Chapter 22: Getting Ready to March

Freidal gestured to Quillan after the Mexicotal were gone and they went up to the veranda. No one followed them, their intent to be alone clear.

"We're in big trouble," Freidal told his mentor.

Xitki nodded. "They said more than I would have imagined. The problem is, I think, that they have conflicting orders."

"I agree that they have orders to some degree," Freidal agreed. "I don't think those orders were clear and comprehensive."

"Yes, but if you look at what wasn't said, they are clear enough."

Xitki walked over to the parapet, put a foot up on it and looked intently at the camp. Freidal settled for sitting his rump down on one of the stones.

"They lost a town and tons of fireseed," Freidal said. "What fireseed? They aren't supposed to have tons."

Xitki spat over the edge. "I think that isn't what got their wind up. I think they don't worry about fireseed any more, just like the Hostigi don't. Styphon's been bust for a long time now, in the fireseed business. Styphon used the High King's formula the last few years, because it was better than their own."

"Guns," Freidal said. "They told us the muskets their soldiers brought with them had been stolen or captured. I wish I'd have thought to have taken a good look at their weapons."

"Rifles." Xitki agreed. "Not a few, a lot. We didn't sell or give them fireseed weapons; they said they'd stolen enough to arm their soldiers with us, which is why they couldn't send more soldiers. Styphon was supposed to have shipped many tons of fireseed south, but who can believe anything of what Styphon said?"

"The Mexicotal have their own fireseed. They have a million men on the march. More, most likely. If those men have fireseed weapons and fireseed for them..." Freidal was pale.

First Zarthan had beaten the Mexicotal because they had armor, swords and better bows. The Mexicotal improved their bows, developed blades and armor, but it still hadn't matched the Zarthani. And so it had gone, until fireseed and fireseed weapons. Never, ever, had the Mexicotal had equal weapons and armor. And with fireseed weapons, particularly rifles, armor was useless. Freidal had two helmets that proved that.

His dream came back, where he stood with his boot heel against the High King's throat, his sword poised over his chest... trying to surrender before he was killed. The dream had made no sense at the time; now he was suddenly afraid that it made perfect sense.

"They say they have sent a million men to march on Xiphlon," Xitki mused. "Do you suppose they are all armed with rifles? That they have many fireseed wagons?"

Freidal nodded, feeling a great deal of sadness. "I loved and respected my father; he was a great man, a great soldier. His alliance with Styphon and the Mexicotal seemed like a reasonable thing at the time.

"Styphon was insane. And now we know the Mexicotal were playing us all for fools. If those million men turn west instead of marching on Xiphlon, we will have to arm every man in the Kingdom. Citizen, serf... even the slaves. Each man will have to fight as a veritable demon to defeat the Mexicotal. And that's if a million men come against us. I've heard they have twice that many."

"And they will no longer be armed with long bows and crossbows, girded with crude armor," Xitki added.

"No," Freidal agreed. "If they have fireseed and rifles, they probably have cannon too." He closed his eyes, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. Left-handed. He looked at Xitki.

"We must start thinking about protecting our men. We are going to need every able bodied-man next year or the year after, when the Mexicotal come after us."

"If they wait that long," Xitki reminded him. "Of course, that's if they defeat the High King. As we well know, that might not be easy to do."

Freidal nodded. "I have to think that this place is far away from the High King's core lands. That the weapons and tactics he has used against us are the least of what he has planned against us. Strange, isn't it? We sit here today hoping our enemies destroy our allies."

"Tomorrow, as the Mexicotal start to march south, I will go for a row on the lake," Xitki told Freidal. "We need to delay the men of the High King."

"I should be there," Freidal said, frowning.

Xitki smiled thinly. "You probably should. However, you won't be."

"Double the watch tonight, make sure everyone sleeps with one eye open. We will stand to a palm-width before dawn. No one is to move, no one is to say or do anything -- they will just quietly come as ready as possible," Freidal commanded.

"If the Mexicotal meant treachery, they would have lied," Xitki reminded Freidal. "They still hope to get the God-King's son back, or failing that, his sons. And we will have to give them back, unless they attack us. I think that's another thing that drives them."

