“How so?” Luferinus said.
“If the scouts are right about Pirvan, why shouldn’t they also be right about the crowding in the citadel? There will be more refugees coming in, too.”
“So?” Wilthur said. He put a world of frustration into the one word.
“We have the weight of numbers. You keep saying one repulse will break the spirits of our men. Well, I doubt it. The surest way of making certain it will not is for me to say what you believe.”
“You would not!” Wilthur exclaimed. His voice held such fury that Zephros half expected a fireball to land in his lap.
Instead, Luferinus spoke. “Do you mean to come at the truth roundabout, or can you march straight there?”
“Forward, march!” Zephros said. It had not been much wine or good wine, but he had taken it on an empty stomach. “Simple. Be sure the first attack will drive home. Weaken them beforehand, from a distance-by magic.”
Wilthur went from looking ready to kill Zephros to looking ready to kiss him. The captain found the second possibility even more appalling than the first. He also remembered that no tale about Wilthur ever said he knew much of war. Luferinus was too much in awe of the mage to teach him.
I may be as bad a soldier as that old bastard Aurhinius always said, thought Zephros, but Kiri-Jolith forsake me if I am not better than these two.
“By magic,” Zephros repeated. “Possibly even simple magic.”
“You are no judge of magic, and you are talking too much,” Luferinus said.
Wilthur replied by making a small fireball appear in his hand. He tossed it up and pretended to let it fall toward Luferinus’s face. The other captain turned pale. Wilthur raised a finger, and the fireball vanished with a pop.
“If, that is, there is a simple spell for poisoning a well,” Zephros said. “Simple spell-poison a well.”
“Do not, I pray, take up poetry when you retire from war,” Wilthur said. “I make no promises. But what you suggest has merit. It may even prove fruitful.”
Zephros wanted to stick out his tongue at Luferinus.
“Lauthinaradalas, high judge of the Silvanesti,” the elven herald bawled.
To Krythis’s ears, he sounded like a minotaur calf trying to imitate a full-grown warrior bull. Why did the heralds of all races always sacrifice beauty of sound for sheer volume? There was explanation and even excuse for doing so on the battlefield, but within doors, in a small chamber where one could hit one’s audience with a thrown biscuit?
Lauthin stepped forward. He strode briskly, and his eyes were clear, though his wrinkles and almost-transparent skin said he was older even than Tharash. He also had a rasping voice and no discretion about using it at length.
Being judged by Lauthin must be a disagreeable experience, thought Krythis, even when the judgment went in one’s favor.
Lauthin read the royal decree establishing his embassy and defining its purpose. This merely gave Belot’s information in more detailed form.
Krythis and Tulia looked at one another, then Krythis nodded. “If you find the citadel of Belkuthas fit and proper for the purpose you have stated, it is at your disposal for the duration of the embassy.”
“This is as well. Please make your arrangements to move out immediately. We cannot camp in the wilderness for long without sacrificing the dignity of the Silvanesti.”
Krythis saw from Tulia’s expression that he had not imagined the words he thought he had just heard. “We had not received such a request, nor imagined that we would,” was the least rude reply that he could muster.
“Then Belot failed in his duty, and I shall deal with him myself,” Lauthin said. “Consider, however, your sacred duty as hosts. Consider also that without full hospitality to this embassy, you can have no hope of my offering you a place among the true elves of Silvanesti.”
Neither Krythis nor Tulia replied for a moment, Krythis at least because he was speechless with rage. He could not recall having been so angry in his life, not even with a drunken servant who had tried to attack Tulia.
We have lived apart from the world too much, forgetting how much folly there is in it, he thought. So when it comes from an unexpected place, we are twice as surprised as most folk.
No amount of surprise would justify telling Lauthin and his embassy to pack up and go home. If he did, any agreement reached between the elves and Istar would doubtless include the suppression-by fire and sword, if all else failed-of Belkuthas and its allies. The dwarves would offer their fosterlings a refuge, but do no more against the combined might of the two realms and races.
“I believe you make your request and your offer in good faith,” Krythis said. His voice was almost steady, and Lauthin did not seem to be looking at either his or Tulia’s hands. “However, we cannot do as you ask, within any reasonable period of time. The refugees from the sell-swords flooding the land are a duty we have taken up and cannot lay down. If we were sure you were ready, willing, and able to assume responsibility for them-”
“What an outrageous idea!”
“Then it would not be practical?”
“My lord and lady of Belkuthas, I have come as an ambassador, not a rescuer to a pack of smelly human fugitives.”
Tulia’s strained patience audibly snapped. “They are refugees, not fugitives, having committed no crime save that of being inconvenient to Istar’s sell-swords. They do not smell, save through water being short. A fair number of them have elven blood and-”
“Far too many say this, I know. But few truly, and those are Qualinesti and Kagonesti, not my concern any more than humans.”
“What about dwarves?” Krythis asked. That was stealing Tulia’s thunder, but somebody had to steal it before she poured it on Lauthin’s head like a chamber pot into a town alley.
“What about them?”
Krythis elaborated. “Is it the wish of King Maradoc to raise difficulties-if I may put it delicately-with the dwarven nations?”
“It is not. But he expects them to go into their caves until this brawl is done.”
“I wonder how King Maradoc learned so much as to be able to speak for the dwarves,” Tulia put in. At least she was content with hurling words, instead of something more solid.
“I wonder that elven blood could not prevent you two from being such witlings,” Lauthin said. He nodded to his herald, who was barely able to proclaim the high judge’s withdrawal to his quarters before Lauthin stalked through the door.
This time Tulia actually was laughing and crying at the same time, the moment they were alone. Krythis put an arm around her shoulders.
“He will have to come back, you know,” he said. “Maradoc will not thank him for ruining the embassy and risking war out of pique over our hospitality. When Lauthin’s temper cools, he will think of that. Also, we may be able to find other places for the refugees. Then there may be room for even Lauthin’s swollen pride.”
Tulia wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You are asking for two wonders at once. First, another place for the refugees. Second, wits in Lauthin. Can you imagine that, in an elf who thought that offering us a place in his household would bribe us to cast out folk who came to us for help?”
“The old Silvanesti nobles are a proud folk. Lauthin doubtless thinks that he had offered us something worthwhile.”
Tulia said nothing. Krythis put his hand over hers and contemplated the pride of the Silvanesti nobles. More and more, it seemed like the pride of those humans who would claim all virtue for their race and leave none to others.
Pirvan and Haimya had a chamber to themselves, a gift they had not expected. It came to them through the efforts of the captive sell-swords, who formed themselves into a working party and, under Darin’s guidance, cleaned out and furbished several chambers in the keep.
“There’s no fire, but it’s a warm night,” the leader of the captives said. His name was Rugal Nis, and he was a burly, plain-spoken man without airs but with a well-worn harness and possibly some ogre blood.