Ambassador of Progress

Ambassador of Progress

Walter Jon Williams

Copyright (c) 1984, 2012 by Walter Jon Williams

Cover art by Phil Booth

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions in any form.

Other Books by Walter Jon Williams

Novels

Hardwired

Knight Moves

Voice of the Whirlwind

Days of Atonement

Aristoi

Metropolitan

City on Fire

Ambassador of Progress

Angel Station

The Rift

Implied Spaces

Divertimenti

The Crown Jewels

House of Shards

Rock of Ages

Dread Empire's Fall

The Praxis

The Sundering

Conventions of War

Investments

Dagmar Shaw Thrillers

This Is Not a Game

Deep State

The Fourth Wall

Collections

Facets

Frankensteins & Foreign Devils

The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories

Ambassador of Progress

Dedicated to:

Fred and Joan Saberhagen,

Two wise Princes of Serendip

NOTE: A glossary of foreign terms is included at the end of this book.

PROLOGUE

In a storm of rain, its brightness a steadier glow among lightning flashes, the shuttle dropped into the high pasture, scattering alarmed cattle which ran in a clatter of bells for the sheltering trees. The fires dwindled; steam rose from the field. Lightning flickered high above, in the passes. The shuttle gate opened and the ramp slid down into the wet, fire-blackened grass. Fiona, a small figure atop her tall horse, came down the ramp, leading her pack mule, and Kira followed with her own beasts.

The rain pattered on her hood, her shoulders. Fiona turned back for a moment to wave to the figures in the yellow light of the shuttle gate: tall, broad-shouldered Tyson, beside him lithe Wenoa. Their arms were raised in farewell, and for a moment Fiona hesitated, a lump in her throat. It would be years before she saw them, if she survived to see them at all.

The ramp withdrew; the yellow rectangle of light, with its two waving silhouettes, narrowed and vanished. A siren shrieked briefly: clear the area. Fiona waited until the gate’s dazzle faded from her eyes. Night vision restored, she saw Kira leading her own mule away from the shuttle, and turned to follow, shivering briefly as if shaking water from her shoulders — and as she shivered, she was suddenly conscious of the gesture and wondered what it was she was shaking off: water, the thousands of years of progress since her own world had risen from barbarism, perhaps all her life that had gone before, prelude to this ...? She shivered, turned the horse’s head, and urged it in Kira’s path.

When the fires began licking once more at the grass, and the shuttle rose blinding into the sky, she did not look back. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t volunteered, after all.

*

Fiona and Kira had been born in a year in which it had been fashionable for parents to give their children old Terran names, names recently resurrected from historical records but which were meaningless by the standards of their own culture. The names strangely prefigured their employment, their shared interest in the old star-spanning civilization. They were cousins of a sort, and though they shared no ancestors they were nevertheless distant relations according to the complicated genealogy of their homeworld. They had first met when, at fourteen or so, they’d been undergoing mountaineering training at the home of yet another distant cousin, whose cheerfully volunteered responsibility it had been to train all the family’s youth in mountain reliance, and they’d been fast friends since.

During school vacations they’d been in the same class on a lot of the family projects: canal maintenance, greenhouse work, soil preservation, each piece of duty supervised by some cousin or other... and when it came time to choose an occupational preference prior to the investment of family money in higher education, they’d both chosen the same field that had, eventually, perhaps inevitably, led them to this midnight delivery on a high mountain pasture.

Kira was outgoing, and smiled and laughed more often than was usual even in a culture in which smiling and laughing was the norm. Fiona, who laughed less, was a more serious scholar. Both were fine athletes, both stood high in their class, and both were accepted without qualm into the program that would take them to the stars. Both survived, without difficulty, the reconstruction of certain parts of their bodies that was intended to aid them on the planet surface.

Both volunteered for the first team and because of their high aptitude were accepted, in spite of apprehension on the part of their superiors that perhaps the culture in which they were being delivered might not be as receptive to women as it might have been to men. “They’ve got to learn sometime,” Kira had said — and then she laughed, to divert the sharp glance Tyson had given her. Tyson was brilliant but he laughed less often than almost anyone.

For three days they negotiated the mountain paths, heading always downslope, northeast. They pitched their tent in solitude, in the light of the big striped moon that dominated the night sky — their own planet didn’t have a moon, and the sight was a constant reminder of the strangeness of this place — and they watched the new world carefully, trying not to be overwhelmed by the newness of it all. The gravity was lighter than what they were used to, and both the women and their animals had a tendency to skip and dance, freer of the ground than they had ever been before — but the overwhelming textures of the new world sobered Fiona quickly, and often caused Kira to frown.

The vegetation, partly composed of Terran stock, was not entirely unfamiliar, the grasses particularly; but the animals, even those which they knew — like the herds of cattle being driven to the upper pasture, or hens scuttling over the yards of huddled steadings — were products of the six thousand years of separate evolution, and while familiar in outline they were strange in color and detail. The people met on the trails seemed strange in proportion, longer-limbed, taller, weirdly exotic, another function of the lower gravity.

The northern hemisphere was in transition from winter to summer; the seasons were more violent here than on their arid homeworld, subject to a greater variety of change. The sudden verdure surprised them, the turf springing up suddenly, brown to green, bushes budding and leafing, the trees putting forth new shoots, small animals, sluggish with their interrupted hibernation, coming out of their burrows. As they progressed from the cool upper pastures to the lower slopes where spring was already flowering, it seemed as if the season advanced with even greater speed. It was a little frightening, this sudden burgeoning with its chaos of color, smell, and texture, surprising after years of colorless ship-time.

The inhabitants varied: some avoided them, but others, the cattlemen bringing their herds up the wide trails, offered them a place at their fires. Fiona was quick to decline, feeling a little ashamed of her cowardice, knowing she would have to deal with these people sooner or later; and Kira, though on her own she would probably have accepted, followed Fiona’s lead. Other inhabitants, children mostly, were harder to avoid: they would follow their horses for miles, asking questions: Who are you? Where do you come from? Where do you go? What do you do? They gave the answers they had ready: We are Fiona and Kira. We come from across the mountains. We are heading down to the plains. We are magicians, entertainers. No, not witches: we deal only in trickery, in illusion. And what is that, little girl, you have behind your ear? The child’s eyes would widen as Fiona produced her smooth plastic egg, and it would be hours before Fiona could send her home.

Yet talking with the children gave Fiona confidence; the language hypes had drilled the vocabulary and grammar into her, but there was so much that was missing: nuance, slang, dialects, homonyms, and those words that made up the bedrock of any culture, those that defined its social structure, its ideals, its metaphysics. Her language was entirely bland, schoolgirlish; there was no ethical structure behind it, no color, very little slang — and the slang she knew she was afraid to use, for fear she would get it wrong. From the children she learned much, chiefly confidence.

The fourth morning their paths separated: Kira was going due north, to the twin cities of Neda-Calacas; Fiona would continue northeast to Arrandal. There was little said, and though throughout the morning they both smiled a lot, it was without conviction. At last the moment came, and they embraced, bussed, and promised to stay in touch. Fiona thought her inner clothing and hood to a bright red color in hopes of cheering herself.

That night she joined the main road, and crossed from one world to another. She had been among mountain folk who lived in isolation, away from the main passes, and though they ostensibly owed allegiance to one lowland baron or another, each steading was in effect independent and the doings in the lowlands scarcely affected them. They were all poor, earning a precarious living from their mountain meadows and clearings; but on the other hand they were also left alone, and ran their own affairs.

Now, on one of the main roads over the mountains, she was continually on a path controlled by semi-independent barons, who sat above the passes in their stone fortresses like malevolent raptors waiting for prey. They had lately been tamed by the coastal city-states, who had forbidden the worst of their excesses, but still the barons ruled their subjects with a hand composed half of steel and half of cruel whimsy, and Fiona felt her heart suddenly thunder as she turned a corner in the narrow road and saw a steep-walled castle looming over her path.

She declared her occupation to the guard and paid the toll for herself and her beasts. The guard asked her to wait and howled a query up to the castle; the answer was affirmative. Fiona was requested to stay the night and amaze the baron with her wonders: in return she’d be given a warm bed, a meal, a handful of white money, and a chance to tell her life’s story.

Any real magician would, of course, have accepted. There was no choice.

In the hours before her performance was scheduled to start she tried to call Kira on her spindle, hoping to hear a few words of encouragement, but there was a mountain between them and the only way to make certain of the call was to route it through the ship overhead, a tactic Fiona was reluctant to use. For the first time in her life she had stage fright: the supper the kitchens provided was tempting but there was no possibility of eating more than a few bites.

Nevertheless her first performance on the planet was flawless: she gave the baron and his court minor miracles, sleight-of-hand, juggling, tricks with her special decks of cards — she’d been pleased to find they used cards here. Only at the end of her routine did she use a trick that required her home technology: standing alone in the darkened room, she raised her arms; a red fire shot from her wand, turning into a blazing dragon, breathing fire and glaring with angry yellow eyes; and then the dragon burst into flame-petal fireworks, raining incense down on the wondering faces below — it was an idea stolen from a recently-discovered piece of Terran literature, and no one here would ever recognize the source.

Fiona accepted payment and thanked milord; he brought her to his table and plied her with questions. Where was she from? What kind of name was Fiona? If she was from Khensin, why didn’t she have the accent? What kind of accent was that, anyway — he couldn’t quite place it. She didn’t look Khemsinla; she was brown and the Khemsinla were usually fair, and taller. Fiona sensed a malevolent interest behind the questions. She fended them off, giving her prepared answers, conflicting apprehensions warring in her. Did this bearded, jowled baron, half-reclining on his settee, his eyes flickering with ill-concealed maleficence as he asked his lazy questions — did this gross brute suspect her of being a spy? If so, he would never know how close his suspicions came to the truth. There was a deeper fear, closer to the bone, that chilled her: was milord bent on rape?

Carefully her eyes flicked over the room, seeing the baron and his family sitting behind their table, the guards loafing at the doors, the guests, minor nobles and local tradesmen, talking among themselves. She could fight her way out if she had to; there were more pyrotechnics at her behest than those in her magic show; she could kill the fat baron on his couch, burn the guards to cinders, and leave the place in flames if she desired. The laws of her calling, rigid though they were, did not rule out self-defense; but she had no desire to descend to the lowlands with a reputation for slaughter at her back.

The baron asked another teasing, malevolent question, then turned to speak to his son. Minutes passed, and it became evident that milord had, like a cat distracted from a mousehole, lost interest. Her tension ebbed; she had passed her first major test. That night she blocked her door with her chest of tricks and slept comfortably enough on a straw pallet. In the morning she took her breakfast in the kitchen and continued her ride to the plains.

She found a caravan and joined it, less for the protection it offered than because it would have looked strange had she continued on alone. Six days later, having reached one of the plains cities, the end of the long caravan route, she sold her horse and mule, changed from trousers, reluctantly, to the more proper skirts, and bought passage for herself on a barge.

Stretching north to the sea were great, low, fertile flatlands, cut with interlinked waterways: massive rivers, irrigation ditches, and canals, all winding north and northeast from the mountains. By river barge she could reach her destination more swiftly than she would by following the winding paths that might be flooded with the spring runoff, or barred with the toll gates of local barons.

The barge was eighty feet long, with a deep hold forward and cabins built aft; there was a giant rudder requiring two men at the tiller, and a big square sail amidships. Mules were stabled on the bow to pull the barge when the wind was not with them. Fiona took a cabin for herself, stowed her baggage, and left the barge for an inspection of the town half a mile from the landing. There were mercenary bowmen guarding the landing stage, and Fiona wanted to know why.

The landing stage and its warehouses were half a mile from the town, which was small and walled in brown stone with about thirty towers. The buildings inside the walls were mostly mud brick and stone, with a few larger, ornamented buildings utilizing half-timber construction — timber was probably rare here in the plains, having to be rafted down from the mountains, and its use in building was, Fiona assumed, a sign of wealth. There were peat-sellers moving in carts from door to door, offering what was burned in fireplaces and ovens instead of the wood they probably couldn’t afford.

The place seemed moderately prosperous: there was no overcrowding, no obvious poverty. There were a few modest temples to the local gods, and these seemed clean and in good repair. In one corner of the town was a stone castle with a round keep; there were mercenary cavalry moving in and out, as well as local town militia. The walls showed sign of having been recently put into repair. The flags flying over them were dark and tattered.

She stepped outside the gate opposite the river and instantly walked into misery. Outside clustered the huts and dugouts of a half-starved population: men and women old before their time, toothless crones with their begging bowls stretched out on the ends of arms like sticks, children with swollen bellies. Fiona recognized rickettsia, scurvy, infections that she could not give name to... the town, she saw, made some effort to feed them. Men in livery were moving from one point to another, delivering food and castoff clothing, probably less for compassionate reasons than to give the objects of their charity the strength and means to move elsewhere. There was a black market in the camp of the starving ones, slick, quick-eyed men, a little better fed than the rest, profiting from their fellows’ desperation.

She had never seen anything like it before, and though she knew it was an inevitable consequence of this planet’s level of technology, the knowledge had never actually prepared her for the actual sight of it. The scene, and of course the smell, were overwhelming. The sound was worst of all, somehow, for there was no sound, nothing but the whisper of ragged tents in the wind, the toothless mumble of a hag over her begging-bowl, the whimper of a dying child — such silence, compared to the bustle of the landing stage and the town. The silence of despair, of an entire population conserving their strength because they knew there was no place to go, no home for them, no hope...

Fiona spoke to one of the men in livery and inquired. There had been a war, he said, between two of the neighboring barons, squabbling over a fertile province that each coveted: as a result the place had been made a wasteland, and the hopeless refugees had come here. They had arrived over the course of the winter, and the bones of those who hadn’t survived the journey were still lying huddled by the trails.

That, she saw, was why the castle had been repaired: the local lord might find himself dragged into the conflict, and even if he avoided that he might have thousands more refugees dumped in his lap when the warfare heated up again in the spring. He was trying to be humane, Fiona thought, but he was looking to his security and probably cursing his choices. If more refugees came he might have to seal his gates, care for his own people, and let those outside starve; or he might simply slaughter them lest they turn brigand.

There was nothing Fiona could do for them, nothing perhaps but aid an individual, a child... Fiona dropped some change into the bowl of a slack-eyed woman who was nursing a child at her shrunken breast. The woman’s thanks were mumbled; her eyes scarcely brightened at the sight of the money, though it should have been enough to keep her and her child for a week. It had come too late, Fiona thought; the woman might not have the energy left to be able to process food into nourishment for her infant.

Fiona fled back to the barge and cursed herself for cowardice.

She spent one night on the barge before the craft was scheduled to head downstream to the city of Arrandal, her destination. During the night the hold was loaded with local produce, the harvested winter crop, and with blocks of grey, hard stone, products of the local quarries. In the hours before departure she saw her first Brodaini: tall, disdainful men and women, their long hair arranged in elaborate ringlets and lovelocks, all bearing armor and weapons both alike in their clean, symmetrical beauty and their utilitarian, deadly purpose — elegantly crafted stuff, the armor a functional mixture of brigandine and plate, the hilts of the swords elaborately carved and inlaid with precious metal. Each carried a ten-foot spear on which a long, sharp, wickedly-curved sword blade glittered.

They were by far the tallest people on the boat: the smallest stood a head taller than Fiona. In addition to the stature that was their inherited due, Fiona knew they ate a special diet, one her ship’s computers had calculated would produce muscle and weight without adding more than a healthy amount of fat.

The demeanor of the Brodaini, their reserved physical presence, each movement controlled with the careful economy of the trained athlete, set them off completely from the hurried bustle of the landing stage. The four Brodaini, two men and two women, took cabins on the port side and remained in them until the barge raised its creaking yard, sheeted the patched square sail, and cast off. Afterwards, from time to time, Fiona saw them, always together, always distant, standing apart from the others on the deck. They did not take their meals with the rest due to their special diet.

She would have to study this people, she knew, and she watched them when she could. It was curious, a warrior race that gave high status to their women. There would be reason for such an anomaly, she thought; she hoped she would be able to find it.

It was a leisurely, sunny journey to the city; although it rained occasionally, the showers were scarcely of long enough duration to more than temporarily discomfort the deck passengers who slept on the forward hatches. Fiona grew to recognize most of her fellow passengers: the children who played on the hatch covers, the elderly, dyspeptic merchant who lived in the next cabin and who spent each night lecturing his companion, a tolerant nephew, in a whining, querulous voice. The crew of the barge belonged to a single family: there was a husband and wife, five children, a brother and sister-in-law just starting life together, and a toothless granny.

Fiona spent her time watching the passengers and crew, watching the bank of the river and seeing the new world revealing itself around each bend, the planet called Echidne in the old star charts of the Terrans, Demro in the Abessas language spoken on the plain and in Arrandal. Achadan by the Brodaini, who had come across the ocean from the north. On the banks of the river Fiona could see square fields newly-planted, men and women working on the levees and dykes, villages clustered on high ground safe from spring floods, frequent towers and castles occupied by the feudal aristocracy. The barons didn’t dare charge tariffs on the river traffic; they knew it would only bring the power of Arrandal on them, a fleet of river-craft full of plundering mercenaries, Brodaini engineers, deissin overseers. It had happened before: every so often Fiona saw torn curtain walls and shattered keeps, massive ruins that loomed above the river and bore eloquent witness to the power of the North.

That power came from city-states which, lying on the coast of a great northern sea, had in the last century been expanding their influence. The largest social units on this part of the planet, they controlled trade on the rivers and the sea and had been encroaching on the feudal privileges of the southern barons, regularizing their quarrels, stabilizing political relationships. They were not doing it for the sake of peace and amity, Fiona assumed; she knew that trade required stable borders and an orderly flow of season commerce, and that the big cities thrived on merchant traffic. They were the source of stability on a chaotic continent; their trade networks extended far abroad, and from there any new idea or any useful innovation would be sure to spread quickly. They had even formed a federation of sorts, carving out areas of influence and trade, attempting to dominate any competition: the federation had a curious name, Elva vor Denorru-Dorsu, the Alliance of/for Community of Interests, its name alone proclaiming a certain sophistication. Of the cities, Fiona’s destination, Arrandal, seemed to be the largest — her ship’s cameras and computers approximated half a million people within its walls and suburbs — and was probably the most influential.

Much of the cities’ expansion had come in the last twenty years, since they’d formed the league between themselves and started importing Brodaini soldiers from across the sea. The Brodaini had brought military knowledge the cities lacked and a brand of professionalism the mercenaries and city militia had never known: and after the first baronial keeps had come crashing into ruin the other feudal lords had seen reason.

The broad outline Fiona knew, and some of the details. For two years her ship had been in stationary orbit above this land, sending down robot spies, driving electronic spikes into roofbeams to pick up audio and video. Computers had analyzed the languages; cameras had mercilessly scanned the interiors of native buildings, public rooms, secret chambers; spikes had driven themselves into the roof-beams of schoolhouses, watching over the students as they bent over their lessons; the writing had been learned, analyzed, and fed into the recordings that in turn had been fed into Fiona’s mind. Fiona knew as much about the culture she was entering as any outlander could.

Much of her knowledge, of course, lacked clarity. She knew names for things she had never seen; she knew it was insulting and vulgar to call someone a scottu, but had no idea why. Worse of all were the noumena, the words expressing the concepts by which the culture defined itself, the world it saw, the sociological universe into which each individual fit himself... The noumena expressed not thought or action but concepts untranslatable into Fiona’s own language, understandable only from context if at all.

