They spent most of her visit trying to figure out what they could do to slap the faces of these Nician bastards who’d dropped Marán. I admired the woman, as I admire anyone who can set aside his own problem to help another.
Amiel became a very frequent visitor, often spending the night at the Water Palace. I thoroughly approved, since it seemed to help Marán’s feelings. At any rate, her smile came back, and her wonderful laugh was no longer a stranger to me.
• • •
“Damned if I’d let a coward into my house like you’re doing,” Tribune Myrus Le Balafre growled.
“I’d hardly call you that, sir.” Le Balafre had arrived at the Water Palace in a carriage quite fitting for him — a practical, high-wheeled vehicle like an ambulance that had been gold crusted and enameled. With him was his wife, Nechia, a quiet, rather plain, small woman, who looked as if she should be minding a sewing stall at a town fair.
Le Balafre had tied his own sash of rank around me when I’d been promoted to domina and given command of the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers. He was a hard and brilliant general of infantry, who’d led the right wing of our army in the Kallian war and, since then, had led expeditionary forces against the always-raiding Men of the Hills.
“But I am,” Le Balafre went on. “You came limping back into Nicias with your colors reversed, the emperor ignoring you, and what do I do? I listen to my gods-damned aides about how it’d be impolitic for me to go calling on you, for fear the emperor’d think it amiss. Fuck the emperor! I’m his servant, not his gods-damned slave!”
Marán looked shocked.
“Myrus,” his wife said gently. “Such talk is not gentlemanly.”
“Nor terribly safe,” I added, trying to hold back a grin, remembering Yonge’s snarl of a few nights before. The emperor’s best followers didn’t seem very good at bending their knee.
“Safe? Pah! Safe is not something I’ve worshiped in this life. Well, don’t just stand there, young Tribune. If I’m not a craven, invite us in!”
In a few moments we were sitting in one of the solariums, looking out over a small wind-rippled lake, while servants fussed around serving small sweetmeats and herbal teas. Le Balafre drew me to one side, while Marán chatted with the tribune’s wife, who busied herself with what I thought to be a sewing sampler.
“As I said, Damastes, I’m not proud of myself. Will you accept my apologies?”
“What is there to apologize for?” I lied. “I just thought you were busy.”
“I am that,” Le Balafre said. He waited until the servants withdrew. “As are we all. The emperor’s built up the garrisons in Urey and Chalt, and he sent your friend Petre off to recon the pass into Kait half a time ago.” That explained why I hadn’t seen Mercia — I may have been the humorless strategician’s only friend, and knew he wouldn’t care a lout’s curse for who was in or out of favor. “And we’ve got over five million men under arm or about to be sworn.”
I whistled. That was more than double the number of troops we’d had at the height of the civil war against Kallio.
“But let me return to something I said earlier,” Le Balafre went on. “About this matter of cowardice. I like it little that I hesitated before coming here. This army of ours has changed, Damastes. It’s gotten so … so damned political! We might as well be speechifiers and arm wavers as soldiers.”
I thought of my assignments over the last eight years, and how few of them had to do with real war or soldiering, even though most ended in blood. But the plowman is always the last to notice the spring flowers. “You’re right,” I said. “But I don’t see how the army could be anything else than political.”
“I don’t follow”
“We put Tenedos on the throne, didn’t we?”
“Better him than those idiots who drooled around it before!”
“Agreed,” I said, very unsure of where I was going, since politics was always a mystery to me, “but I’m afraid, Myrus, our political virginity vanished when we stayed in Urgone after the fighting, and stood with him against the Rule of Ten.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Le Balafre said grudgingly.
“I think I am. Another thing. I remember what the army was like before Tenedos. I was with one of those gods-damned parade units here in Nicias when the Tovieti rose. Remember those days, when it mattered more how polished your helmet was and how well connected you were to some lard-assed aristocrat than how well you soldiered? Remember going to the field with the generals and their whores and aides and servants and cooks and bakers? Remember how we changed all that?”
“I don’t think you’ve been around the army lately,” Le Balafre said grimly. “At least not in Nicias.”
I hadn’t, of course.
“It’s changed yet again, and this change is back to the bad old ways. There’re a lot more parades these days, and more than a few spit-and-polish soldiers who do nothing but prance nobly about the streets and bang boot heels together guarding imperial offices that don’t need guarding. Our emperor is getting very fond of flash and filigree,” he went on. “As are the people he’s got dancing attendance on him.
“Another thing,” he said, looking at me carefully. “Did you know the emperor offered me your post in Kallio, after you refused his orders and he relieved you? You know what I told him? I said you’d done the only right thing, and I wasn’t a butcher any more than you. He could name me to the post if he wished, but he’d have to relieve me even faster than he had you if he gave me the same orders. He got red in the face, then told me to go about my duties.”
