Master of the Cauldron loti-6

by David Drake

  For these negotiations, Tadai and Garric would do most of the talking, but the presence of a straight-backed, grizzled warrior like Waldron might be crucial to their success. Waldron had stood beside Valence III at the Stone Wall when Ornifal broke Sandrakkan twenty-two years before. Even silent, he reminded the delegates across the table of what had happened before and could easily happen again.

  Sharina sat behind the three principals, along with a score of military and civilian aides, people whose knowledge or expertise might be required. From beyond the marquee came the shouts of troops and sailors setting up camp, oblivious of the negotiations.

  "Everybody has his own priorities," Carus mused with a smile.

  A platoon of Blood Eagles ushered the Sandrakkan envoys up from the beach. Lord Attaper was at the head of his men; the guards must've spent the whole time since landing in polishing salt crust and verdigris from their armor. The guards divided as soon as they stepped under the marquee, lining up at either side and clashing their hobnails to a halt.

  According to Liane's direction, the royal officials rose to their feet when the delegation arrived. Only Garric remained on his throne. After a count of three he ordered, "You may all be seated!" in a parade-ground voice. His own subordinates sat down smoothly while the Sandrakkan officials shuffled to find places across the table.

  There were three men and a woman. "From the left," Liane muttered, "Lady Lelor, Chief Priestess of the temple of the Shepherd who Overwhelms; Marshal Renold, we've discussed him; Lord Morchan, he's a cousin of the Earl but he doesn't really have any power; and a palace official, I'll have his name in a few minutes."

  "Marshal Renold, I'm glad to meet you and your colleagues," Garric said calmly, his hands loosely crossed on the table before him. "Let me say at the outset that Earl Wildulf's loyalty to the kingdom is not in doubt, nor is my good will toward the Earl."

  "So long as you understand that Sandrakkan is independent, under a man whose lineage is senior to that of any other nobleman in the Isles," Marshal Renold grated. "If you've got that, then you can take your good will back to Valles with you and not worry yourself about our affairs any further!"

  "Well spoken, Renold!" Lord Morchan said, bobbing his wispy gray goatee. "That's it in a nutshell!"

  Ignoring the envoys-they weren't going to be the problem-Garric turned his head to the right and said, "Lord Waldron!" sharply enough to penetrate the sudden red rage that transfused the army commander. Quite apart from the deliberation of the insult, Waldron felt as an article of faith thatno foreign noble was fit to be mentioned in the same breath as a Northern Ornifal gentleman.

  Waldron had started to rise, his hand reaching for the long cavalry sword hanging at his left side from a baldric. He eased back down and put his hands firmly on the sailcloth table before him. He was looking straight ahead, between Renold and Morchan rather than at either one of them; and certainly not at Prince Garric, to whom he knew he owed an apology which he wasn't calm enough yet to provide.

  Garric felt the image of Carus relax also. Flinging that sort of insult at men who'd spent their lives training to kill-and using their training-was certainly a way to get the conversation moving…

  Lord Tadai laughed like benevolent uncle. "Very droll, Lord Morchan," he said. "Oddly enough, Lord Waldron and I were just discussing that splendid estate of yours twelve miles down the coast. Sea View, isn't it? More olives and grapes than a man could ride around in a whole day. But Waldron and I wondered how you'd defend Sea View if two thousand… pirates, let us say, landed at dawn and began cutting down the trees that've taken so long to grow. Perhaps you could answer that for us, Marshal Renold?"

  Lord Morchan looked like he'd just sat nude in a nettle patch. His mouth dropped and he stared at Renold.

  The marshal banged his fist on the table-the grating on the Sandrakkan side tilted and would've fallen if the priestess hadn't caught it-and said, "Defend? Our cavalry would cut them all down, that's how we'd defend!"

  "Really?" Tadai said. "Just how many cavalrymen are there in Earl Wildulf's household? I ask because my specialty is finance, and I well know how expensive horsemen are."

  "That's none of your business," Renold said. His face had gone red, then white. "That's none of yourbloody business!"