The noumena beat at Fiona’s brain, demanding understanding: she had absorbed two languages, Abessas and Gostu, the language of the locals and of the military Brodaini; and they warred in her mind, mutually contradictory when they were not being maddeningly vague. Demmin, a Gostu word: it translated as “honor,” but why was “honor” inadequate? There were other contexts where “honor” had not seemed to work, contexts involving correctness, initiative, advantage, esteem, place, self-worth. Hostu, another Gostu word, seemed to have two referents in Fiona’s own language, “stasis” one, “perfection” the other. Was stasis necessary for perfection in Brodaini society? Or was the word a homonym? Or was there a larger meaning encompassing both these definitions, the meaning incomprehensible to the literal-minded language computer on board the mother ship?

Abessas was a little better; she understood the wide-traveled, practical merchant culture better than she did the military caste of the Brodaini, but the words still had implications that puzzled her. The most-used term of respect, the equivalent of “mister,” was cenors-stannan, literally “most fortunate,” but there was a subtle emphasis on the word stannan that seemed to imply that “fortune” was to be taken more as an indicator of wealth than of luck— though, as in Fiona’s own language, it contained both meanings.

There were dozens of noumena in each language, stumbling blocks that hampered her mastery of the tongues. For everyday use she did well enough; but did not her mission demand utter confidence, perhaps even eloquence? Her lack of fluency, her lack of understanding, fretted her as the days went by and Arrandal approached.

One afternoon of brilliant sun she sat forward on the hatches, watching as a landing-stage approached and the crew competently set about the process of getting the clumsy barge to the pier while the passengers tried simultaneously to watch the sights and keep out of the way. A crowd of townsmen gathered on the wharf. The tillermen, because of the cabin built forward of their station, could not see forward, so the grandmother stood up on the roof of the cabin barking orders. The pier approached. The square sail came down on the run as startled passengers jumped clear, and a bowman, with a show-off grin, roped a bollard on the first try. Passengers tailed onto the line and the barge was hauled to its place on the wharf. A family leaped aboard to welcome some long-absent relatives; the bowman was bursting with profane orders to get a hatch raised; and suddenly alarms were buzzing.

Fiona blinked in surprise and glanced around in apprehension at the electronic roar, then saw no one else had heard it: it was her private signal. Her baggage was being tampered with.

Certain of her nerves had been rewired to grant this knowledge. She alternately prolated and oblated the muscles of her left forearm, which shut off the alarm and allowed her to think. Unnoticed in the bustle, unknown to anyone present, she slipped through the crowd to her cabin door, pulled her hood over her head and face, prepared herself mentally for violence, and snatched open the door.

Two young men, deck passengers for the last two days, were wrestling with one of her two chests, the one that contained her magic show and her offplanet technology. The other chest, which contained her clothing, was already upended and its contents scattered. No doubt the thieves intended, if they found anything valuable, to walk off the barge with it in the general confusion of landing, but the fact they hadn’t stationed a lookout spoke for their amateurishness, and, unknown to them, it was going to take a more forceful technology than this world had ever possessed to open the chest.

They were amateurs at violence as well. Fiona, though unblooded, was not. Her training in self-defense had been thorough; certain pre-programmed reactions were triggered automatically as the nearest thief, his eyes wide at the sight of her smooth, blank-featured face mask, came for her with the dagger he’d been using on the chest’s offplanet lock.

He came up from the deck, the knife rising with him, striking for her belly to rip up to the lungs and heart. Fiona let the knife do its worst, ignoring it; the badly-tempered blade shattered on her privy-coat and in the meantime a strike with stiffened knuckles had crushed the thief’s windpipe. He staggered, clawing at his throat, the remains of his dagger clattering to the deck; Fiona’s booted foot lashed out, doubling the other thief over as he stood. She reached for him, twisting his arm back before he could draw a weapon; she snapped the arm and threw him into the bulkhead in the same movement.

There was a sudden stillness, an end to motion. The dying thief had fallen half out of the cabin, thrashing as he strangled. The other lay crumpled against the bulkhead, too terrified to move. Fiona pulled her hood back and began to gulp air, feeling the thunder of her heart begin to slow as the crisis-reaction passed, as passengers and crew began to gather in silence at the door. She clasped her hands, trying to restrain the instincts that had been built into her, that were clamoring for her to attack once more, lunge at the astonished crowd outside the cabin door...

The passengers parted and two Brodaini, the two women, came striding arrogantly into view. One of them stationed herself at the door as a guard — no amateurs, these — and the other looked at Fiona with appraising pale eyes.

“What occurred?” she said in badly-accented Abessas.

“These men are thieves, ban-demmin,” Fiona answered in the Brodaini’s own tongue, aware her voice was uncontrolled, near breaking. “I caught them in my cabin, trying to loot my possessions.”

“Indeed,” said the Brodaini. Her eyes had widened slightly at Fiona’s use of her own language, including the honorific ban-demmin, “honored” or “respected,” one of the word-combinations most often used in Gostu polite address. A non-Brodainu who spoke the language was fairly rare; rarer still, presumably, was a woman who, slight though she was, could crush two bigger men in such fashion that neither had a chance to cry out.

The Brodainu’s eyes cut to the man sprawled in the doorway. The man’s limbs, deprived of oxygen, were beginning to convulse; there was foam on his lips, and his broken windpipe rattled as his lungs tried frantically to draw air. With a strangely withdrawn tenderness — there was compassion in the Brodainu’s look, but it was almost an unearthly compassion, like a painted angel or saint — the warrior drew her straight, double-edged sword and drove the point into the thief’s heart. Fiona felt as if her own heart had stopped; she wrung her hands — oddly the only gesture that seemed possible — and tried to control the feeling of horror and the simultaneous mad impulse, triggered by the unsheathing of weapons, that urged her to strike out against danger.

Fiona gulped air, trying to stabilize her own body’s reactions. She knew what the Brodainu had done; it was the mardan-clannu, the “thrust of mercy” delivered to end a man’s suffering. It had been a gesture of compassion after all; there was a certain perverse honor conferred with the act, in that the Brodainu had considered the thief’s suffering worth noticing. The warrior cleared her sword, cleaned it on the victim’s body, and returned it to its scabbard.

“He will not distract us further,” she said. “We Brodaini have power of justice on the river; the other will be turned over to the city authorities. You are most fortunate, ilean. You bore no weapon?”

“No. I do not carry weapons.”

The Brodainu nodded, appraising. As far as Fiona knew there was no system of weaponless combat practiced here; the most evolved combat technique was Brodaini, and appeared to concentrate on disarming attackers in order to turn their own weapons against them. Fiona had made an impression on the Brodainu’s mind; it might not be a favorable one. A deadly woman, claiming to be a conjuror, speaking Gostu and traveling downriver to Arrandal... the Brodaini, guardians of Arrandal’s peace, might wonder if she were a fugitive from foreign justice, or worse a spy or assassin. At any rate, worth further study.

The two male Brodaini arrived, keeping the crowd back from the cabin door. The Brodainu who had spoken to Fiona gave a few clipped orders — it appeared she was senior — and the body was carried from the cabin. The second thief was urgently picked up from the floor — he yelped, cradling his broken arm — and was led out by two silent warriors to meet whatever penalty, presumably death in some form, was demanded by local justice. The pale-eyed Brodainu bent to pick up the broken dagger from the cabin deck. She held up the pieces. “This was the thief’s, ilean?”

“Yes.”

The warrior looked at the badly-forged shards with the distaste of the connoisseur for the third-rate, then bowed and left the cabin. The other woman Brodainu looked briefly at Fiona’s — her face was scarred, the nose once broken — and then bowed and followed. Outside there was a quick flash of spinning sun-struck metal as the dagger shards were scaled out into the river. Two of the boatmen approached, buckets and rags ready to clean up the blood, looking at Fiona apprehensively.

“Go ahead. Clean,” she told them, and she bent to pick up her scattered clothing and stuff it in her trunk; then she hauled both trunks to their places beneath her bunk and sat down on the thin mattress while the crewmen busied themselves. She drew her knees up protectively. Her hands were no longer trembling, but she clasped the edge of the bunk, white-knuckled, and when the crewmen finished and turned to glance at her, something in her look made them hurry silently from the room, closing the door behind them.

Until now, until she had seen the young thief spasming on the deck, she had not really believed it, this new existence. She was in a feudal, violent world; if she was to fulfill her mission, she would have to become a part of it.

Perhaps the thing that frightened her most was the possibility that she already had.

*

Only a few days of her journey remained. Abessas and Gostu beat at her brain; she could feel herself submerging into their assumptions, many of which her old life told her were wrong, and in the conflicts between noumena — she felt herself drowning. The intensity of the world around her was terrifying, the native plants burgeoning, the strange, antique mode of transportation that daily grew more familiar, the tall, oddly-proportioned people with their rude, confident assumptions about the world and their place in it... Her own body horrified her: had this hand killed? Had this foot lashed out to cripple? The privy-coat she wore under her blouse and skirts, shaped like a hooded undergarment, supple and soft to the touch but with an intrinsic, invisible awareness of its own that made it capable of repelling any weapon the planet was likely to develop for the next few hundred years, began to weigh on her shoulders. She knew it was a hallucination, a trick of the mind that made the privy-coat feel as heavy as Brodaini armor, but still she felt it bearing down on her, a reminder of the violent world she’d entered.

She made nightly reports to her superiors on the spindle she concealed in her magic chest. The reports mentioned little of her daily struggle to keep Echidne from overwhelming her; they stayed in the jargon she had been taught, concentrating on efforts to achieve rapport with the natives, to analyze the level of technology and technological awareness. She made notes about proxemics, and practiced behavior observation. The jargon began to seem more like an alien language, something outside the reality she was dealing with — how could the disinterested, dusty words possibly describe the meaning of the place? The dictionary phrases faded in contrast to the bright, burgeoning world, and Fiona was filled with a fear that she was losing everything she had been; that soon her past would fade entirely, vanish into a memory that grew progressively less substantial. The familiar voices on the communicator, Tyson’s gruff irony, Wenoa’s calm tenor, seemed increasingly distant; their reality, even that of Tyson who had, for a time, been Fiona’s lover, was slipping away. She found herself forgetting their faces, their eyes. She wished she could contact Kira without having to patch the call through the ship — Kira, she knew, would understand.

Fiona wondered if she would be able to return; perhaps she was already a creature of this planet: backward, violent, ineffably strange. Echidne, perhaps, had taken her — no, not Echidne, but Demro, or Achadan, the native names for the planet. Still, she knew the world could not have her as long as she could not comprehend it entirely as long as the noumena flailed within her skull for meaning. Reygran, amil-deo, dine, Abessas noumena; vail, hostu, demmin, dai-terru, demmis-dru, mysterious words used by the Brodaini soldiers, their speech so alien it was difficult to accept it as a tongue spoken by humans.

A part of her mind insisted on understanding, but another part quailed at it, afraid that understanding would mean her absorption into the world, into its primitive horrors.

The river branched at last into its delta and the barge came to Arrandal. The mast was unstepped and the two mules unloaded and harnessed to the towlines; the barge passed beneath a water-gate, its massive portcullis hanging overhead like the teeth of a dragon about to swallow them, followed amazingly by the pale, hairy buttocks of a citizen who was crouching with his trousers about his ankles, one arm draped casually about an iron mooring-post, apparently preparing to defecate into the canal. He held off while the barge passed under him, grinning down at the surprised, upturned faces, and then went about his business.

The city began crowding close to port and starboard — tall, pinched houses, faced with stone or pastel-colored brick arranged in gay patterns, arched bridges with tow-paths running cobbled beneath, tall brick smokestacks marking public baths, innumerable boats: houseboats, big deep-burdened river barges, swift, small oared galleys bearing passengers, messages, and soldiers. Teeming humanity, chiefly male, chiefly in a hurry. Their language boiled up about her.

The bowman unhitched the towing mules and draped the hawser over a bollard; another crewman lassoed a second bollard and the barge was brought to the dock, ripples of water curling from its rudder and stem. From among the swarm of urchins on the bank Fiona found two boys to carry her trunks. As she stepped off the barge she saw the eyes of the scarred Brodainu on her — thoughtful, wary eyes. Perhaps she would be followed to her inn, though not by the Brodaini themselves — they were too conspicuous, tall and armored in this throng — but by some hired boy.

Well, she was here to attract attention, after a fashion.

She stepped into the narrow streets, following the bearers.

The lanes were full of demanding humanity: hucksters, beggars, touts, hoteliers, prostitutes of both sexes, all soliciting her attention, her money, her soul. Their words clattered meaninglessly in her head; she would not pay attention. Not yet, she thought; she would stay herself a while longer, resisting the planet’s inevitable victory for at least another day.

It was a comforting thought, she knew; but it was a lie. The planet had already taken her; perhaps it would savor her awhile, but Echidne would inevitably swallow, and Fiona would spin helplessly down its throat... .

CHAPTER 1

The messenger wore a ruffled, sashed jacket, elaborately tooled boots, and his short-cropped hair that allowed cup-handle ears to protrude. He looked completely out of place in the austere audience hall, with its silent, waiting rows of Brodaini and their servants — forty men and women sitting in silence to hear the message from Acragas Necias, the Abessu-Denorru — the Community Speaker of the Arrandal assembly. The forty were present to support the dignity of Necias, since a public message from a person of authority required an audience large enough to support the sender’s dignity. Probably the messenger did not appreciate the courtesy. He did not seem aware, either, of the contrast he made, elaborate and gaudy in a hall occupied otherwise by Brodaini in simple, elegant armor, and by Classani servants in quiet, dignified livery.

“Drandor Tegestu Dellila Doren y’Pranoth,” the messenger began, the Gostu names rolling easily, carelessly, off his fat Abessla tongue, “salutations from the Abessu-Denorru.” His message, despite the Gostu flourishes, was delivered in Abessas. Tegestu, though he spoke Abessas well enough, waited for his translator’s version so that he could compose his answer while wondering at the message’s implications.

The message was simple enough. The Abeissu, Necias, requested the presence of Tegestu tomorrow at his palace, at the second hour after noon. Although couched as a request, the summons was nevertheless something approaching a command, and Tegestu had little realistic alternative but to obey.

Tegestu rarely presented himself to Necias in person, and then chiefly at carefully-scripted, ceremonial occasions, the usual traffic was by messenger. The summons, as peremptory as the flowery conventions to Abessla diplomacy permitted, bespoke a certain urgency.

Therefore news must have reached the Abeissu of the revolt in the twin cities of Neda-Calacas, four days’ sail to the northwest. The coup had been swift, virtually bloodless, and efficient — the hallmarks of a Brodaini conquest — and there had been no resistance after the first few hours. The city was now quiet.

Tegestu had been informed by his own spies two days ago, and very shortly thereafter by a formal message, delivered publicly by clattering horsebacked emissaries from Tastis, the new rebel lord who had taken the city — or, to use his full name, Tastis Senestu Tepesta y’Pranoth, Tegestu’s kinsman and former comrade-in-arms, head of kamliss Pranoth in Neda-Calacas as Tegestu was head of kamliss Pranoth in Arrandal.

Tastis, employed with his clan, sub-clans, and dependents as a defender of the twin cities, had revolted against his lords and taken the city himself. The message to Tegestu had claimed provocation, that he had been forced by insults to his house into the choice of rebellion or of becoming ar-demmin, honorless and outcast. The message had been sent in a curious fashion, with the ban of kantu-kamliss forbidding anyone outside the kamliss Pranoth from reading the message or even discussing it. Despite the ban that commanded secrecy, however, the message had been delivered quite publicly, and Tegestu’s employers, the lords of the city, were doubtless curious to know its contents, a curiosity that Tastis had no doubt anticipated when he sent the message under a ban that would forbid Tegestu from revealing it.

The message, therefore, had been sent as a provocation. To judge from the appearance of this overdressed messenger and his demand for a meeting, the provocation had succeeded.

His cousin’s revolt was something Tegestu had been dreading for years. Taking employment in the great cities of the south after having been driven from their own land, the Brodaini warriors had taken with them their dependents, their customs, and their warrior way of life; they had lived for the most part in their own quarter of the city, aloof from the bustle outside; they had thrived after their fashion, and their numbers increased.

There had always been tension between the Brodaini and their new masters, and as the numbers of Brodaini had grown the level of tension had risen. The two ways of life were incompatible: one sought wealth, and the other demmin; one was boisterous and aggressive, the other reserved and deadly. Separate quarters for the Brodaini had served to lessen the tension, but there had always been the danger of insult followed by outrage. The native mercenaries on which the local lords had formerly depended had been known to revolt against their masters, and the lords of the cities had never quite been able to accept Brodaini assurances that loyalty — nartil — was a subject of near-religious devotion, and that one of the vilest insults in the Gostu tongue was bearni — “mercenary.” The city lords had always feared a revolt by their servants.

And now the revolt had occurred in Neda-Calacas; Brodaini warriors were in command of the citadel, the city walls, probably the fleet. And Tastis, the rebel leader, had sent a private message to Tegestu in a very public fashion, calculated to heighten the tension between the two peoples and leading to further trouble, perhaps to further revolts. It seemed as if Tastis was aiming at a general Brodaini rebellion, and seizure of all the coastal cities.

And, as the message from the Abessu-Denorru showed, Arrandal’s merchant princes were realizing their danger. Their own intelligence systems were not as efficient as Tegestu’s, but it scarcely required efficiency to bring news of such a cataclysm. Necias had probably known of the revolt for at least a day, which accounted for the increased security around his palace, the citadel, and the city gates, as well as the bolstered patrols of mercenaries in the streets and the sudden alert that had set the fleet in a state of readiness. Tegestu’s men had observed the city’s preparations, but he had kept his own reactions limited: there was no obvious increase of security at the Brodaini keep, nothing to alarm the city lords. If there was to be provocation, it would not come from Tegestu’s people.

The messenger finished his address. Tegestu waited until the translator concluded before giving his own reply. The local habit of coating even simple requests in an icing of sugary, ornamental speech, which he had initially found so irritating, had its advantages: while waiting for the lengthy translation, he could compose his own thoughts.

The most reassuring reply would be a direct one, he thought.

“Tell the Abessu-Denorru Necias that, obedient to his will, I shall present myself at his palace at the second hour,” Tegestu said.

The messenger received the translation, waited for the icing, and then realized there would not be any. Brodaini prided themselves on direct, straightforward speech, and Tegestu had said all that was necessary.

“Drandor Tegestu, I will give your message to cenors-efellsan Necias,” the messenger said, direct himself for once, and was shown out by a pair of Classani in livery.

Tegestu shifted himself on his hard, low stool, glancing over the stark chamber. The others were facing forward dutifully, awaiting dismissal or further orders.

“There will be a meeting of the aldran at the fifth hour,” he said. “Those welldrani present in the keep will attend. Whelkran Hamila, you will see that those not present are informed.”

“Aye, bro-demmin Tegestu,” replied Hamila — an old, trusted soldier, renowned as a cunning tactician, a master of ambush and surprise.

“We have heard the Abessu-Denorru’s request, and we shall ponder.” Tegestu said. “Whelkran Cascan, you shall inform me of any changes in the city.”

The small, agile chief of spies bowed.

Tegestu’s eyes slid over the gathering. “Are there any questions, ban-demmini?” he asked. “Does everyone comprehend the Abessu-Denorru’s request?” There were bows, a discrete rattle of armor, and no questions.

“You are dismissed. Ban-demmin Grendis, I would be obliged if you would accompany me.”

“Aye, bro-demmin.”

Tegestu rose from his stool, the other Brodaini and their Classini servants rose from their own places and began to file out of the chamber. Taking the arm of Grendis, his wife, Tegestu walked from the room to his own apartments and accepted the salute of the armored cathruni at the door.

Inside, his dog Yellowtooth rose from his bed to welcome him. As Tegestu bent low to greet the animal his rheumatic joints jabbed him with their delicate needles of pain. Yellowtooth was an old animal, twelve years now. His muzzle was grey with age; his eyes showed the milky white of cataract. Too old now for the hunting and chasing that had once been the hound’s purpose, Yellowtooth had been moved into Tegestu’s quarters and genteel retirement. Yet he scarcely showed his age at the moment, romping and frisking with Tegestu and Grendis as if he were a pup.

