It was not the whole heavin’ Drammune navy that sailed for Nearing Vast. But almost. How they came to be strewn across the sea in attack formation, headed toward the City of Mann with a full load of fighting men and women, ammunition, and every weapon of war available on Drammune shores, was a tale that several now watching wide-eyed aboard the Trophy Chase would have been amazed to hear told.
John Hand in particular would have listened eagerly, seeking to understand the genesis of these events, how the great and long-festering animosities between kings and kingdoms had converged with peculiar and particular fates, hopes, and ambitions of individuals, in order to bring these ships here, to him. If he could have, the professor would have stared deeply into this steaming cauldron, stirring it, testing it, trying to unlock its secrets.
It was a story that reached back to the bleak, cold months at the wane of the previous year, and would reach forward for many years to come.
“Tai eyneth.” Come with me. The guard said the words gruffly, a command not to be questioned. He was dressed head to foot in dark chain mail. He wore a deep crimson helmet and carried a halberd, a pike as tall as he was with the blade of a battle-axe protruding from its shaft. His dress, his weapon, and the floor on which he stood all identified him as a member of the Hezzan Guard, the most feared of the Drammune fighting forces, the most loyal to the emperor.
The warrior to whom the guard spoke stood silently, nodded slightly, then followed through huge, crimson double doors. Each door was twelve inches thick, each a perfect crimson square divided diagonally by a black slash of bolted iron. The pair walked past four other guards and into the dark, rich chambers of the emperor of Drammun, the Hezzan Shul Dramm.
The Hezzan was reclining on leather pillows under enormous, towering windows, now shut and shuttered. A basket overflowing with fresh fruit lay at his right hand, strips of red meat steamed in a steel skillet at his left. A young woman, dressed in a fabric that looked like gauze but which suggested more than it revealed, knelt to pour wine into her emperor’s silver goblet. Her dark hair was braided from her left ear to her shoulder; her eyes and face were painted. She looked up, startled.
The triple golden earring that pierced the flat of the young woman’s left ear flashed in the lamplight, and by this the visitor knew she was one of the Hezzan’s wives. The gauze-clad woman stood quickly, surprised and troubled by the disdain she saw in the warrior’s cold look.
“Go,” the Hezzan commanded. His most recent bride bowed dutifully and left, glancing back once, with fear.
The emperor was fifty-one, fit and muscular. He wore leather arm guards wrist to elbow, and a leather vest and kilt. His sandals were those of a warrior, thick-soled, hobnailed, with leather laces up to the knee. His beard was trimmed and dark, and his appearance, despite the gray that touched his temples, was altogether youthful. His eyes, black, sharp, and fierce, flashed in his scarred face.
“You have done well,” he said to the warrior.
“I have always sought to do my duty to you, and to the Law of my kingdom.”
The emperor took careful stock of the warrior before him, marking the leather robe and hood, the battle scars, the posture of pride, even defiance. “Bow to me.”
The warrior obeyed, putting one knee and both hands on the polished floor, as was customary before the Hezzan. “I am at your command.”
“You are worthy to command. And so you will become my wife.”
A tremor ran through her, but the warrior did not look up.
“This does not please you?” he asked.
Now Talon raised her head. Her eyes were every bit as fierce as his. She pulled back her leather hood, revealing short, ragged hair that had grown in around the scarred flesh of her scalp, burned in her ordeal aboard the Camadan. “I did not dare to imagine myself…attractive to you.”
He didn’t flinch. “You shall be my sixteenth wife.”
Talon knew better than to betray her emotions. “Words…fail me, Your Worthiness.”
“The arrangements are made. You will join with me tonight.”
She knew she could not keep the bitterness from her voice, could not hide it in her eyes, and so she said nothing, but stared down at the polished floor.
The Hezzan dismissed her. Talon was escorted by the guard back to her apartments in the palace, where a troupe of women, aides and servants, waited with baths, perfumes, face paint, and the gauzy garments she disdained.
Talon fought a burning rage. She had not foreseen this. She had earned a place of honor. She had been advising the Hezzan these many weeks, and had advised him well. She had done the kingdom great services, killing the Traitor, counseling the Hezzan in the sinking of the Vast fleet. She expected to do more. If she was to be rejected as a leader or an advisor, then certainly she should be a warrior. Not a wife!
