Once they entered the Drasnian enclave, Issus led the way rather quickly to the house of Droblek, the Drasnian port authority. They were admitted immediately and conveyed at once to a dimly lighted but comfortable room where the enormously fat Droblek sat sweating. With him was Count Melgon, the aristocratic ambassador from Tolnedra.
"Novel attire for the chief eunuch of Salmissra's household," Count Melgon observed as Sadi pulled off his wig and false beard.
"Just a bit of deception, my Lord Ambassador," Sadi replied. "I didn't particularly want this meeting to become general knowledge."
"Can he be trusted?" Droblek asked bluntly, pointing at Issus.
Sadi's expression became whimsical. "Can you be trusted, Issus?" he asked.
"You've paid me for up to the end of the month." Issus shrugged. "After that, we'll see. I might get a better offer."
"You see?" Sadi said to the two seated men. "Issus can be trusted until the end of the month - at least as much as anybody in Sthiss Tor can be trusted. One thing I've noticed about Issus - he's a simple, uncomplicated man. Once you buy him, he stays bought. I think it's referred to as professional ethics."
Droblek grunted sourly. "Do you suppose we could get to the point? Why did you go to so much trouble to arrange this meeting? Why didn't you just summon us to the palace?"
"My dear Droblek," Sadi murmured, "you know the kind of intrigue that infests the palace. I'd prefer that what passes between us remain more or less confidential. The matter itself is rather uncomplicated. I've been approached by the emissary of Taur Urgas."
The two regarded him with no show of surprise.
"I gather that you already knew."
"We're hardly children, Sadi," Count Melgon told him.
"I am at present in negotiations with the new ambassador from Rak Goska," Sadi mentioned.
"Isn't that the third one so far this summer?" Melgon asked.
Sadi nodded. "The Murgos seem to be particularly susceptible to certain fevers which abound in the swamps."
"We've noticed that," Droblek said dryly. "What is your prognosis for the present emissary's continued good health?"
"I don't imagine he's any more immune than his countrymen. He's already beginning to feel unwell."
"Maybe he'll be lucky and recover," Droblek suggested.
"Not very likely," Issus said with an ugly laugh.
"The tendency of Murgo ambassadors to die unexpectedly has succeeded in keeping the negotiations moving very slowly," Sadi continued. "I'd like for you gentlemen to inform King Rhodar and Ran Borune that these delays will probably continue."
"Why?" Droblek asked.
"I want them to understand and appreciate my efforts in their present campaign against the Angarak kingdoms."
"Tolnedra has no involvement in that campaign," Melgon asserted quickly.
"Of course not." Sadi smiled.
"Just how far are you willing to go, Sadi?" Droblek asked curiously.
"That depends almost entirely upon who's winning at any given moment," Sadi replied urbanely. "If the Rivan Queen's campaign in the east begins to run into difficulties, I suspect that the pestilence will subside and the Murgo emissaries will stop dying so conveniently. I'd almost have to make an accommodation with Taur Urgas at that point."
"Don't you find that just a bit contemptible, Sadi?" Droblek asked acidly.
Sadi shrugged. "We're a contemptible sort of people, Droblek," he admitted, "but we survive. That's no mean accomplishment for a weak nation lying between two major powers. Tell Rhodar and Ran Borune that I'll stall the Murgos off for as long as things continue to go in their favor. I want them both to be aware of their obligation to me."
"And will you advise them when your position is about to change?" Melgon asked.
"Of course not," Sadi replied. "I'm corrupt, Melgon. I'm not stupid."
"You're not much of an ally, Sadi," Droblek told him.
"I never pretended to be. I'm looking out for myself. At the moment, my interests and yours happen to coincide, that's all. I do, however, expect to be remembered for my assistance."
"You're trying to play it both ways, Sadi," Droblek accused him bluntly.
"I know." Sadi smiled. "Disgusting, isn't it?"
