The Redemption of Althalus (39 page)

“And you’re sharing it with the rest of us?” Gweti bleated. “Are you out of your mind?”

“The ruler in question wants to hire more soldiers than I can provide, Gweti,” Albron replied. “When you get right down to it, all of us put together don’t have enough men. There’s work enough—and gold enough—for every able-bodied man in the whole of Arum.”

“I just
love
to hear somebody talk about gold,” Gweti said, with a dreamy look coming over his pinched face.

“I take it that these outlanders are the emissaries of the ruler you spoke of?” Koleika said, looking at Althalus.

“I was just getting to that,” Albron replied. “Lowlanders have some strange customs. Improper as it might seem to us, it’s not uncommon down there for a woman to occupy a throne.”

“That’s
sick
!” Twengor boomed. “I’ll listen to this, but you just went down a notch or two in my estimation, Albron.” He turned his bloodshot eyes to the stack of kegs in the corner. “Why don’t we broach one of those?” he suggested. “This all might go more smoothly if we’ve got some ale to wash it down with.”

“They aren’t ale kegs, Twengor,” Albron replied with a faint smile, “but what’s inside might make it easier to swallow the fact that the person who wants to hire us is a woman.”

“I’ll be leaving now,” the taciturn Koleika announced, rising to his feet.

“A very
rich
woman, Koleika,” Albron added. “Shouldn’t you hear her offer before you rush off?”

“Turning down a lot of gold won’t make you very popular among your clansmen, Koleika,” Chief Laiwon pointed out. “Open rebellions sometimes break out when a chief makes that sort of blunder.”

Koleika scratched at his outthrusting jaw. “All right,” he said, sitting back down. “I’ll listen, but I’m not making any promises.”

“I wouldn’t have any trouble working for a woman,” Chief Gweti bleated, “as long as she’s rich enough. I’d work for a rich goat, if he offered me enough gold.”

“Goat?”
Andine’s voice was indignant.

Leitha touched the small girl’s arm. “Later,” she murmured.

“I think this brings us directly to the core of the matter,” Albron continued smoothly. “The young lady who appears to be right on the verge of clawing out Chief Gweti’s eyes is Arya Andine of Osthos, and she’d like to talk to us about gold.”

“I’m going to steal some of your thunder here, Althalus,” Andine murmured. “You may have to revise your speech just a bit.” Then she rose to her feet, her huge dark eyes smoldering.

“Pretty little thing, isn’t she?” Tauri observed to Smeugor, “and she’s got a lot more to offer than just gold.”

“I was noticing that myself,” the pimple-faced Smeugor leered.

“Do I look goatish enough to suit you, Chief Gweti?” Andine asked.

“Poor choice of words, perhaps,” Gweti bleated. “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

“Not immediately, Chief Gweti,” Andine replied. “I think I’ll send you to bed without any supper tonight, and we can talk about it again tomorrow.” She paused then, fixing each Chief with her luminous eyes. “Let’s not waste any time here, gentlemen. I want to show you something, and then we’ll talk about it.” She turned slightly. “Eliar,” she said, “would you be so good as to open one of those kegs over there for me?”

“Of course, Andine,” Eliar replied. He rose, went to the stack of kegs, and removed the lid from one of them.

“Pour it out on the floor,” she commanded.

“On the floor?”

“That’s the part of the room on the bottom, Eliar. The sides are called walls, and we call the top the ceiling. Pour, Eliar, pour.”

“If you say so.” Eliar took the keg and tipped it slowly, spilling out a cascade of bright yellow coins that tinkled musically on the floor.

“Pretty, aren’t they?” Andine said to the startled Chiefs.

They didn’t answer. Althalus noticed that most of them weren’t even breathing.

Eliar shook out the last of the coins. “It’s empty, Andine,” he reported.

“Pour out another one, then.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He took up another keg.

Two kegs later, Andine held up one hand. “That should be enough for right now,” she told him, eying the heap of coins on the floor. Then she smiled winsomely at the assembled Clan Chiefs of Arum. “Have I managed to get your attention yet, gentlemen?” she asked archly.

“I don’t know about the others, but you’ve got
mine,
Princess,” Gweti choked.

“Maybe I’ll let you have your supper after all, Chief Gweti,” she said in her throbbing voice. “See, gentlemen, I’m not really all that hard to get along with.” Then her tone changed to become almost a challenge. “The whole point of this little display, gentlemen, is that I’m hiring. Are you interested?”

