The young princes he didn’t know well enough to say, but he suspected they would rather enjoy a change of scene.
As for divvying up Semma, would anyone but the deposed aristocrats care? In his sixnights in Semma he had never seen any sign that the peasants cared a whit which king they paid taxes to.
There might be practical problems in slipping away, though. Lady Kalira would be in Ethshar when he deserted and she would probably try to track him down. She might even succeed, eventually, though surely not before the war was lost. What if she found him?
Well, it was obvious that the aristocracy of Semma would not be at all happy with Sterren, Ninth Warlord. He would, beyond question, be guilty of treason under their laws. In all probability, any Semman noble who ever found him would try to kill him on sight.
That was not really a very appealing long-term prospect, but then, he didn’t have to stay in Ethshar of the Spices. He could move on to Ethshar of the Sands or Ethshar of the Rocks, or even head north to the Baronies of Sardiron. The nobility of Semma would not be likely to find him; the World was a big place.
The Small Kingdoms would be too dangerous, though; the Semman aristocracy, all two or three hundred of them, were likely to scatter through the region, sponging off various relatives and allies.
He’d want to take a new name, of course.
It occurred to him that the Semmans knew his true name. That was awkward. That meant that they would always be able to find him if they could afford a good wizard, or even a very good witch. Warlocks didn’t use true names; neither did sorcerers, so far as he knew.
Theurgists sometimes did, and the Semmans were familiar with theurgy. That was how they had found him in the first place.
And worse, couldn’t demonologists use true names?
If the Semmans were determined to track him down and kill him, and had the sense to hire magicians, they could do it.
Desertion looked considerably less appealing than it had a moment before.
On the other hand, Semmans weren’t accustomed to magic, and if Sterren could keep the gold and gems with him when he slipped away, perhaps he could buy himself some decent magical protections.
Could a true name be changed?
He didn’t really think it could, but he didn’t know.
He realized he was standing there looking stupid in front of his four men, so he cut off his thoughts abruptly.
“All right, then, I’m calling for volunteers, do any of you four want to sail to Ethshar?”
The four looked at each other and then one by one, answered.
“No.”
“No, my lord.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Not really. Not sail. I don’t trust boats.”
Sterren was not surprised.
“All right, then, I want all four of you to separate and go find my other soldiers, all of them, and ask for volunteers. Then meet me back here, with the volunteers. And if you don’t find enough volunteers, I’ll take you four, instead. Understood?”
“Yes, my lord,” they chorused raggedly. One by one, they straggled away on this unwanted errand. One of them, Arra Varrins’s son, thought to bow as they headed for the stairs.
Sterren watched them go and pretended, not to hear the grumbling that began as soon as they were out the door.
When they were out of sight, he sank down onto a convenient bed and began thinking, planning, and weighing possibilities.
Could he really slip away in the streets of Ethshar?
Did he want to?
Which death was more certain, commanding a grossly outnumbered army, or being an escaped traitor?
That was a very hard question to answer and it was one he had to consider carefully. He had no interest in dying.
He had plenty of time to consider the question, of course. He would have the entire journey to Akalla, then the voyage across the Gulf of the East, to decide what to do and make his plans.
Of course, he knew he might never have a chance to slip away, his soldiers might not desert, he might be closely watched at all times. Still, he also knew he would be thinking about an escape all the way to Ethshar.
CHAPTER 13
As the rooftops of Ethshar grew slowly nearer, Sterren leaned on the ship’s rail and stared at them hungrily. He could smell the city as well as see it, a scent of smoke and spices with an undertone of sewage, a wonderfully familiar odor that he hadn’t smelled in far too long. He had never realized, until this moment, that the city had a distinctive odor, he had never left the city until being dragged off to Semma, so the smell had always been there, unnoticed.
Now, though, he knew that he had missed that smell during his absence, that to him that scent meant home, as the salt spray of the ocean or the hot, rotting-grass smell of Semma never could.
To his left, Dogal the Large, Dogal d’Gra, that is, sneezed.
To his right, Alder the Very Large, Alder d’Yoon, said, “May the gods keep you well!”
Dogal snuffled in reply, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and then spat at the ocean below.
Alder, apparently interpreting Dogal’s response as a negative one, said, “Well, at least we’re finally here. Not much longer now before we’re off this damned boat.”
“Except that we’ve got to sail back,” Dogal muttered.
“But going back, the wind should be with us, rather than against us,” Alder said.
Sterren took no part in the conversation, but he thought that it was certainly true that the wind had been against them. He understood now why Lady Kalira, on her previous voyage to Ethshar, had bought herself a storm from the weather-wizards in Akalla of the Diamond, and why she had wanted to spend two-thirds of his meager hoard of treasure on another one for this trip, after, of course, she had used up most of her own resources in hiring a ship that would sail when and where she wanted, rather than one that would treat the Semman party as ordinary passengers.
Sterren had absolutely forbidden wasting their funds on a storm; the little gold he had would not really be enough as it was, he was sure. He had refused to listen to any argument from Lady Kalira; it was easy enough to simply stop thinking in Semmat, so that her words became meaningless noise. His mind was made up.
Of course, he had not realized that the prevailing winds of the season were from the northwest, and that it would take their chartered ship a month and a day to tack up the Gulf of the East to Ethshar of the Spices. To make any progress to the northwest at all against the cold, steady autumn wind, they had been forced to beat back and forth, zigzagging across the Gulf from one side to the other.
The only good thing about the delay was that it had given him considerable time to practice his Semmat.
Sterren was heartily sick of the cramped shipboard life and the ship’s constant wallowing and rolling, and his feet were almost itching at the thought of walking on dry land again.
The fact that the land in question was his homeland, and that he might yet have a chance to slip away to freedom, made waiting all the harder.
Of course, he might not have a chance to slip away. Lady Kalira, when informed of the expedition, had insisted on bringing the two soldiers she most trusted, Alder and Dogal, and had gotten royal backing for this demand. Sterren had been given no choice but to yield.
He thought that Alder and Dogal liked him, at least slightly, but he was also quite certain they would not willingly let him desert and leave Semma to its fate. This was unfortunate, since the other four in the party might well desert, themselves. They were genuine volunteers, Kendrik, Alar, Zander, and Bern were their names, and Sterren was not impressed with any of them.