Limits of Power (38 page)

“Bad business,” Arcolin said.

“Filthy business,” the caravan master said. “They're calling him the Black Duke now all over the east, from Cilwan on. Worse than Siniava. It's said he has the old magery and can kill with a glance. That he has fever demons in his service—though I expect it's as like to be jugs of foulness poured into wells. We know he has assassins; we've lost two of our Council to assassins this past year. One admitted he was pressured to speak with Immer's voice and was killed within the same day's round. The brigands on the road between Koury and us are grown bolder.”

“The trouble we had in Vonja's outbounds,” Arcolin said, “I lay to Immer's account. Did Vonja tell the other cities?”

“Not us.”

Arcolin quickly recounted the evidence for some outside power.

“And you found counterfeiters' dies—just for Vonja?”

“Yes. But I'm sure the same exist for every city in the League, a way to create distrust among you.”

The caravan master nodded. “Distrust there is, for certain. Koury has spoken of leaving the League, since it cannot keep the road between us free of brigands; Merinath the same, and blames Sorellin for dangers. We lack the means to patrol all that. We found counterfeit among our own coins, summer before last. Cost us a contract renewal with Golden Company. I am not even sure I trust everyone in my caravan, though I spoke to each, even the least.” He shook his head, his expression gloomy, as he stared at the Fox Company wagons now trundling past. “It's good you're here; the Foss Council Speaker told me they'd hired you. I'm sure they'll tell you what I reported, but I thought you'd rather have it from me.”

“Indeed so,” Arcolin said. “Thank you.” He had noticed that his first wagon had the tailboard neatly fastened up, and no one could have told that it carried two passengers, a former thief and a gnome.

“I don't know what gods we've offended to get another Siniava, or worse. And if he can dispose of one city at a time—”

No need to answer that. They both sat, silent on their horses, as the last Fox Company wagon passed. Then the caravan master reached out; Arcolin clasped arms with him, turned his horse back across the road, crossed the ditch on the far side, and cantered along the grass way until he reached the head of the line again, where he rejoined Cracolnya and Garralt. He told them what the caravan master had said.

B
y the time Fox Company reached their destination, just outside Ifoss, Arcolin had heard more rumors from both traders and Foss Council officials. Fear of fever had cut off all travel from downriver through Cortes Cilwan, though rumor had it some traders knew back roads, both north and south of the Guild Road. Travel was up on the difficult western route north from the Immerhoft Sea, starting at the port of Confaer, then upriver to Cha and Sibili and overland to Pliuni. Foss Council, sure Ifoss was their weakest city, the most likely to be infiltrated by spies, asked Arcolin to camp there.

Ifoss lacked a fortified encampment for them to use, so laying out the camp for a full season's occupation by three cohorts in a flat space outside the city's east gate meant making a secure perimeter and then arranging everything within it. Nothing new to Arcolin, but Arvid—released now from hiding under canvas in a supply wagon—seemed fascinated by the process. Arcolin had no time to explain everything to him and advised him to stay out of the way.

“You'll have your own tent, you and Dattur, near mine. We all use the same jacks—that's over there, where you see them digging a trench. There'll be two more jacks trenches outside the perimeter.”

“Yes, my lord,” Arvid said.

“You can have a jug in your tent at night, if you need it, but you'll have to empty it.”

“Do you want me to get anything from the city today?” Arvid asked.

“No. I want to introduce you to the Marshal first. Once the Marshal's got you on the rolls, you'll be safer.”

Arvid looked dubious but nodded. Arcolin waved over a sergeant, who led Arvid to one of the tents, and watched as Arvid set his bundle of clothes inside it and came back out.

Once the camp was organized, Arcolin led Arvid through the city to the local grange. Marshal Porfur of Ifoss Grange was a lifelong Fossian who had been to Valdaire only three times in his life. “Too big, too noisy,” he said, looking out the grange door to the drill field and the wooded hills rising beyond. “We had enough noise in Siniava's War. So, your friend wants to become Girdish?”

Arcolin glanced at Arvid, who wore his merchant's garb and a glum expression. “Yes,” Arvid said.

Porfur smiled at him. “Come, man, it's not as bad as all that. The Count tells me you have a letter from the Marshal-General herself. And from a Marshal in Valdaire. If you're worried about the exchange of blows—”

“Oh, no,” Arvid said. “It's not that. It's the Ten Fingers. I get mixed up.”

“As long as you mean to follow them,” Porfur said. “Let me see your letters, please.” When Arvid handed them over, Porfur moved to the light at the door and read them carefully. “Did
you
see that relic come alight?” he asked, looking at Arcolin.

“No, Marshal. I wasn't in Valdaire then. But I talked to Marshal Steralt about him, and will stand as his sponsor.”

“And you told Marshal Steralt in Valdaire that you had been a thief … even a Guildmaster?” Now Porfur looked at Arvid.

“Yes, Marshal,” Arvid said.

“And you now foreswear that allegiance?”

Arvid took a long breath, then let it out sharply. “Yes, Marshal.”

“Do you have tokens of identity with the Guild?”

“Yes, Marshal.” Arvid fished out the familiar medal and held it out. “I would not advise any person unfamiliar with thieves' ways to use it.”

“I don't want to use it!” Marshal Porfur sounded so shocked that Arcolin almost laughed.

