ray of spring sunlight that slanted from the skylight to graze the tabletop on which the baron's model city stood.
Malhalvadon Stringfellow, the only halfling currently seated on the city council, hopped impatiently from one bare black-furred foot to the other. Baron Zam stood unmoving in his robes of blue and gray. He was tall, astringent, bloodless, with a wisp of iron-gray hair surrounding the dome of his skull. His slit eyes, narrow nose, and pinched mouth were situated on a face that came to a severe point at the chin. Korun, the lone councilwoman, wore a slashed green-velvet doublet over a yellow blouse and orange hose, her hair blonde and short, her eyes green, and her pert-nosed face handsome. She wore her peaked yellow cap at a rakish angle, pheasant feather aslant, and held arms akimbo, as if impatient but amused. The sunlight, ungallant, brought forth the parchment dryness of her skin; she was not so young as she liked to present herself.
Baron Hardisty sighed and handed the sketchbook to his attendant Tatrina, daughter of Duke Hembreon. He had many All-Friends waiting upon him these days, courtesy of Armenides, who stood behind his right shoulder and beamed like an indulgent tutelary spirit. Tatrina made a curtsy and withdrew. Armenides's hazel eyes followed her until she was out of sight around the columned doorjamb.
Koran and Zam likewise watched her go, with much different expressions. Each had a son in the All-Friends. Neither felt entirely at ease with that, but they were reluctant to mention it in Armenides's presence.
'What troubles you, noble Stringfellow?' Hardisty asked with that great apparent sincerity that served him so well.
The halfling bobbed, tousled his curly dark hair, rubbed his snub nose with a thumb. 'It's these Star Protective people,' he declared. 'They're a threat to our plan to restore order to Tethyr.'
'Meaning,' Lady Korun said in a mockingly vibrant contralto, 'that they interfere with the bandit chieftains who kick back a share of their plunder to you and call it 'taxes.''
'No such thing!' the halfling fluted. 'Besides, I'm not the only one.'
'Let us say we all feel the pinch,' said Zam, and pinched was a fair description of his voice. 'Her impertinence becomes alarming. Her private army grows in leaps and bounds, and just today we received word that she has been welcomed by the city council of Ithmong, having escorted a great caravan thence from Myratma. The first to pass that way since the monarchy fell.'
'She's a sorceress!' Stringfellow cried. 'She's got the people bewitched, I tell you. She even has them believing that monstrous orc who travels with her is a paladin!'
'She's done much to restore commerce to the roads of Tethyr,' Korun said, 'and it's all bypassing Zazesspur. At this rate, the people of Tethyr, to say nothing of Zazesspur, will soon begin to wonder what they need us for. Clearly this can't go on.' 'What do wish me to do about it?' Hardisty asked mildly.
'You're the man who would be king, Faneuil,' Lady Korun said. 'You tell us.' 'Very well,' Hardisty said crisply. 'She shall be dealt with. Enough?'
'And who will do the dealing?' Stringfellow asked. Hardisty grinned. 'Why, I should say-none less than the lord of Zazesspur.'
'You ask much,' Baron Zam said.
'He will deliver much,' Armenides said serenely. 'He is touched with destiny.'
'He'd best be,' said Zam.
'Our Malhalvadon grows importunate,' Armenides said when the councilors had gone. 'Perhaps it's time he gave way to one of the Brothers Hedgeblossom. Or both. Surely the council has other bits of deadwood that want pruning.'
'You surprise me, Father. The Hedgeblossoms are our staunch foes. They seek to overturn everything we've worked for.'
Armenides smiled. 'Why, isn't that all the more reason to bring them on the council? In every time and every clime, there's nothing scarcer than a rebel who stays avid to cast down power once he shares it›' Hardisty thought about this. Like many things Armenides told him, it sounded bizarre at first, until his mind began to fit itself around the concept. 'What of the other council members? Some of them might object to raising up such firebrands.'
The priest spread his hands. 'Then they are obstructers and unworthy of the positions they hold. Retribution has a way of seeking such out.' Here was a different Armenides than the eversmiling figure the public knew, but one in truth no less benevolent. The common ruck might not understand, but Hardisty did.
He had done things he was uneasy about. Some even gave him nightmares. But he knew the truth of what Armenides taught: when one served Good, to hold back from using any tool available was dereliction to the point of affirmative evil. Just as one must sometimes spank a child less it race heedless into the path of an oncoming carriage and be trampled, so sometimes apparently cruel measures were in truth grandmotherly kindness.
'You must keep pressure on the council to crown you king as soon as possible, my lord,' the cleric said. 'The One Below has great patience, but even that wears thin. And we have much need of him yet if we are to bring your visions to fruition.'
Baron Hardisty shuddered, as he always did at mention of the hidden partner in their great enterprise. Politics made strange bedfellows: just look at that stiff-necked old tower of rectitude Hembreon and that rogue Anakul. The way the two voted in council, you'd think they sat next to one another in temple.
Him Below could be… handled. Armenides assured him of it.
'First I've got to settle this matter of the Countess Morninggold,' Hardisty said. 'Despite what I told our friends, I really don't know how.'
He shook his head. 'I suppose it's too late to give her her wretched caravan back.' Perhaps the greatest of Zaranda Star's many impertinences was that she was running Star Protective Service as a profit-making venture, and it was returning handsome profit indeed, from what his spies reported.
The cleric shrugged. 'Raise an army and crush her.'
'That might not be easy.'
'Good my lord! However they may style themselves, her followers are naught but peasants playing at soldiers. You're a proven war leader, and command real soldiers.'
Hardisty went to his chair and sat. 'War's an expensive game, Father. And here's the cursed thing about it: You can never know who will win.'
He shrugged. 'Zaranda Star's a seasoned commander, too, and we wont do well to underestimate her. Oh, if s not that I doubt we'd prevail against her and her rabble. But each a victory could prove costly. If we weaken ourselves too much in crushing her, we might find others stepping forward to challenge us-Ithmong, to name one.'
Armenides nodded. 'Very well, my son.' He smiled benignly. 'Fortunate it is that we have… other assets.'
'You mean you have other assets.'
'Indeed.'
Then pray, make use of them. Oh, and when you go, could you send for the girl who was assisting me before, Duke Hembreon's daughter? With all due respect for your All-Friends, Father, I find most of them pretty dull fish, though helpful as can be. She, on the other hand, is quite vivacious.'
'An air of gravity is concomitant with a certain stage in studying the mysteries of Ao All-Father,' Armenides said. 'Young Tatrina has not yet attained that stage; that's all.'
'Well, thank goodness for that Good afternoon, Father.'
When Armenides arrived at his quarters on the palace's uppermost floor, the columnar doorposts- which were magic things, and alive, a fact quite unknown to the palace's builders-did not voice their shrill, tormented warning of intrusion. Reassured, the cleric entered.
The magically warded chambers were redolent with steamy, welcoming smells of cooking. They were simply and sparsely furnished. On a shelf sat the brazen head. Its eyes and mouth abruptly lit with yellow fire.
'Report! Report!' it demanded in a voice Zaranda Star would have recognized, though not as coming from it. It was a whisper, dry as wind over long-dead leaves.
'There's little enough to report,' Armenides said. 'I urged him to get tough with the council about recognizing him as lord of the city. He seems of a mind to. Beyond that, it's business as usual.'
'Not enough! He is weak.'
