by Robert Brady
“You’re in good spirits for a man attacked not once but twice,” Shela said.
“It’s a relief,” I said.
“A relief?”
I nodded. “You knew as well as I did that they would try something today.”
She said nothing. She had barely slept the night before, and I knew she didn’t care about the king thing. She’d dreaded the whole event and she knew like I did that I was a sitting duck out there. She hadn’t said a word, but she had suffered as if I were dying.
“It’s over,” I said. “And they didn’t get us. You are alive, I am alive, and that little girl in your arms is alive.
“That and a fast horse, what else do we need?” I asked her.
She laughed at that. “You have barely ridden him,” she said.
“Still faster than any horse you’ll ever own,” I told her.
“That sounds like a challenge,” she informed me, tossing her black hair and smiling.
“Tonight at twilight,” I said. “Once around the city. We’ll wear him out well. Then when I beat you, I’ll take you back to our new, royal rooms and I’ll take you like a king takes a concubine.”
“Oooo,” she said. We were coming to the throne room now. “I have never been a concubine.”
“A harem of one,” I said. “How lonely for you.”
“The children will keep me company.”
“Children?”
“Well,” she said, and shot me a sly look, “you should want a son, and then a son after him, because not all children live to man. And there is no guarantee that they will all be born boys.”
I counted back from today to her last period, and couldn’t be sure if it she had skipped it. But then, we had cooled off a lot since Lee and the trauma of Eldador the Port. Blizzard wasn’t the only one who needed more exercise, I decided.
All four Oligarchs were in the throne room. I looked for any sign that they were being held against their will. The bounty hunter was out there – this would be a good place to lay in wait.
“They are who they are supposed to be,” Shela whispered to me. The Wolf Soldiers took up positions throughout the throne room. More of them were filing in. Behind us, Krell came into the room with a troop of 10 Aschire.
“Well met, my Lord,” I said to him. I wanted to extend my hand and then caught myself. They don’t like to be touched. He approached me, and he lowered his head and raised it.
In Aschire, ‘Yes, you are the boss, and I am not the boss.’
“I owe you my life,” I said.
“You do not,” he said. “You were killing him. However the Aschire owe you much, your Majesty, and the forest has a long memory.”
“It will grow under my reign,” I promised him. “I will assure you of that. Whenever I have needed them, the Aschire have been at my side.”
“I have brought one whom you might remember,” he said, and smiled. Nobles were filing into the throne room already. Ancenon, Avek and D’gattis were coming right for me.
Krell turned to his left, and a girl stepped out from behind him. She was gray-eyed; taller, and her purple hair had gotten even longer than I remembered, but I knew her from the way she looked me right in the eye.
“Nina,” I said. She dressed in leather pants and a leather vest, with a quiver over her shoulder and a bow alongside it. She wore a leather headband, all in black.
“You look like a grown up girl,” I said.
“Well, I am a woman now,” she told me. “And that was one of my arrows in that man’s eye.”
I nodded, impressed. I wanted to squat down and look her in the eye, but she had declared herself a woman, not a child.
“You must remember Shela,” I said, and she stepped up beside me. “This is my daughter, Lee.”
She beamed. There is nothing a little girl loves like a baby. She waved at Lee, who treated her to a giant smile.
“We both have daughters now,” Krell said. “Have you chosen a protector for her?”
I shook my head. “Shela is sufficient, although in fact we need someone to look out for her tonight,” I said.
“My daughter has decided that she has learned what she can in the Aschire, as if there were such a thing.”
“She’s decided to pursue her talents?” I asked him.
He nodded. He was an Aschire – they are direct. In fact, they didn’t get more politic than this.
“I will take her as my daughter’s guardian, and my woman’s apprentice,” I said. “I think Karel of Stone would be amenable to giving her some instruction in other arts.”
“He is well renowned,” Krell said.
