The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (83 page)

Peter looked at John for a moment more before turning his head toward me. "Andrew, I believe that I'll have that cup of wine after all. I think that I'll need strong medicine in order to deal with your blood brother."
For the first time since he entered the room, John smiled. "I am just as interested in Emor as you are in Koretia," he said. "I work as a trader, so I will offer you an exchange: I will tell you what the Koretians think of the Chara's rule if you will tell me what the Chara thinks of the Koretians."
"I think," said Peter slowly, "that you have must be very skilled at your work. It is a fair bargain. What would you like to know about the Chara?"
"Ask me your questions first."
Peter reached up to wipe his neck free from sweat. The air around us was musty and hot, and more heat drifted down to us from the wall-perched candles in the cell, whose flames were steady in the breezeless room. I reached up to wipe the dampness from my face with the back of my hand, but John, motionless and expressionless, had no moisture on his face.
"I am interested in the Jackal," said Peter, gesturing with his head toward the mask on the wall behind John. "I would like to know what sort of man he is and what it is that he wants. Is it the Koretian throne that he is fighting for?"
John was slow in replying. "That is hard to say. The god does not often speak to the Koretians, and his ways are mysterious. But certainly the Jackal has never been heard to make any claim for the throne. In any case, the matter cannot be decided by the Jackal alone. In order to become King, a Koretian would need the consent of his people."
Peter frowned and absentmindedly sipped from the cup I had handed him, too absorbed in his thoughts to notice what he was drinking. "I don't understand," he said. "You make the Koretian throne sound like some barbarian chief's title, in which the chief becomes master through wrestling with all of his warriors."
John drew his left knee up and rested his elbow on it, placing the back of his hand under his bearded chin in a reflective fashion. "There are worse ways to select a leader. However, I am surprised, Lord Peter, that after all these years of governing this dominion, an Emorian council lord should remain so ignorant of Koretian customs. In the old days, it was the High Priest who gave his consent to the enthronement of the heir presumptive, and he did not do so until the Koretian people had indicated, through the King's Council and their local councils, that they wished to be ruled by the heir. This is not Emor, where a master may bond men into unwilling servitude."
Peter put down his cup abruptly, placing it deliberately near me. As I picked up his cup and sipped from it, Peter said, "As I recall, it was the Chara Nicholas who persuaded the Great Council to end slavery in this land, and he did so because it took the most barbaric form possible: the slaves were stripped of their names, deprived of their voices, forced to wear masks, and treated as though they were living corpses. Emor, for all its reputation of harshness, has never done anything to match that; nor has it had blood feuds or demon-stonings or any of the other religious barbarities that Emorian law eliminated from this land."
John paused again before replying in a soft voice, "If you look carefully at the old rules concerning those institutions you will find that even they required consent. No man was ever bonded into Koretian slavery who did not accept the gods' law. But I will not defend those institutions to you. They were indeed barbarities, twistings of the gods' law to serve the baser passions of men."
"Then you understand why we Emorians believe that we have brought good to this land by replacing the gods' law with the Chara's law."
Muffled through the roof, the bell of the priests' house tolled the hour, while in the corridor, footsteps went by. John waited until the passersby were gone before saying, "Lord Peter, I am sure that you have witnessed the Chara in judgment. Did you ever attend a trial in which the Chara would have been creating an injustice if he were to have followed the law strictly?"
Peter's gaze drifted over toward me, silently sitting beside him, sipping from the wine that had turned warm in the heat. "Yes, I know of such a case."
"And did the Chara then decide to destroy Emorian law altogether? Or did he exploit it in such a way as to correct the injustice?"
Peter accepted the cup from my hand as I offered it back to him. "I take your meaning. You are saying that the gods' law could have been reformed rather than eliminated. But the Chara has not forbidden religion in this land. The Koretians are free to worship the gods, in the same way as many Arpeshians and Marcadians continue to do."
