“Aye,” Tegestu said. “I’ll give the orders.”

  Necias walked back to the settee and sat down, looking with concern at Tegestu. “You understand why I have to give these orders, Tegestu?” he asked.

  Tegestu nodded. “I understand.”

  “Very well.” Necias fell silent for a moment, then licked his lips. “If there’s anything your people want,” he said, concern on his face. “Anything within reason, please inform me, and I’ll grant it.” He reached out to touch Tegestu’s knee. “But not this, old friend. Not this.”

  Tegestu bowed, then stood. “I will transmit your orders to the army, Abessu-Denorru,” he said.

  Necias nodded, then turned to Campas. “No record of this, Campas,” he said. “Burn your notes, and do it now. And you’ll say nothing of it, ever.”

  Campas nodded. “As you wish, cenors-efellsan.”

  Tegestu knelt, then walked from the pavilion into the sun. He heard Grendis’ tread behind him and turned to her, seeing her gazing at him with troubled eyes. “I didn’t foresee it,” he confessed. “I didn’t understand Necias well enough.” He laughed bitterly. “That was what I said to Aptan, that Tastis didn’t understand who he was dealing with. Now my words are turned against me.”

  She reached up a hand to touch his cheek. “It was a bold try,” she said. “Brilliant.” She tried to smile encouragingly. “It wasn’t your fault it failed.”

  Tegestu kissed the palm of her hand, then turned away, feeling the unrelenting ache of the armor on his shoulders and neck, an ache that seemed insignificant beside the one in his heart. “Can you see the orders are given?” he asked. “I would like to lie down a while, before we march.”

  “Aye. I’ll see it’s done,” Grendis said. He began to walk to his small tent, trying to keep his back straight, his shoulders back. Trying to stay Brodaini to the last, even in this unhappy land of exile.

  CHAPTER 16

  Fiona, standing on the siege works thrown up before the city, gazed at the walls with sullen anger, the cards flickering through her fingers as she performed tricks to calm her spirit. Snapping cards out of the deck, she looked up at the hundred eighty grey stone towers of Neda-Calacas and tried to guess on which of them Kira had died. Across the river, probably, in the Brodaini quarter of Neda, where Tastis’ banners flew boldly in warm summer breeze.

  For two days the army of Arrandal had been building its siege lines in front of Calacas, the easternmost of the twin cities. Neda was an older city, a capital of one of the Captilla kingdoms that had been shattered by the Abessla invasions hundreds of years before. Neda had never been taken, and marked the end-point of Abessla expansion: to end the wars, an agreement had been reached to allow the Abessla people to settle across the river and built their own city of Calacas. Gradually the people, and their cities, had become one, and the formality of purging the royal family of Neda, who had long before lost all real power to the deissin, had come late, only a hundred years ago.

  And now the banners of a new invader topped the walls, and the Abessla of Arrandal and Cartenas, the Captilla of Prypas, and the half-dozen other ethnic varieties that made up the rest of the Elva, were coming to take it back. The problems the siege presented were enormous, Fiona had been told. There were a quarter of a million inhabitants behind those walls — half the normal population, since many had fled or been evacuated to the islands where the Elva fleet was obliged to feed them — and the walls were massive and stout. The cities had grown in the last four hundred years, and walls had been built outward to protect them: once an outer wall was breached, there were three or four lines of inner defense, each a wall guarded by a series of interlocking canals that doubled as moats, each line marking the limits of an older, smaller city.

  The army of Arrandal had settled before Calacas, the easternmost city, as Tegestu had thought it might prove easier: Neda had an additional line of defense, the new Brodaini city that had been added in the last twenty years, and built with all the craft and strength of a warrior people. Neda was unsieged at the moment — the army of Arrandal was too small to encircle both cities, straddling the Neda river, without risking having one part of it overwhelmed by an attack — but there were patrols in front of Neda day and night to discourage the enemy, and when the army of Prypas arrived in a few days the circle would be closed.

