David Weber - The Road to Hell

Pure plainspoken Eniathian-dialect Uromathian rolled off the tongue with the natural open vowels common to the Arpathian wilds. But King Junni spoke barely above a whisper, not in Uromathian, but in thick north country Arpath.

“My son, I think Sharona needs us.”

Howan Fai held tight to his father, listening hard. Too many nobles at the Conclave interpreted King Junni’s lack of Ternathian language ability as a sign of lacking wits. A prince raised by that king understood it as merely the natural result of a political choice made in his grandfather’s day.

“Understand I do not know this,” the king murmured. “I do not have any message. I do not have any promises. But I have my guesses, and I need to be sure you are ready, just in case I am right.

“My son, my heir, could you marry the eldest daughter of the Winged Crown’s clan chief?”

Shock at the question froze Howan Fai, but he quickly recovered and answered with a nod and a tighter squeeze. If his father was avoiding proper names, he wouldn’t be the one to say “Ternathia” or “Crown Princess Andrin” out loud.

“You meet the requirements of the agreements between the clan chiefs of clan chiefs.” The Articles of Unification, Howan Fai translated. “If we can reach the eldest daughter, we must try.”

“Did the white bird carry something?” Howan Fai couldn’t hold back the question, but he did his best to pitch his voice low and muffle the words against his father’s shoulder.

“No,” King Junni whispered. “My audience requests with the Winged Crown were all scheduled for too late. I tried to attract the bird to send a message. Yesterday she would come but not even eat from my hand.” Whitefire was well trained. “But the falcon will take food back to the high window. It left with the sausage. And my white jade ring. I trust her falconer will notice the sign.”

A remarkable hope began to blossom in Howan Fai’s heart. Fear for his family and the Eniathian people bristled in thorns around that hope, but still he hoped. The Ternathian Army greatly outpowered the Uromathian Empire. A direct attack-if Eniath were to be tightly aligned with the imperial house of Ternathia-would be highly unlikely. Emperor Chava was vicious and vindictive, but not a fool. Only if Eniath were to make an offer of alliance and the Winged Crown rejected it would Eniath be at extreme risk from the Uromathian Empire.

King Junni broke the hug, stepped back and clapped his son on the shoulder.

Finena would return to her perch in an alcove in Crown Princess Andrin’s rooms and present that beringed sausage to a falconer or quite possibly the princess herself, before the falcon would trust eating something from an unknown hand. The white jade was, Howan Fai hoped, known to the Caliraths as symbol of the Eniath royal family.

King Junni bustled about pretending quite well that no desperate whispering had happened in that long hug. He submitted to having his clothes straightened and to the application of his boots. Rokel Lii, the king’s bodyguard, refused to let the staff attempt to iron out the overrobe’s creases while the king was still wearing it, so away the garment went.

More staff came and went, clearing the breakfast table. Stains from the windowsill proved too difficult to remove, and the staff changed course to press a new overrobe leaving King Junni in his underclothes in front of the scandalized Othmali kitchen staff. The garments were perfectly modest and provided more coverage than the staff’s knee and elbow length uniforms, but that clearly didn’t prevent them from striking at the staff’s concept of how royalty should be clad.

As usual, the Othmalis pleaded non-understanding of Eniath-accented Uromathian, so Junni turned to gestures and communicated mock horror at his state of undress, then exaggerated pride in his physique when the youngest maid blushed. No matter how scandalized they might be-or pretend to be-there was no resisting Junni when he chose to be charming and his performance earned delighted laughter and smiles from them all.

Howan Fai was happy to see it, yet even as he smiled back at them, he couldn’t put aside the internal wariness he never quite dared to relax anywhere outside Eniath. The Grand Palace at Tajvana had some servants who’d arrived with the Caliraths from Hawkwing or followed later. Some others had continued on after service under the Seneschal. Still more had been hired to support the Conclave visitors, but the ones who cared for the apartment assigned to Eniath were all of the last two categories. And however innocent they might be, some of these same Tajvanese staff also visited the apartments assigned to the Uromathian Empire each day, where they might be receiving small gifts to repeat back anything they’d seen and heard. King Junni tipped them each generously, after Eniathian custom…and a reasonable sense of caution. A well-inclined staff would intuitively protect patrons in ways more neutral servants would not.

Howan Fai wondered if some of these would ask to follow them home after the conclusion of the Conclave. A part of the palace staffing increase would be temporary work, due to end after most of the foreign kings and princes returned home, and King Junni was an exceptionally easy royal to serve, especially when compared to some of the others in residence. Of course, any who might wish to return with them still had much to learn about Eniath and its customs. What the staff missed in their surprise about the king in his underclothes, for example, was the nature of the garments themselves.

His father had gone traditional today, with a djadja berry treated underjacket and loose trousers. The tough deep brown fabric protected a fisherman from rough barnacles and fishhooks, but it could help turn a knife too. Howan Fai wore much the same thing under his dress jacket, but with a long shirt rather than the full underjacket. Kings wore full overrobes, but princes only had to wear elaborate jackets.

King Junni joked that the first Eniathians to take to the seas hadn’t stolen enough fabric to drape everyone with it, so they’d settled on only making the king wear three bolts worth of silk and treated every other bit of line or yarn they had with djadja berries to make sure the stuff would endure as many centuries as they had to wait for peace to break out again on the Uromathian subcontinent. It was only partly a joke.

Munn Lii and Rokel Lii wore uniforms of the same tough fabric a few shades darker. Howan Fai could tell the guards especially approved of their royal charges’ choice of clothing today. He hoped it wouldn’t be tested.

King Junni had the fresh, pressed overrobe draped over his head by a Tajvanese footman. As usual the presence of a local man reminded Howan Fai of just how short Eniathians were compared to the parts of Sharona beyond Uromathia. The footman was probably only average height for Tajvana, but he was a full head taller than the king and even Howan Fai looked eye-level at the man’s chin. It did make the dressing process easier though.

Perhaps the footman would be among those seeking to follow them back to sea and to Eniath. The man could include in his list of skills a notation that he was professionally tall. And he might even not be a spy.

The clock still read too early an hour to head directly to the Conclave, and in truth Howan Fai couldn’t think of a plan for how to get to Crown Princess Andrin or Emperor Zindel to point out his father’s insight. If the Goddess Mother Marthea had kept direct control over humanity instead of gifting Her children with free will, a marriage between the Ternathian Empire and Uromathian Empire would peaceably unify Sharona. But the Uromathian Empire itself was only about a generation shy of dissolution. Maybe, just maybe, two generations. King Junni and Howan Fai had discussed it at length-with equally great discretion-and neither of them saw any way it could last much longer than that.