by David Drake
"Well, Celondre thought of himself as an aristocrat," Liane said apologetically. "But I'd love to do that. Right now, if you'd like."
Ilna smiled wryly. "Yes, I'd like that," she said.
"'Only pursue the things you're worthy of,'" Liane said, running over the verse for herself. "'Shun what is above you.'"
Someone, something, with skill greater than Ilna's own was weaving a pattern of which she was a thread. Ilna couldn't see the end yet; perhaps she never would.
But she was sure there was one.
Cashel stirred the porridge with a spoon he'd shaped with his iron knife after Sharina had cut down a willow sapling for him. He hadn't asked to borrow the Pewle knife because he knew Sharina was more than strong enough to shear through the soft wood herself--
And besides, Cashel felt a little uncomfortable about that knife. Nonnus the Hermit had treated Sharina as if she'd been his own child. He'd protected her when Cashel was far away and had died protecting her. Cashel was as grateful as could be about the hermit's sacrifice, but sometimes he felt that he had to measure himself against a saint; and Cashel couldn't convince himself that he came off well in the comparison.
"The thing that keeps throwing me...," said Garric. He paused to turn a strip of bacon with his dagger. The silvered steel glittered in the light of the lantern Liane had hung from a swivel hook in a disused hearth. The long, tapered blade was pretty fancy, but it did a cooking fork's job well enough.
"It isn't the crises themselves," Garric went on as the bacon spluttered, a salty smell in the wood smoke that made Cashel think of home. "Though the Shepherd knows it's been one thing after another. And now whatever it is you've found, Tenoctris."
He grinned to show that he wasn't blaming the old wizard for bringing him a warning. Garric looked five years younger here than he had when Cashel and the others awakened him this afternoon.
"The latest is we've gotten word that both the Earl of Sandrakkan and the Count of Blaise are planning to call themselves king. Of their own islands, not Kings of the Isles, but it'll cause about as much trouble as the other would. Valence III beat the Earl of Sandrakkan at the Stone Wall twenty years ago, but the kingdom's never recovered from the strain."
"Can you trust the rumors?" Sharina said, speaking to her brother but glancing at Liane who had charge of the confidential reports.
Liane looked at Garric; he nodded. "Yes," she said. "In this case we can. The only thing that's holding them back is that they're both afraid of being first. They remember the Stone Wall too."
"Even without spies," Garric added, "it's what you'd expect them to do. The title didn't matter so much when they could ignore whoever was sitting on the throne in Valles. Now that it looks like the Isles'll have real unity, they're likely to act."
"When the forces that turn the cosmos peak," Tenoctris said musingly, "they put all society in a kettle on a hot fire. Once a millennium everything comes to a boil. It isn't just that wizards now have more power than they dreamed of a few years ago."
She grinned and added, "Some of us don't have very much power even now, of course."
Cashel believed Tenoctris when she said that she wasn't a powerful wizard, but he knew--as she certainly knew--that a lot of times strength wasn't as important as knowing how to use the strength you had. Tenoctris saw and understood the sources of power, while other wizards used them blindly. There was much the old woman couldn't do, but Cashel had never seen her do a single thing she didn't mean to.
He grinned broadly. Cashel knew better than most how important it was to be careful. You broke things otherwise, and sometimes you broke yourself.
Garric nodded. "I might have an army that could defeat one or the other of them," he said. "But I don't have a way to get the army to Sandrakkan or Blaise. And anyway, winning would be just about as bad as losing for what it'd do to the kingdom. Knocking heads isn't the way out."
"We need time," Liane said with a worried expression. "A few months might be enough. If the rulers of the other islands see that Ornifal's better off under a real king, that may keep them quiet better than the threat of the army alone."
Fleetingly Cashel wondered who she meant by 'we'. Probably 'the Isles,' and anyway, it wasn't his business to worry about.
Ilna sniffed from where she sat in a corner, plaiting rushes into pads. "So long as you still have the army. Some heads should be knocked."
