Torvil, Kammen, and Seldar seem to be intact. They’ve been practicing diligently with each other and with the other knights; I try to practice with them for an hour or so every other day. This is for my benefit, of course. They get the majority of their work done at the daily sessions.
After considerable consultation and examination, they’ve been declared fit.
Hesitantly, I asked for volunteers from among the knights. I was immediately inundated with requests to try the latest toy. Knights, city guards, some militia—how word got out, I’m not sure, but people strained the capacity of my staff—
(I have a
staff
. Apparently, Tort has been busy building an in-palace hierarchy of people to act as buffers for requests for the King’s attention. Good thing, too; otherwise, I’d never get anything done. It was also well done. I didn’t even notice until it became impossible not to. My Tort can be a subtle lady.)
—with their requests.
Squires
volunteered. I decided on policy at that point. If the knight wanted his squire to start learning to use a weapon, the knight would start teaching him.
Even with the pool restricted to grown men, it’s still a large sample. If anything is going to go wrong, we should see it in somebody. Maybe we can even do something about it.
So we gave everyone thirty seconds in the Crystal Dojo. They lay down, they twitched in their sleep a bit, then they got up looking much more sober and serious. My guys went through it, too, on the argument that they should always be a little ahead of the curve. Royal Guard and all that. I chose not to argue, since they would also be the ones with the most exposure and therefore most likely to develop any side effects. If they were all right with a heavier regimen, everyone else should be fine, too.
Afternoon practice sessions have changed. There is a lot more in the way of pauses to work out the exact movement, and a lot more slow, controlled maneuvers. They’re not just getting in there and fighting each other, then showing the loser how it happened. They’re… what? I don’t know. But it looks less like a general melee and more like a postgraduate class in killing.
I have mixed feelings about this.
One thing I’m undeniably pleased about is the coinage. We now have steel coin stamps; we’re producing actual coins, rather than just coin blanks. I dumped a lot of Fred’s money on the breakfast table and the council went through it, found designs they liked, and we now have a very nice, simple, decimal money system. Someday, we’ll move away from hard currency, I’m sure, but that’s a long, long way off. For now, it’s copper, silver, and gold.
I wonder about some of the money Fred let me borrow. Some of the designs are not from Rethven, or Zirafel, or even Kamshasa or Prydon or Telasco or any other nation of this world. When you see a coin design with what is clearly a space-ship on one side and a spiral galaxy on the other, it raises questions.
Fred was very little help.
“I dunno,” he admitted, when I asked him where the unfamiliar coins came from. “Just… under beds.”
“But where are the beds?” I pressed.
“It’s hard to describe,” he said. “Beds are beds. They’re just there. I dunno how to explain where beds are. They’re just
there
,” he repeated. He sounded baffled.
“So, if I asked you to find a bed, could you do it?”
“Always.” Positive. Confident. Certain.
“But if I wanted to know where that bed was?”
“Well… I could take you there, I guess, and you could look around.”
“But could you point me in the right direction?”
“You mean…
out there
?”
“Well, yeah.”
“No.” He shuddered.
“You sound nervous.”
“I don’t like it
out there
.” Again, with that emphasis. “I like it in here.”
“Can you even come out?”
“Yes. I don’t want to.”
“Fair enough, fair enough,” I soothed. “I’m just trying to find out more about how things work.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you for the loan, by the way.”
“Did it help?”
“Yep. Got a lot of good coin designs to copy and we’re using them now.”
“Then I’m glad to help.”
“By the way… you mentioned that you could take me to the underside of a bed?”
“Yeah?”
“Any bed?” I asked.
“Pretty much. At least, I think so.”
“How
do
you find them?”
“Uh. They’re just, you know…”
“There.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Any luck on that propaganda campaign we discussed?”
“Sort of. I’m pretty sure a bunch of people are scared about this Byrne place, anyway.”
“Good, good. Just remember, if anybody mentions me, vanish. I want people worried about Byrne conquering them, but I also want them wondering if Karvalen will save them.”