  The sea route was already cut off. The united fleets of Arrandal, Cartenas, and Prypas held the islands and maintained a strict blockade, with other Elva squadrons expected daily. Tastis appeared to have realized that he could do nothing against them: his own fleet had been drawn up on the beach and short of an anchor watch appeared to be abandoned.

  The cards flickered through Fiona’s fingers. A pair of Brodaini engineers, mapping the area forward of the lines, looked at her with interest, then returned to their work. Fiona frowned, remembering Tyson’s words as she’d spoken to him that morning.

  “It’s moderately interesting data you’ve been collecting, all that information on the mercenaries,” he said. “But it’s not your real work. You could have done this, and more, if you’d stayed in Arrandal.”

  “I was asked to come,” she’d said with surprise. “You agreed that it would be a good idea to make myself useful to Necias.”

  “But what has he used you for, Fiona?” Tyson asked. “Could he be using your presence to put pressure on Tastis? Telling Tastis to go along with him, or he’ll send the star people in after him?”

  “That,” Fiona snapped, “would imply he knows about Kira. I don’t think he does. There’s no evidence for what you’re suggesting.”

  “Perhaps not.” Tyson’s deep voice, as always, was annoyingly calm, a Tyson-knows-best tone of voice Fiona had always thought patronizing, if not infuriating. “But unless Necias can suggest a less... a less opaque role for you here, you might suggest to him that you might do your work best in the cities.”

  “The army of Prypas will be here in a few days,” Fiona said. “They’ll be bringing another group of diplomats with them — I think I’ll be able to make myself useful then.”

  “Keep what I’ve said in mind, Fiona,” Tyson said, in warning tones, and she scowled at the spindle in her hands, then shut it off without saying goodbye. A petulant act; but then Tyson had done his best to be annoying and certainly deserved it.

  She knew he was right, however. Her time could be better spent elsewhere. It was ridiculous to think she could remain here for long: unless Necias managed to buy open a gate some dark night, the siege might well last a year.

  Her hands deftly broke the deck of cards in half. She turned the cards over: black cards in her left hand, gold cards in her right. Flawless.

  “Ambassador.” She turned at Campas’ voice. He gazed at her with diffidence, uncomfortable in his mail shirt — he’d been wearing it ever since the enemy battlements came in sight, but still did not look at ease in it.

  “There’s a problem, Ambassador,” Campas said. “The Abessu-Denorru would like to see you, if it’s convenient.”

  “Of course.” She picked up her rucksack and slung it over one shoulder. “What’s the nature of the problem?” she asked.

  “Some strangers have arrived, with a bargeful of goods. From a country far off, to the south. Necias wonders if you might know them.”

  Fiona frowned. “I don’t know everyone from the south, just because I traveled there.”

  Campas grinned. “I don’t think Necias quite understands what being from another planet truly means,” he said. “He just thinks it means from far away. You’re from a far country; this other man is from a far country: therefore you might know one another. This man is dark, also, like you.” He shrugged, and immediately winced at the chafe of the mail shirt on his neck. He sighed. “I was relaxing in Necias’ bath house,” he complained, “up to my neck in nice hot water, and now these people have showed up.”

  She followed Campas toward where Necias had pitched his pavilion on the banks of a canal, half a mile into the lines. Campas glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “Necias isn’t in a good mood today,” he said. “There were dispatches from the city. Some of the weavers’ apprentices and journeymen rioted, burned down the workshop of Nalsas — he was a real slavedriver anyway, so it’s no great loss, but the Denorru-Deissin is terrified Tastis’ agents were behind it.”

  “Were they?” She glanced back at the banners on the grey walls. Tastis had exploited the cities’ weaknesses well, she thought; he had allied himself with those who had always been on the edge of power, but never had a chance to grasp it. Could it be that he was allying himself with the future? she wondered, the forces that would inevitably succeed? Fervently, she hoped not.

