“If you’ll pardon my asking,” Zelen said, moving a smooth piece of polished aventurine ahead three spaces on the marble board, “what do you think about this war in Criwath?”
Altien gave the question, and the board, a long evaluation. He sipped from his goblet of wine in the meantime, tentacles curling delicately around the brim. “For my people, if there’s any chance Thyran has returned—and it sounds from what you say as though that chance is very great—then we must begin preparing. There’s little we can do to assist directly. I’m no warrior, and we fare poorly when we go too far from the sea. But we can protect ourselves and supply a few needs, and with forewarning we can make a place for any who seek refuge, in case the worst does happen.”
“Do they know?” Zelen asked, startled by the immediate action in the answer. He’d expected depth—he’d never known the waterman to be shallow—but as a matter Altien would contemplate while he talked, not one he’d already fully thought through and come to conclusions on.
“I’ve written messages home about the situation,” said Altien. “I assume others of us here have as well. I suspect that Criwath has sent an envoy to my people, too, and to the dwellers-in-earth. It’s what I would do, if I were a king facing such a threat.”
Zelen eyed the board. His yellow and green pieces had taken half the neutral territory. Altien’s lapis and garnet ovals were making a complicated pattern on the outside. “And for us? Humans here?”
“I couldn’t say. Thyran is unmistakably a threat, and will remain so. There’s no ocean that can polish his edges to smoothness. If Criwath wants to strike now, that might be wise.” The tentacles lifted, expanded to briefly show Altien’s gold-colored beak, and then fell again. “But I’m no tactician.”
“Obviously,” said Zelen, gesturing to the board.
Altien made the clicking sound that was his laugh. “I couldn’t say if it would be best to put all your forces behind an attempt to eliminate the problem now. If it can be done, it seems wise—but those from our city would be going blind over unfamiliar ground, and if Criwath is wrong, our soldiers might be more useful in the city’s defense. But then, Criwath’s generals likely anticipated that.”
Zelen picked up his goblet. It was mostly empty. “I don’t know why I bother with the question,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Father will make the decision, and damned if I’ve been able to change his mind in thirty-two years.”
“You bother because you wish you could,” said Altien. It was a dispassionate statement, with no more emotion than he used when describing injuries:attend, the patient has a knife in his side here. “And because when your father does make the decision, you hope to justify it to the council and, more, to the envoy you admire.”
“I did warn her. And she doesn’t seem the sort to hold it against me.”
“So you hope.” Altien sent five pieces, mixed red and blue, forward on the sides. “What sort of a person is she?”
“Beautiful,” Zelen said immediately, then realized that he sounded young and dangerously close to writing insipid poetry, and cleared his throat. “Clever, or interested, or likely both. I was never bored, talking with her—and I wasn’t talking the whole time either.”
“I wouldn’t have said it.”
“Poram’s arse you wouldn’t.”
“Go on.”
What was he going to tell Gedomir? It was wise to begin lining up those facts. “She’s been in the war for a while. I’d wager she was a soldier of some sort before that. High-ranked enough to talk with the army’s wizards, but that’s to be expected if they’re trusting her as a diplomat. I almost wonder if she’s nobility traveling under a false name, or born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“Why would she disguise herself? Humans generally take pride in noble birth, from what I’ve seen, and listen more to those with such advantages.”
Zelen picked up a polished citrine star. “We do,” he said, “but we’re also more cautious around them. She might want to keep us off guard. And nobility from another country, a country we haven’t always gotten on with…”
“There could be resentment.”
“She could be a target.” He put the star down with a click, uncertain if the space he’d chosen was tactically sound but not inclined to care. “If you wanted power over Criwath, or favorable terms, you could do worse than take one of their more valued people hostage. It’d be hard for them to strike back during a war.”
Altien sat still, six-fingered hands motionless on the edge of the table. “Is that common?”
“Not common, but it happened occasionally, from what I’ve heard.” Zelen poured himself more wine. “The Great Winters, and after, rather cut down on official visitors.”
He wanted to believe that in their aftermath, having faced down the common foes of Thyran and twisted nature, people would have moved beyond such practices. More, he wanted to think that nobody would seek such an unjust advantage against a country Thyran was actively menacing.
Almost two decades in the council meant he couldn’t really convince himself.
* * *
“I’m glad to hear it,” Branwyn said carefully, “but I would welcome hearing more of your point of view. It might inspire me when I speak to your fellows, after all.”
She even smiled.Masterful bullshit, said Yathana.
Marton smoothed his oiled hair. “Why, only that war brings out the finest qualities in our youth, of course. The discipline of combat allows them to rise above animal instincts and seek greater purpose.”
Branwyn, who’d been in Oakford the night before the siege started and the day after it ended, stifled her reaction with bread.
