by David Drake
"Is it possible," he said, "that this Valgard really is the son of Valence Stronghand? I realize it's still a rebellion, but—"
"There's no possibility!" Waldron said. "Bolor says the fellow claims to have been born to a princess of the People who Stronghand captured in the Battle of the Tides. Supposedly Stronghand sent him back with the mother to be fostered in her country. There weren't any women with the People! I'll swear to that, and so will anybody else who was there!"
Garric frowned. "The People?" he repeated. "Who are they? I don't...."
"Ornifal was invaded from the east in the fourth year of King Valence II," Liane said.
"That's Stronghand," Waldron said, looking glumly at his hands again. "Everybody called him Stronghand after the Battle of the Tides, but to tell the truth he never was that again. He took a spear in the hip joint and fought another hour with it sticking out of him, the point stuck in bone. But it ruined him, it used him up."
Liane had opened her travelling desk. She reached among the books filed in pigeonholes within, then stopped with a stricken look on her face.
"I didn't bring it," she said in barely a whisper. "I didn't think I'd need—"
She broke off, clacked the desk shut, and resumed in a crisply businesslike tone, "That was forty-nine years ago, I believe."
She grimaced and returned to the snarling whisper to add, "I should have brought the Eastern Chronicles with me!"
Reise'd given his children an education in the classic literature of the Old Kingdom. He hadn't taught them modern history, though, the history of the age in which they lived—because he wasn't interested in the subject.
Garric didn't know who'd preceded his real mother, Countess Tera, on the throne of Haft, let alone what had been happening across the Inner Sea on Ornifal generations ago. This was one of the rare times that he felt the lack of that knowledge.
"Forty-nine years, right," said Lord Waldron, looking up at a corner of the marquee while his mind stepped briefly into the past. "I was there, in Lord Elphic's squadron, my foster father...."
"Yes," said Garric, hoping to cut off a digression into history that—however interesting in the abstract—had no bearing on the present problem. "We can be sure that this Valgard is an imposter, but since he's been accepted by Lord Bolor—and I assume others—already, that doesn't help us."
"It could," Waldron said, returning to the present with the crashing abruptness of a cavalry charge. "It will if I'm there to talk to Bolor and the others like him. The claim's preposterous, and they'll believe me when I tell them that to their faces."
"Granting what you say for the sake of argument," Lord Tadai said, touching his fingertips together in a precise pattern. "There'll be others in the conspiracy purely for the hope of gaining wealth, and very likely there are supporters of the former Queen who've been hiding since we overthrew her. They know they won't be safe until we, that is Prince Garric, are put down in turn."
"There'll be rabble," Waldron snapped. He knew Tadai well enough to respect him, but he and the Valles merchant had so little in common that they consistently spoke past one another while trying to hold discussions. "There's always rabble. But it's the Northern squadrons who're a danger to the kingdom, not bullies and footpads!"
"That may be," Tadai said in a pointedly patient tone. "And you may be right to discount the presence of a wizard with the conspirators as well. But it appears to me that this rabble has a vested interest in not allowing you to have a manly, honorable chat with your cousin and neighbors as you seem to intend. I'm not usually an advocate of military force, but I'm afraid in this instance it seems necessary. If you go to Ornifal without the army, you'll be assassinated."
"And while I understand your concern about my presence inflaming the situation," Garric said, nodding to Waldron, "I don't want to give the false impression that Ornifal is less important to me than Sandrakkan. I think I need to deal with Valgard myself."
"Not without the army!" said Attaper. With a pained expression he raised both hands before him to forestall the reaction his outburst merited. Apologetically he offered an edited version: "That is, I hope you won't go without the army, your highness."
"No, I won't," Garric said, smiling faintly. King Carus in his mind wore a rueful expression. If one of his officers had flared at him that way Carus would've had his sword clear of its sheath before the statement was complete. They both knew that would've been a bad response. "While I think, I hope, that the presence of the army will convince Valgard's supporters to put down their arms, in the end I'm afraid Lord Attaper is correct. Rebels are rebels, wherever they are."
