The Gods Return

by David Drake

  “Why do you suppose Palomir attacked us instead of one of the southern islands where the royal army couldn’t intervene, Your Highness?” Zettin asked.

  He glanced over his shoulder, then jerked his head around in embarrassment for his instinctive curiosity. Liane was giving crisp orders to attendants in the hallway, directing them to deliver the three notices at once.

  Garric shrugged. “For all we know, there’s other armies marching on Shengy or elsewhere, milord,” he said. “Though I doubt it. Shengy at least is mountainous terrain and never seems to’ve had much of a population. It’s pretty clear Palomir’s out to capture people to rebuild the city.”

  “We can’t march on Palomir if their army’s behind us,” Carus said. The ghost’s expression was one of cheerful enthusiasm. “By the Lady, if they did go haring off to Shengy or Seres, there wouldn’t be anything left when they wanted to come home!”

  I don’t think the Lady’s the right one to invoke for destroying cities, Garric replied silently. Though blasphemy was pretty minor as the sins of soldiers went.

  “If She’s any kind of gardener,” Carus said, “then she kills the slugs on her vegetables. And Palomir’s a nest of slugs if there ever was one!”

  Liane returned to the table. “I sent a messenger to Tenoctris also,” she said. “Asking her to join us as soon as possible.”

  “Right,” said Garric. “I should’ve thought of that.”

  He cleared his throat. “Lord Zettin,” he said as he rose to his feet, “will you excuse us for a moment? I’ll want you present again when the others arrive.”

  “Your Highness,” Zettin said with an apologetic nod. He was out the door and closing it behind him in a single flowing motion.

  “He moves like a swordsman,” Carus noted approvingly. “And clever.”

  Garric put his arms around Liane, drawing her close. “I’ll be commanding the army,” he said quietly into her hair. “We’ll be moving fast, just the troops themselves and the supply column.”

  He cleared his throat. “The men won’t be permitted to bring companions along. And therefore neither will I.”

  “Yes,” said Liane. “Of course.”

  She didn’t pull away from Garric, but she leaned back so that she could look him in the face. She said, “Dear, we both have jobs to do. We’ll do them, and if we’re successful we’ll be together again afterwards.”

  Garric bent to kiss her.

  Liane was very smart, and beneath the surface she was as ruthless as an executioner. Garric had seen how she ran her spy network, directing—and doing—things that made him queasy to watch.

  She wasn’t arguing with his assessment of what was proper and therefore necessary to the good order of the kingdom. But he knew Liane bos-Benliman too well to think she was going to sit quietly in Pandah and wait for his return.

  SHARINA HAD FIVE minutes to dress by the water clock in the courtyard, and getting into her formal robes had never taken fewer than ten to her knowledge. There was no real reason to change, but there was no real reason for Princess Sharina to be meeting the delegation of merchants from Valles. If she was going to meet them—and for political reasons she should—then she had to wear court robes. To do otherwise would be to insult the delegates, making the situation even worse.

  “Raise your arms,” said her maid Diora. Sharina obeyed promptly; the maid grunted and settled the plain inner robe over them.

  Master Helcote, the chamberlain, would’ve been horrified to hear Diora speak to the princess in a tone of brusque practicality, but he was already horrified that the princess had dismissed the establishment of twenty servants who should in his opinion be waiting on her.

  Sharina had been a servant. She didn’t expect any more privacy in a palace than she’d had in her father’s inn, but neither did want to have twenty tongues gossiping about what the princess did or about what made a better story than what she really did.

  Diora was willing to dress Sharina, fix her hair, and tidy the suite to Sharina’s satisfaction by herself. In exchange, the maid was paid double what she’d otherwise have earned, and she had leave to spend most nights with her fiancé, a Blood Eagle captain. They both thought they did well out of the arrangement.

  Someone knocked on the suite’s outer door. Sharina grimaced and said through the smothering folds of the robe, “Who is it?”

  Could they even hear her? And why were the guards outside letting somebody bother her now in the first place?

