Chapter 11:
Shadow Play
I
Ciprion watched the waters break on the prow as the tubby ship rolled on toward the hazy line where sea met shore. Seagulls coasted in the clear blue sky over a trio of fishing boats anchored closer to land, their masts outlined starkly against the morning sky.
He shaded his eyes from the glare of the sun, rising almost in his face, wondering again what he would say to his daughter. Disappointment and anxiety would light in equal measure, if they had not already blazed, for she and her husband might already have received news of his speech on the senate floor and the sale of his properties in Derva. Neither action was likely to have benefitted her husband’s political ambitions and both Cornelia and her husband were unlikely to understand. Even his old friend Laelius had thought him mad.
Only one person had remained steadfast, and he heard her sandals on the deck, drawing near. The sailors knew to keep clear of him in the mornings, and he had made that simpler by selecting the same out-of-the-way span of rail, absent barrels or bales or anything that looked vital.
He turned to show his wife his profile and to acknowledge her without really taking her in and wondered what she saw as she came forward. A man of middle age, his eyebrows too thick, and dark, like his unruly hair. Probably she would be looking for his eyes. Amelia had always liked his eyes.
But then he had always liked hers, right from the start, arranged marriage or no.
“You look as though you’re brooding again.” Amelia put her hands on the rail beside him. Her voice had retained some roughness since she’d dealt with that cough in the autumn last year. She had recovered, but her voice hadn’t.
“I’m just enjoying the air,” Ciprion said.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
He gave her his best smile, which had once charmed foreign princes and the occasional princess. Her long black hair was pinned so that it crowned her in a braid and fell only to her shoulders. Threaded with gray, it was still shining and lustrous. Her dress was a pleasant blue with a conservative patrician neckline, and the amber at her throat brought out a sympathetic hue in her light brown eyes. Over the long years he’d known her, Amelia’s waist had broadened and her arms and neck had thickened, but no one could have convinced him she was no longer comely, for his tastes had changed and his love had rooted deeply. “You are as insightful as you are charming,” he said.
Over the sound of her gentle laughter and the rush of waves and wind in the rigging, he heard another set of footsteps drawing close. He didn’t turn, for fear he might make eye contact with someone he’d rather discourage from joining them. “Can you report good news?” he asked quietly of Amelia.
She replied in a mock military whisper: “I regret, General, that the enemy advances.” And then she added: “Do be kind. He’s mostly harmless.”
Torvus stopped beside him, bestowing upon them the greeting beloved of acquaintances and idiots everywhere. “Good morning to you, Senator, and lady. What fine weather.”
“Yes,” Amelia said. “Good morning.”
Ciprion nodded to him. Torvus was tall, with a square jaw and curling brown hair touched with gray. While grooming this morning he had missed a few spots on his chin, but then shaving on a rocking deck was a challenge.
“It shouldn’t be so long until we see the shore now, should it?” Torvus asked.
“Indeed not,” Ciprion replied pleasantly, then returned to consideration of the ever-shifting whitecaps and the blurry green mainland.
Another man would have heeded this invitation to depart, but Torvus pretended not to have noticed. “I wonder if you had heard the news transmitted from the sun telegraph this morning?”
Ciprion’s father would have corrected the man’s semantics, for one did not hear anything from a sun telegraph. Via a series of towers settled on the islets known as the Fangs, it was possible to flash messages from the Tyvolian peninsula over to the eastern provinces, and because their vessel was on a course parallel to that of the towers, the flashes could be noted from the deck.
“I did not,” Ciprion answered.
“Ah. Well, my friend the first mate—I believe I mentioned him yesterday—my friend actually reads the signals.”
“How ingenious of him,” Amelia said. “I saw those flashes, but how someone can make sense of them defies my understanding.” She smiled blandly.
Amelia played the part of a dutiful, simple-minded wife, and the fool would never know. Had she wished, she could easily have learned to deduce the signal sequence.
“It’s a complex business, my lady,” Torvus said, “but my friend is very clever.”
“So it seems,” Amelia replied. “But is it wise of him to be spreading news of a military nature?”
“He told only me. And I thought it would be good of me to relay the information to your husband.” Torvus held off saying more, as if he were a third-rate tragedian waiting for a fellow actor to finish a forgotten line before he dared say his own. He even drew the moment out longer, as though trying to prompt a bit of dialogue. “Because I think it might concern him, gravely.”
Ciprion tilted his head, pretending casual interest rather than displaying his irritation.
“Do tell,” Amelia said.
That prompt was all Torvus had required. He said, with affected solemnity, “The immediate family of Senator Marcius has been murdered.”
The amused twinkle vanished from Amelia’s eyes. “By the Gods.”
“Every last one of his children is dead,” Torvus continued, “along with an entire cavalry troop. No one’s sure how because there were no wounds and no sign of poison.”
“And Catius?” Ciprion asked.
“Vanished.” Torvus tried to look grim, and failed, betraying a hint of gleeful triumph at finally engaging Ciprion’s attention.
“And there is no explanation?” Amelia asked. “No one saw anything?”
Torvus shook his head. “Messages through the sun telegraph are short and . . . bereft of details.”
Amelia did not say the word sorcery, but it was surely on her mind, and she gave her husband a warning look.
“The family of Senator Marcius lived not so far from our destination. I would surely hate to think you were sailing near to anything dangerous, General. You or your charming wife.”
“I am no longer a general,” Ciprion reminded him.
“I mean merely to honor your service.” Torvus stepped closer. “What would you say if I were to tell you I had more precise information?”
“I would be curious.”
“Of course, of course.” Torvus glanced sidelong at Amelia. “Forgive me, my lady, but I’m not sure the words I have are for your ears.”
“Amelia provides my finest counsel,” Ciprion said. “While she might be disappointed by foul language or actions, I don’t think you will shock her.”
“It’s not foul language I mean to share, but foul plans.”
“And you wish a fee.” Amelia had warned Ciprion to be patient, so it was odd to hear a sharper note in her voice than Ciprion himself had used.
“By way of gratitude. That is all,” Torvus said hastily. “After all, the news comes with some risk to me.”
“It’s risky to repeat words that someone told you in a sun telegraph?” Amelia asked, as though the matter remained unclear to her.
Torvus shook his head. “I knew this information before that. Sheer chance brought us together upon this ship. Suppose I was to tell you that someone is stalking your husband?”
“Hanuvar, I suppose?” Ciprion suggested. “Risen from the dead?”
Torvus actually looked taken aback. Not as though he was disappointed his secret had been guessed, but because Ciprion wasn’t taking him seriously.
“Be off,” Ciprion said. “No one is after me.”
“I’m not selling you ghost stories,” Torvus pressed. “This is real.”
“I thank you for your consideration. Now, I have other matters to attend. Good day, sir.”
“Is it the fee at which you balk?” His voice grew wheedling. “A sense of security is priceless, isn’t it?”
“My husband has spoken,” Amelia said. “Please do not end our association rudely.”
Torvus bowed his head to her. “For your sake, my lady, I am almost tempted to reveal what I know for free. But a man cannot fill his stomach with thanks. Perhaps you will change your mind before disembarkation.”
He bowed his head to Ciprion, too, then retreated toward the deck house.
Ciprion waited for his steps to recede before he addressed his wife. “Do you still think him harmless?”
“He just wants money.”
“So do we all. Our funds aren’t what they were, are they?”
“But what if he really is telling the truth?”
“He has been trying to touch me since he first saw me aboard, and the sun telegraph inspired a story from him.”
“I should think what he said would inspire some curiosity from you. First Caiax is nearly killed, and now Catius’ entire family is murdered.”
“You think this has a connection to me?”
Her gaze sharpened. “You know the rumors about what happened to Caiax.”
“Yes, it’s entirely credible Hanuvar rose from a tomb he wasn’t buried in, then hunted Caiax down with some kind of fog demon.” He delivered his response in an amused, exasperated tone, hoping she would see the humor of the situation and laugh.
She did not. “The specifics may be wrong, but what about the truth of the matter? Who would Hanuvar most blame for what the empire did to his people?” Amelia paused, then answered her own question. “Caiax and Catius. And Ciprion.”
“It is unlikely he lives. And it is even less likely he would come after me.”
“If you hadn’t beaten him, he might have won the second war. Or at least come out with a stalemate. And then the empire couldn’t have moved against Volanus in the third war. He has no reason to love you.”
“I’ve met the man.”
Her voice rose in indignation. “Just because you were gentlemanly to one another, you think you know him? Have you conversed with him after our empire sacked and burned his city? Don’t you think that might change him? Wouldn’t it change you, if you had lost everything?”
His answer was slow in coming. “If I survived and the senate burned, I should be pleased, for the place is a cesspool. But if the people, and you, and our family had been wiped away . . .” Ciprion’s voice fell. “If he does live, I can’t imagine how he must feel.”
Amelia did not lack empathy. She looked morose for a moment, but her brief sympathy for an enemy general vanished in a flush of concern for her husband. “He might be mad with vengeance. Oh, don’t shake your head at me. I know you’re fond of him, though you will not say it. But if there is one thing that could break a man like you—and you seem to think he is like you—it would be what Hanuvar has endured.”
His reply was bitter. “If he lives, then Derva may deserve what he will hand her.”
She put two fingers to her heart. “Do I deserve a dead or missing husband?”
This shamed him, and he spoke gently. “You deserve only the best things life may give.”
“Then will you please take Torvus more seriously? It has been long years since you had a sorcerer on your staff to protect you.”
“I shall take the matter under advisement. For you, wisest of counselors.”
“Do not think on it too long, for we’ll reach land soon.” She fell silent briefly. “Pull your thoughts together. I’m going to make sure the slaves have our things properly sorted.”
