The civilian inhabitants of the city were going about their business in large numbers, though because many had been evacuated they were not in the thronging thousands as in Arrandal; but their natural liveliness was inhibited by the presence of the cold, armored Brodaini guards that stood glowering at every major intersection, and at the sight of Dellila and his bannermen moving briskly down the towpath they ducked quickly into doorways to let them pass. Fiona, looking up, saw a few white faces peering out of the windows and doorways, almost all of them masks of hatred and fear. They were the pawns of this war and they knew it, and whatever peace was made, they would have no part in it.

  The party made its way to the Old City, the first Abessla settlement made across the river from Old Neda. Here Fiona was invited to dismount and inspect an old gatehouse that had been converted to the hostages’ quarters. She dismounted and went up the narrow, winding stair, which curved in such a way that any right-handed attackers, advancing from below, were unable to swing their weapons without hitting the center post, while defenders faced no such handicap. Sunlight, reflected by the surface of the canal outside, swam crazily on the tapestries, carpets, and furniture that had been moved in. Blazing fires had been lit in the grates in order to drive out the cold and damp. One vast room had its floor scored by dozens of murder holes, through which defenders in the gatehouse could fling boiling oil and missiles on attackers trying to crash the inner gate below. Guards had been placed at the doors, and from the roof of the gatehouse, overlooked by the firing slits of the towers on the harbor wall, Fiona could see clearly across the outer harbor to the walls of Neda and the flags decorating its Old Citadel.

  The hostages, Fiona concluded, would be fairly comfortable, would be able to exercise themselves daily on the roof where they could be seen by their comrades in the Old Citadel, and would have a fair measure of privacy — but they would be vulnerable to Tegestu’s people, which presumably was the point. Fiona nodded.

  “I’ll tell the — the other people what I see,” she said, not knowing what to call them. Was Tastis, in the official vocabulary of the Arrandal Brodaini, still the “rebel ar-demmin Tastis,” or had he become “bro-demmin drandor Tastis” once again?

  Dellila seemed pleased. “Good,” he said. “Let’s move you down to the Long Bridge Gate. Once you’ve inspected the hostage quarters on the other side, we can get on with the exchange.”

  They moved down the narrow stairway, and then stepped out into the streets. Dellila took his horse by the bridle, and they walked the short distance to the Long Bridge Gate.

  Guards were tripled here, standing ranked on the battlements above. Below was the party of hostages-to-be, the three principal hostages plus twelve escorts, bannerbearers, and servants, all standing calmly in the shade of the gate, with grooms holding their horses.

  Tegestu alone was mounted. Fiona saw the old man sitting bolt upright on his horse, wearing armor but bareheaded, his grey braids coiled around his head and pinned into place. He was standing squarely by the inner gate and Fiona’s path took her past him.

  She bowed as she came close, and as she rose she realized that Dellila had bowed and retired. Tegestu, it appeared, wished to speak privately with her.

  His horse stepped forward a few paces; and then Tegestu twitched its reins and the horse gravely bent its forelegs and head. Fiona realized with surprise that he’d had his horse return her bow, and that Tegestu seemed to be an exceptional horseman. The horse straightened.

  “I am gratified, ilean Ambassador, that you have consented to act as an observer,” Tegestu said.

  “The Igarans are happy to contribute to any negotiations likely to result in peace,” Fiona said, a standard reply to be sure, but Tegestu’s eyes narrowed for a moment as he caught her inflection — were these negotiations truly going to result in peace, or further bloodshed as the Elva erupted in internal war with their own Brodaini?

  The horse clopped closer to her. He leaned down and for the first time she saw him up close: an aged man, his skin mottled and sagging, losing the war with gravity and the years; but with eyes that reflected fierce, burning intelligence.

  “Ilean Ambassador,” he said in a low voice intended only for her. “I hope this will not put you in danger. I can’t guarantee Tastis won’t resort to treachery. I hope — I hope your people have prepared you for any eventuality.”