Tegestu straightened, shuddering to another shaft of pain in his joints. Yellowtooth followed as he and Grendis moved to their bedchamber, where Grendis silently helped him to disarm. It was a part of Brodaini formality to appear armed on all public occasions; only the ill and very elderly were excepted. Tegestu was seventy-one and the burden of the armor wearied him, but he was not willing to proclaim himself elderly just yet. He exercised daily to keep fit; he could still handle a weapon, and only he, and perhaps Grendis, knew how much his rheumatic body pained him, and how far the lifetime of warfare, the accumulation of scars and broken limbs, the constant campaigning in bad weather and sleeping on the ground, had advanced in its progress to drag him down.

Husband and wife disarmed, placing their armor on the mannequins that stood in the alcove devoted to personal weaponry. Dressed in tunic, trousers, and slippers they called for tea, and Tegestu stretched out on his mattress, face down, letting relief swim slowly into his limbs. Yellowtooth, with a grateful wheeze, lay down at his feet. Grendis reached out to touch with practiced fingers the back of his neck, massaging the tense muscles, the callused tissue that only partly protected the flesh that bore the weight of the armor straps. Tegestu sighed as he felt the fingers releasing his muscles, the tension draining away. Grendis knew his body well.

They were of an age, Tegestu and his wife; they had been betrothed at the age of nine, married at fifteen — that had been in the old keep at Remolina. The turrets had been decked with flags, Brodaini in gleaming white armor had marshaled in their ranks to celebrate the wedding of a young Brodainu of kamliss Pranoth to a Brodainu of kamliss Dantu, a middle-level marriage of two promising offspring who, in time, might become whelkrani, commanders of at least a hundred soldiers — or, if they were lucky and survived to an old and honored age, might be elected to the aldran, the body of elders who governed the clans. No one had expected, on that summery day with the elite of two kamlissi gathered in their numbers, that twenty winters hence Remolina would be wasted, the curtain walls razed and the keep torn open to the sky; that Tegestu and Grendis, born to the middle ranks, would have become senior commanders as those ranked higher were slain; that they would each be elected to the aldran before they were thirty-five; or that Tegestu, before he was forty, would be elected drandor, the head of kamliss Pranoth in exile. In another generation the very name of Remolina would be forgotten except as a footnote in some Brodaini history, a speck on some moldering map that had once marked a provincial capital sacked and burned by the winning side in a continent-wide civil war.

There was little that had not changed for the young man and woman who had been married that day fifty-six years before. They had shared much: campaigns, wounds, the loss of four children who had died in their youth of accidents and battles on land and sea, the loss of another child, a girl, wounded in the head and made simple until she died later, absently drowning herself in a well. Yes, Grendis’ fingers had learned his body well: here was the scar along his ribs from the time when he’d been unhorsed in a swarm of spearmen; here the knot on his shoulder from the mace of the warrior she had in turn pierced with her sword; here was the silvery, puckered scar of the assassin’s arrow that had drilled through his lung and almost ended his life. She had nursed him through the subsequent fever, the wasting; she had cooked the food on which he’d regained his strength and stood over his mattress to make certain he ate it. He’d been lucky that time, and in more ways than one: the assassination attempt had come during a winter truce; otherwise he would probably have been out in the field and Grendis would have been unable to supervise his recovery.

Grendis’ hand slid down his lower back. There had been an injury there once, a riding accident, and sometimes the muscles knotted as if to guard against another sprain. He felt them relax. The body was scarred, but still in service; it was good for another five years, if war or assassination or illness didn’t cut him short.

The tea arrived, carried by Thesau, Tegestu’s Classanu servant, a companion of forty years and more. Thesau bowed to place the tray on the table by the bed and turned to Tegestu with an expression of concern on his kindly face. “Bro-demmin,” he asked, “shall I send for the masseurs?”

“Nay, ilean Thesau,” said Tegestu. “Ban-demmin Grendis knows these lean bones better than the masseurs. You may call for musicians to play in the next room.’’

“Aye, bro-demmin,” Thesau bowed and left the apartment. In a few moments there was a rustle of drapery in the next chamber, followed by quiet tuning; then the throb of the bohau and the strum of the tedec began to filter into the room. Tegestu began to smell the warm aroma of fragrant tea. One of their house cats came to join him on his mattress, curling up near his head and accompanying the instruments with its purrs.

Tegestu sighed, then rolled upright on the bed, crossing his legs. Grendis put her hand on his arm; there was a lazy, contented smile on her face. He kissed her and then served her a glass of tea, highly sweetened as she preferred it. Another little moment of peace, snatched from the encompassing arms of duty and war, one of a thousand such moments they had shared and learned to cherish, moments seized during the breaks of marches, in the predawn quiet before battle, in the lulls between official duties. Grendis sipped her tea calmly; Tegestu poured the steaming beverage into his own glass and drank as the tea’s aroma tickling his nose.

The music gently infiltrated from the next room. Tegestu reached out to take her hand; she smiled at his touch and clasped the scarred fingers. Tegestu remembered a poem she had written him once, and given to him just before he’d ridden from Connu Keep, his own tower on the edge of the sea. She’d been carrying their third child, but even so had been delegated to hold their home against any attack; the lines she’d written were direct in the manner of Brodaini speech, yet with a formal elegance and an eloquent sentiment.

I

shall seek your shadow before distant watchfires

As I gaze into the hearthfires of home;

Your far-off footfalls, your remote voice

Shall I hear in the wind that sighs in the crenels.

I shall ward your back from danger;

I shall keep safe our Connu Keep.

Grendis had kept Connu, kept it until the survivors of kamliss Pranoth had left their native land forever and scattered in service to the lords of another continent, as if they were no better than bearni...

Tegestu’s hand tightened at the bitter memory; Grendis looked up sharply, then reached out to touch his temple with cool fingers.

“Peace,” she said. “Peace. The world rolls on its path, and you are not required to make it so. Peace.”

He accepted the touch, closing his eyes, felt the warmth of the tea lulling him. Feeling Grendis’ touch, hearing the bohau and tedec playing in intricate duet, sensing the warmth of his animals and scenting the fragrance of the tea, it was possible to think himself back at Connu Keep, its round towers perched above the blue harbor and the walled town, all now occupied by strangers... Grendis’ hand caressed his long, white, intricately-curled hair.

Savor the pleasure while it lasts, he thought drowsily; abdicate for a few minutes the demands of responsibility. Seek hostu; seek peace, a glimpse of vail. I shall ward your back from danger, Grendis had promised; she had kept the promise, kept it for over fifty years, and with that he had more than reason enough to be content.

CHAPTER 2

The welldrani — “elders,” the term used to describe anyone, old or young, who sat on the aldran, the council that ruled the Brodaini families in Arrandal — had filed into their places, sitting in disciplined silence of the low stools that surrounded the polished, mosaic central table. Tegestu, armored once more, his badges of rank and clan blazoned on his surcoat, waited in an anteroom, receiving a briefing from Cascan, the head of his cambrani, his corps of spies.

Cascan was a young man for his position, in his mid-forties only, having risen in rank as he had demonstrated his ability to penetrate the alien labyrinths of the new continent; he was small and slight, quick, with an actor’s plastic face and a versatile, mimic’s voice. He belonged to kamliss Tosta, one of the smaller clans, that had attached itself to Tegestu’s exiles for its own safety. As a small kamliss, Tosta had depended on espionage and cunning rather than military power, and since the emigration from their homeland, their training programs, both in spying and in countering spies, had proved most useful. Tegestu had rarely found Cascan’s estimates to be wrong.

“Our inquiries upriver show that the refugee situation is worsening,” Cascan said. “I have received information that Baron Wollas of Cavasto will send a deputation to the Denorru-Deissin asking them to use their influence to end the war, or at least to help settle the refugees elsewhere. Other lords may join in the request; in the event of refusal they may ask for Brodaini to assist in the keeping of order.”

Tegestu nodded. “And the situation in Arrandal?”

“The fleet is still on alert, bro-demmin,” said Cascan. “There is heightened security at the city gates, allegedly because of an influx of illegal refugees. A new battalion of bearni have been moved into the citadel. The situation seems to be easing somewhat: orders to discontinue the patrolling on the streets and canals were given two hours ago.” Two hours: that would have been in response to Tegestu’s answer to Necias. Good: the Abeissu was trying to keep things from exploding.

“Our people have been given orders not to leave the keep on missions not absolutely necessary, and when they leave to travel in pairs,” Cascan continued, “if there is any attempt to recall outlying garrisons of bearni to increase the forces in the city, our pickets on the roads will let us know of it. Garrisons on the islands are another problem; our marine pickets are limited in resource, and it is possible for an island garrison to sail into sight of our keep before we’d see it.”

“That should be corrected, ban-demmin,” Tegestu said. Cascan bowed hastily.

“Aye, bro-demmin. Boats can be purchased or rented, but the lords of the city will know of it.”

“Buy boats through some of your agents that have been posing as locals, or as recent immigrants,” Tegestu said. “We may risk exposing some of our men, but anything threatening our security is vital; we must know where those island garrisons are.”

“Aye, bro-demmin.”

There was an uneasy silence: it was clear from his tone that Cascan did not relish risking his agents. Tegestu spoke.

“News from Neda-Calacas?” he asked. “Has anything changed? Any sign that Tastis is moving?”

“All reports indicate only that he is securing his own position as master of the cities and sending out messengers to the other cities of the Elva. We do not know what these messages contain, but we’re certain that Necias received one this afternoon.”

“Doubtless,” said Tegestu, “Necias will inform me of what he wishes us to know at our meeting tomorrow. Is it possible, ban-demmin Cascan, that you can inform me of all the rest tomorrow morning?”

Cascan’s eyes flickered in the dim lamplight. There was hesitation in his voice. “Frankly, bro-demmin, there is not enough time. Success is possible, even likely; but if exposure or capture resulted, there could be embarrassment.”

“Yes-s,” Tegestu said, frowning. Considering the situation, one of his agents unmasked or even captured might prove too great a provocation. “I agree with you, ban-demmin,” he said, to Cascan’s evident relief. “Your judgment is sound.”

“Many thanks, bro-demmin.” Cascan bowed.

“All of these matters can safely be brought before the aldran,” Tegestu said. “If that is all, ban-demmin, we may proceed to the council.”

Cascan frowned. “Bro-demmin, there is another matter,” he said. “It may be trivial; I don’t know whether it is even a matter worthy of your notice.”

Tegestu looked at him impatiently. “Speak, ban-demmin.”

“Bro-demmin, we have under surveillance a woman encountered on a river barge heading from Cavasto to Arrandal. She — “ He frowned, shaking his head. “This is what does not make sense. She claims to be a conjuror from Khensin, but her accent is not Khemsinla — we asked a Khemsinla to listen to her speech to make sure, and he confirms she is not a countrywoman. She speaks Gostu, also with an accent hard to place. She carries no weapons, but on the barge she killed a man, a thief trying to loot her cabin, and disabled another, apparently barehanded.”

Tegestu absorbed the information impassively. “If she were a spy,” he said, “she would know better than to kill a man, or to speak Gostu within hearing of our people. It would have been easy enough to raise an outcry on the barge and catch the thieves that way. Unless...” Tegestu hesitated while the mental mosaic resolved itself, then continued. “Unless the thieves discovered something she was unwilling to allow anyone else to see, and she was forced to kill hastily.”

“Beg pardon, bro-demmin, but why didn’t she kill both of them?” Cascan said. “It seems to have been well within her powers.”

Tegestu received this logical objection with a scowl of chagrin. “Of course, of course,” he muttered. “You were right to bring this to me. I don’t think we need to bring the matter before the aldran just yet. In the meantime keep her under surveillance, and I think it might be best if her baggage were searched. She might be what she says; perhaps it’s merely a matter of a pair of incompetent thieves and a lucky blow. But there’s too great a chance she is a provocateur sent by Tastis to take any chances. Has she been observed making any contacts?”

“Many. During the five days she’s been in the city, she’s purchased a street performer’s license and entertains daily in the public squares and markets.” Cascan smiled admiringly. “Her performance is quite remarkable; she’s well on her way to becoming a sensation. I’ve seen her myself, and it’s certainly unlike anything this city has ever seen. Naturally,” he said, nodding, “she’s had casual contact with hundreds. She’s accepted a few offers to perform privately in the palaces of the deissin, and we have no way of knowing what information would have been exchanged there.”

Tegestu considered for a moment. This was sounding more and more like a strange set of coincidences; but still, if she were a spy, operating under the cover of a traveling conjuror would be almost perfect, and would allow her to contact her fellow agents with ease. It would not be wise to take a chance. “Continue surveillance,” he said. “Not too elaborate; if she’s good she’ll see it. Perhaps,” he smiled, “she will accept an invitation to perform for us one evening.”

“You won’t be disappointed in that case, bro-demmin,” Cascan said. “No matter what she turns out to be, she’s a splendid entertainer.” He bowed, and Tegestu wondered whether his whelkran of spies had a gleam of triumph in his eye. Perhaps Cascan had wanted him to be intrigued — otherwise why bring up the matter in the first place? But no: with Tastis in revolt and the local forces on alert, the situation was serious; Cascan would have kept any frivolous matters out of their conference. His raising the issue at all meant that he was puzzled. The conjuror was certainly something out of the ordinary, yet she was not following any of the normal patterns expected of a spy. It was almost as if she intended to be noticed.

Well: enough. Possibly a search of her belongings would help answer their questions.

“Precede me, ban-demmin Cascan,” Tegestu said. Cascan bowed again and led the way past two saluting cathruni to the meeting of the aldran.

The welldrani rose as Tegestu entered; he and Cascan bowed politely as they took their places. Then all bowed to the household armor — the heavy, quaint, and ornate armor worn by the founders of each of their kamlissi many centuries before, all since etched heavily with patterns showing gods, charms for good luck, and allegorical scenes, the lances — Brodaini had once fought entirely as heavy cavalry — set in place with clan banners draped from each lance point. Tegestu gave the signal to sit.

The room was only of modest size, with two doors, one at either end. The doors were massive, inches thick, in order to prevent any eavesdropper from being able to listen, and the room was barren of ornamentation or tapestry for much the same reason, to prevent anyone from hiding unseen and listening to things he shouldn’t.

All twelve of the welldrani were present, all sitting in their armor and gleaming badges of rank except Truscatta, at eighty-one the oldest, too frail to bear arms but a man who had gained great demmin in his day. Nine men, among them Tegestu’s son Acamantu, and four women, including Grendis Destu Luc y’Dantu, Tegestu’s wife — and all the rest were related to Tegestu in some fashion or other, even if they belonged to different kamlissi; they were also related one to the other, the aldran being as much a family council as a council of state, even though the “family” over which they claimed authority consisted of the hundred thousand-odd Brodaini and their dependents who served the city of Arrandal.

“May your demmin ever increase, cousins,” Tegestu said. The welldrani murmured the reply, and then there was silence as four of the autraldi — warrior-priests — entered to conduct the ceremonies of purification: incense was burned, a hymn was sung, the gods were invoked along with the spirits of ancestors. The autraldi bowed and withdrew, and the meeting commenced.

The first matters were trivial: supplies and fodder had to be sent to outlying garrisons; the watch list for the next month had to be made up; reports of various training programs were received and noted; passwords for the next two weeks were approved. Two youths, one from kamliss Tosta and the other from Dantu, had requested permission to fight a duel. Had they been from the same kamliss permission would not have been needed, but when the Brodaini had first come to the city Tegestu had ordered that, in order to prevent unnecessary friction between the clans, an inter-kamliss duel would require the permission of the aldran.

Apparently there was some degree of clan honor involved, for neither of the welldrani representing Tosta nor Dantu objected or required clarification. Permission was given therefore, and the nature of the insult was not inquired into. The duel would be with rhomphia, to honorable serious wounds. Death might not necessarily result, but for the duel to be meaningful fatality was required to be a possibility.

Then Cascan gave his report, beginning first with the outland situation, the refugees and Baron Wollas’ probable deputation, then continuing to an appreciation of the current situation in the city: the fleet on alert, heightened security at the gates, new forces in the citadel.

“Bro-demmini,” old Truscatta said, “I hope we are not reacting to these moves over-slowly. It may be necessary to braid our hair.”

“Braiding hair,” meant war; for battle the Brodaini forsook their elaborate hairstyles and coiled their hair in braids about their heads.

“Cousins,” said Tegestu, “we must move cautiously. We do not wish to provoke an attack.”

“We must not be caught off guard.’’

“May your demmin increase, ban-demmin Truscatta,” Tegestu smiled, “when were we ever lax?”

The old man, answering Tegestu’s smile, bowed.

“Abessu-Denorru Necias has requested my presence tomorrow,” Tegestu said, “I shall oblige. Surely distrust cannot survive such a meeting.”

“The request is unusual.” This came from Grendis.

“The situation is unusual, and not of our making,” Tegestu said. “Tastis’ strategy is obvious; he has sent a message under bar of kantu-kamliss, and this divides the Brodaini from the city, and Brodainu from Brodainu. We must face these provocations with calm. The Abeissu shall be satisfied.”

“It may be a trap.” Grendis said. “Necias Abeissu may think to sever our head from our shoulders by taking our drandor from us.”

Tegestu turned to his wife, inwardly amused. They knew each other well, and he understood what she was doing: attempting to draw the sting from the others’ objections by raising them herself. “I do not think Necias will make himself ar-demmin in such a way,” he said. “Surely if he behaves dishonorably we will know how to respond.”

“But,” he said, bowing toward Grendis, “the possibility must not be denied, and I would esteem it a favor if the aldran chooses from itself one to secure the keep in my absence, and take whatever steps are necessary to deal with any treachery. I regret that I must make a single restriction: the commander must be of kamliss Pranoth; otherwise there is no way of dealing with the kantu-kamliss matter.”

That went down hard, but they bowed to the necessity: Tegestu’s son Acamantu was chosen as temporary drandor, and could scarcely conceal his pleasure at being chosen for such a responsibility at the extremely youthful age of thirty-nine. Tegestu repressed a smile at his son’s joy. Acamantu’s rapid advance had owed something initially to his parents’ prominence, but Tegestu knew that for some time his promotions had been earned. He had proven a talented field commander, but his advance to high rank and promotion to the aldran had come about chiefly because he was one of the most successful of the Brodaini in dealing with the natives of the new continent; his diplomatic skills had proved considerable.

There was further discussion, speculation concerning whether Tastis would attempt to spread his rebellion by force of arms or whether he would be content to await events. Tegestu was inclined to suspect the latter: Tastis, he thought, was too clever simply to begin an outright attack on his neighbors, which would serve only to drive them together — Tastis would prefer, Tegestu thought, more indirect means of achieving his objectives. Tastis probably had dozens of spies in Arrandal, and more in the other cities of the Elva; no doubt other agents would soon join them. They would try to provoke incidents, sowing distrust between the Brodaini and their host cities, attempting to incite hatred and resentment. They would attempt to create a climate in which a general Brodaini revolt was inevitable.

Revolt. The idea was abhorrent, against nartil, the law of fealty, respect, and obligation; it was ar-demmin, acting against the honor that Brodaini society prized above life. The very fact of Tastis’ rebellion was shocking, and Tegestu knew that the welldrani very much wanted to believe that it had been provoked by the merchant princes of Neda-Calacas, and that the provocation had been so bitter, so insulting, that Tastis had seen no alternative but to revolt. The other possibility was too appalling: that Tastis, supported by his aldran and his Brodaini, had simply seized power. That fear remained unvoiced by the welldrani: it would have been too disturbing even to have raised the possibility.

Tegestu tried to keep the discussion under firm control, refusing to allow speculation as to Tastis’ motives. These were explained in his private communication, and that was under ban.

