“If it’s not,” Hajjaj answered, which made Balastro laugh. “Or you can talk about sandals or jewelry or hats. Hats do well.”
“Aye, I suppose they would, with so little competition.” Balastro nodded to Qutuz, who fetched in the traditional Zuwayzi refreshments. “Good to see you. Nice hat you’re not wearing.”
Qutuz stooped to set the tray on Hajjaj’s low desk. Then he bowed to Balastro. “I thank you very kindly, your Excellency,” he replied in good Algarvian. “I hope you like it just as much the next time you don’t see it.” He bowed again and departed.
Balastro stared after him, then chortled again. “That one’s dangerous, Hajjaj. He’ll succeed you one of these days.”
“It could be.” Hajjaj poured wine. It was, he saw, date wine, which meant Qutuz hadn’t been so diplomatic as all that; Zuwayzin were the only folk with a real taste for the stuff. “Most people, however, prefer not to think of their successors, and in this I must confess to following the vulgar majority.”
At last, as the tea and wine and cakes failed, so did the small talk. Leaning forward a little, Hajjaj asked, “And how may I serve you today, your Excellency?”
“It appears likely that Kaunian marauders have made their way back to Forthweg from the refuge places Zuwayza had unfortunately granted them,” Balastro said. “I will have you know that King Mezentio formally protests this outrage.”
“His protest is noted,” Hajjaj replied. “Be it also noted that Zuwayza has done everything possible to prevent such unfortunate incidents. Our navy has sunk several boats sailing east toward Forthweg for unknown but suspicious purposes.” How many more had slipped past Zuwayza’s small, not very energetic navy, he couldn’t begin to guess.
Balastro’s snort said he couldn’t begin to guess, either, but assumed the number was large. Hajjaj didn’t worry overmuch about that snort. If the Forthwegian Kaunians were all that Balastro had on his mind, the Zuwayzi foreign minister would be well content.
But, snort aside, Balastro still had reasons to confer with Hajjaj. Hajjaj had been mournfully certain he would, and even on which topic. Sure enough, Balastro said, “You are doubtless wondering why we have not struck at the Unkerlanters.”
“I?” Hajjaj contrived to look innocent. “Even if such a thought were in my mind—”
Balastro cut him off with a sharp gesture, more the sort an Unkerlanter might have used than anything he would have expected from an Algarvian. “We’re getting ready, that’s all. We’re not leaving anything to chance this time. When we hit them, we’re going to hit them with everything we’ve got. And we’re going to smash them flat.”
“May it be so.” On the whole, Hajjaj meant it. Algarve was a nasty cobelligerent. Unkerlant was a nasty neighbor, which was worse. King Swemmel rampant in triumph … His mind shied away, like a horse from a snake.
“Believe it!” Balastro said fervently. “Only believe it, and it becomes that much likelier to be true. He whose will fails first fails altogether.”
“It’s rather harder than that, I fear,” Hajjaj said. “If it weren’t, you would not have needed to pause to gather all your forces in the south.” Balastro stared at him, as if astonished to be called on the inconsistency. Hajjaj didn’t care, not about that; part of the diplomatist’s art was knowing when not to be diplomatic.
As Cornelu urged the leviathan west, islands rose up out of the sea. He couldn’t see all of them, even if the leviathan stood on its tail, but he knew how many lay ahead of him: five good-sized ones, one for each crown on the breast of the rubber suit he wore.
“Sibiu,” he whispered. “My Sibiu.”
The last time he’d gone back to his Sibiu, the Algarvian occupiers had killed his leviathan out from under him. But the Algarvians had done worse than that; they’d killed his family out from under him, even though Costache and Brindza remained alive.
He was glad this scouting mission didn’t take him to Tirgoviste town, didn’t take him to Tirgoviste island. How alert were Mezentio’s men around Facaceni island, the westernmost of the main five? If they were too alert, of course, he wouldn’t bring the leviathan back to Setubal, but that would tell the Lagoan naval officers something worth knowing, too.
