Ryswyck

by L D Inman

Douglas smiled painfully. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Very well. Selkirk out.”

  Douglas fell back in his chair, casting his gaze over his shoulder at the rain-beaded windows behind him. The light had risen and pearled not only the sky but the faded grass and foliage behind the drifts of mist. The top of the tower was obscured, the stones at the base a mysterious hulk.

  It was still only the middle of the morning.

  11

  “What happens if they say yes, my lord?”

  Reynard showed no sign of fatigue, except that he was unusually pale; but something about the precision of his words made du Rau look up sharply at Reynard where he stood before his desk.

  “You think it’s likely they will?” he said.

  Reynard sighed. “If I may speak freely, my lord.” Du Rau opened an inviting hand. “The Verlakers are obviously desperate.” So are we was best left unsaid. “You can’t really mean to go to Verlac—by yourself—and attend a funeral all but on a battlefield. What is to stop them from keeping you as a hostage for our surrender?”

  Du Rau massaged his temple briefly. “If my veins flowed inexhaustibly with water, Reynard, I might be valuable enough as a hostage for surrender. As it is I am merely the current head of state and the architect of their present difficulties. Who exactly would be doing the surrendering if they kept me hostage? They don’t want me setting foot on Verlaker soil. Depend on it, the High Council will be scrambling to find a creative way of saying no without ending this unofficial ceasefire.”

  “Is that what you want them to do, my lord?” Reynard’s words were now tentative as well as precise.

  Du Rau didn’t say anything. Reynard’s shoulders went down a little.

  “You want to go,” he said.

  He did.

  “Why?” said Reynard helplessly.

  Because twelve days ago I had nothing left in my life to prove, and now that is no longer true. “If they say yes,” du Rau said instead, “I will take Barklay’s remains to Verlac. I will see him put away with due rites. And I will come back home.”

  “And then what, my lord?”

  “Then we find a way forward,” du Rau sighed. “I’m really regretting not getting an agent placed at Ryswyck Academy.”

  Reynard looked obscurely relieved, which confirmed one of du Rau’s suspicions.

  “You’ve been thinking I might have been mentally snared,” he said.

  Reynard shook his head hastily. “No, my lord.”

  “Influenced, then.”

  Reynard hesitated, then said: “It would not have been blameworthy if you had, my lord.”

  Du Rau disagreed, so intensely that he knew he feared Reynard to be right. “I did not spend ten years shoring up the stability of my country to throw it all away for nothing.”

  “That does cut both ways, my lord.” Reynard’s voice was quiet, wary. And concerned, du Rau understood suddenly. Concerned for him. In a quiet way it was more astounding than the Estuary Guard’s proud loyalty. And it brought another insight with it.

  “You’ve been talking to Lady Ingrid,” du Rau said.

  “Yes, my lord,” Reynard admitted.

  “And what is her opinion?”

  Reynard hedged. “I am sure she will tell you her opinion if you ask, my lord.”

  “I’m going to ask her. After I ask you.”

  With a small sigh, Reynard said, “She is concerned for your health, my lord. She thinks the situation is taxing it severely. Even if you don’t go to Verlac.”

  “And if I do go to Verlac I will be going in a vulnerable state.”

  “That’s…about it, my lord.”

  Du Rau sighed. “She is not wrong.” Then he spread his hands. “These are the battle conditions, Reynard. I can’t order up new ones. Believe me,” he added dryly, “I would if I could. But I am still the Lord Executive of this country and I am obligated to do what I can for the best. —Yes, Alsburg?”

  “My lord,” said Alsburg from the doorway, “We’ve just received an official communique from the foreign office of the Southern Consortium. They are ready to entertain your request that they press Verlac to accept weapons inspectors on the island.”

  “What?” Du Rau stood up. “Damn the Verlakers, I knew this would happen!” Signing Reynard and Alsburg to follow him, he stalked down the hall to the command room, where all fell suddenly silent and straightened to attention.

  “What fool,” he said, “has been running his mouth about Verlac’s weapons program to the Southern Consortium?”

