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  I’d been sitting in on Council meetings since I was in Dun Add anyway, but this one hadn’t been scheduled…and Jon had never specifically summoned me before. It was all right, but it sure wasn’t something I’d expected to be doing the night before.

  “Well, last night a messenger came back with a reply from Duke Giusto,” May said. “It might be about that, but I’m just guessing.”

  I put on a suit, transferred my hardware to the pockets, and kissed May. She didn’t push me away, but that’s about all I can say. We hadn’t been discussing Lord Osbourn’s progress, but avoiding the topic itself put a distance between us.

  I hadn’t wanted to talk about it, because there hadn’t been any progress that I could see. When I caught Osbourn in, I hauled him down to the practice hall; but he wouldn’t keep at it, and he didn’t seem to exercise any on his own. Either he was bone lazy or he thought he was above hard work.

  And believe me, sparring is hard work. Andreas said that they went out on the field sometimes, but I’d only sparred with Osbourn a couple times early on. He was convinced that I was using my better hardware to beat him; and I was afraid that the next time he repeated that, I’d lose my temper and whale the tar out of him.

  I didn’t see any way out of the problem; and I really didn’t think discussing it with May was going to help anything. Least of all, my state of mind.

 

  The Council Chamber was on the second floor of the east wing, part of Jon’s private suite. There were attendants and probably guards along the way, but I didn’t pay them any more attention than they seemed to pay me.

  The council table itself was six-sided. There were two chairs at each flat side, and you probably could have squeezed in a third one if you’d had to. I’d never seen more than ten seated in the room at one time.

  Ronald, Wissing and Chun were in the room when I arrived, and Morseth and Reaves were right behind me. They both looked as though they’d never been drunk in their lives.

  We sat together, them in one flat and me to their right in the next one. Before we could start chatting, an inner door opened and Jon came out in a red and white checked outfit, with crossed bandoliers supporting his hardware.

  He was too busy being the Leader nowadays to go into the field, but I saw him regularly in the practice hall. Maybe that was to give an impression to Aspirants, but I’d seen him training. I might have been quicker than Jon was, but he struck with the power of a landslide. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to fight him.

  “I called you here because we’ve got a problem with the Nightmount Alliance,” Jon said as he sat down. “I sent a friendly message to Duke Giusto, suggesting that he come here so we could talk. He responded that he didn’t see a need to talk and didn’t intend to visit Dun Add, but if I wanted a change of scenery he’d be happy to put me up at Nightmount.”

  “You know…” said Reaves in a thoughtful voice. “I ’spect he’d be more inclined to visit with my weapon rammed up his backside. Want a few of us to go see about that, boss?”

  “It’ll take more than a few,” Ronald said. “Duke Giusto’s got three big nodes under him now and he’s building up a Life Guard, he calls it, that’s got standards pretty close to ours.”

  “Well, we’ve got more than a few!” Chun said. As he spoke, his friend Lord Mietes entered the room, muttering apologies and cinching the belt over his tunic. “We can’t let Giusto thumb his nose at us, not if we really mean it that we’re the Commonwealth of Mankind.”

  “And the Leader can’t go to him,” said Wissing. “That’s not just a matter of face. I don’t trust that bastard Giusto any better than I like him.”

  “Well…” said Morseth. “We can get a full regiment, five hundred troops, on the Road in three days. We don’t want to strip the Commonwealth, but I figure about twenty Champions. And I bloody well hope that Reaves and me are two of them, Chancellor be damned!”

  There was a grunt of agreement around the table. Reaves touched his friend’s right hand and squeezed it. The Leader was looking around the table, but he hadn’t spoken yet.

  I cleared my throat, bringing all eyes onto me. “‘I’m here,” I said, “so I’m going to speak until somebody tells me to shut up.”

  “Nobody’s going to tell you that,” Jon said. “You’re here for your opinion.”

  “Five hundred troops would be a lot for most places to supply,” I said. “I’d have to check with Mistress Toledana to be certain, but going all that way to the West, there’s bound to be places that can’t feed five, let alone five hundred.”

