“Kipper,” Valent said.
He turned, nearly stumbling, at the voice. He’d almost forgotten that they were walking, the descent at the other side of the town having taken them through a narrow pass it was easier to traverse by foot.
The lines in his mechanic’s face were deeper, though he’d been promoted twice, and he wore the ceremonial, parade version of the uniform along with the rest of them. Noon-sky blue and pressed white, a standard in spite, or even because, of the tactical liability.
“I’m alert,” he said.
Valent clapped him on the back, his strides carrying him forward, nipping at the heels of the officers in front.
It was a tight grouping, and that too, Kipper could only assume, made it an effective show of force.
The journey proved longer than he had expected, as time went, and he found himself ruminating on the usage of his still-unfinished hand-held, powder-powered ram to set an avalanche upon them. Arrows would work better to kill them, with the trees and rocks above the ledge as vantages, and though Rijk’s Codric had only a weak tradition of casters, magic could turn the rock and soil on them far more easily.
But the idea of moving earth, displacing it, with an invention made to break down doors, had something to it. Digging ditches, perhaps, or wells? He had traveled nearly the entire circuit of Erebolt’s borders, present and proposed for the future, and there were few environs he could imagine that it would be useful in.
He thought maybe he caught his name said, but anything truly important would be repeated.
The mines to the east, perhaps, at a stretch. It was the next destination for the army’s most important personnel, reinforcing security in the relatively heated region. He could have a skeletal-version built, if they passed through the workshops on the journey, and query the miners there as to the efficacy of such a device.
And without warning, just as he’d decided that, his boot missed the ground.
Valent caught him by the upper arm before he sprawled, but the other side’s negotiators had arrived before them.
Their first impression of Erebolt’s officers and staff, as they ascended to level ground, would be Kipper dusting himself off from his stumble. Even the novice that he was could see it was a poor place to begin.
He cursed himself.
He would be present, he would learn all their names, he would be cordial, and he would not embarrass his countrymen again. Not here, not when his former apprentice had pointed out the divot in the path.
Kipper took a breath, deep, and exhaled it softly. He couldn’t do anything about the sweat, but his heart was kicking like an irritated mule, and introductions, if any, were the time for composure.
Six of them, though there was sure to be another four waiting nearby, if the briefing had taught him anything about their organization. Minding the horses the group had ridden in on, if he judged by the horse-prints newly placed in the ground.
The half-dozen had gathered on and around a table they had dragged outside the building, and they stood to attention as they might have sprung into formation, three in front and three behind. The woman who drove her spear-butt into the ground and stepped forward was of average height, in soldiers’ armor, but she had a proper knight’s bearing, and another to her side held her shield.
In answer, the marshal reached out an ungloved hand.
She grasped him by the forearm, and he recovered ably enough to reciprocate without delay.
The contact lasted long enough to send a shiver down Kipper’s spine, even by proxy, but neither leader was visibly uncomfortable, and the two broke apart with a mutual level stare.
“Catrin-Adze,” he said.
“Marshal.”
“It’d befit us both, from where I stand, to put every person we’ve brought in view.”
Catrin smiled.
“It’s honorable to do it first,” she said. “Who would I be to deny you the opportunity?”
“I’ve seized it,” the marshal said.
He cracked the thumb-knuckle of his right hand before he replaced his glove. Every movement was deliberate, secure.
“So few?” she asked.
“Codric permitted me to pick the place, within reason. Any greater number, and the perception of an ambush might emerge.”
“It’s impossible to alleviate fears one doesn’t have, but the effort is welcome.”
Catrin turned, with half an eye on the marshal, and lowered her voice. The man next to her handed back her shield, saluted, short and choppy, and hurried off around the corner of the building.
“Twenty in all,” she said, in unprompted answer.
The marshal’s sole response was to nod, curt, to the woman beside him.
Wistan looked up into the clouds, her eyes darting back and forth, before she continued to fix her gaze at everything nearer than the horizon. Her surveyor’s work was impressive. Her memory was more so.
It was that trait which Kipper envied as he opened his satchel and eased out his journal. He had brought along several as reference, but the one he flipped open then, concealed in part by Valent’s back, was set aside for his notes on politics. Even then, the front half had been consumed by technical sketches, one after another, which steadily intruded into the few pages he’d left as a buffer between them and his lists of locations and names.
“I expected Erebolt to send diplomats,” she said. “Peacekeepers, inventors, bureaucrats, and warmongers who employ every tactic before them. Was I wrong? Do the generals wield power in your polity?”
