The Warlord's Domain (7 page)

The servants who mopped blood from the tiled floor at Voord’s feet and carried out the slack-limbed corpses were no strangers to the task, since Warlord Etzel and at least two of his predecessors were accustomed to order executions in the perfunctory manner of men swatting flies, and have the killing done at once where they could see it. They went about their business of swabbing and lifting and dragging with lowered eyes, taking care not to see things they were not expressly directed to see, not even noticing that one of the bodies they took away was that of Etzel. Any servant in the Warlord’s citadel who noticed such things out of turn was one who was soon dragged away himself.

Lost in his own thoughts, Voord didn’t even see them; he noticed only that the floor became clean and the room cleared of all unpleasantness except for his precious books. He looked down at the fat grimoire resting now in his lap, and stroked it as another man might stroke a cat. It and the others would soon be restored to their locked cabinet, and the cabinet itself moved to the
Woydach’s
luxurious living apartments.
Soon
—his fingers caressed the sleek black leather of the grimoire’s cover—
very soon
...

“My lord?” Hault spoke from the door, reluctant to come any closer to Voord than he had to “My lord,
Kortagor
Tagen is here.”

Voord favored him with a sleepy, heavy-lidded look; his lazy touching of the black book did not falter by so much as a single stroke, and he seemed to gain some sort of comfort from the contact. “Then send him in, idiot!” he said. “You should know not to keep my close friends waiting. And Hault… ?”

“My lord?”

“What else is on your mind?”

The soldier said nothing, but the corner of his mouth quirked in a way that might have suggested either amused surprise or startled apprehension. Had he been standing closer Voord could have been sure, but the muscle spasm had at least confirmed as correct what he had heard in Hault’s voice. Certainly it did his own reputation no harm at all…

“Yes. Something else. I can read you as easily as this book, friend Hault.” His eyes opened a little wider and fixed Hault with an interested stare. “Probably more so. What goes on that I should know about?”

“You have a visitor,
Woydach
. Or rather, there’s a man asking for
Eldheisart
Voord. I don’t think anyone’s corrected him so far, not until you give the word.” Hault’s bearded lips stretched into a kind of smile, a baring of teeth rather than anything much more humorous. “Though most of those who might tell are already wrong themselves. The news hasn’t traveled yet.”

“So. Then once I’m done with Tagen, send him in alone.”

“He’s alone already, lord.”

“Ah. What kind of a man is he, then, this visitor looking for me at the rank I held six months ago? Old? Young? Rich? Poor… ? Describe him.”

“Elderly, my lord—at least fifty years; comfortable, by his clothes. Comfortable, but not wealthy. He looks,” said Hault disdainfully, “like a successful merchant.”

“I grow intrigued. Go on, go on, let in
Kortagor
Tagen to see me and then bring in your comfortable merchant— but be sure to search him first. Just in case of accidents, eh?”

Hault gave Voord an odd look at that, not understanding such caution in a commander who had proved so graphically that he had nothing to fear from weapons. Watching him as he went through a salute before leaving the room, Voord could see the thoughts and questions chasing one another across the soldier’s face. He grinned, quickly and privately, then wiped the expression from his face before anyone might see it and draw the wrong conclusion. No matter that steel could do him no permanent harm, its passage through his flesh still hurt more than he had been willing to show before witnesses, and he saw no reason to risk discomfort for the sake of such precautions as any high-ranked officer would be expected to take; and besides, the habits of the many years before the Gift were hard to break.

Tagen and his five troopers came to heel-stamping attention just inside the doorway and gave Voord the full salute due to his rank with all the precision and cere-mony of the Bodyguard regiment to which they nominally belonged. Tagen looked much as the men and women on Voord’s personal staff always did; young, broad-shouldered and handsome in
Tlakh-Woydan
half-armor, with the wary eyes and expressionless faces of those friends considered intimate enough to share in the secrets of Voord Ebanesj.

