Junqueiro had chosen just the right lordly tone; Elishamma inclined his head in acquiescence. “You may remain here,” Junqueiro told him. “My mage and I shall leave the tent to confer.” After Junqueiro had turned that into Yaninan, he got up and went outside with the general. Junqueiro muttered, “Powers above! Don’t they ever wash?”
“From all I’ve seen--and smelled--no, Your Excellency,” Fernao said. Junqueiro rolled his eyes. The mage went on, “In justice, this is a cold country. Washing in a stream here, even when the streams aren’t frozen, fairly begs for chest fever.”
“Feh.” Junqueiro dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand, which proved that Lagoans, though at war with Algarve, were of Algarvic stock themselves. It also proved he couldn’t smell himself anymore. His hazel eyes sharpened. “To business. Have the Yaninans really made this offer? If they have, how much have they offered? Is it worth our while to pay the Ice People more? How much harm can they do us?”
“As for the first, I’d say it’s likely,” Fernao answered. “The Yaninans haven’t had much luck fighting us by themselves, so why shouldn’t they pay somebody to do the job for them?”
“You’d say it’s likely.” Lieutenant General Junqueiro clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Can’t you use your sorcery to know for sure?”
Fernao s sigh brought forth a large cloud of fog. “In this country, sir, the spells of mages not born here have a way of going awry. They have a way of going dangerously awry, in fact.”
Junqueiro gave him a dirty look. “Then why did we bring you hither?”
“Because Colonel Peixoto, back in Setubal, has more enthusiasm than brains,” Fernao answered. “Sir.”
By the expression on Junqueiro’s face, that was mutiny, or as close to mutiny as made no difference. The commanding general visibly contained himself. “Very well,” he said, though Fernao knew it wasn’t even close to very well. “By your best estimate, sir mage, however you arrive at them, what do you think the answers to my other questions are?”
“However much the Yaninans paid Elishamma, it will be less than he claims,” Fernao answered. “He will try to cheat us. No doubt he will try to cheat King Tsavellas, too. Aye, I think it’s worth our while to pay him more than the Yaninans do, if we can. And I pray your pardon, sir, for I’ve forgotten your last question.”
“If we don’t pay them, how bad can they hurt us?” Junqueiro said.
“On those cursed camels of theirs, they move faster than we do--faster than we can,” Fernao answered. “I wouldn’t want them harrying our supply route by land, not with the Algarvians already harrying the sea route from Lagoas to the austral continent.”
Junqueiro paced back and forth, kicking up snow at every step. He stopped so abruptly, he caught Fernao by surprise. “All right, then,” he growled. “Let’s go on in and dicker with the stinking--and I do mean that--son of a whore.”
Elishamma’s face helped him: It was almost impossible to read. His beard grew up to just under his eyes; his thick, grizzled mustache covered his lips. His hairline started low on his forehead, so low that his eyebrows were only thicker tufts at the bottom of it. That left next to no bare skin from which Fernao and Junqueiro could gauge his expression.
But he was not a great bargainer. And he made a mistake: he got greedy. When he solemnly declared the Yaninans had offered him a hundred thousand gold pieces to assail the Lagoan army, both that army’s commander and its highest-ranking mage laughed in his face. “All of Yanina put together isn’t worth a hundred thousand gold pieces,” Junqueiro said. Fernao enjoyed translating that. It wasn’t true, not literally, but it matched his feeling about the kingdom.
Elishamma yielded ground without visible embarrassment. Even had he been bare-faced, Fernao doubted he would have shown embarrassment. He had as much effrontery as any Yaninan ever born. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was but fifty thousand.”
Fernao responded to that without wasting time translating for Junqueiro: “All of Yanina put together isn’t worth fifty thousand gold pieces, either.”
When Elishamma lowered the proposed bribe again without loudly declaring he’d been telling the truth all along, Fernao smiled to himself and brought his commander back into the discussion. Junqueiro knew how much the army could afford to pay out, which Fernao didn’t. He beat the chieftain from the Ice People down to just over a tenth of what he’d originally tried to get.
“Is it agreed, then?” Elishamma said at last.
Junqueiro nodded and started to speak. Before he could, Fernao said, “Aye, with one exception: What hostages will you give us? These fellows you brought here with you may do.” He turned the words into Lagoan so his superior could understand. Junqueiro looked startled, and
