The other lands

CHAPTER TWENTY

The morning Corinn was scheduled to meet with the Queen's Council-just a few days since returning from her well-filling tour of Talay-she walked out into the sun of the upper gardens, Rhrenna at her side. Though the day was warm, she wore a long-sleeved dress of Teheen cotton, elaborately embroidered with overlapping animal figures that cavorted across her chest and back. She wore her hair in a tight bun, pierced by decorative combs that looked vaguely martial, as if she could pull them out and toss them as daggers if she grew angry.

She found Aaden swimming in the maze of canals and pools that cut through the gardens. His friend was with him. Devlyn was his name, the one Aaden seemed so fond of. It was unlikely that the pools had been intended for swimming, but Corinn had swum in them when she was young. It warmed her to see Aaden's legs and arms sweeping out in the glass-clear water. He and Devlyn dove among gold, silver, and crimson fish, some as large as a man's arm but all of them harmless. Up until this moment, she was still haunted by her nightly torment. She now banished the memory of the dream. It was a foolishness anyway. Aliver and Hanish were dead; Aaden was alive, and hers, and would be forever.

"Mother!" Aaden called, suddenly discovering he was being watched. He treaded water, losing his rhythm for a moment so that his mouth dipped below the surface. Up an instant later, he spat, then spoke. "Mother, Devlyn saw a hookfish in the pools. As long as a man, he said!"

Corinn stepped to the raised lip of the pool. She gestured for the boys to swim to the edge nearest her. "A hookfish, you say?" Aaden nodded. Devlyn did not, but he swam with a motion somehow more graceful than the prince's. "What's a hookfish?"

"You don't know?" Aaden asked, though he seemed quite pleased to hear it. "It's one of those long, scaly things with barbs down their tails. Like hooks but sharp as Marah swords."

The queen could not help but bend and wipe the light strands of hair back from the panting boy's forehead. Though the very notion of such a fish swimming below her son's feet stirred a flash of unease through her, she knew it was nonsense. The pools had been safe since the sixth king built them for his wife generations ago. Why do boys always wish for monsters? she wondered. Out loud, she said, "Really?"

"Yes! And they have teeth sharp enough to cut to the bone! If they bite you, they don't let go, even if they're taken out of the water. Right, Devlyn?"

The other boy did not immediately meet the queen's gaze. Speaking to the stone rim just in front of him, he said, "Yes. They have green eyes."

"You saw the color of its eyes? That's alarming. Why, then, are you still in the water?"

"To hunt it," Devlyn answered.

Aaden nodded, but Corinn kept her eyes on the other boy. He was handsome enough in his way, with dark eyes and curls of brown hair that glistened with moisture. He would be stunning in a few years, a notion that did not sit altogether comfortably with her. Would he, in olive-skinned beauty, outshine Aaden? "And I suppose you plan to slay the beast yourself?" she asked.

To her surprise, the boy did not miss a beat in responding. "No," he said, his eyes darting up to hers for just a moment, "Aaden will. I'm his second."

Ah, so you do know your place? "And as a second, what do you do for Aaden?"

"Whatever he needs me to. Anything. I have to keep him safe."

"I'll be the king, Mother," Aaden said, sounding older, a bit weary, for a moment. "He knows that. He knows to protect me. That's why-"

Aaden stopped himself, but not before Corinn knew what he had almost said. He had nearly mentioned his wish that Devlyn become his chancellor again. He had stopped, knowing that she would not welcome the conversation in front of the boy. That was wise, although it was obvious from the way both boys' faces went momentarily blank that they had discussed the matter between themselves. That was not as wise.

Or perhaps it was… perhaps a prince needed to secure his companions when he was young. Perhaps Aaden would be better off than she, with the pack of ambitious fools she had to contend with. So thinking, she was reminded of the day's meeting. She bade the boys safe hunting and left them again enlivened and shouting excitement to each other.

The Queen's Council was just one of the many panels of advisers she consulted. Unlike the others-who humbly brought her hard facts on the various subjects important to her rule-the members of the Queen's Council tended to inflate their own import. She had accepted that she needed them, but she did not trust them. If they had not been necessary in order to keep up the appearance that she honored traditions, she would have dismissed them and bought advice, entirely with coin, from agents of her choosing.

Early in her rule she had selected some of the ten councillors herself in an effort to create a truly guiding body. She had handpicked Jason, her former tutor. It had not taken her long, however, to realize that most of her choices were just as self-interested as those thrust upon her by tradition. She had stopped trying to make them friends long ago. With the Council members, her guard was up and senses as alert as they would have been at a meeting of declared enemies. None of this, however, showed on the surface.

