by Caleb Carr
Visimar smiles and takes the packet gratefully, then leans behind the intervening men to say, “I thank you, Bal-deric—and perhaps, if we come out of this business alive, we may discuss the construction of some better substitute for my missing leg than the admittedly crude support I carved myself, after the first year or so of my changed condition—for I have long admired the device you have created to take the place of your arm.”
Bal-deric smiles and nods, and Visimar turns back around, relieved to note that Arnem does not appear to have caught any of this exchange.
As the very last of twilight turns to utter darkness outside the tent, the officers within, most still expressing words of surprise and congratulation to the ever more contented Visimar as they at the same time voice their complete satisfaction with the provisions that have been placed before them, inevitably begin to lose interest in the food, and turn instead to debates about the best and fastest way for their campaign to proceed. Arnem has intended for this to happen; it is the reason for his having limited each man to one cup of drink. And yet, even he, the confident and ever-resourceful commander, finds himself perplexed as to precisely how he will reveal the next portion of his plan—for it does not involve the action desired most by his officers, direct military confrontation, but something very different indeed. Eventually, knowing that he cannot put the matter off, he slams the pommel of his short-sword on the table, and begins to demand reports from each of his officers about the dispositions and moods of their respective units.
“I assure you, Sentek,” declares Taankret, “when you have decided precisely how to take the Talons into Davon Wood, they will be as prepared for the task as they were to fight their way out of that madness in Esleben—and the Wildfehngen will be no less ready to lead.”
Arnem glances for an instant at Visimar, who gives the slightest indication with a movement of his head that the sentek must proceed along some course that is, apparently, known only to the two of them. “That ‘madness in Esleben,’ Taankret, is precisely the point. You may wonder why I ordered the establishment of what would seem so forward a position on our own ground, rather than waiting until we crossed the Cat’s Paw.”
“None among my scouts has wondered as much,” Akillus declares solemnly. “Not given what fills that river. I do not know what black arts the Bane are practicing, in their defense, but … we will need a sure sanctuary on our own soil, for this campaign.”
“Assuming that there is to be any more of a campaign,” Arnem announces, to the sudden consternation of all present.
“But Sentek,” Bal-deric declares. “It was our understanding that such were our orders. It was well known throughout the streets of Broken, before we departed, that these were our objects: the final invasion of Davon Wood, and the destruction of the Bane tribe …”
“Yes,” Arnem replies. “It was well known—by those who had not seen what we have seen on this march.”
“But—Yantek Korsar gave his life precisely because he refused such an order,” Niksar says carefully.
The sentek nods. “And I confess that I did not know why, at the time, Reyne,” Arnem replies. “But on this journey, much has been revealed—much that provides us with answers to that as well as other questions. Certainly the horrific fate of the khotor of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard tells us why the yantek did not wish us to enter the Wood: in that wilderness, our superior numbers apparently mean little or nothing, so well have the Bane mastered combat within the forest.”
“But—” A young linnet sitting next to Akillus is, like most of his comrades, puzzling with the dilemma determinedly. “But the Bane also attack outside the Wood. In terrible ways.”
“The Outragers do,” Visimar replies. “But the Bane army? We have no evidence that they do so, or that they ever have.”
“Then do they not deserve chastisement, for allowing the Outragers such vicious liberty?” comes another voice.
Arnem answers quickly: “Do all the subjects of Broken deserve similarly stern treatment, for the equally foul behavior of the Merchant Lord’s Guard, or for the behavior of a few nobles who excuse their murderous pursuit of the Bane under the title of ‘sport’?”
The sentek takes a few steps away from the council table, toward his own quarters; and for the first time, his officers notice that an additional, large, reversed piece of hide has been hung from the heavy curtain that separates the two areas. He tears away a light covering of fabric from this hide, to reveal a detailed map, not only of the northern side of the Cat’s Paw, but of much of Davon Wood—enough to show, after generations of searching, what appears to be the general position of Okot.
“Sentek …,” breathes one round-bodied, and equally round-faced, officer called Weltherr, Arnem’s chief mapmaker. So fascinated is the man that he cannot help but rise up and move toward the image, lifting a hand to touch it, almost as if he believes it unreal. “But this map includes not only locations of communities, but features of topography, as well. With such a rendering, we could easily complete our original task: the invasion of Davon Wood, and the destruction of the Bane and Okot.”
“I do not believe so, Weltherr,” Arnem says, returning to the map. “Yantek Korsar, I have come to see, was not only speaking of physical features of the Wood, in his final warning—he also referred to the tactics of the Bane. Remember what happened to Lord Baster-kin’s men, after all—they were destroyed on ground with which we have long been fairly familiar, within sight of the Cat’s Paw. It was the manner, not the location, of their action that was their undoing. And I do not mean for the same to happen to the Talons.”
“Sentek,” Akillus says, quietly fascinated. “You still have not told us how you were able to compose such a map.”
