“What can we do for you, then, your Excellency?” Amanda still sounded respectful, but she didn’t curtsy this time.
The city prefect said, “If King Kuzmickas receives, uh, certain presents from the great and glorious metropolis of Polisso, there is a chance that he will accept those as a symbol of the city and withdraw without troubling us any further.”
Would the King of Lietuva do something like that, or was Sesto Capurnio having pipe dreams? Amanda didn’t know. She didn’t think anyone from the home timeline could have answered a question like that. People from the home timeline didn’t know enough about this one.
Jeremy asked, “A symbol of the city, you say? Do you mean a symbol of surrender, your Excellency, even if you don’t really give up Polisso?”
“No! By the gods, no!” Sesto Capurnio shook his head. His jowls wobbled back and forth. Watching them made Amanda queasy. Far fewer people were heavy here than in the home timeline. The city prefect was one of them, though. He went on, “What would my career be worth if I gave the King of Lietuva such a token? The Emperor would think I had acted unwisely, and he would be right.”
When the prefect talked like that, Amanda believed him. If he was starved into giving up, that was one thing. But if he acted too friendly toward Kuzmickas while Honorio Prisco III could still get his hands on him, that would be something else again. Amanda asked, “Well, what do you want from us, your Excellency?”
“You have some of the richest, most unusual gifts anyone in Polisso could give the King,” Sesto Capurnio answered. “Your razors, your mirrors, your knives with many tools, your hour-reckoners most of all…”
“So you want us to give you some of our goods so you can give them to Kuzmickas?” Amanda asked. “I think we can do that, as long as you pay us back for them.” If the prefect insisted the watches and such were for the good of the city, she was ready to hand them over without getting paid. But she wanted to get the protest on the record.
“The city will pay you for what you give—and I will accept your official report.” Sesto Capurnio not only agreed, he sweetened the deal. He really had to want them to go out to the fearsome King of Lietuva. He went on, “If I make the presents to Kuzmickas, though, I would have to do it as city prefect. It would be an official act by the government. That is what we cannot have, as I explained before. If private citizens give Kuzmickas presents, that is unofficial. Do you see the difference? That is why this is a private conversation, too.”
Amanda and Jeremy looked at each other again. Amanda gave a small nod. Her brother gave an even smaller shrug. “I think we see, your Excellency,” Amanda said cautiously.
“Good.” Sesto Capurnio beamed at them. “Then I will send the two of you out to the King as Polisso’s unofficial—very unofficial—ambassadors.”
In an odd way, Jeremy almost admired Sesto Capurnio. The city prefect had solved a lot of his problems at one fell swoop. He was giving King Kuzmickas rich presents. If the King of Lietuva decided to act like a barbarian and break his truce, he would have Jeremy and Amanda, but nobody who actually lived in Polisso all the time. And if Kuzmickas did seize them, Jeremy would have bet Sesto Capurnio would find or invent some legal excuse to get his hands on the trade goods. Yes, a pretty slick move all the way around.
Except for us, Jeremy thought.
A soldier at the postern gate nodded to him and Amanda. The Roman smelled of sweat and garlic. “Ready?” he asked them.
“We’d better be,” Jeremy said. Amanda nodded.
“Good fortune go with you, then.” The soldier opened the gate. Rusty hinges squeaked. Postern gates almost always stayed closed. They had nothing to do with the ordinary traffic that went into and out of a city. They were for letting soldiers out to make a surprise attack against invaders who were assailing one of the main gates, and for other small, often secret, things like that.
This mission was small, but it wasn’t secret. It couldn’t be, not with the guns on both sides silent and with soldiers watching from the walls. Jeremy carried a staff with a spray of dried olive leaves attached to the top. In this world, the Romans and Lietuvans and Persians all used that as a sign of truce.
A Lietuvan carrying a similar staff came out of King Kuzmickas’ camp. Polisso had grown out of a Roman legionary encampment. Roman soldiers on campaign still camped with everything just so, with each unit in its assigned place, with the camp streets at right angles to one another, and so on. Lietuva had imitated the Roman Empire in a lot of ways. Making camp wasn’t one of them.
