Casull paced across the room and up the dais to the Throne of Vase, turning to take the salute from the warriors who filled the great room to overflowing now.
“Hail to our lord King—King of all the Isles!” Esmond cried.
* * *
Helga Demansk watched the end of the duel wide-eyed, especially when Esmond Gellert pulled off his helmet after his victory. Oh, momma! she thought, glancing aside at Adrian. Yes, there was a family resemblance there, but . . . Well, if the old stories about Emerald philosophers are true, I suppose the ones about the Five Year Games winners can be too. Maybe even stories about god-fathered heroes, although like anyone with a modern education she tended to believe—consciously, at least—that the old gods were aspects of the One, Who needed only to Be, not to do.
Looking at Esmond Gellert, it was easy to remember things her nurse had told her, and old tales in books. The other Emerald was a big man, but with none of the beefy solidity she was used to in soldiers, or athletes, for that matter. He moved like a big golden cat, and his features might have been chiseled by a Solingian sculptor of the lost golden age right after the League Wars.
But there was something . . . something missing there. A liveliness that was in his brother’s eyes, even when they were abstracted. It grew as the flush of combat faded from his face, leaving it even more like a statue—painted marble, with a deadness behind. Except that marble did not conceal an ocean of pain. . . .
Stop being fanciful, she told herself. Concentrate. Adrian had said she was under his protection, and oddly enough she believed him. But Adrian might need protection. Would the King protect him? Could his brother? She stepped back a pace, hating the necessity but wishing for a cloak, too.
“Adrian!” Esmond said, stepping forward and shouldering nobles and ranking officers aside. A little life returned to the carved planes of his face. “Brother! By the shades, how did you get here?”
“Found an old access tunnel to that tower,” Adrian said, flushing with pleasure himself and clasping forearms. “Blasted out the plug with some hellpowder, and went looking for trouble—and found you, eventually.”
Esmond laughed. “I thought it was something like that. The Vaseans were retreating in pretty good order—stood up to the guns pretty well, even your sniping at their backs—and then they went to pieces.”
“Men will, when they’re attacked from the rear,” Adrian said. “You managed to cover yourself with well-earned glory, I see.”
Esmond laughed again; the sound was a little hoarse, as if he didn’t do it very often. He caught the smaller man by the shoulder and pushed him forward unwilling, until they were before the throne. Helga slipped forward unobtrusively, absently knocking a questing hand aside with the rim of her buckler on its wrist bone, and ignoring the indignant yelp that followed.
“My lord King,” Esmond said; not shouting, but pitched in a public-speaking mode copied from his brother’s rhetorical training, and found useful on the battlefield as well—much likelier to attract attention than the usual roar, as conversation built up in the throne room.
“My lord King,” he went on, grinning. “Here is my brother, Adrian Gellert, who has served you well—not only the devices which battered down the walls and gates of Vase, but by taking the citadel from behind through a secret passage and blocking the escape of Director Franzois.”
Casull looked aside from a consultation with one of his admirals who’d brought him a tally of ships captured intact.
“Then he has served me well,” the king said graciously, waving aside a surgeon who was trying to suture the slash on his cheek. “If the Director’s heir—a pretender to this throne—had escaped, this victory wouldn’t be complete.”
He gave Esmond a slight, hard stare at that; if the Director had won the fight, Casull might well have had to let him go . . . which would have had much the same result, with the added disadvantage of the sort of colorful story likely to attract free-lances who valued a lucky commander.