by Dave Duncan
“Then you had better act now,” Irona said. No one disagreed, although Sazen rolled his eyes. When, he would often ask her, did you ever hear military recommend anything except fighting?
Fifty galleys and twenty-one barques, almost the entire fleet, set out from Kell on the next reasonably calm day. The vanguard managed to land unopposed, but natives rushed the news to the governor. The long and bloody battle for Agrigan had begun.
The Year 726
Midsummer brought a new year, but not the end of the war. The body count was a daily nightmare. The ships needed overhaul. The troops had been away from their families too long; allied contingents especially were growing restless. The Seventy ignored Irona’s appeals for more reinforcements and showed no inclination to relieve her. As they would be saying in the Scandal Market, “Her spike, her head.”
In the dark of the night Irona herself wondered if she had made a fearful mistake.
According to Sazen, Satrap Karkar had been given permission to commit suicide. His replacement had arrived from Acigol-Nevsehir—to see that he had done it properly, Veer suggested. To march the Benesh invaders back to Acigol-Nevsehir in chains, more likely.
In early fall, the navy’s blockade won the battle. The people of Agrigan, with their homes and crops ruined, and close to starving because their defenders had emptied the larders, rose in revolt. The satrap’s forces were forced to surrender, so Benign held the whole of the offshore archipelago, and it was Elbrusian troops who went off to slavery in chains. Irona hoped she might be a hero again, but no message of recall arrived before a second winter closed the seas.
Sazen Hostin reported that the king of kings was preparing to march west in the spring with an army of four hundred thousand men.
The first imperial ships to arrive in the spring were a dozen galleys, whose varied styles and colors showed that they had been assembled from all over the Empire. They were greeted by wild cheering as they rowed into the harbor at Kell one airless, sticky afternoon. Their very freshness showed how badly the garrison’s ships needed refitting, and every marine in port began dreaming of the road home. Irona had just retired for her customary siesta in the heat of the day, but she heard the cheering and forgot about that. The most important news, for her, was that the lead ship flew an admiral’s flag, so there were Chosen aboard.
Most visitors were greeted in the throne room, but not these, not yet. Although there might be a formal ceremony of welcome later, the first meeting must be more intimate. She ordered refreshments laid out on her favorite rooftop terrace, which was private, shaded, reasonably airy even on a windless day like that one, and high enough to have a view of the harbor. She watched the forecourt from overhead as the dignitaries dismounted from the litters she had sent: one Seven and two Chosen, too foreshortened for her to recognize them. She made sure Daun Bukit was standing by in the anteroom to maintain security and pass on orders.
Then she could only wait to find out who had been sent. Just the choice of messenger would be the message. Who had been sent would give her a very good idea of her current standing in Benign.
She felt as nervous as she had on the day Trodelat 680 first took her to the Scandal Market, which was ridiculous. She was the first Chosen in sixty years to expand the boundaries of the Empire. True, the cost in blood had been high. Also true, the king of kings had not yet sued for peace and was assembling enormous forces. Sazen had also heard stories of a great fleet being built, but he cautioned that those rumors might have been planted.
Voices in the anteroom … Daun’s and one she could not at first believe. Then a man in jade collar and Chosen green strolled out, all alone.
“Blessings on you, Dam.”
“Podakan?”
“Aren’t you sure? Have I changed so much?” He accepted her embrace and let her kiss his cheek, but his response was restrained. His smile, on the other hand, said a great deal. Mostly gloat.
“Who else came with you?” she asked, staring at the empty doorway.
“Seven Dychat, and—”
“Dychat is a Seven now? But he’s only …”
“He’s forty, two years younger than you, Dam. Why don’t we sit down?” He gestured her to one seat and took another without waiting for her. His manners had not improved, but yes, he had changed. He was a full-grown man now, with a hard face and the flexibility of a marble statue.
