by Dave Duncan
The trouble began as winter was setting in, when the garrison troops who had sailed with Podakan in the spring were relieved and returned to their home bases. One galley had been contributed by Purace and the other by Nedokon Kun, so there was a further delay before mail reached Benign.
Irona received only a very brief note saying that Podakan was well but much too busy to write more. Busy? In Vult? Whatever had he found to do in the rock? Koriana claimed that his letter to her had said no more than that, but she blushed furiously when asked to produce it. It had been destroyed, she said.
The governor’s “routine” midterm report was delivered to the Seven. It was anything but routine. The Seven had it read aloud to the Seventy, and it caused a near riot.
There was too little to do at Vult to keep the troops on their toes, Podakan had written. Trogs had been seen again, after an absence of years. He had therefore assembled a flotilla of fishing boats from Fueguino and some of the tiny villages along the coast—small craft that could be manhandled over the weir. He was about to launch an attack on Eldritch. He hoped he could return it to imperial control, but even if he couldn’t achieve that much, he could root out some maleficence.
His commission expressly forbade any action more than one bow shot inland from the Eboga Weir, but by this time, it was far too late to send a message north. Even if it arrived, it would almost certainly fail to reach Podakan, unless he had been mad enough to plan his campaign for a Vultian winter. There was nothing to do except wait for the spring sailing season. When the Seventy stopped screaming, they had mostly decided that it must be all Irona’s fault. After all, she had nominated him.
Podakan had maneuvered her into that.
Caprice rarely sent troubles alone. On days when the Seventy were due to meet, Irona’s major clients would call upon her after breakfast to discuss issues and strategy. That was how the Empire was run. It was a mutual help arrangement, support here traded for opposition there, but the most important votes were always the elections, and one election would be critical. A vacancy had opened among the Seven, the first since Irona had become eligible for another term. If she failed to win, the wind would spread whispers that she was past it, losing her grip, on the way down. Normally she would have been quite confident, but Podakan’s insubordination at Vult had thrown the issue into doubt. For the Chosen to vote against her just to spite him would be a meaningless gesture—he could not even hear about it for another half year—but the Seventy’s decisions were never based only on logic.
Her clients understood the danger, for if her power waned, their own prospects would dim. They agreed that the day must be spent in campaigning. They were halfway through a triage of the Chosen—the good, the bad, and the buyable—when there came a tap on the door.
Lascar 730, the most junior, rose to answer it, but it could only be Edziza out there, and he would not interrupt lightly. Muttering apologies, Irona reached for her staff. Two men jumped to help her rise. She hated that highlighting of her disability, but lately she had begun to accept it as necessary. Lascar returned to his seat; Edziza waited in the doorway until Irona arrived.
Then he spoke softly. “Princess Koriana here to see you, ma’am. And the boy Avazan.”
In almost eleven years, Koriana had never come calling without being invited, rarely even then. Why come on such a vile winter day, with lamps swinging and rain beating against the shutters? Why bring a ten-year-old with her? Irona turned to tell her cohort that she would need a few minutes and would they please carry on with that they were doing. Then she followed Edziza along to the dining hall, where the visitors were waiting.
“Koriana. … And wonderful to see you, Avazan. Do please sit, both of you. …” Words came automatically as she tried to guess what could have provoked the visit. It was hard to do that when she couldn’t see the woman’s eyes. The boy was gazing around with a contempt that he must have learned or inherited from his father. His presence was still a mystery to Irona, but a woman of the Three Kingdoms might well believe she must not go out without a male escort.
“I can’t spare long just now, dear. In an hour or so …”
“It will only take a moment,” Koriana told the floor tiles. “I am returning to the Three Kingdoms. And taking my children, of course.”
Oh, she was, was she? Irona drew a deep breath and kept her voice soft.
“This is bad news. What provokes this decision?”
“Your son has passed out of my world. He will not be coming back to Benign.”
For a moment the words felt like a dagger stab: Maleficence, trogs, Eldritch. … Then common sense reared its homely head. The woman was insane. Even if her information were based on reality, why discuss it in front of the boy?
“You believe he is … his tide has ebbed?”
“He is gone,” Koriana said firmly. “There is nothing more for me to do here.”
“You can’t sail yet, dear. Not in this season.”
“I arrived in such season, I can leave in such season.”
Unaccustomed to backtalk, Irona found herself very close to losing her temper. “Until Podakan returns or we are certain that he will never return, I will not let you remove his children from the city. And probably not then. You understand?”
Koriana looked up, eyes flashing fury. “They are my children.”
“And my grandchildren.”
“No.”
Oh, Goddess! “What are you saying, woman?”
“I am saying that your son cannot make children. His seed will not flourish. Oh, he plowed me often, but he had other men sow me so that people would not know his state.”
“You are joking.” Irona glanced at Avazan, who had blanched, as if his world had just fallen to pieces. It was a small comfort to know that this nonsense was news to him and not something he had been fed for a long while.
“No joke.” Koriana was still staring, her face white with rage. “Always I obeyed my lord and submitted. He watched to make sure I did. Men from the docks. Men from visiting ships. Boys from Muhavura.”
