Lord Sirom, as acting governor, then spoke with General Thytagoras in private. “I am not stupid,” he declared to the commander, “and neither are you. It will avail us nothing to react immediately to this occupation. No doubt the Salukadians are prepared for it. Surely Dusar connived with them in every way possible, and traps are set for you and your men already. If I have capitulated for any reason, General, it is for a very good reason: to gain us time to learn what we must do before we deal with these pigs as you prefer to do. Am I understood?”
He was—although all of General Thytagoras’s training and instincts rebelled and warned him to deal with an immediate threat immediately, not waste time.
Sirom told the general, “Let King Elad decide what to do about this. It’s his city; it’s his empire.”
“And we sit here while these animals proceed to do as they like?”
“No, we do not. We keep the peace. And we learn as much as we can as quickly as we can. The political and legal ramifications of this incident are immense. My own sense is that those ramifications will drag on forever in courts of law and between diplomats. That is not your concern, nor is it mine. Our concern is the four Salukadian regiments. There will be protests against them. There will be spontaneous disorder. Citizens will assault these easterners. There will be violence. You are to triple—quadruple—your street patrols, and in the event of any dispute or show of violence, your men are to keep the peace. Am I understood?”
“Keep our own people from defen—”
“Keep the peace, General. The lowest Athadian living in the gutters of this city is dearer to me than a hundred of these Salukads. If I could poison the pigs all at once, I’d do it. But this is what I am saying: their men are expendable; Athadian citizens are not. We’re the human beings here. If there’s a demonstration of violence in our streets, and if one Salukadian lifts a fist at one Athadian citizen—well, keep the peace, General. Keep the peace by whatever means necessary until we hear what our new king wishes to do. Now, am I understood?”
Thytagoras nodded; Sirom was understood.
* * * *
Three days before the official announcement of his marriage to the Princess Salia of the province of Gaegosh, King Elad learned of the Salukadian occupation of Athadian-held Erusabad. His council argued for an immediate military response to this deliberate provocation. Elad understood that, posturing aside, their hastiness to save face had less to do with patriotism than it did with the advantages to be gained from war profiteering. But Lord Abgarthis, in private counsel with his king, warned Elad against overreacting to the emergency—that is, not to do in Erusabad as he had done with the demonstrations in Sulos.
“Look at the map,” declared Abgarthis. “See what the Salukadian king is doing. What difference is it to us if all of Erusabad is held by the easterners, or if we allow them to control the city? Let them have Erusabad—but let them pay a price for having it. Let them leave our people free to worship in the temple. Let them pay us an annual tribute. Let them pay the revenues to have the sewers cleaned and the docks manned and our central administration run. Let them pay tariffs every time one of their boats leaves harbor with trade goods for our markets. If King Huagrim expects you to react the way he himself would, as a barbarian, then we must be sure to disappoint him. Don’t let him force you into making of this a military matter. We can’t afford that with our troops now in the Low Provinces.”
“Do you see here,” suggested Elad, “collusion between the Emarian advance and the Salukadian occupation?”
“Certainly,” replied his adviser. “And our advantage does not lie in military maneuvering. Make them pay. Settle these matters with tariffs and taxes and in the law courts.”
Elad debated the matter longer with Abgarthis, but he was prone to agree. With dissension at home and his marriage alliance with Gaegosh but days away, he did not care to take up arms against the eastern empire over something as trivial as Salukadia controlling all, rather than part, of Erusabad. As Abgarthis pointed out, all that was actually occurring was the culmination of an inevitable shift in cultural partisanship; Athadian supremacy in the east had been dwindling progressively over the course of generations, even as the ports of the empire’s southern seaboard had grown and become enriched by commerce. Now, so long as trade agreements were not jeopardized and the pilgrimage rights of Athadian citizens in Erusabad not compromised, Elad was not much concerned about political rule of the city.
This was the essence of the message he relayed to Lord Sirom, and it was the crux of the official document entrusted to Lord Thomo, his emissary to the king of the Salukads. Thomo was from an old family that recently had encountered financial difficulties, and Elad knew the man well. Thomo dos Haddon had by his own choice served in the military—certainly not a requirement for sons of the elite—and had risen to a captaincy. He would have made colonel but had resigned his commission upon the death of his father in order to return to his family and look after their affairs. Despite his military training, Thomo was essentially a man of diplomatic nature. Further, Elad considered that success on Thomo’s part could lead to that one’s being substantially rewarded by the crown, which Thomo’s family surely would appreciate. Additionally, if Thomo’s military experience were to be required during his mission, Elad could immediately confer an officer’s badges on Lord Haddon’s son, and his lordship could capably direct cohorts or legions, as needed.
On the day before the announcement of King Elad’s betrothal, therefore, Lord Thomo, having bade farewell to his estate, his wife, and his parents’ families, left Port Athad in the company of fifty noblemen, advisers, and lawyers to meet with Lord Emperor Huagrim, the ghen of the East, and his sons in the now Salukadian-held Holy City.
When, some days later, Lord Sirom advised General Thytagoras of this turn of events, it was with the comment, “We are to placate them. That is what King Elad intends to do.”