“I will replace my life with your daughter’s,” Nina vowed. She gave her father a glance, and immediately took up a position behind Shela. Somewhere between eleven and twelve, and ready to kill if she needed to.
Ready to kill again, I reminded myself.
“You will need to remain and be one of the last people to leave, Krell,” I told him. “I have to make a change with the way things are, to ensure that the Aschire can’t be invaded by other Eldadorians.”
“We are not Eldadorians,” he informed me, flatly.
I sighed. “If you are not Eldadorians, then attacking you is not an offense against Eldador. Do you want that?”
“No.”
“Then be an Eldadorian, just for today, and help me to ensure that not even an Eldadorian can set foot in the Aschire without your permission.”
He nodded, looked speculatively at me, and then walked away without a word to me or to his daughter.
Nobles piled into the gallery. The Uman-Chi were upon me a moment later. They nodded to Krell as they passed him, and he nodded back.
“You are well survived,” D’gattis said. “I feared for a moment that your reign would be a record short one.”
“You know me better,” I said.
“Your Majesty,” Avek said, “may I congratulate you on behalf of the Silent Isle?”
I nodded, and looked him in the eye. “I hope that this might improve relations between our two people.”
“If that is your wish,” Avek said. “I can assure you, King Angron Aurelias has no desire to quarrel with the Conqueror.”
“Not with an entire nation’s resources behind him,” D’gattis said, dryly.
“Although the results of previous disagreements truly ended the Noir’s,” Ancenon commented.
“We have recovered,” Avek responded.
“Please, gentlemen,” I said. “The Silent Isle is well-served by all of you.”
D’gattis clicked his tongue. “That doesn’t work with you,” he commented.
“No?”
“No,” Karel of Stone said from behind me. “You aren’t a courtier, your Majesty. You are a Conqueror. Be what serves you.”
This surprised me. As he stepped around in front of me, I noted that I hadn’t seen him enter and I hadn’t seen him with the Uman-Chi. In fact, I hadn’t invited him, not that it mattered. He seemed to go where he wanted.
“I went with J’her,” he said. “He’s a good man. He is pursuing your lost bounty hunter into the dungeons. That was a good instinct of yours – I thought only I knew of the passages below the city.”
“Well, I sure wasn’t one who knew,” I said.
“You’re a king now, Lupus,” he said. “You aren’t supposed to know anything. But if you know that, then that is something.”
The other three nodded. Wow, it always surprised me how much I didn’t like Karel of Stone.
“I don’t suppose you could make yourself useful on my behalf?” I asked him.
He bowed. “I am ever at your royal service,” he said.
D’gattis grinned and Ancenon rolled his eyes.
I shook my head. “I am going to speak to the Foveans, then to my own nobles,” I said. “I will be speaking to all of them, then to my Dukes.”
“You need to know what to say?” D’gattis asked – probably what passed for humor with him.
“I
need intelligence on the lesser nobles,” I said. “I want to know who talks to whom, when they know that it can’t be me watching them.”
He grinned, looked me in the eyes, and then spun on his heel. He left in a moment.
“Already not able to trust your own nobles?” Ancenon asked me. “You learn quickly, if nothing else.”
“Not to change the subject,” I said, because I really wanted to change the subject, “but how go our efforts?”
Ancenon sighed – he didn’t like being diverted. “The war ended with Glennen’s life,” he said. “The Sentalans and the Volkhydrans found that they shared a common interest, in that they are too afraid of what you are planning to weaken each other in war. We’ve scouted out the Andurin peninsula for a place to winter.”
“Are the Legionnaires back already?” I asked.
D’gattis shook his head. “In a month,” Ancenon said. “Perhaps less. We are in no hurry, and we have safe passage in Sental. We engaged the Volkhydrans three times. They didn’t do well.”
“On the fourth they did better,” D’gattis added. “Arath is a competent general but he has a Man’s years. He’ll be dead a century in the time it takes an Uman-Chi to command a battalion.”
