by Robert Brady
She nodded, still not looking up at me.
“Ok,” I informed her, and she was up off of the divan before I could change my mind. I shucked off my pants and jumped into the big, lonely bed before she could get back. When she returned, she made herself a nest on the divan, piling up the blanket and then curling up on it, the pillow against the edge of the divan. A maid would come in later and put out the lights.
“Good night, Lupus of the Free Legion,” she said to me.
“Good night, Nina of the Aschire,” I said back.
That was the last thing I remembered of that troubling day.
Shela woke me in the morning by throwing open the curtains to the unshuttered windows facing the bay, hitting me square in the face with bright sunlight.
“I see I’ve been replaced,” she informed me, hands on her hips.
She wore one of her green palace dresses. The palace staff usually wore light blue or grey, as they transitioned from Glennen’s colors to mine, so green was a safe color for any of the nobility. It was a tremendous mark of shame to dress like the staff when you weren’t one of them.
I pushed myself up in the bed on one hand, rubbing my face with the other. I immediately sought out Nina on the divan – if Lee was going to pick a fight, she wasn’t going to be in the middle of it.
She was gone.
I felt my eyebrows furrow and the scar under my eye twitch. Shela pointed to the other side of the bed, where Nina had decided she’d be more comfortable in the middle of the night. She’d made the same nest and bordered it with pillows, leaving me the one I slept on.
Shela was smiling. “I think she is too young for you,” she informed me.
“I think she needs her own room,” I answered. Her purple hair framed her face in that look of peace that only a child can adopt, and then only when sleeping.
“When she didn’t seek me out last night I knew that she must be with you,” Shela said, crossing the room and sitting on the edge of the bed, laying a hand on my lap through the covers. “Aschire don’t like Andarans and I think so many of them were too much for one girl to approach.”
That made sense to me.
“I didn’t see Sings Softly or Little Bird,” Shela commented, not looking at me.
“They’re under Wolf Soldier guard,” I informed her. Nina stirred in her nest, the talking rousing her. “We’re going to return them personally.”
“Shall I take care of breeding the mares?” Shela continued. She’d reconciled herself to what had happened. There wasn’t a lot she could do about it, after all. She had a station in life as she saw it, and we’d had a beautiful dream for her, and I could tell without asking that she thought a part of it was over.
Andarans behaved this way.
“We aren’t going to breed their mares,” I said. “I didn’t like the terms from the Drifters and the Wet Bellies.”
Shela’s dark eyes rose and sought mine out. She scanned my face and did that thing she did when she sniffed around in my thoughts. No one else that I knew of could do that with me, but then, no one else was Shela.
“White Wolf,” she said, her expression as close to dread as I had ever seen it, “the Wet Bellies and the Drifters are powerful tribes…”
“So are Long Manes,” I argued, “and when your father wanted Blizzard’s stud service, he offered me a sorceress, and I kept her.”
I took my slave girl’s, my wife’s, hand in mine, and I brought it to my lips, where my stubble could rub the back of it.
“And I told her that is the tradition of my people only to have one,” I finished.
A tear rolled down her cheek, and she threw her arms around my neck, and crushed her lips to mine. Her tongue invaded me, her tears passing her lips, feeding me her passion.
“But I get to raise all of the babies,” Nina informed us from her nest. “Lupus promised.”
My best morning in a long time.
Breakfast that morning was pretty much the same people as had been at dinner the night before. Jing-Wei, the Confluni princess, whose name also meant ‘Little Bird,’ oddly, sat next to me, Tartan on the other side. The Andarans had already left and Shela sat next to Tartan with Lee, displacing one of the Oligarchs by one seat.
The vacancy had let Tom Kelgan, the Bounty Hunter, slink back in with a few of the court barons. As voraciously as the latter attacked the breakfast plates, I had to assume that if I didn’t feed them, they didn’t eat.
Another thing to fix around here.
“Did you sleep well, my Lady?” I asked the Confluni Princess.