Freidal was silent for a finger-width, thinking. Finally he raised his head and looked Quillan in the eye. "The Hostigi couldn't have sent thousands of men to attack that town. There aren't more than fifteen hundred of them in the field opposing us; only two-thirds of those went southeast.

"How do a thousand Hostigi, no matter how well led, no matter how many small cannon they possess, attack and take a town of the God-King? There would have been thousands of soldiers defending it. Thousands. Those wagons would have more soldiers as escorts and guards, more men as drivers. How could they take such a town?"

"How could they attack our camp with thirty men and kill and wound more than a thousand? How could a hundred of them ambush a column ten times their number and slaughter them, sending the column reeling back in defeat? They know something about war making we don't. You said once before that the High King might be facing us," Quillan replied.

"We've seen no evidence of that. Of course, perhaps the evidence is what we heard a short while ago."

"It still doesn't seem reasonable for the High King to come this far west to fight his war, when his lands are so far to the east. And even if he was here, why would he allow himself to be shut up in Outpost? And if he isn't shut up, if he was the architect of the Mexicotal defeat, it makes even less sense. He is a full moon away from Outpost! Maybe more than a full moon! Another two or three moons from his lands! That wouldn't be smart.

"Perhaps," Quillan went on, "if we were his only enemy, such a strategy would make sense. But we have a good man with the Mexicotal in the east; he makes reports, including the secret words that tell us that he is not under duress. He would have told us if the Mexicotal host was armed with rifles. He would have told us if they weren't as strong as the Mexicotal have told us. The High King would stay close to his lands! I know this!"

"Perhaps the High King sent a particularly apt protègè," Freidal guessed. "I don't know. One High King is a serious risk to the throne. Two men of the High King's abilities?" Freidal's last word was a snarl, not a word.

"What should I tell Count Tellan, tomorrow?" Quillan asked.

"Ask for a cease fire. Tell him if he agrees, we will begin to withdraw in three days. That I will sign a formal treaty with the High King, ceding everything east of the Mud River to the High King, in exchange for peace between us."

Quillan grunted. "And you want me to do this in your name?"

"I told you, I would rather go in your stead," Freidal told his advisor.

"I know. Alros..."

Freidal slapped his hand down heavily on the table. "You don't know my sister like I do! She isn't going to take my place. She would rather cut off her arm!"

Quillan looked at Freidal for a long, long time. "Walk with me." He stood and Freidal did as well. Instead of leaving, Quillan moved to the parapet again, only this time looking west.

"A long time ago, there was me, an orphan, fostered to your grandfather's court. I was a privileged orphan, for I was to be a count. Your grandfather was very indulgent of a hotheaded youth, the son of the man who'd made him king. And then there was your father! He and I were terrors, joined as well by Durel, now the High Priest of Dralm."

He looked at Freidal. "It's not an easy thing to realize something unsettling about someone you respect. But at one point I realized your father's relationship with Durel was different than it was with me. Eventually I realized they were lovers."

Freidal nodded. He'd often heard of his father's fondness for other men. It wasn't something he personally knew for sure and he had never felt the need to ask his father about it either.

"Then there was Princess Lianos, your aunt, and Lady Diatha, her companion. The five of us were together a lot. I fell in love with Lianos, and it didn't take long before your father was engaged to Lady Diatha. One day I married Lianos and a few days later your father married Lady Diatha and Durel left for the priesthood.

"Li was the love of my life, Freidal."

Freidal nodded. The story was well known and entirely too common.

"She was pleased when she became pregnant almost at once and laughed at the dangers. I, she told me, was a soldier of the King, a count and destined to be a great general one day. I would fight in many battles and as such, was in as much danger as she was. Except it wasn't really true. Not really."

Freidal's aunt had died in childbirth; the midwives did what they could, but they could do very little. The baby died the day after her mother. That had been a long time ago.

