Zarvas was illogically indignant. “Nonsense!” she said. “My subjects work hard and well! They know the future of their farming rests on their labor. And don’t parents compel their children to do useful work?”

  But her lover would have none of it. “Besides, we magi spend all our time teaching yokels. We’ll pay them a token wage. Your people shall willingly labor for the honor and welfare of Mishbil. You’ll see.”

  Not liking this radical proposal, Zaryas had him broach the plan to the Council first. To her secret delight they unanimously disapproved. “We can’t afford to pay anybody as it is,” a spokesman said. “And what about all those farmers whose canals will never get around to being dug? There aren’t crops for them to till. Oughtn’t they get off their duffs and do a fair turn? We’ve innovations enough, let’s not cast away all the old customs.”

  “But at least allot me funds to keep good workers on,” Xerlanthor pleaded.

  This, Zaryas felt was a laudable end, and she persuaded her Council to put aside a small sum for it. “Not anywhere near enough,” Xerlanthor complained later. “How do you expect excellence to be achieved in this atmosphere of niggling?”

  “You can persuade the good workers to stay on for a pittance,” she comforted. She felt she was learning to manage him. Mere argument made Xerlanthor voluble and stubborn, but he was absurdly easy to outmaneuver, as if the flame of his concentration blinded him to all side issues. He was of course unaware of this, lacking the bent toward introspection that leads to self-knowledge. But Zaryas was happy to observe for two. To know things of him that he himself did not know delighted her as much as knowing of the little balcony on the roof. The magi say that knowledge is power. There were many questions about her lover that promised Zaryas more knowledge, more power. She wanted to know the other Xerlanthor (for there are two minds in every skull, two hearts in every chest)—not the bright warmhearted one that shared her bed, but the hidden one, the one who burned with ambition. How had such an inappropriately driven man become a magus, of all things?

  Indirectly she learned the answer to the question one scorching afternoon. They had made love, and almost suffocated in their mingled sweat. When Zaryas had pleaded she was too depleted to stand, Xerlanthor had carried her to the bath, filled it with cool water from the waiting jars, and joined her in it. Sweet herbs steeped in pierced cups all round the tub. But there was plenty of room for two. He had slept pillowed on the mosaic rim, and lulled by the sweet-scented water she had dozed on his shoulder.

  Then she sat up and rummaged through the porcelain herb-jars for a blue flask stamped with the seashell-emblem of Ennelith. She had taken a sip of the bittersweet potion when without so much as a warning splash Xerlanthor asked, “Do I get some too?”

  “You don’t want any, it’s not wine,” she said, dropping the glass stopper back into the flask. “This is the infusion the Sodality supplies to the unwed.” She put the flash back and settled down into the bath again.

  “Don’t take any more of it,” he said.

  She glanced up, surprised at his grave tone. “I haven’t the time to bear your child now,” she said mildly.

  He reached for the flask, turning it to be sure it was the right one. With a sudden furious effort he flung it against the far wall. The glass bottle shattered, splashing an irregular star of greenish fluid on the plaster.

  “Xerlanthor!” she gasped, sitting up. But grasping her by the arm he forced her down beside him again.

  “Did you know,” he asked, “that I can’t father a child?”

  Astonished, she looked up at his grim face above her. “No, I didn’t. Are you sure?”

  “I’ve tried.”

  “Oh!” So he had achieved only experience, not fatherhood. She tried to think of some positive comment. “Then magery is a good career for you, you needn’t worry about offspring.” The bitterness of his glance wrung her heart, and resolving to lighten it she added firmly. “You’ll certainly leave your imprint on this part of the world.”

  It was the right thing to say. A real, warm smile melted the brittler tension from his face. Kissing her he said, “I mean to. Not now, of course.” Under the attentions of his mouth and hands past and future slipped away. But much later, when Zaryas was combing out her hair, she leaned over the water and saw his strong fingers had left five livid blue marks on her upper arm.