Dychat? She kept thinking of the weedy child who would go to sleep in the Assembly Hall and be carried home in Ledacos’s arms. One thing was certain: in all the years since he was chosen, Dychat 702 had never failed to follow his former tutor’s lead. He was here as Ledacos’s lapdog. Did that mean that the Seventy were split and Podakan had been appointed by the Irona faction? Or was there no Irona faction left?
Podakan took up a pottery flask and sniffed it. The low-temperature ceramic sweated to keep its contents cool, or at least cooler.
“Wine? What I need is a long drink of Source Water.”
She shook her head. Kell had none and he must know that.
He studied her face for a moment, nodding slightly to show that he could see how she had aged. If he thought he was being subtle, he still had much to learn.
“You and Dychat and who else? Who’s the third?”
“Puchuldiza 711.”
Who had been Irona’s pupil. Who had turned into both a tramp and a lush. Who was still having prophetic dreams that she never revealed until after they had been fulfilled. If the goddess ever made mistakes in her choosing, Puchuldiza was the worst. Irona felt the waves rocking her coffin, as the Benesh said. A Ledacos crony accompanied by a boy and a fool. And where were the other two? Sending Podakan on ahead for a family greeting would have been a courtesy, but they ought to be here by now, paying their respects.
“So what message do you bring? Have I been acclaimed First, or am I to be dragged home in chains?”
Podakan laughed and filled two goblets with wine. “Not that bad.” He offered a toast, “To the Eternal Empire.”
“The Empire,” she agreed. “Not as bad as being First or not as bad as being dragged home in chains?”
“Well, we have to report and let the Seventy decide, Dam. Dychat for the Seven, Puchie from the Treaty Commission, because the allies are screaming at the cost and want more of the loot. And me to represent Navy.”
He watched to see how the old sow would take that news.
“You are on the Navy Board? Have I slipped a few years? I would have sworn you couldn’t have finished your tutelage yet.”
He was as transparent as air. He couldn’t manage even a faint pretense of modesty. “Tutelage? I grew up in a Chosen’s house. I am the only Chosen who’s ever rowed a galley to war or fought in a shield line. I killed the Beru, for Caprice’s sake! Tutelage? What could fat old Zard ever teach me? After a few months, Ledacos put a military question to me in the Assembly Hall, and I gave him the right answer, all politelike. Then others started doing it, until one day they asked Zard if I was ready and he said yes, so they voted me out of tutelage and onto the Juvenile Court.”
“That’s a tough assignment, all those poor kids!”
“Snotty little losers.” He emptied his beaker and reached for the flagon. “And now I’m on Navy. How old were you when you were first made a Seven?”
“Twenty-seven.”
He raised his beaker. “To Podakan at twenty!”
“Do you brag like this to the other Chosen, or just to me?”
His lip curled in a sneer. “Just to you, Dam. I thought you’d be proud to hear how well your little boy is doing.”
“I am awed. But you’re not my little boy anymore.”
Pleased, he flexed his big oarsman shoulders.
Not her little boy, but who? She was haunted by nightmares that her son had died in the hovel at Didicas when the Gren had possessed him. Had he really been taken over that
day? Who or what lurked behind those mocking dark eyes?
“What’re you staring at?”
“Just seeing how you’ve changed. So what’s the Seventy planning?”
He shrugged. “The king of kings is heading your way with half a million men. He’s building a fleet at his end of the Gulf of Berutarube.”
“We heard rumors along those lines.” Benign was far away, but the Geographical Section had far wider resources than Sazen Hostin did, struggling on his own here in Kell.
“Have you heard that he is going to use Maleficence against you?”
“No. Who says so?”
“Sorry, Dam. Sworn to secrecy on that.”
She nodded and sipped wine to hide her fury. Keeping secrets from her? She would see what Dychat had to say. Assuming he knew about the Maleficence. Maybe only Podakan did.
“They call it ‘The Woman’s War,’ you know,” he said. “You are ‘The Woman.’”
