The queen sighed. Nerina’s divided heart seemed somehow a symbol of divided Arendia, but, though the gentle heart of the suffering baroness might never be made one, Mayaserana was resolved to make a last effort to heal the breach between Mimbre and Asturia. To that end, she had summoned to the palace a deputation of the more stable leaders of the rebellious north, and her summons had appeared over a title she rarely used, Duchess of Asturia. At her instruction, the Asturians were even now drawing up a list of their grievances for her consideration.
Later on that same sunny afternoon, Mayaserana sat alone on the double throne of Arendia, painfully aware of the vacancy beside her. The leader and spokesman of the group of Asturian noblemen was a Count Reldegen, a tall, thin man with iron gray hair and beard, who walked with the aid of a stout cane. Reldegen wore a rich green doublet and black hose, and, like the rest of the deputation, his sword was belted at his side. The fact that the Asturians came armed into the queen’s presence had stirred some angry muttering, but Mayaserana had refused to listen to urgings that their weapons be taken from them.
“My Lord Reldegen,” the queen greeted the Asturian as he limped toward the throne.
“Your Grace,” he replied with a bow.
“Your Majesty, ” a Mimbrate courtier corrected him in a shocked voice.
“Her Grace summoned us as the Duchess of Asturia,” Reldegen informed the courtier coolly. “That title commands more respect from us than other, more recent embellishments.”
“Gentlemen, please,” the queen said firmly. “Prithee, let us not commence hostilities anew. Our purpose here is to examine the possibilities of peace. I entreat thee, my Lord Reldegen, speak to the purpose. Unburden thyself of the causes of that rancor which hath so hardened the heart of Asturia. Speak freely, my Lord, and with no fear of reprisal for thy words.” She looked quite sternly at her advisers. “It is our command that no man be taken to task for what is spoken here.”
The Mimbrates glowered at the Asturians, and the Asturians scowled back.
“Your Grace,” Reldegen began, “our chief complaint lies, I think, in the simple fact that our Mimbrate overlords refuse to recognize our titles. A title’s an empty thing, really, but it implies a responsibility which has been denied to us. Most of us here are indifferent to the privileges of rank, but we keenly feel the frustration of being refused the chance to discharge our obligations. Our most talented men are compelled to waste their lives in idleness, and might I point out, your Grace, that the loss of that talent injures Arendia even more than it injures us.”
“Well spoken, my Lord,” the queen murmured.
“Might I respond, your Majesty,” the aged, white-bearded Baron of Vo Serin inquired.
“Certainly, my Lord,” Mayaserana replied. “Let us all be free and open with one another.”
“The titles of the Asturian gentlemen are theirs for the asking,” the baron declared. “For five centuries the crown hath awaited but the required oath of fealty to bestow them. No title may be granted or recognized until its owner swears allegiance to the crown.”
“Unfortunately, my Lord,” Reldegen said, “we are unable to so swear. The oaths of our ancestors to the Duke of Asturia are still in force, and we are still bound by them.”
“The Asturian Duke of whom thou speakest died five hundred years ago,” the old baron reminded him.
“But his line did not die with him,” Reldegen pointed out. “Her Grace is his direct descendant, and our pledges of loyalty are still in force.”
The queen stared first at one and then at the other. “I pray thee,” she said, “correct me if my perception is awry. Is the import of what hath been revealed here that Arendia hath been divided for half a millennium by an ancient formality?”
Reldegen pursed his lips thoughtfully. “There’s a bit more to it than that, your Grace, but that does seem to be the core of the problem.”
“Five hundred years of strife and bloodshed over a technicality?”
Count Reldegen struggled with it. He started to speak several times, but broke off each time with a look of helpless perplexity. In the end he began to laugh. “It is sort of Arendish, isn’t it?” he asked rather whimsically.
