The False Martyr (74 page)

Images of what Zhurn would
do to such desperate women came to Cary’s mind, but that did not
change the basic equation. “That doesn’t answer the question. Why
couldn’t the other lodges just band together and share men among
themselves?” The whole thing seemed ridiculous, men parading about
and showing off so that women could select them like horses at an
auction.

Juhn stared as if trying
to comprehend what Cary had suggested, as if Cary had just asked
why the trees didn’t just get up and walk away when there wasn’t
enough water. “The thuluck raln shatar is designed to benefit the
smaller lodges, to help them grow,” he finally answered with a tone
of overstretched patience. “Consider the importance to a small
lodge like Pada Por to be the first to host Torswauk. Not only do
they get first choice of the Fells best men, there will be enough
of them that they can find husbands for almost every eligible woman
in the lodge. Only Torswauk and Mehret are big enough to fill that
need. To lose the right to host them would leave a whole generation
of sisters without husbands. In normal times, that would be
difficult, but not catastrophic. But if those small lodges fight
for the Empire, they will certainly lose many men and will be even
more dependent upon the other lodges to replace them. If those
other lodges withhold their men, the shortage may destroy them. At
the end of the day, women like the wealth that their men bring by
hiring themselves out as mercenaries, but they like having men to
warm their beds in the winter and give them daughters in the autumn
even more. If the Mother of a lodge cost her sisters the ability to
find husbands, she would most certainly not be Mother for
long.

“
By threatening the
thuluck raln shatar, Nyel had indicated an ability and willingness
to destroy any lodge that opposes her. It is her ultimate weapon,
but one I did not think her ruthless enough to deploy. The fact
that she has shows that she will broke no dissent. Not only has she
won, the victory is decisive.”

Cary could think of
nothing else to say. He could not say that he truly understood any
of it, but it certainly sounded final. “I see,” he said. In truth,
he did not. It all seemed too easy given what he’d been told. “So
that’s it?”

“
That is it. You are no
longer needed. We have all but won. Just tell your ambassador to
keep the Callik talking for a few more days. Even cowed, it takes
time for the Mothers to agree, and it will be much easier if the
men do not make other plans. And we still need your prince to
arrive. Though this is no longer about the gold, it does make the
decision easier for the Mothers and their men to accept.” Juhn
smiled. Cary tried to return it but felt like someone was ripping
at his guts. All that for nothing. They were always going to win,
and now he would never see Noé again.

#

“
You’re sure of this?”
Ambassador Chulters spun, stopped dead in his tracks, and hit Cary
with a piercing stare. Cary had caught him in the halls on the way
back from the day’s meeting of the Callik and told him what Juhn
had said.

“
It is what Juhn told me.
I see no reason for him to lie, and it fits with what I
saw.”

Scanning the empty hall,
the ambassador pulled Cary into a storeroom to the side, closed the
door, and placed the oil lamp he was carrying on a barrel – though
it was certainly still light outside, it was always night in the
near windowless lodge. After a needless search among the sacks and
casks, Ambassador Chulters leaned against a barrel and considered.
“But you can’t confirm any of it?”

“
No, sir, it was all in
the Morg language.”

“
And you still can’t
understand any of it?”

“
No, sir.”
I haven’t learned a new language in a
week
, he wanted to add. At the same time,
if Ambassador Chulters didn’t believe Juhn there might be a glimmer
of hope for his continued skulking. “But if you suspect something
is amiss, I can continue to keep an eye on things. I can still use
. . . .”

“
No.” Ambassador Chulters
crushed Cary’s hope even as it formed. “That was idiocy from the
start. We had no choice but to agree, but I am glad that Juhn has
finally come to his senses. And we have no reason to believe he is
lying, so we must accept it as true.” He stood from the barrel and
paced the short hall between foodstuffs. “I suppose I should be
pleased. We’ve finally gotten some good news and just in
time.”

“
Is the Callik not going
well?” Cary asked cautiously.

