The Vondish Ambassador

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Lar, of course, was wearing his red velvet coat and fancy hat; he was fine.

  Several of the torches on the street corners were beginning to gutter and die; the shops were almost all dark, while many of the rooms upstairs showed lights. The lesser moon shone brightly pink among the stars overhead; the greater moon was not visible.

  "Will you be able to find the right shop tomorrow, if Hagai follows me?" Emmis asked as the pair turned the corner onto Arena Street.

  "I think so," Lar replied. "Left from Arena onto Wizard Street, then it's on the right. Kolar the Sage."

  Emmis nodded. "This hum Vond heard – it has something to do with his magic? Or with his empire?"

  "Don't ask," Lar said.

  Emmis frowned. "If it's such a secret, why did you bring me along?"

  "In case I needed advice. I'm a stranger here, remember?"

  "Do you really have a grandson named Kelder?"

  "Not that I know of, named Kelder or anything else."

  "You just wanted to know whether there was some reason warlocks don't go to Vond?"

  "Yes."

  "You're lucky that warlocks can't tell lies from truth the way witches can."

  "Yes, I am."

  "So do you think that's all it is? That the Small Kingdoms killed their warlocks on the Night of Madness?"

  Lar turned up an empty palm. "It might be. I don't really remember any such killings in Semma, but I did hear about some in Ksinallion, and maybe elsewhere."

  "Semma never had any warlocks? No one was affected?"

  "A few people disappeared on the Night of Madness, just as they did everywhere," Lar said. "But I never heard of any warlocks after that, until Vond came." He glanced at Emmis. "Do you remember the Night of Madness?"

  Emmis snorted. "I was still in my mother's womb. No, I don't remember it."

  "Ah, you're younger than I thought."

  "So you're here to find out about this hum, and why warlocks haven't been fleeing into your empire to escape the Calling – why did that need an ambassador, instead of a trader?"

  "Because I'm also here to make an alliance with the overlords, if I can," Lar said. "That's not just for show."

  Emmis nodded.

  "Is Ethsharitic really the empire's official language?" he asked. If it was, he thought, it was odd how many holes there were in Lar's vocabulary.

  "Well, officially, yes. It was Vond's native tongue, and he didn't want to bother learning any others, and after all, we had seventeen or eighteen languages to deal with. In practice, Semmat and Ksinallionese and Trader's Tongue are probably used more."

  "I see." That did explain the matter. "That should make it easier to deal with the overlord, I suppose."

  "I suppose," Lar said.

  They walked on without further conversation. Emmis glanced up at the lesser moon as it sank behind the rooftops, then lowered his gaze and hunched his shoulders against the north wind.

  Chapter Nine

  Emmis slept late, and barely had time to make a trip to Cut Street Market to stock the pantry before he had to head for the plaza to find the palace guard he had spoken to.

  He wasn't entirely sure that Cut Street was the closest market square; he did not know his way around Allston yet. He did, however, know where it was, and what he could expect to find there. That was enough to send him hurrying across the New City, his purse at the ready.

  He got several sacks of provender back to the kitchen on Through Street, but had no time to do more than set them on the shelves before hurrying to the Palace. He had eaten a few tidbits at the market, but not had a proper breakfast, so he was hungry, but he tried not to think about that as he trotted down Arena Street.

  The outer guards let him pass, and the guard at the door waved. "There you are!" he said, as he began fumbling under his breastplate.

  "Here I am," Emmis agreed, as he came to a halt.

  "Here," the guard said, handing him a folded parchment.

  Emmis accepted it, and looked it over.

  It was large and stiff, folded and sealed with red wax. Ornately-drawn runes on one side read, "To his Excellency the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Vondish Empire."

  "What is it?" Emmis asked.

  "I don't know," the guard said. "I asked the captain who you needed to talk to, and he said he didn't know but would find out, and this morning he told me to expect a paper, and an hour later a messenger gave me that, said it was from Lord Ildirin, the overlord's uncle."