"Your highness," Waldron said, clasping his heavy belt in both hands to keep them away from the hilt of his sword. He looked down at the table for a moment before he was able to raise his eyes to meet Garric's. "Your highness, send me and one of the Ornifal regiments. Let me try. Please. For the sake of—"
He paused, then burst out, "For the sake of the kingdom!"
"Garric?" Sharina said. She was sitting across the table from him in the seat Lady Lelor had filled during the negotiations. "If Lord Waldron goes back with enough soldiers for safety—"
She quirked a smile that perfectly mirrored the one Garric felt bending his own lips. They both knew that no number of soldiers could guarantee safety.
"Anyway...," Sharina continued. "If Waldron goes back and I go with him—then you're neither slighting Ornifal nor antagonizing those who don't like the thought of being ruled by—"
She grinned very broadly, at Garric and then at Waldron beside him.
"—a warrior king from Haft, let's say," she concluded.
"That would also permit your highness to conclude the present negotiations with Earl Wildulf without appearing to be under pressure," Liane said, holding a document which seemed to have been written on a sheet of lead foil, like a curse to be buried in a graveyard. "While I don't want to seem alarmist, it's public knowledge that there's hostility toward the kingdom at all levels of Sandrakkan society, and other indications—"
Her spies, she meant. Liane appeared to have agents on every island, though for the most part she kept their operations secret even from Garric.
"—suggest that there would be a very real danger of revolt if your highness were to suddenly withdraw with the royal army at this stage."
Garric took a deep breath. He smiled, but the expression didn't go deeper than his lips. "Doesn't anybody think I ought to go to Valles?" he asked.
The truth was, he didn't want to return to Ornifal, not under these circumstances. He'd never felt comfortable in the society of the Valles court. Half of Ornifal's nobles viewed him as the next thing to a usurper, and all of them to some degree resented him for being from Haft. Whatever they might say in public, they knew in their hearts that Garric's ancestors had raised the kingdom to heights which it had never regained under the Dukes of Ornifal.
'Prince Garric' had been accepted because he brought the stability that'd vanished under Valence III; but if a strong leader from Ornifal appeared, one who claimed to be the son of the warrior king of the past generation, there'd be many who'd be glad to support him. Courtiers, bureaucrats... soldiers. Even some Blood Eagles, perhaps. It was one thing to face enemies. It was another to turn your back on a seeming friend in the knowledge that he might be waiting for just that chance with a dagger in his sleeve....
"We don't want you to go if there's another alternative," said Tadai, glancing around the table to a series of nods that proved he was speaking for all. "And Princess Sharina just showed that there is."
Garric nodded. "All right," he said. "But there's something none of are talking about. Even you, Tenoctris."
The old wizard sat beside Sharina, her satchel of paraphernalia placed discreetly on the ground under the table where others wouldn't have to look at it. She gave Garric a quick grin.
"That's Hani, the wizard who's with Valgard," Garric continued. "If Valgard came from nowhere, then it seems as likely to me that he'
s Hani's pawn rather than the other way around. And much as I respect your abilities, Lord Waldron, they don't include wizardry."
"And may the Lady grant that they never do!" Waldron said in gruff honesty. "I figure a wizard's throat cuts as easily as a decent man's, though, and I've got the sword to do it!"
"Very possibly," Garric said. "But Tenoctris? I'd very much appreciate it if you would accompany Lord Waldron and Sharina. It's not that I don't want you here—and I may very well want your help, I know that. But I'll have the whole royal army, while on Ornifal—"
He didn't try to finish the thought, just shrugged. He didn't know what words he could've used. Images of numberless disasters kept whirling through his mind like flakes in a snowstorm.
Tenoctris nodded agreement. "Yes," she said. "I can be only one place at a time, of course. I just wish—"
She stopping, beaming with the familiar, transfiguring smile that took decades off her apparent age.
