A Shore Too Far

Chapter 6

In three days, Eric’s North Guard had arrived and camped in a great fan south of our lookout hill. At night, their campfires dotted the dark like a constellation come to earth. My own camp had been moved further south also, well away from the giant bows sported by our enemy. Admiral Pulgatt’s ships were now ready for war, though we had little hope on that front, and his sailors armed themselves with bows, cudgels, and swords. The civilian ships the admiral had seized had been fitted with Sea Fire and launchers, though how any of us were to get within range without being butchered remained an issue on both sea and land.

To the south, Kollus was gathering his South Guard and pulling men from the countryside as well, but they were still six or seven days away and lacked the training and experience of my East Guard. I could not fault Kollus entirely; only my and Eric’s borders were threatened by an enemy and so we had the veteran forces while Kollus’s men knew war only from tales and training.

My East Guard was on the move and had reached the small city of Keeda, some week’s march from the tent city. They brought with them supplies and healers and were ready for whatever bloody work lay ahead. Duke Marrish, who ruled Keeda, had added 500 knights to the East Guard’s 33,000 infantry, but it was hard to imagine even gleaming armored knights in a successful charge against the Kullobrini bows tipped with a metal stronger than any we had ever seen.

The Kullobrini had been busy as well and their full cunning was evident on the field. The Cloth of Blessing had been merely a means of concealing the ten-foot-wide trench beneath. The Kullobrini had avoided stepping on the Cloth of Blessing not out of some religious propriety but out of fear of falling in and revealing their masters’ foreboding trench. Some eight to ten feet deep, it encircled the entire tent city and was lined with spears and sharpened stakes. The Kullobrini had also constructed small drawbridges of sorts to allow entry and exit over the trench at specific locations.

The outermost tents of the Kullobrini camp had hidden the removed earth of the trench and now that earth was packed hard into a mound, the outer slope of which was also lined with spears and stakes. Whether cavalry or infantry, any advancing force would have to make it over the trench and then top the mound, all under the deadliest arrow fire the continent had ever seen.

Of course, it was not just that the metal of their weapons was superior. Their armor was likely better as well, nullifying the potency of our own archers should the Kullobrini approach. Hand-to-hand combat would suffer as well. Since it would take two blows to down the enemy when it should only take one, the mathematics of war weighed heavily against us. Eric was hopeful that we could change that calculation and the smiths of Abringol were hammering away at thicker breastplates and shields. When quality is lacking, Eric reminded me, one must make do with quantity. But as with all of our problems, time became the biggest obstacle and it would take all the metal of Abringol to equip 55,000 men.

In the meantime, the Kullobrini ships were not idle. Our farlooks confirmed that the dark-skinned sailors now carried great bows like their comrades on land and wore light leather armor. Occasional smoke could be seen from some of the Kullobrini ships and Pulgatt surmised they were now testing the volatility of their own Sea Fire.

Eric remained at Abringol and organized the defense of the city, though what navy there could be to help was already deployed in the waters north under Admiral Pulgatt. The merchants of his city had returned, save Gwey, whose lone, luxurious tent stood out from the meager shelters of Eric’s men, a flower in a field of heath. Gwey himself hung about like a scolded dog, remaining only so near as to be seen but no closer.

Eric’s healers had stayed but were moved south and well behind the troops, and the area around them was already being cleared to accommodate the thousands of wounded I was likely to suffer.

What good news there was only puzzled us further. Our riders to the northern forts had returned with nothing to report. Even the northernmost of Eric’s three forts insisted that all was quiet, though they had vouched to send out more scouts. Similarly, Pulgatt’s ships searching for more Kullobrini fleets reported only civilian traffic. I was forced to conclude that either some overarching plan had gone horribly awry for the Kullobrini or their deceptions ran deeper than I could imagine. A heavy feeling in my gut told me which was more likely.

