By Schism Rent Asunder: Section Thirty Three

.VI.
Tellesberg Harbor,
and Tellesberg Palace,
City of Tellesberg,
Kingdom of Charis

    No guns boomed in salute as the small, unarmed galleon made its way through the opening in the Tellesberg breakwater . . . but at least none of the batteries opened fire on it, either.

    Which, Trahvys Ohlsen reflected, was far better than things might have been.

    The Earl of Pine Hollow stood by the ship's rail, gazing out at the city of Tellesberg while gulls and wyverns cried and whistled overhead. Like most harbors, the water close to the docks was less than pristine, although the stern injunctions of the Archangel Pasquale where things like sewers and garbage were concerned kept things from getting too bad. Actually, the harbor smelled better than Eraystor Bay did, Pine Hollow reflected, despite the fact that Tellesberg was considerably larger than the city of Eraystor.

    In fact, it was the largest city Pine Hollow had ever seen, and its roofs stretched away from the incredibly busy waterfront, whose activity contrasted sharply with Eraystor's blockaded stillness, towards the mountains looming bluely to the south and southeast under their caps of eternal snow. The warehouse district was vast, with straight streets which had obviously been planned for the passage of heavy freight wagons and draft dragons. The housing clustered around the docks was modest-looking, for the most part. He could see no single family-sized houses, but the multi-story blocks of apartment houses and tenements looked well kept. Most of them appeared to be built of brick, and from where he stood at the moment, at least, there were no signs of slums. That was impressive, too, although he felt quite certain even Tellesberg under the notoriously enlightened rule of the Ahrmahks must have at least some of them.

    Beyond the docks — which extended as far up the Telles River as he could see — the city rose on modest hills where the more well-to-do lived. There were single-family homes as one got further away from the harbor district. Some of them were extremely imposing — obviously the townhouses of the noble or of wealthy merchants and manufactory owners (or, here in Charis, both at once, more probably) — but others were considerably more modest. To be honest, Pine Hollow found the existence of those modest homes much more impressive than the townhouses. In almost any other Safeholdian realm, it would have been unheard of for anyone but the rich and powerful to own his own home in a city as large and wealthy as Tellesberg.

    The Royal Palace was plainly visible as his galleon moved towards the wharf where it had been instructed to moor. The Palace was set well back, with the river washing the foot of its western curtain wall, although not so far that someone looking out of one of its tower windows didn't have an excellent view of Tellesberg Bay, and Pine Hollow gazed at the large banner flying from the top of the tallest of those towers. He couldn't make out the device it bore from here, but he didn't have to see the golden kraken on the black field or the crown royal which surmounted it. The fact that it flew from the top of that particular tower informed all the world that King Cayleb was in residence, and Pine Hollow felt his stomach muscles tighten at the thought.

    Don't be any stupider than you have to be, Trahvys, he told himself sternly. Meeting Cayleb face-to-face is the entire reason you're here, you idiot. Wishing he were somewhere else — anywhere else — is pretty damned ridiculous when you look at it in that light.

    Somehow, that thought didn't seem to make his stomach feel any better.

    A deepmouth wyvern sailed past him, barely twenty feet from the ship, and its lowered jaw hit the water in a flurry of white. The wyvern slowed under the braking effect of its dragging jaw, then rose once more, all four wings beating hard, as it lifted back into the air with its flexible jaw sack bulging with fishy prey. A pessimistic man, Pine Hollow decided, might be excused for seeing that as an uneasy omen of Emerald's probable fate, and he looked back at the trio of Royal Charisian Navy galleys hovering watchfully as his unarmed galleon eased her way towards the docks. He couldn't really blame them for watching him attentively, although exactly what a single galleon without so much as a matchlock musket aboard was going to do against the garrison and population of a city the size of Tellesberg eluded him. He'd decided to treat their presence as a mark of respect, and if he pretended very hard that he really believed that, he might be able to convince a particularly credulous three-year-old that he truly did.