To be numbered among those miserable concubines, fawning over the emperor in public, backbiting and clawing in private, a herd of cats caged for a single man’s vanity? She was to be his conquest, then, and not his confidant. It was a bitter, bitter blow, a deep and raw humiliation.
Still in her leathers, she dismissed the dumbfounded gaggle of aides, who fled before her snarling orders like a pack of deer from a howling wolf. She walked to the balcony outside her small residence, built for guests of honor.
The view, overlooking the great capital of Hezarow Kyne, was breathtaking. The city’s crimson, clay-tiled roofs covered the hills like armor plating, sloping down away from her to the shoreline in the distance. From here, Talon could see the masts of ships lining the harbor, the triangular crimson sails of Drammune warships out at sea.
But it would not be her city, not now. She would be worse than a captive here; she would be as one dead, this palace her tomb. To all but the Hezzan, she would be nobody. And even to him she would be but one of many. How could he not see that her skills, her capabilities, were far different from theirs? Men were always blinded by their desires, but this made no sense.
She would escape. She would run. She would return to the sea, to piracy.
As she looked past the city, past the bare masts of the harbor and out to the sailing ships, she thought about the Trophy Chase. She imagined that it yet plowed the waves, Captain Wilkins on the prowl for more Firefish. But much had changed since the days she’d sailed on that ship. She had left that behind, and felt no pull toward her old life. That she had survived at all seemed reason to believe that she had some destiny yet to fulfill.
She still wondered at how it had all happened. And how it might play into her fate.
When Talon had regained consciousness, she found herself lying on her back. Fire burned above her, burning cinders and ash swirled around her. She realized her hair was burning. She sat up, pain screaming through her as she stripped off her jacket and smothered the flames on her scalp.
The cracks and snaps of the fire were all but drowned by the roar of wind that fed the conflagration, sweeping up through the ceiling above her like a chimney. The heat was intense, but she was alive. She had fallen through the floor above and into the quarters of one of the ship’s officers. She had hit something, or landed on something, that caused her great pain. Now she looked down to find her own knife, her dirk, piercing the flesh of her left hip. How had this happened? She felt dazed, unsure of herself. How had her knife gotten out of its sheath?
And then she remembered that as she fell, she had reached for her blade. With her right hand she had dropped her sword and reached out for Packer Throme, the very image of the crucified Christ, his face full of peace, compassion, and yet strong and determined. And at the same time her other hand, her left hand, had instinctively sought out her knife, drawing it as though she might still kill him. Where was her sword now? She didn’t see it.
Smoke started to choke her. She coughed. She had to move; she had to get out. She pulled the knife from her side. Wincing in pain, bleeding heavily, she rolled to her knees. She kept her head low, below the smoke that flew past her, up through the fire above and into the night air. She crawled to the door, knife in her hand, and slammed it open. The room behind her exploded into flame, and she rolled out onto the deck.
Outside the cabin the air was slightly less smoky, but the deck was ablaze. She crawled across it, her leathers instantly as hot as the fire; she used her jacket to swat at flames and then she draped it over her head as she crawled on, through a single path that seemed to have been left open just for her. Halfway across the deck she found a sword. Packer Throme’s sword. She grabbed it by the hilt, again using the leather of her jacket, this time as a glove. And then with a great effort, she stood and ran for the port railing.
The many sailors aboard the Trophy Chase who had gathered to watch the duel were now watching Packer, who, with Delaney, Mutter Cabe, and Marcus Pile, were swimming away from the burning Camadan. They did not see the dark shadow that passed along the deck amidst the flames. They did not see that shadow as it slashed the ropes that held the ship’s boat. They could not have seen it tumble into the water on the opposite side of the ship, or climb from the water into the boat. It would have been impossible for them to see the pool of human darkness lying in the floor of that boat, drained and burned and bleeding. Defeated, but alive.
