Dropping his pretense of foolery, Shadrael straightened. “Then I’m interested. What’s your price?”
“Nine hundred ducats.”
Startled, Shadrael put his lips together, but he did not whistle. His brother looked dead serious, and that alerted Shadrael because Vordachai was as close-fisted with his gold as a miser in a countinghouse.
“That’s a fortune,” he said cautiously.
“More than I can spare, but I’ll double it if all goes well.”
“Eighteen hundred ducats?” Scowling, Shadrael shook his head. “You haven’t got it. You should have stopped with the first offer. Now I’ll take neither.”
“I give you my oath on it,” Vordachai said. “Nine hundred when you play your part. Another nine hundred if this business goes as I hope.”
Still suspicious, Shadrael tilted his head to one side. “What do you want? Am I to start a war with the Thyrazenes for you?”
“This has nothing to do with those miserable dragon keepers.”
“What, then? Come on. You’re the one claiming to be in a hurry. What could possibly be worth that much to you?”
Vordachai looked all around, oddly hesitant.
“None can overhear us,” Shadrael lied reassuringly. “What’s the job?”
“Ride with me, alone, beyond the village,” Vordachai said, “and I’ll tell you.”
Shadrael straightened. “Ride with you into an imperial trap, I suppose. What’s the price on my head these days?”
“Damn you! Do you think I’ve come all this way to betray your pox-ridden hide for a few miserable coppers?” Vordachai shot him a look of hurt. “Is that what we’ve come to?”
If he’d roared and blustered, Shadrael would have known he was lying. But there was little subtlety about Vordachai, and less guile. Something inside Shadrael relaxed.
“Nine hundred ducats?” he asked.
A hopeful grin split Vordachai’s bearded face. “Aye! Nine hundred. Come now, and let’s talk.”
So they rode out together, Shadrael borrowing the mount of the man called Chaiblin, who glowered and made a big show of removing a second sword from his saddle sheath before handing over the reins.
Shadrael ignored the stirrups, which were too short for him, and wheeled the snorting, uneasy horse out of the inn yard. The animal feared him, and sidled edgily with its back hunched under the saddle as though it meant to either buck with him or bolt. Shadrael held the reins short and tight, pushing his will at the animal to control it, and led his brother up the hillside into a copse of dusty trees above the village.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
Vordachai reined up beside him. “Aye. Now we can speak freely. The upstart’s sister is on the road, traveling from New Imperia to Trau—”
“You hunted me up to share court gossip?” Shadrael asked, grinning.
“No! Damn you, listen—”
Shadrael raised his hand. “Enough! I’ve said I won’t lead your armies if you go to war against the emperor. I told you that last year, and the year before. Why can’t you get it through your thick skull that I won’t—”
“Just hear me out, hotspur.”
“You haven’t the men to take on thirty legions of imperial force. They will squash you like a bug, Vordachai.”
“Don’t exaggerate. It wouldn’t be thirty legions,” Vordachai said. “The time is perfect. He’s got the Madruns coming at him again on the north and west, and he’ll have to send his mobile forces to reinforce the borders. Maybe, with Gault’s help, this damned Ninth Legion will be recalled, and we’ll be rid of them.”
“So you want me to cause them no trouble for a while.” Shadrael grinned. “For nine hundred ducats, done!”
Vordachai scowled. “Don’t be a dolt. Gods, the insult of having imperial troops stationed here, as though I cannot govern my own province! I tell you—”
“You delude yourself,” Shadrael broke in, aware that he was wasting his breath. His brother’s hatred of the new emperor remained fixed and implacable. No amount of reasoning ever seemed to penetrate Vordachai’s skull. But Shadrael tried anyway. “Under any circumstances, five to ten mobile legions are going to be held in reserve for petty uprisings like yours.”
“Petty! I’ll have you know—”
“That’s an army of fifty thousand. And how many men can you levy from your barons? Four thousand? Five? Or less than three? Hell’s breath, they’ll keep the Ninth here precisely because you’re a known troublemaker.”
