The computer control system was complex, but eventually Gwen was able to use it for simple tasks, such as calling up pictures and documents. A good thing, too, she told herself. Otherwise she'd be bored to distraction.
Not with Les, of course. He was attentive and kind. He spent hours preparing dinners to be served in a romantic setting, with exotic music from a dozen worlds, wines and liqueurs from as many more, so that their evenings-and nights!-were more exciting than anything she could imagine.
But that was a few hours a day. You can spend only so much of your time being charmed. Or in bed, she told herself. Les had his work; he was translating documents for the mercenaries. That left her with mornings and afternoons (ship time, of course; since they had left the solar system there was nothing to be seen outside the ship-no star or sun to mark days or seasons) with nothing to do. Les wouldn't let her talk to the mercenaries; they weren't to know she was aboard. He insisted on that.
Which left her curious. Who were they? Why were they going to a primitive world called Tran?
When she first learned to use the computer's information-retrieval system, she could only look at pictures. The languages were a total mystery. The pictures were amazing enough; stars and nebulae, time-lapse photographs of multiple star systems with the stars so close they touched and sent streams of star-stuff spiraling off into the universe; another time-lapse of a black hole devouring its companion, taken from close enough and with long enough time delay that she could actually see the real star diminish in size, torn into gases which spiraled down and down to vanish into a central nothing; and more. There were intriguing pictures of life on a hundred planets. She counted a dozen races. Shalnuksis, of course, and others; Centauroids. Octopoids. A race like humans, but obviously reptilian in ancestry. A world where humans-real humans-kept as seeming pets small winged reptiles looking for all the world like tiny dragons.
And it was frustrating because Les didn't want to answer questions. Not that he flatly refused, but he would put her off, ask what she thought of what she had seen, ask what it reminded her of, until the evening was over and once again she had done all the talking. His desire for knowledge about Earth was insatiable. He wanted to know everything, trivial or profound. No detail seemed unimportant.
An anthropologist studying her. But few anthropologists were so charming about it.
Eventually she found the file on Tran, the place where the mercenaries were going. She could read none of it, of course; but she had learned how to make the computer pronounce the words it displayed on the screen, and from that she learned the phonetic alphabet used by the Confederacy. She made very little progress learning that language. There were too many words referring to places and people and things and ideas that were thoroughly unfamiliar. This didn't surprise her. The real shock came when the computer showed her the languages of Tran.
She spent a day being certain. Then, in the evening, when they were together with a glass of amontillado ("One of Earth's finest products," Les had said. "Nothing to match it anywhere. Too bad regular trade with Earth isn't allowed."), she could stand it no longer.
"I was listening to Tran languages," she said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Nothing there to interest you."
"But there is! Les, I recognized some of the words! A lot of them. That language is based on an ancient Indo-European tongue! Some of the words are unchanged from Mycenaean Greek!"
"Astute of you to notice," he said. "I expect you're right."
"Les, you're teasing me. You know what this means. It means that there was an exchange of people-a lot of people, enough to bring languages with them-between Tran and Earth as far back as four thousand years."
"Other way," he said. "From Earth to Tran."
"I meant that. It's obvious that humans didn't evolve on Tran. It's only a colony. But why is it so primitive? Even relative to Earth. And Earth is primitive by your standards-Les, is Earth a colony?"
"No." He looked thoughtful. "Perhaps that's not the right answer. Perhaps you're right. Earth is a colony-"
"Les, you're not making sense. Did humanity evolve on Earth?"
"What do you thing? You've read Darwin and Ardrey and Leakey. More sherry?"
"I don't want sherry, I want answers!"
He came over and filled her glass. "Don't be so serious," he said. "Now. You obviously think humanity is native to Earth. Tell me why."
An hour later, it was time for dinner. He still hadn't answered her questions.
Dinner was exotic, as usual, but she wasn't interested in food.
