"Your Excellency," Qutuz said when Hajjaj returned to his own office, "the Algarvian minister would confer with you."
"Why am I not surprised?" Hajjaj murmured, and then, "I will see him."
"He says he will be here in half an hour," Qutuz said.
"Time enough for me to get dressed." Hajjaj let out a heartfelt sigh. "With the weather warmer than it was, I'm starting to feel that I'm martyring myself for the sake of diplomacy again."
"What if he comes naked?" Qutuz asked. "What if he comes showing off his circumcision?" He sounded as queasy talking about that as a prim and proper Sibian would have sounded while taking about going naked.
"I don't expect it," the Zuwayzi foreign minister replied. "He's only done it a couple of times, and then as much to startle us, I think, as to conform to our customs. If he does… if he does, I'll get out of my own clothes again, and I'll spend the time he's in my office not looking between his legs." The idea of mutilating oneself, and especially of mutilating oneself there, left him queasy, too. He went on, "Make sure you fetch in the tray of tea and wine and cakes. With Balastro, I may want to spin things out as long as I can."
His secretary bowed. "Everything shall be just as you say, your Excellency."
"I doubt it," Hajjaj answered bleakly. "Not even a first-rank mage can make that claim. But we do what we can, so we do."
He'd started quietly baking in his Algarvian-style clothes when Marquis Balastro came strutting into his office. The Algarvian minister, to Hajjaj's relief, was himself clothed. After the handshake and bows and protestations of esteem- some of which approached sincerity- Hajjaj said, "You look extraordinarily dapper today, your Excellency."
Balastro chortled. "How in blazes would you know?"
Hajjaj shrugged. "So much for diplomacy. Take a seat, if you'd be so kind. Qutuz will be here with tea and wine and cakes in a moment."
"Will he?" The Algarvian minister sent him a sour look. "Which means there are things about which you don't care to talk to me. Why am I not surprised?" But even as Balastro grumbled, he made a nest for himself in the pillows that took the place of chairs in Hajjaj's office. "Tell me, my friend, since you can't very well say a bare-naked man is looking dapper, what do you say for polite chitchat along those lines? 'Hello, old fellow. Your wen's no bigger than it was the last time I saw you'?"
"If it's not," Hajjaj answered, which made Balastro laugh. "Or you can talk about sandals or jewelry or hats. Hats do well."
"Aye, I suppose they would, with so little competition." Balastro nodded to Qutuz, who fetched in the traditional Zuwayzi refreshments. "Good to see you. Nice hat you're not wearing."
Qutuz stooped to set the tray on Hajjaj's low desk. Then he bowed to Balastro. "I thank you very kindly, your Excellency," he replied in good Algarvian. "I hope you like it just as much the next time you don't see it." He bowed again and departed.
Balastro stared after him, then chortled again. "That one's dangerous, Hajjaj. He'll succeed you one of these days."
"It could be." Hajjaj poured wine. It was, he saw, date wine, which meant Qutuz hadn't been so diplomatic as all that; Zuwayzin were the only folk with a real taste for the stuff. "Most people, however, prefer not to think of their successors, and in this I must confess to following the vulgar majority."
At last, as the tea and wine and cakes failed, so did the small talk. Leaning forward a little, Hajjaj asked, "And how may I serve you today, your Excellency?"
"It appears likely that Kaunian marauders have made their way back to Forthweg from the refuge places Zuwayza had unfortunately granted them," Balastro said. "I will have you know that King Mezentio formally protests this outrage."
"His protest is noted," Hajjaj replied. "Be it also noted that Zuwayza has done everything possible to prevent such unfortunate incidents. Our navy has sunk several boats sailing east toward Forthweg for unknown but suspicious purposes." How many more had slipped past Zuwayza's small, not very energetic navy, he couldn't begin to guess.
Balastro's snort said he couldn't begin to guess, either, but assumed the number was large. Hajjaj didn't worry overmuch about that snort. If the Forthwegian Kaunians were all that Balastro had on his mind, the Zuwayzi foreign minister would be well content.