“My superiors do, and they’ve sent me in their place. It’s my sincere wish that a proxy is capable of faithful execution, or else Rijk must be quaking in his boots.”
“Promises,” Catrin said. “I can make them with backing, and I can ensure they’re kept. If the same is true in your duchy, then I predict no pitfalls.”
“Good,” said the marshal. “Allow me to relate a short anecdote. Shall we?”
He pointed to the table, and when Catrin nodded, walked over to sit in the nearest chair.
It forced her and her four subordinates to reclaim one half of their seating, retreating to the table’s far side. She took a chair, as did the most heavily armored of the bunch, a knight so weighed down that Kipper doubted that the old, salvaged furniture would hold his weight.
But it did, and he rested his arms on the table, leaning forward, with his faceplate down and his expression impossible to read.
Wistan stood, which left a space.
Valent and Fizfin exchanged a glance, and Valent sat beside the marshal, his fingers interlaced.
It left Kipper feeling oddly exposed, as he claimed a corner of the table on which to rest his journal. His protégé, soon enough, would surpass him, and to elevate another apprentice from the core in the workshops was time-consuming, difficult. More effort than he could devote.
But even that worry was secondary. He flipped four pages, made a note of the need to research the field of candidates, and flipped back.
When he brought his attention back, Catrin was looking askance at him jotting the reminder down. He was first to look away, unsettled by her observation, but he thought he saw the corner of her mouth raise into the beginnings of a smile.
He didn’t bother to check, instead searching for any reason neither of them had yet spoken. The marshal was stolid, but rarely was he outright rude, even to the most vocal of his opponents. Nothing came to mind.
Catrin’s name, he had written down, but he added to the minimal description beside it. As he elaborated, he felt Valent’s eyes on him, questioning, but the very fact that he could meant he was far from absorbed within his own ideas.
Movement, and he looked up and shut the book, nearly breaking his special-order ink-carrying pen. From his side, his camp, but he supposed it was better to be jumpy than too slow to respond.
Wistan had put a hand on the marshal’s shoulder. It was a code or cue of some kind rather than a reassurance; he stood, partially, and beckoned into the distance as if he were waving already-drunk friends over to his end of the tavern.
Catrin didn’t look over her shoulder.
Kipper didn’t bother to find an angle where he could see the remainder of the units she’d brought, then.
They came into view, emerging from behind the few emptied buildings at that side of the village’s very edge. A loose march, having left the horses behind, but they carried weapons and they walked with purpose, a weight that all but the most influential of politicians lacked.
At the back of their number was a solitary caster, the hood pulled low over his face and the jar-filled belts across his chest. He was flanked, preceded, by the remainder of the horde, motley, weatherbeaten, but unified in the speed and certainty with which they covered ground.
“Welcome,” the marshal called out.
They came to stand around Catrin at a distance, spread far enough from each other that a handshake between any individual pair would be challenging. All except her shield-bearer, who rejoined the original group, snorting as he went, and spat beside the table leg as if in answer to the marshal’s greeting.
“Now,” the marshal said, “I don’t think that’s called for.”
He lifted the shield from where it had been propped, raised it before his own chest, and said nothing.
“In the history of both our peoples,” the marshal said, “and please, Catrin-Adze, bid me to halt if you’re familiar, as it’s a favorite anecdote of mine, and quite famous—” she didn’t “—during the time of empire, as annexations progressed, expanding its boundaries, several sets of hardened explorers were dispatched out into the wilds.
“One led a team across the Ruptured Peaks, another down into Archfeather. Into Vernwood, into the center of the Desolate Lands. In search of river routes or passes, dense deposits of resources, or cities to assimilate into Ilbjäm’s rule. But new land, truly new land, could only be found far from other empires or that which the empire knew to exist. Further continents, across the oceans.
“The knowledge had once existed, and had faded partially into myth, but past the islands which border the Yawning Bay sailed one sailor with a fleet of a dozen large ships, in the direction informed by the scholars and his command of the seas. He struck Othmin, in short order, to the northeast, and further ventures would rediscover Terzahl and the Baergard.”
Catrin met his eyes. “Former, short-lived colonies.”
“You know, them, then,” the marshal said. “Excellent. But—”
“That much is common knowledge,” she said. “It is known.”
“I’ll sum up quickly, then,” the marshal said. “What I remember most from the reports, though the wording may be apocryphal, is that he first saw the open land, and rocks which he thought were structures, and blanched. Gammon knew in that moment, or so he thought, that they should have sent a bargainer instead, a negotiator or politician. A diplomat.”
