Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) (36 page)

    
“That is frighteningly logical, Lupus,” he told me.  “I hadn’t seen that, but you may be right.  Certainly, it would close Outpost X to us in any event.  We would have to tell them where it is, after all, to get rights to be there.

     “
Never forget that, compared to us, you Men are short lived, Lupus.  I can just wait for all of the men alive right now to die of old age, and make my proposition to the next generation.”

    
I nodded and sat down next to Ancenon.  That is some option to have.  I admit that now I also worried whether I had done a good enough job on those catapults.  Damn, but D’gattis could put fear in anyone.  Self-righteous bastard. 

    
Genna would have known.  Genna always took things apart and put them together with her mind.

    
“Tell me something,” I said.  Ancenon looked at me.  “How long has it been since the Fovean High Council forbade war among the seven nations?”

    
“Eighty years,” Ancenon told me.  “You seem to lack knowledge in the very basic world around you for one whose thoughts run so deep, Lupus.”

    
Had he been talking to D’gattis about this?  I wondered.

    
“And since then?” I asked, ignoring the dig.  “How do raids and such things, pretty squabbles and boundary fights get settled?”

    
Ancenon sighed.  “There are a series of channels within the High Council, allowing for grievances to be aired and reviewed –“ he began,

    
I interrupted him.  “No,” I said.  “For example, how will Conflu retaliate against Trenbon for this?”

    
Ancenon thought for a moment.  “Well, there is no proof that Trenbon sanctioned this raid,” he began.  That came as a surprise, because until then I didn’t know Trenbon
had
sanctioned it.

    
“I would suppose that there will be formal protests lodged – the possibility of an inquiry –“

    
“You are too smart for that and they know it,” I said, interrupting again.  “Men want
revenge
, Ancenon – how will the Confluni get it?”

    
“Oh,” Ancenon sighed, “I foresee that our ships will catch fire in Sarn or Kimer – without explanation, of course.  Confluni make poor Wizards and will likely not be able to do without our goods, so no embargo – “

    
“But no military action,” I pressed him.

    
“Against the Silent Isle?” Ancenon sputtered.  Obviously he hadn’t even thought of the idea.  “We have the premier fleet – our walls are impregnable – and the Fovean High Council –“

    
“Would unite the armies of Fovea against them,” I finished.

    
Ancenon nodded.

    
“What if they could hire mercenaries to do that for them,” I asked.

    
Ancenon fell quiet again.

    
“There is no law preventing hiring mercenaries,” he finally said.  “It has been done before, but mercenaries are – well, by their very nature –“

    
“You can’t rely on men who kill for pay,” I said, finishing for him.

    
Ancenon looked into my eyes and nodded.  I smiled.

    
“That is
just
what I wanted to hear,” I told him.

Chapter Seventeen

Southern Hospitality

     The captain’s cabin was still and musty in its gloom.  Strong light hurt Genna’s eyes. 

    
She lay naked under a thin sheet, her leathers hanging from a peg in the wall.  The bed she lay on folded into the wall when not in use.  Its mattress looked thin and uncomfortable.

    
Her face had become pale and her skin felt either dry or slightly clammy.  Dark circles showed under her eyes.  Her hair lay limp from not being washed.  One moment she would have her strength, and the next it would leave her.  This made her cranky and hard to be with.

    
I sat with her because I felt it was my responsibility.  We talked, sometimes I held her hand if she could stand it.  Genna’s life was about motion and lying still irked her.

    
“Ancenon have anything else to say?” she asked me.

    
Ancenon had visited her twice since we left Conflu.  The first time he had used equipment that he kept on the ship because he didn’t want to carry it through Conflu.  The second time had quite obviously been to comfort her.

    
Both times the same result: although it was early to tell, it appeared her body fought the poison and was winning.  That explained the lapses as the poison and the body fought.

    
“No,” I told her.  “It has only been a day.”