"I wish I had greater powers," Tenoctris said, "but I'll use what I have for the sake of the kingdom, and for Good—which must be real, since Evil so obviously is. And we'll hope that's enough."
Garric rose to his feet. "Well, friends and fellow soldiers," he said. "Nobody can ask for more than the best we can give. Lord Waldron, you have matters to attend, I'm sure. Sharina and Tenoctris will inform you of their baggage requirements when you consider transportation. Lord Zettin, provide whatever Lord Waldron requests. Inform me after the fact, if you will, but you have my approval already."
"Of course, your highness," Zettin said, glancing toward the aides waiting outside the ring of Blood Eagles who were ensuring privacy.
"As for the rest of us," Garric concluded, "I see the barge coming back from Erdin already. I doubt Earl Wildulf would be quite so prompt if he'd decided on war, so we'd best consider the procedure for crowning a loyal vassal. It's something I got very little practice at—"
He grinned broadly, light-headed to have resolved the question of how to deal with events on Ornifal.
"—when I was living in Barca's Hamlet."
Everybody laughed—even Lord Waldron, who burst out with a gust of laughter after he finally understood he'd really heard what he thought he had.
Garric watched t leaving, helped by his sister. They'd have Cashel with them, of course. That was the next best thing to having a whole army....
* * *
Cashel stepped from the sunlit hillside onto the parapet of a huge palace in the minutes before sunrise. The haze of light that precedes the sun had already turned the eastern sky into liquid crystal bright enough to hide the stars. The hard, smooth surface beneath Cashel's feet was just as translucently pure as the air above.
"Oh!" he said, as much in delight as wonder. He'd poised his quarterstaff at a slant before him as he stepped through the portal, ready for whatever danger might be waiting. He shifted it to his side but held the ferrule a trifle above the ground. He didn't suppose the iron would mark the gleaming surface, but it still seemed wrong to be rough with something so beautiful.
Mab was beside him. He hadn't heard or felt her appear. She'd been with him on Volita and she was with him still; it didn't seem to matter that they weren't in the same place as before.
"This is Ronn," she said, looking around with the gentle smile of a person seeing familiar wonders through the enthusiastic eyes of a stranger to them. "You can think of it as a city, if you like, or as a palace; but all the thousands of citizens live in the same splendor as their ruler."
Cashel looked at her again. She was Mab, he was sure of that, but—
"Lady, your hair is dark now," he said. "And you're younger, and you're, well, fuller."
The woman shrugged dismissively. "Yes," she said, "and very likely I'll change my tunics and sandals at some point as well. Does this concern you?"
Cashel blushed in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, lady," he said. In truth, her clothes and the jewel-bright paint on her nails were the only parts of Mab's appearance that weren't subtly different from the woman he'd met on Volita. "I don't normally poke into other people's business. I won't do it again."
Mab smiled. Cashel turned his attention back to his surroundings where he wasn't so apt to make a fool of himself. He hadn't been prying, just surprised; but when you asked folks about how they looked, you were being personal whether you thought about it that way or not.
There was any number of people around, more than he'd guessed at first because he could see for such a long distance. He was standing near the southeast corner of a broad, curving terrace. It stretched for farther than Cashel could be sure of. To the west, across the ship-filled harbor far below, lights twinkled on the other end of the crescent.
Because the plaza was so broad, the people got lost in it until you really thought about how many there were. Cashel didn't suppose he'd seen so many folks in one place except when Garric was mustering his army. There were too many to see them all, really, even if the sun'd been fully up.
"It's like being up on a mountain, mistress," he said. "And it's very beautiful."
"Ronn was built to be beautiful," Mab said with a nod of agreement. "And it was a mountain, before the city was built. The foundations are carved into the rock to support these crystal levels reaching into the sky."
Cashel glanced at those standing close by, showing polite interest but being careful not to stare. People stood in pairs and small groups; occasionally one would be alone. They were waiting for something, though they didn't seem to be tense.