He kept an eye peeled for dragons, another for ley-line warships. So far, no sign of either. The Algarvians, these days, had a lot of coast to watch: Sibiu’s, of course, but also their own and Valmiera’s and Jelgava’s and Forthweg’s and, Cornelu supposed, Zuwayza’s and Yanina’s as well. The Algarvian navy hadn’t been enormous before the war began. It also had to hold off Unkerlant’s, to try to keep an eye on the land of the Ice People, and to help colonial forces keep the sputtering war going in tropical Siaulia. Looked at that way, was it any wonder Cornelu saw no warships?
Maybe the Lagoans and Kuusamans could send a fleet into Sibiu and snatch it out from under the Algarvians’ noses. Maybe. That was one of the reasons Cornelu and his leviathan were here. If they didn’t spot any patrollers, maybe Mezentio’s minions were sending everything west for the big fight, the fight that couldn’t be ignored, the fight against Unkerlant.
What sort of garrison stayed in Facaceni town? Real soldiers? Or beardless boys and gray-haired veterans of the Six Years’ War? Cornelu couldn’t tell that, not from the sea, but Lagoas and Kuusamo were bound to have spies in the town, too. What were they telling the spymasters in Setubal and Yliharma? And how much of what they were telling those spymasters could be believed?
On swam the leviathan, pausing or turning aside now and again to snap up a fish. Somewhere along the coastline, the Algarvians would have men with spyglasses or perhaps mages watching for the approach of foes from the west. Cornelu and his leviathan would not draw the mages’ notice, for he pulled no energy from the ley lines that powered fleets. And to a man with a spyglass, one spouting leviathan looked much like another. For that matter, from farther than a few hundred yards, a spouting leviathan looked much like a spouting whale.
As he rounded the headland and neared Facaceni town, Cornelu saw several sailboats bobbing in the water. They wouldn’t draw the notice of any mages, either. Cornelu grimaced. The Algarvians had conquered Sibiu through a daring reversion to the days before ley lines were known: with a fleet of sailing ships that reached Comelu’s kingdom unseen and undetected in dead of night. In a world of ever-growing complexity, the simple approach had proved overwhelmingly successful.
He thought about going up to one of the boats and asking the fishermen for local news. Most Sibians despised their Algarvian overlords. Most … but not all. Mezentio’s men recruited Sibians to fight in Unkerlant. Sibian constables helped the Algarvians rule their countrymen. A few folk genuinely believed in the notion of a union of Algarvic peoples, not pausing to think that such a union meant the Algarvians would stay on top forever.
One of the fishermen saw Cornelu atop his leviathan when the great beast surfaced. He sent an obscene gesture Cornelu’s way. That probably meant—Cornelu hoped it meant—he thought Cornelu an Algarvian. But Cornelu didn’t find out by experiment.
When he got to Facaceni town, he spied a couple of dragons on patrol above it, wheeling in the clear blue sky. He noted them with grease pencil on a slate. What he could not note was how many more dragons might rise into the sky on a moment’s notice if dragonfliers or mages spied something amiss.
Facaceni town, of course, faced the Derlavaian mainland—faced toward Algarve, in fact. All the major Sibian towns did; only the lesser ones turned toward Lagoas and Kuusamo. Part of that was because Sibiu lay closer to the mainland than to the big island. The rest was due to the way the ley lines ran. In olden days, before ley lines mattered so much, Sibiu had long contended with Lagoas for control of the sea between them. She’d lost—Lagoas outweighed her—but she’d fought hard.
As an officer of the Sibian navy, Cornelu knew the ley lines around his kingdom the way he knew the pattern of redgold hairs on the back of his right arm. If anything, he knew the ley lines better; they mattered more
to him. He knew just when he could peer into the harbor of Facaceni to see ley-line warships, if any were there to be seen.
And some were. He cursed softly under his breath to spot the unmistakable bulk of a ley-line cruiser and three or four smaller craft. They were Algarvian vessels, too, with lines slightly different from those of the warships the Sibian navy had used. A civilian spy might not have noticed the differences. To Cornelu, once more, they were obvious.