Talon drifted all night and the better part of the next day without food or water. She lay unmoving in the bottom of the boat, rising to consciousness only to find pain, failure, and emptiness, and then sinking again into darkness, where her dreams were of flames and swords, a great struggle for her life against innumerable foes, against Firefish, swordsmen, and pirates. Lurking in the background, watching every battle, never coming near but never out of sight, was Packer Throme. He would not fight her. He would wait to see whether she lived or died, whether she fought or surrendered.
She knew he would not approach her until she quit fighting. He wanted her to give up, to spread her own arms wide, as he had done, and accept her own death. But this she could not do. And so she fought on, wounded, bleeding, burning, barely able to move her feet or her arms, damaged and injured again and again and again.
Just as it seemed to her she would die of her wounds, as she sank to her knees unable to struggle further, she would awaken to a low, slate-gray sky, lightning flashing through the looming billows, and the patter of rain on the wooden gunwales, on her leathers, on her face, on her charred skull. And then she would sink again, only to begin the fight again.
Finally, she faced a foe she could not overcome. He was an enormous demon, with hollow eyes and muscles of stone. He stood before her with his scimitar already bathed in her blood, for he had hacked and hacked and refused to back down. His impassive face simmered with a calm satisfaction. She had worn herself out fighting him, but he could not be beaten.
Finally, she could fight no more. She could not raise her sword arm one more time. She looked at Packer, and saw the face she had seen on the deck of the Camadan. But it was no longer Packer; this was the very Son of God, robed in white, eyes like torches searing her, searching her, seeing her inmost parts. She was at the end of all her strength. She was exposed, and defeated. Yet in his look was a promise of comfort, of rest from all her struggles, if only she would take the hand he offered.
Then he spread his arms wide. She dropped her eyes to the ground, and then her sword. The demon’s blade sliced through her. She closed her eyes; she felt nothing. She looked up, and the Christ was gone. She looked to the stone demon. His hardened form cracked, then shattered, then fell at her feet in slivers and shards of silver glass, as though he had been no more than an image in a mirror. Above her shone a bright white light, a light that grew until it engulfed her. She drank it in. It was warm. It was healing. It was youth and power and peace. She rose up into it.
“Talon! Wake up, now!” a voice commanded. At first, she thought it was the voice of the demon. It came from deep within the cavernous darkness now underneath her, and it called her back to the darkness, away from the light. It was a voice from far away, from long ago.
“Do not surrender, Talon. Do not give up. Fight!” The voice was a voice of command, speaking in the Drammune tongue. It was martial, and it struck chords, created cords, it bound her deep within. It was her duty to return. And so with a great struggle, she did.
The bright, cold sun shone down on her. She was lying on the deck of a ship, and a Drammune captain hovered over her. She recognized him. She looked around her. She recognized the shape of the vessel, the dress of the crewmen, the sound of the drums below deck, the splash of a multitude of oars working in unison. This was a Drammune slave ship.
She closed her eyes, knowing she was safe now, that she would not die. She did not feel within herself a trace of thankfulness for that fact. She simply accepted it. She would return to Drammun. What would come, would come.
Now, standing in the Hezzan’s apartments on Drammune soil, Talon wondered if she would ever feel again the peace of rising into that light. Then a new thought came to her. The humiliation the Hezzan brought upon her…could it be a test? Was there an opportunity here for her to test the knowledge she had gained among the Vast? The Hezzan Shul Dramm was putting her in a place of weakness. And her confrontations with Senslar Zendoda, with Packer Throme, even with Panna had all taught her one thing: Great strength could come from great weakness.
She took a deep breath. She would need to consider this very carefully. The power of the God of Nearing Vast was great. This power had defeated her without a sword, without a weapon, and it had defeated her through the most unlikely of vessels. Could it be possible that she might learn the workings of that power?
“The meek shall inherit the earth.” Is that not what their Son of God had said? Yes. She had been reading these stories again, stories that portrayed this man who died without fighting, who gave Himself up to death, and yet did not live in weakness. Rather, He had unimaginable power. Still, he chose to be humiliated. And yet greater power resulted.
Yes, she determined. She would test his words. She would play the role of the meek. It would be a small test, not unto death. But then, Talon was not nearly so ambitious as the Son of God suggested she should be. She did not desire to inherit the earth.
She would be content with only the Kingdom of Drammun.