Of course the house slaves would have their things properly sorted—they had been with the family for decades and knew their business better than Amelia herself. He squeezed her hand as she left, acknowledging that she meant to give him space.
He could not imagine a future encounter with Hanuvar; the idea was ludicrous. Instead, unbidden, his thoughts returned to their first meeting.
After long years, Ciprion had brought the war to the fields near Volanus, and somehow—he had never learned how—Hanuvar had withdrawn his entire army from Utria. Ciprion and the great Volani general had dismounted in a wide space in the scrub land between their army camps.
Ciprion wasn’t sure what the enemy general hoped to achieve, but he had accepted Hanuvar’s invitation so he might meet the enemy he had so long respected, a man whose stunning victories had taught him much about winning his own.
That day, less than twenty years previous, Ciprion had worn his legionary breastplate and helm, with no sign of his office but the fine gold detailing on his helm. His translator, like Hanuvar’s, waited two steps behind.
Hanuvar’s garb was even simpler than Ciprion’s own—a well-maintained but worn breastplate, a helm tucked under one arm. His beard was dark and well trimmed, his hair showing a few strands of silver. His weathered face was handsome and creased with lines that spoke of both humor and sorrow, and his blue-gray eyes burned with fierce intelligence. They fastened on Ciprion as Hanuvar raised his hand in greeting.
Ciprion returned the gesture, wishing he had removed his helmet. To do so now seemed an imitation, and so he left it in place.
“We may speak Dervan,” Hanuvar said smoothly in Ciprion’s native tongue, then switched to another: “Or we can converse in Herrenic, if you prefer. I know you enjoy the work of their scholars.”
Ciprion inclined his head in acknowledgment. Hanuvar was known to have excellent intelligence sources. “An interest I hear you share. Dervan is fine. I assume you wished the translators here only to bear witness.”
“Yes.”
“You invited me,” Ciprion said formally. “And so I have come.”
“I’m pleased you accepted my invitation. I wanted to meet the consul who had taken Nova Lovana and won Biranus for his people.”
“I confess that I wished to meet you as well. Your own achievements are hardly unknown to me.”
Hanuvar chuckled.
He was more amiable than Ciprion had expected, and it awakened an answering spirit in him. “I have seen you before, you know,” he said.
“So I’m told. Did you really pull your father to safety during that skirmish on the Icanus?”
“I did, though the storytellers have the details wrong. I didn’t see you there. I glimpsed you, from a great distance, at the battle of Acanar.”
“From which you led a small band of soldiers free.”
“You know my history.”
“I study all my opponents. Especially those whom I respect.”
Ciprion accepted that with a formal nod. Almost he returned the compliment, and would wish, in later days, that he had.
With a subtle shift in his stance, Hanuvar suggested the time for informalities had ended; he turned to the point of their meeting. “You’ve been successful, Consul. And fortunate. But you know as well as I that fortune takes sudden turns. Success can elude even the most talented of men. Do you think Derva can gain more than she’s already won if we continue this war? You’re far from your lands, and will find no safe harbor should your forces be scattered in defeat.”
Ciprion studied him, wondering what he might be prepared to offer.
“I know your record,” Hanuvar continued, “and I think you and I may be the only commanders in this conflict who see war not as a means of acquisition or gratification, but as a road to greater peace.”
“War is no poet’s song,” Ciprion answered. “It should be the last resort of honorable men.”
Hanuvar looked pleased. “I would not have proposed this meeting if I didn’t think it would benefit us both.”
“Do you mean to propose terms different from the ones I offered?”
“We will relinquish all the islands, including the Deralta group. We will leave Biranus to you.”
Ciprion did not immediately reply; he was waiting to see if Hanuvar would offer more. When he did not, he shook his head ever so slightly. “You offer an armistice without the surrender of your war vessels or the return of Tyvolian deserters and fugitives in your army.” Ciprion raised a hand before Hanuvar could respond. “I know they compose the greater number of your veterans, and that you would no more betray them than I would my own troops. But I cannot accept less than the terms already agreed upon in Derva.”
Hanuvar studied him, then bowed his head. “I didn’t hold much hope for an accord between us, but I wished to meet you, and I do not regret it. We’ve no choice but to work to destroy the other’s army.”
“Duty gives us no other option.”
They raised hands in salute, then parted. And soon thereafter, they sounded the trumpets and sent their lines into battle. And after that long, terrible day, Ciprion emerged triumphant.
But it had been a close thing. If Hanuvar’s cavalry reinforcements had arrived in time, things would have gone very differently. Ciprion had never failed to reflect upon that, even in the midst of the triumph the emperor held for him. If luck had swung just a little differently, it might have been he who’d fled the field.
II
Help was always needed with the animals, for the circus required care not just for those who performed, but for the small army of horses, oxen, and mules that pulled their wagons.
Antires had suggested he join the small team of gladiators in their mock battles, disguising himself in a helmet with a face shield. But Hanuvar had no inclination to risk injury even in the carefully choreographed battles, nor did he want rumors of his martial prowess spreading among the circus members. And so he spent the majority of his time brushing fur, forking hay, or shoveling manure.
Work with the animals kept him busy, which was good, for it was harder to brood while he labored. Every hour he was conscious that not moving toward Derva must mean the death of more of his people. While he knew he would do them no good if he was identified, the slow progress tore at him.
They had arrived at the settlement of Miletus the previous evening. Now the early afternoon had come and only a few hours remained before the night’s show. Hanuvar worked the corral where the horses were loosely tied, plying a rusty pitchfork to flip clumps of manure into a small four-wheeled cart. The sky was bright above, laced with clouds, and the sun was warm on his back. Flies buzzed, and horses stamped their hooves and flicked their tails to ward them off. The animals stood in a line in front of their fodder. Antires thought himself clever to remark that Hanuvar first tended what went in the front end, and then took care of what came out the back. Apparently he was unaware that it was a very old joke.
When Hanuvar was most of the way down the line of animals, Antires wandered up to watch. He was dressed in a red tunic and sandals, his hair and new beard neatly combed. Hanuvar guessed he had just finished running lines for some of the scenes the circus performed each evening. Shortly the actor would don his bright, showy performance clothes.
Antires said nothing, though his nose wrinkled at the concentrated scent of warm horse, and dried grass, and droppings.
“You could stop staring, and grab a pitchfork,” Hanuvar suggested.
“And then I might be as fragrant as you are.”
Hanuvar plopped another scoop of moist manure onto the cart. “Who is more fragrant? The man shoveling, or the man he tripped into the manure?”
“The answer to that riddle’s best learned at a distance. I should finish getting ready.” Antires said this but did not leave.
“And yet you stand and stare.”
“At you, shoveling horse shit.”
It amused him that Antires assumed such work beneath him. “I was a statesman for years. This is cleaner work.”
Antires’ eyes flashed in good humor, but he still looked doubtful. “I know you want to work behind the scenes, but you could at least help with some other duty. You could manage logistics, say.”
“The circus has managers. I work with horses. I shovel shit. Horse, donkey, ox, leopard, or elephant. Aren’t you the one who told me to own the role?”
So saying, he hefted the pitchfork, lifted the cart handle, and dragged it behind him as he walked the short distance from the horse corral to where the lone elephant was picketed. He scratched the side of Kordeka’s great gray head and she touched his shoulder lightly with her trunk, flapping her ears, then resumed transferring hay from the large pile before her into her mouth.
Hanuvar dragged the cart to her back end, Antires shadowing.
Elephant manure was more odiferous than horse manure, wetter, and, naturally, larger. He decided he should probably dump what he’d accumulated, and was getting ready to drag the cart away when he heard a young, cultured Dervan voice near Kordeka’s head.
“It’s a female elephant,” said a girl’s voice.
A small boy querulously objected. “Well it’s big enough to be a war elephant. Did you ever fight an elephant, Grandfather?”
“Of course he fought elephants, silly,” the girl answered. “He fought masses of them.”
Hanuvar started around the side to ensure the children were keeping an appropriate distance.
“Will there be any elephant fights at the circus, Grandfather?” the boy asked.
Hanuvar recognized the older voice that answered within the first few words, simple as they were: “It’s not that sort of circus.” But he’d already stepped into sight, and discovered Ciprion, who casually glanced up while answering the boy and girl. “It takes far more skill to train an elephant to do tricks than to . . . lead one into battle.”
Both men ceased movement altogether; Hanuvar was not even aware that he breathed. For once his keen reflexes deserted him entirely, and his intellect was a barren desert.
He had at least eight years on Ciprion, and yet the Dervan looked older, his face weathered by disappointment. His dark brown eyes remained keen, however, and bright with surprise, then wary caution, in swift succession. The tunic Ciprion wore should have borne a broad purple stripe, as befitted a senator, but there was only a well-tailored brown border, suggestive of leaves.
The length of their stare might have lasted but a few heartbeats, or might have dragged a quarter hour, so slowed was time, so absent was Hanuvar from contemplation. He was just starting to raise his hand in greeting when Ciprion’s eyes slid past his own and he turned back to the children. “We should go,” he said.
“To the leopards?” the little boy asked.
Ciprion put his hand to the boy’s back, moving him along. “Maybe later.”
“But I do wish to see the leopards,” the boy objected with a politeness beyond his years.
“Not now.”
Hanuvar watched Ciprion guide them away, out beyond the empty wagons. The Dervan general neared a pair of soldiers idly walking along the circus edges. Hanuvar partly expected him to wave them close, to point them toward his old adversary.
But Ciprion passed the legionaries without comment, and he and his grandchildren walked out of sight behind a wagon.
Antires joined Hanuvar, staring off toward where Ciprion had disappeared. “What was that about?” the actor asked. “Did you know that man?”
“It’s Ciprion.” Hanuvar sounded as surprised as he felt.
“Ciprion?” Antires repeated, then demanded: “The Ciprion?”