To which a wrathful, disbelieving Thytagoras retorted, “They are buying us for money. You understand that, don’t you? What kind of king do we have? What has happened to us? Where is our honor? We no longer have any dignity. What does our name mean now? What has happened to us?”
“What has happened to us,” Lord Sirom replied, “is that we have become like the merchants we respect so highly. We have sold ourselves to the buyer who has offered us the largest purse. Everything, General, is today a commodity. Even our sovereign throne.”
“Are we no longer a people?” Thytagoras complained. “Are we only a bank? We have given poison to a serpent! We have given poison to a serpent already fat with poison!”
“No doubt,” agreed Lord Sirom. “But whenever did the businessmen of our nation stop selling poison for a profit, even when that poison might be used against them?”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Bessara.
When Count Adred returned in the middle of the winter, it was with every intention of remaining in the port city for some time. With money drawn from his bank in the capital, he took up residence in one of the less expensive inns in Bessara, and he began to attend the meetings of the revolutionaries.
He was remembered by some of them and was introduced to Lord Solok, the nobleman in whose house the revolutionary meetings were held. And as he took part in their meetings and became their supportive ally, Adred became aware of a changed atmosphere in Solok’s home. There was an increased sense of desperation, but also one of purpose, of unity. Too, Adred found that he was regarded coolly by many of his new acquaintances, and this was because of certain precautions taken by Solok.
“You are Count Diran’s son,” that nobleman said to Adred following the dispersal of the first meeting he attended since returning to Bessara. “Don’t be upset with me, please. But we are on our guard constantly for infiltrators eager to identify and arrest us. Before Sulos, they only harassed us, but now we are truly considered criminals, and our lives are in danger. So I had to inquire about you and be sure of your sincerity. And I’m proud to ha
ve you with us.”
Taking Solok into his confidence, Adred told him that he had gone to the capital after witnessing the rebellion in Sulos and had been given an audience with King Elad. He had stressed to the king that the demonstrations now continuing across the empire were the first signs of a very real revolution. Solok was intrigued; he asked whether Elad had taken this warning seriously.
“He did,” Adred replied. “And he promised to investigate methods of reform.”
Solok was dubious about that, as Adred had been. “‘Methods of reform.’ That means only that nothing will be changed. I expect government agents will attempt to join us to undo us. Those will be the ‘methods of reform’ our king has in mind.”
The revolution, gaining strength and numbers, had become a widespread, underground, organized resistance against the throne’s business and banking interests. The nominal head in Bessara was Lord Solok, but other sympathetic aristocrats throughout the city had made their homes available for meetings and discussions. Moreover, the revolutionaries now had a name, an identity. Evolving from a disunited group of divergent, angry people without direction, they had rallied with one voice behind the brutal massacre of the demonstrators in Sulos. In honor of that first great battle of the revolution, the insurgents had named themselves Suloskai, after the city; and for their banner, they devised a red cloth square—to symbolize the blood shed—with a simple black “S” on its face, thereby proclaiming their name, their fellowship, and the beginning of their unified struggle and separate history.
Many of the revolutionaries were now arguing that outright violence was necessary to advance their cause. Our reasonable arguments have been dismissed, was their rationale; the business owners and banking and government authorities use violence against us, so let us use violence against them. This—despite the knowledge that violence begets only itself, and that the violent demonstrations in Sulos had simply served to bring down on the honest rebels the iron heel of the throne.
When informed that King Elad was looking into methods of reform that might answer some of their grievances, the collective response of the fifty or so seditionists who gathered at Lord Solok’s home was this: “It is too late for reforms! Reform is the enemy! No reforms! We want change!”
Solok and Adred and some of the others there knew, certainly, that violence was not an answer to the issues that had been raised; yet neither was the political charade of a “reform.” And week by week, as the insurrectionist fever increased, as the dispossessed of Bessara devoted themselves into the widespread organization of their growing Suloskai movement, the calmer voices of reason were persistently drowned out, and the frustrated voices wanting to match fire with flame grew louder.
Adred, sitting in, listening, knew that resorting to such methods had likely become inevitable.…
* * * *
On the tenth day following Adred’s arrival in Bessara, the next scheduled demonstration by the Suloskai took place on the docks, in the loose open mall shouldered by warehouses, emporia, and seamen’s inns. Adred did not join in this demonstration, for so far, sympathetic aristocrats had not been pressured to assert their feelings publicly, out of concern that reprisals against them might strangle the revolt in its infancy; the aristocrats offered money and other resources as well as places of safe refuge. But Adred did watch the demonstration from the roof of his inn, as did all of the other guests. The amusements at the arcades and theaters had been indefinitely suspended because of concern for public safety; many of those standing alongside Adred therefore regarded the demonstrations themselves as colorful, substitute entertainment.
This protest, as all had been so far in Bessara, was peaceful. But Lord Uthis, the magistrate of the city, in a bad temper because of the activities he had witnessed so far, and afraid that, if they continued, Bessara would become the next Sulos, took extraordinary precautions this morning by ordering out his city guard in triple force and commanding them to “keep the peace” by whatever means necessary.