Vordachai waved Shadrael’s remarks away. “Plague smite them if they do! But even so, I’ve got a cunning plan. A perfect plan. If it goes well, I won’t have to fight at all to win Ulinia’s freedom.”
“The emperor won’t let this province secede,” Shadrael said flatly, tired of his brother’s political woes. They saw each other once a year, sometimes less, and each time it was the same topic. “Light Bringer has too much to lose. If he lets one province go, others will follow. It will never happen. You’re a fool to keep pursuing this.”
“I’ve sworn to my death to do it,” Vordachai said with resolution.
“Then unswear your oath! Gods, man, have some sense.”
“Oh yes? And have you decided to throw your allegiance to this imposter, this gladiator barbarian who has no more right to rule over me than my groom?” Scowling, Vordachai smashed his fist onto the pommel of his saddle. “You have as big a grievance against him as I. Bigger!”
“I have the sense to accept change I cannot undo,” Shadrael said in a cold, dry voice.
Vordachai’s beady gaze raked him up and down. “I see how well you’re prospering. Gault’s mercy, a praetinor cut down to a ragged blackguard robbing the purses of old women. When I think of how you used to—”
“Don’t. The past is gone. Forget it.”
“I won’t forget that Emperor Kostimon promised Ulinia its independence if the Madruns were beaten back. An imperial promise! I sent my best forces to him. I held the pass.” Vordachai straightened his spine with pride. “Held it and threw them back. They did not overrun us. They did not pour into the south and take Itieria.”
“They did take it,” Shadrael murmured. “They sacked Imperia, too, and drove Kostimon right off his throne.”
“Not from this direction,” Vordachai said fiercely. “I did my part. And what reward have I for my loyalty, for my service and valor? This upstart who will not honor Kostimon’s promise.”
Kostimon would not have honored it either, Shadrael thought impatiently. He’d heard this refrain countless times. “Without a record of the agreement—”
“A pox on the records! A pox on the clerks who keep them! An emperor’s word is law. Or should be. Better than any parchment with wax seals. What is that compared to oath and honor? Eh? I tell you I must have relief, and the upstart gives me none. His taxes are squeezing me dry. I’ve less than a thousand ducats in my treasury, and he wants half of it in tribute. Half! And all the time his leprous tax collector is bleeding off revenue from every caravan that comes through Kanidalon, and the legion squatted there to see that I get no share of it.”
“You’re entitled to no kickback from that revenue.”
Vordachai raised his hands in the air and bellowed like a baffled bull. “Entitled? What about custom? Eh? Tradition! Since my father’s day and my father’s father’s day? Banished. Forgotten, as though it never existed. Is this the way to reward loyalty? The upstart grants my petitions no hearing. No relief does he offer. My entreaties are ignored, and I’ll have no more of it. Do you hear? No more!”
Despite their distance from the village, Shadrael imagined every rat, spy, opportunist, and informer inhabiting it could hear his brother yelling treason all over the hillside. Calculating how long it would take any eavesdropper to peddle the news in Kanidalon, Shadrael squinted at the scrubby hills around him and figured he and his men had better find new quarters for a while, in case imperial agents turned up on the morrow, asking questions.
�
��I need your help, brother,” Vordachai said, breathing heavily. “I tell you I am desperate, and my people are in sore need.”
“There’s no deliverance I can bring you or your people.”
“They’re your people, too. Or have you bled Natalloh blood from your veins and put dust there instead?”
“I have ashes for blood and black char for a heart,” Shadrael replied, sneering. “You know that.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“The first thing the army does is pound old allegiances out of a man. My loyalty is to my legion, not my birth province.”
“Your legion is dissolved,” Vordachai said harshly. “Disgraced and dishonored by the upstart’s order, and you along with it. What else have you now but Ulinian soil?”
Shadrael gestured angrily. “Why do you come whining to me with your troubles? Did you call another war council among your barons, only to be turned down? If they won’t support you in an uprising, do you think you can hire it done for you?” He uttered a scornful laugh. “You waste your breath here, you and your nine hundred ducats. That amount wouldn’t even hire you a cohort of mercenaries.”
