Acacia,War with the Mein

CHAPTER

Corinn tried to keep her hatred of Hanish Mein pinned to her forehead for the entire world to see. He was her family’s single greatest enemy. She would never forget it, never forgive. She loathed him. Nothing he did would change this. He was a villain of massive proportions, a murderer on an enormous scale, about whom some gentler people in the future would write entire chronicles of infamy.

She had to make sure to remember this, because in the tranquil setting of Calfa Ven it was the insults of a more personal nature that jabbed her most intensely. Simply put, Hanish toyed with her, as he had the first night at the lodge. At times it seemed he went out of his way to please her-and to let her know that he was going out of his way to please her; at other moments he treated her with shocking indifference.

A few days into their stay in the mountains, he asked her to join him for a ride the following afternoon. It was an invitation delivered with great show before a crowd of onlookers. She stood about the next day at the appointed hour-dressed to perfection in a cream-colored riding outfit, with a silken hat perched high on her head, chilled by the spring air but sure that the high color in her cheeks was worth it-only to discover that he had forgotten all about her. He had ridden out early that morning for the hunt with no apparent thought for her at all. Even Rhrenna, her erstwhile friend, could not help but show amusement at the way he belittled her.

What did it matter, though? The Mein were a petty people who took pleasure in humiliating a race that generations had proven was superior. He could have his small amusements, and she would hold to spite. Spite and condescension. That was all she felt for him. Fortunately, their stay in the mountains was almost over. Corinn had been counting the days, ready to get back to Acacia, where she could put some distance between herself and this barbarian who called himself the ruler of the Known World.

Strange, though, that when a servant next brought her a message from Hanish, she experienced a tingling in her chest and a quickening of her pulse that-had the situation been otherwise-she would have interpreted as exhilaration. He wished for her company that afternoon, the messenger said, to practice archery. He prayed that she would not leave him standing alone. That sounded like a fine idea, she thought. Leave him standing about, dejected, spurned. And yet she knew that would not work. Hanish was not easy to insult. He would find a way to playfully punish her for it at dinner that evening. Not going, she decided, would be more easily ridiculed than answering his invitation would be.

She found Hanish at the archery field. For once he was free of his entourage, accompanied only by a squire, who attended to the selection of bows, and by a boy, who stood some distance away in the heavy grass, waiting by the targets to retrieve arrows.

“Ah, Princess!” Hanish said, all smiles and merriment on seeing her. “I was starting to wonder… Come and teach me what you know. This is agentle sport, yes? I understand from the servants here that you were quite the archer as a girl.”

“I may have been once, but I’m neither an archer nor a girl anymore.”

He offered her a bow that the squire had just handed him. “Well, you are at least half right. I’ll judge the other.”

Corinn took the bow. The polished ash wood of the weapon felt good in her hands, the curves of the limbs familiar, light as if it were somehow made of bird bone. She ran her fingers down the taut string. She was some time in studying it before she motioned for an arrow.

Plucking the missile from the squire’s hand, she nocked it, set it to rest, and lifted the bow to sight the target. She gripped the bow easily, her fingers settling in one after the other, her posture straight backed but easy, just as she had been instructed years before. She knew Hanish had paused to watch her. She did not care. She picked out a triangular target, one a little distance from where the boy stood. She drew her string hand back to her cheek, the arrow resting atop her fingers and the shaft a straight path out into the world. She loosed her fingers. The arrow flew. Vanished, it seemed. Only to appear a moment later, jutting from near the center of her chosen target.

Hanish exclaimed. He touched her arm and said something appraising to the squire, who affirmed the statement. Corinn had not felt quite such a visceral pleasure in some time. The deadly precision of it, the power pointed out at the world, the piercing thunk and then the stillness, the visual proof of her skill imbedded in the target. Her fingers came up of their own accord, snapped in the air for another arrow.

The afternoon passed quickly. Hanish may have thought he moved time forward with his words and gestures, with questions and compliments, but Corinn took pleasure or disappointment as each arrow’s flight dictated. The arrow boy was kept busy, running forward and back. He had a lopsided grin and one of his eyes floated in a direction not aligned to the other. But he was still a handsome boy, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. Corinn decided she would ask him his name before parting from him.

