“We have allies in Northcoast?”
She smiled and patted Vincen’s arm, but she didn’t answer, because there was no advantage in his knowing her intention. Discretion began at home.
Back at the boarding house, she spent a coin for three sheets of rag paper and thimble of ink. Paying for a courier would tax her allowance badly. She would be living on yesterday’s bread until the next handful of coin came from Jorey, but it couldn’t be avoided. She sat alone by the light of a candle, composing the letter in her mind for fear of wasting the paper.
Sir,
We have met, but I cannot think you would remember me. For reasons that will become clear, I prefer not to identify myself to you at this time. You have been represented to me as a man of both tact and influence, and for this reason, I wish to share with you some observations I have made concerning affairs in the city of Camnipol and also my concerns for what these observations portend.
To begin, the Lord Regent has, under the pretext of raising barracks for the guard, begun the construction of prisons within the city walls. I have reached that conclusion for the following reasons …
Even with her script tight, small, and as legible as she could achieve, she ran short of paper before things she wished to say. One fact flowed gracefully into another, each observation building on the ones before. She kept the tone calm and conversational, giving room for the reader to draw his own conclusions rather than impressing her own upon him in any but the most unobtrusive way. When she was finished, she sewed the edges herself, fixing the threads in a simple knot. She addressed the outermost face in a single line.
Geder
That they remain unprepared,” Lord Ternigan said. “That is our best advantage.”
The map of Sarakal lay unfolded on the table, the four men looking down at it as if to divine some secret teaching from the shape of its borders. Geder had chosen Ternigan to be Lord Marshal for the invasion. Lord Skestinin, as always, commanded the navy that was even now leaving the far northern seas for the warmer southern waters. And Lord Daskellin, ambassador to Northcoast, whose duty was to see that the northern border of the empire was protected by a wall of friendship and promises while the blades and bows traveled south. They were the war council. They and, of course, Basraship.
The hunt had come here last, to the holdings at Watermarch, winter almost at its end. The holdfast was perched on a high granite cliff that looked over the wide sea to the east. The trees in the garden outside the wide window were only sticks, but their brown had the first blush of green. The thaw was coming, and in days. Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch, had set aside a full wing of his home for this meeting, even the most trusted of servants sent away. It was the inner council. The last secret meeting.
“Food’s an issue,” Daskellin said. He stood between Geder and the wide windows, the light behind him and the darkness of his skin conspiring to make him seem more silhouette than man. “After the struggles in Asterilhold and then the unrest all through the summer, we were looking at a thin spring to begin with. Things are uncertain and unsettled, and people want to feel that the storm’s passed.”
“There won’t be any fighting there,” Geder said. “There won’t be any fighting anywhere in Antea.”
“It’s not only this crop I’m thinking of,” Daskellin said. “Fielding the army takes food, but it also takes farmers.”
“That’s what those roaches in Nus are counting on,” Ternigan said. “We’ll be fine. Once we take their granaries, we’ll hardly need support from the Kingspire at all.”
“Those granaries are set to feed their cities, not our army,” Skestinin said, scratching his beard.
“Being conquered is sometimes uncomfortable,” Ternigan said, and the issue was dismissed.
Sarakal was a thin nation, dominated by the port city of Nus in the north and the river city of Inentai in the south. Between them were the flint hills and farmsteads, villages and minor holdings of the traditional families, linked by the pale green thread of the dragon’s road like beads on a string. Antea was the center of Firstblood power in the world, and Sarakal was the center of nothing. Its traditional families were mostly Timzinae, though there were some Jasuru and Firstblood, and the cities ruled by a high council drawn by lot every seven years. The influence of Borja and the Keshet showed in its casual attitude toward the nobility of blood and its heaping on of invented titles. A wealthy man of a traditional family might have himself declared prince or regos or exalt without any duties or holdings to come with the name. The council might strip a landholder of his rank without affecting his property or taxes.
But because of the mixture of races, the traditional families had links of kinship to Elassae and Borja, and even to the minor houses of Antea. If Sarakal had as little as half a season to prepare, the Lord Marshal and the armies of the empire might be facing pikemen from Elassae and Borjan cavalry along with the native defenses. Food and soldiers could sail from Hallskar into Nus or ride carts from Elassae or the Keshet into Inentai. To be done right—to be done well—the assault had to go as quickly and as unequivocally here as it had in Asterilhold.
In Asterilhold, where the armies had been led by Dawson Kalliam, Lord Marshal, first hero and then traitor. Even now, months after the fact, Geder saw the old man’s face twisted in rage, Basrahip’s blood on his blade. It seemed unjust that even after Dawson Kalliam’s coup had been defeated and his life ended, Geder still felt haunted by him and his inexplicable betrayal.
“Lord Regent?” Ternigan said. “Do you have an opinion?”
Geder looked at the men around the table, painfully aware of having lost the thread of the conversation. There had been a question, and now he was going to look like a fool for not knowing what it was. He cleared his throat and the beginning of a blush rose in his throat.
“Well, yes. Let me see,” he said. “Minister Basrahip? Would you care to offer an opinion?”
At his place beside the window, the priest lifted his head and smiled beatifically.
“There shall be no uprising to distract you,” he said, his voice rough and melodious. “Prince Geder has lifted up temples to the goddess, and those who hear her voice will remain true.”
“All respect, Minister,” Canl Daskellin said, “there was a temple in Camnipol last summer, and things didn’t go so well there.”
“They will now,” Basrahip said. Daskellin shuddered and looked away.
“Still,” Ternigan said, “I think we won’t have the men to control the full nation. Not this season. Nus, without question. We’ll have it by autumn, let whoever’s escaped to the south sue for peace. Gives us a good thick buffer between Antean land and any of these bastards who think they’d care to make trouble for us again.”
“You will have it all,” Basrahip said. There was no defiance in his tone. At most, a sense of gentle correction as one might hear a tutor take with a pupil. “As the goddess delivered Asterilhold to you, so she will reclaim the lands stolen by the Timzinae. The false race will be cast out and have no home.”
“That’s lovely, Minister,” Ternigan said. “But these actions carry their own constraints. I have only so many knights. Only so many bows. Only so many blades. Overreaching is worse than failure. A collapse when we’ve outstripped our own support could push us back past our own borders.”
“It will not happen so,” Basrahip said.
Ternigan frowned, turning back to the map. His frown wasn’t that of an insulted man, though there was perhaps a bit of that, so much as someone reexamining a puzzle, apprehensive that some criticial clue had been missed.
“Regardless,” Geder said, “the first part of the campaign is in place, yes?”
“The blockade will be there,” Lord Skestinin said. “No ships in or out of the port of Nus without our men searching them, and no landings in the coves east or west of the city.”
“Good,” Geder said. “And the foot troops?”
“Ten thousand sword-and-bows are camped at Flor, waiting for me,” Ternigan said. “I have sworn statements from half a dozen barons and counts that they’ll raise their levies and ride in after once I give the word. I haven’t done it yet for fear of raising an alarm, but they should arrive just about when the first force needs relief. We’ll be the hammer that breaks the anvil this time, just you watch.”
