209 - The favour agreed on in conversation

Annike and I exchanged stories of what the Arkans had done to us, though mine was more about Yeola-e. She didn’t look like the sort of person you play for pity to. Still, she patted my hand like a mother when I was done, and said, “Your whole heart is in this war. It truly will be all or nothing for you.” Then, her eyes turning back into the clawprince’s: “Which makes you a good bet.”

She would speak with her son Vyasiv, who had more means, she said. She warned me away from three people who could not be trusted, and spoke of others whose hate for Arko was incorruptibly pure. “If you wish,” she said, “I shall write on your behalf to Mikhail called Farsight.” The name I recalled clearly. He was as close as the Praetanu had to a leader, one of the wealthiest people in the city. The door was open.

“What does Mikhail have against Arkans?” I asked her.

“The same thing all Brahvnikians down to the house-mice do, which you know, and a personal matter, more recently. Zingas Mikhail has four beautiful daughters, of whom he is immensely proud and dearly fond, in the strict way of old-house Zak, you understand. Are you familiar with the Thanish goatherd song?”

I had to say no. “Well… it is an insult-song,” she said. “There is a verse… well, you aren’t faint of heart, so I need not paraphrase, just translate. ‘Your daughter’s run away to Yeola-e; was her father’s love too close?’”

I understood; one who rapes not only a child, but his own. “Nothing to an Arkan, of course, but to a Zak, those are words that can only be overstruck in red,” Annike said. “Edremmas Forin, one of our Arkan members, sang it to Mikhail… in council.”

Having watched them in session, I could imagine it: the stunned silence falling over the ancient oaken chamber, the Zak lord, who’d had courtly manners bred into his family for a millennium, freezing as if run through. How do Arkans expect to stay powerful in the world, I thought, doing such things?

“Knowing what I know of Brahvnikian customs,” I said, “I would have thought that would bring a challenge.”

“It did. Edremmas, who is soft and fat, designated a champion. Mikhail would accept only Edremmas himself. He called him a coward to his face, but the Arkan just shrugged it off. Stalemate.” The Zak must be seething, I saw, frustrated of revenge that way. No doubt he was looking for another.

My appointment with him was made for the next morning; people seemed to understand that I was in a hurry, as the precious days of summer passed. I could feel every one turn, in the pit of my stomach. But while I was meeting with prominent Brahvnikians to shake them down, Esora-e, Krero and the others were recruiting, and this was going well already, as they put out the word quietly in the Knotted Worm and places of that ilk.

It was risky, with Arkan spies abounding, but our prospective hirelings were our best protection. Brahvniki was a port, so the battle of Haiu Menshir was common knowledge, showing me to be the thing that sell-swords like the most, aside from reliable payments: a commander likely to lead them to victory rather than death. They began signing on in scores, then hundreds.

Mikhail’s house was next to the Kreml, the citadel and palace where the Praetanu sits. His house was a small palace in itself, with walls and sentries and stonework carved F’talezonian style, like lace. At the main gate, which had brass hinges with spars a forearm long and polished to a fire-gleam, I spoke the password I’d been given, and we were let in, and had to speak the password three more times at various torch-lit gates and portals, the last one of which I went through alone.

Past that door, I was met by a dark-eyed girl with long dark hair who I would have thought was eight or nine by her height, but had the shape and manners of a fourteen or fifteen-year-old. One of the beloved daughters, I saw. She led me in by the hand, which I saw was a formal gesture of hospitality, through a maze of ornate wood-carved passages and stairways, the touch of her tiny fingers elegantly tender on mine. “We’ve never had a king visit before,” she said, in a way that showed that it was nothing untoward nonetheless.

Deeper in—the innermost rooms seemed to be underground—everything became subtly smaller, built for the short race that Zak are, so I had to duck first under lintels and then under ceilings.

Finally we came to a door made of tiny glass panes, sparkling like crystals, in the pattern of a phoenix rising from flames. I had to duck my head and bend my knees to get through it. Beyond in a room full of books and curios lit by a bright fire, waited Mikhail.

I remembered his face, a little. He was sitting in a velvet chair, but I guessed his head would come up to my collar-bone, if that. Edremmas, being Aitzas, was probably tall; such a challenge takes a certain courage. There was that in the Zak’s wide jaw and piercing black eyes that you would not want to cross.

“Welcome, young semanakraseye; let me look at you,” he said, making me feeling like a child in front of a visiting great-uncle, being measured, only I was too big and gawky instead of too small.

He was not one for long pleasantries; he shared the salt almost as soon as I’d sat down. “So,” he said. “Your nation’s in ruins, your people nine out of ten in chains, you have nothing but loans and need more; I have money, want more, hate Arkans and feel they have too much power in this corner of the world. I am clear one where we both stand, yes?”

I had to smile. I always liked bluntness. “I wouldn’t even have loans if I had nothing else, Teik Mikhail,” I said. The Zak style for addressing an equal seemed right here. “Not things you can count in your ledger-book, but they win wars. The funds I acquired while escaping from Arko, the allies I have united, the mercenaries I am already hiring, the victories I’ve either had a hand in or led, my ability, and the faith people have in me because of it.”

“But weren’t you in the House of Integrity in Haiuroru for half a year, rather recently?” he said, his bright black eyes unwavering.

“I was,” I said, fixing them with mine. “Now, as you can see, I am not.”

That was only the beginning. He got my full story out of me by grilling me like a tutor examining a student, and I saw it was best to let him. He had done his homework too, knowing the names of my war-teachers and friends and even the slaver Daisas. He showed nothing, not smile nor frown, to let me know what impression I was making.

When he knew all he wanted to, he said, “The Benaiat has loaned you twelve thousand at five per cent, and Vyasiv Gar’s Child fifteen hundred at seven. I generally do joint ventures, not loans, and once swore I’d never loan for under ten, but this is a special matter. I’ll give you five thousand at seven. But that is predicated on getting the alliances on paper which aren’t already. I am a businessman, not a politician like the Benaiat, or impulsive like Vyasiv. I haven’t got where I am by taking foolish risks.

“Further, I want a favour. I know you are not above arranging an assassination, semanakraseye, if the ultimate benefit accrues to Yeola-e.”

I didn’t need to ask who. “The daughter of yours I met seems thriving,” I said, running one finger along the arm of my chair to show him my hands weren’t shaking. “That is too precious a bond for anyone to blaspheme.”

I saw the first trace of feeling yet in his eyes. Part of it was resentment that I even knew; that had been the worst of it, that it was so public. “Five at seven contingent on alliances is certainly a fair loan,” I said. “But assassinations are generally done for flat fees, not loans.”

“Take it or leave it,” he said, just like that.

