Irons in the Fire (15 page)

The woman was a true beauty. Every feature was a painter's dream, from her oval face, broad, high forehead and elegant nose to her irresistibly sensuous lips. Her skin was flawless, her coiled hair burnished chestnut. The silk shawl draped around her shoulders was the exact same shade of violet as her wide, wise eyes.

"Mistress Larch?" Reniack looked askance at her. "When Orlin of Parnilesse was entertaining the Tormalin Emperor's cousin, I'll swear to Saedrin you were Lady Alaric."

"Doubtless I was." She took an empty chair by the table with fluid grace. "You may have heard of Lady Rochiel?" She favoured Lady Derenna with a charming smile.

The two women were about the same age, Aremil decided. Though the newcomer's black gown looked fresh from the seamstress, impeccably cut to flatter a figure perfectly balanced between slenderness and seductive curves.

Derenna narrowed her eyes. "I believe so."

"Mistress Larch?" Gruit was quite at a loss.

"It'll be easiest if you all call me Charoleia." She accepted the glass of wine he offered and drank. "An excellent choice. From Kalavere?"

"You have a remarkable number of names." Aremil edged sideways to get a clearer view past Reniack.

"I have a great many pairs of shoes." She smiled at him, quite at her ease. "So I don't wear holes in any particular favourites."

"While a change of name means you never wear out your welcome." Admiration coloured Reniack's laugh as he raised his own glass in salute.

The pamphleteer was blocking Aremil's view again. He shifted along the cushions. "Master Gruit invited you here?"

Charoleia rose and came to sit on the other end of the settle. "He hoped I might be able to contribute some ideas, if you're discussing the best way to bring peace and prosperity to Lescar."

"Are you Lescari?" Reniack sounded uncharacteristically uncertain.

"I can be. When it suits me better, I am Tormalin born and bred. If we met in some other city, you might swear I'd never set foot east of the White River." As she spoke, her words slid seamlessly from Imperial silkiness to the sharper accents of western Ensaimin.

"Lady... Charoleia--" Gruit stumbled over the name as he took the empty chair beside Derenna "--is an information broker."

"I should be able to find out whatever you might need to know, once you have a plan to resolve Lescar's confusions." She smiled at them all.

"Is that what we're doing here?" Derenna looked uncertain.

"Can it hurt to discuss some options?" Gruit challenged her.

Aremil wondered if anyone else had noticed how deftly Charoleia had brought them all into a circle. Now Reniack was standing between her and Gruit while Tathrin filled the gap between himself and Lady Derenna. "Why would you help us?"

"I'm assuming I'll be handsomely paid."

Her violet eyes were even more remarkable close to. Aremil couldn't see any deception clouding them. Though, he reflected, any woman living under however many names this beauty had was doubtless a skilled dissembler. He tried not to let the subtle allure of her perfume distract him.

Charoleia sipped her wine again. "Gruit tells me you all believe that the common folk of Lescar would seize peace, if only it came within their reach?"

"I am convinced of it," the merchant said instantly. "Every tradesman and merchant with Lescari blood tells me of friends and family desperate to live free of apprehension and suffering."

Tathrin spoke a breath ahead of Reniack. "My father says the talk in hostelries all along the road always comes round to how much better life could be if there was no more fighting."

"It's time the common folk were masters of their own destiny." Reniack wasn't to be denied any longer. "We in Parnilesse see our fields and forests plundered to suit the whim of Tormalin's lords, all for the sake of the fat purses they offer Duke Orlin. They cart away our timber and lime while we live in hovels with leaky roofs and crumbling walls. His Grace sells the flax and the hides that are the fruits of our labours, while our women dress in rags and our children go barefoot. Tormalin merchants demand thrice the price they paid us when we need to buy linen and shoes."

"Only Parnilesse suffers?" Charoleia raised her perfectly shaped brows.

Gruit scowled. "Every dukedom's resources are sold to fund the same foolish ambition."

