Poul Anderson - The Man Who Counts

“Business and friendship we do not mix,” said Van Rijn airily. “Ah, yes, good Vrouw Rodonis. How is she and all the little ones? Do they still remember old Uncle Nicholas and the bedtime stories he was telling them, like about the—”

“If you please,” said T’heonax in an elaborate voice, “we will, with your permission, carry on. Who shall interpret? Yes, I remember you now, Herald.” An ugly look. “Your attention, then. Tell your leader that this parley was arranged by my field commander, Delp hyr Orikan, without even sending a messenger down here to consult me. I would have opposed it had I known. It was neither prudent nor necessary. I shall have to have these decks scrubbed where barbarians have trod. However, since the Fleet is bound by its honor — you do have a word for honor in your language, don’t you? — I will hear what your leader has to say.”

Tolk nodded curtly and put it into Lannachamael. Trolwen sat up, eyes kindling. His guards growled, their hands tightened on their weapons. Delp shuffled his feet unhappily, and some of T’heonax’s captains looked away in an embarrassed fashion.

“Tell him,” said Trolwen after a moment, with bitter precision, “that we will let the Fleet depart from Achan at once. Of course, we shall want hostages.”

Tolk translated. T’heonax peeled lips back from teeth and laughed. “They sit here with their wretched handful of rafts and say this to us?” His courtiers tittered an echo.

But his councilors, who captained his flotillas, remained grave. It was Delp who stepped forward and said: “The admiral knows I have taken my share in this war. With these hands, wings, this tail, I have killed enemy males; with these teeth, I have drawn enemy blood. Nevertheless I say now, we’d better at least listen to them.”

“What?” T’heonax made round eyes. “I hope you are joking.”

Van Rijn rolled forth. “I got no time for fumblydiddles,” he boomed. “You hear me, and I put it in millicredit words so some two-year-old cub can explain it to you. Look out there!” His arm waved broadly at the sea. “We have rafts. Not so many, perhaps, but enough. You make terms with us, or we keep on fighting. Soon it is you who do not have enough rafts. So! Put that in your pipe and stick it!”

Wace nodded. Good. Good, indeed. Why had that Drak’ho vessel run from his own lubber-manned prize? It was willing enough to exchange long-range shots, or to grapple sailor against sailor in the air. It was not willing to risk being boarded, wrecked, or set ablaze by Lannach’s desperate devils.

Because it was a home, a fortress, and a livelihood — the only way to make a living that this culture knew. If you destroyed enough rafts, there would not be enough fish-catching or fish-storing capacity to keep the folk alive. It was as simple as that.

“We’ll sink you!” screamed T’heonax. He stood up, beating his wings, crest aquiver, tail held like an iron bar. “We’ll drown every last whelp of you!”

“Possible so,” said Van Rijn. “This is supposed to scare us? If we give up now, we are done for anyhow. So we take you along to hell with us, to shine our shoes and fetch us cool drinks, nie?”

Delp said, with trouble in his gaze: “We did not come to Achan for love of destruction, but because hunger drove us. It was you who denied us the right to take fish which you yourselves never caught. Oh, yes, we did take some of your land too, but the water we must have. We can not give that up.”

Van Rijn shrugged. “There are other seas. Maybe we let you haul a few more nets of fish before you go.”

A captain of the Fleet said slowly: “My lord Delp has voiced the crux of the matter. It hints at a solution. After all, the Sea of Achan has little or no value to you Lannach’honai. We did, of course, wish to garrison your coasts, and occupy certain islands which are sources of timber and flint and the like. And naturally, we wanted a port of our own in Sagna Bay, for emergencies and repairs. These are questions of defense and self-suffiency, not of immediate survival like the water. So perhaps—”

“No!” cried T’heonax.

It was almost a scream. It shocked them into silence. The admiral crouched panting for a moment, then snarled at Tolk: “Tell your leader… I, the final authority… I refuse. I say we can crush your joke of a navy with small loss to ourselves. We have no reason to yield anything to you. We may allow you to keep the uplands of Lannach. That is the greatest concession you can hope for.”

“Impossible!” spat the Herald. Then he rattled the translation off for Trolwen, who arched his back and bit the air.

“The mountains will not support us,” explained Tolk more calmly. “We have already eaten them bare — that’s no secret. We must have the lowlands. And we are certainly not going to let you hold any land whatsoever, to base an attack on us in a later year.”

“If you think you can wipe us off the sea now, without a loss that will cripple you also, you may try,” added Wace.

“I say we can!” stormed T’heonax. “And will!”

“My lord—” Delp hesitated. His eyes closed for a second. Then he said quite dispassionately: “My lord admiral, a finish fight now would likely be the end of our nation. Such few rafts as survived would be the prey of the first barbarian islanders that chanced along.”

“And a retreat into The Ocean would certainly doom us,” said T’heonax. His forefinger stabbed. “Unless you can conjure the trech and the fruitweed out of Achan and into the broad waters.”

“That is true, of course, my lord,” said Delp.

He turned and sought Trolwen’s eyes. They regarded each other steadily, with respect.

“Herald,” said Delp, “tell your chief this. We are not going to leave the Sea of Achan. We cannot. If you insist that we do so, we’ll fight you and hope you can be destroyed without too much loss to ourselves. We have no choice in that matter.

“But I think maybe we can give up any thought of occupying either Lannach or Holmenach. You can keep all the solid land. We can barter our fish, salt, sea harvest, handicrafts, for your meat, stone, wood, cloth, and oil. It would in time become profitable for both of us.”

“And incidental,” said Van Rijn, “you might think of this bit too. If Drak’ho has no land, and Lannach has no ships, it will be sort of a little hard for one to make war on another, nie? After a few years, trading and getting rich off each other, you get so mutual dependent war is just impossible. So if you agree like now, soon your troubles are over, and then comes Nicholas van Rijn with Earth trade goods for all, like Father Christmas my prices are so reasonable. What?”

“Be still!” shrieked T’heonax.

He grabbed the chief of his guards by a wing and pointed at Delp. “Arrest that traitor!”

“My lord—” Delp backed away. The guard hesitated. Delp’s warriors closed in about their captain, menacingly. From the listening lower decks there came a groan.

“The Lodestar hear me,” stammered Delp, “I only suggested… I know the admiral has the final say—”

“And my say is, ‘No.’ ” declared T’heonax, tacitly dropping the matter of arrest. “As admiral and Oracle, I forbid it. There is no possible agreement between the Fleet and these… these vile… filthy, dirty, animal—” He dribbled at the lips. His hands curved into claws, poised above his head.

A rustle and murmur went through the ranked Drak’honai. The captains lay like winged leopards, still cloaked with dignity, but there was terror in their eyes. The Lannachska, ignorant of words but sensitive to tones, crowded together and gripped their weapons more tightly.