“There’s a Candovian tale about an archer,” Hanish said. They had paused for a moment as the targets were cleared and rearranged. “I forget his name. He was reputed to have been the best shot in the land, deadly accurate under any condition. In those days the Candovians and Senivalians were at odds about the borders of their territories. At a meeting of the tribes meant to resolve the matter, a Senivalian challenged the archer to prove himself. Was it true, he taunted, that the archer could pit an olive from fifty paces? Of course it was, the Candovian said. The Senivalian challenged him to prove it, but the archer refused. He said that no olive had ever done him any offense. He said that he would be happy to shoot an eye out of a Senivalian from a hundred paces, though. He would only take the one eye, he promised. If he went even slightly out of the socket in question he would graciously relinquish all claims of prowess. Nobody took him up on this.”

A pair of crested birds flew over the trees and darted around the edge of the field, oblivious to all but each other. Corinn had a vision of one of them darted to the sky, pinned to a padded wall as the other carried on with its dance. “What point do you wish to make?” she asked.

“There need not always be a point. Sometimes tales are intended for amusement. Do you know, Corinn, that I would give the finger off my right hand to see you happier?”

“I’d not sell my merriment so lightly.”

Hanish grinned at her, wry in a way that acknowledged respect for her constancy. He dropped the expression and nocked another arrow. “Maeander, actually, probably could pit an olive from either distance. He excels at all matters martial. I’m quite in awe of him, and I don’t mind saying it.”

Corinn doubted that Hanish was in awe of anybody but himself, but she had noted Maeander’s absence at the lodge and wondered about it. “Where is your brother-off slaughtering?”

“Funny that you should ask. His mission involves you. He is searching for your siblings. I know. I know. You don’t even admit that they’re still alive. But if he finds them, he will deliver them to you. That, I am sure, will win a little gratitude from you.”

She was not sure how to answer that. Would he deliver them pierced on a spit? Chained and bound? Or might she actually speak and be with them again? Might they share this strange captivity with her, as Hanish had always promised was his only intention? If they did, it would be a lot less like captivity. But she should not even imagine the possibility. She did not really believe in it. Hanish was mocking her. If she believed him, she would only be aiding him in another cruel joke. She had known since her mother’s illness and death that the world was not to be trusted. Loved persons were always stolen. Dreams always squashed. That was life as she understood it.

The boy still stood out in the field, but the squire walked back toward them, a quiver of retrieved arrows at hand. Corinn changed the subject to what seemed like a random statement, though something about being at Calfa Ven had stirred it in her. “I saw a man from the league in the palace,” she said. “The one who wears a brooch set with a turquoise fish.”

Hanish took his shot, not a good one. He lowered his bow, frowned. “It’s a porpoise. Not actually a fish, they tell me. Anyway, it’s the sign of the league. His name is Sire Dagon. He’s a senior leagueman. He answers only to Sire Revek, the chairman.”

Sire Dagon. Yes, that was his name. Corinn, hearing it, remembered that she had known him as a girl. She had always despised him-the look of him, his voice, his simpering arrogance. He had once been here at the lodge when she visited. That must have been why she had continued to think of him without entirely placing him. “What did you talk to him about?”

“We spoke about trade and commerce. That’s all the league traffics in.”

“Did they betray my father? Did they encourage you to attack us? Tell me, so next time I see Dagon I’ll know if I should spit as he passes.”

Hanish plucked up another arrow, aimed, and shot again. Better this time, close to the center of one of the farther targets. The boy cheered, raised a fist as if it were a personal triumph. Hanish ignored him. He answered Corinn with an unusually officious air, nothing flirtatious in it.

“The league has no allegiance to anyone or anything, Corinn,” he said. “They have no philosophy except that which pertains to acquiring wealth. Since you ask, though…the league had grievances with your father for most of his reign. Some years ago they contacted my father. They struck a pact with us. If we Meins orchestrated a land war against Acacia, and it looked likely to succeed, they would withdraw their ships and provide your father no sea support. We’d be prepared for this; Acacia wouldn’t. As your nation is based around an island, this was a considerable promise. It was a mistake, you see, to depend upon a commercial entity for your navy. Of course, I’m no better off myself right now, but I’ll fix this situation soon.”

Corinn shot. It struck the target snug against Hanish’s last arrow. It landed so close that it chipped the rear of his shaft, leaving a feather bent askew. She made a point of not turning to look at him. “And what did you promise them?”

“I agreed to double the quota, thus doubling their profits. Recently, I’ve said that they could base themselves around the Outer Isles if they could rid the place of pirates. These were the things I discussed with Sire Dagon.”

