The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (22 page)

“Six hundred is my price.”

Now we come to it. Arbak had never been much at haggling in the market, but he understood one rule. The seller wanted to sell, and the buyer wanted to buy. The one with the stronger hand was the one willing to walk away. That was true enough in a market, but here? Jerran didn’t need to sell.

“It’s going to cost me a hundred to fix the place up.”

Jerran shrugged “Not my problem,” he said.

Arbak looked out of the window. He could pay the six hundred, of course, or Wolf Narak could, but he really didn’t think it was a fair price. If it was his money he wouldn’t pay it, even if he had a thousand to spend. Never the less, it was exactly what he was looking for.

“I’ll give you four hundred and fifty,” he said.

Jerran shook his head. “Six hundred.”

Arbak looked at the merchant. He sat comfortably in his chair, smiling as though this was no more than a parlour game, and perhaps it was, to him. He stood.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time, councilman,” he said. He walked to the door, opened it to find a footman waiting discretely outside. He asked for his coat.

“Won’t you stay and have a tea?” Jerran asked.

“I’d like to, but I have business that I must be about,” he shrugged. The footman arrived with his coat and he slipped it on.

“Five hundred.”

Well, that was cutting it fine. So Jerran wanted to sell after all. He stepped back into the room and closed the door, still wearing his coat. He had one last card to play.

“If I buy this place I have a lot of work to do. I’m going to need lumber, cloth, lamps, glasses, rugs, and a new stock of wine. There are a thousand things. If you sell it to me for four fifty I’ll buy it all from you, on condition that you give me a discount of one tenth off your regular prices.”

Jerran laughed. “Why would I do that?”

“Your margins are a lot higher than ten percent. You’ll still make money on everything I buy, and it’s a good deal for me, too.”

“I don’t need your good will, Captain Arbak,” Jerran said.

“Of course not, but it’s a good deal.”

“Four seventy and you get your ten percent.”

It was a few coins more than he wanted to pay, more than he thought was fair, but it was close enough, and he was dealing with merchant aristocracy, if there was such a thing. He didn’t want to annoy Jerran, and this was probably the best deal he was going to get.

“Done,” he said and held out his hand. Jerran took it, smiling, and they sealed the bargain.

“I will have it written up,” Jerran said. “It will be round at your inn this evening, and as soon as you sign it the Wolf Triumphant will be yours. Now, Cain, would you like a glass of wine? I have some very fine Telan stock just arrived.”

“It would be very welcome,” Arbak replied.

Jerran seemed in no hurry, and Arbak spent another half hour discussing matters with the merchant, in particular the rumours that the evil of war was upon them again, and this time not with Berash. A general mobilisation had been called for, and the city was filling up with regiments from other parts of Avilian. Camps had begun to spring up on the common land north of the city, and the taverns were doing a good trade.

“It won’t last, though,” Jerran said. “In a few weeks they will be marching off. East I hear. They say that Seth Yarra has returned.”

“So I have heard. I fear it will be a bloody war. They will have learned some lessons from defeat.”

“Surely they cannot win?”

“Patriotism is a fine thing, Kelso, but in war there are patriots on both sides. I was not here four hundred years ago, but it was not an easy victory. The tales of that time are quite clear. It was difficult. Thousands died.”

Jerran looked concerned, but his face was lit by a sudden smile. “And yet you are buying an inn,” he said.

“Our soldiers are formidable, and the Benetheon rides with us,” Arbak said. “There is certainly room for optimism, but my soldiering days are done. Our fate is in the hands of others.”

“It may seem that way,” the merchant said. “But I believe that there is always something that we can do to push the odds in our favour. The key is in knowing what to do and when to do it.”

There was some wisdom in the sentiment. He had always thought, as a soldier, that each man should be aware of the objective, be able to participate in reaching the goal.

Eventually Arbak took his leave and returned to his inn with the feeling that it had been a good day. In the evening the papers came from Jerran, and after reading them through with great care Arbak signed them and sent one copy back to Jerran. Now he owned the Wolf Triumphant, but it would have a new name, a new style, a bright future he was sure.

