David Drake - Tyrant

The look that Demansk now gave Jeschonyk was icy. "And are you still? My shield, I mean."

For a moment, two of the three most powerful men in the world locked eyes. It was the older and officially most senior of them who first looked away.

"Yes," he whispered, "the gods help me." He took a couple of steps and sat down on a couch; then, sprawled wearily across it. Though not wearily enough, Demansk noted with a bit of amusement, to spill a single drop of his wine. "I feel like a midget locked in a room with two direbeasts about to go for each other's throats. Except one of the direbeasts is really a demon."

Demansk laughed. "A 'demon,' is it? Don't you think that's going a little too far, Ion? I'm not a cruel man, you know. I don't think anyone's ever accused me of that, not even enemies I've defeated in battle."

Jeschonyk took a long swallow of wine, then leaned over and set the goblet down on the floor. Again, without spilling a drop.

"Stop while you're ahead, Verice. Everything you say to 'reassure' me simply makes me more nervous. I know you're not cruel. Gods save us, you're not even particularly ambitious. In all respects, as close to a paragon of the old virtues as any leader we've had in Vanbert in generations. I don't count Marcomann in that, by the way. The gods know he was capable, but the only virtues he had were those of a two-legged direbeast."

Demansk sat on a nearby couch. "So what's the problem, then?"

"Stop playing with me, damnation!" Jeschonyk scowled. "I may not be a scholar, but I have read the classics, you know. Wasn't it Llawat who pointed out that only the virtuous can really plumb the depths of depravity?"

"Prithney," corrected Demansk. "In the third of his Dialogues. I just reread it last week, as it happens. And 'depravity' isn't really the right term. His point wasn't that the virtuous are depraved, simply that only the virtuous have the courage of conviction which comes from lack of depravity to carry through a project to the end — regardless of how much depravity results from it." He cleared his throat. "It's a subtle distinction, perhaps, but. . not unimportant to me."

Jeschonyk gave him a long, considering look. "Yes, I can see where it would be. And? Are you prepared to carry things through to the end?"

It was Demansk's turn to look away. He suspected his own face was pinched.

He heard Jeschonyk sigh. "That's what I thought. The gods save us all."

There was silence, for a time. Then, still without looking at him, Demansk said: "Decide, Ion. You have no more choice in that than I do. We live in a time of decision, whether we like it or not."

He heard Jeschonyk slurping wine. Long enough, apparently, to drain the entire goblet. At least, the sound of it clinking back down on the tile floor had an empty aura about it.

Empty — but, in its own way, firm.

"Oh, I decided last year. I guess I really came up here just to make sure my decision had been the right one. Of course, that's not what I told the Council."

Hearing the old man wheeze as he levered himself back upright, Demansk looked at him again. A bit to his surprise, Jeschonyk was smiling. Almost cheerfully, in fact.

"There's this much, anyway," the senior Triumvir chuckled. "My legs and lungs may not be what they used to be, but my brain isn't rotting. At least, I can still tell the difference between a demon and a direbeast, and figure out which one of them is going to gut the other."

After a moment, the humor on Jeschonyk's face faded away, to be replaced by something which might almost be called sadness.

"There is one thing, Verice."

"Yes?"

Jeschonyk's lips twisted. "The one other part of my body that still works just fine, oddly enough, are my loins. I'm sure you know about my, ah. . oh, let's be honest and call it my hareem ."

Demansk nodded. "Five girls, I've been told."

"Um. Six, actually. I added another two months ago. A luscious little thing I found — ah, never mind. The point is. ."

He lowered his head and ran fingers through his thin hair. The year before, at the siege of Preble, that hair had still been gray. Now, most of it was white.

"The point's this, Verice. My wife died years ago and my children are all full grown and long gone. Don't even see much of them any more. So those girls are really all that matters much to me, personally speaking."

He looked up, a pleading look in his eyes. "I'm an old lecher, I'll admit it, but I'm not a pervert. I've never demanded anything from them other than — well, you know. The usual. The truth is, I think they're rather fond of me. I'm certainly very fond of them. So. ."

"I'll see to it, Ion. Whatever happens." Demansk cleared his throat. "Though — I suppose this isn't really proper, coming from a 'demon'—I can assure you that I have no intention of doing you any personal harm." A bit of exasperation came into his voice. "Why would I? Damn it, I'm not a casual murderer!"

Jeschonyk shrugged. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Verice. Who knows what you'll have to do? But none of it should require involving half a dozen slave girls, most of them illiterate and not one of them older than twenty." Again, his heavy sensual lips made that wry grimace. "If the word 'innocent' means anything at all in this foul world, they are indeed innocent." His voice grew so low it was almost a whisper. "So. Please. "

"Done. I swear it." He paused, for a moment, thinking. "Though — make sure you tell your girls, so they'll know — I'll make the arrangements through Arsule Knecht."

Jeschonyk almost choked. " Knecht ? You've got her on your side too ? Gods save us — she's even richer than she is crazy."

Demansk gave him a crooked smile. "Oh, she's not really a lunatic, you know. Just, ah, an enthusiast, let's call it. But she also has a larger body of household troops in the capital than anyone except Albrecht — a lot bigger than yours — and nobody really takes her seriously as a political factor." A bit harshly: "Except me ."

Jeschonyk nodded and rose to his feet. "I'll be returning to Vanbert tomorrow. Is there anything special you'd like me to pass on to the Council for you? Other than the usual platitudes, half-truths and outright falsehoods?"

Demansk barked a laugh. "I'd miss you too much for that alone, Ion! There are times — I swear it before the Gray-Eyed Lady — when I think you are the only truly innocent man in the whole Confederacy. The only honest one, for sure."

Seeing the look of outrage on Jeschonyk's face, Demansk held up a placating hand. "Relatively speaking, of course. You are a legendary lecher, Ion, have no fear. And I'm using the term 'honest,' ah, in what the Emeralds would call an 'aesthetic' manner. Lyrically, if you will, not dramatically."

"Damn those limp-wristed faggots, anyway," grumbled Jeschonyk. "Can't even call an honest lie by its right name."

* * *

That evening, in the same room, Demansk met with what he had come to think of as his "inner council." These were the handful of men, each of them holding the new title of "Special Attendant to the Triumvir," who served as the fingers for his fist. The fist itself, of course, being the army.

Not all of them were there. Leaving aside Jessep Yunkers, who was — and would be for some time — with Helga in the southern continent, there were two others residing in the Confederacy capital at Vanbert. But all the key ones were present: Prit Sallivar, Forent Nappur, Sharlz Thicelt, of course; and two newer ones: a Vanbert politician distantly related to Demansk by the name of Kall Oppricht, and the Emerald merchant Jonthen Tittle — who, ironically, was distantly related to the Gellert family.