Hanuvar didn’t bother responding, and Antires swore. “Did he recognize you?”
“Yes.”
“But he didn’t even say hello,” Antires said. “He could have said something to those soldiers. But he didn’t. What do you think he’s going to do?”
“Avoid the messy consequences.” Hanuvar finally turned away.
“Why?”
“I’m inconvenient.”
Antires puzzled over that. “I thought you were, well . . . friends.”
“I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Antires asked. “He refused to make your personal surrender part of the peace terms. And he told the senate it wasn’t Derva’s business to interfere in the affairs of Volanus.”
“He is an honorable man.”
“Do you think he’s hunting you?”
Hanuvar shook his head. “He was showing the circus to his grandchildren.”
Antires looked doubtful. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to do my job.” Hanuvar started back toward the cart. “Don’t you have lines to practice?”
Antires sighed, lifted both arms to the sky as though demonstrating his frustration to an invisible audience, then walked off.
While Hanuvar rolled the cart away, he tried to reconcile the appearance of the man he’d just seen with the one he’d last encountered in Volanus, after the second war’s conclusion.
On that occasion, almost four years ago, Ciprion had been wearing not just a senator’s purple bordered tunic, but a full toga. He had arrived in Volanus with the official delegation to accept the final installment of the indemnity the people of Volanus had been paying to their victors every six months since the conclusion of the second war.
Hanuvar had been on hand to receive Ciprion formally, in the vast, vaulted Hall of the People, where he had presided as one of the two shofets welcoming the Dervan visitors. But it wasn’t until a private dinner that evening that he’d had the opportunity to speak with his former foe.
Ciprion had arrived with his long-time friend and lieutenant Laelius, who had watched Hanuvar just as suspiciously as Hanuvar’s brother Melgar stared at the Dervans throughout the meal.
While Hanuvar’s one-armed brother and the scarred Laelius smoldered at one another across the rectangular table, Ciprion had remarked how impressed he was to see the prosperity of Volanus. They were dining Volani style, sitting upright in high-backed chairs in an upper floor of Hanuvar’s villa. The Dervans wore fine white tunics with an eques’s and a senator’s colors, respectively, and he and Melgar had donned simple light blue tunics, short sleeved. He had given his guests the view overlooking the vast harbor, alive with lantern lights as the sun sank, a small mirror to the glory of the stars shining over the sea. The steeples of the great temples on the harbor islands were dark outlines against the night and the water.
Laelius, a broad man of middle years, shifted his toga and frowned at Ciprion’s comment, adding: “Volanus prospers while Derva toils. It’s a strange state of affairs for the victor and the vanquished.”
Hanuvar responded without rancor. “We are allies now, and no longer at war.”
That might have been the end of it, but Melgar had to interrupt. Age had sharpened his boyish looks so his features remained striking, despite a bright scar above his beard line. But the spark that had always burned in his eyes suggested fury now, not mischief. “Whereas,” Melgar said, wine drawling his Dervan accent, “Derva wars with both the Arbateans and the Cerdians. Your new emperor may be spreading himself thin.”
Laelius’ frown deepened.
Hanuvar knew neither Ciprion nor his friend cared for expansionist polices that the new emperor was so keen upon, for they drained imperial resources. But Ciprion had more or less removed himself from politics whereas the plebian Laelius had to remain involved or cease to be relevant.
“Are you waiting for the empire to spread itself thin?” Laelius asked Melgar.
“What is it you’re waiting for? The emperor’s table scraps?” Melgar looked meaningfully at Ciprion. “Or are Ciprion’s good enough for you?”
Laelius’ lip curled.
Hanuvar spoke shortly, and deliberately in Dervan. “Melgar, these are guests in my house.”
Melgar’s smile faded. He met his brother’s eyes and a measure of shame actually reached him. “Yes. Forgive me.” He bowed his head infinitesimally toward the Dervans. “I’m afraid I have a sour stomach. I’m sure it has nothing to do with present company.” He bowed his head to his brother, rose, and left.
Hanuvar fought down an urge to ask him to stay, knowing his brother would return, but that his presence would in no way improve the tension. He’d have to handle this alone.
He looked across the table at Laelius. “I must apologize for my brother’s conduct.”
“We understand,” Ciprion said.
Laelius bowed his head, though he still frowned. “There are men like him in Derva too. Veterans who remember the pains of the war too well.”
“Are many of your people as angry as he?” Ciprion asked.
“I could not hope to count them,” Hanuvar admitted. “But then the Dervan wounded are more numerous, for the war was on your lands until you brought your army here.” He paused, then addressed their concerns directly. “I wish you to understand something. I know it would be folly to war with you. We were outnumbered by you even before we surrendered our ships and weapons after the armistice. It is my hope we will be allies, although it may be a generation before Dervans realize our sincerity.”
“I’m glad you see it that way,” Laelius said stiffly.
Silence fell across the table, and just as Hanuvar was regretting sending the harpist away earlier, Ciprion quietly addressed his friend. “Laelius, I wonder if you would give us a moment alone. Perhaps you could seek Melgar and try a more amicable line of conversation.”
“Maybe I’ll just get a drink.” Laelius looked hesitantly at his friend, as if he were uncertain whether he really ought to leave, then, at a reassuring nod, departed the chamber and could be heard taking the stairs down to the courtyard, where the harpist played among the flowers.
“I wish my brother hadn’t made that table scraps comment,” Hanuvar said.
“Laelius shouldn’t have pushed him.”
“It was a small push. Melgar would have planted himself on a hill at Mazra and fought until his death if I’d let him. He’s been aching to fight every Dervan he meets ever since. As if he’s angry he didn’t get to die battling.”
Ciprion lifted a spoon, lowered it, sighed. “I’m afraid our people are doomed to this. Even the good-hearted ones. Laelius, your brother—they want peace, and they’re still at each other’s throats. Sometimes . . .” His voice trailed off.
“What?”
Ciprion hesitated a moment longer, then swept up his hand in an elegant gesture, indicating Hanuvar. “What you said, at Mazra, was right. You and I may be the only ones who see war as an unpleasant necessity to get us peace.”
Hanuvar lifted his goblet. “Here’s to peace.”
Ciprion raised his own in salute, and they drank.
With infinite care, Ciprion returned the goblet to the table. He did not speak, but Hanuvar sensed him gathering his words, and left him the silence to find them. “Hanuvar,” he said at last, “what you’ve accomplished here in five years is amazing. The senate thought it would take twenty-five years to pay off the indemnity.”
“You have to know where to find the money.”
“You made enemies looking.”
He now knew the topic Ciprion was moving toward. “Enemies who’ve gone to Derva.”
The senator’s thick brows climbed his forehead. “Your intelligence agents are still in place, then?”
“My adversaries aren’t half so clever as they think.”
“How much do you know?” Ciprion asked.
“I know some of my political enemies are telling your senate I’m in negotiations with the king of Cerdia. Among other things.”
“Are you?”
Hanuvar shook his head. “If Volanus is to thrive, all its people must prosper. None will prosper if we ally with Cerdia. But you already know it.”
He had hoped Ciprion knew it and was gratified when the man nodded. “I wanted to watch you say it. I believe you. But my opinion doesn’t count as much as it should.” His voice grew grave. “They will come for you.”
This was new information, and Hanuvar watched, waiting to hear what Ciprion meant.
It seemed at first the Dervan was changing the subject, for he next asked: “Do you know what our noble families have in common with yours?”
The answer was simple. “They hate losing money.”
“And they are allied against you,” Ciprion said. “Your aristocrats want you out because you raised their taxes. Our patricians want you out because you’re too damned effective. They’ve drawn up plans to frame and arrest you and cart you back to Derva. I could never have predicted such an alliance . . . but I see from your expression you must have anticipated it anyway.”
“I have contingency plans,” Hanuvar admitted.
“So you know how to stop them?”
“Stop them?” He wished he might manage that. “No. Merely how to exit. I’d hoped I was overestimating the strength of their greed.”
“Never underestimate a rich man’s thirst for money.”
“Of course. How long do I have?”
“A month. Maybe a little more. They expect my inspection tour to lull you into security, and then they’ll visit. Charges and false documents will be handed over. Your senate will be shocked, horrified even, to learn how you’ve jeopardized the state security by leaguing against your loyal ally Derva.” He smiled sadly. “You know Etipholes has King Tauric say to his ungrateful people: ‘I was a fool to trust the faith of men.’”
“So said the tyrant. But it’s not the people who’ve turned against me. It’s those who feign to lead them.” Hanuvar spoke sharply. “They’re parasites. Every step of the way their short-sighted policies crippled us. If they’d fully backed me in the war, even you could not have beaten us.”
“I know that.”
Already Hanuvar regretted his outburst. “Forgive my bitterness.”
“Because you learned you must leave your home?” Ciprion sighed. “You spoke with brief anger and didn’t even curse. I would not have done so well.” He looked as though he meant to say more, then changed the subject. “I had hoped you might have some clever countermeasure.”
“I have many strategies to halt my own malcontents, but none to stop Dervan politicians. Not anymore.”
“You told me once that fortune can take unexpected turns.”
“Sometimes fortune turns on the forge of honor. I am grateful to you for your warning, Ciprion.”
The Dervan bowed his head with great dignity. “Were our circumstances reversed, you would have done the same for me.”
III
If things had gone better with Ciprion, Torvus might already be on his way southeast. But the old general was a miser, or he himself had been too obvious in his eagerness. You had to play with the dice on the table, and so Torvus had resigned himself to his course, however unpleasant it was. As he passed among the circus tents he neared a pretty younger woman who stopped and asked if he needed help. At one time she might have returned his own smile in a more interested way, which reminded him, again, of how old he was getting. He didn’t think his disappointment showed in any obvious way. “I’m looking for Mellika,” he said. “I haven’t visited with her in many a year.” He pointed to Mellika’s wagon. Almost he told the woman who he really was, but he hadn’t wanted to alert anyone to his presence, which is why he’d bypassed the Ruminian when he’d spotted her painting the toenails of her elephant.
