Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

away. Two of the Quileians had taken the woman back up over the pass to where the rest of their company waited. The other four were posted some distance away. The sun was high, as high as it would get at noon this far south, this early in the spring. It had turned into a mild, generous day.

‘This Bear is a very bad word-dancer, Pigeon,’ the King of Quileia said soberly. ‘You know that. You probably know something else: how much it will grieve me to deny you any request at all. I would like to do this differently. I would like to tell you what I cannot do, so you will not ask it and force me to refuse.’

Alessan nodded. He remained silent, watching the King.

‘I cannot give you an army,’ Marius said flatly. ‘Not yet, and perhaps never. I am too green in power, too far from the stability I need at home to lead or even order troops over these mountains. There are several hundreds of years of tradition I have to set about changing in very little time. I am not a young man any more, Pigeon.’

Devin felt a leap of excitement within himself and struggled to master it. This was too serious an occasion for childlike feelings. He could hardly believe he was here, though, so close to—at the very heart of—something of this magnitude. He stole a sidelong glance at Erlein and then looked more closely: the same quick spark of interest was in the other’s face. For all his years and his long travels, Devin seriously doubted if the troubadour-wizard had ever been so near to great events.

Alessan was shaking his head. ‘Bear,’ he said, ‘I would never ask you for that. For our sake as much as for your own. I will not have my name remembered as the man who first invited the newly awakened might of Quileia north into the Palm. If an army ever ventures from Quileia through these passes—and I hope we are both long dead before such a day—the wish of my heart will be for it to be slaughtered and driven back with losses so bloody that no King in the south ever tries again.’

‘If there is a King in the south and not another four hundred years of the Mother and her priestesses. Very well,’ Marius said, ‘then tell me what it is you do need.’

Alessan’s legs were neatly crossed, his long fingers laced in his lap. He looked for all the world as if he was discussing nothing of greater moment than, perhaps, the sequence of songs for an evening’s performance.

Except that his fingers, Devin saw, were so tightly squeezed together they were white.

‘A question first,’ Alessan said, controlling his voice. ‘Have you received letters offering to open trade?’

Marius nodded. ‘From both of your Tyrants. Gifts, messages of felicitation, and generous offers to reopen the old trade routes by sea and land.’

‘And each urged you to scorn the other as being untrustworthy and unstable in his power.’

Marius was smiling faintly now. ‘Are you intercepting my mail, Pigeon? Each did exactly that.’

‘And what,’ Alessan asked, direct as an arrow, ‘have you replied?’ For the first time, unmistakably, there was a taut cord of tension in his voice.

Marius heard it too. ‘Nothing yet,’ he said, his smile fading. ‘I want a few more messages from each of them before I move.’

Alessan looked down and seemed to notice his clenched fingers for the first time. He unlaced them and ran a hand, predictably, through his hair.

‘You will have to move, though,’ he said with some difficulty. ‘You will obviously need trade. In your position you have to begin showing Quileia some of the benefits you can offer. Traffic north will be the quickest way, won’t it?’ There was an awkward kind of challenge in his tone.

‘Of course,’ Marius said simply. ‘I have to do it. Why else am I King? It is only a question of timing—and with what happened this morning I think my timing has just been moved up.’

Alessan nodded, as if he’d known all this already.

‘What will you do, then?’ he asked.

‘Open the passes for both of them. No preferences, no tariffs for either. I will let Alberico and Brandin send me all the gifts and goods and envoys they want. I’ll let their trade make me truly a King—a King who brings new prosperity to his people. And I need to start doing it soon. Immediately, I now suspect. I have to put Quileia so firmly on a new path that the old one recedes as fast as I can make it. Otherwise I’ll die having done nothing but live somewhat longer than most Year Kings, and the priestesses will be in power again before my bones are picked clean underground.’

Alessan closed his eyes. Devin became aware of the rustling of leaves all around them and the sporadic calling of birds. Then Alessan looked up at Marius again, the grey eyes wide and calm, and he said, bluntly:

‘My request: that you give me six months before deciding on trade. And something else, in that interval.’

‘The time alone is a great deal,’ Marius said very softly. ‘But tell me the rest, Pigeon. The something else.’

‘Three letters, Bear. I need three letters sent north. First letter: you say yes to Brandin, conditionally. You ask for time to consolidate your own position before exposing Quileia to outside influences. You make it clear that your inclination towards him is based on his appearing stronger than Alberico, more likely to endure. Second letter: you reject, sorrowfully, all overtures from Astibar. You write Alberico that you are intimidated by Brandin’s threats. That you would dearly love to trade with the Empire of Barbadior, need to trade with them, but the Ygrathen seems too strong in the Palm for you to risk offending him. You wish Alberico all good fortune. You ask him to keep in contact with you, discreetly. You say you will be watching events in the north