"Good councillors," she declared as she entered the chamber that had once been her father's, "do me the service of your knowledge that I may govern with wisdom." It was one of the traditional greetings. She said it with every appearance of sincerity.

As she seated herself, the councillors answered her just as warmly. They could not say enough about the great things they had heard about her trip to Talay. "A triumph!" Sigh Saden declared in his nasally, aristocratic Acacian.

"A voyage of miracles!" Balneaves of the Sharratt family pronounced. In his subdued way, even Sire Dagon seemed impressed. He should be, Corinn thought, impressed and enriched because of it, and more than a little discomfited, too. On the surface they were all praise; beneath, they had to be wondering how she had managed these miracles. They must be stewing over what other powers she might have, a reaction she had intended all along.

Deciding to let them worry a little longer, she indicated that Rhrenna could call the meeting to order.

She did so by invoking the first five Akaran kings, calling on their spirits to infuse the gathering with wisdom. After that grandiose opening, Rhrenna directed their conversation to mundane matters, as Corinn had instructed. Records and accounts, mining production estimates, and even an assessment of the Vumu Archipelago's potential as a source of timber: on such things they passed a long, boring hour.

Turning to military matters, General Andeson, the commander of the Acacian army, admitted that there had been a drop in the overall troop numbers but said it was for the best. He put forth the opinion that the military would better serve as a slightly smaller force than by recruiting less worthy new soldiers. Without a foe to fight, he said, it was dangerous to have too many armed men and women milling about.

"What about security?" asked Talinbeck, a bone-thin engineer with bushy, recalcitrant eyebrows. "My managers swear there's something afoot among the workers-nothing they can put their finger on, but something."

Andeson rubbed his thumb over his close-cropped black beard. "Show me a foe and I'll act, but I can't defend against something nobody can put a finger on."

"I've heard rumors of discontent before," Corinn said. "Are there signs that the dissenters are organizing?"

"No, Your Majesty," Balneaves said. "It's just the low-level grumbling of the masses. That's nothing new. When the mist flowed freely, it was nothing but a murmur. It's still little more than that, but the commoners want to be sedated! That's why they drink. That's why they smoke whatever leaves will blur the world for them. That's why they fornicate and breed and brawl drunkenly in taverns." He could barely keep the scorn off his jowly face. "I say get that new wine to them sooner rather than later. We'll all be happier for it."

Sire Dagon cleared his throat, puckered his lips, and held the room a moment. "The league is ready to distribute when you are, Your Majesty."

Corinn knew they all wanted the empire sloshing in the stuff. Such a course was likely for the best and would commence soon. She told herself that she wasn't delaying. She just needed to know the time was right. "I know," she answered. "And in my time I will allow it."

Baddel, the only Talayan on the Council, went into raptures again. "Your trip was such a success," he said, "that I wonder if you plan another. Talay is big enough. You touched the coastal area, but in the interior-" He stopped, pursing his full lips as if he had not considered that before. His machinations were obvious, but Corinn almost liked him despite it. "Vast, dry mile upon mile. Another hundred wells between Umae and Halaly would do such good. Think what it would mean for the Halaly to have their lake back at full level!"

"By now Mena must have rid the Halaly of the beast in the lake," Rhrenna said.

"I truly hope so," Saden said. "It will refill as it always has. I was wondering about a different matter. The Eilavan Woodlands were sorely taxed by the harvest of timber. First-rate lumber, of course, and invaluable to a nation that needed to rebuild after war. The demand remains high, and the replanting efforts have barely begun. Might you-oh, I don't know-make the trees grow back faster?"

Inwardly, Corinn rolled her eyes. Outwardly, she just looked at him. When had one of these fools ever proposed anything not meant to benefit himself?

Rhrenna spoke for her. "I wonder, Senator Saden, if you are here as the Senate's representative, or as your own? Don't you own an interest in the woodlands' harvest? Your family, if I'm not mistaken, have been harvesting there for a hundred years or more."

"We are one of the many families, yes, but-"

"So you've had more than enough time to learn to manage it properly. The queen does not act to fulfill the personal interests of the few." Rhrenna glanced at Corinn. "Shall we move on to other topics?"

"Forgive us," Talinbeck said. "We just don't know what you're capable of. We don't know how you do the things you do. If you explain it to us, we'll know and-"

Corinn did not like the engineer's earnest tone. The last thing she wanted was for them to start being honest with her now. "Yes, let's move on." She waited a moment. "Are there other topics?" She knew that there was one topic they would likely raise before she dismissed them, but as the silence continued she almost believed she would get away with ending the meeting without facing it.