An extract from “The Seventh
Tale of Karim”

“…and Karim wandered in the woods of Lillan, seeking proof by arms, and glory in the service of his king because the woods were claimed both by the Sillish Emperor and by his king. He rode upon his warhorse, Perran, his blade at his side and his shield upon the pommel.

After a while he came across a Sillish Warrior riding in the woods upon a great, dark horse. The Sillish Warrior had a bow, and he fitted an arrow to the string and loosed it at Karim’s heart, but Karim was swift and sure, and caught the arrow on his shield. Then Karim and the Sillish Warrior drew their blades and saluted each other, and rode at each other and gave battle. For many hours they traded blows in the woods until the sun was due to set, and the Sillish Warrior, seeing this, raised his shield in parley, and the two stopped fighting.

“The sun bids us cease our battle,” The Sillish Warrior said. “But if you are agreeable we will meet here again at sunrise and continue as before.”

Karim agreed to meet the Sillish Warrior at dawn, and made camp a short way from their place of battle, and in the night he wondered at the strength of the Sillish Warrior who had matched him blow for blow through the latter half of the day, and rode so fair, and spoke so well to the point.

At dawn he mounted again upon Perran and rode to the place of battle, and from a long way off he saw the Sillish Warrior also approaching. They saluted one another as on the previous day, and then began their battle anew.

All morning the two men fought, and yet neither could land a blow upon the other’s body. With the sun high in the sky and the heat of the day upon them Karim raised his shield in parley and the Sillish Warrior put up his blade.

“It grows hot, and I hunger and thirst,” Karim said. “Will you sit with me in the shade and share my bread and water until the day’s fury abates?”

“I will,” the Sillish Warrior said.

So they sat in the shade of a great tree and shared the food that Karim had brought with him, and they talked of courtly matters, and of the love that they had for their own lands. The Sillish Warrior declared that nothing could compare with the fresh wind off the eastern sea on a summer morning when all the wild flowers were in bloom along the cliffs, and Karim declared that there was no pleasure as great as walking in the woods of his own land when spring was resurrecting the world from winter’s spell and life burst forth from all things.

When the heat of the day abated they took once again to their mounts and Karim urged Perran forwards. But the horse to put his hoof into a rut concealed beneath the leaves and Karim was thrown from his saddle and struck a tree, and went into darkness.

When Karim awoke he found himself resting upon a comfortable bed of leaves made with the Sillish Warrior’s cloak. His sword lay by his right hand, and a fresh bandage nursed the wound on his head where he had struck the tree. He arose from the bed, though the pain of his injury was great, and found the Sillish Warrior seated by a fire, preparing food.

They shared a meal, and afterwards Karim asked the Sillish Warrior why he had not slain him, for according to the rules of combat there was no reason he should have spared his life.

“In all the world there is but one warrior who could withstand my blade as long as you. You Are Karim of the Long Arm, Prince of Swords, and you were defeated by time and chance, as may happen to any man, but I have a fondness for tales, and the Tale of Karim deserves a better ending that this.”

“Will you tell me your name?” Karim asked.

The Sillish Warrior declined, but gave no reason. He insisted that they remain in their camp until Karim was quite recovered from his wound, and so they stayed for seven days, and each day the Sillish Warrior would leave the camp in the morning and return in the evening with food sufficient for the day. In the evenings they talked, and argued many fine points of philosophy, and shared many tales of battle, and of the hunt, and so they grew to know each other well.

On the eighth day Karim was well again, and they took up their swords and returned to their place of battle where they stood opposite each other, but did not draw their blades.

“I regret that you must slay me,” Karim said. “For though I do not know your name I have grown to love you as a brother, and yet my honour does not permit me to cede the woods of Lillan to a Sillish blade as long as I live. I have so sworn to my king.”

The Sillish Warrior drew his blade, but did not strike at Karim. Instead he threw it to the ground.

