Master of the Cauldron loti-6

by David Drake

  He nodded toward the readying vessels farthest up the beach.

  "I'm sorry, milord," Ascor said, "but Prince Garric ordered we stay with her highness. I'm afraid that means we travel on the same ship as she does, whichever one that is."

  "Do you think that black lobster suit means you can order me around?" Lord Waldron shouted, tapping the knuckles of his right fist on Ascor's breastplate of blackened bronze. "Well, you can-"

  He stopped and guffawed. "No, you don't think that," he resumed in a wholly reasonable tone. "But Prince Garric thinks he can. And since there's one traitor in the bor-Warriman family already, there's no need for me to become one myself."

  Waldron bowed to Sharina. "Come aboard theStar of Valles with me, your highness," he said. "And we'll try to find room that we can all stand without becoming better friends that propriety would allow!"

  CHAPTER 5

  "This is my second visit to Erdin," Garric said to Liane in the stern ofThe Shepherd of the Isles as the big vessel stroked slowly across the strait. "The first time I was a peasant who'd never seen a gold coin."

  Unlike merchant vessels, warships couldn't remain tied up to quays while in harbor: their light hulls would become waterlogged. Erdin had no open beaches nor a drydock large enough to haul a five-banked monster like theShepherd out of the water, so she'd return to Volita after delivering Garric with the pomp appropriate to a ruling prince.

  Garric grinned. "The city looks different now."

  TheShepherd 's fighting towers of canvas-covered wicker were raised in the bow and stern. The balistas mounted on them had bolts in their troughs, and the only reason the weapons weren't cocked was that Garric had absolutely refused to chance one of them letting loose by accident.

  Attaper had thought the extra protection from having the artillery ready to shoot was worth the risk; Garric's other military officers simply weren't bothered at the possibility of a dozen or so Sandrakkan spectators being killed if a bronze-headed bolt ripped through the crowd. Garricdid care.

  "You're right to worry about civilians, lad," King Carus noted with a broad grin. "But it's only because I saw where the other way of thinking led that I didn't argue with you myself."

  The triremes transporting the Blaise regiment were in line abreast to theShepherd 's starboard. They bucked the current between Volita and the mainland with more difficulty than the larger ship because they had only one bank of oars manned. Even so they kept station well. It was a short voyage, and Admiral Zettin had made sure the transports had picked crews.

  The admiral himself was aboard one of the ten fully-crewed triremes manuevering in the strait. Sections of five ships combed through one another, then reversed direction and did the same thing again. It was an impressive shiphandling demonstration, but it was also a warning to anybody who'd thought of putting out from the mainland with hostile intentions.

  Garric hadn't ordered him to put on that show of force, but Zettin didn't need orders to get him to act. If anything he wastoo zealous.

  "He's very able," Liane said, following the line of Garric's gaze and noting the slight frown. Her tone held the same doubt that he was feeling. "And intelligent, for that matter. But he doesn't always see that his duties are part of running the kingdom, instead of being the kingdom existing to support a fleet."

  "He probably wouldn't be as good a fleet commander if he weren't focused on that alone," Garric said. "But I have to watch him a little more carefully than I sometimes have time to do."

  "Right," said the image of Carus, nodding grim-faced agreement. "Just in case he decides to take a squadron into a fishing village by night and carry off all the able-bodied men to fill empty oar benches. And don't say it couldn't happen, because it did. And it was me who did it, I'm sorry to say."

  Garric chuckled, causing Liane to smile at his pleasure. He could imagine the effect kidnapping crews had on the kingdom in the longer run, though. The same was true of extortionate taxation, of course, but both Lord Tadai and-back in Valles-Chancellor Royhas showed more awareness of long-term considerations than Zettin did.

  Zettin's job was at its simplest level killing other people. It didn't encourage viewing things in the long term, and realities of the work led to the early death of soldiers who forgot the basics.

  The trireme manned by Blood Eagles under Lord Attaper's personal command slid up to the quay where soldiers in bright armor, courtiers, and in the center Earl Wildulf himself waited. The guards disembarked swiftly, setting helmets in place and hooking shield straps to the staples on their backplates to transfer some of the weight off their left arms.

