by David Drake
He grinned again.
"-know how to build cook fires in a swamp?"
Garric smiled also. "This peasant doesn't," he said.
Thinking about raw fish, he stepped into a grove of a dozen or so stems sprouting from a common base. The trunks ranged from thumb thick to three fingers in breadth. He twisted one in both hands. It was springy and so tough that even his full strength couldn't bend it far out of line.
One of these saplings would make a good spear shaft or fire-hardened spear if he could cut it free. He hadn't seen any exposed rock, even a slab of shale or limestone he could use to bruise through the wood. Maybe there were clams whose shells he could A man in a cloth tunic, a cape, and a plaited hat stepped out of the mist on the other side of the grove. He was bearded; a scar ran down the left side of his face from temple to jaw hinge. He carried a spear with a barbed bone tip, and a fine-meshed net was looped around his waist.
"Wah!" the stranger cried. Other men were following him. The nearest carried a club. He stopped, but two spearmen spread out to either side.
Garric felt the king in his mind tense for action. Carus was judging weaknesses and assessing possibilities: grab the spear from Scarface and kick him in the crotch to make him let go of it; stab the man to the left with the spear point, then slam the butt into the face of the man on the right; back away and use the point again on the fellow with the club. Most people don't react quickly enough to instant, murderous violence…
Garric raised his empty right hand, palm forward, and said, "Good day, sirs. I'm glad to meet you."
"If only you had a sword!" King Carus muttered.
If only I had a breechclout, Garric thought.
The strangers halted where they were; the pair on the sides edged closer to their fellows. They began to jabber to one another, punctuating the words by clicking their tongues against the roofs of their mouths. The language was nothing Garric had ever heard before; nor had Carus, judging by his look of stern discomfort.
Garric lowered his right arm and laced his fingers before him, resisting the urge to cover his genitals. Maybe one of the strangers would loan him the short cape they all wore? Though for him to tie it around his waist might be seen as an insult…
Scarface kept his eyes on Garric while he talked to his fellows. He seemed to be the leader, though he was only in his mid-twenties and one of his fellows was easily a decade older.
The discussion ended. Scarface clapped his left palm on the knuckles of the hand holding his spear, then spoke slowly and distinctly to Garric. The other three men watched intently. The words were as meaningless as the rhythmic glunking of a frog.
Garric opened both hands at shoulder height. "I don't understand you," he said, smiling pleasantly, "but I'd like to go with you to your village. Perhaps we can-"
The strangers to either side dropped their spears, then walked forward and grabbed his wrists. One tried to twist Garric's arm behind his back while freeing the length of rope looped over his shoulder.
"Please don't do this!" Garric said, stepping backward to keep the strangers from surrounding him. He continued to smile, but he didn't need his ancestor's instincts to make him tense. He was half a head taller than the biggest of the four; but therewere four of them.
The man gripping Garric's right arm snarled something and twisted harder. Garric had fought-and won-his share of wrestling matches in Barca's Hamlet. He let the stranger pull him to the right, then pivoted and lifted the fellow off the ground in a swift arc, using the man on his left as an anchor.
The stranger gave a bleat of fear. Garric let him go at the top of the arc and turned to watch him splash head-first in the nearby pond. A pair of fingerlings squirted out of the water and danced across the surface for a yard or more on their tails before diving back in. The man who'd been struggling with Garric's left arm backed away showing his teeth.
Garric smiled and raised his hands again. He was breathing hard and he was afraid his expression looked like a wolf's slavering grin, but he wastrying to be friendly.
"I'd be pleased to go with you," he said. Obviously the strangers couldn't understand him any better than he could them, but he hoped his quiet tone would make an impression. "But I won't allow you to tie me up. You don't need to do that."
Scarface grimaced and called something to his companions. The older man at his side, standing with his club raised, looked at him in surprise and protested. Scarface repeated the command, this time in a growl.
The man Garric'd thrown into the water stood up, wiping the muck from his forehead with the back of his hand. He glared at Garric, but when Garric looked squarely at him he paused where he was with one foot raised instead of getting out of the pond.