“Who ended up with the hot potato?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a soldier. That warder of his, Kutulu, who’s up and about again, more’s the pity, had him name somebody named Lany, who used to be chief warder for Nicias. Word has it he went out with very different orders than the ones you had, and is supposed to try to settle the situation, instead of slaughtering everybody in sight. Wonder who talked sense into the emperor. Sure as hells couldn’t have been the Sleepless Snake, now could it?”
I’d never known Kutulu to f
eel mercy for anyone or anything.
“At any rate,” Le Balafre said, “don’t get your guts in an uproar about what’s going on. The emperor’s no fool. Sooner or later, he’s bound to take his head out of his ass and realize you saved him from himself.”
“I surely hope so,” I said fervently.
At that moment, Marán squealed in delight, and Le Balafre and I craned to see. In Nechia’s lap was a circlet about the dimensions of two hands joined at forefinger and thumb. But it wasn’t a sampler, it was a living diorama of a forest scene. I saw a tiny tiger hiding behind brush, while three gaurs grazed, not aware of the lurking death, in the glade in the center. I peered more closely. Now I saw minuscule monkeys, silent, waiting for the drama to play out, and heard the chitter of unseen birds. “I … can only keep the spell going for a second more,” Nechia said, and then all she held was a hoop with brown cloth attached to it. There were arcane symbols on the cloth, and, between them, tiny fragments of hair, fur, and leaves. “This is a new one,” she said. “Our son’s a wandering priest, and sends me things I might find of interest. He wrote me about witnessing this in his travels, and gathered a bit of tiger fur stuck on a thorn, monkey fur, mud where the gaur scraped against a tree, flowers, and so forth.”
I was amazed. “It reminded me of things I’ve seen in the jungles beyond Cimabue,” I said, suddenly homesick for my homeland.
“When I get the little spells stabilized,” she went on, “then I cast another spell over the entire thing, and I can hang it on the wall, or in a cabinet, and whatever action I chose will repeat itself over and over. I have street scenes, some boating displays, but this is the first time I’ve tried to do something I’ve never actually seen. Of course,” she said primly, “the tiger never gets the oxen. A monkey gives the alarm, and they run off before he can charge. He swats at the monkey, then pouts away.”
I marveled again, as much at Nechia herself, who was the last person anyone would imagine as a tribune’s wife; and Le Balafre’s son, whom I’d never been told of and, if I had, wouldn’t have imagined to be a mendicant priest. Truly, none of us are as we seem.
The evening went late, although from then on we talked about inconsequentia. After his visit, I allowed myself the hope Le Balafre was right and my banishment wouldn’t last forever.
One visitor became thoroughly unwelcome shortly after arrival, a young domina named Obbia Trochu. He said he’d served under me, as a captain of the Lower Half, at Dabormida. I rather sheepishly confessed I didn’t remember him at all. I’ve always admired those great leaders who, so the story goes, see someone on the street and remember the man as a private they once shared a meager meal with twenty years ago. Admired, but never quite believed …
At any rate, I invited him in and asked his business. He looked about mysteriously, then closed the doors to the study we were in. “I decided to call on you, Tribune, because I’m utterly appalled at how you’ve been treated.”
“By the emperor?”
Trochu inclined his head slightly.
“Sir,” I said coldly, “I don’t think it’s your — or my — place to question what the emperor chooses to do. Both of us have taken his oath.”
“Meaning no disrespect, or insolence, sir, but you did question your orders, didn’t you?” I didn’t answer. He was right. “I represent a group of … of concerned citizens, shall we say. Perhaps some are in the army, perhaps more are among the best thinkers of Nicias and Numantia. We’ve followed what’s happened to you very closely.”
“For what reason?” I asked, a bit angrily.
“All of us are completely loyal to the emperor, of course, and were among the first to applaud when he took the throne. But we’ve become increasingly concerned with the events of the past two years or so.”
“Oh?”
“At times it seems the emperor’s policies aren’t as clearly defined or carried out as they once were.”
“I’ve not seen any hesitation,” I said, thinking of how over-quickly he’d moved in Kallio.
“Of course not,” Trochu said smoothly. “You’ve been his strong right arm, very close to the events of the day. But sometimes, when people are a bit removed from the tear and turmoil, they can get a better perspective.”
“True,” I said.
“The group I represent believe it might be time to offer their services to the emperor, in the hopes he might see his way clear to letting them advise him. There is the old cliché about the more minds the better on a problem.”
“There’s also the one about the ship with too many captains,” I retorted.
“I don’t think that would be the problem in our case,” Trochu said.
