'Has Your Highness made arrangements for accommodation? If you are in difficulty, please allow me to offer the hospitality of my own humble villa.'
She got up and walked out in the middle of his offer. She didn't even bother to ask him for a loan. He would be as smooth and slippery as a slug's track, saying nothing to offend, but he would not give it to her. It didn't matter that she was an 'honored guest', or that she'd dealt with him personally before. She was the bitter, deadly enemy of the person who controlled one of his bank's largest accounts. She'd get nothing from him financially, and she wanted no part of what he was obviously only too willing to give her.
She left Omsgib and went to the second largest bank in Tolviroth Acerte. And then the third, the fourth, and on down until she ended up in the boardroom of Iola Trust, the eighth bank she'd visited that day.
The seven members of the Board of Directors regarded her from behind veils of professional politeness. She looked away from the ascetic face of the man who'd just refused her request. She saw no sympathy anywhere. Of the four male directors, at least two would obviously be willing to offer the same 'accommodation' Omsgib had hinted at. But not even they showed the slightest inclination to advance her the money to raise a mercenary army.
'Look,' she said, eyes flicking from face to face. 'I'm not asking you to involve yourself in the affairs of the Sky City. I am applying for a loan. Isn't my credit good?'
A look of pain passed over the face of a female director named Bovre Coudis. A person's credit rating was all but sacred toaTolvirot, and Synalon had good credit. Refusing a loan to someone with good credit moved perilously close to blasphemy. But obviously that did not extend to Synalon's renegade sister.
'I know the Sky City as well as any person living. Do any among you doubt that? I know the military doctrines of the City, I know the caliber and training of its troops, I know its commanders. If I'm given the proper backing — if — I can conquer the City. And then you, gentlefolk of this board, will see a handsome return on your investment.'
'War's bad business,' grumbled one. Another twitched an impatient finger to silence the speaker.
'So you say’ said the man introduced as Kolwyl, dabbing languidly at his lips with a scented handkerchief. Moriana pegged him as totally uninterested in 'accommodations' of any sort with her. 'But no one has ever invaded the City before. For any loan, we must have a reasonable assurance the money will not be frittered away. Success must loom large or it is a poor loan. What makes you think you can succeed in this mad venture?'
She met his gaze levelly, unspeaking. After a moment, he turned his eyes away and coughed delicately into his handkerchief.
'The City has been invaded successfully before,' she said. 'My ancestors wrested it from the Fallen Ones.'
'They used treachery,' replied Kolwyl sharply. 'They succeeded. Your obligation to my proposal seems to be that it can't succeed. What does it matter to you how it comes about as long as you realize your profit?'
Kolwyl looked about him for support. Anathas, a small mousy man wearing a thick fur collar despite the heat within the chamber, shifted in his seat with a rustle of expensive cloth.
'You know,' he said nasally, 'it is not impossible that we are being unfair to Princess Moriana. She is, after all, rightful Queen of the Sky City. Surely, she has some popular support among the, uh, the masses.'
'That may be,' said Bovre Coudis, leaning forward so far that her jowls swung like a bulldog's. 'But her sister controls the secret police. And from our intelligence in this matter, the masses would be well advised to keep their place.'
Moriana scarcely heard her. She stared at Anathas, who huddled down inside his fur-lined robe, uncomfortable beneath her gaze. She tried to fathom his sudden reversal. He had seemed against her at first.
Sunlight filtered through the windows, casting a yellow-brown light on the vast oaken table. Servants passed through the room, ignoring the conversation and being ignored, refilling wineglasses and replenishing the trays of dainties. Moriana had the impression that if she touched oneofthem, she'd find itas insubstantial as Ziore.
'We have a great deal of venture capital at our discretion,' said Anathas, looking everywhere but at the princess. 'Surely, there's no doubting her Highness's resourcefulness. Recall, gentles, how many years we've tried to wrest the City's account from that lascivious hound, Omsgib.'
The decorous tone of the meeting lapsed for the first time. Everyone spoke at once, clamoring for attention. With sinking spirit, Moriana realized the others were unanimous in their opposition to Anathas.
The gaunt man uttered the first refusal and restored order by rapping bony knuckles on the table.
'Gentles, gentles, please! Is this any way to conduct business?' That quieted them. 'Now,' he said, nodding. 'Now, Anathas, it pains me to say this but you seem to be suffering from a lapse of good judgment. This young lady comes to us with a harebrained scheme to conquer the City in the Sky, a City never taken by conquest. It has been taken, as our lovely guest so thoughtfully pointed out, but not by battle. The gradual infiltration of human traders into the City originally made it possible to expel the Fallen People. No outside intervention was used. While military matters are somewhat beyond my province, I must say that the Sky City seems to be impregnable. Even if I am wrong, it is not the place of this bank to become involved in such a risky undertaking as a war. And not just any war, but a civil war, as it were.'
