Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

"My lord, you keep telling me I'm very young; and I haven't given you the back-answer as I could have. But yes, I have thought of it, and I'm afraid you must leave me to order my own affairs. I can only tell you again that I'm not planning to become Sacred Queen."

"Then what is your idea of the future? Maia, I'm only thinking of your safety and welfare, believe me."

The succession of grave, insensitive questions from a man old enough to be her father, whom she could hardly tell to go to hell, was beginning to have its effect. She clenched her hands and her voice rose.

"I've told you, my lord, as I don't want to talk about it n'morel Please let's stop now!"

"Well, if you say so, Maia, I must. But these are troubled times and I don't think you realize--I don't think you've got the slightest idea--what unscrupulous, ruthless people you'll be--er--disobliging. I thought you'd be glad to come and help me rule Urtah; to win the hearts of the people and restore unity there. Everyone would love you and honor you. A girl like you--well, .from a poor home, if you don't mind my saying so--to become next thing to a queen--an important, influential figure in the empire--and you just say no--I don't understand it." Then, suddenly, he broke out, "Oh, damnation! And they'll all say I made a mess of it! I know that's what they'll say--"

"Who will, my lord?"

"Why, Kembri; and the Council--"

"Oh, I see. So it was Kembri as started all this, was it?"

"Yes. He told me he thought it would be an excellent thing both from your point of view and mine, and I absolutely agreed with him. It would solve all manner of problems--"

"I see. Well now, my lord, the banzi slave-girl's going to tell the middle-aged baron something he apparently doesn't know. Next time you're thinking of getting married, start by choosing a girl for yourself. And when you come to ask her, start by telling her you love her."

"I really can't see that you've got anything to be so angry about, Maia--"

"There seems to be a lot you can't see, my lord."

He sprang to his feet. "Be careful how you make me angry--"

"Me make you angry? Lespa and Shakkarn! My lord, I wouldn't want either of us to lose our dignity. I've got a headache. Please finish your dinner: call the servant for anything you want. I'm going to lie down."

76: NASADA GIVES ADVICE

At this season of the year the upstairs room adjacent to the Bramba Tower in the Barons' Palace--that same room in which Durakkon had been persuaded by Kembri and Sencho to consent to the killing of Enka-Mordet--was scarcely large or airy enough for ten men to confer together in comfort during the heat of the afternoon. Yet here they had been for half an hour already. The air had grown stale and heavy, for despite the height above the city there seemed to be no breeze. Durakkon, sweating under his robes of state, sat with one hand over his left eye, which had begun to hurt neuralgically. At the moment there was silence, for the Lord General, seated next to him, had just ceased speaking and was making notes and calculations with a stick of charcoal on a board.

The delegates were not seated formally, but here and there about the room. The governors of Kabin, Tonilda and Belishba sat side by side on the couch where Sencho had been accustomed to sprawl.

Bel-ka-Trazet, his hands clasped about his drawn-up knees, was sitting in one of the window embrasures looking (thought Durakkon) like some ravaged kobold waiting sardonically for propitiation. Gel-Ethlin, in the undress uniform of the Beklan regiment, was at the other end of the table, next to Donnered, the representative of Sarkid (for Sarkid, like Uriah, was a province where Bekla maintained no governor).

Eud-Ecachlon, who throughout the meeting had given the impression of being preoccupied and ill-at-ease, stood leaning against the door.

Despite Kembri's request, no representative had appeared on behalf of Gelt. None had been summoned from Paltesh; nor yet from Yelda, since the latter had effectively fallen to Santil-ke-Erketlis.

