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During the whirl of balls and parties that he was invited to, Melville found himself being repeatedly paired with Princess Glaive Newra. Slender and barely five foot tall, she was strawberry blond, with the most remarkable peaches and cream complexion, and an impish sense of humor that charmed and delighted him. She was actually the granddaughter of the King of Osgil. One of many, many granddaughters, barely fitting under an extended definition of the title of princess. But she was the very personification of a princess to him. He tried hard to keep his defenses up, yet whenever he was with her he truly felt like a knight, as though he were her paladin, dedicated to protecting and serving her kingdom and her civilization.
The Westerness embassy, on the other hand, had no experience with knights or paladins, no tradition of rewarding heroes. For a week, every message to the Westerness ambassador went unanswered. The ambassador would be obligated to be present when Melville went before the king. But that was one audience that hadn’t occurred yet, even though it seemed like he’d met every other member of the royalty.
His lack of contact with the embassy troubled him. There was a sense of unseen wheels spinning. Decisions were being made in hidden chambers. Battles were being fought all around him, but for once Melville had no idea what to do, how to fight, how to make a difference in this struggle. So he was resolved to make as many friends as he could, to be as polite as he could to as many people as he could, and to live for the moment. And the moment was good.
Then a marine courier arrived at his inn with a message directing him to report to the Westerness ambassador at thirteen o’clock the next day.
It was 12:30 in the afternoon when he turned off of a wide boulevard and entered into the gateway to the embassy grounds. Large portions of the planet didn’t support the vast root structure for the towering forests that the Sylvan race preferred to live in. In Osgil the embassies, the Pier, the inns for visitors, many shops, taverns and the extensive “disreputable” district, were all mixed together in such an area. Off in the distance Melville could see the giant trees, rising like a wall of green skyscrapers marking the downtown district of some high-tech world. Last night he’d been dancing at a ball held high in a flet in one of those trees.
Melville missed the comforting, companionable weight of his monkey on his shoulder, but found some solace in his impeccable uniform. A marine guard stood at the open iron gate, his red uniform contrasting splendidly with the white wall and the green grass. Melville noted that he was apparently unarmed. The guard saluted him with obvious recognition and pleasure, and directed him to the main entrance of the large stone building that housed the embassy. It was most gratifying to be known, to have a good reputation among the troops.
He was striding along in the three-quarters gravity, crossing the grassy, tree covered grounds in the uniform of a lieutenant in the Westerness Navy. Black shoes with silver buckles, white pants, sword and belt chased in gold, and a blue jacket with gold plated buttons and a gold washed, brass epaulet on his left shoulder. After all the time spent barefoot aboard ship, on Broadax’s World, on Pearl, and on Ambergris, his shoes still felt strange.
At the building’s entrance there were two more unarmed marine guards. The sight of unarmed individuals on guard duty made him sad and uneasy. Whoever was in authority here was the kind of wretched, pathetic individual who didn’t trust, respect, or appreciate the young warriors who were trained and willing to fight and die for them. Again he was saluted with apparent pleasure, then the embarrassed guards asked him to leave his sword with them. This was unusual. Armed individuals were commonplace on Westerness, at all military bases, and everywhere he’d traveled on Osgil. Yet here, in the one piece of Osgil that was actually a part of Westerness, he was immediately disarmed. The guards assured him that it was nothing personal, no one was permitted into the embassy with weapons.
He was escorted through wood-paneled hallways that were weakly illuminated by gas lights. Then he was led into a waiting room where he . . . waited. It seemed to him that he’d waited for over an hour. There was no clock or window in the waiting room and he didn’t have a watch. No sailor would ever spend money on an object that would instantly become a piece of junk upon entering two-space.
Finally, a nondescript, wizened old clerk took him into the ambassador’s office. No coffee, no seat offered. Just a darkened room, a wide desk, and the glowering, scowling presence of the ambassador, who possessed the unlikely appellation of Sir Percival Incessant.
If I had a name like that, thought Melville, I might be pissed off at the world, too.
Melville stood quietly before the desk and the ambassador shuffled papers. Everything about the diplomat communicated the fact that he was obviously a very busy man, far too busy to be troubled by this trivial occurrence. Then he looked up, and cut directly to the point.
“Lieutenant, you have caused us an enormous amount of trouble. Do you see this stack of paper? It represents the mass of complaints and charges brought against you. First we have a complaint from the Guldur embassy. They were, er, sent packing by the King of Osgil several weeks ago, but not before they had the chance to communicate to us their dismay at your unprovoked attack and seizure of one of their ships. They demand the return of the ship and all their captured sailors.”
He was an odd little man. Almost as though he were trying to play some archetypal role. He was wearing a dark suit, with a pair of reading glasses perched halfway down a large nose that might have been inherited from an unhappy eagle, or perhaps a vulture, somewhere in his family lineage.
“Then we have a complaint, also from the Guldur embassy, delivered shortly before their, er, departure, demanding that you be delivered to them for the unprovoked sinking of several of their ships off of Ambergris.”
He looked at each piece of paper as though it were a worm in his salad.
“Then, through diplomatic channels, we have a complaint from the King of Guldur himself, stating that you participated in hostilities on Ambergris. Apparently they hold you, and members of your crew, accountable for the deaths of what is, I must admit, an improbable number of their military leaders.”
His eyes grew slightly wide and he held the next piece of paper at arm’s length, as though it were going to bite him.
“And then, most remarkable of all, through diplomatic channels, we have a complaint from the Eman of Orak. It seems that they hold you and your crew accountable for the deaths of many of their soldiers during the, er, recent, unpleasant occurrences on Ambergris. We do not even have diplomatic relations with them. Their vast empire is an immeasurable distance away, and yet somehow you seem to have contrived to have personally killed one of their senior officers, a distant member of their royal family. The details are remarkably precise. Apparently you dispatched him with . . . er, two bullets in the forehead and a bullet in the mouth. They state that the precise placement of the bullets could have happened only as a result of what was clearly an execution-style slaying. Ahm.”
He looked up at Melville with horror and amazement, holding another piece of paper as he continued.
“And during your return trip you seem to have threatened and gravely offended the senior surviving member of the Westerness consulate on Ambergris, who just happens to be a citizen of Earth!” The exertion of this last statement apparently left him winded, and he drew several deep breaths before he could continue.
“Lieutenant, we have spent hundreds of years building a star kingdom based on trade, and studiously avoiding any involvement in the affairs of the Elder Races. Where disharmony rules, commerce flags! Now you have created more disharmony, you have done more harm to our relations, you have caused more diplomatic emergencies in one voyage, than the rest of the history of Westerness put together! The vast empires of Guldur and Orak, and the diplomatic representatives of Earth are all very, very angry. In one . . . brief . . . period of time, you have managed to get a sizable portion of the galaxy very, very pissed off at you!”
Again he had to draw several deep breaths before he could continue, using a handkerchief to mop his brow and to wipe the fine spray of spittle from his lips and chin.