He and Voord had been together since Officer-School; the younger man had recognized even then—because Voord had explained it to him—that he was in the company of a star determined to rise no matter who or what was cremated in the process. Impressed, Tagen had remained with him, surviving where others had not during a meteoric career which had been politically upward and morally downward all the way. During those chaotic years they had shared everything—food and wine and women, bed and bloodshed, advantages and enemies. Nowadays the advantages were many and the enemies few—Voord’s connections with
Kagh’ Ernvakh
had seen to that—but there were still some names remaining on the list. In such killing matters Tagen had long since abandoned the allocation of innocence or guilt. That was Voord’s affair; he just followed orders… except when the matter became personal.

“
Tagen, sh’voda moy. Yar vajaal dath-Aalban’r Aldric Talvalin
?” Tagen nodded. Of course he remembered. “
Inak dor Drakkesborg’cha. Slijei
?”

Tagen’s impassive face split in a broad grin. This was one of the personal matters. Because of Aldric Talvalin, he had been ordered to kill his very good friend Garet; Commander Voord had given the command, so he had done as he was told—but he hadn’t enjoyed following his orders as much as usual. Because of Aldric Talvalin, he had been promoted only a single grade after the affair at Egisburg, instead of the three grades he had been promised; Commander Voord had been very sorry, but of course Tagen had to understand that since he had failed in his duty… Tagen understood very well. He understood that he was being made a scapegoat for the Alban and though he and Voord had made it up later— because it hadn’t been Voord’s personal decision to re-strict the promotion but just something which had to be done—Tagen had put Aldric Talvalin at the top of his own private list of names and faces. Work to do in his spare time, so to speak. To discover that the Alban was more than just his own concern, that Commander Voord wanted him dealt with as well, and to be told of it in the Vlechan dialect which they both shared was a delight.

“
Slij’hah, hautach
! His head only, or do you wish other parts also?”

“No! No, Tagen. Understand me clearly. All of him… and unharmed. To me, here in Drakkesborg.
Viaj-chu, Slijei
?”

Tagen was disappointed, and didn’t trouble to keep the emotion hidden. It had been just the same that last time in Tuenafen, when Garet was still alive. For some reason they hadn’t been allowed to hurt the Alban, and Commander Voord had even kept the woman Kathur all to himself. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t like the Commander to be so selfish; after he had finished questioning or punishment, they were always given their turn. Maybe he was getting soft. Tagen glanced up at him, wondering, then looked quickly away and squashed the thought down into the back of his mind where not even the Commander could see it. Or maybe—a happier notion—he wanted the Alban here to play with him in comfort. Yes, that would be it. Commander Voord wasn’t getting soft at all; he just wanted to enjoy all the luxuries he had worked so very hard to gain.

“Yes, sir. I understand quite clearly now. But sir, if he resists—”

“Then you overcome the resistance.”

“I know that, sir. But in Tuenafen when the action squads went out you gave us drugs to put him to sleep when we caught him.”

“Soporifics, yes, I remember that. Go on. What’s the difficulty? Do you,” Voord smiled thinly, “not use drugs anymore?”

“That’s not the problem, sir. You know that.”

“Then,” and Voord’s smile vanished as if it had never existed, “get to the point.”

“Sir, I’d rather he wasn’t put to sleep this time.”

“I said
unharmed
, Tagen. And I meant it.”

“But sir, please, just something for him to remember Garet by… Just a few minutes, that’s all I’d take.”

“We all miss Garet,” said Voord wearily, his tone that of a man who had been through all the permutations of this argument before, “and there’ll be plenty of time for mementos, but I gave you an order. Obey it.”

“Yes, sir.” If he had dared, Tagen would have let his voice sound sullen, but he had learned through painful experience that he could not do that to Voord and expect to get away with it. Instead he did as usual, tucking away his anger with all the other thoughts and ideas that he didn’t want the Commander to know about, keeping them safe until he could let them out. When that happened someone died, but there were always chances to relieve his feelings in the line of duty, and anyway the people who died were Enemies of the State—Commander Voord always made sure of that. Tagen liked the way the Commander said
Enemies of the State
as if they were written in big letters, because it meant that the people Tagen killed were more important than the enemies ordinary soldiers killed. He knew that because Commander Voord had explained it to him.