He turned to Moriana.
'I might also point out that we've no way of knowing if this woman is who she claims to be.' Moriana stiffened. Her hand dropped to her side, clutching empty air. She'd left her sword in the anteroom according to standard banking practice. Her fingers brushed the rough cloth of her knapsack.
She blinked twice rapidly. She hadn't been asked to surrender the knapsack before being ushered into the august corporate presence of the board as she had at every other institution she'd visited that day. A sudden intuition into Anathas's change of mind made her smile. Her spirits rose in spite of the firm hold she kept on her expectations.
' . . . further enjoy the services of Prince Rann Etuul, cousin to the queen, and widely acknowledged to be one of the most astute military minds of our day,' the gaunt man was saying. He turned to Moriana and attempted to smile benignly. It made him look as if he'd just bitten into a spoiled sweetmeat and was trying to pretend he hadn't.
'I trust Your Highness will forgive my bluntness,' he said. 'It isn't that I personally doubt your assurances that you are who you claim to be. Nor do I doubt your competence as a leader and planner in a venture such as you've outlined. But you must understand that my decision is based on more than my own preference. The investors in this bank had given their trust - and their money - to the Board of Directors to safeguard. Before we venture any of their hard-won capital, we must entertain no doubts whatsoever about the feasibility of the project under consideration. I - and I think I speak for my colleagues as well - would like nothing so much as to grant your request.' He shook his head sadly. 'But we do not believe, to speak frankly, that aligning ourselves against the Sky City's current regime is in the best interests of our bank or its investors.'
Kolwyl turned and said to Anathas, 'Really, old man, I'm surprised at you. Falling for a piece of fluff like this. She's pretty enough, I suppose, if you like the type, but is she worth the risk of impecuniation?'
Anathas turned white. Moriana's spirit was crashing back to earth. 'Impecuniation' was the Tolvirot euphemism for the severest of civil penalties, the confiscation of all properties and assets. A true merchant of the City of Bankers would rather be flayed alive in public than suffer impecuniousness.
The other directors glared reproachfully at Kolwyl for his rudeness - and in front of Moriana. But the damage was done. Anathas shrank so far into his cloak that only the tip of his nose showed. Whatever the reason for his support, it had evaporated like mist under the morning sun.
Thank you for your time, gentlefolk,' said Moriana, r
ising. Her voice was clear and firm, though inside she felt as if she were melting. 'I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you. In return for your indulgence, I'd like to offer some advice.' She looked from director to director, her gaze sharp and fierce. Even pugnacious Coudis cringed away from it.
'If you think to gain advantage by dealing with Synalon, or by doing nothing which might offend her, you are doing your investors small service. My sister's ambitions encompass much more than the City and the Quincunx. There's little room for the likes of you in her grand design, no matter how much you try to ingratiate or appease. You prattle on about her power; do you think she will sit by and not use it?'
She took a deep breath. Silence held sway. Even the servants stared at her.
'And if my sister fails,' she said, 'give thought, gentles, who will rule the City in her place.' She left, panicked mutterings following her out the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
'I am sorry, Moriana,' said Ziore mounfully. 'I failed you.'
'You tried,' the princess said, patting the knapsack. 'It is with me as you said it was for that pious fraud Erimenes. The farther I go from Athalau, the more my powers wane. I was lucky to influence that mousy Anathas for as long as I did. Strong convictions or passion negates my talent for controlling emotions. My best couldn't override Anathas's fear of - what did they call it? - im-pecuniousness.'
Moriana crossed her arms under her breasts. A landau rolled past, drawn by four black dogs, each with an identical white patch over its left eye. The carriage body was white painted wood with gold trim in severe lines. The vehicle couldn't be described as ornate, yet neither was it strictly functional. The gilt added a touch of garishness. It epitomized all Moriana had seen in Tolviroth Acerte. The citizens wished to appear reserved but at the same time they hinted at extravagance.
'Why don't you go to the Quincunx Cities and warn them of your sister's intentions?' suggested Ziore.
'The burghers of the Quincunx could give the Tolvirot lessons in smug complacency. They'll not believe themselves threatened until the Sky Guardsmen drop from their skies. And then it will be too late.' She smiled humorlessly. 'And once the first Quincunx city falls to my sister, it will be my life if I set foot in any of the others. They'll not trust any of the City's royal family.'
Approaching darkness sent its tentacles creeping up the block. Across the hewn stone street the most distinguished of Tolviroth Acerte's banking houses stood as stately as spinsters and, for Moriana, as impenetrable. At her back a fountain played, complete with water-spewing fish and naked little boys with urns and gilded bottoms.