"Hey. You're crying," he said. "What's the matter? You don't like nastari?"
"You treat me like a child."
"No. I treat you like an adult," he said. He was very serious.
"I-what do you mean?"
"You are an intelligent woman. You raise fascinating questions. Don't you want to find answers for yourself?"
"But you know, and I don't-"
"Do I?"
"You mean you don't know? You don't know where humanity evolved?"
"I don't even know that it did."
"But-" The enormity of what he'd said struck her. "But you-your culture-you've had space travel for four thousand years," she insisted. "If you don't know the answers, at least you have a lot more data! Give me some."
"I'm doing that. How much can you absorb in a few weeks?"
"Oh." She was silent for a long time.
"Gwen." His voice was very gentle, his expression very serious. "Gwen, accept it. All of it. Believe me, I care for you. And believe me when I say I'm trying to do what's best for both of us." He laughed. "My, aren't we serious. And the dessert will melt."
Gradually she realized it: he was interested in what she thought. He wanted to know her ideas, and more than that, her reactions to what she was learning. But he was getting her talking to herself.
"What am I?" she asked her mirror. "Lover or laboratory animal? Anthropologist's informant, mistress, or-" She broke off. She'd been about to say "wife" and she didn't have any right even to think that.
And he did want to know. When she pointed out that some of the intelligent races she'd seen in pictures were identical to descriptions found in ancient mythology: centaurs, an aquatic race that might be mistaken for mermaids, a saurian race that might or might not have inspired the Minotaur legend-he not only listened, he insisted on having her describe and sketch the legendary creatures.
He also encouraged her to study Tran. She might think of something useful, something that would aid the mercenaries. "It would help a lot if you could," he said.
"Why?"
"If they succeed, they'll make a lot of money for the traders. Traders have influence with the Council. Won't hurt my career."
She stared in disbelief. "I-I thought I knew you better than that," she said. "Don't you care about the people on Tran? They're human. Don't you care?"
"Oddly enough, I do care," Les said. "Enough, in fact, to see if I can think of any way to help the mercenaries succeed with a minimum of slaughter. Because, you see, they really have to succeed-"
"Why?"
He ignored her question. "Can you think of anything that would help?"
"I don't know," Gwen said. "All the information I've seen is very old-"
"About six hundred years old," Les said. "No one's been there since, except for one fairly recent fly-by. We know they're still pretty primitive down there. No railroads, industries, paved roads. No technological civilization."
"But no one has landed for six hundred years?"
Les nodded.
"But I thought this crop was valuable-"
"It is. But there are some powerful reasons for the Shalnuksis to stay far away from Tran." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "It's best you know. Tran's not in the Council's data banks. Except for the Shalnuksis and a few humans who work for them, no one knows the planet exists."
He seemed very serious, and she knew he already regretted trusting her with even that much information. She wanted to tell him that he could trust her with anything, that she'd always be loyal to him no matter what he was doing. That thought shocked her because she'd never thought such a thing before. And was it even true? "What would happen if the-the Council found out?"
Les shook his head. "I don't know." He was silent for a moment.
She waited, hoping he'd trust her again, but instead he said, "But it wouldn't be good for me. The Shalnuksis would lose control: They'd never get their crop harvested."
"But without information, how can they expect a small group of mercenaries to get them anything?"
"Maybe they can't." There was definite worry in the pilot's voice. "But it is important. Have you any suggestions?"
"This doesn't make sense," Gwen said. "You say the crop is valuable, but they don't visit the source for hundreds of years-"
"Oh. Yes," Les said. "But you see, the real surinomaz won't grow under normal conditions on Tran. Just for a few years out of every six hundred. But for about five years, starting a couple of years from now, it grows very well. The mercenaries could demand a pretty stiff price if they knew it." He sighed. "I guess the best thing will be to set them down near a small village in the right geographical region and hope they're intelligent enough to manage."
"They won't even know the languages-"
"They'll have to learn them."
