Antiagon Fire (20 page)

“Why imagers here?”

“They can be useful in situations where force would be awkward. They’re very good at opening locked buildings without making messes, and providing certain kinds of protection.”

“The way things that should have wounded you never seemed to reach you?”

“Something like that. Desyrk probably couldn’t stop an attack of massed crossbows or muskets, but should be able to handle single weapons.”

“That might be handy.”

“Especially in dealing with recalcitrant factors or High Holders.”

“You know I’m not good at politely telling people to do what they should.”

“You’re polite enough, and having a regiment behind you should mean that they’ll have to be polite. If they’re not … well … things could happen to them. After all, you do have to establish and maintain Bhayar’s authority. Quietly and gently, if possible.”

“He said something like that,” Meinyt said with a wry smile. “Why did you pick me?”

“It was Skarpa’s decision in the end.”

“You suggested me, didn’t you? Why?”

“Because you’re honest, loyal, trustworthy, and good at whatever you do. And you have a good feel for things.”

“I’m supposed to live up to all that?” Meinyt’s tone was wry.

“You have so far. Now you have to while surrounded by corrupt factors and sleazy High Holders.”

“I knew you’d be trouble the day you pulled a crossbow bolt out of your chest and rode back to base without collapsing.”

“I should have listened more carefully to you. I wouldn’t have been hit in the first place.”

“You had to get hit. That way, I can tell every junior officer and ranker that even commanders get wounded and survive and that they’ve got no cause to bitch.” Meinyt grinned.

“Just for that, I’ll hope that there are some local beauties who are attracted to a subcommander.”

“I’ve seen what you’ve done for your lady. Don’t wish that on an old subcommander.”

Quaeryt couldn’t help but laugh, and Meinyt joined him.

When Quaeryt finished with Meinyt—and his lager—he set out to check the canal. The rest of his day was consumed with minor activities of all sorts.

By the time he and Vaelora had eaten a late supper with Skarpa in the smaller plaques room and then retired to their chamber upstairs, Quaeryt was trying to stifle yawns.

Vaelora checked the bolt on the door and turned to Quaeryt. “What did you decide about that horrible steward?”

“The one who insisted he knew nothing?”

“He had to know!”

“I’m certain he did. That doesn’t mean he could do anything about it. Zhelan and I decided that he and the housekeeper, who also had to know, will be exiled from Laaryn, and that they’ll be allowed to take nothing. If they return, they’ll face floggings and branding. The others will lose their positions when Meinyt takes over the mansion as the regimental headquarters.”

“You’re being too easy on him.”

“How do we prove he knew? I could flog and execute all the factors in the town on those grounds. The only thing we can do that’s practical is have Meinyt here to change things.”

“I know, dearest.” She sighed. “You’re right. I don’t have to like it, though.”

“What did you find out from the girls?” Quaeryt sat on the straight-backed chair, letting Vaelora prop herself up in a sitting position on the bed, with her legs stretched out.

“They’d been kept there for over a month, more like two, and they were only fed when they did what Aelsam wanted.” Vaelora’s voice was cold.

“What he wanted were acts expected of women in pleasure houses?”

“What else? The longer they were there, the more often they had to perform.”

“Then he had to be giving his guards their favors.”
And that meant Dallaen and others definitely had to know, not that you didn’t suspect that all along.

“Or others. The girls have no idea who, only that it seemed endless. They’ve been drugged. With curamyn, I’d suspect, to get them to associate sex with pleasure … or forgetfulness. I wish you’d caught Aelsam.”

“It might be for the best that he fled.”

“How can you possibly say that?” Anger colored her words.

“Because his life is forfeit because he fled. In either Bovaria or Telaryn, drugging indentured girls to induce them to do their chores is not against any law. Nor is requiring them to serve in a pleasure house. The most he might have been charged with is cruelty and battery—and that
might
require loss of a hand and a large penalty payment.”

“That’s all?” Vaelora’s voice held a mixture of aghast amazement and iron anger. “That’s it? For what he’s done to so many? I can’t believe it.”

Quaeryt smiled sadly. In some ways, Vaelora was still far too innocent. “Even High Holders’ wives can be punished by their husbands without legal recourse under the High Holders’ low justice. Do you think indentured servants would be treated better?”