"The Chara has forbidden the use of religion in deciding matters of the law. I am not against the Emorian court system; I think that it corrects an imbalance in the gods' law, a tendency to interpret the gods' wishes in a manner that best suits the priests. But I think that the Chara's law is also lacking in balance, in an ability to take fully into account a prisoner's character when passing a judgment. That can be done under Emorian law, but not to the same extent as the gods' law allows it, for in Koretia the gods judge men for all the deeds of their lives, not only for the deeds of a single moment."
"Well," said Peter, leaning back against the wall, "I doubt that we will come to an agreement about this."
"That is exactly my point," said John. "We will never agree about this, any more than the Koretians will ever agree with the Emorians about how to run this land. That is why they are seeking release from the bonds of the Chara's tyranny."
Peter's expression darkened, and I saw that he was close to casting judgment upon John. If this happened, there was a good chance that his look as the Chara would surface, and then his identity would be revealed. I made a small movement to distract his attention. He glanced my way, and his expression relaxed.
John continued, "I do not mean that the Chara intends to be a tyrant. His errors are the result of his ignorance of Koretian customs and his unwillingness to accept that Koretians do not wish to separate their religion from their public lives. I cannot blame the Chara for wishing to rule this land in an Emorian manner. That merely shows why he ought not to be ruling Koretia."
Peter looked steadily at John, his fingers dipping down into the wine he had not sipped for some time. "Then we come back to the question of who should rule Koretia, and that is a question which must be settled before all others."
I had been reaching over to move the wine pitcher. I nearly spilled it. Peter had that effect on me sometimes. I would think that I knew all that he thought and felt, and then I would discover, without warning, that his thoughts had been in a different place altogether than mine.
That the Chara had been considering granting Koretia its freedom he had never hinted to me.
If John was disconcerted by Peter's leap forward, he gave no sign of it. He asked calmly, "Why do you say that, Lord Peter?"
Peter stood suddenly, walked over to the door, and opened it. I wondered whether he had grown concerned that someone was listening to this conversation – one of the Jackal's thieves, perhaps. He lingered in the doorway for a moment, staring out at the corridor. When he had closed and locked the door and returned to where he had been before, he said, "I am Emorian, and I cannot help but be concerned with laws and with order. I see what I imagine the Chara sees as well: that the Chara cannot simply give freedom to this land while the people are without a ruler and while this land has no courts of its own, no central army, nothing that would keep Koretia from collapsing back into civil war. He must give the government over to a ruler until the Koretians have a chance to rebuild their government, create their own law-system, and choose whether they want this man or another to rule over them. Now, who shall the Chara appoint for such a duty? A nobleman who has supported the governor? I doubt that the Koretians would accept him. The Jackal or one of his thieves? The Koretians would accept this but the Chara would not, because he does not wish to arm the hunting god. In any case, Emor cannot withdraw its soldiers and court officials immediately, lest Koretia be destroyed, and since it cannot, the Chara needs someone in power who can both bring peace to the Koretians and work in peace with Emor. Where will the Chara go to find such a man?"
John was silent for a moment, his eyes suddenly distant in a manner that made my back tingle at the memory. Then he said quietly, "If I were the Chara, I would seek the god's command."
"I hope," said Lord Carle from the doorway, "that you are not advising us to place ourselves under the command of Koretian gods. I would say that one god at least is busy enough tonight without our bothering him."
I had been surprised to discover that John had made his way through a locked door; to discover that Lord Carle had managed to pick a lock surprised me not at all. Nor, it seemed, did this cause any questions to rise in Peter's mind; his thoughts were elsewhere. Lifting his head suddenly, like a dog scenting danger, he asked, "What is it?"
"Lord Dean and I have been on the roof. You had best see for yourself."
Peter was on his feet immediately, but John was already out the door and racing down the corridor. We followed him to a stairway and scrambled up after him onto the roof.
Many centuries ago, when there was danger of the Daxion army invading the border from either side of the mountain, the priests' house had been equipped with two square lookout towers. One tower lay at the east end of the roof and the other on the west end. The towers were only slightly taller than the roof connecting them. We found Lord Dean standing on the western tower, leaning his arms onto the stone parapet and staring meditatively at the view to the northeast. He did not turn as we joined him at the parapet.