The effect was the same as that which had followed the prophet Bithitu’s request that no church be raised in his name, the same as warning a child to stop whining lest he actually be punished, the same as ordering Athadian soldiers in the Holy City to maintain a peaceful watch over Salukadian invaders. The Bessaran city guard promptly began provoking trouble on the docks and attacked any demonstrators who defended themselves. Stones and rocks were thrown, and blood flowed; very quickly, heads fell beneath steel blades, and bodies were torn apart under boot and hoof. The docks shuddered with the screams of many voices, the thunder of people trying to find safety, the galloping of angry horses, the trumpeting of horns. Those who did not escape or were not killed were apprehended and dressed in chains, to be taken away for interment—and thus were kept peaceful.
When the docks were cleared, only a short time after the demonstration had begun, the city guards piled forty-seven corpses against the front wall of an emporium and announced a proclamation, effected by Lord Uthis, that henceforth any persons coming together in groups of four or more would be immediately arrested on charges of sedition.
* * * *
Adred, agonized over this recurrence of what had happened in Sulos, nonetheless forced himself to remain within his room at the inn. He would draw attention to himself if he were to rush to the assistance of other insurgents immediately upon the public spectacle of violence. He paced anxiously, began a letter to Orain and Galvus (only to tear it up and burn it), and at last, in mid afternoon, went out to get a meal and learn what he could. He ate in a small tavern across the street from his inn and there gathered from what he overheard that Lord Uthis absolutely forbade any further civil disobedience and intended to crush the dissidents as they had been crushed in Sulos.
Completing his meal, Adred strolled as calmly as he could through the streets, apprehensive that others regarded him with suspicion, although he knew that this could not be so. Yet whenever he passed a city guard or a mounted patrol officer, he tightened; and when the patrolmen greeted him with a friendly “Good day,” Adred answered politely but nervously, afraid that these trained officers could read his mind. He followed a circuitous path to Lord Solok’s home, anticipating that city guards would be standing defensively around it.
This was not the case. Yet if Solok’s mansion from without seemed to be as ordinary as ever, this appearance belied what was occurring within. For as Adred discovered when he was carefully allowed entrance, the place was a veritable hospital ward.
There were at least twenty wounded revolutionaries and nine or ten others, unharmed, tending to them. They were assisted by men and women, young and middle-aged, some dressed in fine attire, others in garments obviously long-worn and ragged. The wounded were lying prone on floors and divans, or leaning in chairs, propped up with pillows and cushions, and covered with heavy woolen blankets. Trails of blood drops crisscrossed each other on the household’s expensive carpets. Adred heard muffled moans issuing from rooms farther within on the first floor as well as from the second floor. And in every direction, bumping into him or stepping around him, hurried the helpful with rags and clean cloths, bowls of warm water, jugs of wine.…
“Here.” Someone—a young man with a thin beard—thrust a bowl of cold water into Adred’s hands. “Hurry, please!”
Adred followed this one into a small room off the entrance foyer. It was little more than a closet, but there was a bed to one side and, set against the wall opposite it, a low cot. In the bed lay a feverish stout man; his right hand rested on his bloodstained chest. On the cot slept a slender, middle-aged woman, her head bandaged but with no sign otherwise of any wounds. In the tight aisle between bed and cot a red-haired woman sat in a chair and tended to the stout man. “Rhia, here.” The young man handed her some clean towels. “We have water. Is there anything else?” He looked at the woman on the cot.
“She’s all right,” the red-headed woman said. “Got her insides bruised, but she’ll be able to sleep. I’m not so sure about t
his one.” She nodded at the stout man. “Get upstairs and see if they need anything.”
The young man grunted and pressed past Adred as he went out. The red-haired woman glanced at him and told him, “Let me have the water.”
He carried it to her and stood holding the pan beside her head as she pulled back the bedclothes. Adred swallowed uncomfortably. The stout man had taken had two sword strokes, one across the right shoulder, the other—deeper and more severe—across most of his chest. Perilously close to the heart, Adred guessed. The wounds had not stopped bleeding, and the man’s breathing was shallow and labored.
The woman reached up to rinse one of the towels in the pan of water; as soon as she did so, she cursed.
“Cold! I told him I wanted hot water!”
Adred tried to calm her. “That’s all right. It’ll catch the blood and keep him clean. We can get more.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” She wrung out the towel, leaned over the stout man and wiped his cuts clean, then pressed the cloth upon his chest and held it there with her hands.
“Damn it,” she muttered. “I wanted hot water.”
Adred smiled faintly. He kneeled to set down the pan, then thought better of it. Excusing himself, holding onto the pan, he stepped out and walked down the entrance hall, following it until he came to the kitchen. An older woman in there was heating a kettle over the fireplace. Adred told her he needed hot water.
“Here.” She told him to empty the pan into a bucket by a table, then ladled out water from the fire for him.
“Thank you.”
She shrugged and nodded.
Adred returned to the small room. “Hot,” he announced to the red-headed woman.
She thanked him, soaked a clean towel in it, and applied it to the stout man’s chest. “We’re going to have to sew him up,” she said. “Could you—”
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