  Campas, in answer to her question, started to shrug, remembered his mail shirt, and threw up his hands instead. “I don’t know. I’m sure Tastis has agents aplenty in Arrandal — he had enough time to send them out. And he’s been sending some into our camp, disguised as sutlers with goods to sell, trying to seduce the mercenaries and the soldiers, but we cut off a few heads and sent the rest packing.’’ His voice grew reflective. “And of course we’ve agents aplenty in Neda-Calacas,” he said, then cocked an eye at the barred enemy gates, above which a dozen heads rotted, grimacing at the besiegers, “but they have a harder time getting in and out.” He grinned. “I hear you’ve been talking to the mercenaries,” he said.

  “Yes.” She had assembled a lot of raw data: individuals in the mercenary companies had come from half a world away, from half a hundred nations. She frowned. “Many of them aren’t very nice people.”

  “No. They enjoy their work too much.” He paused. “Have you given up on the Brodaini, then?”

  Fiona shook her head. “It’s just that the mercenaries were here, and I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to speak to so many of them.” She glanced up at the hot midsummer sun, wishing she’d thought to bring a hat.

  “Your poetry goes well?” she asked.

  “Well enough. I’d thought the hours on horseback would have been a good time to work out the patterns, but Necias keeps me up half the night doing his correspondence, and I use the horseback journeys to catch up on my sleep. I’ve learned the trick of it, and the beast keeps to the track.’’

  He looked at her with a half smile. “But what I’ve done is good, yes. I’m pleased.”

  “I’m glad it’s working. I’d like to see it.”

  “Not till it’s done. I’m strict about that.”

  “I understand.” They reached the pavilion, and Fiona saw at once the strangers outside. There were half a dozen of them, dressed mostly in travel-stained leather. Fiona felt a sudden pang of homesickness as she saw the dark, elaborately-folded cloth over their heads, a sundrape, practical in a hot homeland, almost identical to the one her own people wore.

  “Came up on a barge this morning,” Campas said. “Were going to deliver their goods to Calacas on contract, and ran into the war instead. He’ll try to sell them to Necias.”

  Fiona shook off the treacherous stab of memory. In this alien world, even a superficial familiarity could awaken a longing ache she preferred not to recognize.

  “I see,” she said.

  “You don’t know him?” Campas’ voice seemed to hold out some vestige of hope.

  “No.” She shrugged.

  “I’ll tell the Abeissu.” He started to step toward the tent, then hesitated. He turned back to her. “Would you like to share luncheon with me?” he asked. “I have the afternoon free — I’ve packed my meal in a haversack and was going to take it out in front of the lines and enjoy the sun.”

  Fiona nodded. “I’d be happy to.”

  Campas gave a quick grin. “Good. Let me speak to Necias for a moment, then I’ll be out.”

  Campas took longer than a moment. The strangers in their sundrapes scowled at her and muttered to one another in their own language. She moved a distance off, sat down on a block that had been used to chop Necias’ wood, and took out her deck, the cards flicking through her fingers. She tried to snap a card out and it hung in the deck, a clumsy, amateurish move, and she frowned.

  Campas, a rucksack on his shoulder, came out of Necias’ tent, and the leader of the foreign traders was allowed in amid a moving rectangle of guards. She stood, glancing automatically at the enemy towers again, her hands instinctively sorting the cards. Campas’ question came as a blow.

  “Why do you hate them so much?”

  Her hands froze on the cards as she stared blankly ahead in shock; she recovered, not quickly enough, and turned to Campas. “Why do you ask that?”

  “You look at the city with such hatred.” Reasonably. “I saw you the morning after the battle, too, and I remember the expression on your face. You hate them. What happened to your embassy there?” He looked away, frowning uneasily. “It’s not my business, of course.”

  “No.” Tartly. “It’s not.”

  She had told them the Igaran embassy to Neda-Calacas had been refused; she hadn’t told them what had happened, fearful they’d try to recruit her for their war. She hadn’t wanted to be recruited.

  But she had, she knew, instead volunteered.

  She looked at Campas again, resenting both the question and the compulsion that wanted her to answer — to clear up at least one of the misunderstandings between herself and someone else.

