6
Year 1016 AFE; Victory Ball
The musicians made their instruments tinkle and whine and moan. Couples swept across the floor of the great hall, dancing. Ragnarson ignored both music and dancers. Derel Prataxis had come home, and had dashed from his quarters to the Victory Day festivities as soon as he had freshened up. Every chance he could, Ragnarson murmured with his emissary.
„He's absolutely sincere," Prataxis said of Lord Hsung. „He wants peace and friendship. He has that way about him. Meaning every word he says. Tomorrow he may say the opposite, and with the same fervent sincerity. It's a rare talent. It pulls you in and makes you one of his intimates. It makes you feel like he's letting you in on big things. It works so well he can trap you even when you know what's happening."
„I knew a man who did that with women," Bragi mur mured. „They bought it even when they knew what he was after."
Ragnarson had briefed the wizened scholar about the strange things that had happened in his absence, finally asking, „You hear anything over there about somebody called The Deliverer?"
„I heard a whisper. Nothing more. Something that has the Tervola gritting their teeth and shivering. But nothing even a little concrete. Associated with the far east. Of Shinsan. I believe."
„Curious. How might it involve Varthlokkur?"
„You'd have to ask him."
„I did. He wouldn't talk about it."
Prataxis was more intrigued by Varthlokkur's inability to locate the master of Liakopulos's attackers. The matters of Mist, Dantice, and Trebilcock he dismissed as predictable restlessnesses. He was even more interested in the contact with Yasmid's agent, which Bragi shared with him despite Habibullah's admonition.
„That's interesting. Because Hsung has a plan which meets the spirit of his orders but also forwards Shinsan's ancient urge toward western dominion."
Bragi held up a finger. He made a brief show of interest in the celebration. Inger was out mingling with Kavelin's noblest Nordmen ladies. She awarded him one of her remarkable smiles. He winked back. „Okay, Derel."
„Hsung has made Throyes the complete vassal state while pretending otherwise. His notion is, he can send Throyens out to do Shinsan's work, then disavow them when the protests start."
„So?"
„So he's going to send them marching down the eastern littoral of Hammad al Nakir. The Throyens have claimed the territory for ages, same as Hammad al Nakir claims Throyes. Hsung wants control south as far as Souk el Arba. Farther, if the Throyens can manage."
„Michael told me. He thought Hsung wanted ports for coastal raids on Matayanga."
„A good secondary reason. And a good mask. But the Throyen staff" is more porous than Hsung's.
„The truth is, he wants access to the passes through Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni. The one near Throyes, and Sebil el Selib both. Did Michael tell you Hsung had ambassadors in Sebil el Selib and al Rhemish both? Both delegations offering alliances?"
„Michael isn't well-informed about Hammad al Nakir. I did know Hsung had agents in Sebil el Selib." Bragi shifted his attention to the festivities without bothering to concen trate on them. Derel's news filled a few gaps.
„Clever," he said. „He can pull it off in broad daylight and we can't squawk. He'd just claim he was meeting his treaty obligations. If we try to stop him, we're the aggres sors."
„Exactly."
„What can we do?"
„Several things. We can let it run its course and hope it fails by itself. We can ignore the opprobrium and launch a pre-emptive attack if the Matayangan situation deteriorates. Or we can play Hsung's own game. We don't have the resources, but we have the minds."
„Those first two choices aren't squat. Tell me what you mean about having the minds."
„You have some very intelligent and byzantine associates. Take Michael. He can be devious. He can be merciless. He's more intelligent than he pretends. And the people he's recruited are the best. Your greatest strength, though, is possession of a legitimate pretender to Shinsan's throne. That should be exploited. Then you consider Hsung's disadvantages. He has to garrison the whole Roe Basin. Western Army is down to five legions. The best are at Gog-Ahlan, guarding the Gap, and in Throyes. One is at Argon. There's another at Necremnos. The fifth is scattered among the smaller cities."
„That's still thirty thousand of the best soldiers there are, Derel."
„Sure. A lot to you. But not so many when you consider the population of the Roe Basin. What they become then is a symbol of the power of Shinsan, not the power itself. They'd disappear in a general uprising."
„They'd do a lot of damage."
„Certainly. But they'd be overwhelmed anyway."
„I've been on Michael not to roil things up. Now you're saying I should stir the pot."
„Hsung won't back off poking at you. Don't let him get away with it. Poke right back."
„Then he hollers foul."
„Don't involve your own people. Not directly. There'll be nothing he can do. He operates under constraints, too. He has a peace-loving image to maintain. That means put ting up with provocations. What it boils down to is, you play their game, only nastier. Because of the trouble with Matayanga, they're in a tighter spot than we are."
„When you back off and look at it, Derel, it all seems kind of pointless. What difference will it make a hundred years from now?"
„Maybe none. Some of my colleagues subscribe to a futility theory of history. Even so, there are turning points.
They're usually invisible except in retrospect. One of the great moments in Ravelin's history took place in Itaskia. We're still feeling the consequences."
Ragnarson grinned. „You're zigging when I'm zagging, Derel. You lost me that time."
„The day you left your homestead to complain about a little trouble you'd had. You'd barely heard of Kavelin. Six months later you were leading Fiana's army. Now you're King."
„By that reasoning, Haaken and I changed history by running out of Trolledyngja instead of fighting the Pre tender."
„Absolutely. You'd be twenty-five years dead if you'd stayed. Other men would be alive. The El Murid Wars would have had a different shape. Something different could have happened in Freyland. Duke Greyfells might have become Itaskia's King. Kavelin's civil war could have gone the other way. There might have been no Great Eastern Wars at all."
Prataxis's talk made Ragnarson nervous. It made not only life but history itself sound fragile. He had been taught differently as a boy. Trolledyngjans were determined believ ers in fate. „We're getting away from the point."
„No, we're not. Not from mine. I want you to understand that, every time you make a move, you're shaping tomor row. You shape it even when you don't do anything. Your best chance to shape this the way you want it is to stay aggressive. There'll be more ramifications. Some might be exploitable."
„Okay. I get the message. I'll get out there and keep the cauldron boiling. We don't want your thesis getting dull."
„Sire!..."
Bragi grinned. „I couldn't resist. You take yourself too serious sometimes." Ragnarson rose, surveyed the gather ing. Hundreds had come. This was the biggest turnout since the war. Most of the Thing and their women. All of his own clique, except Michael and Mist and Varthlokkur, who avoided all functions. Many of the old Nordmen nobility, who now called themselves the Estates because they con trolled the largest landholdings. Influential members of the merchant class. Representatives of the silent, seldom-seen, and absolutely essential Siluro civil servant class. Credence Abaca and a clutch of Marena Dimura chieftains who formed a human stockade in a corner. They reminded Ragnarson of cattle in winter, standing nose to nose, their tails turned to the wind. Drink might bring them into the exchange of thought these functions sometimes precipi tated.