242 - The forthrightness of your illustrious self

I woke up the next morning thinking, my war is going too slowly. Why won’t they hurry up and muster somewhere, so we can attack them? Will I have to hunt them down? If so, I will, to the last ends of my nation. My sword-hand itched to feel the shearing of flesh, the catch on bone. My ears yearned for mortal cries. It’s far too long since I killed an Arkan.

My agents in Brahvniki had run out of money for sign-on payments, so we’d get no more mercenaries for now, but we were still up to about twenty-three thousand, mostly from Yeolis joining us. Those who neither had healed wounds or were sixteen or seventeen, I resolved not to ask about where they had been. Better to let it be in the past, and encourage them now.

The Schvait who had joined us, incidentally, were the clan Stzen, led by Bitha herself. The Schvait clans each elect a leader, the Johtaja, for both home and abroad if the whole clan’s warriors hire themselves out; from the Johtajen at home, one is elected Lynto Johtaja, the closest the Schvait had to a head of state. Should she leave (they’re usually women), another is chosen, so Bitha had given that up, for this.

She was some forty or forty-five, short, stocky, practical-minded and sparing with words. I asked her whether her coming might be taken by Arko as a blow from the Schvait confederacy itself, and gain its enmity. Answering with her rough Enchian, she shrugged it off. “No longer am I Lynto Johtaja; let them though take it as they please. We are not worried of engagement with them.”

“So,” I said casually as we did the papers, “How goes it with Abatzas’s Schvait anyway?” They were marching about two days before us, having got the jump on us by doing brutal force-marches the first two days, so obviously still counted their contract active. No doubt they were owed. “Such thrashings must be good for a hefty raise; is it more if the general they’re contracted with is a captive of the enemy?”

The standard Schvait contract, which I was just signing myself, allows for raises in pay if they are with a much larger force and get defeated, compensation for foolhardy risks, inferior comrades or poor generalship.

Bitha looked at me under her brows. Two opposed Schvait units invariably have kin and friends on the other side, exchange letters, meet in taverns when on leave. This has often gotten them suspected of spying, so that they’ve found it best to bind themselves not to; my contract set it out clearly. “Would have me break this so soon, you?” she said, in a scolding way. “Handsome young men who lead are dangerous.”

“I’m just asking for gossip, not intelligence,” I said laughing.

She looked at me harder under her brows. “You know not of saying, ‘intelligence is war-leader’s gossip?’” But she added that they were expecting a raise commensurate, once they could find an Arkan authorized to pay them.

As we marched the morning after Kallijas left, and I rode working on the lapdesk—I’d rigged a neck strap so I could wear it, like a festival jewel-seller’s box—I wrote Kranaj saying we’d made the plains, so could he please send Jakanarja with the horse. We hadn’t yet, but by the time he got the letter, which could only go part-way by Niah flyer, we would.

In my tent that night, life was blessedly simple, with just a fiancée and squires, though I had Lurao come in furious, having heard that I’d sent Kallijas off alive. “You assume that living for him will not be worse than death,” I said. “Think—he is helpless and in effect imprisoned, because he can’t go home, and he’ll be following our course as we undo all he has done, and kill all his friends that we haven’t already.”

I saw the mistake almost before she said, “Undo all he has done? We can’t bring my brother back to life. Chevenga, why are you so soft on that…” Her lip curled. “…Arkan?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You are right, of course, and I wrong, to say that.” I ended up reiterating the arguments I’d made for not killing Kall, and she walked away angry, but it was the best I could think of.

Then Krero greeted me, with his stern I-come-bearing-a-matter-of-import look, and asked to speak to me in private. “Fourth Chevenga,” he said formally when we were in the inside office of my tent, “you want to marry Niku, do you not? So intend to send a request for approval to Assembly?”

“Yes,” I said. Chinisa had nicely scribed my request to Assembly to approve my marrying Niku, as I’d asked, but it had been pushed down the stack by more urgent things. “I just have to sign and send it.”

