Bazil Broketail (12 page)

“Help would come!” said Ewilra. “In extremity the Motherhood of the Isles will stretch forth its wings and protect its children of the Ennead.”

“Thank you, Ewilra,” said Lessis, “but that help would come too late to save some of the cities. And even with all the strength of the isles, we would have not more than twenty-five thousand effective troops. In such evil circumstances as I have outlined, that might not be enough. So, you can see that we must spend the money now that will enable us to take urgent action to prevent this catastrophic attack from being launched.”

“But how?” exclaimed Besita. “The Teetol we can attack, and Wishing Blood can possibly be captured. But how can we affect what happens in the tower of the Blunt Doom?”

Lessis smiled again.

“If Marneri makes sure of the Teetol, that will be enough for the white city to contribute. As for the rest, we will have to see, Besita of Marneri. We must have a commitment from every city to activate another legion by the spring. We must be ready to put a reserve army into battle if we have to, and we must increase our forces in Kenor. After the winter campaign against the Teetol I would hope the New Legion could be sent in its entirety to the Argo.”

Lessis sighed as if contemplating a tremendous amount of work ahead. “Meanwhile the Sisters of my office will be busy through this winter, keeping track of our enemy’s plans. But despite all our efforts we can be certain of this, that by the spring the Blunt Doom will be able to field a large force. There will be war along the march of Kenor—we must be ready for it.”

The council sat in silence for a while, brooding on this terrible news.

It had been three years since the last bout of fighting in Kenor. In the raids of 2127 Marneri had suffered more than a hundred casualties in the First Legion, then on duty at Fort Picon. Now it seemed there was a penalty to be paid for that lull. Their enemy, brooding in the fastness of the black lands of the Na-Hazog, had produced an enormous army. The following summer would be one of full-scale war. It would be enormously expensive and unpopular, and the public would complain bitterly of the premature activation of legions. Taxes would go up during the leanest season of the year, before spring warmed the lands of the Argonath and brought fresh green to the fields.

But there was no choice, and thus with grim faces they agreed to act upon the information they had received. Lessis of Valmes was thanked for her efforts and the council ended its meeting.

Lessis and Viuris now accompanied Burly to a private audience with King Sanker in the small Palace of the Kings, set within the Tower of Guard. As they walked through the streets, Burly studiously avoided conversation. He was sunk in gloom. The future ahead was suddenly filled with dark, ominous clouds.

King Sanker the Twenty-Second was only in his sixtieth year, but he was close to death and he knew it.

Steadily he grew weaker, and steadfastly refused to listen to the doctors. He was addicted to wine and rich foods. His heart, his liver, his digestion all were ruined by a life of excess but he refused to change his habits.

Most days he consumed two or three flagons of wine, and occasionally drugged himself with batshooba, a foul narcotic grown widely in Ourdh.

As he grew more ill he grew more petty and unreasonable. He continued to wear the clothes that were fashionable in his youth—tight breeks of satin, shoes with the two-inch high heels, tightly tucked silk jackets with ruffled lapels.

Unfortunately what had been romantic at twenty-six was repulsive at sixty. His stomach protruded like a grotesque balloon, swaddled in silks. He tottered on his shoes and fell over occasionally when he had been indulging in wine.

Lessis of Valmes had met Sanker three times previously. Once when he was fifteen and crowned king, once when he was in his forties, at a time of great crisis, and once the previous year when she had come to badger him concerning his son and heir.

To Sanker her visits had been unwelcome. He regarded her as a bird of ill omen that flew into his life only to bring him tragedy. This latest thing was in some ways the worst of all.

The damned witches wanted him to put aside his son in favor of the bastard daughter of Losset. Erald was an idiot, and worse, he was a spoiled idiot with a big ego, but he was Sanker’s son. He would safely pass on Sanker’s royal blood to the generations beyond him. Besita on the other hand was nothing but a pure wedge of usurpation.

