by Glen Cook
“You think he was stretching it? If it came to that point, you’d have people in the trees so long they’d starve to death.”
“Where are we?”
“Two zip. Panthers. And me with two hundred nobles on Guards to win.”
“Two hundred? Gods!” Ragnarson forgot his questions. “What are you? Some kind of fool?”
“I thought you’d come up with an angle.”
“I did, but it might be too late. Go on with what you were telling me. Anything more about the east?”
“Hsung’s Throyen puppets might occupy the Kotsum coast of Hammad al Nakir. A put-up, so Hsung can pose a naval threat on Matayanga’s flank.”
Ragnarson smiled gently. “What is happening in
Hammad al Nakir? They wouldn’t sit still for that, would they?”
, 1 don’t see what anybody could do about it. El Murid is hiding in Sebil el Selib. He has almost no followers now. He don’t seem interested in anything but opium. Megelin is such a clumsy king that people are just ignoring him, hoping he’ll go away.”
“That’s sad. Really sad. Haroun’s son. I thought, how could he be anything but good? He’s his father’s boy.”
“Your friend didn’t teach him much but how to fight. They say he’s a devil when there’s a war on, but if it weren’t for el Senoussi and Beloul his government would fall apart. I hear his officials are more corrupt than El Murid’s were.”
“Probably the same people. Without the restraint of religious righteousness.”
“Whatever. The west can declare the threat of Hammad al Nakir a dead issue. The sleeping giant isn’t snoring anymore. He’s belly up and the maggots are about done with him.”
“That’s not good. If the Itaskians stop worrying about Hsung and El Murid, we’ll be out a lot of military aid. You have people in Al Rhemish?”
“Two good men.”
“And in Sebil el Selib?”
“One of my best people.”
“Send in someone else. Someone independent. Double check. I don’t believe a word you’re telling me. Maybe somebody is lying to you.”
“Sire!
“Watch your temper. Michael, I trust you when you do it yourself. Still, you’re a devious type. Maybe too devious for your own good. I think people lie to you and you believe them because you’ve gotten them to lie to somebody else for you. Damn! I lost something. I’m not even making sense to me. What am I trying to say here?”
“I think I understand. And maybe you’re right. I get too involved in the game side, and underinvolved with the people. It’s true. Just because I enlist them doesn’t mean they’re going to be my faithful eyes and ears. I can think of three or four who probably don’t know whose side they’re on themselves.”
“What about the rest of the world?”
“Aral could tell you more than me. I use his trader friends in the west. I get the feeling he edits everything before it gets to me.”
Ragnarson stared at the moldy forest floor. That had been, at best, an evasion. It might be an outright lie. Michael had scores of foreign contacts. His family’s business acquaintances. Old school friends. People met during the war. All glad to keep an eye on this or that for him. Some of the things he had deigned to pass on could have come from no other source.
Bragi let it slide. “How about here in Ravelin?”
“Your enemies are keeping their heads down. They’ll keep on that way as long as Varthlokkur and the Unborn wander through once in a while. They figure the only thing to do is wait for you to die.”
“Nobody planning to hasten my appointment with the Dark Lady?”
“Not that I’ve heard of. It’s a waste of time watching anymore.”
Ragnarson rose. He said, “There’s a couple Panthers trying to sneak past us in that gully down there. They’ve got one of our balls. Act casual.”
Trebilcock glanced once. He saw nothing. He had heard nothing. He believed his eyes and ears were better than the King’s. “Are you sure? How could you know?”
“When you’ve been playing these games as long as I have, Michael, you smell the tricks before they happen. If you get to be my age, you sit on a rock somewhere with somebody your age and think about that.”
Trebilcock gave him a funny look. Ragnarson knew he was wondering exactly what had just been said. “Maybe you made the right bet after all. The one this morning. Experience counts for as much as energy and enthusiasm. You’ve got the energy here, so you slide down behind them and run them to me. I’ll bushwhack them.”
