laugh, but he was plainly serious. And if a crack like that didn't mark him as a man of the world, what would?
King Shazli of Zuwayza leaned toward his foreign minister. 'The question, I gather, is no longer whether Algarve can go forward against Unkerlant, but whether she can keep Unkerlant from going forward against her.'
'No, your Majesty.' Hajjaj solemnly shook his head.
'No?' Shazli frowned. 'This is what I have understood from everything you and General Ikhshid have been telling me. Am I mistaken?'
'I'm afraid you are, your Majesty.' Hajjaj wondered how he would have been able to say such a thing to King Swemmel. Well, no: actually, he didn't wonder. He knew it would have been impossible. As things were, he had no trouble continuing, 'Unkerlant will go forward against Algarve this summer. This question is, how far?'
'Oh,' King Shazli said, in the tones of a man who might have expected better but who saw the difference between what he'd expected and what lay before him. 'As bad as that?'
'I would be lying if I told you otherwise,' Hajjaj said. 'Down in the south, our ally's attack did not do everything the Algarvians had hoped it would. Now it's Swemmel's turn, and we'll have to see what he can do. One hopes for the best while preparing for the worst.'
'A good way to go about things generally, wouldn't you say?' Shazli remarked. Hajjaj nodded. He had to work hard to keep his face straight, but he managed. He'd been saying such things to his young sovereign for many years. Now the king was repeating them back to him. Few things gave a man more satisfaction than knowing someone had listened to him. But then, with the air of someone grasping for straws, Shazli went on, 'Things are quiet here in the north.'
'So they are- for now,' Hajjaj agreed. 'For the past two summers, the greatest fight in Unkerlant has been down in the south. But I would say that, at the moment, the Algarvians don't know how long that will last, and neither do we. The only people who know are King Swemmel and perhaps Marshal Rathar.'
Shazli poured more date wine into his goblet. He gulped it down. 'If the blow falls here, can the Algarvians withstand it? By the powers above, your Excellency, if the blow falls here, can we withstand it?'
'From my conversations with General Ikhshid, he is reasonably confident the blow will not fall on us any time soon,' Hajjaj replied.
'Well, that's something of a relief, anyhow,' the king said.
'So it is.' Hajjaj didn't think he needed to tell Shazli Ikhshid's reason for holding that opinion: that Zuwayza was only a distraction to Unkerlant, and Algarve the real fight. Hajjaj did say, 'The Algarvians are the ones who will best know their situation in this part of the world.'
'How much do you suppose Balastro would tell you?' King Shazli asked.
'As little as he could,' Hajjaj said with a smile. Shazli smiled, too, though neither of them seemed much amused. Hajjaj added, 'Sometimes, of course, what he doesn't say is as illuminating as what he does. Shall I consult with him, then?'
'Use your own best judgment,' Shazli answered. 'By the nature of things, you will be seeing him before too long. So long as the blow has not fallen, when you do will probably be time enough.' He gnawed at the inside of his lower lip. 'And if the blow does fall, it will tell us what we need to know.' He softly clapped his hands together, a gesture of dismissal.
Hajjaj rose and bowed and left his sovereign's presence. Even the thick mud-brick walls of Shazli's palace couldn't hold out all the savage heat, not at this season of the year. Servitors strolled rather than bustling; sweat streamed down their bare hides. Hajjaj was not immune to sweat. Indeed, he was sweating as much from what he knew as from the weather.
When he got back to his own office, his secretary bowed and asked, 'And how are things, your Excellency?'
'You know at least as well as I do,' Hajjaj said.
'Maybe I do,' Qutuz answered. 'I was hoping they would be rather better than that, though.'
'Heh,' Hajjaj said, and then, 'What have we here?' He pointed to an envelope on his desk.
'One of Minister Horthy's aides brought it by a few minutes ago,' Qutuz said.
'Horthy, eh?' Hajjaj said. Qutuz nodded. What went through Hajjaj's mind was, It could be worse. It could have been an invitation from Marquis Balastro. Or it could have come from Minister Iskakis of Yanina. Horthy of Gyongyos was a large, solid man not given to displays of temper- he made a good host.