“The fourth?” I asked.
I couldn’t tell if Ancenon looked sideways at D’gattis, because I couldn’t tell where those ambiguous eyes pointed, however his posture marked him clearly unhappy. The gallery filled quickly – I would have to take the throne soon. I actually wanted them to see me speaking with the Free Legion’s most important man, to reinforce who remained an ally to Eldador.
“It seems your scarred protégé Karl Henekhson took the field with a few thousand Volkhydrans dressed as peasant farmers. They showed up with poleaxes disguised as pitchforks and with their swords and armor hidden under their furs. We sent out six hundred to dispatch them and lost them all when they attacked us.”
I smiled despite myself. Good for Karl, even against the Free Legion. “Arath must have been upset,” I said.
“What vexed him is that, after, his Volkhydrans wouldn’t engage us. They kept trying to draw us off of the fields we were protecting. It was an obvious ploy to get us to engage them while other troops came in behind us either to loot or flank us. Meanwhile we trampled half the crop that we were supposed to save from them.”
I nodded. “That was his plan,” I said. “He had no other forces.”
Ancenon lowered his eyebrows, but then the Oligarchs were taking their places around my throne. I had to go, Shela with me, and leave the conversation for another time.
“You know, Nantar said the same thing,” D’gattis said to Ancenon, forgetting or not caring that I would hear him.
Kills With a Glance and his swarthy Andarans had the part of the gallery closest to the throne. He nodded grimly as I passed. Beside him were the Dorkans, who looked stonily into the air above my head. Beside them were the Volkhydrans, then the Confluni, then the Sentalans, and finally farthest away were the Trenboni, Avek and Ancenon just seating themselves before I did. They were invited guests and as such didn’t need to rise in my presence, especially considering that I stood on the open floor when they entered.
Aschire and Eldadorians, as hosts, stood by the entrance to the throne room. Krell held his bow in his hand.
Also left standing were the Toorians – the rest simply left no room in the gallery, and I had no way to accommodate them. To their credit, they sat down tailor-style on the floor before the gallery, their hands on their knees and their white robes spread out around them.
I climbed the steps to the throne. I would have sworn that there were suddenly more of them, that they were higher, that the climb had become a journey. The throne itself, made of stone, seemed impossibly large now that it was mine. I had bruised my ass on it for hours. Glennen had felt that a man who sat too comfortable on the throne would lose it. In fact, I had contemplated a pillow, except that I would look like a princess sitting on it.
I turned, the throne behind me. Shela took her place sitting on a step a level lower than me, our baby in her lap and Nina standing behind her, her eyes in the crowd of nobles. Wolf Soldiers held every door, one hundred strong that could be seen and another hundred that couldn’t. J’her had the security now. This would be his place from this point on, with the house guard.
I sat. As a king I didn’t stand to address people, they stood to receive me. The Oligarchs, I think, were happy just to see my butt hit the seat on the first try.
“I welcome you to Eldador,” I said. “I thank you for your support, and assure you in the confusion of the coronation. Eldador the Port is secure. One of the assassins from the Bounty Hunter’s guild is dead already, and if the other hasn’t joined him, then he soon will.”
I heard a murmur. I had expected it. You just didn’t talk about killing Bounty Hunters. Maybe I deserved their heated vengeance.
“Eldador, on this day, begins anew,” I said. “Under Glennen, we began a path to a newer Eldador, an Eldador that makes a better ally, a more valuable trade partner, and a better place for a man to live and raise his family. Our taxes remain the lowest in known Fovea, our goods the least expensive, and hopefully our justice the most even.”
I looked straight down the throne room’s center aisle and saw Rennin, Groff and Ceberro standing with Jaheff of Uman City, the newest of their peers. They all had their arms folded over their chests. They were ready for me to do this in my characteristic, “Bet you never thought that I would say that” style.