He saw no Sibian vessels. He didn’t know where they’d gone; he couldn’t very well urge his leviathan into the harbor and ask. He made more grease-pencil notes. He had a crystal with him. If he’d spotted something urgent, he could have let the Admiralty back in Setubal know. As things were, he scribbled. No Algarvian mage, no matter how formidable, could possibly detect the emanations from a grease pencil.
Some Lagoan was probably peering into the harbor of Tirgoviste town. Cornelu cursed softly again. He didn’t even know why he was cursing. Did he really want to lacerate himself by seeing his home town again? Did he really want to stare up the hills of Tirgoviste town to see if he could catch a glimpse of his old home? Did he really want to wonder if the Algarvians had put a cuckoo’s egg in his nest?
The trouble was, part of him did: the part that liked to pick scabs off scrapes and watch them bleed again. Most of the time, he could keep that part in check. Every so often, it welled up and got loose.
You’re going back to Janira, he reminded himself. That didn’t stop him from wanting to see what Costache was up to at this very moment, but it helped him fight the craving down to the bottom of his mind again.
“Come on,” he told the leviathan. “We’ve done what we’ve come to do. Now let’s go … back to Setubal.” He’d almost said, Let’s go home. But Setubal wasn’t home, and never would be. Tirgoviste town was home. He’d just come up with all the good reasons he didn’t want to go there. Even so, he knew the place would draw him like a lodestone till the day he died.
Absently, he wondered why a lodestone drew little bits of iron to it. No mage had ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for that. He shrugged. In a way, it was nice to know the world still held mysteries.
His leviathan, of course, made nothing of human speech. He wondered what it thought he was doing. Playing some elaborate game, he supposed, more elaborate than it could have devised on its own. He tapped its smooth skin. That got it moving where words could not have. It turned away from Facaceni town and swam back in the direction from which it had come.
Cornelu kept it underwater as much as he could. He didn’t want to draw the notice of those dragons over Facaceni town, and of whatever friends they had down on the ground. Again, the leviathan didn’t mind. All sorts of interesting fish and squid swam just below the surface.
He took his bearing whenever it had to surface to blow. That was enough to let him know when he rounded Facaceni island’s eastern headland. Someone there spotted him and flashed a mirror at him in an intricate pattern. Since he had no idea whether it was an Algarvian signal or one from local rebels, he kept his leviathan on the course it was swimming and didn’t try to answer. Whoever was using it, the mirror was a clever idea. It involved no magic and, if well aimed, could be seen only near its target.
He found out in short order to whom the mirror belonged. An egg flew through the air and burst in the sea about half a mile short of his leviathan. Another one followed a minute later. It threw up a plume of water a little closer than the first had, but not much.
“Nyah!” Cornelu thumbed his nose at the Algarvians on the headland. “Can’t hit me! You couldn’t hit your mother if you swung right at her face! Nyah!”
That was bravado, and he knew it. Facaceni lay farthest west of Sibiu’s main islands. He expected to run a gauntlet before he could escape into the open ocean. The Algarvians would be after him like hounds after a rabbit. He’d had to run from them enough times before. No, not like hounds alone—like hounds and hawks. They’d surely put dragons in the air, too.
And so they did—a couple. They flew search spirals, but didn’t happen to spot him. And Mezentio’s men sent out a couple of swift little ley-line patrol boats after him, but again, only a couple. He had no trouble making good his escape. It was, in fact, so easy it worried him. He kept anxiously looking around, wondering what he’d missed, wondering what was about to drop on his head.
But nothing did. After a while, the pursuit, never more than halfhearted, simply gave up. He had an easy time returning to the harbor at Setubal.
He almost got killed before he could enter it, though. Lagoan patrol boats were thick as fleas on a dog. They could go almost anywhere in those waters; more ley lines converged on Setubal than on any other city of the world. He got challenged three different times in the course of an hour, and peremptorily ordered off his leviathan when the third captain decided he sounded like an Algarvian. To his surprise, the fellow had a rider on his ship, a man who examined the leviathan, made sure it was carrying no eggs, and took it into the port himself.
