Acacia,War with the Mein

CHAPTER

Rialus Neptos was a pathetic runt of a man. Never was this more obvious than when he stood flanked by Numrek warriors, tall men, shoulders wide, with balled knots of muscle at the joints, like grapefruits beneath their burgundy-tinted skin. He was a weasel in the company of wolves. Stooped to fit beneath the low ceiling of the palace’s hidden passageways, any of the Numreks could have grabbed the ambassador by the neck and shaken the life out of him with one of their hard-knuckled fists. Had Corinn not needed him to translate the instructions she was about to give, she might well have asked them to do just that. Strange, she thought, that her fortunes relied on such dubious allies.

She’d rarely had occasion to stand so close to Numreks. She had sat near them at a few banquets over the nine years since the war, but what she remembered most vividly was the image of them in their former pallor. She had seen a party of them for the first time just after her capture and return to Acacia. Their complexions had been pale and blue-tinted, just starting to burn beneath the sun. They were like creatures from a subterranean cave abruptly shoved into the light of day. They had been so different from the smooth, dark-featured beings that she looked at now. She would almost have thought them different creatures, save that she recalled the stature and shape of them, their full heads of dark hair and their features, gaunt and muscular at the same time. She hated them with undiluted spite back then. She did not feel that different now. But her feelings were not the point; the work at hand was.

A few hours before that she had lain in bed beside Hanish, her fingertips touching his, listening to him sleep. Before that she had been entwined with him in the bedsheets, their naked bodies slick with sweat, with tears and passion. She had panted in his ear, and he had said her name over and over. And before that they had just held each other, both of them reeling from the news of their respective brother’s deaths. The irony of it all took her breath away. Aliver and Maeander, mutual victims; Corinn and Hanish, lovers who pretended their affair had nothing to do with the struggle between them.

But that was earlier, before the light of day. In truth it had everything to do with them, and she knew Hanish believed so as much as she did. When she parted with him a few minutes ago, she kissed him full on the mouth and wished him success at beginning the releasing ceremony. It was time, she said, to begin to heal, to stop the insanity of the war, to put to rest the old hatred between their people. It was time to honor the dead. She had promised to prepare herself and join him. Instead, she went to her room, closed the door behind her, and slipped into the hidden entrance Thaddeus had described to her. She found Rialus and the Numrek just where she had instructed them to be-inside the walls of the palace.

They were actually here. Actually standing about in armor, weapons hanging on them, their breath fouling the enclosed air. She felt a momentary spasm of panic at what she was doing. She overcame it by thinking about the betrayal Hanish planned for her, by reminding herself of her vow never again to act like a lamb, by affirming that she had to avenge her brother, and by recalling the beautiful promises in the Song.

Serving as translator, Rialus introduced her to their leader. Calrach looked her up and down, studying her shape, bemused. He said something that piqued the interest of those around him. Even Rialus looked at her with surprise. “Princess,” he said, “is it true that you’re carrying a child? I can hardly tell, but Numrek…have a nose for such things.”

Corinn had no interest in beginning the conversation this way. She had to control the urge to slide her hand across her belly. “Calrach,” she said, “how many men do you have with you?”

Rialus answered without translating the question. “Two hundred.”

“Two hundred?” Corinn asked. “When I wrote you, I told you to bring a force to take the entire palace, parts of the lower town, as well. You bring me two hundred?”

“Princess, this was as many as we could manage,” Rialus said. “It’s amazing we weren’t spotted as is. You know how hard it was to ferry two hundred of these men in a few small boats at night? Any more and we would have betrayed your plans. Although I don’t mind saying this passageway is incredible! To think that generations of enemies could have slipped inside the heart of Acacia, if only they’d known the way…” Noting Corinn’s thin-lipped look of impatience, Rialus clipped his digression. “Anyway, two hundred Numrek are more than enough to take the palace from the inside. They are hard to kill.”

“Hanish has an entire army here. Punisari among them: they’re hard to kill too.”

Calrach, annoyed at being kept out of the conversation, nudged Rialus. The small man spoke to him in the Numrek tongue, fluent and animated. Calrach found what he said amusing. Looking at Corinn, he spoke his discordant answer.

Rialus translated. “Punisari aren’t a problem. He says he’ll capture the palace for you within a few hours. The cleanup, he says, will take longer than the deed itself.”

Corinn stared at the Numrek’s wide-spaced eyes, the irises the color of amber. She had never noticed that before. They were almost attractive to gaze into. Strange to stand here quietly talking with Calrach about the things they were discussing. These Numrek did not have to hate to kill. It did not matter that they had no deep-seated grievance with Hanish and his people. They had gripes, yes, but they were not truly wedded to this generational struggle. She knew it did not really matter to them who won, so long as they benefited from it. This suited Corinn. There was no ideology to twist their motives or to cloud their thinking. There was a simple honesty to their avarice, an understandable reason to the things they asked from her in return for their aid. With such a people she would always know where they stood and where she stood.

“You can accomplish this attack?” she asked. “You are certain?”

Calrach said that in war nothing is certain. But then he grinned and said, “Nothing except Numrek victory.” He looked around to bring in his fellows, who began to grumble their affirmation. It took a few moments for them all to answer, even the dim shapes hulking far down the corridor wanting to make themselves heard.

“Don’t speak in contradictions,” Corinn said, once they had quieted enough. “It will foul everything if-”

The Numrek interrupted her. He spoke for a few moments, and then Rialus translated. “He says they’ll kill them all.”

“That’s all he said?”