Krell stood apart from them and didn’t look at them. His Aschire crowded around him. His people were still on my walls, my eye in the sky.
“We will continue on the path that Eldador has taken,” I continued. “We will continue to support the Fovean High Council. We maintain our tax rate; we will maintain our economic and our military policies, however our relations with other nations must change.
“Eldador has, in the current year, been the target of most of you, either directly or through mercenaries. As well, as we saw today, the bounty hunters’ guild has been insistent in pursuing their ambitions here.
“We will seek no retributions for past actions. But as we begin anew, we make clear, we shall tolerate no more attacks, and we shall not be satisfied with turning them. Invasions as were attempted in Thera this year will be met one hundred times, both within and without the charter of the Fovean High Council.”
I smacked my hand down on the stone arm of the throne. The Oligarch’s jumped. Even Glennen, I knew, had been more politic.
“Eldador shall pursue peace, but Eldador is not afraid to pursue it with a sword, Wolf Soldiers and Theran lancers. What happened in the city of Outpost IX we will export one hundred times to the next of our invaders.”
Rennin broke from the other dukes and marched himself down the center aisle to the throne room. A moment later Ceberro followed him, then Groff, then Jaheff, then Hectar. They marched to the circle before the throne, then turned, then folded their arms, and they said nothing. Their actions spoke louder than their words as they threw in their lot with me.
After them came the Earls. Some of them I knew from court and from Thera. Some of them were strangers. I should have spent the last year getting to know them, but I’d made so much of my reign hands-on that I couldn’t. They filed in behind the Dukes. After them were the court-barons and landed nobles, most of whom I knew better because they either lived here or they were here so frequently asking for favors.
And after them, entirely to my surprise, came Krell. He stood right next to Rennin, between him and Ceberro. Both of them looked at him, then straight forward again.
A united Eldador. Glennen hadn’t delivered on it. I really hadn’t, either. Anyone could bring them together in a moment of nationalism; especially if they were pissed off at the idea that the Bounty Hunters’ Guild held them in such low regard that they would attempt an assassination in front of all of them.
Anyone could unite them here. Keeping them u
nited, that would be the real accomplishment.
“Now that this is said,” I said, and I stood as I said it, “let me again welcome you. There is food to eat and beer and wine and mead to be drunk. Enjoy yourselves and be recognized by the new Eldador. Let us spend the War months speaking of peace.”
They didn’t applaud because, again, they didn’t do that here. The Uman-Chi stood together, they inclined their heads to me, and they left, led by Avek. Then the Dorkans did the same – that really surprised me. The Dorkans hated me more than anyone. Next came the Confluni and the Andarans at the same time, following the lead of the others. Kills threw me a wink and a smile as he left. Next the Sentalans stood, looked at the group of us standing united, and nodded as one before leaving through the double doors.
Finally the Volkhydrans stood. Henekh Dragorson led them. He hadn’t changed since last I saw him. He looked as rough and hairy as before, and the scowl told me how happy he wasn’t.
I looked for Karl but didn’t see him. Someone had to mind the store.
“I know you, Lupus the Conqueror,” he said. “You are King of Eldador now, but I know you, and I have seen what you do to those who oppose you.”
I nodded. I could respond but I didn’t. The nobles were immobile, waiting to see what he had to say.
“My King is Gharf Bendenson of Volkha,” he said. “And my King needs to know your ambitions.”
“A stronger Eldador, more trade,” I said. “Free trade within our borders.”
He shook his head. “You aren’t a merchant, you’re a killer,” he said. “Where are your ambitions?”
Now I got him. I almost told him, ‘South,’ but the Toorians were still here.
“I think you and I both know that someone is going to have to test what I said here today, Henekh Dragorson,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
I waited a moment, lowered my voice and said, “Don’t be that nation.”
I frowned, he nodded, and he inclined his head. He led his delegation from the gallery.
“And Henekh,” I said.