  "He's got about five hundred troopers, Tadai," Lord Waldron said, leaning forward to look at the financier directly. He'd completely recovered his composure. "Lancers. And if he plans to send lancers against our skirmishers in an orchard-"

  "Pirates, please, Waldron," Lord Tadai said with an oily grin. "We're talking about an attack by pirates."

  "Right, pirates," Waldron agreed grimly. "Pirates with javelins, in anorchard. Well, all I can say is that I'd pay to watch it."

  "Somebody would pay, I'm sure," Tadai said. "But not any of us who are loyal to Valence III and his regent Prince Garric, here."

  "Thank you for that interesting digression, gentlemen," Garric said. "We need to get down to business, however. I propose that the first matter to be discussed is the confirmation of Lord Wildulf as Earl of Sandrakkan."

  Morchan and Renold were too busy with their own conversation, conducted in snarling undertones, to really absorb Garric's statement. The third male envoy "Colchas or-Onail," Liane murmured, folding closed the limewood note that she'd just received from a nondescript man in the crowd. "Chief Clerk of the Office of the Privy Purse."

  – said nothing, but his expression hinted at a smile whenever his eyes flicked toward his disgruntled colleagues. The fact that they were nobles while Colchas was a commoner might have been part of that smile.

  The priestess, Lady Lelor, was probably the oldest member of the delegation, but she remained a strikingly handsome woman. Her black robe was well cut though severely plain, and her hair was piled high on subtly-carven ivory combs.

  "I'm not clear on what you mean about 'confirming Lord Wildulf,'" Lelor said in a tone of pleasant inquiry. "Since he's already Earl of Sandrakkan by right of descent."

  Garric smiled. At least two of the envoys weren't fools; or at any rate, hadn't yet proven themselves to be fools.

  "Her temple's across Market Square from the palace," Liane whispered in his ear. That information was probably written in one of her notebooks, but since Liane had been schooled at an academy of young ladies in Erdin, she'd have known it already. "It's on a high platform with an altar in the middle of the steps."

  "My thought, Lady Lelor," Garric said, "was that I'd crown Lord Wildulf on the platform of the Temple of the Shepherd Who Overwhelms, while you performed an Offering of Thanks. That permits the largest possible number of residents watch this evidence of King Valence's approval of his lordship."

  It would also explicitly demonstrate that the Earl of Sandrakkan wasn't independent of the government in Valles, let alone superior to it. A coronation made the point more politely than tearing a gap in the city walls and marching in at the head of the Royal Army, but even Lord Morchan-who seemedalmost smart enough to come in out of the rain-could see that was a possible alternative.

  Marshal Renold looked from Morchan to Garric, then blinked. "I'm not sure that would be possible," he said. He'd lost the belligerance with which he'd opened the discussions.

  "I believe it would be," Lady Lelor said in a deliberate tone, her eyes on Renold. "I will certainly impress on Earl Wildulf my opinion that it would be a desirable way to display his authority."

  "I'm not sure-" Renold repeated, then clamped his mouth closed over the rest of whatever he might have said. The muscles at the back of his jaw were bunched. There was clearly no love lost between the two envoys.

  "I had more trouble with priesthoods than I did with usurpers," Carus said, shaking his head at the recollection. "I knew how to deal with a usurper, but I couldn't start looting the temple treasuries in loyal cities without having my own soldiers mutter that I was accursed of the gods."

  "Financial arrangements would remain unchanged following the coronation?" said Master Colchas. T
he clerk reminded Garric of a small dog: tense and ill-tempered, but well aware that if he snapped at the wrong person he was likely to be kicked into the next borough. "Quite frankly, the Earl's revenues don't fully cover expenses even now."

  "In the main, that's correct," Lord Tadai said easily. In contrast to Liane, who made a point of having relevant documents at hand though she almost never referred to them, the desk or table before Tadai was always perfectly clear. A squadron of clerks stood behind him, however, each with an open file box just in case. "That is, the assessment of the Third Indiction of Valence II won't be increased in the near future. You and I will discuss at another time a schedule for the payment of the arrears accrued during the past seven years."

  Colchas cringed. "I don't see…," he began, then covered his mouth with his hand as if in an access of grief. "Oh, dear," he muttered through his fingers. "Oh, dear."