  "The overlord has an uncle?"

  Emmis regretted the words as soon as they left his lips; he remembered watching the funeral rites when the old overlord, Azrad VI, had died, five years before, and he remembered asking his mother who those old people standing around the pyre were, and being told that some of them were Azrad's brothers and sisters. She hadn't known which was which, or any of their names except Lady Imra, and Emmis hadn't been close enough to really see their faces in any case, but she had been quite sure they were the dead man's siblings.

  Which meant, of course, that they would be the present overlord's aunts and uncles.

  The guard did not seem troubled by Emmis's apparent ignorance, though. "Two of them, actually," he said. "Lord Clurim and Lord Ildirin. There used to be a third, Lord Karannin, but he died eight or nine years ago, before the overlord's father."

  "So is this Lord Ildirin in charge of ambassadors, then?"

  "As I understand it, old Lord Ildirin is in charge of whatever he wants to be in charge of that no one else is handling. I think the captain called him a minister without portfolio, whatever that means."

  Emmis looked down at the parchment.

  He had no idea what it said, but if it came from the overlord's own uncle then it deserved respect. He peered at the wax seal, which was stamped with the three ships at anchor that were sometimes used to represent the city, encircled by what were probably intended to be bay leaves. There were no runes, no name.

  Still, it looked very official.

  "Did he say anything?" Emmis asked.

  "Just to give you that when you came back."

  Emmis still hesitated. He was tempted to open the parchment right then and there, but it wasn't addressed to him, it was addressed to Lar. He would deliver it to the ambassador still sealed.

  "Thank you," he said, and turned away.

  Back at the house he looked up and down the street, but saw no sign of Hagai or the other Lumethans. He was unsure what that meant. He took a final glance around before stepping inside, then closed the door carefully behind him.

  He found Lar rummaging through the kitchen, putting some of Emmis's purchases in the cabinets and setting others aside to make lunch. He glanced up as the younger man entered.

  "Do I have an appointment with the overlord?" he asked, as he set a loaf of bread on a cracked cutting board and looked around for a knife.

  "I don't know," Emmis said. He held out the parchment. "This is for you."

  Lar turned, paused, then accepted the document. "What is it?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Emmis said again. "Lord Ildirin sent it in response to your request for an audience."

  "Lord Ildirin? Not Lord Azrad?"

  "Lord Ildirin is the overlord's uncle. He handles certain matters for Lord Azrad."

  "Ah." Lar studied the inscription and the seal, then broke it open and unfolded the parchment.

  Emmis stood and watched as the ambassador read. As he had told Kolar, Lar read Ethsharitic slowly; once or twice he seemed to stop completely, and his lips moved as he worked out a difficult word.

  At last he finished and looked up at Emmis.

  "Well," he said.

  "Well, what?"

  "Did anyone tell you what this is?"

  "No," Emmis said, slightly annoyed, and wanting to tell his employer to get on with it.

  "This is a request for credentials and a protocol," Lar said.

  Emmis frowned. "What's a protocol?"

  "I was hoping you could tell me," Lar said
with a grimace. "For that matter, what are credentials?"

  "Oh," Emmis said. "That's... that's the papers that prove who you are. A letter from your regent, maybe?"

  "Oh, I have those! That's right, I had forgotten – Lord Sterren did teach me the word. That's all right, then. But a..." He squinted at the parchment. "...a written protocol for the establishment of relations between our nations?"

  "May I see it?" Emmis asked, reaching for the parchment.

  Lar handed the document over.

  Emmis puzzled over it; the runes were unnecessarily florid, as was the language. Still, he thought he understood it. He read it through twice, then folded it up and handed it back.

  "He wants you to write up an explanation of what you want from the overlord," he said. "You're to send that, along with your address here and some proof that you really were sent by the Empire of Vond, to the Palace, and once Lord Ildirin is satisfied that you are who you say you are, and that you're here as a friend, he'll see you in person. If that goes well, then you can see the overlord."