'If you can't hire a mercenary army,' Ziore said, 'why not try to raise a popular one? Surely, not all the folk of the Sundered Realm are as phlegmatic as the Quincunxers? In my day, folk feared the City's might, and that was long past the fall of its builders. Can't you awaken the countryside to the dangers of your sister's ambition?'
Moriana gave the unseen spirit a pitying smile. Ziore was wise in some ways, but life in the cloister hadn't prepared her for the harsh reality of the world.
'You're right,' she said, 'about the folk of the Realm dreading the Sky City. Long ago we treated them with contempt - even we Etuul. "Groundlings" we call them. We sneer at them for never rising above the dirt into the freedom of the sky. They fear us, even hate us. The common people will believe Synalon threatens them, but they will also suspect that I wish to entangle them in a war for my own ends.'
'But what of justice? The throne belongs to you!' 'I think it's safe to wager that not a single citizen of the Realm loses so much as a minute's sleep worrying about the fortunes of the City.'
'You are cynical, child. It is your hurt that makes you speak thus.' 'It's reality, Ziore, reality.'
They sat in silence. Darkness deepened and with it the gloom enfolding Moriana. Perhaps, she thought, I should return to the City. Could Rann's peverted amusements be so much worse than the agony of helplessness?
'Don't!' cried Ziore. 'Never think that, child, never! Such thinking is always a trap, a pit without bottom. Once you fall into it, you can never. . .'
The sound of a footfall nearby cut her off. Moriana looked around. She expected to see one of the constabulary come to collect the tariff for sitting on the bench and enjoying the view of the rich statuary. Her hand went instinctively to her sword hilt.
A man stood there, a tall silhouette against the fading sun.'Fost!' she gasped. 'I fear not my lady,' came the warm but unfamiliar voice, 'just a plain passerby whose heart is torn to see one so lovely in distress. Can I be of service? A kind word? A sword to fight beside you?'
Moriana blinked. The words, coming soft in the accents of the City States, should have repelled her as mere puffery. Yet sincerity flowed through them like a warm, rich current. Something made her want to believe the offer was real.
'I am grateful, sir,' she said, gesturing for him to sit. 'But my troubles are larger than the two of us.'
'That may be so, and may be not,' he said, smiling. She studied him as he took a place-not too close, but not far either. She saw why, with the sun at his back, he had made her think of her lost lover. He had the same big-boned build, and he was well muscled and lithe. He moved with the assurance of the competent.
But up close he was quite different. His hair, she now saw, was brown touched with gray instead of Fost's night-black. The stranger had known far more than the courier had - or ever would. The stranger's eyes were brown and set in a network of fine laugh lines. His clothing was patched and travel-worn, but it was plainly of high quality. As was his manner, as well. He was no guttersnipe but a man of birth and breeding.
'If you'll pardon the impertinence of self-introduction, lady, I am Darl Rhadaman, Count-Duke of Harmis.'
'Lord Rhadaman,' she gasped. Darl Rhadaman, swordsman, strategist, orator, crusader ever in search of some new cause to champion, was no less than a legend. He'd fared around the world in his way, yet his finest hour had come in freeing his hereditary fiefdom of a wizard bent on subjugation.
A kiss on her hand brought her from her daze. 'And you, my lady? To whom have I the honor of offering my service?'
'Moriana Etuul, Heir to the City in the Sky.' 'So,' he said. 'Your pardon, Highness, for my unseeming familiarity.'
'Don't be ridiculous,' she said, pulling at his sleeve to prevent him from dropping a knee in obeisance. 'How do you know I'm not lying, anyway? I could tell you anything.'
'I have seen you, Highness, and heard of your sister's... assumption of the Beryl Throne.'
'Seen me? Where?' she asked, surprised. 'In this very city, Highness, not three years ago. The Festival of Debentures was underway and you were pointed out to me. I am appalled I could see you now and not remember your stunning beauty.'
'I remember!' Moriana cried, clapping her hands. 'I had come to discuss the City's accounts with . . .' She couldn't give name to the banker who'd so recently denied her the means of conquering the City. 'Yes’ she said shortly, 'I was here. If I'd only known a man such as yourself was nearby!'
'I have a confession, Highness. I'm no longer Count-Duke of Harmis.'
'I didn't mean ...' 'No offense taken, milady. I suppose I am still count-duke, when all is said and done. But I've renounced claim to my homeland.'
'Why?' Such a question would normally have been discourteous, but something in the man's manner told Moriana he wouldn't regard it as such.
'Peace,' Darl said, 'is a wonderful thing, a blessing for the people. The borders of Harmis are secured against foes within and without, and since I helped the people of my country find their pride again, few will issue a real challenge.'
He looked at her and said in a lower voice, 'Peace is a marvelous thing. And it's also boring as hell.'
Moriana's laugh startled her. It sounded strange, alien. It had been long since she'd laughed.
WoP - 01 - War of Powers Page 45
