A Dubious Peace

by Olan Thorensen

  “Then maybe he’s just excited about meeting a countryman,” said Anarynd. “No matter how full his life is here, he must miss talking with someone from home.”

  It was a fitful night’s sleep for Yozef. Both Maera and Anarynd, separately and when the other was out of earshot, hinted they were receptive to conjugal activity, something not uncommon when he was to travel the next day. Both overtures had been ignored. He excused himself after eating by saying he needed to get to sleep because of the long trip coming. It was a subterfuge. He retired to the small bed in his home office and lay there sleepless well into the night, thinking about Earth. When exhaustion finally claimed him, he slept unaware of the tossing and turning that would’ve kept either bed partner tense and worried.

  Maera woke him an hour before dawn. Hot food was waiting, along with all the children, some wide awake and others half-asleep.

  “I knew you’d want to say goodbye to them before leaving,” said Anarynd. What she didn’t say was that she still worried about the consequences of Yozef meeting a countryman, and she wanted him to leave home with a vision of his entire family.

  CHAPTER 3

  FAMILIAR STRANGERS

  When Carnigan had been apprised they would be traveling to Preddi City the next morning, he’d started to ask why the rush until Synton shook his head. The big man took the hint. The horse-drawn train flying the Paramount’s pennant arrived at the Preddi City rail station just after midday. Yozef had managed a few hours’ sleep after passing through Moreland City. When they reached the end of the completed line southwest of Hanslow, carriages were waiting twenty feet from where the train stopped. Now, with only greetings to the carriage drivers, they were off.

  For the first five miles, evidence of activity paralleled the road. There were three separate work crews. The first crew they passed was laying track within sight of where the train stopped. As they rode, the track crew stopped working to cheer the Paramount’s carriages driving past. In another two miles they came upon the leading edge of the crew constructing the rail bed. They rode another three miles. From a third of a mile away, through the sound of their horses’ hoofbeats, they heard the overlying sounds of axes on wood and men yelling orders at one another or animals.

  For the third time, work stopped, and men cheered as the Paramount passed. At the first two crews, the workers had been alerted. However, news must not have reached the last crew. The carriages passed, and shouts went up as someone noticed either the Paramount’s pennant or the large redheaded man. If anything, Carnigan was more widely recognized than symbols of the Paramount.

  The road threaded eight miles through forests and scattered farms as yet untouched by rail construction. When they reached the leading edge of the rail construction from Preddi City, it was the clearing crew first, then the roadbed workers, and finally men laying track.

  They heard the cathedral bells before Preddi City came in view.

  “Midday,” said Carnigan from his seat behind Yozef. “I expect Balwis will be waiting for us.”

  “Maybe the bells are to announce Yozef’s arrival and not midday,” Synton said with a snigger.

  “No, if that was it, they would keep ringing,” said Yozef. “Plus, there’d be fireworks.”

  The three men shared a laugh. The Paramount’s aversion to public displays was well known.

  “Well . . . what do you think about traveling by rail, Synton?” asked Yozef. “You, too, Carnigan. It’s the first time for both of you.”

  “I like it,” said Carnigan. “A lot better than by carriage where the roads are almost never smooth. A lot faster, too. Still, there’s those clacks as the wheels hit the next rail section.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Synton. “You’re also leaving out the fact that we can’t always find a horse big enough to carry you without breaking its back. If we had used horses across the rail gap, I was wondered they could find a horse that could carry you.”

  Yozef listened to the two men verbally jostle. It was a well-rehearsed routine—Synton commenting on Carnigan’s size and being on the receiving end of disparagement of his shady past and social skills.

  The rail station was located a mile from the city center in anticipation of rapid growth once Caedellium opened more to the outside world. That decision proved even more prescient than anticipated. Residential and business construction exploded as the city assumed the role of the main access for external trade and political contacts. Yozef had strongly advised Balwis to control the development. This resulted in an extensive urban plan designed by an ex-Narthani army engineer who had started a family with a willing Preddi woman who had no intention of moving to Narthon.