Like any diplomat, Horthy wrote in classical Kaunian, saying, Your company at a reception at the ministry at sunset day after tomorrow would be greatly appreciated. Hajjaj studied the note in some bemusement. In the days of the Kaunian Empire, his ancestors had traded with the blonds, but that was all. In far-off Gyongyos, the Kaunian Empire had been the stuff of myth and legend, as Gyongyos had been to the ancient Kaunians. Yet he and Horthy, who had no other tongue in common, shared that one.
There was one irony. Another, of course, was that Zuwayza and Gyongyos shared Algarve as an ally. Considering what King Mezentio's soldiers and mages were doing to the Kaunians of Forthweg, Hajjaj sometimes felt guilty for using their language.
'May I see, your Excellency?' Qutuz asked, and Hajjaj passed him the leaf of paper. His secretary read it, then found the next logical question: 'When I reply for you, what shall I say?'
'Tell him I accept with pleasure, and look forward to seeing him,' Hajjaj said. His secretary nodded and went off to draft the note for his signature.
Hajjaj sighed. Balastro would be at Horthy's reception. So would Iskakis. The diplomatic community in Bishah was shrunken these days. The ministers for Unkerlant and Forthweg, Valmiera and Jelgava, Sibiu and Lagoas and Kuusamo stood empty these days. Little Ortah, the only neutral kingdom left in the world, looked after the buildings and after the interests of the kingdoms.
From his office in the anteroom to Hajjaj's, Qutuz asked, 'Do you suppose Iskakis will bring his wife?'
'I'm sure I don't know, though he often does,' Hajjaj replied. 'He likes to show her off.'
'That's true,' his secretary said. 'As far as anyone can tell, though, showing her off is all he likes to do with her.' He sighed. 'It's a pity, really. I don't care how pale she is- she's a lovely woman.'
'She certainly is,' Hajjaj agreed. 'Iskakis wears a mask and wants everyone to take it for his face.' No matter how lovely his wife was, Iskakis preferred boys. That didn't particularly bother Hajjaj. The Yaninan minister's hypocrisy did.
'What sort of clothes will you wear?' Qutuz asked.
'Oh, by the powers above!' the Zuwayzi foreign minister exclaimed. That problem wouldn't arise at a Zuwayzi feast, where no one would wear anything between hat and sandals. 'Algarvian-style will do,' Hajjaj said at last. 'We are all friends of Algarve's, however… exciting the prospect is these days.'
Thus it was that, two days later, he rolled through the streets of Bishah in a royal carriage while wearing one of his unstylish Algarvian outfits. His own countrymen stared at him. A few of them sent him pitying looks- even though the sun had sunk low, the day remained viciously hot. And someone sent up a thoroughly disrespectful shout: 'Go home, you old fool! Have you lost all of your mind?' Patting his sweaty face with a linen handkerchief, Hajjaj wondered about that himself.
The Gyongyosian guards outside the ministry were sweating, too. No one shouted at them. With their fierce, leonine faces- even more to the point, with the sticks slung on their backs- they looked ready to blaze anyone who gave them a hard time. What with Gyongyosians' reputation as a warrior race, they might have done it.
But they bowed to Hajjaj. One of them spoke in their twittering language. The other proved to know at least a few words of Zuwayzi, for he said, 'Welcome, your Excellency,' and stood aside to let the foreign minister pass.
Inside the Gyongyosian ministry, Horthy clasped Hajjaj's hand and said the same thing in classical Kaunian. With his thick, gray-streaked tawny beard, he too put Hajjaj in mind of a lion. He was a cultured lion, though, for he continued in the same language: 'Choose anything under the stars here that makes you happy.'
'You are too kind,' Hajjaj murmured, looking around in fascination. He didn't come here very often. Whenever he did, he thought himself transported to the exotic lands of the uttermost west. The squared-off, heavy furniture, the pictures of snowy mountains on the walls with their captions in an angular script he could not read, the crossed