It brought up unwelcome memories of the time they had come to Marneri and pressured him into giving over control of the armies back in 2114, after the disaster at Fort Redor when the Teetol had massacred the First Legion. It was a moment of grave crisis. Sanker was then deeply involved in the military affairs of the legions. He had ignored the efforts of his advisors to make him withdraw from this involvement. He rose to the occasion, making decisions with swiftness and a steady heart.

And then Lessis had appeared from Cunfshon with “advice” from the imperial wizards of war.

He had resisted her at first, but it was very difficult. She was always right, and always informed with matchless intelligence. It was next to impossible to win an argument with her. He had humiliated himself twice in public by trying to overwhelm her with his knowledge of war.

He had spent three summers in his youth tramping the mountains in Kenor with the First Legion. He had witnessed some fighting, including the end of the battle of Shashion, which ended the career of Dead Legs the war-chief of the eastern Teetol. All this had given him the belief that he was a naturally gifted general of troops and armies.

Lessis let him embarrass himself in front of witnesses. He had suffered an agony of humiliation and had withdrawn from the military command circle and stayed aloof from it thereafter.

His only connection with the legions for the last sixteen years had been formal appearances at reviews, giving out honors, standing in the uncomfortable royal regalia as a figurehead for the devotion of the men. There were times when Sanker thought back to that time, six-teen years before, and his regrets made him hate the memory of Lessis of Valmes.

Then they had the gall to send her again, just a year ago, to express concern on behalf of the emperor concerning the succession in Marneri.

Sanker had lost his temper several times and had refused to listen to any plea on behalf of Besita, who he condemned as a “bitch-bastard out of that greater bitch,” by which he meant her mother, Losset, and which Lessis also took to mean all the women and the witch-power of the Isles of Cunfshon. There was a lot of anger in poor Sanker of Marneri.

To be a king in Argonath was to exercise a constitutional role, fettered by the laws of the empire. Royalty naturally chafed at this, and both kings and queens found themselves frequently opposed to all the vast, conniving powers of the empire, the Temple and the various offices of the administration.

Sanker stared at her gloomily. Lessis knew what he was thinking:
Now Lessis of the Insight is back, with some new tale of woe
.

In fact such thoughts had already run through his mind. He was instead pondering the way her appearance never changed an iota from decade to decade. She looked exactly as he recalled her from sixteen years before, or indeed from forty years ago, on the day of his coronation, when she had appeared mysteriously in his room and had spent an hour or more talking to him. It was an old but prominent memory, and yet he could not recall what it was she had asked him or what he had replied. It remained a mystery, something that he had gnawed on for the rest of his life.

And of course she would want money, of that he could be certain. Always these Gray Sisters wanted money, enormous sums. Five thousand ducats here, ten thousand there; they were incredible in their demands.

“Your Majesty.” Lessis bowed low and then stood silent, hands at her sides, a half smile on her face.

“Lady, you are back so soon? Just a month ago it seems you were here. Much do we see of you in these evil days. Burly says you are the ‘warbird.’ Is this so?”

“Your Majesty, I was here one year ago on another matter, if you recall; the question of the succession.”

“I remember, damn it! You want me to abdicate in favor of my daughter! You want women’s rule here in Marneri where it does not belong! Know you this—the next king here will be Erald.”

Lessis refrained from saying anything, although her smile grew sad.

“I expect you are right, Your Majesty. However I am here on another matter. Burly has the details, so I will spare you those. Essentially we face a massive attack next spring from Tummuz Orgmeen. When our forces are completely committed, the Teetol will raid in and abduct hundreds of women from the frontier provinces.”

Sanker’s lined faced crumpled into a scowl. “I have always said that there should be no women allowed on the frontier.”

She nodded gently. “That is a legitimate point of view, Your Majesty. However imperial policy has been to take the broadest view of the situation. There must be women so that there are children, young people that will grow up in Kenor and belong there. This is the only way to reclaim land from the enemy. It takes a generation or more to get the foothold, but then we are anchored there.”

He continued to scowl, but less resolutely.

“But now we must spend a fortune to protect those women. You will want to reactivate legions, will you not? That means a new tax.”