The princes Ujor did not ease that dilemma. Even in the moments after the Cloth of Blessing was revealed to be a ploy, both Eglanna and Eldrazz had insisted they could explain and that they meant no harm. Even as I left them standing in the rain, they called after me to listen, to hear their case. In the three days that had passed, the princes had sent me twelve messages pleading that I hear them out, begging for an audience. I had sent no reply and had no intention of doing so.

Strangely, the rainbow that had appeared the day of our meeting remained over the sea and all I could think about was Eldrazz’s wish that some people somewhere believed it to be a good omen. If it should be so here, I was not wise enough to see the shape of our fortunes.

Instead, the future held only a war plan. We hoped to hold action until my East Guard could arrive, but if the Kullobrini acted before then we would retreat south slowly and carefully and cost them what men we may. We were prepared to be driven as far south as Abringol and then merge with the defenses of the city, though our combined cavalry would ride east at the last possible moment and join with the approaching East Guard. The forts, if that was the Kullobrini goal, could hold out until the East Guard arrived, especially if the Kullobrini attempted to push us south first. Each day south the Kullobrini followed us was one more day farther away from the forts. Whatever happened, however, the North Guard could not let the Kullobrini out of its sight lest our visitors reboard their ships and set sail for one of our other cities. Even in the best scenarios, I would lose more than half my men, an unprecedented loss against an unprecedented enemy.

On the morning of the fifth day since the Cloth of Blessing was removed, I went to Gonnaban’s tent. Gonnaban was always very popular with the men and to have him absent from battle was, I had to admit, one liability that I could do something about. He sat in the doorway of his tent and tended a small fire. When he noticed me he began to stand, but I motioned for him to keep his seat. Five days with half rations had thinned him and I found myself again trying to remember if he had any family.

“Things have moved right along, I hear,” said Gonnaban.

“Yes,” I said, taking my own seat by the fire.

“Right queer about that rainbow,” Gonnaban said, gesturing with his head toward the sea. “Some of the lads take it as a good sign.”

“I’m glad something cheers them,” I said.

“We’ll be all right, ma’am.”

“Yes.”

“Are we going to attack?” Gonnaban asked, his eyes in the fire.

“I don’t know. They deserve it, certainly, but it will be costly.” I stretched my neck but the tensions would not ease. “I’d rather they get back on their boats and leave us in peace.”

“Really, ma’am?” Gonnaban asked, surprised.

I looked at him and found myself surprised as well. I thought a long moment.

“Yes, I think so.” I studied the hollowness of his cheeks. With his thinner face, his somewhat large nose appeared all the larger, an old man warming himself against early spring air. “I would appreciate your eyes on our predicament, Gonnaban.”

“You know I’ll follow your orders, ma’am. Eight years is a long time.”

“Yes,” I said, “I suppose it is.”

He rose and helped me to my feet, his hand a band of iron, a strength that I had forgotten, whatever its age.

“I hear from the lads that they’ve sent messages under a flag of truce, is that so, Highness?” Gonnaban asked.

“Yes, a number of them. All under the red flag,” I answered as we worked our way through the infantry tents.

“A red flag?” Gonnaban asked.

“Yes.”

“Huh, how’d they know?”

“Know?” I asked.

“Well, everybody’s got their different war customs, right? The Dolbiri and Mun Dovari both use blue for a truce flag,” Gonnaban said, thinking. “The Sand Republics use their house’s flag, but turned upside down. How’d they know our custom with a red flag?”

“In conversation with the men?” I posited.

“I dunno. I wouldn’t think you’d talk surrender and such with men from a different army,” Gonnaban said. “I wonder if they’ve been studying us, you know, for a while.”

“I don’t know, Gonnaban,” I said, sighing. “What could surprise us now?”

We rounded the lookout hill and the Kullobrini fortifications came fully into view. Gonnaban was visibly struck by the sight, pausing midstep.

“Blazes,” said Gonnaban. “They haven’t been idle, have they? I had heard, of course, but to see it.…” He shook his head and rubbed his own neck.

We resumed our pace and walked to the former location of my own tent. Above us, we could hear the soldiers on the lookout hill speaking in low voices.