Michael nodded and faded into the woods. His face was paler than usual.
Bragi watched him go. Had he made his point? Friend Michael was walking a tightrope. It could end up knotted around his neck.
Michael did not look lucky enough to pull off a big one. He looked like a man with the seal of doom stamped on his forehead.
Ragnarson didn’t want anything to happen to Michael. He was fond of the man.
“Damn you, Kavelin,” he murmured as he slipped into his ambuscade. And, “Michael, for gods’ sakes get the message. It’s almost too late.”
He crouched and remembered Sir Andybur Kimberlin of Karadja, a young knight he had known during Kavelin’s civil war. Another man he had liked. Sir Andybur would have become one of Kavelin’s great men had he not been too idealistic and impatient. Instead of lying on goosedown, he lay in his grave, his neck broken by a rope.
“Just don’t start thinking you’ve got the only answer, Michael. You’re all right as long as we can talk.”
A twig cracked a few feet away. He gathered himself for his charge.
4 Year 1016 AFE
Family Life
IT WAS A weird sunset. There were pastel greens in the clouds scattering the western horizon. Green was rare. Ragnarson wondered why.
The old man had to shout twice to get his attention. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Was you out to Captures today?”
Ragnarson laughed. “Was I? Was I ever.” Every muscle in his body ached. They would need a hoist to get him off his horse.
“What was the score? Fellow told me the Guards won. Why would a guy lie that way? I want to know on account of maybe I beat the spread.”
“Who’d you bet?”
“Panthers by three. That was the best I could get.”
“Hope you didn’t bet the daughter’s dowry, Pops. You’re hurting.”
Dismay-yea, even despair-blackened the old man’s face. Ragnarson could not stifle a bark of laughter.
He felt good, not being recognized. For these few minutes he could be just another man. The old-timer didn’t expect anything of him.
“You wouldn’t lie just to see an old man squirm, now would you?”
“I don’t want to ruin your evening. But you did ask. It was five to three. Guards.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You know how it goes. The Panthers got too cocky.”
“The King played, didn’t he? I should have known. King’s luck. He could fall in a cesspool and come up wearing gold chains.”
Ragnarson faked a coughing spasm to keep a whooping laugh from busting loose. He? Lucky? With everything that had happened to him?
He rode toward his home in Lieneke Lane, thinking he should have brought presents. Some little guilt offering for his kids.
He was passing the park when the man in white stepped into his path. He yanked his sword from its scabbard, looked round for the other two. The Harish always worked in threes.
The man held a lantern to his own features. “Peace, Sire.” He had a gentle, priestlike voice. “No dagger has been consecrated with your name.” The Harish were assassin devotees of the fanatic religion El Murid had brought forth from the barren womb of the deserts of Hammad al Nakir. In its youth the sect had spread across east and west with the wild violence of a summer storm. It had declined as the charisma of its Disciple faded. Today it had few adherents outside Hammad al Nakir, and even there its followers were
dwindling.
“Habibullah? Is that you?”
“It is, Sire. I was sent by the Lady Yasmid.”
Ragnarson had not seen the man since before the wars. In Fiana’s time he had been Hammad al Nakir’s ambassador to Kavelin. In those days El Murid had ruled the desert kingdom. Haroun had been alive. His son Megelin had not yet donned the crown and led Royalist armies victorious into Al Rhemish. Haroun’s wife, El Murid’s daughter Yasmid, had come slipping into Vorgreberg, hoping he would help her end the bitter strife between her men. He had sent her to her father with this same Habibullah, then had heard nothing more.
Ragnarson scanned the gloaming again. El Murid’s fanatics had tried to kill him before. He saw no sign of treachery. He swung down. His pains seemed to have deserted him. “Into the park, then.” He did not sheath his blade.
Habibullah settled cross-legged in the shadow of a bush, his hands palms up on his knees. He waited patiently while Bragi rambled around prodding bushes. He seemed to accept this as perfectly rational behavior.
