Isles of the Forsaken (36 page)

“You are clever, Captain Harg. A clever fanatic. I am sorry we must be enemies.”

He was about to answer, but she held up a hand. “Joffrey,” she said, “please leave us.”

“No, Governor!” Joffrey protested. “It is too dangerous.”

“Give me the pistol, then. Wait outside. If I need help, I’ll call.”

“But Governor—”

“Do it!” she ordered.

With a black look at Harg, Joffrey obeyed. Tiarch watched him go, waiting till she was sure he was out of earshot. Then she turned to Harg. “I want to speak frankly. I want to speak about the future.”

She paced away from him toward the window, her hands clasped behind her back. Once or twice she seemed about to speak, but stopped, as if what she was about to say came hard. At last she turned halfway and said, “For twenty years I have been working to keep the Innings out of our affairs. It’s been a slow process, convincing them the Forsakens would run smoothly without them. I’ve cultivated allies among them, shared the rewards of leaving us alone. All of it was for one purpose: to get them to grant us status as a self-governing province. It would mean political independence, legal independence, commercial independence. I was so close I could taste it. And then you came along with your ruinous luck at beating them, and the freedom I have worked twenty years to achieve is swaying in the balance.”

Her low voice was scratchy as she went on: “But I have not survived all these years without knowing how to see the opportunity in a setback. The Innings are not united, you know. There are parties in Fluminos who don’t want to see this war go forward because of what it could mean for them at home. I might still find support for negotiations leading to independence, if it were in my power to offer them peace.”

Harg felt like she had cracked open a window through which he could glimpse a complex and shadowy sea of power reaching beyond what he had ever known or speculated. She had been there. She knew its currents and winds. And if she were telling the truth, they were on the same side.

But he still didn’t trust her. Slowly, he said, “You need us to lay down our arms so you can persuade the Innings to let you rule us?”

“Do I look that stupid?” she said sharply. “I know the outer chains would never accept me as their ruler. Particularly not when they still have hope of an Ison. It’s not me that wants to fight against the currents of custom, it’s the Innings. I say, go with the wind.”

She came very close to him then, her eyes disconcertingly fixed on his face. “Since you object to bargaining, I’ll give you my real offer, the last one you’ll hear. Go along with my plan for a political solution. Pledge to work with me toward a goal of peace and freedom for the isles. Convince me you will support a unified nation independent of the Empire, and I’ll release the Heir of Gilgen to you as a pledge of my good faith.”

Hope surged painfully through him. The goal that had seemed so remote and impossible this morning was actually in his grasp.

“Why would you do that?” he asked, studying her.

“To give you the power to speak for the Adaina,” she said. “To prevent what I spoke about, a devolution into insurgency. The Adaina need a voice—not a voice of aimless fury, but one of plan and purpose. It has to be someone they revere and trust, someone who can make commitments for their benefit that they might not accept from a lesser leader. When you can speak for them, you can put it in my power to speak to the Innings.”

Alarms were ringing in his mind. “Wait,” he said. “You think
I
would claim dhota-nur? You think I would be Ison of the Isles?”

“Why, yes,” she said, surprised at the question. “Of course. In fact, it would be a condition of Goran’s release.”

He thought he understood then: she wanted to be kingmaker. She wanted to choose the Ison, and for the Ison to owe her his position. But she was very much mistaken about him. “You know nothing about me,” he said.

“On the contrary,” she said, “I know a great deal about you. I see you have underestimated Joffrey. People often do, and that’s what makes him so good at clandestine work. I have your entire military record, with all your commanders’ evaluations of you. I know what job you were offered before you resigned from the navy. I know what you eat for breakfast, your weakness for drink, and the name of the young lady you were sleeping with on the boat coming here. I also know whose son you are. As a result of knowing all this, I am perfectly aware that I couldn’t control you, and if I attempted to I would regret it. But I flatter myself that I am a reasonable judge of character, and I think we could work together.”

“You’re serious,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“It’s not my custom to joke about such matters.”

