They stood without speaking then, until Lur Raldnor turned for the door.
“It’ll take forever if I have to sail from Xarabiss. But they say ships are putting in at Karith again.”
15
Under the heel of Karmiss, Lan shone with unaccustomed armaments. The unusual dust of marital passage contended with indigenous rain. The major garrison installed at Amlan currently occupied one of the larger warehouses of the port. A second detail was beneath tentage in the palace park. Elsewhere, substantial droves of Karmian military were lodged at every significant town. The highways between were patrolled, for Free Zakorians would, if they came, come to any spot and in any disguise. In the smaller villages, men were robbed and women abused in case they might hold Free Zakorian sympathies. Such offenses of the soldiery were localized, but severely punished by the Karmian High Command, when they could be proved. Which was very seldom.
Ships sailing to and from the port of Amlan received an escort that safeguarded them from Zakorian attack. The east harbors of northern Xarabiss, and of Ommos, were open again. As yet, from political tact, escorting Karmian galleys did not venture inside a five-mile limit of the Middle Lands.
There were other limits.
A Lannic curfew was in force, in order to regularize traffic and commerce.
The sound of that bell, clanging across the dusk, turned the blood of Yannul to ice. The first time he had heard it, Medaci had come running to him and sobbed in his arms like a child. The sound was too well remembered from the Shadowless Plains, Amrek’s curfew rung every sunset in the ruined Lowland city, the message of the mailed fist, and the edge of steel to come.
Now, standing at midday in the old audience chamber of Lan’s painted palace, Yannul reviewed the insecure scenes of his young manhood with uneasy foreboding. He had looked for peace with the years, at home.
Presently his host came in, Kesarh’s Chief of Command in Lan. He was the mix type made fashionable by Raldnor of Sar, dark-skinned and blond. He had the hero’s name, too. And all the Vis patina of display.
Wine and cakes were brought. They sat down before windows that gave a fine panorama of dripping feather trees and sodden tents, and a Karmian unit at drill in the mud.
“It goes without saying,” said Raldnor Am Ioli, “you see why you’ve been asked to come here.”
Yannul looked at him blandly.
“The great hero of Lan,” said Raldnor Am Ioli. “We had some difficulty in finding you, though you live so close. But the King was eventually persuaded to reveal your secret.”
“And how is the King these days?”
“His doctors assure me the fever’s broken.”
“Something you may have guessed,” said Yannul. “Lan is barbaric in its royalism. The King and Queen have an almost sorcerous significance to us. A sudden death would be—upsetting.”
Karmian Raldnor laughed.
“My dear Yannul, are you suggesting my Lord Kesarh has left any orders that your King and Queen should be murdered? That’s not kind, sir, to a benefactor. Your King himself invited the Lord Kesarh to send troops to Lan.”
“Our gratitude,” said Yannul, “flows like the rain.”
Karmian Raldnor was not without wits. He said softly, “But the rain’s stopped.”
There had, of course, been no invitation, save the invitation an unarmed country always offered to a predator. Karmian ships had docked at the port after their epic sea fight, been lauded and welcomed. They then lingered, for fear Lannic prophecies of stray Free Zakorian marauders should come to pass. After a while, a small party of troops marched to Amlan’s walls and offered its assistance to the King. He had not been so ingenuous as to accept it, but, with some Karmian influence already at the gates, they were let in. The crowds had cheered them, and thrown flowers. Ten days later, a thousand Karmian infantry and four hundred cavalry with chariots had landed, and swarmed along the port road. Their fellows had the gates by now and ushered them through into the capital. They were a preliminary. Inside a day, Lan was Lan no more.
Kesarh himself had not bothered to sail over. He had matters to see to elsewhere. The invasion was just his goodness at heart.
“Well,” said Karmian Raldnor, refilling Yannul’s full cup so it spilled, “what we desire of you is a small piece of spectacle.”
“My days as an acrobat are over.”
“Oh, I think not.” They smiled at each other. Raldnor Am Ioli said, “there’s been unease. We shouldn’t like it to spread. Your King, as soon as he’s fit, will address his subjects. I’d take it as a favor, sir, if you would be there, and add some encouraging words.”
“Encouragement to what?”
Raldnor Am Ioli sighed.
“You’re a respected, almost a mythical figure, Yannul. You know about policy. Assuage the people. Explain, Karmiss is their friend. That you yourself accept this as a fact.”
Yannul said, “Yes, it’s stopped raining, hasn’t it.”
There was a prolonged pause.
Karmian Raldnor said, “Think of all you enjoy, sir. Your villa-mansion and the land. Your wife—one of the Amanackire. I believe. Your sons. Treasures. It would be a pity to let it all go.”
“You’re threatening me?”
Karmian Raldnor said nothing.
“As you mentioned,” said Yannul. “I’m something of a hero in Lan. I told you how we are about our royalty. In a way, an aspect of that applies to me. Destroy me, and you could have trouble all the way to Lanelyr. I would deferentially remind you also that there are Shansarians, Vardians and other men of the second continent in this country, who stood by Lan’s neutrality in the War, and have since evolved flourishing business concerns on our soiclass="underline" it would anger them to see those disrupted.”
“The Lord Kesarh is himself half Shansarian.”
“The Lord Kesarh, half Shansarian though he is, has tended to forget, I think, that simply because the Sister Continent is invisible from our own, it has not ceased to exist.”
“Now, I believe, you’re threatening me,” Karmian Raldnor said.
“Not at all,” said Yannul. “I’m only telling you that when the King publicly says whether it is you’ve asked him to say, I shall be indisposed.”
Raldnor Am Ioli, returning to his well-guarded palace apartment, evinced mild irritation.
In the long term, such stumbling blocks as Yannul would not matter. But here and now one could trip over them and go sprawling. Raldnor was anxious to impress Kesarh, though not from any of the fear-admiration the King seemed able to induce in his soldiery. Raldnor had not forgotten the cryptic tidings he had awarded himself in that council chamber at Istris: Once you were of no use to him, he would leave you to burn.
Raldnor Am Ioli the opportunist, had so far followed Kesarh’s dark planet into the ascendant. Raldnor had taken pains along the way to cement his luck. He had also learnt a lesson or two from Kesarh himself, and in this manner had come to execute some bold strokes in the line of insurance. Finding himself sent on this mission to take Lan and Elyr, Raldnor had decided that in his absence from Karmiss, certain routine but exhaustive investigations would be made into his affairs. He had accordingly left everything immaculate, and brought the only incriminating element with him, a touch of utter simplicity, or genius.
His thoughts turning on this eased him, and he consigned Yannul to later deliberation.
Raldnor went out into a private corridor and so walked into a modest room flung with Lannic cushions. In their midst, teasing a kalinx kitten, was the figure of a sullen girl. Her long blonde hair was plaited with ribbons, her fair skin had paint and ornaments upon it.
“Mella, if you tease that cat, it’ll bite you.”