Arnem breathes heavily once. “I did not compose it—but to hear who did, I must exact a special pledge from all of you: nothing that you are about to hear will ever be repeated outside our company. If any man feels he cannot abide by such an oath, let him leave now.” Allowing the men a moment to absorb this statement, Arnem eventually continues, in an even quieter tone, as he slowly strides around the table: “I shall not ask of you anything that could be construed as genuinely treasonous; but as we all know, strange things have taken place during this campaign, and it may be that their explanation will implicate persons in high places in Broken. Therefore, remember that our oath as soldiers is to our kingdom and our sovereign. And keeping faith with that oath will likely lead us, now, into territory more unmapped than the most distant corners of Davon Wood, if we follow the plan that I will suggest. We begin with questions, to be followed by facts: did it not strike any of you as strange that the Merchant Lord should have dispatched a full khotor of his own Guard to reinforce the patrols on his Plain, much less attack the Bane within the Wood, just when, by my calculation, we had learned the truth of matters in Esleben and the other towns on the Daurawah Road, and were on our way to that latter port, where we would find even worse conditions prevailing? Almost as if he did not want the army to play the crucial role in Broken’s attack on the Bane?”
“Aye,” Taankret replies, a little ruefully. “Although I would not have been the first to speak of it. Could he have been ignorant of what we were discovering, Sentek?”
“You know my habits, Taankret,” Arnem answered. “I sent dispatches to the noble lord throughout our march. And Niksar’s brother, the unfortunate Donner, had been sending pleas for help for weeks. All unanswered. And then—” Arnem reaches into a pouch in his leather armor, and produces a small handful of kernels of some kind of grain. “—there were these …” He tosses the kernels into the middle of the table, and at once, each officer half-rises to get a closer look. “Do not, any of you, touch them!” the sentek says, going to wash his own hands.
“What can they be, Sentek?” asks a young junior linnet, who is clearly disturbed by the turn the conversation is taking. Arnem, returning from his basin, turns to his left. “Visimar?”
The cripple is confident in his answer:
“Winter rye. Such as is stored in almost every town and village in Broken, and was evident in abundance in Esleben.”
“But,” Bal-deric says, puzzling it out, “winter rye? We are well into spring. Why should the Eslebeners still be hoarding winter rye, when it was likely needed in the city, if not the provinces, during the last and most severe winter?”
“A question that perplexed me, as well,” Arnem answers, “until my conversation with the unfortunate Donner. But our own farmers and merchants are no longer, it seems, the sole source for winter grain, nor even the principal source—northern raiders are bringing it into the kingdom, having plundered it in far-off lands, and selling it to factors of the Merchant Lord: including, I regret to say, Lord Baster-kin himself, who believes that our provincial farmers and their representatives have begun to ask prices too great for the treasury of the kingdom to bear.” Soft murmuring again circulates around the table, until Arnem goes on: “Akillus—you saw the raiders’ ships, or what was left of those vessels, in the calmer portions of the Cat’s Paw, as well as in the Meloderna—correct?”
Akillus nods certainly. “Aye, Sentek. And it did not seem clear precisely what the Bane had to do with their destruction.”
“The Bane had nothing to do with such,” Arnem replies. “Our own people destroyed them when they became aware that the merchants in Broken had found illegal, even treacherous ways to frustrate their attempts to raise prices. This grain, when spoilt, produces a poison that brings about the same disease that we identify after battles as the fire wounds—”
The murmuring at the table turns suddenly more fearful, yet Arnem pushes on: “Yet these are not kernels of the grain recently brought into our kingdom by our enemies. These are taken from the storehouses of towns such as Esleben. Supplies which those unfortunate townspeople and citizens have themselves been consuming, because they refused to underbid thieves in the competition for the grain that goes on to feed and guarantee the security of the city of Broken.”
“And so,” Fleckmester says, slowly reasoning the matter out, “it was the fire wounds that drove the people of Esleben mad—the fire wounds, or whatever name the poison takes in its other forms—”
“Gangraenum,” Visimar says quietly.
Fleckmester nods to the cripple, comprehending the term not a bit, but knowing that, if Visimar says it is so, it must indeed be so.
“The fire wounds,” Arnem explains further, “are but one form of a disease that has many names. The Lumun-jani call it the Ignis Sacer, the ‘Holy Fire.’ To the Bane, it is ‘Moonfire,’ the cause behind the most terrible forms of death among humans and animals—as your men saw up and down the river, Akillus.”
“But this,” Fleckmester continues, drawing out the logic of the argument, “this means that some of the most important things that have made our kingdom strong are now—because of the stubbornness of the people of the provinces, in combination with the avarice of the Merchants’ Council—are now weakening it …?”
“That is the predominant fact, Linnet,” Visimar replies. “In so many parts of this tale …”
“And it is now clear,” Arnem says, “that this weakness is afflicting most if not all of the provinces. Not simply because of what we observed outside Daurawah, but because, Visimar assures me, supplies of the only known medicines that Nature offers for the disease are being harvested in great quantities throughout those same regions. Furthermore, I have received written reports from several sources that the disease is thus rife.”
