And the King would have accepted the victory, smiling as if he were completely unaware of what they’d done. But behind his smile he would have marked them down for what they were…and he would never have fully trusted them again. Markhos was not a perfect monarch-few monarchs were-but susceptibility to sycophancy had never been one of his failings.
Tellian’s problem at the moment, however, was that although he was generally a better player than the King, this time the only options available to him were as unpalatable as they were limited. It was really unfair of Markhos to have departed from his normally aggressive, straightforward tactics and set the trap which had just cost Tellian both his king’s castle and his queen’s bishop and left his own king in check. Of course, it was his own fault he hadn’t seen it coming, and he rather suspected that his reaction when he realized what he’d stumbled into would have handily quelled any suspicion the King might have cherished about his own determination to win.
“You are going to move sometime this afternoon, I trust, Milord?” the King said now, and smiled as Tellian looked up at him sharply. Markhos’ sleek mustache was less bushy than Tellian’s, and the King stroked it with a thoughtful fingertip. “It’s not that I’m trying to rush you, you understand,” he continued, “but I believe supper will be served in only another two or three hours.”
“Your forbearance is deeply appreciated, Sire.” Tellian’s tone was…dry, to say the least. “Somehow, though, I suspect you’re not in all that great a hurry, though.”
“No?” The king arched an eyebrow. “And why would that be?”
“Because you have me well and truly in a hole, and you’re enjoying every moment of it.”
“Nonsense,” Markhos replied in a remarkably insincere tone, and Tellian smiled. “Well, perhaps just a bit,” the King conceded, holding up his thumb and index finger four inches or so apart. “I have lost the occasional game to you in the past. Of course,” his smile faded and his gaze sharpened, “I’m not precisely alone in that, am I? I really do hope this whole canal business isn’t going to turn out as ugly as it has the potential to become.”
“Your Majesty-” Tellian began, but the King’s raised hand stopped him in midsentence.
“I’m not suggesting I’m going to change my mind, Milord,” he said. “And you don’t have to bring in Yurokhas to see to it that I don’t. Not that his support would do you all that much good at the moment. I’m just a bit irked with him, given his…disinclination to obey my instructions to join me here instead of running around with that heir of yours on the Ghoul Moor.” Markhos smiled thinly. “But I’m not irked enough to change my mind about your charter. You don’t even have to get Jerhas in here for that, because the simple truth is that your entire proposal makes far too much sense for me not to support it. Yet that doesn’t blind me to how Cassan and Yeraghor are going to react-or to the fact that they’re hardly going to be alone when they do.”
“Your Majesty, I’m truly sorry my long-standing…disagreement with Cassan should have such implications for the Kingdom as a whole,” Tellian said. “I’m sure my ‘unnatural’ suggestion that we might actually try coexisting with the hradani would have infuriated someone else if he hadn’t been available, but there’s no denying the bad blood between us is like a forge bellows where his reaction to it is concerned. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there’s enough ‘bad blood’ from my side for the thought of just how infuriated he truly is-and how badly this is going to hurt him-to give me a certain sense of satisfaction.” The baron met his monarch’s gaze levelly as he made that admission. “But even so, if he’d been willing to meet me even a fraction of the way, I would have been more than prepared to set aside a portion of my own increased revenues to compensate him for what I expect him to lose in trade through Nachfalas. It would have stuck in my throat like a fish bone, but I would have done it.”
“I know you would have.” It was Markhos’ turn to sit back, laying his forearms along the armrests of his chair. “And for the sake of his father’s memory, I wish he’d been willing to accept the offer. Unfortunately, Yurokhas was right; Cassan’s mind simply doesn’t work that way.”
There was more than a hint of anger in the King’s voice, Tellian reflected, and wondered again how much of Markhos’ willingness to support his own proposals stemmed from the King’s memories of Cassan’s…incautious efforts to control him in his early days upon the throne. There were those-Tellian among them, to be honest-who were of the opinion that Yurokhas had been gifted with a significantly sharper brain than his royal brother, but there was nothing wrong with the head in which Markhos’ brain resided. In point of fact, it was remarkably level, that head, and if he was slow and methodical-maddeningly so, upon occasion-when it came to making up his mind, there was nothing hesitant about him once he had.
