Thalric nodded. 'It's a good move for him. I can understand him making it.'
'We are far from ready yet for another conflict with the Lowlands,' Brugan said. 'Is he likely to force war upon us?'
'No.'
'So certain?'
'Stenwold will not start a war, not fought by his own people. He may, however, start a war with others' blood, as he did at Solarno.'
Brugan nodded. 'You are well informed.'
'Old habits die hard, sir.' Some emotion had stirred in Thalric's chest. 'Sir, you'll be sending out agents to keep an eye on Maker and his people?'
Brugan studied him with narrowed eyes but remained silent.
'Send me,' Thalric said. Please, send me. Send me away from here. Give me my life back.
'Why?'
'Why not? I am Rekef, still – Regent or not. I was good at my job. I know Stenwold Maker better than any agent you have. Give me a small team, embassy credentials perhaps. Who would be better?'
Brugan stared at him for a long moment, his heavy face expressionless. Rekef thoughts would be scuttling through his head.
'An Imperial embassy to Khanaphes,' he spat out finally. 'Ever heard of it?'
'I could soon learn,' Thalric replied. Eleven 'The roads are good all the way to Tyrshaan,' said Captain Marger. 'With the insurrection there quelled we should make good time.'
Thalric nodded, eyeing the automotive that Brugan had found for him. It would not be a comfortable journey but he was used to that. The hold, hastily fitted out for passengers, consisted of a metal and wood box slung between the huge-spoked rear wheels, while the driver and his mate would be sitting up front amid the dust. It was a conveyance meant for couriers, travelling fast and without luxury.
'How does it manage off the roads?' Thalric asked.
Marger raised his eyebrows. 'Well enough, if we had to.' Long-faced and sandy-haired, he was about five years Thalric's junior and slight of build for a Wasp. He looked wholly inoffensive, which was the best way for a Rekef man to look. Brugan had chosen an embassy as the ostensible reason for a Wasp team descending on Khanaphes. Thalric would provide the public face, and act as special adviser on the Lowlanders, while Marger would conduct the Rekef Outlander operation proper. It was a delicate balance of power.
'We'll go to Shalk,' Thalric decided. 'Not Tyrshaan.' Let's make it difficult, just in case.
Instead of protesting, Marger digested this proclamation. 'If you want. It shouldn't affect our timing much. With the mining trade the roads are probably better.' His team was loading the automotive now: two more Wasps and a Beetle-kinden strapping crates and rolled-up canvas to the vehicle's sides, before returning to the row of storage sheds for more. 'I'd ask why, though.'
'Why not? Shalk's as good,' Thalric told him, 'besides, I've seen Tyrshaan recently. I'd rather see somewhere else.' Let them think of me as the Regent, not the Rekef Major. He had other good reasons for wanting to go to Shalk, but those were not for sharing.
Marger shrugged, which he did a lot of. 'It's your call,' he said, and went off to help his men. Thalric leant back against one of the rear wheels, feeling the machine rock and jolt as they continued loading it. Marger was opaque: it was impossible to know yet whether he would cause problems. The captain's subordinates gave few clues, either. The Beetle-kinden was an artificer, a paunchy, grey-haired veteran put in just to reassure the locals. The other two Wasps looked like men more comfortable in armour. They showed Thalric a careful deference but otherwise said nothing.
Thalric was making maps in his mind: envisioning the Flykinden warren of Shalk, the quarry mines there, the descent to Forest Alim and the river Jamail. It was all book-learnt stuff, for his travels had never taken him much through the South-Empire and not at all beyond its borders.
I will be happier once the war starts up again, to give me an excuse to return to the Commonweal or the Lowlands, to places I know. Save that would mean crossing swords with Stenwold Maker once more. We cannot afford to let each other live. The next time I will have to remove him, or he me. The thought brought with it an unwelcome stab of conscience, for Stenwold could have had Thalric killed several times already. Instead he had stayed his hand. Though for his own advantage! Still, it did not sit well that Thalric's too often pawned loyalty must await that final twist of the knife.
The Lowlanders have come close to ruining me for a proper agent's work. His outer shell of Good Imperial Servant had taken too many knocks and shakes while in their company.
Marger stepped away from the automotive, a soldier's tension abruptly in his manner. Someone came running unevenly around the storage sheds towards them, and Thalric saw one of Marger's people put down the big crate he was carrying and crouch beside it with hand ready to sting.
'Hold!' Thalric called out, and he went to intercept the newcomer before any damage could be done. 'Osgan,' he exclaimed. 'What are you doing here?'
Osgan had dredged up his old uniform from somewhere: a Consortium factor's greatcoat, quartered in the army colours. There was a shortsword at his belt, the baldric crossing the strap of his satchel. He had even shaved, although he had made a ragged job of it, and his eyes were red-rimmed but his gaze steady.
'I'm coming with you,' he panted, short of breath.
'You aren't,' Thalric snapped. 'What's got into you?'With a firm hand on Osgan's shoulder, he led the man a short distance from the automotive, meanwhile signalling for Marger to carry on.
Osgan looked at him miserably. 'You've found your escape, now. You're going, yes? Going far.'
Thalric nodded and scowled, his last words with the Empress recurring to him. As she had made a public farewell, before the whole court, she had reached up to kiss him and murmured, 'You shall return to me. You shall always return.'
'Let me come with you,' Osgan said. 'Please, Thalric. I'm dying here.'
'You're more likely to die on the road. This is Rekef business, Osgan. Stay here and keep to your cellars.'.
'Each time you find some way of getting out of this place, it gets worse for me,' Osgan complained, almost in a whisper. 'They hate me. They hate me because of you – and because of me. They know I've broken. You'll come back and find me gone, and nobody will even remember my name.'
'You're exaggerating.' Osgan was probably not exaggerating but Thalric couldn't agree to it.
'And what of you, anyway?' Osgan asked. 'You think you'll go back to your old ways, your old trade? You think they'll let you? Them?' Even his jabbing gesture towards the automotive looked crippled, his fingers crooked. 'They won't let you back in, Thalric. They won't forget who you are. What you were.'
Thalric glanced around, despite himself, seeing Marger watching him. The man bore his placid, accepting expression that Thalric had not yet been able to scratch. There had been no sense of complicity between them, no admission that they even lived in the same world. Thalric had wanted to protest, I am a major in the Rekef, but now he realized that he did not even know Marger's true Rekef rank. The 'captain' was army-issue, meaning less than nothing on a covert run like this.
'If you can't keep up with us, I'm not sure I can save you,' he warned. His Imperial conditioning raged at him: What is this? Mercy? Compassion? A strong man did not bow to such emotions. He had no duty to save Osgan from the results of his own dissipation. Better for the Empire that the man just vanished away, making room for someone who would be better at his job.
I am tainted. Thalric had seen too much, done too much. He had been born a true Wasp, but now he'd become some kind of halfbreed of the mind.
He turned back to the waiting automotive. 'Captain Marger,' he announced, 'one more for the journey.'