“Neither can I kill you, Karim Prince of Swords. Your life is worth more to me than ten such woods, and so hear me. I am indeed the Emperor of All Silla, the mighty Perandor, sometimes called the King of Swords, and I renounce my claim to the woods of Lillan in your favour. Go to your king and tell him your heart and not your sword has won this victory. You are forever welcome in my court, and I shall hold the bond between us sacred for as long as I live. No Sillish blade shall ever be raised against you.”

Karim knelt before the emperor, and was raised up a lord of the Empire of Silla, and he returned to his king and told him the tale, and the king was amazed and greatly pleased, and in his wisdom he raised Karim up lord of all the lands along the borders between Silla and the kingdom, and Karim ruled them wisely for all the years of his life.

For the rest of his days he was a frequent visitor to the Emperor, and the Emperor often hunted with Karim in the woods of Lillan, and they were friends until the last days of the Emperor Perandor, and there was no more war between Silla and the Kingdom, but instead a spirit of brotherhood that lived one thousand years.

Translator’s note:

It is generally recognised that Silla occupied what is now mostly the Great Plain, and the Kingdom
covered the area that is now Afael and most of Avilian. These ancient tales were penned to illustrate the perfect virtues of the noble classes, and to inspire behaviour of the best kind among the powerful. It cannot be judged how well they succeeded, but there is much to be learned from the fact that they have come down to us by many routes, in many languages, over two thousand years and more.

In each tale Karim wins a friend by the virtue of his nobility, his kindness, his force of arms, or some other noble attribute. The whole is a handbook on morality. We can be fairly sure that both Karim and Perandor actually existed, but as to their character, who can tell? The volume was composed many years after the death of both.

From “The Ten Tales of Karim” Author unknown.

A Translation by the Learned Scholar Jorril Marras

Sage advisor to the Royal Court of Berash.

Narak was unfamiliar with Telas Alt. It had changed much in a thousand years, and what few scattered memories he still possessed clashed violently with the reality of the place. The streets of this city were wide, the houses mostly clean and well kept. He remembered a backward, dirty place, a king little better than a barbarian warlord, and a law that relied heavily on the prowess of bladesmen.

Now he sat in a fragrant garden as fine as anything in Avilian, excepting perhaps a few of the King’s own formal terraces in Golt. He was served with wine that had become a byword for quality, and sugared dainties that teased the palate with exotic and surprising tastes.

The equerry who had been assigned to accompany him seemed aware of the change.

“You have not visited us in many years, Deus,” he said. He was a tall, well built man with impeccable manners. The equerry
wore an impressive silk shirt that hung in a peculiar array of folds that Narak had not seen the like of, and the equerry wore no weapon.

“And yet the kingdom lies within my favour,” he replied. “You are my neighbours.”

“Yes, of course you refer to the lord Filamon, a noble subject much trusted by King Terresh.”

Narak nodded. His connection with the family was well known. It was one of many reasons that the clan Filamon had done so well. He wondered at the place, though. It did not seem warlike. In the Great War there had been few troops sent from Telas and Durandar. It was a great distance to Afael from here, and it was an even greater distance to the place where Seth Yarra’s armies now gathered. It was doubtful that any men from so far away could be useful.

Travelling quickly an army could barely make twenty miles in a day. Thirty was over ambitious, and a light cavalry unit scavenging off the land could perhaps make fifty, but would arrive exhausted and unfit for combat. The insane pace of fifty miles a day, even if they started this same afternoon, would put any Telan unit seven weeks from the battle, and at the slower pace it was over four months.

The Afaeli, close as they were, were not marching to meet the enemy. They could get there first, and in about three weeks, but they were sending no more than a few hundred scouts north, and the bulk of their force, six thousand men, were headed north west, moving to a rendezvous with the Avilian army.

The Avilians were not expected to meet their allies for a month at least, and then there was a question of whether they should wait for the Berashi force, the Dragon Guard and all that it entailed. It was a tempting option. The Berashi heavy cavalry were a huge asset against a foe with no horse troops.