But, snort aside, Balastro still had reasons to confer with Hajjaj. Hajjaj had been mournfully certain he would, and even on which topic. Sure enough, Balastro said, "You are doubtless wondering why we have not struck at the Unkerlanters."
"I?" Hajjaj contrived to look innocent. "Even if such a thought were in my mind-"
Balastro cut him off with a sharp gesture, more the sort an Unkerlanter might have used than anything he would have expected from an Algarvian. "We're getting ready, that's all. We're not leaving anything to chance this time. When we hit them, we're going to hit them with everything we've got. And we're going to smash them flat."
"May it be so." On the whole, Hajjaj meant it. Algarve was a nasty cobelligerent. Unkerlant was a nasty neighbor, which was worse. King Swemmel rampant in triumph… His mind shied away, like a horse from a snake.
"Believe it!" Balastro said fervently. "Only believe it, and it becomes that much likelier to be true. He whose will fails first fails altogether."
"It's rather harder than that, I fear," Hajjaj said. "If it weren't, you would not have needed to pause to gather all your forces in the south." Balastro stared at him, as if astonished to be called on the inconsistency. Hajjaj didn't care, not about that; part of the diplomatist's art was knowing when not to be diplomatic.
As Cornelu urged the leviathan west, islands rose up out of the sea. He couldn't see all of them, even if the leviathan stood on its tail, but he knew how many lay ahead of him: five good-sized ones, one for each crown on the breast of the rubber suit he wore.
"Sibiu," he whispered. "My Sibiu."
The last time he'd gone back to his Sibiu, the Algarvian occupiers had killed his leviathan out from under him. But the Algarvians had done worse than that; they'd killed his family out from under him, even though Costache and Brindza remained alive.
He was glad this scouting mission didn't take him to Tirgoviste town, didn't take him to Tirgoviste island. How alert were Mezentio's men around Facaceni island, the westernmost of the main five? If they were too alert, of course, he wouldn't bring the leviathan back to Setubal, but that would tell the Lagoan naval officers something worth knowing, too.
He kept an eye peeled for dragons, another for ley-line warships. So far, no sign of either. The Algarvians, these days, had a lot of coast to watch: Sibiu's, of course, but also their own and Valmiera's and Jelgava's and Forthweg's and, Cornelu supposed, Zuwayza's and Yanina's as well. The Algarvian navy hadn't been enormous before the war began. It also had to hold off Unkerlant's, to try to keep an eye on the land of the Ice People, and to help colonial forces keep the sputtering war going in tropical Siaulia. Looked at that way, was it any wonder Cornelu saw no warships?
Maybe the Lagoans and Kuusamans could send a fleet into Sibiu and snatch it out from under the Algarvians' noses. Maybe. That was one of the reasons Cornelu and his leviathan were here. If they didn't spot any patrollers, maybe Mezentio's minions were sending everything west for the big fight, the fight that couldn't be ignored, the fight against Unkerlant.
What sort of garrison stayed in Facaceni town? Real soldiers? Or beardless boys and gray-haired veterans of the Six Years' War? Cornelu couldn't tell that, not from the sea, but Lagoas and Kuusamo were bound to have spies in the town, too. What were they telling the spymasters in Setubal and Yliharma? And how much of what they were telling those spymasters could be believed?
On swam the leviathan, pausing or turning aside now and again to snap up a fish. Somewhere along the coastline, the Algarvians would have men with spyglasses or perhaps mages watching for the approach of foes from the west. Cornelu and his leviathan would not draw the mages' notice, for he pulled no energy from the ley lines that powered fleets. And to a man with a spyglass, one spouting leviathan looked much like another. For that matter, from farther than a few hundred yards, a spouting leviathan looked much like a spouting whale.