Surrounded by a handful of witnesses, with the Hezzan Guard stationed by the door, Talon was placed on her knees before the Hezzan. There, repeating words first written more than a thousand years earlier, she swore allegiance to him. In return, he spoke words that confirmed to the world that she was his wife, sealed and protected forever as, essentially, his legal property.
Sool Kron, the Hezzan’s right hand and Chief Minister of State, enjoyed the ceremony thoroughly. Not because the wizened and long-bearded advisor liked weddings, nor because this one was particularly unique. No weddings in Drammun were unique. Sool Kron enjoyed it because it accomplished a very important purpose. He congratulated the Hezzan warmly, and then his eyes met Talon’s. The minister’s look was one of absolute, dominant victory.
Talon could only close her painted eyes and accept one more deep humiliation. In her mind, though, she saw her dagger in her hand, saw its blade slicing across Sool Kron’s throat, saw his eyes go wide in surprise and then dull in death as her knife then reached up into his heart. But she let that image go. If there was a God who preferred weakness, who would step in to protect the weak, then she would benefit from that protection soon enough. Certainly, no one was weaker or more humiliated on this earth than the sixteenth wife of a Hezzan of Drammun.
The legal niceties over, the Hezzan retired with his bride to his chambers.
“You may change now,” he said, waving her away.
As Talon turned away from him, head high, and walked toward the dressing room, she feared her humiliation was just beginning. But in the small vanity room she found her hooded leather robe laid out and her familiar leathers waiting for her, along with her sword and her dirk. Puzzled but deeply relieved, she put these clothes on and returned to stand before the Hezzan.
“Sit,” he ordered. She sat down where he beckoned, on a small stool beside the enormous bed. He sat on the edge of the bed, still dressed formally in his loose leather tunic. “Now I will tell you why I wanted you to be my wife.”
This, she wanted to hear.
“You have brought glory to our kingdom. You have slain the Traitor. By doing so, you have lured the Vast Navy to its destruction. You have counseled me wisely and well in its defeat. You are worthy of the greatest honor, and I am not a man who will bring dishonor where honor is deserved.”
“Thank you, my lord,” was all she could say.
“But you have also made many enemies among my advisors, the Court of Twelve. They conspire against you.”
“Who conspires, my lord?”
“All of them.” He watched her face, saw no reaction. She knew this already. “They hate you. They fear you. You have wounded their pride. They have banded together, determined to destroy you. They want to force me to choose between you, and all of them.”
“I am sorry to bring this trouble on you.”
“Enemies always follow in the wake of heroic deeds. Should we therefore regret the heroic deeds?”
“I regret only the trouble.”
“I do not. I have solved the problem. I have married you. As a warrior, a Mortach Demal, you may fight, you may counsel others in the arts of war, and you may rise to any level in the military but one. Mine. As a warrior, you would be dishonored if I protected you from mere civilians. But as a married woman, you are under the protection of your husband. Such are our ways, and ever have been. Now, you have both the privileges of the Mortach Demal, and the protection of the Hezzan Shul Dramm. They dare not conspire against you.”
Talon was dumbfounded. “You are changing the Law.”
“I am not. I have studied the Rahk-Taa carefully. There is no prohibition here. I am simply reading it with new understanding.”
She was speechless. “I…thank you.”
“You are welcome.” He said it without smiling.
Talon looked at her emperor in a new light. He was taking a great, great risk. Certainly, others would expect, as she had, as Sool Kron had, that her warrior status would be removed, negated by her newer status as wife. For Drammune women it was a choice of the starkest kind. This would be a new thing in Drammun, the first new thing in the Law since the Hezzan Kaltyne had enhanced the role of Mortach Demal more than two hundred years ago, granting them full equivalency with men. It would be known and spoken about all over the kingdom. She would immediately be held in higher esteem than any other warrior, or than any other wife. She would be known forever, for generations to come.
Talon’s heart pounded. She had accepted her humiliation. She had seen no way out of the obscurity it promised. And now she would be given power and honor she had not sought, more than she could have imagined. The universe had turned under her feet. Who had the power to do such a thing? Only the Hezzan, and only if the Hezzan was willing to bear a great burden, to create many enemies. No one could convince a Hezzan to do this. This was the answer to her test. It would seem that God did show His power in human weakness.