Vordachai looked hurt. For a moment he sat in silence before he lifted his chin and said with dignity, “My plan will work. Hear it before you gainsay it.”
His anger fading, Shadrael swallowed a sigh. It was always the same. Vordachai was obsessed, and he simply wouldn’t listen to reason. “What, then?”
Eagerness lit up Vordachai’s face, and he crowded his horse closer, putting his head close to Shadrael’s. His breath stank of parsum, a fermented paste made from onions and herbs, used to season meat stored too long in brine barrels.
Nostrils flaring, Shadrael leaned back, but Vordachai didn’t notice. “The upstart’s sister, the Lady Lea, is making a long journey to Trau. And you will abduct her.”
Shadrael involuntarily jerked on his reins, sending his horse’s head tossing up in protest. “What?”
Vordachai beamed. “Ha-ha! I knew it would surprise you. All these years, you thought I had mere brawn while you had all the brains, but I can be clever, too, little brother. I can be very clever.”
Stunned by his stupidity, Shadrael struggled a moment to find voice. “Holding her for ransom,” he said slowly, while Vordachai went on grinning in delight. “Her return in exchange for Ulinia’s independence?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Are you mad?”
Vordachai threw back his bushy head and bawled with laughter. “Not mad,” he choked out, still guffawing. “Brilliant! Brilliant! Now, listen—”
“No. It will start the war you want. The Ninth will lay Ulinia waste. There won’t be a town or village standing when they’re through. The people you’re doing this for—oh yes, the people—will be enslaved and sold into hard labor as traitors. Your barons will lose their lands, if not their heads, and the Natalloh flag will be burned. And if you think Bezhalmbra will withstand a siege, think again. They’ll starve you out, and sacrifice the lady if they have to, because this won’t be about rescuing her. It will be about stamping out treason.”
“You—”
“Hear me!” Shadrael said ruthlessly. “I am trained in this. I have dealt with traitors, followed orders to burn them out, kill their servants and even their livestock, tear down their holds, salt their fields, and sell them into slavery down to the merest child. And you, my brother, once you’re pried out of your fortress like a river mollusk from its shell, you will be dragged naked through the streets of New Imperia before they gut you and hang pieces of you on the gates.”
Vordachai stared at him, and a little moment of silence fell between them while Shadrael’s warning hung in the air.
“I—I believe you care,” Vordachai said quietly.
Frustration shuddered through Shadrael. He looked away. “Hell’s breath, brother, will you not think for once in your life and cool your spleen?”
“Bah!” Vordachai swept his arm in a dismissive gesture. “My barons have been yammering this same message of doom like bleating sheep. I never thought to hear you spouting such gutless drivel.”
“It’s called good sense.”
“Faugh! It’s cowardice, nothing more, and a refusal to seize opportunity when it’s thrown in our laps. I know the penalties for treason as much as the next man. I’m not going to fight the upstart for what I want. I’m going to outwit him.”
Shadrael shot him a look of flat disbelief.
“No, hear me!” Vordachai shook a thick finger in his face. “Why do you think I’m not going to use my own men? Why do you think I want you, a leprous, flea-ridden road bandit, to take on the job? Eh? Eh? Why?”
“Tell me.”
“Because they won’t know I’m behind it!” Vordachai roared with fresh laughter, wriggling his bulky shoulders with sheer delight.
Shadrael sighed. “The moment you issue the ransom demands you will implicate yourself.”
“Who says I’m going to do that?” Vordachai tapped his nose and nodded sagely. “The lady’s route does not take her near Ulinia. She won’t be taken by Ulinian warriors.” He pulled out a roll of parchment and slapped it into Shadrael’s hand. “Here is the map of her intended journey. Imperial roads all the way, a short, direct path straight to Trau. She’ll be moving fast in hopes of beating the snows there.”
Shadrael unrolled the map reluctantly. “How did you get this?”
“I have my sources in the palace.”
It was a crudely drawn map, hastily sketched, with only the names of a few towns scribbled on it, but it provided more than enough information. As long as the lady stayed on imperial roads, Shadrael thought, it would make her progress swifter and his job of ambushing her harder.