“Any better numbers on their cavalry?” Gonnaban asked, studying the array of earth and men before him.

“Not as many as we first feared, not 5,000, but closer to 3,000,” I answered.

“Still, trouble enough on those horses of theirs. It’s much the same as our troubles on the water: bigger or faster is fine; bigger and faster is the Low Cauldron, no mistake,” he said, shaking his head.

“We’ll find a way, Gonnaban,” I said quietly, my eyes fixed on the ebony soldiers who manned every foot of the Kullobrini perimeter.

He looked at me a long while and then turned back to the Kullobrini.

“Aye,” he said. Suddenly, he laughed sharply and picked up a twig from the ground. “Do you know why the Mun Dovari sing in battle?” he asked, twisting the twig around and around in his hands.

“No,” I admitted.

“Well, they believe their goddess was born out of some giant dog, Ulshogg the Night Hound, they call her. Well, one night Ulshogg gives birth to a litter of black puppies and this goddess. Each night though, Ulshogg returns to her litter and eats the quietest puppy—just wolfs it down, so their goddess, she starts singing every night, loud as you please, just to keep death at bay, just to keep from getting eaten.”

He laughed again and tossed the twisted shreds of the twig to the ground.

“What are you saying, Gonnaban?” I asked.

“I dunno, ma’am, but I might just take up singing,” he said, staring out at the line of Kullobrini soldiers.

We studied the Kullobrini defenses in silence, the rainbow over the sea arching high in the clouds.

“I shouldn’t have put you on half rations,” I said finally. “You look like you don’t have a pound to spare.”

“I’m all right, ma’am,” Gonnaban said. “Some bridges don’t burn.”

We stood for a long while, watching the Kullobrini behind their earthworks. More and more I could feel the question of battle pressing on us, could feel each of us turning the shape of the fight in our minds. More fully than ever, we were feeling the cost of any battle against such a people, but we were faced by their blatant affronts and their bizarre behavior. Too much was at stake to let the matter pass, but any battle against them would leave us severely weakened.

“I’ll be damned,” Gonnaban muttered suddenly, looking out to sea.

The rainbow over the Gaping Sea was finally fading and the soldiers above us cursed its passing.

By noon, I had received five more requests from the Kullobrini for a meeting. I turned each one away without answer and had to consider whether I should start imprisoning the soldiers bearing the messages. We would certainly need all the advantages we could muster, but I decided it was unwise to press the Kullobrini into retaliation.

The final request came in person from Kannafen, his shield hanging heavily on his arm as he was escorted into my tent.

“Your princes have run out of messengers already?” I scoffed.

He smiled weakly. “I volunteered. I had hoped we could avoid bloodshed,” he began.

His beard was stiff and curly and projected down from his chin like a growth of tiny roots.

“What makes you think I wish to avoid it? Your masters’ behavior and the presence of their army makes your peacemaking all but impossible,” I retorted.

“They are good young men, Highness,” Kannafen stated firmly. “They have no hostile attention. The sickness—”

“Drove them mad so they secretly dug a trench more than twenty miles long?” I interrupted. “I’m sorry our healers could not cure your people. Perhaps my armies can help.”

Kannafen gathered himself for another try, but I pressed on.

“I’ve been thinking about your shield,” I said. “You have done very little protecting of your two charges if you allowed them to deceive and lie with impunity.”

“I am but their advisor, ma’am,” Kannafen said. “They remain my princes and I must do as my betters tell me.”

“Then we will all suffer for your lack of courage, Kannafen,” I stated. “I do not know what customs govern your people, but in all the lands of Damendine you do not land troops on sovereign soil and then lie about your purpose.”

“You’re right to call my courage into doubt,” he answered, his deep voice filling the tent. “Perhaps I should have urged them to choose differently, but whatever happens, you should know that they will never attack first. They will only defend the camp.”

He shifted his shield higher as he finished, a note of pride embellishing his already grand voice. His eyes, too, were earnest and insisted I listen. I could not help but think of Gwey’s argument, that I had become to used to labeling friend from foe and that I refused to make use of any other categories.