It was all so much time, so much space for Seth Yarra to act. If they turned south and raced for Afael they could meet the Afaeli army in isolation and wipe it out, and that would change the odds. Even now Afael, Avilian and Berash between them could muster only twenty-one thousand troops, and Seth Yarra had landed at least twenty-five thousand. Cavalry gave the kingdoms an edge as it had done four hundred years ago, and they had better intelligence – the eyes of eagles – than Seth Yarra could hope for, but there was an ocean of time until the clash of swords, and it worried Narak.

“Deus, the king would be pleased to receive you.”

He looked at the equerry. He had been only dimly aware of another figure that had come into the garden and spoken briefly with his escort. He had been thousands of miles away. He roused himself and followed the young man out of the garden, but they did not plunge into the great stone edifice of the king’s castle. Instead they walked along a grassy bank and down a broad stone stairway flanked by blue and red flowers. Great trees stood as pillars at the top and bottom of the stair, casting a thin shade, for their leaves were mostly stripped by the autumn winds.

At the foot of the stairs was a long swept lawn. It was cleared of leaves by some means, and two archery targets stood at one end. At the other a small marquee had been erected and a group of brightly clad men and women sat at tables, drank wine, and exchanged banter. With the threat of war so much in his mind Narak found the scene disturbingly trivial and mildly irritating. He put the thought aside.

The king was easy enough to recognise. He was young and clean shaven, and sat in one of two comfortable chairs set to one side of the others. Beside him sat his queen. Narak had not heard her name spoken overmuch. He knew it, of course. She was queen Hestia, married to Terresh for three years, of a good Telan family – her father was the Duke of Eran, a southern province, and a man of great wealth and breeding. These bare facts served not at all.

She was a startlingly beautiful woman. She sat gracefully. It is a hard thing to do. Most people slump or grow rigid when they sit, but Hestia sat with the suggestion of movement, like a fine willow on a calm day. She was listening to her husband talk, a hand beneath her chin placed not for support – the second joints of her index and middle fingers barely brushed her pale skin – but for effect. It was an attentive pose. She wore a smile on her lips, and her brown eyes were bright with humour.

“My lord king,” the equerry said. “I present Wolf Narak, Lord of the Great Forest, Master of the Hunt, Benetheon God of Wolves.”

For a moment he thought that Terresh would not stand, that this would start with a slight, but Hestia rose, pulling Terresh from his seat by the force of her motion. He could not sit while she stood. She bowed to Narak, smiled at him. She was not awed by the wolf god.

“I am glad to welcome you to my court, Deus,” Terresh said. His dark hair was pulled back into a queue that reached down his back, his eyes were proud.

She rules here, Narak realised. He speaks, he acts, but she writes the scripts, pulls the strings.

“I am glad to know you,” Narak replied. His eyes flickered sideways to Hestia and he caught her gaze for a moment. “Your city seems most prosperous and pleasing to the eye, lord king.” The king smiled a thin smile.

“Well, Deus, I am glad that you approve. Will you not show us something of your skill with arms,” he gestured towards the distant target. “It is legendary, they say.”

Narak glanced at the target. “My skill is more with the blade, lord king,” he replied. There was no way he was going to be the entertainment for a gaggle of lesser nobles. He saw Hestia frown.

“We can summon our champion,” the king said. “He is a fine swordsman.” He sought out the eye of an equerry.

“My lord,” Hestia touched the king on his arm. “Wolf Narak has doubtless come to speak with you on matters of importance. He would not have made such a long journey after so many years on a social call.”

“What?” The king looked at his consort, and took the meaning from her eyes. Narak could read it, too. She knew that he was offering a grave insult to their guest, and that it was a dangerous path to tread. “Of course, you are right, my love,” he said. He turned to Narak, and spoke in a lower voice that might not carry to the general nobility around them. “Forgive me, Deus. My queen tells me I am not a natural diplomat, but I have at least had the good sense to marry one. Will you come within?”

Narak forgave Terresh at once. The man was not cut from the same cloth as Duke Elyas or King Raffin. He was a simple man, much given to his pleasures. His insult had been nothing more than thoughtlessness.