  Lar considered that, then nodded. "It's a start," he said. "It's reasonable." He turned back toward the counter. "Have you seen a bread knife around?"

  In the end they hacked the bread into chunks with Emmis's belt-knife, as the kitchen had not come equipped with any cutlery at all. They ate an improvised lunch while standing at the counter – the kitchen had no intact chairs, and eating in the dining room seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

  As they ate they planned out the afternoon, and discussed what would go into Lar's protocol. Lar, it was decided, would go back to the Wizards' Quarter and observe Kolar's spell, assuming that Hagai or another Lumethan had not turned up, and would then return to the house and begin writing out his explanation for Lord Ildirin. Emmis would go back to Shiphaven to collect the rest of his belongings from his rented room, and to let his family know where he was now living. He might also make sure that Hagai had gotten back to the Crooked Candle safely, and when that was done he would then return to the house and set about putting it in order and supplying it with such essentials as bread knives and kitchen chairs. A theurgist to inspect the doorway shrine could wait a day or two; Lar was fairly certain they would be making further trips to the Wizards' Quarter.

  "You could find one yourself when you're there today," Emmis said.

  "I would prefer to have my guide with me for that," Lar replied.

  Emmis nodded. "All right." Then he stood and brushed crumbs from his tunic. "I'll go now, if you don't mind," he said.

  "Go," Lar said, with a wave.

  Emmis went. There was still no sign of anyone watching the house.

  He reached his old residence behind Canal Square without incident, argued with his landlady for half an hour before finally agreeing on how much he would pay to settle his account, gave her the agreed-upon sum, and then climbed the narrow stairs for one last time.

  He did not really have much to collect here; he had lived simply, and had never really intended the room to be his permanent home. His clothes could all, with moderate effort, be stuffed into a duffel bag that could easily be carried over one shoulder; his food supplies and such personal belongings as quills and candle-stubs all fit in a second and final bag, this one a fold-top leather satchel. The furnishings, including the linens, had all come with the room, and would stay with it.

  He took a final look around, to be sure he had everything he wanted, and the window caught his eye. He crossed the fraying bit of rag rug and opened the casement, then leaned out cautiously.

  The cry of seagulls reached him, faint and distant, as did the salt smell of the sea. Wood smoke, spices, and decay were a stronger scent. Off to the left he could see through a gap between the houses to sunlight sparkling on the New Canal; below him was the muddy courtyard where the neighborhood well stood at one end, the privies at the other, and half a dozen unbreeched children played between. Strings of laundry hung from the eaves of a house in the southeastern corner, providing a little bright color to the courtyard – most of the houses here were roughly two hundred years old, and darkened by centuries of smoke and weather.

  This hadn't been a bad place to live, he told himself. Did he really want to give it up for the back bedroom on Through Street?

  He had never expected to live in Allston. He had always assumed that if he ever left Shiphaven it would be for somewhere exotic, like Tintallion of the Isle, or someplace luxurious, like the New City. A big yellow house in Allston, just off Arena Street, had not been anything he considered.

  But that room was no more permanent than this one had been. It was a place to stay while he earned money, until he knew what he wanted to do, and where he wanted to live. It was somewhere out from under his parents' roof, to prove he could stand on his own feet.

  This room had been somewhere he could bring a Spicetown whore, or that drunken sailor woman who had taken a fancy to him, or the chandler's daughter who had shared his bed for a month before running off to Ethshar of the Sands; it wasn't somewhere he would bring a wife or raise a child.

  The room on Through Street – well, any whore he brought there would probably come from Camptown rather than Spicetown, but otherwise, it was much the same. The sights and smells outside the window might be less familiar, but that didn't really matter.

  Eventually he wanted a place of his own, a place he could settle in for good, but this wasn't it, and neither was the house in Allston. The ambassador's money, though, would bring him that much closer to someday finding it.