"Why six hundred years?"
"Orbits," the pilot said. "Tran has two main suns. Both a little bigger and a little hotter than Sol. Planet's farther away from either of them, so it's not as warm. Reasonable climate, actually. But even with both suns, surinomaz won't grow properly. It's only a weed until the third sun comes close, but then fora short time it's the best stuff in the galaxy."
"But what is surinomaz?"
"Ever hear of Acapulco Gold?" the pilot asked.
"Marijuana-you mean drugs?"
"In away. Look, back on Earth, you've just discovered endogenous morphiates. Know what I'm talking about? No? Well, it turns out that the brain manufactures its own painkillers and euphoric drugs. Chemicals similar to morphines. Enough of them in your system, and you have a natural high. Surinomaz makes the same stuff, only by the barrelful. It has about the same effect on Shalnuksis as on humans, and they use it about the same way that Americans use alcohol. And Tran Natural gets a premium price, like Talisker scotch, or the rarer wines."
Gwen stared at him.
"I see you don't approve," Les said. "Look, what is it to me if the Shalnuksis use drugs? Or to you?"
But there has to be more, she thought. There has to be. Or is it that I can't accept being in love with a drug dealer? "Isn't all this illegal?" Gwen asked.
Les shrugged. "The drug traffic isn't precisely legal, but no one really cares. Keeping Tran a secret – now, that's highly illegal."
"But the crop is important to you," Gwen said.
The pilot was very serious now. "More important than you can guess that the mercenaries succeed."
"Then you should stay and help them," she said. "Can't. The ship's too vulnerable. And this trip has to be kept secret, which means the ship must return as quickly as possible-"
And then, as he always did, he changed the subject.
The computer's files on Tran were sketchy. As nearly as Gwen could tell, the planet had never been visited except to obtain a harvest, and there had never been any systematic studies made. No one had been sufficiently curious. There were only groups of traders who had brought mercenary soldiers from Earth with instructions to seize a particular area and cultivate surinomaz, harvest it, and sell the product to ships that would come later.
That had begun in Indo-European times, as Gwen had deduced from the language. She was pleased to find confirmation in the computer's records. The first humans had been sent to Tran because a dominant life-formS, centauroid (vaguely similar to the Greek centaur of legend, but the intelligent and unrelated centauroids she'd seen in other pictures were far more so) and about as intelligent as a chimpanzee, could not be trained to do cultivation. She could not find out why humans had been chosen, or why, once they had decided on humans, they had brought a band of Achaean warriors and their slaves instead of planting a high-technology colony.
The original expedition had been expensive. In addition to the Achaeans, the Shalnuksi traders had brought a variety of Earth plants and animals, scattering seeds broadside on the planet and returning years later with more animals and insects. There had been no scientific rationale to what they had brought, no attempt at a balanced ecology. It was instant natural selection; adapt or die.
The records didn't say so, but Gwen wondered if one of the reasons that surinomaz had become increasingly difficult to cultivate might be the competition from Earth plants, animals, and insects. Tran's native life forms used levoamino acids and dextro sugars, like Earth's, and thus competed for many of the same nutrients.
Trans's history and evolution was dominated by its suns. The two major suns together gave it at best only a bit more than 90 percent of what Earth receives from Sol; Tran was normally a cold world, with only the regions near the equator comfortable for humans. But then came the cyclic approach of the third star; for 20 years out of each 600, Tran received nearly 20 percent more sunlight, a combined total of 10 percent more illumination than Earth ever got.
In those times of burning, ice caps melted. Weather became enormously variable, cycles of drought and rainstorms alternating nearly everywhere. The higher latitudes, in normal times too cold for humans and resembling the Alaska tundra, were warmed and became temperate, experiencing a brief but glorious bloom of life.
The effects of the invader's passage were devastating to the human cultures. They never rose higher than an Iron Age feudalism. Gwen thought that curious and wanted to talk to Les about it, but she didn't feel very good and went to bed early.