Xitki turned to him. "After about three years, rumors began to spread about your father. Terrible rumors. Rumors that actually threatened his rule, saying that not only had he not gotten Diatha pregnant, he far preferred men. That was bad. When the rumors started that your father had never consummated his marriage... it put a great deal of pressure on both of them.

"I was friends with both of them and they both would pour their woes out to me." He looked at Freidal, his eyes haunted and piercing. "It was true you know. Your father had slept in the same bed as Diatha, but he'd never consummated the marriage. She lived in perpetual fear that someone would find out and that your father and she would be killed and someone else would come to power. Your mother loved Zarthan, more than she loved life itself."

Count Quillan was silent for a long time. "There are people who are stronger than me. People who have never betrayed their King, or their vows. I betrayed your mother, your father and myself. I did all of that and more. Your father had to know; there was no way for him not to know. I was Diatha's closest male companion, the person who saw her most often after her servants. It's why he never objected to my fostering you, nor did he object to the attention I've paid to Alros over the years."

"You're our father? Our true father?" Freidal asked, stunned.

Quillan nodded. "When Diatha died in her third pregnancy, I thought it was the gods taking revenge on me for my faithlessness. But I couldn't bear to be far from you or Alros. It was, I thought, the gods' punishment: to stand next to you, to teach you... and never be able to acknowledge who I was or what you were to me."

He turned brisk. "Then the damned Styphon's spawn came among us. They had fireseed, fireseed mills to make more of their foul brew, the factories to make muskets and then rifles. We considered setting them aside, anyway. Except the priests who'd come to Zarthan from the eastern Great Kingdoms were the diehard fanatics.

"They quickly spent a lot of gold, Freidal. A lot of gold, buying the loyalty of a great many nobles of the kingdom. Not many could afford to tell them no. People began to die, just a few at first. Minor nobles, related only distantly to your family. By the time we figured out it was a calculated campaign, Styphon had killed half of those who might lay claim to the throne.

"It was clear what they wanted. At some point they would start killing the principals so that eventually the kingdom would fall to a dupe of Styphon. They seemed quite sure that their plans were unknown to us. Styphon's priests might have once been clever and successful, but at the end they were arrogant fools.

"We realized that the Great Plan was just part of what Styphon was thinking. That at some point during the war with the High King, they would strike us. Your father and I were sure that it would come immediately after we took Outpost. We were sure that Captain-General Delos was their man. He was in the succession, but well down the line.

"Had we succeeded here, it would have been with Delos at the helm. If you and I died in the battle, if your father suddenly died, it would leave Alros, a girl, a minor and alone. A Regency Council would have been appointed and we thought the plan was for him to be named to head it.

"But we didn't win here. And the fool got himself killed in his first battle on top of that." He grinned at Freidal. "And of course, Alros is Alros. She laughed at the idea of a Regency Council, because of course, you were still alive. So she just took over."

"I certainly was making it easy for them," Freidal said, feeling swamped.

"Battle, sire, is battle. It never goes like we plan."

"It seems to go the way the Hostigi plan!"

The count shook his head. "No, they have simple plans, with simple goals. Attack the road. Attack us with these small, pinprick attacks. Whether or not one attack succeeds or fails isn't important... some do and that's what's important. We came to take the battle to them. They realized they couldn't win that fight, so they planned something else."

"Why tell me all of this?" Freidal asked.

"Partly it's because it's something you should know. Partly because I think someone else is plotting against you now. Someone associated with Styphon, but not Styphon. Someone who is still out to claim the Kingdom. Why would Styphon kill your father? You weren't expected to live; the Captain-General was dead. Yet your father died. You lived, which must have discomfited them a great deal. Alros took up the reins of power in Baytown and is using them effectively. If something happens to you now, it would be no surprise if she once again refused to accept a regency and few of the nobles would object.

"With luck, the withdrawal of the Mexicotal will further discomfit your enemy's plans. A civil war right now would be insane; the nobles will understand what the withdrawal of the Mexicotal means. To weaken the kingdom now would be insane. As long as you or Alros are alive and well, I think they will be forestalled. Hopefully we can learn who is plotting against us and take steps to eliminate them."