“Isn’t it clear to you,” he said, “why you must not?”

“No,” I said. “It is not at all clear to me why I must not.”

“You surely realize that many Yeolis and thus many Servants of Assembly would oppose it, on principle? Possibly a majority?”

“Many, certainly. A majority, I am hoping not, but possibly, yes.”

“And you understand their perception of your importance, that you must remain semanakraseye for Yeola-e to regain its freedom? I quote you back to yourself: ‘Yeola-e’s hopes lie with me and me alone, and you all know that. What you do to me, you do to your people.’”

I began to see what he was getting at. I saw my own hand turn white where it was gripping the edge of my desk. I was only saying the truth, I wanted to say. It would just strengthen his point. “So do you see they cannot help but feel compelled to accede to your request, whatever their true opinions or feelings, yes? And thus your request would be in effect coercion, which a semanakraseye must not do—so you absolutely must not make it?”

I felt sick to my stomach. He was right. They might even approve it now, and then rescind it, forcing me to divorce her, once the war was over. Full of sympathy, he patted my shoulder, but couldn’t entirely stifle his grin. “You didn’t see,” he said. “I know. It happens. No one can see everything, even you. What are friends for, but to grab your arm before you step into the pit?”

“Thank you,” I said between my teeth. I’d expected he’d find, or at least look for, some way to get me back for making him prosecute the guards who’d killed Minakis, even though that had been undeniably his obligation. What a perfect way to do it, finding something that was undeniably mine.

Niku had been out helping settle some question among her own people. “Love, you look tired,” she said when she came in, and we kissed. “As if some other weight is on your shoulders.” As if to confirm it, Vriah’s sweet brown face wrinkled and she let out a moan. I had to tell the truth.

Niku’s lips thinned white, and Vriah’s moan grew to a cry. I held out my arms to take her, and took a deep breath. “I don’t like being spat on for the shade of my skin by my husband-to-be’s people. Will they spit on her, too? And every child we have?”

“Wait until all Yeola-e knows what your people can do,” I said. “That will gain not only respect, but awe.”

“So only by what we do, do we deserve respect?” That I couldn’t answer, except to say that she knew that wasn’t so for me, and prove it further with touch. “No matter, we’ll just wait for the end of the war,” we told each other, in the end. “Our chances will actually be better, because they’ll know. And in the meantime, we are married in spirit.” My people couldn’t tell me who I could have in my tent, at least from among our allies.

Anyone will tell you it’s wisest not to pine over one person you love who is absent in the presence of another who is present, so I didn’t tell her how much I thought about Kallijas, and how much I missed him. Life was simpler, but I felt as if part of myself was gone. To not tell her how it weighed on my heart seemed deceptive to me, another betrayal, but I did not.

Finally the Arkans pulled together an army at Kayarere. By my spies in the air I knew their number, about twenty thousand; by my spies on the ground I knew they were led by Perisalas Kem. I’d known from my reading in my room in the Mezem that he was competent, and Kallijas had confirmed it by telling me several times he’d wished either Perisalas or Larianas Alpetin had been Triadas’s replacement.

So the first thing I did, once we’d encamped, was send Sachara under the ivy branch to invite Perisalas to parlay, to which he agreed. I took Abatzas, and his over-jewelled nose-picker, with me when I went to meet him. I didn’t get close enough to see his face well, but Perisalas seemed more the fine-featured fox type of Aitzas general, slight and long-nosed, and sitting tall in the saddle.

“In light of his brilliant service to Arko, which demands such respect, and my desire to face such an honourable opponent general-to-general on the field again,” I announced to both of them, as well as a Pages man with a noteboard, “I have decided to release the esteemed General Abatzas Kallen without requiring ransom.” I signed the two of mine who were ceremonially holding his arms to let go, and gave one of them the nose-picker to give to him.