I sat back to think, and inwardly smooth my own ruffled feathers. “I know nothing of Edremmas,” I said, “except his name and that he is no noble and that he is likely to guard himself well. How would I found out about his habits, his house, where he goes, what sort of an escort he takes?”

No great surprise, he had a dossier, much of which, fortunately, was in Enchian. As I sat poring over it, wondering whether the Worm was the best place to hire assassins as well as mercenaries, he suddenly said, “Shchevenga, you killed Inkrajen with your own hand, didn’t you, when you were only fifteen? That would prove something… I’ll make it eight thousand at seven if you do it yourself.”

I drew myself up, looking at him hard, and realizing I’d been hoping for a chance to. The Zak have a word, zight, meaning face or pride, and it is an integral part of all dealings. “I don’t think so, Teik Mikhail.”

“You doubt you are able?” He leaned forward, a grin playing on his lips. Dealing was his life, I saw, as fighting is a warrior’s.

The opening I’d left purposely, as a warrior does. “No,” I said. “Of course I could. But when I killed Inkrajen, I was not yet semanakraseye. You are thinking I cannot afford to have zight; but in truth I can’t afford not to have it.” His eyes showed agreement to that. “It’s a matter of personal risk, too; I carry all my people’s hopes now, though of course that cannot preclude risk entirely. But, if you don’t mind me saying so, I’m worth more than three thousand ankaryel at seven per cent annually.” I let him chew on that for a bit, which he did impassively, then added, “For three as a flat fee, as well as the five at seven, I’ll do it.”

A smile flashed across his face, the kind of smile that you can tell means the person likes you. “It would be done where I could witness it myself,” he said. “Not that I don’t trust you, semanakraseye…”

We had a deal, it seemed, so I smiled and said, “Not to worry, I understand. You want to see him die.” It needed only the hand-clasp, the papers that said only “the favour agreed on in conversation,” and the Saekrberk. Krero was going to love me for this.

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[AN: character chat reminder]

Chevenga is going to haunt the chatbox at the new site starting tomorrow at 2 p.m. EST... at age 29, at the end of asa kraiya, older and wiser than he is in PA right now. If you have not yet read ak, or all of it, warning -- there might be spoilers. Chatbox and full instructions here. Hope to see you there!

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208 - Pleasant conversation

“Kyash on my face,” said Krero, when I came up on deck next morning as we sailed downriver. “Can everybody on this Earthsphere just walk under my nose and get hold of you whenever they want?”

“Give them credit, and be happy that they’re ours. It was very well-thought-out and executed,” I said.

“I’m not ten-tenths convinced they’re ours. What if they had a slow poison on that letter that causes a death that looks like some illness so that we’d never suspect?”

“When I talk to the summit person at home, I’ll ask if she—he?—has received their report; that’ll make it for sure.”

“You could be dead then! Kyashin child-raping three-dicked five-cunted horse that I rode sideways in on, I pity the poor slob you choose to protect you all the time.”

“You don’t want the position, then? I was thinking of appointing you.”

He stared at me with such a mixed look of horror and temptation on his face, I had to laugh, even though my head was thick with being drugged the day before, and the ship-heaving, slight though it was, wasn’t helping. “You’re joking, right?” he said. “I’d do my best, rip my heart out of my chest with an Arkan eating-spoon to save your life, but there has got to be someone else better at it than I am...”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

“What I am most curious about,” said Sach, thoughtfully, “is whether we’re allied with the Lakans.” My parents and several others chalked that.

“Of course we are,” I said. “You doubted we would be?” I told them how, and several doubled over with hands over their faces, or made little aigh noises.

We came into Brahvniki in the dead of night. The Yeoli embassy there had never been large, since Selina is so close anyway, but it was no more; they’d left town after one of their staff had been killed, and his head left on the doorstep, with “slaves of Arko” written in Arkan in his blood on the threshold. The murderer had never been caught. I learned this from Krena. But she knew a way into the back of the Benai Island, for dealing with Ivahn. It was raining, a dead-straight hard fall like dark curtains hiding us, and soaking us all to the bones.

At the door I told the sleepy-eyed Vra in his red robe, “Tell the Benaiat his long-lost grandson Vik, who had him forward a letter or two for him from Arko, is visiting. I know he will get up for that.” It was good not to be called precious darling. In a short time we were shown in. I wondered why we were being housed in a cellar, which had once been used for tanning hides; but, as I said to one or two who grumbled, if we wanted to complain to the innkeeper, we’d better move to paid lodgings.

Ivahn embraced me as if I really were his long-lost grandson. With Arko controlling Selina, things were worse in Brahvniki, he told me; there were never less than five red-sailed ships in the harbour, fully-manned, and the marines walked the streets freely with unbounded weapons. Two Arkans had worked their way onto the Praetanu, acting with typical arrogance, and it was not even secret that they had Imperial backing and were taking Kurkas’s orders.

Ivahn looked older, wearier, with limbs thinned, and motions slower and more careful. He kept coughing wetly, which I didn’t like to hear. When I asked after his health, he said, “It’s well enough,” and wouldn’t say more.

“I know you are not just here to pass through,” he said, once we’d shared the salt, which means getting down to business in the Brahvnikian and Zak world. “How much do you need?”

“One of my alliances is conditional on my hiring seven thousand mercenaries,” I said. “Tell the truth, I’d rather have ten.” I told him who my allies were, to let him know I had the makings of a goodly-sized army, and gave him my well-practiced recounting of the battles.

“I can give you a start to those sell-swords,” he said. “I can also direct you to some other citizens of note.” Luckily, he’d just had a large sum deposited by some adventurers who’d crossed the great western ocean. Twelve thousand gold ankaryel and five thousand sword blanks, for five per cent yearly, we agreed to. I kissed his hands and we drank Saekrberk on it, his toast being, “May the taste be slightly steely.” His practice was to hide sword-blanks in Saekrberk casks.

The next day, I sent my mothers and several of the guards into the city to have a demarchic shirt tailored, and a signet carved, using the imprint from a letter I’d sent Ivahn from Vae Arahi. “Best you look the part, speaking to whom you’re going to speaking to,” Ivahn said. Just as we were starting to sign off the loan papers, his assistant, Stevahn, rushed into the office. “Benaiat, the inspector’s on the ferry.”

His hands moved faster than I thought they could, seizing up papers, locking them away in walnut chests. “Honey-Giving One,” he swore under his breath. “Why now? You must be hidden, Shchevenga, go with her.”

My stomach was suddenly creeping. I didn’t move. “The inspector?”

He made a brush-off gesture, saying, “It’s no trouble, lad, but you must go.” There was more annoyance in his brown eyes than fear, but perhaps he was hiding it. “If I and my people are in some kind of danger, my friend,” I said as Stevahn pulled on my arm, “I think I should know.”