In the end the aldran ended its meeting unresolved, except to await events and the reports of Cascan’s spies, and in the meantime to increase their security. It was an unsatisfactory meeting in many ways, not the least because the body designated to direct Brodaini affairs found itself unable to do anything except react to events rather than control them.

After the autraldi had been called back in to sing the final, ceremonial hymn — prayers to the gods were to be sung by the human voice, unadorned by instruments or any other artificial thing — the six members of the aldran not belonging to kamliss Pranoth quietly rose and left the chamber. The rest could properly deal with Tastis’ message.

Sent kantu-kamliss, under the ceremonial ban that made it improper for anyone not bearing the surname of the Pranoth to read, touch, or even comment on it, the message was barred to some of Tegestu’s most valuable advisors, including his wife, who though married to a Pranoth was still technically a Dantu. Also under the ban were his chief of cambrani, Cascan, and even Castu, Tegestu’s dentraldu — chief priest — one of his chief supporters, and, like Cascan, a Tosta.

Nevertheless it was Castu, in his distinctive white robes, who brought Tastis’ document, carrying it in its case so that his non-Pranoth hands should not defile it. It had been kept in the demmis-dru, the shrine where all treaties, wills, and secret documents were kept under the protection of the dentraldu and his autraldi, Brodaini priests who had forsaken the life of active warriors and the pursuit of demmin in order to attend their meditations, praise the gods, and guard the demmis-dru with all the considerable ferocity at their command. They had the one chief task, to guard the holiest place in the keep, and that task was pursued with singleminded fanaticism.

“Many thanks, cousin,” Tegestu said as the container, a leather cylinder, was placed on the table before him. The case was heavily decorated with abstract Brodaini patterns, whorls and jagged lightning-symbols as well as the badge of the clan of Pranoth. The elaborate seals that had been placed on it in Neda-Calacas had been broken when Tegestu had first read it, and replaced by a simple white seal, dated and stamped, affixed by one of the autraldi when the document had been placed in the demmis-dru.

Castu bowed and withdrew, and Tegestu broke the seal. The vellum scroll unrolled itself heavily in his hands. Though it was not embroidered or illuminated it was a neat copy, the vertical Brodaini script executed with a careful hand within almost-invisible guidelines. There was no sign that it had been written in haste.

“Hail cousins, kamliss-Pranoth-sa-Arrandal,” Tegestu read, “greetings from Tastis Senestu Tepesta y’Pranoth, drandor y kamliss-Pranoth-sa-Neda. May your demmin increase; may your arms never fail.

“Let your council witness the fact of revenge executed by kamliss-Pranoth-sa-Neda against persons who were our betrayers and secret enemies; let your witness extend to our sorrow and triumph, and to a disobedience required by self-respect.

“Understand that the leaders of Neda-Calacas were unwise in their actions and often insulting, but that, knowing they were ignorant of nartil, we refrained from taking offense against ar-demmini, knowing their insults as harmless as the threats of so many cattle, or the insults of the black hangman-birds that flock in jeering numbers among the eaves of the city. Yet there came last month an insult we could not ignore: one of our own, Norvenan Tolmatus Tepesta y’Pranoth, a lady of the spear and a Brodainu of some respect, was savaged and raped by a gang of city youths. Though she fought she was overcome by numbers; despite her distress she was able to identify her attackers. Some belonged to the family of the deissu Spensas, and the rest to his household.

“Spensas, informed of our complaint, agreed to punish the attackers, but we later learned that the punishment consisted only of confinement within the deissu’s palace. Upon being informed that the punishment was inadequate, Spensas referred us to the Abessu-Denorru Nadielas, who in turn informed us that our complaint was out of order.

“At his point Norvenan fell on her sword, feeling herself ar-demmin. Shamed by this, our aldran determined to take action, and declared angu with Spensas, Nadielas, and their houses. Eight days followed the decision, our plans completed, we took the city.

“We are now in full command. Surprise was complete, and resistance insignificant. Spensas and those of his family who participated in the incident have been dying since their capture; we shall use our skills to keep them dying as long as possible. Their family has been purged; their banking house and its assets have been seized; and their goods confiscated. All shall be given to the population of the town, that all might see we acted for our demmin and not for gain.

“Nadielas Abessu-Denorru was allowed a swift death, as were certain of his supporters. The Denorru-Deissin is disbanded, and several of the bearni bands have been disarmed and dismissed from service of the city. They were not ashamed by their capture, but angered only: ar-demmin creatures indeed.

“Action was supported by the full membership of the aldran, including those who do not belong to kamliss Pranoth. We do not desire angu with the other cities; we are not dai-terru who desire merely conquest. We desired only to guard our own demmin; we shall continue to guard it.

“Witness, kamliss-Pranoth-sa-Arrandal, our action in defense of our self-respect; witness the end of Spensas and his household; witness whether it was fitting. Hail, kamliss-Pranoth-sa-Arrandal, and bear witness.”

“Aiau!” breathed one of the welldrani — Amasta, and white-haired, lined, ferocious old woman who sat at the end of the table. “That was aspistu indeed. This Norvenan must have been a woman of great respect.”

Aspistu — the discipline of artful and imaginative vengeance. Amasta had herself practiced aspistu in her youth: her cold, imaginative retributions, merciless and deliberate as the stalk of a giant cat, were still spoken of with respect and private shivers. The idea that an entire city was taken as aspistu for a single Brodainu woman was impressive.

“Shemmina,” Acamantu said quickly. Long-faced, thin and long-limbed, he echoed his father in physical caste and also in distaste of excess. “There is no demmin to be gained in revenge taken on ar-demmin beings, beings who cannot appreciate aspistu or its beauty. Simply killing them would have sufficed. Taking an entire city was excessive.”

Amasta looked at Acamantu with pale, pitiless eyes. “Circumstances had to be taken into consideration,” she said. “The city would not have tolerated a raid on two of its ruling families. Tastis was correct to take precautions against retaliation.”

“Such precautions are irrelevant to aspistu,” Acamantu said. “They reek of dai-terru; Tastis reached too high. Proper behavior would have necessitated the death of these criminals and their protectors, and then the publishing of the decision so that the population and the Denorru-Deissin could have understood. If the city chose to take offense, then any further violence would have been the fault of the city.

“In order to prevent revenge by the people of Neda-Calacas,” Acamantu concluded, “Tastis has taken the city and invited revenge not only by its people, but by the other cities in the Elva.”

“Cousins,” said Tegestu, interrupting quietly before the disagreement could split the aldran, “we are not obliged to judge whether Tastis’ action was appropriate, but only to witness it. Our duty lies in recording our notice, and in sending such to Tastis.

“Further, we must deal with the implications of this message. It was sent kantu-kamliss, that no one but Pranoth should be able with honor to read it or comment publicly on its contents. Surely this ban is inappropriate. The taking of an entire city was a public act; such an act demands public justification.’’

“The insult was to kamliss Pranoth,” Amasta said. “Kamliss Pranoth has taken revenge. Justification of such an act is not required except to those of the kamliss concerned.”

“I think, respected cousin, that bro-demmin Tegestu is correct,” said Sethenthu. He was sixty-eight, bald but carefully wigged, and known as “Sethenthu the Silent” for his reserved manner: he rarely volunteered an idea or participated in an argument, but only spoke when he thought the subject needed clarification. “Your argument, cousin Amasta, is inconsistent. You defend the seizure of the city on practical grounds — very well, but since you must realize the practical consequences of this message, the potential for causing distrust between ourselves and our lords, surely you must do Tastis the honor of believing him to realize this also?”

Amasta was silent for a moment, and then bowed. “I stand corrected, bro-demmin Sethenthu. May your arm never weaken.”

“This private message was sent very publicly,” Tegestu said. “By messengers arriving in a dispatch boat that cleared quarantine here and the local customs, and who then hired horses and gear and paraded their Pranoth-sa-Neda banners through the streets of the city before coming to our keep. The Abessu-Denorru Necias doubtless knows the message was sent. Yet it will be a difficult matter to convince him that we cannot inform him of its contents, we who are his servants.

“Surely Tastis intended distrust between ourselves and Arrandal. The kantu-kamliss message was such that our entire Aldran might not read it; yet according to the scroll Tastis’ entire aldran consented to the capture of the city, and his aldran, like ours, is composed of clans other than Pranoth. Surely Tastis intends — I will not say distrust, but certainly disunity — within our aldran. For what purpose, other than the sowing of discord, would Tastis send us such a message? And how, bro-demmin cousins, should we deal with it? How can we keep the trust of the city without breaking our sacred obligations?”

Amasta’s pale eyes glittered coldly. Her voice, when she spoke, was arrogant and commanding. Tegestu recognized the tone at once: her superb, cunning, ruthless mind, once presented with the problem, had found a plan worth considering.

“Bro-demmini,” she said, “there is a way.” Lazily, she took a drink of tea. “It will require a sacrifice — there will be killing — but I assure you, there is a way.”

CHAPTER 3

The room was small but exquisitely decorated, from the deep brown parquetry of the floor, to the lighter-colored carved paneling of the walls, to the lovely bronze shrine to the household gods that occupied the corner. The parquetry was gradually accumulating a series of scuff marks as Acragas Necias, master of the city of Arrandal, paced rapidly back and forth like an animal in its cage. He consumed tea-cakes at frequent intervals, chewing in a brisk, businesslike fashion with the few good teeth he had remaining on the right side. Tegestu was due for his audience within the half hour, and Necias knew the Brodaini chieftain would be precisely on time. He halted his pacing, irritated at his own distress. He felt he had lost cimmersan, becoming disadvantaged, and he had no clear notion of how to regain the initiative.

He was the Community Speaker of the city, Abessu-Denorru — “Abeissu” for short — and he was a man of vast wealth. Perhaps the wealthiest man in Arrandal, perhaps not: his social position required great expenditure, and those with greater acquisitiveness and fewer civic ambitions might have surpassed him. Though the Acragas family had not been prominent in his youth, he had nevertheless been nominated to the Denorru-Deissin, the nine-man oligarchy who ruled the city, at an early age, and had by now married into many of the great families of the city. He was not used to frustration, and was not bearing it well.

He was a large man, with a massive barrel chest and brawny wide-spread arms, and he was always in motion; for nearly twenty years he had run the city and its affairs, through a half-dozen successful wars and a score of little country clashes, and in these last years he thought he had finally reached some kind of plateau of stability, that all the forces — social, economic, baronial, racial, military — were finally adding up to some kind of balance. There hadn’t been a major war in ten years; trade agreements with the other Elva cities had seemed to define effectively the various areas of influence; the importation of Brodaini warriors had created a climate of military stability, with no city having the advantage of another; the outland barons were slowly being pacified. Necias had, he had thought, created a peace that might last a hundred years.

But now Neda-Calacas had burst into rebellion — worse than a rebellion, really, for revolts were frequent in the Elva cities, as houses of one faction purged those of another. This was a race war, as a minority warrior caste tried to impose its will on a much larger, sophisticated, and vastly dissimilar population.

And, of course, the revolt could spread to Arrandal. Perhaps, he thought with an angry, fatalistic despair, the astrologers had been right about a season of upheaval. Ever since the new, fixed star had appeared, apparently right overhead, the astrologers had been predicting a great change below. They were, as usual, unspecific about the exact nature of the change, but Necias had been assured it would be major, perhaps catastrophic. Necias had thanked the astrologers and gone about his own business, convinced that there was little point to their art if they couldn’t offer him practical advice— and then he’d turned the new star to sensible advantage by offering a cash prize for anyone working out a way to navigate by it. But still, he thought grudgingly, perhaps the astrologers were right; perhaps it was all in the stars, and the sky had already proclaimed that Necias’ century of peace was not to be.

He had been certain of Brodaini loyalty; he had seen it demonstrated in so many ways, including the intramural wars fought between the cities of the Elva, when Brodaini in the service of one city had fought Brodaini in the service of another. His policy had been based on Brodaini loyalty; his very rise to power was based on it. The knowledge, sudden and stunning, that his power may have been resting on unstable foundations had filled him with anxiety.

Necias gobbled another tea-cake, bit down hard on a bad tooth, and winced. He paused for a moment, rubbing his jaw, and pondered.

Why hadn’t Tegestu reported to him the contents of the communication he’d received from the rebels? The message had been delivered publicly; Tegestu had to have known that Necias was aware of its arrival, and would be chafing to know its contents. Tegestu’s uncompromisingly obedient reply to his summons was reassuring; but still there was a deep anxiety that underlay all Arrandal’s relationships with its Brodaini, and not a little fear. There was something unsettling about the Brodaini, something alien and fierce — the Brodaini could explode into ruthless violence if provoked, and no one quite understood what constituted provocation.

Necias resumed his pacing, scowling as he prodded at his rotting teeth with the tip of his tongue. He was, he thought, a practical man; he had risen to power by making practical decisions. He had started as a middleman, priding himself on his contacts among the deissin and the guilds, the color gangs, the pilots’ league — his name had reached its first prominence as a man who knew where a certain thing could be procured, who to go to when a certain favor needed to be asked. From that he’d gone on to a role as a power-broker, acting as middleman in the city’s internal struggles, helping one faction obtain what it needed to triumph over another, collecting favors and eventually his reward. He’d been appointed to the Denorru-Deissin and given, among his other tasks, that of Chairman of the Famine Relief Fund, which had always been considered a license to embezzle and speculate with the vast stores of grain the city maintained as a bulwark against crop failure. He hadn’t held the post for more than three years before the drought struck, ruining the crops across the entire continent, spelling disaster for the population of the cities... but then, to the astonishment of everyone, Necias had opened the granaries and fed the city for the two years the drought lasted. The grain had not, as had always happened before, trickled away into somebody’s pocket, or been gambled away in speculations — it was there in the granaries, where no one, not even the poor whose very lives depended on the grain’s remaining where it was, had ever expected it to be.

People began to talk about Acragas Necias.

It was not that Necias was scrupulous. There had been plenty of fiddles of one sort or another with the grain supply; but there had always been ways of speculating that didn’t require the goods to leave the warehouse. But he had known that a famine was about due, and that the best way to make a name for himself was to do the unexpected and feed the population.

After that he’d used his popularity to become the leader of the city’s war party, and after importing the first Brodaini from the north had forced a declaration against Neda-Calacas, at the time the most powerful city on the continent— and Tegestu had beaten them on land and sea. By the time Neda-Calacas tried again two years later, Necias had imported more Brodaini and the twin cities had been crushed so thoroughly they still hadn’t recovered. After that there had been a purge of the city deissin, and Necias’ faction had emerged as victors; Necias had been made Abessu-Denorru, had launched more wars with more Brodaini, had beaten Cartenas and Prypas and a dozen barons, and he’d revived an old moribund alliance against the barons, the Elva vor Denorru-Dorsu, and turned it into an alliance of all the city-states, and he’d made himself chairman of it.

It hadn’t, he thought, been as difficult as it might have seemed. He’d simply had to reason with people, and point out that their path of advantage lay alongside his own. He believed firmly that if one simply made it obvious to people the course that would bring them advantage and profit, they would eventually follow it. He was, he would point out, a practical man; and he made a point of appealing to the practical side of others.

But that course, he knew, could not be taken with Brodaini. There was a grim kind of practicality about them, to be sure, but it couldn’t be counted on. Their allegiance was not to profit, or even to cimmersan, but to a warriors’ code that made no sense at all — even, Necias suspected, to the Brodaini themselves.

He remembered the horrid experience he had trying to learn Gostu. Tegestu had given him a Classanu tutor and he’d met with the man daily for three months, only to be confronted each time with the same illogical, imponderable, impenetrable language. “Beg pardon, cenors-stannan,” the tutor would always correct, “but you must remember, the indirect object is always placed before the direct object. You cannot place it before the verb, as you can in Abessas, but only before the direct object.” But why? Necias would howl in desperation, flogging his brains in frustration and wondering why the Brodaini couldn’t simply decline their nouns like civilized, sensible people and stuff them into the sentence wherever there was room for them. In the end he’d had to give it up, concluding that Gostu was simply the impractical language of an impractical people, and rely on translators who were paid to understand such madness.

But even through a translator Necias could not talk to Brodaini as he was accustomed to talking to others; he had to feel his way carefully, making certain not to inadvertently offend one of their strange codes of conduct and cause insult. He could not appeal to their practical nature, because often the practical course was denied to them by their beliefs — which, fortunately, at least allowed utter practicality in war.

The Abessla and the Brodaini had always had to be wary of one another; and in Arrandal Necias had tried to minimize the chances of collision by giving the Brodaini possession of what was, in effect, a city-within-a-city, the former Old Quarter, with their own keep. There Brodaini law prevailed, and their oddness, their impractical ferocity, was masked.

But Tastis’ Brodaini had also had their own quarter in Neda-Calacas, newly-built by the Neda Denorru-Deissin outside the former city walls. Yet Tastis and his warriors had boiled out of it, taking both cities, and at a seemingly trivial slight. Did they seriously think that some woman’s distress was justification for the capture of the twin cities, the interruption of commerce, the execution of an entire household, and almost certainly general war within the Elva? Such was the justification offered by Tastis in the communication that had arrived just yesterday, along with a bland, badly-stated wish for peace and normalization. Was Tastis serious in his wishes: was he really that imbecile, to think that the other cities of the Elva would tolerate a coup by Brodaini? By flenssin, mercenaries? — for the Brodaini were certainly mercenaries, even if they insisted they weren’t.

Necias’ fevered pacing was interrupted by a scratching at his door. He gave the door an annoyed glance.

“Who is it?”

“Luco. I brought fresh tea.” The answer brought an unconscious smile to Necias’ lips.

“Come in.” The girl slipped in, carrying a brass teapot and fragile silver cups balanced on a tray; she gave Necias a brief, dazzling smile, carried the tray to the low inlaid table set between Necias’ settee and Tegestu’s low stool, and set the tray down.

“Thank you,” Necias said. “You might ask the servants to bring glasses for the tea. Brodaini prefer to drink tea from glasses.”

“Do they? I’m sorry.” She was a slim, delicate, pale-gold creature, his newest wife, the daughter of his old friend and ally Fastias Castas. She straightened and walked to him, reaching out to brash an imaginary bit of fluff from his broad shoulders. “I’ll bring some myself,” she said.

“You couldn’t have known, hey?” She leaned forward, her cheek on his doublet-front. He touched her hair, smelling the perfume rising from her. She hugged his massive body and Necias felt, in spite of his anxiety, his response beginning to stir.

“Can’t I stay?” she asked. “I’ve never seen a Brodainu scottu.”

He frowned. She was insecure, new to the partillo and her sister-wives, uncertain of her place; he seemed to have to reassure her constantly.

“Brito is hostess, you know that,” he said. “And don’t call a Brodainu a scottu, it’s impolite.”

“Yes, Necias,” she said, with a petulant sigh.

“You can watch Tegestu enter the audience chamber from the balcony of the partillo.” His arms went around her. “It’ll be politics, anyway,” he said. “Boring for you, hey?”

She raised her head, straining up on her toes to kiss him. There was longing in the kiss, and desire; he responded instinctively, giving her the reassurance she wanted. The reassurance went both ways, he knew; he was over twice her age and it was gratifying to know he was himself still desirable.

Luco’s green eyes slid deliberately to the settee by the table.

Perhaps he allowed her too much, he thought; he was scheduled to sleep with Argo that night, and she would be right to resent...

He wondered if there was time. Luco’s face was flushed; her hands slid over his doublet as she took pleasure in the power she had to arouse him. Necias decided there was time.