“You’re telling me it isn’t popular anymore?”
“It never was popular, Dam.”
“I heard that people were dancing in the streets of Benign.”
“‘The people’? The dregs may have danced. We Chosen didn’t. The Seventy howled in fury when they heard you’d dragged us into a war with the Three Kingdoms. I was horribly embarrassed, but I was still only a pupil then and couldn’t speak up to defend you.”
He had his memory trained to remember only what it should.
“‘Hitting a lion with a fly whisk,’ the First called it,” he added.
“Where have your buddies gone?”
“They’ll be along in a minute.”
“Yes, but where did they go?”
“They wanted a quick word with Chagulak.” More unspoken mockery. He took another drink.
She could see now that they wanted their goose cooked before they even started shooting at it. Her long rivalry with Ledacos had ended; he had won, and he was going to have her pelt for a doormat.
A high-pitched voice in the anteroom foretold the arrival of Seven Dychat. A moment later he appeared in the doorway, a tiny man in purple, almost ludicrous against a background of General Chagulak’s landscape-sized brawn. Irona lifted her braced leg off the stool and rose so she could bow to the Seven. He greeted her warmly enough, but he could have told her to remain seated.
Puchuldiza’s shrill reminiscences echoed out from the anteroom, mingled with Daun’s polite responses. She came sweeping in.
“Irona, darling! You are working dear Daun far too hard. I swear he’s aged twenty years.” Miaow.
“It feels like forty,” Irona said.
Then came courtesies, and getting seating, and Daun bringing in more wine and another goblet. Chagulak should not be there. Anything he said to the Chosen should be as testimony before the committee, but who could doubt that he had just agreed with hints from Dychat and Puchuldiza that Irona must have made all the major decisions herself, ignoring his objections? He was the subordinate and the fault was all hers, right? In fact she had never overruled Chagulak once and he had always agreed with anything she suggested.
Dychat went swiftly to business. “The king of kings is leading a very large army against you, and building a large fleet …”
“We know that, but what’s this I hear about Maleficence?”
His annoyed glance at Podakan clearly meant: Blabbermouth! “Just guesses. The Kingdoms have often been accused of that evil, and the present king of kings’s family came to power two generations ago under very suspicious circumstances. We don’t intend to fight on land, and you can’t use fixes over water anyway.”
“So they say.”
“Quite. Now, about our hearings. We shall have to call the general, of course. And he will draw up a list of other witnesses who can provide relevant—”
“May I see your warrant, please?” Irona said.
“Oh. I gave it … Podakan? I asked you to bring it.”
“I am sorry, Your Honor. I thought you meant me to bring it to the official hearings. Shall I run down to the ship for it? Or they may have brought our baggage up already. …”
Great Goddess! They were so transparent that Irona wanted to laugh. It was all meant to look fair: an independent Seven and two other Chosen from major committees. To outsiders, it must even seem to be weighted in her favor, with her son and her former pupil as members. She knew she mustn’t trust either of them to take her side. The Seventy wanted Irona’s head mounted on the wall for the Empire to see. The Elbrus disaster must be shown to be all her fault.
She almost offered to write the commissioners’ report for them.
As soon as they were gone, she hobbled off in search of Veer. She found him in his studio as usual, growling about the heat softening his waxes. After one glance at her, he threw down his spatula and hugged her tight.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“It couldn’t be worse. Dychat’s fairly harmless, but Puchuldiza and Podakan? Ugh! I just hope they don’t send me to the sea death. If they do, darling, promise me you’ll find a way to kill me first.”
He squeezed even harder. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re going home?”
“Oh yes. Probably not in chains, although I wouldn’t rule out anything yet. The army will be withdrawn as fast as possible. So things may get very much worse.”
“They told you this?”
“No. They have to hold hearings first. But they have the final report already written, I’m sure.”
