by Victor Milán
“But trial by combat’s illegal,” declared Hilario de Llanoalto, the realm’s richest breeder of war-hadrosaurs, who towered above the other courtiers standing behind the front rank of seats for the most privileged. So dedicated was he to pressing his quest for ennoblement for his services—which really were substantial, Melodía knew—that he had followed the Court from La Merced here to the central Meseta highlands. Even if his dedication hadn’t extended to accompanying the Army of Crusade Felipe had led off to Providence.
“For us,” Jaume said. “Have you, my lord, reason to believe the Grey Angels do not follow their own set of Laws endowed by our Creators, as we follow the Books?”
A moment of silence ensued. Then the onlookers began to mutter to one another. Though Melodía couldn’t make out the words, she could read their tone. She sighed.
“You’re right,” she said to her forebear and mentor. “As usual.”
She was pleased to see on her own something shrewd that her forsaken love had done: though as Captain-General of the Order of the Companions he enjoyed the ecclesiastical rank of a Cardinal, he hadn’t used his own superior rank to bludgeon the bishop’s objections, but the Pope’s. And recourse to Leo Victor’s finding carried with it a threat that Melodía realized, with a certain satisfaction, she’d never even have noticed before La Madrota started force-feeding her instruction in intrigue.
Rumors had arrived at Court—and Rosamaría confirmed them from her own far-flung net of sources—that His Holiness was carrying out a quiet but ruthlessly thorough purge of Vida-se-Viene sympathizers from the Church hierarchy, starting at the top and working down. At least four members of El Sacro Colegio had resigned from the Curia and their titular churches and left La Merced, along with a dozen Archbishops. While The Books of the Law recognized few categories of blasphemy or heresy, they specified condign punishments for willful twisting of their contents by priests and Church hierarchs. No one was eager to lose not just his red hat but the head beneath it to the Empire’s first heresy trials in two hundred years—nor to the covert forms of execution said to have befallen certain individuals who’d been caught abusing high Church offices in particularly embarrassing ways.
Waiting for the low-voice conversation—which was still going his way—to dwindle, Jaume swept his hand toward Karyl, who stood at a respectful distance before the Fangèd Throne. “Your Grace, with His Majesty’s permission.”
Felipe nodded. “Please, Duke Karyl. I value your counsel highly.”
“Look at Margrethe,” murmured Rosamaría. “She looks as if she’s gotten some spoiled tripes.”
Melodía did, and had to restrain her own snicker.
“Thank you, Your Majesty, Count dels Flor,” Karyl said. His voice sounded dry and measured as grains of rye. “I commend the Court for having rejected out of hand the proposal for a naval war with the Basileia of Trebizon. It’s an insane notion. I have come, in turn, to refute the notion that any manner of war in this case is a necessary, desirable, or anything but disastrous course of action.”
“So you’re willing to roll over and accept the Trebs’ kidnapping of our Emperor’s own dear daughter?” Margrethe burst out from her chair near the Emperor’s left arm.
Melodía felt fists and guts knot. At least she didn’t defile Montse’s name with her mouth.
“Dowager Duchess,” Karyl acknowledged. He had no patience for courtly formalities, Melodía knew, but as a noble born and raised, he knew his way around them. As he knew that flouting them would merely result in his arguments not being heard. “Please tell me, then, where the Infanta Montserrat can be found at this moment.”
Margrethe blinked. “Why, why—she’s on a ship, where her vile kidnappers took her. Of course. Every fool in the Empire knows that! Except one, perhaps?”
“Perhaps if we had a map brought in, you could point out to us her exact location,” said Karyl in the same calm tone, refusing to acknowledge her insult with so much as a blink. Though if offered under other circumstances, to another noble, it could well lead to an affray on the spot and on the instant.
“Why—no point to that! I have no idea where she is.”
Karyl nodded. “Thank you for your cooperation, Your Grace. If anyone can pinpoint the kidnapped child’s present location, please tell us now.”
That evoked a multitongued stammer of confusion. “We can’t!” Llanoalto said. “How do we know where she is?”