  “Look,” said Wissing, frowning. “If we don’t get there with enough people to convince Giusto that he’d certainly lose, he’s going to fight for sure. And Leader…?”

  He looked directly at Jon.

  “Winning a battle like that would be bloody near as bad for the Commonwealth as losing it.”

  I started to speak but Chun, Morseth, and Reaves all burst out with some variation on, “We can’t let him get away with this!”

  “Enough!” Jon said. Then, staring at me, he said, “Lord Pal, continue with what you were about to say.”

  I swallowed. “Sir,” I said. “You can’t personally go to Nightmount, but I don’t think Giusto wants war either. He was probably drunk when he answered the messenger, and given half a chance he’d take the words back.”

  “He had his chance,” said Lord Mietes, a man so tall that he looked slender unless you were close to him.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “So what we need to do is to give him a chance to back down without looking like a fool. Send the Consort to him with Morseth and Reaves for the real negotiating—if you don’t trust Lady Jolene to do it. And bring Lord Clain back to Dun Add, to make sure that we’re on a war footing if Giusto still isn’t being reasonable. That might be a useful negotiating point.”

  Morseth began to laugh. “You clever little bugger!” he said. “You clever bugger.”

  I hoped—and I’m pretty sure the Leader did too—that if Lord Clain came back during Jolene’s absence, he wouldn’t find it necessary to leave again when she returned. It’d been long enough to silence wagging tongues, and the business with the Duchy of Nightmount was significant enough to focus attention besides.

  And it got Morseth into the field. He and Reaves knew the Commonwealth’s military power, and they could state it in bald, brutal terms that nobody listening would doubt. Lady Jolene was the smiling face of the mission, but men like Morseth and Reaves didn’t have to say a word to make the “Or else,” explicit.

  “Ah, Lord Pal…?” Jon said. “I don’t like to do this, but—”

  Smiling, I raised my left hand to stop him. “Leader,” I said. “I hope you’ll be willing to accept the loan of my boat and boatman for this mission. It will carry the Champions and their mounts, and Lady Jolene and the attendants she’ll need, more easily than your own vessel would, I believe.”

  There was no way in Hell that Jon’s own boat would handle six adults—counting the boatman—and two dogs besides. Jon knew that, though probably not as well as I did. Master Guntram and I had spent a week bringing a boat as run-down as the Leader’s back into design condition. With that experience—and training—I’d then spent the better part of a month putting what was now my own boat into similar shape.

  Jon nodded in relief. “That would make the project far more practical, Lord Pal,” he said. “You can set your price for the rental, of course.”

  “It’s not a business transaction,” I said. “Leader, it’s an honor for me and a duty to make this offer.”

  I cleared my throat and added, “I think my friend Lady May would be thrilled to accompany the Consort on this mission. I realize that of course Lady Jolene will choose her own companions.”

  “She’ll be choosing your friend,” Jon said grimly. “Though in fact, I think she’d do that regardless. May is as intelligent and trustworthy as Jolene herself.”

  I’d just succeeded in putting the final pi
ece of the puzzle in place. My puzzle, that is.

  “Unless anyone has a real problem with this plan…” Jon said, looking around the table. “I think we’re done here. Morseth and Reaves, if you’ll stay behind for a few minutes, we’ll go over the terms to offer. I don’t want him to grovel, but there can’t be open rivalry.”

  He looked at me and added, “And you, Lord Pal. If you’d like to stay.”

  I stood. “No, Leader,” I said. “I need to get home now and discuss matters with Lady May. Do I have permission—?”

  “You can say anything to May that you’d say to Jolene herself,” Jon said. “As I said, I trust her.”

  I went out with the four other Champions. I hoped May would still be home when I got there.

 

  I heard May playing softly and singing through an open second-floor window while I was coming down the street. She was in the spare room—the one we’d given to Lord Osbourn the first night—rather than across the hall in ours. Elise greeted me with a curtsey, but neither of us spoke as I skipped up the stairs.