The next morning she vomited her breakfast.
In a week she was certain. She went to find Les. He was seated at the control console dictating notes for the mercenaries. When she came in he looked up with a slight frown, annoyed that she'd disturbed him at work. "Yes?"
"I'm pregnant."
His face ran a gamut of emotions. Surprise, but then something else. It looked almost like horror. He said nothing for what seemed like an eternity. Then, his voice calm, he said, "We have reasonably complete medical robots aboard. I can ask the computer if they're up to an abortion."
"Damn you!" she shouted. "Damn you!"
"But-"
"What makes you think I want an abortion? I suppose this is an inconvenience to you. It-"
"Hush. There's more involved than you know."
He's serious, she thought. Deadly serious. Deadly. Now there's an appropriate word. "Les, I thought you might be pleased." Tears welled despite her effort to control them. Couldn't he understand?
"There's so much you don't know. Can't know," he said. "Gwen, we can't have a family life. Not as you think of family life-"
"You're already married. I should have known." She was alone again. Alone, and she couldn't go home.
His reaction startled her. He laughed. Then he said, "No. I'm not married." He stood and came toward her. She moved away. His face changed, the expression softening. "Gwen, it's going to be all right. You startled me, that's all. It will be all right. You'll see."
She wanted desperately to believe him. "Les, I love you-"
He moved closer. She was afraid, of him and of everything, but she didn't know what to do; and when he came to her, she clung to him in despair.
Two weeks passed. Les did not mention their future again. They entered Tran's star system, and Les busied himself finding a suitable place to land the mercenaries.
PART THREE:
Tylara do Tamaerthon sat at the head of the great wooden council table beneath banners and armor taken in a hundred battles. Her blouse was fine silk, dyed a cornflower blue to match her eyes, but under it she wore mail. The dagger at her belt had jewels and a pommel carved to the likeness of a gull's head; a work of art, but the blade was made in Rustengo and was honed to a fine point. Her braided raven-black hair was crowned with a cap of hammered iron.
She was young and beautiful, and every man in the room felt her presence; despite her armor and the dagger at her waist, she seemed small and vulnerable, in need of protection.
Everyone seemed dwarfed in the great hall of Castle Dravan. Like all of the ancient castles of Tran, Dravan stood above caves of ice; there was a faint smell of ammonia in the council room as an acolyte opened a massive door far below them. Above ground, stone arches and great wooden beams stretched massively. Other rooms in the fortress sported rich tapestries and wood paneling, but here the bones and sinews of the castle showed nakedly. The only decorations were mementos of battles won.
There were many of those. Banners from places a hundred leagues and more distant gave mute testimony to the strength of Dravan and the skill of the Eqetas who had ruled here. Tylara looked up at them as if to draw strength down from the rafters.
It was her first meeting of the full council, and she had no real confidence in these westerners. They seemed so little like her husband! And there were only two bheromen in attendance. The others were knights and merchants, a local priest of Hestia- this was a grain-producing region-and the inevitable priests of Yatar, two representatives of the yeomanry, a scattering of guildmasters. They called her Great Lady, and for the moment they respected her as Eqetassa of Chelm; but she was still a stranger who had never lived among them.
Her only real friends were the retinue she had brought from Tamaerthon, and they had no place in the council of this western land.
A messenger stood at the end of the table. What he read was full of flowery phrases and elaborate compliments, but his meaning was clear enough. She heard him out with impatience, then waved to have him led from the room. When he was gone, she looked down the length of the heavy wooden table. "Well, my lords? Wanax Sarakos makes us an offer. Have you advice?"
There was profound silence. Tylara smiled thinly. The silence was more eloquent than any speech could have been. Her bheromen wanted to accept the offer-or at least bargain with Sarakos while they still had something to bargain with. The yeomen and guildmasters-could they want Sarakos here also? Tylara looked at the impassive faces and read nothing. She knew too little of these people, and they were accustomed to hiding their thoughts from the great ones.