Ivahn let out a rushing sigh, his mouth pursed as if he had something sour in it. “Yes, yes, of course you should, I’m sorry. Stevahn, tell him as you’re going.”

She hurried me through the onion-arched corridors with their sweet air, from scent permeated into the stone. “The Arkan embassy reserves the right to come into the precinct, to see, as they say, that nothing is, em, amiss.” I set my teeth as we walked. In my heart, I had known. “You know how it is, semanakraseye; we have our hireling guard, but they could have twenty ships here in three days, from Selina. Don’t worry, they suspect nothing. They haven’t a hope of not being outwitted by the Benaiat, as you can imagine.”

No wonder we were sleeping the cellar. But why had he tried to hide it from me? Not to get the better of me in bargaining; we’d hardly bargained. Not to weaken my own hope? He couldn’t think so little of me and still lend me all that. I thought of his deep-wrinkled face, the joy dimmed in those peaked bird-eyes. No; it was his hope that needed strengthening.

I asked Stevahn where in the Benai the inspector would go. “Oh, it’s fairly random,” she said. “Always through the barrels, though; he finds our distillate growing on him.” She chuckled. Even to Arkans, the monks of the Bear are generous. The liqueur is a sacrament, to be proselytized and do its good work whatever way.

I don’t think Stevahn wondered about the favour I asked—to lend us a store of red robes as disguises—being in too much of a hurry. Such an Arkan would never descend to visit our cellar, if Ivahn even let him know it existed. I put one on. From my month away here, I still knew the corridors well enough to find the main barrel-store. I set to sweeping its floor with monkish devotion.

I knew when they were coming by weapon-sense; the Arkan wore a sword, two daggers and, as I saw when they came into view, full armour, as if someone was going to attack him in the Benaiat, and none of the blades were peace-bonded, sure enough. Ivahn and Stevahn were conducting him personally, in a way that suggested they always did.

I saw the nature of the deception right away. In a reedy, obsequious drone, Ivahn prattled on endlessly, about every trivial Benai detail as if it were all-important, forgetting things and losing his train of thought now and then (with Stevahn reminding and prompting him in a long-suffering tone), and laying on flattery with a trowel whenever the Arkan seemed annoyed.

The blue eyes glazed over, the mouth yawned; I could see him thinking, “How did I ever land this post? If he says ‘Excuse me for being tedious’ one more time…” His fill of Saekrberk he clearly considered fair payment for wasting his time with this dotard who couldn’t find his behind with two hands and a map, let alone pose any sort of threat to Arko. Stevahn was right; the Arkan didn’t stand a chance.

But it wasn’t without price. Ivahn had to bear the remarks, the contemptuous angle of the nose, the boorish spitting on the floor. Here is some of the weight, I thought, that’s bent those shoulders.

While the Arkan was upending his cup yet again, his back to me, Ivahn took a quick glance, to see who this Vra was who wasn’t staying clear as he ought to be. I lifted my head just enough to show him my face, and winked. The string of unctuous words broke for a moment, adroitly changing into a clearing of the throat. The inspector must have a boot-leather throat, for he drank still more, and I did the Arkan prayer-gesture of two hands to the temples, and turned it into wiggling ass-ears. Ivahn sputtered, changing it into a coughing fit.

“You peach-chinned pup!” he said, when the inspector had staggered back onto the ferry and I was back in Ivahn’s office to finish signing. “No wonder the things that befall you befall you. And I just quartered my bank to you…”

“Did I get caught?” I said. “I know how not to. What were the chances, really, that he’d imagine it was me under that robe?”

He gave me a dark look, but said, “Well, it’s good to see the boy still in you, after all you’ve been through, nonetheless. Just be careful.” The smile in his voice brought back old days, just what I’d hoped for.

He’d been thinking of a particular Brahvnikian who might help me. Annike, called Lady Gar, had been on the Praetanu, but was no longer, it seemed, having been ruined by pirates burning her ships. “Pirates under red sails, flying the eagle,” said Ivahn. “It was one of our dear Arkans who replaced her. She has little to lend, but she is better connected to those antipathetic to Arko than I. I mean to invite her to tea tonight.” He fingered the elbow of my shirt, which had become a little worn. “Dealing with these people, you’d better look like a king, not a reformed gladiator, with nothing shining but your teeth.” I told him I had someone on it already.

No one will do as well shopping for you as your mothers, at least if you no longer have a Skorsas in your life. They’d ordered me a demarchic shirt that would be ready by dinner, and taken the letter to a Zak stone-carver who didn’t know a word of Enchian, let alone what a demarchic signet might mean; that would take three days, though, so I’d have to finish signing whatever I signed then. Some part of me felt like an actor, rushed onstage with quickly-done face-paint and hardly knowing my lines, to play the lead on which the whole production depends. Still, I’d done well so far.

Annike had been a self-made clawprince. Even with sparse jewelry and satin Brahvnikians pantaloons that looked old-style, she had a feeling of consequence about her. Her eyes were hard and measuring, the kind that miss nothing, being too honest with herself; her handclasp was firm and cool. Her manners were polished as an ancient sword, of course. But she was refreshingly blunt, once we were alone and had shared the salt. “So, here you are, young Shchevenga, a king without a country.”

“Who means to take it back,” I answered, not too quickly, drawing myself up just slightly. “As I hardly need say.”

She smiled. “And here am I, a clawprince without a fortune. Whatever were we introduced for, except pleasant conversation?”

I laughed. If bitter humour has any purpose other than to ease bitterness, it is to draw the aggrieved together. “Ivahn was struck, I think, by what we have in common,” I said, “having lost by the same agency.”

“Indeed,” she said, her eyes, which were a steely-grey that reminded me of Emao-e’s, hardening.

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[AN: fan art]

PA and EC reader Blue did a colour drawing of Minis -- on faib skates and with the ubiquitous katzerik -- which can be seen here. (Click on the pic for full size.)

If you happen to create any fan art relating to my or Shirley's Fifth Millennium works, I'd be delighted to post it in the gallery section of the new site (with permission and, of course, credit), once it's all up and running. Artistically-talented readers should know, we writers are tickled pink by such works. We know how our characters, settings, scenes, etc. look in our own minds but it's always fascinating to see how they look in someone else's.




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207 - I cannot tell a lie

I should have been able to twist and elbow out of this in one move, but my body somehow could not do it with enough force, and he kept his grip. “Hold him until it takes full effect,” someone else said, another stunning Yeoli woman, who spoke as if she’d been born in Tinga-e or thereabouts. She looked carefully into my eyes. “I’ll tell you when it has.” All-Spirit… helpless again… how… I struggled, but could not will enough strength.

