The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy (42 page)

I looked into the spokesman’s eyes. He was terribly sincere and meant the best, and I hated to do it to him.

“Sir,” I asked. “Do you know anything of magic?”

“No, well, not a great deal, other than who I can have quickly duplicate a design for my seamstresses, or perhaps fabricate a different pattern of cloth from a sorcerous design … but no, not very much, not really.”

“When armies go to war,” I explained, “each side generally has wizards casting spells to do harm to the other side.”

“I knew
that,”
he said, a bit indignantly. “I’m not a complete dunce.”

“Each side also has wizards casting counterspells, to negate the others’ thaumaturgy,” I went on. The tailor looked puzzled.

“What do you think would happen to your finery, of magical origins, when a counterspell intended to cut through all sorcery is cast at an army?”

Someone snickered, and the tailor understood, turned red, and began stammering apologies for taking up my most valuable time. I bowed them out before I gave in to my own laughter.

But the idea of an entire army, suddenly stripped naked in the middle of a battleground, still amuses.

• • •

The Latane River spiders through Nicias, but most of the branches are narrow enough to be bridged. Two are not — the major branch, which most river traffic uses, on the east, which is also where the Imperial Palace lies and where my former mansion, when I was with Marán, was; and one on the city’s far west, along a peninsula almost a third of a league wide, a budding business district as the city has expanded.

We rode ferries across the Latane, formed up along the waterfront, and marched forth.

• • •

The parade was the strangest I’ve ever marched in, let alone led. Most parades are either held in peace or at the beginning or end of a war, not in its middle. Very few have an entire army participating, and that meant everyone, from cavalrymen to skirmishers to sutlers to blacksmiths to teamsters to camp followers, for we were leaving nothing behind us on the down. But mostly, I know of very few parades whose leaders were waiting to be attacked.

We were tatterdemalion and ragtag, with only a few of us in any sort of uniform, let alone a common one. Lasleigh, Baron Pilfern of Stowe’s fifty cavalrymen were an exception in their green and black, although even their finery was trail worn and shabby.

We marched in formation, but most hadn’t had much drill training, so the drums and trumpets may have been sounding one beat, but the marchers were holding to another. Around a million others, to be exact.

Some units marched well, some shambled. They say drill is the mark of a good soldier; yet the skirmishers, easily the most dangerous men in the army or anywhere else I could think of, were the worst of the lot, and the most disreputable looking, even if their clothes were clean, constantly hooting at a pretty woman or boy, asking for drink to be tossed them, and sometimes running out of ranks for a kiss, a drink, or a hasty bite of some viand, then marching on, chewing and laughing.

The crowds cheered, and the bands played, but here and there I saw men and women trying to appear uncaring. But when formations led by men like Jakuns, Jabish, Himchai, Ilkley, or other Tovieti came past, their fellows were hard-pressed to hold their calm.

I’m afraid I noticed too much and too little of the parade, constantly watching here and there, trying to tell if the scattered soldiery we passed were cheering us or waiting for the order to attack.

The parade went on and on, taking almost the entire day to wind west through the streets and across the bridges. Great riverboats waited at the city’s end and took us across the river to the open land where our new quarters were.

Nothing had happened out of the ordinary, and I wondered if all these years of chicanery and intrigue had made me into a nervous twitch.

But I forgot about it and went to work setting up the new camp.

The next day, in the middle of more than a million men trying to establish their new homes, a courier came, and said the Grand Councilors were pleased to announce a banquet to personally honor General Damastes á Cimabue, to be held at my convenience. A note was appended in Scopas’s handwriting:

“Now if it were me,” Yonge announced, tossing the note back across the field desk, “I’d bring two regiments of infantry, and that’d be for the main course alone. I don’t trust these bastards.”

“Nor do I,” I agreed. “But what do they think the army will do if they murder me?”

Yonge looked skeptical. “If you think that’s what’s holding them back,” he said, “you’re being your usual fool. Barthou and Scopas don’t know soldiering from shitting and have no idea what the army will do.