“Muunas be praised!” Abatzas said, as he scurried across to the Arkan party. “My relief is palpable. My dear Perisalas, you must be so relieved to relinquish command again to me. I thank you for having performed so worthily thus far.” He turned to face me and speak in Enchian. “So soon you’ll rue the day you first faced me, and then captured me, and then released me, you barbarian Hayel-spawn!”

“Straight faces, straight faces, straight faces,” I hissed between my teeth to all my escort. Perisalas just looked at me as if he wanted to rip out my guts, or, then again, perhaps his own.

They were camped in a line across the valley, from the river to where the slope gets steep on the other side. It was an even line, with about five hundred horsemen placed by the river, and another seven hundred near the centre, and skirmishers up on the slope. I set my camp in the usual travelling square, near the river, so as to show them nothing of how I meant to deploy. Just as I was calling together the command council, a message came to me from the sentries at the perimeter.

“There’s an Arkan came across under the ivy branch, and unarmed,” the messenger told me. “He says he works for… I don’t know if I can get this right…” She uttered a mangled pronunciation of Arkan for ‘The Pages.’ “And he asks if he can please visit us frequently as we wage our war against Arko, so as to get the view of the other side, whatever that means. One of the sentries he approached thought they should just turn him off; the other felt they should report anything this weird to their commanding officer, who felt likewise, and so on to the milakraseye, who sends me to you.”

“Welcome the Arkan in and tell him, by all means, so long as he consents to being asked whether he has any plans to kill or harm anyone or anything in our camp under truth-drug,” I said, much to her amazement. I added to the Ikal person who was going to do it, “Don’t ask him whether he means to spy.”

The writer passed that test, and begged an interview with me, which I granted. I knew him: Filias Metras, who’d been a Mezem writer for a few moons while I’d been there. “Seems you cannot escape the smouldering-eyed but surly Karas Raikas,” I said. “I’m much more amenable to questions these days than I was then, though. Go ahead.”

“Thank you so much, Durakis,” he said. “This one always appreciated the forthrightness of your illustrious self on those occasions when you did answer. This one assumes a plan to attack Abatzas’s force; may he humbly ask what your magnificent self’s battle plan is?” He poised his pen.

“Well, since you ask so directly,” I said, switching to Enchian for the benefit of Reknarja, who I’d posted outside to listen as part of his apprenticeship, and I could almost feel turning green, “we mean to charge straight on, with the usual crossfire, but hide our true strength behind our right wing… no, sorry, the left. Pardon me. No wait… the right. Yes, the right.”

“The right?” Filias said, his fingers going a little white on his pen. “Durakis, are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, I… wait.” I dug through some papers on my lap-desk, pretended to find it. “Yes, of course it’s the right, our right, because that’s where the upwards slope is, as opposed to the plain, where Abatzas would expect it, you see, to counter his horse. We mean to outflank him and swing around behind, the darya semanakraseyeni elite on point, that is. Led personally by myself.”

“Ah…” he switched to Arkan again. “This one sees. A truly clever plan, which we Arkans must pray Aras grants our commanders wisdom to foresee and counter.”

“Even as we pray, in the way that we do, for the opposite,” I said. “Any other questions?” He had a few more, of a more general nature—how did I feel being free and in command rather than a prisoner, and what had it been like to come home—but admitted he was in a hurry to leave, so as to send his pigeons back to the City itself before deadline, and scurried off without even finishing the tea I’d offered him.

“Sievenka!” Reknarja said when he was gone, his voice gone up a few notes. “I thought we didn’t even have a battle plan yet, since you postponed the command council to do this! You told—”

“Now we do,” I said. “Sish… send out to the command council that the meeting’s postponed until tomorrow, just before we attack, since I’ve done the plan myself.” It took all I had, but I managed to keep a straight face, seeing Reknarja’s dark eyes under their peakish brows go so wide, and his narrow lips form such a round frozen circle, as I sent out the scouting and deploy orders just as I’d told Filias. That night I slept missing Kall still, but feeling myself again.