  The coarse whisper sent chills flittering down her spine, and she looked up at him in surprise. Had he received a hint of treachery, then? His face was intent, hawklike; there was a hint of steely nervousness in the bunched muscles of the jaw and a throbbing vein in the forehead — he was, she realized, under ferocious pressure, and it was beginning to show. “I am as prepared as I can be,” she said cautiously. “But if you have any intelligence of Tastis’ intentions I hope you can tell me.”

  Tegestu shook his head. “No, nothing,” he said. “But Tastis is not — he is not to be trusted, understand? Take good care, Ambassador. The gods go with you.”

  “Thank you, bro-demmin. I’ll keep your words in mind.” Nodding reassuringly as she spoke, and trying with all her will to control the fear whipsawing through her — the old fear, weaponed men coming in the night, as they had come for Kira. Tegestu straightened, still looking down at her.

  “Are you ready, Ambassador?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Some of our heralds will go with you part way.” Tegestu looked up and gave a signal: Classani dashed to man tackles that heaved up the massive iron-reinforced bars that held closed the inner gate, and someone in the second storey of the barbican began to work the mechanism that would raise the bar of the outer gate as well, and then lower the drawbridge to open the Neda Long Bridge.

  Tegestu looked at her levelly. The vein still throbbed in his temple. “Good luck, ilean Ambassador.”

  “Thank you, bro-demmin.”

  She mounted her horse and watched the square of sunlight that was the gate brighten, and wondered whether or not to lower the mask that would give her full facial protection. No, she thought, that would be overcautious, and show them she was afraid, which might in itself invite attack.

  The drawbridge thudded into place and she kneed her horse forward, her escort falling into place behind. Did Kira take this path? she thought again, and then cleared the thought angrily from her mind. She was protected; the ship was on alert; Tastis could not take her. She knew this; but yet the fear remained.

  The Neda Long Bridge was a fantastic construction, connecting the two cities across the base of the harbor itself; it was a good half-mile long, built of long, high stone arches that stood atop ancient pilings. Built along the bridge were arcades and little shops of wood, some of them hanging perilously over the brink — all deserted now, the nesting-place of birds and the eerie haunt of the wind, their bright colors already fading. She heard trumpets blaring behind her to announce her arrival.

  She reached the top of the rise, the halfway point, and heard her escort reining in. Ahead she could see the drawbridge coming down on the other side as Tastis’ trumpets acknowledged the parley. She raised the white spear in her hand and rode on.

  Black shadow covered her as she rode through the gate, and then the high sun illuminated her waiting reception committee as the portcullis began its downward journey behind her. On her right a troop of cavalry stood in ranks, raising their lances in salute as she came through the gate. Across the way from the cavalry was another party of three: a bannerbearer, a herald with a spear of parley, and another man standing in front, dressed in heavy formal armor, his sunbrowned face framed by a coif of chain. He was a sturdily handsome man, at least fifteen years younger than Tegestu, his face split by a broad, white smile. As Fiona reined in, for a brief hallucinatory moment she fancied she saw fangs.

  “I am the drandor Tastis,” the man said. “Ambassador Fiona, on behalf of our aldran and denorru-censtassin, I welcome you to Neda.”

  *

  Tastis guided her through the hostages’ quarters himself, his two assistants trooping behind him. The hostages were to be kept in a large tower that had once formed a section of Old Neda’s outer wall. The city had grown up around it, and the tower had fallen into disrepair, but signs of recent work were evident, and peat fires blazed to drive out the damp. Like the hostage quarters in Calacas, the place was livable enough. The hostages could take their exercise on the tower roof, from which they could be seen by their friends in Calacas; and the roof, like the roof in Calacas, was overlooked by another, enemy-held structure, in this case the Old Citadel.

  Tastis himself was smiling and deferent — he was trying consciously, Fiona thought, to be charming. From someone else the charm might have had its effect, but from a man she had hated for months the efforts seemed unreal, ludicrous. Did Kira like his smile? she wondered. Did he smile at her this way, when he viewed her in her cell?

