by John F. Carr
"It is a pleasure, unfortunately, all too rare in the Holy City, to parry words with a man of intelligence. Yes, that is exactly what I wish." Roxthar pulled a parchment out of his robe with a flourish. "You might want to look at this."
It was a long list of names of prominent Zarthani Knights, including most of the Commanders and Knight Commanders. His trusted friend and aide's name, Aristocles, topped the list. "What is this?"
"This is a list of men under your command who have taken Styphon's name in vain, or who have not shown proper respect to the True God. I fear that there are many of your companions on that role. The ears of the True God hear everything."
"You've been working on this a long time," Soton replied in a monotone, his pistol inching its way upward.
Roxthar appeared oblivious to the pistol's trajectory and continued to stare into Soton's eyes. "Styphon's work must first begin in the fields."
Soton tapped the parchment with his pistol barrel. "And just how do you propose to walk into our forts and carry out these arrests?"
"In the next room sits Captain-General Xenophes, commander-in-chief of Styphon's Own Guard. They will gladly submit to Styphon's Will."
Xenophes, Styphon's head butcher, was head of the infamous Red Hand of Styphon. He would welcome—nay relish—such a confrontation with the Knights. And, the great forts taken tarr by tarr, with little warning, he might catch the Order unprepared and do his bloody deeds. In the end, all the Zarthani of the Five Kingdoms would pay when the barbarians learned of this infamy and poured through the gaps…
It appeared Roxthar had him by the privy parts. There was a slight possibility he could shoot the Archpriest, fight the inevitable guard outside—and maybe reach and kill Xenophes, but what would be the end result? Surely he would die and who would command the Knights then—to say nothing of Styphon's House. He could feel the tension flow out of him; his pistol dropped into his lap.
"I see you are amenable to reason, Grand Master. I will take back that list. It will stay on my person, hidden from my Investigators for as long as you do your job. Is that understood?"
Soton nodded his head slowly.
"Now let us forget this unpleasantness and talk of things vital to our cause. How fares the Order's war with the nomads?"
"Slow. But we are pushing them back towards the Great River. There are more barbarians on the move than have been seen since the time of Telcides the Terrible. On the other hand, the Holy Warriors of Styphon have swelled our ranks, since the arrival of the Usurper Kalvan, and we are beginning to replace our losses at Chothros Heights and the Battle of Phyrax."
Roxthar nodded his head as though he were actually listening, instead of bobbing his head as most Archpriests did when talk turned to the tools of war and strategy. "Will the Knights be ready to lead another offensive against Kalvan in the spring?"
"No. Too many new recruits, and we dare not strip the tarrs because of the barbarian threat. We might be able to spare a Wedge, but no more."
"This is not good. The Elector Princes of Hos-Harphax are dragging their hind-ends on selecting a new Great King. Instead, they have appointed a Regency Council and it turns in circles chasing its own tail. Yet, in the end, Prince Lysandros will win out, as none of his challengers have his birthright or access to our gold. And the Union of Styphon's Friends is still building its membership."
"Styphon's Friends? What is this Union?"
"A counterweight to the False God's League of Dralm. Already Great King Cleitharses has joined along with most of the Princes of Hos-Ktemnos. In Hos-Harphax the Princes of Hyphax, Syriphlon, and Pindar have joined the Friends and several others in Hos-Agrys as well."
"Hmmm. Can we count on them for troops as well as support for the priesthood?"
"Soon. It will take a few moons for these ideas to be present and accepted."
"Is the League of Dralm openly supporting Kalvan now?" Soton asked.
"No. Our spies report that they yet withhold their support for the Usurper. Their highpriests say let the Usurper use his soldiers and gold to fight Styphon's House." Roxthar grinned.
"Good news indeed! I would not have dared hope for so much. The gods intervene on our behalf."
"The God wills it. Styphon's Will Be Done."
"If I were Kalvan," Soton said, "I would make my move this spring while the Electors are still debating in Harphax City. If he takes Hos-Harphax, we may never defeat him. I'm sure he knows this. We must give Lysandros all our support in Hos-Harphax. He is the only man there who has a prayer's chance of building an army that can defeat the Hostigi."