It was twilight, and night's shadow had spread its cloak across the land. To the west of us, the Daxion border mountains were silhouetted against the shell-pink setting sun. To the east, the coastal waters were lit by the rising moon. The war moon – that was what the Koretians called the full moon, because it shone like a silver blade.
Down in the darkened countryside was evidence of the moon's power.
It was a flame, glowing from the dark land like a red star blazing in the night sky, but larger than any star would be. From this distance, it looked like nothing more than a hearth-fire, but since we were far away, it must be something greater.
"Where is that?" asked Peter.
"Valouse," replied John. He was staring at the fire intently, as though he could see what was happening in the streets there. "It is a large town, with its own garrison. Also, the governor has been sending army divisions there for the past two weeks. There have been hints that riots were about to occur, and he wanted more soldiers there to control the Koretians."
Peter murmured, "May your gods watch over them."
"The soldiers or the Koretians?"
"Both." Peter was silent a moment, as though trying to hear the screams in the town. Then he asked, "How far is the town from here?"
"Lord Peter." The speaker was Lord Dean, turning his gaze for the first time toward the Chara. "It will do Emor no good if we enter into battle now. Our duty lies at the governor's palace, not Valouse."
I did not hear Peter's reply, for at that moment John pushed himself away from the parapet and walked rapidly from the tower. After a moment's hesitation I followed, and caught up with him finally at the eastern tower, staring out at the same view.
From this high up, we could hear no sounds of the night except the occasional cries of the doves settling for the night in the cotes near us, as well as snatches of the raised voices of Lord Dean and Lord Carle as they argued with Peter. I looked sidelong at John. His eyes were calm as he stared out at the burning town, but there was a tightness about his mouth.
He said, "My duty lay in Valouse tonight. That was where I was planning to go."
"Then it's good that you didn't," I said. "You might have lost your life there."
John said softly, "A trader friend of mine asked me to come. He said that he needed my help on some business. I would be at his side now if I hadn't stayed here."
I could think of nothing to say in reply at first, so I glanced over at the western tower, where Peter was standing like an immovable rock as the waves of his council lords' arguments crashed about him. "My master has a strong sense of duty as well. The other lords don't seem to be having much success in convincing him to stay away from Valouse."
"Is he your blood brother?"
I jerked my head back toward John. He was leaning against the tower wall, facing me, and his expression was unreadable.
I said, "Emorians don't have blood brothers."
"That doesn't answer my question."
I looked over at the Chara, still battling with silence the suggestions that he keep himself from danger. Next to me, John waited in similar silence.
Finally I met John's eyes and said, "You are my only blood brother, but Peter is . . ." I tried to think of a way to explain what we were to one another, and then settled for the words that, to an Emorian, would be sufficient explanation. "We share the same cup of wine."
John nodded as though he understood. I asked, "How did you guess?"
"He told me himself when he gave me the free-man's greeting. He wouldn't have greeted me in such a way if he hadn't already done so to my blood brother." He waited for me to say something more, and when I did not, he added gently, "I'm glad to know that you have a friend in Emor. Don't be upset about this."
"It isn't that," I said. "I'm only sorry that I didn't tell you myself."
I sensed that John had a reply ready, but he focussed his view back on Valouse before replying. "Andrew, I know that you've always believed me unworldly, but I'm not a fool. I know that your party is here, not only as diplomats, but also as spies for the Chara, finding out what you can about the Koretians and giving away as little information as possible about yourselves. I knew before I spoke to you that those would be the new terms of our friendship. It did not pain me to accept those terms. You are Emorian and I am Koretian, but it doesn't change what we are to each other. If we must keep secrets from each other for the sake of our lands, it will not change the oath we made to be blood brothers, beyond death. Nothing can change that, because our friendship was ordained by the gods."
I continued watching John's serene face for a while; then I switched my gaze back to Peter. He was speaking in a low voice that did not carry over to where we were. I asked, "What do you think of him?"