“If that was how you advised them,” I returned, “then let’s hope they listened to the lesson.”

He nodded.

“I will consider what you have said,” I continued, “but I still must take precautions.”

“Of course, Highness,” he acknowledged.

I dismissed him with a gesture and unrolled another map of the area, knowing that it may soon be the stage of all of Kannafen’s fears.

Sometime in the afternoon, another surprise visitor from the tents sought an audience, this one even more unexpected than the aging advisor. Esmir stood meekly behind one of my tent guards.

“She was quite insistent, General,” the guard began.

Esmir popped her head around the guard and beamed at me.

“I didn’t know what to tell her, General,” said the guard.

“Nor do I.” I nodded for the guard to leave.

Esmir smiled and stepped sheepishly into the front room of the tent. She carried a small shoulder pouch.

“Esmir,” I began, “this is nonsense. I cannot believe that your masters allowed you to come.”

She looked away.

“No, you’re right there, ma’am. I convinced a guard to lower the way and I took a horse and tied a red rag round its neck.”

“I’m glad you brought the red rag,” I chided her, “else you might be full of arrows now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, you’ve ridden all this way against sense. What do you want, Esmir? Surely, you must sense that our two peoples are not in a talking mood,” I said.

“No, ma’am, that they aren’t and that’s what I’ve come to talk about,” she started. “There’s plenty of my people who are afraid that yours are going to attack. The princes feel it, too, and they want to talk. With you. To find a way out of this.”

“Esmir, your princes have brought soldiers to my land. Both of them have lied to us and I think there’s more they still aren’t telling us. No sovereign land would stand for such abuses.” I stood now. “I will not risk the sovereignty of my kingdom over the games being played by your princes, or worse yet, over some plan not yet revealed.”

“But they mean you no harm, Highness, I promise. I’ve known them both since they were babes. They’re good boys, both of them,” Esmir pleaded.

“You didn’t come all this way to squander my time with glowing childhood memories of the princes Ujor,” I said. “Are you prepared to reveal your masters’ secrets? Are you prepared to tell me why they fortify themselves with earth from my own country?”

Esmir looked at me helplessly.

“I thought not,” I said, and sat back down heavily. “Then you leave me where I began: defending my kingdom against an unknown and mysterious threat. A threat that consistently lies and treads on the good graces of the rightful rulers.”

Esmir dropped her head powerlessly and hid her hands in the folds of her dress.

“Ma’am, do you have children?” she began.

I sighed. “No,” I said.

“Well, I have three grown boys, my lady, strong, handsome, proud. I love them dearly,” she said. “And there’s more than one family among our tents terrified that they are not going to see another morning, terrified that they are going to watch their children butchered in some battle. Is that the legacy you want to leave among your own people? A killer of children, a destroyer of families?”

I looked at her evenly. “It is my legacy already. It is what some people already sing of in distant lands. But you’re no old fool, Esmir. If you’ve been around the house Ujor as long as you say, then you’ve seen them cut down their share of families—or at least make the decisions that as good as wielded the blade. Do not come here spouting romanticisms. To be royalty is to be willing to kill for your kingdom. I’ve done my share and I’m ready to do more if that’s the day’s work.”

Esmir looked disbelievingly at me for a long time.

“What must I do, love?” she whispered. “How can I save my boys? How can I help all those families in the tents?”

I dropped my head in exasperation. “I don’t know, Esmir. By the Nine Fathers, I do not know.”

“You know I’m not supposed to say nothing about what I overhear,” Esmir said. “But suppose I were to help you guess? That wouldn’t really be a betrayal, true? A bright girl like you could have come up with it on her own.…”

I lifted my head to the tent’s roof. “I have never known such a people for games and misdirection.” I looked at her. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“Well, you’re reckoning that the princes are up to something and whatever that is they will not leave of their own accord,” said Esmir.

“Yes, I suppose that is an accurate assumption.”