"Yes, he will make a devout Great King and a fine tool for Styphon. But how can we stop the Daemon before Lysandros is elected and can re-build the Army of Hos-Harphax?"
For the first time that afternoon, Soton smiled. "I know a way."
"Then out with it!"
"The nomads. We will drive the barbarians northeast, up through the Upper Sastragath and into the Trygath and Hos-Hostigos. Those Princes sworn to Kalvan, who live on the Trygathi border, will demand his aid, as they have every right to do. Then let Kalvan dull his blades on the barbarians' shields."
"Most excellent, Grand Master! Styphon will have you by his side in the next life. I will present your plan to the Inner Council myself. Request what victuals and gold you will need to aid your endeavor."
Soton knew he should have felt some triumph at getting everything he wanted from Roxthar, instead there was a cold lump in his stomach. If Kalvan thought he had troubles before Roxthar's ascension, he didn't know the meaning of the word trouble. Soton—as a fellow soldier—could only feel sorry for Kalvan the Usurper, who might well be master of the battlefield, but, when it came to men's souls, had met his match in Roxthar—or worse.
III
The small boat banged against the stones of the Greffa pier so hard that Verkan Vail, under the guise of Trader Verkan, heard the timbers creak. He grasped the brass rungs overhead before the boat could rebound, then hauled himself swiftly up the ladder before the boat could strike again. Behind him he heard the sailors shouting as they hooked the net holding his baggage to the rope being let down from the pier. Verkan hoped that the rope and net were good and stout. He needed a moment or two to recover every time he came ashore after traveling by boat.
Because of the lateness of the season, the usual two week sea and overland journey from Ulthor City to Greffa had taken twice as long as usual. It had almost been too late in the season to hire a boat and he'd had to pay the captain a big bribe to get him to make the journey. When he reached the top of the stone pier and got his footing, Verkan looked back at the gaff-rigged galleass, with oar banks on both sides, riding the swells inside the port. Never again, he promised himself. The sea was gunmetal blue and every so often he heard an explosion as a swell whacked against the pier.
First Level mental disciplines and First Level medicine kept his stomach under control; Verkan had never been seasick and never would be. He also had never been, and never would be reconciled to being, bounced around a small cabin like a cork in a baby's bathtub. Nor would he be completely reconciled to the idea of long trips by waterborne vehicles. A short moonlight cruise on a calm bay with Dalla beside him was one thing; actually traveling all the way from Ulthor to Greffa by ship was something entirely different.
This wouldn't be the last such trip he'd have to make, either, although it would be the last one he'd make before winter. The Middle Kingdoms of Kalvan's Time-Line lived by water transportation—on the Saltless Seas for Greffa, on the (Mississippi and Missouri ) for Dorg, Wulfula, and the Southern Sea for Xiphlon. Verkan's own work for Kalvan also depended on it. Although, in the future, he would have his own ship and it would ply the seas with a Paratime Police crew, but no Chief. It was a blessing his critics didn't have a camera on board!
Someone was calling his name. Verkan turned to see his baggage on the pier, sitting in a puddle of water and dripping more. Dralm be thanked for oiled leather, plus the concealed laye
rs of First Level waterproofing!
Beyond the baggage, Kostran Galth and his wife, Dalla's adopted sister Hadron Zinganna—Zinna on Kalvan Prime—were hurrying toward him. Zinna stopped to tie her scarf more tightly around her long dark hair, to keep it in place in the brisk wind, so Kostran arrived first.
"Welcome home, Verkan." Kostran, normally a Paratime Police Inspector, wore a buffalo robe over clothes that supported his tale of being a journeyman clerk who'd married a cousin of Verkan's wife.
"Greeting, cousin. How go our affairs?"
"Well enough," said Kostran, making the hand gesture that told Verkan there were untrustworthy ears too close at hand. "Did you have a good voyage? What news from the Great Kingdoms?"
"The voyage could have been better. Have these storms done any damage to the sea walls?"
"In a few places, yes," said Zinna. "But the City Sea Watch has been diligent with their repairs."