  I knocked on the door. The music stopped, but it was a moment before May called, “You can come in.”

  The bed had been folded away when Osbourn moved into the castle, returning it to being May’s withdrawing room on days she was home. She was seated in the corner by the window, holding the long-necked guitar she’d brought with her to Dun Add. She looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  I closed the door behind me and walked to where I’d be speaking directly to her but not out the window beyond. I’d as soon that the casement had been closed, but I doubted anybody was listening in the street. I didn’t know what May’s reaction would be if I closed it would be—except that in her present mood, she would almost certainly be angry.

  “Hi, love,” I said. “You were right about the message from Duke Giusto. How would you like to visit Nightmount?”

  “Are you going to Nightmount, you mean?” May said, carefully precise. She laid the guitar across her lap.

  “No, I’m not,” I explained. “But Lady Jolene is, and she’ll take you with her if you want to go. The likelihood is that you’ll have all the honor that Duke Giusto can lay on, but if he’s crazier than any of us—Jon and the Council—thinks, then there’s danger too. Reaves and Morseth will be along to do the heavy lifting in the negotiations, but the Consort’s there for more than just show. And so are you, if you’d like.”

  “Do you want me to go, Pal?” she said, rising with the grace of liquid flowing. She held the guitar beside her, the neck standing as straight as her body.

  “Love,” I said. “I want you to do whatever makes you happy. Go or stay, anything! Jon’s borrowing my boat for the mission, so you’ll be as safe and as comfortable—Jolene will and you and everybody—as you can be.”

  “What will you be doing if I leave, Pal?” May said in a falsely light tone that was becoming familiar. The sound grated around the inside of my head.

  “Regardless of whether you go or stay,” I said, “I’ll be hiking to Beune and then coming back. Just an ordinary patrol. Jon would like me to stick around Dun Add in case Duke Giusto doesn’t come to his senses after you lot give him a second chance, but I’ve already been a month longer here than I’d planned to be—”

  Waiting for the founding celebration, and then trying to help a kid who didn’t think he had a problem. I’d found Lord Osbourn even more frustrating than trying to talk with Lady Hippolyte.

  “—and I need to get out before something really bad happens. Inside me.”

  “Perhaps you should think of settling down in your Beune,” May said with a smile like the one painted on a clown’s face. “I’m sure you could find all numbers of girls who’d like to hear about your great adventures.”

  I turned on my heel and slapped my palms together in a loud crack. It stung like the very devil. “May!” I said. “What’s your problem? What’ll it take to get past this? Besides me breaking my oath to Jon and the Commonwealth, I mean, because I won’t do that.”

  “Well, I’m sure I don’t know, Lord Pal,” May said sweetly. “It seems to me that you’re the one who has the problem, not me. You should put that fine mind of yours to finding a solution, shouldn’t you?”

  I walked out of the room. I didn’t slam the door behind me. To Dom in the hallway I said, “I’ll be spending the night in Master Guntram’s suite and I’ll eat in the refectory. Please inform Master Fritz. And Lady May also, if you will.”

 

  In fact, I didn’t eat anything that night. I didn’t think I could keep food down. I had a great deal of ale, though, and it allowed me to get through the night without thinking.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ordinary Duties

  Before I left Dun Add the next morning—very late in the morning—I stopped in on Mistress Toledana. I knew she’d have informed me the instant she learned about a cyst or anything that might be described as one, but I still stopped by.

  In truth, I didn’t want to go off without saying goodbye to May, but I wasn’t going to batter my head against a stone again. I hoped she’d come to see me off.

  “Mistress,” I said as I opened the door to the Clerk of Here’s outdoor office. “I’m going off to Beune by the Road, so you probably won’t see me for the better part of a month. Ah—if I don’t come back, give any information you have to Master Louis. I think he’s the best person to use it if I’m not around.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, turning in her chair. A pair of vultures were circling in the high sky, their wings trembling as the long white feathers on their wingtips adjusted to make the best use of each air current. “We’re not giving up, you realize. If we find something, it’s better than getting a direct look at Not-Here. At least we knew that Not-Here existed, after all.”