“But,” Weltherr says, his voice trembling with newborn fear, “we have been told that the plague was a weapon, placed in Broken’s water by Bane spies and agents.”
“And yet, were this so,” Niksar answers slowly, “would we now know that not only are two diseases at work in Broken, but that one of them afflicts the Bane, as well as ourselves?”
“But are we so certain that one of these same diseases is at work in the Wood?” Taankret says.
Visimar glances uneasily at Arnem, who, not wishing to show any sign of the uncertainty he indeed feels, at this moment, nods his head once. The cripple then reaches down to the right side of his chair, to a pouch he has long been carrying; and from it he withdraws all the objects that were entrusted by Caliphestros to the great eagle owl, Nerthus. Placing them on the table, he identifies each in turn (although many present need no introduction to the golden arrow of the priests of Kafra) and further explains the revealing manner of each plant’s harvesting, its function in first identifying the origin of the current troubles and its role in the treatments for the diseases that are loose.
“This is all very well, Visimar,” Bal-deric says, when the old man has finished his statement, “but how come you by such knowledge, when you have been marching with us these many days?”
“From the same source as came this map,” Visimar replies.
Bal-deric eyes them both. “And you, Sentek?” he continues, coming dangerously close to impertinence. “How can you know so much of what is taking place in the city, if no royal or merchant couriers have been observed bringing information?”
“No ‘royal or merchant’ couriers, Bal-deric,” Arnem answers. “But I have received private couriers—from Lady Arnem.”
“Lady Arnem?” Taankret bellows, throwing down a chop of beef and pulling his kerchief from his chin as he stands defiantly. “Has someone dared offend your wife, Sentek?”
“I fear so, Taankret,” the sentek replies measuredly, not wishing to allow the passion of the council to run too far before its purpose. “In fact, we have just learned that Lady Arnem has been accused of leading a rebellion that has flared up throughout the Fifth District—accused by none other than Lord Baster-kin himself. I was as reluctant to acknowledge such behavior on his lordship’s part as was anyone. But we have since discovered that the district has been sealed off, and is under effective siege, with veterans of our army leading the younger men and women in resistance.”
Arnem quickly learns that he has calculated correctly: like Taankret, nearly all of his officers dispense with their food and drink, stand in indignation, and begin to utter loud condemnations of any such actions. Isadora is, the sentek has correctly reasoned, the one figure whose fate could cause such a reaction; and it is their reaction, once Arnem has quieted his officers, that will dispose them to hear even more shocking intelligence.
“I assure you again, gentlemen,” the sentek says, “no one has been more disturbed by all these revelations than have I.” Arnem remains seated, attempting to display courage even in a situation that threatens his family and therefore himself. “But there is more. The dispatches from our city do come from my wife, but these pieces of evidence”—he holds a hand out toward the withering plants and the golden arrow—“these have been entrusted to us by another source entirely. A source whose continuing existence, I daresay, many of you will not credit as possible.”
“If the honor of Lady Arnem, as well as that of our own veterans, is being questioned,” declares Weltherr, “then I assure you, Sentek, we shall credit anything as being possible.”
Silence again dominates the interior of the tent, as Arnem glances at Visimar one last time; then the commander leans further toward the center of the table on his right elbow, and all his officers lean in toward him. Finally, in a hushed whisper, the sentek says:
“We have received this aid from none other than … Caliphestros …”
Arnem’s officers recoil as if each has been struck in the face by some invisible hand; yet before any of them can utter so much as a shocked echo, loud cries of alarm are heard from without the tent, and one of the pallins who served the officers their meal rushes through the quilted entrance.
“Damn it all, Pallin!” the sentek declares, now rising to his own feet in indignation. “You had better possess vital intelligence, indeed, for you to burst in on a closed council of war unannounced!”
“I—that is—yes, I think I do, Sentek!” the pallin says, standing straight as he can and s
aluting. “Warriors have been observed by the men in our outposts, approaching camp!”
“Warriors?” Arnem says. “More of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, perhaps, come down from the mountain to see what has befallen their comrades?”
“No, sir,” the pallin says. “Only one wagon approaches from the north!”
Arnem looks suddenly annoyed again. “Well, then, why all this shrieking about ‘warriors’—”
“The warriors approach from the south, sir!” the pallin says. “A large body of Bane infantry—and under a flag of truce!”
“Truce, Sentek?” Taankret says, his skepticism plain. “The Bane understand as little of honorable truce as they do of mercy.”
Visimar now gets to his one good and one wooden leg, gripping the table for support. “I really must disagree, Linnet Taankret. These are myths, told by the Merchants’ Council over many generations, until honorable men like yourself believe them. The Bane do understand truce, and mercy, as well.”
“How can you know this, cripple?” Bal-deric asks.
“By the same means I have come by these pieces of evidence, Balderic,” Visimar answers. “From my onetime master, who rides, now, with the Bane. It is he who has arranged this truce; he has sent me word of as much, and that the Bane have been willing to comply with it—some reluctantly, some less so. These are the facts of which I can assure you.”