David Drake - The Tyrant

Helga hissed, faintly, and her hand on her father's shoulder tightened. Olver, standing nearby, looked away and grew wet-eyed. Adrian gave a moment's thanks that Trae was across an ocean in Chalice. But, so far as Adrian could tell-even with the visual acuity Center gave him-Demansk's expression never changed at all.

A face made of iron, that was. Had been, and would be, throughout the crushing of Vanbert. And his voice, as level and even as a road made of stone.

"Yes, I recognize him. Pay the man. Cash or future land grant, whichever he prefers. Next."

How can he do it? Is he already insane?

There was no humor at all in Whitehall's response. Steady, boy. Come this spring, you'll have to do the same. Not until you examine yourself after Esmond's death will you be able to answer that question-or even ask it in the first place.

Adrian would never know the answer, really. In some ways, he was and would always remain too different a man from his father-in-law. An Emerald scholar, ultimately, reared by a merchant father and trained by philosophers; where Verice Demansk was, ultimately, the boy shaped by the harsh Confederate grandfather.

Arsule had enabled Demansk to pass through the ordeal. Not she, really, so much as what she brought with her when she arrived at the siege the day before the garrison broke.

"I told you to stay in Solinga," grated Demansk.

"Oh, Verice, give it a rest." Arsule plumped herself down on the cot which served Demansk for a bed in his command bunker. Then, winced. "Gods, you sleep on this thing?" she muttered. "How are we going to manage-"

She broke off that train of thought, after a glance at Demansk's angry face. Sighing: "Give it a rest, I say. You of all men in the world don't have to maintain your august image. You know it as well as I do. Besides-"

Arsule was quite shrewd enough to have figured out that her graceful hands, in motion, soothed the savage patriarch. So, with a particular flourish, she accompanied her next words with many a gesture.

"Besides, Jonthen Tittle's doing a splendid job of serving the Emeralds as a deputy governor while Adrian's down here with you. The province is quite peaceful and steady, I assure."

Her husband's face was still angry. The hands picked up their tempo, one of them making a come-hither gesture. Not toward Demansk, but toward a figure standing nervously in the crude wooden frame of the doorway.

"Besides, I thought you would need Kata here. So I brought her with me."

Demansk swiveled his head and gazed at the slave girl, rather like a cannon gazes on its target. For a moment, the fair-skinned former concubine of Ion Jeschonyk looked as white as a sheet. And was obviously on the verge of bolting in sheer terror.

But the Paramount Triumvir's angry expression broke, before the girl's fears crested. Demansk's face seemed to cave in, for a moment; then, the way a man rebuilds something precious which has been broken, slowly came back to itself.

In the end, the Demansk who glanced back and forth from slave to wife was the man the wife had come here to salvage. He even managed something that might be called a smile.

"Yes. Thank you. She will be of help."

A real smile, now. "As for the cot, it was never designed for the purpose you're contemplating. Nor would I be in any mood for it, to be honest. But… in a few days, I expect we'll be in more, ah, appropriate quarters."

He turned back to Kata. "Remind me again, girl. The exact words."

Kata cleared her throat. Then, in a little singsong, did her best to give a girl's soprano the rasp of a man grown old from a life filled with duplicity, deceit, and debauchery.

"Just tell him to remember, that's all, and think about it now and again. The word is 'duty,' I believe."

In the days which followed, Adrian wondered from time to time why Demansk had included a slave girl in the small coterie which surrounded him during his ordeal. Not simply included her but even gave her a place next to his own child. Both of them standing just behind him, as he sat dispensing blood in the name of justice. The daughter's hand on one shoulder, the slave's on the other. She was not his concubine, after all, of that much Adrian was quite certain.

Center could have explained it to him. But, for whatever reasons impel a computer's inhuman mentality, chose not to.

It was an old custom. Recreated here on Hafardine independently, to be sure, but drawing its roots from ancient times and places. The Romans, too, had used the trick. Not, perhaps, to any great purpose-but who was to say how crazed their great ones might have become otherwise?

Always a slave, riding with the conqueror in his chariot at the triumph, to whisper in his ear: this, too, shall pass.

And if Kata whispered nothing, the hand did as well. Perhaps better. The hand, after all, served to remind the shoulder bearing the world's grief as well as its brutality, that triumphs produce many forms of madness-but all triumphs fade. Perhaps madness can, too.

Helga turned away from the city lying below the hillside, sighing quietly. Franness was a beautiful town, especially now with the spring in full bloom. Like a pearl-and-red gemstone, tile roofs atop whitewashed walls, cupped in a low valley draped in green and all the colors of the flowers. Nor, from what she could tell at the distance, had the long months of the barbarian occupation produced any noticeable damage.

But the sight brought her no pleasure, and even less in the way of comfort.

Most of all, I miss Jessep. Even more, I think, than I miss my husband or my own father. Both of whom are right here She glanced down the back slope of the hill, where the army of the Paramount Triumvir was erecting its field fortifications. Very extensive, those fortifications were; as they needed to be, given the size of the army.

— but might as well be on one of those "planets" Adrian insists the moving stars really are. Maybe he's right, who knows? Big balls of rock or spirits of the gods, it hardly matters to me. Either one of them is untouchable.

Gloomily, she studied the army camp without really noticing any of its details. Her mind was still focused inward, awash in memories of Jessep's warm presence and Ilset's frequent gaiety. But Jessep and Ilset were gone, now. The Paramount had ordered his Special Attendant to the eastern provinces, to give Forent Nappur what aid he could in bringing that region out of a state of chaos. They were low-born easterners themselves. If anyone could cajole or convince or swindle-or just break the heads, where needed-of those headstrong commoners recapturing their yeomanry, it would be men like them.

Helga understood the logic of her father's command. Just as she understood the logic of everything he did these days. But she didn't have to like it, or the way that logic was turning her father into a grim and forbidding presence-and had deprived her of a substitute in Jessep. Much less the way it had turned her own husband into someone who, for all that he moved and talked and walked about-even made love to her, now and then-reminded her more of a statue than anything else.

A voice startled her. "Oh, give it a rest, girl. Men are men, it's the way it is."

Arsule was huffing her way up the trail. Just behind her, walking with far greater ease, was Jeschonyk's former concubine Kata. Arsule had more or less adopted the slave girl, unofficially-and had already announced she would adopt her, once her husband had the good sense to extend the emancipation throughout the Confederacy. Or, at least, make manumission something feasible, instead of the tortuous legal process which had so far stymied even the wife of the Paramount.

Arsule reached the crest and took a few triumphant breaths. Then, slapped a hand on her rump. "There's advantages to having a meaty ass-your father damn well dotes on it-but rigorous exercise is not one of them. However, I thought this would be a good time for us to talk. Which we need to-and you, I think, much more than me."