  She kept her face a face of stone, conscious of how her coat’s protective hood pressed its oval opening against her skin: She viewed the rooms thoroughly, enjoying Tastis’ sense of impatient disapproval as she searched behind tapestries and poked the repaired stonework. She turned to him.

  “I think this will be satisfactory,” she said. “The lodgings provided in Calacas for your folk are similar to these, perhaps even a little more comfortable.” She glanced at the round, narrow room. “Larger, certainly,” she said.

  “I am pleased to hear it, ilean Ambassador.” Again, that pleasant, sincere, un-Brodaini smile. Fiona was suddenly aware of the weight of the pistol at her hip. One shot and I end the war, she thought. Who would know these three hadn’t attacked me?

  No: the thought was poison. Interference of that sort, so soon after their appearance, would make impossible any more work by the Igarans. She had already jeopardized their position with her response to the archers’ riot, rousing suspicions that would not easily be put to rest. A murder, even of a thoroughly deserving individual, would wreck everything she was trying to achieve.

  “Shall we arrange for the transfer then, bro-demmin?” she asked.

  Tastis nodded. “Certainly.” He led her down the internal stairway of the tower, then out to where their horses waited by the outer canal. Fiona glanced down the canal and was surprised to see town militia guarding a bridge, until she remembered that Tastis’ ruling coalition, his denorru-censtassin, was composed in part of representatives from the town, and that townsmen as well as Brodaini and mercenaries had formed a part of Tastis’ army at the Rallandas.

  She mounted her horse and turned its head toward the Long Bridge Gate. The cavalry squadrons waited, still drawn up in their motionless lines, and as they rode up Tastis gave a signal and the double gates began to open. Fiona simply walked her horse to the inner gate and waited for it to swing clear.

  There were footsteps by her side and she looked down to see Tastis standing by her stirrup, followed by a Classanu with a bundle.

  “Ilean Ambassador Fiona,” he said, “I wish to give you, as an Igaran ambassador, the personal possessions of Ambassador Kira. We have had them for some time, but did not know where to deliver them.” He looked up at her, his face solemn. “We regret the misunderstanding that led to her death, Ambassador. We should like to petition your people to have another ambassador in residence.”

  Rage, blazing rage, flashed through her at his words; but her speech, when it came, was ice cold. “It was no misunderstanding that led to her death, bro-demmin Tastis,” she said, glaring into his reassuring eyes. “No misunderstanding at all, nothing but your own policy.”

  Tastis seemed scarcely to blink at her intensity. “I assure you, it was a misunderstanding,” he said blandly. “Communication was difficult — she did not understand our intent.”

  “Kidnapping, prison cells, and threats of torture are difficult to misunderstand, bro-demmin,” she said. “The only misunderstanding was yours. You failed to understand our talents — we were talking to her the entire time, you see.” Tastis seemed to absorb this without reaction — did he believe her? she wondered. It scarcely mattered. The sound of the drawbridge roaring downward filled the small arched tunnel beneath the gatehouse, and she raised her voice to compensate.

  “As for your request for another emissary, I will relay it to my superiors,” she said. “I doubt they will accept — not as long as conditions remain as they are. They’ll have no wish to share a siege with you, drandor. And even then, I think they’ll have to insist on certain guarantees.”

  Tastis’ eyes had half-closed, as if to conceal the calculations behind them. Go ahead, she dared him mentally, strike at me — and then I’ll have the pleasure of blowing your gate down on your head. But Tastis did nothing; he only stepped back to allow the Classanu to come forward with the bundle.

  She plucked it from his hands as the drawbridge thudded into place, and then she jabbed her horse with her knees and rode into the tunnel, then out onto the bridge. She heard trumpets blaring behind her again, to be answered from the far side.

  Halfway across the bridge Fiona brought her horse to a halt. She let out her breath slowly, hoping her tension, her anger, would ebb with it. She had escaped Neda, at least for the present. She would have to return, in less than an hour, with the hostages, and stay with them through tomorrow noon; and after that she’d be visiting the hostages regularly, assuring each side their people were being treated well.