Rialus smirked. “It’s the substance of it. He described their methods as well, but I didn’t think that would interest you.”

Turning back to Calrach, Corinn said, “Then do it. Kill everyone. Everyone, without hesitation. Show them no mercy, listen to no plea. Kill all of them except Hanish himself. Keep him alive for me.”

On hearing this last instruction, Calrach shrugged. That was fine with him, he said. Hanish was of no interest to him anymore. Before he left, though, he asked her to confirm the terms of their agreement. When she did, he grinned, his teeth prominent and glistening in the torchlight. “We will happily accept that. But how do I know you will keep this promise?”

“You can know it,” Corinn said, “because what you want is exactly what I want as well. I don’t promise it as a gift to you. It is in both our interests.”

Calrach studied her for a long time after hearing the translation of this. His gaze was appraising, invasive, and yet indifferent as well. Eventually, he pronounced, “I much prefer working with you to dealing with Hanish. Because of it, you will have your palace back. And, as you wish, we will tell nobody what you’ve promised us. It will be our secret, yes? Between Princess Corinn and the Numrek. Nobody else need know-until the day that we reveal it to the world.”

Corinn stood to the side as the procession of burly soldiers marched past her. They were absurdly large and loud. Their leather trousers squeaked as they trod. Their weapons and random bits of armor clanked and grated. Many of them talked in their discordant language. Behind their screens of wiry hair, some grinned as they passed her. A few even laughed at jokes she had no inkling of, as casual as if they were simply proceeding to an exercise. Two hundred had seemed a small number when Rialus pronounced it, but midway through the line of them they seemed innumerable.

And then they were gone. Quiet settled in, a living presence in its own right that occupied the space as if disgruntled by the previous intrusion. Rialus, who was to have no part in the fighting, stood near at hand, shifting, nervous, clearing his throat often as if about to speak. Corinn ignored him. Another seizure of doubt gripped her. It wrapped around her torso and squeezed the breath out of her and set her insides churning. The implausibility of what was happening and the fact that she, Corinn, was making it happen: it was almost too much to fathom. She felt the ceiling pressing down on her. She kept checking it with her eyes, suspecting, despite herself, that it was sliding downward. For the first time she noticed the bizarre carvings that lined the nearby space, forms half human and half animal. Was that what her people had once looked like? Were those her ancestors?

Rialus interrupted her thoughts. “May I ask, Princess, how you learned of these secret passageways?”

“Thaddeus Clegg,” she heard herself answer.

“Clegg?” Rialus asked, alarm in his voice. “Truly? That old traitor? He’s here, in the palace? He’s not to be trusted, you know. What is he-”

“He is dead, Rialus. Not a threat to you in any way.” He is gone, Corinn thought, but the gift he left me remains. One day, when she learned to use it, she would do many things. Good things. Benevolent things. She would not need to kill then. Would not need to make allies of-

“Well, may I ask how do you plan to proceed now? You’re not exactly working toward the same goal that your brother was. He is done for now, I’m sorry to say, but Mena and Dariel remain. What happens when-”

Corinn turned on the ambassador and stepped up close to him, enough so that he backed away a step, unnerved by the suddenness of her movement. Something about directing her agitation at him helped her get a grip on herself. “No, Rialus, you may not ask me anything. When we speak, it’s because I’ve asked you something. That’s all there is between us, understand? I need you, but I don’t have any delusions about the nature of your loyalty. It is the same as with the Numrek. Like them, you will be loyal for one reason-because only I will give you all the things you want. The Meins would flay you alive. My brother or sister would imprison you as the traitor you are. Only with me have you any chance of happiness. Do you doubt it?”

Rialus did not.

“Good. I will deal with my siblings when I have to. I love them, of course. They love me. Do not concern yourself with it.”

She stopped talking and motioned that Rialus should keep quiet as well. Faintly, she heard shouts of alarm and then the clash of weapons. They came to her muffled and warped by distance, almost ghostly. They were the type of sounds she might not have even noticed if she had not been listening for them. She had heard enough tales about how the Numrek fought so that she could envision the scenes now spreading through the palace. Right at that moment, she imagined, the Numrek were pouring through the halls. They were appearing at the very heart of the palace, completely without warning, igniting utter confusion. They were dashing from room to room, swinging those battle-axes, severing arms and splitting skulls, pinning breasts to the walls with their spears, driving the points of their swords into bellies, showing no mercy to anyone.

She pressed her palm against her abdomen, hit by a quick montage of the people she had sentenced to such deaths. Men like Haleeven, Hanish’s uncle, whom she had actually liked. Women like Rhrenna, who had been her friend and Halren, who had laughed at her at dinner that night at Calfa Ven. Guards and soldiers, maids and servants, officials, noblewomen and their children. The quick barrage of faces and names struck her like so many punches in the gut. What a nightmare she had unleashed! She stepped back and reached for the wall for support. She had to remember that they were her enemies. They always had been. Every one of them. If they seemed genteel and harmless, it was only because men had killed effectively enough in their name to assure it.

The ambassador stepped toward her, inquiring if she were well.

Corinn spoke coldly. “You said earlier that you did not think I’d be interested in all that Calrach said. In future, Rialus, when you are translating for me, translate exactly. It is not for you to edit what I-or they-hear.”

Rialus nodded, meekly accepting the reproach. A moment later, looking askance at him, she watched a smile of satisfaction draw across his face. She almost snapped at him, asking why he smiled. But then she understood why. She had just promised him a future. Such things, it seemed, were now hers to bestow. Or to take away.

This would take some getting used to.