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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