The Reformer g-4 Page 16

  Tenny's lower lip stuck out slightly. Adrian cursed himself silently; he should have framed that a little more tactfully. Casull nodded.

  "That is the question," he said. "Normally, no. The island is too close to the mainland, to the Confed armies, and to their fleet. The fleet's laid up in ordinary"-meaning stripped and hauled up in boat-sheds-"but they can put it to sea fairly quickly."

  "As sailors, they'd make good cowherds," Tenny observed. His father frowned.

  "True, but don't underestimate their numbers, or their discipline, or the way their infantry fights once they get on your deck-previous Kings of the Isles have done that, to their cost." Casull III, for instance, had paid with his life for doing exactly that. "With 'zieur Adrian's new weapons, we may have a chance of holding it."

  Adrian traced the narrow strait with a finger. "What's the depth, here, my lord King?"

  "Ah, you see the problem. Shallow-full of shifting sandbars. Impossible to interdict with warships, but fine for shallow-draft barges carrying assault troops."

  "They might try a causeway, then," Adrian said thoughtfully. "If they could round up enough peasants to dig."

  Casull winced slightly. "That would be even worse. Damn them, they're always trying to turn sea into land."

  "By the Lord of the Trident, they'll regret it this time," Esmond said confidently. "Most of Adrian's new weapons have the range to turn the straits into hell for them."

  "So we'll put them into the hands of the Shades." Tenny chuckled, licking his lips. "And I will be King in Preble."

  "Under me," Casull added dryly, and the Prince looked down. Patricide was an ancient tradition in the Isles. "By sending you, my son, I assure the men of Preble that they are to be free subjects, not a possession to be squeezed."

  "What about the city militia?" Esmond said. "There ought to be. . what, eight, ten thousand of them? In a city that size."

  Casull nodded. "They will not be involved initially," he said. "Not if our plan goes as expected. Then they will have no choice but to fall in with us, and fight for us."

  "Certainly, if the Confed thinks they were disloyal," Esmond said. "I take it, my lord, that the Strikers are to be the spearhead of this enterprise?" He bowed to Tenny. "Under your valiant son's direction."

  "Of course," Casull beamed. "And your brother will be with you, to see to the emplacement of the new weapons to defend our new city. We will follow with the fleet."

  The two Emeralds smiled and bowed to the King of the Isles. Adrian needed no voices from beyond the world to know exactly what the King was thinking: if the throw of the dice failed, he was out only one replaceable son and some Emerald mercenaries; if it succeeded, he had one of the richest cities in the Western Sea.

  That's how a King has to think, lad, Raj said. Adrian had an image of gray eyes, weary and amused. I never had to be that, for which I thank the Spirit of Man of the Stars.

  "When do we strike?" Esmond asked.

  "As soon as may be. With the fleet gathered, Confed spies will swarm here like flies to velipad shit, and this is a logical step. I will feed them a dozen contradictory stories-that way even if they learn the truth, it may drown in a storm of plausible lies-but better still to strike before they decide to reinforce all their coastal garrisons."

  Esmond nodded. "Then if my lords will permit, my brother and I will withdraw, to make our preparations. The Strikers will be ready to sail within three days."

  "My Lightning Band within a week," Adrian said. "I will need time to modify some equipment and gather others."

  * * *

  "You gave her what?" Esmond laughed, cracking a nut in his palm.

  "Well, it was what she wanted," Adrian said defensively.

  "Flowers, a hare, jewels-but you gave her a sword?"

  "Well, the one she had wasn't really very good quality," Adrian explained.

  He was tired; they both were, with the load of work they'd been doing. A light meal stood between their couches on a low table: cured fish, olives, oil, bread for dipping, watered wine. The room was plain whitewash with a pattern of leaves in blue around the upper edges, and a door gave out onto a garden full of lilacs. It might almost have been in Solinga, even the smell of the sea was familiar, if it weren't for a subtle wrongness in the noises, an undersmell of strange spices and rank lushness to the familiar reek of a port. Another table at the end of the room was littered with wax-covered board diptychs, scrolls, and scraps of reed-paper, models.

