“Either of them?” Perrund asked with a small smile. Huesse looked at the floor.
“She was broad-minded,” DeWar said, and cleared his throat. “Anyway, it was agreed that the two cousins would present their arguments to her and whoever lost the argument had to leave and let the favour be granted to the other one alone.”
“Did this third friend know about the cousins’ amusing agreement?” Perrund inquired.
“Names! What are the names?” Lattens demanded.
“Yes, what are they called?” Huesse said.
“The girl was called Sechroom and the boy’s name was Hiliti. Their beautiful friend was called Leleeril.” DeWar looked at Perrund. “And no, she did not know about the agreement.”
“Tut,” Perrund pronounced.
“So, the three met in a hunting lodge in the high, high mountains—”
“As high as the Breathless Plains?” Lattens asked.
“Not so high, but steeper, with very sharp peaks. Now—”
“And which cousin believed in what?” Perrund asked.
“Hmm? Oh, Sechroom believed that one should always interfere, or try to help, while Hiliti thought it best to leave people be,” DeWar said. “Anyway, they had good food and fine wine and they laughed and told each other stories and jokes and the two friends Sechroom and Hiliti explained their different ideas to Leleeril and asked which she thought was right. She tried to say that they were both right in their own ways, and that sometimes one was right and one wrong and sometimes the other way round… but eventually Sechroom and Hiliti said Leleeril had to choose one or the other, and she chose Hiliti, and poor Sechroom had to leave the hunting lodge.”
“What was it Leeril was going to give Hiliti?” Lattens asked.
“Something sweet,” DeWar said, and, magician-like, produced a crystallised fruit from his pocket. He presented the sweet to the delighted boy, who bit happily into it.
“What happened?” Huesse asked.
“Leleeril found out that her favours had been subject to a bet and she was hurt. She went away for a while—”
“Did she have to go away?” Perrund asked. “You know, the way girls in polite society sometimes have to, while nature takes its course?”
“No, she just wanted to be somewhere else, away from everybody she knew.”
“What, without her parents?” Huesse asked sceptically.
“Without anybody. Then Sechroom and Hiliti realised that perhaps Leleeril had felt more for one of them than they had imagined and that they had done a bad thing.”
“There are three Emperors now,” Lattens said suddenly, munching on his sugary fruit. “I know their names.” Perrund shushed him.
“Leleeril came back,” DeWar told them, “but she had made new friends where she had been, and she had changed while she had been away, and so went away again, to stay. As far as is known she lived happily ever after. Sechroom became a soldier-missionary in the Lavishian army, to help fight in the very small, very far-away wars.”
“A female soldier?” asked Huesse.
“Of a sort,” DeWar said. “Perhaps more missionary, or even spy, than soldier.”
Perrund shrugged. “The balnimes of Quarreck are said all to be warrior women.”
DeWar sat back, smiling.
“Oh,” Huesse said, looking disappointed. “Is that all?” she asked.
“That’s all for now.” DeWar shrugged.
“You mean there’s more?” Perrund said. “You’d better tell us. The suspense might be too much to bear.”
“Perhaps I’ll tell you more some other time.”
“What about Hiliti?” Huesse asked. “What became of him after his cousin left?”
DeWar just smiled.
“Very well then,” Perrund chided him. “Be mysterious.”
“Where is Lavishia?” Lattens asked. “I know geography.”
“Far away,” DeWar told the boy.
“Far away across the sea?”
“Far away, over the sea.”
“Further than Tyrsk?”
“Much further.”
“Further than the Thrown Isles?”
“Oh, a lot further than that.”
“Further than… Drizen?”
“Even further than Drezen. In the land of make-believe.”
“And are the mountains sugar hills?” Lattens asked.
“All of them. And the lakes are fruit juice. And all the game animals grow on trees, ready cooked. And other trees grow their own tree-houses, and catapults and bows and arrows grow on them like fruits.”
“And I suppose the rivers run with wine?” Huesse asked.
“Yes, and the houses and the buildings and the bridges are made of diamond and gold and everything precious.”
“I’ve got a pet eltar,” Lattens told DeWar. “It’s called Wintle. Want to see it?”
“Certainly.”
“It’s in the garden, in a cage. I’ll fetch it. Come on, let’s go,” Lattens said to Huesse, pulling her on to her feet.
“Probably time he had his run round the garden anyway,” Huesse said. “I shall be back soon, with the unruly Wintle.”
DeWar and Perrund watched the woman and the child leave the chamber under the watchful eyes of a white-clad eunuch in the high pulpit.
“Now then, Mr DeWar,” Perrund said. “You have delayed long enough. You must tell me all about this ambassador assassin you foiled.”
DeWar told her as much as he felt he could about what had happened. He left out the details of exactly how he had been able to respond so promptly to the assassin’s attack, and Perrund was too polite to press him further.
“What of the delegation that came with the Sea Company’s ambassador?”
DeWar looked troubled. “I think they knew nothing of what he intended. One of them did, maybe. He had charge of the drugs the assassin had taken, but the rest were ignorant. Naive innocents who thought this was a great adventure.”
“Were they sorely questioned?” Perrund asked quietly.
DeWar nodded. He looked down at the floor. “Only their heads are going back. I’m told at the end they were glad to lose them.”
Perrund put her hand briefly on the man’s arm, then drew it away again, glancing at the eunuch in the pulpit. “The blame lies with their masters who sent them to their deaths, not with you. They would not have suffered less if their plan had succeeded.”
“I know that,” DeWar said, smiling as best he could. “Perhaps it might be called professional lack of empathy. My training is to kill or disable as quickly as possible, not as slowly.”
“So are you really not content?” Perrund asked. “There has been an attempt, and a serious one at that. Do you not feel this disproves your theory that there is someone here at court?”
“Perhaps,” DeWar said awkwardly.
Perrund smiled. “You are not really appeased by this at all, are you?”
“No,” DeWar admitted. He looked away. “Well, yes; a little, but more because I think I have decided you are right. I will worry whatever happens and always put the worst construction on it. I am unable not to worry. Worrying is my natural state.”
“So you should not worry about worrying so much,” Perrund suggested, a smile playing about her lips.
“That is more or less it. Otherwise one might never stop.”
“Most pragmatic.” Perrund leant forward and put her chin in her hand. “What was the point of your story about Sechroom, Hiliti and Leleeril?”
DeWar looked awkward. “I don’t really know,” he confessed. “I heard the story in another language. It doesn’t survive the translation very well, and… there was more than just the language that needed translation. Some of the ideas and… ways that people do things and behave required alteration to make sense, too.”