But if one of the bheromen spoke for accepting Sarakos, others would join. Or would they? These were her husband's people. Could they be so little like him? The memory of him stabbed at her, and she saw him as he had been: tanned, laughing, coming to her. She thrust the image from her mind before the tears came, for she had had this dream before, and it ended with reality-with Lamil cold and stiff in his bier.
She keenly felt her youth and inexperience. She was only twelve as they reckoned years here (in Tamaerthon they counted a child a year old at birth and added four more at age nine, so that she would be called seventeen there). She had lived far from these iron hills, and she did not know these people.
It said much for her husband – and for the strength of his family-that they obeyed her at all.
"Captain Camithon," she said. "It seems no one wishes to speak. Perhaps you will advise me."
Camithon had served three generations of Eqetas of Chelm; his beard had greyed in that service, and his body was scarred with wounds. A long scar from a lance that had narrowly missed taking his eye ran diagonally across his cheek, giving him a somewhat ferocious appearance that he sometimes took advantage of in councils of war. He stood hunched over as if his very bones were tired, and as he stood he muttered about his estates, which he had not visited in a year. But his voice was steady enough when he spoke. "The usurper marches with two thousand lances and a great train of foot," he said. "We have but a hundred lances, and we stand in Wanax Sarakos's way."
Tylara nodded gravely as she had seen her father do in clan meetings. Inwardly she wished to shout. Camithon was broadly proclaimed a splendid soldier and perhaps he was, but he could never come to the point until he had reviewed everything a dozen times and more.
She hid her impatience with good grace and thought no one noticed. She had learned endurance if not patience, and that would have to do.
"Dravan is strong," mused Camithon. He brushed his fingers against the scar on his cheek, as if to remind everyone that he had held Dravan in the battle that earned him his distinctive mark. "Our lady has seen to the granaries and magazines, and well done that was, too. This old castle has killed five armies -but it has never before been held with only a hundred lances, and it has never before been so thoroughly cut off from aid."
"As if there were any aid to send," one of the guildmasters muttered.
Camithon's sword rested on a map unrolled on the table. He lifted the weapon and used it as a pointer. "The Protector is here, ten days and more to the northwest with our Wanax Ganton. He has no more than a thousand lances, and the Protector cannot allow the young king to be penned up in any castle, no matter how strong. Thus he cannot come to our rescue himself, and I doubt he can spare any great strength."
Tylara wanted to shout. I know all that, her mind screamed. Outwardly she smiled and said, "You give us a hundred lances, but you have forgotten my Tamaerthon archers. I hope this usurper Sarakos makes that mistake. He won't make it twice."
There were murmurs of approval from behind her. Tylara's people could not sit at the council table, but she was attended by them; and the Tamaerthon yeomanry wasn't afraid to be heard in any council room. In their mountainous plateau by the sea, the clans did not live as peasants lived among the great lords and bheromen of the west.
She had a momentary twinge of homesickness. She longed for her high ridges, with the blue sea to the east, stark mountains rising from it to stand deep blue in dusklight and dawn. It would be so easy to go home. She had only to give up this castle to Sarakos and she could return as the wealthiest lady in Tamaerthon-or she could stay, with all her husband's lands restored. Sarakos would give her that, and the council would approve. She had only to say the words- "A hundred lances and two hundred archers are still but five hundred fighting men," Camithon said. He spoke as if proud of his arithmetic. "Fewer, for not all our knights have squire and man-at-arms. And these walls, though strong, enclose a great area. We have no reserve. Every man is needed at his post. What happens when they tire?"
Now, she thought. Say it now. But she couldn't. She had sworn. And how could she host her husband's murderer in his own home? Receive Chelm as a telast of Sarakos? It was unthinkable.