Old Chief Delur was trembling uncontrollably. “My clan is yours to command, Imperial Arya!” he declared.

“Isn’t he just the dearest old gentleman in the world?” Andine said fondly.

“Who did you want us to kill, little girl?” Twengor demanded. “Give me his name, and I’ll bring you his head.”

“Astonishing!” Andine said in mock amazement. “Everybody says that making speeches is difficult. I didn’t seem to have any trouble at all.”

“Any speech goes over better with musical accompaniment, Andine,” Leitha suggested. “And Eliar plays the gold keg like a world-renowned virtuoso.”

“It’s the most beautiful music
I’ve
ever heard,” Koleika said fervently. “I’m glad I stayed for the concert.”

“I’m just a silly little girl,” Andine told them, “So I’ll let my Lord High Chamberlain give you all the tiresome details. Now that I’ve earned your love, I’m certain that you just can’t
wait
to do as I ask.”

“And what might that be, your Highness?” Gweti asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Would ‘Burn! Fight! Kill!’ be too much to ask?”

“I don’t have any problems with that,” Chief Laiwon said. “Just say the word, Arya Andine, and burn, fight, kill it is.”

Althalus was a bit nonplused as he rose to his feet. “My beloved Arya appears to have pulled the rug out from under me,” he told the Clan Chiefs with a rueful expression. “
I
was the one who was supposed to show you that lovely gold.”

“Always trust a woman to seize any opportunity to show off her attributes,” Tauri said with a knowing laugh.

“Maybe that’s it,” Althalus conceded. “Anyway, I was supposed to describe the situation to you first and
then
pour out gold to let you know that she was ready to pay. She’s managed to steal my main talking point.”

“She
did
get our undivided attention, though, Chamberlain Althalus,” Albron said easily. “I think it’s safe to say that we’ve already been enlisted. All that’s left for you to do is identify the unlucky people who’ve crossed her.”

“Well,” Althalus said, “her finger’s currently pointed at Kanthon, but it goes perhaps a little further. The Aryo of Kanthon
thinks
he’s right on the verge of becoming the ruler of the whole of Treborea, but thinking isn’t his strong point. ‘Half-wit’ is probably the kindest thing anybody’s ever said about him.”

The Chiefs laughed.

“Actually, the Kanthons have been duped by the Nekweros. My beloved ruler knows this. Don’t let her wide-eyed innocence deceive you, gentlemen. Her mind is sharper than any knife, and she knows exactly who the
real
enemy is. Agents from Nahgharash have been enlisting troublemakers in every land in the low country, and my Arya would be
ever
so grateful if you’d slaughter those troublemakers just a little bit.”

“Isn’t ‘slaughter’ an absolute, Chamberlain Althalus?” Albron asked. “I don’t see exactly how you could half slaughter somebody. Anyway, after we’re wading knee-deep in blood, she wants us to invade Nekweros, right?”

“Later, perhaps,” Althalus replied. “Arya Andine thinks it might be best to dispose of any hostile forces to our rear before we mount an assault on Nahgharash. She seems to believe that neatness counts for something.”

“Neat might be nice,” Twengor half bellowed, “but I like her ‘Burn! Fight! Kill!’ idea much more. Wouldn’t that be a great motto to put on a battle flag?” He roared with half-drunk laughter.

“This is going to be more complicated than that, Chamberlain Althalus,” the pimple-faced Smeugor said pointedly. “We can bluster as much as we like, but the simple fact is that you’re not talking about a siege or a single battle. You’re talking about a general war stretching from Ansu to Regwos. We Arums are the finest warriors in the world, but are we really ready for
that
kind of war?”

“Smeugor’s right,” Tauri joined in quickly. “Gold’s very nice, but a man has to be alive to spend it. A war like this would spread us so thin that we wouldn’t have a chance in the world of winning.”

“If you feel that way about it, Tauri, stay home,” Twengor boomed. “I’ve never lost a fight in my life, and I’d attack the sun if the pay was right.”

That particular argument lasted for most of the rest of the day. Smeugor and Tauri kept raising more and more objections, hammering on the fact that there weren’t enough Arums to fight a general war. Twengor and the others scoffed at that notion, but the two southern Clan Chiefs kept coming back to it.

“It’s getting late, gentlemen.” Chief Albron stepped in smoothly as the sun was setting. “Why don’t we adjourn for supper? We can discuss this further tomorrow.”