  Few in Mishbil had ever seen a dam. No one had ever seen one built. So Xerlanthor managed everything. He chose a site well upstream on the Bilcad between two bluffs, below the lowest canal mouth. It was instantly dubbed “the Neck.”

  “Not the most geomantically suitable site,” he judged. “We must make up for the deficient earth currents in the construction.” Land on either bank at that point had been commandeered, uprooting three small vegetable farms, a chicken business, and an estate. When Zaryas went out to inspect it nothing was left of these homely concerns. Xerlanthor guided her through a wilderness of raw excavated earth where bare-chested laborers dug ever deeper with bronze picks and others hauled away the earth in baskets. It was too far from town for most of the corvee to walk home every night. So barracks had been erected on either side of the river.

  “We’ll do it magian fashion,” Xerlanthor told her. “Start on either side of the river and work in toward the center of the channel. Like a noose, slowly closing to choke off the water.”.

  “I can’t imagine it,” Zaryas confessed. It was hard to recall the placid bustle of the farms that used to rule this spot. “The chickens they used to raise over there were delicious, plump and tasty. I hope they’ll survive the move. Why do you have to dig everything up? It would have been nice to think of the farms, just as they were, sleeping at the bottom of the lake.”

  “The dam must be footed on bedrock,” Xerlan-thor explained. “It’s to be almost thrice as wide as it’s high. Without a firm foundation the river currents will undermine it.”

  “Geomancy.” Zaryas dismissed the technical details. She was far more interested in the workmen. “Why does the corvee wear red headbands?”

  “That’s my idea,” Xerlanthor said. “I haven’t money to give my men. But I can confer prestige. The really competent get red wristlets, too.” “It’s an idea,” she admitted. “What good will that do?”

  “Well, I keep an eye on the best, and the most efficient can be installed as foremen.”

  “We’ve never done that,” she said. “There aren’t any foremen at Five Larches.”

  “We use them on dams,” Xerlanthor said. “I’m the only one who knows what to do and when to do it. Without reliable deputies I can’t possibly manage. Remember, we’ll be working on both banks at once. Whereas everyone knows how to dig canals. It’s easy.”

  When Xerlanthor was called aside to inspect a new draft of workers, Zaryas approached a muscular farm youth who sported both wristlets and headband. It was hard to recognize faces through the sweat and brown dust that digging laid over everything. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Torven-lis Melekirtsan, my lady,” he replied, giving the three formal names.

  “You aren’t a tenant,” she said, recognizing the Tsorish-extraction name. “Have you any call to geomancy, do you think?”

  “Oh, no—we’re all vinners in our family. But it’s an honor to work with my lord Xerlanthor. To help in something so mighty—Long bare arms waved helplessly as Torven tried to find words. “And anyway,” he added, patting his belly, “the meals are lovely, nicer than we get at home.” Tradition demanded that every man in the corvee be fed twice a day at public expense. Of course it was proper that Xerlanthor provide his men the best, but not perhaps very prudent. She knew better than to complain about it to Xerlanthor, though, and when he returned she merely asked him, “Is there more you need?”

  “Men,” Xerlanthor replied. “When we really begin building we’ll need hydromants especially, to handle the river. I’ve talked to the Master Magus about it. Aside from all the other supplies.” She sighed. “Leave it to me.”

  The costs were frightful. Confident of the market, some stone-quarriers and metal smelters tripled their prices. Zaryas retaliated by declaring all unfairly priced material sole property of the city. Magi, mainly hydromants, were summoned through their mirrors by the Master Magus from the length and breadth of Averidan. Though they were servants of the Shan King and thus demanded no wage, the magi did have to be housed and fed. And the corvee also had to be fed, a growing number of hungry men every day. Grain hoarded against the winter diminished rapidly, and food began to run short all over Mishbil as autumn quenched summer’s fires.

  When she had unsealed the last granary Zaryas journeyed west to the Neck again. In the weeks that had passed a vast angled berm of rammed earth mixed with gravel had begun to nose across the valley. It was higher than many houses, and, far wider than its height, so that it looked like a mountain. Or actually, Zaryas reflected, a giant turd, perhaps the Dragon’s dropping. But she choked back her giggle when she saw Xerlanthor approach. She never called at the Neck on personal affairs, preferring to entertain her man in her own comfortable bed rather than the makeshift quarters he used here.