Yet-how do else? If the chief captain had no stomach for a fight, there was no chance at all. She fingered her braids restlessly.
"Yet honor demands that we fight," Camithon said. He looked down the length of the council table. "Do any dare dispute that?"
Some may have wanted to, but none spoke..,
"I have never been one to fight merely for honor," Camithon said. "I prefer to win. But we can do no good elsewhere, so if we fight, we must hold Dravan. We sit astride the only good road south. Until we are taken, Sarakos can take no great force in search of our young Wanax. We buy time for the Protector."
"Yatar knows what he'll do with it," Bheroman Trakon said. His voice was overly loud, nervous, yet
Trakon was a good man who had stood by the old Wanax in his troubles, and had lost much for doing it.
"Unfair, my lord," Camithon protested. "The Protector is the greatest soldier of Draсtos, and he has won before when all seemed darkest."
"And the Dayfather may produce a miracle," Trakon said. He did not turn to see the red face of Yanulf, Archpriest of Yatar. "Yet what else can we do? I trust Sarakos not at all. Of the bheromen who have gone over to him, more than half have lost all to his favorites."
"Which hasn't stopped dozens more from joining him anyway," the weavers' guildmaster muttered. "Half the bheromen-no, three parts of four-have welcomed Sarakos. We fight to no purpose."
"Do you counsel surrender?" Camithon demanded.
The portly guildmaster shrugged. "It would do no good. Sarakos has his own weavers, and they like not our competition. But it's a forlorn fight all the same."
"It is more than forlorn." Yanulf had stood silent and impassive thus far; now the priest drew himself to full height and spoke with contempt. "Fools. The Time approaches, and you babble of petty dynastic wars."
"Legends," Trakon said.
Yanulf smiled thinly. "Legends. Is it legend that the Demon grows in the night sky? Is it legend that the waters rise along the shore? That the lamils breed, and the madweed flourishes in your very fields? Is it legend that we sit in council hall with no fire burning, yet we are not cold?"
"A warm summer," Trakon said. "No more than that. The Firestealer has been banished from the vault of the sky and stands at zenith each midnight. Of course it is warm."
There were murmurs from the yeomanry and guildmasters. Yanulf's voice rose. "And in the Time of Burning," he intoned, "then shall the seas smoke and the lands melt as wax. The waters of ocean shall lap the mountains. Woe to them who have not prepared. Woe to the unbeliever." He laughed. "Woe to you, Bheroman. But Yatar will forgive you. My lady, this is not a time for war. It is a time to gather food, to fill the holy caves. Do you not smell the breath of the Preserver? When the Stormbringer approaches, Yatar takes care of his own; and his first sign is the breath of the Preserver."
"Aye," one of the yeomen muttered. "My nephew's an acolyte, and he says the ice has grown half a foot in the past forty-day. Grown, when the Firestealer stands overhead at midnight!"
"How long?" Tylara demanded. "How long until the Time?"
"The writings are not clear," Yanulf admitted. "The worst may not come for a dozen years. There will be other signs first. The Demon Gods will visit and offer magic in exchange for soma. Strangers will come, with strange weapons and a strange language."
Trakon laughed.
Yanulf gave him a look of contempt. "It is written," he said. "Thus came the Christians, and thus came the Legions; and thus came your forefathers. It matters not whether you believe. Before the Fire-stealer plunges through, the True Sun five times, these things will have come to pass."
"Plenty of time, then," Trakon said.
"Nay," Yanulf said. "When the signs are seen, all will seek refuge in the great castles. The petty wars you fight now will be forgotten as those who have built castles upon bare rock know their folly and bring their armies to strike. Soon, soon all will know that there is no safety beyond the caves of the Protectors."
Tylara let them talk, half-listening in case one said something new. There was little chance of that. The situation was simple enough, if you left out religion.
