Storm Rising

concept of delegation of authority. They evidently thought that unless they spoke directly to Tremane, whatever it was they had to say would never reach him. 'Send them in immediately.' He moved back into his office and sat down behind his desk as the aide went off to fetch this delegation. Whatever they wanted, whether or not it was really important, he would make time for them. At all costs, he must stay on good terms with these people, but he must also make it clear—though with such subtlety that they themselves would not be aware he was doing so—that he was the real ruler here, that he permitted them their autonomy. Perhaps that was why they insisted on seeing him and him only; perhaps he had done his job too well.

Or perhaps, after years of terror under Ancar, they no longer believed in anything but the witness of their own ears and eyes.

Would it be complaints this time? It had been the last, though they were complaints from those living nearest the new walls about the noise and dust. He had made it very clear at the time that while such inconveniences would pass, he was not about to slow the progress of his walls by restricting the building to the daylight hours. Since the spider-creature had been brought in, interestingly enough, there had been no more complaints about noise. It was a pity that the town had no real walls of its own; people who had protective walls usually had a firm grasp on the need for protective walls.

The delegation was the usual three; the mayor of the city and his two chief Council members representing the Guilds and the farm folk. The mayor, Sandar Giles, was a much younger man than Tremane was used to seeing in a position of authority, and was quite frail, with a clubbed foot, though his quick intelligence was immediately obvious when he spoke. Thin and dark, he looked like a schoolboy, although Tremane knew his real age was close to thirty. His eyes were the liveliest thing about him; large and expressive, they often betrayed him by revealing emotions he probably would rather have kept concealed.

Both the Chief Husbandman and the Chief Guildsman were old enough to be his grandsires and the main difference between them was that the Chief Husbandman was weathered and wrinkled with years in the field, his face resembling a dried apple, while the Chief Guildsman wore his years more lightly. Both were gray-haired and bearded, both knotted and bent with the years, joints swollen and probably painful. Both had square jaws beneath the close-cropped beards, and cautious eyes that betrayed nothing.

All three took their seats, both of the Council members showing great deference to Sandar, seeing to it that he was seated comfortably before taking their own chairs in front of Tremane's desk. Tremane had always been more at ease receiving civilians in his office rather than in any kind of a throne room; the former implied a businesslike approach that he found made civilians more inclined to cooperate.

They all exchanged the usual greetings; Tremane sent for hot drinks, since he had learned that Sandar was quite susceptible to cold. As soon as the aide was out of the room again, he leaned forward across the wooden expanse of the desktop.

'Well, what is it that you need to see me about so urgently?' he asked, coming to the point quickly, something that would have been so unheard of back in the Empire that his visitors would have been shocked into utter speechlessness. 'Not a complaint, I hope. Not only can't I do anything about building noise, I won't. We're racing the winter, and I hope by now your people know how badly all of us need those walls.'

'Definitely not a complaint—or, rather not a complaint about you or your men,' Sandar replied, with both thin hands cupped around the mug of kala, though it was still too hot to sip. 'If I have a complaint about anything, it would be about the weather.'

Tremane raised one eyebrow, and Sandar shrugged. 'I hope, you don't expect me or my mages to do anything about that,' he replied, amused. 'I wish we could, as heartily as you do. Not that we couldn't have in the past, but—'

'I know, I know, it's these confounded mage-storms!' growled the Chief Husbandman, Devid Stoen. 'Hang it all, we used to have three good weather-wizards that could at least give us a few days of guaranteed clear weather for harvest, and did a fine job of telling us what was on the way. But that was before that damned puppy Ancar stole the throne and conscripted 'em all! For that matter, a pair of 'em trailed back to us just after your lot moved in and started building walls—but all they can do is tell us that they can't read the weather anymore, that because of the mage-storms, they can't do a thing!'

Tremane's other eyebrow rose to join its fellow; this was the first time he'd heard officially that there were any kind of Hardornen mages in the city. For that matter, it was the first time he'd heard the rumors his spies had reported confirmed. Were they admitting it just because those mages had proved to be powerless? Had they assumed he already knew? Or was it a slip of the tongue that Stoen was mentioning them now?

'If you can't do anything, and you know my mages can't either, then what is it about the weather that brings you here?' he asked carefully. No point in mentioning these weather-mages. If it was a slip, he'd rather they didn't realize he'd taken note of it.

'Well,' Sandar said, after a pregnant pause, 'you must have noticed that there is a decided scarcity of healthy, strong young men around about here.' His expressive eyes were full of irony as he glanced down at his own frail body.

'Hmm. It's hard not to notice.' He lowered his eyebrows. 'I'd assumed that Ancar conscripted them, and—' He hesitated, not knowing how to phrase 'used them as deploy able decoys' politely.

'He used them up, most of them,' Sandar said bluntly. 'A few came trailing back with the mages, but most of them were slaughtered in his senseless war on Valdemar and Karse. That's how I became mayor; my father was barely young enough and definitely fit enough to be conscripted, and I had been his secretary from the time I was old enough to be useful. I knew everything he'd known, so I became mayor by default.'