David Drake - Mistress of the Catacombs

“Father by adoption!” Lerdoc said. “You’re nothing but a peasant from Haft!”

“While Valence lives…” the king continued pleasantly, “he’s the King of the Isles. And when he dies, if the Lady has preserved me, I am King of the Isles. You needn’t believe I trace my lineage from the rulers of the Old Kingdom, milord, though that’s quite true. You must believe in my sword and the army I’ve forged to stretch my sword’s reach.”

“My men are veterans,” Lerdoc snarled. “I’ll crush you into the mud unless you surrender now. That’s the only thing we have to discuss!”

Still quiet but now with an edge in his voice, Carus said, “There’s no one who can overhear us, so let’s drop the bluster. It wastes time, and we’re short of that. Do you know the wizards who’re using you for a pawn? Do you know what Moon Wisdom really is?”

Lerdoc looked uncomfortable. He turned his head to the side as if gazing out to sea, and said, “I’m allied to the Confederacy of the West. If some of my allies have wizards working for them, that’s their business.”

“You’re a pawn,” Carus said forcefully. “The worst thing that could happen to you is that you win the battle you came to fight, because then you’d be wearing the yoke of something that isn’t human. But you needn’t worry about that, because you know full well that my pikemen would carve the heart out of any line you formed against them….”

The king threw his head back and laughed, startling Count Lerdoc and his guard. The boy watched with a look of puzzlement mixed with awe.

“Besides,” Carus went on cheerfully, “we’re not going to fight, you and I.”

“What’s your proposal, then,” the count said. “Because if you expect me to surrender—”

“Surrender what?” Carus said. “You’re the Count of Blaise, my ally and a bulwark of the kingdom against these rebel wizards. We march on Donelle together and call the city to surrender. The mercenaries inside ’ll open the gates as soon as they hear there’ll be amnesty for everybody but the ones who call themselves Children of the Mistress.”

His face was suddenly iron. He said, “ Those will hang, every one of them.”

“What do I get out of this?” the count said. Lerdain’s eyes flicked from his to Carus and back again, as though he were watching a game of handball.

“Your life, as a start,” the king said softly. “The only thing that has less chance of survival than your army if you face mine is your merchantmen if you try to flee by sea from my warships.”

He grinned. “And I’ll give you another thing,” he said. “I’ll make your son my aide.”

“What?” said Lerdoc, setting his hand to his sword. His bodyguard lifted his shield so that he could swing it in front of his employer at need. “Take my boy hostage, you mean?”

“Of course he’ll be a hostage!” Carus snapped. “But he’ll be at my side during every council and meeting of the army command. He’ll have a real office, real honor, and if he’s as sharp as I think he is, he’ll learn real soldiering!”

“You’re a boy yourself!” Lerdoc said. “What can you teach Lerdain that I haven’t known for thirty years?”

For a moment Sharina thought she’d have to grab Carus again. She couldn’t always predict what would ignite the king’s volcanic temper, but she’d learned to read the tautness in the face muscles that momentarily preceded the sweep of hand to sword hilt.

Carus caught himself this time. He grinned and in a gentle, rasping voice said, “Let’s say that I’ve been well advised, then, milord.”

“Father?” said Lerdain. “The phalanx is—”

“Shut up, boy!” his father said.

“Silence, boy!” Carus said in the same breath.

The two grim leaders faced one another without speaking for a moment. Neither had looked away from the other when they dealt with the interruption.

“Milord,” the king said quietly, “you don’t need to tell me how dangerous a Blaise armsman is if he gets to close quarters. There’s nobody I’d rather have at my back when I went over a city wall or fought through the streets beyond. But your troops won’t get closer than pike length to the phalanx, and you know it.”

“Pikemen are clumsy,” Lerdoc said, but he was arguing for time while his mind weighed the options the king had offered. He looked over his shoulder, reassessing his own troops. “Besides, they’ve got flanks.”

“Which my heavy infantry will hold against anything you throw against them,” Carus said, forcefully but not shouting, “for longer than it takes for the phalanx to gut your army and then roll up your line from the middle. And as for clumsy, take a good look at what they’re doing now.”

“Milord,” Sharina said. She thought the two men might shout at her as they’d done the boy, but her they wouldn’t silence. She was Princess Sharina of Haft, and she had a right to speak. “We came into your camp and brought out your son—”

She nodded to Lerdain, hugging himself with frustration and embarrassment. A girl waiting tables in a country inn gets used to being bellowed at; the son and heir to a powerful throne does not.

“—to talk peace with you. If we’d wanted simply to end your part in the war, we wouldn’t have gone to the boy’s tent.”

“It was the two of them , father!” Lerdain burst out. “The prince and princess themselves!”

“You did that?” Lerdoc said to Carus. “And you, girl?”

Sharina nodded. She and the king didn’t speak.

“Maybe you’ve got something to teach me after all,” the count said. He sighed and seemed to deflate slightly, like a hog’s bladder taken outside in winter. “May the Lady help me, I knew I shouldn’t get mixed up with wizards.”

Carus clasped arms with the older man. “Let’s go to Donelle and cure the mistake,” the king said. “And if they don’t open the gates for us willingly, we’ll see how well Blaise armsmen follow their king into the city the hard way, eh?”

“And follow your aide, your highness!” cried Lord Lerdain.

Both the count and his bodyguard gave the boy stricken looks. Carus merely said, “There’ll be a time for that, lad. But not, I think, today.”

His lifted his face to the sky and boomed his mighty laughter as the armies looked on in wonder.

The sun glinted down into Cashel’s eyes. He slitted them, but he didn’t want to look away from Tilphosa and Metra even though he couldn’t help matters while bound. He wriggled, wishing that he hadn’t taken care that his knife fit tightly in its sheath. If he could shake the blade loose, then roll over to pick it up with the hands tied behind his back—

Then the Archai would take the weapon away from him. It was still something to try.

“Did you think you were free, Tilphosa?” the wizard said. “The Mistress guided you here, as surely as She guided me to meet you. She’s the Mistress of All; Her web is the whole of present time.”

“Not my mistress, Metra,” Tilphosa said in a tight voice. Her tense arm muscles showed she was struggling against the grip of the two Archai holding her, though neither she nor they moved that Cashel could see. The insect monsters were deceptively strong.

“Your Mistress still, girl,” Metra said. “The Mistress of All, whether you choose to believe it or not.”

She leaned forward and slipped the ruby ring onto the fourth finger of Tilphosa’s left hand. Stepping back, she continued, “You will join Lord Thalemos, as the Mistress planned. And when you do, your rings combined will open the way for Her to return.”

Tilphosa clenched and unclenched her fist, trying to work the jewel onto the underside of her finger so that it didn’t catch the light. Metra gestured; one of the Archai straightened the girl’s hand again and rotated the ring back to where it had been.