David Drake - Tyrant

"How can Father trust such people?" protested Helga. "They're — they're—" An apologetic glance at Adrian. "Well, not you, of course. But—"

Trae shook his head. "I don't think 'trust' particularly enters into it, sister. Except trust them to do their job. Father does still have the only large and triumphant army in the Confederacy, y'know? Four brigades worth — more than that, and building."

He gave Helga an odd look. "And, um, he has his own way of testing whether they can be trusted at the job. In the case of Enry, he set him the task of tracking down every member of the pirate crew that, ah, despoiled you. They keep good records, you know, the Islanders. I doubt if Enry missed more than a handful."

Helga stared at him. Her expression was. . mixed. Satisfaction, anger; the gods knew what else.

"I told you to tell him I'd already taken my own revenge."

Trae looked uncomfortable. "I did. But — well. Actually. I don't think 'revenge' is quite the right word, sister. I think Father just felt he needed to make another point to his new Islander subjects. No indiscriminate reprisals; no general violence; work your butts off for me and I'll see to it you share in the rewards. But don't ever mess with me or mine again."

He cleared his throat. "I dare say he made it rather effectively. All of them were executed on the piers at Chalice, in plain view of the whole populace. The city rises up from the harbor like an amphitheater, you know. Beautiful place, by the way. Nothing fancy. Cut their throats and pitched the bodies to the scavengers. Father did the first three or four himself — the captain and his lieutenants — then left the rest to Forent and his boys."

Adrian's head felt like it was whirling. So, from what he could tell, did Helga's.

"And what else is new?" he croaked.

Trae frowned. "What else? Let's see. Oh, yeah. I'm the new Governor of Western Isles. Father wants Sharlz back in the fleet, keep it under tight control. That's why—"

"And what else is new?" demanded Helga, almost snarling.

Trae gave her a reproachful look. "I was just getting to that." They had reached the side door to the work shed. Trae swung it open. Standing beyond, facing them, just inside, her very fine apparel looking out of place, stood a very young and very pretty girl. Watching them nervously and making an obvious effort to keep from wringing her hands.

"Meet my wife. Oh. Did I mention she's a princess?"

PART IV: THE DICTATOR

Chapter 27

Demansk went down to the docks to meet them, when word came that their ship had arrived. It was a short distance, after all, and he got little enough in the way of exercise as it was. Most of his life, it seemed, would henceforth be spent sitting on chairs giving orders.

More important, he thought it was imperative to "legitimize" Adrian immediately. Demansk's propagandists had been working day and night toward that end, to be sure. In that work, as well as ferreting out rapists — not to mention organizing treasonous insurrections — Enry Sharbonow had been invaluable. Although he was an Islander himself, the man was a cosmopolitan sophisticate, equally at home in the salons of the Emeralds. Using the new printing presses and the old methods of paying rumormongers, he and his men had spread the word that Adrian Gellert had all along been an agent of Demansk's. Working tirelessly, it seemed, to advance the interests of the Confederacy and rescue Demansk's daughter from captivity.

A nice touch, that last. Not least of all because it allowed Enry to slide through the rumor that Adrian and Helga had been secretly married long since. The maiden — well, best not dwell on that — rescued from durance vile, smitten by her hero, etc., etc., he likewise, etc., etc., a wedding in a cellar while he rescued her from Vase under the guise of helping King Casull conquer it — best not dwell on that, either — and etc., etc.

Utter nonsense, which no Emerald in his right mind would accept for a moment. Emerald men did not "get smitten" by women. But. .

The Emeralds were not quite in their right mind, these days. For the first time in history a Vanbert politician was wildly popular with the Emeralds, and in all classes of that society. Anything connected with the name "Demansk" would be accepted as good coin — publicly, at least, which was all Enry or Demansk cared about. The more so since, in this case, the "hero" just happened to be an Emerald himself, and of a well-known and respected family of Solinga at that.

Which not only made their awkward bastard legitimate after the fact, but — hardly a coincidence — enabled Sharbonow to pass off his own treasonous history as being that of Gellert's agent on Preble. The fact that the latter claim was pure gibberish didn't seem to bother anyone either. Not in the northern provinces, at least. And after watching several dozen former pirates bobbing facedown in the harbor waters of Chalice, scavengers and sharks drawn by the blood tearing at their corpses, no Islander in his right mind was going to question much of anything said by Enry Sharbonow.

Albrecht and his faction, from behind the safety of Vanbert's great walls, pointed to all these claims as further proof of Demansk's treachery and duplicity. All of the members of the Confederate aristocracy who were siding with him — which was most of them, at least of the "First Twelve" — were in full agreement. So, of course, was the great mob of the capital's underclass. Who were being showered with favors and festivals by Albrecht, and being disciplined where necessary by Albrecht's street gangs.

Demansk was not really concerned about Vanbert itself, for the moment. He had a different answer to the capital's opinion than printing presses. His son Trae, taking the name from Gellert himself, called them "bombards" — and they fired not broadsheets, but 64-pound balls.

The printing presses would still have their place in the coming civil war, though, and a great one. Because what Demansk was concerned about, deeply and immediately, were the eastern provinces. They held the balance of power now. Demansk had the north and the islands. Albrecht had the capital and the center. The south and the west had dissolved into such chaos that they were irrelevant. That left the east — the source, now as for centuries, of most of the Confederacy's military strength.

But he and his escort had reached the docks now, and Demansk broke off his ruminations on strategy and tactics. All of those figured in his decision to come down to meet the ship now being moored to the pier, to be sure. But, mostly, he'd come down because he wanted to see his daughter.

* * *

"Well, she looks healthy, that's for sure," commented Nappur as he watched the pretty, buxom girl mincing her way down the gangplank with a babe in her arms. His tone was full of approval. Easterners, like Southrons, preferred their women with some heft to them. "I thought she'd look a bit older, though."

Demansk chuckled. "That's Ilset Yunkers, Forent. Jessep's wife. Helga—"

A second woman appeared and began striding down the gangplank. Tall, broad-shouldered, her legs — far too much of them displayed in a tunic which suited a warrior, not a lady — well-shaped but definitely on the muscular side. Demansk sighed. The fact that she bore a sword — and a real one, requiring a baldric — didn't help matters in the least.

The giant Forent's eyes were almost bulging. "Is that —" he choked.

"Indeed, so."

Enry Sharbonow was standing to Demansk's left. His own eyes weren't bulging, no. But they were squinted. "Got our work cut out for us," Demansk heard him mutter.

A young man started down the gangplank. No taller than Helga; a bit more broad-shouldered, perhaps; and reedy-looking rather than muscular. He was carrying no weapon of any sort. He did, at least, have a gorgeous head of corn-gold hair.