Deo continued winding the instrument's knob, but Radstac left off her singing, eyeing the man, more amused than startled. The patrons murmured among themselves. Radstac finally gestured to Deo, and the music went silent.
"Your treachery disgusts me!" the man roared.
Radstac took a swallow of water from the cup on the table next to her. The man was large, gruff of voice, but also rather aged, at least six tenwinters. Still, he was heavy across the shoulders, and his bearded face was contorted into a fierce visage.
"Why do you shay that?" Deo asked in that labored lisping voice. Radstac could feel his sudden tension, very much like someone ready to defend his lover from insult. She wanted to tell him not to take it personally.
"All your pretty prattling about how evil the Felk are. What good is it? Do you even know what you're talking about? Do you honestly believe conditions here in Callah are so bad now? I remember the times before they arrived. I remember how we were always wondering if this was the year we would go to war with Windal. Well, that's not likely to happen now, is it? Windal is under the same protective control as we are. One Felk city isn't going to attack another."
"Oh, Saigot, either sit down or go away," someone among the patrons said.
But Saigot wasn't done. Radstac doubted he had ever been a man who ceased talking before he'd said all he had to say.
"The Felk are probably still sweeping southward. We hear all kinds of rumors, of course. But if the Felk had been stopped—and who, I ask, could do that?—then I think we would know about it, even as isolated as we are. That means they are busy conquering more of the Isthmus. And I say that is the best thing that could happen!"
The patrons jeered, but no one stepped up to challenge Saigot directly. Radstac continued to watch and listen, interested. Here was a viewpoint she'd not yet encountered.
"I am a Callahan," Saigot went on. "Born and bred to this city and proud of it. But I am also an inhabitant of a greater state—that of the Isthmus itself. And that Isthmus has, for virtually all its history, been struggling and divided, teetering on the brink of internal destruction. Now the Felk will end all that. We will have one rule. We'll have final unity."
It was, Radstac thought, as articulately bombastic as the inane songs she sang. This Saigot was simply arguing the other extreme end of the political gamut.
"And so," he said, "I say you two are traitors. And anyone who listens to this treasonous music is a traitor."
Radstac set down her cup of water. The tavern was tensely silent as she stepped down from the small raised space in the corner. She was prepared for his bodily strength, not deceived into confidence by Saigot's age. But the big bearded man produced a knife from his coat and held it and swung it in a way that demonstrated he knew what to do with it. The appearance of the weapon made up Radstac's mind for her, of course. She and Deo would have lost considerable credibility if Saigot's accusations went unanswered. Now, she would have to do something more than merely batter him.
Deo said later that he barely saw the two prongs that flashed out of her left leather glove. Quite suddenly Saigot was holding the side of his face and howling and bleeding profusely. The other patrons were shocked and impressed.
One of them, a woman with amber-colored eyes, came to Radstac and Deo and said quietly that the Minstrel would want to meet them. She named a time and place for a rendezvous tomorrow, then she left the tavern.
PRAULTH (4)
"Thank you, Xink."
"My pleasure, General Praulth."
She accepted the tallgreen tea, served in a delicate sunset pink ceramic cup, properly honeyed and at the very temperature she liked. She accepted Xink's ministrations, accepted his desperate need to care for her. She even accepted his apparent conviction that with enough coddling and nurturing he could undo all her wounds.
The deeper truth was that Praulth's wounds were healing, physically and in every other significant manner. Xink, however, had been damaged as well, and he seemed wholly unable to admit to this.
It was a dilemma, and a dire one, but it was also taking up precious space that she simply couldn't spare right now. Her ultimate purpose was coming to fruition, her day against Dardas. She had a war to consider, one that could permanently change the fabric of the Isthmus. That was where her concentration needed to be.
She sat among the tables that were atop the dais. The auditorium wasn't nearly so crowded and active as the last time she'd been here, but there were enough officials gathered to give the place an engaged atmosphere. Petgrad's Noble Ministry was not present.
The tables were still spread with maps and intelligence reports. Praulth was current on the movements of the Alliance army, which had assembled—and was still accumulating—on a wide prairie south of the fallen city of Trael. This area, she had learned, was called the Pegwithe Plains. The bulk of the forces were in place, though stray units continued to collect.
It might be generous on her part to regard this as the Alliance army. It was, quite literally, a hodgepodge of military companies of vastly unequal training and strength. Worse, these forces had had no time or opportunity to drill together in any manner. They would be tried and tested on their very first venture as a united military entity.
Holding them together was Cultat. And Praulth's plan to utilize the Battle of Torran Flats.
A desperate history being made...
The others here in the auditorium were secondary delegates who had remained in Petgrad and aides to these minor dignitaries. Praulth had brought Xink along in the capacity of her adjutant. He needed to be near her, and she understood that. Actually she felt very understanding toward him lately, a stark reversal from her previous attitude. She wasn't experiencing the hot reblooming of her one-time virginal love for him; rather, it was a calmer, more reasonable appreciation of his evident loyalty to her. He had, after all, stayed at her side despite the petty incivility and contempt with which she'd treated him too often since they had left Febretree.
Now, after all that had happened, Xink's deceptions didn't seem especially relevant. Even Xink working in cahoots with Master Honnis, blatantly manipulating her, didn't bother Praulth overmuch. Maybe Cultat had been correct; maybe manipulation wasn't so awful a crime.
She could certainly see the reasons for Honnis's artifices. Her old mentor had needed to be assured that she would stay entirely focused on the Felk war. Had he approached her openly, she might have hesitated, reluctant to risk the advancement of her academic career at the University. Xink had served as a distraction from her other studies.
Honnis had been right to do it. This war outweighed all other considerations. It occurred to Praulth, as she sipped her tea, that she wanted very much to tell Honnis that.
Merse was here in the auditorium as well. He sat alone, out in the seats, slouched, a brimmed hat on his head pulled low to shadow his weathered features. Praulth sensed that he wasn't asleep; rather, was watching this small assembly atop the dais, watching her in particular. He was there to receive and relay any messages from the Far Speak scouts observing the Felk and accompanying the Alliance forces. It had been nearly two full watches since he'd said anything.
She wondered briefly what Merse thought of her new title, then she dismissed the thought. What did it matter what the cantankerous Petgradite wizard thought? She was pleased with how Xink pronounced it: "General Praulth." Without any hint of irony. With the full respect the title merited.
Her gaze fell to the maps, but she already had every square memorized. The configuration for the Torran Flats gambit was carefully drawn out according to her instructions. From the reports so far received, it appeared the Alliance might just have sufficient numbers to carry this off successfully.