“What good would I be to such a group of great thinkers?” I allowed a bit of irony to creep in.
“Frankly,” Trochu said, “most of us are not well known, and have spent little time in the public eye. We all know that, ultimately, the masses must have their idols — men to respect, men to follow. That is where you would be of service to Numantia.”
I kept my expression bland, mildly interested. “Let me pose another question,” I said. “Let us say your group decides a certain policy would be beneficial to the country, and then let us say the emperor violently disagrees. What then?”
“I would hope we would have the same courage you have, and stand up for what we know to be right for Numantia. There is the advantage to our group. You were but one man, so when you did what you did, the emperor could brush you aside easily. But if there were ten, a dozen, a hundred or more of the Empire’s best standing firm …”
I was on my feet. Anger boiled within me, but I tried to hold it back as best I could, which was not very much. “Domina, you had better hold your tongue. I’ll remind you once more of your oath. What you’ve just suggested is ignoble. You, I, all of us, exist to serve the emperor. Not to ‘advise’ him, not to override him if he happens to have his own plans. Your words smack of treason, and your own behavior is dishonorable. I must ask you to leave this house immediately and never appear in my presence again.
“Perhaps I should notify the proper authorities of you and your little group. Perhaps I shall not, for I mightily despise a tale-teller. I don’t think the empire or emperor is in jeopardy from a pack of fools such as you, however. You remind me all too much of those yammering do-nothings I was proud to help the emperor overthrow.
“Now, get out of here, or I’ll have you tossed into the street by my servants!”
Strangely, Trochu showed no sign of anger. He rose, bowed, and left unhurriedly. I fumed for a time, then, when I thought I’d calmed myself, I sought Marán and told her what had happened. She exploded, and I had to calm her, feeling my own anger return through her.
“That little rat bastard! We ought to call Kutulu’s warders and report this pissheaded domina and his shitheels! The emperor’s got enough troubles without having dungeaters like them plotting.”
My wife was noble, but could swear as well as the hardest drill master. I repeated what I’d said to Trochu about not being, or liking, a tell-tale.
Marán’s lips pursed. “I know,” she said. “I don’t, either. But this is different. This is the emperor!” She broke off and looked at me strangely. “Damastes, a thought just came. A very odd thought. I’ll ask it slowly, so you don’t get angry. Right now, the emperor is mad at you, correct? Maybe even wondering how loyal you are?” She waited, probably expecting me to snarl something.
“Go ahead” was all I said.
“Maybe you’re wondering just as I am. If I were the emperor, and I had someone who’s known as the Serpent Who Never Sleeps at my beck, someone who’s supposedly got an agent in every tavern, eating place, and public spot in Numantia, and another agent to watch the first, would I maybe have my serpent send to see if my disgraced tribune could be tempted into foolishness?”
“Such as joining a conspiracy that really doesn’t exist?” I said.
“Or maybe it does, but only to keep track of possible b
etrayers?”
Marán said.
I shook my head, not in denial, but in perplexity. “I don’t know, Marán. I just don’t know.”
“Nor I. But Laish Tenedos and Kutulu are more than subtle enough to come up with such a scheme.”
“So what do we do about it? Even if he is a double agent, I still don’t like the idea of informing.”
“We’ll have to think about it,” she said.
But we didn’t have to. The next morning Kutulu came calling.
• • •
He was even shyer than usual and clutched a paper-wrapped parcel as he perched on the edge of a leather couch. Marán greeted him, then said she’d join us later in the green study. That was a code between us — that particular room had a secret alcove with a spyhole, entered from the neighboring linen closet, and Marán and I used it when one or another of us wished to hear something our presence might prevent being said.
Kutulu refused refreshment and said that he could only stay a few minutes.
“I see your wounds have healed,” I said.
“Yes, at least partially,” he said. “I still have some stiffness in this side. But my brain has returned to working order. For a long time I kept going in and out of fogs, and wasn’t able to remember things, and lost track of conversations. I think … I hope … that’ll never happen again. My memory, being able to add things together, is my only real talent.” He might have said weapon.
“It probably won’t,” I advised. “Most people think a clout on the head just knocks you out. In reality, it takes a while to come back to normal.”
“Who did it to me?”
“Some woman, who then tried to cut your gullet.”
“I hope you dealt with her.”
“Cut off her head, in fact.”
“Good. I’d wondered. I was told you dragged me back inside our keep, but no one said what happened to my assailant. That’s why I’m here,” he went on. “To thank you, once again, for saving my life. I suppose it’s become a habit.”
I was slightly astonished. “Kutulu, are you making a joke?”
“Oh. Yes. I suppose I did, didn’t I?”