She smiled bashfully. “Very,” she informed me. “Your beds are wonderful and your staff well trained. We are well accommodated here.”
“The Princess wonders,” one of her entourage, an older warrior with a bald head and long, Fu-Manchu moustache, piped up, “if she might be returning, she enjoys your palace so much.”
“Of course,” I said, and cut into a thick ham-steak in front of me. “Or perhaps she might invite me to her own palace, and show me the greatness of Confluni architecture.”
Glances passed among the Confluni and interest perked around the table. Everyone knew about the paranoia with which the Confluni guarded their borders. Everyone also knew that etiquette was important to them, too. How could they be so ungracious not to return this invitation, having just begged for one of their own?
“Of course,” the old warrior said, “it is the Emperor, not his daughter, who must extend such an invitation.”
Three younger men, all sitting to his left, nodded vigorously. The Princess looked down into her lap again and was clearly mortified. Her advisor had pretty much knee-capped her in front of a good deal of the important people in her world.
“Perhaps a trip to Toor would be more to your liking,” one of the Toorian delegates informed me. They sat farther down the table, and usually just kept their own council. Karel and Kvitch were still among them.
This was Kvitch’s doing. He’d warned me yesterday that, while the Dorkans would be perfectly happy to hate me and to plot against me, with the Bounty Hunter’s guild or alone, the Toorians were likely to actually do something about their feelings, especially if they thought that his was a moment of weakness for the Eldadorian people.
Angador, the southern part of Eldador, had no one but Ceberro looking out for it, especially since he’d booted the Free Legion out, and Ceberro had stretched himself pretty thin.
“I believe that would be excellent,” I informed him. “I don’t think the Eldadorian nation has ever officially visited Toor, and I would be honored to go.”
The tensions around the breakfast table were palpable now. No one had particularly good relations with the Toorians. Like the Aschire and the Scitai, they lived wild and they didn’t build cities. Kvitch had informed me that strong tribes spoke for them as a nation, and it was common to see new faces among the delegates to the Fovean High Council as tribes fell in and out of favor.
One way for the tribes to stop killing each other was for them to unite and to start killing me, and I really didn’t want that happening.
“We will extend a personal invitation for the Bara Hindi, my people,” the Toorian said. He wore white robes thicker than the Uman-Chi, folded over down the sleeves and open at the chest. His hair was cut short but revealed some gray – he’d been a powerful warrior once by the muscle and the scars on him, but his day had past.
“I am embarrassed to admit,” I informed him, “that not only do you I not know who is the leader of the Bara Hindi, I don’t even know your name.”
He smiled wide, and the other four men with him. “I am called Akasema Duu,” he said. “My warlord is Eusi Mfupa. We appreciate that we are welcomed here – when we return, we will be certain to introduce ourselves.”
Glances flew around the table. I might be new here, but I knew when I’d been slammed, and that was pretty blatant. The Oligarchs were all frowning and trying to catch my eye – they clearly wanted to handle this.
&nb
sp; I turned to the one I usually referred to as ‘One,’ and said, “My Lord, if you would make the appropriate arrangements with Ambassador Duu for us to visit Toor?”
“Of course, your Majesty,” he responded. “At your convenience, Akasema Duu.”
The Toorian nodded.
Breakfast went on to accomplish what is accomplished at breakfast.
Two Spears and I walked the docks at the port of Eldador, where ships swayed pier side and workers from every Fovean nation scurried between the ships, the warehouses and the common market. Karel of Stone had met us here uninvited and, for his diminutive size, had no trouble keeping up as we hurried to the far end, east of the city, where a tall wall obscured one ship.
“How many keels are being set now in Thera?” I asked Two Spears.
“A dozen,” he informed me. “And we have the resources for a dozen more. The Talen shipyards have another dozen already done, but they aren’t special.”
By special, he meant enchanted. I’d acquired a total of six Dorkan wizards, three Andaran shamen and could get Avek to show up if I needed him. Eldador had its own Wizards as well.
