Luap thought about that. Either answer might be wrong, and give offense, but he had to answer. He turned to Seri. “Tell him it is informal, that I would not require formality from one to whom all our ways are strange.”
The ambassador responded with a bow from his seat, and more apparent relaxation. “We are honored to be accepted without formality in your hall,” was Aris’s next translation of the ambassador’s words. Before Luap could consider what that might mean in light of what he’d said, the ambassador went on, speaking in short phrases and waiting for Aris’s translation. “It is clear that your people have many powers. Our king asks if you come in peace.”
“Yes,” Luap said, nodding. “We do not love war, though we are not without warriors.” He hoped that would deter any aggressive tendencies; he watched the ambassador’s face closely during the translation and his response to it.
“So our captain said.” The ambassador let his eyes rest on Seri and Aris, one after the other, as Aris translated. “In our land, powerful lords rarely take the sword . . . it is common with you?”
Powerful lords—did that mean him, or Seri and Aris, or all the mageborn? “All our folk study weaponlore,” he said, remembering Gird’s sayings about peace and war; he paused there to allow Seri’s translation to catch up. “We find it the best way to keep peace.”
That earned a blink; the amber eyes narrowed, then relaxed. What he had said had gone home; he could only hope it was in the right target.
“Your folk did not build this hall?” was the next question.
“No,” Luap said. “We are—” He had no word for it, really: they had not been given the hall, nor were they renting or borrowing it. “The builders,” he said, “were our friends.” That ought to make it clear: they had not built it, but they had permission to be there.
The ambassador sat straighter, if possible. After a long pause, during which Luap tried to think what he could have said wrong, the ambassador slid a thick gold ring off his finger and placed it on the table between them. Luap looked at the ring, and then at the ambassador. Was it a bribe? Another gift? A threat? A promise? The ambassador simply stared back at him. Finally Luap spoke.
“Your customs are different.” He listened to Seri’s words, which seemed a lot longer than that, and fretted at the need for translation. The ambassador looked anxious as he heard his version, then spoke again.
“He says that this ring is only a sign—a token—and that one more suitable will be brought later.” A sign of what? Luap wanted to say. Aris went on. “He hopes you will permit the king to continue as your trusted steward. If you take the ring, he expects that you will not invade or use magic against them; if you refuse, he thinks you will conquer the Khartazh by force.”
Astonishment swamped all other feelings, followed closely by triumphant glee. He had done it; he had bluffed an old, rich, empire into thinking itself menaced. But none of that must show, he felt the years of work with the scribes taking over. Blandly, almost casually, he said, “Tell the ambassador that I have no need for kingship of the Khartazh; his king may rule in peace. But I wear no man’s ring—” Some memory of the horse nomad’s ceremonial rings for Gird at his death came to him, and he held up his hands, thumbs upward. “—my thumbs are free.”
Seri gave him a startled look before she began translating; the ambassador received those words with outward rigidity. Luap could tell he had made an effect. He felt another burst of satisfaction. Perhaps he was only a king’s bastard, whose years in a palace had been far in the past—but it came back to those for whom it was natural. He was the prince, a true prince, with all the royal magery and the gift of command. He belonged here, dealing with a royal ambassador; he did not need the Rosemage or Arranha after all.
Chapter Twenty-seven
After that, the real work began. The ambassador had maps, and could procure others. Luap tried not to show how fascinated he was by the maps, which used a marking system he had not seen before, dividing the land into squares. He saw at once how useful that could be, and noted the accuracy with which their mapmakers had drawn the cliffs he had seen, the delicate shading that made clear which slopes were steep and which gentle. Here was the technique he had needed so badly back in Fin Panir . . . the Council of Marshals would be glad to see this.
But the ambassador’s use of the maps impressed him in other ways as well. The Khartazh traded overland to great distances; they had heard of lands far east, across a vast desert, but regular caravans had ceased some dozen years before. The war, Luap thought. Gird’s war. They had been declining before that for several decades. The Fall of Aare, Luap thought, the hairs standing up on his arms. Could it be? The ambassador recognized the selon beans Luap had given him—yes, they had been part of that trade, and spice and amber had gone the other way. Now—the ambassador shrugged—now the caravans moved mostly north and south. The names he gave meant nothing to Luap—Xhim and Pitzhla and Teth—nor could Seri offer any hint of a translation. He asked again about the eastern trade: water was too scarce on the western end of the former route, the ambassador said, and profits too chancy. His shrewd amber eyes seemed to ask. What are you planning?
In one moment of vision, Luap saw exactly what he would do. Here he had water, and safe shelter. That upper valley the Rosemage had thought of as horse pasture, with its opening to the high plateau above the plain: that would be the place for caravans to come. They would have to build a trail up from the desert below, and another into the western canyons and out to the town, but with magery they could do it easily in a few hands of days. Someone—Seri, he thought, or the Rosemage—would have to find a good trail from the base of their cliffs to the old caravan route south of them.
And then the caravans would come, bringing horses, cattle, craftsmen, harpers, goods to trade and a market for the Khartazh’s spices and silks. Luap could imagine the whole stronghold full of busy, talented workers all enriched by the flow of commerce. He drew a long, happy breath. If only the Rosemage and Arranha would come back with good news of ores . . .
Instead, they returned too soon, for Arranha had collapsed on the journey, and the Rosemage had struggled to bring him to the stronghold alive.
“We had just reached the gray mountain’s foot when he clutched his chest and fell,” she said to Luap. Aris was busy with Arranha, whose shallow breaths hardly moved the covering upon him. “I knew the climb out of the canyon had been hard on him; he said he found it hard to breathe that night, and didn’t sleep well. But I thought he was better, or I’d have turned back.”
She seemed to want reassurance; Luap nodded. “Of course you would; you couldn’t know.”
“He’s so old. I didn’t realize; he’s always been so active, so lively of mind. And now—”
And now he was dying. From Aris’s expression, no healing would serve. Luap felt his own throat closing. “I should have let him go with you, and made Aris and Seri wait,” he said; he knew that had had nothing to do with it, but it was all he could think of. Now the Rosemage put her arm around him.
“You know that made no difference. Neither of us . . .” She stopped, blew her nose and wiped her eyes, then went on. “Neither of us can stop age when it comes; not even royal magery is proof against time.”
Luap felt something shift inside him—not quite protest, but uncertainty. Curiosity. Was that really true? Had anyone ever tried to hold back age with magery? With the royal magery? It might not work with the very old, like Arranha (though how had Arranha stayed so vigorous so long?) but perhaps it would work with someone much younger, still strong.