Takes full effect… I knew the feeling, as it did. Accedence. But how, when I hadn’t been darted? Everything began retreating to the familiar distance. When I’d weakened enough to go still, she stroked my brow, as if she were comforting me. “Semanakraseye, we are sorry, but we had to do this; we knew you’d never agree to what we were ordered to do, since you cannot know who we are. Good, he’s under, let’s take him.” Always you get talked about in your hearing, when you are helpless.

There was a slave’s passage leading from the anteroom. With firm grips on my wrists they led me out of the sumptuous velvet-walled ostensible palace to the dusty, rough-hewn second palace within it. “You’re safe, semanakraseye, don’t worry, we just have to clear you, that’s all, then we’ll bring you right back, we are Ikal, second Fire come if I lie,” the woman kept saying, even after the man said, “Kai, it’s not going to help. He’s not believing a word.” That wasn’t entirely true; my mind was too Acceded to believe or disbelieve anything.

They took me further and further downstairs, now and then pulling me into a dark corner or turn when some other slave was passing. The air grew cooler, and more and more damp, like inside of a cave. “Hurry,” the woman said. “It’s a short dose, and we have to have him tied good and tight before it wears off… sorry, semanakraseye, sorry. You cannot feel safe, but you are.” Would Arkan imposters be so solicitous? Perhaps, if they had some reason.

We came to what must be a forgotten store-room. There was an old statue with rolled up carpets tossed over its shoulders next to a barrel of faded banners, and a heap of ancient faded cushions with half their mirror-chips torn off and stuffing poking out. Everything wore a good finger-width of dust; I heard water dripping somewhere. They unslung Chirel from my shoulder, slave-tied my arms, bound my ankles tight together, and made me lie down on a bed out of cushions and old curtains.

“We’d just have grabbed you, not given you Accedence, except that you’re you,” the woman they called Kai said. “You’d have made little pieces out of us. But it will wear off; we have to let it before we give you the truth-drug. We’re sorry we’ve bound you, too, but it’s in case you don’t believe us. It’s only a few questions we have to ask you. It’ll only be a moment. Take a deep breath.” I did. “Keep taking deep breaths; it goes faster that way.” I found it did. No one had taught me that trick in Arko.

They kept touching me, hands on my shoulders or my hands, as if to reassure, and they touched like Yeolis. When the drug was worn off enough that I could speak, I said, “I’d believe you are Ikal, except that it seems too good to be true.”

“Aigh,” said one of the men. “You went through such kyash… you are not in Arko, Chevenga, that you can know!” Kai took my face between her hands tenderly, her own face anguished. “All-Spirit… you will know… what I would give to make you know now.” I saw one of the men open the box and lift the vein-needle, to examine it in the light of his lamp.

They seemed so Yeoli, I spoke to them as if they were. “How did you Accede me?”

“An Arkan method,” Kai said. “It was one of two substances on the paper that Vaen handed you. We have someone else with her, so she’s all right. The other is one that instantly opens up the pores of the skin, allowing whatever it touches to enter. Did you get a taste like oysters on the back of your tongue?”

“All-Spirit,” I whispered. “An Arkan method I have not heard of. I thought I knew them all. She’s all right?” Something made me ask. “What does that mean?”

“To hand you the letter herself so you wouldn’t suspect, she had to take a dose too.”

Somehow that made me believe they were Ikal more than anything else; not just that one of them would do this, but that the rest would tell me she was all right.

The vein in the crook of my arm was covered by rope, of course, as were those in my ankles and wrists, so they decided to use the one on the back of my shield-hand, taking a grip on my fingers hard enough to hurt, in case I squirmed. The needle felt like it was going into my heart. “There. Relax, Chevenga. We’ll be done fastest if you don’t fight it. Lie to us, how old are you?”

“I cannot tell a lie,” I said. “Thirty-one.” The man who’d grabbed me let out a snort of laughter, until the others shot him a look.

“Are you comfortable?”

“No. That’s the truth, though.” They did their best with the cushions.

“Lie to us, what… gender are you?”

“Three-penised hermaphrodite.” They must have dreary lives as spy-slaves; the least I could do was make them laugh. This time Kai did too, a tight thin giggle.

They waited, and I began to feel the drug. It took me right back to Arko. Triadas’s voice would be next, extracting from me a thousand Yeoli deaths. “Kyash, he’s shaking,” the other man, who had his hand on my shoulder, said. Kai put her hand on my chest, just holding. I did not want to cry in front of them, in case they were not Ikal, but the drug itself undid me as it does, and I was soon blubbering like a child. Kai took me in her arms as if I was one, and they all talked, saying, “It’s all right, it’s not what it was, it won’t be like it was, we swear, Chevenga, semanakraseye, we’re sorry, it’s all right, you’re safe, it’s all right.” In time, the drug itself took away the pain, or at least the tears.

“Lie to us, what’s your na—?”

“No, don’t ask him that, it’ll be like when he was scraped,” one of the men said. “What’s your oldest child’s name?”

I could still lie, but it was harder. “Klai... me... ra.”

They waited, and Kai took my head onto her lap, and stroked my hair, like a mother with a sick child. These things felt huge, now, like the blessings of a Goddess. “You’re safe.” Their voices reached deeper, making me unable to disbelieve it. “You are safe, Chevenga. Lie to us... what is your shadow father’s name?”

“Te...” I was going to say “Tennunga,” but my tongue tripped over the lie and flowed into the truth. “Esora-e Mangu.”

“A little longer, just to be absolutely sure.” They waited again, in a world that was all stillness and silence inside my skull, between the drops of water, dripping somewhere, each like a ping of a silver bell, and the shifts and twitchings of their hands, tense on me. “Now, he’s there, let’s untie him.” They rubbed me gently where the ropes had been. I couldn’t even say thank you.

“Chevenga, have the Arkans managed to turn you?” Kai asked.

“No.”

“So you have not changed your loyalties from Yeola-e to Arko?”

“No.”

“Even slightly?”

“No.”

“Did they try to turn you?”

“No.” Bribing or threatening me into betraying my people, Kurkas apparently hadn’t thought of; maybe he’d somehow known it would be futile.

“Have the Arkans instilled any secret ideas in your mind that could harm Yeola-e?” My mind couldn’t answer that, so my tongue stayed silent. “Why didn’t you answer that?”

“I don’t know the answer.” I’d been cured of them, but, if what Alchaen had written in the recommendations was true, not entirely, and Yeola-e could possibly come to harm because of that. I meant to explain when the drug wore off, but Kai was skilled enough at questioning to get this out of me, and also that the purpose had been to torture me.

“Is there any information you have that Ikal should know that we haven’t asked you?”

