“I am sure you are mistaken,” Sire Dagon said, although he did not clarify on which aspect the prince was in error. “In the past your people voiced objections to our system of trade. Are we to believe that has changed? Your father would fulfill all of our requirements as suits a position within the empire? You know what product the empire trades in and what we receive in return for it?”
In the pause before Igguldan answered Aliver looked from his face to the other council members, to his father and over to the leagueman. He felt his pulse quicken with a tendril of danger and could see the signs of the same on other faces, but nowhere did he see the sort of confusion he himself felt. What product did Sire Dagon refer to? Minerals from the mines, coal from Senival, trade goods and precious stones from Talay, exotic produce from the Vumu Archipelago: these were the products of international trade. The goods Igguldan had mentioned would find buyers also. But if these were what he referred to, why did he speak with such ominous import?
Igguldan answered the leagueman with a reluctant nod.
Pleased, Sire Dagon folded one long-fingered hand over the other and rested them on the tabletop. The jewel on one large finger reflected fractured shards of light for a moment. “With time and reasoned thought, all peoples have found our system agreeable. All have seen the benefits of what we offer. But because of that we must protect what we already have established. We have achieved an equilibrium. We would not want to upset this. Because of this, new parties are not entirely welcome at this moment. I am sure I speak for the king in mentioning this.” Sire Dagon nodded to Leodan without ever looking fully at him. Then he seemed to change tack. “On the other hand…Tell me, are your women fertile?”
Igguldan guffawed, but then caught himself as nobody else followed his lead. He glanced around and then back to Sire Dagon. His face showed the recognition that whatever bawdy joke he thought the leagueman was making had been a misunderstanding. There followed a discussion that Igguldan clearly found as strange to listen to as Aliver did. The Aushenian aides had come prepared for the question. They quoted statistics on the ages at which Aushenian women mature sexually, on the frequency of their pregnancies, and the rate of mortality of their young.
For a moment Aliver thought he saw amusement lift the corners of Sire Dagon’s mouth, but then he was not sure if that was the right interpretation of the expression at all. The leagueman held back whatever response he might have made and simply withdrew once more into hooded silence. The meeting proceeded without another word from the league’s representative.
Leodan seemed happy to take the conversation in a different direction. “I hear your conviction, Prince, and I admire it. But also I have long admired your nation’s independence. You are the last in the Known World to stand alone; for some of us your people have been…well, an inspiration.”
“My lord,” Igguldan said, “one does not feed and clothe and provide for a nation simply through inspiration. We Aushenians have nothing to be ashamed of, but it is clear to us that the world has moved away from the model which we so long wished for.”
“Which is what?” Thaddeus asked. “Refresh our memories.”
“Aushenia has on occasion been ruled by women of stature and wisdom. Our Queen Elena, in her decrees, proposed that the Known World be composed of a federation of free and independent nations, none subservient to another, all trading the goods they best produced, each keeping to ways true to their national character, honoring old traditions and religions while extending the hand of friendship to others. This is what she proposed to Tinhadin.”
A council member remarked that such a system might work at a subsistence level-each nation might make do and stay largely on equal terms-but none would achieve the wealth and stability and productivity the Acacian hegemony had created with the aid of league-managed commerce. They would have remained squabbling islands of national fervor, just as they had been before the Wars of Distribution.
Igguldan did not try to dispute this. He nodded and gestured that the palace around them was testament to the truth of that argument. “The queen would have answered you by saying that the grandest is not always the best, especially not when the wealth is held by few, fueled by the toil of the many.” Igguldan ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair. “But this is not what I came to speak about. Elena is of the past; we look to the future.”
“At times I can still envision the world your queen wished for,” Leodan said.
“I can as well,” the prince said, “but only with my eyes closed. With open eyes the world is something very different.”
