Indomitus Vivat (The Fovean Chronicles) (22 page)

    
“Rest assured that our intelligence –“ D’gattis began.

    
“Cousin,” Ancenon said.  D’gattis looked like he had been stung, much as Aniquen had looked a short time before. 

    
Karel rode up on the pony, no hands on the reins.  It didn’t stop where he seemed to want it to, but it did stop pretty close to us.

    
“I love this animal,” Karel told me.

    
“You’ve made good use of it,” I said.

    
It was a pinto, distinctive like Karel.  It suited him, I thought.

    
“I’m taking over your duties as recruiter for the Free Legion,” he told me.

    
“That makes good sense,” I said.

    
“You will continue to recruit your own Wolf Soldiers?” he asked.

    
“I think that is best, especially now that you have Sarandi,” I said.

    
“I suggested that we winter in Sental, then take another stab at a base in Eldador,” he continued.  “They think you should build it, or provide us room on your estates in Thera.  I told them you would never go for it, and suggested the Andurin peninsula, right in the center.”

    
I nodded.  The peninsula offered a vast plain, relatively open, and could bear a city.

    
“How about I make Arath an Earl and then you raise a city?”

    
“Can you do that?” D’gattis asked me.

    
“I can get Glennen to do that,” I said. 

    
“He is in the barn, after all,” D’gattis said.

    
Oh, crap.

    
“Alone?” I asked.

    
“Your Wolf Soldiers are watching him,” Karel said.  “If he’s still awake, I’ll be surprised.”

    
I sent Oligarch one and three after him.  They were used to it.

    
“Is the Dorkan wizard still alive?” Ancenon asked me.

    
“Yes,” I said.

    
“No,” Hectar said.  I looked at him.

    
“Another matter of which I didn’t get to tell you,” he said.  “He died today trying to escape.  Blew most of his skin off.”

    
Crap again.

    
“The palace wizards disposed of the body,” he continued.  “I think they were afraid you were going to carve him up and send him to Dorkan.”

    
“That wasn’t well received,” Karel said.  “I am informed that they considered destroying the whole city to get to you.”

    
“That would have been an interesting way for them to meet Shela,” I said.

    
D’gattis actually smiled.  “You have a skill for spreading anger,” he noted.

    
My Wolf Soldiers and both Oligarchs were directing Glennen from the barn.  Straw covered his clothes and hair, his eyes looked bleary.  He wore a stained grey tunic and dark brown trousers, but you could still see the dark stain on the inside of his left leg.

    
I made eye contact with one of the Oligarchs.  He shook his head and looked away.

    
It was a real shame with him.

     Dinner saw my daughter as the guest of honor at the royal table.  She got to sit with the big people, her ‘bebe’ in a seat next to her.  In my own tradition she’d been provided with a frosted cake in her honor, most of which ended up in her thick, black hair.  Sycophants and friends showered her with gifts in order to remain in my favor and off of Shela’s possible hit list.  I looked on with pride when none of them had the prestige of her dolly.

    
“Have the marriage offers begun yet?” Ceberro asked me.  He sat next to me.  His woman cozied up to mine.  I found it somehow amusing that now he was me, and I had become Glennen, from two years before.

    
“Hectar has his hopes,” I said.  “I’ve arranged for Groff’s son and Glennen’s daughter.”

    
“He told me,” Ceberro told me.  “I’m also informed that I am well advised to accept fate and declare for you as Heir.”

    
I looked at him seriously.  Lee had decided that the more cake she wore, the more smiles she got, and the race began between the cake, her efforts and her mother’s.

    
“How do you feel about that?” I asked him.

    
He looked me straight in the eye.  “In honesty?”

    
“Always.”

    
“I am a better man for the job,” he said.

    
“You think so?”

    
“I am sure of it.”

    
“You would match me?” I asked him.  “Stand against Glennen’s chosen Heir?”

    
“I would.”

   
“Fists or swords?”

    
He grinned, took a look around the room, and then back at me.

   
“Fists,” he said.  “And I trust your wife isn’t invited.”

    
“She isn’t my wife,” I said.  “And even if she were, she wouldn’t be involved.  In fact, rest assured that she will be there.”

    
“You know I will thrash you,” he said. 

    
“I know you will try.”

    
He grinned even wider.  “In the morning?”