“I fear it must be so, Your Majesty.”

“Tell me this, woman; when were taxes last raised on the isles? Why are we paying so much and they so little?”

“I must dispute these claims, Your Majesty. The isles maintain the great fleet, these keep the seas clear of piracy and make the coasts of the Argonath safe and productive. What tax money is left over from that effort is sent to aid the Argonath, and it is as much as any two cities here.”

“Then where does it all go? Why are we left in this situation?”

“Your Majesty, the colonization of the Argonath is an ambitious undertaking. We face a most dread and powerful enemy, and the fate of the whole world lies in the balance here. If we can check the enemy’s expansion in the east then we will hearten its enemies elsewhere. There is no room for defeat; we cannot allow the hordes from Tummuz Orgmeen to break through the Malguns and sweep down to the coast. We could lose all the Argonath in a few seasons as a result. We must rise to this challenge, not descend to penny-pinching complaints. Burly has all the figures—he knows whether the wealth of Marneri is well spent.”

She turned to Burly seeking an answer.

“Chamberlain, has the price of wheat from the isles risen this year? The harvest in the Argonath was poor. Exploitation of this could be expected.”

Burly shook his head. “No lady, the price has held stable despite the shortage of supplies. The emperor be praised for his actions.”

Lessis turned back to Sanker. “There is a cost to this. Prices in the isles have risen and thus people there are suffering with you from the poor harvest. The empire spreads out the burden of our difficulty and makes it easier for all to bear it.”

Sanker shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. Damn these women—they were so slippery, so full of themselves, so, so impossible!

“Alright, alright, the empire’s strength protects all of us, I know, I know. So what is the price? What is it going to cost me now?”

Lessis pursed her lips momentarily.

“We need to bring forward the activation of the New Legion. It is largely recruited now, and the men are in training for the winter. We want you to take the best two brigades and send them into the Teetol country on a raid.”

Sanker exploded. “What? Put two brigades of raw recruits into the midst of those savages? They’ll end up in the cook pots. Why are we to sacrifice these lives so wantonly?”

“No sacrifice is intended, Your Majesty. The new brigades will be accompanied by a veteran brigade currently resting in the Blue Hills. The Teetol do not fight well in winter. It is difficult for them to put numbers in the field at that season.”

“It’s hellishly difficult for anyone to fight in the winter,” said Sanker.

“But easier for us than for them. We will take some of the war party leaders captive and sow dissension among their ranks. Next summer they will not move against us.”

Sanker wavered. It was an excellent scheme—bold, swift and decisive. He wished he had thought of it himself.

“It sounds like an enormous gamble. What if we fail to capture the ones we want?”

“Then we will face serious difficulties next summer and we will have to reactivate all the legions of the Argonath. We may face several years of war; we may even face complete destruction and the loss of the cities.”

Sanker stared at her. He knew she was telling him the unvarnished truth, and yet he hated to accept it from her. At last he agreed with a heavy sigh.

“I will do it.”

“Burly will have all the details, as I said.”

The king was not finished. “And know you this, woman—I will leave the throne to my son. Erald will be crowned king after I am gone.”

“As you say, Your Majesty, Erald will be the next King of Marneri.”

Sanker was slightly mollified by this. The discussion shifted to other subjects briefly, and then Lessis left with Burly.

In the chamberlain’s private office Lessis divulged her other mission while she was in Marneri.

“Lord Chamberlain, there is another matter.”

Burly rolled his eyes heavenward.

“I knew it, I knew it, these visits of yours are never so simple as to be restricted to a single thing.”

“I will be frank. We are convinced that there is a spy, quite recently planted here, at work in the upper echelons of Marneri society.”

“Connected to the evil on Fundament Day?”

“No, that is simply a distraction, the routine work of the enemy’s agents. No, our spy is more clever than that.”

“We are always plagued with the fear of spies.”

“We should fear them, especially now as we enter this critical period.”

“Ah, the succession. Well, Erald will be king.”