“But they were held captive.”

“He would have claimed he was disciplining them for failing to carry out their duties as pleasure girls.”

“You could have done something.”

“I could. If he’d remained in Laaryn, I could have set it up so that he attacked me, and killed him in self-defense. Even were I a justicer, I couldn’t have sentenced him to execution. Not without risking being disciplined by Bhayar for exceeding my authority. Why do you think there are some things I’ve done about which no one knows anything?”

Vaelora sighed. “I don’t like to think about that, either. It’s terrible that so much of what Aelsam did isn’t considered wrong.”

“Most people would think it wrong, but the law doesn’t,” Quaeryt pointed out. “Especially the way Kharst viewed ruling. All this is just another example of all the changes Bhayar will have to make, and why uniting Telaryn and Bovaria will be anything but easy.”

“Do you think putting Khel under Bhayar’s rule will be as bad?”

“No. Pharsi laws are closer to those in Telaryn. I just hope we can get their High Council to see it that way.” He paused. “Do you have any ideas about what to do with the girls?”

“I’ve talked to them about what else they can do. I’ve also talked to the innkeeper’s wife. I’ll try to find places for them. One of them, the little blonde, I worry about her, especially.”

“Every time we try to make something better, there’s more to worry about.” Quaeryt shook his head.

“You need to worry about getting some sleep,” Vaelora suggested.

“Sleep?” asked Quaeryt dryly, looking intently at her.

“Sleep,” she said firmly … but her face softened after the single word.

Quaeryt blushed.

17

Much as Quaeryt worried about spending the time, early on Lundi morning he and Vaelora—supported by first company and second company from Nineteenth Regiment—set out from the Canal Inn to pay a visit to one High Holder Delauck, the closest High Holder, whose hold was some twelve milles north and, unsurprisingly to Quaeryt from what he had learned over the past few days, more than a mille east of the river.

“Why?” Skarpa had asked.

“Why not?” Quaeryt had replied. “We won’t be ready to leave until tomorrow, and I need some questions answered. They’re questions I didn’t know enough to ask until yesterday.”

“You think High Holders here are different, don’t you?”

“They’re not different, except more arrogant—in general—but I think their position is much different. If I’m right, that will affect how Bhayar has to deal with them.”
And how the imagers will, as well.

After riding for more than two glasses through a cold mist that occasionally turned to a drizzle, Quaeryt couldn’t help but have second thoughts about his impulsive decision to see Delauck, especially if the High Holder didn’t happen to be available.
Still … you could learn something from his steward and the staff.

“Is that it?” asked Vaelora, pointing eastward toward a pair of stone pillars set at the side of the muddy road several hundred yards ahead.

Quaeryt could make out a graveled lane that led from the pillars at an angle up a rocky hillside to a walled structure on the north end of the hill. The hold house resembled Quaeryt’s concept of the hold of an ancient Yaran warlord—a stone structure perched on top of a rocky rugged hill, reached only by a winding narrow road, crossing at least two wooden bridges. Yet the lands to the west, through which they had just ridden, were wide and sweeping, and clearly fertile. “I’d guess so, but we’ll see shortly.”

Less than half a quint later, they reined up at the foot of the high rocky hill. “Chateau Delauck” read the letters chiseled into the stone pillars flanking the narrow lane.

“You can’t put more than two men abreast on that road,” said Zhelan. “I’d wager that there’s no other way up, either.”

“That’s not a wager I’d take,” replied Quaeryt, turning to Vaelora. “What do you think?”

“There’s no point in wasting a day. At the least, you can make him an example.”

“My thoughts as well.” Quaeryt gestured to Zhelan. “We need to send some scouts up the road. It’s likely designed with weak points. As soon as they reach one of those places, I’ll have the imagers strengthen it. Imagers forward!”

Once the imagers had ridden forward, Quaeryt began to explain. “We’re here to visit High Holder Delauck, and I think we’ll offer him a few tokens of goodwill.” Quaeryt wiped his forehead and adjusted his very damp visor cap. “We’ll need to improve the lane to his hold, and turn some of the rickety spans I can see into good stone bridges.”

They’d no more than started up the hillside than one of the scouts returned.

“Sir … there’s a gap in the road, a yard wide and a third of a yard deep.”

