Once they’d cleared Vayenne’s breakwater, the courier had started her run in earnest, hoisting so much canvas that Raesinia expected them to be lifted out of the water entirely. Winds were apparently favorable, and they ran northwest, within easy view of the rumpled Vordanai coast. Ihannes had told her they’d keep on like that all around the bulge of western Vordan, past Enzport and Ecco Island, until they passed the jutting peninsula of the Jaw and struck out northeast across the Borel Sea.
Raesinia couldn’t have said exactly where they were, at the present. The coast all looked the same, little port towns and river mouths, cliffs and rolling hills. She leaned against the rail near the bow of the ship, watching the waves and the clouds. Off to her left, the ocean went on and on into the infinite distance, until blue-?gray sky and gray-?blue water met at the horizon. Somewhere in that general direction was Khandar, and the mysterious southern kingdoms on the other side of the Great Desol. Maybe I’ll get to visit, after my official death.
Raesinia shook her head. Something about the sight sent her thoughts in melancholy directions. She looked over her shoulder at Barely and Jo, her ever-?present shadows. Barely looked cross, as usual, but Joanna was staring out over the water with a dreamy expression.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Raesinia said.
Barely gave a little start, then shrugged. “It’s all right, I guess.” She looked up at Jo. “No ocean in Desland. We’d never seen it before we got to Vayenne.”
Jo’s hands moved, her eyes staying fixed on the horizon.
“She says she never thought it would be so big,” Barely translated. “Like there’s nothing but water in the whole world.”
“Not far from the truth, I suppose,” Raesinia said. She pushed herself back from the rail, then shook her head when the two of them made to follow. “Stay here. Get some rest.”
“We ought to stay by your side,” Barely said. “I don’t trust the Borels.” Jo nodded emphatic agreement.
“I trust Duke Dorsay, for whatever that’s worth,” Raesinia said. “I don’t think we’re in danger until we land in Viadre.”
After that, though, is another story...
*
“I understand your reasoning, of course,” Dorsay said, steadying himself with a hand on the wall. “I just wish you’d been a bit more... circumspect.”
They were in Raesinia’s—?formerly the captain’s—?cabin, the largest space on the ship with any semblance of privacy. The wind had picked up, so the air was a mass of creaking, groaning wood and straining ropes, mixed with the shouted commands of the sailors struggling to keep the sails in the right places. It was all gibberish to Raesinia, but the racket provided enough cover that she felt like they could be reasonably sure they weren’t overheard.
Unfortunately, the constant sway of the ship left them both rolling back and forth like wobbling jellies. Dorsay seemed unaffected, but there was a distinct queasiness at the pit of Raesinia’s stomach. The binding heals me from everything else. Can’t it do something about seasickness? She did her best to put it out of her mind.
“You know we didn’t have time to be diplomatic,” Raesinia said. “The army is on its way to confront Janus as we speak. Aid that arrives weeks after the decisive battle is no better than no aid at all.”
“Yes, yes,” Dorsay said. “I have fought a campaign or two of my own, young lady.”
“What I don’t understand is why Georg”—?she’d adopted his habit of familiar reference to the King of Borel—“isn’t being more helpful. He sent you and your army to Murnsk to stop Janus, with the authority to make a deal with me if that’s what it took. Why hesitate now?”
“If it were entirely up to Georg, I believe he would send help at once. But the situation is more complicated.”
“You’ve said that before.” Raesinia sat on the bed, which was bolted to the floor, in the hopes that it might help with her stomach. It didn’t. “Maybe you’d better explain. Borel doesn’t have anything like the Deputies-?General.”
“Not officially, no.” Dorsay sighed and stroked his famous nose. “There’s a group of nobles who serve as advisers to the king. They call themselves the ‘Honest Fellows,’ possibly in jest. Some of them are from old families, others are merely vastly rich, but together they represent the most powerful forces in the realm. The ordinary business of the government is handled by one of them, or their subordinates, with the permission of the king.”
Raesinia frowned. The way they talked about him in Vordan, she’d always imagined the King of Borel as a tyrant, with no checks on his authority. I should have known that politics is politics, wherever you go. “And these Honest Fellows don’t want to help?”
“Some of them might. Some might complain about the cost. Others might prefer that Vordan weaken itself with a long civil war.” Dorsay scowled. “I am convinced that there is a faction that wants us to continue the war with Vordan, presumably because they have interests in the armaments industry. A few might prefer to deal with Janus than risk your notions about ‘votes’ and ‘Deputies’ spreading across the Borel Sea. The point is that a majority among the advisers would like Borel to stay well clear for the present, especially now that Janus is no longer threatening to march on Elysium.”
“Was that true when you brought your army to Murnsk?”
“More or less. Georg can, of course, overrule the Honest Fellows when he wishes. In that case, he knew that if he did nothing and Elysium was destroyed, the peasantry would be incensed.” Dorsay coughed. “I may have had something to do with it as well. I spoke in favor of intervention at some length.”
“But now you don’t think he’ll be willing to act again.”
“As I said, the case is no longer as clear. It... may be possible to persuade him.” Dorsay’s gaze went distant for a moment. “But he will demand concessions, and you may not be able to agree.”
Raesinia nodded slowly. “And I take it our friend Ihannes works for the nonintervention faction?”
“Decidedly so. His patron is Fredrick Goodman, one of the Honest Fellows and possibly the wealthiest single individual in Borel. If not the world. He leads the voices who argue against any action that might impinge on state coffers.”
“Lovely,” Raesinia muttered. “Well, I’m sure he and Cora will have a great deal to discuss.”
*
Cora was standing at Raesinia’s shoulder, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as the Prudence arrived at the mouth of the river Brack. It was a cold, blustery day, with a spitting rain falling from low-?hanging clouds to moisten the deck and everyone on it. Despite the weather, there was no question of remaining below. The port of Harborside was one of the wonders of the world.