He then said, “I have determined that those boots which you claim belong to your brother are made by a particularly well-regarded cobbler in Rillanon, your nation’s capital. Is this correct?”
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Jimmy nodded. “It is.”
“Would it be unreasonable to assume that common mercenaries are not likely to acquire a matching set of such boots unless they are not, in fact, common mercenaries?”
“Not unreasonable at all,” said Jimmy. The man speaking to him motioned to one of his two companions, who left the booth, fetched over a chair, and allowed Jimmy to sit. Jimmy nodded his thanks, then said, “Would it be immodest to claim we are uncommon mercenaries?”
“Not in the least,” said the man. “Though it would smack of insincerity.”
Jimmy said, “I am at your mercy. If I’m a spy or not is of little matter. You can kill me at your whim.”
“True, but murder holds little appeal for me. I’ve seen far too much of it over the last twenty years.”
He motioned to the remaining man who sat at his side, and the man rose from his seat and offered Jimmy a mug of water. “I’m sorry we don’t have anything more flavorful, but at least it’s clean. One of the major wells to the north has been cleared and is running fresh again. Your Duke James left nothing behind that provides much comfort.”
Jimmy feigned indifference to hearing his grandfather’s name. This invader was very well informed about things in Krondor and the Kingdom to know about Duke James and Rillanon’s better bootmaker.
“But we manage,” said the man. “Feeding the workers is difficult, but the fishing has been good and there are those willing to sell to us for the little booty we’ve found in Krondor.”
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and appeared to be someone of some importance among the invaders.
The man stood and said, “Can you walk?”
Jimmy rose and nodded. “I’ll manage.”
“Good. Then come with me.”
Jimmy followed the man out of the door of the inn. Outside the afternoon sun was brilliant and Jimmy squinted. “We must walk, I’m sorry to say.
Horses are a staple of our current diet.” He glanced at Jimmy. “Though a few are maintained to carry messages.”
They walked along a busy street. While almost every man was armed and obviously a warrior, a few were workers and a few women were seen here and there. Everyone seemed occupied with some task, and none of the usual idle habitues of the city were in evidence: the drunks, prostitutes, confidence men, and beggars. Also noticeable by their absence, the street urchins who flocked in rowdy gangs through the poor and workers’ quarters of the city.
“If I may ask,” said Jimmy, “where’s my dog robber?”
“He’s comfortable,” said the man. “Don’t worry about him.”
The man who was walking beside him said,
“Jimmy, if you are a spy, you’re most likely wondering what it is we’re doing here in Krondor.”
Jimmy said, “It is a question that has crossed my mind. I may not be a spy, but it’s obvious there’s more going on here than a simple staging for a spring offensive. You’ve got soldiers on the outside of the walls anxious to enlist and you’re not enlisting them.
You have a great deal of work underway, but some of it”—he pointed to a nearby building where two sol-
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diers were hanging a new door— “clearly not military in nature. It’s as if you’ve come to Krondor to stay.”
The man smiled, and again Jimmy was reminded of the old Prince, for this man had the same cryptic half-smile Arutha had evidenced when amused.
“Good observation. Yes, we’re not planning on leaving anytime soon.”
Jimmy nodded, his head still ringing from the beating he had taken. He said, “But you’re turning away swords who will help you hang on to this place when the Prince’s army returns.”
“How many spies are among that band outside?”
asked the man.
“I couldn’t begin to guess.” Jimmy shrugged.
“Not many, I wager.”
“Why?”
“Because no man of the Kingdom can pass himself off as one of your own. We don’t speak your language.”
“Ah,” said the officer, “but you have. Some of your countrymen have been among us for years. We first became of aware of a group calling itself
‘Calis’s Crimson Eagles’ before the fall of Maharta.
We now know they were Kingdom agents. We know they were with us from time to time.” They reached the walls and the man motioned for Jimmy to climb with him up a flight of stairs to the ramparts.
As they climbed, the man continued. “We who were commanding never had a clear picture of this campaign. To understand what we became, you need to know what we were before.” They reached the ramparts, and the man motioned for Jimmy to follow. They reached a section of the wall freshly refur-
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bished, the stones set firmly in place with new mortar. The man motioned beyond the wall, toward the east. “Out there is a nation, your Kingdom.” He turned to regard Jimmy. “In my homeland we have no such nations. There were city-states, ruled by men who were petty or noble, who were acquisitive or generous, wise or foolish. But no ruler’s power existed beyond a week’s ride by his soldiers.” He motioned toward Jimmy. “You people have this thing in your mind. This idea of a nation. It is an idea I am most intrigued by, even captivated by. The notion that men who live more than a month’s travel from a ruler swear to that ruler, are willing to die for that ruler—” He stopped himself. “No, not the ruler, this nation. Now this is an amazing idea.