  “I wish I could tell you where to look,” I said. I grinned, more at myself than at the Clerk. “Of course if I knew that, I’d be going there myself. Anyway, I’ll check in when I get back—whenever that is.”

  “Is that why you’re going by Road?” she said. “Instead of using your boat, I mean? Hoping to find Master Guntram yourself?”

  I laughed, thinking of the vision that I’d gotten through the mind of the Envoy. “I have a notion of how far the Road spreads,” I said. “I suspect my time would be better spent in a chapel, praying for Guntram to return. But I suppose it’s kind of that, yeah. The boat will get me anyplace fast and comfortably, but I’m supposed be—I want to be—a Champion of Mankind. I’m not going to learn anything inside a boat except for what the walls look like.”

  Mistress Toledana nodded, but in a tone of regret she said, “It’s just that you have such a good boat, Lord Pal. It’s truly a wonder of the world. If it were mine, I’d want to go everywhere in it. How did you find an artifact in such perfect condition?”

  I started to speak, but then I paused to decide how much to say. I trusted Mistress Toledana, but the truth would offend the Leader. It would also make him very angry with me, but that wasn’t the part that bothered me worst.

  “Ma’am,” I said. “I’m a bit of a Maker myself, but Master Guntram taught me how to work on boats with another of them. It’s the sort of thing Master Louis just isn’t interested in and bloody few other Makers are good enough to do. I’m nothing like Guntram or Louis, but I can learn if somebody’s willing to spend the effort to teach me.”

  “I see…” the Clerk said, in a tone that made me wonder how much she really did see—or guess. “But you prefer to be a warrior, I gather. You obviously have a real talent for that.”

  I laughed, relieved to be getting away from the subject of the boat. “To tell the truth,” I said, “I wasn’t a natural at that either. I spent a lot of time on the practice machines with Master Guntram adjusting them to emphasize what I needed most to work on. Somebody really good could still take me apart—if he took his time to see how to do it. I know a few tricks, though, and somebody who’s in too much of a hurry cou
ld wind up being carried off the field.”

  The way Lord Baran had been. It made me queasy to remember that, but he hadn’t given me any choice.

  “I suspect you’re more than a bit of a Maker…” the Clerk said. “But that’s none of my business. What is my business is learning something about these nodes. And I’ll hope to have done that by the time you return, Lord Pal.”

  We clasped hands and I took my leave. It always made me feel better to chat with Mistress Toledana, because she cared about big things: not how many people worked under her or how fancy her garments were compared to other people’s. I was embarrassed not to have told her the full story about my boat—and more important, the Leader’s boat.

  Jon’s boat wasn’t in any worse shape than mine had been when I fell heir to it, and I could have brought it back to original—as-built—condition the same as I had my own. If you know how to ask it, the boat itself will tell you what elements it needs to return to optimum condition. Thanks to Guntram’s training, I did know how to ask. If the boat’s structure isn’t too badly damaged, it will repair itself if you provide the materials. After tens of thousands of years, though, boats do need a Maker to rebuild gaps in their repair circuits.

  Boats are machines, as surely as my shield is a machine or a hammer is…but I’ve come to realize that boats are also self-aware, just like a dog.

  When my boat realized that I was thinking about rebuilding Jon’s boat, it asked me not to. That happened during a six-day run when I was in a trance and chatting with the boat for want of a better companion. It seemed—you don’t really speak in a Maker’s trance, and the boat’s concepts that my mind formed into words may have meant other things—that Jon’s boat gave itself airs because its owner was the most powerful human in the world.

  My boat couldn’t make me Leader of the Commonwealth, so it preened itself on its perfect state of repair. It really didn’t want the Leader’s boat brought up to its own high standards, though it wasn’t jealous—there’s no other way, at least in human words, to describe it—of Baga’s own vessel, which Guntram and I had repaired earlier.