He went into the marquee with Terresh and was pleased to see that Hestia followed. Without her there would be no decision.

The tent had been prepared against the chance of rain, and was as comfortable as any room. Terresh and Hestia took their seats and Narak sat opposite, struggling to look serious in a chair that invited sloth. He understood comfort, and the desire for it, but all his life he had resisted its call. There was a degree of comfort that he found, for want of a better word, comfortable, and beyond that point it felt like rottenness in the soul, a disease of some vital organ that made a man whole. It seemed that this kingdom struggled beneath the yoke of excessive cushioning.

“Deus, what is your business? You make speak freely before Hestia,” the king said.

“Seth Yarra,” he said. “They have landed an army in the east.” He expected a startled reaction. He got a puzzled frown.

“Seth Yarra?” the king asked. “The Seth Yarra of the Great War?”

“The same. They have put twenty-five thousand men onto Terras. Perhaps more by now. I have come to ask for your help.”

“They are real?”

Narak stared at him. Had it really been so long? It was true that Telas had only been involved in a small way, only a thousand troops had marched from here through the green road into Berash and the east, but surely they could not have forgotten? To Narak it was his most immediate memory. Even after four hundred years he could close his eyes and see again the frightened, fanatical men throwing themselves at his swords, hear the ringing steel, smell the burning.

“They are real,” he said. It was a struggle to keep his tone even.

“I do not understand,” the king said. “If they are real, then they were defeated in the Great War, and there has been peace for, what? Four hundred years. Where have they come from?”

Narak looked at their faces. He saw puzzlement. He saw a trace of amusement. He saw incomprehension.

“Pelion’s Eyes,” he said. “You think this is some story.”

The king was quick to reply. “Deus, I assure you that we do not doubt your word, but these tales are what we use to frighten our children. They are a myth.”

“Must I teach you history, lord king?” Narak felt anger rising within him, but pushed it down again. It would not serve his purpose here. “These are no stories. I was there, and the Seth Yarra are a formidable foe, and come in great numbers. They dwell on another land apart from Terras, and they are most populous there.”

“Why is it that they make war on you, Deus?”

“Not on me,” Gods these people were stupid. “On all who are not as they are.”

“Deus, forgive me for observing this, but we have found that there is common ground between all men. There has been no war in the west for a thousand years, and the wisdom that has prevailed so greatly is the seeking of that common ground.” The king sat back as though he had delivered a telling argument.

And so it was. It was the best argument in the world. All men do have common ground. They want to be left in peace, to wed their wives and raise their children and do their work, whatever it may be. Yet it was also not true. There are men who will not take the world as it is, who seek to change things, to make an advantage for themselves. Narak had long believed that Pelion had chosen the men and women who were to become the Benetheon with this in mind, and for this reason alone none of them had risen to kingship, to empire, to conquest. It was why Pelion’s law forbad the immortality of kings and princes, for they were all ambitious and death itself was the surest limit to their greed.

Even as he thought this, Narak realised that he had not been this wise four hundred years ago. He had watched Seth Yarra, he had listened, but he had not spoken with them. It would have been a simple thing in those early days when the green and black banners had flown politely above peaceful camps to seek an audience, to seek common ground, but he had not done so.

For all that, he was certain that war had been inevitable. The philosophy of Seth Yarra was an unbending rule by its very foundation – the idea that one thing is right and another is wrong. Men will always believe such things, but to impose one idea upon all men, one way of eating, one way of loving, one way of fighting, one way of dressing; it was a monstrous tyranny.

“You are wise indeed,” he said to Terresh. “In the same way all dogs will respond to kindness, but when a dog bites you it is the dog that you must fend off, not the master who beats it.”

“You have come to us for soldiers?” The king’s question was an abrupt change of direction.

“Yes, that is the essence of it.”

The king shook his head. “We are not a warlike people. The levy may be raised to defend the kingdom, but to fight in another land, well, it is most difficult, and quite unlikely that any we sent would be able to reach the battle before it was decided. Besides, our good relations with Durandar are to some extent dependent on the presence of the small number of troops that we have along the border.”