Tales of Anyar Page 17

  “Yet you managed to defeat the 29th Corps of Marshal Gullar,” said Kellen softly.

  “Don’t think I and most Caedelli aren’t still amazed at that or that we don’t thank God and Yozef Kolsko. But back to you. My clan is woefully short of men to be military officers. Oh, there are several who gained experience during the last year of fighting. But none have the depth of experience and the formal training you have. The Fuomi Reimo Kivalian is staying on Caedellium to help start a military training school, and I’m sure he’ll want to talk with you extensively. But right now, I need you to help here in Preddi.

  “We’re starting off with two companies. One will be led by a man who served under me on the campaign to cut off the Narthani general Istranik from resupplying Gullar. His men were escaped Preddi and have already been trained as dragoons and seen action. Your task will be more difficult since the men have had no training and might never have seen action or even held a weapon.”

  “This is all too sudden,” said Kellen. “I’ve given up fighting for Narthon, and now you want me to get ready to fight more, including possibly against my own people?”

  “ Are they your people?” asked Balwis. “You turned your back on them and have said you couldn’t see why you were fighting people you didn’t even know, for reasons you didn’t understand. Here would be different. Here, you would be fighting for yourself and people you care about. You come to me, asking to be part of the Preddi Clan. If that is true, then when the clan accepts you, that puts an obligation on you to do what you can to protect the clan. You can’t have it both ways—saying you want to live as part of the clan yet not doing what any other clansperson would.

  “As for future fighting against the Narthani, that’s always possible, although many of us believe that if Caedellium does face future wars, it would at least as likely involve one or more of the Landolin kingdoms or Iraquinik states. However, all the worry about future conflicts may come to nothing. Naturally, we hope to never again be at war. It’s only a possibility we have to plan for, if the worst happens. You might live a long and peaceful life on Caedellium.”

  “I’m sorry, Hetman, this is too sudden for me to say anything at the moment. I will need time to think about all this and look at my own feelings.”

  “Of course. And in the meantime, we will find you carpentry work.” Balwis turned to Kemescu. “Speaking of that, Yozef Kolsko writes that he asked other people in Devanyo about you and your family. He says you work for your father and older brothers but are at least as good a carpenter and could easily be working for yourself. As it happens, Preddi is in sore need of experienced carpenters. Yozef advises me to offer to set you up with your own carpentry shop here in Preddi City. If you are willing to move here, I will pay for everything you need to become established and will see you have enough work through the first year. After that, you would be on your own. However, if what Yozef says is true, I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  It was Elac’s turn to be stunned. Move to Preddi? He’d lived his whole life in Farkesh Province, except for the time his unit moved to Orosz City, the battle, and his recovery in the city. He’d never thought about moving.

  “Why . . . ?” Elac cleared his throat. “Why would I move here?”

  “Think about it, and let me know,” said Balwis. He turned to the one-armed man.

  “Wyfor, take them back to headquarters and turn them over to Savronel. Tell him to find quarters for them and get Ser Kellen temporarily settled until he makes a decision on where to live.”

  “What am I, a nursemaid? I only thought it would be fun seeing your reaction when another Narthani showed up. I didn’t tell them, but I recognized a damned Narthani by the way he moved with a board up his ass. The few Narthani soldiers that stayed behind all walk the same way. Must be the training to be good little soldiers. I’ll have to ask one of them if they take the board out before shitting.”

  “Thank you for your powers of observation, Wyfor. I know you’re an asshole, and your fascination with rectums and defecation is now confirmed.”

  “Insults!” declared the wiry man. “I sometimes wonder why I stay around your sorry ass. What in God’s name was the conclave thinking when they made you hetman? There must have been a few thousand better candidates.”

  Elac was horrified. How could anyone talk like that to a hetman? The explosion he expected from the Farkesh hetman didn’t happen. Instead, the two men exchanged several pithier insults.

