‘War?’ Tynisa was startled into speech, and that same eagerness for combat waxed like a flame behind her eyes.
‘Ah, you have a tongue, then?’ Salme Elass permitted herself another smile. ‘You will not have heard of this, while in Prince Lowre’s care, for he always seeks to isolate himself, but this province is under attack, and even now Alain has flown off to scout the enemy. This coming spring we will be obliged to fight.’
‘Is it the Empire?’ Tynisa enquired, even though she must surely know how far they were from the Wasps. Unconsciously, her hand curled towards her rapier hilt, and Elass found herself delighted. How I shall use her against Lowre Cean!
‘Not the Wasps, but a considerable danger nonetheless. There is a brigand army assembling at our southern border, challenging our rightful authority. The winter has seen them coming to seek easy prey amongst my people, and for that they must be destroyed. Alain shall be in the vanguard of the assault, and I hope, Tynise, that you shall be alongside him.’
‘Of course.’ The words came without the need for further thought.
Salme Elass nodded, looking down at the scroll again. ‘There is one matter in particular that you can aid us with.’ She paused to ensure Tynisa was listening. ‘I have few swords that I can call upon here at Leose. My people are diminished since the war, and these brigands are many. Therefore I need to call upon my allies, but I fear they may not answer me. There is one, in particular, whose skills would hasten our victory and so save many lives. His mere presence would hearten those loyal to the Monarch, and strike fear into our enemies. He is old, however, and he suffers from a curious condition whereby he seeks to hide from what he was, by losing himself in mundane pursuits unworthy of him.’ She looked up again, and saw that the girl understood.
‘Lowre Cean,’ Tynisa offered, thoughtfully.
‘I will ride to visit him shortly,’ Elass explained, ‘but I am unsure of the welcome I will receive there. However, if there was one of his own household who spoke on my behalf, and had already softened his resolve, then my task would be that much the easier. We need him.’
There was a brief moment’s pause in which Tynisa surely weighed up all that she had experienced of Lowre Cean: an old man bumbling aimlessly from one pointless pastime to the next. But Elass knew that Lowre had acquitted himself admirably on the hunt, at the last moment, when no other would step in, and Tynisa had surely seen that, too.
‘I shall do it,’ the girl confirmed, and Elass carefully restrained her smile from growing any wider.
A tenday later, Salme Elass herself arrived at Lowre’s enclave, a nearly unprecedented occurrence. The old man met her in his main hall that was, for once, cleared of most of his other transient guests. He sat at one end of it and, though wearing only a darned robe, his posture and bearing had transformed him again into Prince-Major Lowre Cean rather than the semi-recluse normally to be seen pottering about the compound.
A little late to try and recapture all that authority, she reflected. Elass sat across the room from him arrayed in her full and formal robes of silk ornamented with gold trim and silver threads. Isendter knelt at her right hand, his head bowed in deference.
‘My lord,’ she said, instilling available humility into her tone, for all that this whole enclave of his was but guesting on her land, ‘you have heard now how the people of Elas Mar are oppressed, how villains are come north from the unclaimed provinces to burn and rob, and prey on the honest folk who live under my protection. I cannot stand idly by at such a time and, my lord prince, I am sure that you cannot either. You fought with my husband against the Empire, and your victories are famed throughout the Commonweal, so I am sure you will take up arms to defend what was his. Having dwelt here in Elas Mar all the years since your own estates were lost, I am sure that you would defend your newfound home. You have been a Mercer in your time, and surely you cannot stand by and see evil done. Therefore I ask you now to attend my war muster at Leose and give us the benefit of your wise counsel, strengthening my few followers with your own. What do you say, my lord prince?’
Lowre Cean looked away from her and pinched at the bridge of his nose. Elass let her eyes flick across to Tynisa, sitting on the sidelines, and found the girl’s attention was fixed firmly on the old man. She has already done her part, the noblewoman decided. Tynisa had obviously hurried back to Lowre’s compound full of righteous purpose, and how could the old man say no to all that? How could he have lessened and lowered himself in the eyes of his new ward, by refusing to go to battle? Elass particularly enjoyed the slightly baffled expression she saw on the girl’s face. There was a war on, and Tynisa plainly could not understand why Lowre Cean would not gladly cast aside the mundane in order to don his armour once again.
The Prince-Major sighed. ‘I am an old man and I have long put aside warlike pursuits. Your husband was a comrade to me, before the war took him away. He was a comrade to my son, before the Wasp-kinden killed him also.’ He was speaking so softly that Elass had to lean in to catch the words. ‘I am no necromancer to know the wishes of the dead, however.’
He paused then, as one of his servants produced kadith, Isendter pouring for his mistress and Lowre’s young messenger performing the same duty for his master.
‘Nor can I allow the happenstance of residence to move me, for all I was invited here in your husband’s fond memory,’ Lowre continued, at last. ‘The Commonweal is wide, even that part of it left to us by the Wasps, and there are no longer so many of us to people it as before. There are other places for a man such as me, if need be.’
Another pause, age-old conversational paths meandering between them.
‘As for evil, that is a dangerous word that can turn like a centipede and bite its holder. I will make no judgements regarding evil,’ Lowre added. ‘These arguments cannot move me.’
Elass nodded, nothing daunted. ‘And if I extend the invitation to all your folk here, so that they may join me in this venture, be we however few, be the enemy so many? I am sure that there are some here who will do what must be done, even without your leadership to guide them. Or perhaps there is some other reason whereby you might agree to lend us your skills.’ She pointedly did not look to Tynisa, but Lowre knew exactly what she meant. Join me or not, the girl is mine now. She would stand in a fire if I told her my son would applaud it. So, Cean, what does she mean to you? Is she a mere distraction that you will let go easily? If she does mean something, will you let her go off to war while you remain behind? Another name to add to your list of the fallen, Cean?
The Prince-Major gave a long sigh, looking older than he had ever done before: just a frail old man, now. The messenger beside him put a concerned hand on his arm. ‘Oh, I’ll come,’ the old man agreed at last. ‘My counsel you shall have, even though you may not like it. I shall bring my few followers to join your new grand army. I shall not plan your battles for you, though, Princess Salme Elass. I have enough blood on my account already.’
It was the smallest of defeats, now that he had agreed to lend his name to her offensive, but for a moment Elass found even this thwarting response hard to bear. So the great tactician, the hero of Masaka, would just watch idly, would he? Did he fear that his skills might have rusted from disuse? Or was he looking forward to laughing at the mistakes of others? Anger rose inside her, but she fought it down and was all calm once more. ‘We will be honoured by your presence, my Prince,’ she told him. ‘I shall hold a muster of all those who will lend their strength to mine – within a tenday I shall hold it. I shall look out for you there.’
Twenty-Five
The barge brought them to within sight of Suon Ren and offloaded them – two Wasps and an unconscious Beetle girl – without comment. The vessel’s crew had spoken barely a word to them throughout the long journey, but had just as obviously been glad to have them aboard. They had treated the two renegade Imperials as though they were guard animals of proven ferocity. The horror of the Twelve-year War would resound in Commonweal minds for decades yet to come.
Che had not been comatose the whole way. She woke sporadically, clawing at the air, talking feverishly, staring about her. Thalric then made it his business to get some water into her, and sometimes even food. She would wander about the barge, bumping into things, flinching from objects invisible. She spoke to him, too, but it was seldom him she actually saw. Often she would explain something at great speed, something mystical that the two Wasps could not follow. Sometimes she was trying to flee from something, and had to be restrained from simply flying off the barge. Once…
Once she was being tortured, or under threat of it, and Thalric knew with a sick feeling that, this time of all of