“Well, now, as I think about it there’s two possibilities, each one worth considering. The first is the one you’ve already hit upon: they will not leave. The other, the one you might not have considered, is that they cannot leave.”

I looked at her for a long time, my head abuzz.

“But,” I finally managed, “you have the same number of ships you started with. You’ve got plenty of food from what we hear. What are you—?”

“As I said, it’s worth thinking on and might save a few children at the end of the day, miss.” Esmir looked at me unblinkingly but with the satisfaction of mischief well executed. “Will you promise me to think on it, my lady?”

“Yes…,” I said. “But are you saying—”

“Well, I’m not rightly saying anything, am I, miss? If I were that would be speaking out of turn.” She had bowed and begun to turn to the exit when she stopped abruptly. “Bless me, I almost forgot I brought you some more wine.”

She pulled a bottle from her pouch and placed it gently on my war table. Again she turned to go and again stopped. “Did you see that rainbow, ma’am? It’s gifts like that we should see more of. They warm the coldest part of us, those parts we forgot and thought were lost.”

She shook her head appreciatively and was gone.

The barest rim of the sun could still be seen above the Gaping Sea when the princes Ujor started across the small drawbridge over the trench. I had sent the princes an invitation to talk, an invitation to avoid the extinction of their people on this continent. They had taken hours to respond—and with good reason: my conditions for our talks were stringent and without compromise. The princes could bring no weapons of any kind and their guard must remain behind the audacious trench and mound. The talks would take place at my tent and surrounded by my thousands of infantry. Finally, the princes had to leave their steeds behind. They would walk the entire quarter mile and more between our two camps. In effect, the princes would risk capture just to arrive at the talks and even then their dignity would be sorely tested. If the princes’ demand for an audience was a game, I intended to press it from them like wine from grapes.

But game or not, the princes appeared and began the lonely trek across the scrub and brush. Halfway across, my own honor guard met the princes and escorted them into camp. Whatever abuses they had delivered, I would allow them some treatment equal to their blood. It also provided me something else to take away should the need arise.

Though not specified in my message, Esmir and Kannafen also accompanied them. I could not feel surprise; the old woman’s spirit was irrepressible and Kannafen’s loyalty was steadfast, even if both were misplaced in the service of liars and rogues.

I stood on our lookout hill and watched the procession. Against the two sprawling hosts camped against the sea, the approaching men looked tiny and it was only through an act of imagination that one could realize that thousands of lives rested on their shoulders.

I met the princes in my tent and greeted them at my war table. Esmir carried a basket, filled no doubt with wine and glasses, but she took a discreet corner of the room and bowed her head. Kannafen found his own corner and leaned his advisor’s shield against his leg.

I finally stood after they had entered, and my fingers traced over and over some gouge or scar that I had not noticed before in the table.

Eglanna and Eldrazz bowed deeply but with the tiniest hesitation, a mark of the pains they suffered under my restrictions.

I returned their bow but remained standing. Eric once told me that any conversation could be controlled. The only question was whether one did it through silence or through speech.

“You have brought our peoples to the brink of war,” I began. “You have lied and under the pretense of that lie you have built fortifications on sovereign soil.” I let the accusations hang heavy in the air. “You will explain all of this and fully so, or I will drive you into the sea.”

The princes did not look at one another. There was no pause as one brother debated whether to defer to the other. They had worked out who would answer me long before they had left their camp.

“Highness, we are exiles,” the young Eglanna started quickly. “We and those loyal to us were given a fleet so they we could make our home elsewhere. Families, merchants, soldiers, and their sovereigns were forced to set sail from Kullobrini and never return. We’ve been more than a month at sea and now our situation is desperate.”

He spoke in a rush and with the urgency of a man long tired of secrets.

I looked from Eglanna to Eldrazz, who hung his head and stood slightly behind his younger brother. Eldrazz always had a warrior’s stance, the frame of a man who had held a sword, but here he appeared cowed, defeated. Throughout all of Eldrazz’s silences, I had never before seen his shame but rather only his resentment. I could not help but wonder if Eric would have seen both much sooner.