  Garric permitted himself a smile. Valence III, his father by adoption, had lost control of everything outside of Ornifal-and indeed, almost everything outside of the walls of his palace-before a conspiracy of the most powerful men in the government forced him to accept Garric as regent and heir. The rulers of the western islands hadn't wanted to believe that anything was really different, but the arrival of the Royal Fleet and Army was changing their minds.

  "There's the matter of the upkeep of the three Sandrakkan regiments of the Royal Army as well, of course," Tadai continued. "That is-"

  The sky darkened. It had been a brilliant morning before the conference started, but Garric had been under the marquee long enough that clouds might've blown in from the sea. It wasn't until he heard the shouts of fear and anger from everybody who could see the sky that he realized something was wrong.

  He was up from his stone seat and running outside before he thought about what he was doing. That was partly a reflex of King Carus, but shepherds as well as warriors are faced with sudden crises. The reflex that drew the horseman's sword slung on his left side, that was from Carus alone.

  "Sister take him!" Lord Attaper bellowed. It was an improper thing to say about his prince, but understandable under the circumstances. "Don't let anybody knife his highness in this crowd!"

  There were men coming the other way, getting under cover of the marquee while they looked back over their shoulders. Garric shoved them aside. Before he reached the open air, there were Blood Eagles battering a path for him with their shields and breastplates.

  The shape of a filthy black giant hung over Erdin. It was a sooty mass rather than the slate gray of even the darkest rainclouds, covering the sun and perhaps a third of the sky. The air all the way around it remained bright. It was monstrously unnatural.

  As Garric stared up at the giant's eyes and gaping mouth, he understood why men had run beneath the marquee to avoid looking at the hideous thing. Logically a double layer of sailcloth wasn't much protection, and for all its unpleasantness the thing seemed to be only a cloud. Logic didn't have much to the feelings the image aroused, though.

  "Stand to!" Lord Waldron bellowed from the other end of the marquee. "Form on the standards, Ornifal! Cold steel's the remedy for all the kingdom's enemies, phantoms or not!"

  Garric wasn't sure how much good swords would be against a cloud, but the image was already breaking into tatters that drifted eastward like smutty spiderwebs. He looked around him.

  After the first frightened shouting, the troops had reacted pretty well. Squads were standing closely together, less formations than clumps but organized nonetheless. Most of the men wore only bits and pieces of armor, but they'd grabbed their shields and spears when the alarm came.

  You couldn't train soldiers to deal with everything that might happen, but men whose response to panic was to find weapons and stand with their buddies were going to survive the shocks of war a lot better than other people did. Their commander was likely to survive longer too…

  The image in the sky had completely dissipated. Had it blown in from the sea or just appeared in the clear sky like a meteor?

  Liane was beside him, holding her closed travelling desk against her chest. There were undoubtedly secret documents in it, but Garric suspected it was her equivalent of his bare sword: the desk was a tool familiar from in other difficult situations, though inappropriate in this one.

  He looked toward the mast of theCity of Valles; no signal flags were flying. He hadn't expected an answer there, but it'd been worth checking. A trireme was beached beside Zettin's flagship, though, between it and theShepherd. When had that happened?

  "What Sister-cursed fool landedthere?" snapped Admiral Zettin, who'd been with the support staff behind Garric during the negotiations. His sword was drawn, and at a quick glance he looked like any of the other officers looking into the sky or around at their fellows. Then in a different voice he added, "Say-isn't that theSpiteful?"

  Zettin was the former Deputy Commander of the Blood Eagles. He'd known nothing about naval affairs when Garric put him in charge of the fleet, but he understood training, discipline, and the unit pride that'll often carry a nominally weaker force through a stronger opponent. All those things had been in short supply in the force that Valence III had allow to decay. That'd changed abruptly under Zettin.

  "Is there a problem, milord?" Garric said, sliding his sword back into the scabbard. At times like this he always felt embarrassed to have drawn the blade, but the one time in a thousand he mightneed a sword was worth slight blushes the hundreds of times it hadn't been required.

