David Drake: Master of the Cauldron

"I'll take the message, your highness!" said the next-senior in the cluster of noble youths detailed as aides to the Prince. This boy was a cousin of Lord Royhas, the Chancellor and at present the head of government back in Valles. He was just as keen as Lerdain-and not a little jealous as well.

"Stopif you will, Lord Knorrer," Liane said. Her voice was emotionless but it was far too loud to ignore.

The youth, already poised to leap ten feet to the sand the way Lerdain had done, teetered wildly. Garric grabbed Knorrer's shoulder, steadying him until he could reach back to the railing.

"I believe your highness was correct to let the delegates arrive before you allow the traders to cross," Liane continued, smoothly and in a much quieter voice. "The traders will race one another for the best market, and it's very possible Marshal Renold and his companions would be overset in the turmoil. At the very least, they'd find the situation demeaning."

"Which would put them in a bad mood," Garric said, smiling at the polite way Liane had contradicted him in the language of agreement. "Or perhaps a worse one. Thank you, milady. The troops can wait for their bread and wine."

And women, of course. Some of the barges were laden with what looked from a mile's distance like a sampling of court society. Closer to hand the finery would be less impressive, but it'd serve well enough for the purpose. It would've dazzled folk in Barca's Hamlet, for that matter; except for Ilna, whose taste was as subtle as that of a great lady of Valles.

Garric glanced at those standing with him in the stern ofThe Shepherd of the Isles. He'd chosen to wait here till it was time to meet the Sandrakkan delegation, because the quinquereme's deck was a much better vantage point than the ground anywhere near the shore. The spine of Volita rose enough that not even the worst winter storms could send waves from the Inner Sea surging across the mansions on the western shore, but the only portion that could really be called high was the knob of basalt that stuck up like a raised thumb a quarter mile inland.

Sharina was talking to Tenoctris, but she met Garric's glance with a surprisingly warm smile. They'd always gotten on well, better than most siblings, but for a moment Sharina's expression suggested motherly concern.

Cashel stood just behind the two women; his face placid, his staff upright in his right hand. It was disconcerting to look from the granite knob in the middle distance to Cashel close at hand. The rock looked something like a hunched human being when you compared it to a man of equal solidity.

Ilna raised her hands, stretching the cords between her fingers into a sunlit web. Garric laughed aloud to see the pattern. There was just something about the way the cords crossed… it made him sure there was a way through all the tangles that were part of a prince's life no less than a peasant's.

Crewmen dropped a ladder over the quinquereme's stern. It was roped to the pintle of the steering oar at the top; a husky sailor braced the bottom rung with his foot so that it wouldn't shift in the sand. The barge from Sandrakkan was nearing the island.

"Time to go, I think, friends," Garric said. "Cashel, if you'll help Tenoctris…?"

Without comment or hesitation, Cashel scooped up the wizard as easily as Chalcus held Ilna's ward. Close behind, Sharina carried the satchel holding Tenoctris' books and paraphernalia-liquids, powders, and a few crystals of greater weight.

Chalcus nodded to Garric. Then-still holding Merota-he followed after Ilna, who was tucking away her knotted pattern.

Still chuckling, Garric said, "Lord Knorrer, take Lady Liane's case if you will." He nodded to the travelling desk in which Liane kept the documents for which he had immediate use.

"I can-" she said.

Garric lifted her in the crook of his right arm and strode toward the ladder, laughing again. He was bragging, about his strength and also that this beautiful, brilliant woman loved him as he loved her; but he had a right to brag. Life was very good.

Earl Wildulf doesn't want a fight any more than I do, he thought, answering the grim speculation in the eyes of his ancient ancestor.

"Aye lad," Carus replied, but he wasn't agreeing. "But fights can come even when neither side wants them to."

Carus paused, then added reflectively, "I've been in more battles than I could count, and mostly at the end the only thing I could say I was happy about was the fact I was still alive. The day came I couldn't even say that. I pray to whatever Gods may be that you never have to say that while the Kingdom still has need of you!"

The conference table had been improvised out of ventilator gratings from theShepherd set on column barrels and covered with a sparklingly white sail from the same ship. Only the vessels carrying Garric, Zettin, and Waldron, the three leaders of the Progress, had sails of bleached cloth; the yellow-gray color of natural wool wouldn't have had the same effect.

Garric seated himself on a section of marble column. Troops had rolled it under the marquee, upended it, and created a throne by covering it with a fur-trimmed cloak of red velvet. He didn't have the slightest idea where the cloak came from.

"For all that, lad," said Carus, "it's probably one of yours. No matter what I told my servants, they'd wind up packing what they thought was suitable clothing. Suitable for me!"

Garric chuckled at the joke that nobody else had heard. So far as Carus was concerned, suitable clothing for a warrior-which he'd been, the greatest warrior of his age and perhaps ever in the history of the Isles-was boots, breeches, a sturdy tunic, and a cloak of raw wool that'd double as bedding in the cold and wet.

Garric had similar tastes; indeed, he'd minded sheep on winter nights with less than that to wear. Palace functionaries, the servants and the officials who supervised them, had a very different notion of what a king should wear, though… and if a king was doing his job, he didn't have time to check his wardrobe to make sure it contained only the minimal kit he'd directed.

Liane cleared her throat in polite question. She was seated on a folding stool at the Prince's right elbow, a respectful arm's length back from the conference table. Her travelling desk was on her lap; she'd laid out three wax notebooks and a small parchment scroll on its beechwood top.

"I was remembering," Garric explained in a low voice, "that when I was a boy I thought that princes gave orders and everybody obeyed. Either I was wrong, or I'm a very ineffectual prince."

"You're extremely effective," Liane murmured, her lips close to Garric's ear. "Not least because you see that'snot how things happen."

Lord Waldron sat in the place of honor to Garric's right. Organizing a camp for 20,000 men was an enormously complicated task, and Waldron was the final arbiter of arrangements. A middle-aged nobleman in cavalry boots knelt on his other side and spoke in urgent tones; several more officers bent close with the urgent expressions of little boys desperate to pee.

A horse on shipboard takes up the space of ten men, Besides that problem, horses are likely to kick a vessel to pieces in a storm and then tread down men swimming in the water. The army which embarked on Ornifal carried no horses. Waldron had dismounted two cavalry regiments, however, to use as heavy infantry.

That wasn't a choice Garric would've made, but he hadn't been willing to overrule his army commander. As Carus had pointed out, the cavalry regiments were recruited from the younger sons and retainers of northern Ornifal landowners, the class to which Waldron himself belonged. If the commander felt more comfortable in battle because he had a thousand of his own kind with him, then so much the better for the army and the kingdom.