The ambassador chuckled,
good news finally seeming to penetrate his dour mood. “That is an
understatement. It’s just as Juhn said, we don’t have the votes,
and we’re not going to get them. I’m not even sure I can do my part
of keep it going.” He considered. “These are not patient men. They
nearly managed to reject us within the first hour of our proposal.
I am keeping our offer vague and begging time for the prince to
arrive, but we are barely keeping them going.”

“
We, sir?” Cary asked.
Something that Juhn had said rang in Cary’s mind. He’d expected the
Callik to reject Liandria’s proposal immediately. The fact that
they hadn’t must have weighed in what was happening in the
Thull.

“
The western lodges are
clearly our staunchest allies, but there are only two of them.
Mehret is with us – I think because it would be too expensive for
the Empire to hire them.” The ambassador paced as he spoke,
seemingly happy with the chance to share his burdens. “Hvartin and
Ostoff switch positions every day depending on which spoke to the
Imperial ambassador most recently, but one of them always votes to
keep the negotiations open. On the other side, Ithar seems like
he’d join the Empire even if they didn’t pay him.”

“
He hates Liandria,” Cary
interjected. “Juhn told me that he lost his eye to a Liandrin
knight in the Second Pindar War. Nyel hasn’t had him to her bed
since.”

“
I suspected as much,” the
ambassador conceded. He shook his head at the futility of it all.
“That means the Empire has a solid five.” The three eastern lodges,
Hvartin or Ostoff, and Torswauk, Cary counted. It sounded just like
the situation Juhn had described earlier except for Torswauk’s
position, which made the Callik’s inability to reach a conclusion
even more confusing.

“
Eselhelt then,” Cary
said. His guts clenched at the thought of Noé caught in the middle
of all this, the poor, broken girl at the center of this epic
tug-o-war.

Ambassador Chulters
stopped his pacing and looked at Cary with what might have been
admiration. “Right. I can barely tolerate that brute of a Father
they have – he is even worse than Ithar – but they have sided with
us thus far. I can’t say I understand it because their Father is
practically attached to Ithar, and Ithar is with the Imperial
ambassador so much you’d think they were lovers, but Zhurn has
always voted to keep the Callik open.”

The mention of Zhurn
filled Cary’s mind with images of the old man climaxing as his wife
cried and struggled to breathe. The memories were so strong, that
Cary almost missed the second part of the ambassador’s comment.
“Zhurn is the one keeping the Callik going?” he asked, thoughts
moving between what Juhn and the ambassador had said. He felt like
he was on the verge of something but couldn’t quite get
it.

The ambassador frowned,
clearly upset at having his train of thought disturbed. “That is
what I just said. I can only imagine they’re holding out for more
from the Empire. It’s only a matter of time before they get it, and
since we’re seeking to hire all the lodges, there’s nothing I can
do to compete. So the real question . . . .”

Cary stopped listening.
This wasn’t right. There was no reason for Eselhelt to hold up the
Callik. They should be doing exactly what Juhn had suggested. If
they moved quickly, they could reject Liandria, accept the Empire,
and be on the move before the Thull could act. Surely, the amount
of payment could not be what was delaying the decision.

“
Perhaps I should send
you,” brought Cary from his reverie. Ambassador Chulters was
measuring him with his eyes. For a second, Cary’s hope rose that
the ambassador was going to send him back into the order
passages.

“
Send me where, my lord?”
Cary asked, when Ambassador Chulters offered no more.

The ambassador clicked his
tongue in displeasure. “Weren’t you even listening? We need the
prince to get here. Even Juhn said so, and it is the only way I’m
going to keep the Callik going. If our coalition holds, I might
manage a few more days, but the prince is what we really need. When
he arrives, they’ll have to weigh the gold, and we can start the
trade negotiations all over again. There’s also the fact that he
should be here by now, yet there’s been no word. I’m starting to
worry that something has happened. We can’t simply sit and wait any
longer. We need to know.” Cary did not like where this was going.
His mind raced to think of something to change the ambassador’s
mind. “Yes,” the ambassador finally decided. “Since you’re no
longer needed for this idiocy of Juhn’s, you will go to find the
prince. You leave tomorrow at first light. Ride with all haste to
find him and bring back word of his expected arrival.”

