The three were alone together. The High Baron was dressed in a plain gray robe, with no adornment except the Leopard cognizance on a gold chain round his neck. During the last day or two, after learning the news of Fornis's advance with the hostages from Dan, he seemed to have aged ten years. Since the meeting at which Nasada had spoken he had made, in effect, no contribution to public business. To the provincial governors he had spoken no more than courtesy required, and that listlessly and with an air of indifference to their replies. Despite the personal grief and anxiety which they had in common Kem-bri, who was naturally courageous and stimulated to action by danger and adversity, had found his patience with the High Baron wearing even thinner than usual. Now, by way of emphasis and of rousing him from his dismal preoccupation, he let his fist fall on the table.
"The vital thing," he said, "which we've got to do as quickly as possible, is to defeat Erketlis before he can raise the whole of the south against us. Everything else is secondary--even Bekla itself. For that reason, my lord, I'm going to Lapan at once, to take over the command of the army in person. I shall come back, of course, as soon as possible; that's to say, as soon as Erketlis is dead or no longer a threat."
Durakkon nodded, and Kembri turned back to Eud-Ecachlon.
"There'll be a temptation--" (he did not say to whom) "there'll be a strong temptation, as you'll realize, to retain here the reinforcements coming in from the various provinces, and use them against Fornis. I'm giving you the task of assembling and arming those reinforcements as soon as they arrive, and getting them down to Lapan as fast as possible. Do it efficiently, Eud-Ecachlon, and you won't be a loser by it, I promise you."
"But--er--Fornis?" asked Eud-Ecachlon.
"Fornis and Han-Glat; yes. Now understand this. It's only necessary to hold Fornis up long enough to allow our reinforcements from the provinces to be sent down to me in Lapan. But those four thousand men I've got to have, do you understand?"
Eud-Ecachlon nodded. "But then, what about Bekla?"
"I'm leaving enough regular troops--not many, but they should be enough--to hold Fornis up for about two weeks."
"And after that?"
"You'll occupy the citadel and hold it against Fornis when she takes the city. Once Erketlis is out of the way I shall return immediately and deal with her. She'll be hopelessly outnumbered; she won't have a chance. Anyone but a power-crazy woman would have seen that from the beginning."
Durakkon, who had been tracing patterns with his finger on the table, looked up, unexpectedly alert for a moment.
"Lord General, who have you in mind to command this remnant force which is to delay Fornis?"
"If the plans I've explained have your approval, my lord, as I hope they have, I think it important that you should command it yourself. It'll make all the difference if the men know that the High Baron is leading them in person. I certainly wouldn't ask you to undertake a full campaign at your time of life, but as things are you won't be long in the field: two weeks at the most. Then you'll fall back on the citadel."
"I would prefer not, Lord General."
"My lord, there is no one else of sufficient prestige and standing to put heart into the men."
Durakkon raised his gray, haggard face and stared at Kembri. He had seen less desperate looks, thought the Lord General, on scaffolds.
"You had better understand me, Lord General. I have no objection either to fighting our enemies or to dying in battle. But among those in the hands of that evil woman is my son--"
The Lord General sprang to his feet so violently that the bench on which he had been sitting overturned with a crash. His massive figure, as he bent forward over the table, seemed to obscure the light.
"Yourson? Your son, my lord? Do you think you're the only man whose son--"
He was bellowing. Eud-Ecachlon could hear a murmur and stir in the next room, where the senior officers were waiting. He laid a restraining hand on Kembri's arm. The Lord General controlled himself.
When next he spoke his voice was almost a whisper.
"I would rather that my son was where your son is now."
Saluting Durakkon, he turned and strode out into the corridor, followed by Eud-Ecachlon. They walked in silence the length of the Barons' Palace and so out into the northern portico overlooking the Leopard Hill's tiered terraces. Here Kembri, with the air of one wishing to convey, by speaking of some relatively slight matter, that he has recovered his self-possession, asked, "By the way, there's been so much to attend to that I forgot to ask what arrangement you've come to with Maia."
Eud-Ecachlon made no reply, and after a moment the Lord General stopped in his walk and looked round at him with a lift of his heavy eyebrows.
"She--refused me."
The eyebrows came down like a portcullis. "Refused you? Gods! What reason did she give?"
"None, really. She just said she didn't want to do it. I feel angry and--well--humiliated, I suppose. She'd have done very well for Urtah, and I entirely agree with all you said when you first put the idea to me."