Garric bowed to Scarface, then gestured back in the direction the strangers had appeared from. "Shall we go?" he said.
Scarface guffawed loudly, then broke into a broad grin. He called something to the man standing in the pond. That fellow scowled, but he undid the fishbone pin at his throat and tossed his cape to Garric. The others laughed.
Scarface made a fist with his left hand, then touched the knuckles to Garric's. He gestured southward and turned. Garric clasped the cape around his midriff and walked alongside Scarface, matching his strides to the other's shorter legs.
"Now for a sword," murmured King Carus; but his image was smiling.
***
Ilna wasn't impressed by the quality of the tapestries covering the council chamber's walls. Still, theywere tapestries instead of wall paintings like she'd found in most of the cities she'd been to. She wondered vaguely who or what the council on First Atara might be, but that didn't matter much.
Ilna stood at the back, moving slowly sideways as she followed the woven patterns more with her soul than with her eyes. At the table in center of the room, members of Garric's court argued about what to do now that the prince had vanished. Everybody had an opinion and every opinion was different, which struck Ilna as absurd. There was only one possible answer to fit the present pattern.
Her face was hard. By virtue of the fact that Ilna os-Kenset was one of Prince Garric's oldest and closest friends, she could state her opinion; which everyone else would listen to politely and as politely ignore. None of these nobles, whether soldiers or civilians, cared what an illiterate peasant thought. Therefore Ilna looked at a marginally competent tapestry while her social superiors nattered pointlessly.
"It's not just food for the personnel," Admiral Zettin was saying forcefully. "If there's a serious storm-and in this season, we could get one at any moment-the ships aren't safe just drawn up on shore like they are. I won't answer for the losses if we don't return to Valles immediately."
Sharina was at one end of the table; Cashel sat at the corner to her left, the quarterstaff upright beside him and an expression of placid interest on his face. At this sort of event, Cashel looked like a well-trained guard dog, quiet and calm and not at all threatening unless someone did the wrong thing.
Ilna grinned faintly. Cashelwas a well-trained guard dog. His silent bulk was the reason the others nattered instead of snarling, even the two military rivals seated across from one another at the opposite end of the table: Lord Waldron, the army commander, and Lord Attaper who commanded the bodyguards, the Blood Eagles. Without Cashel's presence, they'd have been bellowing at each other, ignoring the presence of Princess Sharina.
Several people began talking all together, disagreeing with Zettin in as many different fashions as there were voices. None of the questions really mattered, and they were dancing around the question thatdid matter: who would rule until Garric returned?
Who would rule if Garric never returned?
Ilna looked at the tapestry on which a peasant plowed behind a span of oxen. On a hill in the background rose a castle whose corner turrets had red conical roofs. It didn't look anything like this palace nor any building Ilna would expect to find on First Atara.
She touched the fabric-wool on a warp of linen-and felt a warm impre
ssion of the hills of Central Haft. She might well have passed close to where the tapestry'd been woven when she walked from Barca's Hamlet to Carcosa on the opposite coast a few years before.
She might've been physically close, but the tapestry'd been woven unthinkable ages before she'd been born. It was ancient, a relic of the Old Kingdom like some of the books Garric and Lady Liane read; Garric's fiancee, Lady Liane…
Ancient or not, the weaver hadn't been very skilled. First Atara must always have been the sort of backwater it was today, a quiet place where folk grew grain and minded their own business. Barca's Hamlet had been that sort of place, but then it all changed. That would happen on First Atara too, whether the folk here liked it or not.
Ilna smiled, this time without humor. It didn't matter what people or what threads, either one, thought of the pattern they were woven into.
"With all due respect-" said Lord Tadai. From the tone of his voice, that meant no respect at all. He stopped because he heard loud voices outside the door.
The soldiers at the table rose. So did Cashel, still placid but holding his staff in both hands.