“I remember. No problem.”
“Any word on the girls I wanted you to find?”
“Sorry. I’ve looked all around the stuff local to Byrne. There are some places in Byrne I can’t go—magical wards can keep me out, sort of. They make beds disappear.”
“Really?”
“Yep. I’m a magical creature, you know.”
“I hadn’t noticed. But no luck on the girls?”
“They’re either sleeping on vanished beds, or they don’t have beds,” Fred assured me.
“Well, thanks for looking, Fred. I appreciate the help. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Already did. I haven’t had this much fun in ages.” He shifted around and looked bashful. Don’t ask me how I interpreted an expression on something that hasn’t got a face. Maybe it’s just body language. “I’ve never had anybody to, you know… talk to.”
“Glad I could help,” I assured him. “I wish I had more time to chat.”
“Someday,” Fred assured me. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”
Later, looking at the sand table and using it as satellite map, I did some measuring. Given the rough-to-awful conditions of the roads in old Rethven, things like troop transport, logistics, and anything else that involved movement was going to be difficult. Barring a platoon of magicians casting teleportation gates, moving something like cannon was going to require teams of horses. Where could they go? Where could they
not
go? Come to that, if I wound up having to invade Byrne’s current holdings, what routes could I take?
As I was poring over the map, I noticed something. Prince Rogis of Tolcaren claimed that his motivation for doing as Byrne ordered was their proximity. Actually looking at the map, on the other hand, made that seem nonsensical. Tolcaren, like Maran, was on the
west
side of the Quaen river; Formia straddled it at the rivermouth. All of Byrne’s holdings were on the eastern side.
If Tolcaren was being threatened by Byrne’s proximity, it had to have resources west of the Quaen, which meant going through Bildar, and which meant threatening Hagan—A line drawn through Bildar and Tolcaren almost went through Hagan.
Puzzled, I went up to find Tort. She was in a sitting room, occupying a chair, and deep in contemplative meditation. At least, that’s what it looked like. A moment’s examination showed a sort of psychic communication spell going; she was on the phone. I got comfortable and waited.
It wasn’t a long wait. She opened her eyes after no more than five minutes, smiled to see me, and put a small vial into a case full of other vials. They were each labeled with a name.
“Good afternoon, my angel,” she said, and stood up to stretch. “It is good to see you during the day. Have you come to pay me a social call, or do you have a task for me?”
“Both, really.”
“Good.” She came over and sat on my lap. “Perhaps you should tell me of the task before we engage in being social.”
“Smart girl. I take it you’re a busy spymistress?”
“It is a constant thing,” she assured me, breathing warmly into my ear. “Reports come to me at all hours.”
“Well, there are a couple of things I need to find out, and my usual methods aren’t working.”
“Certainly. What do you wish to know?”
“I’d like to know where Byrne is keeping its bronze rams. I want to look at one and see how it works. I’d also like to know why Tolcaren says it’s under threat of Byrne invasion—at least, why Prince Rogis thinks that’s a credible reason for doing as Byrne says. Does Byrne have an army west of the Quaen river? I haven’t seen it. And Hagan. Is it also threatened by Byrne? I’ve asked Prince Jorgen if he’d like to have a nice, friendly treaty with Karvalen, but he’s hesitant—is it because Byrne is crawling down his throat, or because he’s afraid I will?
“On unrelated fronts, I’d like to know more about the
viksagi
. I’m thinking of asking them—or offering to let them—invade from the north into Byrne-held lands. I don’t know how many of them would be willing to do so, nor how to go about asking.” I gave her a smile as she locked her fingers together behind my neck.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Too much at once?”
“Well,” she said, thoughtfully, “some of that I can answer, but most of it is either conjecture or completely unknown to me.”
“Really? What do you know already?”
