"I AM NOT refusing," she said for the third time, emphatically. "But what you're after isn't my specialty. I'm a combatant. I go into battles, face the enemy in the open. I'm not an escort."
"Understood," Deo said.
She had collected her weapons from the tower's guards, and they had descended. Now they were walking the streets, the watch growing late. Someone with a dilettante's voice and zeal was singing in a pub as they passed, with what sounded like the rest of the place coming in on the choruses.
"You're still my choice."
"It's your choice to make," she said, tone level.
"Yes. So Uncle made clear."
"So I make clear as well. You've hired me. I work for you. What you say is what happens."
"That's purely your professional self speaking?"
Her eyebrows, a darker red than his, pulled together. "Of course. How else would I say such a thing?"
"The words lovers choose can sometimes be very, very strange. I've heard my share." They were turning onto an avenue lined with shops that bustled in the day. Here the night was nearly still.
"I imagine you've heard your share and then some," she said. She looked sidelong at his ruggedly appealing features. If he aged along the lines of his uncle, he wouldn't want for carnal companionship until he was too old to care about it. "Do you think I would behave unprofessionally because of the few good fucks we've had?"
"Ah, Radstac, I do enjoy that melodic Southsoil accent."
"You adore women who speak vulgarities."
"What right-thinking male doesn't?"
They walked a bit in the silence. Wings beat the air— but not feathers. Her keen ears caught the leathery sounds. One of those flying rodents of the Isthmus. She didn't see the creature, however. Two figures in the modest uniforms of Petgrad police were walking the street's other side, going the opposite way. The female of the pair offered a salute that was more a wave, teeth flashing in a happy grin. Deo returned it with an equally casual gesture.
"When do we leave?" she asked. Her palm alit on her sword's heavy scratched pommel. It felt good to be wearing the weapon again; felt good to be hired. Even if the job had turned out to be something unexpected.
"Tomorrow. I can supply you with as many mansid leaves as you like, or you can see to the procurement yourself I'll be happy to cover the purchase above your work fee."
She very nearly broke stride. The small bite of leaf she'd chewed just before the visit to Cultat's tower had dissipated. Deo had sprung surprises on her from the first, but none had caught her entirely off guard.
Do the smart thing, do the economical thing, do the safe thing, do the thing you find most self-fulfilling. It was her code, presenting its points one by one.
"If you can get my leaves from the lair I specify," she said, "then I'll gladly let you see to it."
"Done." He sounded like a merchant sealing a sale or a gambler finalizing a bet. "I'll show you what supplies I want to bring. Tell me what's practical—what we should have, what we don't need."
"It's going to be quite a trip."
"Hardly compares to the one you've already made from home," he pointed out.
"It wasn't distance I was referring to."
He nodded. "You really shouldn't have misgivings about being ... underqualified. There's a perfectly good reason Cultat or I haven't hired the proper specialist for this mission. It's that there are no experienced professionals in this field. None here in Petgrad anyway. None among our own military—men and women who bear arms and have not fought a battle in their lives. Nor did their progenitors. So it becomes as much a matter of character as one of appropriate credentials. I trust you."
"That's the nephew of the premier of Petgrad speaking, not an overwrought lover?" She permitted
herself a small trickle of her rather harsh-sounding laughter.
"Yes." His tone was solemn. "The nephew of the premier ... cheated out of the post by his mother. And by her brother. I do love my uncle. Most sincerely. But my life has not gone as it should."
The silence returned.
Quite a trip, Radstac mused. It indeed promised to be. She would see Deo safely delivered to Trael, which was one of the city-states to Petgrad's north. It was presently— along with a few other Isthmus nations—in the path of the south-moving Felk.
There Deo would convey Cultat's message to the leaders of Trael. That message was simple. The remaining free states of the Isthmus must unite now against the Felk.
Other members of the premier's family were making similar ambassadorial journeys to other cities, seeking to create the alliance that Cultat envisioned. Petgrad was the most powerful nation in the south. It did not have to politically appease or parley with its neighbors. So long had it held this uncontested status, in fact, that it had no proper staff of diplomats. Now it was up to Cultat's relations to spread the word, for who else would be heard in those rival royal courts? And, according to Cultat, who else should bear the burden of this undertaking but his own blood?
So, to Trael it was.
Radstac shrugged to herself as she walked with her employer/lover, hand still upon her sword's pommel. So long as she got paid.
RAVEN (2)
THE COUNCIL CHAMBER in the Governor's Palace was the largest single indoor space in the city-state of Felk. Here the governor would traditionally meet with his advisors to hear their reports and discuss plans for the running of what was at that time the second largest territory on the Isthmus, smaller only to the mighty state of Petgrad in the south.
Here, too, the governor would hold public trials and audiences once every lune, listening to cases and petitions from any who would seek his judgment or support. In those days, the space was opulently furnished and decorated, both to impress visitors and to remind them of the wealth and power the governor controlled.
Now, it was just a big room, the expensive furnishings gone, and there was no governor of Felk. Matokin was much more than that. It was said he took no hand in the day-to-day operation of his growing empire, preferring to leave minor matters to his underlings with whom he consulted in private. Nor did he conduct public hearings. He believed his time and the national treasury were better spent elsewhere, and felt no need or desire to remind anyone of his power.
Raven, both curious and anxious, paused at the periphery to survey. The space was huge, like a cavern inside this palace. It swallowed even the crowded bustle that infested the place.
The crowd of people ebbed and flowed. There were groupings of men and women huddled together in discussion, occasionally melding with other groups for brief consultation or argument before dividing again. A constant stream of messengers brushed past her, both arriving and leaving.
There was no doubt in her mind that what she was viewing was the nerve center of the empire she was sworn to serve, and she knew instinctively that there were dozens of decisions being made within her sight that would affect thousands of people.
As to exactly what her part in this was to be, or why she had been summoned here, she hadn't a clue.
Unwilling to interrupt any of the huddled planners, Raven approached a woman who was standing alone studying a scroll. "Excuse me?"
Dark eyes fastened on her, and she felt she had been weighed, measured, scrutinized, and dismissed as unimportant all in the space of a heartbeat.
"Well?"
"I was told to report here to Matokin, but I'm unfamiliar with the procedure."
That earned her three more heartbeats of examination.
"The middle door there in the far wall," the woman said at last. 'The one with the guard in front of it. Give your name to the guard and wait to be summoned."