morning? “Send him in,” he called, as he sat up on the bed.
Alder ducked back out of sight, and a moment later another man slipped in through the half-open door, then carefully closed it securely behind him.
He was short and dark, his hair graying, and he looked as if he had been fat once, but was not eating well lately. He wore a greasy brown tunic and even greasier gray breeches; his boots were well made and also well worn. Despite his clothing, his face and hair were clean, and he had no objectionable odor.
After closing the door he checked the latch carefully, then turned and made a polite but perfunctory bow.
“Hello, Lord Sterren,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m called Lar Samber’s son. As your guard said, I’m a dealer in trinkets and oddities, and the occasional love charm or poison.”
Sterren nodded an acknowledgment, but before he could say anything, Lar continued, “And I’m sure you’re wondering what old Sterren had to do with me, and what this account is I want to settle. That wasn’t really my reason for coming here. I have another business besides my trading, you see, or rather, I trade in a product less tangible, but more important, than beads, and gewgaws. Your great-uncle was my only customer and the only person who knew about it.” He paused, eyeing Sterren, his face curiously expressionless.
Sterren nodded expectantly. “Go on,” he said.
Lar hesitated for the first time.
“I don’t know you,” he said.
“I don’t know you, either,” Sterren pointed out.
Lar nodded slowly. “True enough, and it’s not as if I have a choice.” The merchant hesitated again, but only briefly. “I’m your chief spy,” he burst out hurriedly. “I deal in information. Naturally, this is a secret, one that your great-uncle kept well; nobody else in Semma ever knew, until now. I’m trusting you with my life, my lord, by telling you this.”
His face remained oddly blank even as he said this; if he felt any great anxiety over the risk he was taking, it did not show.
Sterren puzzled over the word “spy” for a moment, then smiled and pointed to a chair. “Sit down,” he said, “and tell me about it.”
Lar’s face did not change as he took a seat, but Sterren was sure he was relieved.
He was relieved himself; it was good to know that his predecessor had even had spies, and had not relied entirely on his three officers and their men.
A thought occurred to him; Lar was a traveler and a dealer in information. “Do you speak Ethsharitic?” he asked.
Startled, Lar admitted, “Some. Not much. Mostly I speak Ophkaritic, Ksinallionese, Thanorian, and Trader’s Tongue.”
Sterren had never even heard of Thanorian, but he didn’t let that worry him. Instead, he burst out with a string of questions in his native tongue.
Lar had to repeatedly ask him to slow down, and several times the conversation switched back into Semmat for a time, or slipped into a pidgin of the two languages that they improvised on the spot. Even so, Sterren was able to communicate more freely than he had in days.
Unfortunately, what Lar had to communicate was not encouraging.
Both Ophkar and Ksinallion were planning to invade Semma.
Somehow, although he had been trying to convince himself war was unlikely, this news did not really surprise Sterren at all.
This impending invasion was not really a secret; in fact, the suspicion that it was being planned had been responsible for the urgency of Lady Kalira’s mission to Ethshar. The aristocrats of Semma were confident that they could survive a war, if they had a warlord.
So they had sent for Sterren.
Lar, however, did not stop his revelations at the mere fact of the coming war; he went on to detail the reasons for it, and also the reasons it had not yet begun. The underlying reasons were simple enough: Ophkar and Ksinallion both wanted Semma’s land and wealth and people. For three hundred years, Ophkar and Ksinallion had been bitter enemies; they had fought six wars in that time. In the first, Ophkar had captured the Ksinallionese province of Semma; in the second, Ksinallion won it back. It was during the Third Ophkar-Ksinallion war, in 5002, that Semma, under Tendel the Great, had rebelled against the cruel yoke of Ksinallion and asserted its independence, siding with Ophkar and leading to an Ophkarite victory.
Five years later, when Tendel died, Ophkar invaded Semma and attempted to annex it. Semma survived by enlisting Ksinallion’s aid.
From then on, Semma’s policy was to maintain a balance of power between Ophkar and Ksinallion by siding with whoever was weaker at any given time, playing the two off against each other in order to maintain its independence. Tendel’s son and heir, Rayel the Tenacious, had understood that; it was only when he was old and ill that matters had gotten out of hand, and a war with Ksinallion resulted in 5026. His successor, Tendel II, known as Tendel the Gentle, reigned for twenty-two years without ever letting the balance slip.
He was followed by Rayel the Fool, who only lasted nine years, six of them spent fighting Ophkar — and losing.
Phenvel I, also called Phenvel the Fat, had done much better; no wars were fought during his twenty-one years on the throne.
The idea of the balancing policy was beginning to fade, though, as the kings of Semma forgot how precarious their position actually was; Phenvel II, Phenvel the Warrior, fought Ophkar for seven years of his seventeen. Admittedly, he won, the only time Semma ever single-handedly defeated Ophkar, but seven years of war could not have been pleasant. Many stories of the horrors of that Third Ophkar-Semma War were still told.
And the resulting weakness was largely responsible for Ksinallion’s victory over Semma in the Third Ksinallion-Semma War, during the reign of Rayel III. He earned the name Rayel the Patient by waiting eleven years, carefully building up his forces and waiting until the time was right, before he launched his counterattack and won the Fourth Ksinallion-Semma War.
Even that victory was probably a mistake; it laid the groundwork for the disastrous defeat Rayel IV suffered in 5150, in the Fifth Ksinallion-Semma War. Only Ophkar’s threat to come in on Semma’s side had prevented Ksinallion from annexing Semma outright.
That was Rayel the Tall; he was followed by Rayel V, Rayel the Handsome, whose death brought about the negotiated peace at the end of the Sixth Ksinallion-Semma War, establishing the present borders. That had also been the Sixth Ophkar-Ksinallion War.
Tendel III had been called Tendel the Diplomat because he managed to talk his way out of war several times in his twenty-four year reign; he was an expert at playing Ophkar and Ksinallion off against each other, even bringing in their other neighbors: Skaia, Thanoria, Enmurinon, Kalithon, even little Nushasia, far to the north, at Ksinallion’s farthest extreme. None of those bordered on Semma, but the threat of a two-front war was surprisingly effective. Ophkar had no desire to fight Skaia or Enmurinon; Ksinallion preferred peace with Kalithon and Nushasia; and Thanoria served as a threat to both.
But then Tendel III died, in 5199, and his son Phenvel III came to the throne.
Lar hesitated to characterize his sovereign unfavorably, but from his mutterings about inbreeding and “other interests” it was plain to Sterren that the merchant considered the king an idiot.
Fortunately, Phenvel III had retained the services of a few people who were not idiots, notably Sterren, Seventh Warlord, and Sterren, Eighth Warlord. Father and son had kept up the policies of Tendel III, using diplomacy, threats, saboteurs, and whatever else was necessary to keep peace.
King Phenvel had made this difficult, with his arbitrary insults directed at both his larger neighbors. When Prince Elken of Ophkar asked for the hand of Princess Ashassa the Younger, Phenvel had instead sent her to Prince Tabar of Kalithon. When King Corinal II of Ksinallion offered a treaty on trade routes, Phenvel had first ignored it, then sent an envoy to Ophkar asking if they cared to make a better offer. When a secret envoy came from Ophkar to discuss the possibility of war with Ksinallion, Phenvel publicly announced the whole affair; when Ophkar reacted with protests and Ksinallion offered an alliance, Phenvel had dismissed the whole thing as a foolish joke.
There had been other incidents, as well, and now, for the first time in three hundred years, Ophkar and Ksinallion had arranged an alliance against Semma, considering Phenvel III a mutual foe.