“Why would you not admit this as soon as you landed? Why hide all of this from us?” I asked.

“It is no easy thing,” Eldrazz said, now glaring at me.

Esmir looked up in alarm. Eglanna glanced at Eldrazz and rested a hand on his brother’s arm. Kollus, too, was a peacemaker, always ready with a touch, a word, to calm the hot-blooded.

“We were cut off from our country, General. What land would take us?” Eglanna explained. “With the sickness spreading on our ships after more than a month at sea, we had to set ashore. We had no colony site chosen beforehand; there was not time, but news of a lost caravan of colonists does not alarm a nation like news of exiles. We needed time to tend our sick, cleanse the ships. And the military that would not serve under the new regime, those exiled with us, gave us the appearance of an invasion.”

“And your trench? The stakes and spear points?” I challenged. “Surely your people recover faster when not digging miles of earthworks.”

“Of all the lands we passed, we were faced with two stark realities: unforgiving mountains or land too arid to support our numbers,” Eglanna said. “Here, among your people, we found a place that can support our numbers by the sweat of our own brows. Here we found the first possible home for our wandering thousands.” Eglanna gathered himself as though preparing for a blow. “And we needed to be able to protect ourselves while the matter was settled.”

Again, I stared at him, nearly through him, as I wrestled with the enormity of his suggestion.

“You propose to remain…here,” I said. “After all you’ve done. After all the lies and abuses, you think you’ve found your new home?”

“General—,” Eglanna began.

“No,” I said, cutting him off, “let me understand perfectly the reasoning of your people. You land where you will and then entrench yourselves so that you can make a new home? You think the burdens of your kingdom can become the burdens of mine so long as you have enough men and spears? So long as the task of removing you is hard enough, you could press us to negotiate?”

“We have a responsibility to our followers to try, General,” Eldrazz said, an edge to his voice.

“Your forwardness knows no bounds,” I said, my voice quivering. “You bring your thousands to my shores, the shores of my father and my blood, and now out of fear of confrontation, I am to accommodate your outrageousness?”

“If we return home,” Eglanna insisted, “we will be slain. Not just my brother and I, General, but every soldier and artisan, every mother and child in those camps. Our choices are few. We are desperate.”

“And now I am to share your desperation, Eglanna? I am to open my father’s land, my brother’s provinces, because of the unsavory politics across the Hard Water?” I postulated contemptuously.

“Will you simply slay us en masse then and settle the issue, Highness?” Eldrazz countered while Eglanna looked back and forth between us helplessly. “Will you push a good and loyal people into their graves for slights to your honor? For my misdeeds or those of my brother?”

Esmir had moved closer to her masters, her brow furrowed in doubt and fear. She raised her hand as though to touch some unseen thing but finding nothing it hung there empty.

Kannafen, too, took a step closer, trying to lend some unknown aid.

The blood rose in my ears and all I could think about was the sound of the tide, wave after wave moving across the face of the world, implacable, unstoppable, eternal.

“You place the lives of your supporters on some trifling scale, like a merchant with coins, and balance it against my restraint? Leave the butchery to me so that your hands remain clean?” My fists clenched tighter and tighter until they stung with the strain. My eyes burned into Eldrazz’s. “You do not deserve the loyalty of your people. I cannot fathom how these people came to be so unfortunate or how you claim that royal blood fills your veins.”

“Highness, I hardly—,” Kannafen began.

“What would you ask of us, General?” Eglanna asked, moving now more fully between his brother and me. “What can we do to make amends? To find an answer for both our peoples?” He looked at the ground, but eventually he again met my gaze. “Take my life if that it will serve. Hang me for our crimes and satisfy your outrage.”

Kannafen started at the suggestion, crying, “Highness!”

Eldrazz reached for his younger brother. “Brother—”

“No,” a voice said, icy and unyielding.

Both brothers turned away from me, and I suddenly knew beyond reason where they would look. I suddenly knew the source of cunning that had plagued me these past few days.