But dared she? The priesthood of Yatar was universal. Whatever local gods might hold this land or that, Yatar was everywhere that humans lived. In her own land were ice caves, deep beneath the rocks, and sacrifices of grain and meat were taken there to be preserved against the days of Burning, even though few believed in the tales carried by the priesthood. If the Time approached-a time of storms when no ship sailed, and the seas rose to lap at the foothills; when Tamaerthon itself became an island; when fire fell from the sky; a time when rains would not fall, and then deadly rains fell in torrents -She had heard the tales. No one she knew believed them except for the priesthood. Yet everyone knew of them.
But there was time. Religion could wait. And for the rest the situation was simple enough. Wanax Loron had not been a good ruler, and three years before his death civil war had broken out. The bheromen who fought him had justice on their side. Even Chelm had wavered, closing the gates of Dravan against Wanax Loron when he sought refuge from the bheromen, yet never quite joining the revolt either. That had been under Lamil's father, before plague took him.
(Plague. The legends said that as the Demon Star approached, the plague ran through the land; and certainly the plague struck every year now, with more killed each time…
But Loron had hired mercenaries and had driven the bheromen back and back, until the great ones of the land had done the unpardonable thing and invited outside help. They had offered the crown of Drantos to Sarakos son of Tons, Sarakos in his own right one of the Five Wanaxxae, and son of Tons High Rexja of the Five.
Before the invasion began, Loron died; but Drantos was left with a boy king and depleted treasury. When the bheromen rallied to their new Wanax with one of their number as Protector, they were too late. Sarakos continued to press his claims. Twentyyears before, the council of Drantos had arranged a royal marriage between Lana of Drantos, sister to Wanax Loron's father, and Tons Vanax High Rexja of the Five. It had been a brilliant diplomatic stroke, but now Sarakos could claim the throne of Drantos by blood, as the most legitimate adult claimant. A few minutes with a pillow would make him the only possible claimant.
And who could blame some of the bheromen for preferring Sarakos and peace to a boy king and war? Especially now, with the Demon growing visibly brighter in the night sky, and the priests of Yatar reading from their musty books and telling of the Time which would come. These were no times for a boy king. If only Lamil had joined Sarakos! He would be alive, and he- "I say we fight." The accent was uncultured-the blacksmith at the foot of the table. "I have heard how they live in the Five. Better be dead for one such as me. Is my forge to be used to hammer slave collars for my friends?"
"Well said," Bheroman Trakon said. "Aye. Well said. For our honor, then. Yet-honor does not demand that we hold after all is lost. I say fight, and I will be on the walls; but when Sarakos brings up towers and siege engines, I say make the best bargain we can. For all of us."
"You may bargain, my lord," the blacksmith said. "But when the Demon stands high in the day sky, what do we folk do? Sarakos would like well enough to hold Castle Dravan for his people, but will he take my family into the cool of the donjon?"
"If he will not swear to that, then I make no bargain with him," Trakon said. "We of Chelm protect our own, even against the gods. But I think you fear too much the tales of the priesthood."
"When the Demon grows large and sky fire falls, you will regret those words," Yanulf said.
"We fight," Tylara said. "For the rest we must wait, but we fight. See to the defenses. And bring all who wish to come within the walls. Have the herds we cannot bring inside driven into the mountains. Leave nothing to sustain Sarakos. Nothing to eat. Hide all wealth. Cover and hide the very wells. Let Sarakos find our land unpleasant for his stay."
"It is evil to destroy food," Yanulf said. "Evil."
There was muttering from the low end of the table, but the peasantry could see it was necessary. One of the guildmasters spoke for all the townsmen and crofters. "Do we make it hard enough, he may depart, leaving our own as our masters." He fingered his neck. "It will take a heavy collar to circle this. I cannot wish to carry such."
"See to it," Tylara repeated.
"Aye, Lady," Captain Camithon said. He paused until the bheromen were leaving, but had not gone so far that they could not hear him. "The young lord made no mistake in his choice. You're more of a man than half the bheromen of Drantos."