    
She sighed irritably.  “Every day is going to be like this.  I can’t stand it.”

    
“I’m sure they will get better than this.”

    
She glared at me. “You don’t know that.”

    
“That’s what Ancenon seemed to think.”

    
“That isn’t what he said.”

    
“Sure it is.”

    
“Maybe he is telling you things he isn’t telling me, is that it?”

    
This time I sighed.  “We’ve had this discussion.”

    
“We have
not
.”

    
This argument repeated itself in various forms.  After a day I was done with it.

    
I stood.  “I need to go check the horses.”

    
“They’re asleep in the hold.”

    
“Still need to be checked.”

    
“In other words, you’re sick of me.”

    
I just looked at her.

    
“You know you are,” she said.  “I meant only one thing to you, and if you aren’t getting it then you don’t want to waste your time.”

    
“If that’s true then I’m sure you don’t want me around.”

    
“No, I don’t,” she said.  “Get out of here, and keep my knives.  You should have a trophy for your conquest.”

    
“If you want your knives back you can have them.”

    
“I said keep them!” she screamed at me.  “I can’t use them anymore.  Keep them and show them to the next slut you lure into your bed, when you’re bragging about the
last
slut you lured.”

    
I felt like saying something really nasty but instead I just left.

    
I was sure I heard a very soft, “Don’t go” as I left, but I didn’t go back to ask.

     Two days later we pulled into the Andaran port-city of Chatoos.  Where I considered Volkhydran ports to be rough and busy, and Outpost IX had been grand and noble, Chatoos had a sort of old English charm to it.  The wharves were wooden, reaching out at an angle to the Bay.  Using the Kimer peninsula as a breakwater, and the mouth of The Safe River as a means of commerce, they sported high-drafted, wide-sailed merchant vessels like our own and seemed to be doing a good trade in the fall harvest.

    
The city itself seemed to be carved of stone.  Walls, streets and houses, places of business and random towers throughout the city – all were made of tight-chinked field stone, either grey or painted in earth colors.  Thankfully unlike Volkhydro, no putrid stench wafted off the city as the wind turned to greet us.  I know that Outpost IX had some amount of indoor plumbing, and I assumed that the same was true here.

    
A wall surrounded the inland side of Chatoos, providing it with protection from Confluni infantry, although only on the Andaran side.  Batteries of ballistae and heavy catapults lined the shore of Tren Bay, obviously manned and stationed along the wharves where soldiers stood ready.  A stone wall no higher than twenty feet ran about a half mile inland on the riverside.  No gates broke its gray perfection.  Tight-waisted, oared ships rowed up the river until they could un-step their masts and sail.

    
Thorn stood next to me as our ship pulled in.  Beyond the city I saw vast plains, miles upon miles of hay waving in the wind like some great, golden ocean.  I knew that I had best be on his back when Blizzard saw those plains or I would likely not see him again for days, if ever.  The huge beast had been penned up for too long and needed to stretch his legs.

    
Genna still lay in the captain’s cabin, her condition unchanged. I didn’t plan to visit her again, not that she’d let me.  She verbally ripped apart anyone but Ancenon who went in there.

    
“Thinking about running that stallion?” Thorn asked me, as if he could read my mind.

    
“Is it that obvious?” I said.

    
“Yep.”

    
We were quiet.  The sails snapped and the rigging creaked as we tacked into port.  Already a smaller ship directed us to berthing. 

    
“In my country,” Thorn said, “a man has a legal right to fight you for that horse.”

    
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow without saying anything.

    
He didn’t look back, just kept staring at Chatoos as if it were some beacon to him.  “If you kill the man, no one will come after you, so long as it is a fair fight.  Also, someone is eventually going to offer to trade you something – a bunch of mares, a young daughter, maybe gold, though we mostly barter – for your stud rights.  If you turn him down flat then they will think you are rude, and try to steal your horse.  Better you should just ask for too much – and take your chances that you really
did
ask for too much.”