From time to time one man or another would glance towards the tenth person in the room; the oldest present, shock-haired, grizzled and silent, his sunken eyes gazing intently from his deeply-lined, brown face. He also, with his short, squat build, rather suggested to Durakkon some sort of goblin creature; yet--unlike Bel-ka-Trazet--one at the same time benign and magisterial, as though, while attending the meeting but not entirely of it, he was listening and even adjudicating from some detached, forbearing standpoint of his own. So far he had spoken only at the outset, when Durakkon had asked him to swear by Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable that he came in peace and would impart to Karnat nothing that he might hear about the forces, dispositions and intentions of Bekla. With this request he had at once complied in a manner which carried conviction to all present. This was Nasada, the renowned physician of Suba.

Evidently the Lord General had concluded that it would look better to grant than to refuse his request to attend.

"Captain Gel-Ethlin," said Durakkon, at length breaking silence upon a nod from the Lord General, "you've given us a very clear account of the difficulties our force met with in Chalcon, and I suppose we must also accept your account of what happened in the engagement with Erketlis on the Thettit-Ikat road. No!" he interjected quickly, as Gel-Ethlin seemed about to speak, "I'm not suggesting that there was anything wrong or inaccurate in what you've told us, though I hope for your own sake that what you insisted upon saying about Lord Elvair-kaVirrion won't turn out to have been malicious or exaggerated."

"Men's lives, my lord--"

"Yes, yes; well, I know the Lord General has something to say in a moment about the future command. But first of all, I think you'd better go on to tell us what's known-- that is, what the assessment was when you left--of Erketlis's present strength and intentions."

"Well, my lord, we think that Erketlis's intentions have altered with his fortunes. He's a shrewd man and he knows how to seize an opportunity. We believe that at the beginning he probably intended nothing more than to defend Chalcon. But he seems to be very well informed about matters elsewhere. And also, of course, he was joined quite early on by young Elleroth of Sarkid, who brought him about five hundred irregulars--volunteers. No doubt it's Elleroth who's influenced him to go further."

"Well, Elleroth's already a proscribed traitor, of course," said Durakkon. "He'll hang upside-down, Ban's son or no. You're not going to dispute that, I trust, Donnered?"

"I've no instruction from the Ban to do so, my lord," replied the Sarkidian.

"We think," continued Gel-Ethlin, "that while Erketlis was following up our retreat from Chalcon, he realized he had a chance of making gains that would actually be worth more to him and his men than any harvest. Chalcon's not much of a corn-growing place, of course; but anyway, they didn't disband and obviously he must have persuaded them to attempt this dash for the Ikat road. They can't have slept for the best part of two days; and immediately after that we brought them to battle. And we could have beaten them, my lord," cried Gel-Ethlin, "if only--"

"Yes," broke in Kembri gruffly, "so you've said. But what's the position now?"

"The position now, my lord, is that Erketlis has taken Ikat Yeldashay--with all its resources, of course--and given out that he intends nothing less than the conquest of Bekla. He's pinning his hopes of popular support on his proclamation that he means to abolish slavery throughout the empire, except for prisoners taken in war. I haven't actually seen a copy of the proclamation, but I've talked to prisoners who have. What it boils down to, really, is the old heldro grievance. It starts by saying that taxation of the peasants in favor of the merchants is unjustly high, and then goes on that kidnapping and breeding for slavery have become an abuse and a danger--villages living in fear and so on, partly from the demands for slave-quotas and partly from gangs of runaway slaves turned bandit. Then it--"

"Yes, well," said Kembri, "we've heard all this, too. How does Erketlis stand, as you see it?"

"We've had refugee slave-dealers coming in from Ikat," replied Gel-Ethlin. "He's declared all slaves in Yelda f

ree and offered enlistment to any who are ready to join him. Not only that, but immediately after the battle Elleroth led his own men about twenty miles into Tonilda, burnt the slave-farm at Orthid and brought most of the stock back with him. Apparently they actually carried the younger children on their shoulders. Their real purpose, I think, was probably to convince people that they're in earnest.

"Well, all this means, my lord, of course, that Erketlis has got a dangerously sizable army down there now, even though half of them are untrained. He's training them as fast as he can and he's said in so many words that it's to take Bekla."

"And Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion's force?" asked Durakkon.