Irona 700 (38 page)

The sea was very large, but the enemy fleet was too big to miss.

The Empire named naval battles after the opposing leaders and the great clash of 726 was recorded as the Battle of Podakan-Zaozerny. As Irona had predicted, Podakan attacked like a terrier, and no one in his flotilla tried to stop him. The crews might have balked had they known how badly they were outnumbered, but fortunately rowers faced aft and they could not see what they are racing into. The officers could, but they knew that the imperial navy had won against odds of five to one a few times in the past, and they also knew the penalty for mutiny. It was later established that Podakan had been outnumbered about ten to one in ships, and about thirty to one in men, because the Kingdoms' fleet was trying to deliver an army.

More than anything, that fact lost it the battle.

Zaozerny's forces did not know the odds either. When they saw Benesh forces bearing down on them, they naturally assumed it was the vanguard of a much larger fleet. As Irona had argued, the Kingdoms' navy had been hastily enlisted and poorly trained. The sailors were amateurs against pros. Many had never been drilled in what to do when attacked. By rights, the soldiers should have won the contest simply with archery, for their bowmen outnumbered the entire Benesh force many times over, but a great majority of them had never been to sea before, and probably very few could swim. Galleys were cramped for room at the best of times, and the archers could scarcely draw their bows. They panicked, of course.

Even when rammed, a wooden galley would not normally sink. It filled with water and became a floating lumber pile. But the Kingdoms' ships were grossly overloaded with men in armor, all of them struggling to stay above water. Often their combined weight overcame a derelict's buoyancy, causing it to roll or even sink.

The Benesh captains saw that ramming risked being boarded by mobs that greatly outnumbered their own crews. They responded by sideswiping instead. The Kingdoms' training was so poor that their rowers rarely managed to ship oars before the impact, as the Benesh crews did, so half the rowers were mashed by their own oars, and the overloaded ships thrown into chaos.

The first round was a massacre, carrying the Benesh forces right through the larger fleet and leaving dozens of Kingdoms' vessels disabled. Being faster and much more maneuverable, the attackers turned and came at the enemy again from the rear. But numbers must count eventually. According to a couple of survivors,
Intractable
sideswiped four galleys and rammed two without taking a bruise. The third ram victim managed to grapple, and hostile troops swarmed aboard. Another Kingdoms' galley then rammed
Intractable
and the Benesh crew were soon cut to pieces. The rest of the flotilla met similar fates.

The Kingdoms' fleet was starting to celebrate victory—a costly, bloody victory, but better than nothing—when Garbes's flotilla charged out of the sunset and turned triumph into renewed panic. At least a score more ships were sunk or disabled before the survivors fled into the night. Garbes lost two galleys. Two of Podakan's eleven were still afloat, with the others barely distinguishable among the floating wreckage. The rest of the Benesh fleet saw no action, although some ships arrived in time to help rescue both friends and future slaves from the sharks. Admiral Zaozerny was identified and securely bound to a mast for transportation to Kell.

There was no sign of Rear Admiral Podakan.

The Year 727

V
eer was still supervising the transport of his paintings, so Irona landed alone in Benign on Midsummer Day, when the city was busy with the festival. The crew commandeered a covered litter for her, and she made her way home to Sebrat House unrecognized until Edziza opened the door. News of the great victory had preceded her, so the first inquiries were about Podakan.

“No news yet,” she said. “But I am far from giving up hope. That boy of mine is indestructible.”

Drowned? Slain in battle? Eaten by sharks? Or identified by his collar and delivered to the king of kings for his sinister pleasure? Such was that monarch's reputation that the captured Admiral Zaozerny, when offered passage home, threw himself at Dychat's feet and begged for death instead. He was provided with a comfortable cell and a shapely concubine until the Seventy decided what to do with him. Irona was not lying when she said she still had hope. She kept remembering the disembodied voice telling her,
Kill him now, Queenie, while you can.
That did not sound as if Benign had seen the last of the self-chosen Chosen.

It was good to be home, to hobble from one room to another and find everything just as it had been when she left—except for her own reflection, which followed her around, reminding her of graying hair, wrinkled skin, missing teeth, and an overall dullness. Like Redkev and Zajic at Vult, Irona had aged when deprived of Source Water. At least she had served Caprice better than they had.

Next morning Irona reported to the First and that evening limped unheralded into the Scandal Market. Three months ago, the Chosen would have turned their backs on her. Thanks to the Battle of Podakan-Zaozerny, she was greeted with cheers and hugs and bucketfuls of hypocrisy. She was introduced to Eanastick 726, a strikingly pert and pretty girl, and Borawli 727, a solemn lad overwhelmed by his new status but even more impressed by the honor of meeting her.

Irona delivered a brief report on what she knew, although it was a month out of date. When she had left Kell, the threat had already faded. The king of kings had left Elbrus, heading eastward to Acigol-Nevsehir, with the remains of his army trailing behind. Commodore Chagulak had been planning a great raid to burn the remains of the Three Kingdoms' fleet in port. The Empire would hold its new territories for now.