Someone came up the steps and Freidal and Quillan stopped talking. Tiki bowed to Freidal. "Sire, there's a boat in the lake, headed for us. There have been mirror signals all afternoon, from the southeast."

"So, Count Tellan knows as well," Freidal mused, before shrugging. "Have the messenger brought here as soon as he arrives."

"Aye, sire. It's that girl again, though."

Freidal cursed under his breath.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Count Quillan told Tiki. "Bring her straight up."

Xitki looked at Freidal. "Do you understand now, what the point of the first meeting was?"

Freidal shook his head. "Beyond humiliating me? No."

"To make sure you knew she had Count Tellan's confidence." Xitki waved towards the lake, where they could see the small boat. Two men rowed, the girl sat in the rear, her head held high.

"You have to be very careful, sire. She is going to leave that boat and walk alone through the camp, in the front door and up the stairs, her head held high.

"She will stand in front of you with as much or more knowledge than you possess. If you take her lightly, if you get angry or frustrated with her, if you think of her as anything other than the very best person Count Tellan has to send against you, you will be like a drunken fool playing dice with cheats. In the morning you will have a headache and empty pockets. Assuming she leaves you with more than your nethers."

Freidal laughed. "The best person Count Tellan has to send? His son is supposed to be good. He has a couple of colonels of the High King's finest. Logistos, captains... even his wife is supposed to be fierce. And the best he can do is a chit of a girl?"

Quillan sighed in desperation. "We keep losing, sire. Do you understand that simple fact? Something has changed. We've taken Hostigi prisoners. They speak of Lord Tuck, a man, possibly a sorcerer, from a distant land. Unlike the High King, he didn't come alone. He came with some young women.

"Those prisoners all credit this Lord Tuck with the count's war plans. And why not? Don't all men know the story of the High King? Kinsman or countryman, no one knows for sure who or what this Lord Tuck is. What is sure is what has happened.

"If the 'chit of a girl' is one of those who came with this Lord Tuck, perhaps she too is Dralm taught and Galzar sent. Or worse: Galzar taught and Dralm sent. Have a care, Freidal! Have a care!"

When she came up on the veranda, escorted by Tiki, it was as Count Quillan had predicted. She was alone, her head held high. She nodded to Count Quillan, to Freidal, and then walked right past Freidal to the parapet. She stood looking intently at the Mexicotal encampment for some time.

Finally she turned to Freidal. "Your allies seem very busy this evening, King Freidal."

"They are preparing to march south," Freidal told her.

"Yes. Too bad about Xipototec." She stumbled a little with the word, but then, who wouldn't?

Freidal mentally cursed the Mexicotal. Why couldn't they have mentioned the name of the town that had been taken? It left him standing here, ignorant and having to take her word for it.

"Do you have a message for me?" Freidal asked her. "Sorry, I forgot your name."

"Lady Elspeth Brenner. It doesn't surprise me that you don't remember. You're not very smart."

"I am the King of Zarthan," Freidal said, smarting from her statement. "In diplomacy, people are polite. You should be polite."

She looked at him, and then smiled slightly. "You are a man with a title." She waved at Count Quillan. "He undoubtedly has a title, as well as him," she indicated Tiki. "A man gave me this," she ran her hand over her belly. With a start, Freidal realized she was pregnant. He'd heard it before and had forgotten!

"A man like you knocked me down and then he beat me bloody senseless and gave me the baby in my belly. One of your allies tried to do the same thing. I killed him."

She pulled a dark object from a pocket. She held it up. "I had this, that time." There was a "snick" and a blade appeared.

Freidal tried not to be startled, keeping his face emotionless. Traditionally emissaries came unarmed; baring a blade in the king's face was practically an open declaration of war.

"Now, King of Zarthan, you and your men," the word was said like someone talking of horse plop, "are here to do the same thing to this town. Rape and kill everyone. The people of Outpost, King of Zarthan, took me in. They took my friends in. They didn't ask anything of us in exchange for their hospitality -- they just did it.

"Now we are paying back their hospitality, doing what we can to help them against you, to help them against the looters and the rapists."