  Esmond pulled a piece off a long loaf of bread. "Well," he said, with malice aforethought and a brother's cruelty, "it was a good enough sword to gut Lord Sawtre very effectively. If you finally had to take up with a woman regularly, and with a Confed woman, you at least picked one with some unusual talents." He laughed. "At least she's not Audsley's wife-or Justiciar Demansk's daughter."

  His brother might not be a Scholar of the Grove, with an ageless machine and an ancient general's ghost at the back of his mind, but he was an Emerald and no fool-which was to say, a keen observer.

  "Wait a minute!" Esmond said, half-rising. "Shit among the Shades, she is Demansk's daughter-the one captured by pirates."

  "Shut up!" Adrian barked.

  Shocked, Esmond fell silent for a moment. Adrian rarely spoke roughly; this time he fought for a visible instant to control his temper, something rare enough to make his brother's eyes go wide.

  "You will not speak of that again," he said coldly.

  "But why?" Esmond said.

  "Because I don't want her to think I'm using her as some sort of angle against her father-which I'm not, by the way, and won't be."

  Esmond's blue eyes blinked in bewilderment. "But why, brother if-oh, no. Don't tell me you've been scratched by one of Gellerix's cats and caught a fever!"

  That was the slang term for being hit by love; any sensible Emerald regarded it as a form of infectious madness sent by the gods to plague mankind with suffering-the divinities could be remarkably petty and cruel, sometimes.

  Adrian looked down and toyed with a dried fig. "That's one way to put it. You might also say that I like and respect her," he snapped.

  "Adrian, my brother, please-think." Esmond stopped for a moment, and snorted. "Here I am, stealing your lines, like an actor. . but really, think, brother. At least there's no question of marr-oh, Gellerix!" he broke off at Adrian's expression.

  "Esmond, have you any conception of how dull most women's conversation is?" he snapped. "How dull most women are? It's not their fault, the gods know, most of them shut up all the time and uneducated, but-"

  He stopped at Esmond's expression of bafflement. Your Nanya was like a trembling dove, he thought with kindly exasperation. And the gods know, the Wodep in your soul would make that seem the sum of all womanhood to you. Me, I'm differently made, my brother.

  "She's-"

  A dangerous glance passed between them, and an unspoken message: You don't call her used goods and I won't say anything about Nanya, that's about it, Adrian thought.

  "Adrian," Esmond said slowly. "Demansk's daughter is going to be a Confed-not just by origins, she'll have been brought up on their old stories, walked past the death masks of Demansks who were Justiciars and Speakers back to when Vanbert was a mud-and-wattle village. How do you think she's going to feel when she finds out you're fighting to bring the Confederacy of Vanbert to the ground?"

  I should remind myself how smart Esmond is occasionally, Adrian thought, wincing. His brother didn't have the temperament for a Scholar, but he had at least as much raw brainpower as his younger sibling, and a tremendous ability to focus.

  "That's. . for the time it has to be faced," he said slowly. "Look, Esmond. . can't I have a few days? Just a few?"

  "Of course," Esmond said. His eyes grew slightly haunted. "I know how brief that can be."

  Feet clattered outside, and voices rang; one a high clear soprano. Helga Demansk swept in, wearing women's dress this time, a long blue robe with a fold of her mantle over her hair. That was tied back
with a ribbon, and twisted into plaits.

  "Adrian!" she said, handing her shopping basket to a maid. "It fits! Oh, hello, Esmond."

  "Helga," he said, half-rising and bowing his head. "What fits?"

  "The cuirass and helmet," she said. "They do good metalwork here, I've got to admit, even if they are pirate dogs." Adrian winced slightly, and looked around. "Oh, don't worry, Adrian," she went on. "They're proud of being pirates."

  "But not dogs," he said.

  "Are you going to tell me yet where this new expedition is headed?" she said, a green gleam in her eye. "Casull will have all the islands soon, at this rate."

  "Are you so eager to slay men, lady?" Esmond asked.

  This time Helga looked aside slightly. "Well, no," she said. "Not really. But it's. . exciting, you know what I mean?"

  "Unfortunately I do," Esmond agreed.

  Helga reached into the basket. "And look at what I found," she went on more brightly. "A copy of the War of the Thousand Ships. I kept myself sane partly by reciting big chunks of it from memory, but it's been so long since I had anything to read."