And as she looked at the Hezzan Shul Dramm, she saw in him something she had not seen before. For the first time in her life, she felt she was in the presence of a man who might truly be worthy. She felt a strange desire to give back, a desire to repay such an act. But she had no idea how.
The Drammune language had no word for romantic love, not as it was expressed and practiced in Nearing Vast. And the word as used by the Vast held no meaning for Talon. In the beginning, she simply respected the Hezzan, to whom she had been wed. She felt him to be worthy of honor. He was worthy of her time and attention. That was all.
He was different, yes, but only in degree. She had met many men in her life, and she respected some of them in some ways. Scat Wilkins was fearless, for the most part, and he knew how to lead, how to act, how to make men accomplish great feats. But he was also in many ways a boy, a child who had to have his own way. When Scat threw tantrums people tended to die, but otherwise the comparison was apt.
John Hand certainly was no child. Talon respected his mind, his craftiness, his creativity at sea. But he had no feel for the fight. He did not know how or when to be savage. He did everything in his head first, and sometimes failed to execute it later. Hand’s associate, Lund Lander, the Toymaker, had brilliance, and honor, but lived in fawning obedience to his masters. The slave-ship captains she knew were strong and fearless, focused by necessity, but tended toward needless cruelty, cruelty that became their hallmark. All the other captains and leaders she had met had something worthy of respect, but much that was not.
The Hezzan Shul Dramm, however, struck her as a complete man, more so than any she had ever known. He was fearless and wise. He was patient. There was in him something that the Vast might call kindness, but there was no weakness bound up in it, no sweetness. No blindness. He could be brutal; he certainly relished the fight. But he was not rash. He wanted war with the Vast, and believed that war could be won. He knew men; he knew what motivated them, and he led them. Men wanted to follow him.
Without allowing a moment’s doubt about who held the power, he gave those in his circle room. She saw how he gave them the freedom to do his will their way. If they did not do his will, of course they were disciplined. They might be put outside the circle, jailed, or hung, depending on the extent of their disloyalty. But he allowed each one to make the Hezzan’s desires his own, to execute them with pride, to become one with the movement of the great ship that was the governing force of Drammun.
The Supreme Commander of the Glorious Drammune Military, Fen Abbaka Mux, might have been a superior emperor himself. The High Commander of the Glorious Drammune Navy, Huk Tuth, was almost twice the Hezzan’s age, but served him dutifully, gladly. Others in positions of direct power were the same: the leader of the Infiltrators, who did the nation’s spying, and of the Coinage Forces, who created and managed the Drammune currency and ran the central bank.
Only the Twelve were excepted. These men Talon did not respect; their conniving was beyond any man’s ability to ennoble. This was a traditional body of advisors, a worthy group in the past, but they had no direct power and so had become mere politicians who schemed for their master’s attentions and sought power through influence and, Talon firmly believed, treachery. They seemed to her hollow men, unable to see the quality of the emperor who led them. Fear kept them in line, when admiration should have been their prime motivator.
Talon’s admiration for the Hezzan only grew. He had not required marital rights as she had assumed he would. Nor had he ignored any attraction as she had then assumed he would. Rather, he had come to know her and to understand her as she worked alongside him, as she learned how he thought, and how he ruled.
They spent, at first, just the same few minutes a day together that they had before the marriage. Nothing had changed, except that she now had his protection. She was one of many advisors he would seek out for discussions on various subjects. He spoke to her of Nearing Vast, of that kingdom’s likely response to the crushing of their Fleet, and of the readying and fitting of his own Armada. The minutes they spent together grew as the weeks passed, as he learned the subtlety and the fearlessness of her mind. One day he took her to the docks to show her his preparations there, and to have an audience with the supreme commander.
Her first substantial meeting with Fen Abbaka Mux was the turning point in her fortunes, in both love and war.
It was deep into the year, and the weather had turned bitter. The Vast Fleet had lain at the bottom of the harbor of Hezarow Kyne for more than three months while plans for an unprecedented frontal attack on Nearing Vast, scheduled for the spring, were being made. Now the enormous and detailed preparations for this undertaking were underway. Almost the entire military might of a nation was to be transported en masse over the seas, in order to obliterate the defenses of their great rival.