“Now,” Vordachai said, “the demand for her ransom will be sent by a Thyrazene in my employ, thus laying a false trail straight to that province instead of mine. Eh? And while the upstart is busy crushing those worthless lizard lovers and the eggs of their pox-riddled dragons, laying waste to their province instead of mine, as you so eloquently described it, I shall rescue the girl and hand her over to His Imperial damned Majesty. Do you see?” He clapped his hands together in sheer glee. “Ha-ha, yes! Oh yes, I see by your face that you begin to understand me.”
Shadrael found himself amazed. It was a clever plan. Far more devious and complex than he’d supposed his brother could think up. Which renewed his suspicions.
“Who else knows about this plan?” he asked.
“No one! It came to me in a dream.”
“You jest.”
“No, I swear it on our father’s sword. It came to me, like a gift from the gods, and I have been thinking of it night and day since.”
“As soon as the girl is returned to her family, she will betray you.”
“Not if she never sees me while she’s a prisoner. Not if she isn’t imprisoned at Bezhalmbra.” Vordachai winked. “She will meet me only as her rescuer.”
Shadrael found himself nodding in approval. “How many war councils have you called to discuss this?”
“None! Have I not just said it’s known only to you and me? Who could I trust not to go running to the nearest imperial agent to betray me for a price?”
“You think I won’t betray you?” Shadrael asked sharply.
“Not when I’m paying you a fortune. Eighteen hundred ducats should ease the shock of being kicked out of the army, eh? Eh?”
Shadrael’s temper flared. Sometimes his brother had all the tact of a wild boar.
Vordachai sighed deeply, lost in his dreams. “The Lady Lea is said to be a lovely creature. By all accounts, her beauty rivals that of the empress. And you’ve seen the empress, haven’t you?”
“Once.”
Vordachai nodded. “Yes, and I hear that the upstart grants his younger sister her every wish. The people of New Imperia are said to worship her. She’s some kind of prophetess, rumored to be as popular as the upstart. He’ll pay anything to see her safely returned. His gratitud
e will be enormous. His generosity infinite. Because without her bewitchment on his subjects he could lose his throne.”
“You are the one bewitched and befuddled if you believe that,” Shadrael said scornfully. “Who feeds you these tales?”
“My sources in the palace serve me well.” Sobering abruptly, Vordachai clamped a hand on Shadrael’s arm. “But it all—everything—depends on you. You will not fail me, I know.”
Scowling, Shadrael pulled away. “Your trust is…quite touching.”
“Trust? Why shouldn’t I trust you?” Vordachai gestured impatiently. “I don’t care what you are, what you’ve been. I know you, and whatever you profess now, you were born a son of this ground. This land is in your heart, blood, and bones, boy! You know you want Ulinian freedom as much as I.”
“Freedom,” Shadrael whispered bitterly, his thoughts inward and deep. “Oh yes.”
“Well, then. It’s settled.” Vordachai held out his meaty hand. “Are we agreed?”
Drawing his dagger, Shadrael twisted in the saddle and threw his weapon deep into some nearby bushes.
There was a muffled scream, and a scrawny body crashed out of the brush to land sprawling in the dust. Dismounting, Shadrael walked over to the rat-faced informer and toed him onto his back. His dagger protruded from Jutak’s chest.
Vordachai stared. “What the—”
Ignoring his brother, Shadrael bent swiftly, touched the informer’s throat to make certain he was dead, and pulled out his weapon. It was a shame to lose Jutak, Shadrael thought, but he couldn’t afford to let the rat go selling this conversation to imperial agents.
Cleaning his weapon, he walked back over to the horses and mounted.
Vordachai was still staring at the dead man. “Who is that?”
“A spy. Do you know who will command the lady’s armed escort?”
“How in the breath of harmony am I supposed to know that? How long do you suppose this man was listening to us? I never heard him follow us here.”
“You should have sent for me to meet you, not come bellowing for me in a public inn,” Shadrael said.
Gripping his sword hilt, Vordachai glared about in all directions. “Who else might be watching us, spying on us?”
The Pearls Page 2