His burly arms swept her from the floor; she laughed, her arms going around his neck. There was a childish pleasure in her laugh, and a childish kind of triumph. He bore her to the settee, burying his face between her neck and shoulder, inhaling the perfume of her pale hair. She was perfectly shameless, his latest wife, afraid of nothing, laughing in defiance of convention. He adored her fearlessness, recognizing something of his own younger self in it, but he recognized as well the danger of her, that he might all too easily let this become obsession, forgetting his other wives, his many responsibilities — yet the knowledge of the danger was itself arousing. Luco had given him much when she’d entered his life: a sense of youthfulness he had largely forgotten, the sense that every day held adventures, that every change was not an ominous portent of decay. Certain conventions could be sacrificed for this.

But not all. Brito, his first and senior wife, would still play hostess to Tegestu. It was not to be forgotten that he owed her as much, if not more.

*

The palace of Acragas Necias sprawled over most of a city block in one of the newer quarters of the city, with a water gate that permitted access by the Acragas merchant fleet to the warehouses that fronted the canal. The bulk of the palace was constructed of the grey stone brought from inland and then fronted with brick. The brick was chiefly a dull red, but was patterned with sun-yellow and pale blue in geometric designs: Arrandal was famous for its brickmakers and the best was displayed in the Acragas palace, the patterns complimenting the architecture, accenting and commending the design, pleasing but not dominating the eye. Chimneys, twisted and ornamented, curled skyward; stone beasts, both natural and mythological, peered from the gables and gutters and the panes of glass cast inward light that was stained with the colors of the rainbow. Nine hundred people lived within its sprawling confines: the Acragas family, their servants, employees, and guests; fifteen hundred worked daily within its walls.

Tegestu and his small escort were led from the water gate through courtyards of increasing size, each guarded by a brick-fronted tower, each decorated with carvings of stone and embellished with ornate clocks. The palace as it stood was not defensible against a skilled force — Brodaini could take it in an afternoon — but it was proof against the usual threat, a city mob, and a few weeks’ work could transform it into a respectable fortress. The outer layers were guarded by flenssin, mercenaries in gaily-colored, arrogant costumes that contrasted vastly with the tall, brawny Brodaini in their simple, purposeful military dress. The inner courts were guarded by junior members of the Acragas family who had the duty in rotation; their armor fit badly and their stance as they carried their pikes and great two-handed swords was awkward.

Word of Tegestu’s prompt arrival had been passed ahead, and Necias was there to welcome him in the vast audience hall, his clothes adjusted and the crumbs of tea-cakes brushed from his doublet-front. Necias glanced up at the balcony of the partillo, seeing five of his six surviving wives leaning over the rail, including Luco in her green gown. He seemed to sense a flash of indignation in Luco’s eyes at being dismissed to the company of her sister-wives, and he smiled a satisfied smile at the remembrance of pleasure. Then the trumpet calls began, sweet, ornamented, echoing from the high groined ceiling, and the Brodaini delegation strode in.

Necias had cleared most of the usual loiterers and petitioners from the hall as a compliment to Tegestu; there were a few high-ranking members of beggru Acragas, the trumpeters in their gallery, a handful of messengers, and the guards spotted at the entrances — these, and the wives at the partillo rail, were all. The enormous room, usually thronged with people, was almost empty — all this in courtesy to Tegestu, a symbol of the Brodainu’s importance in that Necias had cleared away his other business.

Despite the years of cooperation between them and a frequent exchange of messages, requests, and commands, Necias saw Tegestu only rarely in person, and then chiefly on ceremonial occasions. Their tasks had been carefully delineated: Necias concerned himself with broader policy, and Tegestu with military security. The Brodainu rarely had reason to leave his keep, and Necias had less reason to enter the Brodaini quarter — perhaps because of this, perhaps because of the special tension between them, Necias felt an increasing apprehension as Tegestu approached. He felt, with a certain awful clarity, the fact of the Brodainu’s alienness, his utter lack of civilization, his fanatic contempt of life. Tegestu was old, over seventy, thin and seemingly frail; yet he walked with rigid, disciplined martial vigor; his belt weapons rode easily at his side, where he could snatch them at need. The lack of ornament in his dress and armor spoke of an overwhelming concern for the functional, with which the elaborately curled, dressed ringlets of his white hair contrasted weirdly — to Necias an almost psychotic contradiction. The alert, arrogant, expressionless countenance the Brodaini assumed in public — the mouth tightened to a grim line, eyes intent and restless, head held high — seemed, for a frightening instant, the face of a dangerous madman, a murderous fanatic and a conscienceless killer.

No. Necias thought, rejecting the fear. Tegestu is no less human for all his strangeness. I can comprehend him if I try.

And then the Brodaini were across the long hallway, the trumpets were crying their final triplets, and the five warriors came down to one knee and bowed their ringleted heads.

“Rise, friend Tegestu. Rise all, loyal friends,” Necias said. He had always been embarrassed by the Brodaini insistence of rendering him homage, as if he were some half-civilized baron from the outback receiving a delegation of his shepherds, but he knew they thought it necessary and he’d long ago resigned himself to the sneers of his political enemies — “old Necias preening himself among his worshiping flenssin.” His usual style was to receive his visitors in one of the smaller anterooms, rise from amid his staff of secretaries and mounds of papers to give the visitor a roaring embrace, and then carry on his business while coping with a good many interruptions — but the Brodaini expected something more formal, if not majestic.

Do the Brodaini greet visitors with trumpets? Necias suddenly wondered. Or do they use them only in war? Do they call their vassals “friend?” Have I been offending them all these years without knowing it, skating on the edge of their tolerance?

The thoughts brought a hesitation to his usual decisive, noisy manner. “Come, Tegestu,” he said. “You and I must speak, hey. Your men, ah...” He slowed as he observed that one of the Brodaini was female. “Your soldiers will be entertained here. Ahastinas,” he turned to his steward, “call the musicians for our guests.”

“Thank you, cenors-stannan,” Tegestu said, and bowed. Necias gestured to his secretary and interpreter, the poet Caltias Campas, a tall dark man with a cynical smile and a way with the ladies, and led Tegestu into an anteroom, hearing behind him the rattle of armor that marked another obeisance. He had probably just been rude again.

He opened the four-inch-thick door and led his party inside. Brito, standing by the teapot, curtsied as her husband and Tegestu entered. Necias nodded abstractedly in reply, and then to everyone else’s surprise Tegestu dropped to one knee in a bow fully as elaborate as that he’d given Necias.

Fortunately Brito responded well. “Rise, enventan, you do me too much honor,” she said. “Would you like some tea, my lord, or cakes? We know Brodaini prefer a special diet; these are made to a Brodaini recipe.” Necias looked at Brito with relief as Tegestu clanked to his feet. Luco would have smiled, giggled probably, but would never have recovered as swiftly. Brito was his cenors-censto, his most honored wife and official hostess; she was also his first wife, and had shared with him the long rise to power, and many of his confidences. She was a thin, hard, plain-faced woman of sixty, two years older than he; she possessed a cunning on which Necias had learned to rely, and an anildas, a desire for display and property, that would have done credit to a man.

“Cenors-stannan does me too much honor,” Brito said again, correcting him gracefully as she poured tea into a glass. Cenors-stannan was a masculine appellation — Necias remembered, from his attempt to learn Gostu, that Tegestu’s language did not distinguish between the sexes in regard to titles, but rather between degrees of respect.

“I am stansisso Brito, if you please,” Brito said. “Will you take honey or sugar?”

“No, thank you, stansisso Brito,” Tegestu said formally, with a bow.

They took their tea and sat, Necias semi-reclined on his settee, bolstered by soft cushions, Tegestu lowering himself onto one of the small, three-legged stools the Brodaini seemed to prefer — because they were so uncomfortable, Necias had thought at first; but then he realized that however uncomfortable they were, for a man wearing a full suit of armor to sit on anything else might be positively painful.

Campas, the poet, sat in a stiffbacked chair that had wide arms on which he propped his pen and pad. He dressed strikingly in black, his clothing unornamented, presumably the better to stand out in a crowd. Despite his affectations Necias had employed him for ten years now, since he was a youngster, for Campas was a brilliant linguist who, at Necias’ bidding, had first lived among the Brodaini to learn their tongue and ways, and had done so with considerable success.

Brito placed a plate of tea-cakes by each elbow and quietly slid from the room after assuring that, if anything were needed, they should simply ring. Tegestu almost jumped up again for a formal bow, but Necias saw Campas make a quick gesture that halted the impulse, and Tegestu simply bowed from his seated position.

“My friend,” Necias said, after a brief silence in which he waited for Tegestu to volunteer to speak, “I have received a communication from Neda-Calacas. I require your assistance.”

“Cenors-efellsan,” Tegestu said, “I shall help where I can.”

Campas’ pen scratched on his pad as he kept the minutes in shorthand. Necias glanced at him, then at Tegestu. He knew the Brodaini preferred direct speech, and he usually tried to provide it — he was known as a direct man anyway, for an Arrandalla — but there was a question that demanded an answer, and the question was ugly: “Tegestu, under what circumstances would you kill me and take the city?” He would have come to the question indirectly; and even then he might be giving deadly insult.

“Campas, read the letter,” Necias said. They would start with the text and go on from there.

Campas produced a ribboned scroll and read it aloud. There was little detail concerning the actual capture of the twin cities; the rape of Norvenan and Nadielas’ failure to provide satisfaction was given as a justification; most of the message seemed to be a plainly-stated wish for amity between the cities, mixed with a formal application for Neda-Calacas to be allowed to remain in the Elva vor Denorru-Dorsu.

“A bad style, on the whole,” Campas volunteered, rolling up the scroll. “There are a few minor grammatical errors characteristic of the Brodaini. While it is possible that this was written by a very literal-minded scribe to a Brodainu’s dictation, the evidence suggests it was written by Brodainu. Very little care appears to have been taken in its style or its calligraphy; and that would suggest it was written in haste, or by someone unfamiliar with Abessla writing.”

“Thank you, Campas,” Necias said. He reached for a tea-cake and nibbled it gingerly, wary of his teeth, again waiting for Tegestu to volunteer information; when Tegestu did not, Necias finished his cake and spoke.

“Tegestu, this communication is quite extraordinary. What has happened in Neda-Calacas is without precedent.” Necias groped for a way to approach the problem, his thoughts spiraling into one another. Under what circumstances would you take the city?

“Is this possible, Tegestu?” he asked. “Did Tastis take Neda-Calacas because one of his women was attacked?”

There was a moment of silence. Campas’ pen stood poised for the reply. “It is possible,” Tegestu said. He spoke Abessas with slow precision. “It is the reason Tastis has given you. He is a clever man. He would not give a frivolous reason for this kind of behavior.”

Necias’ head spun. A city for a woman — for some insignificant mercenary female. I can understand this, he thought insistently.

“I have been assured — I have always assumed,” he began uncertainly, “that Brodaini loyalty was unconditional. That obedience was a hallmark of the Brodaini character.” Tegestu’s eyes blazed, and Necias almost stopped. He felt the touch of fear on his heart. …I am insulting him, even with this indirection! he thought. But he had to know.

“How can this be, friend Tegestu? I do not understand. I wish to understand.”

“You are our canlan, our lord,” Tegestu said. His glare was fierce, aroused. “We obey you.”

“Tegestu, understand me!” Necias said. “I am not questioning your loyalty. I wish to know how such a thing can be. How can a people so devoted to loyalty rise against their, their canlani?”

Tegestu paused, his eyes falling, his frown tightening. “We obey nartil, Abeissu Necias,” he said. “It is our law: it demands obedience and respect. We serve our lord, and he aids us by giving us a place, by making it possible for us to exist, for allowing us to care for our dependents. Do you understand me, cenors-efellsan?”

“Yes, my friend.” Nodding. “I understand this.”

“But nartil is not simply obedience. It is respect. It cannot go one way only. We obey and respect our lord, but he must respect us, as we respect our servants. If our lord does not hear our just requests, if he treats us as if we were ar-demmin — I am sorry, but there is no word for this in your language — then he has violated nartil. He has not fulfilled his obligations.”

“Ah,” Necias said. “It is like a contract. You are saying that Neda-Calacas did not fulfill the terms of its contract with Tastis, hey?”

“It is not a contract. It is nartil.”

Necias looked helplessly at Campas for assistance. Campas’ pen halted on its pad.

“Cenors-stannan, perhaps we ought simply to accept that Neda-Calacas did not live up to its obligations,” Campas said, “and that Tastis saw this as justification for rebellion.”

“Is this understanding acceptable to you, Tegestu?” Necias said.

“I understand this as approximation,” Tegestu said. “It will suffice for present understanding. I wish to correct a statement you made earlier; it is not I who claim Neda-Calacas failed in its obligations; I do not know this. Tastis claims it, in his message.”

Necias blinked. “Very well,” he said. The point seemed insignificant, but Tegestu seemed to be attaching an importance to it. Was Tegestu disassociating himself from Tastis’ actions? He made a mental note to ask Campas afterwards.

“Is it possible,” he began again, “for Brodaini to take offense at their lords’ actions, and to attack them without warning? Without a notice to the effect they were displeased?”

Tegestu’s answering silence was prolonged, and then he turned to Campas and spat out rapid-fire Gostu until Campas waved his hands helplessly to signal the Brodainu to slow down. Tegestu began again, Campas nodding, his pen scratching on the pad as he made notes. He turned to Necias.

“Cenors-stannan,” he said, “it seems there is an aesthetic principle involved.”

“A what?”

Campas smiled apologetically. “An aesthetic principle, cenors-stannan. It is called aspistu — I do not understand it entirely, but it is quite important in Brodaini society. Much of their literature, or what passes for literature, concerns it. Aspistu is revenge considered as art. Imagination and appropriateness are major considerations — for a small insult a small revenge; a large insult demands a revenge of large proportions, inflicted with suitable imagination.

“Tastis’ revolt has to be considered in the light of aspistu,” Campas said, “much in the same way as a poem’s tone and approach must be compared with its subject matter.”

“If Tastis rebelled for the reasons he claimed,” Tegestu added, breaking in abruptly, “then it was for aspistu. His people were grossly insulted, or so he claims; a great aspistu was necessary.”

“If it is aspistu,” Campas said, “then the question becomes aesthetic, not political: was the aspistu satisfying, was it appropriate?”

“My question wasn’t an aesthetic one,” Necias, “but it seems I’ve been answered. Brodaini can, it seems, revolt against their lords.”

“Insult is given,” Tegestu said ponderously. “Aspistu is necessary. Aspistu takes many forms. The question becomes one of appropriateness.”

“Aspistu may involve informing the victim in advance, or it may not,” Campas said. “Whether or not to do so is a matter of artistic judgment.”

The words spun like falling leaves in Necias’ mind, circling in the wind, never alighting. He was close to despair. What kind of beasts had he allowed into his city, when he had permitted the Brodaini to come in their tens of thousands? A people who murdered their overlords and called it art?

“To clarify,” he said, trying not to show the desperation he felt, “once insult is given, all bets are off, hey? The insulted party can be attacked without warning.”

“The insult would have to be great,” Tegestu said. “It would have to be... noticed.”

“I think I see what the drandor means,” Campas interjected. “There are people who are beneath notice — their insults are also beneath notice.”

“This is true, ilean,” Tegestu said. His tone was satisfied.

“And Tastis’ rebellion?” Necias asked, still seeking clarification. “Was it good aspistu or not? Was the thing justified?”

“Justified is not the point,” Tegestu said. “It is not a moral issue. It is or is not appropriate.”

“Very well. Was Tastis’ action appropriate?”

Tegestu was silent for a long time, his white head bowed, his eyes narrowed as he concentrated. Campas’ recording pen scratched on for a moment and then stopped. Tegestu looked up.

“I do not have enough information to make that judgment,” he said.

“I understand,” Necias said, not understanding at all. Was Tegestu simply refusing to commit himself, or was it truly an issue on which he did not have information?

“Tastis has rebelled, hey,” Necias went on. “He has done so — we are told — for reasons which our people find difficult to understand. I can say with perfect confidence that Neda-Calacas will be expelled from the Elva, and that the cities of the Elva may take military action, either together or unilaterally.”

Tegestu nodded, silent. Necias continued.

“Friend Tegestu, we do not know the Brodaini well; there is a great deal my people do not understand. You may be uncertain about us as well, about our motives, our intentions. In this situation there must be trust, there must be openness. My friend, this question is not meant to offend; and if there is offense I apologize sincerely. But I must ask: would the Brodaini of Arrandal, if the decision were taken, hesitate in fighting Tastis’ people?”

The fanatic gleam returned to Tegestu’s eyes, and Necias shivered. The Brodainu’s voice, when it came, was cold, matter-of-fact, as if he were stating simple facts to a child of slow understanding.

“You are our canlan. We are Brodaini. We serve.”

Necias drew a long breath. Brodaini had fought Brodaini before, in the service of the cities; it seemed as if they would fight one another again. Necias felt his anxiety ebbing.

“Tegestu,” he said, beginning once again. “We know you have received a message from Tastis.”

“We have, cenors-efellsan.”

“The minds of this city would be greatly relieved should you inform us of its contents.”

“Cenors-efellsan, I cannot,” Tegestu said. Necias leaned back, surprised.

“Tegestu, I am your canlan,” he protested. “Why should I not be told?”

Tegestu’s distress was plain to see, even through the arrogant mask of Brodaini bore in public. He turned to Campas and spoke quickly in his own tongue. Campas listened, clearly surprised, and then turned to Necias.

“Cenors-efellsan, it seems the message was sent with certain restrictions,” he said. “The restrictions are called kantu-kamliss, a rather archaic custom, I gather, but still respected. The point of them is this: anyone not of his clan, his kamliss, may not touch the message or know of its contents. It is a clan matter only; it is a disgrace to kamliss Pranoth should anyone defile the message — there is a religious element involved here, too, some manner of taboo.”

“But I — I am their lord,” Necias protested.

“You are not kamliss Pranoth,” Campas said. He shrugged wryly, and suddenly Necias wondered: Do Brodaini shrug? I’ve never seen it. Do they even have a different language of gesture?

“It seems, cenors-stannan,” Campas said, “that Tastis has taken the matter out of your jurisdiction.”

Necias turned to Tegestu, bewildered. “You may not discuss this? Not even discuss it?”

Tegestu bowed; he held himself low while he spoke. “That is true, cenors-stannan. I regret it.” He rose, and for a moment Necias was looking again into those cold, fanatic eyes. Tegestu’s speech was slow and deliberate.

“Our reply to Tastis will be sent tomorrow,” Tegestu said. “Due to the unsettled conditions, two copies will be sent, together with copies of the original message. One answer will go by dispatch boat, three Brodaini plus crew; another will go by land, with three Brodaini to guard it. Both,” Tegestu said very clearly, “will leave tomorrow at noon.”

Necias absorbed Tegestu’s sacrifice with awed silence: despite his shock, his mind worked swiftly on the implications of Tegestu’s announcement. The message carried by land would be the one intercepted, Necias thought quickly; the waterborne one might go in the drink. Of course there would have to be no survivors; he’d send twenty mercenaries at least.

“Thank you, my friend,” he said; he heard his speech coming out thickly, slow to recover from the shock. “I am happy to have achieved this, this communication with you. Shall I ring for more tea?”

“Thank you, cenors-efellsan,” Tegestu said, and bowed again. There was triumph in those cold, glittering eyes.

As Brito entered and poured the tea, Necias’ thoughts ran uncontrolled. The man is surely mad, he thought. He will tell those soldiers to go, knowing they will die. All because he can’t violate some ridiculous custom or other.

His eyes wandered to the bronze shrine standing in the corner.

Ai, gods, he thought. What have I let into my city?

CHAPTER 4

There had been a small amount of strained small talk over tea, and it had been so halting that Necias wondered if the Brodaini had any small talk at all among themselves — there seemed so many taboo subjects among them. He had tried once, years ago, to speak to a Brodainu about trade — it was the usual conversation starter in Necias’ circles — but the Brodainu began staring at him as if he were mad, and Necias had silenced himself before the man had taken insult. He’d learned later that Brodaini did not participate in trade agreements directly — they had a whole class of dependents for just that purpose — although they approved or disapproved of those made by their people. It appeared they considered trade itself dishonorable.