Queen Islena of Cherek was in an absolute panic. This time Merel had gone too far. The advice they had received from Porenn had seemed quite sound - had indeed raised the possibility of a brilliant stroke which would disarm Grodeg and the Bear-cult once and for all. The imagined prospect of the helpless rage into which this would plummet the towering ecclesiast was almost a satisfaction in itself. Like so many people, Queen Islena took such pleasure in an imagined triumph that the real thing became almost too much trouble. The victories of the imagination involved no risks, and a confrontation with an enemy always ended satisfactorily when both sides of the conversation came from one's own daydreams. Left to her own devices, Islena would probably have been content to let it go at that.
Merel, however, was less easily satisfied. The plan devised by the little queen of Drasnia had been quite sound, but it suffered from one flaw - they did not have enough men to bring it off. Merel, however, had located an ally with certain resources and had brought him into the queen's inner circle. A group of men in Cherek had not accompanied Anheg and the fleet to Algaria largely because they were not the sort of men who made good sailors. At Merel's stern-faced insistence, the Queen of Cherek suddenly developed an overpowering enthusiasm for hunting. It was in the forest, safe from prying ears, that the details of the coup were worked out.
"When you kill a snake, you cut off its head," Torvik the huntsman had pointed out as he, Merel, and Islena sat in a forest glade while Torvik's men roved through the woods harvesting enough game to make it appear that Islena had spent her day in a frenzy of slaughter. "You don't accomplish all that much by snipping pieces off its tail an inch or so at a time," the broad-shouldered huntsman continued. "The Bear-cult isn't really that concentrated in one place. With a little luck, we can gather up all the important members presently in Val Alorn in one sweep. That should irritate our snake enough to make him stick his neck out. Then we'll simply chop off his head."
Torvik's use of such terminology had made the queen wince. She had not been entirely sure that the blunt, grizzled forester had been speaking figuratively.
And now it had been done. Torvik and his huntsmen had moved quietly through the dark streets of Val Alorn for the entire night, gathering up the sleeping members of the Bear-cult, marching them in groups to the harbor and then locking them in the holds of waiting ships. Because of their years of experience, the hunters had been very thorough in rounding up their quarry. By morning, the only members of the Bear-cult left in the city were the High Priest of Belar and the dozen or so underpriests lodged in the temple.
Queen Islena sat, pale and trembling, on the throne of Cherek. She wore her purple gown and her gold crown. In her hand she held a scepter. The scepter had a comforting weight to it and could possibly be used as a weapon in an emergency. The queen was positive that an emergency was about to descend on her.
"This is all your fault, Merel," she bitterly accused her blond friend. "If you'd just left things alone, we wouldn't be in this mess."
"We'd be a worse one," Merel replied coldly. "Pull yourself together, Islena. It's done now, and you can't undo it."
"Grodeg terrifies me," Islena blurted.
"He won't be armed. He won't be able to hurt you."
"I'm only a woman," Islena quailed. "He'll roar at me in that awful voice of his, and I'll go absolutely to pieces."
"Stop being such a coward, Islena," Merel snapped. "Your timidity's brought Cherek right to the edge of disaster. Every time Grodeg's raised his voice to you, you've given him anything he wanted just because you're afraid of harsh talk. Are you a child? Does noise frighten you that much?"
"You forget yourself, Merel," Islena flared suddenly. "I am queen, after alL"
"Then by all the Gods, be queen!
Stop behaving like a silly, frightened serving girl. Sit up straight on your throne as if you had some iron in your backbone - and pinch your cheeks. You're as pale as a bedsheet." Merel's face hardened. "Listen to me, Islena," she said. "If you give even one hint that you're starting to weaken, I'll have Torvik run his spear into Grodeg right here in the throne room."
"You wouldn't!" Islena gasped. "You can't kill a priest."
"He's a man just like any other man," Merel declared harshly. "If you stick a spear in his belly, he'll die."
"Not even Anheg would dare to do that."
"I'm not Anheg."
"You'll be cursed!"
"I'm not afraid of curses."
Torvik came into the throne room, a broad-bladed boarspear held negligently in one big hand. "He's coming," he announced laconically.
"Oh, dear," Islena quavered.
"Stop that!" Merel snapped.
