"Did you talk to Michael?"
"We went riding. He didn't say much. He was even more cryptic than usual. I did get the feeling he was trying to warn me off."
"How so? You think he knows?"
"I couldn't tell. He must suspect something. But he isn't sure. Not yet. He kept changing the subject to landscaping and betting on Captures." He thought, I'm talking too fast, and probably too much. He knew he wasn't in love. Not really. It was all in the glands. But it was powerful. She destroyed reason by inflaming the urge to mate.
"He knows more than he told the King, Aral. That was obvious. He knew too much about Lord Ko Feng and Lord Kuo not to have known more. He has a good contact east of the mountains. Possibly somebody who's caught wind of us. You'd better have your smuggler friends find out who it is."
"Do we have to do it this way? Mike could help a lot if we let him in."
"He could get us killed, too. I don't trust him, Aral. He's too much his own creature. He doesn't form loyalties, he makes temporary alliances. He's the kind who can change horses without a qualm. I don't think it'll be long before the King is sorry he hasn't kept Michael on a shorter rein."
"Yeah. The riots in Throyes. He admitted he was involved. And he's under orders not to irritate Lord Hsung. The King wants trade reopened bad."
"What about Cham Mundwiller? Is he still sitting the fence? We don't have to have backing from Sedlmayr, but I'd feel better if we did. They could finance another battalion, and that would make my friends a lot more comfortable."
"He's playing it cagey. He wants to be covered both ways. He's got the Michael shakes. He's never gone against the King before."
Mist gnawed a cuticle. "Go on."
"That damned Mike! He's like a ghost anymore. You never know where he is or what he's doing, or even if the guy next to you is maybe working for him. I spend half my time looking over my shoulder. Hell, Mike is just plain bad for business. And now that damned wizard is back, and he and Mike have always been thick. What Mike can't find out for himself Varthlokkur will dig out for him. All he has to do is ask. I don't mind telling you they've got me spooked."
"Has Cham asked for anything?"
"No."
"Don't offer. Let him come around his own way. I don't want to do business with people who have to be bribed. Other people can bribe them too. He'll just have to settle for secure trade."
Dantice nodded. "Far as I'm concerned, trade is the whole point of the exercise." Once a less belligerent, more commercially oriented regime was established in Shinsan, the riches would flow in rivers. All Kavelin could fill dippers in the stream—the way it had been before the Great Eastern Wars.
Aral believed in what he was doing. He was a patriot. His conscience was healthy. He'd had a bad moment when he learned Prataxis was making headway with Lord Hsung, but Mist had calmed him, and had assured him that Hsung was playing diplomatic games, that he had no intention of relaxing his stranglehold on the trade routes.
"What is happening in Shinsan?" he asked. "The wizard had something on his mind."
"I really don't know. They're restructuring army commands and shuffling legions. Lord Kuo's people give the orders. They don't explain. My friends can't tell me much."
"Or won't?"
"I've thought of that, too. There's always a chance they're working the other way, or both ways. I'm considering bypassing them. I have other resources."
Aral shuddered. He had seen some of those resources during the war. She was one of the great wielders of the Power, a fact emotion tended to obscure.
"I'd better get back. When I'm away too long the whole shop goes to pot."
She touched his hand lightly. Her eyes misted. "You're sweet, Aral. You're not quite real. Valther was that way too." She sounded wistful.
If only he were a tad more bold. It had been four years since Palmisano and her husband's death. She should be ready.
Aral took his leave. He tried to distract himself with debate on how to bet the day's Captures matches.
4 Year 1011 afe
A Flashback to the War
IT WAS ONE of those mornings when Spring became an insidious disease spreading disaffection and restlessness. It communicated an undirected desire for action, for movement, for the doing of anything but the task at hand. The dawn breeze off the Kapenrungs had been cool, piney, and invigorating, virile with the seed of unrest. Now the air was still and warm, incubating ill-considered actions.
Nepanthe stood at the window of her second-floor bedroom in her brother's Lieneke Lane home. She stared at the towers of Vorgreberg, visible between the tops of the trees. "I've got to get out of here," she whispered. "I'm going to go crazy if I don't." Her gaze touched the palace. Maybe Bragi could arrange for her to move in there.
Her thoughts turned to her husband, Mocker, who had been gone for a year. An erotic image sprang into her mind. She pushed it away, disgusted with herself. She wasn't that kind of woman. Base physical desire was the mark of a street wench.
She pounded a fist against the windowsill. "I really am going mad," she whispered. And, "Bragi, why couldn't you just leave us alone?" Poor Mocker never did have any sense when it came to Bragi or Haroun. They'd put him up to the stupidest things... This time it had been some kind of spy work for Bragi. And he hadn't come back.
There was no proof that he was dead. Not even a rumor, Bragi claimed. But... if Mocker were alive, he would have come home long ago.
The door to her room creaked open. Her son stood there, looking at her, a confused look on his face. At twelve he already showed a lot of the man that would be.
There was little of his father in him. Mocker was short and fat and brown. Ethrian would stand a hand taller, and would have the broad shoulders and hard muscles of the masculine side of his mother's line.
A rush of sentimentality hit Nepanthe. She wanted to wrap him in her arms, and keep him there forever, safe from the wrath of the world. "Ethrian? What is it?"
In a puzzled tone, the boy said, "There's a man downstairs. He says he has a message from Father."
Something with violent claws grabbed her heart. She babbled questions.
"I don't know, Mother. He just said to tell you Father sent him with a message."
"Where is he?"
"Down on the porch."
"Get him inside. Into the library. Don't let anybody see him." Intuition told her to be circumspect. Mocker wouldn't have sent a messenger had there been no need for caution. "I'll be right down."
She whirled to her dressing table, mind aroil, telling herself to stay calm. She failed utterly to take her own advice.
The messenger was a strange one, a hard, dark, silent man with a big white scar across one cheek. He radiated a chill which made Nepanthe shudder. She ignored the reaction. All Mocker's friends were a little bizarre.
Once the man had identified her to his own satisfaction, he said in difficult Wesson, "I am sent at the command of your husband, Lady, to bring a message important. First, two tokens of faith, that I may be known as friend and not a liar thought. He says you will know the true message they carry." He handed her a ring of plain gold and a small dagger with a tiny silver three-armed swastika inlaid in its hilt.
Nepanthe collapsed into a chair, one item in each hand. Yes. She understood. The messenger had to be genuine. Who but Mocker would know how much these meant? The ring she had given him in token of love soon after their wedding. There was a love charm graven in invisible characters round the inner face of the band. The dagger had been a tenth anniversary gift. It had belonged to her father, and to his father before him, a token of the power of a once mighty family. Someday it would belong to Ethrian. Yes, only Mocker would guarantee a message by sending those. "I accept you as the real thing. Go ahead. What's the message?"