He understood the bargain he had been offered then, and it wasn’t with Tiarch. He could win Goth’s freedom, prevent a bloody war, become the leader of his people, and achieve independence for his nation. And all he had to do was cease to be himself.

For that was it, the price of dhota-nur. The real bargain was with Goth, or the shadowy powers Goth represented. To buy freedom, Harg would have to surrender every experience, every memory, that had ever caused him pain—all those jagged shards in his personality that made him who he was. He would have to allow his own self to blend with Goth’s until they became indistinguishable—twin saints, kindred souls, dependents, lovers.

Every instinct in him rebelled at the thought.

“Find someone else,” he said raggedly. “I’m not Ison material.”

“You can’t be serious. Your record is practically shouting it. You’re the one the Adaina want. Even the Innings would accept you. More to the point,
I
want you. Sacred fires, you’re practically an Heir of Gilgen yourself, though why you haven’t let that fact out is beyond me.”

Harg thought:
Is she trying to corrupt me? Yes. Is it in the best interest of the isles? Yes.
And he still couldn’t imagine doing it.

Tiarch was watching him carefully. “By the Rock, you’re not just being coy. You really don’t want it.”

He shook his head.

“Well,” she said, sitting down abruptly on the cannon opposite him. “I didn’t expect this to be the sticking point. I’d drop it, if it weren’t for the danger of someone worse arising. Let me put it to you this way. You owe this to your homeland.”

He couldn’t sort it out. “I can’t make this decision alone,” he said. “I have to talk to some others.”

For the first time, Tiarch looked a little nervous, as if she were juggling too many balls. “I would give you time if it were in my power,” she said, “but other events are pressing hard. I need your answer soon.”

He frowned at her. She said, “Think it over today, talk to your friends. Then come to the Gallowgate at sundown, and we will work out some terms and conditions, safeguards and guarantees.”

“Will you release the Heir of Gilgen then?” he asked.

“No. But I will let you see him, for as long as you like.”

The offer sent a painful wave of emotion through him; he had to look away so she wouldn’t see it. He had enough presence of mind left to say, “Let me see him first, before we meet.”

She regarded him with a look that was almost akin to compassion. “I suppose I can’t deny you that,” she said at last.

“And I’ll need some sort of guarantee that your commitments are truly yours to make, and won’t be countermanded by the Innings.”

“Don’t you worry about the Innings,” she said. “I know how to handle them.”

“Nevertheless,” he said stubbornly.

“What sort of guarantee do you want? You know it would be against their orders to talk to you.”

“I need to know they will honour your promises.”

“Very well, I’ll have something for you,” Tiarch said.

She rose. The bargain had been struck, their business was over. Still, there was something he couldn’t help but ask her. “How is he?”

She paused before answering. “Honestly, not good. You ought to be prepared to see a change in him. Captivity has been hard on his health.”

This news made him so anxious that she put a reassuring hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, he’ll still be there tonight. Physically, at least.” She turned to leave, then turned back. “It is to your credit that you are so concerned for him,” she said brusquely. “I wish I could be sure my own sons were so loyal.”

She left then. For a long time he sat with his thoughts swirling. Then he got up and went to search for his gun. He found it on the floor where the guards had left it. Returning it to his belt, he went to the door. Outside, there was no sign that Tiarch or Joffrey had ever been there. He stood alone on the steps, hearing the caretaker re-bolt and bar the door behind him.

There was a footstep at the end of the alley, and he saw Calpe rounding the corner of the building.

“Where were you?” he demanded.

“I couldn’t get inside,” she said. “I finally found a window with a crack between the shutters. I could see you talking to that old woman. Was she the arms dealer?”

So she hadn’t overheard. Harg felt a furtive relief. “That,” he said, “was Tiarch.”

“Blessed Ashte!” Calpe whispered, looking at him with an expression of awe. “What did she say?”

“I’ll tell you later. Let’s get out of here.”

*

The signal from the harbour came that afternoon. Nathaway had carefully followed the instructions Joffrey had given him before their arrival in Tornabay. He had obeyed his captors quietly, hidden the key Joffrey had smuggled to him, and watched the harbour every afternoon for the rescue party’s signal.