“I don’t suppose there’s ever a major policy choice in any kingdom where the great nobles’ rivalries don’t factor into the decision process, Your Majesty,” the baron said after a moment. “And I suppose it would be unfair-or at least unrealistic-to believe there wouldn’t be rivalries between them, no matter what else might be true or how sincere they were in their disagreements. It doesn’t necessarily need avarice and ambition to breed conflict…or hatred, for that matter. Which isn’t to suggest all three of them don’t play a role in this particular rivalry. I think Cassan and I would’ve detested each other even if we’d both been born peasants, but having the two of us as barons can’t have been easy for you.”
“Oh, you’re right about that, Milord,” Markhos agreed with a knife-thin smile. “There’ve been times I’ve actually found myself wishing one of you would just go ahead and kill the other one off, to be perfectly honest. Of the two, I’d have preferred for you to be the one still standing, although given Cassan’s…devious nature, I’m not sure I would’ve been prepared to place a wager either way. But at least if one of you’d won, I’d have had a few moments of peace after the state funeral!”
Tellian snorted, although he knew the King was as well aware as he was of Cassan’s efforts to accomplish precisely that end. Not that Markhos could ever officially admit anything of the sort without absolute, irrefutable proof-unless, of course, he wanted to bring back the Time of Troubles.
On the other hand, his extension of a royal charter is a pretty clear inclination of what he actually knows, whether he can admit it or not. Shaftmaster’s revenue estimates and Macebearer’s arguments in favor of our increased influence with the Spearmen are all very well, but there’s a part of him that shares the real conservatives’ suspicions of Bahnak and the hradani. Come to that, it’s his responsibility to share those suspicions, given all the bloodshed lying between us and them. Despite which, I doubt anyone in the entire Kingdom’s going to miss the subtext of his proclamation or doubt for a minute that he sided with Bahnak, Kilthan, and me at least in part because it lets him hammer Cassan the way the bastard deserves to be hammered.
And, for that matter, I should probably admit there’s a nasty, vindictive side of me that bought into the entire idea so enthusiastically because I knew exactly what it was going to do to Cassan if we pulled it off.
Fortunately, for all his keen intelligence, Tellian Bowmaster was given to neither second thoughts nor self- deception. He knew precisely what was going to happen to his most bitter rival’s political and economic power, and he was looking forward to it. None of which kept him from truly regretting the way in which their decades-long struggle had overflowed onto the Kingdom as a whole and the King in particular.
“Well, Your Majesty,” he said, reaching for his surviving bishop and interposing it between his king and Markhos’ queen, “we may not have killed each other off-yet-but there’s a pretty good chance sheer apoplexy will carry him off when he finds out about your decision!”
The King laughed. There might have been just an edge of sourness in that laugh, but it was genuine. And probably owed something to the fact that the move of Tellian’s bishop allowed him to exchange one of his knights for the baron’s remaining castle.
“I would like to see his reaction,” the King admitted, setting the captured castle to one side. “Unfortunately, not even a king can have everything.”
The sheer, wild exhilaration filled her mind and heart with a fiery intoxication.
The fiercest gallop upon the back of the fleetest warhorse ever bred paled to insignificance. Perhaps- perhaps — a warhorse might have touched, ever so briefly, that headlong, booming, drumroll speed, but it could never have sustained it, never maintained it for more than the barest handful of minutes. Yet the mighty muscles continued to stretch and play, the matchless heart thundered not simply with exertion but with the untamed, unquenchable power of a courser’s dauntless will, and Gayrfressa’s link to the energy which formed and sustained the entire universe burned like a coil of lightning. It poured that energy into her, and her hooves spurned the earth not for mere minutes, but for hours.
Leeana Hanathafressa was part of those booming hooves, shared those straining muscles, tasted that energy and felt it pour through her. She was submerged within the wild rush of speed, feeling it as Gayrfressa felt it even as she felt the wind of their passage whipping at her braided hair, bringing tears to her eyes. It was the first time