    His mouth twitched in a reflexive smile, and he snorted a chuckle at the thought. Which, he discovered, had actually had at least some easing effect on his stomach muscles. It was undoubtedly temporary, but he decided to make the most of it while it lasted.

    King Cayleb II sat on his throne as his "guest" was escorted into the throne room by a pair of extraordinarily alert royal guardsmen. The guardsmen's bootheels sounded loudly, firmly on the blue-swirled, lapis-like Charisian marble of the vast room's polished floor, but the Earl of Pine Hollow's lighter court shoes made almost no sound at all.

    It was the first time Cayleb had ever actually laid eyes on Pine Hollow. What he saw was a typical Emeraldian, physically indistinguishable from any number of Charisians, but wearing a padded-shoulder tunic of a distinctly non-Charisian cut. The padding made his shoulders appear broader, but the truth was that the earl was broad-shouldered enough by nature to require no artificial assistance.  Pine Hollow wore a heavy gold chain around his neck, token of his status as Emerald's first councilor. His eyes were as brown as Cayleb's own, and despite his exalted rank, his hair was still dark. In fact, he looked considerably younger than Cayleb had expected. Pine Hollow was more than fifteen years older than Cayleb himself, but he looked no older than Father Paityr Wylsynn. Well, perhaps a little older, but nowhere near grizzled enough to be the first councilor of a reigning prince.

    Who may or may not be a "reigning prince" much longer, Cayleb reminded himself grimly.

    Pine Hollow approached the throne and stopped, without prompting, at exactly the right distance. He managed to look remarkably calm as he delivered a deep, respectful bow. Whatever he looked like, though, Cayleb knew he couldn't possibly be as unworried as he managed to project, and the king put a checkmark on the positive side of the mental list he was making about his visitor.

    Cayleb was in no tearing rush to get down to business, for more than one reason. One was that making Pine Hollow wait was more likely to shape any ensuing conversation in the direction Cayleb wanted it to take. A second, and less noble one, was that Cayleb took an undeniable pleasure in underscoring the relative balance of power between Charis and the prince who had attempted to have Cayleb himself assassinated. And a third had to do with another visitor whose arrival Cayleb anticipated in the next several days.

    The throne room itself was a high-ceilinged, airy chamber. Ceiling fans, powered by a small waterwheel in the palace basement, rotated smoothly, keeping the tropical air moving, and the thick, heat-shedding walls were pierced by deep-set windows which looked out across a courtyard Cayleb's deceased mother had spent several years landscaping. The entire palace represented an intermediate stage in royal architecture. Its grounds were encircled by thick, well-designed curtain walls of stone, augmented at regular intervals by bastioned towers, but those walls predated the days of artillery, and the grounds inside them had been designed and landscaped as a place to live, not the interior of a grim, gray fortress. One day, Merlin had told him — one day soon, as a matter of fact — those heavy walls would be a thing of the past. Against the artillery which would be coming soon, old-fashioned walls like the one around Tellesberg Palace would become little more than annoyances to any serious attacker.

    Cayleb twitched his mind back from the side path it had gone traipsing down and rested his elbows on the arms of his throne, steepling his fingers across his chest as he'd seen his father do so many times in the same throne room. The father whose death was at least partly the responsibility of the man in front of him and the prince that man served.

    "Well," the king said at last into the throne room's waiting quiet, "I hardly expected to see you here, My Lord. Or not, at least, as an envoy."

    That statement bore only a passing relationship to the truth, given that  Merlin's "visions" had warned Cayleb well over three five-days ago that Pine Hollow would be arriving. In fact, Cayleb knew Nahrmahn's instructions to Pine Hollow as well as the Emeraldian earl knew them himself. Not that he had any intention of allowing Pine Hollow to guess that.

    After all, it would hardly do to start giving the Inquisition genuine grounds to believe I'm dabbling in black sorcery and other forbidden arts, he thought dryly. Why, if I did that, Mother Church might decide she didn't like me anymore.