As he rounded the headland and neared Facaceni town, Cornelu saw several sailboats bobbing in the water. They wouldn't draw the notice of any mages, either. Cornelu grimaced. The Algarvians had conquered Sibiu through a daring reversion to the days before ley lines were known: with a fleet of sailing ships that reached Cornelu's kingdom unseen and undetected in dead of night. In a world of ever-growing complexity, the simple approach had proved overwhelmingly successful.
He thought about going up to one of the boats and asking the fishermen for local news. Most Sibians despised their Algarvian overlords. Most… but not all. Mezentio's men recruited Sibians to fight in Unkerlant. Sibian constables helped the Algarvians rule their countrymen. A few folk genuinely believed in the notion of a union of Algarvic peoples, not pausing to think that such a union meant the Algarvians would stay on top forever.
One of the fishermen saw Cornelu atop his leviathan when the great beast surfaced. He sent an obscene gesture Cornelu's way. That probably meant- Cornelu hoped it meant- he thought Cornelu an Algarvian. But Cornelu didn't find out by experiment.
When he got to Facaceni town, he spied a couple of dragons on patrol above it, wheeling in the clear blue sky. He noted them with grease pencil on a slate. What he could not note was how many more dragons might rise into the sky on a moment's notice if dragonfliers or mages spied something amiss.
Facaceni town, of course, faced the Derlavaian mainland- faced toward Algarve, in fact. All the major Sibian towns did; only the lesser ones turned toward Lagoas and Kuusamo. Part of that was because Sibiu lay closer to the mainland than to the big island. The rest was due to the way the ley lines ran. In olden days, before ley lines mattered so much, Sibiu had long contended with Lagoas for control of the sea between them. She'd lost- Lagoas outweighed her- but she'd fought hard.
As an officer of the Sibian navy, Cornelu knew the ley lines around his kingdom the way he knew the pattern of red-gold hairs on the back of his right arm. If anything, he knew the ley lines better; they mattered more to him. He knew just when he could peer into the harbor of Facaceni to see ley-line warships, if any were there to be seen.
And some were. He cursed softly under his breath to spot the unmistakable bulk of a ley-line cruiser and three or four smaller craft. They were Algarvian vessels, too, with lines slightly different from those of the warships the Sibian navy had used. A civilian spy might not have noticed the differences. To Cornelu, once more, they were obvious.
He saw no Sibian vessels. He didn't know where they'd gone; he couldn't very well urge his leviathan into the harbor and ask. He made more grease-pencil notes. He had a crystal with him. If he'd spotted something urgent, he could have let the Admiralty back in Setubal know. As things were, he scribbled. No Algarvian mage, no matter how formidable, could possibly detect the emanations from a grease pencil.
Some Lagoan was probably peering into the harbor of Tirgoviste town. Cornelu cursed softly again. He didn't even know why he was cursing. Did he really want to lacerate himself by seeing his home town again? Did he really want to stare up the hills of Tirgoviste town to see if he could catch a glimpse of his old home? Did he really want to wonder if the Algarvians had put a cuckoo's egg in his nest?
The trouble was, part of him did: the part that liked to pick scabs off scrapes and watch them bleed again. Most of the time, he could keep that part in check. Every so often, it welled up and got loose.
You're going back to Janira, he reminded himself. That didn't stop him from wanting to see what Costache was up to at this very moment, but it helped him fight the craving down to the bottom of his mind again.
"Come on," he told the leviathan. "We've done what we've come to do. Now let's go… back to Setubal." He'd almost said, Let's go home. But Setubal wasn't home, and never would be. Tirgoviste town was home. He'd just come up with all the good reasons he didn't want to go there. Even so, he knew the place would draw him like a lodestone till the day he died.
Absently, he wondered why a lodestone drew little bits of iron to it. No mage had ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for that. He shrugged. In a way, it was nice to know the world still held mysteries.
His leviathan, of course, made nothing of human speech. He wondered what it thought he was doing. Playing some elaborate game, he supposed, more elaborate than it could have devised on its own. He tapped its smooth skin. That got it moving where words could not have. It turned away from Facaceni town and swam back in the direction from which it had come.