Into the Darkness (78 page)

“I can see how you might be,” Cornelu agreed, his voice dry. “And we shall surely have much to discuss—at another time. Do now what you must do, that we may leave this place and eventually gain the leisure in which to hold such a discussion. For we have none here and now.”

“There you speak the truth,” Fernao said. He translated the truth into Forthwegian for Penda’s benefit—though, if the king spoke Algarvian, he could probably follow some Sibian. Penda nodded and made an imperious gesture, as if to say,
Well, get on with it, then.

Get on with it Fernao did. Cornelu knew the exact moment when the Lagoan mage abandoned the spell that drew eyes in Mizpah—and outside the Lagoan outpost—away from the spit of land. The Yaninan attackers, suddenly noticing people out there, began tossing eggs at them.

They were less than accomplished. Cornelu, accustomed to soldiers trained to higher standards, found their aim laughable and alarming at the same time. It was laughable because none of the eggs came very close to him. It was alarming because some of those eggs came down in the waters of the Narrow Sea—the waters where Eforiel waited. A spectacularly bad toss might prove as disastrous as a spectacularly good one. If, while missing Cornelu and the men he had come to take away, the Yaninans hit his leviathan, they would have done what they’d set out to do, though they might not know it.

“I suggest you make haste,” Cornelu said to Fernao.

“I
am
making haste,” the mage snarled through clenched teeth when he reached a point where he could pause in his incanting. Cornelu chuckled, recognizing the annoyance any good professional showed at having his elbow joggled. Cornelu understood and sympathized with that. Even so, he wished Fernao would make haste a little more quickly—or a lot more quickly.

After what seemed far too long—and after a couple of eggs had burst much closer than Cornelu would have liked—the mage declared, “I am ready.” As if to prove as much, he pulled off his tunic and stepped out of his kilt, standing naked and shivering on the little spit of land. Penda imitated him. The king’s body had more muscle and less fat than Cornelu would have guessed from seeing him clothed.

Both men rapidly donned the rubber suits Cornelu had brought, and the flippers that went with them. “And now,” the Sibian exile said, “I suggest we delay no more. Eforiel awaits us in the direction from which I came up on to the land.” He pointed, hoping with all his heart that Eforiel did still await them there. He didn’t think the Yaninans had hit her, and didn’t think they could frighten her away if they hadn’t. He didn’t want to discover he’d been disastrously wrong on either of those counts.

As he turned and started for the water, King Penda said, “Eforiel? A woman? Do I understand you?”

“No, or not exactly,” Cornelu answered with a smile. “Eforiel—a leviathan.”

“Ah,” Penda said. “You in the south are much more given to training and riding them than we have ever been.”

“Another discussion that will have to wait,” said Fernao, who showed more sense than the fugitive king. Fernao splashed into the sea and struck out for Eforiel with a breast stroke that was determined if not very fast. Penda swam on his back, windmilling his arms over his head one after the other. He put Cornelu more in mind of a rickety rowboat than a porpoise, but he didn’t look like sinking.

Cornelu shot past both of them, which was just as well. They would not have been glad to meet Eforiel without him there to let her know it was all right. As he drew near the leviathan, or to where he hoped she was, he slapped the water in a signal to which she had been trained to respond.

Respond she did, raising her toothy beak out of the water. Cornelu took his place on her back, then waited for his passengers. They were gasping when they reached the leviathan, but reach her they did. Cornelu slapped her smooth hide and sent her off toward the northeast, toward warmer water, toward warmer weather.

Hajjaj never relished a visit to the Unkerlanter ministry. He particularly did not relish it when Minister Ansovald summoned him as if he were a servant, a hireling. People kept insisting Unkerlanter arrogance had its limits. The Unkerlanters seemed intent on proving people wrong.

With autumn having come to Bishah, Hajjaj minded putting on clothes less than he did in summertime. And long, loose Unkerlanter tunics were less oppressive than the garments in which other peoples chose to encase themselves. Having to wear the clinging tunics and trousers of the Kaunian kingdoms was almost enough by itself to make the Zuwayzi foreign minister glad Algarve had conquered them and relieved him of the need.

As usual, Ansovald was blunt to the point of rudeness. No sooner had Hajjaj been escorted into his presence than he snapped, “I hear you have been holding discussions with the Algarvian minister.”

“Your Excellency, I have indeed,” Hajjaj replied.

