David Drake: Tyrant

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."

She fluttered her fingers toward the army camp. "Forget all that, would you? Nothing you can do about it, and all this fretting and glumming you've been doing is not good. Not for you, not for anyone else."

"There's no such word as 'glumming'," replied Helga, a bit sullenly.

"Of course, there is. I just used it, didn't I?" Arsule gave her that sideways cock of the head which Helga still found a bit weird. After all these months of close proximity, Helga had gotten accustomed to Arsule's multitude of mannerisms, quirks and eccentricities. But only. . more or less.

"Fussing over the decline of the menfolk, are we? And just what did you expect would happen, silly girl? They're not actually monsters, you know; it'd be easier for them if they were. Just men trying to play the part, and getting worn down by it in the process. Especially when it goes on, month after month, with no end in sight."

She straightened her head with a jerky, bird-like motion. "Oh, to be sure, this nasty business here will be settled soon enough. But there'll be something else come along right after, you can bet on it. The eastern provinces will dissolve into sheer anarchy; there'll be another rampage of starving ex-slaves somewhere in the west — or here, more likely. Plague, pestilence, that's guaranteed. Another pathetic uprising by some piece of the aristocracy still intact. Easy enough to crush, of course, but crushing doesn't really come all that easily to our sort of men. Praise whatever gods may be. Which," she said firmly, "brings me to the subject at hand."

She beckoned Kata forward. Helga was shaking her head, trying to follow the — as usual — convoluted route which Arsule's thoughts always seemed to take.

"What are you talking about?"

Arsule's eyes widened, as a polite person's will do when someone asks them a particularly inane question.

"Religion. What else? You and I are going to become fanatics. Well. . devout converts, anyway, if not outright fanatics. Not overnight, of course. Men aren't that stupid. And we happen to be cursed by an especially shrewd pair of them, to boot. So we'll have to ease our way into the thing."

She waved her hand, forestalling Helga's little splutter of—

Protest? Disbelief? Reacting to Arsule, it was always hard to say.

"But that's for later. Tactics can wait. Right now, you and I have to decide which flavor we'll pick. You take one, I'll take the other. Between us, we'll drive my husband and yours so mad with aggravation they'll forget their other woes. You watch."

Helga wasn't even spluttering, now. Just gaping at Arsule as if she was faced with a lunatic.

"Oh, close your mouth. You look silly." Arsule took a deep breath. "No, I am not insane. Most everyone thinks I am, of course. But I'm always a bit puzzled why they never seem to notice that I'm about the only woman in the world who almost always gets what she wants."

Helga's jaw snapped shut. She squinted at Arsule suspiciously.

Now that she actually thought about it—

"It's an act?"

Again, the fluttering fingers. "Oh, who knows? Act a part long enough, and it's hard to tell any more where the person leaves off and the act begins. Which, my dear girl, is precisely the danger we face today. Not with us, but—"

She pointed a finger toward the army camp. "Those two. And their cohorts and conspirators, of course. But if we can keep Verice and Adrian this side of their act, we'll have done well enough. That much, at least, you can rely on men for. Keep them in line, and they'll right quick do the same for their underlings."

She swiveled her head and beamed at Kata. "So. Which flavor do you want? Personally, I recommend that you take up the 'Young Word.' It's a far more passionate creed than the cult of Jassine, so I think it'd suit you better. And I'm probably too old anyway for all the rigorous debates you'll have to sit through, after you milk Kata for all she's worth and then hire a dozen or so of the best Emerald philosophers to give it all a respectable polish and proper terminology. Whereas—"

Now she was beaming at Helga. "I think the cult of Jassine suits me to perfection. It's a small cult, neglected, praised in theory but scorned in practice. In short, exactly the kind of project I've taken up with, oh, must be a hundred unknown artists I've championed over the years. A good two thirds of whom, by now, are rich and famous."

Helga was not often speechless. But this was one of the times. Arsule drove on in her inimitable manner. Silence didn't deter the woman's torrent of words any more than loud conversation could. Or, thought Helga wildly, a volcano could.

"Between you and me — our patronage, I should say; we mustn't be immodest and claim everything ; prophets and sages and scholars do have their place, after all — we'll have driven that nasty Wodep and all the rest of the sorry louts into semi-oblivion within a decade. Our husbands will shut us up in seclusion, naturally, now and then — gods, we'll drive them insane, it'll be such fun — but who cares? Toman used to do that with me every couple of years or so. Never lasted more than a few months, though. Actually, I found it rather restful. Then, of course, you and I will have to fight it out. But I don't foresee that being a major problem, either. If we've done our job properly — main thing is getting the very best philosophers to parse the rhetoric — we should manage a suitable compromise. Kata thinks so, anyway."

Shyly, the blonde slave smiled at Helga. "It's the saints, you see. The Young Word himself talked about them."

She closed her mouth. Helga's half glare, half goggle intimidated her in a way it couldn't Arsule.

"Don't let her intimidate you, Kata," snapped Arsule, "even if she is wearing that silly sword."

At last, something Helga could grapple with. "You don't 'wear' a sword, Arsule! You 'bear' one."

Arsule sniffed. "Men 'bear' a sword, girl. You wear one, whether you like it or not. It's past time — you've got two children now! — you stopped this foolishness. And why do you insist on it, anyway? It's boring ."

Helga choked on a laugh. However different they might be in almost every other respect — birth and breeding, just for starters — in this, at least, Arsule and Ilset were much alike. She could remember Ilset saying to her, once: Why in the name of the gods would you want to? I mean — when soldiers get into their own lingo — gods, and they say women are boring!

"So!" pronounced Arsule. "Are you willing to stop being lazy and go to work? I warn you, girl, if you keep lounging about much longer your brain will get as heavy as my ass. And a lot fatter! At least my butt gets some exercise, which your brain certainly doesn't."

Helga's mounting irritation was suddenly broken. Not by Arsule's frown and torrent of words, but by the look of half terror/half excitement on Kata's face.

Gods, the girl's looking forward to it. A slave. An illiterate barbarian, to boot.

She looked down at the army camp. Tomorrow morning, the siege of Franness would begin. She could see that Adrian already had the handful of big siege guns at the gate, ready to be hauled out on the morrow. And, turning her head, she could see that the berms where those guns would be positioned were already finished and being guarded by several battalions.

And what do I have to do with all that?