  “It’ll be a close bet,” Zaryas said to him. “When shall the dam be finished?”

  “The water level of the Bilcad will drop as winter approaches,” he said. “When it does, we’ll start—night and day, triple shifts—across the river bed. The dam will be finished before spring brings high water again.” It was easy to believe his confident assertion when she looked at the sections already underway. “We’re like runners poised to start a race,” Xerlanthor continued, “Only it’s toward ourselves, over there.” They had ascended the berm and picked their way to the very edge. He pointed across the Bilcad at the other half of the dam.

  Zaryas looked down. The river was stained brown with dirt from the digging, and seemed impossibly swift and wide. “You’ll meet in the middle? How will you hold your breath while you dig down there?”

  He laughed at her. “Why do you think I’ve been scraping hydromants from under every rock in Averidan? They’ll magically turn the water from whatever section we work on.”

  She glanced round, noticing the many wielders of glass wands already on both shores busily charting currents or measuring depths. “And there are as many at Five Larches? I didn’t know there were so many water-wizards in the country.”

  “There aren’t,” he admitted. “So many at Five Larches, I mean. I secured to myself the lion’s share. Since his project is less important good old Xerlanthor doesn’t need so many magi. There isn’t enough of anything to go around.”

  “As long as you’ve worked it out with him,” Zaryas said. Her mind was running ahead to her errand. “We’re running out of barley. If only we had been able to raise a crop this year. Or if only the previous years’ crops hadn’t been so thin and light.”

  He must have sensed her loss of confidence, for he said, “Not your fault. It was because the water was diminishing already. Next year you’ll have a crop.”

  “I can send to His Shan Majesty for more grain to see us through till then,” she said with a sigh. “But the stakes are getting very high. You understand, we’ll be asking other farmers in Averidan essentially to back our gamble.”

  “I know it,” he said. “The only wager I’ve ever made, too. Shall we raise the stakes higher yet?”

  “I don’t understand you,” she said shortly. The laughter danced in his dark eyes. He did not seem to have grasped the seriousness of the situation.

  “If this works, if I save your city—marry me.”

  Suddenly her depression lifted. The merriment in his smile matched her own now. “You just want to enjoy your greatest work,” she teased. “Or no, the workmen have petitioned you to stay. I Which is it?” !

  “Both, partially,” he said. He glanced proudly ’ round the work site, before leaning closer. “But chiefly because you are a woman I could love every night of my life.”

  The sudden murmured avowal was fiercely arousing. The smell of his sweat was rank yet appetizing. “Aren’t you tired of living out here?” she whispered. “Come back to the city with me tonight.” Very lightly under the shield of her raised wide sleeve he touched her breast, feeling the taut nipple. The dust soiled her thin robe but only the many watching eyes held her from embracing him.

  “We are so alike.” He breathed in her ear and seeing he shared her excitement, she cast her eyes down. “So, will you?”

  “On one condition.” He froze, the round muscles of his jaw leaping with sudden tension. His mood of confidence was shattered so quickly she hastened to add, “When we’re married don’t seduce me at construction sites anymore.” He laughed at that, so joyously that the men hauling baskets of earth looked back at them. “It’s a bargain,” he said.

  Zaryas discovered Xantallon had other views about hydromants entirely. As if to demonstrate his less-favored status he presented himself at the Justice Chamber where Zaryas settled disputes twice a week. She looked up from fining two handkerchief-snatchers and saw the tall red-clad figure seated at the farthest end of the petitioners’ bench. Though she knew it would cause comment she had the chamberlain call him to the head of the line,

  “Well, Xantallon,” she greeted him cheerfully. “What complaint do you bring, did a wine-shop bilk you?”