“Anything I can do?” He squeezed her again, clasping her head against his shoulder. He smelled of wax and hot afternoon and himself.
“Not now,” she said, “but if I survive until bedtime, then yes. Definitely.”
The Dychat Commission chose that favorite terrace of hers to hold its hearings. They sat behind a table in the shade, with the witness chair in sunlight. There was no recorder present, but all three of them held waxed boards, on which they scratched notes from time to time. They might not have their report already written, but its conclusions were foregone.
She was the first witness, or so she was told.
“Whose idea was it to enter the port of Kell in hot pursuit of the raider?”
“Commodore Chagulak’s.”
Eyebrows rose to let her know that someone else had told them otherwise. And so it went. But she got her chance eventually, thanks to Puchuldiza, who had the brains of a bat.
“But you admit it was you who got us into this mess?”
“I didn’t get anybody into a mess,” Irona said crossly. “In less than two years I added three large and prosperous islands and a score of little ones to the Empire.”
“And started a war with the Three Kingdoms!”
“They began the killing and looting. I was sent here to stop it—and did so. If the king of kings has a hundred million men standing on the mainland, he still can’t march them over the sea. And,” she shouted as Puchuldiza tried to interrupt, “if he was a king of kings of kings, he couldn’t create a seaworthy fleet and a skilled crew for it in less than ten years. In all its history the Empire has never lost a sea battle to the Kingdoms.”
Podakan said, “Hear, hear!”
Dychat glared at him. “If there are no further questions for this witness …”
By nightfall it was all over, and Irona was called in to hear their decision. She was even allowed to read their warrant, which recalled Chosen Irona and named Seven Dychat her replacement as admiral, marshal, and acting governor. The other two commissioners were to investigate the situation and advise on future action.
They would decide that tomorrow, Dychat said. Meanwhile, she must haul down her flag and prepare to return to Benign in two days.
“They’re pulling out,” Podakan said glumly.
He had wandered into Irona’s bedroom when she was about to change for the
formal dinner. She had shooed her maids away with orders to send in wine and tell Veer to stay out.
For once Podakan was not spoiling for a fight with her. He was glum and perhaps even in need of comforting. She could hardly believe it, but it seemed that she was about to have a confidential tête-à-tête with her hero son for the first time since he gave up sitting on her lap. The evening was relatively cool, with a scented breeze drifting in her windows. It brought sounds of drunken revelry from the streets, where marines were celebrating their recall.
“I thought that was to be decided tomorrow.”
“It was decided before we left. There was another motion passed, a secret motion. We were ordered to abandon your conquests unless the three of us voted otherwise unanimously. Which won’t happen because Man Mountain Dychat has his orders from 692.”
She was impressed that her son had learned Chosen politics so quickly. She had always been inclined to underestimate Podakan. His deliberate rudeness made him seem like a lout, but it hid a ruthless cunning.
“What about the locals who have cooperated with us and accepted our promises not to abandon them?”
“Your promises, not ours.”
“So you’ll be sending the ships back to their home ports?” When he nodded, she said, “What if the king of kings decides to use this fleet he’s building?”
Her son laughed, which had always been rare, even when he was a child. “There’s a coastguard flotilla based in Aoba. Dychat’s been told to enlarge it, from eight ships to twenty-four, so it will preserve the border through the Gulf of Berutarube. They’re idiots, Dam, idiots! They think that wishing makes it so.”
“The king of kings will take control of the seas and the Empire will burn.”
“Of course.” He spoke glumly, but when he looked up at her, she saw fury burning deep in his eyes.
“What would you do, if you were in charge?”
“Sink his fucking fleet before it knows what it’s doing.”
That would be her own inclination. After a moment, she said, “But Dychat is in charge.”
“Ledacos was when his orders were written.” Podakan drained his goblet and reached for the flask to refill it. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! They think they can end a fight by running away from it. You want to sail on the same ship as me?”
