knows in the Vysochina highlands. He teaches her the fine points of
winetasting. She reads aloud to him from Simich, he to her from Genji.
They attend the opera in Zorkagrad. They join in the dances at a land
festival. They sail a boat across Lake Stoyan to a cafe beneath
flowering viyenatz trees on Gar-landmakers’ Island. They take their
children to the zoo and the merrypark.
If we prevail.
She stopped. Her body ached, but she straightened, faced into the wind,
and told it, We will. We will. I can borrow strength and clarity from
his medicines. The repayment afterward will simply be a time of sleep, a
time of peace. She wheeled and started back. As she fared, her stride
lengthened.
Novi Aferoch climbed from the docks at the Elena River mouth, up a hill
from whose top might be spied the ruins of Stari Aferoch when they
jutted from the sea at low tide. There stood Council Hall, slate-roofed,
heavy-timbered, colonnaded with carven water monsters. In the main
chamber was a table made three hundred years ago from timbers out of
Gwyth’s ship. Around it perched the steadcaptains of the Obala. At its
head, stood their moot-lord Kyrwedhin, Hand of the Vach Mannoch, and the
two humans.
A storm hooted and dashed rain on windowpanes. Inside, the air was blue
and acrid from the pipes whereon many had been puffing. Anger smoldered
behind obsidian eyes, but the leathery visages were moveless and not a
tailtip twitched. These males had heard what the voivode’s daughter had
to tell, and roared their curses. The hour had come to think.
Kyrwedhin addressed them in quick, precise words. He was short for an
ychan, though when he was younger it had not been wise to fight him. He
was the wealthy owner of seareaping and merchant fleets. And … he held
a degree from the Shkola, a seat in the Skupshtina, a close experience
of great affairs.
“For myself I will merely say this,” he declared in Eriau. (Flitting
from Zorkagrad after receiving Ywodh’s urgent, argot-phrased call, he
had been pleased to learn Flandry was fluent in the language, at least
its modern Merseian version. His own Serbic was excellent, his Anglic
not bad, but that wasn’t true of everybody here.) “The ideas of our
Terran guest feel right. We in the House of the Zmayi have doubtless
been too parochial where the Empire was concerned, too narrowly aimed at
Dennitzan matters–much like the House of the Folk. However, we have
always kept a special interest in our mother world, many of us have gone
there to visit, some to study, and the inhabitants are our species. Thus
we have a certain sense for what the Roidhunate may or may not do. And,
while I never doubted its masters wish us harm, what news and clues have
reached me do not suggest current preparations for outright war. For
instance, I’ve corresponded for years with Korvash, who lately became
Hand of the Vach Rueth there. If an attack on us were to be mounted
soon, he would know, and he must be more cunning than I believe for this
not to change the tone of his letters.
“No proof, I agree. A single bit of flotsam in the maelstrom. I will
give you just one more out of many, given me by Lazar Ristich, voivode
of Kom Kutchki. Like most members of the House of the Lords, he takes
close interest in Imperial business and is familiar with several prime
parts of the inner Empire; he had friends on Terra itself, where he’s
spent considerable time. He told me the story we heard about Kossara
Vymezal could not be right. Whether truly accused because she belonged
to an overzealous faction among us, or falsely accused for a twisted
political reason elsewhere, a person of her rank would not be shipped
off to shame like any common criminal. That could only happen through
monumental incompetence–which he felt sure was unlikely–or as a
deliberate provocation–which he felt sure the present Im-perium itself
would not give us, though a cabal within it might. He wanted to discuss
this with her uncle. The Zamok kept putting him off, claiming the