Leria looked at him, arching an eyebrow, and at his nod, leaned forward. “The baron and I have been discussing that very matter this morning, over breakfast,” she said, “and I think he made some very good points.”
That was half-true — they had been discussing it, yes.
“It’s different now,” Kethol said. “In the old days, if Holtun moved on Kiar or Kiar on Holtun, that would be seen as just a matter between the two countries, and everybody else would have assumed that it would quickly be over, and that Holtun and Bieme would resume hacking at each other. Back then, even Nyphien and Enkiar wouldn’t get involved, and you wouldn’t even have to think about them bringing in Sylphen or —” He shook his head. “My point is, the power of the Empire, the, well, the existence of the Empire, makes the rest of the Middle Lands nervous, and the last thing that the Emperor should want to do is to unite them against him.”
It was Leria’s point, not his. But it was true.
Particularly now that the Nyphs were producing gunpowder in apparently great quantities, and relatively primitive rifles, as well — Enkiar probably wasn’t far behind.
There was an argument — made openly in Parliament, and no doubt supported in private by the Dowager Empress, among others — that the time to expand the Empire had been before the secret of the making of gunpowder had leaked out, and that it was entirely the fault of Walter Slovotsky, who had given out that secret, that the time was past.
There was also an argument, made much more quietly, that now was the time to move — while the Empire had virtually all the cannons in the Middle Lands — and that the policy of consolidating Holton and Bieme could be held in abeyance while the Empire seized at least one of the surrounding countries. Let the Holtish barons raise their own armies, and strip the baronies of the Imperial troops, and let everybody work together to conquer, say, Nyphien, before the rest of the Middle Lands could fully mobilize.
Of course, that assumed that the Holtish barons wouldn’t just make an alliance with the Nyphs — or with others — and turn on the Imperials themselves.
Forinel probably should have had an opinion about all that, but Kethol didn’t. Starting a war wasn’t something that a soldier had any business having an opinion about; it was for wiser, and more noble, heads.
Like, say, the one that he had on his shoulders?
Shit.
“So we just have to live with this?”
How, exactly, are you living with this, Ephanie? he thought, but didn’t say. You live in your fine house in Dereneyl — Kethol had never seen her house, but he was absolutely certain it was a fine one — and you sleep safely behind high walls.
Like others of the city-dwelling nobility, she lived up in the hills above and to the west, behind walls that surely wouldn’t have stopped and would have barely slowed an invading army, but, together with the nobles’ personal guards, kept their possessions and their bodies safe from simple thieves and more aggressive intruders alike.
The worst she had to worry about was some maid stealing a silver eating prong or two, and Kethol didn’t doubt that she counted all the silver every night before going to bed — she looked to be the type.
But he didn’t say that.
Kethol just shrugged. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there’s nothing that can be done about it. Every problem has a solution, if you’re willing to pay the price.” The Old Emperor had said that, and Kethol liked the way that the words rolled off of his own tongue. He speared a roasted mushroom and chewed on it for a moment. “I think — no, I know that there are ways of dealing with bandits from Kiar without having to go to war with Kiar.” He forced himself to chuckle. “We could do it without even having those nervous sorts in Biemestren worry about it, in fact.”
“For example?” Moarin was skeptical.
“Am I hearing you doubt the baron?” Leria asked, quietly.
“Well, yes.” Moarin nodded. “Yes, I do doubt the baron,” he said. “I don’t for a moment doubt his legitimacy, or his bravery — I’ve heard stories of his heroics in the Katharhd — but have we in Holtun sunk so low that I can’t simply disagree with the baron?”
She nudged Kethol’s knee under the table.
“Well, of course you can,” Kethol said. “My father used to say something about how a man who can’t stand to hear disagreement should simply take out his knife and cut his own ears off.”
He silently thanked Leria for having gotten that phrase from Forinel’s father’s journals, and having briefed him to use it immediately if anybody criticized him.
“Yes.” Sherrol nodded. “That he did. I can’t speak in polite company about what he said a man should do with that knife if he finds it offensive when another noble sports too much with the common girls — can I?” He eyed Kethol over the rim of his glass. “Still, I just want to be sure I understand you: are you saying that you have some way to clear out these bandits without risking going to war with Kiar?”
“Clear them out? No,” Kethol said. “It’s like trying to kill off wolves — kill as many as you like, and their dams will just breed some more.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that it should be possible to kill some number of these wolves, and by doing that persuade at least some others that they can find easier pickings elsewhere than in Keranahan. Without starting a war with Kiar, without so much as making a Kiaran noble nervous about Keranahanians setting foot on his lands, as it could be done without even setting foot across the hills into Kiar.”
“Now, now,” Treseen said, raising a peremptory finger, “let’s not have talk of banditry and killing and such on a pleasant evening.”
Leria leaned her head close to his. “Do you have something in mind?” she whispered, then quietly laughed, as though amused by a private joke she had told him.
He nodded, as though to himself.
Well, of course he did.