“Charming,” Catrin said. “How does this relate?”
“He was wrong, as I’ve gathered we’ve both concluded. I’d ask that you trust me, and as you’ve done me the courtesy of forestalling an ambush, I will ask this, also: take no land east of your border. Impose conditions in return, if you must, or declare expansion to the west, but grant that.”
“Before anything else, a demand?”
“A request, yes,” he said. “A fair one.”
“You are losing ground in the south,” she said. “This is certain. If your intelligence blinds you to the fact, then I bow to its ability to twist itself in knots. If we fail to annex the feudal land there, will Erebolt? Or will the threat remain on your border, forever agitating your armies and straining mine?
“A front against them can be maintained indefinitely, but without expansion— it’s worthless, then, soldiers and armaments that can be turned to security, defense and trade.”
“My king and his cabinet beg to differ,” the marshal said. “Malmot?”
Fizfin stepped aside to give the advisor a place of prominence, straightening the cuffs of his tightly-tailored coat.
Malmot cleared his throat. “There’s a natural disaster brewing under both our noses.”
“What’s that?” Catrin asked, her voice low.
“In a figure of speech, I mean to say, but it’s this: with each passing year, more in what some have dubbed New Ilbjäm forget the empire. Having lived under it, paying our taxes and your tithes, swearing our allegiance or your fealty, begging forgiveness when they fail.
“We see your urgency,” Malmot went on, “and we welcome it, but we observe weakness too, faults in the progress you’ve made. Codric’s solidity is growing unfamiliar, and too much, too quickly, will spur the very organized resistance you may fear.”
“What have you done, then?” Catrin asked.
For the dozenth time, or thereabouts, Kipper fidgeted with the pen, raising it and spinning it, then set it back down within the pages of his journal. He would listen for the space to contribute, and he would be ready to seize upon those opportunities when they arose. Until then, there was no reasonable alternative but to wait.
He glanced at Valent.
The younger man returned the look and volunteered a tight, reassuring smile.
Kipper returned it. Genuine, not strained.
“My apologies,” the marshal said.
He had been whispering with Fizfin and Malmot both.
“We mean to do you great respect, and to put forward a lengthy list would only waste the time we’ve carved from the carcass of the day. Malmot, if you would?”
“We’ve implemented a series of campaigns,” the advisor said.
He paused and cleared his throat again, as if something had been stuck halfway down.
One of Catrin’s soldiers drew a mace from her hip and twirled it in one hand, idly. Another nudged her, and she let the rod’s rotation slow to a stop before she replaced it in its loop.
“Among them is, you might say, indoctrination,” said Malmot. “It might also be named, by less harsh critics, the natural benefits of mutually productive trade. We imply to the feudal lords that Erebolt will protect them, and they, in return, supply us with materials. Our technology is unparalleled, and demonstrating this to them, even personally, deters them from war.”
“I see,” Catrin said. “Threats.”
“I am sure the wiser among them might imagine them to be so,” Malmot said, “but the understanding between our nation and their fiefs is tacit. A bribe under the guise of allegiance, for those who can be persuaded to believe, as we soften them for eventual dissolution and absorption within the country.”
“It’s less effective than pressure,” Catrin said. “When the rabbit bolts, a hunter makes haste. They follow, loose an arrow, or throw a spear. If Erebolt chooses to dither and dally over lands against its chosen border, those that by your own admission you wait to absorb, do not keep us from contesting them ourselves.”
“Expand along our border?” the marshal said, incredulous. “Encircle us?”
“A possibility,” Catrin said.
“And one you will not find probable,” Valent said.
The utterance was quiet, so quiet that Kipper doubted, for a moment, that Valent’s words had made it across the table.
But they had, and Catrin seemed caught between a scoff and a grin.
Perhaps even she was surprised by the whispered declaration, unsure of her reaction, because she ordered her shield-bearer instead of replying to the rather brazen posture.
“I might as well offer you each the same,” she said.
He had already departed in search of Catrin’s drinks and whatever else.
“I’ve eaten,” said the marshal. “I wouldn’t trouble you, but: anyone else?”
Valent, sheepish at the outburst, however restrained it had been, was the first to shake his head, and the others followed.
Kipper considered requesting something to slake the dryness, after the moderate trek they’d endured, either water or a weak enough ale to keep him sober. His own canteen was empty. But it would undermine the marshal and the others, and an open-ended offer frequently had ends he couldn’t yet see.
Instead, he petitioned Fizfin for a sip from his flask, as surreptitiously as could be managed, and the pack-master obliged, handing him the container behind his back.
