Ever so mournfully, the Ortaho minister nodded. "King Ahinadab has sent protests in the strongest terms to both Trapani and Cottbus." His eyebrows- they were separate from his hair after all- bristled in humiliated fury. "Ortah is a kingdom, not a road." More bristling. "But neither Mezentio nor Swemmel pays the least attention. Each, in fact, demanded that we declare war on the other."
"Oh, my dear fellow!" Hajjaj said again. Zuwayza lacked Ortah's natural defenses, and had had to suffer some generations of Unkerlanter overlordship. But King Shazli didn't have to worry about getting attacked by both sides at once. With real curiosity, Hajjaj asked, "What will your sovereign do?"
"I do not know," Hadadezer answered. "King Ahinadab does not yet know, either. If we say aye to either kingdom, we put ourselves in that king's hands and make an enemy of the other."
"And if you say no to both kings, you make enemies of them both," Hajjaj said.
"My sovereign is only too painfully aware of that as well," Hadadezer said. "As I told you last winter, I am no skilled diplomat. Ortah has no skilled diplomats. We have never needed skilled diplomats: the land is our shield. But with so many behemoths and dragons about, with so much more strong magecraft loosed in this war, we cannot be sure the land will ward us anymore."
"I think you are wise to worry," Hajjaj agreed. "In this war, men have taken nature by the neck and not the other way round, or not nearly so much as when men knew less than they do today."
Oh, nature could still work its will, and he knew as much. Every Algarvian who'd fought through an Unkerlanter winter would have agreed with him, too. So would the Unkerlanters who'd invaded desert Zuwayza. Still, what he'd said was more nearly true than not.
Hadadezer said, "Because we of Ortah are no diplomats, my king bade me ask you, the finest of the age, what you would do in his place."
"You do me too much honor," Hajjaj murmured. As he had when Hadadezer's image first appeared before him, he bowed where he sat. The Ortaho minister inclined his head in turn. Carefully, Hajjaj said, "I am not in your king's place, nor can I be."
"I understand that. He also understands it," Hadadezer replied. "He makes no promises to follow what you propose. Still, he would know."
"Very well." Now Hajjaj spoke with some relief. He wouldn't have wanted the responsibility for the Ortahoin blindly obeying whatever he said. After he thought for a bit, he started ticking off points on his fingers: "You could fight as best you can. Or you could flee into the most rugged parts of the land and let the rest be a road."
"No," Hadadezer said firmly. "If we did that, we would never recover the land we gave up once the fighting ended."
What makes you think you will keep it all anyhow? Hajjaj wondered. But he said, "That could be. You could stay neutral and hope for the best. Or you could pick one side or the other. If you choose the winner, you may not be devoured afterwards. If you pick the loser… well, with your landscape, you still may not be devoured afterwards. That is better luck than most kingdoms have."
Hadadezer said, "We have been at peace a long time. All we ask is to be let alone. But who will hear us when we ask it? No one. Not a soul. The world has become a cruel, hard place."
"I wish I could say you were wrong, your Excellency," Hajjaj answered sadly. "But I fear- worse, I know- you are right. I also fear things will get worse before they get better, if they ever get better."
"I fear the same," the Ortaho minister said. "You will give my king no advice?"
"I have set forth the courses he might take," Hajjaj said. "In propriety, I can do no more than that."
With obvious reluctance, Hadadezer nodded. "Very well. I understand how you might feel that way, though I would be lying if I said I did not wish you to go further. Thank you for your time and for your patience, your Excellency. I bid you good day."
His image faded out of the crystal. Once more, though, it did not flare: the etheric connection remained intact. After a moment, Hajjaj saw Qutuz's face again. "Were you able to listen to any of that?" the Zuwayzi foreign minister asked.
"Aye, your Excellency." Qutuz suddenly looked anxious. "Why? Would you rather I hadn't?"
"No, no. It doesn't matter. I doubt Marquis Balastro would kidnap you and torture you or offer you lickerish Algarvian lasses to find out what Hadadezer had to say. It's only that…" Hajjaj's voice trailed away. He was more than a little horrified to find himself on the edge of tears. "Wasn't it the saddest thing you ever heard?"
"That it was," his secretary said. "Poor fellow hasn't a clue. By the way he made it sound, his king hasn't a clue, either. Not a clue in the whole kingdom, or his Excellency wouldn't have come crying to you."
"No, none," Hajjaj agreed. "Ortah's been able to stay apart from the rest of Derlavai too long. Nobody there knows how to do anything else." With seeming irrelevance, he added, "I read an account once of an island the Valmierans- I think it was the Valmierans- found in the Great Northern Sea."
Qutuz's eyebrows rose. "Your Excellency?" he asked, obviously hoping Hajjaj would make himself clear.
The Zuwayzi foreign minister did his best: "It was an uninhabited island- uninhabited by people, anyhow. It was full of birds that looked like big doves, doves the size of dogs, so big they couldn't fly. If I remember rightly, the Valmierans called them solitaires, or maybe it was Solitary Island. I haven't thought of it in years."
"Why couldn't they fly?" Qutuz still sounded confused.
"They'd lost the need, you might say. They had no enemies there," Hajjaj replied. "The Ortahoin, who've lost the need to deal with their neighbors, put me in mind of them."
"Ah." Qutuz still didn't seem altogether clear about where his superior was going, but he found the right question to ask: "What happened to these big birds, then?"
Hajjaj grimaced. "They were good to eat. The Valmierans hunted them till none was left- they couldn't get away, after all. The island wasn't very big, and they couldn't fly to another one. All we know of them now, we know from a few skins and feathers in a museum in Priekule." He paused. "If I were you, I wouldn't tell this tale to Hadadezer."
"I promise," Qutuz said solemnly.
When Pekka walked into the refectory in the hostel in the Naantali district, she found Fernao fighting his way through a Kuusaman news sheet. What with the news sheet, a Kuusaman-Lagoan lexicon, and, almost incidentally, the grilled herring and scrambled eggs and hot tea in front of him, he was as busy a man with breakfast as Pekka had ever seen.
Somehow, he wasn't too busy to notice her come in. He smiled at her and waved the news sheet in the air, almost upsetting his teacup. "Habakkuk!" he exclaimed.
"Aye, Habakkuk." Pekka turned the word into a happy, three-syllable squeak.
"That is brilliant sorcery. Brilliant, I say." Fernao spoke in classical Kaunian so he wouldn't have to pause and search for a word or two every sentence. "Sawdust and ice for strengthening the landing surface the dragons use. More magecraft, drawing energy from the ley lines to keep the icebergs frozen in warm seas. Aye, brilliant. Sea fights will never be the same, now that so many dragons can be carried across the water so quickly."
"You talk like an admiral," Pekka said. The term literally meant general on the ocean; the ancient Kaunian Empire had been far stronger on land than at sea.
Fernao waved the news sheet again. "I do not need to be an admiral to see what splendid magecraft went into this." He read from the sheet: " 'Not least because of their dominance in the air, Kuusaman and Lagoan forces had little trouble overwhelming the relatively weak Algarvian garrisons on the five main islands of Sibiu.' "
"You read that very well," Pekka said. "Your accent is much better than it used to be. How much did you understand?"