To slow wagons or carts or fast-riding armsmen.
Quaeryt nodded and called back, “Desyrk.”

Once Desyrk had imaged stone pavement in place, the climb continued, for another fifty yards, to a wooden span across a gap dug out of the hillside.

This time, Quaeryt summoned Threkhyl. “If you would see what you could do.”

“Yes, sir.” Threkhyl looked both irritated and puzzled as he eased his mount around Vaelora’s gelding and then Quaeryt’s mare.

Behind him, Khalis suppressed a smile, as did Lhandor.

The imagers dealt with two short wooden spans, strengthening the roadbed and creating solid stone bridges, and the column rode forward, for a hundred yards or so before Zhelan rode back once more. “Sir, around the next turn there are timber supports below the road.”

“The kind that can be removed quickly, I would venture.”

“Yes, sir.”

Quaeryt gestured. “Horan … this repair is up to you.”

After Horan’s repairs and reinforcements, and another quint, the upward ride continued.

As much as Quaeryt understood the reasons for the fashion in which the road had been constructed, he was getting more than a bit irritated, since they still had several hundred yards to go before they reached the drawbridge over the gorge that separated the walled hold and the leveled-off peak from the rest of the rocky hill. Still, he decided against pressing too quickly, and he had the imagers firm up anything that looked suspect.

More than a glass and a half after they had started up the winding lane to the hold, Quaeryt and first company rode to a halt just short of the wooden drawbridge across a gorge, close to twenty yards deep. An iron portcullis dropped into the stone slots of the gate towers on the far side, and the ironbound gates swung shut. The bridge retracted slightly, then dropped, swinging down so that it extended straight down into the gorge below the gate towers, leaving the walled hold isolated.

“Not exactly friendly, is he?” asked Zhelan.

Quaeryt snorted. “I wouldn’t be either with a company of armed men at my gates.” He walked to the end of the road, standing on the paving stones where the end of the bridge had been, took a deep breath, and then spoke, image-projecting his voice toward the walls of the hold. “High Holder Delauck, Lady Vaelora of Telaryn and Commander Quaeryt are here to pay a friendly visit. We would appreciate your receiving them.”

A man appeared at the top of the tower. “High Holder Delauck receives no one he does not know and has not invited.”

“He can receive the commander and the lady in friendship and offer his allegiance to Lord Bhayar, or he can suffer the consequences.”

“He will receive no one. Do as you please.”

Quaeryt concentrated, trying to draw what heat he could from the clouds overhead, and from the trees and growth on the hillsides around the hold. Then, he imaged.

The gate towers vanished, as did the walls extending from them, and a walled stone bridge spanned the gorge. A thin sheen of white ice, unfortunately, also covered the bridge and the flat expanse of stone that remained where the towers and walls had been.

Quaeryt’s head throbbed, but only slightly, and he reached down and pulled out his water bottle, then took several swallows of the lager within. Vaelora handed him a biscuit, which he slowly chewed.

“Now, sir?” asked Zhelan.

“We wait.”
For the ice to melt and for Delauck to reconsider.

Shortly, an armsman walked forward through the remnants of what had been a walled formal garden in front of the hold house. He carried a blue-edged white parley flag on a staff.

Quaeryt beckoned for the armsman to cross the stone bridge.

Warily, the man put one foot on the gray stone, then another, then walked swiftly across the span, coming to a halt a yard before Quaeryt and setting the butt of the parley flagpole on the stone approach to the new bridge.

Quaeryt waited.

“High Holder Delauck would like to know your intentions, sir.” The armsman’s eyes went from Quaeryt to Vaelora, then back to Quaeryt.

“We’re here to meet with him and to obtain his allegiance to Lord Bhayar,” said Quaeryt.

“And his understanding that Lord Bhayar, while far less petty than Rex Kharst,” added Vaelora, “expects not only allegiance but compliance with the laws he will be setting forth.”

The armsman blinked at Vaelora’s words.

“You can also convey to your master,” said Quaeryt, “that Lady Vaelora is Lord Bhayar’s sister, his envoy to Khel, and his personal representative. We expect him to lay down any and all arms and step forward to meet the lady outside the hold house. Any further delays in his hospitality will result in further removals of his hold.” Quaeryt smiled.