Wolf's Blood (96 page)

He toyed with angry imaginings in which, at the sight of him the armies had rallied, surged out of the detention camps, and beaten every Nexan, whether traveling on two feet or four or flying about, to a bloody pulp.

“But it wouldn’t have happened that way,” he muttered.

“Excuse me?” asked the polite voice of Grateful Peace of New Kelvin. “I did not quite follow what you said.”

King Bryessidan tried not to feel annoyed that this graceful man with his bone-colored hair and odd facial ornamentation did not give him his appropriate titles.

“I was saying,” Bryessidan said, “that I wonder how they make the water look that way.”

“As I understand it,” Grateful Peace said, “the boat is actually not traveling on the water’s surface, but on the ‘backs’—if such creatures can be thought to have backs—of the sea monsters.”

Bryessidan had just a moment to absorb this strange and unsettling idea; then the landing craft was grating ashore on the rocky beach and the sailors were leaping out to drag it above the tideline. King Hurwin leapt out with them and splashed to the shore.

“Bryessidan!” he said, greeting his son-in-law with a bear’s hug. “So things certainly did not work as we had planned. Trust me to discount tales of monsters again. I certainly have something to tell the grandchildren.”

King Hurwin gave an affable nod to Grateful Peace. “I have no idea who you are. who any of you are, but I saw you through my long glass staring out to sea. and the sea monsters came soon after. Are you some form of Once Dead?”

“I am not,” Grateful Peace said, “not as you mean the term. I am Grateful Peace, of the New World nation of New Kelvin.”

Bryessidan listened with half an ear as King Hurwin asked Grateful Peace who this one or that one was. The Tavetchian king had seen a great deal through his glass, and now desperately desired to know what had actually happened.

Grateful Peace complied, providing information in a sparse and efficient manner that made Bryessidan feel fairly certain that the rumors he had heard that this “Peace” was or had been a spy master in his own land were probably correct.

Grateful Peace escorted the two monarchs to a smaller room in the headquarters building and went to inform the Nexan rulers of King Hurwin’s arrival. The two monarchs were left alone—or relatively so, since their bodyguards only drew back a few polite steps. King Hurwin had been speaking Pellish, but now he switched to Tavetchian.

“So, son. I received a long scroll outlining the situation and initialed by you as being an accurate description of what had occurred. I don’t suppose it was, by any chance, a fabrication?”

Bryessidan recalled the document. “I fear not, Father Hurwin. There was a bias to the presentation—these Nexans do not seem to see that they brought our actions upon themselves by refusing us use of the gates—but where matters of sequence are concerned, it was accurate.”

“I thought it probably was,” King Hurwin said, “when I saw you waiting on the shore looking so sour. Before then, I admit, I had rather hoped it was a ploy of some sort. Ah, well. I suppose we must negotiate with them.”

Judging from the expressions on the bodyguard’s faces, few—if any—spoke Tavetchian, so Bryessidan spoke rather more freely than he might have otherwise.

“What I don’t understand is why they are willing to continue doing business with us. Surely it is not all a matter of profit.”

King Hurwin smiled sadly. “It might help you understand if you had ever been a raider. Year after year, Tavetchian ships go to the same lands and raid the farmsteads. We don’t hit the same farms every year, but it is a rare region that goes untouched. Every year some young sailor asks, ‘Why don’t they just leave? They know we’re coming. They know we’ll win.’ The answer is, they can’t leave. The land is what they have and what they know. Our raids are just another of the trials of working those lands, and are probably far less annoying than creatures that cannot be fought, like weevils and birds.”

“You’re saying that is the situation here?” Bryessidan said. “These islands are all they have?”

“That, and the fact that they would rather work with us and keep control of these gates than risk any one of us taking over. Don’t for a minute think that for all their good manners they think of us as friends. Your heir might someday earn their trust, but those of us who have shown our willingness to invade will never be trusted. It’s part of the risk of raiding. Really, if we had to lose, we came away better than we might have done.”

“I hate what they’re doing,” Bryessidan said. “They’ve turned us against each other. We had an alliance. Now, from the way the others have been treating me it’s as if they expected me to try and usurp the nexus, and that they’re glad to give it back to its ‘rightful’ owners.”

“We would have ended up having to watch each other,” King Hurwin said, thoughtfully. “I realized that. Would you want Queen Iline having a door into your land?”

“Not really.”

“So, you see, the Nexans have only anticipated what we ourselves would have had to deal with sooner or later. Clever of them, really. Not only will we police ourselves, we’ll police the others as well, just in case anyone gets any bright ideas. Yes. These Nexans will be a force to reckon with in the years to come, don’t you ever forget that.”

“So you’re going to accept their terms?”

“What choice do I have? All the reasons I stated back in your counsel hall moonspans ago still hold. My kingdom is sea-girt and isolated. The gates make it less so. As long as the Nexans don’t ask anything unreasonable—such as tithing in blood or slaves—then I will make treaty with them.”

“And what is to keep them from breaking this one as they broke the last?” Bryessidan asked, his voice tight with frustration.

“I dare say that these Nexans do not feel that the former treaty—made, remember, with those they conquered—was precisely binding on them. There is even some merit in that line of thought—especially for those who arrived here from the New World.”

“I cannot believe you are taking this so calmly!”

“What else is there to do?” Hurwin said, reaching for a pitcher and pouring himself some water. “We lost, yet most of my ships will go back with most of the gear and crews intact.”

“Most?”

“Ah, they didn’t have you read that extra sheet, did they?” Hurwin’s formerly placid smile became a little bitter. “Each nation must give one ship—one small ship, admittedly—loaded with the arms and armor of the sailors of the other vessels over to the Nexans. They know they won’t get everything, not even with their aerial spies supervising, but they’ll get quite a lot.”