Tents of every size, style, and color fabric sprawled here, there, and everywhere, all higgledy-piggledy. If there were any real camp streets, Jeremy couldn’t make them out. The closer to the encampment he got, the more he noticed that here was a place that smelled even worse than Polisso. He hadn’t dreamt that was possible. It nearly made him want to congratulate the Lietuvans.
The big blond man with the staff of truce called, “Good day,” in neoLatin. In the same language, he went on, “Do you speak Lietuvan?”
“I am sorry, your Excellency, but we do not,” Jeremy answered. “Will we need an interpreter to speak to his Majesty?” The city prefect hadn’t said anything about that.
To his relief, the blond man shook his head. “No, the King knows your tongue. Things would have been easier in ours, but he will get along. Come with me, if you please.”
They came. The Lietuvan led them through the camp toward the biggest, fanciest tent in it. Jeremy supposed that made sense. Who else but the King would have that kind of tent? Soldiers stared at them. Those stares didn’t seem mean or fierce, just curious.
Guards stood outside the King’s tent. One of them spoke in Lietuvan. The guide answered in the same strangely musical language. He turned back to Jeremy. “Before you see his Majesty, you will have to be searched. We do not want you Romans trying to steal a victory by murdering the King.”
Jeremy looked at the guards. He looked at Amanda, who rolled her eyes. “Those big lugs aren’t going to search my sister,” he said.
“Oh.” To his surprise, the guide turned red. He spoke to the guard chief in Lietuvan. They went back and forth. At last, the guide said, “The King’s women will search your sister.” Surprising Jeremy again, he added, “We meant no offense.”
Now Amanda nodded. “All right,” Jeremy said.
“You come here,” a guard told Jeremy in slow, heavily accented neoLatin. He patted Jeremy down and searched the bag he had with him. Since the bag had Swiss army knives and straight razors in it, Jeremy wondered if he would get upset about them. A security man in the home timeline would have. This fellow seemed to understand they were meant as presents, not murder weapons. He nodded. “All good. You wait for sister now.”
Two of King Kuzmickas’ women brought Amanda out of a little tent a few minutes later. Like Lietuvan men, they wore breeches tucked into high boots, which made them scandalous to the Romans. They glittered with gold: belts, rings, bracelets, necklaces, big hoops in their ears. Their fair hair hung straight and free. The style was closer to what Jeremy would have seen at Canoga Park High than the fancy curls Roman women wore. The Lietuvans wore more makeup than either Romans or high-school girls.
One of them spoke to the guard chief. By the way he nodded, she’d given Amanda a clean bill of health. The other Lietuvan woman eyed Jeremy. She might have been sizing up a horse or a dog. She said something. She and her friend both laughed. So did a couple of the guards.
Jeremy stood there stolidly. He did his best to pretend the women didn’t exist. They thought that was funny, too.
“I will take you to the King,” said the Lietuvan who’d brought Jeremy and Amanda to the royal pavilion. One of the guards held the tent flap so they could duck their way inside.
King Kuzmickas sat in what looked like a folding wooden patio chair covered in gold paint. A portable throne, Jeremy realized. Guards with drawn swords stood on either side of it. The King’s red-gold beard was streaked with white. A g
old circlet shone in his greasy hair. He would have been very handsome if he’d lost twenty kilos. The fur robe he wore had to be valuable, even if it did make Jeremy a little sick. He’d been doused with rosewater, and had bad breath.
“Your Majesty!” Jeremy bowed low. Amanda curtsied, as she had for Sesto Capurnio.
“Good day, both of you,” Kuzmickas said. He had a light, true tenor voice. His neoLatin was very good, almost perfect, with only a vanishing trace of the Lietuvan accent that made him sound as if he were singing ordinary speech. He looked the two crosstime traders over. “I did not think you would be so young.”
“We are old enough to bring you presents from Polisso, your Majesty,” Jeremy said.
“Oh, no doubt.” Kuzmickas pointed at him. The King’s nails were perfectly shaped but dirty. “You have some of those fancy things that are all the talk of the border the past few years?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Jeremy said.
“Good. I have seen some of these. I would like to see more. I would like to have more for myself.” King Kuzmickas was nothing if not direct.