  “Her Highness says to wait,” said Diora in her harsh Erdin accent. She was the daughter of a small shopkeeper, and could if she chose to strip plaster off the walls with her tongue. Not in front of Princess Sharina, of course.

  “If you please, Sharina?” Liane called, pitching her voice to penetrate the door panel and the robe now sliding over Sharina’s shoulders. “I won’t take a moment and you can continue dressing.”

  “I’m so sorry, Liane!” Sharina called. Diora had let go of the robe and opened the door without being told to. “Come in!”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you when you’re so busy,” Liane said, closing the door herself. “I have many things to take care of also, and there’s not much time.”

  “Busy!” Sharina said and snorted. “I’m meeting Valles merchants who want Prince Garric—want the kingdom—to redirect the River Beltis to drain into the Southern Seaway instead of into the marshes between Charax and Bight as it has since the Change. Otherwise Valles will cease to be a major port.”

  “Yes, it will,” said Liane. “And the sun will continue to rise also, but I don’t blame someone who’s to be executed at dawn from regretting that. The delegates deserve to be given the death sentence of their city with dignity.”

  She picked up one arm of the outer robe. “Here,” she said to Diora. “I’ll help you.”

  “When I’ve got these pleats tied, milady,” said the maid, tugging at the laces running up the middle of the back. Every time Sharina was dressed in a court robe, she reminded herself to have Diora show her exactly how the arrangement of ribbons and plackets worked as soon as she next took it off. And every time she took it off, she forgot everything in the pleasure of getting out of such hot, heavy, confining garments.

  Liane was from Sandrakkan; her father was a nobleman with an estate west of Erdin. Even so she’d spoken with real compassion for the residents of Valles, the capital city whose existence had twice in living memory brought Sandrakkan to rebellion. My brother’s very lucky to have found someone as able as Liane, and as compassionate.

  “Sharina,” Liane said, “during my absence I’m leaving my special duties—”

  The intelligence service.

  “—in the hands of my deputy, Master Dysart. He’s both organized and careful. I don’t believe you’ll notice any difference in the quality of the information that you receive.”

  Sharina kept from frowning only by an effort of will. After only an instant’s reflection, she realized that Liane wasn’t talking in front of Diora in the arrogant assumption that a servant wasn’t a person and therefore couldn’t hear. Liane knew Diora as a person—and trusted her, as Sharina herself trusted the maid.

  “I don’t question your personnel judgments, Liane,” Sharina said. “I don’t think anyone who knows you would do that.”

  She was still surprised to learn that Liane was accompanying Garric on campaign, but that was none of anybody else’s business. The kingdom depended on Garric’s decisions. If Liane’s presence helped him perform better, then that was more important than anything Liane could do in Pandah, where her duties were in the hands of a trustworthy replacement.

  “The only problem you might have with Dysart,” Liane said, “is that his family had a small importing business in Erdin; he’s not a noble.”

  “Pardon?” said Sharina. She was sure she’d misheard. “Liane, I’m not a noble. Nor, well, is my brother.”

  “Oh!” said Liane. She paused, holding her hands palm-out. “I didn’t mean that the w
ay it sounds. I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m ready for the outer robe now,” said Diora. “If you’re really willing to help.”

  “Thank you,” said Liane, gratefully seizing the chance Diora had given her to organize her thoughts. “Yes, of course.”

  Liane and the maid lifted the outer robe between them and settled it over Sharina as she held herself very still. The garment was heavy brocade with embroidery and appliqués in metal thread. Uncomfortable didn’t begin to describe it, but Liane was right: the delegates deserved courtesy when they were told that their city, the capital of the Isles for centuries, was doomed.

  Sharina’s head emerged from the heavy garment. She breathed deeply; she’d been holding her breath without being conscious of it while her head was covered in thick silk. As Liane stepped out of the maid’s way, she and Sharina exchanged rueful smiles.

  “I didn’t mean noblemen had a monopoly on intelligence or honor,” Liane said, no longer grasping for words. “You don’t have to read much history to know that. But Dysart doesn’t think like a noble. You do, and Garric does. You weren’t raised to think that your village or your business is all the world.”