  Yozef idly observed the remains of the islanders’ trench works surrounding Narthani-controlled Preddi City. Most of the elaborate trenches had been filled in. Their purpose had been to provide cover from cannon and musket fire when siege mortars were brought in to bombard Narthani positions. Fortunately, Yozef and the Narthani commander, Akuyun, had come to an agreement to avoid the horrendous anticipated losses of assaulting the city’s defenses.

  In contrast to remains of the trench work, the fortified wall surrounding the city was a dominant feature of the Preddi Clan capital. It was the inner of two defense works built by the Narthani in anticipation of the islanders’ assault. Although the outer defenses had been dismantled, the inner wall had been expanded and strengthened. Yozef had been uncertain whether the effort was worthwhile, but Balwis asserted that besides functioning as a fortress in case the Narthani tried to conquer the island again, it also served as a reminder of the clan’s history and the price of clan freedom.

  Carnigan was right. Balwis Preddi was waiting at the rail station, along with Wyfor Kales and Ceinwyn Preddi-Keelan, wife of the hetman, daughter of the Keelan hetman, and sister of Maera. Ceinwyn was obviously pregnant again, a fact Yozef had forgotten.

  “What? Are Balwis and Ceinwyn planning on repopulating the island all by themselves?” said Synton. “I thought she just had a child.”

  “That was what . . . six months ago . . . I think,” said Yozef.

  “Balwis should give the poor woman a break,” said Synton, smirking.

  “After all the deaths and fear, a burst of new life is an affirmation of the future,” Yozef said softly.

  Synton took the mild rebuke. “Yeah. I guess I can see that.”

  “And when are you going to contribute to the future, Synton?” asked Carnigan. “It’s about time you started a family.”

  “Who knows? Maybe someday, but right now there’s plenty of women impressed by my being one of the Paramount’s guards. Anyway . . . the two of you are filling any void left by me. Seems like at least one of your women is always pregnant.”

  Carnigan laughed. “Not quite, although sometimes it seems that way.”

  A shout from the coach’s driver and a lurch from stopping cut off any further comments. As Carnigan reached for the door handle, the door flew open to reveal Wyfor Kales, standing and grinning.

  “God above, look who’s come to visit. If it’s not the Paramount himself and his two favorite shadows.”

  “It’s a sad day when the first face I see is yours, Wyfor,” said Synton. “Why didn’t you send your pretty assistant to meet us? I hear she does all the work, anyway.”

  Wyfor stood aside to let the three men dismount from the coach. Yozef looked at Balwis, but before he could say anything, Ceinwyn rushed forward and hugged him.

  “It’s great to see you again, Yozef. And such exciting news! What did Maera think about it?”

  “As usual, your sister keeps many of her thoughts to herself. But she immediately set to work packing for me and starting to cover my absence from Orosz City.”

  Ceinwyn laughed. “That’s Maera, all right. And how is she? Anarynd, too? And the children? Is everyone healthy?”

  “Everyone’s fine,” said Yozef. “We’ll have time to talk later, but for now—”

  “Yes, yes, Ceinwyn,” said Balwis. “I imag
ine Yozef wants to get down to business right away.”

  “You’d be right. I’ve hardly thought of anything else since I got your semaphore message.”

  “Then we’ll go straight to the clan headquarters. Ceinwyn arranged for your baggage to be taken to our home. You’ll be staying with us. I assumed these two disreputable men posing as your protectors would accompany you. We have rooms for them next door. There’ll also be four extra guards while you’re here and whether or not Synton and Carnigan can accompany you.”

  Yozef frowned. “Is that really necessary? I’ve gotten used to having these two around, but any more guards, and it’ll feel like I’m invading any place or room I go to.”

  “Only an added precaution,” said Wyfor, “until we figure out if this man who claims to be from Amerika is telling the truth.”