In all these plans the Court of Twelve had played little part; it was a military operation, and being as huge as it was, it was also extraordinarily risky. As Talon pointed out to the Hezzan, politicians by their very nature would always and only shrink from such a bold and decisive move. They would oppose it, and news of the effort would leak; the Urlish would learn of it, and then the plans would need to be scrapped. No enemy could know what small percentage of the Drammune forces were to be left behind as protection. All and everything hung on secrecy. That a military undertaking was planned could not be hidden, but the size of it, the nature of it, could. So only a few, even among the armed forces, could know.
As the Supreme Commander of the Glorious Drammune Military, Fen Abbaka Mux was fully immersed in every detail.
“Abbaka Mux is of the old order,” the Hezzan said as they walked the docks toward the flagship of the Armada. By this he meant that Mux was a Zealot, numbered among those who held in highest regard only the oldest teachings, those of the original Rahk-Taa, and who considered all additions since then to be illegitimate.
The Hezzan was covered in a wolfskin coat that reached to the ground, and wore a matching hat. Talon disdained such accoutrements for the lack of mobility, and therefore lack of defense, they guaranteed. She wore only her leather robe with her hood pulled tight against the bitter air.
“But he is a good judge of men,” the Hezzan added. Talon remained silent, wondering at the wisdom of this meeting. In her experience, few men were good judges of other men, and even those who were had trouble seeing backbone if it was clothed in female flesh. Zealots, much like the pious of many religions, tended to be the worst judges of female character, fleeing from their own lusts into prejudice and calling that prejudice purity.
Talon knew she was hated by many of them. The nation as a whole was predictably shocked by the Hezzan’s marriage. Women were either wives or weapons, but never both. But to the Zealots, the emperor’s actions regarding her were beyond scandalous. They were an affront to the kingdom, to all that was right. Here was proof that the ancient values had been undermined by the elevation of the Mortach Demal to equality with men two centuries ago. The old teachings were simple and clear, defining the limits of what a woman might or might not do. Now, just as the Zealots’ forebears had predicted back then, the doors had been thrown open and things were going from bad to worse. It was bad enough that the Hezzan had married her. But now it was far worse—he was treating her as an advisor, not just equal to, but superior to the advisory council demanded by the Rahk-Taa, the venerable Court of Twelve. This was offensive in the highest degree.
To the ultradevout leaders of the Zealots, the four men known as the Quarto, it was against all morality, all convention, and all decency. It could hardly have been more revolting if their leader had married a Vast.
Talon had little concern for the opinions of others, particularly the masses whose opinions ebbed this way and then flowed that way. But as she approached the supreme commander’s ship, these thoughts weighed on her. She hesitated at the gangway. The Hezzan stopped, turned to face her. “What is it?”
“My lord. Tell me why you want me to meet with Supreme Commander Mux.”
He looked at her with piercing eyes. “You do not fear him, do you?”
Her eyes were colder than the air. “I fear no man.”
He smiled, doubting it not one bit. “You know ships.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the Armada’s flagship, the Rahk Thanu. It meant “the fist of the Law.” He gestured toward it. “Tell me about this one.”
She glanced at the cut of its prow, assessed its beam, the length between perpendiculars, the masts, the hull at the waterline. “Is it fully loaded?”
“No. I’d guess its hold is half-empty.”
“A standard keel?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “It’s a strong ship. Faster than most. The cargo will need to ride very low to keep it steady at full speed.”
“That’s why I want you to meet the supreme commander.”
She stared at him. “I’m sure he knows his ship better than I do.”
“I don’t want you to tell him about his ship. I want you to tell me about him. In precisely that manner, and with the same boldness.”
She waited for more explanation.
“He has grown more and more devoted to the Rahk-Taa. He has become a Zealot. I need to know what he will do in battle. I want to see him react to you, and to me. And I want you to see the same. He may be an excellent judge of men, but I find your judgment better.”
Talon felt a surge of confidence. She had assumed the Hezzan was testing her. But it was the other way around; he was testing Mux. “Of course I will tell you whatever I see, whatever I learn, as always, my lord.”