“Marshal, sometimes one wants to … to infiltrate another … um … operation.”

Porfur scowled. “You think the Marshal-General wants you to do that?”

“She did ask me to trace stolen property,” Arvid said. “I suppose she has others who might be asked to do other things.”

“Then you keep it. I trust the gods will punish you if you revert to thievery.”

“Perhaps Count Arcolin would keep it for me,” Arvid said.

“
Me?
Not likely,” Arcolin said. “I have a mercenary company to take care of. The Marshal-General's not going to ask me to run her errands.”

“Put it away,” Porfur said. “Now, Arvid: you will stand on the platform and recite the Ten Fingers.”

Arvid stepped up onto the platform, and—for a man who claimed he found them confusing—recited the Ten Fingers with only a few mistakes. Arcolin suspected those were deliberate, but Arvid seemed to take the subsequent oath with due seriousness.

The exchange of blows almost went very wrong indeed, but Arvid was able to pull his thrust at the last moment; Porfur was not that good.

“I need not worry about your fighting skills, I see,” Porfur said. “But that does not excuse you from grange duties, Arvid. All newly sworn yeomen must come to drill night every hand of days for a year, barring illness or an excused absence. When the campaign season is over, I will send a letter for you to give to a grange in Valdaire, if you stay there with Count Arcolin, or wherever you go after that. Should Count Arcolin need to move the troops, he will tell me, and I will arrange something for you.”

“Thank you, Marshal,” Arcolin said. “If I have other troops with no duties, I presume they're welcome to come along to drill night?”

“Of course. We go a year and more here without visitors, so they're always welcome.”

On the way back to the camp, Arvid said, “Drill? Every five days? With…”

“Your fellow Girdsmen,” Arcolin said. “You're not some over-privileged noble, Arvid. You've been among common folk all your life.”

“Not this kind of common folk.”

“True. You may find you like them better than you think.”

“Gird has a truly wicked sense of humor,” Arvid said.

“I expect you're right,” Arcolin said. His own relationship with a gnome clan—finding out he was considered a prince in their terms—must be some deity's jest. Gird's? He didn't know.

Arcolin's duties as commander kept him busy for the next hand of days, but despite having more than three hundred troops, it felt easier than the year before. Foss Council had always been the most organized and reliable of the Guild League city-states. He also now had the other captains and more support staff along, as well as Arvid to take some of the work of supply off himself and his staff. But on drill night, he went along with Arvid and three hands of off-duty soldiers from the Company.

Porfur and the grange members stared for a long moment, and then Porfur said, “Welcome! Welcome to you all, yeomen of Gird.”

By the end of that evening, all were sweaty and some were bruised. Arvid, walking back to camp with Arcolin, had a spring in his step.

“Not so bad as you thought, eh?” Arcolin asked.

“No,” Arvid said. He rubbed the back of his head. “No … not bad at all.”

A
hand of days before Midsummer, Arcolin received a letter from King Mikeli, who seemed more amused than upset at Arcolin's new status as a gnome prince. He quit worrying about Mikeli's reaction and instead practiced his gnomish daily with Dattur.

At dawn on Midsummer, he found Dattur waiting outside his tent, having been there—he learned—since the turn of night. “The prince named my debt to Arvid Semminson paid in full,” Dattur said. “Is true?”

“It is so,” Arcolin said.

“Now it is my duty to the prince,” Dattur said.

“Would you like to go north and rejoin your rockbrethren in the stonehold?” Arcolin asked.

“Is not my wish, but my prince's command,” Dattur said.

“Without practice, I might not learn and remember more of kaprist-islik,” Arcolin said.

“Humans forget,” Dattur said.

Arcolin already knew that gnomes thought they themselves did not forget anything, ever. “Yes,” he said. “We do. To learn kaprist-islik, I need someone to practice with. And I do not know enough Law.” He paused. Dattur said nothing, standing attentively before him. “But kapristi in the north, in the new halls, have no prince with them, and no word from me. Perhaps they need to … to communicate. Someone to carry my words to them and their words to me.”

“If need, estvin send,” Dattur said.

“You stay, then,” Arcolin said. “Teach me kaprist-islik; teach me Law.” Dattur bowed. He did not smile, but Arcolin sensed approval of his decision. He was not sure whether Dattur really wanted to stay in Aarenis with him—if this represented some power play on the part of that gnome—or if he wanted to be sure his new prince learned how to be a gnome. Dattur continued to wear human clothes in his size, shifting to darker colors but not into gray, though Arcolin offered again to supply cloth.

“When in halls,” Dattur said. “When prince tells estvin Dattur is not
kteknik,
then clothes … but others will have made cloth by then.”

In the meantime, Dattur took over duties somewhere between personal servant and squire. He even joined in Company weapons practice. Arcolin had done his best to explain to the troops what Dattur's position was, so no one laughed outright when he lined up in formation that first time with hauk and shield … and no one thought of laughing again after that first bruising practice.

“I had no idea,” Burek said, after watching Dattur demolish an opposing line. “I thought he'd be trampled.”

“Rock strength,” Arcolin said, though he, too, was surprised. “In the north, we're told that the gnomes taught Father Gird warfare, but nobody's seen them fight for lifetimes.” Just as well, he thought, that no humans had provoked them to it.