“I have spent much time this winter speaking with those among our prisoners who could teach me, men and women of some education or experience, who would help me understand this concept of this Kingdom.” He shook his head. “It is a grand thing, this nation of yours.”
Jimmy shrugged. “We tend to take it for granted.”
“I understand, for you have never known otherwise.” The man looked out over the wall. Below was a sea of tents and makeshift shelters, campfires and the sounds of humanity, laughter, shouts of anger, the voices of peddlers, a child crying. “But to me the notion of something larger than what I can take and hold—for my employer or for myself—that is a wondrous notion.”
The wind blew and the afternoon smelled of salt and charcoal. The man said, “Tell me, why is this city built here?” He glanced westward. “If there is a worse harbor in the world, I’ve not seen it.”
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Jimmy shrugged. “The story says the first Prince of Krondor liked the view of the sunset from the hill upon which the palace was built.”
“Princes,” said the man, shaking his head. He sighed loudly. “We are dredging that terrible harbor.
We have found those who call themselves
‘Wreckers’ and they are using their magic to raise hulks for us. We manage one every three days, and will have the harbor cleared before next winter.”
Jimmy said nothing.
“We know you marshal what’s left of your fleet down in Shandon Bay, in the village you call Port Vykor. We have no fleet, but we will have ships, and we will hold the city.
Jimmy shrugged. “May I ask why?”
“Because we have nowhere else to go.”
Jimmy looked at the man and said, “If there was a way back to your home . . .?”
“There is nothing there.” He glanced toward the east. ??
?There is my future, one way or another.” Then he looked toward the west. “Out there is a land ravaged by over twenty years of war. No city of size remains. Those few that do are small backwaters, barely more prosperous in their glory than Krondor is now in her ashes. They are city-states of tiny men with no sense of the future. One day is much like the next.”
He turned toward Jimmy and studied him a long time. “I’m fifty-two years old next Midsummer’s Day, lad. I’ve been a soldier since I was sixteen years of age. For thirty-six years I’ve been fighting.” He glanced at the city as the sun began to lower in the west. “That’s a damn long time to be dealing in blood and slaughter.” He leaned on the parapet as if 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 128
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tired. “For the last twenty I’ve served demons or black gods, I don’t know which, but I know that the Army of the Emerald Queen was made up of men beguiled by dark forces, lured by promises of wealth, power, and immortality.” His voice lowered. “Or propelled by fear.” He looked down, as if reluctant to look Jimmy in the eyes. “I was ambitious when I was young. I was anxious to make a name for myself. I formed my own company when I was eighteen. I was commanding a thousand men by twenty.
“At first I was glad to serve the Emerald Queen.
Her army was the greatest my land had known. With conquest came booty, gold, women, more recruits.”
He closed his eyes as if remembering. “But after a while the years slip by and you find the string of women hold no interest, and there’s only so much gold you can carry with you. Besides, there’s nothing to do with it but hire more men.”
He looked at Jimmy and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, to the north. “My old friend Nordan is up there, at my back. If I know Fadawah, I am to be left here to be ground to a fine dust by the returning army of the Prince of Krondor. I am to slow him down and bleed him, while Nordan builds up a barrier across the highway to the north of here, to stand at Sarth.” He glanced over his shoulder, as if somehow able to see to that distant town. “That’s a hell of a defensive position, that abandoned abbey.
Once he’s dug in, it will take your Prince all year to dig him out.”
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a year. He has the means to keep reinforcements and supplies from reaching the city while he repulses your forces from the south.”
Jimmy said, “Why are you telling me this?”
“Spy or not, I want you to carry a message for me to the Prince. I believe he’s still in Darkmoor, but have no doubt he has forces no more than a day’s ride to the east. I’ll arrange an escort to a likely point and turn you loose.”
“Why not just send a message?”
“Because I think you are a spy and I think you’re likely to be believed. If I send one of my own men, or a captive who wasn’t known to the Prince or his men, I think it might take too long to convince him of my intent. And time is a commodity neither of us has.”
Jimmy said, “You’re General Duko.”
The man nodded. “And I’ve been sent out by one of my oldest comrades to die. Fadawah and I have served in various campaigns together since we were hardly old enough to shave. But he fears me, and that’s my death warrant.”
“What do you want me to say to Prince Patrick?”
“I have an offer for him.”
“What’s the offer?”
“I wish to negotiate a settlement of our differences.”
“You’re willing to surrender?”
“Nothing that simple, I’m afraid.” The General smiled a half-smile that Jimmy found both reassuring and unsettling. “Patrick would likely throw me and my men into a camp and get around to shipping us back to Novindus when he found the means, and that could be years down the road.”
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“You’re turning coat?”
“Not quite. Surrender or take his gold for service, either way I end up a man looking for a boat back to a land that has no place for me. No, Jimmy, I need a different solution. I need a future, for me and my men.”