But then Julian, the Council's most senior member, cleared his throat and motioned that he would speak. He was the only one of the group who had been a member of Leodan's Council. Quite notoriously, he was on record as having doubted that Thasren Mein's attack on King Leodan had really meant Hanish was launching a war. He had been wrong about that, but he had been right in managing to stay alive long enough to see another Akaran rise to rule. It was for that connection with the past that he was a part of the Council.

"I hope you don't mind my mentioning it, Your Majesty," Julian said, his voice tremulous. "I know it's a delicate matter and wholly up to you to consider, but I would be remiss… if I didn't bring up the topic of your betrothal. The topic is discussed openly on Alecia. Openly, in truth. Some have even written asking me to speak with you about it."

Yes, Corinn thought, tap old gray-haired Julian for your dirty work, as if I can surely find nothing lascivious in the urgings of such a revered elder. "And what did they bid you say?" she asked, tenting her hands on the granite table and creasing her brow in feigned interest.

Julian blinked. For a moment he looked as if he had forgotten, but then it came back, and he spoke as if surely he had described it all to her before-as, indeed, he had. "Why, they wish you to wed, of course! They've even commissioned a team of scholars to look into the lineages of all the eligible Agnates. There's quite a list, I assure you. Should you be interested, I could have it for you-"

Corinn interrupted. "Is that a list of true Agnates, or does it include the new families?"

"New or old, it makes no difference," Saden answered. "The recent Agnate appointments stand as solidly as the old. All the same now, as it has to be."

"Does that strike you as true, Jason?"

Her former tutor started in his seat. He had not said a word yet other than reading one of the earlier accounting reports, and would probably have been content with that. Whatever things he had seen during his years of hiding during Hanish's rule had crippled him. Creases carved his face and white strands outnumbered the brown in his hair, though he was just past forty. Sometimes, feeling his eyes studying her when she was not looking at him, Corinn felt he viewed her with a certain amount of uneasy astonishment. Perhaps he remembered the shallow girl she had been and could not recognize the person she was now. She rather liked that.

Jason answered, "I don't doubt that the old Agnates will forever remember that they are, in fact, more ancient lines; but in point of fact in the law Senator Saden is correct." His fingers trembled when he gestured with them. "Your list of possible suitors-should you choose to consider it-is larger this way. Easier to find a suitable match, one that none would contest."

"I see." Corinn pressed her lips together as if giving the idea renewed thought. "What I don't see, however, is why I should marry anyone. Do any of you think me incapable of rule? Or is it that you wish to challenge my son's right to the throne? You think him a bastard, perhaps?"

A cacophony of denials. Voices raised in complaint, so ardent that Corinn shared a look with Rhrenna, a look of amusement, although other eyes would not have known it as such. The councilmen's response was answer enough to things she had already believed, so she would go no further with it. There were many reasons men wished to wed her. None of them were advantageous to her. But the issue of Aaden was a concern like no other. If she did marry and had another child by one of these Agnates, and if her husband called himself king and appealed to his class to elevate his own child above a bastard fathered by their hated enemy, well, that was a fight she did not wish to have. Better that she have no other children. Better that her rule stay strong, and that the people come to love Aaden.

Once he reached seventeen, she could step aside and see him crowned king. After that, none would challenge him. A ruling queen always had the option to step aside for a mature son. Corinn had studied the secession laws in detail, and likely knew them better than any senator. She doubted any of them could imagine her to be planning this, but planning it she was. They would be waiting for her death to move against him. She would act before that, though.

The councillors were still squawking when she decided to change the subject once more. Cutting in to the conversation, she said, "I will not discuss this anymore today. If I choose to wed, you'll hear about it promptly, but my marital situation is not to be decided at Council." Several of the councillors looked ready to take exception to that, but she spoke over them. "Here is a thing I wish to speak of: we will bring horse culture back to the center of the empire."

The room fell silent.

Sire Dagon plucked his pipe from the corner of his lips. "Horse culture?"

"Exactly."

"And what horse culture would that be, Your Majesty?"

"Surely, all in this room know of Acacia's ancient traditions of equine excellence. I've been giving it a deal of thought, consulting with knowledgeable individuals, and I've concluded that we should bring the noble practice back into the mainstream of Acacian culture."