Amanda spoke up: “Polisso would like to have peace.”
“Oh, yes. I know.” Kuzmickas sounded amused. “Some of us are likelier to get what we want than others.”
“You’ve already seen our city isn’t easy to take,” Jeremy said.
“And so? Not many things that are worthwhile are easy. Just because something is hard does not mean it cannot be done.” The Lietuvan King sounded like one of those boring lessons on how to get ahead in life. Those lessons might be boring. That didn’t make them any less true, which worried Jeremy.
But he wasn’t there to argue with Kuzmickas. He was there to try to make him happy. “Here is one of our gifts for you, your Majesty,” he said, and gave the King a straight razor in a mother-of-pearl sheath that doubled as a handle.
He had to show Kuzmickas how to free the blade with his thumbnail. Kuzmickas tested the edge on the ball of his thumb. He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Yes, this is very fine,” he said. “A good tool for smoothing a throat—or for cutting one.” He did not sound as if he was joking.
Amanda said, “Here is a mirror for you, your Majesty.” She gave him one of the biggest ones they had, in a frame set with sea shells.
Kuzmickas stared into it. He muttered a few words in Lietuvan. By the smile on his face, they meant something like, I sure am a handsome fellow. “I like this,” he said in neoLatin. “It is better than the mirrors we make. I will not try to tell you any different.”
“And here, your Majesty…” Jeremy gave the King a Swiss army knife.
Kuzmickas had learned his lesson with the razor. He started using his thumbnail to free blade after blade, tool after tool. Each new one made the smile on his face get wider. “Yes,” he said. “This is a wonderful toy, and useful, too. I would like to meet the knifesmith who made it, to tell him how clever he is.”
There was no smith, of course. Somewhere, someone sitting at a computer had designed the knife. After that, machines had done the rest. Just for a moment, Jeremy felt a twinge of regret about that. People here really got their hands on what they made in a way they seldom did in the home timeline. But machines could do things with so much less labor, it made the trade worthwhile.
“And finally, your Majesty…” Amanda pulled out a blue-plate special. She showed King Kuzmickas what the big, shiny pocket watch was for, how to wind it, and how to read the hands.
“Better than a sundial. I can take it anywhere. And I can tell the hour at night. And it is beautiful.” Kuzmickas was good at figuring out the advantages of what was new technology to him. His taste might have been a different question. He went on, “But what if I forget to wind it? What happens if it stops?”
He was clever, sure enough. Few people here ever wondered about that. Amanda answered, “Wait till noon, your Majesty, noon on a sundial, and set it to six o’clock.” Like the Romans, the Lietuvans started the day at sunrise, not at midnight.
“And if I don’t have a sundial handy, I can figure out when noon is on any sunny day—close enough, anyhow,” Kuzmickas said, nodding. “That is fine. Thank you.” People here didn’t worry about time to the minute. Time to the half hour—or at most to the quarter hour—was close enough for them. Maybe watches would change that. It hadn’t happened yet.
“We hope your presents please you, your Majesty,” Jeremy said.
“If you had brought me Polisso’s surrender, that would have pleased me more,” Kuzmickas answered. “But wait. Fair is fair, and never let it be said I take without giving in return. I have presents for you as well.”
He called out in Lietuvan. The man who hurried up and bowed to him was small and dark. He looked more like a Roman than a Lietuvan. A slave? Jeremy wondered. He realized he would never know. The King pointed to him and Amanda in turn and spoke as if giving orders. The little dark man bowed again, nodding over and over. He raced away as fast as he had come.
When he came back, he carried a jacket of some thick, brown, lustrous fur and a necklace. “This marten jacket is for you, Ieremeo Soltero,” King Kuzmickas said. “It will keep you warm no matter what the weather. Try it. You are large. I hope it will fit you.”
“Thank you very much, your Majesty.” That was the biggest lie Jeremy had ever told. Putting on the jacket felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done. In his world, in his time, only a few perverts wore fur. He knew that hadn’t been true for his ancestors, but they’d had all sorts of other nasty habits that he didn’t want to imitate, too. He could smell the animal hides that made up the jacket. It was warm, but not all the sweat that sprang out on his forehead rose because it was. He managed to hold his voice steady as he said, “It fits well, your Majesty. Thank you again.”