“What happened?” Cornelu asked, over and over, but no one on the patrol boat would tell him. Only after Admiralty officials vouched for him was he allowed to learn: the Algarvians on Sibiu had been quiet, but the ones in Valmiera hadn’t. They’d sneaked a couple of leviathan-riders across the Strait, and the men had planted eggs on half a dozen warships, including two ley-line cruisers.
“Most embarrassing,” a sour-faced Lagoan captain said in what he imagined was Sibian but was in fact only Algarvian slightly mispronounced. Most of the time, that playing fast and loose with his language offended Cornelu. Not today—he wanted facts. Instead, the captain gave him an opinion: “Worst thing that’s happened to our navy since you Sibs beat it right outside of Setubal here two hundred and fifty years ago.”
It was, at least, an opinion calculated to put a smile on Cornelu’s long, dour face. He asked, “What will you do now?”
“Build more ships, train more men, give back better than we got,” the captain replied without hesitation. “We did that against Sibiu, too.”
He was, unfortunately, correct. Here, at least, he and Cornelu had the same enemy. “Where do I make my report?” the Sibian exile asked.
“Third door on your left,” the sour-faced captain answered. “We’ll get our own back—you wait and see.” Cornelu didn’t want to wait. He hurried to the third door on his left.
“In the summertime,” Marshal Rathar said, “Durrwangen can get quite respectably warm.”
“Oh, aye, I think so, too,” General Vatran agreed. “Of course, the naked black Zuwayzin would laugh themselves to death to hear us go on like this.”
“I won’t say you’re wrong.” Rathar shuddered. “I was up in the north for the end of our war against them, you know.” He waited for Vatran to nod, then went on, “Ghastly place. Sand and rocks and dry riverbeds and thornbushes and camels and poisoned wells and the sun blazing down—and the Zuwayzin fought like demons, too, till we broke’em by weight of numbers.”
“And drove’em straight into King Mezentio’s arms,” Vatran said mournfully.
“And drove’em straight into King Mezentio’s arms,” Rathar agreed. He stared north across the battered ruins of Durrwangen, toward the Algarvian lines not far outside of town. Then he turned to Vatran. “You know, if the redheads wanted to come straight at us, they could push us out of here.”
Vatran’s nod was stolid. “Oh, aye, they could. But they won’t.”
“And how do you know that?” Rathar asked with a smile.
“How do I know?” Vatran’s shaggy white eyebrows rose. “I’ll tell you how, by the powers above. Three different ways.” As he spoke, he ticked off points on his gnarled fingers. “For one thing, they learned at Sulingen that coming straight at us doesn’t pay, and they haven’t had the chance to forget it yet. For another, they’re Algarvians—they never like doing anything simple if they can do it fancy and tie a big bow and red ribbons around it besides.”
“H
uh!” Rathar said. “If that’s not the truth, curse me if I know what is.”
“You hush, lord Marshal. I wasn’t done.” Vatran overacted reproach. “For a third, all the signs show that they’re going to try to bite off the salient and trap us here, and all the captives we take say the same thing.”
“I can’t argue with any of that,” Rathar said. “It’s your second reason that worries me a little, though. Doing it fancy might mean setting us up for an enormous surprise.” But he shook his head. “They’re Algarvians, and that means they think they’re smarter than everybody else.” He sighed. “Sometimes they’re right, too—but not always. I don’t think they’re right here.”
“They’d better not be,” Vatran said. “If they are, it’ll mean we’ve wasted a cursed lot of work in the salient.”
“We’ve done what we can,” Rather said. “Anybody who tries to break through there will have a rough time of it.” He sighed again. “Of course, the Algarvians have done things I would’ve sworn were flat-out impossible. How they got into Sulingen last summer …”
“They got in, but they didn’t get out again.” Vatran sounded cheerful, as he usually did. Rathar had a good soldier’s confidence, even a good soldier’s arrogance, but he was not by nature a cheerful man. Nobody who’d served so long directly under King Swemmel had an easy time being cheerful.
“We beat them in the wintertime, the same as we held them out of Cottbus the winter before,” Rathar said. “It’s summer now. Whenever they attack in the summer, they drive us before them.”
Rulers of the Darkness Page 39