“Yes.” It should go into the record what secrets I had given up under truth-drug in Arko, so a full accounting could be made. The part of me that could feel anything felt sick, knowing that included my foreknowledge. It might all come out.

“What kind of information?”

“What I told them under truth-drug.”

“We should leave that for the full debriefing the summit-person and the generals are going to want when he gets home,” said Kai. “Chevenga, you know the spirit of what we are asking, our intent; in that spirit, is there anything else we should know?”

“No.”

“We’re done then,” said Kai. “Just rest, Chevenga. We’re sorry, again. He’s got another two beads of the effect to go, but I still say we should take him back to his guards, even if that means they see us; they’re going to be leaving town soon anyway, and if they figure out he’s not just in a long negotiation with the king, but missing, it could be quite the incident.”

“I’m just glad we have this drug now,” said the man who’d grabbed me. “I was having waking nightmares about having to beat the kyash out of my sema—”

The other two hissed him quiet, and Kai snapped, “Shut up, moron—right in front of him while he’s under, you child-raping idiot!” He made fast and contrite apologies. Try to beat the kyash out of me with my hands untied, or even one of them, I wanted to say.

They had to half-carry me, which made it harder for them to fade when other slaves were going by, but they managed it. I wondered what they’d have done, if I’d answered that the Arkans had turned me. Killed me, I doubted; kept me captive and taken me home some other way? Taken me back to Krero and questioned me again in front of him while I was still under? I will never know.

Krero and Sach had been standing with the Lakan pair of guards outside the anteroom door to wait for me, while the rest of my escort had been shown to a parlour to be served refreshments as they waited. There was a slave-door that led right into the parlour. I could not have asked for better work from my guards; Kai barely had a chance to say, “We’re friends, Ikal, he’s truth—” before the three were all pinned against walls with sword-tips at their throats, and I was in the arms of my shadow-father.

“Kyash, he’s stunned… or drugged!” He lowered me into a chair and started feeling my head over. “Love, talk to me, which is it?” Evechera ran for Krero and Sach. “Drugged,” I said. Now I was certain they were Ikal, and I had been safe all along, I was not capable of speaking for them unasked.

“We had orders from the summit-person of Ikal, clear the semanakraseye before he even gets home,” Kai said, with admirable calm for someone at swordspoint. “Because of how long he was there, and that he was tortured. We’ve had people trying to follow him all the way from Thenai, but he keeps moving too cursed fast. We knew we’d be in guise and he wouldn’t know us so he’d never agree…” I’m all right, I’m all right, it’s fine, I said over and over in my mind, as if I could get the words out of my mouth by sheer will. Stand down! “He’s truth-drugged,” she said. “He’s cleared.”

“Of course he’s kevyalin cleared!” my shadow-father roared. “If this kyash is true… Chevenga, what’s the drug, is this true, is it truth-drug?”

“Yes,” I said. What she says is true, ask me!

“Ask him if I’m speaking true,” said Kai.

Krero was back now. “If it’s even kyashin truth-drug he’s full of—what if it’s Accedence and he’s just telling us what they told him to?” No, no, it’s true, it’s truth-drug! “Cheng, did they give you Accedence?”

“Yes.” No! Aigh! That was earlier, not now, now it’s truth-drug, stand down!

“We did, so we could take him to where we could truth-drug him,” Kai said, keeping her calm like a good Ikal operative, but going a little pale in the cheeks. “Please ask him if that is true.” Yes! Ask me! Ask me!

“We may just have to wait until whatever it is wears off,” said Evechera. That’s two fikken beads, are you going to hold them at swordspoint that whole time?

“If whatever it is doesn’t kill him!” Krero said. “These people speak and act like Yeolis; that doesn’t mean they are! All-Spirit… we should get him down to Kaninjer.” Heart’s brother, can you quickly learn the trick of truth-drug questioning and talk to me?

“If they meant to kill him, they wouldn’t have brought him back and allowed themselves to get into our hands,” said Sachara, sensibly. “None of them are even armed. Cheng, the drug that’s affecting you now, is it truth-drug or Accedence?”

“Truth-drug.”

“How are you feeling?”

All-Spirit… a question whose answer can start to give them a clue. “Ripping out… my hair.”

“Why?”

“I can’t say what I… want…”

Call it a reverse, or Yeoli-style, scraping, that he did then. “What do you want to say more than anything else?”

“Stand down that’s an order.” They all straightened and relaxed, then tensed and brought up their swords again as Krero yelled, “No, don’t!”

He took a long, deep breath. “We’ll ask him… for the next orders. We’ll stand down if they make sense. Cheng… what are we doing next?”

“Back to the ship.”

“Then what? Put you in a berth to sleep it off?”

“Yes, and…” I lost strength to say the rest, as you do on the drug.

“And? What do we do then?”

“Set sail for Brahvniki.” I yearned more desperately for that berth than an Arkan for Celestialis.

“Stand down,” Krero said. “Our apologies for distrusting and threatening you, members of Ikal.”

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206 - A game of mrik

“Before you start, have you eaten?” he asked me. That was a better sign.

I wasn’t hungry, but if I had to force it down to fake calm, I would. “That would be welcome, thank you.” I remembered, it would be kri; maybe the fire on my tongue would take my mind off my anger and my fear.

“I knew about the one on Haiu Menshir,” he said, when I was done recounting the two battles. “Though to be absolutely honest, I thought it must be an… exaggeration. Sailors… you know. But there you are holding that bit of clear rock all the way through, which is a Yeoli’s most solemn oath, I know. It’s… very impressive. And you did a good thing for all the world, even if the Haians don’t like to admit it.” I thanked him. “Then the Niahs took twenty one ships… I never knew to take them into account.”

“Second Fire come if I lie,” I said, just for assurance. “They had help, but just from one person, me.”

A servant came with a platter of little dishes of various kri’s, fruit and yoghurt and so forth. “These have been tasted... I’ll have a dog or piglet fetched to taste in front of you if you like, J’vengka.”

As if you couldn’t have had me seized and shredded by any number of guards by this point, I thought. “It’s all right,” I said. “I trust you.”

In between tongue-melting bites, I gave him my estimation of Arko’s true strength as I had Kranaj, and laid out their traditional practice of taking one nation at a time. “It’s a treaty that he signed intending to break it whenever the time was right for his ends,” I said. “He might invent some pretext to tell his own people; you’ll find out by reading in the Pages about Laka’s barbaric violation of the treaty by some border raid or attack on a ship that you didn’t order, if it happened at all. And there will be lengthy pontifications about how a Lakan, even a king, isn’t to be trusted, being savage Hayel-spawn and so on. I read enough of this sort of thing about Yeola-e.”

“Yes.” He was silent for a while, eating. “You have the Niahs in an alliance with Yeola-e, then?”