  She turned to the city again, feeling her eyes narrow, the words, buried so long, coming out of her slowly, with deliberate anger. “They killed her,” she said. “They wanted her to give — to give what she had — to them alone.” She breathed out deliberately, letting the anger out with the breath. “There was threat of torture, too,” she said, then looked up at Campas, seeing his steady glance, his sympathy. “That’s why I’m here,” she admitted. “I wanted to have — have revenge, I suppose. Not a very good reason. As my people have been telling me.”

  She looked down at her hands as they busied themselves sorting the cards, then put them in her pack.

  “I’m sorry, Ambassador,” Campas said evenly. “It’s never easy to be caught in the middle of a war.” He turned his head, looking thoughtfully at the enemy walls. “I would have thought Tastis was more clever than that. Perhaps they were panicked, somehow.”

  Oh, yes, Fiona thought with a flash of anger. It was Kira’s fault, of course. She frightened them, the poor simple savages. Those dear renegades are far too unsophisticated to practice deliberate cruelty, deliberate terror, deliberate murder.

  Campas turned back to her. His tone was puzzled. “They’ve killed one of your ambassadors and you haven’t responded?” he asked. “Not declared war yourselves?”

  Fiona shook her head. She could feel the resentment in her tone but couldn’t halt it. “No. We’re not allowed to meddle in your affairs: if we didn’t hold to that firmly, you’d never trust us. We’re permitted self-defense, but we can’t take part in your wars. Military involvements are beyond our capabilities, anyway.” She looked up at him. “You’ve seen the announcements that I asked Necias to distribute. You know this.”

  He looked at her frankly. “Beg pardon, Ambassador, but I’ve learned to mistrust any announcements from diplomats.”

  “You can trust this one.” She paused, then frowned at him. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell Necias. He’d try to take advantage.”

  “Yes. He would.” Flatly. “I will keep this in confidence, Ambassador.”

  “Thank you.”

  He fell silent for a moment, then reached for his rucksack. “Beefsteak pies,” he said. “Necias’ cook is a good hand with pastry. Sweet noodles for desert.” He raised a bottle. “And wine. It’s loot, from a country house we passed. For some reason the mercenaries didn’t get to it first.” He smiled in satisfaction. “I’m becoming an old campaigner. Heading for the cellars first thing.”

  She looked at the luncheon, then again at the enemy walls. “Shall we go to my quarters for luncheon, Campas?” she asked. “I’m not in a mood to move out forward of the lines, not if it means going closer to Calacas.”

  Campas did not seem surprised. “As you wish,” he said briefly, and returned the bottle to its rucksack.

  They walked to her tent in silence. Guarded by dozens of soldiers, it was in an area reserved for officers and diplomats, including the Government-in-Exile of Neda-Calacas, a heterogeneous, bickering group that consisted of members of purged trading houses who’d happened to be in Arrandal during the coup, plus a number of diplomatic personnel. Her tent was an anonymous cone-shaped structure, unmarked by any flag or banner to proclaim her ambassadorial status; it was larger than those used by most of the soldiery, but far smaller than Necias’ grand pavilion, or the Government-in-Exile’s canvas palace. She’d hired a male servant to keep it clean, and to buy fuel and food, and since she did most of the chores herself he found it easy work.

  Her servant wasn’t there at present; he was probably gambling his wages away with a crowd of his comrades. There were four Brodaini stools and a short folding table standing neatly by her pallet; she let the tent flap fall behind her, and gestured Campas to one of the stools.

  “I’m sorry that you’re not used to eating sitting up,” she said.

  “I’ve lived among Brodaini, remember,” Campas reminded her. “I can digest at attention if I have to.”

  There were plates, cups, and knives in one of her trunks; she got them out. The wine splashed into the cups; it was a dark-red claret that the deissin made fortunes exporting abroad, and it went down well. The pastry was lovely, but as always the filling lacked spice. At least, she thought resignedly, she hadn’t landed in a culture where they boiled things.

  “Reports from the city indicate our new ships are performing well,” Campas said. “The new sails can point into the wind with amazing ability.” He paused. “They’re called fiono sails, after you. The sailors gave the name the feminine ending.”

  How would Tyson take that? she wondered. He would disapprove, she thought, as usual. She was supposed to be invisible, always the observer, never a participant.