  "How do they row wearing breastplates?" Liane asked wonderingly.

  "It can't be easy, even for the distance from here to Volita," Garric agreed. "I think Attaper's being excessive in demanding that his men be trained to row at all. But I suppose he'd say that it was his job to be excessive, and since the men themselves don't complain-"

  "They do complain!" Liane protested. "I've heard them."

  Garric grinned wider. "Love, they're soldiers," he said. "They breathe and they eat and they complain. But they're not real complaints, the kind that meant Attaper would need to worry more about his own men than the enemy in a melee."

  That was the sort of truth that a natural warrior like Carus probably knew before he was able to crawl. By now Garric had enough experience with armies to have learned it also.

  TheShepherd 's officers, both those on deck and the others unseen among the oarsmen in the hold, shouted orders. The oars in the topmost three banks rose horizontal, dribbling strings of water like sunlit jewels back into the sea. The rowers of the lower banks backed their oars, though inertia kept the quinquereme sliding forward without seeming to slow.

  The Blood Eagles formed eight ranks deep in front of the Earl and his entourage. For most public functions the bodyguards stuck wooden balls onto their javelins, turning the weapons into batons suitable for pushing back spectators without injuring anybody. Garric noticed that this time the steel points were bare.

  He grimaced, but he wouldn't complain to Lord Attaper for making that choice. Attaper was already so uncomfortable about what Garric was doing that nothing short of dismissing him from his command would have any effect on his orders.

  "Besides which," Carus noted with approval, "his replacement'd do the same thing. At least he would if he was any good. Pretending this is a victory parade in Valles is likely to get you killed, lad."

  The six ships carrying Lord Rosen's regiment made for the quays to either side of the one where Garric would land. The Blood Eagle trireme rocked in the turbulence as the other ships backed water. From what Garric could see, there wasn't a soul aboard her. The vessel could scrape its sides off against the stone quay so far as Attaper was concerned. Allhe cared about was putting as many of his men as he could between Garric and people who generally wished Garric was dead.

  Erdin would've been an open roadstead, very dangerous in a storm, if Volita hadn't provided a windbreak. Six major canals and a network of lesser ones crossed the city, opening the River Erd to the Inner Sea some miles west of its natural mouth. All but the largest vessels could be towed into the river and docks which were even more sheltered, so the facilities on the seafront were less extensive than Erdin's size and commerce normally would merit.

  TheShepherd nosed into the slip; the captain and sailing master had judged matters well, particularly since warships almost never pulled up to a dock. The group of aides and officials were waiting near Garric in the stern-very near him, since with the fighting towers erected the quinquereme had even less than a warship's usual slight amount of deck space. They straightened, and Lord Lerdain-with a youth's impatience and the arrogance of a count's heir apparent-stared meaningfully at Garric.

  "Time we go forward," Garric said, smiling more at himself than at Lerdain. Had he ever been that young? And of course he had, only a few years ago.

  As they started up the narrow catwalk between the ventilator gratings, s
ailors in the bow began shouting angrily at the Blood Eagles. Soldiers in the rear rank looked around in puzzlement, then called for their own officers. TheShepherd was drifting outward, toward the quay on its port side.

  "Sorry, your highness, sorry!" said an officer-probably the sailing master-who turned from the sudden crowd on the foredeck. "Those bloody fool landsmen cleared all the dockers away, so there's nobody to grab a line to tie us up! Sorry, but we're getting it sorted."

  A sailor leaped to the quay, fifteen feet away and a very good jump even from the height of theShepherd 's deck. He grabbed a flung line and snubbed it to a bollard just as two Blood Eagles trotted back. The ship eased to starboard again as sailors in the bow hauled on their end of the line. The gangplank-a long grating covered with blue wool-thumped onto the dock even before the sternlines were set.

  Garric started forward with Liane a step behind. Over his shoulder, in a voice just loud enough for her to hear over the sailors' continued chatter, he said, "If we could foresee everything that was going to happen, then we'd be gods and not men. I'm not sure I'd want that; and anyway, it isn't going to happen."