“Hmm,” Corinn said, contemplative in a way that was mildly sarcastic. “I never thought of it that way. That you and someone like Dagon would sit around casually considering the fates of thousands. When you orchestrate such things, does it excite you?”

Hanish leaned forward slightly, not actually coming close to her, but in a way that indicated his answer was for her alone. “Very much,” he said. “What else do you want to know? Want to hear about the slaves we sell across the ocean? About how we distribute the mist we receive in return? About the way we sedate the masses so that they labor for us without complaint? I’ll tell you anything, Princess, if it pleases you to hear it. I will even pretend that it was all my doing, and that your father, dear Leodan, was not the world’s greatest slaver before I was even born.”

His voice had been languidly flirtatious up until the end, when it acquired an edge of chilliness. Corinn matched it. “I have no interest in this anymore. Why don’t you go and kill something?” She handed her bow to the squire and began to move away.

“You wish a hunt?” Hanish asked, catching Corinn by the elbow. “We can have that right here.” He nocked an arrow, drew his bowstring taut, and lifted it to aim. But he did not point at any of the triangular targets. The boy, noticing that the bow was directed at him, shifted nervously. He looked side to side as if there might be a reasonable target nearby, something he had not noticed.

“Will you shout for him to run or should I?”

“You wouldn’t,” Corinn said.

“Why not? He’s no more than my slave. If he dies, it is my loss that matters.”

The muscles of Hanish’s forearm stood out, trembling with the effort, the knuckles of his fist white and hard around the bow. Such a cruel arm it was. Cruel, in the very sinews and tissues of it. “Don’t, Hanish,” Corinn said, knowing that he would do it. He was about to do it. It was a joke, and it was not a joke; it was both at the same time.

“You say that, but in truth you want me to do it. You want to see him impaled and hear him call out. Don’t you?”

It took her a moment to answer. She did not know why she hesitated. She was not considering different answers. There was only one. But it was hard to push out. “No,” she finally said, “I don’t.”

“Boy,” Hanish shouted, “raise up your hand!”

The boy did not understand. Hanish lowered his bow and showed what he meant with his own hand. The boy mirrored the posture. Hanish told him to spread his fingers, and then to hold them apart, with spaces between them. “Good, now hold very still.” He lifted his bow to sight again.

“Just stop it!” Corinn said, more a whisper than the shout she intended.

He shot. The boy did not flinch, which was a good thing as the arrow passed between his middle and forefinger. It sailed on past him and hid itself in the grass somewhere behind him. Just like that, it was done.

“Was there a point to be made with that or not?” Hanish asked, lowering his bow. “You decide.” He spun and moved away, dropping the weapon to the ground after a few steps.

Corinn watched him go. She watched his form as it entered the forest of pale-barked trees, the leaves above applauding him with shimmering enthusiasm. He was right about her, she thought. She felt the truth breach the surface of her consciousness and stare her in the face. There was a part of her that had wanted him to shoot the boy. Why she had wanted it she could not say. Just to prove that it could be done? To prove that the boy’s apparent goodness was protection against nothing? Just to watch a pinpoint of suffering launched through the air, dealt from one person to another with a simple release of the fingers? To see proof of Hanish’s cruelty? Perhaps that was it. To see it proven with her own eyes. Her stomach knotted at the thought, at the feeling of aversion, intertwined as it was with attraction. What was Hanish doing to her?

With effort, she pulled her eyes from the trees and touched on the boy, who still stood in exactly the same spot. He had lowered his hand, but he stood as if unsure whether something else would be asked of him. It was good that she had not asked him his name.

Back at the lodge and wrapped up in her thoughts, she was surprised when Peter, the head servant, appeared beside her in one of the stairwells. He came at her like an attacker, pouncing from where he must have lain in wait for her. “Princess,” he said, “you’re not the girl I remember.” He paused inches from her. She had not been so close to him yet during the visit and never alone with him. His eyebrows twitched with an emotion she could not fathom. She nearly shouted out.

“Your father,” he said, “would have been proud at how tall you stand. I heard of your fate, but I didn’t believe it until I saw you arrive here.” For a moment he looked overcome with misery. “When will he come, Princess? Share with me and we will be ready to join with him. All here are still loyal.”

Corinn snapped, “When will who come?”

“Why, your brother, of course! We all pray to the Giver that Aliver will return soon and with a vengeance that sweeps Hanish Mein from existence.”