Satisfied of his safety, Bragi sat down facing the man in white. “You might have to help me up if I get stiff.”
Habibullah smiled. “It was a vigorous contest?”
“That’s putting it mildly. What’s on your mind?” He knew Habibullah wouldn’t mind a blunt approach. Too damned many ambassadors danced around things and euphemized. One couldn’t be sure what the hell they wanted. Habibullah was more direct.
He reckoned the man had something worth saying. A man didn’t sneak through so much unfriendly territory, and make a contact carefully calculated to go unnoticed, just to be sociable.
“The Lady Yasmid sends greetings.”
Bragi nodded. He had known El Murid’s daughter, though not well, since her childhood.
“Then, she’s bid me explain the present situation in Hammad al Nakir. She wants you to understand how and why things have changed since Megelin’s victory.” Habibullah went way back, to the day when Yasmid had come to Bragi begging for help. He picked the tale up there. It was a long one. He bore down on the fact that the followers of the Disciple, defeated, now holding on only in the holy places of Sebil el Selib and along Hammad al Nakir’s rich eastern seacoast, had begun to despair. He said, “The Disciple himself has given up. He just sits and dreams opium dreams about days gone by. He doesn’t know where or when he is anymore. He talks to people who have been dead for twenty years. Especially to the Scourge of God.”
“Which leads up to you telling me what?”
“To my stating the obvious. The Movement is no longer a danger to Kavelin or any other western kingdom.” In a confidential voice, “It’s barely a danger to the heretic on the Peacock Throne, and that only because the Harish still consider him their prime target.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think the Disciple has changed his ideas. He’d be a danger if he could.”
“The point is, he can’t. He won’t be able, ever again. On the other hand, the heretic might well be.”
Bragi had a notion where the man was going, based on Michael’s report. Intuition told him he’d best give Habibullah a full hearing. “Go on. I’m interested.”
“The threat to the world today-your world and mine-centers in the east. In Throyes, specifically. In Lord
Hsung. He’s a determined and treacherous man. He sent ambassadors to Sebil el Selib. They offered to help us recapture Al Rhemish. The Lady Yasmid exerted her influence and had them driven out. There were those who didn’t agree with her, but her doctrinal arguments were irrefutable. The lamb does not lie with the lion. The Chosen cannot walk hand in hand with the minions of the Evil One.”
“Yeah. I didn’t know she had that much pull.”
“She has a lot more.... If she cares to use it. She’s still the Disciple’s designated heir.”
“I meant push, I think. Drive. Off-your-ass.”
“I see. Yes. She has been lacking in initiative.”
Ragnarson pricked up his ears. Something in Habibullah’s tone suggested that times had changed.
Habibullah became confidential again. “Our agents in Al Rhemish say Hsung sent ambassadors to Megelin at the same time he sent them to us. The Tervola doesn’t care who he enlists. And indications are, he got a more sympathetic hearing there. Megelin now has a wizard stashed in the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines. A master of the Power, not some feeble native shaghun.”
“Uhm.” Bragi saw one of Habibullah’s unstated arguments. If Shinsan had people in Megelin’s court, then Ravelin and El Murid had a sudden congruence of interest. Imagine that. After all those years of enmity. “You’re suggesting we ought to get together on something?”
“Exactly. If Megelin has an arrangement with Hsung, then, obviously, he’s no longer your friend. He’s sold you to the Dread Empire.”
“How do I make a deal with an old enemy? Can you see me trying to sell it to my people? On the evidence available? The older ones are still as scared of El Murid as they are of Shinsan.”
“As I said, the Disciple isn’t much interested these days. He is, in mathematical terms, not part of the equation.”
“Ah? Meaning?” Ragnarson had a feeling they were getting to the heart of it.
“The Lady Yasmid.... Shall we say she’s considering finding some initiative?”
Ragnarson’s laugh was hard, barking, and bitter. “She’s going to overthrow him?”
“Not overthrow. Not exactly. More like take charge in his name. If there’s any point.”
“Any point?”