“Tolcaren is not concerned with any land invasion. Their concern is with sea invasion. I
believe
,” she stressed, “that Byrne has acquired ships that can navigate the southern waters of the Quaen. They must be smaller vessels, not the great ships of the Circle Sea—only one or two masts, at most. I further believe they may have some of those thunder-spitting rams mounted aboard such vessels. Perhaps not; they may just have a way to mount them easily.”
“That would account for Prince Rogis’ worry about Byrne attacking him directly,” I mused. “I think he’s willing to be our ally, provided we can find a way to defend him.”
“Most cities would,” Tort agreed. “Byrne’s rapid conquests have made it unpopular.”
“Any chance we could spread some rumors about their terrible atrocities?” I asked. Tort smiled that I-know-something-you-don’t-know smile and I gave her the I’m-guessing-I-do-too look.
“You’ve already started that, haven’t you?” I asked. The smile answered for her. I guess she wouldn’t be the Spymistress of Karvalen if she was stupid.
“Okay,” I said, “tell me what else you know.”
“Little enough, I am afraid. I do not know why Prince Jorgen is hesitant about an alliance. If I had to guess, I would say it is because he is far away, has no good line of travel between us, and Byrne is poised to move south and come directly between us. Hagan is not on the Quaen, so he cannot be threatened by ships, but if Byrne were to take Bildar, it would not be a difficult march to reach Hagan; the roads are much better on that side of the river. We would have to sail around to Maran and then march about as far north.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with my being a part-time undead?”
“I doubt it strongly.” She shifted on my lap to snuggle against my breastplate. “I tell you again, my angel, that your most endearing failing is your inability to understand how people see you. You are much more commonly viewed as a dragonslayer, a hero, even a… a legendary, even mythic figure. Not,” she added, squeezing me, “as a blood-drinking monster that preys on the souls of men.”
“If you say so, then it must be so,” I agreed. Normally, that would settle it. I still have some reservations about that subject, though. It’s my most endearing failing, apparently.
“So,” I continued, “if we could assure Jorgen that we could drop a thousand troops into his army anytime he asked, he’d be happier?”
“I doubt that. But he would be much more amenable to alliance.”
“I see the difference. Good point. I’ll do some more thinking about that. What about the
viksagi
?”
“I have no spies among them. Truthfully, I have given them no thought. Ever since the bridge at Crag Keep was broken in their last invasion—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I interrupted. “This is the first I’ve heard of that. When was this?”
“Ten years, perhaps as much as twelve, after old King Relven’s death,” she explained. “The
viksagi
marched on Crag Keep and almost took it. The commander at the time deemed it needful, and so ordered the wizard of the Keep to release the ancient spells within the supports of the bridge. The center span crumbled and fell, saving the Keep and halting the invasion.”
Nobody ever tells me anything. I wish I’d known about that when
I
was dealing with them!
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “but wasn’t the whole purpose of that bridge to be a bait? I know the
viksagi
don’t like open water—and if I lived in a climate that cold, I wouldn’t like it, either—which is why the bridge was so tempting. Without it, won’t they just build rafts or something and cross that way?”
“They dislike rushing water, which the Averill is. To cross, they must either go far, far west, almost to the western coast of the Circle Sea, where the canyon of the Averill widens and the river becomes more placid. Or they must try to climb the mountains and cross the great lake that feeds the Averill.” She shrugged. “They can build boats, I suppose, but only small ones. They must lower them, you see, down the sides of the Averill’s bed, then cross the water, and finally climb out. It is difficult to move more than a raiding party, and it virtually assures that if they must retreat, they must do so empty-handed.”
“So, they would really like a new bridge, hmm?” I asked, thinking of the new bridges across two deep gorges on the road to Baret.
“I should think so.”
“Do you know anyone who speaks any of the
viksagi
dialects?”
“No.”
“Then we’d better be social for a bit,” I decided. “I’ll be gone for a few days.”
Tort breathed an agreement into my ear.
One of the peculiarities of a part-time undead metabolism is the unerring wake-up call at sunrise and sunset. I remember sitting in a computer lab, a long time ago, and looking at the clock only to wonder, “Is that AM or PM?”