That night the Seventy elected Irona to the Treasury Board. “Just for starters,” Ledacos warned her. Rudakov 670 was still First, but lazier and less effective than ever, and the Seventy had shrunk to fifty-eight, the lowest count in memory. Everyone was overworked. If Podakan ever did return, he would be loaded down with offices too.

A month later, Kapalny 664's term as Seven ended. Irona was elected his replacement by acclamation. This was a tribute to her son's success in ending the war, of course, not to hers in starting it. She had agreed in advance to support an obscure procedure whereby a unanimous vote of the Seven declared First Rudakov to be indisposed and in need of rest. The Seventy accepted and elected Mallahle 669 to the post of Acting First—it was part of the procedure that the replacement must be older, so that no rebel band of wild-eyed youngsters could depose one of the old guard. Both men wept. Rudakov took to his bed, refused Source Water, and was dead in a week. Mallahle was mostly admired for his wit and constant good humor, but he was also competent. The wheels of government began to turn again.

If Mallahle lasted ten years, Ledacos would be almost old enough to be seriously considered for First, but Irona would not. Their unspoken rivalry was still in place.

One by one Irona's team followed her home: Sazen Hostin, Daun Bukit, and finally Veer Machin, most welcome of all. An exhibition of his Elbrusian portraits caused a sensation and brought him a fortune.

News dribbled in. Chagulak's raid had destroyed the rest of the enemy fleet, although he had found it beached and neglected. Dychat was organizing the islands as a protectorate. The Seventy voted to name it the Podakan Archipelago, which was effectively an acknowledgment that the conqueror was deemed to be dead.

One night in midwinter, Irona arrived home very late, after a dreary and overlong meeting of the Seventy, and saw that all the lamps in the ballroom were lit.

At that hour she would normally be let in by the night watchman but it was a beaming Edziza who opened the door for her. She guessed right away from his joyful expression.

“He's back?”

“Indeed, His Honor has returned, ma'am, but I should …”

She did not stay to hear his warning.

The mad thumping of her staff on the tiles announced her approach, of course. The door was open, the fire blazing, and the lamps sparkled. Veer was lounging in his favorite chair, with a good imitation of happiness on his face. Podakan sprang up and came to meet her. He wore a commoner's gray tunic, but he still had his collar and he bore no visible torture scars. He even looked glad to see her and accepted her embrace readily enough.

“Where did you go? How did you get here in this weather? You're looking well. You're a great hero. …” Irona realized that she was babbling and stopped.

“I'm well, thank you, Dam. Machin tells me that you are in good health.”

“Too old and far too overworked. But tell—” She saw that there was a fourth person present, as Edziza had tried to warn her.

Podakan took her hand and led her over to the stranger, who was standing motionless, eyes downcast. She was tall and very slender, with jet black hair bound high on her head; her face and arms were Elbrusian tan. Her dress was a miracle of some fabric Irona had never seen before, as fine as silk and shimmering in all the tints of oil on water. It covered her from her shoulders to her silver shoes. Her earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings all glittered with diamonds, and her diamond-studded belt alone was worth a fortune.

“Dam, may I present my consort, Princess Koriana?”

Irona glanced briefly at Veer, who had his eyebrows raised higher than normal but obviously was not about to comment.

“Princess?”

“That's the closest her title translates,” Podakan said, “unless you wish to address her as Precious Gift of the Moon and Stars.” If his lifetime ambition was to surprise, he could aim no higher than this. Benign recognized no royalty of its own and paid only grudging respect to the rulers of allied kingdoms. “Won't you say hello?”

“Koriana, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and the most welcome guest ever to enter my house.”

“A bit gushy,” Podakan murmured, but he rattled off what must be a translation in a guttural tongue.

The girl responded, but to him, not Irona. They exchanged more words.

“She says you are very gracious. She wishes to kiss your feet, but I told her you would not like it.”

Koriana lifted her head a moment, but at the same time covered her eyes with her hands, crossed with palm out, so that Irona caught the briefest possible glimpse of her features before the move was over and the girl was staring at the floor again.

“That's their salute. You'll have to give her time, Dam. She was raised in deep seclusion. At the moment she feels about the way you would feel if you were dragged before strangers stark naked. She had never even seen a man, let alone spoken to one, until she was popped into my bed. Why don't we sit down?”

They did. Veer helped Irona set her useless leg on the footrest and brought her a beaker of wine.

“We thought you had died in the battle,” she said. She needed time to think before she asked about the girl.

“So did I, for a while.” Podakan raised the hem of his tunic to show a puckered scar in his thigh. “I took an arrow and started bleeding a cataract. Other men were being chopped apart and still fighting, while I was blacking out from one silly little hole. Then
Intractable
rolled and I was in the water, clutching a spar and sending out a blood trail to every shark in the ocean, although there were more bodies than fish there that day. Someone saw my collar and thought it might be valuable. I came with it. So I became a prisoner.”

