David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

"Your highness!" said Attaper, "this is the kingdom's business, not-"

"Yes!" said Garric, his voice riding down that of his guard commander. "And if the courier who brought us first news of a rebellion wasn't on the kingdom's business, who is?"

He turned to Waldron. "Now, milord," he continued mildly, even cheerfully. "Just how dangerous do you judge this affair to be?"

This isn't my brother, Sharina thought. But that was only partly true, because this self-composed prince was the person her brother could have grown into on his own.

The spirit of King Carus provided Garric with political experience that no nineteen-year-old peasant could have amassed; but much of that experience was of how not to do things, as Carus himself would be the first to say. It was Garric's own quick, disciplined intelligence that had just avoided a crisis by refusing to arrest a rebel under circumstances that would have dishonored his army commander in the eyes of his family, his class, and himself.

"It'd be serious if we let it grow," Waldron said, "but of course we won't. Bolor thinks the levies he can draw from the northern districts can sweep away the regiments you left in Valles. He might be right."

Waldron cleared his throat and looked down; the toe of his right boot gouged the ground. He straightened again and glared at Garric, a fierce old man who couldn't understand the concept that honor mightnot be dearer than life.

"Look," he went on. "I don't want you to misunderstand what just happened. Bolor was giving me warning so that I could run before you learned about the rebellion and had me executed. He was a fool to think that I'd run, but he wasn't so great a fool as to imagine that I'd harm the prince to whom I pledged my loyalty."

The trireme that'd brought the courier was getting under way. The oarsmen were probably upset not to be given a chance to rest now that they'd reached Volita.

Sharina smiled. It could've been alot worse for everybody aboard the ship, if Garric weren't in charge.

"Of course, your cousin knew he was dealing with a bor-Warriman," Garric said. "As do I."

Garric sighed and bent deeply forward, stretching his locked hands backwards and up to loosen muscles cramped by the previous hours of negotiation. He straightened.

"Lord Attaper," he said, "have your men move people two double-paces away from this marquee. I'm going to meet here with my inner cabinet, and the discussions may require privacy."

Garric quirked a smile. "And does anybody know where Lady Tenoctris is?" he added. "Because if there's a wizard involved with this business, I want to know what she thinks about it."

"I'll get Tenoctris," said Sharina, squeezing her brother's shoulder as she turned to trot off to where she knew the old wizard lay in her shelter. "And I couldn't agree with you more!"

Garric sat at the makeshift conference table and for a moment rested his face on his hands, rubbing his brows and cheekbones hard. There's too much for one man to do, he thought in a sudden rush of despair.

"No, there's not," said the image of King Carus, grinning at Garric with cheerful understanding. "Not if he's the right man, as you are, lad. Not if you do the part that has to be done."

And that, of course, was the key: first things first. In a swirling battle, the spirit of Garric's warrior ancestor generally took charge. Afterwards Garric was always surprised at how little he remembered-how little he'd actuallyseen while the fight was going on. Carus focused only on essentials: the shimmer of movement to the side that was the edge of an axe; the bare wrist between an opponent's mail shirt and his gauntlet; the slight lift of a creature's upper lip that meant its lion-like jaws were about to gape wide enough for the point of a thrusting sword.

The same was true in any complicated situation, and the politics of a kingdom could be more complicated than any mere battle. You had to deal with the crucial items while the rest waited, no matter how important those lesser things might've appeared by themselves.

"And doing that was harder for me by a long sight that deciding who to put my sword through next ever was, lad," Carus said with a wistful smile. "I marvel to watch you, I swear I do."

Garric lowered his hands and smiled at the men and women around him: Liane, Sharina and Tenoctris; Tadai, Waldron, Attaper and Zettin. They were his close companions, many of them friends and even those who weren't friends-Lord Waldron certainly wasn't a friend-were people whom he respected and who respected him.

Cashel and Ilna weren't here. Garric wasn't surprised that they hadn't been located in time for an emergency meeting, but he regretted their absence. Cashel and Ilna weren't sophisticated, but they shared a clarity of vision that cut to the heart of problems where others tangled in the non-essential fringes.

Peasant wisdom-the part that wasn't superstition and platitudes, at least-was merely common sense. That was as valuable in high governmental circles as it was most other places.

Waldron still stood, glowering at the world at large. Garric pointed to the stool at his right which Admiral Zettin had properly vacated for the army commander. "Sit down, milord," he said a trifle peevishly. "I'm not going to make Lady Tenoctris stand, nor do I care to look up at you while we're trying to solve the present problem."

Waldron glared for an instant. Before Garric had to repeat what was, after all, a royal command, he sat down. "I still say it's a family problem," he muttered, but he wasn't really arguing.

"If your cousin were intriguing over the title to your estate, Waldron," Garric said, "I'd agree with you. As it is-well, more than half the army comes from Ornifal."

"And three quarters of my officers," added Zettin, who'd placed an upended bucket at one end of the table for his seat. "The common sailors could be from anywhere, but an officer whose home and family are under a usurper's control, well…"

Lord Attaper shrugged. "When Sandrakkan rebelled twenty years ago," he said, "King Valence took the army to Sandrakkan and put down the rebellion. If the rebels're on Ornifal, I still think it's work for the army."

He looked up from his hands on the table before him, to Garric and then to Waldron. Both soldiers were nobles from northern Ornifal, but Attaper was from a minor house with less land and money than some prosperous yeomen in the west of the island. He'd joined the army from necessity and risen through skill, intelligence, and unswerving loyalty first to Valence III, then to Garric when Valence abdicated in all but name.

Waldron was a warrior beyond question, but he commanded because he was head of the richest and most powerful of the northern families who traditionally provided officers and cavalry regiments for the Royal Army. He considered Attaper an upstart who needed to remember his place, while Attaper viewed Waldron as arrogant and narrow to the point of being a fool.

"Rivalry isn't an altogether bad thing, though," Carus said, musing on the problem. "Since they're both honorable men-and bloody good soldiers too, in their ways."

"Ornifal isn't rebelling!" Waldron snapped. "Not yet, at any rate, but that'll change in a heartbeat if this boy from Haft sails back at the head of an army."

He turned from Attaper, across the table, to Garric beside him with an apologetic grimace. "Sorry, your highness, but that's what they'll say, you know."

"Understood," Garric said calmly. He wished he could feel like a boy again; though he'd thought he'd had problems when he lived in his father's inn. It was all a matter of your viewpoint, he supposed.

Admiral Zettin pursed his lips. He was in his mid-thirties, a decade younger than Attaper and only half Waldron's age. The royal fleet had had low status during most of the past millennium, but Zettin had accepted the appointment with enthusiasm. He was working to bring his command up to the standards of the Blood Eagles, where he'd served as Attaper's deputy.