An Autumn War(10)

BALASAR LEANED OVER THE BALCONY AND LOOKED DOWN A'1" HE COVRTYARI) below. A crowd had gathered, talking animatedly with the brownskinned, almond-eyed curiosity he had spirited from across the sea. They peppered him with questions-why was he called a poet when he didn't write poems, what did he think of Acton, how had he learned to speak Galtic so well. "Their eyes were bright and the conversation as lively as water dropped on a hot skillet. For his part, Riaan Vaudathat drank it all in, answering everything in the slushy singsong accent of the Khaiem. When the people laughed, he joined in as if they were not laughing at him. Perhaps he truly didn't know they were.

Riaan glanced up and saw him, raising his hands in a pose that Balasar recognized as a form of greeting, though he couldn't have said which of the half-thousand possible nuances it held. He only waved in return and stepped away from the edge of the balcony.

"It's like I've taught a dog to wear clothes and talk," Balasar said, lowering himself onto a bench beside Tustin.

"Yes, sir."

""They don't understand."

"You can't expect them to, sir. "They're simple folk, most of 'em. Never been as far as Eddensea. "They've been hearing about the Khaiem and the poets and the andat all their lives, but they've never seen 'em. Now they have the chance."

"Well, it'll help my popularity at the games," Balasar said, his voice more bitter than he'd intended.

""They don't know the things we do, sir. You can't expect them to think like us."

"And the High Council? Can I expect it of them? Or are they in chambers talking about the funny brown man who dresses like a girl?"

Eustin looked down, silent for long enough that Balasar began to regret his tone.

"All fairness, sir," Eustin said, "the robes do look like a girl's."

It was six years now since he and Eustin and Coal had returned to the hereditary estate outside Kirinton, half a year since they had recruited the fallen poet of Nantani, and three weeks since Balasar had received the expected summons. He'd come to Acton with his best men, the hooks, the poet, the plans. The High Council had heard him out-the dangers of the andat, the need to end the supremacy of the Khaiem. That part had gone quite well. No one seriously disputed that the Khaiem were the single greatest threat to Galt. It was only when he began to reveal his plans and how far he had already gone that the audience began to turn sour on him.

Since then, the Council had met without him. They might have been debating the plan he had laid out before them, or they might have moved to other business, leaving him to soak in his own sweat. He and Eustin and the poet Riaan had lived in the apartments assigned to them. Balasar had spent his days sitting outside the Council's halls and meeting chambers, and his nights walking the starlit streets, restless as a ghost. Each hour that passed was wasted. Every night was one less that he would have in the autumn when the end of his army was racing against the snow and cold of the Khaiate North. If the Council's intention had been to set him on edge, they had done their work.

A flock of birds, black as crows but thinner, burst from the walnut trees beyond the courtyard, whirled overhead, and settled back where they had come from. Balasar wove his fingers together on one knee.

"What do we do if they don't move forward?" Eustin asked quietly.

"Convince them."

"And if they can't he convinced?"

"Convince them anyway," Balasar said.

Eustin nodded. Balasar appreciated that the man didn't press the issue. Eustin had known him long enough to understand that bloodymindedness was how Balasar moved through the world. From the beginning, he'd been cursed by a small stature, a shorter reach than his brothers or the boys with whom he'd trained. He'd gotten used to working himself harder, training while other boys slept and drank and whored. Where he couldn't make himself bigger or stronger, he instead became fast and smart and uncompromising.

When he became a man of arms in the service of Galt, he had been the smallest in his cohort. And in time, they had named him general. If the High Council needed to be convinced, then he would by God convince them.

A polite cough came from the archways behind them, and Balasar turned. A secretary of the Council stood in the shade of the wide colonnade. As Balasar and Eustin rose, he bowed slightly at the waist.

"General Gice," the secretary said. "The Lord Convocate requests your presence.

"Good," Balasar said, then turned to Eustin and spoke quickly and low. "Stay here and keep an eye on our friend. If this goes poorly, we may need to make good time out of Acton."

Eustin nodded, his face as calm and impassive as if Balasar asked him to turn against the High Council half the days of any week. Balasar tugged his vest and sleeves into place, nodded to the secretary, and allowed himself to be led into the shadows of government.