The Towers Of the Sunset (45 page)

“I DON’T LIKE it.” Hartor shakes his head. “Someone has been riding the winds around Lydiar, Tyrhavven, Renklaar, and even Hydolar.”

“You think it’s Creslin?” Gyretis leans back in the white-oak chair.

“Who else? It could be the White bitch-”

“She’s not White anymore. Almost pure Black.”

“That’s not wonderful, either.”

“So? What’s the problem?” Gyretis shakes his head. “Half of Candar hates him, and the other half fears him. He has only two ships, and not a great deal of gold or coin. His crops were barely sufficient.”

“The guard bitches brought him the remnants of the Westwind treasury.” Hartor fingers the amulet he wears and walks to the window, where he glances across the white city.

“Fine. That will buy him another trader’s cargo… or three. Several eight-days worth of food. It won’t solve his problems.”

“He’s going to do something. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m sure he is. But if we’re careful, we can still come out stronger than before.”

“Stop playing games. Just say what you have to say!” snaps the High Wizard.

“You’re getting edgier than Jenred. Remind me never to consider taking a position of responsibility on the council.” Gyretis straightens in the chair. “Look. In any fight, it really isn’t who wins the battles that counts. It’s what you have left when it’s over. I don’t think that Westwind ever lost a battle. The other thing is that you have to accept the fact that we probably can’t destroy Reduce, at least not while Creslin’s alive. So… we want to make sure that our losses are as small as possible and that Creslin can get as little help as possible, because it will take a long time, even now that he’s ensured favorable weather for Reduce, to build up that island without the help of outside gold and resources.”

“That’s sound theory. Making it work could be difficult.”

“Make Creslin use force to get what he needs, and make sure that someone else pays for our losses.”

Hartor snorts. “That’s easier said than done.”

“He needs coin; he needs tools; he needs more food; he needs timber; and he needs skilled craftspeople. He doesn’t have enough coin, and that means he’s going to have to steal it, or steal something that he can turn into coin.”

“And I suppose we should let him?”

“No. But I wouldn’t try to anticipate where he might strike. He’ll destroy whatever forces you send against him. Your best defense is to play the benevolent ruler. Help get Montgren back together. Send extra food. Blame the damage, again, on Creslin, that renegade Black who wants to build an empire. See if you can pay some of the Blacks to help restore the Kyphran orchards. And offer slightly higher prices for Hamorian and Nordlan traded goods… but only after delivery in Candar.”

Hartor raises his eyebrows.

“That brings their goods here, leaves their ships on the seas. We have more than enough coin.”

“There’s never enough.”

“Think about it.” Gyretis stands. “It’s your decision, not mine. You asked what I suggested. I told you.”

“GIDMAN, I UNDERSTAND that the green juice is your concoction.”

“Begging your pardon, ser, and it is, but only because there’s no grapes here worthy of the name.” The stocky and grizzled trooper glares at Creslin. “Nothing grows here that’d make a decent wine, except perhaps pearapple brandy.”

“Maybe next year on the pearapples. Could you distill the green juice into a brandy?”

“Distill… greenberry? That swill’s so tart it’d twist your guts inside out.”

“I know that. But could you do it?”

“If someone could get me the tubing, and the time. But it’d taste like those lightning bolts raised by… the other regent, ser.” Gidman licks his lips.

“What about aging? Would that mellow it?”

“Unless you have a secret bunch of casks, ser, we got nothing proper to age with. Aging mellows anything. It might rum that green lightning into simple poison.”

“I take it you don’t like it?”

“Some folks’ll drink anything. Not me.”

“I’ll get you the tubing and the time, Gidman. And some more tubs. You start brewing as much of the green juice as you can. You turn it into green lightning, and I’ll figure out how to make it drinkable.”

“You do that, ser, and that’s worth more than all the storms you called.”

“Probably,” sighs Creslin. “You’re going to have to move. Hyel will tell you where to start, once we’re set up.”

“Begging your pardon again, ser. But you let me work it out with the masons and it’ll happen faster, and it’ll be what I need.”

Creslin grins. “Fine. If they have problems, they can come to Hyel or to me. Will that be satisfactory?”