It was the pass back to him that left subtlety to be desired, and Catrin raised her eyebrows.
“You’re welcome to it,” she said, “but I do sense this is not the time for breaking bread. It’s no secret, Marshal, that your leaders and armies want to hold the mare’s tail in your grasp by way of breaking it, but the aristocrats will kick. They will consolidate, grow into their holdings, and fortify themselves against any intrusion. Guess at their next move, then.”
“At the risk of inaccuracy,” Wistan said, “there exists precedent for our actions.”
“Whether or not we question the basis of argument,” Malmot said.
His voice was scratchy enough that Fizfin handed him the flask, wordless, and he drained it without comment.
There were provisions in the village proper, enough for them all, but they had underestimated their opponents.
Catrin intended to prolong the meeting from a safe point of contact before returning to parley in the village. Her vision, which she was well-supplied enough to carry out, was to end things here, and damn the time it took.
She had to know of the tensions near the eastern border, and she would weaken Erebolt simply by keeping them here.
The realization came to Kipper like a shot, and he was almost certainly behind the others.
“—Hawk’s Neck and Blanksknight,” Wistan said, “were both independent regions tolerated by the empire, and were allowed to bow under their own weight before they were conquered.”
“You’ll find,” Catrin said, “that they are independent still, as are the rebels on the northeast coast.”
“That’s misleading at best,” Malmot said. “The empire fell soon after their assimilation, but both territories were easily put under the thumb of even a failing empire. Why? The decades which weakened any nascent resistance.”
“Fascinating,” Catrin said. “And on that basis of argument, I contend that precarity is the enemy of success. Tension is the enemy of success, and its maintenance is a waste and a fool’s errand. If you will not douse the sparks before the whole of the continent’s south burns, then grant Codric the right.”
“To plunder what our nation intends to plow?” Malmot asked. “To leave the orchard withered and barren before the fruit is ripe?”
“Sophistry aside,” the marshal said, “any proposition of that sort, which asks that my country cede our claim without recompense, would require deep conference. When presenting it to the King, I would decry the suggestion and recommend refusal. That claim, of which you have been aware, was reiterated to affirm where both our nations stand. Not to reintroduce the issue without bargain, and not to invite such a bargain.”
“I see,” Catrin said.
“It’s a minor point on which it seems we have been snagged,” the marshal said. “My preference is that you recognize Erebolt’s dominion south of its own border and agree to respect it, as we have in every formal capacity and behavior all but acknowledged yours.
“Failing that, I ask that you introduce an aspect of our conflict which you consider ironclad. It may solidify our common understanding. If it does not, then we will understand each other differently, if not more, and let that be the state of affairs.”
“And failing that?” asked Catrin.
“If you refuse to engage on our terms, or on shared terms, then it follows that we may only engage on yours. And in that case, I would propose that we adjourn. Perhaps we may conduct our own investigations of the border, or seek arbitration with the true rulers of both our nations, but there is no use in further escalation here and now.”
It went without saying that they were outnumbered.
Catrin had brought soldiers, and though Kipper had been taking down all that he could think of, he had not yet found a way to strike home anything verbal that would counteract that advantage.
Without a masterstroke, he stayed silent, though he recorded the places Catrin deemed relevant and not, where she attempted to push the envelope and retract it. Wistan’s role, but they had not reached his, and it was the only way he knew to keep himself from day-dreaming.
“Below our border, in turn,” Catrin said at length, “cease your operations. Scouting or otherwise.”
The marshal considered it, adjusted the placement of his spectacles. He nodded very slightly, then, as if he were asserting to himself and no one else that he had truly come to a conclusion.
Kipper recognized the expression from his sister’s eldest son, when he’d reassured the child that nothing lay waiting in the dark.
“It will be done,” the marshal said.
“With nothing given?” Catrin asked.
“In good faith.”
“We are thankful, then,” she said. “Let that serve as an example of your ability, marshal, to accomplish your promised tasks.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “In that respect, I and my advisors serve as a plenipotentiary.”
“In others?”
“The same,” he said, “but I am not so arrogant to think that I myself might speak for the entirety of a kingdom without assistance.”
If Catrin understood that she had been insulted, the reaction didn’t reach her face.
“Then I am sure,” she said, “that neither you nor your country will mind the imposition of a penalty if it happens that your word means nothing. Would you agree, marshall?”
Malmot leaned onto the table, placing its palms on its surface.