“Not that you do, either. Look at what happened when I killed Achim Baber Fergana. Do you think his army went mad with fury, tore their hair, and attacked me, wailing like frenzied loons? Hells no. They couldn’t wait to say how glad they were the rascal was dead, and they, and their sons, and their sons’ sons, and their sons of bitching sons would be delighted to serve me until the hoolieth generation.

“If you get yourself killed, most of these troops will make whatever convenience they can. Some’ll desert, some’ll do whatever their officers tell them, some’ll try to join the Peace Guardians or the Army of Numantia or whatever they now call themselves.

“The only people you can absolutely depend on is us, your immediate staff, plus morons like Svalbard who don’t know about self-preservation and other romantic fools.”

“You’ve made my day full of cheer.”

“Full of realism would be a better way to put it,” Yonge said. “But look, you really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. We have magicians who can see if there’s any spells being laid, don’t we? We have the Tovieti, who’ve got their fingers around the neck, I mean on the pulse, of Nicias, right? Including, I assume, some inside Barthou and Scopas’s palace. Plus you have the Snake Who Never Sleeps, who’s got to have friends among the warders and his usual worms wriggling about with their ears open, if worms have ears.

“Ask all of them if any plot’s being plotted, and if no one can say yes, we can go off to dinner with a clear conscience.”

“We?”

“Of course, we. I want to see if their food’s better than the emperor’s, and besides, who’d grudge a meal to the private secretary of the mighty General Damastes á Cimabue? You might need a hand with the dessert.

“Eh? There you have the fruits of my careful thinking. What have I missed?”

“Nothing,” I said slowly. “Nothing at all.”

• • •

There was no plot to be found. Sinait and Cymea agreed there was building menace to the south, but that was from Tenedos, as he made his laborious way toward Nicias. We must work matters out with the Council quickly, so we would be ready when he arrived.

I had Kutulu inquire about Trerice and their army, which was the least of my worries. Their forces were confined to camp, undergoing strenuous training, he told me, somewhat amusedly, so they’d not embarrass the Councilors as they’d done before.

So, although I had many more important things to do, I sent a note back, suggesting we assemble three nights hence.

• • •

I decided to indulge my peacockry and chose tight boots that came to mid-thigh, made of fantastically tooled leathers of various shades, the predominant color black, a matching hat with a white plume dropping almost to my shoulders, complementing my carefully brushed hair, a silk lace blouse with a frothy scarf, both in white, red trousers that flared above the knee, and a black cloak with red silk lining.

Cymea also wore black — a clinging suit with flaring sleeves and pants legs and high collar. But this seemingly modest description doesn’t allow for its wide buttons down the front that she only fastened from below her breasts to her waist. The buttons were ensorcelled and shone with spinning colors echoed in her disc earrings and necklace like a twisted silver rope.

“You’ll note my nice, sensible shoes,” she said.

“Sensible?” They glittered like silver mail.

“They’re without heels,” she explained. “Easy to run in.”

“Ah.”

Cymea wore a suede belt, and from it hung her sheathed wand and a needle-like shortsword.

“I’ve also got a dagger on the inside of my thigh, so be careful how you grope, sirrah.”

I wasn’t unarmed either, carrying Yonge’s dagger hidden and my plain straight sword in plain sight. Concealed in a small pouch were two of the iron pigs I liked for throwing or hiding in my fist for a bone-shattering strike.

I’d decided to promote Svalbard to captain, and Yonge chose the same rank. Lasleigh’s men were the only bodyguard I’d take, and while they wore their finest, they were also fully armed.

I saw Sinait and Linerges talking at length, guessed they were taking other precautions.

Suddenly the thought came — all this worry and scheming was absurd. If I had a brain, I’d simply find an excuse to cancel the banquet.

But since we’d checked everything imaginable, and it was important to get along with our allies, I decided to proceed.