The young woman let him walk through. He felt her watching him surreptitiously as he knocked on the wagon door.
His daughter bade him enter: “Come in.”
He took the three steps up, opened the door, and stepped through into a small chamber rich with dark paneled wood. His daughter sat at a fold-up desk near an open window. She glanced up, then did a double take. He would have liked to have seen a smile, but her expression was neutral at best.
Torvus closed the door behind him.
Mellika had grown thick, like her mother after the first few years. She had her pretty long-lashed eyes, and his chin. She was swathed in a dress with a colorful cape and adorned with multiple bangles and bits of jewelry. The most important of it was the silver chain about her neck, the same one her mother had once worn. The amulet it bore was hidden beneath her high collar, which was threaded in red with the outlines of circus animals.
“You look well,” Torvus said, and lifted his hand to show the small amphora he’d carried with him all the way from Utria. “I brought you some Fadurian wine.”
“Father.” She said nothing more.
“Aren’t you going to offer me a cup? This is your favorite. I brought it to split with you.”
Wordless, Mellika reached to her left, opened a panel from a space he knew well, and withdrew two goblets. She pushed the second toward him.
He wondered why she said nothing, not even a comment about his arrival or an accusation about his trying to bribe her with a drink. But that didn’t matter, as long as she consumed it.
Torvus uncorked the flask, poured a generous amount into her goblet, and then a little into his own, and sat it on the table beside her.
“To your mother,” he said, and lifted the drink.
“To mother.” Mellika saluted the air and drank while Torvus pretended to do so. After, she smacked her lips appreciatively. Fadurian wine was expensive for good reason: the mountain vintage was one of the best in all Tyvol.
She looked as though she was readying to say something, so he spoke first: “I know I’ve done little enough to win your love. But you are my blood.”
“That’s what you gave me,” she said coolly. “That, and an introduction to your favorite wines.”
“I gave you life,” he pointed out.
If there had been any warmth in those pretty eyes, it was vanished now. “You had less to do with my life than a rutting goat has with its kids.” She set down the goblet. “You came here for a favor. State it.”
“You’re not going to ask what I’m doing here, rather than in Derva?”
“That would imply I cared, Torvus. My show’s going on in less than an hour, so let’s keep this brief.”
He willed her to drink more while he acted as though he felt uncertain. “Things are bad for me, daughter. Worse than you can know.”
She frowned. “And you need money.”
He shook his head. He pretended to drink more, hoping that would encourage her, but she just watched, stony eyed. “A man always needs money. But this is different. I’ve gotten myself in debt.”
She shook her head slowly from side to side. “I have people depending on me, and money’s tight in an outfit like this. You know that.”
“It’s not money I need. I’m in debt to a sorcerer. He’s a bad man.”
“How did you—” She cut herself off and sighed. “Never mind. You think I’d have learned by now.”
She hadn’t learned enough by half. He just had to keep her talking long enough for the drug—if she’d imbibed enough of it—to take effect. He supposed there was always a faint chance she’d be convinced by what he said, but she was no easy mark.
“It started out small, like these things usually do. I owed him some money and thought I could sell him my services. But he got word that I used to own something he thinks is important. And he’s told me he’ll let me go free if I get it for him.”
“Mother’s amulet?”
The speed of her deduction surprised him, and he stared in appreciation. It was the equivalent of being caught flat-footed in the arena, and it left him open for further probing.
“By Arepon, I suppose you’re going to tell me now it wasn’t you who told him about it. ‘Got word,’” she repeated with a contemptuous snort. “How else would he hear about it?”
“I was desperate.” He tried not to stare at the goblet, or the little amphora.
She glared at him. “It was hers. Not yours.”
“He’ll kill me,” he said. “I need that amulet.”
“The circus needs this amulet. Without its blessing, how do you think my animals will manage the tricks they’re known for?”
“You put too much stock in it. Your trainers are excellent.”
“They are. But the amulet makes a difference, and you know it. Are you trying to tell me the sorcerer wants an amulet that doesn’t work? Do you realize how stupid that argument sounds?”
She was working herself up, and he realized it might be mere moments before she simply threw him out.
He held up his hands. “Look, it’s different than you think.”
“Oh? Is it? Right now I think you promised a wizard something that isn’t yours, and you’re not going to get it. Is there something else?”
“What I’m trying to tell you is that it doesn’t matter what you want. It doesn’t even matter what I want. He got out of me that it’s here, and he means to have it. I begged him to let me talk to you first. You may not believe this, but I don’t want any harm to come to you. And harm will come to you.”
Her lips twisted into a scowl. “Get out.”
“You need to listen to me. He will kill. That’s what he does.”
He reached to the pouch at his waist. He had meant to leave this with her when he departed, but he had it now, and it might work the trick. He took a single step forward and set it on the desk, where it struck with a weighty jingle.
“Lead and a few coins?”
“All coins. It’s not much. But it’s all I’ve saved. It’s for you. For the amulet. Take it, and you need never see me again. And you won’t see him. Or, more likely, one of his creatures.”
“Where did you get it?” Mellika sighed and, finally, reached again for the goblet. She took a long drink, set the goblet down, then touched the side of the bag. She didn’t open it. Her eyes flicked up to him and they looked a little bit less harsh. “I don’t truly know if the amulet works,” she admitted.
“All the more reason to give it to me then. The wizard thinks it does.”
“Mother always thought it did.”
“But she was gifted at training. And so are you. Some people have a knack, and then they look to the gods or amulets or potions for explanation. You know as well as I how a con can be run.”
“Probably not as well as you.” Her hand touched the amulet under her collar. “What if you’re wrong, and I give it to you, and the wizard discovers it doesn’t work? Won’t you be in danger?” She stared for a second and then put a hand to the desk. She swayed, blinked long and hard. “What . . .”
Torvus winced. He hadn’t guessed he could really convince her. “I’m sorry, girl. You can keep the money. It’s more than you may think. The effect should wear off by midnight.”
She fought its effects and stood, hand protectively on the necklace. She glared hatred at him.
And then she sagged. He caught her before she struck her head, and manhandled her around the desk, gently as he could. He managed to get her onto the cot built into the carriage side beyond the desk. Once, some thirty years before, she’d been conceived on that very pull-down mattress. He laid her on her side, then, with great care, eased the amulet off her head. He considered it then, the old red stone with the claw mark and simple outline of a snarling cat, then ruffled her hair, eyed the sack of coins regretfully, and headed for the door.
He closed it very gently and was starting forward when a hand landed upon his shoulder.
He spun and immediately took a powerful blow to the chin. Torvus was no stranger to bar fights, but a rain of punches followed, each one landing in the place he wasn’t blocking. A solid belt to the belly doubled him over and then somehow he was on the ground.
He blinked up at a muscular man with graying hair and a dangerous look in his eye. Only belatedly did he realize the stranger was already holding a delicate chain in his hand, and that it was the same one the amulet was attached to, cupped in the stranger’s palm.
The pretty young woman he’d encountered earlier stood at his side, frowning, and on his other side was the Ruminian woman he knew must be little Shenassa, all grown up.
Probably one had been listening at the window for most of the conversation. Maybe the pretty one had recognized him by description and run off for help. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the danger both he and his daughter were in.
“You don’t understand,” he explained. “I’m trying to save Mellika.” He felt his jaw and winced. No teeth had been knocked out, praise the gods, but the stranger’s attack was going to leave multiple bruises.
“Help her?” Shenassa asked. “By poisoning her? By taking her amulet?” She spat.
Torvus sat, but did not yet climb to his feet. “A bad man is after her. A powerful one. He’ll send a beast to kill her.”
“How much did you hear?” the stranger asked Shenassa.
“Enough.”
“Who are you?” Torvus asked the man.
“A friend. You need to go.”
“Listen to me.” Torvus rose, and reading the stranger’s wary gaze he showed empty palms. “I’m trying to help her. Kontar’s a real wizard. He’s sending a beast to kill a Dervan tonight. Everyone’s going to be talking about it tomorrow. You’ll believe me then, and it may not be too late to save her.”
The man responded with whiplike sharpness. “What Dervan?”
“That general, Ciprion.” At mention of the senator’s name the stranger’s grim features twisted into horrified shock, as if he personally knew the high-ranking Dervan. And then the look was gone and the lips were pulled back from the man’s teeth. Torvus had thought he looked dangerous before.
“How soon?” the stranger demanded.
“I don’t know how soon. Maybe now. I tried to warn him, but he was too stupid to pay me.” Torvus had travelled ahead of Kontar after having successfully pleaded that he be allowed to have a few extra days to talk to his daughter, but this morning he’d discovered the wizard arrived only a day after himself.
The stranger’s voice rose. “What’s he sending against him?”
Torvus decided to speak the truth. “Red mokrels.” At the man’s blank look he explained quickly. “They’re larger than regular monkeys. And he’s taught them to strangle. But he has three men in his employ, too, to master them, and to navigate places the mokrels can’t go unnoticed.”
The pretty girl had vanished inside the wagon and returned, face taut with anger. “Mellika is alive but deeply sleeping.”
“She’ll wake around midnight,” Torvus said. “I wouldn’t hurt my own daughter. I left money for her,” he added.
“Go,” the man ordered with a snarl.
Torvus realized that he would have to. “You’ll tell my daughter, won’t you? You’ll tell her what I said, and that the same or worse will happen to her that happened to Ciprion?”
But he was speaking to the empty air, for the man had tossed the amulet toward Shenassa and sprinted away, as if all the shades of the dead were on his heels.
