“As for the first, I’d say it’s likely,” Fernao answered. “The Yaninans haven’t had much luck fighting us by themselves, so why shouldn’t they pay somebody to do the job for them?”
“You’d say it’s likely.” Lieutenant General Junqueiro clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Can’t you use your sorcery to know for sure?”
Fernao s sigh brought forth a large cloud of fog. “In this country, sir, the spells of mages not born here have a way of going awry. They have a way of going dangerously awry, in fact.”
Junqueiro gave him a dirty look. “Then why did we bring you hither?”
“Because Colonel Peixoto, back in Setubal, has more enthusiasm than brains,” Fernao answered. “Sir.”
By the expression on Junqueiro’s face, that was mutiny, or as close to mutiny as made no difference. The commanding general visibly contained himself. “Very well,” he said, though Fernao knew it wasn’t even close to very well. “By your best estimate, sir mage, however you arrive at them, what do you think the answers to my other questions are?”
“However much the Yaninans paid Elishamma, it will be less than he claims,” Fernao answered. “He will try to cheat us. No doubt he will try to cheat King Tsavellas, too. Aye, I think it’s worth our while to pay him more than the Yaninans do, if we can. And I pray your pardon, sir, for I’ve forgotten your last question.”
“If we don’t pay them, how bad can they hurt us?” Junqueiro said.
“On those cursed camels of theirs, they move faster than we do--faster than we can,” Fernao answered. “I wouldn’t want them harrying our supply route by land, not with the Algarvians already harrying the sea route from Lagoas to the austral continent.”
Junqueiro paced back and forth, kicking up snow at every step. He stopped so abruptly, he caught Fernao by surprise. “All right, then,” he growled. “Let’s go on in and dicker with the stinking--and I do mean that--son of a whore.”
Elishamma’s face helped him: It was almost impossible to read. His beard grew up to just under his eyes; his thick, grizzled mustache covered his lips. His hairline started low on his forehead, so low that his eyebrows were only thicker tufts at the bottom of it. That left next to no bare skin from which Fernao and Junqueiro could gauge his expression.
But he was not a great bargainer. And he made a mistake: he got greedy. When he solemnly declared the Yaninans had offered him a hundred thousand gold pieces to assail the Lagoan army, both that army’s commander and its highest-ranking mage laughed in his face. “All of Yanina put together isn’t worth a hundred thousand gold pieces,” Junqueiro said. Fernao enjoyed translating that. It wasn’t true, not literally, but it matched his feeling about the kingdom.
Elishamma yielded ground without visible embarrassment. Even had he been bare-faced, Fernao doubted he would have shown embarrassment. He had as much effrontery as any Yaninan ever born. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was but fifty thousand.”
Fernao responded to that without wasting time translating for Junqueiro: “All of Yanina put together isn’t worth fifty thousand gold pieces, either.”
When Elishamma lowered the proposed bribe again without loudly declaring he’d been telling the truth all along, Fernao smiled to himself and brought his commander back into the discussion. Junqueiro knew how much the army could afford to pay out, which Fernao didn’t. He beat the chieftain from the Ice People down to just over a tenth of what he’d originally tried to get.
“Is it agreed, then?” Elishamma said at last.
Junqueiro nodded and started to speak. Before he could, Fernao said, “Aye, with one exception: What hostages will you give us? These fellows you brought here with you may do.” He turned the words into Lagoan so his superior could understand. Junqueiro looked startled, and probably had to work hard not to look horrified, for taking hostages had gone out of style in civilized countries--though rumor said the Algarvians were reviving it in the lands they occupied.
But Elishamma only sat still and then slowly nodded. “I did not know if you would think of this,” he said. “You mangy ones are often absentminded when it comes to such things. Had you not spoken, I would not have reminded you.”
“I believe that,” Fernao said. “But I have come to this land before, and I know something--not everything, but something--of its ways. What is your fetish animal?”
Again, Elishamma paused. Finally, he said, “I do not think I will tell you. You are a shaman, after all. Foreign magic is not strong here, but I do not care to take a chance with you.”
“You flatter me,” Fernao said. In fact, odds were Elishamma did flatter him. But his tone suggested he might be able to harm Elishamma if he learned to which animal the chieftain was mystically bound.
“What are you two saying?” Junqueiro asked. Fernao explained. Junqueiro surprised him by finding exacdy the right thing to do: he leaned over and patted Fernao on the back, as if to say he was certain the mage could indeed put paid to Elishamma if he found out what his fetish animal was. The chieftain noted that, too. He looked unhappy enough for Fernao to recognize the expression.
Now Junqueiro asked, “Is it agreed?”
“It is agreed,” Elishamma said. “You have here Machir and Hepher and Abinadab and Eliphelet and Gereb.” He proceeded to give all their genealogies, too. “Their heads shall answer for my good faith.” He spoke to his followers in their own guttural language. They bowed to him in acquiescence.
“Do any of you speak the Yaninans’ language?” Fernao asked in that tongue. None of the men of the Ice People answered. Fernao shifted to Lagoan: “Do any of you speak this language?” Again, the hostages kept silent. Were they concealing what they knew? How much would it cost to find out? Fernao knew no sorcerous way of learning. He headed into the future as blind as any other man.
Bembo paced through the streets of Gromheort. He was glad to be walking a regular constables beat today, not going after Kaunians to ship them west--or even east, though he still didn’t understand why that one caravanload of blonds had headed off in the wrong direction.
When he remarked on that, Oraste grunted and gave him three words’ worth of what was undoubtedly good advice: “Don’t ask questions.”
Not asking was easier--Bembo had no trouble seeing that. He had nothing against doing things the easy way; he’d always preferred it. And so, instead of asking another question, the plump constable said, “Don’t hardly see any Kaunians on the streets these days.”
“I don’t miss ‘em, either,” Oraste answered. Like a lot of what he said, that not only didn’t need a reply but practically precluded one.
“Here we go.” Bembo strode into an eatery. The Forthwegian proprietor greeted Oraste and him with a broad smile that was bound to be false but was welcome anyhow. Then he handed them lengths of spicy sausage and cups of wine. They tossed back the wine and left the eatery tearing bites off the sausage.
“Not too bad.” Oraste finished the last of the meat, licked his fingers, and wiped them on his kilt.
“No,” Bembo agreed. “They know they have to keep their constables happy, or else the constables will keep them unhappy.” That was how things worked back in Tricarico. And the Forthwegians were a conquered people. If they didn’t keep Bembo and his comrades happy, the Algarvians could be a lot tougher on them than ever they could back in their own kingdom.
Oraste jerked a thumb at a broadsheet as he and Bembo marched past it. “What do you think of that?” he asked.
The broadsheet showed bearded Forthwegians in long tunics marching side by side with uniformed Algarvians sporting imperials or waxed mustaches or side whiskers or no facial hair at all. Bembo couldn’t read Forthwegian to save his life, but he knew about Plegmund’s Brigade. With a shrug, he answered, “If these buggers want to blaze Unkerlanters, that’s fine by me. And if the Unkerlanters blaze them instead of hurting our boys, that’s fine by me, too.”