"Good," Verkan said. In Greffa when the Sea Watch went well it meant that the city's largest bureaucracy and lobby was quiet, and that the various city, merchant, and noble factions within Greffa were at peace. King Theovacar was proving himself to be a strong and able leader, which was good for business and might inevitably be good for Kalvan who needed staunch allies.
"As to news from the Eastern Kingdoms—Prince Selestros has now publicly abdicated his claim to the throne of Hos-Harphax."
The surprised expressions on Galth and Zinna's faces were a tribute to the Paratimers' acting ability. Thanks to Verkan's radio message, they'd known it almost as soon as he heard it from the agent in Harphax City.
"All claim to the Iron Throne?" Galth asked.
"Selestros' made both Lysandros and Soligon swear to provide him with suitable estates and revenues when they are on the throne. Also to take care of his bastards."
"All of them? Well, that will still be cheaper than having him on the throne. I'm surprised he was sober enough long enough to think this up."
"I don't think it was his own idea," Verkan said. The look on both faces said "Styphon's House?" as plainly as speech. He shook his head.
"I don't know whose advice he took. Still less do I know who is likely to reign in Harphax now that the nearest heir has abdicated. Soligon always had one virtue—he was not (He searched for a polite alternative to 'fanatical.') an ardent worshipper of Styphon."
"I wonder how the Regency Council will take this announcement?" Galth asked.
"With a great sigh of relief! Even that bunch of corrupt youngest-sons, know that if the Council had placed Selestros on the Iron Throne, they might as well have been offering it to Great King Kalvan. Former Prince Selestros has never been on a battlefield, much less fought an enemy."
"The Inner Circle will surely throw all their silver behind Lysandros," Zinna said.
"They won't if they're wise," said her husband. "If they too openly try to buy the Iron Throne for Lysandros, many Harphaxi nobles who care little about the gods but much about their independence will turn to Soligon. A king who can rule without the consent of his nobles is—a man to whom the gods will give enemies," Galth amended for the sake of discretion.
Since King Theovacar was widely suspected of aspiring to reduce his nobles to what he considered a proper state of submission, it was politic not to make any sweeping public comments on the rights and wrongs of such a policy.
By this time, the porters had come up and loaded Verkan's baggage onto carrying poles. With Verkan bringing up the rear, the party climbed the stone steps from the pier to the top of the great mole, where Kostran's servants waited with a cart and horses.
At the head of the stairs the near-freezing wind caught Verkan so that his cloak flew out like bat's wings. Fountains of spray shot into the air on the north side of the mole, as waves beat against the granite blocks facing it there. The wind carried some of the spray into Verkan's face and the stone underfoot was slippery with it.
The great mole ran half a mile out into the lake from the north side of the mouth of the Greffa River, then turned south for a quarter of a mile. It gave Greffa a sheltered harbor for the entire navigation season on the Salt-less Seas, and the guns on the batteries set every quarter mile all along it made the city too tough a nut for the hardiest pirate to try cracking.
The foundations of the mole were laid in the days of Grefftshcarr's great trading empire of the Iron Route, fifteen hundred years ago. It had been growing ever since, a shipload or more of stone a year, with every king trying to leave his mark on it. King Theovacar's plans were ambitious, like Theovacar himself—he wanted to completely rebuild the lighthouse at the elbow of the mole, which had been in ruins for eight hundred years, raise its beacon fifty feet higher than it had been placed originally, and replace all the batteries' old bombards with Kalvan's brass new-style long guns.
While Zinna supervised loading the baggage into the cart, Kostran Galth drew his Chief aside. "I had problems getting the audience you requested. It may be a couple of moon halfs before I can set it up. Since we're not well-known here, I'm having to use intermediaries and I don't want to pay enough gold to attract the wrong kind of attention."
"Good thinking, Galth."
"Time for a civilized breakfast, then." Verkan normally didn't care what he ate as long as it didn't eat him first, but four weeks of rock-hard bread and salted fish had whetted his appetite for real food. Verkan was disappointed about the interview with Theovacar taking so long to arrange, but now that they had a conveyer-head in Greffa, he could slip back and forth between Dhergabar and Greffa as events allowed. It was too late in the season to bring the cannon and arms that Kalvan needed, so there was no damage done.