IV
Ciprion had taken refuge in the little room at the far end of the suite in the eastern wing of his son-in-law’s expansive estate. Amelia was still visiting with their daughter, but Ciprion had tired of Felix’s veiled hostility. The young man still sulked that Ciprion had dared ruin Felix’s political future.
He sat at a desk with a play by Etilus in the original Herrenic. It wasn’t Etilus’ best, but there were still fine turns of phrase, and it had been years since Ciprion had read The Garden Plot. Ostensibly he was working on his memoirs, but that parchment sat open and blank beside him for the second day running.
He wasn’t sure what had caught his attention, but he felt a change in the air, and then a voice spoke behind him.
“Reading by candlelight is bad for the eyes.”
It was Hanuvar. Gods. The Volani really was mad. “I hoped that you would not come,” Ciprion said, though he did not fully turn. “This means the rumors are true.”
“You can’t believe everything you hear,” said the man behind him. Hanuvar stepped to the side, probably planning to face him, so Ciprion turned toward the wall.
“Laelius read the reports from the arena in Hidrestus,” Ciprion said, “as well as Caiax’s eyewitness account. He wrote me about it, but I didn’t believe you were really back. Until now.”
“I was stunned when I learned Caiax survived. Did he happen to mention he could have helped me stop that thing in the arena? He chose to fight me instead.”
“You’ve left a trail of bodies,” Ciprion said grimly. It angered him that Hanuvar was trying to justify any of his recent actions.
“So have we both.” His old enemy sounded surprisingly reasonable. “But it was Caiax’s limited focus that got him wounded, and Catius’ own sorcery killed him.”
“You expect me to believe Catius practiced sorcery?” Ciprion said in disbelief.
Hanuvar explained calmly: “He hired a sorcerer to speak with the dead. To learn my whereabouts. It didn’t go as planned.”
The simple ring of truth was in his voice. “You’re not lying.”
“I have not come to lie to you. Why won’t you face me?”
“If I survive our little talk, at some point I’m going to be asked whether or not I saw you. And I intend not to lie.”
Hanuvar laughed. “You saw me at the circus.”
“Did I? Who could be sure of that?”
“Aren’t we too old for these kinds of games? Lie or not if you wish, to honorless men. You can’t tell me you care what the senate thinks. Word is you left their number and sold your Dervan properties.”
“That news traveled fast.”
“I know also that you spent a fortune buying up Volani orphans.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, Ciprion turned and met Hanuvar’s eyes. The general stood tall and proud, his features thrown in stark relief by the light, so that his eyes seemed hooded and the flame light glistened in their depths. His was not the look of a madman. There was pain there, and wisdom, and, impossibly, kindness. Seeing that last was somehow worse than taking the blow he’d half expected. Before he knew it, he was saying more than he had planned. “It wasn’t right, going after Volanus. You had no army or navy left. I did everything I could to fight it on the floor of the senate.”
“I know,” Hanuvar said quietly.
“It was beneath us. The men of sense are gone or put their convictions aside to score political points. In the end, all I could do was save a few children, and I couldn’t even afford to save them all. I hadn’t the wealth.”
Hanuvar spoke with deep feeling. “It’s a kindness I shall never forget.”
“The gods shall curse our people, forever, for what we did to yours.”
“You will keep the children safe?”
“They are safe. Some seventy of them, on a country estate where they’re learning trade skills and are well fed. I will free them when they come of age, and it is written into my will.”
“It means a great deal to me to know that they are in your hands,” Hanuvar said. “Someone is trying to kill you, Ciprion. I left the bodies of two assassins beyond the potted plants south of the vegetable garden.”
Ciprion fought down astonishment. “Then I owe you my thanks.” He would have asked for more details, but he saw Hanuvar already planned to provide them.
“You are still in danger. They did not know who had hired them or their master. Who wants you dead?”
“Catius did. But since he’s dead, I gather it can’t be him. And assassination wasn’t ever his style, anyway. One of the men who took over for the Dervan Values faction, perhaps.”
A cloying, animal stench struck his nostrils just as a nightmare swung into their room. It was a dark, squat, red-furred shape, and it landed silently, then sprang forward, reaching for Ciprion with arms longer than a man’s. Hanuvar interposed himself on the instant, striking with a short blade.
Ciprion threw himself back from the stool, his heart thrumming in astonishment and alarm from the sheer wrongness of the thing, a creature that moved like a man, but wasn’t.
It swayed away from Hanuvar’s strike, bared fangs, and ducked low, flinging itself at Ciprion.
He grabbed a knife from the table. The thing grabbed his tunic and yanked him forward.
Ciprion saw the spittle on its great fangs as it leaned for his throat.
Hanuvar’s sword punched through its skull. Blood sprayed across the floor at Ciprion’s feet and the creature dropped.
Ciprion steadied himself against the desk then backed off, for the beast kicked as it died, and its feet were clawed.
Hanuvar hurried to the window, peered out without exposing much of his head, then stepped back to wipe his sword on the stilled fur. “I learned mokrels would be employed. I thought killing their controllers would eliminate that threat.”
“Apparently not.”
A woman screamed, and both men started.
“Father!” There was no mistaking his daughter Cornelia’s voice, and the sound of rapid footsteps. Jovren, let my Amelia be well, he thought, let my grandchildren be unharmed. He adjusted his grip on the knife and headed into the hall. He heard Hanuvar follow.
The household had risen, including drowsy slaves, and Felix, wearing a tunic he’d thrown on backward. Ciprion’s granddaughter clung to wide-eyed Cornelia, who had halfway advanced into the wing from which they were emerging. Cornelia thrust a scrap of paper at him, and he tore his eyes from her grief-stricken face with difficulty. Oil lamps set in a nearby ledge gave him enough light to see the words scribbled on the parchment.
He read them, even as she gasped for him to do so. Written in loopy, scrawling Dervan letters, it said: “We have your grandson. Present yourself to me at midnight under the grove of the second hill south of the village, or he will be torn to pieces. Come alone. Your time is over, but his need not be.”
The vein at his temple throbbed. He looked up to find Amelia beside their daughter. Calvia had switched from Cornelia to her, and his wife was holding her grandchild close and stroking her hair. “How did this happen?” Ciprion demanded.
“Calvia says a hairy thing came in through the window,” Cornelia said.
“It has huge teeth!” Calvia said, turning her white face to him. “And big scary arms!”12
He passed the note to Hanuvar. He saw in the other man’s eyes that he too realized the first attack had been a jab, possibly anticipated to fail, while the more certain line of attack was sprung the instant the first morkrel died.
“Who is this man?” Felix pointed at Hanuvar. His voice was hoarse, and he cleared it.
“An old friend,” Ciprion explained impatiently.
Calvia’s eyes were huge with worry. “The thing carried the note,” she said. “It dropped it on the floor.”
“What friend is he?” Amelia inquired, her voice icy.
“Drusus,” Hanuvar said.
“Of?” Amelia prompted.
“He was a cavalry decurion,” Ciprion said. “That’s not important.” Amelia always knew when he was lying, but heeded his warning glance.
Hanuvar handed the note back. “My scout will know where your grandson is.”
“Can you be sure?” Ciprion asked.
“We will know if we return to my place of business.”
Cornelia was fighting hard to display the control of a proper Dervan mother, but her voice cracked. “Father, what are you going to do?”
“I should send for the guard,” Felix said assertively.
Ciprion didn’t have the patience for him. “Don’t be an ass. If we send soldiers they’ll kill Marcus immediately.”
“I’ll get the details,” Hanuvar said. “Meet me as soon as you can.” He nodded toward Amelia then turned and hurried back the way he’d come.
Ciprion started to say that he’d be right behind him, then realized, just as Hanuvar must have, that he had to put a few things in order. He took a few moments to reassure Cornelia, and to say to Amelia that he himself would be all right, with the help of Drusus. He saw he was having better luck convincing Cornelia and Felix than he was his wife, though she played along and instructed the rest of the family to let Ciprion handle it. She took his arm and pulled him aside.
Her look was haggard in the light, and it aged her. Never had her eyes been more piercing. “You trust this man, and his plans.” It was more an accusation than a question.
“He killed my assassins on the grounds this evening.”
“Maybe he’s part of the trap. Can you trust him with your life, or that of our grandson?”
He answered without hesitation. “Yes.”
She frowned. “Who is he, really?”
“I told you.”
“I have seen you talk to a hundred former soldiers. And none of them but Laelius sound like that man does when he talks to you. Yet you’ve never mentioned him. He’s no decurion. Who is he?”
Ciprion said nothing.
She spoke quietly, fiercely. “I can count on one hand the times you have lied to me about something important, husband. Why do it now?”
“To protect you.” And to protect Hanuvar, he thought. “I have to go.”
“Come back to me,” she commanded. “With our grandson.”
“I will,” he vowed, and ran for the stables.
V
Clouds veiled the stars, and the branches obscured that veil so that Torvus walked through the woods in near darkness toward the little clearing where the wizard’s wagons had been drawn up. A low campfire burned between them, painting the wooden panels with a warm red-gold glow.
Torvus paid little attention to the fire or the young man sitting beside it. He scanned the tree where one of those hideous mokrels had lingered, the eyes of which he’d felt boring into his back when he’d last visited Kontar. He didn’t see it now, but that didn’t mean one of the things wasn’t watching him still.
The young man at the fire certainly was. He was one of Kontar’s two assistants. The mage named them students, though mostly they played the part of slaves, preparing his meals and driving his wagons. Now the two structures, not very different from his daughter’s wagon, were shuttered and dark, save for the flicker of a small light from the wagon on the left.
Torvus stopped on the far side of the fire and the assistant stood up.
“Where’s Kontar?” Torvus asked.
