"A not bad time to end the war, from your point of… perspective? View? To ah, quit while you are ahead," Isketerol said.
"We're prepared to end it, on terms," Alston said. She nodded to the flag with the truce-banner below it, her face like a mask of obsidian. "Our terms. And once made, we'll keep them. The Republic's word is good."
Isketerol nodded; the Islanders had a carefully maintained reputation of driving a hard bargain and then respecting it meticulously.
"Yes," he said. "That simplifies negotiations." A white smile, and he took off the helmet, showing a few silver hairs in the bowl-cut blue-black mane. He tossed his hair to let air blow through the sweat-wet thickness. "Unless you are waiting for the time when it really pays to lie."
Alston shrugged. "That's an argument without an answer," she said. "But think about this, King Isketerol of Tartessos, how far can you trust Walker's word? Did he give you every assistance he could? How hard would he fight for you, if he didn't stand to benefit by it?"
The olive face stayed imperturbable, but she caught a slight flare of the nostrils. Isketerol would make a good poker player, though. His fingers did not clench on the gilded helmet they were turning idly.
"He gave me enough help to become King and conquer an… empire, that's the term. And we have an alliance, and my word is good. You have won a battle, yes. You have not won a war, not against my kingdom. Still, you have won a battle. My word is this; if you will return home and trouble us no more, I will agree to the…" He turned and murmured in Rosita's ear and nodded at her reply. "To, you say, the status quo. Yes, things as they were before this war. Those are the terms of the King."
Alston put her fists on her hips and slowly shook her head. "Return to your closing the Straits against our ships, skirmishing with us and then calling it overzealous private actions by your captains, to your helping Walker? After you invaded our country last spring for no better reason than you wanted to take it? I don't think so."
"If you fight Walker in the east without passing through my waters, traveling around Africa and through the Gulf as your other expeditions have, I will not interfere," he said. "That much I can in honor say. No more. I will not turn on a guest-friend and blood brother who helped put me on my throne, simply because it would spare me effort and expense. And if you destroy King Walker, what check will there be on your power? How do I know you will not turn on me, next? Already you claim half the world and say we may trade and settle only in those scraps you deign to allow us."
"Do you doubt that Walker would turn on you, without us to worry about? Does your honor require that you see all that you've built up"-she waved about-"cast down?"
Isketerol's eyes narrowed. "You have not the strength to conquer Tartessos," he said. "I hold far more land than your Republic does in fact, claims of just nothing but words aside, and I have twenty times more people. I can afford to lose battles-you cannot. Great kingdoms are not overthrown in a single fight."
Well, he's grasped that principle, Alston thought. Wordlessly she pointed to the ultralight, to the gunboat. Isketerol shrugged.
"Yes, you have better weapons," he admitted. "But I have more weapons, many more. If they are not as fine as yours, still they are not spears and bows. We destroyed one of your great ships in the battle."
"You lost a dozen."
"I can spare a dozen, build anew, and find new crews; you cannot. If we fight and I hurt you one-tenth as much as you hurt me, I win. And you are few, and far from home, and cannot call fresh armies to you." Another shrug. "There are not enough of you to conquer Tartessos."
"Perhaps not. But there are enough of us to destroy the Tartessos you have made, I think." She went on: "Tell me, King Isketerol, do the words command and control decision loop mean anything to you?"
Narrow-eyed, Isketerol shook his head. Rosita Menendez frowned, as if something was tugging at her memory, then shrugged. Alston's face remained a basalt mask, but inwardly something bared its teeth. Walker would have known-would have understood the importance of forces being able to transmit information faster, and act on it more rapidly. He was a product of Western civilization and its military-technic tradition.
Isketerol wasn't.
Yes, Isketerol's smart. He's a genius, I think. But he'd grown to adulthood in this world. Doubtless he'd learned a great deal from the books. It would still be filtered through the worldview built into the structure of his mind from childhood. Doubtless he'd learned a good deal from Walker, and Rosita, too, but the one would be careful not to teach too much and the other wasn't particularly intelligent or well educated…
Snidely, to herself: And Rosita was a really close friend of Alice Hong, which says something about her standards of taste and judgment.
"Why do I have a feeling," Isketerol said, an edge of whimsy in his voice, "that what you just asked me was like one of those oracles that only make sense after the disaster has happened?"
Got to be careful not to underestimate him, though. Slowly and deliberately she smiled, spread her hands.
He sighed. "Well, then, what are your terms for ending this war? I might pay…" He turned to the interpreters and fell into Tartessian. Swindapa supplied the word: she'd had ten years with Marian Alston and her tastes in reading matter.
"… weregild for the invasion last spring, yes, blood price. Beyond that I cannot go, without violating my oaths to Walker or my duty to my folk. So, what does Cofflin offer me, in return for ending this struggle?"
Alston began to tick off points. "First, you must pay, as you said, damages-partly in cash, and partly in supplies." She held up a hand. "Not guns or powder to be used against Walker, no."
"No, food and cordage and timber that will free your shipping space for guns and powder," Isketerol said dryly.
"Of course. Next, you must be neutral in this war-and to guarantee that, disarm your war fleet and give us hostages. You must give us bases-the island my fleet's on now, the Rock of Gibraltar, and another south across the Pillars. And you must swear that in future…" She pulled up a phrase Swindapa had suggested, as more like the Tartessian equivalent than noninterference in our sphere of influence "… that in future you will keep your spoon out of our stewpot."
The Iberian's smile was unpleasant, and a dark flush had risen under his tan. "The world is to be yours, then; but of your gracious favor, you will allow us to keep our own homes… or most of them. What, do you not demand also that we free all our slaves and adopt… what's the word… an equal rights amendment and universal suffrage? As if we were naughty children who piddled on the floor, to be spanked and taught better."
"I'd like to demand just that," she said frankly; and saw him blink and nod.
This was a man who appreciated hearing what you thought, not soul-butter. Although how long will that last, Isketerol-me-lad, if this absolute monarchy you're setting up continues? She went on aloud:
"But I don't set policy, I just carry it out. First, it's not within our power to force those reforms on you. We couldn't make you want those things-you in the plural, your people-and it would be pointless if you didn't. By offending your people's pride, we'd make them more likely to move in the opposite direction, in fact. Second, while we may use our power for that sort of thing where we have it, we don't go a-conquering just so we can spread enlightenment. We certainly couldn't hold down Tartessos tightly enough to redo your… customs… without an effort which would destroy us. No, what I listed is the whole of our terms. Our terms now."