The truth was somewhat simpler than that. Aaden had given her the idea while they were riding in Talay. He had observed, quite casually, "One is taller on horseback. I like being taller." Watching him ride away, upright and easy in the saddle, reins held correctly as he had been taught, Corinn had been struck with inspiration. Her people, she decided, had once been horsemen-in some distant past, in the time of the early kings, perhaps. Wasn't Tinhadin famous for his love of his gray mare? Yes, certainly he was. Hadn't Valeeden once had to ride full out from Calfa Ven to Alyth, stopping only long enough to leap upon fresh horses offered by the peasants? She was vague on the details of these things, but she had not found details very important in convincing people of things they wanted to believe. Acacians had once been horsemen, she decided; they would be so again. One was taller sitting on horseback, just as the future king had said. Let the people feel taller.

"Jason," Corinn said, "tell the Council about our horse culture."

The scholar started again. He set a somewhat pleading look upon her, but when she returned it with an expectant smile, he found words. "Tinhadin was a horseman, it's true. And Edifus kept a great stable of stallions in the Pelos valley. Some here will have practiced the Eighth Form, in which horses play a part. The Akaran royals have always ridden-"

Saden cut in, noticeably annoyed with the change of subject. "The royal family riding does not make for a horse culture. You know that, I'm sure. You know that the reason few people in the empire ride is that the royal family didn't want them to. Simple as that. Your ancestors forbade horses to Talayans outright." He nodded at Baddel, who did not acknowledge the gesture. "Thought riding would cripple them. Turns out it did nothing of the sort. They can run as far and as fast as any horse, farther over a span of days. At least, that's what I've heard. Tinhadin tried to take them from the Mein, but never managed it."

"As I understand it," General Andeson said, "there are laws in the books expressly forbidding commoners to ride. Horses may pull carts or carry packs, yes, but only the military-and the nobles, of course-can ride."

Corinn said, with a tone that suggested she would have said the same thing regardless of what they had said in between, "The past is behind us, and now I look to the future. I don't want my people to always walk the earth like peasants. Not all of them, at least. I believe we'll be stronger if more people know horses. Jason, develop a lore for the horse as well, something to feed the people. Elaborate on what you know and put it in writing. Understand?"

The tutor started to sweep his hand to his chest, knocked his tumbler, caught it, and righted it dexterously. "Your Majesty, develop a-"

"Lore. Develop legends. Heroes on horseback and such things. Seek out some of the old tales in the library. Find stories that include horses. If you can't find them, insert the horses. Plant the seeds. Add another layer to the lore and let it be spoken of in taverns and halls and told to children at night, that sort of thing. Get the people dreaming horses."

Balneaves smiled crookedly. "Noble work, Jason. Go to it with gusto."

"I am glad you think so." Corinn rounded on him. "I have a part in this for you, too." Indeed, she had a part in it for almost everyone here. To different individuals she assigned responsibility for acquiring breeding stock, finding good pasturelands, hiring trainers, contracting architects and builders and blacksmiths. The list of needs was extensive. Corinn spoke with enthusiastic seriousness. Rhrenna duly wrote it all down. The councilmen looked about as if each was hoping another would call the whole thing a joke. But none did, and at the end of the session Baddel walked out mumbling, "As the queen wishes. The stallions shall stud. The mares shall birth. And the people shall ride."

And the councillors shall scurry about like worker ants, she answered, although only within the safe confines of her head.

Later that afternoon, she had one more meeting. This one took place in the privacy of the lower wing of her offices, on an open balcony that looked out over the sea. It was a small space, cut into the rock and hidden from prying eyes from above. She chose it because the man she was to meet could ascend an outer stone staircase unnoticed. It was that type of meeting. Clandestine. It was possible it was even dangerous, but she did not believe so.

Delivegu Lemardine, her agent, was faithful in his own way-faithful to the coin she paid him and to the knowledge that his service might fund a life of whatever vices he enjoyed. He had once aided Rialus in his covert designs, and Rialus had introduced him to her. She did not trust Delivegu, but that was not unusual; she did not trust anybody. Unlike most people, Delivegu had proved useful on more than one occasion.

Senivalians were not known for walking quietly, but in that Delivegu differed from his countrymen. He was up the stairs and but a few feet from Corinn before she knew it. He was dressed showily, as ever, in an open-necked shirt with a brigandlike flare in the sleeves tucked into his snug-fitting trousers; his knee-high black leather boots were laced to shape around his calves. Though he was padded around the belly with a few extra pounds, never had a man looked more comfortable with his body. Indeed, he luxuriated in his size and in what appeared to be natural strength. His face was composed of an unsettling combination of blocky, masculine features and feminine touches, as in the petite pucker of his lips. He was, in his own way, frustratingly attractive.