The sun was almost resting on the mountain’s shoulder when it came. Two slow flashes of light, three quick ones. Anyone watching might have mistaken it for a chance reflection—and not noticed the sun was in the wrong position. Praying that Torr and his deckhands had not been alerted by it, Nathaway prepared for his escape.

He could hear voices and movement in the galley just forward from the cabin where they had him locked. Torr was loading coal into the stove as the rowboat drew up to the starboard side. Quietly undoing the padlock that secured the casement window, Nathaway wormed his way feet first through the tiny opening, his buttons catching on the sill. Moments later, hands were helping him into the rocking skiff. No one spoke as they drew away from the
Ripplewill
, heading for the harbour.

When they were out of earshot, one of his rescuers introduced himself as a captain in Tiarch’s militia. “Have you been harmed, sir?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine,” Nathaway said.

He felt giddy with relief to be safely back in Inning custody. He had to suppress an urge to laugh wildly. Soon he would have a real meal, decent clothes, a bath, and a bed. He would talk to Innings again. Above all, he would not be locked in a room. He looked longingly at the city, rising up the mountain’s base like moss up the trunk of a tree. He was impatient to be in it, to visit an optician and a bookseller, to drink coffee, just to go wherever he pleased.

“Is my brother, the admiral, still here?” Nathaway asked.

“Oh, yes,” the captain answered.

“I’d like to see him.”

“You will, sir.”

When they came to the dock, a group of marines was waiting with a closed carriage. Nathaway had to force back an irrational feeling of imprisonment as they ushered him into the vehicle and secured the door. One soldier got in with him; four more rode on the outside. He tried to see where they were going as the carriage rattled through the streets. The palace gate opened before them and closed again, cutting off the city outside. The carriage rolled to a stop in a gravel courtyard, at the foot of a set of steps. When Nathaway climbed out, a smiling major domo came forward to meet him. “Welcome, Justice Talley. We are all very relieved to see you safe. I trust you have met with no accidents or injuries?”

“No, I’m perfectly all right.”

“We have prepared rooms for you,” the man said, gesturing Nathaway to follow. “Your bath and meal are waiting.”

The accommodations turned out to be luxurious by the standards he had become used to. They had given him a suite with a study, bedchamber, and private bath. When he arrived, the bath was, as promised, waiting, and he soaked in scented water till all the sweat and fear was gone. After that, he found a very acceptable meal laid out in the study. He sat down to eat in his bathrobe. When he had finished, he strolled into the bedchamber with his coffee, to find that a new and very stylish set of clothes had been laid out for him.

All this while he had barely exchanged a word with anyone, and it was preying on his mind. He longed to talk about what he had been through, to share his observations, to learn what was going on. When he was dressed in his new clothes, he went to the door. It was locked.

The discovery sent a bolt of panic through him, and he pounded on the door till he heard someone come to the other side and fit a key in the lock. He stepped back, trying to quiet his racing heart, a little embarrassed at having created a scene. But when the door opened, the sight did not reassure him. A uniformed soldier stood in the hall, the key in his hand.

“What’s going on?” Nathaway demanded. “Why is my door locked?”

“Are you ready to see the admiral, sir?” the soldier asked.

“Yes. Yes, please.”

“I’ll find out if he is free,” the soldier said, then closed the door and locked it again.

Nathaway stood staring at the lock, absorbing the knowledge that he was still a prisoner.

He spent the next half hour pacing, full of nervous energy, unable to keep still. At last he heard booted footsteps approaching, and was waiting at the door when it opened. It was two soldiers this time. “The admiral can see you now,” one of them said.

They fell in on either side of him, directing him respectfully through the halls. When they entered the antechamber to Admiral Talley’s office, the place was a hive of activity. A line of officers waited on one side; on the other, two secretaries were busy writing out orders. As Nathaway entered, a group of four grim-faced Inning officers emerged from the door into the admiral’s private chamber, and two more shuttled in. There was not a word of conversation; everything was running with clockwork efficiency.