And so the dream ends, Tegestu thought. We will remain a homeless people, wandering among strangers, until we are finally dissolved among them like a handful of salt in an ocean, losing everything that makes us ourselves.
But what made him Brodaini was also obedience, and he bowed to that. “I hear you, Abessu-Denorru,” he said, sick at heart. “What answer am I to make to Tastis?”
“None at all,” Necias said. “Keep him guessing as long as you can. And in the end, refer him to me.” Necias smiled grimly. “That’ll put an end to his hopes.”
No doubt it would, Tegestu thought numbly.
“I want the army marching again once the fort surrenders,” Necias said briskly, businesslike. “We’ve got to move swiftly, as long as Tastis sees compromise in us.”
“Aye,” Tegestu said. “I’ll give the orders.”
Necias walked back to the settee and sat down, looking with concern at Tegestu. “You understand why I have to give these orders, Tegestu?” he asked.
Tegestu nodded. “I understand.”
“Very well.” Necias fell silent for a moment, then licked his lips. “If there’s anything your people want,” he said, concern on his face. “Anything within reason, please inform me, and I’ll grant it.” He reached out to touch Tegestu’s knee. “But not this, old friend. Not this.”
Tegestu bowed, then stood. “I will transmit your orders to the army, Abessu-Denorru,” he said.
Necias nodded, then turned to Campas. “No record of this, Campas,” he said. “Burn your notes, and do it now. And you’ll say nothing of it, ever.”
Campas nodded. “As you wish, cenors-efellsan.”
Tegestu knelt, then walked from the pavilion into the sun. He heard Grendis’ tread behind him and turned to her, seeing her gazing at him with troubled eyes. “I didn’t foresee it,” he confessed. “I didn’t understand Necias well enough.” He laughed bitterly. “That was what I said to Aptan, that Tastis didn’t understand who he was dealing with. Now my words are turned against me.”
She reached up a hand to touch his cheek. “It was a bold try,” she said. “Brilliant.” She tried to smile encouragingly. “It wasn’t your fault it failed.”
Tegestu kissed the palm of her hand, then turned away, feeling the unrelenting ache of the armor on his shoulders and neck, an ache that seemed insignificant beside the one in his heart. “Can you see the orders are given?” he asked. “I would like to lie down a while, before we march.”
“Aye. I’ll see it’s done,” Grendis said. He began to walk to his small tent, trying to keep his back straight, his shoulders back. Trying to stay Brodaini to the last, even in this unhappy land of exile.
CHAPTER 16
Fiona, standing on the siege works thrown up before the city, gazed at the walls with sullen anger, the cards flickering through her fingers as she performed tricks to calm her spirit. Snapping cards out of the deck, she looked up at the hundred eighty grey stone towers of Neda-Calacas and tried to guess on which of them Kira had died. Across the river, probably, in the Brodaini quarter of Neda, where Tastis’ banners flew boldly in warm summer breeze.
For two days the army of Arrandal had been building its siege lines in front of Calacas, the easternmost of the twin cities. Neda was an older city, a capital of one of the Captilla kingdoms that had been shattered by the Abessla invasions hundreds of years before. Neda had never been taken, and marked the end-point of Abessla expansion: to end the wars, an agreement had been reached to allow the Abessla people to settle across the river and built their own city of Calacas. Gradually the people, and their cities, had become one, and the formality of purging the royal family of Neda, who had long before lost all real power to the deissin, had come late, only a hundred years ago.
And now the banners of a new invader topped the walls, and the Abessla of Arrandal and Cartenas, the Captilla of Prypas, and the half-dozen other ethnic varieties that made up the rest of the Elva, were coming to take it back. The problems the siege presented were enormous, Fiona had been told. There were a quarter of a million inhabitants behind those walls — half the normal population, since many had fled or been evacuated to the islands where the Elva fleet was obliged to feed them — and the walls were massive and stout. The cities had grown in the last four hundred years, and walls had been built outward to protect them: once an outer wall was breached, there were three or four lines of inner defense, each a wall guarded by a series of interlocking canals that doubled as moats, each line marking the limits of an older, smaller city.
The army of Arrandal had settled before Calacas, the easternmost city, as Tegestu had thought it might prove easier: Neda had an additional line of defense, the new Brodaini city that had been added in the last twenty years, and built with all the craft and strength of a warrior people. Neda was unsieged at the moment — the army of Arrandal was too small to encircle both cities, straddling the Neda river, without risking having one part of it overwhelmed by an attack — but there were patrols in front of Neda day and night to discourage the enemy, and when the army of Prypas arrived in a few days the circle would be closed.
The sea route was already cut off. The united fleets of Arrandal, Cartenas, and Prypas held the islands and maintained a strict blockade, with other Elva squadrons expected daily. Tastis appeared to have realized that he could do nothing against them: his own fleet had been drawn up on the beach and short of an anchor watch appeared to be abandoned.
The cards flickered through Fiona’s fingers. A pair of Brodaini engineers, mapping the area forward of the lines, looked at her with interest, then returned to their work. Fiona frowned, remembering Tyson’s words as she’d spoken to him that morning.
“It’s moderately interesting data you’ve been collecting, all that information on the mercenaries,” he said. “But it’s not your real work. You could have done this, and more, if you’d stayed in Arrandal.”
“I was asked to come,” she’d said with surprise. “You agreed that it would be a good idea to make myself useful to Necias.”
“But what has he used you for, Fiona?” Tyson asked. “Could he be using your presence to put pressure on Tastis? Telling Tastis to go along with him, or he’ll send the star people in after him?”
“That,” Fiona snapped, “would imply he knows about Kira. I don’t think he does. There’s no evidence for what you’re suggesting.”
“Perhaps not.” Tyson’s deep voice, as always, was annoyingly calm, a Tyson-knows-best tone of voice Fiona had always thought patronizing, if not infuriating. “But unless Necias can suggest a less... a less opaque role for you here, you might suggest to him that you might do your work best in the cities.”
“The army of Prypas will be here in a few days,” Fiona said. “They’ll be bringing another group of diplomats with them — I think I’ll be able to make myself useful then.”
“Keep what I’ve said in mind, Fiona,” Tyson said, in warning tones, and she scowled at the spindle in her hands, then shut it off without saying goodbye. A petulant act; but then Tyson had done his best to be annoying and certainly deserved it.
She knew he was right, however. Her time could be better spent elsewhere. It was ridiculous to think she could remain here for long: unless Necias managed to buy open a gate some dark night, the siege might well last a year.
Her hands deftly broke the deck of cards in half. She turned the cards over: black cards in her left hand, gold cards in her right. Flawless.
“Ambassador.” She turned at Campas’ voice. He gazed at her with diffidence, uncomfortable in his mail shirt — he’d been wearing it ever since the enemy battlements came in sight, but still did not look at ease in it.