“So tell me, please, Don Hilario, how you propose to rescue her, if you don’t know where she is.”
“Is he one of hers?” Melodía asked.
“Neutral, for now,” Rosamaría said behind her fan. “Highplains is fishing for offers from the competing factions. He hasn’t got a nibble yet from either of us. He may or may not, depending on what he says here.”
“We know the Trebs have her!” It was young Archduke Antoine from Francia, rising from his front-rank seat across from Melodía and Rosamaría.
“And you know which Trebizonés, of course, Your Grace,” said Karyl.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Trebizon is a vast empire, almost as large and populous as our own. There are many Trebs.”
“Why—the Basileus, of course! He ordered this frightful crime.”
“The Trebs are known for treachery and intrigue. Please tell me whom you think they might practice on, if not one another. If you have evidence the kidnappers were loyal to the Basileus, rather than being traitors, we all await it.”
It was the turn of the Francés king’s nephew to go red, blink rapidly, and open and close his mouth like a fish in a glass bowl.
“Conspiracy twaddle!” bellowed Dowager Duchess Margrethe. Felipe murmured something to her. She paid him no mind.
“Why isn’t … her son talking?” asked Melodía. He sat in the front rank nearest the Fangèd Throne, of course. Her eyes tended to slide past him unseeing, as her mind and mouth preferred to slide past his name.
“It would seem that she wants him to appear to remain aloof from this debate,” Rosamaría said.
“So you necessarily believe,” Karyl said, “that each of the Infanta’s kidnappers arrived at the scheme of seizing her at the precise same time, entirely separately from one another.”
“How preposterous! Of course not. Clearly, they carefully plotted together…”
Her words ran out. But Melodía saw it was already too late.
“In Spañol, the word for that is ‘conspiracy,’” Karyl said. “As well as in all the other languages I’ve some conversance with—a dozen or so. Including Alemán.”
“You had best watch yourself, little man.”
“Indeed I shall. I’d hate to suffer a fatal fall down a darkened yet thoroughly familiar stairway, like the prior Duke von Hornberg. I won’t offer you condolences, since as a fellow noble of the north, I know enough about your late husband to feel confident his mishap did a positive favor to you, your son, and the Empire as a whole. It’ll no doubt relieve you to learn that I share few of his proclivities.”
If it were possible for a human to shoot lightning bolts from her eyes, the Dowager Duchess would have crisped Karyl on the instant. Melodía had to fake a coughing fit to keep from laughing aloud. La Madrota turned to give her a reproving look, presumably for such an unsubtle ploy, and spoiled it with a wink.
“Your Grace,” Felipe said, “the Dowager Duchess is my friend, and of a passionate yet sensitive disposition. Please, be gentle with her.”
Karyl bowed. “Your Majesty. Dowager Duchess. Now, with your permission, I will continue my presentation. It’s brief, never fear.”
“Please do,” Felipe said, before Margrethe had a chance to get out whatever she was opening her mouth to say.
“Who’s that sitting next to … him?” Melodía asked Rosamaría, with a nod she hoped was perceptible only to her. “He must be a major crony, for the monster to use his position to get the Elector Menor’s Deputy turfed out to give him a seat.”
A pair of jo
urneyman heralds had just spoken to Don Silvio, then rousted him from his chair. The tall and gaunt Taliano had been red-faced angry at first—heralds were, in their way, as callous in their disregard of persons and even rank as the Scarlet Tyrants were in their strict enforcement of rules of precedence only they actually understood. But Giustiniani had visibly become mollified as the heralds guided him to the entrance.
Perhaps they offered him a particularly sumptuous and plentiful dessert, Melodía thought. Heralds, especially ones as senior as these, also knew ways to defuse potentially disruptive reactions to their actions.
The man for whom the Diputado had been ejected was fully as huge and burly as the Alemán, black-bearded as well, though his skin and eyes were as dark as his companion’s were pale. He wore a black velvet doublet and trunks over black leggings, all trimmed in silver, that must have been as uncomfortable as La Madrota’s robes.