  "No," said Liane, sounding surprisingly cheerful. It'd done both of them good to get away from the oddly tense atmosphere of Volita. "But the things that happen are getting fixed. That's what men do. The best kind of men."

  The signallers on the royal vessels blew another fanfare, and the Blood Eagles clashed to attention. Spectators filled the waterfront and the balconies of buildings facing it. Their mood was sullen, with little of the carnival atmosphere generated by every other parade Garric had seen since his first Tithe Procession in Barca's Hamlet.

  Attaper shouted an order from the front of the formation. The solid mass of Blood Eagles shifted like sand running into a mold, forming an aisle between black-armored spearmen. It was just wide enough for two people to pass down it abreast.

  The three Sandrakkan negotiators and half a dozen other courtiers stood with Wildulf. The Earl wore armor, a molded cuirass and a helmet crested with plumes that were violet or bronze depending on how the light struck them. The full-bodied natural blond at his side must be the Countess. She wore a tiara of blue stones.

  "Lord Tawnser isn't here," Liane murmured. "I've never met him, but he lost an eye at the Stone Wall, so he'd be conspicuous."

  "Right," said Garric. If the leader of the anti-Ornifal faction chose to absent himself from court while the royal delegation was present, so much the better. He started forward

  "Wait!" said Liane. "Attaper and I discussed this."

  "Your lordship," Attaper called to Wildulf. "His highness Prince Garric will receive you now."

  Marshal Renold spoke something into Wildulf's ear. The Earl grunted a reply, then gave his arm to Countess Balila and strode down the aisle. The Countess avoided looking to either side, keeping her gaze regally fixed on Garric. Her eyes were blue, matching the tiara, and they blazed with anger.

  "Your highness," Wildulf said. He was a big man, not fat but certainly going to be fat by the time he was fifty in another few years. His tone wasn't overtly belligerent, but Garric noticed he hadn't said, "Welcome," or offered his arm to clasp as one man greeting another.

  "Lord Wildulf," Garric replied with smiling reserve. "I'm pleased to have the opportunity to visit you in this fashion. I believe my associates have discussed matters of accommodation with you?"

  "There's rooms ready for you in the palace," said Wildulf. He eyed Liane and added, "We brought horses, though maybe the lady would like a sedan chair?"

  "Thank you," said Liane, speaking in the coolly aristocratic tone she used on those rare occasions when she wanted to emphasize that she wasLady Liane. "For the occasion I prefer to ride with the Countess and your advisors, Lord Wildulf, ahead of you and Prince Garric. The order of march which his highness has decided-"

  Carus guffawed in Garric's mind. This was obviously something else that Liane and Attaper must've decided without Garric's involvement. That was probably out of fear that he'd have a different opinion…

  "-is for your cavalry to lead, followed by the members of your court and the Prince's advisors, along with the Countess and myself."

  The regiment of horsemen drawn up on the boulevard joining the waterfront from the north were working soldiers, not parade troops in gaudy trappings. Carus murmured, "They're not as pretty as some I've seen, but I shouldn't wonder if they wouldn't be more useful than an equal number of Waldron's kinsmen just for being better disciplined. Though Waldron'd have apoplexy if he heard you say so."

  "A section of Lord Attaper's troops will follow us-"

  She hadn't said, "the bodyguards" or "the Blood Eagles," but Lord Attaper's bleak-faced nod made that explicit.

  "-with the remainder of that unit following the Prince and yourself. Lord Rosen's regiment will bring up the rear. They'll be billeted in buildings adjacent to the palace, I understand."

  Lord Rosen himself appeared, accompanied by a senior noncom whom Garric had met before. He waited to the side while Garric was meeting with the Earl. His men were drawn up across the narrow slips to either side of this one.

  "We figured that-" Earl Wildulf began, scowling like a thundercloud.

  "Ornifal nancyboys!" somebody shouted from the crowd. The breeze carried the words clearly over the royal contingent.

  The noncom with Rosen-Serjeant Bastin, that was the man's name!-raised his shield up beside his face to form a sounding board. "I'm a Blaise armsman!" he bellowed back at the crowd. "And I'd rather prong one of my daddy's pigs than what passes for men in Erdin! Or women too!"