  He closed the window, hoisted the duffel onto his shoulder, picked up the satchel, and left, closing the door behind him for one last time, and dropping the key in the landlady's waiting palm.

  He trudged out of the alley, then across Canal Square and up Twixt Street. He turned left on Olive Street and made his way west a few hundred yards. There he paused, looking at the house his parents shared with two other families.

  He had grown up here, with his two younger sisters, and with the seven kids of the other two families, though most of them had moved out now. The ten of them had all played together as children, and had been almost like a single family, instead of three. When he had been younger everyone took it for granted that he would eventually marry Azradelle the Tomboy, from upstairs, officially merging two of the three.

  It hadn't happened, and no one still called her that. Now she was Azradelle of Shiphaven, married to Pergren the Pilot, and the mother of twins. They lived in a flat on Cinnamon Street, over in Spicetown, and had for a couple of years.

  His behavior at their wedding was one reason he had moved out and found himself the room behind Canal Square – living in the same house as Azradelle's parents and younger siblings had been too uncomfortable after his spiteful drunken speech and... well, and other things.

  It had been foolish, really; he hadn't wanted to marry Azradelle himself, and Pergren was a nice enough fellow, but somehow he hadn't been able to keep his mouth shut. He had felt cheated when she chose Pergren. It was completely unreasonable, and he knew that, he had known it at the time, but all those years of taking her for granted, combined with too much oushka, had somehow made him lose interest in being reasonable.

  It was probably just as well Lar didn't know about that little episode.

  He shifted the duffel, then climbed the stoop and knocked on the front door.

  His father would probably be working over at the warehouse, and his mother was probably in the courtyard out back, but he was hoping one of his sisters would be within earshot. Sharra was in and out, despite her new husband, and Imirin had moved back after completing her apprenticeship.

  Sure enough, the door opened, and Imirin peered out.

  "Emmis!" she shrieked. "And you have luggage – are you coming home to stay?"

  "No, no," he said. "I'm moving to Allston, and I wanted to let everyone know where I'll be living. Who's here?"

  "Just me in the house. Mother's out back. Allston? What are you doing in Allsto
n? There aren't any docks there!"

  "Let me come in and put these things down, and I'll explain."

  Imirin jumped aside. "Come in, come in!"

  A few minutes later he was in the courtyard, explaining his new job to his sister, his mother, and half a dozen of the neighbors.

  "Is he a warlock?" Kluréa the Seamstress from next door wanted to know. "I heard that everyone in Vond is a warlock."

  "No, he's not a warlock," Emmis assured her. "I don't think he's any kind of magician, and I know he's not a warlock. He says there aren't any warlocks in the empire any more."

  The question got him thinking, though – might Lar be a magician of some sort? He hadn't said so, had shown no sign of magic, but that didn't necessarily mean much, given his secrecy on certain subjects. Emmis was fairly sure the Lumethans were using magic of one variety or another, so why wouldn't the people of Vond? He would ask Lar about that when he got back to the house.

  When at last he had answered everyone's questions about his new job, his new home, and his new employer – most of the answers were variations on, "I don't know yet" – the women took turns bringing him up to date on the local gossip. Imirin was trying to raise enough money to open her own shop, but so far was making do with operating a small still in the basement and selling her products to the local inns; Sharra was still furnishing her new home and living on her dowry and her husband Radler's earnings. Azradelle was expecting another child in a few months, her brother Kelder was keeping company with a merchant's daughter from Westgate, their sister Irith was still apprenticed to the old sailmaker on Shipwright Street but not happy about it, and so on.

  Imirin insisted on giving him a sample of her latest batch, which seemed to make some of the neighbors nervous; presumably they remembered what a few cups of oushka had done to him at Pergren and Azradelle's wedding. Emmis limited himself to drinking perhaps half the small sample, just so no one would worry.

  He had to admit that it was excellent oushka. Imirin's master had taught her well.