  Esmond laughed. "You and my brother were made for each other by the gods, lady. Even when we were running for our lives, two pack-velipads full of scrolls followed us."

  Helga chuckled, but scowled slightly. "That idiot Audsley got a lot of good men killed, from what I hear," she said. "Damned traitor. . and of course he got his head handed to him when he met. . Justiciar Demansk. Demansk is a real general, and he has the interests of the State at heart."

  correct, Center said. which is why with a high probability he would be hostile to our innovations. however, it would be advisable to gain a fuller psychostatistical profile of him-the subject helga demansk would be a valuable source of data.

  Shut the hell up, Adrian thought. He could feel Raj agreeing with him, an eerie nonverbal communication, like some ghostly equivalent of seeing expression on a man's face.

  "Sorry," Helga went on after a moment. "Sometimes I forget you're Emeralds."

  "Emeralds and Confeds are near-as-no-matter blood brothers here in the Isles," Adrian said lightly-which was true in one sense, and an outright lie in another.

  Helga met his eyes and smiled, and worries seemed to dissolve themselves in time sweeter than honey. After a moment Esmond cleared his throat and stood.

  "Well, I can tell when I'm the third wheel on a chariot," he said. "Tomorrow, then, brother."

  * * *

  "We're getting sort of close to the mainland, aren't we?" Helga said.

  "That is the mainland," Adrian replied.

  The galley had been under sail alone, one squat square sail driving the lean hull eastwards. Adrian stood on the quarterdeck, with his arm and cloak around the woman beside him; he'd been still, because if he was still all he need see was the frosted arch of stars above, the ghostly arcs of the moons, the smells of salt water and sweat and tar and the mingling of jasmine and clean healthy woman that was Helga. If he did not think, his mind need not crack and bleed. .

  "Sir. ." began the ship's captain; he was Casull's man, and they were not authorized to be anywhere but on the approaches to Preble.

  "Shut up, you," Simun said.

  The Islander skipper looked at him, and at the scores of Adrian's arquebusiers sprawled about the galley's deck, sleeping wrapped in their cloaks, throwing dice in the hollow of an upturned buckler, chewing hardtack and dried fruit, or simply sitting patiently on their haunches. His crew numbered roughly the same, though all but fifteen of them were oarsmen and sailors, tough hardy men and handy in a fight, but no match for soldiers with swords and light body armor. And from the flat dispassionate stare of the little underofficer, they'd be perfectly happy to slit his throat, throw the crews' bodies after his, and turn pirate if this Emerald gave the word. They were his men, not the King's.

  "Your orders, sir?" he said to Adrian.

  "Beach the ship lightly," he said, then looked ahead. "There's shallow shelving water and soft sand there-just touch her."

  The captain shivered and made a covert sign with his fingers. Those eyes. . They're not like those of other men. As if demons or spirits-or gods? — were looking out of them. Telling him things, that's what the tales say. He's not canny.

  He turned to give his orders to the steersmen and sailing master. The sail and yard came down with a muted thump and were furled; below the oarsmen stirred in sleepy protest. There was a yelp or two as the bosun's rope-end persuaders swung, and then the oars came rattling out, poised, dipped down into the dark star-reflecting water and bit. The ship turned towards the black line of the shore, where low waves and white foam and pale sand made a line in the night. It was calm water, and the ship was a raider, built for 'longshore work. Behind him the sorcerer was talking with his woman in Confed, a language the captain knew only a few words of.

  "Adrian," Helga said. "What's going on?"

  The Emerald drew a deep breath. "I didn't tell you where we were bound," he said. "Because I didn't want to spoil things more than. . earlier than I had to."

  "You're bound to attack Confederacy territory," she said, her voice quiet and level as her eyes.

  "Yes," Adrian said.

  "Preble? It's the logical target and weakly held."

  Adrian felt a knife twist deeper. This woman has brains, he thought. Some of the Scholars of the Grove held that the only true love was between man and youth, because only then could there be a meeting of minds and not merely of bodies. He'd admitted the theoretical force of the argument, but not anymore, not anymore. .

  "Yes."