    
I nodded, and gave my attention back to my daughter’s celebration.

    
All in all, it hadn’t been a bad day.

     That night I held Shela in my arms.  Lee lay in her crib, her dolly wrapped up in both arms as if she thought someone would take it.  Shela watched her through the crib’s bars.

    
“A bit of cloth and pottery and hair,” she said, her voice sounded distracted, “and I think she loves it more than she does me.”

    
I chuckled.  “You never had a doll?”

    
“Never,” she admitted.  “I almost want one now.”

    
It occurred to me that I had never seen another child with a doll here, either.  When I had described it to the seamstress who had made it, she had seemed to know just what I meant.  She’d gone to the potter on her own, and had suggested using my hair for its.

    
“I think it is in a girl’s nature to want a baby,” I said. 

     
“Surely,” Shela agreed.  “Just as it is in a man’s nature to fight and make war.”

    
I lay quiet for a moment.  “I meant to ask you –“ I began.

    
She turned and looked at me.  “I didn’t want to do what I did to Kelgan,” she said.  “But you commanded it, and I did it, on my daughter’s birthday.  I stopped arranging her hair, I took him to the dungeon, I made him scream in pain, and then I went back to arranging her hair.

    
“If this is what you want of me, then I will become it, but White Wolf, please do not make of me your vile torturer.”

    
She slid into my arms and I held her.  It hadn’t even occurred to me that it would bother her.  She could be a cruel bitch when she had to be.  Lately I had been trying to define her, and getting it all wrong.

    
Maybe I would never get my mind around my slave girl.  It might even be a good thing.

   
I fell asleep before I knew it - another dreamless night to commence the start of the second year of my daughter’s life.

Chapter Ten

A New Beginning

     Duke Ceberro of Vrek stood taller than Two Spears.  He couldn’t make claim to my height, but he might be in better shape.  He had ridden here; he had been in the campaign for the Plains of Angador.  I had campaigned, and I knew what kind of great shape you got into when you did it.

    
I practiced in the swordsman’s gym, with my Wolf Soldiers and Eldadorian trainers, but it felt to me like they held back.  Saa Saraan had kicked my ass all over his gymnasium, and no one did that here.

    
Ceberro and I both dressed in leather leggings.  New leather pants felt tight and binding.  Worn leather pants felt like your own skin, and you moved in them like you were naked. 

    
His pectoral muscles bulged like Nantar’s.  His upper and lower arms showed blue veins.  I had more meat on me.

    
“I want you to know that I am undefeated,” he told me, stepping into the sand circle.  We were in the swordsman’s gym within the palace.  A few of the barons, Hectar and his family, Shela and Lee, the Oligarchs, Glennen and his family, and Ceberro’s entourage were there. Wolf Soldier guards stood at the door.

    
The sweat running off of Glennen smelled like pure alcohol.  His kids stood next to Shela.  He stepped into the ring between us, looked at Ceberro, then at me.

    
“I am told by Duke Ceberro that he should be Heir, and that you’ve accepted his challenge?” Glennen slurred.  He hadn’t gotten drunk yet, but he
’
d managed hung over.  One of his attendant Wolf Soldiers held a cup in his hands – no point in guessing what I’d find in it. 

    
I grinned.  Ceberro fought his battles on all of the fronts.  I hadn’t even known that he and Glennen had been talking.  “My pardon, your Majesty, but I would not presume to enter into such an agreement without consulting you.”

    
He barked a laugh.  “You enter into a lot without discussing it with me,” he said.  “Like marrying off my daughter.  I wouldn’t have allowed this otherwise.”

    
I raised an eyebrow.  He played dirty.  Ceberro must feel pretty sure he’d beat me.  He better hope he did.

    
I stepped into the ring.  “If that’s what the Duke wants to tell you,” I said, “then I am more than willing to kick his ass for it.”

    
Ceberro raised his eyebrow.  “You kick?” he said.  “Only women kick.”

    
Glennen laughed and raised his hand.  He looked at Ceberro, then at me. 

    
“I expect you to show me why I trust you so much,” he told me. 

    
I nodded.  He lowered his hand and stepped out of the ring.

    
Ceberro charged me like a bull, head down, fists pumping.  He’d clearly gotten used to being the biggest guy in the ring, and sought to use his superior size to overwhelm me.