Necias had never repeated the offense.

After the second cup of tea was finished, Necias rose to escort Tegestu to his companions. Tegestu rose, turned to give elaborate thanks to Brito for the tea and cakes — Brito was flattered by the attention, and gave flustered thanks in return — and then, Campas trailing, they returned to the audience hall.

“Cenors-efellsan,” Tegestu said as they walked, his eyes sliding over the room, watching the people bustling on their various errands, “if I may, I beg to mention something concerning security here. If there is to be a war with Tastis, we must realize the kind of war it is likely to be. Tastis will know he cannot fight all the cities of the Elva at once; he will try to break the Elva, or cause internal conflict in the cities.”

“Yes,” Necias said. “I realize that. With the message he sent you, he has already begun.”

Tegestu paused, then apparently decided not to dispute Necias’ analysis. “You must realize your personal danger, cenors-efellsan. There could be no provocation so great as the assassination of the Abessu-Denorru by a Brodainu. This place is too open. I would like to assign my whelkran y cathruni — my head bodyguard — to the task of guarding you, or at least to the task of conferring with your own guards. Your access should be very strictly controlled.”

Necias looked at Tegestu grimly. His palace was open to almost anyone: he had always moved freely among his people, without guards, without a large entourage, and he took pride in it. The guards around the palace were chiefly for display and to prevent theft, rather than for the prevention of assassination, which despite Necias’ personal history was not an Arrandalla trait. Tegestu wanted him closeted away, remote like a Brodaini ruler, untouchable — and he would be surrounded by Brodaini guards, guards who could take offense and attack at the smallest slight.

“If there is a problem with your confidences,” Tegestu said, seeing Necias’ hesitation, “I could assign guards who do not speak Abessas.”

“Later,” Necias said, brushing the matter aside.

Necias said farewell to the Brodainu and his escort, going through the parting bowings and kneelings with resigned patience. As he watched the Brodaini stalk from the room, the guards at the door shifting uncomfortably as they passed, Necias sucked at his false front teeth and slowly began to absorb the implications of Tegestu’s last remarks. This was not a war of city against city, or beggru against beggru; this was a war of all the Abessla against a Brodaini clan, and that was different.

He had fought wars with cities before, but the Brodaini on both sides had been directed by their native lords, and certain conventions had been in effect. Spying had been permitted; outright assassination had not. But assassination and this — what was the word? — aspistu, this imaginative revenge, were hallmarks of Brodaini wars. He would have to guard himself well if he were to war against Tastis, and that would, he realized with growing apprehension, probably involve accepting Brodaini protection. And that would make him even more vulnerable should Tegestu attempt a rising in Arrandal, as Tastis had in Neda.

With a sick feeling he remembered the attempted assassination twelve years before, by a deranged merchant who thought Necias had ruined him. His younger brother Castas had saved him then, intervening only to fall beneath the assassin’s dagger himself while Necias, paralyzed with horror, had watched helplessly — Castas had been commemorated by a day in his honor, when all the household and much of the city honored his memory with prayers... . Gods, Necias thought, don’t let it happen again.

“Cenors-efellsan,” said a voice at this elbow. “I have arranged the program for next week, the fête.”

Necias glanced sidelong at Ahastinas, his steward; when he answered his voice was brusque. “Yes? Is this necessary?”

“There are Fastias’ mimes, which he has generously lent us,” Ahastinas went on, blind to Necias’ annoyance. “And the spectacular conjuror Fiona —”

“Fiona! What kind of name is that?” Campas interrupted, his blue eyes shining with mischief.

Ahastinas paused for a moment, flustered. “I don’t know, cenors-stannan. It’s an outland name of some sort. But the conjuring tricks, ah, yes,” he smiled. “They are spectacular. The woman is truly astonishing.”

“A woman. It should be Fiono.”

Ahastinas shrugged, unaware that he was being baited. “An outland name, cenors-stannan: And then there are our musicians, and, ah — “

“The poet Caltias Campas,” said Campas, “will recite from his new Pastoral Cantos.”

“Of course,” Ahastinas said. “Beg pardon, Campas, but it escaped my memory.”

“Your memory,” Campas said, “is riddled, like wormwood, with the passages carved by escaping facts.”

Ahastinas glared at the poet, then decided to ignore him.

“Concerning the banquet, cenors-efellsan,” he began, “I think it should perhaps begin with —”

“I trust you,” said Necias, “entirely in these matters.”

“Thank you, cenors-efellsan.” This time the steward hadn’t missed the tone of dismissal. Muttering, he scurried away.

Necias, fingering his collar absently, turned to Campas. The poet was paging through his notes. Necias was blind to the merits of Campas’ verse; the klossila school, with its tedious insistence on the corruption of city life and the purity of pastoral existence, had never impressed him. If the pastoral life was so glorious and pure, why were the klossila never found seeking employment as shepherds? Yet Campas was brilliant, in his way: a good linguist, an intelligent scribe, an invaluable secretary — and Necias was willing to accept the judgment of others concerning the merits of his verse, and knew that to employ a young man of such evident talent would add to his own anildas.

“Do you wish a fair copy of my notes, cenors-efellsan?” Campas asked, looking up.

“Yes. Together with any observations that may occur to you. Do it now, while your memory is fresh; you may have the conference room if you like.”

Campas nodded, his thoughts abstracted. He plucked his pen from the inkwell at his waist and made a brief annotation.

“Campas,” Necias frowned, “you know the Brodaini. At least as well any of us know them.”

“I try,” said Campas. “I’ve lived in their quarter, studying their language, their arts. There is a certain virtue in their poetry — most of it is so straightforward that it lacks the subtlety I think verse should possess, but there’s a kind of formal, harsh truth to it, as there is to so much that is Brodaini.”

“You’ve lived among them,” Necias said. “You’ve said they’ve tolerated you. How do you think they tolerate us at all, Campas? Why haven’t the Brodaini revolted elsewhere as they’ve revolted in Neda-Calacas? Surely we offend them often enough, even without meaning to. You’ve seen it, the way Tegestu turned murderous the moment I mentioned Brodaini and disloyalty in the same breath. And the rest of them — this aspistu business, all this emphasis on killing and revenge. It seems insane, completely deranged.”

Campas nodded, soberly for once. “In Brodaini society they know what causes offense and what does not,” he said. “Within their own society, the system works.”

“But how can we avoid future revolts, if we’re so constantly giving offense?” Necias repeated. “The Brodaini have been there, in Arrandal, longer than in any of the other cities. Why has there been no revolt?”

“I have a theory, cenors-efellsan,” Campas said. He grinned cynically. “It will do little for our self-esteem, however.”

Necias scowled. “Out with it.”

“We call them Brodaini,” Campas said, “but that’s incorrect. The Brodaini are the warriors, the highest caste but there are three other classes in their society, the servants, the peasants, and the tradesmen. The servants and peasants — Classani, Meningli — are thought to have honor appropriate to their station, but the tradesmen are honorless, ar-demmin. Yet here in Arrandal the Brodaini find themselves in the employ of merchants, and surrounded by commerce.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t make sense,” Necias said. “That should produce tension, not reduce it.”

“Cenors-efellsan, you understand that we are honorless,” the poet repeated. “We are nothing, we are unnoticed, nothing we do matters. The Brodaini have decided to ignore our offenses,” Campas said, his grin rueful, self-mocking, “because we are so low we are beneath their notice.” He gave a short, scornful laugh, and looked up at Necias. His eyes were sober, making a lie of his grin.

“It’s enough to make one think,” he said, “isn’t it, Necias Abeissu?”

CHAPTER 5

Fiona stood at her table in the Square of the Lancers, her hands busy with trickery. She loved this small-work, the sleight-of-hand and misdirection, all the cunning little maneuvers performed with her hands and wits alone. Her hands were good for the work: small, agile, stubby-fingered — long “artistic” fingers would just have got in the way. It was all classic stuff, utilizing none of the alien technology she had brought with her: her mastery of it gave her a small measure of comfort that was otherwise absent. And so the Deuce of Bells leaped from the deck to the gasps of her audience; a pair of spongy balls appeared in an urchin’s palm, and though she slipped for an instant at reuniting the cord cut by the militiaman’s dagger she didn’t think anyone had noticed.

There was tension in the city, that she knew; and before long she knew the reason why, Neda-Calacas in the hands of the Brodaini. Her thoughts had leapt to Kira, who had entered Neda-Calacas eight days before — had she known she was running into a city under occupation? She used her spindle then, routing the call through the ship, and Kira had answered. Yes, she’d reported, the twin cities were a little grim; but things were fairly normal, and no one showed any sign of paying any attention to her that she didn’t want paid. There had been a laugh in her voice; Fiona knew her well enough to know that if she’d any forebodings the laugh wouldn’t have been there. They’d exchanged jokes about the Abessla and agreed to talk again in a few days.

But the tension in Arrandal remained. The militia had increased their drill in the public squares from one day per week to three, causing grumbling among the hucksters, entertainers, and small merchants — the whores, however, were delighted. The mercenary troops were more in attendance, having been granted large cash bonuses by the city to keep them happy, and no doubt producing more joy for the whores.

The Brodaini were scarcely seen at all. Even so Fiona had noticed a certain involuntary movement on the part of the citizens, a kind of furtive look back over the shoulder at the towers of the Brodaini keep, as if at any moment a column of grim soldiery might issue forth.

Otherwise things had been going well. There had been initial expenses: a permit to perform in public, money to the local militia captain to keep disturbances and pickpockets away from her table, more money to the Blue Gang to keep the Red Gangsters away, money to the Red Gang to keep the Blue Gang ditto... so far as she could tell the entire city ran by open bribery. Her fellow performers, however, assured her that things were much better than in the old days, before the rise of Necias, who kept even the Color Gangs honest. And more money had been swallowed up by her indulgence at the public baths, one bath before work and another following.

Her spectacles had created a sensation; hundreds had seen the dragon illusion, the Bower of Bliss illusion, the Amil-Deo illustration. She was paid well and no longer needed to perform for the gallery, but she wanted to: it kept her sharp, it kept her in touch with the city, and it forced her to go out among the crowds instead of huddling in her room, as she wished so often to do.

She knew that her stock would fall rapidly if she performed too many spectacular miracles for the vulgar — the oligarchs wanted something exclusive, for them alone — and so in the Square of the Lancers she chiefly confined herself to the small-work she loved, with the occasional flashy trick to preserve her reputation.

Her performances in the public squares were always well attended, even on days like today when she did nothing but sleight-of-hand. And soon there would be the spectacle at the Acragas palace, where she would reveal her biggest, most spectacular, and most revealing illusion of all.

Fiona found herself dealing more easily with the people, at least on an ordinary, day-to-day basis. The uncertainties that clawed at her were still present, along with the knowledge of her own alienness, but somehow, in the everyday rush, none of that mattered so much. Most people she met she met as Fiona, the Conjuror; discussions were about fees, performances, professional secrets; and when she faced an audience during a performance, it was they who were entering her world, not the other way around. It was only occasionally that the world of Demro intruded: there was that moment, following a performance at a merchant’s palace, that she was bundled into a closet by a drunken princeling, all sour breath, clumsy hands, and bad skin... and then it had been he who was given a surprise, left bent over, clutching his wounded gonads and bleeding snout while Fiona laughed and stalked away.

She gave an unconscious, wolfish smile at the memory, her hands busy with cards. It had been an unpleasant encounter, fortunately brief, and she hoped the young idiot had been taught a lesson — Fiona had learned hers, to be sure. She had enjoyed what she’d done, very thoroughly enjoyed it, and the knowledge of her own ferocity had not terrified her, as it had before. Not faced with deadly attack, she had responded in a non-murderous fashion; the knowledge that her inbuilt reflexes were capable of such discrimination was comforting.

Fiona’s cards flew apart, revealing the solitary ace, and her audience burst into laughter and applause.

She was passing the hat, collecting the white money from her audience, when once again the alarm-bells began to clang in her mind. Stunned for an instant, she performed the gesture to shut off the alarms and turned to Caucas the Model-Builder, who held the next table, and asked him to look after her gear. After his nod she gathered up her skirts and bolted, leaving the surprised audience in her wake, money still jingling in their palms.

She ran flat-out, holding the brim of her cap over her eyes so as to keep it from flying off, dodging among the surprised wayfarers. There was the usual human traffic jam on the Bridge of Panandas Polloiu, navigated with much cursing in three languages, and then a quick left and a half-block run to her hostel. She was in through the common room and up the steep stairs before any of the surprised customers could look up from their suds to call their greetings; she skimmed her cap back down the stairs and clawed back to raise the hood of her privy-coat and seal it around her face.

There was a man leaning on a corridor wall: fair close-cropped hair, lantern jaw, brown, soiled leather jerkin. He stepped out to block her way. “Are you Fiona the Conjuror?” he asked loudly. “My lord Cavallas Castas would very much like to arrange...”

“Pardon me,” Fiona said, bowing, trying to duck under his arm. He stepped back and blocked her again, the oaf.

“You don’t understand. I’m talking about a commission.” She tried to step over his leg, failed. “Look here,” the man said again.

Her skirts would have hampered a kick, but there was a nerve complex just under the nose and another beneath the ear: she hit them both with the edge of her hands, striking with all her strength; the man blinked and, suddenly nerveless, fell against the opposite wall, which let her dash past him and hurl herself bodily against her door.

Fiona didn’t weigh much, but she was moving fast and the little hasp broke with a small metallic squeal of surprise. She tumbled in, picking herself up just in time to see someone’s backside disappearing out of the window. Too late to kick it, alas, but after she rose from the floor she picked up her empty water jug and loosed it at the two grey men who had just slid down the rope to the street below. It missed, and by the time she had the chamberpot elevated and ready to let fly they were well out of range. She darted back to the corridor but the lookout was also gone, replaced instead by a staring bourgeois couple whose quiet afternoon was so unaccountably disturbed by a brawl in the corridor, and by the voice of the landlady, calling out her questions as she moved her vast, arthritic bulk up the stair.

“Thieves,” Fiona said briefly, undoing her hood and stripping it back off her head. The bourgeois couple looked at each other, communicating silently. She walked back into her room, aware only now of the hammering of her heart, the lungs gasping for air. She looked at the room: nothing missing, no damage. Someone had been at the lock of the chest again, but of course failed to open it. There was a small grapnel stuck in her windowsill, its cord dangling to the street. The man in the corridor had called out his warning and delayed her just long enough for the others to make their escape.

The landlady arrived, and things were made clearer. The three had arrived that morning, asked for a room on this same floor, paid in advance. That, the fact that only one room was entered, and the sophistication of their plans, made it plain that the thieves had been professionals, and had meant only to acquire the secrets of Fiona the Conjuror.

Fiona collapsed on her narrow bed and leaned back against the wall, trying to lower her heartbeat, restore her mind to a state of calm. She waved off the repeated apologies of the landlady and urged the good woman not to call the militia. The thieves were well away by now, to be sure. Just keep an eye out for them in the future.

Now that Fiona had time to think, she didn’t want them caught: that would mean execution or slavery in the mines. She didn’t want to be the cause of another’s death or misery — not again — particularly since these folk were obviously hired for the a job.

By whom? she wondered. Had those Brodaini-on-the-barge carried tales to their superiors? Were the servants of the Abessu-Denorru screening her before her appearance at the fête? That oligarch princeling, desiring revenge? Perhaps, she thought, some local conjuror was jealous and wanted to look at her tricks.

Even though it was unlikely, that was the story she’d use. “One of my professional rivals,” she said. “Trying to puzzle out my illusions. Happens all the time. I’m sorry about the door and the pitcher: I’ll replace both.”

The landlady pooh-poohed the offer of payment and went to call her husband to replace the door hasp. From the corridor she could hear the bourgeois couple shuffling back to their suite.

Who? she wondered.

And decided it didn’t matter. The point was that she was attracting attention.

And that meant she was doing her job.

CHAPTER 6

“May your vengeance be always appropriate, bro-demmin,” Cascan said. “A curious matter, if I may...?”

Tegestu looked at him sourly, a fetid taste in his mouth. He had just returned from the inter-kamlissi duel between the boys from Tosta and Dantu, and a pointless butchery it had been. The two had hacked at each other for what seemed hours — no art, no grace, no intelligence, just two terrified fools drunk with nerves and obstinacy. They were both in the infirmary, where they’d lie useless for weeks. Perhaps they’d each lose a limb or two: rhomphia produced hideous wounds. The distasteful sight had left a sourness in Tegestu’s heart: he hated a public demonstration of idiocy, and could only be thankful his own clan had not been involved.

“Aye, ban-demmin?” Tegestu said testily. Cascan, his mobile face cast carefully in a simulation of neutrality, simply bowed.

“If this is inconvenient, bro-demmin... “ he began, but Tegestu cut him off with a shake of the head.

“Speak, Cascan,” he said, and then added, “if it’s important.” The spy’s plots-within-plots were not, at the moment, to his taste.

“Perhaps it’s not,” Cascan admitted. “It involves that conjuror woman I told you about, Fiona — the outlander?”

“I recall the report,” Tegestu said. “What of her?”

“Obedient to your will, I had three of my men endeavor to search her room while she was out. There was also a young woman watching her performance in the Square of the Lancers, ready to alert our people if she showed sign of packing up her equipment and returning to her room.’’

Through Cascan’s careful mask Tegestu detected a trace of apology, and decided to cut straight to the source. “It went wrong?” he asked.

“My sorrows, bro-demmin, it did,” Cascan said, bowing again.

“Will we have to get our people out of prison?” Tegestu asked. Going to Necias on a matter like this was a humiliation he did not desire.

“Nay,” Cascan said, seeming a bit startled at the idea, and at Tegestu’s sharpness. “Our people all got away. But how the thing went wrong is what is curious.”

Tegestu tried to control his impatience. Cascan was trying to intrigue him, but what he most wanted now was to get out of his armor and take a warm bath to wash the smell of butchery off him. Those boys had been a disgrace. Even now, at his age, he could have carved either one of them like a slab of beef.

“Accompany me to the Blue Scroll Chamber,” he said finally, bowing to the necessity. “I hope you have time for tea.”

“I am honored, bro-demmin,” Cascan said. They walked across the courtyard, Cascan staying a pace behind as was proper, narrating as he went. “The woman had a pair of trunks and a satchel. The satchel was mostly empty, but apparently she’d carried food in it, as there was some bread there, and dried meat wrapped in a kind of nose paper. One of the trunks contained nothing but clothing and a box of modest jewelry — no weapons, no false bottoms, nothing suspicious.

“But the other trunk, bro-demmin, that was the curious thing — to begin with, it had some kind of outlander lock that our folk hadn’t encountered before. Couldn’t cope with it.”

“Has their training been neglected, ban-demmin?” Tegestu asked. He let Cascan chew on the question while he received the salutes of the cathruni at the postern and walked with long, impatient strides to the Blue Scroll Chamber. It was a small room, built as a library, its shelves lined both with scrolls and bound volumes. At one end, beneath a shrine to the household gods, rested the Blue Scroll, an epic of verse concerning an ancient war, a thousand years before, in which the Pranoth clan had been involved. This particular copy was eight hundred years old, was dedicated to the Pranoth ancestors, and was of sufficient demmin in and of itself to be considered a major religious relic. Tegestu bowed deeply to the scroll, then rang for servants and sat on a stool, his ankles crossed in front of him. Cascan bowed respectfully to the Blue Scroll — not being a Pranoth, the relic did not have as great status with him — and sat down, facing Tegestu, on a stool.

“May your demmin increase,” he said. “The lock was one never before encountered, based on unknown principles; training was not a factor. No doubt our people could have conquered the lock in time, but the point is that they were not given time.”