“Where is he, sir, and how do I find him? The usual way?” Tagen always made sure to ask that before the Commander told him how; it sounded better when people could hear you had been thinking for yourself. He knew he wasn’t clever the way Commander Voord was clever, but he could talk well about weapons and armor and mountain-climbing and feats of strength and all the things that he was good at if he was given a minute to think of what to say.

“The usual way. Contact the
tulathin
, pay them what they want and find out what their spy-net knows. Then go and get him.”

“And if he’s not alone, sir? The usual again?” Tagen was hopeful, because if he was finding out things from the
tulathin
then this business was a secret, and there was only one good way to keep a secret.

“Yes. Leave no witnesses. Go do it, Tagen. Dismissed.”

The
kortagor
and his squad clanked through another salute before they faced about in drilled unison and left Voord alone again. He was smiling a little, but nothing like the grin which Tagen had been wearing, a happy expanse of teeth similar to those of an attack hound offered fresh raw meat. Voord always felt slightly inadequate when dealing man to man—or man to doom-machine, which was how it often felt with Tagen. The soldier, intimately close and twelve-year-faithful friend though he might be, seemed sometimes no more than a weapon in human form, an intelligent petrary missile to be launched against one’s enemies, and no more capable of recall. There had been times before, as there would doubtless be times again, when Voord had cause to wonder what would happen if the need arose to call him off, and whether Tagen would pay heed to any countermand without the presence of the man he had called “The Commander” for eleven years regardless of existing rank. Turning him on was easy; he reacted to the phrase
Enemy of the State
as an oil-filled lamp reacted to a burning taper, but so far as turning him off again was concerned, Voord had no idea how to snuff out Tagen’s fire once it was lit.

He relaxed a little, and was wondering whether to call for wine or just get out of this damnably uncomfortable chair and fetch it for himself when Hault reappeared in the doorway. “Engeul Gernai, my lord,” the guard announced, stepping aside to let a stocky man into the room and continuing to speak without regard for how this new listener might receive the words. “I searched him myself. He’s clean.”

The man was indeed as unimpressive as Hault’s earlier disparaging description had suggested. He was small and balding and prosperous, if prosperity meant a roll of fat around the waist. For all the fatness there was a haggard look about him, as if he had missed several nights of sleep. But he wasn’t the class of person who usually requested to see a senior
Kagh’ Ernvakh
officer; more often it was the Secret Police who wanted to have words with people like him.

“Well?” Voord was getting tired of being stared at and he was also growing hungry. “Well,” he said, “what do you want?”

“I wanted to see you, sir,” the man said hesitantly, plainly afraid of the company he had asked to enter. “I’m a merchant. Of Jouvann.”

Voord blinked, bored already. If all this creature wanted was some sort of license to sell his wares, then why in the Name of Darkness had he been allowed to get in here and waste important time which could be spent in doing other things, like eating. He lifted one eyebrow wearily, wondering if the change of expression would be noticed or if he would need something rather less subtle—like having the merchant beaten out of the citadel—and it was as if that single eyebrow was the floodgate that released a stream of babbling.

“I sell wine, my lord.” Gernai made the announcement as if it meant something important. “All the wine of the Empire and the Provinces, and some excellent spirits. You may buy from me by the single bottle, or my merchant company can provide for the needs of any gentleman’s cellar. At present I can offer you Seurandec, Brightwood, Briej, Hauverne Kingswine—where I can give you both a three-year and a seven-year vintage, one to offer to acquaintances, my lord, and the other to keep for yourself and your friends—red and white Teraneth, and—” The man’s flow of words tailed off as Voord held up one hand for silence.

“You don’t need to speak to me, Gernai. From the sound of it, the castellan would be more your man. But I’m curious; why did you ask for
Eldheisart
Voord?”

“I used the name and the rank I knew, my lord. Are you not that man? My apologies for wasting my lord’s time…”

“Your information is several-months out of date, man; several months and several promotions. You address the new Grand Warlord of the Empire!”

“Oh, I see.”

The Jouvaine merchant sounded much less impressed than Voord had expected him to be. And there was something else, something niggling that he couldn’t place just now. One of those annoying little matters which nag at the back of the mind, evading sleep until the answer comes just before dawn. Voord tried to dismiss it, but the question would neither become clear nor go away.