“Good.” He smiled. She felt a strange warmth within her.
The Hezzan entered Mux’s quarters unannounced, a tradition among Drammune military commanders that kept all men on their toes, regardless of rank. It discouraged unworthy activities. He found the supreme commander with his back to the door, a leather glove on his hand, and a large brown falcon perched on that glove. Mux was feeding the bird raw meat.
“Can that bird make the trip from here to Nearing Vast?”
Mux turned, surprised to see his Hezzan, more surprised to see the Hezzan’s infamous wife standing behind him, her eyes as searching and cold as any falcon’s.
“No, my lord. She doesn’t know the way.” He answered the Hezzan, but he was looking at Talon.
Talon studied Mux. That he was a Zealot could be seen immediately. He wore the red sash around his waist under his clothing, with the telltale end visible at his right hip, cut and sewn at an angle, a red triangle. His beard was untrimmed, his hair as well, falling down around his shoulders as the Rahk-Taa commanded. Mux was a broad, strong man with deep-set eyes. He exuded a sense of peace and assurance and intelligence. He was a leader. He was worthy. He was Drammune through and through.
“It is my great honor to have you aboard the Rahk Thanu.” He put a knee to the floor, bowing deeply to the Hezzan. But he did not look again at Talon.
The Hezzan took him by the shoulders, raised him up, locked eyes with him. “The honor is mine. This is my wife, the warrior Talon.”
Mux nodded quickly in her direction but did not make eye contact. His discomfort was evident. “What would my lord have of me?”
The Hezzan walked to the falcon, admiring the bird as he spoke. “Talon has penetrated deep within our enemy’s citadel and in single combat killed the Traitor, Senslar Zendoda.” Talon watched Mux as Mux watched the Hezzan. The Supreme Commander did not even glance her way now. He knew all these facts; who didn’t? His face was blank.
“She has brought us much honor.”
Mux knew he must speak. “And for any honor brought to you, I am grateful.”
The Hezzan nodded. “So what is the purpose of having a bird of prey aboard ship, if she can’t fly to Nearing Vast?”
“She can fly from our enemy, from Nearing Vast, and return here with information. She can deliver messages to you, my lord. She is but a bird. That is all she should be asked to do.”
The Hezzan shot a quick glance at Talon. Her face was calm, impassive, but her eyes danced. She caught Mux’s double meaning. The Hezzan looked back at Mux and smiled. “Sit, please. We have wars to plan.”
Mux obeyed, relieved to be past the niceties. “Yes, my lord.”
“The Trophy Chase must be taken whole and her captain and crew alive. We cannot lose the knowledge they have gained.” Talon spoke to the Hezzan as they walked back along the docks toward the horses they would ride to the palace.
“Do you think it will not happen so? Those are the very orders I gave Abbaka Mux, as you are witness.”
Talon paused. “Fen Abbaka Mux does not like the idea of taking prisoners.”
“It is a point of pride with him.”
“It is also a point of faith.”
“Faith? What do you mean?”
“I mean that his zeal for the Law is his religion.”
The Hezzan shot a glance at her. She did not return it. “You have not become religious in your time with the Vast, have you, Talon?”
Unsummoned, the image of Packer Throme hung before her eyes, his arms outstretched. “The Vast believe that their God handed down their religious laws. And yet they keep them with much less devotion than a Zealot does his.”
The Hezzan walked as he waited, but Talon did not elaborate. “A Zealot takes the Right of Transfer quite literally,” he said in agreement. “It is a stark teaching as originally written, brutal and merciless. The qualifications added by Hezzans over the centuries to soften it are ignored by the Zealots. However, it is a powerful tool for an emperor at war.”
“Powerful, but capricious,” she warned. “The Worthy takes the life of the Unworthy and owns his titles and property. Simple enough when the Drammune is taking the life of the Vast in the name of the Hezzan. You then own all. But the Quarto also claims that they determine how Drammune a man is, or is not. They decide the degree of his Worthiness, as compared to the Rahk-Taa. Therefore, they alone can grant the Transfer of titles and properties. They are setting themselves up to claim that you, my lord, are not worthy to be Hezzan.”