  "What's that?" the admiral snapped before he turned his head enough to realize who'd spoken to him. "Ah! Ah, I'm not sure, your highness. You see, I left theSpiteful with the squadron on guard in Valles. If it's here-"

  "Sir?" said a junior officer with a sparkling helmet and gold-chased scabbard mountings. "TheSpiteful 's brought a courier to Lord Waldron personally. They're talking now."

  The young officer was one of the noblemen Zettin had brought into the Fleet to lead, rather than one of the mariners who were responsible for ship-handling. It'd disturbed Garric, raised a peasant even if his lineage did go back to the Old Kingdom monarchs, to think that sailors might perform better under the command of lisping young snots of the nobility than they would for professionals of their own class But they did. About the only thing these young officers were able to do was to stand on the quarterdeck, a target in dazzling armor for any missile the enemy wanted to launch, and look coolly unperturbed. For the most part they did that superbly, giving their own oarsmen something to think about besides the crushing disaster they might be rowing toward as a flutist blew time for their strokes.

  Garric followed the fellow's gesture. Lord Waldron stood with his head bent toward a younger man who was speaking earnestly to him. Waldron's own aides ringed the pair with worried expressions, but at the distance of a full double pace-too far to hear what was being said.

  "It's a verbal message," King Carus mused, and the thought had a grim undertone. "Something the sender wasn't willing to commit to writing, and he sent it to Waldron instead of you."

  "It's another omen!" somebody called in a cracked voice.

  Garric jerked his head around. Lord Morchan was speaking, his hands clenched against his cheekbones as he stared up at the empty sky. "The final days are surely here! The gods have deserted Sandrakkan!"

  "Morchan, you're a fool and a liar and a whining puppy!" Lady Lelor said, her face white with fury. "The Shepherd hasn't forsaken us and He won't, so long as we act like men!"

  "You say!" said Morchan. "You say, priestess! But monsters keep swallowing the sun. Sandrakkan is doomed!"

  "What's this all about?" Garric said. Morchan and Lelor were too caught up in their own argument to hear him. "Marshal Renold, what are they talking about? Has something like this happened before?"

  The Sandrakkan commander was red-faced and looked uncomfortable. He'd been gripping his sword hilt for much the same reason every other armed man on the island had. Two Blood Eagles noticed and immediately stepped betw
een him and Garric.

  Garric grabbed the guards by the shoulders and pushed them to either side so that he could see Renold again. "Marshal Renold, what is going on?"

  "That I can't say, sir," Renold said awkwardly. "There's been clouds like this over Erdin, that's true; three or four times in the past ten days. They cover the sun and then they go away. Nobody knows what it means, nobody who I've heard anyway. Some people-"

  He looked at the priestess with a glumly speculative expression.

  "-say that it doesn't meananything, but I doubt even they believe themselves."

  Garric thought for a moment. When he could, he'd discuss the business with Tenoctris. She'd been resting when he left her, guarded by a squad of Blood Eagles while Cashel wandered about Volita to loosen his legs and Sharina observed the negotiations. Right now, however "Milady," Garric said to Lady Lelor in a voice loud enough to be noticed through her angry exchange with her fellow envoy. "Gentlemen! We're here to discuss the place of Sandrakkan in the kingdom. Let's return to the business at hand, if you will."

  The three Sandrakkan envoys near Garric turned and followed him back under the marquee; the priestess gave him a shamefaced nod of apology. Master Colchas hadn't left his seat. Not, Garric suspected on looking at the man's face, because the finance official was abnormally calm, but rather because he'd suspected what was happening and didn't want to watch it again.

  Tadai had walked to the edge of the marquee and looked up. He started back for his seat with a bland expression. The various aides and subordinates were returning to their places behind the negotiators. That left only Lord Waldron, who was still talking to the courier.

  "Lord Waldron?" Garric called.

  Waldron made a brusque gesture with his left hand, his eyes locked with those of the man who was speaking urgently to him again.

  Garric pursed his lips. "Admiral Zettin," he said calmly, "please take the seat to my right for the time being, if you would."

  Garric walked to the makeshift throne with an expression just as neutral as that of Lord Tadai. He'd disarranged the cloak when he jumped up, but a servant must've straightened it.