"That child's been her own worst enemy ever since she came back from Suba," said Kembri. "It's a great pity, for in a way I've always rather liked her. Still, as things have turned out she'll have no time to think better of it. Once Erketlis has been checked and Fornis has been defeated, we can't let her stand in the way of our plans."
"You mean, your plan that Milvushina should be acclaimed?"
Kembri nodded. "That's vital--more than ever, now. Don't you see, if a Chalcon baron's daughter's reigning as Sacred Queen--with our blessing--that'll make it virtually impossible for Erketlis to attack Bekla? She could de-nounce it in the name of Airtha and his whole position would become extremely difficult, to say the very least."
"So Maia--you'll kill her?"
Kembri hesitated. "Well, she'll have to die, certainly; and soon, too--before the acclamation of the new Sacred Queen. The difficulty is that the least suspicion of murder would make for more trouble than we could handle. Frankly, I've got no time to think, it out at the moment: it will become important later, though."
"But Fornis will be in Bekla before long, won't she?" said Eud-Ecachlon. "Why not leave it to Fornis to kill her? I should think we can rely on that, wouldn't you?"
The Lord General paused, almost as though reluctant to reply. Then he said, "Well--perhaps that may prove to be the answer. Let's wait and see."
78: SUPPER WITH NASADA
Nasada sat facing Maia in the soft lamplight. She could smell the light, honey-like bouquet of the Yeldashay in the goblet at his elbow. She had given him a supper fit for the High Baron and he had obviously enjoyed it. She would have given him her jewels, her house, herself if he had wanted them. Whatever Ogma's limitations in other directions, thought Maia, thank Cran she could at least cook when she put her mind to it.
She had threaded her hair with more than fifty gold beads and coiled it in plaits round her head (it had taken over an hour), and was wearing her diamonds and a plain, quite unrevealing robe of white and pale-pink silk with a pleated skirt, and white leather suppers with a gold leopard on each toe. Against all reason and probability she felt elated and full of confidence. There was that in the mere presence of Nasada which banished anxiety. Looking at him--gnarled and gray-headed, yet robust and infinitely reassuring--she was reminded of some huge-branched old tree of magic properties; such as had been revered time out of mind by Tonildan villagers, on which womenJiung dolls for fertility and bunches of herbs and flowers for the recovery of the sick. You could hang your troubles on him all right: he wouldn't break.
She had refused Eud-Ecachlon: she was probably going to die. (Often, the young face this prospect with more courage and acceptance than the old, for they have more vigor to do it with, little empty time to reflect and less of the past to lose.) Well, let it come. Meanwhile, for the present it fairly warmed her heart to be able at last to show her gratitude to old Nasada and let him see her, just for this once at least, as the Serrelinda, the idol
of Bekla and the heroine of the empire. But then again, looking at him, she found her mood changing to one of illogical conviction that of course her troubles would come right, somehow or other. His very existence was like an assurance to this effect.
He broke the silence. "It's nice, isn't it, to see something made by men which is as beautiful, as something made by the gods, and with no more harm in it than a flower or a bird?"
He was holding Randronoth's cabinet of the fishes between his hands, turning it this way and that in the lamplight, admiring it by touch as well as by sight. That was what she used to do herself--she delighted in the feel of it, its smoothness and squared, panelled symmetry--and he had needed no suggestion from her to discover the same pleasure.
"I've often wondered, U-Nasada," she said, "why they chose to carve it with fish particularly. I mean, you know, the one who made it and them as it was made for."
"Perhaps because it's made of fish."
"Made of fish? You're teasing me!"
"I'm not: I meant the bones of a fish."
"You've picked on the wrong girl, U-Nasada. I'm from Serrelind, remember? I know about fish and fish-bones. A fish would have to be the size of this room before you could cut panels like that."
"Oh, yes, at least; possibly bigger. I've never seen them myself, but I know they exist; a thousand miles from here, in waters far bigger than Serrelind. Some of these carved fish are strange to us, too, you see. But obviously they must exist."
Anyone else she would have told to go and jump in the Barb. Being Nasada, she felt that what he said, or something like it, must be true. Anyway, she didn't care: it was enough to be in his company. He evidently believed it and she knew he wasn't making fun of her, even though she'd started by saying he was.
He put the cabinet back in its place. "Beautiful things seem even better when they come from far away, don't you think? They're like the stars, then: we don't know how they began, but we do know they're beautiful and do no harm."
"But isn't Bekla beautiful, too?"