“You are welcome.” Kuzmickas waved indulgently. “You will not offend me by taking it off. I know it is too much for today’s weather.”
“Yes.” Jeremy got out of it in a hurry. He could still feel the weight of it on his shoulders, though. He fought not to be sick.
Kuzmickas turned to Amanda. “This necklace is of fine Lietuvan amber. When you wear it, think of me.” He beckoned her forward and put it on her.
“Thank you very much, your Majesty. It’s beautiful,” she said. Jeremy was jealous of her. She could sound grateful and mean it. The home timeline had nothing against amber.
“And I give you one other gift,” Kuzmickas said. “You will have paint or whitewash in your home?” He waited till Jeremy and Amanda gave him puzzled nods, then went on, “If Polisso falls to us, paint a white X on your door. You will not be harmed or enslaved. You will come under my protection. This gift is for you alone. If we see many white X’s when we break in, we will ignore them all. Do you understand?”
“Yes, your Majesty.” Jeremy wasn’t sure he ought to thank King Kuzmickas for that. He wasn’t sure he and Amanda ought to use the gift if Polisso fell, either. It didn’t seem fair. But he wasn’t sure they wouldn’t use it, either. He’d heard too many horror stories about things that could happen in the sack of a town. Instead of saying thank you, he bowed.
That seemed to satisfy the King. “Go back to Polisso,” he said. “Before the summer ends, we will see whose gods are stronger. Yours may be more clever, but mine—mine can fight.”
Jeremy had to pick up the marten-fur jacket. Touching it was as bad as wearing it. I can’t be sick till I get someplace where nobody can see me, he told himself again and again as he walked back to Polisso. And he wasn’t, quite, though afterwards he never knew why not.
Whatever the city prefect thought, Amanda and Jeremy’s visit to King Kuzmickas didn’t change anything much. Amanda hadn’t expected that it would. The King of Lietuva politely went on with the truce till the two crosstime travelers got back inside the walls of Polisso. Then the Lietuvans started shooting again. They fired one cannon to let the Romans know the truce was over. The Romans shot back with one gun to show they understood. After that, both sides
returned to banging away with everything they had.
Amanda liked her amber necklace. She knew what her brother had to be thinking about getting a fur jacket. She would have felt the same way herself. And Jeremy had to keep holding on to it as the Roman officials questioned him about the meeting with King Kuzmickas. It seemed like forever before they finally got back inside their own house.
As soon as they did, Jeremy dropped the jacket. He disappeared into the bathroom at a dead run. Amanda’s own stomach heaved as she listened to the sounds of retching. When Jeremy came out, his face was pale as parchment.
“Are you all right?” Amanda asked.
“I’ll tell you, I’m a lot better,” he answered. “And as soon as I drink some wine and get this horrible taste out of my mouth, I’ll be better yet.”
“I’ll get it for you,” said Amanda, who wasn’t sure he could walk to the kitchen without falling over.
“Thanks,” he said when she handed him the cup. He sipped carefully. “Don’t want to drink too fast, or I’m liable to throw up again. That miserable, horrible thing!” He wouldn’t even look toward the jacket. “I could smell it.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Amanda didn’t want to look at the fur, either. She wasn’t sure she could smell it, but she imagined she could. That was just about as bad.
“What can I do with it?” Jeremy answered. “Even if we weren’t stuck here, we couldn’t take it back to the home timeline. I can’t sell it inside Polisso as long as the siege is going on. Word might get back to Kuzmickas. That wouldn’t be good if the Lietuvans take the town. We just have to hang on to it.”
“I’ll put it in a cabinet,” Amanda said. “You’ve had enough to do with it. I’ll shove it along with a broom handle or something, so maybe I won’t have to touch it.”
“Would you?” Jeremy looked happier. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the thought of not having to deal with the fur any more. It was the fur, all right, for he said, “Thanks, Sis. I don’t think anybody’s ever done anything nicer for me. When I had to pretend I liked it…” He started turning green again.
Gunpowder Empire Page 20