“Ahh, Count Vargas,” Rosamaría said. “A thoroughgoing brute. He fought against the Empire in the Princes’ War, which explains his connection with the Hornberg clan. A reputed torturer, slaver, rapist, and highway robber who’s somehow managed to dance along the blade of Imperial justice. Though had your father’s ill-advised Army of Correction continued on its original course, he might have enjoyed its full attention, eventually.”
The two men finished a muttered and inaudible exchange. Then both looked right at Melodía. Vargas laughed.
Melodía went hot, then cold, and thoroughly sick inside. Did the monster just brag to his creature about having his way with me, as he has to so many in the Court, in La Merced and here?
She felt Rosamaría’s hand grip and squeeze her arm, gently and briefly. She understood. Sucking down a deep, shuddering breath, she forced herself to stay calm and focus back on the proceedings.
“I still hope someone will tell me how an army attacking the Basileia by land proposes to locate a Princess abducted at sea,” Karyl was saying to the Archiduc.
“We could force someone to tell us,” Antoine said.
“We’d have to catch one who knew first, you young fool,” Mandar said.
“We have no means of doing so, clearly,” Felipe said. “Let us move on.”
Another man stepped forward. He was of medium height, thin, though not in a cadaverous way like Francisco de Mandar or Deputy Giustiniani; rather, he looked to Melodía as if he’d been squeezed almost dry of juices somehow. His narrow features and grey hair cropped fussily close to the skull seemed to emphasize that appearance. He wore the brown robes of an Imperial Minister.
“Clearly, Your Majesty,” he said, the accent of a Majestuoso born and bred, “compelling the Basileus to surrender your daughter would be a primary goal of our expedition. Along, of course, with punishing his Empire severely enough that it’ll be another century before they think to try such an act again.”
“Contreras,” Rosamaría said quietly to Melodía. “Deputy Minister for Administration. A bureaucrat in charge of bureaucracy, as it were. You are keeping track, of course?”
“That is a valid strategic goal,” Karyl said. “The first, I mean. You certainly understand that it will take a large army indeed to compel Basileus Nikephoros to do anything at all on his home ground.”
“Don’t you know already who’s aligned with whom?” Melodía asked.
“The question is, do you?”
“Indeed I do, Your Grace!” Contreras said. “But I have every confidence that the Empire of Nuevaropa can field such an army.”
Melodía emitted a short, exasperated exhalation. La Madrota was always admonishing her to sharpen her awareness of intrigue: what games others might be playing. And what the stakes might be.
“Please outline for me your plan to feed such an army,” said Karyl, in that same tone of calm, relentless reason. Melodía decided it must help to know with complete confidence that, with the possible exception of Jaume, you could kill anyone in the room without particular difficulty. “Men, women, and animals. And to provide them with water and the other necessities not just of war but of travel and life itself. Naturally, you have great experience at such undertakings.”
“Well—not really. But there are those who do!”
“To be sure. I’m among them.”
Contreras set his chin. “The Empire of Gran Turán can supply our needs.”
Melodía gave a soft grunt. “Until he said that, he had me convinced he was sincere, not bought.”
“Coerced,” Rosamaría said. “But, yes. There is hope for you.”
“Please share with us, Excellency, your plan to compel the High King to do so.”
Contreras stepped back with haste surprising in one so professionally reserved. “We’ll have an army in the heart of his ragged-assed nomad Empire,” Antoine declared.
“Another way of putting that, Your Grace, is that we shall be at the end of an immensely long supply chain, in the midst of what we have suddenly made enemy territory, and all that enemy has to do is break a single link of that chain to kill our entire army of hunger and thirst. You naturally know how large the Empire of Grand Turán is.”
Antoine, who had visibly been working his dudgeon back to the point he felt confident speaking up again, broke into stammers: “I—well, I—it’s large, of course. Every schoolchild knows that.”
Karyl turned to Felipe. “Your Majesty, I shall happily offer more detailed critiques of the war proposals at your convenience, with the aid of maps—at some later time. No need to bore this august assembly with such details. Please accept that I stipulate to the Archduke’s assertion that Turania is, indeed, large.”