Modesty had never been Podakan's strong point. Lying was. If he wasn't inventing all this tale, he was at least pruning the truth to shape. Koriana sat beside him on the couch with her hands clasped in her lap, fixedly staring at the floor.

“And what happened then?”

“That's a bit fuzzy. They brought me back to life. They soon learned who I was. I was taken before the king of kings in all his splendor. I thought my happy days were over, but he wanted to hear my side of the story—his officers had probably been lying their teeth out to him. He asked how many ships I had led. I said twelve but I had sent one back to bring help in case I needed it. He said there had been over one hundred in his fleet, so why had I attacked. I told him: to sink them.”

Podakan smirked. And paused to tell the girl something. She did not react.

“But I did explain that his crews were poorly trained, his ships both badly designed and shoddily built, and they had been so overloaded with men that they couldn't maneuver. Their archers barely had room to shoot at us and had no experience of shooting from a rolling deck anyway.”

“How did he take that news?”

“Very well. His courtiers just stood there with pee running down their legs. He asked me if I could design better ships and train his crews properly. I said I couldn't and wouldn't if I could. And if I could and would, it would take a generation to build a competent navy, even if Benign didn't keep coming around to sink it. He asked how he could get his islands back. I said he couldn't. My mother had started the war and I had finished it, and there was nothing he could do about it.”

“What language were you talking?” Irona asked. She was being very careful not to look at Veer, who probably believed much less of this story than she did. Yet she could usually tell when her son was lying and just then she didn't think he was inventing all of this.

“I was speaking Benesh. He was speaking the language of his court, High Cabalian. They have good interpreters.”

“That's what you were speaking to Koriana just now?”

He nodded. “See, the king of kings had a loss-of-face problem over the islands. He cannot be seen to lose a war or give up territory. I suggested he marry off a daughter to me and give her the islands as a dowry. And that's what he did. Face saved.”

For a moment Irona closed her eyes, trying to imagine the king of kings high on his throne, close to immobilized in all his imperial glory, scowling down at a prostrate Podakan wearing a jade collar, bronze fetters, and probably little more. Any ruler of the Three Kingdoms had to be a ruthless despot and the present one was reputed to be a fiend in human shape. The boy at his feet had humiliated him before his empire, before history and the world. So he agreed to marry his …

She opened her eyes again. “I find that bit a little hard to believe.”

Her son grinned. “All right, I admit. … It was his idea, not mine. Even I couldn't have thought that one up, Dam. But I'm the closest thing to royalty Benign has, see? A Chosen and son of a Chosen. I command flotillas and attack fleets ten times their size. They declared me semidivine, because that's the only explanation for my success. Peace treaties are sealed with marriage contracts. That's how their minds work. And the king of kings has problems knowing what to do with daughters. He has twenty sons and I don't know how many …” He asked Koriana something; she replied. “She doesn't know either. A whole
lot
of daughters, and nobody royal enough to marry them. So here we are. I came home with a treaty that says the islands now belong to her, but she belongs to me, so Benign owns the islands. Her boobs aren't much to brag about, but she's a pretty good lay in spite of that. She does anything I tell her to. Pass the wine, citizen.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Veer rose and took him the wine bottle. Podakan held out his goblet to be filled.

“But you know,” Irona said hastily, hoping to head off the inevitable confrontation between those two, “that Chosen cannot marry.”

Podakan shrugged. “She's my wife in the Kingdoms. Here she's just my sex toy, like the fat man over there is yours.”

“Does she know this?”

“She knows women can own property in Benign. What else matters? When you die, your dauber will get thrown out on his fat ass, and his kids would too, if he'd ever been man enough to put any in you. But Koriana came with two sea chests full of jewels. She's going to buy a palace here and her children can inherit that. I won't trouble the Property Commission.” He turned to the girl again and spoke at length, never hesitating over a word.

Irona had asked the Beru how it had learned Benesh so quickly. Dreading that she would hear the same answer again, she said, “How did you become so fluent in Cabalian so quickly?”

Podakan stood up, the girl following his lead instantly. “You'll have to excuse us, Dam. We spent the last two nights in a barque that kept moving in every direction at once. Koriana is very tired and I always need to get my rocks off before I can sleep. See you in the morning.” He glanced at Veer. “And you, I suppose.”

Irona watched them go, his arm around the girl's incredibly slim waist.

Veer said, “That's twice he dodged that question.”

And Irona was fairly sure that Zard 699 had once told her that High Cabalian was the most difficult of all languages to master. “So what do you think the answer is?”

“I think the whole thing is unbelievable: the language, the king of kings's daughter, the jewels, the islands as dowry. It has to be Maleficence at work. The king of kings fixed him.”

After a moment she said, “Or Podakan fixed the king of kings?”

This was, after all, the second time her son had performed a miracle. He had apparently killed the Beru, Hayklopevi. And now he had gelded the king of kings, who by rights should have killed him by inches.