"Yes, Zinna will go on ahead and see to it. Did your best finery survive the voyage?"
Verkan made a Zarthani gesture of averting bad luck and looked Kostran a question. Kostran nodded. "I think we're about to receive our charter, or at least an explanation of why we can't be granted it at this time. A messenger from the palace had an escort of six Companions. I haven't heard of that happening to anybody Theovacar wasn't planning to favor, or at least anybody whose good will he didn't value."
Since the Royal Charter would give them a legitimacy no one in Greffa or on Kalvan Prime could doubt, that was good news. The eight hundred Companions were the elite bodyguard of the Kings of Grefftscharr, descended from the household warriors of the tribal chiefs who'd founded the kingdom over two thousand years before. They were crack lancers but carried (and used) musketoons for palace guard duty, swore blood-oaths to the King and at least twice had died to the last man rather than outlive a fallen King. They weren't a likely choice for messengers to anyone King Theovacar didn't wish to honor.
The Palace Seneschal usually conducted the interview and an appropriate 'gift' was expected. He wished he'd had a cask of Ermut's brandy that Ranthar Jard had told him about; he suspected a purse of gold would do as well.
Verkan swung himself into the saddle and urged his horse up to the head of the little procession. Kostran brought up the rear. Verkan noted with approval that he had one hand effectively, but not blatantly, close to the butt of his pistol, just in case the teamster might be in league with—or an agent—of Styphon's House, since ordinary robbers would hardly dare operate in broad daylight in the best-policed area of Greffa.
If the Styphoni were able to work effectively in Greffa, it would be through local allies too powerful for Theovacar to suppress, allies bought with gold or hopes of it. The Middle Kingdoms had always regarded the gods of the Five Great Kingdoms as socially inferior to their own war and thunder lords. The incomprehensible act of mere mortals calling a council to demote Allfather Dralm had sowed further confusion. Now that the fireseed secret was free to all men, there was hardly reason for more than common politeness to Styphon's House, if that.
Correction: King Theovacar and the nobles had no reason for more than politeness . The merchants who lived by trade along the Saltless Seas might think twice before risking having the Great Kingdoms
barred to them if Styphon's House won its war against Hos-Hostigos. Since Theovacar was trying to win the favor of the great mercantile houses as a balance to his unruly warrior nobility, he might turn a blind eye to their dealings with Styphon's House—even if those dealings led to moderate breaches of his peace.
Verkan wondered if his information from the east could be traded for information about Styphon's House activities in Greffa. A pity to have to use strictly local resources and methods on such a vital matter, since it would surely involve him more deeply in Greffan politics. It couldn't be helped, though—there was an old Paracop saying: 'A little bit involved is like a little bit pregnant; there's no such thing.'
Also, the only way he could make himself independent of local resources and methods was to bring in many more Paracops than he could justify devoting to what was after all a glorified hobby—he'd be cutting his throat and Kalvans if he did that!
FIFTEEN
I
Kalvan was in the audience chamber, where Captain-General Harmakros was telling him and Rylla, about the problems he was encountering in getting the former Hostigi pikemen to embrace their new-bayoneted arquebuses, when a royal page arrived to announce that Chancellor Xentos had just arrived in HostigosTown and sought audience.
"Thank you, Aspasthar. Bid him enter, then go to steward and order some wine to be brought up." He'd save Ermut's brandy until he saw if any celebration was in order; Rylla was hot enough under the collar without adding any fat, in the guise of brandy, to the fire.
Queen Rylla, who looked magnificently regal, announced in chilly tones, "I hope the Chancellor brings us better bones to chew on than those brought by Duke Mnestros."
There had been few letters and even fewer encouraging words from Xentos since his leave taking last summer to attend the Council of Dralm in Agrys City. What little Kalvan had learned about the new League of Dralm had come from Duke Mnestros who was openly dissatisfied with the Council's lack of progress. The League's unstated goal was to act as a counter to Styphon's House's growing secular and priestly power. Any such gathering of princes, before Kalvan's dissemination of the Fireseed Secret, would have resulted in Styphon's Ban and no more fireseed, which meant their greedier neighbors would have rushed in with their armies to carve out big chunks of territory.