Adrian and Esmond bowed low, their heads level with General Audsley’s foot where it rested in the steel loop of the stirrup. The big hairy saucer feet of his velipad moved on the grass before them, each with its seven blunt claws. The cinnamon-and-musk scent of the animal was strong in their nostrils, and the naked tail with its tuft of fur swung angrily as the beast sensed its rider’s mood.
“Most excellent lord,” Adrian said softly. “I fully realize it, and my apologies are most abject. Using these devices is more a matter of the mechanic arts than real soldiering. Could I—once more—humbly beg that men more suitable for such lowly occupations be assigned to them? Freedmen, even slaves, would be more suitable.”
“Arm slaves?” Audsley said, quick anger in his voice. It had been only two generations since the Great Revolt; Audsley’s father had been a young officer when Justiciar Carlos poled six thousand of the rebel survivors of the last battle along the road from Vanbert to Capeson.
“Freed slaves,” Adrian said. “And perhaps . . . there are foreigners among the slingers recruited by the great Confed Army as light troops, are there not? Some of those would be most suitable. If I might consult with my lord Redvers . . .”
Audsley scowled; Redvers was providing far too much of the money to be offended lightly. “See to it, then. And keep them out of the way of real soldiers!”
He wrenched the velipad’s mouth around, bringing a blubber of protest and a waving of the big round ears. Esmond stood silently until he was out of earshot.
“For every insult, for every slight, I’ll see a Confed liver,” he said at last.
Adrian nodded. “We’ve actually got some prospect of that, now,” he said. “As long as we can get what I need.”
“I don’t know whether it was the Gods or the daemons who told you where to find the formula for this stuff,” Esmond said roughly. “But by the Gods, you’ll get what you need.”
* * *
“It’s quite simple,” Esmond said to his audience of four. “This is our chance.”
“Our chance for what?” the assistant steward of the estate said.
He was an Emerald freedman; his nominal superior was a one-legged Confed veteran who hadn’t been sober past breakfast for ten years. They were meeting in his office, a pleasant room with plastered walls carrying scrolls and dozens of the wax-covered tablets of folding wood used for taking temporary notes; a latticework window opened onto the kitchen gardens. His fingers played with an abacus on the desk as he leaned forward and spoke, twitching nervously. A slave girl came in with a tray of cups and jugs of wine and water. The steward motioned her away impatiently and poured himself.
Esmond rose and stood facing them. He was wearing Emerald light-infantry armor, a tunic of three-ply greatbeast hide boiled in wax and vinegar and fastened with bronze studs, armguards of the same and high-strapped sandals.
“There’s going to be another civil war among the Confeds,” he said.
The steward blanched. So did the head stockman, the superintendent of field workers, and the woman who directed the household staff proper.
“We can’t stop it; we can’t stay out of it,” Esmond went on. “You all know what my brother has brought here.”
“Death,” the stockman muttered.
“We’re all initiates of the mysteries of death,” Esmond said. “But in this case, an awful lot of Confeds are going to die.”
“So? There have been civil wars before—Penburg rose during one of them. The wars end, and then the Confeds stamp on anyone who rebelled like a boot on ants.”
Esmond nodded. “That might have happened without my brother,” he said easily. “Why do you think we’re helping with this idiot coup?”
“Because your patron told you to,” the steward said.
“Velipad shit. We could have lifted a few thousand arnkets and headed for the Isles—our father traded there, and we have contacts in Chalice. This madness of Redvers would have been over in a few months, and all his properties would have been forfeit to the State.”
He watched them shudder at that. Sale at auction, families split up . . . and freedmen were always suspect when a man was put on trial for treason. Their testimony was taken from the rack, or with burning splinters put under their nails.