It was Chalcus, though, standing at Ilna's side who murmured, "Stay, child," to Merota. He swaggered to the door and pulled it open with his right hand. Only someone who knew the man Chalcus was would have noticed that the movement put his hand very close to the hilt of his incurved sword.
The six guards outside were Blood Eagles. They'd backed to keep as far as they could from the pair of men coming toward them across the courtyard. Now there was no farther to retreat, so they'd lowered their spears. The men approaching would run themselves onto the points unless they stopped.
Ilna didn't care for soldiers as a class: a life spent in killing other men seemed to her at best unworthy. The Blood Eagles were the best of their sort, however, and she appreciated good craftsmanship in any line of work.
"Please, your highness," begged the chamberlain, Lord Martous, as he stood wringing his hands behind Cervoran. "Please, another time?"
Cervoran-King Cervoran-looked much as he had that morning when Ilna dragged him from the pyre. His garments'd been changed; the trousers and tunic he wore now weren't singed and smoke-stained. Nonetheless the same bluish cast underlay Cervoran's pallor, and his fingers looked like suet-stuffed sausages. He walked normally now, except for a slight hitch in his step of a sort common in old people and not unknown in younger ones.
"Sir!" the under-captain commanding the guards said to Attaper. "We told him to stop, but he just keeps coming!"
The Blood Eagles were brave men by definition: they'd volunteered to protect a warrior prince who regularly put himself in the hottest part of the fight. This officer and his men had watched Cervoran get up from his bier, though.
Wizardry was the only cause Ilna could imagine that would've allowed a dead man to rise. The guards were clearly of the same opinion, and the courage to face death didn't necessarily mean the courage to face wizardry.
Cervoran stopped just short of the spear points. Those in the council chamber watched him; some calmly, some not. The smile on Chalcus' face was probably genuine, but there was sweat on Lord Waldron's brow. The old warrior wouldn't run from what he feared, but his fear was no less real for his ability to master it.
Sharina looked past Cashel's left shoulder; the quarterstaff was a diagonal bar protecting her from anything that might come through the doorway. Cashel's expression was as placid as that of an ox in his stall, but Ilna could see the way the muscles tensed in her brother's throat and bare forearms.
Cervoran raised his right arm and pointed a doughy finger at Cashel. "You," he said, piping like a frog in springtime. "Who are you?"
"I'm Cashel or-Kenset," Cashel replied. His face didn't change. He didn't add a question of his own or put a challenge in his voice, the way a less self-assured man might have done.
"Come with me, Cashel," Cervoran said. "It is necessary."
Attaper stepped forward, his hand on his sword hilt. "Lord Cervoran," he said in too loud a voice, "you have no business here. This is aroyal council!"
"Come with me, Cashel," the former corpse repeated.
"Sharina?" said Cashel. "Do you need me? Because I wouldn't mind going along with him, Lord Cervoran I mean. Since he says it's necessary."
"Yes, all right, Cashel," Sharina said. She put her right hand on his shoulder, squeezed, and released him. "I trust your judgment… and your ability to deal with any problems that arise."
Cashel grinned. "Let me by, please," he said to the guards, but they were already stepping sideways to let him past.
"It is necessary," Cervoran squeaked. He turned and started back toward the opposite wing of the palace-the servants' quarters and storage rooms. Cashel walked at his side, the quarterstaff slanted across his body; the chamberlain followed nervously behind them.
Ilna looked at the pattern her fingers had knotted during the tableau that'd just ended. "Close the door if you would, Chalcus," she said in a clear voice.
She turned and eyed the room, the gathering of the most powerful folk in the Kingdom of the Isles. "Now," said Ilna. "I think it's time to acknowledge Princess Sharina as regent until her brother the prince comes back."
***
Sharina was startled at Ilna's words, but it was very like her friend to speak her mind. Admiral Zettin-a good man, but one who didn't know Ilna as well as Waldron and Attaper had come to do-looked at her with an irritated expression and said, "I don't think-"
"That's nothing to brag about, milord," Liane broke in, emphasizing by her nasal, upper-class Sandrakkan accent that she wasLady Liane bos-Benliman. "If youdid think, you'd realize-as we all do, I'm sure, in our hearts-that the kingdom needs someone in Prince Garric's place as regent if it's to function, and that the princess is the proper choice. If Garric could've done so, he'd have appointed his sister, as he's done when necessary in the past."