    
I was bigger.  I side stepped him and punched him with my left fist in the kidneys.  The crowd let out a sympathy groan.  He grit his teeth and turned, and I pasted him in the nose twice and then stepped back out of his reach, leading with my left.

    
He turned his shoulders to put his back to my left, trying to make me focus on his back or his head, where he could hold his arm up and defend from me.  Then I would be open to his right.

    
He closed.  I turned on my right foot and suddenly stood a foot closer to him, leading with my right.  I punched him twice in the face and once in the throat with my right, then caught his right cross with my left and hit him in the left eye directly.  He swung wildly with his left; I ducked and then had both of his hands on his right side.  Now I had him in a classic position and I took advantage of it, grabbing both hands with mine, turning and flipping him.  He hit the sand hard, and I followed up with two to the stomach before he could move, then stepped away from him.

    
“Wow,” Glennen said.  “I believe that is the expression you taught me?”

    
I grinned at him for a second, bouncing on the balls of my feet, then stayed focused on Ceberro.

    
He clearly didn’t know what had hit him.  I hadn’t gone berserk but I felt the blood pumping, the excitement, the good pain in my fists from hitting him.  I considered helping Ceberro back to his feet, but this type of guy would punch you on the way up, so I waited.

    
He rolled onto his hands and knees, took a breath, then got to his feet.  He faced me with his fists up, a cut over his left eye, his nose bleeding and his lips smashed.  He looked pissed and didn’t try to hide it.  He hadn’t laid a hand on me the whole time.  He spat a gob of blood on the floor, looked at me, and then at Glennen.

    
“It is his wife, your Majesty,” he said.  “Clearly, I am beset.”

    
Glennen laughed.  “I think you are a bad loser, Ceberro,” he said.  “I have seen his wife’s work.  You are still alive, so she has done nothing to you.”

    
“You have seen me fight,” he said.  “I am not so easily bested.”

    
“I’ve watched the battle,” Glennen said.  “And I know what I’ve seen.  If you want me to have her leave, I will.”

    
“It would make no difference now,” Ceberro complained.  “Look at what his wife’s spell has let him do to me.”

    
I stepped up, because this really started to piss me off.  “First,” I said, “she is my slave, not my wife.

    
“Second,” I said, and waited for him to meet my eyes.  “Accuse me of cheating again, and I will call for swords, not fists, and I will wait for you to heal, and I will carve you to pieces with Shela a mile away just to prove to you what a woman you are.  I don’t need anyone’s help to beat a rank amateur like you.”

    
That got him.  He swung and caught me right on the jaw.  I stepped back and he caught me in the stomach, and again, and again.  As I had with Two Spears, I held my fists in front of my face and let him work the stomach, taking what he had, until I felt his blows begin to weaken.

    
Then I treated him to a one-two combination to the jaw, leading with the right this time, leaving him staggering and his mouth open.  I closed it with my right, hit him in the stomach with my left, feeling it sink into his unready muscles, then grabbed his shoulder with my right.  I pulled him past me, kicked the back of his knee with my heel, and folded him over backwards onto the sand.

    
I stood over him.  When he tried to rise I punched him right in the nose.  He tried to rise again, and I hit him again.

    
“I can do this all day,” I said.

    
“You won’t let me rise?” he asked.

    
“Apologize for accusing me of cheating,” I said.

    
He tried to rise, I hit him again.

    
“Like I said, I can do this all day.”

    
He turned to Glennen, then back to me.  I had hoped that this would be an amicable fight.  He had fooled me.  I wouldn’t let that happen again.  I knew he’d say that I didn’t beat him fairly.  I wanted to be able to counter later with his admission now.  I didn’t care how I got it.

    
“You didn’t cheat,” he said.  “May I rise now?”

    
I held out my left hand, he took it with his.  As I predicted, once I’d pulled him three quarters of the way up, he swung on me, looking for another shot to the jaw.  He misjudged the distance, however, and missed my face by half an inch. 

    
I yanked him to his feet and knocked him back on his ass.  This time he just sat there.

    
“I can’t beat him,” he said, looking at Glennen.

    
“It appears you can’t,” the king said.

    
“I concede, then,” he said.  He looked at me.  “I am defeated by you.  You’ve beaten me.  You are the Heir.”