“A capital idea, Duke Karyl,” the Emperor said amid general laughter. “I’m truly eager to share your vast knowledge and wisdom on war.”
Karyl turned back to Antoine. “For now, Your Grace, let me ask, simply, what is the detailed plan to invade the Empire of Trebizon across two thousand kilometers of mostly arid steppe and desert? I’ve crossed High Ovda, in both directions. Much of it’s not easy to traverse. And what is your contingency plan for waging a secondary—or, rather, at that point, primary—war against the Turanians? I’m truly eager to see it.”
Antoine, who had the trained poise of an aristocrat but not much beyond, was blinking rapidly and swallowing.
“What difference does it make,” bellowed a sturdy young knight. He wore his hair shaved on both sides, with only a black strip on top. Though Spañol by look and accent, he affected a full, black, Northern-style beard. A gold ring hung from his right earlobe. His tunic was gold on green. “One of our dinosaur knights is worth ten Trebs. And a hundred desert-wandering Ovdan scum!”
“Ugh,” Melodía said to Rosamaría. “Baron Steban de Tresgarras. Untried and looking to make a name. Also to bed me. He may succeed at one of those.”
“Nuevaropan dinosaur knights may well be the best on Aphrodite Terra,” Karyl said. “But Ovdan and Treb warriors are also good, and substantially more numerous. I fear you may underestimate your foes, Mor Threeclaws. I’ve fought Trebizonian cataphracts and Turanian dinosaur knights, as well as nomad guerrilleros. And even if your assessment of relative worth is accurate, almost all of them carry recurved bows and can shoot through your finest breastplate at a hundred paces from the saddle, at full gallop of horse or dinosaur. So you’d be unlikely to get close enough to display your superior prowess.”
Tresgarras got so agitated several of his companions had to physically restrain him from lunging at Karyl, who had come into the Imperial presence unarmed.
“I hope he gets loose,” Melodía said. “I’d love to see how Karyl kills him.”
A year ago you’d have found that cold-bloodedness reprehensible, Melodía thought. Now you’re genuinely eager. And I’m not sure the change is for the worse.
She recalled the horrors that earnest girl’s innocent idealism had visited on her and others—not the rape; that was purely Falk; but the fall that made it possible … and many, many deaths—and knew for sure.
But
Margrethe held up a large white hand, as if acting the peacemaker—ironically, given the circumstances. The angry knight deflated back onto the bench as if she’d stuck a pin in him.
“Karyl claims he has no gift for intrigue or argument,” she said to Rosamaría. There was little danger of being overheard in the sudden confused hubbub, which was turning to consternation, outrage, and outright laughter as it quickly became clear no one had any such plans. “But he seems to address every question or comment as if they were battlefield maneuvers. Or maybe as if he were playing a game of war, like chess or weiqi.”
“You see why I considered him my secret weapon?” Rosamaría said with an undertone of undisguised glee.
“But how did you manage to get him here?”
“Why, through Jaume, of course. He’s a dear lad, and you really need to stop flying off into a rage against him for every little thing. He truly loves you, loves your father—loves Montse, for that matter—and would die for any of you or for the Empire. He’s quite brilliant in his way, really.”
Melodía shook her head. She didn’t feel like acknowledging her forebear was correct yet again.
“Your Majesty, I shall also be glad to discuss any plans for such an invasion with you in detail,” Karyl said, as the commotion started to shift into bickering. Which shut off the instant he spoke.
Felipe nodded. “Thank you for that as well.”
“So you’re telling us you oppose this war, Duke Karyl.” Though he’d clearly collected more wits than Melodía felt inclined to give him credit for possessing, Antoine seemed reluctant to say the title, given that Felipe had granted it at the expense of his uncle’s vassal Duke Eric, and hence his uncle’s. But court decorum left him no choice.
“That is most perceptive of you, Archduke. I am pleasantly surprised.”
“Do you oppose all war, then?”
“Except for defensive purposes, yes. Otherwise, it isn’t worth the cost.”
“But surely you thought differently not so long ago, when you served the Empire as a mercenary captain? The rumors said you transformed your whole March into little more than a … a war plantation to keep your hireling army in the field!”