Kethol would no more know how to organize an extended military campaign than he would know how to fly, but this was the sort of thing that anybody could do, if it was worth the trouble and expense. It was like setting a snare for a rabbit, really, except, of course, that snares were cheap and that rabbits couldn’t fight back.
It was just that the nobles didn’t care. As long as they were safe within the walls of their keeps, what was it to them if a few peasants’ pigs and sheep — and daughters, for that matter — were carried off by bandits? Yes, if the raids became heavy enough to seriously cut into their stipends, the nobles would be screaming for action. But, right now, to them, it was just an annoyance, something to complain about to the governor, and to let him handle.
Kethol could do it himself, with a few good men. Shit, if the bandit parties were as small as their take indicated they were, a half-dozen good men would probably be more than enough, if …
Hmmm. Yes, there was an obvious way. It was a fairly simple idea, and Pirojil could surely improve on it, but it was, as usual, more a matter of deciding to do something than it was having to be brilliant enough to figure out something clever to do.
It wouldn’t occur to Treseen, of course.
Treseen was far too busy being governor to remember what he used to have been, and it was no surprise that none of his captains would step forward, volunteering to take the chances involved. Much safer to ride out in force toward where bandits had raided, and know that they would find no resistance when they got there.
It wasn’t like soldiers actually enjoyed exposing their all-too-sensitive hides to enemy blades and arrows, after all, particularly when there was no chance of any loot when it was all done.
There were always risks, yes, but what of that?
Kethol was used to taking risks, after all, and this was the sort of thing that he was good at. The only question was exactly how to bait a trap, but between Pirojil and himself, they could surely work it out. Erenor might even have an idea, although it would probably be extraordinarily complicated and utterly impractical. Best
to keep things simple.
“It would be interesting to see,” Melphen said.
Leria looked at him, once again, and he nodded.
“Then you shall, of course,” Leria said, her voice taking on a decided edge.
“Wait one moment,” Treseen said. “If you’re talking about me sending out half my troops to hare all over the countryside in search of a few lice-ridden bandits coming over the hills from Kiar, I think that you’ll find, Baron, that I’m still the governor here, and I’m not inclined to send even four, five companies out to chase around the barony, looking for these bandits — who undoubtedly have more than enough sense to scatter up and into the mists at the first sound of hoofbeats.” He shook his head.
“I wasn’t asking you to send out regiments, or even a full company, Governor,” Kethol said. “Just give me that Tarnell of yours — Captain Pirojil speaks highly of him — and have him and Pirojil pick out a dozen of your troopers who don’t close their eyes when they fire a rifle, and perhaps even know the flat of the blade from the edge — from the point, that is.”
“Tarnell? But he’s my aide, and —”
“What of that?” Melphen leaned forward. “Surely you can govern the barony for a few days without the help of one old soldier.”
“Well, yes.” Treseen gave in on that point with good grace. “Tarnell could be made available, at that.”
“But to do what?”
Leria leaned forward. “To make the bandits go away, of course. I think you can trust to Baron Keranahan to see to the details of that, can’t you?”
“But how — oh, never mind,” Melphen said. “I’m sure that a man of action like the baron would much rather show us than tell us.”
There was that.
There was also the fact that Kethol didn’t quite have an entire plan put together, and he didn’t want to talk about the outlines of it with the nobles, at least not until he had had a long talk with Pirojil, who would undoubtedly have some ideas for improving what was, at the moment, only a vague notion of setting a trap and springing it.
Kethol would need Pirojil, of course. It would have been nice to have some solid troopers from Barony Cullinane, and better to have Durine, but a few Imperials would do.
Moarin snorted. “I would pay in good coin to see that,” he said.
Leria smiled. “We accept.”
“Eh?”
“The baron gladly accepts your kind offer to cover his expenses,” she said. “And let me add, I’m grateful, as well.” She picked at her food. “It seems that the late baroness Elanee either spent or hid much of the money that should have been in the Residence strong room, and while I can surely come up with a few hundred silver marks, I’m pleased that you’ve offered to cover that.”
Treseen shook his head. “I’m not disposed to allow a special levy for this, this enterprise.”
“Levy?” She raised an eyebrow. “Who said anything about a levy, Governor Treseen? As I heard it, Lord Moarin has offered to pay for the baron’s expenses out of his normal stipend, and I’m sure that he wouldn’t think to try to squeeze an illegal levy on his crofters or landholders.”
The table fell silent, and all eyes turned toward Moarin for a long moment.
“Very well,” he finally said, with barely simulated good grace. “I’ll add fifty silver marks, and cover your” — he snorted — “expenses, upon success, as I know that a gentleman won’t take advantage in that. But,” he said, raising a peremptory finger, “I do insist upon that success — I’ll not pay a copper until presented with at least, say, half a dozen raiders’ heads, and the baron’s word, sworn on his sword, that that’s just what they are. When you can’t find these ghosts that flitter in and out of the shadows, I don’t want you executing a few upstart peasants as a substitute.”
“Done,” Leria said. She gestured with her eating prong at the assemblage. “You’re all witnesses — particularly you, Miron.”
