He signed, thinking he had seen bigger twelve year olds. He patted her shoulders again. After a moment of closed eyes and another fatalistic sigh, he held her shoulders and pushed her away. „I'm scared too, little girl." He let go and raised her chin till she looked him in the eye. „And not of Tervola. You go looking for trouble and you're liable to find more than either one of us can handle."
Her jaw trembled. She opened her mouth slightly and closed it, twice. Her gaze kept darting to one side, then she would force it back.
Ragnarson shifted subject. „I want you and Kristen to stop playing spy. This isn't any game." Then, „Do you know what we're getting into?"
She did not reply. She sniffled once.
Her chin still rested on his hand. He drew her toward him. Her jaw trembled more. Her eyes narrowed and glazed. Her lips parted and puffed as she turned her face up to meet his kiss.
Oh, gods, he thought. The fire raced through him. It was just what he had thought it would be. He pushed gently. She clung for an instant, then stood there downcast, eyes still closed.
„I want you to think about it some more," he whispered. „Please?"
She folded her lower lip between her teeth and nodded like a child receiving a scolding.
„Everything is against it... ." Enough of this, he thought. „Go back to Kristen after Mist gets here. And stop playing spy." He whirled and got out of there. He ran up the steps to the battlements overlooking the gate, trying to distract himself. Looking out, he spied a carriage turning into the road through the park. „Mist?" The outriders might be Dahl and Aral. He raced back down and hurried to the chamber, quickly clued the others to Sherilee's report.
Mist arrived ten minutes later, accompanied by Dantice. „Sit down," Ragnarson said. He studied the couple. There was a new shyness between them. Damn! It must be catching. „I've been cooped up here all day, so I don't feel like playing games. We made a decision. You know what it is. Let's decide what I can do to help. But first I want to know who the Tervola was and why he was in Kavelin without my permission."
Dantice made a sound like a cross between a belch and mouse's squeak. His eyes widened. And Mist, for one of the few times Ragnarson remembered, was taken completely off guard.
„I have my resources too. The Tervola is important. Call it a gesture of good faith. You've been playing your game behind my back. I don't want that in Kavelin. I've got trouble enough with my enemies, without having to watch my friends."
Mist recovered her aplomb. She spoke at length.
Ragnarson decided she was being forthright. „Sounds good overall. Assuming Kuo isn't in on the planning. What's your timing?"
„That's the other iffy part. We move when Lord Ch'ien thinks the Matayangan attack has peaked and Lord Kuo is completely distracted. We seize the key points of the em pire. We leave Southern Army alone till the Matayangan attack ebbs. Then we relieve Lord Kuo himself."
„Right," Ragnarson said. „If he lets you." He stared at a point above and behind Mist's head, seeing a blonde-ringed face... . Damn! He had to get her out of his head. „What happens if Matayanga doesn't attack? I hear Kuo's people are talking a blue streak trying to stop them."
„The plan isn't perfect. If he talks them down, we lose. Without him knowing how much he's won."
„You wouldn't try to force that war, would you?"
„No! No more than Lord Kuo is. But why not take advantage of the inevitable? Our best recruiting argument is that there's been too much fighting lately. Shinsan can't take much more."
„Sometimes I think... . Never mind. What can we con tribute?"
„You're doing it. Giving us a safe place to plan. The only other thing might be some shock troops for the strike against Lord Kuo himself."
„Work it out with Sir Gjerdrum."
A door opened down the hallway. Josiah Gales stepped out. He hurried to his quarters, where he secured another despatch case. Two minutes later he joined Sergeant Wortel, the man he was due to relieve. „Jack, I need you to cover for me. I got to take this upstairs."
Wortel scowled at the hourglass. „The wife is having company, Gales."
„I'm sorry, Jack. That's the truth. I ain't trying to screw you. Yeah. I won't take long. I'll pay you back. Yeah. Gales is good for his debts. That ain't no lie. You know me."
Wortel sighed. „All right. Just don't waste no time."
„Back again, Sarge?" Toby was still at the Queen's door. Gales cursed himself for not having had the foresight to await the changing of the guard.
„Yeah. Ain't this some shit? Another one, Toby. And me due to go on watch. Yeah. Ain't this a bitch?"
Toby knocked. Gales shifted from foot to foot, muttering. She would not be happy about this second visit. She would be less pleased when she heard what he had to say.
Ragnarson swore he was getting calluses on his behind. And he could not get that girl out of his head. There was only one cure. „I'm leaving, Derel. Show Mist that treaty we whipped up the other day."
He strolled into the hallway wondering what Inger would think of his sudden interest. It had been, what? Close to two years since he had dropped everything for a daytime visit.
The guard outside the meeting room stood at a rigid attention. He was new. „What time is it, soldier?"
„Getting close to seven, Sire."
„Thank you." Bragi strode away, fantasies of Sherilee mixing with visions of Inger. I didn't handle the girl right, he thought. Should have shown more self-restraint. Now she'll turn up everywhere... . Unless I'm imagining that I'm irresistible.
He felt a twinge of nostalgia for a time when it had not mattered whether he tumbled a willing wench, a time when he had been able to fall in love three times a week without having to consider whose lives would be affected. Those had been the days! He and Mocker and Haroun had been young. Politics had been a game for sour old farts who had lost their zest for the rest of life... .
He shied from those thoughts like a stallion spooked. He had had to kill his best friend. His second-best friend had gone into the Dread Empire and been heard from no more. He had had his differences with Haroun, but, damn, he missed the man now. If Haroun were around, there would be no trouble in Hammad al Nakir. If the father were king instead of the son, Lord Hsung would not think of stealing chunks of the desert state. Haroun had the temper of a sour-bellied hawk and not enough sense not to punch back.
He halted suddenly, flung himself into the shadow of a pillar. He was a hundred feet from Inger's door.
Someone was taking his leave. And, somehow, Ragnarson was not surprised to see who the someone was, though the man should have been on duty for an hour. „Gales, I'm damned well starting to wonder about you."
He waited fifteen minutes, no longer eager to see his wife. He went through with it as much for diplomacy's sake as for desire.
The world began to twitch and shrug like a moribund giant slowly returning to life. Two days after Ragnarson's meeting with Mist, one of Dantice's smuggler's brought word of a ferocious skirmish between Throyes and Hammad al Nakir.
Hammad al Nakir's rich coastal provinces were the one area of the kingdom still controlled by El Murid. Outside observers believed Megelin's Royalists would reclaim the littoral once the kingdom's heartland had been pacified. The Disciple was a toothless tiger. He hadn't the backing to withstand the Royalist tide.
So the world thought.
When the Throyens initiated the incident the old war cries of the Invincibles rocked the disputed plain. The Disciple's white-robed Chosen seemed to materialize out of times gone by. They fell upon the would-be invaders. The Throyen commanders panicked. They threw in troops held nearby, against creation of a causus belli with which to justify a major invasion. What could have been contained as an embarrassment diplomatically forgettable became a major and patriotically unforgivable invasion of the Father land. When the sun set and the dust cleared, more than a thousand Throyens had fallen. Their comrades were in headlong flight.