  “But Dysart runs day-to-day operations now?” Sharina said in puzzlement. “Which is the whole kingdom and beyond.”

  “Yes, and he runs them very well,” Liane said. “But he thinks in terms of agents and facts and incidents. He’ll know everything that can be known, but there may be things he doesn’t understand.”

  She smiled ruefully. “There’ve been times I thought that Dysart doesn’t understand anything,” she said. “Which isn’t fair. But please, when he gives you summaries, which he’ll do every morning, remember that there may be a forest which Dysart isn’t seeing for the trees.”

  “I see what you mean,” Sharina said. She grinned, because she suddenly felt warm at the realization that she was a part of a family. They were all working for the common good, passing duties back and forth when the need arose, but all working. “It’s bad enough to be my brother when he’s gone. I guess being you as well means I won’t sleep.”

  “I’m sorry,” Liane said. Her lips were trembling. “But I . . .”

  “A moment, Diora,” Sharina said to the maid who was tying the myriad tucks and bows that were part of the outfit. She stepped forward and embraced her friend.

  “Be safe, dear,” she said. “Garric and the kingdom are very lucky to have you. And so am I.”

  Oh, Lady, I’m crying too!

  In the background, Sharina heard Diora murmur, “I’ll send Lancombe to tell the Valles merchants that you’ll be a little late.”

  ILNA HAD NEVER cared much about the landscape. That didn’t mean she was unaware of it, though, and the North River waterfront was ugly by any standard. The landings were rickety straggles standing over an expanse of sedges, reeds, and mud.

  Especially mud. The riverbank was low, and storms upstream regularly spread water half a furlong back from the normal channel. Anything like organized business required a wharf, though Ilna watched small traders wading to and from their boats.

  The river was lined with willows and alders when Ilna first saw it. For as far as she now could see through the haze, the trees had been cut down for building material.

  Krumlin’s wharf was more solid than most: it stood on piles, not a lattice of withies, and the floor was sawn lumber rather than a corduroy of thin poles. Ilna smiled minusculely. This was better than splashing through muck to midthigh, though she’d have done that too if it had been necessary. It might well be necessary when they landed downriver.

  She started down the wharf, checking the vessels moored to either side. Those near the bank were aground, though they didn’t seem the worse for it. Each sat in a glistening wreath of water, waiting for another freshet to lift them free.

  Master Ingens popped his head up from a berth near the far end, just before Ilna reached that point. “Oh,” he said. “You came after all.”

  “I came, of course,” Ilna said. She considered whether to go on; then she said, “Master Ingens, we’re going to be together for some time. This will be less unpleasant for both of us if you learn that I mean what I say. Do you understand?”

  “It was getting late,” the secretary said. He backed down the ladder to the boat below. “Still, you’re here. It doesn’t matter.”

  “We’ll also do better if you stop telling lies when you make a fool of yourself,” Ilna said, swinging her bindle—a few necessities wrapped in a middle-weight cloak, itself the bulkiest item—around to her back to follow him. “The sun’s an hour short of midmorning, which is the time you set.”

  “Whatever you say,” Ingens muttered.

  The boat reminded Ilna of the dories that men in Barca’s Hamlet had used to fish the Inner Sea, though it had a flatter, shallower bottom. It was about as wide as Garric was tall and as long as five men that height. The mast was unstepped. It and the yard with the sail furled around it were lashed to yokes, keeping the belly of the vessel free for cargo. Since they carried only supplies for the journey, the “passengers’ quarters” were as spacious as Ilna ever remembered on shipboard.

  The crew of four Dalopans eyed her in flat-faced silence. They wore swatches of bark cloth around their waists and bone pins thrust through parts of their bodies. Mostly that meant nose and ears, but one of the squat, dark men had a triangle woven into each cheek. It’d been done long enough ago that knots of scar tissue swelled over the bone splinters.

  The captain wasn’t any more prepossessing, though he was from a northern island. The black zigzags slanting across his tunic were a Blaise style. The garment was of good quality, but worn and a little too small for this man to have bought it new.