Ansovald’s eyes popped. “You admit it?”

“I could scarcely deny it,” Hajjaj said. “Discussing things with the ministers of other kingdoms is, after all, the purpose for which my sovereign sees fit to employ me. In the past ten days, I have met with the minister of Algarve, as you said, and also with the ministers of Lagoas, Kuusamo, Gyongyos, Yanina, the mountain kingdom of Ortah, and, now, twice with your honorable self.”

“You are plotting against Unkerlant, plotting against King Swemmel,” Ansovald said, as if Hajjaj had not spoken.

“Your Excellency, that I must and do deny,” the Zuwayzi foreign minister said evenly.

“I think you are lying,” Ansovald said.

Hajjaj got to his feet and bowed. “That is, of course, your privilege, your Excellency. But you have gone beyond the usages acceptable in diplomacy. I will see you another day, when you find yourself in better control of your judgment.”

“Sit down,” Ansovald growled. Hajjaj took no notice of him, but started toward the door. Behind him, the Unkerlanter minister let out a long, exasperated breath. “You had better sit down, your Excellency, or it will be the worse for your kingdom.”

One hand on the latch, Hajjaj paused and spoke over his shoulder: “How could Unkerlant treat Zuwayza worse than she has already done?” His tone was acid; he wondered if Ansovald noticed.

“Do you really care to find out?” the Unkerlanter minister said. “Go through that door, and I daresay you will.”

However much he wanted to, Hajjaj could not ignore such a threat. Reluctantly, he turned back toward Ansovald. “Very well, your Excellency, I listen. Under duress of that sort, what choice have I but to listen?”

“None,” Ansovald said cheerfully. “That’s what you get for not being strong. Now sit back down and hear me out.” Hajjaj obeyed, though his back was stiff as an offended cat’s. Ansovald paid no attention to his silent outrage. The Unkerlanter minister raised crude brutality almost to an art. He pointed a stubby finger at Hajjaj. “You are not to hold any more meetings with Count Balastro, on pain of war with my kingdom.”

Hajjaj started to get up and walk out again. Ansovald’s demand was one no representative of any kingdom had the right to make on the foreign minister of another kingdom. But Hajjaj knew King Swemmel only too well. If he openly defied the Unkerlanter minister here, Swemmel would conclude he had good reason to defy him, and would hurl an army of men in rock-gray tunics toward the north.

Swemmel might even be right, though his minister here would not know that. Ansovald leaned back in his chair, smugly delighted to see Hajjaj squirm. One reason he was good at bullying was that he enjoyed it so much. Hajjaj temporized: “Surely, your Excellency, you cannot expect me to refuse all intercourse with the minister from Algarve. Should he order me to do such a thing in regard to you, I would of course refuse.”

Ansovald stopped leaning back and leaned forward instead, alarm and anger on his strong-featured face. “Has he ordered you to stop seeing me?” he demanded. “How dare he order you to do such a thing?”

What he did, he took for granted. That anyone else might presume to do the same thing was an outrage. Hajjaj might have laughed, had he not felt more like crying. “I assure you, it was but a hypothetical comment,” the Zuwayzi foreign minister said, and spent the next little while smoothing Ansovald’s ruffled feathers. When Hajjaj finally judged the Unkerlanter minister soothed enough, he resumed: “I can hardly avoid him at receptions and the like, you know.”

“Oh, aye—that sort of business doesn’t count,” Ansovald said. Hajjaj had been far from sure he would prove even so reasonable. The Unkerlanter pointed at him again. “But when you and Balastro put your heads together for hours on end—” He shook his own head. “That won’t do.”

“And if he invites me to the Algarvian ministry, as you have invited me here?” Hajjaj asked, silently adding to himself,
He would be more polite about it, that’s certain.

“Refuse him,” Ansovald said.

“He will ask me why. Shall I tell him?” Hajjaj inquired. Ansovald opened his mouth, then abruptly closed it again. Hajjaj said, “Your Excellency, I think you begin to see my difficulty. If I, the foreign minister of a sovereign kingdom, am forbidden to see the representative of another sovereign kingdom, would not that second kingdom reckon the kingdom that had forbidden me guilty of insult against it?”