"Will the people of Parnilesse believe that?" Charoleia looked intently at Reniack. "Could they find common cause with Draximal's peasants? When they've been told so long and loud that all their sufferings are their neighbour's fault? That Draximal's lust to rule over them means rape and plunder unless they fight back? Could they ever believe that Draximal's folk go in just as much fear of Parnilesse's fell purpose threatening their lives and livelihoods?"

"I believe so." Reniack looked steadily at her. "If they were told long and loud how suffering unites the common folk of Lescar far more than lordly quarrels divide them."

"If every Lescari living in exile told them the same," Aremil realised, "and that no Caladhrian, nor anyone in Vanam or Col, pays any heed to whether we're Marlier-born or Draximal. All we are is Lescari."

"Best not say that's such a term of contempt," Reniack commented sourly.

"A byword for folly," Derenna agreed. "As pointless as brother fighting brother and trampling their inheritance into the mud between them."

"That galls you?" Charoleia challenged them all. "Then use it to goad the common folk of Parnilesse and Sharlac to make common cause with those of Triolle and throw the lie back in everyone's teeth."

"It's not just the common folk who are tired of warfare," Lady Derenna said, nettled. "Those of elevated rank see the suffering more clearly than anyone. We have the education to truly understand such improvidence, but we're caught in a cruel vice. Our tenants cry out for relief while our overlords demand ever more burdensome levies and tithes of meat and grain."

"Why not refuse such demands?" Charoleia wondered.

Derenna stared at her. "We would have armed mercenaries breaking down our gates to take whatever they could find of value."

Aremil was beginning to see that this newcomer was as astute as she was beautiful. One of his most respected mentors always drew his students towards the conclusion he desired with questions, so they believed they had discovered it for themselves.

"Mercenaries." Reniack spat into the empty fireplace. "They have no interest in peace, no stake in Parnilesse's prosperity. They are parasites. Everyone hates them."

"A loathing that unites common folk and nobility," Charoleia said lightly.

"The common folk cannot stand against mercenaries." Gruit shook his white head as he refilled his wine glass. "The militias are so poorly armed and seldom trained."

"You do your people disservice," Reniack asserted. "Militiamen have fought to the death in courageous defence of their hearths and homes. Mercenaries flee the field of battle as soon as their own skins are threatened."

"Which is one reason why so few battles are ever conclusive," Aremil pointed out.

"The dukes dare not put decent weapons into skilled hands." Derenna shook her head. "If they did, honest men and women could demand more rational rule."

Frustrated silence filled the room. Charoleia broke it.

"So are you all convinced it's only the dukes who want this warfare?"

Aremil met Tathrin's glance and saw his friend's agreement. "I believe that's so."

"Then Lescar could indeed have peace, if everyone else refused to involve themselves in the dukes' quarrels?" Charoleia asked.

Now the silence was stunned.

"The wind's already blowing in that direction in Carluse," Charoleia assured them. "Isn't it, Tathrin?"

Aremil looked at him. Astonished, he saw that the tall scholar looked as guilty as a schoolboy caught putting a snail in someone's boots.

"Yes," Tathrin said reluctantly.

"What's afoot in Carluse?" demanded Gruit.

Tathrin rubbed a hand over his mouth, looking uncomfortably at Aremil. "I would have told you, but it wasn't my secret. I was sworn not to tell. I shouldn't tell now."

"I understand." Aremil swallowed.

"I don't," Reniack said robustly. "Come on, don't keep us guessing! Or are you afraid Raeponin's going to ring his bell over you for telling?"

"I don't see why he should be mocked for keeping his word." Derenna looked crossly at the pamphleteer. "I can assure you, Master Tathrin, and I'll swear whatever oaths you may choose, that I'll not breathe a word of whatever you may say."

"That goes for all of us," Gruit assured Tathrin.

"It does." Reniack looked intently at the young scholar. "I'll spill no secrets that would get you hanged, just as I'll trust you with knowledge that could send me to the gallows."