  Kellen lost the train of the dialogue with words he didn’t know. However, he recognized banter between acquaintances, although Elac seemed upset.

  “Okay, Balwis, I need to get back to headquarters. I thought having only one arm was an advantage to get out of paperwork, but I didn’t anticipate Yozef’s suggestion to give me an assistant. I’m sure Fantha has a pile for me to sign, which means I’ll have to actually read some of them.”

  “Wyfor will take you to Savronel Storlini,” Balwis said to Munmar and Elac. “He was a Narthani who fled Preddi while it was still under Narthani control. He’d had enough of Narthon and wanted to find a different life among the clans. He was lucky we won, and now he’s one of my aides. He’s particularly useful in dealing with ex-Narthani and ex-slaves.”

  Balwis laughed, as he watched the three men depart. Fantha Walloon was a cheery seventeen-year-old girl who ignored Wyfor’s acerbic comments and screened all the paperwork that came to the clan’s chief magistrate’s office. She prioritized what she forced on her charge’s attention. Despite his repeated declarations to the girl that he could do well without her mothering, Wyfor knew her value.

  Balwis and Wyfor rotated occasional evenings at Preddi City pubs in lieu of a single favorite. Balwis thought he needed to be seen by as many of the chimeric clan’s members as possible. One evening, after an uncertain number of steins, Wyfor had confessed he’d be lost at his position without the girl. Balwis assumed Wyfor’s tipsy declaration that he’d gut any young man who tried to marry Fantha and take her away was only rhetoric. Probably.

  “I thought you’d collapse at what the hetman and the other man said to each other,” Munmar told Elac, after Storlini left them at an inn near the city harbor.

  “I just never imagined anyone talking like that to a hetman,” said Elac. “Of course, I haven’t been around such men enough to know how they speak to one another.”

  “I suspect they’ve known each other for some time,” said Munmar. “I’ve seen it among the common soldiers and non-commissioned ranks. Tough men who’ve been in battles together often form a bond they seem to show by trading insults. If I’m any judge, those two are dangerous men and have an interesting past.

  “But how about what the hetman said to you, Elac, about your moving here? It seems like a generous offer.”

  “I don’t know what to think. It never occurred to me that I would ever leave Devanyo, much less all of Farkesh. I’m a Farkesher, as is everyone in my family, Lesca’s family, and all the people we’ve known our whole lives.”

  “Elac, although you haven’t said it to me directly, I’ve sensed you’d rather not have to work with your family. This would be your chance, or you could begin working on your own in Devanyo.”

  “I would like that but doing it at home might cause problems. I’d have to explain why I wanted to work away from my father and brothers. I’d have to buy all the tools and equipment since everything now belongs to Father, and it would take time to build a reputation so that people would come to me with work. I would also be competing with my family for jobs.”

  Munmar smiled. “If I understood everything you said, it sounded like you were giving arguments for why you should move to Preddi. You would avoid the family problems, and the hetman seems eager enough for skilled workers that the tool issue would be solved.”

  “I guess it does,” said Elac ruefully, “but it’s too much to think about now. I’ll stay another day or two to be convinced you’re settled here in Preddi, and then I need to return home.”


  Three days later, after Elac saddled his horse and tied gear to two other horses, he turned to Munmar.

  “I’m happy for you, Munmar. Everything seems to be good for you here. The Storlini man is watching out for you. He’s already found several carpentry jobs while you’re waiting to hear more from the hetman about this company you’re supposed to train. I can’t say I understand it, but for some reason I’m going to miss you.”

  “I feel the same, Elac. It makes one wonder about the fates and whatever god or gods look over the world.” Munmar’s face morphed into an uneasy expression. “There is something else I wanted to talk to you about but never found the right moment. Or maybe never found the courage. It’s about Sonyus.”

  “Sonyus? My sister?”

  “When you and I talked about her, I was uncertain how such things are approved of here on Caedellium. Uh . . . since then, in the last days in Farkesh, she and I . . . have gotten . . . closer .”