The young man’s answer was careless, his look challenging. “The master is at work.”
“I need to speak with him.”
The assistant was readying to say that he’d have to wait, but Torvus wasn’t subjected to that, because a huffing, panting noise sounded behind them.
Torvus knew a chill as it drew closer, for the source didn’t quite sound human.
A squat, furred figure scampered out of the dark, its eyes shining in a human-shaped head, though it loped along on two legs and a single hand at the end of an arm longer than a man’s.
A mokrel. And it carried a human child in one arm. Torvus stared in horror as the beast huffed to a stop near the far wagon, and it was only when the creature set down his burden that Torvus was certain the damned thing hadn’t murdered the little boy. The child wore nothing but a sleeping shirt. He had chubby cheeks, and from his height was no older than five or six. His eyes were saucers still directed upon the beast that had carried him.
The mokrel shuffled to one side, still breathing heavily, then sat and scratched its back. The assistant stared for a moment, apparently unable to fake aplomb under such peculiar circumstances, but his sense of duty, or fear of shirking it, kicked in, and he said something about getting water for the beast before he headed to the front of the wagon.
Torvus pitied the frightened little boy. He didn’t care if the wizard slew entire legions of men, but he couldn’t stomach cruelty to a child. He walked the long way around the mokrel. He felt its eyes on him, but forced a smile for the boy and bent down beside him. “What’s happened to you, little fellow?”
The boy looked well fed and cared for, and he smelled of expensive soap. He fixed Torvus with a dazed look and backed away. Torvus reached out to muss his hair. “Hey now, there’s nothing to be afraid of from me. You need something to drink?” He patted his wine sac and untied it from his belt. “This is good sweet stuff, here.” He’d kept just a little of the Fadurian for himself, undrugged, and much as he hated to share such a fine vintage, the boy looked like he could use a pick-me-up.
The door to the wagon opened and Kontar stepped out. He speared Torvus with a look, then pointed his beast to the front of the wagon, the route the assistant had taken. It ambled away.
Kontar flipped back his cape theatrically and stalked forward. He was not a large man, and perhaps he hoped to make up for that with his beard, which was long and straight cut across his chest. Tonight he’d pulled on a wig of thick, dark curling hair.
On the shoulder of his belted knee-length tunic perched a small green lizard with blue stripes and gem-bright eyes. Kontar had once proudly proclaimed it a blue fant, but Torvus knew one of the poisonous little things on sight. He’d once seen a man die from their bite after only a short while. That Kontar kept it always in his company, docile and compliant, was just one of many clues he hadn’t noticed when he’d first met the wizard. He’d made the mistake of thinking him yet another con man.
Torvus knelt with the wine sac passed halfway to the boy, and was startled when he felt a tug. The child was finally taking the drink from him. He watched as the youth put it to his lips, and winced as some of the expensive vintage dripped down his chin. The child then handed the skin back with a polite thank you, and Torvus couldn’t help admiring his courtesy even as the master drew up before him, frowning.
Kontar’s deep voice sounded as though it might erupt with fury at any moment. “You look as though you have been beaten, Torvus,” he snapped. “You shall spare me the details, and merely tell me whether you recovered the amulet.”
Torvus had expected such a greeting, and had a response ready. “No, but I did something that may be of use in its recovery.”
Kontar scratched the side of his nose with a beringed finger. “You said I didn’t need to send the beasts. That you could manage it.”
“I warned that the amulet might counter your own powers.” Torvus smiled so his contradiction would hopefully be seen as a correction and not a challenge. “And I almost had it—but my daughter had a bodyguard I’ve never seen before. It’s all right, though. I made clear that she must turn it over to me tomorrow after she learns of Ciprion’s death”—at this information the little boy gasped, and Torvus shot him a quick look before continuing—“and saw just how serious it was to cross you.”
“I see,” Kontar said, his crooked teeth showing. “So you told your daughter I was planning to kill Ciprion?”
“For her to see how dangerous you are. To take my warning seriously.”
Kontar advanced and slapped Torvus. The strike wasn’t particularly painful, but Torvus still groaned. The child whimpered and slid behind him.
“I want that amulet.” Kontar jabbed a finger at Torvus’ chest. The lizard on his shoulder hissed.
“You’ll have it,” Torvus promised. “My daughter didn’t believe how powerful you were. She’ll learn, and then you won’t have to risk anything else.”
“I have been too patient with you. With its power I could have controlled both of the mokrels tonight myself at the same time, rather than having that idiot Vokius help me. I’ve no idea what happened to him or my guard, but I ended up having to switch my attention between the animals.”
As lead student, Vokius had occasionally been trusted to control a mokrel, and Torvus could only suppose he had been dispatched with the guard to kill Ciprion this night.
From behind Torvus came the question from a small, brave voice: “Did you kill my grandfather?”
Kontar glared at Torvus, then shifted his gaze down near his waist, where the boy peered out from behind Torvus’ leg. “If I had, you would not be here . But he proved resourceful, as I’d feared, and has thus cost me a great deal of money. You’ve no idea how hard a mokrel is to come by.”
“You’re keeping the boy as a hostage?” Torvus asked. “Is that really necessary?”
“You disapprove? How quaint. I find moderate need for your skills, Torvus, and none for your advice. Your connection to the amulet, while promising, has yielded me nothing.”
“I’ve more skills than you’ve used.”
“Master. I am your master, do you not recall? You’ve hardly earned your freedom, Torvus.”
He bowed his head, hating that he had to do so. “I’ve more skills than you’ve used, master.”
“That’s better. Care for this brat then, until Ciprion comes.”
“When will that be, master?”
“Soon, I think. Watch him well. I’ve had enough mistakes from you already.” He called for the assistant, then turned with a dramatic swirl of his cape. At that very moment the boy darted off.
Torvus leapt and with two quick strides caught the boy’s arms. The child squirmed, kicked him in the chest, and shouted to be let go as Torvus lifted him. He stood the child on the ground, facing the other direction as Kontar ran up.
The wizard bent down beside the boy, who stopped his struggling and stared wide-eyed at the lizard poised on Kontar’s wrist.
The assistant arrived and stood watching from the side of the cart.
“Do you want to meet my lizard?” Kontar asked menacingly. The little thing tasted the air with its tongue and rocked back and forth along the knuckles of the wizard’s hand. It was mere inches from the boy’s face.
“Don’t, master,” Torvus pleaded. “He’s just a boy.”
But Kontar had eyes only for the youth. “Do you know what kind of lizard I command? He comes from the delta of Hadira. A single bite can kill in only a few moments. Oh, it’s not painful. Just the tiniest little bite from his fangs. But the poison, ah, that’s like slowly losing the ability to move your limbs, and the ability to breathe. Like drowning without being in the water. Would you like to feel what that’s like?”
The boy looked up through big eyes. And once again he demonstrated great bravery when he spoke, for his voice, though that of a small child’s, was level and direct. “Why do you want to kill my grandfather?”
For a brief moment a milder look replaced Kontar’s customary arrogance. Perhaps the child’s equanimity impressed him, for he answered in an almost pleasant way, with more detail than Torvus would have expected. “I have nothing against your grandfather. I’m a kind of problem solver, and someone else has paid me to solve some problem they have from him. I don’t like working harder than the job demands.”
The boy stared back. Kontar straightened, but the lizard still perched upon his hand. He turned to his assistant. “I hear Ciprion dotes upon his grandchildren.” He stepped closer to the little boy and the blue fant hissed. “But I suppose we don’t really need the child conscious to lure him further.”
This last was too much. Torvus pushed the youngster away. “Run!” he shouted.
Torvus grabbed for his knife, but the little lizard leapt the gap – he hadn’t realized they could jump so far. He swatted at it, grunting in fear, but the thing latched onto his hand and bit deep. It released, and hit the ground with a plop.
Torvus’ gaze swung to the scowling Kontar. He took a step toward the wizard, for he knew he kept an antidote upon him. But then he staggered, and before he could think further what to do he was sinking to the ground. The assistant had caught up to grab the boy a short distance outside the camp cirle.
“I’ve come for my grandson!” a commanding voice called from down the trail.
VI
Hanuvar watched from the undergrowth as Ciprion advanced toward the clearing. Shenassa presumably followed on his right, though he could not see or hear her. Antires lingered further back, with a groggy Mellika, who had been roused by a healer. She had insisted on accompanying them.
“Do you hear me?” Ciprion called. “I see your campfire, but I will come no closer until I see my grandson!”
Hanuvar heard the faintest of rustling above, in the darkness of the trees overshadowing the trail. It might have been any nocturnal creature, but he knew it for the mokrel. He crept forward, spear at his side. At the campfire’s edge, Hanuvar saw a small bearded man dramatically sweep one hand forward, palm up in the universal signal to halt.
“My beast sees your retainers, and I see what it does!” the wizard cried. “Ciprion, tell your followers that if they do not lay down their weapons and depart, your grandson will die. I’ve already had my lizard poison him. But I have an antidote. Come quick, while it’s still possible to revive him.”
Another voice, choked, weak, called out from near the clearing. “He hasn’t been bitten yet!”
The wizard cursed and shouted something, and Hanuvar heard a little boy call to his grandfather.
Hanuvar charged. The mokrel dropped from the tree and ran on all four limbs toward him. But he ignored the rushing beast, throwing his spear not at the creature, but the wizard. He knew the cast was good the instant he hurled it, which was fortunate, because he had no attention to spare. The stinking manlike monster swiped at him with a thick arm.
He leapt back. The beast hooted, bared fangs, and advanced. But then Mellika was at his side, hand clasped to the ancient pendant at her throat. She thrust her other hand forward, and the beast halted, shaking its head as if confused.
Ciprion rushed, and Hanuvar saw the boy struggling fiercely in the arms of a young man.