Wood working innovations that I’d introduced, such as the plane, had dramatically increased the speed and the quality of the ships these people could build. Iron fittings that I had thought of as commonplace were new here, and our smiths were turning out not just the fittings but the molds to mass-produce them. Dwarves had been contracted to teach our smiths, in return for learning the secrets that I shared here.
“That thing you wanted, that belches our steaming sea water, is almost done, as well,” Karel informed me. “I don’t know why you want it – you can’t make anything from steam.”
I laughed. No, you can’t make much from steam, but with a steam plant, you can move a turbine. And with a turbine, you can turn pumps and saws and all sorts of useful things.
Ancenon had asked me once if I could remove the salt from sea water. Well, yes, I could do that, and I would, and then I could do a lot with it.
We approached the wall. Wolf Soldier guards protected the one entrance past it. No one was allowed near here, no one could see what I was creating. The wharves in Thera and Talen were impossible to protect, but the ships were going to be finalized here.
The Wolf Soldiers on duty were a pair I called ‘the book ends.’ Agtar and Belmar, two black-haired, heavily muscled Volkhydrans whom I’d saved from hanging in Ulep. They were both brilliant Men, competent warriors and knew it.
“What news?” I asked them as we approached.
Each made a fist over his heart in salute to me. “All quiet, Lupus,” Agtar informed me. Like Belmar, his eyebrows met above his nose, forming a dark ‘V’. “The masts are up and the Dorkans are chanting.”
“Well, that’s news then, isn’t it?” Karel challenged him.
Belmar regarded the little spy. “No other news to report,” he said.
Two Spears laughed. He pointed an accusatory finger at Karel, “One day, one of these warriors is going to skin you for that hide you wear,” he said.
“What is it your King says?” Karel asked. “Many have threatened, but here I am, and where are they?”
“Many have threatened me,” Agtar said, standing to one side to let us pass. A steel gate stood behind him, a single hole in the giant wall, and Belmar unlocked it with a key he wore around his neck, “and they’re all dead, and I’m not.”
“That was it,” Karel said. He turned his face up toward me, his blue eyes sparkling. “My version is better.”
“So you say,” I informed him, leading the rest through the opened gate. Agtar closed it behind us and Belmar locked it.
“I could get past that security,” Karel informed me.
“You’re getting to see it anyway,” I said.
He nodded. “I have some work to do here, though,” he said. “When is Shela done with the young Earl?”
There had been a ceremony after breakfast, and we’d elevated Tartan and given him the captured lands from Angador. There had been a bunch of peace proclamations, and now all of the dignitaries were going home.
“They’re picking out a horse,” I said. “It shouldn’t take long. She’s got Yeral, Yerel’s daughter, with her. Yeral knows horses almost as well as Shela.”
Yerel was a Duke I’d displaced while still the Heir. I’d promised to foster his daughters and his son. Yeral had become one of Shela’s attendant ladies.
“Shouldn’t take all morning,” I decided.
“I’ll get him to help me with some resources I’ll need,” Karel said. “Him and that Hectaro boy, the Duke of Eldador’s son.”
I nodded. Karel knew more about that sort of thing than I did.
I knew more about this.
We entered the fitting yard, the final stop for ships completed for the new Eldadorian navy. I was introducing a whole new technology here, and I didn’t want people knowing too much about it until we were ready.
Uman-Chi Tech-Ships were enchanted. They could sail against the wind, they could fire some kind of electrical charge, and they could do a couple other things I wasn’t sure of. The only way to know for certain would be to take them on in combat, and no one did that.
Their ships were single-masted, because that’s how they made ships here. They were clinker-built, meaning that they used overlapping boards, riveted together and tarred at the joints, for their hulls. While they could be rowed, they usually weren’t unless they were ramming.