After the meeting adjourned an hour or so later, the king took tea with Aliver and his chancellor. The two older men spoke for some time, letting the conversation drift from one aspect of the meeting to another. Aliver was surprised when his father asked, “What do you think of all this? Speak your mind.”
“I? I think…the prince seems a reasonable sort. I can speak no ill of him yet. If he represents his people truly, this is good for us, yes? Only, if they hold us in such high regard why haven’t they joined us sooner?”
“To join us means a good many things,” Leodan said. “They are right to have hesitated, but for some time now they have made it clear they would be our friends if we would be theirs as well.”
Thaddeus motioned with his hand that it was not as simple as that. “As ever, your father is generous with his words.”
“No, what I say is the way it is. They have held a hand out to us in friendship for years now. We simply have not grasped it.”
“And it is well we did not. Our patience has paid off.” The chancellor spoke as if he were addressing the king, but his eyes touched on Aliver long enough to indicate that he was drawing out the issues more completely for his benefit. “What the prince did not admit is that Aushenia must be suffering greatly. I marvel that they remained outside the empire for so long without collapsing under the financial burden of it. They have some mineral wealth, yes, harvestable forestlands and several fine ports and the amber and pitch Igguldan spoke of, but without the league to trade with, they have been able to do little with it. They are a proud people, but they have been forced to sell their goods on the black market, to traffic with pirates. This does not sit well beside all that idealism. They are making this overture so directly because they need us more than we need them. If we accept them, it will be a delicate matter working out their status within our empire. There are many burdens placed upon a new Vedel, a conquered member of the lowest rank. They must accept this without insult, although in truth a Vedel suffers much insult.”
“What if they do not enter as Vedels?” the king asked.
“They must, though. By the old laws there is no other category. Tinhadin was clear that all the world had the choice in his time to join him or to fight against him. When Aushenia declined to accept Acacian hegemony, they decided their fate.” Thaddeus paused only long enough to sip his tea, and then he raised his voice to answer the argument he anticipated. “The generations between then and now change nothing. Any leader of any nation understands that his decisions ring down through all future generations. When Queen Elena rejected Tinhadin’s offer, she knew that her people would forever after live with the consequences.”
Leodan said, “Thaddeus speaks of black and white in a world of a thousand colors. In truth we neither conquered nor defeated Aushenia in the old wars. Had they not been likewise an enemy of the Mein, we may not have prevailed at all. They have for hundreds of years lived neither as allies, vassals, nor enemies.”
“Yes, for hundreds of years,” Thaddeus said, “and that cannot be changed overnight. In truth, Aliver, of course your father would welcome the Aushenians. He is an idealist. He wants a peaceful world in which all are welcome at the table. He does not like to acknowledge that for there to be a table at all many must be excluded from it. This is something the league, however, bases all its decisions on. That is why it is unlikely that Aushenia will be allowed in. The league has a veto on any such expansion. I get
the feeling that they are tempted by Aushenia but yet hold back for some reason that they will probably never explain to us. Something your tutor may not have fully explained to you yet, Aliver, is that the empire is as much a commercial venture as an imperial one. In this area the league holds the place of ultimate prominence. We know only a portion of how the league conducts its business, but if they do not want Aushenia in, then Aushenia will remain without.”
Leodan brought his hands up to his face, looking fatigued by the conversation. “And that, son, is the matter distilled to its primary essence.”
“In black and white,” Thaddeus added.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
The assassin had traveled to Acacia in complete secrecy because he had no other option. Had anyone known of Thasren’s mission, there would have been far too many opportunities for him to be betrayed. Many throughout the empire complained about Acacian domination, but he could trust no one outside the gates of his capital city. He did not even call on the agents already hidden within Acacia, many of them for years, some for generations. Who could tell how life in these southern climes may have corrupted them? Instead, he found his own way into the lower town and from there through the main gates in the guise of a laborer. He walked unnoticed through the thronging city streets with an ease that filled him with loathing of these people. No stranger could have likewise roamed unquestioned through Tahalian. What was the use of living in such a formidable fortress if an enemy agent could so easily penetrate it? The island was wasted on these people. Gazing around at the naked riches of the place set his heart racing with anticipation. Under Mein control a renamed Acacia would be an impenetrable bastion. He reveled in imagining it, even though he knew he would not live to see that glorious time with his own eyes.
