“Of course, Sir.” Threbuch came to attention, and saluted Jasak, and then nodded courteously to Gadrial. “Magister,” he said, and turned on his heel and strode away.
“Do you think Jugthar’s really been knocking crewmen down ladders?” Gadrial asked as she watched the tall, fair-haired Threbuch disappear.
“Jugthar?” Jasak snorted. “No, I don’t think he’s been knocking them down ladders. Throwing them down them is more his style.”
Gadrial’s laugh was frayed by the wind of Zukerayn’s passage, but she felt confident Jasak wasn’t exaggerating very much, if at all, where Jugthar Sendahli was concerned. The dark-skinned Mythalan was a garthan, a member of the Mythalan slave caste who’d escaped Mythal’s oppressive society and found refuge and respect alike in the Union of Arcana Army. And not just in the Army, but in the 2nd Andaran Temporal Scouts, the hereditary command of the dukes of Garth Showma. There were very few things Sendahli would have refused to do for Sir Jasak Olderhan-up to and including murder, Gadrial suspected-and he’d become very attached personally to Shaylar. The tiny Sharonian woman seemed to have that effect on anyone who spent much time in her company. And even if that hadn’t been the case, she and Jathmar were Jasak Olderhan’s shardonai, members of his family by both custom and law in Andara, and gods help the man who offered insult to a member of the Olderhan family in Sendahli’s presence.
“I don’t like what we saw out of them when we first came aboard, though, Jasak,” the magister said more seriously after a moment.
“I don’t, either,” he admitted. “But, frankly, what concerns me more is that no one aboard this ship seems to’ve heard anything else.”
“Wouldn’t the Army keep as many details as possible secret?” she asked. “I mean, wouldn’t mul Gurthak be thinking about the security aspects of it?”
Jasak looked at her, one eyebrow raised, and she shrugged. Like Jasak-and with even more personal reason-she profoundly distrusted Commander of Two Thousand Nith mul Gurthak, the senior officer for the nine-universe chain from Esthiya through Mahritha. His position as governor made him responsible for dealing with the immediate repercussions of the disastrous first encounter between the Union of Arcana and Sharona, and Gadrial would have vastly preferred for that command to have belonged to some stiff-necked, conservative, autocratic, unimaginative, honor-bound Andaran-indeed, almost any Andaran-instead of mul Gurthak.
“First, there’s not a lot of reason to worry about ‘security’ as far as the Sharonians are concerned,” Jasak pointed out. “It’s not like they’re going to overhear any idle chatter this side of Hell’s Gate. Second, nobody’s ever managed to put together a security system that actually prevented at least some information leakage along the way. And third, if he didn’t make any effort to keep to the initial news from leaking, why the sudden silence about what’s happened since?”
“Since the Sharonian counterattack, you mean.” Gadrial’s voice was suddenly harsher, its timbre hammered flat by remembered, shattering grief.
“Exactly,” Jasak replied grimly. “The whole reason Otwal and Jugthar had to ‘reason’ with Zukerayn’s crew in the first place was how angry they were at the news about the way Thalmayr managed to get his arse reamed and”-he looked at her squarely-“get Magister Halathyn killed. If anyone was interested in keeping a lid on things, trying to throttle back any temptation towards hysteria, they should’ve kept that news under wraps. For that matter, the news that we’ve got negotiators sitting down face-to-face with the Sharonians would go a long way towards calming things down, I think. But nothing. Not a word. And the lack of any additional information’s only causing people to obsess over what they have heard about. Worse, it’s letting the inevitable initial consternation-and anger-set more and more deeply into their minds without anything to counterbalance it.”
“So you do think it’s deliberate?” she asked so quietly it was difficult to hear her over the wind and the steady sluicing sound of water around the ship’s hull.
“Yes.” Jasak’s voice was flat and he turned to look back along the ship’s length toward Shaylar and Jathmar’s deck chairs once more, thinking about the hard, hating looks the crew had directed towards the Sharonians. Thinking about the anger and the fear behind those looks. “I know I just said it’s hard to prevent rumors and partial information from leaking, but I’ll concede that it’s possible mul Gurthak’s sending security-locked hummer messages past us without any leakage. Possible he’s keeping the Commandery and the Union Council fully informed. Graholis, it’s even possible the negotiations’ve broken down and the Sharonians have started attacking again! But the fact that he isn’t doing a single thing to dispel any of the rumors fanning the uncertainty and panic…I just can’t convince myself that could be anything but deliberate, Gadrial.”
“You’re scaring me again, Jasak.”
“Sorry about that.” He smiled crookedly at her. “But what’s that old saying about misery seeking companions?” He inhaled deeply and looked out over the phosphorescent sea. “I don’t see any reason I should be the only one I’m scaring.”
* * *
At that very moment, almost twenty-four thousand miles away from Zukerayn’s decks, an exhausted hummer struck the perch of a palatial hummer cot on a private estate in Mythal. The winged messenger’s beak struck the button to sound the chime announcing its arrival, exactly as it had been programed to do, then settled back to await the result. Its brain was scarcely up to complex reasoning, and even if it had been, it had no way to know what information had been uploaded to the tiny sarkolis crystal embedded in its body. And because of those two things, it never occurred to it to wonder why a hummer bearing private dispatches from the Governor of Erthos had been sent to a private citizen who had no official connection whatsoever with the Union of Arcana’s military, government, or judiciary.
Chapter Six
December 12
Fear was far from the public mind in Whitterhoo, a farm town with a train stop in south New Farnal on Sharona. Winter wheat was ready to be harvested, and one of their very own heroes was running for election. Things were a bit different for the “hero” turned neophyte politician in question, of course, and Darcel Kinlafia was only too well aware of how far outside of what his fiancee called his “comfort zone” he was. If he’d had a moment to think about it he would have said he owed it to his old Chalgyn Consortium crew to do exactly what he was doing now, but politics, he was discovering, could be more terrifying than any mere gun battle.
Fortunately, he was too busy to be scared at the moment.
Darcel shook the sweaty hand of the first constituent on the overflowing train platform and was rewarded with a beaming grin. He matched her enthusiasm, delighted to see the crowd had waited through the morning’s thunderstorm to see him. His home region in southern New Farnal still felt blessedly solid under his feet even days after the long steamship crossing from Tajvana, but the weather hadn’t given him a gentle welcome. The days broke warm and heated his supporters past comfort, and the rains battered his campaign events with squalls.
“Dearest Gods, it’s hot again.” Voice Istin Leddle wiped sweat from his forehead as he joined Darcel on the train platform.
“Good growing weather!” Darcel answered and put a tanned arm around his campaign coordinator. “He’s from Bernith.” He explained to the crowd. “They grow ice there this time of year.”
“That’s why we ship them wheat!” a man at the back of the crowd called out.