  Garric gasped to keep from laughing out loud. That would've been partly hysteria, he supposed, but the sudden relief of tension was a wonder and a delight.

  "Lord Wildulf," he said, ignoring what were probably going to be arguments over the order of march, "all that needs to be said here has been said. Let's get to your palace and we can continue matters there."

  He reached forward, offering Wildulf his arm. Wildulf, by reflex or perhaps out of equal relief, clasped it.

  "Right," he said. "The horses are back with my guards, your highness."

  ***

  It wouldn't have been quite right to say that seeing the boxwoods up close took Ilna's breath away, but the mass of dark green let her know how much she'd been worn by a day of hiking on gritty soil through sere vegetation. She'd taken grass and trees for granted in Barca's Hamlet.

  She smiled, wryly but without the bitterness she might have felt in the recent past. If her life had followed the course she'd expected, she'd never have known how many places there were that she liked less than she did Barca's Hamlet.

  This country seemed to have a general slope from the southern cliffs northward, but no terrain is perfectly flat-not even the surface of the sea. The vegetation they'd seen at dawn had been out of sight for most of the past several hours. Now it appeared directly before them, an interwoven wall of branches reaching from the ground to several times a man's height.

  "It's been planted!" said Chalcus. "There's never a chance that those trees grew together naturally."

  "It's a maze," said Ilna. The entrance wasn't on this side, but she knew it existed as surely as she knew which warp threads to raise when she ran her shuttle through. "It's a maze of more than bushes."

  "This is a barrier too," Davus said, indicating a fist-sized chunk of porphyry with the big toe of his right foot. It was lying on the crest of the rise they'd just walked up. "Of sorts. See there-"

  He pointed, still using his foot. "And there?"

  Now that he'd pointed them out, Ilna saw other rocks, some basalt and some porphyry, scattered in a wide arc to either side of the first. There was a distance of several paces between rocks, and they were of course-Ilna smiled as the words formed in her mind-just rocks.

  "They circle the grove," Davus said. "They're to keep trolls out."

  Chalcus stepped forward and paused, frowning angrily. He touched his sword hilt.

  "Just
a moment," said Davus, bending to lift away the stone he'd first indicated. "Now go through."

  Chalcus stepped past him and nodded thankfully. Ilna followed, standing to the side as Davus backed after them and set the stone precisely where it'd been before.

  "It was like stepping into warm blood," Chalcus said quietly. "A pool of warm blood. I could've gone on, but-I thank you, Master Davus."

  "This way, I think," Ilna said, taking the lead without thinking about it. Seeing patterns was her work, herlife; that was the skill they needed at present. She crunched over the ground, keeping just beyond arm's length of the hedge so that she didn't brush the boxwoods by accident. It probably wouldn't matter, but she didn't care to take the chance.

  The weather appeared to follow the ridge they'd just crossed. The country Ilna saw to the north must be better watered, as it was grassy instead of being sparsely sprinkled with vegetation.

  "Dear one?" said Chalcus, a few steps behind her with Davus. "What would happen if we were to cut a path through the branches here?"

  "Nothing good," said Ilna. She usually plaited patterns in yarn as she walked along, a way to occupy her hands while her mind was elsewhere. Now she put the hank of yarn away because she needed that part of her to deal with the maze. "It isn't only brush, as I say. In fact, I suspect the trees were planted to conceal the real barrier."

  The entrance was on the east side of the circle. It was a simple gap, wide enough that two could walk down it abreast if they didn't mind their shoulders touching the dense green branches.

  Without looking at the men behind her Ilna said, "Follow me in line. Don't touch the branches, and on yourlives don't go down any path except the one I lead you on."

  She didn't bother to add, "Do you understand?" because they did understand. And if they'd been the sort of people who didn't, a few more words from her weren't going to prevent them from killing themselves.

  Ilna stepped into the maze. The air was noticeably more humid, and she no longer felt the wind that'd been so constant since they'd arrived. The path was shaded even more than the tall boxwoods explained, and the light had a bluish cast. The changes from the arid waste outside weren't unpleasant in themselves, but they made Ilna think of bait in a trap.