“Saving your grace, yes. ‘Cept that stuff’s still green swill.”

Creslin is shaking his head as he climbs the stairs to Hyel and Shierra’s office. Hyel is out, but Shierra stands as he enters.

“Gidman-the grizzled character who’s making the green juice-is going to work out some deal with the stoneworkers to build a proper still, outside the keep. Would you let Hyel know that I said it was all right?” He turns to go.

“Creslin?” Shierra’s voice is soft.

“Yes.”

“We all know you’re trying.”

“Right now, trying doesn’t count, does it?”

“Don’t tell that to Fiera.”

Creslin sighs and turns back to face her. “I suppose I deserved that. I can’t ever repay her.”

“No.”

“What am I supposed to do? She brought those squads because… because…”He shakes his head.

“She wasn’t sure you understood.”

“What can I do? I still remember the one time we kissed. I wish I’d been smarter or braver or bolder. But then… everything would have turned out differently.” He pauses. “So I owe her. We all do, but I owe her more than I can admit, and I don’t even know how to repay it. There really isn’t any way. Nothing I say-”

“You just have. In a way.”

“I don’t know. People want to see great deeds, and I’m trying to figure out how to pay for food two seasons from now, because what Fiera brought back won’t last that long.” |

“There was quite a bit left in that strongbox.”

“It’s a trade-off. If we don’t buy tools, and supplies like the metals for the glassworks, we’ll never be able to support I ourselves and we’ll be starving two years from now. If we do spend the money on the future, we risk starving in the seasons ahead.” Standing in the doorway, Creslin shrugs. “It’s like juggling with sharp knives.”

“Why the green-juice distillery?”

“I thought I’d explained that. No?” Creslin steps over to the window. “You can sell distilled spirits anywhere and at any time, usually without having to mark them down much, especially if the quality’s good. Wool’s the same way, especially if you’re selling in Nordla. Right now we don’t have any trading possibilities, not with the trade edict of the Whites.”

“You’re trying to develop hard-cash products.”

“I thought I’d made that clear, but I guess not.”

“Maybe I wasn’t listening. Building a distillery didn’t sound like it was going to solve our trade problems.”

“It won’t. But it might help for a little while.”

“You just confused me again,” admits the former guard leader.

“Our population’s still small. The thirty or fifty golds we might net out of the distillery every season or so might buy enough food to make the difference. But what happens two years from now when we have another couple of thousand people here?”

“That won’t happen.”

Creslin catches her eyes. “We’ll either have three thousand people or more on Reduce in two years or we’ll be dead. We can’t survive with fewer. We’re getting a score every couple of eight-days already.” He waits. “I need to be going. Will you tell Hyel about Gidman?”

“I’ll tell him, along with the explanation. I’ll also tell Fiera.”

“How is she? I keep thinking about talking to her, but she didn’t seem to want to face me. She avoids me even when I’m practicing.”

“She feels like she failed, and nothing you say can help now. But she’ll need to deal with it, and with you, sooner or later.”

“I dreamed about her for a time, you know.”

“I know. She knows, and so does Megaera. But that was in a different world.”

Creslin nods, but the words, “That was in a different world,” run through his head as he walks back down through the keep toward the stable. In less than two years, all Candar has been changed. Yet has it been only because of his and Megaera’s actions?

He steps into the exercise yard, where he sees a familiar blond head duck back into the newly constructed guard quarters.

“Good day, your grace,” offers a guard, saluting with a practice wand.

“Good day.” His eyes linger on the empty doorway where Fiera had stood. Then he crosses the stones as though he walks alone through the high forests of the Westhorns, as though he scales the towers of the sunset against the demons of the light. The remaining guards draw back.

Even as he saddles Vola, the mare neither skitters nor whinnies, as though he is a storm that walks on two feet, bearing terrible lightnings poised like swords to fall from the Heavens.

By the time he reaches the Black Holding, he is silent, and Vola offers her opinion with a whickering as he unsaddles her.

“It’s not that bad,” he murmurs to the mare. “We only need to remake the rest of the world in a season.” He slams the saddle on the rack and hangs the saddle blanket in place before dishing out one of the few remaining oatcakes into the manger. “Enjoy it. It may be your last for a long time.”