“No,” Esmir said again.

Her eyes found mine and before I knew it I had stepped back. She stepped forward, and the princes gave way before her. Her face was composed with the measured calm of one who was used to measuring lives, a look I had only seen in my father as he weighed the world in one hand and his kingdom in the other.

“Let there be no more secrets between us, child,” Esmir said, her eyes taking me in with such fullness that I had to resist covering myself. “My sons have only followed my bidding. Now let us talk in earnest, you and I.”

With a nearly imperceptible motion of her head, Esmir dismissed her sons and their advisor from the tent as she continued to watch me. Eldrazz, Eglanna, and Kannafen gathered themselves quickly and left. I found I could not move and only later wondered why I did not stop them.

Esmir smiled with an easy grace. “I know you weary of deceptions, General, but I did not know who we would find at the end of our journey and I wanted to know them, so to speak, before I put my people in their hands.”

She slipped a glittering ring onto her hand and regarded me again.

“Perhaps we can have some wine before we begin,” she said, reaching calmly into her basket. “No matter is so great that it cannot be improved with wine.”

My mother died after lingering for weeks, injured and incoherent. Her carriage was crossing the Ivy Bridge at Turning Down when the great stones gave way, dashing her and her entourage against the stony waters below.

I was six, but I can remember my father hovering over her bed as she muttered in her sleep. I would ask my father what she said, but he would yell for me to leave the room. Eric was seventeen and hung outside in the hall. He would hold me when my father chased me out.

“What is she saying?” I would ask him.

“She’s singing our names,” he said, stroking my hair, “singing so she’ll get well.”

Kollus was a toddler, still laughing with his nanny, still singing his own nonsensical songs in the palace yards, still playing in the ivy of Turning Down.

When he came to rule the southern provinces, Kollus had a great block of marble hauled to the new bridge at Turning Down and carved a beautiful statue of my mother reaching down to release a blossom on the water. The woman is tall and kind and lowers the blossom with the tenderness of a child.

Kollus, of course, was too young to remember our mother’s face, but the woman he had carved was so elegant, so compassionate in her countenance, in that hovering poise over the burbling waters, that now when I think of my mother, all I can think of is that marble lady so gently dropping flowers among laughing waters and shattered stone.

More than marble, Esmir, queenly and quiet, held her wine glass like a flower and studied me from across the tent. I held her gaze for as long as I could stand and finally excused myself to send messages to Eric and my father. As I wrote the hurried messages for my riders, they watched me, their eyes unsettled at my unsteady hand and furrowed brow.

As I scratched out each letter, I could still feel Esmir’s influence, a power that lay somewhat in the grand manner with which treated the world, but more so in her refusal to acknowledge any opposition to her will. It seemed she held some secret knowledge that reality was at her beck and call, and her will and desires would manifest themselves given enough time.

As I approached my tent, I found myself hesitant to reenter, hesitant to confront the servant-turned-monarch holding court within. Only by reinvigorating my own anger at the Kullobrini intrusion could I shake off Esmir’s powerful presence and begin refocusing on removing the dark-skinned people from our shores. I was still outside my tent when Gonnaban appeared around a corner.

“You’ve heard everything so far?” I asked.

“Aye, ma’am,” Gonnaban said. “They’re a cunning breed and think through things in layers like. But our duties haven’t changed. Do you allow an army to land on your sovereign soil? Does a story of woe mean we give over to their every demand and we forget their every deception? And more than forget, we forgive?”

“Why don’t you join me inside?” I asked. “I could do with a level head beside me.”

“She’s a lot to take,” Gonnaban said, “judging by how those two princes and that old fellow scurried out of there.”

The air carried the scent of some soldier’s late supper, the spiced bacon my father loved when at war. I inhaled deeply and thought of him preparing it for us at Turning Down, turning from the stove to beam at us, his own anticipation for the treat far greater than our own.

“She certainly has no fear of command if that’s what you mean,” I replied. “She has every expectation of being obeyed. It’s overwhelming frankly.”