    Pine Hollow, he noticed, had winced very slightly at his last seven words. That was good.

    "Now that you're here," Cayleb continued after a brief, pregnant pause designed to underline those very words, "I suppose we should hear what you have to say."

    "Your Majesty," Pine Hollow's voice was commendably steady, under the circumstances, "I feel confident you must at least suspect the reason for this rather dramatic, unannounced visit."

    "Given the fact that you arrived in an official vessel, I don't imagine you're here to transfer your personal allegiance from Prince Nahrmahn to Charis," Cayleb said dryly.

    "No, I'm not, Your Majesty." Pine Hollow met Cayleb's eyes very levelly, and the youthful monarch felt a stir of respect as he saw the steadiness in those eyes. They were, in their own way, a rebuke of his own levity.

    "No, I don't believe you are," Cayleb acknowledged in a rather more serious tone. "In fact, given the present military balance between this Kingdom and your master's princedom — and its allies, of course — I can really think of only one thing which might have brought you here. And that, My Lord, is to discuss what sort of terms Prince Nahrmahn thinks he might be able to obtain."

    "In a general sense, that's certainly accurate, Your Majesty." Pine Hollow inclined his head in a brief bow of acknowledgment.

    "In that case, I might point out that he doesn't have a great deal with which to bargain," Cayleb said. "I truly mean no disrespect — the ships of your navy fought with courage and determination at Darcos Sound — but your princedom is defenseless before us. We've taken your offshore fortifications where and as we chose. Your major ports are under strict blockade, and as I believe we've demonstrated, we're capable of landing raiding parties to burn out any of the smaller ports where Commodore Zhaztro might be attempting to fit out his privateers. And we can land an army any time we choose, at any place we choose."

    Pine Hollow's eyes had flickered with surprise as Cayleb mentioned Zhaztro by name. Obviously the depth of Cayleb's knowledge about events inside Emerald had come as a less than pleasant revelation to him.

    Oh, if you only knew, My Lord, Cayleb thought sardonically.

    "All of that may be true, Your Majesty," the Emeraldian earl said after moment. Then he shook his head. "No," he said, "let's be honest. It is true. Yet it's also true that however inevitable your victory over my Prince may be in the end, obtaining it may prove expensive. Not simply in terms of lost life and treasure, but also in terms of lost time. Despite your current advantages, which my Prince has instructed me to tell you he fully recognizes, you have a great many enemies, and no friends. No open friends, at least. Prince Nahrmahn has no doubt you've been continuing and even accelerating your military buildup. At the same time, however, he's well aware — as you must be — that your various enemies are engaged in exactly the same process. If you find yourself forced to spend valuable time conquering Emerald by force of arms, you may find the time you've lost doing so has allowed your more inherently formidable foes time to prepare for the next, inevitable stage in your conflict."

    "Allowing, for the moment, the aptness of your analysis, My Lord," Cayleb said with an unpleasant smile, "the consequences will still be . . . less pleasant for the House of Baytz than for Charis."

    "A point, I assure you, of which my Prince is well aware, Your Majesty."

    "I rather thought he might be." Cayleb leaned back, crossing his legs, and cocked his head as he contemplated Pine Hollow.

    "On the other hand, I must admit I'm intrigued," he said. "Whatever else Prince Nahrmahn may be, I don't believe he's deaf, blind, or stupid. Nor do I believe there's much possibility that he's unaware of who was behind his marching orders, whatever the 'Knights of the Temple Lands' might choose to pretend. Consequently, I must assume he's as well aware as we are here in Charis of who our true enemy is. Which leads me to wonder just why he might be willing to bring the wrath of the Grand Inquisitor and the Group of Four down upon his own head by daring to so much as send us an official envoy."

    He eyed Pine Hollow speculatively, and the Emeraldian shrugged.

