Gar’s eyes glinted again. “While the false pirates were struggling to reach us, Admiral Pontelli had been sailing past them on the other side of the horizon. Now when they grappled, he swooped down on them with the wind at his back, hove to, and fired point-blank at their rear. It was a fearful carnage, they tell me, and the foolish false pirates had jammed themselves too closely for no more than a few of them to beat their way clear with their oars. Indeed, they did more damage to one another than the admiral did, ramming into their own ships and breaking each other’s oars—and oarsmen,” he added darkly. “When they’d sorted themselves out, our ships grappled them one by one, and my marines made me proud of their training again. They lost only a dozen and were disgusted with the work they had to do, for they were fighting untrained plowboys again, who surrendered quickly enough, though, and we locked them in their holds as we had before. Then we set prize crews to each ship—they should be sailing into the harbor before dawn. They have to go slowly, for they’ve no oarsmen and only skeleton crews, but we’ve doubled the size of our fleet!”
“A fabulous victory!” Gianni cried. “But how can you be so sure that the false pirates were peasants forced into service?”
Gar grinned from ear to ear. “Why, because when our admiral struck the sword from the hand of their admiral and bade my marines seize the man, he cried, ‘Unhand me, lowborn scum! Know that I am the Conte Plasio, and worth more than all your ragtag horde put together!’ ”
Gianni stared in disbelief, then broke out laughing, slapping Gar on the back. But his mirth slackened and died when he heard the wailing from the back of the quay.
“I said we lost men,” Gar said, his face darkening, “marines, but sailors, too. It was a great victory, and cheaply bought, when you see how many we sank and how many we won—but we did pay a price, and there’ll be many who mourn this night.”
Gianni stared toward the sounds of grief, suddenly realizing how real the war was—that it was more than some gigantic contest, some game lords played to relieve their boredom. Their playing pieces were living human beings, and their play ended in tragedy.
“The philosopher told us that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” Gar said softly beside him, “but he forgot that vigilance must all too frequently end in war, and those who say it’s better to die free than to live a slave must think long and truly before they say it.”
Gianni heard, felt the question sink deep within him—but heard the ring and the hardening of instant certainty, too. “I hope I won’t have to pay that price, Gar,” he said, “but I will if I must.”
“Yes.” Gar nodded. “After all, you’ve come near to paying it twice, and that without even having a chance to fight to stay free, haven’t you? At the last, the question is not whether or not you’ll die, but how.”
The day after the battle, the courier boats came back—three that first day, two the next, and five more on the third. All the other merchant cities, after furious debates in guildhalls and councils, had finally seen that they must fight or be ground under the noblemen’s boots. With the three cities that wavered, news of the navy’s victory against the lords’ thinly disguised fleet turned the tide, and they, too, cast their lot with Pirogia. Their ambassadors met in the Council Hall, and with ponderous ceremony signed a Charter of Merchant Cities, agreeing to fight together under a strategy devised by Pirogia. That was all they would promise, and only for the duration of the war; peacetime details would be thrashed out when (and if!) peace came. But it was enough to make the Pirogians jubilant again—and to bring Gianni the most splendid dream of his life.
The circle of light appeared amidst the darkness of sleep, and Gianni braced himself for another encounter with the cantankerous old Wizard, but the expanding circle of light showed not floating hair but swirling veils, and it was the Mystery Woman who undulated before him, not the grim old face—and her gyrations were more pronounced than before, slower, more rhythmical, more enticing. There was an aura about her, an aura of desire—not his, but hers.
Bravely done, Gianni Braccalese! Her voice was warm all about him; he could have sworn he felt breath in his ear. You have done well and wisely to persuade your father, and the merchant cities have listened to your reasoning! The league is formed, and it is your doing, O my brave one, all yours!
Gianni bathed in every word of her praise—indeed, he felt it as caressing all over his skin—but honesty made him protest, It was Gar’s idea first, and my father who brought it to the Council!
But the arguments your father used were yours, and it was you who pressed him into making the demands again! Oh, you are brave and worthy and valiant, and all that a woman could want! She swam closer, closer, and her face remained shadowed, even though the veils stilled and dropped, and the glory of her figure shone in a wondrous rose-hued light. Gianni gasped and felt his whole body quicken, aching for her—and discovered that he had a body in this dream, a body far more muscular and unblemished than his real one, naked and fairly glowing with his desire for her.
And she was there beside him, taking his hand and laying it upon her breast, then moving it gently to caress. Mechanically, he continued the action when her hand stopped, staring in fascination and awe at the glorious curves of breast and thigh and hip. Some lingering scruple screamed at him that this was wrong because they weren’t married, but she must have heard and breathed, No. Nothing is wrong, in a dream for you have no control over your dreams, and therefore can have no guilt, they do with you as they please. And she did indeed seem to be doing with him as she pleased, caressing his body too, wherever she wished—and more clearly, wherever he wished … Oh, be very sure that you have no control over this dream, she assured, for I do, every instant. Come, do as I wish, for you can do nothing else—your only choice is to fight your desires while you do as I please, or to fulfill those desires, as is only right, very right, perfectly right—in a dream. Dream with me, Gianni, for there can be no guilt and no sin here, and the only wrongness is to refuse the gift of pleasure thus given.
It was true, her words rang true within him, and Gianni threw away all scruple and inhibition, giving himself over fully to her and her wondrous dreambody, and the pleasure vouchsafed him. He who had never lain with a woman but always dreamed of it, dreamed now in earnest, and learned the ways of lovemaking to their fullest in the depths of his sleep.
CHAPTER 14
There was one aspect of war, at least, that Gar had not had to teach the people of Pirogia. The merchants, and especially the Council, had always had a very healthy interest in the events that happened in and around the other cities—who was buying what, who was selling what, who was in league with whom, who was marching against whom—so the fishermen and the peasants had all known, for many years, that the Council of Pirogia, and some individual merchants, would pay well for information of all sorts. Gar had not had to point out to the Council that intelligence about enemy troop movements was worth even more than general news, and much more hazardous to obtain; the Council had doubled, then tripled, the price of its own accord, and several peasant families who had been burned out by soldiers recovered the whole worth of their farm and livestock just by telling their tale to the officers of the Council. Indeed, that was how the news had come that had panicked the merchants into authorizing the gathering of the army.