“Well, you’ve done your share, Highness, and that’s worth remembering,” Gonnaban said. “But no, ma’am, I’ll think I’ll hang about out here. Let her run as long as she will and we’ll see where she’ll go, what tricks she’s yet to unfold.”

I nodded and hid my disappointment. I would be going back alone and had to remember my bloodline and my duty or fail both.

Esmir was seated when I returned. She had refilled her glass while I was gone and her eyes followed me coolly as she lifted wine to her lips. Her face, serene, calm, at peace, lacked only the hardness, the resolve, of my father’s Mask Imperial, but it remained inscrutable nonetheless. We could be discussing the turns of the weather for all the anguish her countenance showed, our two opposing armies forgotten.

“I know I’ve given you a great deal to take in, General,” she said as I seated myself across the war table from her. “We have hardly acted as the most respectful guests.”

My outrage returned unbidden and I was glad for the strength it lent me.

“Your forwardness exceeds anything in living memory, Your Highness,” I said. “I cannot think how you hope to succeed.”

Her face remained unchanged, an infuriating barrier that offered no aggression, no defiance, only an implacable confidence ready to turn aside anything that delayed or derailed her goal. I longed for Eric’s advice as I gazed on her glacial demeanor. What tic in a cheek or turn of a smile could he read that would betray my adversary’s real intent? Like a hunter tracking some quarry, Eric perceived signs in his opponent that led my brother directly to his opponent’s real goal, allowing Eric to flush the matter into the open. Kollus, too, had some skill, though he often relied on humor to lull those across the table from him. I read the face of war so much more easily than that of a person seeking compromise and I did not know if I should be ashamed.

“I do not hope, General. My kingdom must continue, even if it is to be subsumed within yours. I proceed upon the strength of history,” Esmir replied. “My kingdom has lasted 1,400 years and it will not end now, not even the little part still under my rule.” She motioned to my glass. “You have not touched your wine.” She smiled softly. “And do not hesitate to call me Esmir. We have been through too much to pretend no familiarity.”

“I hardly think familiarity is a word we can use, least of all between us,” I said, more coldly than I intended.

“I have explained my ruse, child, though I do not apologize for it,” Esmir said coolly. “Who would we meet when we found some land capable of supporting us? A tyrant? A fool? But fate brought us here and at the foot of the craftiest strategist all of Damendine has ever known. But now I know it and have watched you spar with my sons—”

“And chatted amiably with me,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, evenly. “You chatted with poor Esmir, servant of princes. Do not feel completely deceived, my dear, for I remain their servant just as you are a servant to your own kingdom, your own people. And whatever you think of my tactics, I think you understand their goal very, very deeply.”

She took a long sip of her wine and gazed at the wall of the tent.

“You know,” she said, “before we set sail I had eight casks and forty bottles of this vintage. It was produced in my great-grandfather’s vineyards in the northern hills, our family home overlooking row upon row of the very vines I played in as a child. Now, on some foreign land, I have less than twenty bottles left, and after that I’ll have only the memories of my palate and a litter of empty bottles and stained barrels.”

“What drove you from such happy memories?” I challenged. “What great calamity in your land permitted you to set sail with not only warriors but wine? A peaceful change of regimes is rarer than your wine, I daresay. What brought you here, Esmir?”

“What you really mean to ask is why am I not dead on some battlefield, yes?” Esmir postulated. “How can I care so much for the continuity of my kingdom and yet abandon it and trouble your fisherfolk and farmers?” She drank again and rested her glass idly in her lap. “A war costs a kingdom, doesn’t it, General? A civil war doubly so. I could choose to defend my pride, my honor, my right, or I could spare tens of thousands of lives and find somewhere for my supporters to continue those lives.”

Outside, a horse neighed, sudden and high, and a soldier cursed trying to rein it in. Booted feet ran toward the commotion and soon there were shouts for rope. The beast had gone wild and threatened to break loose.

“You cannot stay here,” I insisted.

“And I cannot leave,” Esmir said simply, meeting my gaze.