By asking a few questions of dusky-skinned passersby he found his way to the district that housed foreign dignitaries. While seeming to keep busy, he set about waiting for the single contact he planned to make. He did not loiter long. His third afternoon in the city he recognized his people’s ambassador to Acacia. Gurnal’s once blond hair had taken on a metallic sheen, as often happened when men of the Mein stayed too long in the south. At first he saw only his head through the crowd, but when the ambassador passed nearer to him, he saw that he wore loose robes like an Acacian, sandals, and wool socks. Only the medallion on his chest attested to his origins. Maeander had been right in his suspicions; Gurnal had forgotten himself. Why was the lure of soft things always so powerful to weak men? Why was a nation built on lies so attractive to people who should know better?
Thasren still had these questions in mind that evening when he scaled the stone wall and dropped down into the back courtyard of the ambassador’s compound. He believed from his afternoon of surveillance that he knew exactly how many people lived in the grounds. He went in search of each of them methodically. He traveled slowly through the sleeping house, pausing in each room so that his eyes adjusted to any change of light or shadow. He made sure not to bump into anything, quite a task as the house was crowded with useless items, decorative urns and life-sized statues, chairs too small to sit in, stuffed animals in living postures. Each room had a different fragrance. He realized-perhaps more readily than he would have in the daytime-that the scents were those of different flowers.
He found the ambassador’s daughter sleeping and bound her without making a sound. All she did was lift her hand a moment as he pressed a ribbon of cloth over her open mouth, as if she did not wish to be woken from a pleasant dream. The man’s teenage son was a light sleeper and strong, and the two of them struggled for a few moments in the dark. It was a peculiar, muffled sort of wrestling, stranger still because the boy did not speak the whole time, even when the assassin twisted his arms into contortions that nearly broke them. The children’s mother gasped when the back-curved blade of his knife touched her windpipe. She opened her eyes and stared up into his face and mouthed her husband’s name, but whether this was meant as an entreaty or accusation he was not sure. He bound each of them where he found them, keenly aware of how merciful he was being. The three house servants were another matter. They slept close to one another and all woke to fight him. It was almost a relief, a release, to slit them open and listen as they went silent and still. The scuffle had been a loud enough commotion that he did not move for some time afterward, listening lest any movement or noise indicate that they had been heard.
Gurnal must have sensed something in the night. He should have been up, armed and deadly already, but these years in Acacia had dulled him. Just as the assassin entered, he rolled from one side of the bed to the other and back again, knotted in his bedsheets like a child. When he finally raised himself on his elbows, he mumbled something under his breath. He kicked his legs over the edge of the bed, touched his bare feet to the floor, and stretched himself upright. Did he know something was wrong? If so, he did not act like it. He failed to notice Thasren standing in the shadows beyond the corner of his wardrobe. He muttered something, and then rose and walked toward the hall.
The assassin rolled out from behind the wardrobe, low to the floor. His knife slashed the man behind the knee, first one leg and then the other, two cuts like those of a practiced butcher paid for speed. As Gurnal collapsed, the assassin grabbed the neck of his gown and yanked back. The next moment he had the man’s arms pinned beneath the hard squares of his knees, with pressure such that he felt the man’s biceps slip around the bone. Gurnal screamed with all the breath he could muster, until the assassin pressed the bloody blade of his knife to the tip of his nose. This sufficed to silence him.
“To whom are you loyal?” Thasren asked. He spoke his native tongue, a language of discordant tones, words like river stones cracking beneath a chisel.