  She would be trotting across the Long Bridge regularly, she thought. She had better get used to it.

  The bundle balanced on her saddle was wrapped in purple cloth, the Brodaini color of mourning. She touched it, feeling its silken texture, trying to detect any resonances of Kira. She could find none, and she had no time to open it.

  The drawbridge ahead of her was coming down again, she reached for the spindle on her belt and transmitted a brief message, through the more powerful transmitter in her trunk, to the ship, telling them she was safe, that she would report again after delivering the hostages. As they had agreed.

  She took a deep breath and urged her horse forward. It was time to be on her way.

  CHAPTER 28

  Tegestu watched Necias’ dark and startled eyes. “I must have your answer tonight, Abeissu Necias,” he said. “Delay would not be in our interests.”

  Necias’ fingers drummed on the arm of his settee as he listened to simultaneous translations from Campas and the Classanu scribe that Tegestu had brought with him. His eyes narrowed. “It’s difficult, very difficult,” he said, and then his speech faltered.

  Tegestu, cloaked and hooded, had come to Necias after midnight in a small six-oared messenger craft, slipping out of Calacas’ water gate with a murmur of the password. There had been no challenge as they stroked with muffled oars to the Elva camp, no challenge at all until after he and his interpreter had scrambled up the bank and walked to Necias’ barge, where the interpreter had called for the captain of the guard.

  “To see the Abessu-Denorru. Something to his advantage.” Tegestu, hooded still, turned away from the guards’ inquiring eyes.

  Little Necias had been roused at the appearance of Brodaini and had come clattering up the gangplank with a lantern and a pair of hulking, armored men with two-handed swords. “For you only, cenors-stannan,” the interpreter had said, gesturing for Little Necias to come up the bank. The big man carefully obeyed, raising the lantern to meet Tegestu’s frowning face, and then gasped an oath.

  “We must see the Abessu-Denorru,” Tegestu said. “No one but you and he must see us. A matter of urgency.”

  Tegestu and the Classanu were brought into the dark reception room, clanking guards posted at the doors. A lantern was lit. And then Necias, draped in a vast dressing gown that did not entirely muffle the delicate rattling of the knee-length coat of chain he wore under it, came warily into the room. His shadow bulked huge on the paneled wall, but his mouth seemed shrunken: Tegestu realized he hadn’t put in his front teeth. Tegestu, making certain they were alone, pulled back his hood.

  “I bring my interpreter along to make certain we do not misunderstand,” he had said. “I think we can end the war, favorably for us both.”

  That had been an hour before. Necias had listened quietly, with a few of the nervous gestures, the rubbing of his jowls, tapping of fingers, twisting of rings, to which he was prone. And then, uncomfortably, he had raised objections. Tegestu had, he thought, dealt with them all.

  “I must have an answer now, Necias Abeissu,” Tegestu said.

  Necias shook his head, the move amplified in grotesque shadow on the barge’s beamed deckhead, then turned his head away, his eyes closed. “More time,” he muttered.

  “Think, Abeissu,” Tegestu said. “Think until dawn, if you must. But not beyond.”

  And so they sat in silence, Tegestu staring intently at Necias as Necias stared into himself. The Classanu, practiced at the art of not existing when he was not wanted, sat on his heels and waited. Tegestu listened abstractedly to the sound of the river as it lapped at the barge, the faint creaking of its timbers, the sound of his own breathing. It was nearing dawn.

  Necias, his eyes still closed, raised a finger. Tegestu felt his pulse leap into his throat at the gesture.

  “Yes,” Necias said quietly. Just the single word.

  “I have the documents,” Tegestu said. “In both our languages. I have already signed. It needs only your seal. You must sign as chairman of the Elva, not as Abessu-Denorru of Arrandal.”

  Necias brought the lantern to his side and read the papers carefully, his eyes moving slowly down the lines. It did not take long: the documents were brief. “I’ll get my seal,” he murmured, and returned with a pen and ink.