“What point in trying if you’re caught between royalists and Shinsan and haven’t a friend to help? A grain of wheat between millstones would have a better chance. It would be better for the Faithful, in the long run, if they weren’t led into certain destruction.”
A very muted appeal, Bragi thought. She would let the collapse continue unless he offered some hope. And if the collapse did happen, Hsung and his Western Army would have access to the southern passes through the mountains. Hsung could march west through the desert and hit the western kingdoms from the south instead of east. He barkened to his intuition again. “Tell her to go ahead. I can’t promise an actual alliance, understand.”
“I understand. No iron commitments. Just a hope. And only the three of us to know we’re in contact, please. I’ll inform the Lady and return as soon as I can.”
Ragnarson nodded. “Habibullah, you’re better than you were when you were ambassador. Much more efficient.”
Much had been said here, and a lot in words never spoken.
“The Lady Yasmid has led me into a more mature path.”
“Good for her.” Bragi groaned as he struggled to his feet.
His muscles had set like mortar. “I won’t be able to move tomorrow.” He backed away, not turning till he was outside throwing range. A sensible man took no chances. The
Harish were masters of the knife.
He continued his interrupted journey, puzzling the way things were turning around. So much was becoming inverted to the traditional.
This making a deal with Yasmid.... Something told him it was right. He had a feeling the day would come when he would need friends as desperately as she did now. And the people of Hammad al Nakir, of whatever religious or political persuasion, could be as hardy in friendship as they were steadfast in enmity. Hadn’t Megelin’s father, Haroun, twice surrendered his chance at the Peacock Throne so that he could help friends? Wasn’t that very friendship the reason a boy now sat on the Peacock Throne, going off in his own strange direction?
What about Michael? His testimony supported Habibullah’s, and vice versa. So unless there was a plot.... “Damn!” He was getting too paranoid.
He should get the two men together. But Habibullah wanted the thing kept below the horizon for the time being. Probably more for Hsung’s benefit than anything. I can’t go working against Haroun’s son, can I? But if I don’t, I’m abandoning his wife, and she’s more dear to me than the boy....
“
Is a conundrum, as Mocker used to say,” he muttered. Mother and son were at war, and he had an obligation of friendship to each.
“Guess in a choice like this I have to go with self-interest.” Meaning his intuition had been right all along. He would have to stick with Yasmid.
Bragi pulled the bell cord. Behind the door, someone grumbled about the time. An old man opened up, ready dagger in hand. No one trusted the night.
“Hello, Will.”
“Sire! We weren’t expecting you.”
“That’s all right. I don’t know what I’m going to do half the time.”
“Yeow!” a girlish voice shrieked from the rear of the house. “Daddy’s here! I hear Daddy!”
He got three steps inside before a whirlwind of pigtails and flailing arms hit him. His son Gundar also ran in, but became a stately, manly twelve the moment he was on stage. “Hello, Father.”
“Hello, Gundar.” His daughter-in-law appeared. “Hi, Kristen. They giving you too much to handle?” Could she be just nineteen? She looked so damned old and wise.
“Father.” A smile seized the girl’s taut lips. Now she looked her age. “They haven’t been any trouble.”
“Where’s my boy? Where’s Bragi?”
“Into mischief, probably. Come on in. Let’s get you comfortable. Find you something to eat. What have you been doing? Wallowing with the hogs? You’re filthy.”
“Playing Captures, huh Dad?” Gundar asked.
“I was. And we beat their pants off, five to three.” He was getting high on the victory. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready for the midden heap.
“The Panthers? Dad!” The boy’s voice rose to a wail. “What did I do?”
“You were supposed to lose,” Kristen said. “He bet against you.”
“What kind of family loyalty is that?”
“But Dad....”
“Never mind. I’ve been hearing it all day.” In a half-serious tone, he added, “I hope Ravelin’s friends don’t start thinking that way. We’d be in big trouble.”
“How’s the baby?” Kristen asked. Her voice trembled.