Sharina grinned, but only in her mind. She didn't want the job, but she knew Garric didn't want it either. He was the correct person to hold the mutually antagonistic nobles together-nobody's man, and therefore the man for everyone. While Garric was gone, Sharina was almost the only one who could take his place.
Almostthe only one: Liane too had the knowledge and intelligence to rule. But Liane was from Sandrakkan, while the strength of the royal army and fleet came from Ornifal. Haft, where Garric and Sharina'd been born, had been unimportant since the fall of the Old Kingdom. The haughty rulers of Ornifal and Sandrakkan and Blaise could bow to someone from Haft as representating the Kingdom without losing face to a rival island.
Besides, Liane preferred to work behind the scenes. She sat quietly at Garric's elbow, ready to hand him necessary documents or whisper information; and she worked more quietly still in managing the kingdom's spies. When Liane spoke it was to the point- and occasionally very pointedly, as to Zettin just now-but that wasn't her usual style.
"I have the greatest respect for the princess," said Lord Waldron, making a half bow toward Sharina, "but Prince Garric's disappearance may mean there's a military threat looming. While the army will be loyal to whoever stands in the prince's place-"
"I'm sure Princess Sharina will be able to delegate military affairs," said Liane tartly, "as she and indeed her brother have done in the past. I consider it very unlikely that Prince Garric was snatched away by a hostile army, though, milord-if that was really what you were implying?"
"Well, I didn't mean that, of course…," Waldron muttered. He scowled, looking around the room angrily as if searching for a way out of his misstatement.
Lord Attaper opened his mouth, probably to gibe at his rival Waldron. Before he got a word out, Liane said, "I believe we're in agreement, then. Lord Attaper, are you ready to serve Princess Sharina loyally?"
Attaper stiffened as though slapped, then grinned at the way Liane had outmaneuvered him. "Yes," he said. "Princess Sharina is clearly the best choice to fill what we hope will be a short-term appointment. Ah, are we any c
loser to knowing just what did happen to the prince?"
Liane could've answered that, but it was properly a question for Sharina herself. She nodded to Attaper and said, "Tenoctris is searching the, ah, former king's library, which I gather is rather extensive."
She cleared her throat. She'd started to say, "the late king's library," and part of her still thought that might be the correct term.
"At any rate," Sharina continued, "Tenoctris will tell us if she learns anything useful. When she learns, as I hope and expect."
Cashel's presence had kept the previous discussions quiet but not calm. Much as Sharina appreciated having Cashel close to her, it was a good thing now that he'd left. The dynamic of the meeting had changed abruptly when Ilna spoke. Power had shifted from the males in the room to her, Ilna and Liane. If Cashel were still here, the tension between him and the three military men would've prevented that from happening.
"Ah, your highness?" said Zettin, glancing warily toward Liane. "The matter of the ships still remains. If we return to Valles in the next few-"
"We'll remain here until further notice," said Sharina with crisp certainty. "Garric, ah, departed from here. Unless Tenoctris says otherwise, I believe this is the place he's most likely to return to. I regret the risk to the ships, but Prince Garric is our first concern."
Lord Waldron glanced sidelong at Lord Attaper. He smiled slightly when their eyes met.
Lord Tadai touched together the tips of his well manicured fingers before him and coughed for attention. Tadai didn't have a formal title, but he carried out the duties of chancellor and chief of staff for Garric while the prince was travelling.
"Milords Waldron and Zettin?" he said in his butter-smooth voice. "I'd appreciate it if you'd direct your provisioning officers to meet with me as soon as we're done here. My staff has made preliminary contacts with local officials regarding our initial requirements, but I'll need more detailed information if we're going to remain on First Atara."
