"Write," she said. "From Satrap Eide to Hostleader Landar, governor of Salnorn. Usual titles, usual greetings." She waited, staring out at the darkness. "Write: 'You have custody of the hostage Mardo Stighetto, from the city of Ravima.' " She sounded the outlandish names carefully. " 'Inform the—' " She prided herself on her memory, but it had been many years and there had been very many hostages. Also, she needed to calculate. About a dozen years ago; a pudgy, rather stupid child, he had been four or five...
" 'Inform the youth that his city has played false and surrendered to the rebels. His father the king and the rest of the royal family were then torn to pieces by the mob. Make it known that this is why he has lost his rights as a hostage and is of no further value.' " She paused to let the scribes catch up. " 'Put him to death by whatever means please you. Report your compliance.' Usual closing.
"Larth, read back," she said, and listened as an unpleasantly nasal voice repeated what she had said, decorated with flowery scribal frills. "Nerkurtu?"
"I have the same," said the younger scribe.
"Bring them." Light flared briefly as the boy apprentice backed out through the drapes. When they fell back behind him, he turned in her direction and stood blind, holding out the tablets on a tray. She could read very little ofthe complex cuneiform script, but she saw well enough in the dark to stamp the clay with her husband's seal. When they had been baked, she would have other scribes read both letters to her again—separately—before one was dispatched and the other placed in the palace archives. To trust anyone was folly. The apprentice went back inside to carry the letters to the ovens and roll out more clay.
Overhead the spangled heavens were framed between the twin blacks of the canyon walls. Skjar was a city of islands, among which the river murmured unceasingly. Here and there she could see scattered pinpricks of light from lamps or candles. Below her lay ghostly white rapids and reflections of stars fallen in still pools.
"Next," she said. After having had the tablets read to her several times, she almost knew them by heart.
Larth's thin voice began to squeak to the bats flittering by overhead: "The noble bloodlord writes, 'The cities of Nianoma and Piaregga waver in their loyalty. Return their hostages to me that I may stiffen the rulers' resolve.' May these words please my lady."
They didn't, much. Stralg meant something like "So I can call their fathers in to watch their children being battered." At times her brother was a fool. Because frightfulness inspired terror at first, he thought it always would, but it didn't. Repeated brutality provoked numbness, then fury, and finally retaliation. Besides, he needed fresh troops far more than he needed prisoners to torture; the number of live bodies Therek could run over the Edge in a season was limited.
"Never mind that one," she said. "What's next?"
As she waited, she paced the terrace, which was only a niche chiseled out of the living rock of the cliff. She liked the feel of cool bedrock under her bare feet and the curious contrast of temperature when she rested forearms on the sun-warmed stone of the balustrade. She was a large woman, and the heat was still murderous. Somewhere she heard a faint rumble of wagon wheels. Soon overeager roosters would start crowing.
Larth said, "The noble bloodlord writes, 'The doge of Celebre has always been true to his oaths, but his health ebbs. If I decide to withdraw from Miona, Celebre may become important again. Send one of the hostages to rule when the doge dies.' May these words please my lady."
Typically, Stralg could never be perfectly honest, even with her. "If I decide to withdraw from Miona" meant "If I get driven out of Miona." Or even "When I get driven out of Miona." By conceding the possibility, he was virtually predicting it. Wherever Miona was.
It was no secret now that the war went badly. At first his Werists had met no divinely inspired resistance, and slaughtering extrinsics was child's play to warbeasts. He had subdued all of Florengia faster and more easily than he had previously conquered Vigaelia. Then he had made an error—just one, but one scratch can kill a man, and that single miscalculation had festered like a belly wound. If he now foresaw Celebre becoming important, he must be contemplating defeat. At Celebre, he would be back where he started, with his heels on the Edge. Celebre controlled the way home to Vigaelia, so the dying doge must be replaced by an equally reliable puppet.
Saltaja had no trouble remembering the Celebre children, because they had been the first hostages to arrive, and they had caught her attention several times since, notably when Karvak Hragson died in strange circumstances. One boy was certainly dead, and the others would no longer be children. Young males being notoriously unreliable, the girl was the obvious choice. She was nubile and could be sent home with a suitable husband to do the actual ruling while keeping her busy with babies. The two surviving brothers would be potential rival claimants and must be eliminated, but it would be prudent to see her on her way over the Edge before disposing of them.
"Write. From me to Satrap Horold Hragson of Kosord. Usual titles. "To her valiant brother, twelve blessings and her deepest love. You have custody of the hostage...' "
Wait!
The Celebre girl was right here in Skjar. Her route to the Florengian Face would take her past both Horold in Kosord and Therek in Tryfors. Saltaja had been thinking for some time that she ought to investigate what was going on in the family. Therek, especially, was becoming worrisomely erratic. She need not go right to the Edge itself, but certainly as far as Tryfors, the jumping-off place for crossings. Yes, a personal inspection felt like a very good idea. She could deliver her instructions face-to-face and also escape the steam-bath horrors of another summer in Skjar.
"Cancel that letter. Send for my husband! Tell him to bring a Witness."
She wiped her streaming forehead. Why did she ever put up with this stew pot of a town anyway? Originally, she supposed, because it was where Therek, eldest of the brothers, had been initiated into the Heroes, the mystery cult of Weru. Xaran's tits! That had been thirty-five years ago! Therek had helped the others to become Werists also, still here in Skjar. And it had been in Skjar that Stralg had won the title of bloodlord, the Fist of Weru. Before his reign that had always been a meaningless title, but from the first Stralg had intended to claim his right to rule all the Werists of Vigaelia. His wounds had barely healed before he overthrew Skjar's city elders and began using the city's wealth to finance his campaign. In a mere ten years he ruled the entire Face, Werists and extrinsics both. He had kept Skjar as his capital mostly because it was central and had good communications. It was convenient. Insufferable, but convenient. Also, it was rich, able to support a standing army and the cumbersome machinery of government.
When Stralg went off to conquer Florengia, he had 6ffi-cially left his brothers and brother-in-law to rule Vigaelia for him, and in practice left Saltaja to rule them. Karvak had died when Jat-Nogul rose in rebellion. Therek, Horold, and Eide had promptly crushed the rebellion and sacked the city in reprisal. Otherwise nothing much had changed in fifteen years.
She began pacing again, homy feet scuffing on the tiles. "Next?"
The next item was another of Stralg's rants about the need for more men, and she ignored it. Recruitment was becoming harder and harder as the war dragged on with no sign of any Heroes returning, other than the few who were too badly maimed to continue fighting yet could still manage the return crossing. Training a Werist took years, so there were still as many men being initiated as Therek could ram over Nardalborg Pass in a season. The manpower problem could wait. "Next?"