“What do you wish me to tell the Prince’s men?”
“Tell them that I have handpicked the men with me here in Krondor. Tell them those I had reservations about were left behind with Nordan. I can vouch for my men.” He looked into Jimmy’s eyes a moment. “Tell your Prince of Krondor I will swear fealty to the crown, in exchange for land and titles.
Grant me estates and income, and I will lead the army north to visit with my old friends Noradan and Fadawah.”
Jimmy was silent for a moment. He was both astonished at the suggestion and amazed at the logic behind it. He shook his head. “I don’t know what he will say.”
“If we knew what he would say, we wouldn’t have to send you, now, would we?”
Jimmy shook his head.
“Come, get something to eat, and leave at first light.” He led Jimmy down the stairs.
Jimmy watched the man’s back and considered what he wanted. In a single breath he had set a price: forgive the assault on the Western Realm, and more, grant the man a patent of nobility, name him Earl or Baron of some lands in the West, and give him the power to rule over those lands. Jimmy shook his head. Would Patrick do it, or would his temper doom men on both sides of the wall to more useless bloodshed?
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Dash sipped at the watery soup and said, “So then what?”
“We stayed in that basement a week or more.
Hard to judge being in the gloom all that time.” The old man motioned to put aside his bowl, held in a badly deformed hand, and the young woman moved to take it before it fell to the floor. “Thank you, Trina,” he said.
His voice was as scarred as his face, but after getting used to the sound of it, Dash understood him well enough.
The three men who had come with Dash were still missing, and only Dash, the old man, and the woman thief sat around the simple wooden table.
“What should I call you?” asked Dash.
“Your grandfather insisted on calling me Lysle. It was a name I hadn’t used in more score of years than I can count, but it serves. I’ve had so many in my life I barely know which one is truly mine.”
“Lysle, you were telling me about Grandfather and Grandmother.”
“James set fire to the oil he rigged in the sewers.
We knew it would be a close thing and it was. I was in the escape tunnel ahead of them, and when the explosion came I shot from the mouth of the tunnel like a cork from a bottle of sparkling wine. I was badly burned, as you see, and had half my bones broken, but I’m a tough nut.”
The woman named Trina spoke. “And we found a healing priest who worked on him.”
“Damn near killed the man, making him do his healings over me, my merry band of cutthroats did.
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passed out from exhaustion. He squeezed a few years more of life for me, while I set matters in Krondor right.”
“Grandfather and Grandmother?”
The old man shook his head. “James and Gamina were last in the tunnel, behind me. They never had a chance, boy.”
Dash had known his grandfather and grandmother were dead; his great-grandfather Pug had said so, but upon finding the Upright Man alive, a faint hope had been rekindled in Dash. Now it was extinguished again, and the pain was again felt.
Lysle said, “If it is any comfort, I know they died quickly, and together.”
&nbs
p; Dash nodded. “Grandmother would never have wanted to live without Grandfather.”
“I never knew my brother well, Dash. We had met once as young men, and then again a few years ago.”
The old man laughed, a dry chuckle. “He put me out of business, actually, and damn near got me killed by some of the more ambitious men in the Mockers.
“But those few days I spent with him and your grandmother, they were my chance to hear the stories. I’m sure you heard most of them. Prince Arutha and the journey to Moraelin, the fall of Armengar, where he got the idea for that nasty fire trap that got himself killed. I heard how he had journeyed to Kesh, during that matter with the Crawler, and when Lord Nirome had tried to depose the Empress. He told me of his rise in power and the time he spent ruling in Rillanon.
“I had thought myself something of a man of some accomplishments. When my father had died, one of his most trusted lieutenants had seized control 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 133
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of the Mockers, naming himself the Virtuous Man. I in turn deposed him and called myself the Sagacious Man. And I returned to the name Upright Man to signal an agreement I had with your grandfather and create the false impression I had deposed myself with the members of the Mockers.
“But my accomplishments pale next to those of Jimmy the Hand. The thief who ruled in turn the two mightiest cities in the Kingdom. He who was the most powerful noble in the nation. What a man he was.”
Dash nodded. “When you put it that way, I see what you mean. To me he was Grandfather, and he had lots of wonderful stories. I sometimes forgot they were true.”
The Upright Man said, “Now, the question is, what to do with you?”
“Me?”
“You’re here spying for your father. That’s not a problem, in and of itself, but the fact is you’ve seen me, talked to me, and letting you go is a problem.”
“Would it make a difference if I swore to say nothing about you to anyone?”
The old man laughed his dry chuckle again.
“Hardly. You’re who you are, boy, and things might remain on the square between us for a while, but eventually, when things return to something like before around here, the day will come when some Mocker will create a problem that will call a little too much attention to us. It happens from time to time.