“But not the crews,” Bryessidan said.

“No. They don’t want the crews. They’re smart enough to know slaves are a bad idea. My guess is that the ships will be dry-docked somewhere or other, and that they’ll raise the crews themselves, perhaps from the New World, more likely from the Old.”

“On that free day,” Bryessidan said angrily, “they insisted upon. That was a term that stuck in my craw. One day out of every season, agreed upon in advance when those who wish to be considered for residence on the Nexus Islands must be permitted access to the gates.”

“They’re smart,” Hurwin said, “and we’d be smart to take them up on it. Malcontents in all our lands will end up as their problem, not ours, and, who knows … Someday …

Someday we might just sneak in a spy or two
, Bryessidan thought.

The thought gave him some feeling that he was retaining a small measure of control. Until King Hurwin’s arrival, Bryessidan had balked against signing the treaty with the Nexans, even though Gidji, to whom Amelo had recited the terms, had sent him a letter urging him to do so.

Now, seeing that even the monarch of the seas saw no alternative but to give in, Bryessidan felt there was less shame in making peace with the Nexans.

Where there is life, there is hope
, he thought when the next day he signed the formally prepared document in the presence of witnesses both of the Nexans and of the former seven allies.

He knew that his signing—and King Hurwin’s—would be used to pressure those monarchs, such as Queen Iline and the disdum of u-Chival, who for their own reasons were still arguing terms. He no longer cared. There were even rumors that the u-Chivalum were considering withdrawing into isolation once again, to protect themselves from the contaminating influences of other lands.

Let them,
Bryessidan thought, signing his name with a flourish, then pressing his thumbprint in his own blood over the words.
Running away doesn’t solve anything, but you need to learn that for yourself.

Now that he had decided to sign the treaty, Bryessidan felt curiously free, freer, in fact, than he had since he had been crowned king. It was as if in making his own peace with the Nexus Islands, he was also making peace with his father’s wars and the mark they had left on the Mires.

Bryessidan supervised the. evacuation of each and every one of the denizens of the Mires, and he himself was the last to turn toward the gate. Before he did, he turned to Derian Counselor and Once Dead Ynamynet.

“I am certain we will meet again. May it be the beginning of friendship, as well as peace.”

Ynamynet gave him a wintery smile that could have meant anything, but tall Derian flicked his horse ears and said with what seemed like genuine warmth. “I hope so. Your Majesty. There are always far too many enemies, and far too few friends. I’ve seen enough to treasure even those met in the strangest circumstances.”

And Bryessidan, bowing with the courtesy of monarch to monarch before he stepped through the gate, thought of the wolf-woman Firekeeper, of the yarimaimalom, of the maimalodalum, and realized with a certain amount of surprise that he would be pleased to someday be among those strange creatures Derian Counselor named friends.

He was met on the other side of the gate by his wife and queen. Gidji’s face was alight with real joy, and she hugged him as if he was nothing more than a man. and she a woman, not him a king and her a queen, and their marriage arranged besides.

“I worried about you, Bry.” she said softly, so softly that only he could hear. “I worried from the moment you donned your armor and left the palace. I worried that my foolish talk of empire might end up robbing me of riches I never knew I had until I watched them walk away from me.”

And Bryessidan, loosening his wife’s embrace only enough that he could look at her with wonder, thought that even in defeat there might be victory, if you were wise enough to know when it was offered.

XLVII

  TINIEL LISTENED, BUT his ears almost refused to hear as Aurick of Pelland told him that he must return to the Nexus Islands.

“I told them that you had thrown yourself on my protection.” Aurick said, “but whether that will mean anything to them or not, I cannot say. I only wish you to know that as important as my honor is to me, my first duty is to the service of my rulers. They have ordered that you be surrendered. If the Nexans release you, and you wish, you may return. I should be able to find some place for you in my household.”

He wheeled on his booted heel and left the room. Tiniel watched him leave, and when the guards came for him, let them escort him to the Pelland gate without word or protest.

One person and one person only was waiting for him when he came through the gate: Isende.

Tiniel looked at his sister, his twin, and saw a stranger. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him. His garments were very fine, the tightly woven brown cloth of the Pellander-style tunic and breeches was shot with a trace of something that made the fabric shimmer. His laced boots were in the Pellander style as well, high and tightly fit to his calf. His hair, freshly cut, was topped with a round cap that held a pheasant’s feather.

The outfit would have been dreadfully hot and confining back in Gak, but in the cooler climate of the Nexus Islands, it suited him just fine.

By contrast, Isende wore something halfway between a smock and a loose dress made from some coarse fabric. It was belted at the waist with a strip of cloth cut from an entirely different weave. The garment fell below Isende’s knees, stopping at a ragged hem at the middle of her calf. Her feet were clad in rope sandals. Her hair was tied back from her face. She looked very tired.

“We had little warning you were coming,” she said, “but I had arranged to see you alone. Oh, Tin … How could you have done that?”

He blinked at her, and drew himself up as tall as he could.

“I did what I thought was right.”

“You did …”

Isende thrust something that she had held tucked beneath her arm at him. Tiniel took it, only realizing after he held it that it was his drawing pad. His face grew hot as he thought of the dreams and imaginings he had committed to those pages, but he held on to his dignity.

“I found this in your rooms,” Isende said. “I went there, trying to understand how you could have done what you did.”

“I did what I thought was right,” Tiniel repeated sternly.

“Were any of the people here ever real to you?” his twin asked him. “Did you ever really get to know them?”