Irona fought for calm. “You are overwrought. You are alone too much.”
“Just look at them!” The princess was close to screaming. “None looks like your son. Or you. Or one another. You’ve seen Alayta’s hair, Chiracha’s eyes!”
Yes, but … No. This was madness.
Edziza would have stayed close in case he was needed.
“Avazan,” Irona said quietly. “Your mother is having a bad dream. Please open the door and ask the man outside to come in again.”
Even the election seemed unimportant after that interview. Irona sent an urgent summons to the Palace office for Daun Bukit. She arranged for Koriana to be put under house arrest and doctors to declare her insane. She hired guards and nurses. She pulled more strings than a fishing boat hauling in its nets, but only when both the children and their mother were being supervised day and night was Irona able to relax again. It was going to cost a fortune, but she could afford it.
She did win reelection to the Seven, but she had an opponent for the first time in twenty years, and the vote was too close for comfort.
Koriana refused further discussion of her visions, and Irona would not have believed anything she said anyway. It should have seemed like a long winter, waiting to hear what had happened in Vult, but between the workload of a Seven and getting to know her grandchildren better, she found that the months flashed by. Without Podakan’s forbidding presence, she did get to know them at last: Avazan, Adwa, Hanish, Alayta, Chiracha, and baby Olkaria. She and Veer took them on trips around the city and entertained them at Sebrat House. She brought in playmates and tutors, which their father had never done, and she spoiled them with treats of toys and sweetmeats as a grandmother should.
Suddenly it was again time to elect a governor for Vult.
Normally the Seven just put the appointment
on the agenda for the next meeting of the Seventy, more or less leaving it to the younger Chosen to decide among themselves whose turn it was in the pillory. But this time the Seven debated it at length, sitting around their octagonal table with First Ranau, seven purple and one red.
They agreed their nominee would have to be Lascar 730. There was some talk of sending Kieyo 731, who made too many speeches for a junior and had a monotonous voice—one honorable Seven suggested extending his term there to five or ten years. But nobody quite knew what the next governor might have to deal with when he arrived, and they trusted Lascar more than Kieyo. Then they discussed sending a senior Chosen along as admiral, to see the junior governor safely installed, but that break with routine might seem like panic. In the end, the Seven agreed to recommend Lascar for the post.
Even that was not the end of it this year. Old Dallol 672, who wasn’t frightened of Irona or anyone else, moved that the new governor be provided with a warrant for Podakan 725’s arrest on charges of mutiny. All eyes turned to Irona.
This was her moment of truth. He was certainly guilty if he had done what he said he was going to do, and he had lied in his report if he hadn’t. Headstrong he had always been, but to attack Eldritch with a mere four hundred men was more like insanity than mutiny. Or it might be treachery, although no one had spoken that word yet. She was not allowed to abstain from a vote. Did she put loyalty to her son ahead of loyalty to the goddess? In truth, that was no choice, because what was going to happen would have already happened despite anything she did or said.
“I agree,” she said. “But no summary justice. He is to be brought back here for trial.”
They all agreed that this was what they wanted.
“Furthermore,” she said, “we tell Navy to send its best two imperial galleys with first-rate captains. No allied trash this time.”
That also was agreed, yet that evening the Seventy, in their wisdom, added a third galley. No one quite came out and explained why that might be a good idea, but it was agreed unanimously.
A week before Midsummer Day, when Sevens Irona and Komev were sitting in judgment in Adult Court, they were summoned to attend the First. They had to suspend the sitting, a breach of normal procedure that would set the whole Palace abuzz. As they followed the herald along the corridor, they debated what emergency might have provoked it. The most obvious possibility was news from Vult, but that seemed impossible: bad weather had delayed Lascar 730’s departure, and there had simply not been time for him to arrive and send word back.
In the anteroom they found Ledacos 692 and Banahaw 688 already waiting. The herald asked Komev to join them, but he ushered Irona straight into the meeting room, where he helped her position her foot on the low stool kept there for her. As he left by the corridor door, the First entered through the one that led from his own quarters. As usual, Irona made a token effort to rise, and he gestured for her to remain seated.
Ranau 674 had always been a small, spry man. She could remember him as the most junior Seven when she was chosen. Despite his age and snow-white hair, he was still spry, still alert. And now he was very much the ruler of Benign. He ignored his official red chair and took one beside hers, turning it to face her, leaning an elbow on the slate table. He did not smile.
“Bad news,” she said. “Not from Vult already?”
He nodded. “A good man, 730.”
“What of my son?”
“It looks bad. Irona, I’m sorry. We don’t know for certain. We have no eyewitness accounts and no body, but Vult has been sacked.”
Too many thoughts stormed into her head all at once. Her son, always wayward, always willful. But always loved, always blood of her blood. Vult, that incredible rock of a fortress. The trogs. Vlyplatin. Those bones at Svinhofdarhrauk. Podakan as a child, screaming with frustration when he wanted to do something and couldn’t manage—throwing, jumping, anything. He would keep trying until he collapsed from exhaustion. Podakan the hero, making her heart burst with pride.
“I am sorry to be the bearer of such appalling news,” Ranau said. “We gave him up for dead once before, remember, and he came through triumphant.”