    "Your Majesty, I might say that when a man has to choose between dealing with the kraken in his bathtub and the doomwhale out beyond the harbor breakwater, he tends to focus on the kraken, first. That, in point of fact, is a thought which has borne upon my Prince's thinking at this particular time. But it isn't the only consideration which brought him to send me to you. I carry with me correspondence directly from him, setting out for your consideration his own analysis of the situation. I believe you'd find it interesting reading."

    "I'm sure I would." Cayleb smiled thinly. "May I also assume that this correspondence of his touches upon the terms he might hope to obtain?"

    "It does, Your Majesty." Pine Hollow bowed again, then straightened. "Moreover, it will inform you that I've been appointed his official plenipotentiary. Within the limits established by my binding instructions from him, I am authorized to negotiate with you in his name, and to accept any agreement which we might reach within those limitations."

    "'Agreement which we might reach,'" Cayleb repeated softly. Then he straightened in his throne, bringing his hands down as he planted his forearms firmly on its armrests and leaned forward.

    "Understand me in this much, My Lord Pine Hollow," he said quietly. "I realize your prince was constrained against his own desires to participate in the recent attack upon my Kingdom. But I also realize that his reasons for deeming that attack . . . unwise had nothing at all to do with any deep-seated love for the Kingdom of Charis. I don't believe — and never have believed — that he would have taken any joy or pleasure in the wholesale massacres, destruction, and arson the Group of Four proposed to visit upon my people, but neither do I believe he would have been dismayed by the destruction and partitioning of this Kingdom. In short, My Lord, whatever the reasons for his enmity, Prince Nahrmahn has amply declared himself the foe of Charis in times past. Now that he finds his foot firmly in the snare, he may also find himself wishing for some sort of . . . accommodation with my Kingdom and my House. Well, I won't say at the outset that any such accommodation is impossible. But I will say this. Any accommodation we may reach will be reached upon my terms, not his. And you may rest assured that any terms I will be willing to contemplate will preclude his ever again posing a threat to my people, to my Kingdom, and to my family. Do you understand that?"

    "Of course I do, Your Majesty," Pine Hollow replied, his voice equally quiet. "Were I sitting in that throne while you stood here, in front of me, my position would be exactly the same as yours. My Prince understands that as well as I do, I assure you."

    "In that case, there may be some point to your mission, after all, My Lord," Cayleb said, sitting back once more. "At any rate, I'm prepared to listen to whatever Prince Nahrmahn may have to say. If I find his proposals less than fully acceptable, there will always be time to return to the decision of the field of battle. And, to be quite honest, your point — and his — about the value of time in Charis' current situation has a certain validity."

    Pine Hollow inclined his head without speaking, and Cayleb smiled.

    "But that consideration lies in the future, My Lord. I have other pressing matters I must deal with today, and I intend to read your prince's correspondence very carefully, digest it thoroughly, before you and I speak about its contents. In the meantime, I've had a comfortable suite prepared for you in Queen Marytha's Tower. I trust you'll find it adequate to your needs, and you are, of course, welcome to install any of your own servants you may deem necessary to see to your requirements."

    "I thank you, Your Majesty."

    "Despite all that's already happened, My Lord, there's no reason we can't be civilized about these things." Cayleb's smile turned a bit warmer and more genuine. "And whatever else may be true, you came here trusting in the hospitality and protection of my House. Under the circumstances, it behooves me to demonstrate that trust wasn't misplaced, doesn't it?"

    "Since you've chosen to speak so frankly, Your Majesty," Pine Hollow replied with what might have been a shadow of an answering smile, "I'll admit that that thought — and that hope — have passed through my mind more than once since my galleon entered Charisian waters."

    "Well, rest assured that you'll receive all of the courtesy due to any envoy, despite any . . . unusual aspects of the reason for your journey here to Tellesberg."

    "Thank you, Your Majesty."

    "In this much, at least, you're quite welcome," Cayleb said, then waved one hand at the man standing to the right of his throne in the black and gold of the Charisian Royal Guard. "Captain Athrawes will escort you to your chamber, My Lord, and see to it that the tower's guard force is informed of your status and prepared to meet any of your reasonable needs."