"Your Majesty," he said, bowing, "I am your servant in everything. In absolutely everything." He held the position a moment, and then rose. "If I may say, you are a vision of-"

"I don't have time for flattery," she snapped. She cupped her hand around a stone resting on the balcony. "Tell me, and then go."

Delivegu smiled. He always smiled. He seemed to find the world and everything in it amusing-insults as much as praise. "The blacksmith was strong. I'll give him that much. Not just in his arms, though those were formidable. For a moment when I first confronted him I thought he might have me. Ever thought you were about to be skewered on a red-hot sword pulled from the flames? Not a pretty-"

"To the point, Delivegu. To the point."

"Yes, well, I lived, as you can see. And I beat the brute to within an inch of his life and then questioned him."

"By what method?"

Delivegu cocked his head, demure, but when she pressed him he detailed his procedure readily enough. The initial beating had been coarse, and for the questioning he chose methods meant to coerce the mind as much as the body. He started by asking his questions gently. Why, he had asked, was the blacksmith's name in a note shot out of the sky by a Marah on night patrol? The man had watched a messenger bird dispatched from the lower town, and rightly guessed it carried some covert correspondence. When the missive was detached from the bird's leg, only one word could be made out on it: his name. The rest of it was coded gibberish.

The blacksmith had shut his lips and focused his loathing through his eyes, refusing to answer.

"He didn't care for me much," Delivegu said, combing his fingers through his black hair.

A monkey came loping up the steps and seemed startled to find them there. It chirruped a greeting and sauntered past them, looking much like a noble out for an evening stroll. It stopped some paces beyond them and stood intently scratching its rump.

The means of coercion had to be improved upon. He had flattened the man's hands in a vise and had driven nails through the finger bones. He had dunked his head in a bucket of water until he passed out, revived him, and did it over and over again. He had stripped the man's brawny body naked and, using a candle, burned the hairs from his body, dripping hot wax on him the entire time. "That was amusing," Delivegu said, "but not effective. Nothing was. I even put a weight on his manhood and promised to make a little cut if he didn't speak true."

Corinn betrayed no discomfort. "And?"

"And… begging your royal pardon, but he still didn't speak. I kept my promise and that was that. He died not long after. Who wouldn't? Without a prick the world's a miserable place." He paused a moment, glancing at Corinn.

She was not sure if the amusement in his eyes was from speaking to her with such lurid candor, or if it was his own recognition that she, being a woman, was just as prickless as the blacksmith.

"If he'd had a family, I could have used them, but he was a single man, friends to many but none who seemed right for that purpose-"

"So you learned nothing," Corinn said.

"I wouldn't say I learned nothing. In fact, I did learn something, something quite important."

Corinn rounded on him as if she might hurl a stone at him. "Tell me, then, before I get angry." She had a notion that she could sing something vile, something to undo him right here if she wanted to. He seemed to feel that possibility as well.

Delivegu bowed his head, backed away a step, and took the pleasure out of his voice. "At the beginning he denied any knowledge of any conspiracy. By the end, though, he did not deny that there was a conspiracy, he just refused to tell me anything about it. Indeed, he took his pleasure from spitting his refusal in my face. What I mean, Your Majesty, is that he proved there is some conspiracy afoot. You are not wrong to suspect as much. Quite the contrary."

In annoyance, she flicked her wrist and sent the stone twirling toward the monkey, which had sat down as if it were sharing their conversation. The creature jumped nimbly away, screeching as it did so, contorting its face into an expression very much like human effrontery. It grunted and bared its teeth, but it also withdrew even farther when Corinn bent for another stone. Delivegu watched it all with amusement.

Corinn glared at him. "This is foul news. Why do you take such pleasure in delivering it to me?"

"I take no pleasure in the news itself. If I am enthusiastic about it, it is because I have helped shed light on the presence of rats in the basement. Oh, and I got the bastard's name." He said the last bit as an afterthought but could barely hide his pleasure with himself.

"What name?"

"The blacksmith didn't give it up intentionally. He let it slip once, when he was babbling to himself. Ever heard of Barad the Lesser? He used to foment trouble in Kidnaban. It seems he's expanded his ambitions." Delivegu grinned again, wider this time. "First the name and then the man. Tell me the truth: I do good work for you, don't I? May that always be true."

Corinn did not have to respond to this. Rhrenna-the only other person who knew whom she met here on the balcony-descended the staircase, one hand lifting her dress so that she could move faster, the other holding a rolled parchment. She glanced at Delivegu for just an instant and then focused on the queen. "A message," she said. "It's about Mena."