Garric nodded, more to show that he was listening more than because he'd heard anything he thought was a solution. "We--the government of the Isles, my government--could find a way to deal with Blaise and Sandrakkan."
He sighed and began turning the rest of the meat as he continued, "The trouble is that my council's fighting itself and I don't know what to do to change things. Nothing's getting done--or it isn't getting done right--because people who are supposed to be on the same side are squabbling between themselves. We needn't worry about evil if the folks on our side do evil's work."
Cashel thought for a moment. "You mean Attaper and Waldron are at each other's throats about running the army?" he said. He didn't know anything about politics, but he knew how rival males acted. None better than a countryman to understand that.
Garric laughed with relief at being able to talk freely. "No, not quite," he explained, "because Attaper and Waldron are both of them too dangerous. Neither one will give the other an inch, but they don't play silly games. They both know that the other has killed more men than they can remember. They don't goad each other, because the other man will go for his sword if pushed, and they've both been down that road too often to go again for little reasons."
Sharina sat on a chopping block that she'd covered with reed pads that Ilna had woven with a few twitches of her fingers. "So it's Lord Tadai and the chancellor who're fighting?" she said.
"And how!" Garric agreed. He swept the bacon to a brick support to drain while he cooked the remaining rashers. "Any project Royhas proposes has to wait forever for funding. Any revenue proposals that come from the treasury go unstaffed or get staffed with people you wouldn't trust to pluck a chicken. Things aren't getting done, and they need to get done!"
"But you're the king," Cashel said, speaking aloud not so much to get an answer as because sometimes he understood things better if he heard himself say them. "You can tell them what to do."
"As I could tell a flock of sheep which way to take to pasture," Garric said. "And have about as much chance of them obeying me. The sheep'll go their own way because they know what's best. It takes more than a little shouting to change their minds."
Cashel smiled. Garric caught his unspoken thought and said, "Right, the path the sheep takes probably is the best one. The trouble is, here I've got two different leaders. Maybe they've both got good ideas, but I can't--the Isles can't!--go both ways at the same time."
"Sometimes you get two ewes like that," Cashel said, continuing to puzzle over the problem aloud. He withdrew the spoon and licked it; the porridge was warm through to the center. "If they're both worth something, you sell one out of the district. If one of them's nothing special for milking, well, you've got to cull the flock before winter anyway, right?"
He lifted the pot from the fire. They didn't have hard bread for trenchers, but Sharina had sliced birchbark to eat from while there was still daylight. Liane wouldn't be used to everybody dipping a hand into the pot.
"You said ewes, Cashel," Liane said. "Don't rams fight too?"
Besides being Garric's friend, Liane was a real lady, but she was always nice to Cashel. He had the feeling that a lot of people in the palace laughed at him behind his back. He was used to that. Folks in the borough had been the same way, "Big as an ox and just as stupid," he'd heard often enough before he got his full growth, and he knew they still said it, though not where he could hear.
They might even be right, but Cashel didn't like it; and he didn't like the people who treated him that way. Liane was different, so instead of snorting in amazement he glanced at Garric--who shru
gged.
"You don't need but one ram for a herd, mistress," Cashel said. "There's no point in wasting fodder on something that's just going to make problems for you."
"Oh," said Liane, blinking. She was a smart girl, no question, but Cashel had noticed that city folk generally didn't understand how hard rural life was and how hard rural people had to be as a consequence.
"In fact, Tadai and Royhas are both valuable," Garric said. "And perhaps more to the point, they're both too powerful to be kicked out in the cold without causing real trouble for the kingdom. They conspired against Valence when they thought it had to be done, even though he'd been their friend in earlier years. Neither man is my friend."
Cashel tried to get his mind around the situation. Liane noticed his frown and said in a friendly voice--not talking down, just talking, "A lot of people on Ornifal don't like having a government that does what's right instead of what it's been bribed to do. With a man like Tadai or Royhas either one to lead them, that sort of people would be a danger."
Cashel nodded. "And you don't want to kill them," he said; not asking and certainly not suggesting, but just getting the facts straight in his mind.