  No one was stupid enough to admit it.

  “Did no one realize that they would immediately suspect Verlac of splitting atoms and start demanding an inspections process?”

  The comms commander cleared his throat. “They haven’t said anything yet about Verlac raising a nuclear threat, my lord. Aren’t bioweapons bad enough?”

  “Yes,” du Rau said, “they are. Bad enough that a tiny skip and jump lands us all in a nuclear panic. Verlac doesn’t have either the money or the materiel for that, but no one’s going to care once the panic gets underway.”

  He turned sharply to Wernhier. “Lord Admiral, I want you to prepare a polite and trenchant response to the Southern Consortium. No, we do not invite them to involve themselves in this matter. We do not need or want their assistance, either diplomatic or material. And we are not going to demand that Verlac submit to weapons inspections of any kind.”

  There was a silence. Then, “Why not, my lord?” Alsburg said tentatively.

  Du Rau could see that they all needed the answer. So he gave it. “Because the Southern Consortium would love an excuse to put an occupying force on Verlac and take control of their resources. And they would be only too happy to sell us water at twice the markup the Verlakers were inflicting on us before the war. I’ll be damned if anybody but us benefits from twenty years of struggle. And if we take money or weapons from them, we will owe them. And they will collect, and we won’t be able to do anything about it.” Every face in the room registered grim understanding. “You all have my leave to run your mouths about that. To fools at home, that is, not the Southern Consortium. Alsburg, from now I will take my updates in real time. Thank you, gentlemen.”

  Leaving them all looking very discomfited, he took Reynard back to his office. “I will see Lady Ingrid at her convenience,” he said, dropping back into his chair at the desk. “And Reynard?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Go and have General Barklay’s body taken down from the Lantern Tower.”

  “Yes, my lord.” It was a mark of the situation, du Rau thought, that Reynard looked relieved.

  ~*~

  Douglas splashed water on his face and went to the office to answer Selkirk’s call.

  “Well, Douglas,” Selkirk said, “I will never again doubt your capacity for choosing impossible ground and holding it.”

  “You convinced the High Council to let Lord Bernhelm escort Barklay’s body to Ryswyck?” Now it came to the point, Douglas was having trouble believing it. His voice must have given him away, because Selkirk answered with a lopsided smile. “How?” Douglas said.

  “Half an hour ago, a message came from the Southern Consortium threatening to send weapons inspectors to the island.”

  “And you didn’t see that coming?” was out of Douglas’s mouth before he could stop it.

  There was a short silence. “Douglas,” said Selkirk, “did you happen to get some sleep as I asked you to do?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Douglas winced, rubbing at his eye. “Yes, I did.” Ninety minutes’ worth and very poor quality, but he’d obeyed the order.

  “To answer your question,” Selkirk said, dryly, “yes. I did see it coming. I calculated the weapons program was as likely to get Berenia to negotiate as provoke them to mutual destruction.”

  Douglas frowned hard, working it out. “Because Berenia doesn’t want the southern nations snatching away their hard-earned occupation?” Selkirk tilted his head for answer; Doug
las was aware that Selkirk was deliberately giving him a strategy lesson. “Wouldn’t destabilizing du Rau’s government work against a coherent negotiation? Why send Barklay on that mission?”

  “The missiles weren’t ready and in place twelve days ago. They are now.” Selkirk shrugged. “And du Rau’s got his government back in hand. We can only hope he keeps hold of it.”

  Selkirk would never have admitted to making such a risky plan, in case it didn’t come off. “And what about Captain Ahrens?” Douglas said.

  Selkirk sighed. “Ahrens’s contact with the project was limited; everyone’s was who worked on it. It upset his Ryswyckian sensibilities, but he agreed to lend his expertise. I wasn’t enthusiastic about putting him in direct contact with du Rau in an uncontrolled environment. But the risk had this about it: if it came to the point, Ahrens could be credibly sincere about the threat, where I could not.”

  “Because he was a Ryswyckian,” Douglas said, pointedly.