  Balwis scowled. “Maybe they’re not needed, and Wyfor never lacks for suspicions, but in this case, I agree with him. Something smells about this whole situation. We’re not taking chances it’s part of something bigger.”

  Yozef didn’t argue, both because he understood their concern and because he knew they would ignore his protests.

  “Then let’s get on with it,” Yozef said impatiently, turning to Ceinwyn. “I’ll see you this evening. Maera sends her love.”

  “We’ll walk to the headquarters building,” said Balwis. “I figure you need to stretch your legs after the train ride. On the way, I can summarize what we know.”

  Balwis and Yozef started walking side by side, with Wyfor leading the way, followed by two Preddi guards. Trailing were Carnigan and Synton with two more Preddi guards coming up the rear.

  “Here it is so far. A Fuomi sloop encountered a Buldorian ship flying a parlay flag about a hundred miles off Caedellium. The Fuomi captain honored the flag, cautiously, and was told the Buldorians had a party of Caedelli being returned to the island, and would the Fuomi be willing to have them transferred to his sloop?”

  “A party? How many were they?”

  “One man, three women, and three children. The man claimed he had an important message for you from the Buldorian leadership. That was enough for the captain to bring them here. Otherwise, he’d have taken them to his superiors at Adris City, where the Fuomi ships not on patrol are anchored.”

  “Did he say what the message was supposed to be?” asked Yozef.

  “No. Just that he was to give the message to you personally. Naturally, when I heard this, I was skeptical. It was only after I talked with him that he said he was from Amerika, and I semaphored you. When I asked him why I should believe him, he said he could give me words that would confirm to you he was telling the truth.”

  Balwis turned his head to look at Yozef as they walked. “I have no idea what the words mean, but Savronel wrote how we thought they would be spelled. Then he read them back to the man. By the way, he says his name is Mark Kaldwel.” Balwis spelled out both names.

  “Kaldwel,” Yozef repeated slowly, several times.

  Sounds like Mark Caldwell, he thought, but that doesn’t prove anything. Hell. There’s plenty of names I’ve heard here that sound the same as back home, and I know it’s only coincidental.

  Balwis smiled. “I took from your return message and your getting here so fast that the man was right?”

  “Well . . . he’s something, there’s no doubt.”

  “I assume whatever those words were must mean knowledge of Amerika,” said Balwis.

  “Beyond question.”

  From ahead of them, Wyfor turned his head. “Keep in mind it doesn’t mean he is from Amerika, only that he has knowledge of it.”

  Yozef walked twenty yards before he answered. “You mean . . . he could have learned from an Amerikan, not that he is Amerikan?”

  Wyfor shrugged, while still facing away.

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Yozef, “but I don’t—”

  He suddenly stopped talking and walked almost thirty yards before speaking again.

  “I was going to say he could have learned a tremendous number of facts about Amerika, which would seem unlikely. However, if he had access to an Amerikan for enough time, then I suppose he could have learned enough to get a meeting. But that’s not going to work once I talk to him. No matter how much he would have learned, eventually he’ll trip up.”

  “Probably,” said Balwis, “but we’ll see. You know we’re not going to let you meet with him alone until we settle this.”

  “Uh . . . fine. I’ll talk to him in English, the Amerikan language—which should be a level of proof. Hey . . . that reminds me. If he’s not from Caedellium, how did you talk with him?”

  “That involves more puzzles,” said Balwis. “He speaks enough Caedelli to carry on conversations, although his accent is terrible. He claims to be from Frangel, which is about as far away from Caedellium as you can get on Anyar. He says he’s been living in Frangel, where he learned Frangelese. It must be a very close language to Caedelli, though I don’t see how that could be, since Caedellium and Frangel are so far apart. Anyway, the Buldorian ship also brought a woman and her two children who are definitely from Seaborn Province. Savronel looked in the records, and her story matches the Buldorians’ first raid on Caedellium. We didn’t want to check into it more carefully until you’ve had a chance to meet with this Kaldwel.”

  “But you say the man speaks Caedelli enough to be understood?”