“I do. They are already fighting together with my navy. But I have other allies too, now; Hyerne and Tor Ench. And I will hire mercenaries in Brahvniki.”

Start feeling left out, Az. “Truly…” I wrapped my hand around my crystal again, though, same as with Kranaj, I was lying by omission, not saying the alliances were conditional. Semana kra.

He heaved a long breath, then jumped up suddenly from his chair. “Curse you, J’vengka; the moment I read that letter, I knew how it would be. I put my name to an agreement! When a king signs an oath, in particular, the Gods keep record. I have other plans, of course; but they involve no forswearing. I shouldn’t have let you in here to try to persuade me; I know how cursed persuasive you can be!”

I tried not to let my knuckles go white on my chair arm, then let go in case I did it without noticing, and said, “What do the Gods make of an oath of a king who laughs them off as the comforting fancies of fools?”

He whirled and stared at me frozen, not knowing whether to take mortal offense in the high Lakan style or not, since I hadn’t been clear who I referred to. That was purposeful. I had his undivided attention, now.

“I am athye,” I said, “but you know my way of praying. Kurkas is an atheist in the starkest sense of the word: one who believes in the sacredness of nothing whatsoever.” I gripped my crystal yet again. “Second Fire come if I lie. He and I had a number of philosophical discussions.”

He heaved another huge I-wish-this-load-was-off-me breath. “So you’d have me be the same? You have more Lakan blood on your hands that he does, by far!” More than he knew; I was very glad now I’d never confessed to him about my part in the deaths of the ten thousand. “J’vengka, my Arkan ambassador, who is an honest man for a diplomat, begged to speak with me just before you got here. Of course they have spies, right in this Palace; no doubt you do, too. The sum he offered me for you would feed my cavalry for a year.”

The kri turned cold in my stomach and prickles went all down my arms and legs. With Ivahn or Kranaj or Segiddis, you’d know this was a test, to see how afraid it made you; Astalaz, though, often thought aloud. It was a test anyway; if I showed fear, he’d never trust me.

“Why are you telling me that, Az?” I said. “Do you want my opinion on whether you should sell me to them? Well, speaking utterly free of bias or prejudice and only with consideration to your own interests, I say, no. Don’t. It’s an awful idea. Terrible. Unthinkably bad.”

All-Spirit’s blessing, he broke into laughter. “Feed your cavalry for a year?” I added. “You know what that amount is? It is the truest measure of his fear of me.”

He paced back and forth. No fair, I thought, that you can and I can’t. He froze, and turned to me suddenly. “J’vengka... how are you?”

I stared back, baffled. “Fine, thanks, how are you?”

“I mean… how are you?” Understanding came even as he was saying, “I’d heard you were on Haiu Menshir for a long time, months. In the House of Integrity.”

If he decided I was mad, it would be the handiest and most unassailable excuse. He need not even credit anything I’d said, since the oath of a lunatic is the oath of a lunatic. I had this sudden feeling like the dream in which you throw all your strength into running but can’t move a finger-width, your feet somehow bound to one place on the ground.

“Do you still have time for mrik these days?” I said. “It’s been a long time; what do you say to a game?”

He looked surprised, but relieved at the chance of a bit of escape from this unpleasant business. I could see him think, ‘I’ll ask him again later.’ “Come upstairs,” he said.

Blessing of blessings, he brought me to his true office. The mess had gotten heaped higher and mustier in two years. Apologizing for it as usual, he dug out the mrik board and in another long while all the stones, and called for incense and a musician.

“You got good enough to be down to a two-stone advantage, as I recall,” he said, as we sorted them. “I give you two more, for being out of practice, and all that you went through in Arko.”

“One only for that,” I said. “It hasn’t been that long, and it wasn’t that bad.”

“I will take your word for it,” he said, and let me hand him the one back.

“What say we put a stake on it?” I said, as I placed the stones on the board, in three of the key spots. “If I win, you join me in an alliance. If you win, I leave without another word or grudge.”

He stared at me, blinking, wanting to burst out laughing, but held back by his knowing me well enough to see I might be serious. “I’m serious,” I said. “The question is my mental competence, isn’t it? This is a good test of that. If I can beat you, you’ll know I’m all here and you can trust what I’ve said; if not, I haven’t a hope against Arko.”

His cheeks went ruddy under the brown. There was no arguing with the logic; but I might beat him. He didn’t want to face it, that was all; I’d come out of nowhere, like a meteorite out of the night-sky that crushes a house. Sometimes, Az, I wanted to say, life does that.

He looked down at the board, with my three stones on it. I wanted to urge him, but it might make him think I had some ruse. Silence was stronger.

Finally, suddenly, he sat down at the board. His eyes were lighter now; he might beat me, but I might beat him, he was thinking. “Very well, J’vengka. Without another word or grudge—or I ally with you. Parshahask strike me if I am forsworn.” He made the signs of slashing himself almost absently, his eyes fixed on the board. I swore on my crystal. He sent out an order, no disturbances, and placed his first stone.

So it was, in sweating darkness full of the Lakan smells of sandalwood, spice and bougainvillaea, to the soft weaving strains of the zinarh, I played mrik, for my people’s lives and freedom. I so much would have preferred clean blade, my first skill, in which I had utter confidence, but life hands us what it hands us.

Of course I started out prevailing, since my stones outnumbered his, but he came back strongly, with his greater experience. Had I been a fool, to turn down that fourth handicap-stone? It was too late to undo that. Even if I just made a good account of myself, had I still not proved my point? But that was not the bet I’d proposed, and he’d accepted. All-Spirit… what if I have to go back to the ship, and then home, with our alliance plans ruined, because I lost a game?

Not the thoughts to think, while I was playing; I should think about nothing but where to place my pieces. The ideal state of mind, I knew, was the same as one should have fighting: calm as a pond with a surface like glass. But that was so much harder to do, while sitting still. Even as I thought that, I saw how the last stone I’d placed had been bad, by what he did to counter it.

I can’t make one more mistake, I thought. How do I manage that? What do I do when I am fighting—aside from know how good I am at it—that keeps these snake-thoughts away? In my first three fights in the Mezem, I failed at it, and so got wounded; what was the difference between them, and how I usually am? I was not seeing clearly then, as I am not now, whereas usually when I fight everything is absolutely clear; why?

Something that Azaila had said long ago made it come to me. “You must be rya to yourself when you fight.” Nothing. In those first three fights I had been thinking, what am I doing, why am I doing this, I should not be here, all thoughts about myself, not the fight. Usually I had only the fight in mind. This cannot be about me at all. It must be entirely about the game. The beauty of its nuances; the subtlety and elegance of the gambits possible; the cleverness by which it allows pure strategy; the cut and thrust of the logic of his moves and mine. Relish that, I told myself. Enjoy it. A tightness in me let go.