The mokrel snarled, advanced, stopped, tilted its head.
“The wizard’s got a strong hold on the beast,” Mellika said, panting heavily.
The mokrel started to turn just as Hanuvar buried his sword in its neck. Much as he appreciated a gladius, it was a true pleasure to briefly wield a falcata, the long, curved blade of his people that Shenassa had lent him. With the weapon’s greater reach he hadn’t had to come in as close, nor take the full blood spray as the slice tore half through the animal. It slumped, dead, and Hanuvar raced past.
Shenassa was already there at the camp site, with Ciprion. The wizard’s assistant knelt before Shenassa’s spear and begged to be spared. Mellika’s father lay moaning beside the wizard, who clutched the spear haft standing out from his supine body. Ciprion cradled the little boy in his arms.
His eyes were bleak. “The lizard bit his calf just as I reached him.” The lizard lay in two pieces on the ground near Ciprion’s sword.
Mellika’s father pawed at the wizard. His eyes rolled and caught Hanuvar. He croaked a single word. “Antidote.”
The wizard coughed. His wig lay just beyond his egglike pate, and blood poured from his mouth. Though he paled, his eyes brightened. He sneered and drove his elbow into a pouch at his side. Something inside crackled and smashed and the dying man laughed. “The boy’s dead now,” he wheezed.
Hanuvar yanked out the spear and drove it through the wizard’s throat. He spun on the younger man kneeling before Shenassa, dripping spear in one hand, bloody falcata in the other. “Is there more antidote?”
“Yes,” the man stammered.
“Bring it. Now.” He thumbed Shenassa after him then walked over to Ciprion.
Mellika and Antires had joined them. The playwright’s gaze shifted from the boy in the anguished Dervan’s arms to the shuddering Torvus. Mellika crouched at her father’s side.
“If there’s an antidote,” Mellika said to her father, “we can save you.”
“I tried to stop him.” Torvus’ voice was labored. Hanuvar supposed he meant the wizard. “I didn’t know he was going to take the boy. I swear. Tried to get him away.”
“I believe you, Father,” Mellika said.
Shenassa led out the nervous looking assistant, who held a small clay vial.
“That’s the cure?” Hanuvar asked. “You’re certain?”
“I’m certain,” he said.
“Is there enough for both?” Mellika asked.
The assistant, gripped in one hand by a grim Ruminian and facing a man with two bloody weapons, clearly wanted to give the best answer. “The boy’s small. I don’t know. Maybe. But a man needs all of it . . . I couldn’t find any more.”
Groaning, Torvus pointed to the boy.
Hanuvar planted the spear blade first in the ground and snatched the little vessel from the wizard’s assistant. He dropped the falcata and pulled free the vial’s cork, then passed the precious flask on to Ciprion.
He saw Ciprion’s eyes as he took the vial, and he wondered what he must be thinking. Probably he wondered if he was simply dumping more poison into the boy’s body. The firelight glinted upon his sweaty forehead as he lifted the little vessel gently to the youngster’s lips. The child drank it without spilling, staring at his grandfather the while.
Hanuvar turned back, finding Shenassa still poised with her weapon aimed at the apprentice. Mellika, brushing a tear from her broad face, knelt by her father and stroked his hair.
“I’m sorry, Mellika,” he said, his voice failing.
Hanuvar returned to the wizard’s assistant, who watched with frightened eyes.
“How long before the antidote works? The truth.”
He spoke rapidly. “It shouldn’t take long, if it’s swallowed soon after the bite. And it was.”
“Any lingering effects?” Hanuvar asked.
“He may be sleepy. Other than that, I don’t know. Look, the lizard didn’t bite too many people that the master wanted to live. It bit Vok . . . the other apprentice, once, and we had to give him the cure. He was weak for a few days, but was fine after.”
“Who hired your master?” Hanuvar demanded.
The young man licked his lips, looking from the silent Ruminian to Hanuvar. “What are you going to do with me?”
“He’s still thinking it over,” Shenassa said. “I’m for gutting you and spitting on you while you die.”
Hanuvar thought that threat finely played, for the assistant turned to him. “Aminius,” he said. “The famous senator,” he added, as if no one knew whom he meant. “And I don’t know why. Only that the assassination had to happen outside of Derva, and that the master said we needed to lay low in the provinces for a while, but that the money was worth it.”
“Go,” Ciprion instructed. “Come near me or mine again and I will kill you on sight.”
The assistant hesitated. “Now? I mean, can I get my cloth—”
“Go!”
With that, the man rose, still careful of Shenassa’s spear, then dashed into the darkness. They heard the pad of his footfalls fade into the distance.
Hanuvar wiped his weapons on the clothes of the dead wizard, said nothing to Mellika, sitting silently by the body of her father, and joined Ciprion. The boy was blinking sleepily and feeling his calf.
“It’s just a little wound,” Ciprion told the child. “You’ll be fine. It’s already stopped bleeding.”
“I tried to be brave, like you,” the boy said.
“You were very brave,” Ciprion told him proudly.
The boy’s little lips turned down into a frown. “I was scared.”
“I was scared too,” Ciprion admitted. “Brave men are scared, but they keep doing what is right anyway.”
Ciprion looked up then, to Hanuvar, and Mellika, now rising from the body of her father, and Shenassa. Antires watched everything, doubtless taking it in so he could write down pretty metaphors about the night and the shadows and the hearts of men.
“I owe all of you a debt I can never repay,” Ciprion said. “If there is ever anything I can do for you, you have but to ask.”
Shenassa bowed her head respectfully. Mellika, though, shook her head in refusal. “It was my father who involved you,” she said. “It was my duty to aid you, and I am only glad he did not hurt you through his schemes, and that the boy is well.” She looked down at the still body of her father. She had rolled him over on his back, straightened his limbs, and closed his eyes.
“He was trying to warn us,” Ciprion said. “He did not lack resourcefulness. I don’t know if you saw, but he grasped the wizard’s ankle when he tried to avoid your friend’s spear cast.” The general had wisely abstained from naming Hanuvar.
Antires invoked the words of one of the best known Herrenic playwrights. “The king at last has found the character he sought. It would have done him well to heed the siren call when he had pleaded deaf, but he gave good account with this, his final deed. Let no man speak him ill.”
“Orestes,” Ciprion said. “From The Shadow King, Act III.”
Antires bowed his head, clearly pleased. “A talented playwright, who spun many a fine scene.”
“I think I will take my grandson home now.”
“What should we do with the belongings of these men?” Mellika asked.
Hanuvar saw Ciprion musing over an answer, and replied for him. “Search through their papers, learn if there’s more that General Ciprion must be told. Look with care. Present the information to him tomorrow. I think, for your trouble, the belongings should be yours.”
“My friend speaks true,” Ciprion said. “Report to me in the morning. Be careful, though. Since the assassin kept a poisonous creature on hand, he might have other protections.”
Hanuvar thought that wisely said. “I’ll follow shortly. Let me have a quick word.” At Ciprion’s nod, he stepped to the side of Antires.
VII
Ciprion had only advanced a few hundred feet down the dark road before Hanuvar jogged up to join him. He no longer carried spear or falcata. He nodded at Marcus. “How is he?”
“I think he’ll be fine. I still want a skilled healer to see him, but I was telling him that’s more for his mother’s sake than his. He understands.”
“Mother worries too much,” said the tiny, tired voice from the dark shape nestled in Ciprion’s arms. “Grandfather, the man said that someone wanted to kill you. Why?”
He thought about the best way to explain something he’d thought never to have to say to a child, then found the words: “They didn’t like something I said.”
“What did you say?”
“All kinds of things,” Ciprion said with a smile, thinking of the way Laelius had sometimes shaken his head at his outbursts. “Maybe too loudly sometimes.”
“Calvia doesn’t like it when I shout,” Marcus observed.
“No one likes it when people shout. But that’s not why they were mad.”
“They’re afraid of your grandfather,” Hanuvar explained. “Cowards fear men of principle because they can’t understand their actions, and they cannot buy them.”
“Grandfather says men should choose their own leaders.”
“I do,” Ciprion agreed. “But you shouldn’t say that too loudly, these days.”
The boy shifted and seemed to settle.
“Do you really think Aminius was behind it?” Hanuvar asked softly.
“It may be. I’m not surprised. He hates that the emperor is still fond of me, publicly and privately.”
The calm, quiet shape walking with him in the dark was the man once labeled the scourge of Derva. It was strange to think on that, and stranger still to hear that man ask, concern in his voice: “What are you going to do?”
“I have allies, and not all my connections are destroyed. I’m going to teach Aminius and his people a lesson. Tell me what you’re going to do.”
Hanuvar was a moment answering. “Would that I could.”
Ciprion knew then that he shouldn’t have pried. But he could guess one thing. “You’re no more after vengeance than you were for territory, are you.”
“I would drown in the blood I would spill if I were to slake my thirst . . .” he began, then fell silent. Ciprion felt his eyes on him as they passed another cluster of trees. “No. It’s a simple thing. The Dervans took my people. I mean to take them back. However many remain.”
“I know better than to ask how, and where you’re going. But I will help you,” he pledged.
“You need to guard your own blood first. But if you can aid me in two ways, I would be grateful.”
Ciprion answered without hesitation. “Name them.”
“There must be a master list of where and to whom my people were sold. I need to know where it is.”
“Or to have a copy.”
“I think the latter will be a challenge, even for you.”
“Come now,” he said with a smile. “You’re not the only one who can accomplish the impossible.”
“I don’t want to see your family harmed while you take risks for me.”
He shrugged. He thought he might manage it. “What is the second thing?”
“My daughter survived the assault. I’ve learned she may have escaped.”
“I’ve heard nothing of this,” Ciprion said with honest surprise. “But I can look into it. How will I find you?”
