He gave Helga an odd look. “And, um, he has his own way of testing whether they can be trusted at the job. In the case of Enry, he set him the task of tracking down every member of the pirate crew that, ah, despoiled you. They keep good records, you know, the Islanders. I doubt if Enry missed more than a handful.”
Helga stared at him. Her expression was . . . mixed. Satisfaction, anger; the gods knew what else.
“I told you to tell him I’d already taken my own revenge.”
Trae looked uncomfortable. “I did. But—well. Actually. I don’t think ‘revenge’ is quite the right word, sister. I think Father just felt he needed to make another point to his new Islander subjects. No indiscriminate reprisals; no general violence; work your butts off for me and I’ll see to it you share in the rewards. But don’t ever mess with me or mine again.”
He cleared his throat. “I dare say he made it rather effectively. All of them were executed on the piers at Chalice, in plain view of the whole populace. The city rises up from the harbor like an amphitheater, you know. Beautiful place, by the way. Nothing fancy. Cut their throats and pitched the bodies to the scavengers. Father did the first three or four himself—the captain and his lieutenants—then left the rest to Forent and his boys.”
Adrian’s head felt like it was whirling. So, from what he could tell, did Helga’s.
“And what else is new?” he croaked.
Trae frowned. “What else? Let’s see. Oh, yeah. I’m the new Governor of Western Isles. Father wants Sharlz back in the fleet, keep it under tight control. That’s why—”
“And what else is new?” demanded Helga, almost snarling.
Trae gave her a reproachful look. “I was just getting to that.” They had reached the side door to the work shed. Trae swung it open. Standing beyond, facing them, just inside, her very fine apparel looking out of place, stood a very young and very pretty girl. Watching them nervously and making an obvious effort to keep from wringing her hands.
“Meet my wife. Oh. Did I mention she’s a princess?”
PART IV:
THE DICTATOR
Chapter 27
Demansk went down to the docks to meet them, when word came that their ship had arrived. It was a short distance, after all, and he got little enough in the way of exercise as it was. Most of his life, it seemed, would henceforth be spent sitting on chairs giving orders.
More important, he thought it was imperative to “legitimize” Adrian immediately. Demansk’s propagandists had been working day and night toward that end, to be sure. In that work, as well as ferreting out rapists—not to mention organizing treasonous insurrections—Enry Sharbonow had been invaluable. Although he was an Islander himself, the man was a cosmopolitan sophisticate, equally at home in the salons of the Emeralds. Using the new printing presses and the old methods of paying rumormongers, he and his men had spread the word that Adrian Gellert had all along been an agent of Demansk’s. Working tirelessly, it seemed, to advance the interests of the Confederacy and rescue Demansk’s daughter from captivity.
A nice touch, that last. Not least of all because it allowed Enry to slide through the rumor that Adrian and Helga had been secretly married long since. The maiden—well, best not dwell on that—rescued from durance vile, smitten by her hero, etc., etc., he likewise, etc., etc., a wedding in a cellar while he rescued her from Vase under the guise of helping King Casull conquer it—best not dwell on that, either—and etc., etc.
Utter nonsense, which no Emerald in his right mind would accept for a moment. Emerald men did not “get smitten” by women. But . . .
The Emeralds were not quite in their right mind, these days. For the first time in history a Vanbert politician was wildly popular with the Emeralds, and in all classes of that society. Anything connected with the name “Demansk” would be accepted as good coin—publicly, at least, which was all Enry or Demansk cared about. The more so since, in this case, the “hero” just happened to be an Emerald himself, and of a well-known and respected family of Solinga at that.