I played without error from then on, at least while I maintained that state; when the snake-thoughts came, I’d repeat these words to myself. I stopped sweating so much. He began sweating more.

It was a long game, at least two beads. We both thought very carefully, about where to place every stone; sometimes he would get up to pace while deciding his next placement; sometimes I would. Fatigue entered into it, which should be to his advantage, since we were in his waking hours, and my sleeping; but I had a feeling his fight against fear was harder work than mine, even though he had so much less to lose. We said barely anything, the only sounds the notes of the zinarh like long-ringing brass bells, the tap on the table of the bottom of his cup or mine as we placed it down after sipping, the stone-on-stone click of another piece placed.

It went very evenly. In the end, when the board was full, we couldn’t tell the winner just by looking, but had to count up.

I had two more stones on it than he did.

He sprang up out of his chair, almost throwing it, over like a Lakan lord making duel challenge at the dinner table, and paced, his heels ringing on the floor. “Well, you have it, J’vengka,” he said bitterly. “May it benefit you. Only the Gods can see how it will turn out; may it be to Their taste.”

“Astalaz, I release you of it,” I said. He spun around, stunned, and stared at me frozen. “You are thinking the fate of nations should not rest on a game. I cannot dispute that. It should be your choice alone, to reconcile with your Gods, and your people, as you see fit. I just wanted to show you that my mind is clear enough to do well even as I was certain my nation’s fate did rest on it.”

He let out a long deep breath, half between his teeth, then came near to me, looking down at me. I stood up. Having grown as much as I ever would, I’d always be shorter than him. He took my face between his hands, gazing into my eyes.

“Kazh rule your soul,” he said, finally. “You are capable of so much. At such a young age; so much life you have left, the Gods only know how you will change the world. Name the terms you propose.” He called the servant for wine.

He pledged me seven thousand foot under Arzaktaj now, and then, when we reached the plains, five thousand horse and fifteen mamokal. It was conditional on my sending thirty ships to aid him in taking back the Diradic Tongue from Arko, brokering an end to Enchian raids across the Lakan border, and contracting seven thousand mercenaries. “I’d have made it conditional on alliances with Kranaj and Segiddis, except you already have them,” he said. Now I do, I thought. And he would, of course, re-open the embassy.

As he was pacing tensely in the mess, kicking things out of his way, he told me, “One of my old titles was Spider-King… I have ten thousand men in the hills of central Laka, recruited and trained over the past six years, with horse and mamoka both, in addition to my known armies.” Six years? I counted back. He’d started that a little before he’d overthrown Astyardk, then, no doubt without his knowledge. Despite being in a cage; you had to admire that. “I thought Kurkas would come after us before you, tell the truth, and meant to surprise him with them...” He smiled. “Looks like I still will.”

When I told him I had meant only to stay in Tardengk two days if I had to wait to see him, and would prefer to leave tonight—for one thing, the Arkan ambassador knew I was here—he had the papers done up right then, and we signed them all off. Having no demarchic signet, I had to replicate the mark by drawing it as best I could, with the promise that I would seal them properly once I had another one carven. Brahvniki was a good place for that.

Done here except to set sail and snatch a bit of sleep out of what was left of the night, I cast my mind ahead to Brahvniki. When I went out from the office into its ante-room and got Chirel, there was a Yeoli slave there, a woman, stunningly beautiful as usual with Palace of Kranaj slaves. Just as I was thinking that if the alliance went well enough, I might be able to talk Astalaz into freeing more Yeolis, she gave me the tongue-twister you have to have grown up in Yeola-e to say, adding quietly, “Ikal. I have a letter from the summit person.” She handed it to me.

She’d picked her place well, as there were no Lakan guards here, nor my own. “Thanks, best we stay here for me to read it,” I said. I opened the paper, which was just folded, and seemed a little damp, oddly. Even more oddly, I tasted oysters on the back of my tongue, which was still recovering from the kri, strongly, out of nowhere. Most oddly, there was no writing on the paper. I stared at her; she stared back at me, her face horribly blank. From behind an arm wrapped around me, pinning my arms, and a hand clamped across my mouth.

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205 - Royalty in exile

Tardengk is well inland, two days trip up the river and two days back. If Astalaz did decide to sell me back to Kurkas and I got away and fled down river on the ship, he could get a pigeon to Kochisk, at the mouth, with orders to intercept us, long before I got there.

Don’t be silly, I told myself. He is a friend, and a treaty with Kurkas does not make him a friend of Kurkas. They had not met before I’d known Astalaz, he’d said, nor after, else I’d know about it. Even if they had met, charm was not Kurkas’s strong point. And the pact probably includes nothing about extradition, since at that point Kurkas thought he was going to recapture me on Haiu Menshir. It was a risk, but one I felt worth taking.

With no embassy, though, I saw I was going to have to write my way in. It would be too easy for Astalaz to turn me away, or make me wait, if I just had someone convey my name and that I wanted to speak on an important matter. I needed to get my words into his mind.

I wrote and rewrote the letter all the way up the river. It should be coded, I saw, in case Arkan spies in the Palace intercepted it, and should speak of my victories and prospects obliquely. Because he was one who dithered sometimes, I wanted to set a limit on the time, which was effrontery, really; he considered me royalty, like himself, but royalty in exile with barely a nation to speak of. Did I have that much nerve?

If I don’t have nerve, I told myself, I might as well go to the Arkan embassy and hold out my wrists for the chains, for all the good I can do Yeola-e. I had the letter signed and sealed by the time we came into the port of Tardengk. It read thus:

To: Astalaz son of Astyardk, Blessed Hand of Parshahask, Soul of Gold in the Eternal Gaze, etc.

Dear Az:

I hope you recall with fondness your old mrik opponent and fosterling with as much fondness as I remember you. A piece once captive of the adversary—despite a certain signed and sealed promise, which is in your possession—I am now free on the board again to score victories, one of which you know about, one of which you don’t.

As I return to resume the game, I have renewed old acquaintances with other friends no less capable than yourself, and made mutually-beneficial agreements that land us on the same side of the board, and with much greater strength than the adversary suspects.

I would like to speak with you, but my time is short; I can be in Tardengk just for two days. Please let the bearer of this letter know whether I may. If so, I will see you soon, to which I look forward.

Sincerely,

Your one-time son.

On the outside I marked it with his name and as many titles as I could remember, and sent Sachara with it, with Evechera and Kunarda as back-up, to the Palace, as soon as it was full dark. I told him to say the letter was from the King’s former son; my thought was that this would make the person at each level unsure what to do with it, so he must bring it to his superior, all the way up to Astalaz. At least nighttime is the working day in the Palace of Kraj. They’d all be just up and fresh. The cormarenc crew I ordered to bed down now, in case I had it all done before daybreak, allowing us to sail.