"Our argument is with the High King. Count Tellan and his people have always been able to leave."

She laughed at him. Laughed at him! "And if Count Tellan was to appear in Baytown with his soldiers and tell you that you were free to go wherever it pleased you, so long as it was far away, you'd think yourself fairly treated, right?"

It was the slipperiest thing Freidal had ever heard. He'd say one thing and she'd turn it back against him and to her advantage. He remembered Quillan's words. Count Tellan would send the person best able to represent him. And he'd laughed at the idea that it would be a sixteen-year-old girl. And yet, she kept flinging his own words back at him.

"So, your allies are going south. Did they happen to mention what we captured when we took Xipototec?"

"No, not really. Just that you did."

She returned the knife to her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper to replace it. More deadly, in its way, than any knife.

"Seven thousand tons of parched corn. One thousand tons of corn flour. Three thousand tons of amaranth, which is a grain like corn. Twelve thousand barrels of wine, thirty thousand barrels of beer. A thousand barrels of whiskey."

Whiskey wasn't a word Freidal knew. "What is whiskey?"

"Distilled fermented corn," she said, patient with the interruption. She had to explain distilled to him as well.

She looked at him, smiled slightly and went back to her list. "Fifty heavy cannon that all fire twelve inch shot. Thirty field guns, as well made as the High King makes them, twelve, fourteen and sixteen-pounders."

Freidal winced. All this in one small town, near the border?

She went back to her list. "We don't know how many shot for the cannon we took, perhaps ten thousand balls. About two million musket balls. Two hundred tons of fireseed and close to sixty-five thousand rifles, copies of the standard rifle of the Hostigi army; about five thousand pistols."

Freidal glanced at Quillan, mildly relieved to see that his father/mentor was pale.

"Our field commander reports that of a garrison of about three thousand men, two hundred survived to flee into the desert."

The silence lengthened and Freidal watched her carefully. Obviously it was now his turn to speak.

"You could be lying."

She just pointed in the direction of the Mexicotal encampment. "Sure, of course. Did I mention that our field commander is arming the people of Xipototec with the largesse he won from the God-King? That word of what happened in Xipototec is sweeping the God-King's lands?"

"They will crush any who revolt," Xitki said, speaking for the first time. "And your field army. What is it? A thousand or fifteen hundred men? Field army!" he snorted in derision.

"Perhaps. The High King is in the field. Captain-General Harmakros is in the field. The God-King might just decide that he's made a bad bargain. Count Tellan says that it is unlikely the God-King's army will do any significant damage to the High King's lands. If the God-King decides to turn his army around and march them back home, it would probably happen.

"Who knows who would win the civil war that would follow?" Elspeth said. "But, of course, that would leave you alone to face the High King. I'm told his army could be here early next spring to face you. Surrender now or surrender later. Contemplate what happens if the Mexicotal do succeed in putting down the revolt in their lands. Where will they look next? The High King's lands again? Or someone more on their own fumbling, incompetent level -- someone like you? Assuming of course, that the High King leaves any of you alive. I understand he's particularly hard on oath breakers."

"Anything else?" Freidal growled.

"Count Tellan says that there are things he can do in the name of the High King and things that he can't." She pulled another folded piece of paper, a large piece, out of her pocket. She walked over to Quillan's table and swept the contents onto the floor and spread out what was a map.

She put her finger down on it. "This is Outpost, here is the Barrier." She traced the line on the map. "The High King has agreed with the villagers of the Lost Ruthani that from here to here," she drew lines with fingers, lines that were marked on the map. "Are their lands, lands that the High King swears he'll never attempt to claim. All the way south to the lands of the Mexicotal.

"The High King has declared this area, currently uninhabited, an area where either party will talk with the other if someone wants to create a settlement. Note that all boundaries stop at the Mud River. From there west are the lands of the King of Zarthan. The High King will deal with you directly as to what other boundary changes will be made. The original agreement still stands as a minimum." She traced the line northwest from where the Mud River turned south. "A hundred miles east of these mountains are where your lands end." She drew in the lines of the lands of the Northern Ruthani as well, in the arid upper plains.