The man stared without recognition into his attacker’s gray eyes, the same color as his own. “To the Mein. To the blood of the Tunishnevre, to the thousands who perished, with whom…I am one.”
“It is good that you utter such words. They are the right ones, but are you a right man?”
“Of course,” Gurnal said. “Who are you? Why have you maimed me? I am-”
“Hush! I will ask the questions.” The assassin repositioned himself so that he could press his knee against the man’s chest in a posture more comfortable for himself. “When are you next to be close to the king?”
Gurnal made much of showing his discomfort with sighs and grimaces of pain. The assassin shifted more of his weight onto the man’s chest, until he coughed out an answer. At first he spoke with wide-eyed disbelief, as if it were simply not possible that he had woken to this, that he was injured as he was, and that his mouth was managing to answer such a random inquiry. His attacker had more questions, though. He asked them as if such an interaction was normal enough. Gurnal responded, detailing aspects of his daily life, his duties, the places he was expected in the next few days and the things he was to do there. Before long he seemed to take comfort from his answers, as if all of these various commitments assured that his place in the living world would continue.
Eventually the questioner came back to where he had begun. “You will meet him this evening?”
“Yes, of course. Not in person, you see, but I am to be in the hall when he greets the Aushenian party. I will be one of many-”
“There will be a banquet?”
“At the palace two evenings from now. I will personally attend. A small party of us only. It is rare to dine at the king’s table, but I…” The man’s words dribbled to a halt. His eyes took on a perplexed expression. His jaw worked for a moment before he could produce more words. “I know you. Thasren! Thasren…”
The assassin hissed him silent and spoke close to the man’s ear, letting his lips brush the soft skin and cartilage. “Who I am does not matter to you. What matters is that you have grown weak. You speak with your mouth instead of your heart.” The ambassador protested, his eyes casting about side to side, as if help might have slipped in quietly and been awaiting eye
contact to act. “Perhaps the Callach who judge all before the gates of the mountains will hear you and permit you entry. But in this world you look to a different master to evaluate your worth; this master is not pleased with you. Hanish Mein no longer values your life, but as you are a Mein, you will have one last chance to prove your loyalty.”
During the next few hours he explained to the man and to his family how it was to be. He described the depths of pain and torture Hanish would inflict upon them if they failed at any of what was asked of them. He charged them with duty to their race, and he reminded them that the reach of the Tunishnevre was such that no Mein could escape their wrath. They had only a handful of things to do to save themselves. The wife and the children would show themselves in public with no sign that anything had changed. They would simper and fawn and flatter the Acacians, as seemed natural to them. They would find excuses to explain the absence of their servants and they would allow no one inside the house. For his part, Gurnal would tutor Thasren in all the things he would need to know to get near the king, what customs needed to be followed, whom he might encounter, what security he might meet. In short, they would help him kill the king.
When Thasren left the house that afternoon he wore a wig cut from one the slain servant’s heads, tugged into place and secured with a headband of woven horsehair that crossed his forehead, a traditional decoration at occasions of importance. There was a reason other than just his skills as a killer that he was best suited for this task. The structure of his face was very similar to Gurnal’s, the same basic shape, almost identical in the cant of the eyes and the bones of the jawline. They were, after all, part of the same family tree, second cousins on their mother’s side. The most markedly different thing about them was their hair, but that had been remedied.
He found his way up toward the palace easily enough. He entered the royal gates as one of a flow of people, not questioned by the guards at all but simply waved through. As none of them were meant to be anywhere near the king they were not searched for weapons of treachery, just watched and contained in preordained spaces, spectators but not participants. He hated the smell of the place, such a confusion of different scents, the colognes and perfumes of so many foreign lands. It was just as Hanish had said it would be: the representatives of so many different nations, races of men who now bowed and smiled before the Acacian masters. Had the entire world forgotten pride of race? They were like so many hoofed creatures-deer and antelope-gathering to sing the praises of the lion that devoured their children. It made no sense at all.
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