“Yes, we are that, indeed. All of us.” Miron raised his glass. “Let us drink to my brother the baron’s success,” he said.
If there was any sarcasm in his voice, Kethol couldn’t hear it.
***
They stood outside on the balcony, watching the distant pulsation of faerie lights off in the hills. There were only a few of them tonight, and they pulsed slowly through a muted sequence of dull orange to quiet red, to a blue so subtle that it could hardly be seen against the night sky.
They looked tired. He knew how they felt.
“It seems that we do make quite a good combination, Forinel,” she said. “In more ways than one.” She ran a long finger down the front of his chest, then held up her face to be kissed. Was she kissing him, or Forinel?
He wondered, then wondered why he was wondering. It shouldn’t matter. Her tongue was warm and alive in his mouth, and when he reflexively stiffened, she pressed her midsection up hard against him before he could draw back.
“I’ll come to your room tonight, again, if you promise to wait up for me.” She pulled his body against hers, tightly. “You’re just going to have to get used to the servants knowing about us, after all. Unless you’d care to take up sleeping alone.”
“I guess so,” he said, relaxing against her.
“Guess what? That you’ll adjust to the situation, or to sleeping alone?”
“I’ll adjust, Leria.”
Her cure for his tendency to blush was working, and he was bright enough both to know that he was being manipulated and to not much care. Besides, he felt better about her safety when she was with him. Maybe she wasn’t actually safer in his bed than she would be in her own room — probably less; there was nobody who could profit from her death, after all, as far as he knew — but it felt like she was.
“Well,” he said, “together, I guess, we make a decent baron. You supply the mind, and the style, and all I have to do is kill a few bandits.”
“You really can?”
“Of course.”
There was, of course, no “of course” about it at all. Any time you insisted on putting your body out in the field, trying to kill men who would be trying to kill you, there was always a risk.
But he could hardly say that to Leria, who was smiling up at him. It was hard to talk. There was still something about the way she looked at him that made it hard to breathe, much less talk.
“Make me a promise, please,” he said. “If you will, that is.”
“Of course,” she said.
“While I’m gone, promise me that you’ll keep Erenor near you.”
Erenor was devious, certainly, and Kethol never completely trusted him. But Erenor knew without having to be reminded that if he let so much as a bruise come to Leria’s toe, Kethol would hunt him down.
That Erenor knew that without having to be reminded didn’t, of course, mean that Pirojil wouldn’t remind him, as of course he would.
Repeatedly.
She nodded. “I promise.”
“Good.”
“You must make me one promise,” she said. “If you will, that is.” “Of course.”
“Come back to me.” She reached out and grabbed his ears, not gently. “I mean that: you come back to me. Even if you fail, we can live with that, we will live with that.”
He probably should have said something boastful and noble about how failure was not possible, about how he would not permit himself to fail, but that was too much Forinel and too little Kethol, and he was filled to bursting in disgust with being Forinel and not Kethol, so he just put his hands over hers, and she released his ears to hold them, one thumb stroking gently over his scars.
“Of course,” he said.
If I can, he thought.
He had always thought that there was something stupid about the way that the Cullinanes always tended to put themselves in harm’s way when they could have been sitting, warm and dry, around a table, and he was by no means sure that he had changed his mind about that.
But, if it was stupidity, it was the sort
of stupidity that was catching.
He grinned.
“You’re smiling,” she said. “As though you mean it.”
“Yes, I suppose that I am.”
“You should do that more,” she said.
“I will. I’ll try.”
There was no need to try to smile, not now. It wasn’t just that it was easy — he couldn’t help smiling; it would have taken more effort than he could have managed to get the grin off of his face.
For the first time since he had taken on the form and role of Forinel, Kethol actually felt like himself, and it felt better than good.
8
WALTER SLOVOTSKY
After you reach forty, it’s patch, patch, patch.
— L. Sprague de Camp
WALTER SLOVOTSKY MORE ran up than climbed up the old stone steps to the parapet surrounding the inner keep of Biemestren Castle, thoroughly enjoying the way that his legs, and particularly his knees, obeyed him without any protest whatsoever.
It was his way to enjoy things thoroughly.
It wasn’t just the absence of the pain. It was also the absence of the place that he had gone to to make the pain go away, at least for a while.
There was a lot that he didn’t like about the Spidersect priest’s little shop at the juncture of what were officially known as the Avenue of Pirondael’s Treachery and the Street in Honor of Baron Tyrnael’s Stand at Lundel, but which everybody still called Dog Street and Cleric’s Row.
For one thing, the trouble with the Spidersect was, well, all the spiders.
He didn’t like spiders. He had never liked spiders.
He didn’t like the little trapdoor spiders that lived in small dugouts along the edges of the walls, although they were generally shy enough not to come out when Filistat had visitors. He didn’t like the tiny feather-legged spiders, their bodies no bigger than the size of his smallest toenail, that hung on the walls and seemed to watch him, although he couldn’t see their eyes. He didn’t like the even tinier Oecobiuses, even though Filistat said that they did more to reduce the flea population than all the others put together.
Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda Page 16