  Elac groaned and grinned at the same time. “I don’t think I need any details, Munmar. Sonyus is old enough to know her own mind and make decisions. Also, knowing both of you, if there is any problem, I’d be inclined to attribute the cause to her.”

  “It’s just that she was so mad at me when I told her I would be moving to Preddi. I’m not sure, but she might have wanted me to ask her to come with me.”

  “Well, it’s possible she wanted to be asked , but it doesn’t mean she would have agreed ,” said Elac.

  “Whatever she thought, I couldn’t say anything. She doesn’t know I am—I was —Narthani. Who knows how she would have reacted? Then, even if she did agree to come with me, I didn’t know how I would support myself, much less another person—such as a wife.”

  “Wife?” echoed Sonyus’s brother in surprise. “My, my. I didn’t realize things had gotten that far.” He laughed. “Merciful God. The family has wanted Sonyus to settle on a single man, if she was going be the way she is, but I can hardly imagine the reaction if it turns out the man is a Narthani. It would almost be worth the turmoil to see people’s shock.”

  Elac mounted the saddled horse and Munmar laid a hand on the horse’s neck. “Elac, I do not know what might come of it, but could I ask you, as a friend, to speak to Sonyus? Explain to her who I am and why I came to Preddi. Tell her the reasons I didn’t ask her to come with me, and if there’s any chance, now that I have employment, I would greatly wish for her to come.”

  “Well, kiss the evil one’s ass, Munmar! You have any idea the shit storm that’ll happen if I do what you ask? Damnation. I might have to move from Devanyo just to get away from people who get mad at me!”

  “You’re right, Elac,” said Munmar, chagrined. “Just forget I asked you.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it!” replied Elac, annoyed. “I just hope you realize I’d only do this for a good friend. Now I’m heading off before I change my mind.”

  Before Munmar could reply, Elac turned his horse and headed northeast at a trot. It was the first time Elac had called the Narthani a friend.

  Four friends sat at a table in the Snarling Graeko 6 in Preddi City . The original pub of that name still operated in Abersford. Yozef had frequented the establishment while living at St. Sidryn’s Abbey and later outside the town. He still fondly recalled evenings there with Carnigan, Filtin Fuller (who had been killed at Orosz City), and occasionally Balwis Preddi and Wyfor Kales. When he and Maera moved to Caernford, she had schemed with the pub’s owner, Tyn Kuwaith, to open a branch of the pub there. Thus, the Snarling Graeko 2 had opened, operated by Kuwaith’s cousin, who lived in Caernford. The reputation had spread that the two pubs were favorites of Yozef Kolsko and associates. This created the first business chain on Caedellium, with additional branches in Orosz City, the newly rebuilt Adris City, and Rhoslich, the capital of Pewitt Province. Tonight was the opening of the sixth franchise, this one in Preddi City. Kuwaith had come for the opening from Caernford, where he now lived. He had insisted that the four men at this particular table would never have to pay a tab at any of his pubs—an offer graciously accepted by Paramount Kolsko, who happened to be visiting the city.

  “Not bad,” announced Carnigan, after taking a draught from his stein, thereby reducing the volume by one-third. “Still not quite as good as Abersford, but not bad.”

  “He’s going to say that, no matter what it tastes like,” griped Wyfor, setting down his own stein with his lone arm.

  “If only we could do a blind tasting,” said Yozef.

  “A blind—what’s that?” asked Balwis.

  “Ah . . . that would be if we could line up ales from all of Kuwaith’s six Graekos and have Carnigan taste them without knowing where they came from. That’s the only way to be sure he really can tell the difference.”

  A “Harrumph!” emanated from the largest man at the table. “I don’t need any of Yozef’s ‘scientific methods’ to tell me what I know.”

  “Notice how he states it so he can never be wrong,” jibed Balwis.

  “Oh, well,” said Yozef. “There’s no reasoning with some people.”