“Yes. Their followers already speak against me daily on the street corners because I am not Drammune enough for them. And that is why I need to understand the man who commands my forces, and follows these teachings.”
He glanced at her again. She was still reluctant to reveal her thoughts about the supreme commander, which made him all the more anxious to know them. He looked up at the ship they now walked past, captained by their naval leader, Huk Tuth. It was a ship called the Kaza Fahn, named for a particularly bloody commander of the Drammune past. “If our supreme commander were a ship, what would you say about him?”
Talon thought a moment. “A ship will sail the way it is built to sail. Handled properly, it will do more than expected. But a man-of-war will never be a cutter.”
The Hezzan said nothing. She had offered him nothing yet.
Talon chose her words carefully. “Abbaka Mux is a man-of-war. He has little ability to be quick or nimble. This is not his way.”
He stopped, looked at her. “Go on.”
She turned to him, spoke face-to-face. His eyes were both piercing and calm. “So long as the seas are not too high, my lord, he will do his duty both to you and to his beliefs.”
“And what would high seas look like?”
Talon looked away, so as not to be distracted. “Difficult choices. He will want to win the current battle in honorable combat, in accordance with his reading of the Rahk-Taa. He will want to crush his enemies.” She looked back at him, and thought she saw something faraway, as though he himself were distracted. But it was gone in a moment. “If circumstances require him to choose the Trophy Chase over one of his own ships, my lord, then he will be a loaded freighter in a storm.”
The Hezzan nodded. That was what he needed from her. But he wanted an equally straight answer to one more question. He stepped in front of her so he could look her in the eye. “Do you believe he will obey my commands?”
She looked at him for just a moment longer than was necessary. “I want to tell you what you want to hear. But I cannot. The longer the fetch, lord, the higher the waves.”
The Hezzan looked out over his docks and pondered her answer. The fetch was the distance that wind and weather travel over open sea. She meant that the farther Fen Abbaka Mux ventured from the shores of Drammun, from his Hezzan, the less he could be counted on to make the correct choices. The obedient choices. He looked back at her. “Thank you for your honesty. You know ships, and you know men.”
Ultimately, the Hezzan would trust Fen Abbaka Mux with his Armada, but only after several more war councils and many more explicit, written instructions. He was more than satisfied with his new wife’s cautious candor, and so he began to ask her advice on a wider range of matters, taking her into his confidence on judgments regarding civil disputes, construction projects, and finally the intrigues of his own court. As Talon’s confidence in her role grew, she began to point out to him the weaknesses of the Court of Twelve, individually and collectively. She believed they were irrelevant, and a dangerous hindrance to him. She did not counsel him to discard them, but to relegate them to a mere formality.
The more time Talon spent with the Hezzan, however, the more often her attention wandered. She found she was not always able to keep herself from thinking about him while she discussed the subject at hand. She found she liked to watch him as he made decisions, as he weighed matters carefully.
And finally, he caught her doing it.
“Talon?” he asked, with the smallest trace of a smile behind his eyes. And she realized she had not followed his train of thought; she had allowed her attention to drift to the man reclining regally before her. She was angry with herself. “Many apologies. Please repeat your question.” And he repeated it patiently, as though nothing had happened.
But something had happened. Talon didn’t recognize it as quickly as he did, but she finally understood what she wanted. And when she did, she realized he wanted the same. And from that moment on, the two were one, inseparable whether together or alone, whether in quiet conversation or in ruling a nation.
For his part, the Hezzan Shul Dramm discovered he had never understood—had not been prepared by his culture or his position or his experience to understand—what it meant to care so deeply for a woman. And he did care for Talon. She was unique. She was unlike any other woman he had ever met, certainly unlike his other wives, mere servants, now relegated to catering and catfights. She did not seem interested in making him feel like a god; she was truly interested in him. She was interested in his success, and she was interested in the success of his kingdom. She would not let him err in vanity. She was more insightful than any three men on his court. She was better with a sword than he was, better than any man he knew, and judging by her success with the Vast swordmaster, perhaps better than any man in the world. Her mind was worthy. Her willpower was worthy. She was valiant. She was cunning.
And given all this, it gave him great satisfaction to know that she required his protection, and that she had accepted it.