  "Adrian. ." She stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder. He could barely feel it through the shoulderpiece of his corselet, but a heat seemed to gather beneath.

  "Adrian, don't do it. You'll be killed, you can't understand even if you win at first, the Confederacy always comes back in the end, please, don't throw yourself away-"

  She's thinking of me, he realized with a glow of wonder. He shook his head and went on:

  "I've. . got to back my brother. And I'm not going to ask you to fight against your country. . possibly against your father's own troops."

  Shock turned Helga's face white. "You knew?"

  "You favor him. And I knew about the raid." His hand came down on hers, where it rested on the bronze of the armor. "Helga. . I didn't give a damn. Don't now."

  She looked at him for a long slow moment. "I believe you," she said. "And you're not sending me back now as a gift to him?"

  His mouth quirked. "Your father is notoriously patriotic. Who was that ancient Confed general, the one who executed his own sons when they proposed surrender. .?"

  "Louis deVille," she said automatically. "That was in the war of King Peter."

  The one who came up with the phrase Petric Victory, a scholar's corner of Adrian's mind remembered. That was long before the Confed conquest of the Emerald lands, when an Emerald-or half-Emerald-general could still invade there himself. But he'd won no concessions, although he'd carried half a dozen bloody fields against the nascent Confederation's army. The problem was that they could replace the men, and he couldn't.

  "Well, if deVille was ready to sacrifice his sons, I think your father-much though he must love you-will sacrifice a daughter for Preble. I'm not going to be buying any favors from him with you."

  Her eyes searched his. "How well you must know him," she said. "Is there nothing you don't know?"

  "I don't know how to come by what I want most in the world and still keep my honor," he said.

  The tears that glittered in her eyes stayed unshed; he'd found the one argument that would weigh heaviest with someone raised in the household of a Confed noble of antique virtue. The fact that it's the miserable truth is sort of a bonus, I suppose.

  The cry from the bow was soft but carrying. "She shelves."

  "Avast oars!" the captain called. "Brace for grounding!"

  Adrian and Helga did, with an arm around each other as well as a grip on the rig
ging. The ship surged softly, and half a dozen crewmen dropped over the bow to hold her steady; the water was to their waists. For all its length and wicked bronze-sheathed ram the galley was absurdly light, a racing shell of thin pine planking.

  The man and woman walked to the bow, hand-in-hand, in silence. Adrian vaulted over into the cold water, caught Helga by the waist and lifted her down. She was a solid armful, with the light corselet on her and the rest of her kit. Arquebusiers of the Lightning Band handed down the servant he'd bought her in Chalice, and a light duffel.

  "There's enough here to see you safely to Grand Harbor, and the Confed garrison there," he said, tucking a soft heavy purse of chamois leather into her belt pouch. "And. ."

  "And?" she asked, chin up.

  "And I may not be the Confederacy's enemy forever," he said in a rush. "When-if-that happens, may I come to call?"

  She smiled with a courage that wrenched at his heart. "Yes," she said. "I will so petition my father." A moment's urchin grin. "I told you what my marriage prospects are, didn't I?" Solemnly: "Stay alive, Adrian."

  "I'll do my best. Yes, best I go. Gods go with you."

  He watched the two figures walk up the beach, towards the tree-lined trail a hundred yards inland; it shone white in the moonlight, a wanderer's ribbon across the moor that bordered the sea here. Then he turned and accepted a hand; others boosted him back to the deck. He stood there, unspeaking, while the crew pushed off and the oars bit, backing water and turning the galley's prow to the west.

  * * *

  Esmond Gellert decided that the waiting was the hardest part.

  The Briny Kettle was no warship, no sleek galley lavishly equipped with oars. She was a tub, a merchantman that carried grain and fish and oil and general cargo along the western coasts, out to the Islands, down south to the barbarian country. The only oars she had were half a dozen sweeps on a side, used only for working in and out of awkward ports. For the rest she was a deep-bellied teardrop, with a swan's head curving up over the quarterdeck and steering oars at the rear, one tall mast in the center, and bluff-cheeked bows up front. At five hundred tons she was quite large, and that and her high sides and substantial crew, plus a couple of dart-casters, was usually enough to discourage pirates. Longshore raiding paid better anyway, usually.