  “Well, girlie,” he said, leering at Ilna. “I guess I don’t mind having a woman aboard for the trip after all.”

  Ilna thought for a moment, then adjusted the pattern in her hands slightly. The fellow was necessary, she supposed.

  “This is Captain Sairg,” Ingens said. “His boat and crew brought me—”

  Ilna stepped so that her back was to Ingens and the Dalopans were on the other side of Sairg; the boat shifted nervously. The captain apparently thought she was offering herself to him; he grinned broadly and reached for her. Several of his teeth were missing and the survivors were black.

  Ilna spread the pattern. Sairg screamed and staggered backward, throwing his hands over his eyes. He’d have gone over the side if a crewman hadn’t grabbed him.

  “Captain Sairg,” Ilna said. “You are a hireling and I am your employer. If you ever again forget that, you will spend eternity in the place you glimpsed a moment ago. Do you understand?”

  “You bloody fool!” Ingens snarled at the captain. “I told you she was a wizard, didn’t I?”

  Sairg rose to a squat, looking out past the edges of his splayed fingers. Despite his terror, the boat didn’t wobble when he moved. He was somewhat lower in Ilna’s estimation than the carp browsing Pandah’s sewage on the river bottom, but he remained a sailor.

  “Sairg, now that Mistress Ilna’s aboard, we should get under way,” Ingens said, reverting to a brusquely businesslike tone. “There’s nothing to gain by hanging around on this mudbank longer than we have to.”

  Sairg grimaced, spat over the side, and moved to the stern. He kept as far as he could from Ilna. When he’d taken the steering oar in hand, he squealed and clicked to the crew in a language Ilna didn’t recognize. They were already lifting the sweeps into rowlocks made from deer antlers.

  “The crew speaks only Dalopan,” Ingens said. “He’s telling them to push off.”

  Sairg cast off the stern line; the bow line was already coiled. Ilna looked at the secretary and said, “Do you speak Dalopan, Master Ingens?”

  He looked at her, apparently surprised that she had noticed. “A little, yes,” he said. “Master Hervir generally took me with him on his travels. But Sairg hired the crew; I don’t interfere.”

  The two Dalo
pans on the left shoved against the pilings, sending the boat sideways into the channel. They leaned so far over that Ilna was sure they’d fall in. When they were almost parallel to the water, they twisted back aboard with motions Ilna couldn’t have described even though she’d watched them do it. Their toes must grip like a skink’s. The men settled onto their benches and began dragging the long sweeps, swinging the bow outward against the controlled strokes of their fellows on the right side.

  Ilna chose a place and leaned her shoulders against the furled sail. She began knotting a pattern, an occupation rather than an end in itself. At one time in the past she’d have brought a small loom with her, but a hank of yarn would do her as much good as the frame and be much easier to carry. There was plenty of space now, but she had no way of knowing what she’d be getting into later on the journey.

  “You’ve traveled a great deal, have you not, mistress?” said Ingens. He was seated on the bench between the fore and aft pairs of oarsmen, looking toward her with polite interest.

  Ilna thought for a moment. “Yes, I suppose you could say that,” she said. For a peasant who’d never expected—or wished—to leave the hamlet in which she’d grown up, she’d traveled very widely indeed.

  In a slightly harder tone—she supposed her tone was never what you’d call gentle—she went on, “But why do you say that, Master Ingens?”

  The secretary held a scroll in his left hand, his thumb marking his place. He used it to gesture mildly and said, “I guessed you’d traveled because you didn’t come with a wagon train of luggage. And I spoke because, as you pointed out, we’ll be together for some time. If you prefer, we can try to keep silent save for necessary business, but that isn’t my preference.”

  Ilna considered, then smiled faintly. “Nor mine, I suppose,” she said. “I gather you and Hervir traveled widely also?”

  “Yes,” Ingens said. “Hervir took over the prospecting, I suppose you could call it, six years ago when his father moved into the office. When he became head of the family at Halgran’s death, he left the office work to his wife and mother and continued to handle contacts with suppliers all over the Isles. He kept me with him on all his journeys. He said my notebooks—”