"I'm not willing to do that," Garric said simply. "I think it'd be bad policy anyway, but the truth is that I just won't do it. Kill a man because it's awkward having him around."
He forced a laugh to change the subject. "I think we've got a meal ready," he said, sliding the last of the bacon off the grill. "Let's eat!'
Sharina squatted to eat, the point of her shoulder braced against Cashel beside her. The fire had sunk to winking coals. The wood had aged on the damp ground, rotting to punk that burned sullenly rather than with a clean, hot flame; it had been good enough for the porridge and bacon, but it burned away too quickly to keep the hearth warm on a winter night.
"Lerdoc, Count of Blaise, has begun wearing a diadem in public," Garric said as he daubed up porridge on the willow spoon Sharina had trimmed while her brother was cooking. "He hasn't formally changed his title to king; he's probably wondering what I'm going to do. I'm wondering too."
He grinned. Garric sounded tired but he wasn't as bitterly worn as he'd seemed every time Sharina saw him during the past two weeks.
"Lerdoc may be hoping that his diadem will convince the Earl of Sandrakkan to take an overt step," Liane said. Cashel had upturned a large pot as a seat for her; Liane had never learned to squat, and she probably wasn't used to sitting cross-legged on the ground for any length of time either.
"And he may be right about that," Garric agreed. "Earl Wildulf has called a muster of the Sandrakkan militia for the twentieth of next month. Our agents think he's checking to see how many of his nobles show up with their troops before he decides whether to proclaim himself King Wildulf the First. That's what his granduncle did... the year before he died at the Stone Wall."
Sharina liked the porridge, though the flavor had surprised her. This was the first time since she'd arrived in Valles that she'd had a meal like what most of the people here ate. It was subtly different from what she was used to. The meal, leeks and chives were the same as she'd used in Barca's Hamlet more times than she could remember, but the cheese Cashel had stirred in came from goat's milk instead of ewe's.
"Carus faced the same sort of problems when he was crowned King of the Isles," Garric went on with a wry smile. "Usurpers, rebels, secessions--on Haft and all over the Isles. Carus met his problems with a sword in his hand and an army none of them could equal... until the day a wizard sank him and his army to the bottom of the sea."
Tenoctris watched Garric with sharp attention. Earlier in the evening she'd gone to a corner of the long building to work a spell. Sharina had seen red wizardlight flickering between the old woman's cupped palms, but she hadn't asked the purpose or the result.
"I don't have an army that good," Garric said. "Besides, I don't particularly want to wind up drowned."
He smiled again, though Liane beside him winced at the words. Since Garric began wearing the medal of King Carus, he'd gained a sense of black humor. He'd once told Sharina that you needed laughter on a battlefield worse than you did anywhere else, so you'd better be able to laugh at what you found there.
"I've thought of taking the army to Sandrakkan, then Blaise," Garric went on musingly. "Not attacking Wildulf and Lerdoc, just arriving on their doorsteps with enough strength to make them think again about declaring their islands independent."
"That may work while your troops are on Sandrakkan," Liane said. From her tone, she and Garric had held this discussion in the past. "But when they leave for Blaise, what happens then? And what happens here in Ornifal?"
"I'm going to have to do something soon," Garric said with a flash of irritation. "If not that, what?"
"Send ambassadors," Sharina said. Everyone looked at her in surprise. "Instead of taking your army."
Sharina had mulled the plan ever since Garric described his problem. Her solution fit. The empty round of Sharina's days had driven her to distraction, but it was that frustration which gave her the key to Garric's greater difficulties.
"We have envoys in Erdin and Piscine already, Sharina," Garric said. "And Wildulf and Lerdoc have envoys in Valles as well."
"Ready to fund anyone on Ornifal with courage enough to rebel," Liane added with an edge in her voice. "We're watching them carefully."
"No," Sharina said. "You've sent professional diplomats, petty nobles who've spent their lives learning to say safe things in a smooth manner."