They were an army in numbers, but nothing could be more peaceful than the folk themselves. Almost all wore a loose flowing robe, thin as the finest silk, over an opaque, richly embroidered garment that covered them from feet to neckline as tight as a stocking. The women's fingernails were painted like Mab's, blue on one hand and red on the other, though nobody else's seemed to have the same inner shine as hers.
The people who weren't dressed in that fashion were probably foreigners like Cashel, though he guessed they'd come from the ships in the harbor instead of stepping out of the air. There were more different kinds than he could've counted on both hands, ranging from small, dark men in wrappers of patterned cotton to a pair of hulking, red-haired fellows who wore furs. Those two were taller than Cashel—taller than Garric, even. They gave him the same kind of appraising looks that he offered them.
"Ah, did wizards build the city, mistress?" Cashel asked, rubbing the pavement with his bare toe to see if he could feel any sort of join between blocks. It was as slick as polished metal, all one piece and not even roughened by the feet that'd walked it over who knew how many years?
"One wizard did," Mab said, turning toward Cashel. Her voice was calm, but there was something more in her eyes. "He built Ronn, and he ruled as the King for a thousand years."
She gestured with her left arm and continued, "The plain from Ronn to the northern hills—"
Cashel could see the hills she meant in the far distance, an irregular darkness rising on the horizon. From where he stood on the southern edge of the broad terrace, the lowlands between city and hills was out of sight.
"—was planted in crops to feed the city's population and worked by the Made Men whom he'd created as he created Ronn. For a thousand years, till a thousand years ago."
Cashel nodded to give himself time to decide just how to respond. He wouldn't want not to work himself, but he knew a lot of people didn't feel that way. After fitting the pieces together in his mind he said, "That sounds, well, pretty good, mistress. Did something go wrong back a thousand years ago, then?"
Looking at the comfortable people, well-fed and well-dressed, it didn't seem like very much could've gone wrong. There had to be something he was missing, or Mab wouldn't have brought it up.
"Something went right," Mab said. "The Made Men looked like real men except that they couldn't bear the light. They worked in darkness. At first they had windowless huts in the fields. Each dawn they went into their huts and hid from the sun. Little by l
ittle they began moving into Ronn, first in the lowest vaults but moving higher as time passed. They blocked the crystals that brought the sun and moon down from the sky to every level. And then a thousand years ago the people rose up behind a Queen, and they drove the King and his creatures into the hills."
Cashel looked at the other people waiting on the terrace. It was hard to imagine these folks driving anybody anywhere. All but the foreigners looked as smoothly plump as so many palace servants back in Valles. It made him remember what Mab had said before, about Ronn being a palace where everybody lived like the ruler.
"Well, it seems like things are fine now," he said aloud. He smiled at Mab. "People aren't starving, I can see that."
Food was on his mind, he guessed. He'd brought bread and cheese in his wallet, figuring that there must be water on Volita since it pastured sheep. It was past time that he'd have eaten if he'd stayed on the island, but he guessed he'd wait a while longer since it was just dawn here.
"The Queen was a wizard too," Mab said. "She caused crops to grow inside Ronn where the residents themselves could tend them without fear of the Made Men attacking during the night."
The spectators—despite their total numbers, they were too spread out to call them a crowd—gave a spreading sigh like the murmur of doves in their cote. A group of men and women wearing high golden headdresses walked toward the eastern edge of the terrace. There were seven of them, a handful and two fingers of the other hand.
"That's the Council of the Wise," Mab said in a quiet voice. The newcomers passed almost close enough for Cashel to have touched them with his quarterstaff. "They aid the Queen with certain tasks, including this one."
The Councilors reached the parapet and lined up along it. Together they turned westward, stretching both arms out as they began to chant.
"They're wizards?" Cashel asked, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Or just priests?"
"Wizards of a sort," Mab said. "Useful in their way, but only candles in the sun compared to the King."