  “Yes, but, like I said, he has a terrible accent. However, it’s more annoying than anything else. They were all on the Buldorian ship for over a month, and evidently the woman and the children we believe are true Caedelli worked with them on the language during the voyage.”

  “You said them,” prompted Yozef. “Does that mean the other two women and the child are also from Frangel?”

  “Kaldwel says one of the women is his wife, and the other child is theirs. She’s the larger of the three women when you meet them. The third woman is odd. Kaldwel says she’s from Sulako. How she came to be part of the group hasn’t been explained. She’s also a bit strange looking. She’s a small woman, black hair, with eyes like something is wrong with them . . . kind of a squint as if partially closed from a bright light. Wyfor thinks she may be from Krinolin, which, of course, is even farther from here than Frangel.”

  “I haven’t seen that many Krinoliners,” said Wyfor, “but it’s like men I’ve seen around harbors in that part of the world.”

  Yozef was tempted to ask Wyfor how he’d happened to be so far from Caedellium. The short, wiry man never talked about the years between when he left Caedellium as a twelve-year-old boy stowing away on a cargo ship and when he returned to Caedellium thirty or more years later. Yozef made a mental note to probe Wyfor further in the future—but not now.

  They entered the Preddi Clan headquarters building, an open area of desks, shelving, and versions of filing cabinets. The workers all grew silent and stood up. Yozef waved his left hand.

  Balwis called out, “Everyone back to work. The Paramount and I will be upstairs in meetings.”

  They climbed the stairs and went to Balwis’s office. Wyfor used his remaining hand to position a straight-backed chair fifteen feet away, facing a large desk. He rested the hand on the chair.

  “To start off with, Yozef, we’ll have you sit in Balwis’s chair behind the desk and Kaldwel here. Synton can stand behind the chair and Carnigan behind you. Balwis and I will stand beside the desk corners, so Kaldwel would have to pass by us if he tried to go over the desk to get at you.”

  Yozef didn’t comment on precautions he didn’t think were necessary. He suppressed the urge to just tell them to produce Kaldwel. He had had trouble focusing his mind on anything else the last day and a half. Was there another survivor of United 4382? He thought it had been two, maybe three years since he’d last nurtured that hope.

  “All right, all right,” Yozef blurted out. “Bring him in.”

  Three rooms down the hall, seven humans waited. They had been there for the last hou
r after being led back to the clan headquarters from their lodging. There had been no verbal interchange with any islander after they’d been left at the house two days earlier, except when food and water were brought twice a day—more than enough each time. Then, near midday, the one-armed man named Kales had returned.

  “I’ll give you half an hour to use the voiding house out back before we return to the headquarters building,” he’d said.

  “Are we going to meet Yozef Kolsko?” asked Mark.

  “You’ll find out,” said Kales. He then frowned down at Alys Kaldwel, who had walked up to him and stared at where a missing arm should be.

  “Papa says you lost your arm. Do you remember where? I can help you find it.”

  The corners of Wyfor’s mouth twitched, locked in indecision between a snarl and a smile. Before he settled on one of them, Maghen scooped Alys up and hurried to stand by Mark, who appeared unperturbed. Wyfor was as heavily armed as usual, and two guards had accompanied him to the house. Yet he had no doubt the big man would’ve reacted instinctively if he had perceived a threat to his daughter.

  “You now have less than a half-hour,” said Wyfor, who then waited outside.

  When everyone was ready to leave, they gathered in the yard. Wyfor headed off, followed by the guards. As they reached the headquarters building, Wyfor led the way, followed by the Kaldwel family, Heather Chen, and the Kardyl family, who had been in an adjacent house. Several times they had seen Senwina, the mother, or her two children, Allyr, the twelve-year-old boy, and Onyla, the five-year-old girl, going to or coming from the voiding structure behind their house. Guards had warned them about speaking to one another, but Onyla and Alys waved and greeted everyone, despite guards and worried mothers.