“No. If Vult has fallen, he is dead.” She must cling to that thought, must believe that. The alternative was worse. Trogs …
“Which,” Ranau said with a steady stare of bright eyes, “is what that Koriana woman has been telling you for months.”
Ooof! Irona had hired all the new servants herself. … But what did that matter? She managed to hold his gaze. “I did not know the Geographical Section spied on Chosen.”
“Geographical spies on everyone, Irona, and its reports come first to me, as you must know or should have guessed. I can forbid any further distribution and often do.”
Not just Koriana—he was telling her that there were spies in her house also. Who? Edziza, who had been with her so long? Or even Veer? Oh, not Veer!
Ranau read her thoughts and confirmed them. “It spies on Sevens, also, and I pray to the goddess that it keeps a close watch on the First, in case I’m ever tempted to abuse my powers.”
“Koriana is insane.”
“Koriana is a witch.”
Irona closed her eyes briefly while she took a few deep breaths. When she opened them, Ranau was no longer watching her.
“She could be, I suppose,” she said. “Her family has that reputation. But I believe she is mad. You are not going to send the daughter of the king of kings to the sea death, are you?”
Ranau’s normally kindly face was frighteningly rigid. “We should, but since she wants to go home, I think we will just put her on a boat without delay. That is what she wants, is it not?”
“But her children? My grandchildren!”
He shook his head.
Oh, no, no!
“Geographical Section won’t vouch for all of them, but it is confident that at least four of the six are likely not your grandchildren. Possibly none of them, even the eldest. Your son certainly knew that his wife spread her favors widely. If anyone in that palace was insane, it may have been him, Irona.”
“Or he was bewitched,” she insisted. “But what happened or did not happen is not their fault. I regard them as my flesh and I love them. May I say farewell to them, later today?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow will do. Geographical has taken over custody already, and we’ll have her out of here in a couple of days. I’ll see the Property Commission gives her a fair price for the house and contents.”
Irona could find nothing else to say. Her world had collapsed around her—her son, her grandchildren, and the Empire itself perhaps. When she did not speak, Ranau rose and strode over to open the private door.
The man waiting behind it came in and knelt to Irona, who recalled him as a fresh-faced youngster on Invincible at Kell, so many years ago now. She greeted him by his name, Marapi Kembar, and he beamed at being remembered. Time had weathered him and bulked him up, but mere time would not have brought him his reputation for courage and reliability. He had been sent to Vult as Lascar’s commodore, so why was he back here in Benign, reporting to the First? Why he? Why not the admiral, the Chosen?
She told Kembar to rise; he apologized for having brought such terrible news; she absolved him, and by that time the head of state had opened the other door like a common porter. Other Sevens filed in: Komev, Banahaw, Ledacos, Dallol, and Pavouk. Knowing that Irona had been called in ahead of them, they had guessed why. They nodded somberly to her and took their seats in silence. Only two of them knew Kembar, who had returned to his knees.
Ranau closed the door and went to his chair and rapped his seal ring on the table to call the meeting to order.
“Fialovi 694 is reported to be inspecting the new dock. This business seems urgent enough that I propose to start without him. Any objections? Good. I invited Commodore Kembar to report to us. Commodore, please rise and tell us in you
r own words what happened. I will read out Honorable Lascar’s report later, if it seems necessary.”
“Y’r Rev’nce, Y’r Honors. …” The commodore went to stand behind Fialovi’s empty chair and look over his audience. A marine faced enough storms, swords, and missiles in his career that a gaggle of geriatrics around a table did not overawe him. “The goddess sent us fair seas and we made good time to Fueguino, but we found it burned to the ground. We hunted for survivors and found no one, not a dog nor cat, Y’r Honors. We did find three corpses floating in the harbor, and there were some charred bones, that’s all.”
The listeners sighed. The news changed everything. The war of their ancestors had returned.
“His Honor asked our advice—me and the captains—and we advised proceeding to Vult, as planned, because there we could hope to find news and maybe reinforcements. He said that was his own wish and instructed me to do so.
“I’ve been to Vult before, Y’r Honors. Found it much changed. The rock’s abandoned and the weir breached, so the lake has drained. It’s all mud and a few wavy channels now. Stank like … like you can’t believe. Boats and the entrance stairs had been burned on the shingle, including the galleys Shark and Moray. We found gnawed bones in the ashes. With His Honor’s permission I had a party climb up to the entrance. … No easy climb, that! Three men went in, armed. They popped out like coneys chased by ferrets, begging your pardon. They’d almost gotten eaten by a rock worm.”
Ledacos said, “If the worms—”
“Questions later,” Ranau snapped. “Continue, Commodore.”
“Aye, Y’r Rev’nce. A couple of youngsters managed to climb all the way to the summit. One of them fell on the way back down. … Th’ other reported that the buildings up there had all been burned, and the stairway filled in with rubble. Whoever done it made a good job, Y’r Honors.”
Outside the windows of the First’s Palace, songbirds were hailing summer. Inside was midwinter. Irona could not recall a report more dire than this one. She sensed an epoch ending and another already begun.