The old Baron of Vo Serin gave him a quick look, then he too began to chuckle. “I pray thee, my Lord Reldegen, lock this discovery in thy heart lest we all become the subject of general mirth. Let us not confirm the suspicion that abject stupidity is our most prevailing trait.”
“Why was this absurdity not discovered previously?” Mayaserana demanded.
Count Reldegen shrugged sadly. “I suppose because Asturians and Mimbrates don’t talk to each other, your Grace. We were always too eager to get to the fighting.”
“Very well,” the queen said crisply, “what is required to rectify this sorry confusion?”
Count Reldegen looked at the Baron. “A proclamation perhaps?” he suggested.
The old man nodded thoughtfully. “Her Majesty could release thee from thy previous oath. It hath not been common practice, but there are precedents.”
“And then we all swear fealty to her as Queen of Arendia?”
“That would seem to satisfy all the demands of honor and propriety.”
“But I’m the same person, am I not?” the queen objected.
“Technically thou art not, your Majesty,” the baron explained. “The Duchess of Asturia and the Queen of Arendia are separate entities. Thou art indeed two persons in one body.”
“This is most confusing, gentlemen,” Mayaserana observed.
“That’s probably why no one noticed it before, your Grace,” Reldegen told her. “Both you and your husband have two titles and two separate formal identities.” He smiled briefly. “I’m surprised that there was room on the throne for such a crowd.” His face grew serious. “It won’t be a cure-all, your Grace,” he added. “The divisions between Mimbre and Asturia are so deep-seated that they’ll take generations to erase.”
“And wilt thou also swear fealty to my husband?” the queen asked.
“As the King of Arendia, yes; as the Duke of Mimbre, never.”
“That will do for a start, my Lord. Let us see then to this proclamation. Let us with ink and parchment bandage our poor Arendia’s most gaping wound.”
“Beautifully put, your Grace,” Reldegen said admiringly.
Ran Borune XXIII had spent almost his entire life inside the Imperial compound at Tol Honeth. His infrequent trips to the major cities of Tolnedra had, for the most part been made inside closed carriages. It was entirely probable that Ran Borune had never walked a continuous mile in his life, and a man who has not walked a mile has no real conception of what a mile is. From the very outset, his advisers despaired of ever making him understand the concept of distance.
The suggestion that ultimately resolved the difficulty came from a rather surprising source. A sometime tutor named Jeebers – a man who had narrowly escaped imprisonment or worse the previous summer – put forth the suggestion diffidently. Master Jeebers now did everything diffidently. His near brush with Imperial displeasure had forever extinguished the pompous self importance that had previously marred his character. A number of his acquaintances were surprised to discover that they even liked the balding, skinny man now.
Master Jeebers had pointed out that if the Emperor could only see things in exact scale, he might then understand. Like so many good ideas that had surfaced from time to time in Tolnedra, this one immediately got out of hand. An entire acre of the Imperial grounds was converted into a scale replica of the border region of eastern Algaria and the opposing stretches of Mishrak ac Thull. To give it all perspective, a number of inch-high human figures were cast in lead to aid the Emperor in conceptualizing the field of operations.
The Emperor immediately announced that he’d really like to have more of the lead figures to aid his understanding of the masses of men involved, and a new industry was born in Tol Honeth. Overnight lead became astonishingly scarce.
In order that he might better see the field, the Emperor mounted each morning to the top of a thirty-foot-high tower that had hastily been erected for that purpose. There, with the aid of a great-voiced sergeant of the Imperial guard, the Emperor deployed his leaden regiments of infantry and cavalry in precise accordance with the latest dispatches from Algaria.
The general staff very nearly resigned their commissions en masse. They were, for the most part, men of advanced middle age, and joining the Emperor atop his tower each morning involved some strenuous climbing. They all tried at various times to explain to the beak-nosed little man that they could see just as well from the ground, but Ran Borune would have none of it.
“Morin, he’s killing us,” one portly general complained bitterly to the Emperor’s chamberlain. “I’d rather go off to war than climb that ladder four times a day.”