Grodeg was livid with rage as he strode into the throne room. His white robe was rumpled as if he had thrown it on hastily, and his white hair and beard were uncombed. "I will speak with the queen alone!" he thundered as he approached across the rush-strewn floor.
"That is the queen's decision to make, not yours, my Lord High Priest," Merel advised him in a flinty voice.
"Does the wife of the Earl of Trellheim speak for the throne?" Grodeg demanded of Islena.
Islena faltered, then saw Torvik standing directly behind the tall priest. The boarspear in his hand was no longer so negligently grasped. "Calm yourself, revered Grodeg," the queen said, quite suddenly convinced that the life of the infuriated priest hinged not only on her words but even on her tone of voice. At the tiniest quaver, Merel would give the signal, and Torvik would sink that broad, sharp blade into Grodeg's back with about as much emotion as he showed about swatting a fly.
"I want to see you alone," Grodeg repeated stubbornly. "
"No."
"No?" he roared incredulously.
"You heard me, Grodeg," she told him. "And stop shouting at me. My hearing is quite good."
He gaped at her, then quickly recovered. "Why have all my friends been arrested?" he demanded.
"They were not arrested, my Lord High Priest," the queen replied. "They have all volunteered to join my husband's fleet."
"Ridiculous!" he snorted.
"I think you'd better choose your words a bit more carefully, Grodeg," Merel told him. "The queen's patience with your impertinence is wearing thin."
"Impertinence?" he exclaimed. "How dare you speak that way to me?" He drew himself up and fixed a stern eye on the queen. "I insist upon a private audience," he told her in a thunderous voice.
The voice which had always cowed her before quite suddenly irritated Islena. She was trying to save this idiot's life, and he kept shouting at her. "My Lord Grodeg," she said with an unaccustomed hint of steel in her voice, "if you bellow at me one more time, I'll have you muzzled."
His eyes widened in amazement.
"We have nothing to discuss in private, my Lord," the queen continued. "All that remains is for you to receive your instructions - which you will follow to the letter. It is our decree that you will proceed directly to the harbor, where you will board the ship which is waiting to transport you to Algaria. There you will join the forces of Cherek in the campaign against the Angaraks."
"I refuse!" Grodeg retorted.
"Think carefully, my Lord Grodeg," Merel purred. "The queen has given you a royal command. Refusal could be considered treason."
"I am the High Priest of Belar," Grodeg ground out between clenched teeth, obviously having great difficulty in modulating his voice. "You wouldn't dare ship me off like some peasant conscript."
"I wonder if the High Priest of Belar might like to make a small wager on that," Torvik said with deceptive mildness. He set the butt of his spear on the floor, took a stone from the pouch at his belt and began to hone the already razor-sharp blade. The steely sound had an obviously chilling effect on Grodeg.
"You will go to the harbor now, Grodeg," Islena told him, "and you will get on that ship. If you do not, you will go to the dungeon, where you will keep the rats company until my husband returns. Those are your choices; join Anheg or join the rats. Decide quickly. You're starting to bore me, and quite frankly, I'm sick of the sight of you."
Queen Porenn of Drasnia was in the nursery, ostensibly feeding her infant son. Out of respect for the queen's person, she was unspied upon while she was nursing. Porenn, however, was not alone. Javelin, the bone-thin chief of Drasnian intelligence, was with her. For the sake of appearance, Javelin was dressed in a serving maid's gown and cap, and he looked surprisingly feminine in the disguise he wore with no apparent trace of self consciousness.
"Are there really that many cultists in the intelligence service?" the queen asked, a little dismayed.
Javelin sat with his back politely turned. "I'm afraid so, your Highness. We should have been more alert, but we had other things on our minds."
Porenn thought about it for a moment, unconsciously rocking her suckling baby. "Islena's moving already, isn't she?" she asked.
"That's the word I received this morning," Javelin replied. "Grodeg's on his way to the mouth of the Aldur River already, and the queen's men are moving out into the countryside, rounding up every member of the cult as they go."
"Will it in any way hamper our operations to jerk that many people out of Boktor?"