“Go on,” Tegestu said. A Classanu appeared in the doorway, bowing; Tegestu ordered tea.

“The woman, Fiona, seemed somehow to be alerted,” Cascan said. “Even though she was at quite some distance, in the Square of the Lancers, occupied with her performance. Our person there reports that she suddenly looked startled, put her business in the hands of one of the other hucksters, and then ran for her hostel as fast as she could. Our person could not pursue without causing attraction herself, and so remained in place.

“Once back at the hostel, Fiona met our lookout in the corridor, who attempted to delay her. She struck him, stunning him momentarily, then ran for the door and broke into her room. Fortunately the lookout delayed her long enough for our people to make their escape through the window. There appears to have been no pursuit.”

Tegestu frowned. “This woman. Describe her.”

“Small. An inch or two over five feet. Deep brown skin. Black, curly hair. Black eyes. Built rather sturdily, but not fat. Perhaps twenty-five years of age.”

“And your lookout?”

“One of our best people for this kind of work,” Cascan said, stroking his chin. “He’s too tall, really, to be entirely inconspicuous, but he’s a talented actor and mime. Twenty years of age, broad-shouldered, adept at imitating the Arrandalu.”

“In his physical prime, in other words,” Tegestu said. “Yet this small woman disabled him.”

“A surprise attack, I believe, and — your pardon — stunned, not disabled. One does not expect violence in these situations — in fact the woman’s behavior was entirely unexpected. No doubt Fiona would have had the worst of it had the fight gone on, but our person was under orders to avoid entanglements and left as discreetly as he could. The surprise, I think, was not in her combative skill — no doubt a woman traveling alone in this land of tears must have one trick or another to avoid unpleasantness — but rather the fact she was alerted at all.”

They fell silent as the Classanu appeared with a small table and tea-things; she poured the fragrant tea into the clear glasses, then bowed and withdrew.

“There was no one who could have seen our people entering, and run to give her the word?” Tegestu asked, breaking the silence.

Cascan frowned. “Our people say not,” he said. “And our person in the Square reports no interruption — no one approached her, no one spoke, there were no shouts of alarm. She looked startled for a moment, then ran.”

“Witchcraft?” Tegestu asked. “She is a magician, after all.”

Cascan sipped his tea. “A possibility,” he said, matter-of-fact. “We have our own witches, of course; we can show Fiona to them and ask what they perceive. But most likely they will want some belonging of Fiona’s in order to read her aetheric emanations and that will mean another visit to her chambers.”

“No,” Tegestu said flatly. “Too dangerous.” He fell silent for a moment, then spoke. “We have our own Classani conjurors, as well. Can they view her performance with an eye toward how they’re done?”

“No doubt. Perhaps we can invite her to perform here, in our quarters, and give our witches and conjurors as much time as they need.”

“Do it.”

“Aye, bro-demmin. But there is another, more vital problem. Fiona,” Cascan said, “is scheduled to perform before the Abessu-Denorru tomorrow night, at the fête. What if she is an assassin sent by Tastis? How can we prevent an incident?”

Tegestu tasted his tea, letting the silence broaden as he mulled on the problem. “We must certainly send a message to the Abessu-Denorru’s people,” he said. “Fiona should be searched before being admitted to his presence. And some of your own people, dressed and accoutered as Classani, must accompany our own party, and position themselves so as to intercept any assassination attempt on the Abessu-Denorru. The Abessu-Denorru is a brave man,” Tegestu reflected, “who does not fully comprehend the danger he is in.”

Cascan’s eyes reflected approval: probably he would have recommended these steps himself. “Aye, bro-demmin,” he said.

“Your best, mind,” Tegestu said. “We don’t want any half-trained witlings blundering in the Abessu-Denorru’s presence.”

“Of course not, bro-demmin.”

Tegestu was about to add another admonition, but then realized it was prompted only by his own impatience and petulance, that he was still upset over the blundering duel that afternoon, and by his spies’ blundering as well, if blundering it was. He changed the subject. “Any reports from Neda-Calacas?”

“Nay, bro-demmin. No change reported.”

“Very well.” He rose, Cascan standing with him. “You will excuse me, ban-demmin. I have a busy schedule.”

“May your arm never weaken.”

“May your eyes never fail you, whelkran i cambrani.” He and Cascan bowed to one another, then to the Blue Scroll. Tegestu began the walk to his chambers.

Fiona, he thought. What kind of name is that? There was so much out of place concerning her, and it fretted him. Why couldn’t Cascan get to the bottom of it? He snorted. Strange locks, indeed. Incompetence was far more likely.

Well, the best spies were being deployed toward Neda-Calacas. No doubt they would best serve there.

He put the conjuror from his mind. Cascan had never failed him on this kind of assignment before, and if Cascan failed — well, then there were always the witches.

CHAPTER 7

The palace of Acragas was ablaze with light, and busy with revelers in their hundreds and servants in their thousands. It was a vast brawl of people: the oligarchs on horseback, surrounded by retainers with their torches, their women in gilded litters that glowed red in the flame; other people of importance coming by barge, the prows carved with the images of sea serpents, dragons, or the mallanto of Arrandal, the long-winged seabird with its fierce beak and wise, pale-gold eyes. It was the Fête of Pastas Netweaver, the god of judgment who had learned wisdom from the dragons of the Farthest Isles, and who, not coincidentally, was Acragas Necias’ patron deity, appearing with his curragh and net-of-souls on the Acragas banner.

Fiona, with her urchin hired to help her carry her trunk of tricks, came quietly in the tradesmen’s entrance, a dark cloak over her scarlet performing gown. There were Brodaini guards in addition to the militia, which surprised her, and she was further surprised by being taken aside to a small room so that her baggage and then herself could be searched. The Brodaini seemed particularly interested in her trunk and insisted on inspecting all her paraphernalia, and on her making clear the function of each device. The spindle she claimed as a musical instrument, and produced sounds from it to prove it — the rest, her various props, she claimed privileged, though she let them examine each to prove to themselves it could not be used as a weapon. Then the males left and she was forced to undress under the businesslike eyes of the two women Brodaini, who turned her gown inside out, looking for secret pockets — they found many, though none of them were yet filled with her tricks. They insisted on her stripping completely, and for a moment she felt unease as she slipped out of the privy-coat that protected her, and which she’d never removed except for her visits to the public baths, where she’d sat in a cabinet tub while hot water was poured into it by brawny women working behind the screen. The Brodaini searching the garment scowled at the unfamiliar catches and the strange material, but let it pass. They even combed her hair for strangling-wires, and probed elsewhere, intimately elsewhere, looking for poison capsules. No one else seemed to have been accorded this treatment. Fiona tried to submit with a good grace. It was, after all, a sign that she’d aroused their curiosity.

Afterward they summoned a maid to help her get laced into her gown again — they didn’t seem to have any experience in that area themselves — and bade her a polite farewell. The maid was young and intoxicated, though whether with wine or excitement was not apparent. Making her way to the Great Hall, Fiona passed among a glittering forest of armor, halberds, and two-handed swords.

Once inside the Great Hall of the Acragas, however, there seemed little security at all. Servants, performers, guests, all milled about attracting little attention from the Acragas militia posted about the room. Fiona went backstage to prepare her act, made all ready, and then, since she would not be on till late, stepped out to watch the crowd as they entered. The privileged guests moved to the dining room for a feast, and the rest dined informally. She supped on a surprisingly good fish-and-porridge pie, sipped her ale, and talked with a pair of jugglers who were also awaiting their cue.

Then the trumpets cried out, filling the great room to the rafters and stilling all talk, and Acragas Necias walked into the room with his train of wives and cousins. Cheers and applause drowned the trumpets. Fiona stood on a bench for her first good look at the merchant-king of Arrandal, the man who had created the Elva and brought the Brodaini from their cold and violent northern land.

He was impressive, in spite of rather than thanks to the elaborate, lace-decorated, jeweled doublet and the fur-embroidered short jacket worn over one shoulder. The clothing was far too gaudy to be in good taste, and he did not wear it comfortably — it constrained him; there was an immense vitality in the man that was not to be inhibited by mere fashion.

He was tall enough to look a tall Brodainu in the eye, broad-shouldered, and barrel-chested, and was still a powerful figure despite the great pendulous belly that was roped in, with little success, by his wide belt. He walked with an assured, unconscious swagger, his first wife on one arm; she, a thin, hatchet-faced, cunning-looking woman, awkwardly matched his long-legged paces. He did not bother to match hers, but moved massively around the room at speed, bellowing greetings, laughing loudly, seeing friends across the hall and rushing to embrace them, his wife dragged along on his arm like a doll in the hands of a heedless child.

Necias’ round face with its fringe of dark hair, small eyes, and multiple chins bespoke a fierce animal vitality, bold self-reliance, and a confidence that seemed near-inspiring. A perfect example, Fiona thought, of a man of this time. A self-made man, of course: the Acragas had been a minor family before Necias had made them the most influential of all.

There was a group of Brodaini that followed, their upright bearing and simple clothing and armor standing out in this mob of embroidery and jewels. There was a lot of bowing and deferring to an old grey-haired Brodainu, and suddenly Fiona realized she was looking at Tegestu, their chief — a fierce-looking fellow still, tall, lean, and broad-shouldered in his armor. He must have been a terrifying warrior in his day, Fiona thought, though now he seemed to walk carefully, and with a hint of weariness. There were a pair of older Brodaini with him, a strapping woman about Tegestu’s age and another younger, though graying, man: the rest were all eagle-eyed young men, the Brodaini and their servants both, and Fiona recognized among them some of those who had searched her. The Brodaini stayed near Necias, she saw, and some of their liveried servants mixed with the oligarch’s hangers-on. A sensible precaution, she thought, in this atmosphere of war: she wondered if Necias even realized such care was being taken.

Necias and his party made a circuit of the room, greeting his guests, ending up at Fiona’s bench last of all. She stood to greet him, bowing with a flourish, and saw two Classani step quietly to either side of the Abessu-Denorru, ready to intercept a weapon. Necias simply nodded at her, a broad smile creasing his face, and said: “A lovely gown, young woman. Scarlet suits you. I like the hood as well. Isn’t it a lovely gown, Brito?” Fiona suddenly realized that his front teeth were artificial, ivory tied into place with silver wire.

“Very appropriate,” said the eldest wife in an uninterested tone, and the party passed on.

Necias returned to his place, and at a signal the many lamps that lit the entire hall were all extinguished, leaving only a thousand candles flickering outside the footlights on the stage. An orchestra began to play for its gallery. The music was intricate and compelling, the bass carrying a theme forward while the alto and tenor embroidered their way around it: and then a full-voiced chorus began to sing out from above, and Fiona realized this was a hymn to the god Pastas, of how he had learned wisdom from the dragons, who had created the world and stars, and how he had eventually surpassed even the dragons in knowledge, such that he counseled the dragons against beginning their war with the great sea-demons, who had created the watery universe and the things that dwell there — a war that destroyed the world and the deep and most of mankind, that resulted in the extinction of the sea-demons and the decimation of the dragons, who now, few in number, have retired to their hidden islands and dream away the eons, leaving the universe to the gods and their pets, the humans.

Was it memory of a great catastrophe, Fiona wondered, that had prompted this myth? Were the ancestors of these people, and of Fiona herself, disguised as the wonderworking, too-wise, and dreaming dragons? Or was there simply something in the nature of humankind that demanded a catastrophe myth? Her own world had them in abundance, different in detail though somehow alike in flavor: there were always a few virtuous chosen who survived the disaster, whatever it was — here it was inundation by the sea that seemed most universal; on her own world it was a holocaust of fire.

The choral hymn slowed, then came to an end; it was followed by a clear counter-tenor, with minimal accompaniment from the orchestra, who sang bell-like praise to the god; and then the chorus and orchestra boomed back in for a splendid fortissimo finale that had the hall ringing with applause. The composer, a chinless, shock-haired wonder, came out for his bow, and Necias gave him a jewel from his finger, while others flung him purses.

There followed a mechanical marvel, a metal mallanto that cocked its head, raised a very real shellfish between its webbed front toes and opposable claw, and bit down with an audible crunch from the curved beak; it then spread its wings and gave a great inspiring cry while its eyes winked golden fire. More applause, and a purse from Necias for the inventor.

Acrobats, then, and jugglers; afterwards there was a noisy intermission followed by the poet Campas. He was about thirty, small and slightly-built, with curling dark hair worn longer than that of most of the men present. He dressed simply, in somber colors — to stand out, Fiona supposed — but there was a white scarf thrown dashingly around his neck, and he wore a multitude of rings that flashed as he turned the pages of his manuscript.

The poem was clearly a part of a larger work, written to the specifications of some poetic tradition or other, and Fiona lost interest quickly amid a hopeless array of muses, minor deities, allusions to other poems in the cycle, appearances by past poets operating under a bewildering array of pseudonyms, woebegone shepherds longing after shepherdesses of ethereal beauty and cast-iron chastity... and then, just as she was prepared to go to sleep for the duration, something made Fiona sit up and take notice. His use of language was beautiful, Fiona thought, even though his subject matter was dead as the mechanical mallanto; his rhythms were perfect, his word-order exact and not over-clever, the vowel sounds ringing changes throughout the verse that echoed and sang: and sometimes, even when describing something as hackneyed as a young swain’s sighs for his mistress, or the disillusioned ’prentice abandoning the corruption of the city for the blissful simplicity of a shepherd’s life, he managed to introduce an invigorating breath of life into it.

This man is good,

she thought, excited, and applauded madly when he was done.

There were a pair of purses flung from the audience; Campas picked them up, bowed again, and stepped from the light. A fussy grey-haired man introduced the mimes of Fastias. Fiona was next, so she slipped backstage again, made certain she was ready, and waited for the introduction.

Backstage watching the mimes, she felt the blood pounding in her ears, and realized that, oddly, it was not fear she felt, but simple excitement. At last these people would know who she was, and why she had come.

She started with standard tricks, clear glass jars of water disappearing, reappearing empty, the water itself appearing inside a cap she had acquired from a member of the audience — good stuff, guaranteed to start the act with laughter. There were more tricks along those lines, then she began to cut things up and make them whole again, and this was followed by the first major spectacle. A small icon, the Amil-Deo, was placed on a table, and suddenly it appeared, much enlarged, on the curtain behind her. She could hear the audience shifting in their seats, and a sudden murmur of astonishment: then enthralled gasps as the Amil-Deo began to move, raising kings on high, each more splendid than the last, before casting them down again. When the trick faded the applause was deafening, and she felt the thud of purses landing on the stage. She ignored them, instead picking from her table a pair of gleaming hollow tubes. She brandished them over her head, feeling her back arch as she crossed them, rapping one on the other.

“Good people, I beg your leave to tell a story,” she cried. “A story that may seem strange, a story full of wonders, a tale that may even seem impossible.” She lowered her arms, standing plainly in front of them; she lowered her voice as well, making them listen. “It is a story, however, that is absolutely true.” Her quiet voice, her simple stance — it was all guileless, without artifice or staginess, the more to convince them of her sincerity. Fiona raised the tubes again and a white mist shot from them, spouting high into the air as her audience gasped in wonder. The fog hung between the audience and the rounded arches of the ceiling, a pale translucency that obscured the candles that flickered there; and then, as Fiona lowered the tubes and switched on her projectors, it seemed to those below as if the roof suddenly opened to reveal a cloudless, pitch-black sky, ablaze with the great glittering stars. The audience moaned in wonder.

“Behold the stars!” Fiona called. “The stars as the dragons first made them, the stars as they first glittered in the vault of the heavens on the first night of the new-born world. Here they sparkle, new-made, as they move in their courses.” The stars were registered at local perspective: any navigator in the audience would have recognized them. They began to rotate, as if with the motion of the planet.

The Arrandalla were good astronomers and navigators; a hundred years ago they’d abandoned the Demro-centered concept of the universe and adopted the notion of their planet circling a star, with the laws of gravitation and planetary motion springing up a generation later, discovered simultaneously in half a dozen places. This understanding would make Fiona’s explanation easier.

The stars slowed again, then stopped. The stars faded, and dawn began to blaze across the eastern sky. The sky lightened, turned to day. There was some scattered applause from people thinking it was the end of the trick.

“Let us take to ourselves the wings of the mallanto,” Fiona said, stifling the applause before it could begin. “Let us take wing, and soar into the sky.” And suddenly the perspective of the display changed; there was a lurching sensation, and then, coming into view, was the horizon, with Acragas’ palace squatting recognizably in the foreground, the city stretching beyond, and after that the blue, gleaming water. There were cries from the audience, an audible buzz; and there was suddenly movement as a number of them bolted for the exits, making the sign against the evil eye.

The perspective swung dizzyingly as the view gyred, circling higher over the Acragas palace, catching here a glimpse of sky, of cloud, of the city walls, of the plains and rivers beyond. “Let us mount higher with the wings of the mallanto,” Fiona chanted. “Let us climb into the sky and look down upon the creation of the dragons and of man.”

The viewpoint looked down, at the shrunken palace and the city; and then it suddenly pulled back, the city fading away into a mosaic of brown plains, green wetlands, blue sea, all dotted with a scattering of cloud. There was a low moan from the audience, some overcome with vertigo — and there were the snowcapped peaks to the south, and lying across the smoking sea the greybrown land of the Brodaini, broken by mountain-teeth and the snaking white forms of glaciers. Still the perspective drew back until all of Demro hung in the void, snow-capped north and south, the white cloud contrasting with seas of the deepest blue, the dull-brown continents almost insignificant in the display of shocking colors. And around the glowing bluewhite globe burned the steady, suddenly nonflickering stars.

“Here we have mounted, above the world,” Fiona said. “From here we can see the dragons’ creation, all of Demro laid out below us. The creation of mankind, all the great cities, all the fields and nations and alliances — from here they are invisible, lost in the totality of the universe.”

The perspective began to move again, Demro fading away into the midst of the stars, Demro’s sun appearing in a blaze of white, both fading now with distance. “We journey now among the stars,” Fiona said. “Higher even than the wings of the mallanto can take us. Here only the encompassing mind of the dragon can bring us. Demro fades to a distant speck of blue, and vanishes. Even the sun fades in the cold distance, until it is no more than a star. The dragon’s dream is cold and lifeless, here in the barren spaces between the stars.”

In a slow moment the perspective changed again, rotating through 180 degrees until the viewpoint was dead ahead, the stars moving past as the simulation forged onward. This was not, Fiona knew, how the starfield moved at near-light speed — the reality was more spectacular, the stars refracting as they bent around the speeding mass of the ship — but this was straining her audience’s understanding enough, without her delivering a disquisition on relativity physics.

A star moved into center view, growing brighter, its white light somehow bluer, fiercer. “Here,” Fiona said, “a small star, another star of the dragons’ making. But even at this immeasurable distance the dragons build true — for around this other star circles a world, another world. And it is a world where the dragons have, as here on Demro, created humanity.”

The new world appeared, a brown speck at first, hardly visible in the hard glare of the new star, then growing rapidly until it filled the display. There was much less water here, that was obvious: the brown areas greatly outnumbered the blue, and the patches of white around the poles were much smaller.

“The dragons made a harsher world here,” Fiona said, “a warmer world, where water is rare, and greatly prized. Here the humans, battling the harsh conditions of the land, were forced to dig great networks of canals to water their land — not canals as they have here, to regulate the flood and speed commerce, but canals to bring water to thirsty crops.” She showed her audience scenes of the other world: the great flatlands; the giant, branching canals reflecting the ruddy hues of the sky; the grey upthrust stone of the mountains, cleft with black shadow; the deserts and semi-deserts with their strange beasts.