“
My lord,” Cary scrambled,
“how . . . how will I find him? I’m not a tracker, just a
courier.”

“
It shouldn’t be too hard.
He’s traveling with a hundred soldiers and a score of wagons. You
can take one of the rangers if you’d like. The Order be damned, you
can take all of them. They’ve been nothing but trouble anyway.” He
laughed darkly at that. The rangers had been egged into a fight
with the Imperial delegation a few days ago. Despite their
reputation, the Morgs strictly forbid fighting in their lodges, so
the fight, which Ithar was quick to blame on the Liandrins, had
been a great embarrassment. The rangers had been confined to the
bunk room ever since. Cary had no doubt they’d climb over
themselves for the opportunity to get out of the lodge.

Cary saw the whole thing
spinning out of control. There was nothing he could say now to
deter the ambassador, but he wouldn’t give up on Noé either. “It
shall be as you say, my lord,” he agreed. If he was fast and the
prince was close, he could be away for only a few days. But first,
he’d see Noé. “With your permission, I need to prepare my things
and make sure the horses are ready.”

“
Of course,” the
ambassador smiled, seemingly pleased at having his orders followed
without further discussion. “I’ll send two rangers with
you.”

“
Very well, my lord,” Cary
said as he moved to the door. “I assume you want us to be as quick
as possible, so I’d prefer Yerl and Pence. They’re the best
riders.”

“
I’ll ask the sergeant,
but that sounds right to me.”

“
Thank you, my lord.” Cary
bowed, hand on the latch of the door. “I have much to do to
prepare. May I be dismissed?”

“
Certainly . . . .” was as
much as Cary heard before he was out the door. A few seconds later,
he was around a corner and heading for the closest entrance to the
order passages.

#

Heart racing, Cary
adjusted the hood of the brown robe he wore, pulled up the sleeves,
and forced his trembling hands to move the slat slowly, to remain
silent, to keep him from discovery. His hand would not
cooperate.

Zhurn was in the room with
Noé. His voice had carried down the dark passage as Cary
approached. The foreign rumbling continued now as Cary struggled to
open the peephole that would satisfy his curiosity and ease his
anticipation. The Eselhelt father’s voice was gentle, tone
kind.
Enticing or apologizing?
Cary could not help but imagine what would
follow. Or had it just happened? He listened for it. When will it
start? When will the kind words turn to grunts, cries, gasps, the
slap of skin?

The slat clicked open with
the slightest sound of wood on wood. It sounded like a crash. Cary
ducked below the hole, sure he had been caught, wondering if he
should run, heart beating out of his chest. Nothing happened. The
voices – Zhurn’s gentle rumble, Noé’s timid tone distorted by her
deformity – continued slightly clearer but unchanged in volume or
cadence. Cary listened. He did not understand the words, but this
was clearly a very different conversation from the last one he’d
witnessed. If not for that first visit, Cary would have thought
that Noé and her husband were in love, that he had never mistreated
her, hurt or threatened her. But then wasn’t that how it always was
– abuse followed by apology, the net of reconciliation?

When he was certain that
he had not been discovered, Cary’s eye found the hole. He focused
on Noé. She was looking at him, knew he was there. She was on the
bed propped up on pillows, naked, legs curled to the side under the
swell of her belly. Her hand reached to her husband’s hairy back as
he bent to kiss her. His lips landed on her head, but Cary did not
miss how she had angled her face hoping the kiss would find her
lips, how her husband had moved his own purposefully away from
hers. He rose from the bed and pulled a robe over his sagging,
wrinkled body.

Noé asked something as he
tied the strap. It earned her a rebuke. She retracted and moved to
hide herself – a hand rising to cover her lip, an arm covering her
breast, legs pulling closer to her body. Only Cary could see the
disgust on the big man’s face that accompanied the hard words. He
sat beside her again and placed a hand on her belly. His face was
hard but not cruel, voice stern but not harsh. He spoke to her as
if to a child, a reminder to behave, of the consequences if she
didn’t. Noé shriveled, stared at the mattress before her and
nodded.