    
“What would you consider fair for his services?” I asked.

    
Thorn thought on that.  “Honestly?” he asked me.  I nodded.

    
“You are the only man
ever
to ride off of the Wild Horse Plains with one of that herd, and you got a big, white stallion.  He could sire by the hundreds over the next few years – and then maybe for four generations before the line started to get diluted.  In Andoran, I doubt if
any
price would be unfair – you have the makings of the next best herd in the world, right in the hold of this ship.”

    
“Could likely take all of my gold now, buy mares, and live pretty well for the rest of my life, right here, huh?”  I asked him.

    
He looked at me again.  “You would be a force to be reckoned with, that is for sure.”  Then he turned back toward the city.

    
“Do that and there are going to be men coming out of the woodwork to run your herds.  You could probably have yourself a mongrel tribe in a year and, if no one raided you and took everything you had, get the right to run with the big herds in five years or so.”

    
It seemed like a nice idea, but I really didn’t think that seriously about it.  War didn’t put me through all of this to be a rancher, much as every growing boy wants to be a cowboy, and Thorn was right: if there were big herds and big tribes here, then they weren’t going to just let me just step in and run the place.

    
“Sounds like too much work,” I said.  “I think I’m just going to let Ancenon and D’gattis unload and count our stores for the next week, while I go let Blizzard stretch his legs.

    
“And Genna?” he asked me.

    
I still remembered his comment to me on the deck of this same ship when Genna swam off alone to kill ten CNG.  That had pissed me off so much.  I still smarted from it, especially now.

    
Truth was, I didn’t want her.  I never wanted her.  The relationship had been a convenience.  I had never pretended otherwise – she had been the one to fall in love, not me.

    
“I think that is done,” I said.

    
“The adventure is over?”

    
I shook my head.  “Was a mistake to get into it,” I said.  “She’s just up there, pissed off and bitter, now.”

    
“Couldn’t go with you if she wanted to,” Thorn said, looking out at the fields.

    
“Nope.”

    
We stood there watching Andoran together.  The Uman sailors scampered through the rigging, deft as monkeys, directing the ship to port.

    
“You coming?” I asked him finally.

    
“Yeah,” he told me.

   
Together we watched the ship pull in, until the time came to go unchain the horses.

    
Blizzard’s hooves beat the plains, his neck stretched out and his chin just topping tufts of hayseeds.  With his tail up and his stiff mane bristling in my face, joy almost radiated from him like a blanket that enveloped us both.

    
I looked over my shoulder and saw Thorn and Nantar, just two specs behind me.  In a moment I would turn the huge stallion and circle back to keep the two of them in view.

    
We had decided on Chatoos instead of Outpost IX for all of the obvious reasons.  We could get here easily.  It was near Outpost X.  This portion of the world remained relatively stable and not one of us would trust Ancenon and D’gattis to set up our gold in the royal treasury.  No one believed that they would just let us have access to it whenever we wanted.

    
From here we could either go our own ways or congregate.  The Andarans were a fiercely independent people, divided between their city-bred citizens and their wide-ranging tribes and sufficiently trustworthy.  If we bought ourselves a building or a tower in town and took precautions to guard our gold there, no one would specifically come and knock the place down with a battering ram to see what lay inside.  From what little I understood, that was an uncommon trait.

    
Blizzard turned with some pressure from my knee and we circled back toward Nantar and Thorn.  Much as I had come to this world a “tenderfoot” I had grown to truly love horseback riding with Blizzard.  When he really stretched his legs and flew across the plains, my whole world changed.  Tears in my eyes from the wind whipping through my eyelashes, the smell of crushed grass and torn earth in my nose, the thrum of iron-shod hooves in the ground and the intoxication of Blizzard’s excitement to just
run
– this was my life now.  The ride had been going on for three hours and the horses were exhausted.  Blizzard had started to lather as well, and I thought I should get him to rest.