    
I nodded and stepped out of the ring.  Shela ran to me and gave me a warm hug and a hero’s kiss.  Hectar pounded my back.  I looked past them and saw that the Uman-Chi were in attendance, watching us with ambiguous eyes.  They were against the far wall, by the single entrance to the gym.  Ancenon nodded to me, and I nodded back to him.

    
Shela wouldn’t have helped me.  D’gattis wouldn’t have thought twice about it.  They had a debt to pay to Ceberro.

    
I felt Glennen’s heavy hand on my shoulder, and turned to see him smiling.  Two Wolf Soldiers were helping the Duke up off of the ground.  He looked at me, spat blood, and looked at me again.  I made an enemy here today, another one I didn’t need.

    
“Let’s all drink to this,” Glennen said.  “Invite your Uman-Chi, Rancor.  Let us celebrate a new beginning.”

    
I thought, “You’ve got that right.”

     We sat at the royal dining table.  Glennen had the mead flowing.  Ceberro tried to match Glennen bowl for bowl.  I decided to watch myself.  The Uman-Chi and Hectar drank wine.

    
J’her had the security of the palace if I had too much.  Jameen had left with one of the court barons and, as far as I knew, hadn’t sought out Shela.  She’d taken the baby to the stables.

    
Glennen recanted some escapade he and Ceberro had gone on into the Aschire.  Ceberro laughed along, wincing at the pain in his smashed lips.  The Uman-Chi listened politely and I could tell that Hectar had heard the story before.

    
“You know,” Ceberro interrupted, “your own Eldadorian warriors are defending the Aschire right now from your own merchants.”

    
Glennen slammed down his bowl.  He looked once around the room, then at me.  The liquor hadn’t incapacitated him yet, but it had impaired him.

    
“And who ordered that?” he demanded.

    
“I did, your Majesty,” I said.  “He wouldn’t be trying to use it to anger you if it had been anyone else’s edict.”

    
Ceberro raised his eyebrows in surprise.  D’gattis actually chuckled, and Ancenon looked sideways at him.  Hectar opened his mouth to speak, but Glennen interrupted him.

    
“So you admit that you are supporting the squirrels,” he said.

    
“They are Eldadorians,” I said.  “If I let our merchants chop down their trees, they’ll retaliate against the merchants and we’ll have civil war.  An internal war will see Dorkan soldiers on the Andurin peninsula in a month, rest assured.  They’re still angry about our actions in Katarran.”

    
“Merchants are chopping their trees down?” our monarch had been given too much information.

    
“They want the wood to house Sentalan grain,” Hectar said.  “The Heir has seen to it that we profited mightily from the war between Volkhydro and Sental.”

     “Us or the Aschire?” Ceberro challenged him.

     Glennen waved him off.  “The Aschire don’t care about grain or gold,” he said.  “Why was I not informed of this war?”

     “You were,” I told Glennen.  “We discussed it at length a week ago.  You told me that you wouldn’t mind leading a few thousand Eldadorians in among the Uman and having at them.”

     Glennen grinned at that.  Ceberro took a drink and scowled. 

     “Trenbon shall be sending peace keepers,” Ancenon offered.  “That is, if the hostilities continue.”

     Glennen laughed.  “Uman against Uman.  The Volkhydrans will carve you to bits.  It takes Men to fight Men.”

     Hectar grinned to himself on that point.  D’gattis took a sip of wine to hide a smug look.

     “Clearly, the most effective fighters on Fovea are Wolf Soldiers,” Ancenon said.  “And they are from all races.”

     “That
is
true,” Hectar said.  “You can’t talk to a military man right now about anything but the invasion of Thera by the Confluni.”

     Glennen slammed his hand down on the table.  “Conflu invaded Thera?” he demanded.

     “Months ago,” Ceberro said.  “I believe it was 30,000 defeated by half their number?”

     That was a mistake, I thought.  It made Glennen seem stupid to the person who mattered most to him: Glennen.

     “I believe that Thera at the time had 4,000 foot,” Ancenon said, his eyes not clearly focused on anyone.  “And their lancers were relieving the siege of Eldador the Port.”

     “From you,” Ceberro added.

     “And, so,” Ancenon said.  “We were under the hire of the Trenboni at the time.  When the Wolf Soldier horse intervened, we quit the field.”

     Glennen put his bowl down and considered all of this, as if hearing it for the first time.