• • •

The palace had gone through three name changes within the last twenty years: first the Rule of Ten’s Palace; then, massively refurbished, it became the Imperial Palace. Now I noted it was called just the “Palace,” which was either tired, realistic, or cynical, depending on what the speaker thought of the current regime’s life expectancy.

There were few soldiers guarding the palace, no more than the required honor guard, which made me relax a bit more.

The palace’s chamberlain said a meal had been set for my escort, and so Lasleigh and his fifty, some licking their lips at the thought of doing real damage to royal cuisine, were led away.

The rest of us were taken, with babbling escorts and bowing retainers, through the main entrance and announced with trumpets into a great room on the palace’s second level. I knew this chamber well, for I’d suffered through many of Tenedos’s banquets here, not interested in the overly rich food and bored cross-eyed with the endless speechmaking.

It was a long room, very high-ceilinged, with three swinging doors leading to the kitchens at the rear. Above, on a small balcony about fifteen feet overhead, was a small orchestra, already playing. The banquet room could be enlarged or made smaller with sliding walls. Tonight, it held just one long table toward the rear of the chamber near the kitchens. Around the room were heavy carts with punch bowls, brandy, and wine, and servants swarming around them.

The chamber was already full of the court retinue, all the noblemen in their finery. There was no more than a scattering of wives or consorts, but that was the unfortunate way of Numantia when the event was less social than business.

Barthou and Scopas weren’t advertising their ignorance in military costuming this time, but wore nearly identical white robes dressed with red and gold, their breasts covered with flamboyant unknown and therefore meaningless decorations.

They greeted me effusively, were properly polite if a bit condescending to Cymea, and ignored Yonge. I looked about for Svalbard, but he’d vanished. I shrugged, thinking that he, clearly wiser than I, had chosen to go belowstairs with the other soldiery so he wouldn’t have to suffer oratory with his beef.

I moved around the room, making small talk and being congratulated for “dealing with” King Bairan, although it was clear none of them had any knowledge of what a bloody business it had been, no doubt believing we met on the field of battle in sparkling armor and hewed mightily at each other until the better man won. If I survived the war, there’d be great paintings about the duel, none of which would suggest how filthy and smelly I was and how brutal the murder from a cloakroom had been.

I was amused to see noblemen blustering and cooing over Cymea. It would have been very funny if she’d suddenly draped a yellow silk cord about her neck and told them about her brethren.

After half an hour or so, we were escorted to our places by servants. I was seated between Barthou and Scopas, Cymea was down the table next to some fairly young baron, who appeared thrilled at his dinner companion, and Yonge was put, as befitted a secretary-aide, somewhere far away, well below the salt.

Naturally, the service was perfect, and the banquet began with a sparkling wine — I was mildly impressed that someone had been coached, and I was given mineral water instead — that accompanied dilled shrimp on cucumber. The next course was another wine and a wild mushroom soup I would’ve liked better if it hadn’t had a float of a sweet-sour wine atop it.

We finished our soup, and the table was cleared. Barthou and Scopas were both making sure I was well entertained, filling my ears with the latest court chatter. I listened politely, not telling them I gave a thin rat’s ass about who’d said what to whom and who was sleeping or not sleeping with whom. Most of the names were unfamiliar, anyway. For the past few years I’d been, as the phrase went, “out of town,” and hardly following who’d found favor or been exiled by the Grand Councilors.

The wait for the next course grew long, then longer, and diners began looking at the kitchen doors curiously, then a bit angrily. A couple of thumps came from behind them, and I wondered what disaster was occurring, if a cook had gotten drunk and was crashing about, or if the next course had caught on fire, when the center door slammed open.

Domina Cofi stood there, in dress uniform with all his medals, holding naked sword high.

“Traitors! No one move! In the name of the Numantian Army, we who hold the heart of Numantia …”

His voice broke off. I was on my feet, sword halfway out.

Cofi’s face paled, and the huge room was completely still.

“Guk!” was all that came as blood poured from his mouth. His fingers opened limply, and his sword clattered to the floor. About six inches of reddened steel stuck out the front of his chest.