Copyright © 2015 Naoko Smith
This is a re-edited version of the Prologue. Thank you so much everyone for the very very helpful feedback, which I'm working hard to take on. (I know the names of characters need working at -- I need to have a really hard think about those.)
All the chapters for this novel have been written already and I'll be posting them regularly. I am looking for critical feedback so please leave comments for me. Thank you! (Diolch.)
NB There's an earlier story I've posted on Lit which takes place before the action in this one, called
An Honourable Slut
.
Light spilled over the huge polished table littered with papers. No air moved in the green velvet curtains draped at the long windows though the windows were flung wide open. The dark wood panelling of the walls, the low ceiling smoky from candle-lit conferences going on into the night seemed to increase the weight of the hot humid atmosphere, to press the distressed faces of the long-haired council clerks into frowns and scowls and force their clashing voices into shriller and more anguished tones.
Lord Pava el Maien van Sietter, