Well, the dinner would go forward. It was time to move from the barge to his pavilion and make certain the preparations were complete. He’d dictate some correspondence while there — the pavilion was no longer a residence, but was being used as an office still — and also make his proclamation for a day of fasting for all the armies in honor of the goddess Lipanto, whose rites were celebrated two days hence.
Necias heaved himself out of his settee, put some biscuits in his pockets for later, and climbed heavily up the companion to the deck of the barge. There he blinked in the bright sun, seeing the flags of Arrandal and the house of Acragas whipping in the brisk wind, and waited while his guards were assembled by Little Necias, their captain. His bodyguards were mostly relatives, with a few trusted retainers thrown in: he didn’t want Brodaini around him, and if he’d used mercenaries there would always be the worry that one of them could be bribed to allow an assassination.
As the guards formed up on the gangplank, Necias turned to the other family barge moored astern and saw, with a leap of joy, Luco’s golden hair glittering on the foredeck. A lovely girl, he thought, remembering their ardent reunion and the fact that he was scheduled to sleep with her tonight. He had sent for two of his wives, letting the other four occupy themselves with household matters in Arrandaclass="underline" now he had Brito for her brains and Luco for her loving, something that happily took place every second night instead of every fifth. A young wife did a man good, whatever the old saws said. She turned, seeing him on deck, and stood on tiptoe to wave, her brilliant smile warming his heart; he raised his own arm, smiling, and when his men had formed up he walked up the tilting gangplank and began his stroll to the pavilion.
His fool of a son, Listas, joined him with his pad and pencil and Necias dictated some correspondence to him as they walked, all of it routine but necessary. The guards deployed themselves about the pavilion and Necias went into the bright, airy main room, where a series of collapsible tables had been assembled, then covered with a long brocade tablecloth and a vast array of silver plate. “Very good,” he nodded to his Deputy Steward — Ahastinas had pronounced himself too elderly to accompany the army — and lay down on his settee, adjacent to the place of honor that Handipas would occupy.
The expressions of horror on the faces of his domestic staff came too late for warning, so it must have been some vague impression of movement behind him that made him throw himself forward just as the settee shuddered to a blow... and then, amid the sudden shrieking and confusion and desperate bellows from his staff, he pushed off from the couch, kicking it back, and was crawling like a vast insect across the table, scattering ringing silver plate in all directions. Castas all over again, he thought with a sick and hopeless despair, remembering the brother who had died shielding him from the assassin’s dagger; but now there was no Castas between him and the killers, nothing but whatever inches of brocade tablecloth he could put between himself and his assailants.
Tableware flew over his head: Listas, his popeyes almost leaping from his head as he shrieked for the guards, was scooping up plate with both arms and flinging it for all he was worth; and there was a metallic clang from behind to demonstrate he’d connected with at least one of his missiles. The Deputy Steward dashed out, seizing Necias by his arms, and then dragged him forward across the table by main strength; Necias, breathless, crashed to the carpeted floor just as the table reverberated to another thud as a blow went home.
The Deputy Steward gave a high-pitched shriek and threw himself across Necias in the direction of the table, his dagger out... Necias cursed him as he tried to find a path between his legs; then Necias heard a squelching thud as a weapon struck home and the Deputy Steward fell back, clutching at the light spear in his chest. Necias, wanting to scream himself but not having the breath for it, rolled for safety, tangled with the nerveless body of the Deputy Steward, feeling blood splattering his face with liquid warmth. At last Little Necias was there, his pike out, followed by a swarm of his people, and there were yells and clanging and in the end Necias sat up in safety, his lungs pumping desperately for air, and watched as his guards transfixed, with half a dozen pikes, his would-be assassin. There was only one attacker after all.
There was no proof — the man was a short-haired nondescript individual — but his equipment screamed Brodaini, and he was therefore assumed to be one of Tastis’ lersri, a trained, dedicated spy and assassin who worshiped the goddess of Death and who was supposed to be ready, with the bottle of poison found on his belt, to meet her voluntarily rather than accept capture. He was armed with a heavy double-edged dagger on a thong around his neck, but his principal weapon was a short, light hollow metal spear. In his pouch there was found a digging tooclass="underline" it had been attached to the other end of the spear, and with it the lersru had burrowed his way beneath the canvas walls of the pavilion, hiding in a little hole under the carpets directly behind the couch of honor, waiting with cool patience for Necias to appear. The household staff had probably been treading on him since morning.
The lersru should have succeeded with his first thrust, but Necias was not in the place of honor, which must have surprised him, and then Necias had thrown himself forward and perhaps broken the assassin’s concentration; at any rate the spear had gone into the back of Necias’ settee with enough force to splinter it. Having wrenched the spear free, the lersru climbed over the chair and onto the table, parried the plate Listas threw as he advanced, and then been forced to kill the Deputy Steward to get to Necias, losing more seconds... and then Little Necias and his squad had impaled him on their pikes that outreached his short thrusting spear, and made his bottle of poison redundant.
Necias, trembling, rose breathlessly to his feet, dashing the sweat out of his eyes and staring at the chaos of the canvas-walled room, the strewn array of silver plate and the bodies of the Deputy Steward and the assassin. “Are you hurt, Father?” Listas demanded, supporting his elbow; then he turned and screeched out in the pedantic, nagging voice that Necias had always disliked. “A chair for the Abessu-Denorru! Have you all gone mad?”
A chair was brought, and Necias subsided gratefully in it. His guards tore about the pavilion, anxious to prove their zeal, flinging up the carpets and looking for more enemies to kill; they found none. The bodies were quietly carried out. A drink came hastily to Necias’ chair; he drank it down without tasting it, his mind slowly recovering from the attack.
“I’ll write the notes calling off the dinner, don’t bother yourself about it,” Listas said in his ear. “Just rest yourself, and I’ll take care of the arrangements.”
Necias only gradually understood the words. “No!” he gasped out quickly; and then he found his mind working again, calculating swiftly the results of the near-assassination.
“No,” he said, more firmly again, seeing Listas’ pop-eyed surprise. “The dinner will continue — I’m not going to let that carrion interfere with matters of state.” He jabbed a finger into Listas’ chest, and gave him an encouraging grin. “Draft a report to the Denorru-Deissin, and make certain you urge them all to look to their own safety. And another report to the city — we don’t want any rumors starting a panic.” He rubbed his chin. He had to look undisturbed by this occurrence: otherwise people would begin saying he was so terrified he’d lost his grip. Normality had to be returned as quickly as possible.