He stops by the kitchen, since he can feel that Megaera is there, washing up.

“Begging your pardon, your grace, but is there anything you can do about the bread?” Aldonya looks up from a pot of soup on the stove and through the cloud of steam that fills the kitchen despite the two open windows.

“What about it?” he asks.

“There isn’t any left, and no one seems to know when there will be more.”

“I don’t know either. The Dawnstar won’t be back for at least another eight-day, and Freigr may not have been able to get flour, not with the drought in Candar. Lydya thinks that the first of our maize will be ready to harvest in two or three eight-days. But it needs to be dried before it can be ground into flour.”

“We have not even maize flour? It will be a sad day when cornmeal is too dear for even the rich.”

“We’re scarcely rich, Aldonya.”

“The fisherfolk think you are a great lord, and who am I to argue with those who toil on the great
Eastern
Ocean
?”

Creslin snorts. “You know what we eat, and what I have to wear. Great lord?”

“They have even less, your grace.”

“I know, I know.”

“What do you know?” asks Megaera, her hair wrapped in a towel and her body garbed with the thin blue robe, clinging suggestively to her damp curves. Creslin cannot help but look longingly at her.

“Not that! It’s been a long day,” she says firmly. “Some idiot didn’t… never mind. I don’t want to get angry about it again. We lost an entire crucible of colored crystal.” She adjusts the towel around her head. “Cleaning up after cleaning up. Now, best-beloved, what do you know?”

“Oh… about how little flour we have left, and how there’s even less for the fisherfolk.”

“They asked me, too.” Her lips tighten. “When will the Dawnstar-”

“Not for at least another eight-day. There’s no guarantee of what Freigr will be able to bring back.”

“You two. You cannot worry over what you can do nothing about. You, your grace”-Aldonya gestures at Creslin-“you need to wash up. We have a good fish stew for dinner, and even some of the white seaweed.”

“It’s better than the brown.” Megaera raises her eyebrows.

“Would you prefer a desert of quilla roots?” he asks her. “You…” She shakes her head. “I am dressing for dinner, and I expect you to be equally presentable, best-beloved.”

After Megaera sweeps from the kitchen, Creslin, grinning, heads for the washhouse. He will worry about tomorrow when it arrives.

“WE HAVE THEM now. Those few coins left from Westwind won’t save them from slow starvation.” A wide grin passes over the heavy wizard’s face.

“You have them… now,” agrees Gyretis.

“You think they can wiggle out of this one? How? They don’t have that much coin. We’re letting anyone go there who wants to, so they’re getting more and more mouths to feed.” Hartor licks his fleshy lips. “But he doesn’t have enough gold for food, and we’ve bought up the prices. With the drought and the trade edict, they’ll starve.”

“What if they go east?”

“He has one ship that can cross the
Eastern
Ocean
, and the emperor just might want to take it back if Creslin sends it there.” Hartor fingers the amulet.

Gyretis stares at the mirror and its white mist, which clears and reveals a town built on a hillside. His eyes widen. “Look at this, Hartor.”

“What about it?”

“It’s a town. With new buildings, and a keep easily three times the size of the old Duke’s keep. That all happened in less than a year.”

“It will be deserted in less than another year.”

The thin wizard releases his breath, and the vision in the mirror is replaced with swirling white. “I don’t know. What if Ryessa decides to cause trouble?”

“What can she do?”

“Send them food and coins, for one thing.”

“After what Creslin did to the weather, she can’t send enough to make a difference.”

“What if he builds more ships?”

“He can’t build them in time.”

“You seem to have an answer for everything. Just like Jenred,” Gyretis says in a low voice.

“You’re rather presumptuous today. In fact, you’ve become rather annoying recently. It’s as if you were on Creslin’s side.”

Gyretis shrugs, trying to ignore the challenge in the heavy wizard’s tone. “I was just offering some possibilities about what might happen.”

“Bah. The coming small harvests, the economics, and the whole world are against Creslin. What can he do?” Hartor pauses. “Now… what I should do with you is another question.” He looks at the mirror. The thin wizard lowers his head and makes no reply.