Tathrin nodded, making up his mind.

"In our inn, there's a basement room. Young men, young women, too, they come to stay for a night or so. They talk to no one, keeping out of sight. We're told never to mention them. Then they move on, some with the wagon trains and a few of the muleteers, always the same ones. My father says they're going to Caladhria or to Ensaimin, wherever they have kin. Guildmasters send them, and sometimes the priests, so they're not hauled off to serve in a militia. Sometimes their families just can't bear the burden of feeding them, if fighting has ruined their harvest or mercenaries have plundered their stores."

"Carluse's guildsmen have allies all along the highways." Charoleia smiled. "They're sick of seeing the youth and hope of their crafts and families dying in pointless battles. They tell Duke Garnot's reeves that the apprentices have run off or died of some pox, that the girls have married a distant cousin or died of an unwanted baby." She looked at Gruit. "Wouldn't the guildmasters of Marlier agree that's a stratagem they could usefully copy?"

"I believe so," he said with slow incredulity.

Reniack's loud laugh filled the room. "How do you celebrate festival if no one turns up to dance?"

"Could we really persuade everyone to refuse to fight?" Aremil found the notion intoxicating. "Across all six dukedoms?"

"I could persuade more than half. Just let me write the pamphlets. If Gruit's fellow merchants can carry them into Lescar, I can get them into every alehouse and market square." Reniack began pacing back and forth. "My sympathisers will nail them on every shrine door!"

Derenna was torn between shock and hope. "But the dukes will still have their mercenaries to call on."

"Mercenaries fight for whoever is paying them." Aremil was struck with sudden inspiration. "What if the coin that so many exiles send home paid the curs not to fight instead?"

"If the common folk were left alone to tend their crops and herds, they wouldn't need that coin to save themselves from starving." Tathrin looked at Gruit.

"No militia answering their summons and no mercenaries to call on." Reniack's expression grew distant. "Why, our noble dukes would have to settle their arguments man to man. Let's put the six of them in a field with swords and maces to fight it out. The last one standing could call himself High King. No one need pay more heed than they would to a cockerel crowing on a dung hill."

Derenna looked astonished. "It cannot be so simple, surely?"

"It wouldn't be nearly so simple," Charoleia said calmly. "But it's an idea, the beginnings of a plan. Isn't that what you wanted?"

She had come to this meeting having already thought all this through, Aremil was convinced of it. Was there more to come from her? Though this was no time to raise the notion of using aetheric magic, he decided reluctantly. Not until he had more certain knowledge than the vague explanation he'd offered to Gruit. Besides, he'd want to be sure Reniack wouldn't look to use such a thing for his own unscrupulous ends. And Derenna would surely dismiss the notion with true Rationalist scorn. Aremil found he had no wish to look a credulous fool in Charoleia's violet eyes.

"Do we have anything to lose by trying?" Gruit looked around the room.

"We can do a lot between us, and through the men and women we know, to spread this idea." Reniack had no doubts. "If it takes root, who knows what the result might be?"

"Lady Derenna's right about the mercenaries. They'll fight as long as the dukes give them gold." Tathrin frowned. "Who could negotiate with them, to take them out of the balance?"

"I know resourceful swordsmen who've fought with the finest mercenary bands," Charoleia remarked. "They could help persuade such men to stay safely encamped for the sake of a share in the coin you're offering. It's a better deal than risking their necks for some duke who'll only pay those still alive at the end of the day. Provided you pay them well for their trouble."

"Naturally," Gruit said wryly. "Where might these resourceful men be found?"

"At present, they're seeing what the squabbles between my lords of Draximal and Parnilesse might offer by way of pickings." She smiled. "I can write a letter of introduction for someone to carry to them."

Reniack shook his head. "I cannot be seen in Parnilesse. Duke Orlin's spies are hunting me and I'm too easily recognised now," he said with some disgust. "I couldn't open my mouth in a mercenary camp before someone cut off my head to collect the price on it."