It was a sweaty wait, even in the coolness of night and without the hood I’d been wearing to hide my face. I paced, I sparred whoever was willing, I swam in the sea, I tried to do too much to let my mind imagine some error I’d unknowingly made that would make my words give some false impression, or him finding some excuse to be offended, or him just slamming the door on me in plain fear.

As time stretched I reminded myself that the pace of the Palace of Kraj is slow. The letter must be passed from guard to petty guard commander to greater guard commander to secretary’s assistant’s assistant, or whatever the titles were. As well, the further up the chain of command it went, the more inclined they would be to take their time, either because they had other genuinely urgent things, or to make themselves feel important.

So I told myself, as I paced on the deck, stripped down to my undercloth so I wouldn’t sweat my formal shirt and kilt, my guts eating themselves. Finally I saw the three coming back along the dock, moonlight shining off their armour, and they were not running or bleeding. “Cheng, you’re in,” said Sach. I got dressed, putting my wristlets and Chirel on with my peacetimes, Lakan-style, and went.

So different from last time, no zinarh or dancers or cymbals, no forty-course mouth-scalding dinner, no servants sweating blood to satisfy my every wish. I told myself it was not because he no longer considered me a dignitary, but for the sake of secrecy.

They showed me to a small, relatively-plain door in the royal chambers—not his personal office, with the mess, a bad sign—telling me I must hang up my sword on a hook by the door, which was also different. Astalaz had let me wear Chirel in his presence before. Maybe he’s afraid of what I might do if he says no, I thought. Or—more likely—worries I might still be crazy. Or perhaps it was just policy for royalty in exile.

Pretend we are still just as we were, I told myself firmly, as I unslung Chirel. The office was tiny and curtain-lined. He sat behind a polished desk. It was me who’d had all the changes; he looked exactly the same. “I’ve just been reading, waiting for you,” he said, putting down the book and blinking at me, a little owlishly. I hoped the informality was a good sign.

“Well, here I am.” I reached out both hands, praying he’d take them. He did, warmly enough, and I sat across from him.

“J’vengka... if you wish to check behind my curtains... there is no troop of guards to seize you,” he said. Kyash; do I seem afraid?

“I know,” I said. “How have you been?”

“Oh… worried. You know. Politics. Foreign affairs.” Perhaps we’re going to come to the point faster than Lakans usually do, I thought.

“Things a king cannot avoid, since they are his trade.”

He tugged a lock of his pitch black hair. “Enough to give one the white head of an old man, sometimes. I’m... astonished, actually. You’ve had enough to turn you silver already.”

“I defy you to find one,” I said, realizing I had not smiled at him at all yet, and doing so now.

“May I?” He leaned across, reaching to take my chin so he could turn my face to see the scar more clearly in the lamplight. I let him. “Did that happen in a fight?”

“No. It was a Mahid, with a knife full of azan akanaja, while I knelt before him bound hand and foot and with two others holding me. You want to see the marks of Kurkas’s broken oath that are truly spectacular?” I started unclasping my shirt.

“No, keep it on, you perverse Yeoli!” But he said it good-heartedly, a throwback to how we had spoken before. “Dourgish and Parshahask, the one is awful enough. I never thought I’d see a son of mine marked up like that. That’s the way... if the Arkan Ambassador asks... I will truthfully say I’ve seen only my family and my court.”

That bothered me. How much sway did they have here? “He tells you who you’re allowed to see?”

“No... but I prefer to tell as few lies as possible, for a king. It makes things easier all around.”

“And you can’t tell him, truthfully, that who you see is none of his business? I thought you signed a peace treaty, not a tribute agreement.”

He looked me in the eyes, his black brows drawing down. “I could. I am no tribute-paying lackey, J’vengka.” Oh kyash… have I blown it all, just with that one line?

“I’m sorry,” I said. “My annoyance is on your behalf, but perhaps I made it seem otherwise.” Not entirely true; I felt he was being weak in the face of them. But making him feel insulted would be national suicide. The one who goes begging is not free.

His face eased again. “I will take it so, rather than make it seem a rebuke, J’vengka.” He poured two cups of juice, and offered them for me to pick one. In Laka, wine goes with deal-making, at least the first cup. “You are here to try and talk me into breaking my word,” he said.

Just as with Kranaj, I wanted to get up and pace, and didn’t, to appear more calm than I was. “Not something I would ordinarily do,” I said. “But… I wonder if you store your copy of the treaty paper, with the signature of the golden pen and the marks of the seals on it, in the same place as your copy of my safe-conduct, which also has the signature of the golden pen and the marks of the seals on it, no less official.”

He sat in silence for a bit, which made me want even harder to pace. “You make reference to mrik,” he said finally. “If you look at the board, J’vengka, there is a sea of opposing colour. The treaty certainly was a move to gain time. Forgive me, but Kurkas’s attention was only partly on my country. Mamoka, troops and horse all need time to build up; warriors take time to train. Laka needed this time if we are to stand against Arko. Perhaps if you bite them hard enough it will give me more time yet.”

And if we bleed enough to do it. All-Spirit—did he have the slightest notion of the callousness of those words? I bit down hard on what I felt. His people were Lakans, not Yeolis. He had no obligation to care a dust-speck about me. “It’s true the other way too,” I said. “Arko needs this time to stand against Laka. You think the treaty is meant to benefit you?”

“Of course not, J’vengka. But it seemed a good trade off, at least until Kurkas reneges on it.”

Let me get this right: you expect him to renege on it… and you still signed it? Of course—I must let myself be filled with cynicism, to understand monarchy—perhaps Az had signed it with plans to renege first. If so, perfect; that’s what I was here for. “And then? What if he doesn’t have the decency to wait until your mamokal and horse and warriors are at full strength?”

“I should not divulge that to you, J’vengka. It is Lakan business.”

“I am not asking you to divulge anything. I am asking only that you ask yourself.”

All-Spirit, I sound like a man talking to a boy; what am I doing? If he feels condescended to, by someone so much younger and less powerful, I’m done. But what else could I say?

“I am, J’vengka. I’ll tell you this much... I share your concerns, about Arko.”

Ah. You have something else up your sleeve, and you don’t want to tell me, understandably. Perhaps he didn’t mind me knowing; but I could get captured again by the Arkans, and scraped. I didn’t press it. “I would like to tell you about a thing or two I made reference to in the letter,” I said. “May I do that?”Why haven’t you asked; do you not want to know? Feh, I thought. He wishes I’d never arrived.

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