“Our host is correct, my sons,” old Chief Delur intoned. “Let us to table and then to bed, that we may think more clearly on the morrow.”

“Well put,” Koleika murmured, with no hint of a smile.

“You must be mistaken, Leitha!” Albron exclaimed later that evening when they’d left the Clan Chiefs carousing in the dining hall.

“No, Chief Albron,” the pale girl replied firmly. “Smeugor and Tauri are both working for Ghend.”

“Should we kill them?” Gher said.

“I think you’d better put a leash on this boy, Althalus,” Albron suggested. “I can’t think of a quicker way to start a clan war than killing those two.”

“It’d also slam the door on something that might be very useful,” Althalus mused. “Since I know that they’re working for Ghend, they provide a perfect way to pass false information to him. I can use them to lead Ghend around by the nose.”

“Only for so long, Althalus,” Bheid pointed out. “After they’ve sent him down the garden path a few times, he’s bound to have them both killed.”

“What a shame,” Althalus sighed with mock regret. “Of course that’d mean that the clans of Smeugor and Tauri would be morally obliged to go to war with Ghend’s clan, wouldn’t they? And isn’t that more or less what we really want anyway? We’ll all be terribly sorry, of course, but you know what people say about clouds and silver linings. I’m almost certain we’ll be able to bear our grief. After all, we’re terribly brave, aren’t we?”

———

The Clan Chiefs gathered again in the room at the back of Albron’s castle immediately after breakfast the next morning. “Where’s the gold?” Chief Gweti demanded in an alarmed bleat.

“We put it in a safe place,” Althalus replied. “We certainly wouldn’t want some thief to steal it, would we?”

“May the Gods forbid!” Gweti replied fervently.

“I have it on the best authority that they will,” Althalus replied. “I take it then that you gentlemen have decided that you’d like to go to work for my beloved Arya?”

“Right after the haggling,” Twengor said. He looked at Andine. “How much are you willing to pay, little lady—and for how long?”

“I’ve enlisted the aid of a certain Sergeant Khalor,” Andine replied. “He’s one of Chief Albron’s most experienced officers, and he knows far more about these details than I could ever hope to know. He’ll make certain that
I
don’t get cheated.
You
gentlemen are going to have to look out for yourselves.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Gweti said with obvious disappointment. “I was sort of hoping—”

“That you could swindle me personally, Chief Gweti?” she asked archly. “You wouldn’t really take advantage of a poor, innocent little girl, would you?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.

He sighed with a certain resignation. “No, I suppose not.”

“Isn’t he a dear?” Andine said fondly. “Leitha and I’ll leave you gentlemen to your entertainments then. As I understand it, haggling about prices can grow quite emotional, and it involves some highly colorful language that innocent ladies shouldn’t hear. Enjoy yourselves, gentlemen—but no hitting.” Then she swept from the room with Leitha close behind her.

Sergeant Khalor adamantly held his ground on “standard fee” as the basis for negotiation, despite some shrill objections. Gweti in particular wanted to hold out for a fairly exotic “fee-for-service” arrangement. Chief Gweti had obviously done some computations, and he realized the “standard fee” would put a fair amount of those twenty kegs beyond his reach. That seemed to cause him something very much akin to physical pain.

“Actually, Chief Gweti, I’m being generous,” Khalor pointed out. “We’re hiring every man you can muster. If he can stand up, see lightning, and hear thunder, we’ll pay for him. I won’t push for a discount on cripples as I probably should. We’re honorable Arums, noble Chiefs. How would it look to the rest of the world if we cheated an innocent young girl?”

“Who cares what the rest of the world thinks?” Gweti demanded.

“
You
should, Chief Gweti,” Khalor told him. “If the word gets around that you’re a cheat, nobody’s ever going to want to do business with you again. Your soldiers will stay at home, and you’ll still have to feed them. You’ll be old and grey and up to your eyebrows in debt before anybody out there will ever hire men from you again.”

“The good Sergeant speaks truly, son Gweti,” Chief Delur intoned pompously. “The prosperity of all Arum might well hinge upon what we do here in this day. As all men know, Arum soldiers are the best to be found across the wide, wide world, but if Arum Chiefs are dishonorable men, who will ever come to these sacred mountains again with gold to deal with us? Take less, my sons, that ye may gain more.”

Althalus was closely watching Smeugor and Tauri, who were sitting somewhat apart from the Chiefs and holding a whispered conversation. They seemed to be a bit worried about something. Andine’s blatant display on the previous day appeared to have taken them off guard.