Garric nodded. He was cleaning grease from his dagger with a wad of cattail pith, and he had the sharpening stone from his belt pouch ready to touch up the weapon's point.
"What you should do is send someone to Earl Wildulf that he'll listen to because he knows the person is one of the most important people in your court," Sharina explained. "Send Tadai or Royhas."
"Oh!" gasped Cashel in delight. "Oh, Sharina!"
"By the Shepherd, Sharina," Garric said softly, "that might work. Not an open threat, but somebody they'd have to listen to."
He looked toward Liane. "I'll send Tadai," he said, asking the girl for confirmation rather than permission. "I can spare him better--though I wish he and Royhas could work together."
"He'll take your orders to go?" Ilna asked with the detached curiosity that was so much a part of her personality.
"In this?" Garric said. "Yes. Tadai knows that something has to change quickly for the kingdom to survive. He can't back down to Royhas--"
"Won't," Liane said.
Garric shrugged. "Can't, won't, it's the same thing. Tadai will take an honorable way out of the tangle he and Royhas have gotten themselves into if one's offered. I'll make him ambassador to Erdin with full powers to negotiate Sandrakkan's status within the kingdom--that's a royal position, and he'll take it."
Garric stood and stepped to the threshold to look out into the night. He sheathed his long dagger without needing to check where the point was in relation to the mouth of the scabbard. "Also, Tadai will go because he knows that I'll have to remove him from the council if he doesn't. One way or the other, he'll go."
Garric's voice was as detached as Ilna's, and it had an underlying hardness that surprised Sharina. She remembered her brother in Barca's Hamlet, whistling a cheery tune at any time his lips weren't smiling. They weren't in Barca's Hamlet any more....
"And send me to Blaise, Garric," Sharina said, feeling a shiver as the words came out. She didn't regret them, though. "Send the Lady Sharina, your sister."
Cashel alone didn't react to what Sharina had said. His arm was steady as an oak trunk, supporting her shoulder as Cashel had always supported her.
Sharina turned and hugged him. "Cashel, I'm sorry," she said. "I should have talked to you about this before I said anything, but I just worked it out now."
Cashel smiled faintly. Either he was blushing or the firelight had painted a flush on his cheek. "That's all right, Sharina," he said. "I don't mind Valles, but it's not a p
lace I'll mind leaving, either. I'm here because you're here."
Garric cleared his throat. "Ah, Sharina?" he said. "Is there some reason you want to go to Blaise? Because Pitre bor-Perial might make an even more satisfactory ambassador than Tadai. Except that I don't need to get rid of Pitre, of course."
"I'm going out of my mind, doing what I am here," she replied bluntly. She stood; Cashel rose beside her so that they looked like a willow growing at the side of a boulder. "Every day I see people who want something they can't have. If there were a prayer of them getting what they're petitioning for, they'd be seen by somebody with real authority."
"It's an import--" Garric began.
"Yes it is," Sharina said, cutting across her brother's objection. "It's an important job, but it's a job that King Valence himself can do better. Isn't that true?"
Garric pursed his lips. Liane, still seated, said, "Not better, no, but he can do it. Valence--rightly--trusts Lord Royhas, and he'll allow the chancellor to guide what he says."
Liane's eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at Sharina. "You know, a task that brought the king into contact with his citizens might well be good for his state of mind. As well as for the kingdom."
"As you just said, Garric," Sharina said, "going to the count at Piscine with full power to negotiate is a real job. I don't want to leave you--"
She looked around the gathering. "Any of you," she went on; Cashel smiled with placid assurance. "But if we're to save the Isles from chaos, there are more important jobs for me to be doing than listening to a deputation from the Bridge District about the noises they hear in the night."
"All right," Garric said with kingly decisiveness again. He'd listened, been convinced, and was acting promptly on his decision instead of tramping back and forth over the same ground. "We'll meet with Royhas tomorrow to decide exactly what to offer Blaise. But you'll have full powers to make whatever arrangement seems best when you've viewed the situation."