“I should reach the far side of the Ardenines in three months’ time.”
“Feeling nostalgic about your old journey?”
“Hardly. I’ve been warned against a water crossing. And I’ve been warned that I needed to better hide my steps. So I hid myself among my current company.” Hanuvar looked off to the northwest. “I’ll have to leave them in just a few days. I’ve hated the slowed travel but it has been good to be among so many friends.”
“Who warned you?”
Hanuvar sounded embarrassed. “Spirits, believe it or not.”
“Your gods warned you?” Ciprion said in disbelief.
“My gods have been silent,” Hanuvar answered darkly.
“I’ve never heard from mine, either,” Ciprion admitted. “You trust these sources?”
“Trust? I trust only the word of a handful of men and women, most of whom are dead. But these spirits returned favor for favor. And so I followed their counsel, crawling slowly down the road and stopping for days at a time when by any reckoning I should have raced across the face of the sea, for more of my people may be dying every single day. How long can they last?”
He asked a question for which he did not expect an answer, but Ciprion had one for him. In the face of such pain, he hoped it was true.
“Many of the survivors were specialists of one sort or another. I don’t think large numbers were sent on to the galleys or the mines. But I know that must be small comfort.”
Hanuvar nodded his thanks.
In the silence, suddenly bold, Ciprion recalled the question he had wondered for uncounted years, a thing he had never dared say aloud, much less to his Dervan friends. To give it voice seemed a kind of treason. Yet he could no longer keep back from it. “Have you ever wondered what it would have been like if we two had been on the same side?”
He saw Hanuvar nod, once, and then waited. After a short delay Hanuvar spoke with quiet dignity. “Had you and I been leagued together, no one could have stood against us.”
A comfortable silence fell between them, broken finally by Ciprion as they neared the villa. “Probably we should not meet again, on this side of the mountains.” They drew to a stop just beyond the road that let into the property.
Hanuvar agreed without hesitation. “Probably not. I’m sure my friend Antires would love to talk with you, though. He’s the one who was quoting playwrights. He himself writes.”
“The Herrene,” Ciprion remembered aloud. “Is he any good?”
“I’ve never read his work,” Hanuvar admitted. “But he’s a good actor and a fine friend. He has a mad idea he will write a play about me.”
“That’s not so mad.”
Hanuvar laughed. “Maybe he’ll write one about you. That one, at least, could be staged somewhere.”
“Let him come. I’ll gladly speak with him. And I shall find what I can for you. How shall I find you?”
Hanuvar told him then of a village and an inn well north of Derva, and Ciprion agreed he would leave word there, and suggested a phrase and counterphrase. Hanuvar approved.
There was much more he would have liked to have said, had they the time.
“I thank you,” Hanuvar said. “Be well. Guard yourself and your family.”
“And I thank you. Watch your steps.”
They clasped arms then, wordless, each lifted a hand in farewell.
Ciprion, bearing his grandson, watched the figure recede into the gloom, then turned and headed toward the villa. Very soon he had handed Marcus into the care of Cornelia, who had summoned a village healer and his attendants. Ciprion succinctly relayed what had happened. “He was bitten by a fant lizard, but he’s had an antidote that seems to have worked.” He passed over the bisected corpse of the little beast, in case it should somehow prove useful in identifying the poison.
The healer, a wild-haired Herrene, alarmed Cornelia when he declared there was no known antidote, but shortly confirmed that the boy seemed fine and that the wound itself wasn’t necrotic. Probably, he speculated, it hadn’t truly been a mature envenomator, as the kidnappers claimed.
Ciprion waved off the thanks of his daughter and son-in-law, told them that the instigators were dead, and said he’d tell them more in the morning. He then retreated into the eastern wing with his wife.
It proved far harder to throw Amelia from the trail, as he had anticipated.
“Where’s your friend?” she asked once they had closed the door on their dimly lit bedchamber.
“Heading back to where he came from.”
“And who hired the men behind this?”
“Aminius,” he said, and saw her eyebrows rise before she scowled. He continued, “We may all be in danger, until I can demonstrate why an attack against our family is suicidal.”
“Is that what Hanuvar advised you?”
He met her eyes. Of course she had deduced it. His wife was no fool.
“Are you sending him after Aminius?” she asked.
“No. Hanuvar has done enough to help us.”
She exhaled in frustration. “And you think that erases all the misery he caused.”
“I don’t want to argue about this again.” The harshness in his voice startled him, yet he could not restrain it. “He knew that unless he halted Derva, we would crush his city. And he was right. You have seen how right he was.”
She met his eyes but did not shy from the anger there. “Maybe so. And what is his goal now?”
“Not vengeance.”
“He promised you that?”
“He did.”
“And you believe him. Why else would he be here? After what has been done to his country? After what you yourself know he has done in retribution?”
“It’s not as you think. Those stories are lies.”
She pursed her lips. “You want him to be good, because you admired him. You always were too ready to forgive him—”
“If I had seen what he has, do you think I could find the strength to practice mercy against my enemies—to lend them a hand even in their moment of greatest need? That I could manage kindness, even good humor?”
Amelia gave him a pitying look. “You torture yourself over things that have never happened. That could never happen.”
“Without him, our grandson would have died this night. And you might well have lost me.”
She studied him in silence, then let out a long sigh. “You mean to help him, don’t you?”
“What would you do, in my place?”
“I know he has suffered. But he started a fourteen-year war. You’re too forgiving.”
“This is not about forgiveness.”
“You’re going to tell me it’s about honor.”
She was right, so he did not say it. “Perhaps it’s not enough to ask you to trust him, not fully. I understand. The next time we meet, you can speak to him, and judge him for yourself.”
“You think a single meeting would convince me?”
“I think you already have some sense of his character. After you actually speak with him, you would see him as I do.”
She took a deep breath. “Very well. Your decisions have led to hardship for our family, but you have ever chosen the righteous path. Now what do you mean to do about the men who threatened my grandchild?”
He took her hand, and kissed it. “We are going to show them there are some lines that cannot be crossed.”
“That does not sound like a man who has gone into retirement.”
“I think my memoirs will have to wait. We’ll be busy with more important things for a good long while.”
Ciprion proved even more the gentleman than I had been led to believe and spoke openly to me for many hours that next day. I quickly saw how it was that he had charmed so many in his time. He was warm, gregarious, and well read. Those who thought him a mirror image of Hanuvar were wrong, though the men had similarities. Yes, Ciprion was brilliant and observant and possessed a measure of steel, but he longed for the simpler, comfortable things, and I think he better liked the company of his fellow men. But then maybe that’s not fair to Hanuvar, who had little time to see to his own cares or wants. Or to build a family.
In any case, I came away from our conversation with a thorough appreciation of Hanuvar’s so-called nemesis and hoped that we would meet again for future dialogues.
Shortly after that visit, Hanuvar and I took the road toward a final performance, then headed into the mountains. And we diverted none too soon, for it was there that a group of revenants finally caught up to us.
—Sosilos, Book Five
12 While Antires’ words are, as usual, accurate in the essentials, he suggests a greater degree of agitation in young Calvia than she herself reports. Other eyewitnesses assert that both grandchildren were remarkably self-possessed, conveying a sober dignity beyond their years as was their habit. Calvia is actually said to have reported the incident with astounding calm, though with obvious concern. This was also the first opportunity she had to observe Hanuvar. With the clarity typical of her, she later wrote, “As you may expect, the events of that night left an indelible impression upon me, images that stand clear and sharp even when entire months and even years are but blurs from which a handful of events emerge. I do not care to dwell on the mokrel’s attributes, though they are well preserved in my nightmares. Rather shall I describe Hanuvar. He was dressed that night as a simple laborer, and there was nothing upon his tunic or sandals or accoutrements to suggest that he was anything else; it was only in the way my grandfather gave such heed to his counsel that I realized he must be someone remarkable. That is not to say that grandfather was impolite to others; he carried himself with dignity before all. Rather, that to this man he accorded something more, not just in his words, but in the way he held himself beside him.
It is difficult for a child to guess the age of those far older, for to them even someone of nineteen seems of great maturity. Hanuvar was an older man, surely, for there was gray in his hair and his face was lined, but he looked to be younger than grandfather, though this was not the case. He stood a handspan taller than grandfather, which did not make him tall, though he was somewhat taller than the average. His body was muscular and I observed a short scar upon one calf and another near the sleeve of his right arm. His face was clean shaven and dark, perhaps somewhat darker than that of the typical Dervan, but not notably so. Having acquaintances who had been promised to much older men in marriage, I had grown used to evaluating the appearance and conduct of male visitors to the house. I judged this stranger handsome, in a rugged way, with a straight nose with a slight hook and small, flared nostrils and a mouth with lightly colored lips of moderately large size. His eyes were large, alert and keenly intelligent; on this first instance I thought them blue, but in a later meeting I judged them gray, and I think he was one of those people whose eye color was not constant, depending upon mood or lighting. His forehead was high and his hair was straight and parted to the right, though his bangs were straight, in the Dervan manner, and the length framed his ears and stopped before the nape of the neck. He carried himself with an easy self-assurance that reminded me of the way grandfather did. There is a difference between behaving as though you are used to being obeyed by inferiors because of your inborn status and being truly comfortable with yourself and your capabilities, used to commanding the attention of soldiers whose lives may hang upon your words to them. This attitude was present in his gaze, as well; it was not arrogance he projected but supreme confidence. That night his eyes were mostly focused upon grandfather, and one sensed his concern. Only once did his glance brush mine and it was as though I had encountered a willpower of titanic strength. I was later to learn that he could turn this magnetism on or off as he wished, which was well for him, for if he had constantly radiated such intensity he could not possibly have hidden himself during his travels.”
—Silenus