“I’m confident,” he said, quiet, “that Rijk would not sink to such leading demands. Perhaps it would be preferable to confer with him directly, above-board, so that we all may exercise grace and character in—”
“Stop,” the marshal said.
He raised a hand.
“Your defence is appreciated, but it is unwarranted and unwelcome.”
“Yes, sir,” Malmot said.
“Come forward when you are asked, please, and do not police our guest’s conduct.”
Kipper saw that Valent had gone still, and shot him a glance that wasn’t returned.
Malmot, in something of a truncated huff, stood and whispered to Fizfin, who nodded and shrugged.
“My apologies,” the marshal said.
“It’s nothing,” Catrin said.
“It matters. Perhaps—”
“A penalty,” she said. “You cannot fail to see the need for discipline in a situation such as this, where verbal contracts are to be the primary law of the land. Or does your arrogance blind you after all, to think that a horse-track lacks rails for the benefit of the horses and not the poverty of their owners?”
The shield-bearer, having sensed an opportunity, approached from his cohort and deposited a full tankard on the table before her.
“Thank you,” she said, though she neither looked up at him nor drank.
The marshal was impassive.
“You can’t secure it,” Valent said, having glanced at him, “and so you’ll understand why we are reluctant to accept.”
Malmot hesitated to speak.
The marshal, though his subordinate stood behind him, tilted his head to the side almost imperceptibly, and Malmot took that as a cue to proceed.
Kipper was observant, when he tried to be. He could notice the subtler shifts in movement, especially from men and women he’d known for years. But even then, he would trade— there was very little he was willing to trade, but he would find something, in exchange for the ability to react with confidence, to know with certainty and ease what was meant by certain looks. By those finest of gestures.
Malmot swallowed.
“In other words,” the advisor said, “a penalty is worth as much as the counterparty’s fear of damaging relations and the party’s ability to extract its worth. If Codric is confident enough, as a nation and its military force, to secure whatever penalty is put forth today, undoubtedly damaging, then it may as well protect its self-declared boundaries without the need for assurances.
“And if it is not, then the best it can secure is a guarantee without incentive to break the trust created there. In either case, I believe us both to be best served by striking a deal without additional reason to find excuse to break it. If abiding is in both our interests, let it be so without coercion.”
“Well said,” the marshal all but concurred. “What say you?”
“I am unconvinced,” Catrin said. “And more, but first and at the fore, I disbelieve what your lieutenant has brought, and it rings to my ears as a greater excuse than any a penalty would encourage.”
“A penalty, mind, for failure to receive a gift.”
“No true gifts exist in territory such as this. Are you unfamiliar, marshal, with the tale of the dagger-man and the poisoned fruit?”
“I have not heard of it.”
“Then I will not regale you,” Catrin said, “but simply relate that it is as it sounds. The brigand finds himself unable to kill his woodland quarry, a Veilfolk, and resorts instead to trapping the target’s meals.
“If you offer a concession, marshal, in the hopes of reciprocation, or as a maneuver towards softening Rijk’s position, don’t disclaim your greater aims as incidental. Honesty serves us here. Deceit drags us both towards war.”
“Unfortunate, if it’s so,” the marshal said. “I personally would welcome war, and yet I have no love for deceit. You may see how I’m conflicted there, to say nothing of my charge.”
“And what’s that?” Catrin asked.
“Peace,” he said, “and more than a fair bit of deceit, if I’m asked to be honest.”
It was the closest Kipper had heard the marshal come to outright jest, said as if it were yet another claim.
Catrin lifted the tankard to her lips and drank. When she set it down, no liquid sloshed within.
“Then the offer without concession will stand,” she said, “and Rijk will grant that its due, whatever the value of a currency backed by nothing at all.”
“And King Hollim will be pleased that I have either made an inroad or just the opposite,” the marshal said, “but let us turn away from that for now, and trust that it will be enshrined on paper or canvas when we each have retired.”
That, Catrin was willing to accept.
It continued in that way for hours: the occasional cack-handed jab, the incessant circling around material subjects to gain greater ground with victories of triviality, and Kipper’s near-insignificance.
Eventually, perhaps, he would be called upon, but not before dusk came, and an adjournment was finally agreed, the resumption to take place in the morning.
Nearer the town proper, now that there could be no unexpected partisan force waiting in the dwellings, and Kipper found that, at least, a comfort.
He did not, however, sleep very much at all, for he had a day of invention to puzzle through, blocked up by pages and pages on partial transcripts written while his back ached, and the moonlight lit his journal brightly enough to bridge the gap until the sun rose.
Writings Of Orion 
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