  Selkirk sighed again. “As you have pointed out, Ryswyckians have their uses. But I will tell you frankly, Douglas, I would much rather be negotiating with du Rau with a strait between us than letting him on the island to attend Barklay’s funeral. The only virtue of doing so is that the optics will hold off outside interference until the Berenians can be convinced to withdraw.”

  How are you going to do that? Douglas was about to ask, but the answer was obvious. He swallowed hard. “I don’t think I have a compelling argument to offer du Rau, my lord.”

  “I don’t expect you to,” Selkirk said. “Just use your offensive strategy and see what happens.”

  Douglas couldn’t stop a brief bark of laughter. He interpreted Selkirk’s narrow, glinting look as a smile in return. “I am at your service, my lord.”

  “Glad to hear it. And you will perhaps be glad to hear that the operation you sketched is very like the one we will use. We still need to identify a suitable hostage to exchange, but nearly everything else is ready to move into place once du Rau agrees.”

  “I do have someone in mind,” Douglas said.

  ~*~

  Ingrid was in the room with him when Admiral Douglas called back.

  “You will be pleased to hear, sir,” he said, “that the High Council has consented to your request to escort General Barklay to his resting place at Ryswyck.”

  Du Rau leaned back indulgently in his chair. “I don’t recall requesting anything, Admiral Douglas. But I am indeed pleased to hear that my conditions are being met. Do you have a proposal for a rendezvous?”

  “I do. I will be forwarding it to you presently for review. A logistics officer has been assigned to the operation and will answer to me for its duration.”

  “How inexplicably cooperative of Central Command,” du Rau said.

  Douglas looked amused. “There’s a slow-moving front crossing the island; the leading edge is tracking northeast, so the mid-strait rendezvous will need to be south of the brunt. The coordinates will be in the proposal.”

  Du Rau was not looking at Ingrid, but he was very aware of her piercing gaze and straight spine. “We will have to review the security measures before we agree,” he said.

  “Certainly, sir. That is expected and right.”

  “Will Verlac provide someone to stand as security in exchange?” du Rau asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Douglas said, and added with what du Rau was beginning to recognize as irony: “As this is a military operation taking place under the auspices of Ryswyck Division, we intend to exchange someone of suitable strategic and symbolic importance.”

  Not, in other words, someone from the High Council. Certainly not Alban Selkirk himself. Du Rau saw Ingrid give a tiny shake of her head. “I’ll be interested to see the details,” said du Rau.

  “There is also,” said Douglas, “the matter of the Berenian infantry currently being treated at Ryswyck for shrapnel injuries.”

  “You wish to negotiate for them at the same time?” du Rau said warily.

  “No, sir. I am working on whether it is logistically feasible to send them back with you.”

  Du Rau stared at him narrowly for a moment. It didn’t make much political sense for Douglas to offer his prisoners of war gratis, but strategically it made a great deal of sense. His soldiers would be a drain on Verlaker medical resources, and a liability once they began to make a good recovery; and their value as a bargaining chip would do little to offset that. And possibly, Douglas was well aware of the beady southern eyes watching for a misstep on either side of the strait. In any case, Ryswyckian courtesy here coincided with military prudence.

  “Let us see what develops, then,” said du Rau.

  Douglas took his leave, promising the proposal to follow. Du Rau looked at Ingrid. She said, “I do not see the wisdom in this, my lord.”

  Du Rau did not argue with her. He sat and looked at her until she spoke again.

  “And if they’re not even going to provide a hostage of your stature for security, then why not send someone else?” He waited, and she answered herself. “Because your message is not for Verlac but for us. Aren’t enough people aware that you do not fear them?”

  “Which them, the Verlakers or the court?” du Rau said.

  “I was not making a joke, Emmerich. I meant the Verlakers.”

  “I wasn’t joking either,” du Rau said. “And I am afraid. I am afraid that out of sheer stupidity we will all devolve into mutual annihilation. The only right and proper response to that is to take the risk personally.”