The great hall was empty except for Tylara and her archer commander. Cadaric was almost as old as Captain Camithon. His skin was tanned by wind and sun until his cheeks were cracked like worn leather. He wore the jerkin and kilts of his own people; they had never cared for trousers. "You've made no mistake, Lady," he said. He seemed pleased. "We'll show these westerners what Tamaerthon shafts can do."
"Until we have shot them all," Tylara said. Now that the others were gone, she could slump in her chair. She seemed smaller and more vulnerable. She was afraid, and there was no need to hide that from Cadaric. He had known her from the day she was born, and had served her brother and her father before him. There was no one else within five hundred leagues whom she could trust completely. "I've brought you here to be killed in a strange land, old friend."
He shrugged. "And will that be worse than to be killed at home? I doubt not that the Chooser can find me here as easily as in our mountains. When it is time to guest in his lodge, then guest you will. And yet," he mused, "and yet the Dayfather holds higher sway here. Do you think old One-eye has lost sight of this land? It would be pleasant to know."
"They say he sees the wide world," Tylara said. "Cadaric, I think they trust me not."
"They know you not. You are a young girl to them, and all they know is that their lad chose you. And because he did, they love you. Och, Lady, I know you mourn him."
And that was more than true. Tylara touched her cheeks, determined not to let the tears start again. A widow before she was properly a bride. It was the stuff the minstrels sang of.
Certainly Lamil had loved her. Eqeta of Cheim, one of the great counts of Drantos, he could have had his choice of a hundred ladies; but his ship had been wrecked on the rocky Tamaerthon coast, and after a summer (overly warm-could the priests be right?) he chose the daughter of a Tamaerthon chief. Tylara had no dowry, nothing to bring to the marriage-only two hundred archers, and a hundred of them free to leave after five years' service-but Lamil had chosen her above the great ones of his homeland.
She had loved to watch him; young and strong, calf muscles as hard as granite and standing out like thick cords from his slim legs. He browned to a deep copper in the sun. At night they ran on high ridges lit by the Firestealer. By day he laughed in the surf, climbed high on the ledges above the sea in search of young eagles. And he had laughed. Those were her favorite memories, of his laughter; laughing and swearing that he would have no other but her when she knew it could not be, laughing again at the furor he caused in rejecting the great ladies of Drantos and the Five.
And yet-it had been no silly match. Tylara brought nothing-and did not give anyone cause to fear an expanded county of Chelm. If no great lady caught the most eligible man in Drantos, then there were no jealousies. Yet she knew he had loved her.
She was married to him before he left Tamaerthon, but she was too young to go with him. The law required that the marriage be "consummated," and so it had been, but with a thick quilt between them in the wedding bed, and her father's dour henchmen standing by through the night.
And for a winter, while the Firestealer plunged through the True Sun, she had made ready to go to her new home, to join this strong and handsome young husband. She sang the winter through until her father pretended disgust that she could be so happy to leave. In spring, when shadows stood doubled at noon and the ice was thin, she sailed north with the yearly merchant fleet, too strong for pirates to molest. They sailed north, then west through the chain of islands and swamps, and then upriver. When they landed, she was so eager that she set out the same day. She drove so hard that her maidservants were exhausted and the archers muttered ribaldries.
They reached Castle Dravan only hours ahead of the news. Lamil had chosen to stand with the boy Wanax Ganton. There had been a great battle, and Lamil was dead. Most of his troops had died covering the retreat of the boy king and the Protector. Captain Camithon told her that the Eqeta had charged Sarakos and struck him on the helmet before the guards beat him from his saddle. A dozen men had held him while Sarakos personally delivered the death stroke.
"I mourn him," Tylara said, and there was ice in her voice. "Have your fletchers make true shafts, Cadaric. We will teach this Sarakos what plumage the Tamaerthon gull wears."