Feet clattered outside, and voices rang; one a high clear soprano. Helga Demansk swept in, wearing women's dress this time, a long blue robe with a fold of her mantle over her hair. That was tied back with a ribbon, and twisted into plaits.
"Adrian!" she said, handing her shopping basket to a maid. "It fits! Oh, hello, Esmond."
"Helga," he said, half-rising and bowing his head. "What fits?"
"The cuirass and helmet," she said. "They do good metalwork here, I've got to admit, even if they are pirate dogs." Adrian winced slightly, and looked around. "Oh, don't worry, Adrian," she went on. "They're proud of being pirates."
"But not dogs," he said.
"Are you going to tell me yet where this new expedition is headed?" she said, a green gleam in her eye. "Casull will have all the islands soon, at this rate."
"Are you so eager to slay men, lady?" Esmond asked.
This time Helga looked aside slightly. "Well, no," she said. "Not really. But it's. . exciting, you know what I mean?"
"Unfortunately I do," Esmond agreed.
Helga reached into the basket. "And look at what I found," she went on more brightly. "A copy of the War of the Thousand Ships. I kept myself sane partly by reciting big chunks of it from memory, but it's been so long since I had anything to read."
Esmond laughed. "You and my brother were made for each other by the gods, lady. Even when we were running for our lives, two pack-velipads full of scrolls followed us."
Helga chuckled, but scowled slightly. "That idiot Audsley got a lot of good men killed, from what I hear," she said. "Damned traitor. . and of course he got his head handed to him when he met. . Justiciar Demansk. Demansk is a real general, and he has the interests of the State at heart."
correct, Center said. which is why with a high probability he would be hostile to our innovations. however, it would be advisable to gain a fuller psychostatistical profile of him — the subject helga demansk would be a valuable source of data.
Shut the hell up, Adrian thought. He could feel Raj agreeing with him, an eerie nonverbal communication, like some ghostly equivalent of seeing expression on a man's face.
"Sorry," Helga went on after a moment. "Sometimes I forget you're Emeralds."
"Emeralds and Confeds are near-as-no-matter blood brothers here in the Isles," Adrian said lightly — which was true in one sense, and an outright lie in another.
Helga met his eyes and smiled, and worries seemed to dissolve themselves in time sweeter than honey. After a moment Esmond cleared his throat and stood.
"Well, I can tell when I'm the third wheel on a chariot," he said. "Tomorrow, then, brother."
* * *
"We're getting sort of close to the mainland, aren't we?" Helga said.
"That is the mainland," Adrian replied.
The galley had been under sail alone, one squat square sail driving the lean hull eastwards. Adrian stood on the quarterdeck, with his arm and cloak around the woman beside him; he'd been still, because if he was still all he need see was the frosted arch of stars above, the ghostly arcs of the moons, the smells of salt water and sweat and tar and the mingling of jasmine and clean healthy woman that was Helga. If he did not think, his mind need not crack and bleed. .
"Sir. ." began the ship's captain; he was Casull's man, and they were not authorized to be anywhere but on the approaches to Preble.
"Shut up, you," Simun said.
The Islander skipper looked at him, and at the scores of Adrian's arquebusiers sprawled about the galley's deck, sleeping wrapped in their cloaks, throwing dice in the hollow of an upturned buckler, chewing hardtack and dried fruit, or simply sitting patiently on their haunches. His crew numbered roughly the same, though all but fifteen of them were oarsmen and sailors, tough hardy men and handy in a fight, but no match for soldiers with swords and light body armor. And from the flat dispassionate stare of the little underofficer, they'd be perfectly happy to slit his throat, throw the crews' bodies after his, and turn pirate if this Emerald gave the word. They were his men, not the King's.
"Your orders, sir?" he said to Adrian.
"Beach the ship lightly," he said, then looked ahead. "There's shallow shelving water and soft sand there — just touch her."
The captain shivered and made a covert sign with his fingers. Those eyes. . They're not like those of other men. As if demons or spirits — or gods? — were looking out of them. Telling him things, that's what the tales say. He's not canny.
He turned to give his orders to the steersmen and sailing master. The sail and yard came down with a muted thump and were furled; below the oarsmen stirred in sleepy protest. There was a yelp or two as the bosun's rope-end persuaders swung, and then the oars came rattling out, poised, dipped down into the dark star-reflecting water and bit. The ship turned towards the black line of the shore, where low waves and white foam and pale sand made a line in the night. It was calm water, and the ship was a raider, built for 'longshore work. Behind him the sorcerer was talking with his woman in Confed, a language the captain knew only a few words of.
"Adrian," Helga said. "What's going on?"
The Emerald drew a deep breath. "I didn't tell you where we were bound," he said. "Because I didn't want to spoil things more than. . earlier than I had to."
"You're bound to attack Confederacy territory," she said, her voice quiet and level as her eyes.
"Yes," Adrian said.
"Preble? It's the logical target and weakly held."
Adrian felt a knife twist deeper. This woman has brains, he thought. Some of the Scholars of the Grove held that the only true love was between man and youth, because only then could there be a meeting of minds and not merely of bodies. He'd admitted the theoretical force of the argument, but not anymore, not anymore. .
"Yes."
"Adrian. ." She stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder. He could barely feel it through the shoulderpiece of his corselet, but a heat seemed to gather beneath.
"Adrian, don't do it. You'll be killed, you can't understand even if you win at first, the Confederacy always comes back in the end, please, don't throw yourself away—"
She's thinking of me, he realized with a glow of wonder. He shook his head and went on:
"I've. . got to back my brother. And I'm not going to ask you to fight against your country. . possibly against your father's own troops."
Shock turned Helga's face white. "You knew?"
"You favor him. And I knew about the raid." His hand came down on hers, where it rested on the bronze of the armor. "Helga. . I didn't give a damn. Don't now."
She looked at him for a long slow moment. "I believe you," she said. "And you're not sending me back now as a gift to him?"
His mouth quirked. "Your father is notoriously patriotic. Who was that ancient Confed general, the one who executed his own sons when they proposed surrender. .?"
"Louis deVille," she said automatically. "That was in the war of King Peter."
The one who came up with the phrase Petric Victory, a scholar's corner of Adrian's mind remembered. That was long before the Confed conquest of the Emerald lands, when an Emerald — or half-Emerald — general could still invade there himself. But he'd won no concessions, although he'd carried half a dozen bloody fields against the nascent Confederation's army. The problem was that they could replace the men, and he couldn't.
"Well, if deVille was ready to sacrifice his sons, I think your father — much though he must love you — will sacrifice a daughter for Preble. I'm not going to be buying any favors from him with you."
Her eyes searched his. "How well you must know him," she said. "Is there nothing you don't know?"
"I don't know how to come by what I want most in the world and still keep my honor," he said.