My ships were three-masted and nearly twice the size. They wouldn’t be able to ram, but their sides were flat-planked and pressed with sheets of copper. This would give them the maneuverability that the clinker-built ships enjoyed without the leaking. They could put more sail to the wind so they could be larger and move faster.
With steam-powered saw mills and compressed-air nail guns which I had been working on, we could turn them out at close to five times the speed of any other nations. We could carry more warriors, out-sail our enemies and out-fight them.
Unless someone caught on to what we were doing and either stopped us or did it first. That’s why we used the tight security. These ships came into port from the shipyards on a single mast and the local style of jib, clunky and lurching, slow and difficult to handle. They’d leave more agile.
This was one of the prototypes. We’d have to figure out the positioning of the sails, the proper way to support the masts, the right size for the rudders. I knew a lot about this because I’d worked at a marina and I’d studied it a little in learning history, but that hadn’t made me an architect, and the Eldadorians whom I’d put to work on these when I’d become the Heir had balked at a lot of it. Even now, some of them weren’t sure I could pull this off.
We’d see.
“You want me to create this in Thera?” Two Spears asked me.
I nodded. “And we need a place to keep them when we’re done,” I said. “I was hoping maybe the Scitai-occupied portion of the Silent Isle.”
Karel turned his face up to me and frowned. “Not a good idea,” he said. “We don’t have shipyards, we couldn’t hide them. If you moor them off of our coasts the Uman-Chi are going to see them, and they’re going to get curious.”
“You don’t want the Trenboni with their resources to get their hands on one of these,” Two Spears informed me.
I’d been afraid of that. “I can’t close off more of this port,” I said. “I could close off more of Thera, because I actually own it, but then Thera’s going to take a hard hit in the purse.”
The two of them looked at me like I was crazy. Slang again. “It would cost a lot of money to lose those wharves,” I said.
Both nodded.
“I need a place to put these things, where I can test them and keep the region quiet about them. I need to be able to get there fast.”
“How deep drafted are these?” Two Spears asked me. Local ships ran shallow – some of them as little as ten feet.
“We’re guessing twenty-one feet forwa
rd, twenty-three feet aft,” I said. “We haven’t had one with a full crew, but that seems right. Estimate twenty-five feet to be sure.”
“So deep!” Karel exclaimed. We’d walked to the ship’s side, where Uman carpenters and ship-builders were working under the direction of Dorkan Wizards in Wolf Soldier greys. The Wizards would weave spells into the wood fiber, and the artisans would finish and seal the wood.
My ships could launch fire – more effective at sea against other wooden ships. They would be able to protect themselves from spell-casting and soak in the magical energy used against them and use it. Like the spell that had shielded me from arrows at the gates of Katarran, my ships could throw up invisible shields against arrow fire.
Their steel-shod keels could shock the water around them – that should be an interesting surprise for whoever tried to swim onboard them.
Two Spears was smiling. “If they’re fast, and you’re brave, then I think I know where they can go,” he said. “And the best part is, you’re going there anyway.”
I looked sideways at Two Spears. He was smiling through his long mustachios. The scar on his face, the Mark of the Conqueror, was wrinkled in a smile.
Wow, I thought. It must be really irritating when I’m cryptic like that.
Chapter Seventeen
Son of War
My daughter had been born in Life. It was a month when battles ended and harvest begun. People thought of wheat and grain, not swords and blood.
So when two thousand Wolf Soldier lancers and three thousand foot landed in Andoran between Chatoos and Talen, it didn’t raise a lot of eyebrows. People were busy with their lives – if Lupus the Conqueror came for the Andarans, he would have sought out their cities.
On this campaign I brought my slave, my child, my blood brother and young Tartan. If he wanted to be an earl of a frontier province like Angador, then let him see something of power and how to wield it.
We’d been ported here in three prototype ships, the one from Eldador’s secret wharf and two others that had been rushed to readiness. I’d surrounded them with dozens of my own ships. We’d passed Eldadorian Tech-Ships but they hadn’t tried to interfere with us.