With a certain malicious amusement, he watched the Unkerlanter minister’s lips move as he worked his way through that. Ansovald was not swift, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He took a bit, but got the right answer:
Algarve will think Unkerlant guilty of insult.
Considering what the Algarvians had done to every foe they’d faced in the Derlavaian War, Hajjaj would not have wanted them thinking him guilty of insult.

By the expression on Ansovald’s face, he didn’t want that, either. Hajjaj politely looked away while the Unkerlanter minister coughed and tugged at his ear and pulled loose a small flap of skin by his thumbnail. At last, Ansovald said, “Maybe I was a little hasty here.”

From a Zuwayzi, that would have been a polite commonplace. From an Unkerlanter, and especially from King Swemmel’s representative in Bishah, it was an astonishing admission. When Ansovald didn’t seem inclined to come out with anything more, Hajjaj asked a gentle question: “In that case, your Excellency, what should my course be?”

Again, Ansovald didn’t answer right away. Hajjaj understood why: the Unkerlanter minister had just realized that following instructions he’d got from Cottbus was likely to lead him into disaster. But not following any order he got from Cottbus was also likely to lead him into disaster. As Ansovald dithered, Hajjaj smiled benignly.

With a sigh, Ansovald said, “I spoke too soon. Unless I summon you again, you may ignore what has passed between us here.”

Unless King Swemmel decides he doesn’t mind insulting the Algarvians,
was what that had to mean. Now Hajjaj had to fight to hide surprise. Might Swemmel think of taking such a chance? Hajjaj had often wondered whether the king of Unkerlant was crazy. Up till now, he’d never thought him stupid.

He wished the state of King Swemmel’s wits didn’t matter so much to Zuwayza. Far easier, far more reassuring, to think of it as Ansovald’s problem and none of his own. He couldn’t do that, worse luck. If Unkerlant caught cold, Zuwayza started sneezing—and Unkerlant went as Swemmel went.

Hajjaj also wished he could take Ansovald down a peg—down several pegs—for his insolence and arrogance. He couldn’t do that, either, not when he’d just got what he wanted from the Unkerlanter. He said, “Let it be as you desire, your Excellency. I tell you truly, we have seen—all of Derlavai has seen—enough of war this past year and more. I wish with all my heart that we may have seen the end of it.”

Ansovald only grunted in response to that. Hajjaj had trouble figuring out what the grunt meant. Was it skepticism, because Zuwayza had lost one war to Unkerlant and could be expected to want revenge? Or did Ansovald know Swemmel was indeed contemplating war against Algarve? For all Hajjaj’s skill in diplomacy, he saw no way to ask without waking suspicions better left to slumber.

Rousing somewhat, Ansovald said, “I think we have done everything we can do today.”

They’d alarmed each other. Ansovald had intended to harm Hajjaj. He hadn’t intended to be alarmed in return.
Well,
Hajjaj thought,
life does not always turn out as you intend.
He got to his feet. “I think you are right, your Excellency. As always, a meeting with you is most instructive.”

He left the Unkerlanter minister chewing on that and not nearly sure he liked the flavor. Getting out among his own people was a pleasure, going back to the palace a larger one, and pulling the tunic off over his head the greatest of all. Once comfortably naked, he went to report the conversation to King Shazli.

There he found himself balked. “Do you not recall, your Excellency?” one of Shazli’s servitors said. “His Majesty is out hawking this afternoon.”

Hajjaj thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I’d forgotten,” he admitted.

The servitor stared at him. He understood why: he wasn’t supposed to forget anything, and came close enough to living up to that to make his lapses notable. He stared at her, too; she was worth staring at. Idly—well, a little more than idly—he wondered what sort of amusement she would make. Lalla really had grown too extravagant to justify the pleasure he got from her.

Resolutely, Hajjaj pushed such thoughts aside. He still craved the pleasures of the flesh, but not so often as he once had. Now he could recognize that other business might take precedence over such pleasure. With a last, slightly regretful, glance at the serving woman, he returned to his office.

He considered using the crystal there, but in the end decided against it. He did not think Unkerlanter mages could listen to what he said, but did not want to discover he was wrong. Paper and ink and a trusty messenger would do the job.

Your Excellency,
he wrote, and then a summary of the relevant parts of his recent conversation with Ansovald. He had sanded the document dry when Shaddad appeared in the doorway. “How do you do that?” Hajjaj asked as he sealed the letter with ribbon and wax. “Come just when you’re wanted, I mean?”