"We can manage, your Highness," Javelin assured her. "We might have to speed up the graduation of the current class at the academy and finish their training on the job, but we'll manage."
"Very well then, Javelin," Porenn decided. "Ship them all out. Get every cult member out of Boktor, and separate them. I want them sent to the most miserable duty posts you can devise, and I don't want any of them within fifty leagues of any other one. There will be no excuses, no sudden illnesses, and no resignations. Give each of them something to do, and then make him do it. I want every Bear-cultist who's crept into the intelligence service out of Boktor by nightfall."
"It will be my pleasure, Porenn," Javelin said. "Oh, incidentally, that Nadrak merchant, Yarblek is back from Yar Nadrak, and he wants to talk to you about the salmon runs again. He seems to have this obsessive interest in fish."
Chapter Twelve
THE RAISING OF the Cherek fleet to the top of the eastern escarpment took a full two weeks, and King Rhodar chafed visibly at the pace of the operation.
"You knew this was going to take time, Rhodar," Ce'Nedra said to him as he fumed and sweated, pacing back and forth with frequent dark looks at the towering cliff face. "Why are you so upset?"
"Because the ships are right out in the open, Ce'Nedra," he replied testily. "There's no way to hide them or disguise them while they're being raised. Those ships are the key to our whole campaign, and if somebody on the other side starts putting a few things together, we might have to meet all of Angarak instead of just the Thulls."
"You worry too much," she told him. "Cho-Hag and Korodullin are burning everything in sight up there. 'Zakath and Taur Urgas have other things to think about beside what we're hauling up the cliff."
"It must be wonderful to be so unconcerned about things," he said sarcastically.
"Be nice, Rhodar," she said.
General Varana, still scrupulously dressed in his Tolnedran mantle, limped toward them with that studiously diffident expression that indicated he was about to make another suggestion.
"Varana," King Rhodar burst out irritably, "why don't you put on your uniform?"
"Because I'm not really officially here, your Majesty," the general replied calmly. "Tolnedra is neutral in this affair, you'll recall."
"That's a fiction, and we all know it."
"A necessary one, however. The Emperor is still holding diplomatic channels open to Taur Urgas and 'Zakath. Those discussions would deteriorate if someone saw a Tolnedran general swaggering around in full uniform." He paused briefly. "Would a small suggestion offend your Majes
ty?" he asked.
"That all depends on the suggestion," Rhodar retorted. Then he made a face and apologized. "I'm sorry, Varana. This delay's making me bad-tempered. What did you have in mind?"
"I think you might want to give some thought to moving your command operations up to the top about now. You'll want things running smoothly by the time the bulk of your infantry arrives, and it usually takes a couple of days to iron out the wrinkles when you set things up."
King Rhodar stared at a Cherek ship being hoisted ponderously up the cliff face. "I'm not going to ride up on one of those, Varana," he declared flatly.
"It's absolutely safe, your Majesty," Varana assured him. "I've made the trip myself several times. Even Lady Polgara went up that way just this morning."
"Polgara could fly down if something went wrong," Rhodar said. "I don't have her advantages. Can you imagine the size of the hole I'd make in the ground if I fell that far?"
"The alternative is extremely strenuous, your Majesty. There are several ravines running down from the top. They've been leveled out a bit so that the horses can go up, but they're still very steep."
"A little sweating won't hurt me."
Varana shrugged. "As your Majesty wishes."
"I'll keep you company, Rhodar," Ce'Nedra offered brightly. He gave her a suspicious look.
"I don't really trust machines either," she confessed. "I'll go change clothes, and then we can start."
"You want to do it today?" His voice was plaintive.
"Why put it off?"
"I can think of a dozen reasons."
The term "very steep" turned out to be a gross understatement. "Precipitous" might have been more accurate. The incline made riding horses out of the question, but ropes had been strung along the steeper stretches to aid in the climb. Ce'Nedra, dressed in one of her short Dryad tunics, scampered hand over hand up the ropes with the agility of a squirrel. King Rhodar's pace, however, was much slower.
"Please stop groaning, Rhodar," she told him after they had climbed for an hour or so. "You sound like a sick cow."
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