David Drake: Master of the Cauldron

The Sandrakkan mainland was crowded with people, standing on the shore or already in the barges which would bring them across to Volita as soon as they'd gotten permission. Even a mile away they could see Prince Garric of Haft, Regent of the Kingdom, in his dazzling silvered breastplate and the silvered helmet from which flared wings of gilded bronze.

Inside that splendid armor was Garric or-Reise, the peasant son of the innkeeper of Barca's Hamlet. There were many things Garric would rather've been doing than the job he had before him. They started with reading verse by the great Old Kingdom poet Celondre while he watched a flock of sheep on the hillside south of the hamlet, becausethat was a job he understood.

"You understand being ruler as well as any man does, lad," said King Carus, the ancestor who'd shared Garric's mind ever since his father gave him Carus' coronation medal to hang around his neck on a thong. "Better than I ever did, as the Gods well know."

Carus laughed, his presence unseen by others but to Garric as real as his own right hand. In life Carus had been a tall man with a ready smile and a swordsman's thick wrists. That was how he usually appeared to Garric as well, leaning on the rose-wound railing of a balcony in an indeterminate place. Carus' features and those of Garric, his descendant after a millennium, could have been those of the same man some decades apart in age.

We don't know what history'll say about me after I'm dead, Garric said in his mind.

"We know that if you don't continue to do better than I did," said Carus in what was for him an unusually crisp tone, "there won't be any more history."

"That's Marshal Renold's standard, a crow displayed," said Liane, slitting her eyes as she peered toward the waiting barge with a cloth-of-gold canopy shading the passengers amidships. "If he's present, he'll be in charge of the negotiations. The Marshal traditionally commands the Earl's professional troops, and he leads the left wing in a battle."

Garric followed the line of Liane's gaze. He could see the standard, a pole supporting a gilt bird with its wings spread. His eyes were as good as anybody in the borough's, but he couldn't have told it was a crow. Liane was probably guessing.

But possibly not. It was never a good idea to underestimate Liane.

Lady Liane bos-Benliman was dark-haired, gently curved, and as obviously aristocratic as she was beautiful. Her father Benlo had been a successful merchant, widely traveled in the Isles and perhaps beyond.

He'd been a wizard as well. Wizardry had cost him his honor, his life, and finally his soul.

Liane had gained a fine education before her father's disgrace. She retained that, along with a powerful intelligence and Benlo's network of contacts throughout the known world. She'd made herself Garric's confidential secretary and his spymaster, carrying out both sets of duties with a skill he couldn't imagine anyone else equaling. That Liane loved him was to Garric a greater wonder than the fact he shared his mind with his ancient ancestor.

"Is Renold a sensible man?" Garric asked. "Because if he is, he'll see immediately that my offer-the Kingdom's offer-is reasonable given the balance of forces. If he does, then this can be a basically pleasant meeting."

"Reasonable or not," said Liane with a sniff, "your offer's the Earl's only chance of survival. Unfortunately from what I can gather Renold is very similar to his master, and Earl Wildulf is barely intelligent enough to pull his breeches on before his boots!"

She cleared her throat, keeping her eyes toward the far shore, obviously embarrassed at her outburst. Liane had a personality flaw with some other smart people Garric knew: she became genuinely angry when she had to deal with folks who refused to demonstrate common sense.

"She wouldn't do for a politician, lad," Carus commented from the back of Garric's mind. "But then, neither did I. She's not in charge, as unfortunately I was."

"I think we'll be able to work matters out with the Earl in adequate fashion," Garric said, smiling toward Liane but speaking to his ancestor as well. "I don't doubt his pride, but he didn't rebel when we-"

And by 'we', he meant the Royal Fleet and Army.

"-had other things to occupy us during the past year. He and I will manage to agree."

Carus laughed cheerfully, seeing the mass of fears and indecision that roiled in Garric's mind while he calmly predicted success. Garric smiled also, at himself. He'd said the politic thing, after all. That it was more likely than not true was in a way beside the point; and that the uncertain future terrified him had nothing to do with the matter at all.

Ordinarily Garric expected to meet local dignitaries in their mansions or in public areas designed for the purpose. Negotiating among the ruins of Volita created some problems that Garric's staff had solved with impressive professionalism. A crew under the bosun of Admiral Zettin's flagship was raising a great marquee under which Garric and the Sandrakkan envoys could negotiate.

The fleet was equipped strictly as a fighting force; it didn't carry tents for the common soldiers, let alone the trappings of luxury that some nobles thought were required even while on campaign. The marquee'd been stitched together from the mainsails of several triremes and trimmed with signal flags for color. The sailors-soldiers weren't used to working with spans of fabric so great-used the concave ruin of a domed building for a back wall and had supported the front of the canvas with spars. The work of raising it was almost complete.

Garric turned to his aide, Lord Lerdain-a husky youth of fifteen, and said, "Lerdain, tell the signalers to summon the Sandrakkan delegation. By the time their barge gets here, we'll be ready to meet them."

"Right!" said Lerdain, resplendent in gilded armor even gaudier than Garric's own. He stepped onto the port outrigger, then jumped straight to the beach-a youthfully boastful thing to do. Lerdain's helmet fell off, probably after banging his head a good one. He thrust it back in place and scrambled toward the flagship whose raised mainmast provided the fleet's signal station.

Lerdain was the eldest son of the Count of Blaise. He was here at Garric's side in part as a pledge of his father's continued good behavior, but he'd made an excellent aide nonetheless. He had the arrogance of youth and the occasional pig-headedness of his class, but pride made him keen and he'd shown himself quite capable of thinking for himself.

There was another benefit to having a ruler's son as an aide. Garric'd found it useful to send a messenger who had no hesitation in passing on the Prince's orders just as forcefully as the Prince himself would've done, no matter how lofty the person receiving those orders might be.

Garric looked toward the shore of the mainland. Hundreds of barges lined it, ready to put out for Volita with provisions and recreation for the Royal Army as soon as Garric allowed them to. The Royal Army under Garric-as had been the case under Carus-carried silver to buy supplies locally so that it didn't have to proceed with a train of lumbering store ships.

The river Erd drained central Sandrakkan, bringing produce from the northern mountains and the plains alike to Erdin, where an extensive system of canals distributed it without the heavy wagons whose iron-shod wheels clashed deafeningly through most cities. Canal and river boats weren't meant for the open sea, but in reasonable weather they were adequate for the narrow waters between Volita and Sandrakkan.

"I should've given the traders come as well," Garric said, frowning at his oversight. There were too many things to keep track of. Many of those that weren't of life-or-death importance slipped through his mind, and he had the nagging fear that some thatwere critical were going to get past him also.