  “Not precisely,” he said. The warmth of so many bodies kept the Chamber stuffy despite its size, and now Xantallon wiped his forehead and sagging black mustache with a dingy square of silk. “I need your judgment, there’s a difficulty with the corvee. It seems any farmer who wishes may work on the dam instead of the canals.”

  “That’s right,” Zaryas said cautiously. “It’s a new idea, Xerlanthor’s. He wants the corvee at the dam to want to work on it. There’s been no difficulty with it so far.”

  “But when I came to one farm to levy workers for the canal the owner told me his stint was already done—that his men were working for Xerlanthor.” Xantallon seemed quite shocked.

  “Surely there are enough workers for you both,” Zaryas said.

  “Well, it’s only fair that the canals be dug by those who use it,” Xantallon pointed out. “That’s the proper way. On the other hand, no one should have to work two turns. Yet what would become of the Five Larches branch if everyone farming near it went to work at the Neck?”

  “I can see your point,” she said soothingly. “It’s difficult to have two corvee systems at once. Suppose I rule that no one served by the Five Larches canal may work on the dam anymore. Perhaps the situation won’t arise again.” She spoke very firmly, and gestured to the chamberlain for the next case, so that Xantallon had no choice but to accept her decision.

  Chapter 7: Autumn

  Between the demands of two magian works Mishbil had to tighten its collective belt. The realization that in more fortunate parts of the realm the harvest season was at its peak weighed unspoken on every heart. It was hard to look forward to spring so far away, when the dam should be finished. Despite rigid grain doles a black market in barley flour sprang up. Farmers averted their eyes from the barren fields. In town hand watered vegetable gardens became the mode. Stylish ladies who had deemed parsnips a peasants’ vegetable learned to discourse about mulch and the virtues of cow manure. The farm lads who gathered wild onions and flowering spinach did a roaring trade until even the farthest, most arid valleys had been stripped of edible growth.

  Zaryas labored to keep every belly filled, fining hoarders and actually ordering the lapidation of a speculator. The number of stones piled over the criminal’s rocky bed testified to public anxiety. No one truly hungered—there were still fish in the sea and mussels in the river for the taking— but the eerie specter of future famine transformed food from a love to an uneasy obsession. Even Zaryas found herself savoring each shellfish, picking every fishbone clean, as if she could squirrel like save up nourishment in herself. In this atmosphere of subdued panic the rumors that burgeoned were perhaps inevitable.

  People knew and loved—and feared, a little—their princess. Did she not nurture them in famine, nag them to labor at what was good for them? The deeply conservative Shan, happy under their preternaturally just King, were strangers to revolution. But that very dislike of change was now perpetually annoyed, and the annoyance perforce focused round Xerlanthor—the author of strange innovations, a prominent mover in all this undignified upset, so unlike a magus. Xantallon’s work at Five Larches was pointed out as the proper sort of thing for magi to do. As Zaryas had foreseen,, it was impossible to eradicate the popular suspicion that Xerlanthor was exploiting her. Yet the typical Viridese two-mindedness allowed criticism to envelop Xerlanthor but leave Zaryas untouched. She was not sure she approved of this unfairness, though it did make managing the city much easier.

  Things came to a head the day a fleet of barges brought in a shipment of fine granite from the mountain mines. Zaryas went down with her treasurer to pay the quarriers. As the sedan chairs neared the river-quay she saw a lean red-clad figure teetering from barge to barge—Xantallon, selecting canal slabs. He waved at her as the bearers set her down.

  The quarrier in charge bowed deep before Zaryas, and made stiff polite conversation as she looked over the tally scrolls. “It’s snowing already in the mountains, my lady,” he told her.

  “Hard to believe,” she replied absently. In Mishbil the heat had just begun to temper.

  “Oh, yes—fact! It’ll be a cold and snowy season if this first taste is any guide.”

  “It all looks in order,” Zaryas said, tying the scroll back up. “Let’s see the shipment.” She knew little of judging granite quality but a careful inspection was her duty.

  “Princess!” Torven, Xerlanthor’s foreman, hailed her from the roadway above. She waited for the young man as he raced down the ramp to the quay.