  She made a protesting gesture, but did not speak. Du Rau went on, quietly: “There is very little that can be trusted in this situation—not the Verlakers, not the fools in this court, not even, perhaps, my judgment.” He caught her pained look. “But this much I trust: your capacity to meet whatever comes next. It gives me a freer hand, Ingrid.”

  “I am not all steel,” she whispered, her eyes wet. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You haven’t,” he said. “You won’t.”

  ~*~

  “Douglas,” Stevens said, appalled, “you can’t.”

  “It’s her right,” Douglas said, staring out through the cracked pane at the mist-drowned tower quad. “This should be Speir’s mission. I’m not going to deny her.”

  “Did you not see the report that came through about her injuries? She’s got a leg full of dragon mine shrapnel. Would you ask Rose to get dressed in army greens and go stand hostage on a Berenian destroyer for eight hours?”

  “I saw the report,” Douglas said steadily. “I’m still going to give her right of refusal.”

  “She won’t refuse, dammit! You know she won’t. If your message finds her conscious she’ll drag herself off her hospital cot and go. Even if it kills her. You know that, Douglas.”

  Douglas knew. He didn’t answer. He had been doing his best to elide his thoughts about Speir’s injuries from direct attention, and Stevens wasn’t helping.

  “And if you offer her the mission and she’s not up to taking it, that will kill her.” Douglas knew that, too. Sensing Douglas’s distress, Stevens pressed the point. “You could kill her with those orders. Either way.”

  Douglas turned around. “I have already killed people with my orders, Carl.” His voice was low and pained in his own ears; he looked from Stevens where he stood by the conference table to Marag and Beathas, pale and heavy-eyed in their chairs. “Every soul in this division is dead on their feet—you, me, all of us. There are no more options. This is the last thing there is. I can’t shield Speir from that. And she wouldn’t thank me for trying.”

  Stevens knew he had lost the argument: he plowed all his fingers into his hair and pulled briefly, then dropped his hands and exhaled a marrow-ache sigh. Douglas had no pleasure in the victory. He came back to the table and rested his hands on the edge, among papers and tablets and books consulted and abandoned from hour to hour.

  “I have to tell you something else,” he said. “Ahrens is dead.”

  They looked at him,
mute. Douglas went on, as if hauling up words from a well of mourning.

  “He was one of the engineers on Selkirk’s missile project. When he heard that Barklay was running a mission across the strait, he insisted on being added to it. It seems he hoped that disrupting the invasion would save us from having to use those missiles. Nobody from Barklay’s mission survived; and if I understand du Rau aright, everything he knows about that weapons program—which, thankfully, isn’t enough to sabotage it—he got by interrogating Ahrens.” Douglas paused to breathe; the silence in the room was complete, broken only by Stevens subsiding slowly into his chair.

  “Of all the Ilonians mentioned in our conversations,” Douglas went on slowly, “Ahrens is the only one du Rau had anything good to say about. I’m including myself, by the way. I believe we must thank him for representing us properly across the strait.” He looked up. The table lamps, their light strong against the afternoon gloom, picked up trembling glints of tears in Marag’s and Beathas’s eyes. Stevens’s tears had spilled. He had both his hands curled together and pressed against his mouth, holding his composure. They were all looking at him, expectant in their grief, waiting for him to direct them. “Barklay got Ahrens to du Rau,” Douglas said. “Ahrens got du Rau to us. This is Ryswyck’s last act. I need you.”

  Beathas’s wet gaze was clear and level; she breathed herself straight in her chair. “What do you want us to do, Admiral?”

  “Call an assembly,” Douglas said.

  ~*~

  Speir lay awake in the field hospital tent, listening to the glazing rain outside and watching medics move in and out of doorways. Corporal Gill had kindly tucked a folded blanket under her head so that she could see over the points of her motionless feet beneath the covers. She was getting a hint of feeling back: a tingle at her tailbone that promised to radiate downward. That, and the dose of antitoxin serum the medic captain had given her, ought to have been encouraging. But for the first time in her life Speir did not have the spirit to be encouraged. She lay listlessly, indifferent to what she saw, her soul too tired even to sustain a wish that she had lost her life at the time she gave it over.