“The people grew wise in the ways of their land, in the ways of artifice. Their ambition grew, as did their knowledge; and they yearned to move among the stars with the wings of dragons.” Here the simulation showed, for the first time, the inhabitants of the other world: brown-skinned, lithe, sturdy people, swift to laugh and swifter to smile, draped in robes of bright color, moving among their low, earth-colored houses — and Fiona’s heart lurched, seeing these carefully selected, carefully edited scenes of home. A sudden, overwhelming yearning filled her as she viewed this world she had so carelessly left behind, her world, the world she could never expect to see again, except in these dreams created for the enlightenment of these savages, for if she ever returned to her homeland centuries would have passed, and everything she knew would be gone... She fell silent for a moment, swaying on the stage, her prepared speech gone from her mind; but she steeled herself, breathed carefully in and out, and then spoke, her words coming swiftly as she tried to recover lost ground.

“Wise they grew in the ways of alchemy, and of handling metals. They harnessed the fires of the dragons. Their priests were granted to knowledge about other worlds the dragons had created, and the planets where the dragons had made humanity. Their alchemists wished to know these other humans, to visit them, and to this end they built a ship powered by dragonfire. A ship such as the universe had not known, capable of moving between the stars.”

Here the display showed the great ship a-building on a barren plain of the brown world — an outright lie, since the ship had actually been built in orbit and could never taste atmosphere, but Fiona could not expect her audience to understand that. “The ship,” she said, “was built of metal, smelted in the fire of the dragons, and was crewed by hundreds.

“But there was one problem,” Fiona said. “The spaces between the stars were such that the ship would take years to complete its journey — not years only, but lifetimes. So the artificers of this world contrived to put the crew to sleep for the duration of the journey, and so built the ship that it might pilot itself, all with machinery.” The simulation showed the crew in their glass-fronted coffins, moving down the rows of sleeping to a porthole that showed the stars. “And the ship rose at last, and moved among the stars with its sleeping crew,” Fiona narrated, and the view showed the stars moving past, faster this time. “Years passed, and the crew slept, and the ship moved straight and true on its course, until another star approached.”

The star appeared, and its blue-white planet; the viewpoint rushed downward, down through the cloud to the city of Arrandal and the palace of Necias — there were gasps from the audience as they recognized the endpoint of this journey — and then the perspective tilted up again, showing the night sky: the same night sky the simulation had shown first of all, different but in one detail.

“The ship, flying high over the land, appeared as a fixed, gleaming star,” Fiona said, and there was a murmur among the crowd as the fixed star winked in the revolving heavens. “The crew of the ship rose from their beds and for two years studied the land below, before sending their people down to greet the humans, so like themselves, who lived in this strange world. But at long last the ambassadors came down from their ship, and traveled the long miles to greet you.”

The vision faded, the white fog suddenly only fog, dissipating slowly in the drafts of the upper hall. And suddenly there was only Fiona, standing alone in the brightness of her scarlet gown, her hand at her throat. She raised the hand.

“From my world to yours, greetings,” she said.

And the world changed.

CHAPTER 8

In the mad pandemonium that followed, half the audience applauding, half near-riot, purses flying through the air, dozens breaking from their places to cluster up about the foreign conjuror as if she were a goddess come to earth, Necias thought quickly. He leaned toward Tegestu and bellowed: “Get her out of here! Someplace safe, and quiet!” Tegestu made a gesture and suddenly there was a wedge of Brodaini slicing through the crowd, its ardis aimed at Fiona. Necias felt the grip of Brito’s hand on his arm.

“Get Campas!” she said, her eyes glittering with urgency. “Tell Campas to go with her!”

Necias nodded and roared the poet’s name. There was another hand on his shoulder, a hand that glittered with rings, and Necias turned to give Campas his instructions. Campas listened with a strange, knowing, half-cynical smile, nodded, and then followed in the wake of the Brodaini. The woman was reached, cordoned off, snatched from the crowd. Classani swept through the crowd to pick up her table, her equipment, her trunk, her litter of purses. Necias saw the bewildered, white-haired figure of his steward Ahastinas in the melee. He tried to signal Ahastinas to continue the program, but it was no use — Ahastinas was already banging his staff and shouting to no avail; the poor man was almost weeping with frustration.

Enough.

Necias lurched to his feet, climbed onto his stoutly-built settee, and cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Silence!” he roared. “Silence, all of you! Silence!”

That did the trick. The milling crowd grew less noisy and then stilled, staring up at him in surprise, the upturned faces demanding an explanation Necias could not provide.

“We will investigate this matter,” Necias said, his voice sounding hollow in the stillness. “I’ll have the heralds announce the results tomorrow. In the meantime,” he said, gesturing brusquely, “the program will continue, after you return to your seats. Ahastinas, what’s next on the program?”

“A new concerto by Naralidas Pastas, sir,” Ahastinas quavered, and Necias clapped his hands.

“Excellent!” he bellowed. “The man’s good!” He looked out at the crowd, then scowled. “Back to your seats, then, so the show can continue.”

They moved, grudgingly, and Necias clambered carefully down from his perch and sat himself. Brito leaned over to whisper into his ear.

“Very well done, Necias.”

“Thanks,” Necias said, tugging at his ear and frowning. Ai, gods, he thought. What in the name of the dragons and demons did all this mean? If that girl was a charlatan he’d have the hide off her. But if she wasn’t... no, it had to be trickery, or witchcraft. Had to be. The alternative was too dizzying.

As dizzying as the stars burning in the void, as dizzying as flying high above his palace on the wings of a mallanto... He shook his head, clenched his fists. He’d get to the bottom of it, just wait.

There was the touch of a hand on his shoulder: Campas. “She’s in the small conference room,” he said. “Guards are keeping her safe. She said she’d be pleased to speak with you.”

Necias tilted his head back, looking into his secretary’s businesslike face. “Good,” he said. “Has she said anything?’’

There was an amused, smug gleam in Campas’ eye. “She complimented me,” he said, “on my verse.” And then he frowned. “We didn’t get all her gear out. Some of those people were after souvenirs.”

Necias shook his head. “Couldn’t be helped,” he said. “Go stay with her. Don’t ask any questions yet, but if she volunteers anything, write it down.” He looked at the crowd, dispersing now, murmuring among themselves, still casting him looks ranging from bafflement to suspicion. “Make her comfortable, hey?” he said. “Give her anything she wants: food, drink, anything.”

“Except her freedom, as I take it?” Campas asked, his tone light. Necias looked at him sharply, seeing the quick, cynical mockery in his eyes, and then gave his secretary a grin.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “She didn’t cause a sensation like that just to disappear into the night, hey?” He jabbed a blunt finger into Necias’ chest. “She’s after something, my boy, and we’ll just have to find out what it is. Cut along now.”

Campas nodded and made his exit. The lights dimmed and the concerto began, but Necias found that his mind wasn’t on it; and neither, he suspected, was anyone else’s. The applause was desultory, the flung purses were few; and even the program’s finale was a disaster. It was a one-act farce by one of the city’s finer playwrights, guaranteed to send the audience on their way laughing, but every joke fell flat, and the clowns sweated for every grudging laugh. Necias was glad when it was over.

After that the dining rooms reopened for a later supper, and the ballrooms for dancing; but Necias sent Brito to the dining room to bring him a plate of food and a mug of beer, dispatched his other wives and their escorts to play hostess at the various other events, and then made his way to the small conference room.

The conjuror Fiona was seated calmly, her hands folded in her lap, on one of the three-legged Brodaini stools, with Campas sitting, notes in hand, to her left. She had thrown a grey shawl around her shoulders, and a halfdrunk cup of tea stood on a tray by her side. Fiona looked up as Necias walked in, then rose, her skirt rustling. There was a dignity, a gravity, in her bearing; she was, he thought, bearing herself as an ambassador would, conscious that she was representing not simply herself, but her people.

An “ambassador from the stars.” Well, he thought, we’ll see.

“Sit,” he said, waving an arm, and dropped onto his settee. He put one of his feet up and watched Fiona as she seated herself. Her eyes, black and calm, turned to his. She seemed prepared to wait.

“You are comfortable?” he asked. “Would you like another chair? Something to eat? Drink?”

“I thank you, Abessu-Denorru, but no,” she said. Her voice was self-possessed and calm, and Necias thought he saw a hint of amusement at the corners of her mouth. Is she amused, then? he wondered. At the fools she’s made of us with her trickery?

Necias leaned back suddenly, tapping one hand restlessly on the arm of the settee as his nervous energy sought an outlet. “What do I call you?” he asked. “Do you have a title?”

“Not as such, no,” Fiona said. “You can call me Ambassador, if you like. It’s as good a description as any.” Campas’ pen began to scratch across his pad.

Necias frowned. “Ambassador” was a masculine noun; it didn’t apply to women. But “Fiona” wasn’t a standard Abessla name, with a feminine ending: it wouldn’t clash quite as much with the title as, say, Luco or Brito would.

“Very well,” Necias said. His hand tapped on the settee’s arm twice, lightly, then he became conscious of the nervous gesture and halted it.

“You say you are from the stars,” he said. “Are we to take this seriously, or was this merely a part of your act?”

“It was part of my act, yes,” Fiona said. Her manner seemed a bit distracted, distanced, as if she were concentrating on choosing her words very carefully. “But I was very serious. I am from a star — or rather, from a planet circling another star. My planet is called Igara. You have seen the — the views of that planet I’ve provided.” She paused, then added: “The star is visible from here. I’m not sure if your people have a name for it: I think not. But I can tell your astronomers where to find it.”

Necias gave a jerk of his head. “Not necessary,” he said. “One star’s much the same as another.”

Fiona smiled, then gave a serene nod. “Very true,” she said.

What, Necias wondered, was the girl feeling? She seemed strangely relaxed in these circumstances, very cool, very loose — she ought to be keyed up, he thought. Instead it’s as if she’s terribly relieved.

There was a scratching at the door; Necias, annoyed at the interruption, barked out his query, and Brito’s voice came in answer. Brito with his plate of food and mug of beer. Necias was suddenly aware of his hunger, of the cavernousness in him. This was going to be a long night: he’d need to keep alert. “Come in,” he said.

Brito entered the room with a tray, plates heaped high with goose, roast pig, pickled eggs, grilled sea-rampalla, cheese. A maidservant followed with a pitcher of beer and a heavy mug. They set it down on the table in front of Necias’ settee. Necias waited for the beer to be poured and then took the mug, taking a deep draft. He gestured to Fiona.

“Sure you don’t want something?”

A gentle shake of the head. “No. Thank you.”

“Campas?”

The poet looked at the heap of food, then nodded. “Yes. A little goose and cheese, I think.”

“You,” Necias said, addressing the maidservant. “Go fetch it.”

“Yes, Abessu-Denorru.”

The girl bobbed her goodbyes and went. Necias looked from Brito to Fiona.

“This is Brito,” he said, “my cenors-censto.”

“Honored,” said Fiona.

“Fiona,” Necias told Brito, “says she is from another planet.” He picked up a slice of pig and devoured it.

“I heard,” said Brito.

“We all heard,” Necias nodded, beginning to enjoy, himself. This was something he well understood: the complexity of negotiation, of truth-finding, here in this little, familiar room. Fiona wouldn’t stand against him: he’d get the truth tonight, crack her composure somehow. He took another swallow of beer, watching the faces in the room, Fiona with her smile, Campas with his pen poised, his face set in a slight frown as if contemplating a problem, the two Brodaini guards with their elaborate hairstyles and arrogant, masklike faces.

Brito was watching Fiona closely, he saw. She was a good judge of character; he’d keep her in the room and ask her opinion later.

“Sit by me, stansisso,” he said. “Keep my mug full.”

“Yes, husband.” Brito sat on one of the hard Brodaini stools. Necias wiped his greasy fingers on his jacket and turned his eyes to Fiona.

“Another planet.” he repeated. “Can you offer any evidence?”

“I have already offered a great deal,” Fiona answered promptly.

“Witchcraft, perhaps. Demralla witchcraft — it doesn’t have to come from another planet.”

“If you can find a local witch who can duplicate my performance, Abessu-Denorru, your supposition may be proven. Until then, not.” The conjuror’s answer came pat. Necias grinned.

“You sound like you’ve been to Fastias’ Academy of Rhetoric,” he said, tugging an ear. Fiona smiled at the statement. Necias held up a finger. “But it’s not my place to offer proof,” he said. “That job is yours. Prove what you say — and prove it now.” He lowered his voice to a menacing seriousness, fixing Fiona with his eyes, his gaze holding hers. For the first time she seemed uneasy, shifting on her seat. “Prove it,” he said quietly, “or get out of my city.”

There was a moment of silence in which Necias could hear the blood pounding triumphantly in his ears, and Fiona pursed her lips slightly, her black eyes turning abstractedly upward. Then she turned to Necias.

“What,” she asked, “would you consider proof?”

“That’s up to you,” Necias said. “You claim to have come alone from some other planet — no heralds, no credentials, no escort — and of all the cities on Demro you come to mine, but you live like a spy for days before revealing yourself. I’m flattered,” he said, bowing with his hand on his chest, an exaggeration of humility. “I’m flattered, but I find all this suspicious. I need more proof than you’ve shown so far.”

Fiona held up a hand. “I understand,” she said. “I can, of course, give you credentials — I can provide them tonight, if you give me leave to walk on the roof, or in some courtyard, and let me take my trunk with me.” She lowered her hand, then continued: “But you misunderstand. I never said I was alone. Igara has sent ambassadors to other cities, other nations — to all the cities of the Elva, and to the Clattern i Clatterni of Gostandu. You can inquire of the other cities if you wish.”

Necias grunted in surprise and sat back in his chair. He saw the two Brodaini guards, startled enough to drop their masks for an instant, give one another alarmed glances — the Clattern i Clatterni, King of Kings, was the Brodaini princeling who had conquered their entire continent, driving Tegestu, his clan, and the other mercenary clans into exile; Necias could well understand the Brodaini being disturbed. But Necias was more appalled by another implication of what the conjuror had said.

“All the cities of the Elva?” he grunted in astonishment. “Including Neda-Calacas?”

Fiona nodded. “Yes. Neda-Calacas as well,” she said.

“Ai, gods!” Necias leaned forward, anger filling him. “What were your people thinking of?” he demanded. “Neda-Calacas is an outlaw city, a renegade! All embassies will be withdrawn. And then the rebels will be destroyed.”

Fiona looked solemnly into his eyes. “Igara has no quarrel with Neda-Calacas, or with any other city or institution. We take no sides in your wars. We will deal with anyone who will deal with us.”

Necias frowned, then took a piece of grilled rampalla and gobbled it while he thought. “Deal,” he said. “You said deal. What kind of deal are you after?”

“Trade,” Fiona said simply. “We are interested in your people, your — your artifacts. Metalwork, painting, sculpture, your ideas, your —” She nodded to Campas. “ — your poetry.”

“And you will pay for this?” Necias asked, still frowning.

“In gold, if you like,” Fiona said. “We have a supply. We also ask permission to make certain — suggestions and criticisms,” she said. “Suggestions and criticisms that may help you, though you may feel free to disregard them if you wish. There are conditions attached to this, however — we insist that any suggestions we make be shared by all, and not benefit any one person or city.”

Necias scowled and shook his head. The girl wasn’t making sense. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What sort of suggestions are you talking about?”

“Suggestions that may alert you to possibilities of which you may not have been aware. Suggestions that may help you with, for instance, trade, or with, say, alchemical knowledge. Suggestions that may, in the end, help you to travel between the stars, as we have traveled.”

Necias drained his mug and held it out to Brito to be refilled, certain there was something wrong with what he was hearing. This was ridiculous — no one offered knowledge like that free of charge.

There was a scratching at the door, and he barked out a curt order to enter. It was Luco, his youngest wife, carrying a tray. She was flushed, and her eyes were wide as she looked at Fiona; then she swallowed and turned to Necias.

“I brought Campas’ tray,” she said. A transparent excuse: clearly enough she’d just wanted to see the woman from another planet, and perhaps hear part of the discussion.

“Our husband sent someone else to that task,” Brito said, her tone sharp. “We do not carry trays for our husband’s employees.”

“I’m sorry, stansisso Brito,” she said, stepping into the room, putting the tray on Campas’ table. She stepped back nervously, her eyes moving from Necias to Fiona and back again, her stance awkward, unwilling to tear herself away. Necias gave her an impatient glance.

“Get out or sit down!” he snapped. “I don’t care which!”

Luco jumped at his tone, flushing, then murmured, “Thank you, husband,” and rushed to a settee, sitting in a rustle of skirts. Necias could feel Brito’s annoyance: it was Brito who had a place here, as official hostess; Luco did not. Perhaps Brito was angry at what she might think was favoritism, but it seemed a small concession for him to make. Luco was curious, and Necias saw no reason to deny her curiosity. Let her listen, and if it would make her happy then he saw no reason to forbid her presence. Happy wives were better than unhappy ones, to be sure.

He turned his mind away from partillo matters and sipped beer while considering what Fiona had said. Suggestions, knowledge, offered by these planet-people. Offered gratis, it appeared; they even asked permission.

Well. He’d approach it one step at a time, until he saw the flaw: then he’d pounce.

“These suggestions you want to make,” he said. “What kind of suggestions are you talking about?”

Fiona inclined her head. “This is a suggestion I have been authorized to make, as an example.” Fiona said. “We’ve observed your ships. They have difficulty sailing into the wind, do they not?”

“True,” Necias said impatiently. It was an elementary fact, known to all. The ships, with their square sails, could only sail efficiently downwind, though with very careful bracing and a heavy hand on the rudder a ship could be brought very slightly into the wind, of not far enough to change the basic fact that upwind sailing was unknown. The fact had brought disaster often enough — sometimes entire trading fleets were pinned on a lee shore, unable to beat away from the rocks, and were torn to pieces when their anchors dragged.

Entire trade patterns were based on these simple facts of sailing. In the spring a gentle, warm southerly wind came over the passes, and the trading cities like Arrandal, their fleets made ready over the winter, sailed north to Gostandu and the northern Elva cities, their hulls bulging with trade goods. Then, after a late-summer period of storms, a blustery, cold northern wind came down from the lands of ice, blowing the fleets back to their home ports with their foreign-made goods, accompanied by fleets from the northern Elva cities which would winter in the south until the winds changed again. In the spring and summer, ships from the north found it next to impossible to journey to the south, beating against the wind the entire way: and in the winter there was no possibility whatever of fighting the hard northern winds to travel across the seas from the south. Urgent messages that had to be sent against the wind had to be carried on oared galleys, rowing madly at a fantastic cost in rowers, who had to be paid well for their efforts.

“We can’t sail into the wind,” Necias said. “That’s elementary. What of it?”

“We can sail into the wind,” Fiona said, “on Igara.”

“With dragonfire?” Necias asked. “Puffing from behind, to fill your sails?” He saw a smile flit across Campas’ face as the secretary wrote down his question.

“You will have to change the style of your sails,” Fiona said solemnly, refusing to rise to Necias’ bait. “You will do better to have the yards of your sails — some of the sails, anyway — arranged to lie fore-and-aft on your ships rather than athwart them.” She looked up at Necias, bright-eyed. “Try it, anyway. Take a small ship and experiment. I think you’ll find that I’m right.”

Necias’ brows came together as he considered the suggestion. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What difference can it make? And how d’you mean, alter the yards?”

“May I have a piece of paper?” Fiona asked. “I’ll illustrate.”

She took pen and paper from Campas and drew some simple figures of ships as seen from the top, little wedges, with dots for masts and arcs for sails. “This is the sort of sail you use presently,” she said, pointing. “Try to arrange the sails more like this. Fore-and-aft, you see?”

Necias ate bits of pork and considered. It sounded absurd to him, but if it worked — if it worked — as she said it would, the results would be stunning. It would be possible to get trade information across the sea, instead of having to wait half a year for the wind to change. Trade could be increased. Could be doubled, perhaps; places formerly inaccessible could be reached in all weathers. If the scrawls on the paper meant anything.