  “Enough with the small talk,” said Balwis. “Give me the truth, Yozef. You’ve been here three days now. What do you see we could be doing differently? Are the hetmen finally going to realize the mistake in making me the Preddi hetman? I’d still be happy to go back to my family’s horse ranch.”

  “As if there’s any chance you could get away with that,” said Wyfor. “Ceinwyn is dead set on filling the role of hetman’s wife, and she’s certain she’ll drop the heir in the next month. Tell me how you’d explain the horse ranch life?”

  “Now there’s a problem,” agreed Balwis. “On second thought, maybe I’ll stay as hetman to keep peace at home.”

  The four men laughed. The pairing of Ceinwyn Keelan, second daughter of the Keelan Clan hetman and sister-in-law of Yozef, with an escaped Preddi who had defiantly taken the surname of the deposed clan leader’s family had come as a surprise to everyone—including an apoplectic father, who only grudgingly accepted that Balwis was a good match for his daughter.

  “You’re lucky to have her,” said Yozef seriously. “She saw her father exemplify what a good hetman should be and how the hetman’s wife can help.”

  “As I’ve told her many times.” Balwis laughed again. “Probably too many times for me to back out of being hetman. I honestly believe I might have gone insane the first few months, if it hadn’t been for Ceinywn, plus the advisers loaned from other hetmen—Pedr Kennrick from Keelan, Elna Sostyn from Orosz, and Karvan Sewell from Selfcell.

  “Getting so many people established was a nightmare at first: confirming that surviving Preddi had originally owned the property they claimed, in the absence of records; slaves that had no property and perhaps no experience in being free; and then the ex-Narthani. Getting people into productive stations, keeping factions from fighting, and every other goddamned little thing I never knew existed as part of being a hetman. Yozef, I can tell you now that if I’d known what I was in for from the start, even your arguments wouldn’t have convinced me.”

  “But you are getting it all sorted out, Balwis. Slowly, yes. But that’s always the way it was going to be. That the chaos hasn’t been worse is a credit to all of those involved: you, Ceinwyn, Wyfor, Storlini, and the other advisers.”

  The four men sipped their steins, each imagining what might have been.

  “Balwis, how is it working out with that odd pair I sent to you with letters—Kellen and Kemescu?” asked Yozef.

  “Both are doing fine. Kemescu and his family have been here for three months. I haven’t paid them much attention, too many people to keep track of, but Storlini tells me Kemescu already has four men working for him and enough jobs waiting for another three or four men. The problem is, there aren’t enough men with carpentry experience. Storlini says he wouldn’t be surprised if, a year from now, Kemescu has ten or twelve people working with him.

  “As much as I’m glad about Kemescu and that
I don’t have to worry about him when you ask, it’s Kellen that’s turning into a real find. He was hesitant to get back into working as a military man after leaving his previous life, but I think he’s changed his mind. He saw that the military here is for protecting the island, instead of conquering peoples he doesn’t even know and has no interest in subjugating. I expect no small part of changing his mind was when Kemescu’s sister from Devanyo came out to join him. They were married last month. It’s got him identifying more as a Caedelli.

  “Once he got going, he worked wonders with the men I assigned him for one of the ready companies we have on standby. He’s taken a hundred men from all the different groups we have, Preddi, ex-slaves, ex-Narthani, and gotten them so you’d be hard pressed to tell they weren’t all from the same background. Naturally, they’re not experienced, and I wouldn’t want to put them into a critical situation if fighting erupted, but I can see that changing in the next few months.

  “Kivalian is also impressed with him. In fact, when Reimo was here two sixdays ago, he tried to recruit Kellen to go to Orosz City to help organize and teach at the Caedellium Military Academy. I told Reimo clearly that I had no intention of letting Kellen go anywhere.”

  Wyfor cackled loudly enough for people at neighboring tables to turn their heads. “What he actually said was ‘Keep your goddamned Fuomi hands off one of my advisers, or I’ll cut ’em off.’”