The Neda Long Bridge was a fantastic construction, connecting the two cities across the base of the harbor itself; it was a good half-mile long, built of long, high stone arches that stood atop ancient pilings. Built along the bridge were arcades and little shops of wood, some of them hanging perilously over the brink — all deserted now, the nesting-place of birds and the eerie haunt of the wind, their bright colors already fading. She heard trumpets blaring behind her to announce her arrival.
She reached the top of the rise, the halfway point, and heard her escort reining in. Ahead she could see the drawbridge coming down on the other side as Tastis’ trumpets acknowledged the parley. She raised the white spear in her hand and rode on.
Black shadow covered her as she rode through the gate, and then the high sun illuminated her waiting reception committee as the portcullis began its downward journey behind her. On her right a troop of cavalry stood in ranks, raising their lances in salute as she came through the gate. Across the way from the cavalry was another party of three: a bannerbearer, a herald with a spear of parley, and another man standing in front, dressed in heavy formal armor, his sunbrowned face framed by a coif of chain. He was a sturdily handsome man, at least fifteen years younger than Tegestu, his face split by a broad, white smile. As Fiona reined in, for a brief hallucinatory moment she fancied she saw fangs.
“I am the drandor Tastis,” the man said. “Ambassador Fiona, on behalf of our aldran and denorru-censtassin, I welcome you to Neda.”
*
Tastis guided her through the hostages’ quarters himself, his two assistants trooping behind him. The hostages were to be kept in a large tower that had once formed a section of Old Neda’s outer wall. The city had grown up around it, and the tower had fallen into disrepair, but signs of recent work were evident, and peat fires blazed to drive out the damp. Like the hostage quarters in Calacas, the place was livable enough. The hostages could take their exercise on the tower roof, from which they could be seen by their friends in Calacas; and the roof, like the roof in Calacas, was overlooked by another, enemy-held structure, in this case the Old Citadel.
Tastis himself was smiling and deferent — he was trying consciously, Fiona thought, to be charming. From someone else the charm might have had its effect, but from a man she had hated for months the efforts seemed unreal, ludicrous. Did Kira like his smile? she wondered. Did he smile at her this way, when he viewed her in her cell?
She kept her face a face of stone, conscious of how her coat’s protective hood pressed its oval opening against her skin: She viewed the rooms thoroughly, enjoying Tastis’ sense of impatient disapproval as she searched behind tapestries and poked the repaired stonework. She turned to him.
“I think this will be satisfactory,” she said. “The lodgings provided in Calacas for your folk are similar to these, perhaps even a little more comfortable.” She glanced at the round, narrow room. “Larger, certainly,” she said.
“I am pleased to hear it, ilean Ambassador.” Again, that pleasant, sincere, un-Brodaini smile. Fiona was suddenly aware of the weight of the pistol at her hip. One shot and I end the war, she thought. Who would know these three hadn’t attacked me?
No: the thought was poison. Interference of that sort, so soon after their appearance, would make impossible any more work by the Igarans. She had already jeopardized their position with her response to the archers’ riot, rousing suspicions that would not easily be put to rest. A murder, even of a thoroughly deserving individual, would wreck everything she was trying to achieve.
“Shall we arrange for the transfer then, bro-demmin?” she asked.
Tastis nodded. “Certainly.” He led her down the internal stairway of the tower, then out to where their horses waited by the outer canal. Fiona glanced down the canal and was surprised to see town militia guarding a bridge, until she remembered that Tastis’ ruling coalition, his denorru-censtassin, was composed in part of representatives from the town, and that townsmen as well as Brodaini and mercenaries had formed a part of Tastis’ army at the Rallandas.
She mounted her horse and turned its head toward the Long Bridge Gate. The cavalry squadrons waited, still drawn up in their motionless lines, and as they rode up Tastis gave a signal and the double gates began to open. Fiona simply walked her horse to the inner gate and waited for it to swing clear.
There were footsteps by her side and she looked down to see Tastis standing by her stirrup, followed by a Classanu with a bundle.
“Ilean Ambassador Fiona,” he said, “I wish to give you, as an Igaran ambassador, the personal possessions of Ambassador Kira. We have had them for some time, but did not know where to deliver them.” He looked up at her, his face solemn. “We regret the misunderstanding that led to her death, Ambassador. We should like to petition your people to have another ambassador in residence.”
Rage, blazing rage, flashed through her at his words; but her speech, when it came, was ice cold. “It was no misunderstanding that led to her death, bro-demmin Tastis,” she said, glaring into his reassuring eyes. “No misunderstanding at all, nothing but your own policy.”
Tastis seemed scarcely to blink at her intensity. “I assure you, it was a misunderstanding,” he said blandly. “Communication was difficult — she did not understand our intent.”
“Kidnapping, prison cells, and threats of torture are difficult to misunderstand, bro-demmin,” she said. “The only misunderstanding was yours. You failed to understand our talents — we were talking to her the entire time, you see.” Tastis seemed to absorb this without reaction — did he believe her? she wondered. It scarcely mattered. The sound of the drawbridge roaring downward filled the small arched tunnel beneath the gatehouse, and she raised her voice to compensate.
“As for your request for another emissary, I will relay it to my superiors,” she said. “I doubt they will accept — not as long as conditions remain as they are. They’ll have no wish to share a siege with you, drandor. And even then, I think they’ll have to insist on certain guarantees.”
Tastis’ eyes had half-closed, as if to conceal the calculations behind them. Go ahead, she dared him mentally, strike at me — and then I’ll have the pleasure of blowing your gate down on your head. But Tastis did nothing; he only stepped back to allow the Classanu to come forward with the bundle.
She plucked it from his hands as the drawbridge thudded into place, and then she jabbed her horse with her knees and rode into the tunnel, then out onto the bridge. She heard trumpets blaring behind her again, to be answered from the far side.
Halfway across the bridge Fiona brought her horse to a halt. She let out her breath slowly, hoping her tension, her anger, would ebb with it. She had escaped Neda, at least for the present. She would have to return, in less than an hour, with the hostages, and stay with them through tomorrow noon; and after that she’d be visiting the hostages regularly, assuring each side their people were being treated well.
She would be trotting across the Long Bridge regularly, she thought. She had better get used to it.
The bundle balanced on her saddle was wrapped in purple cloth, the Brodaini color of mourning. She touched it, feeling its silken texture, trying to detect any resonances of Kira. She could find none, and she had no time to open it.
The drawbridge ahead of her was coming down again, she reached for the spindle on her belt and transmitted a brief message, through the more powerful transmitter in her trunk, to the ship, telling them she was safe, that she would report again after delivering the hostages. As they had agreed.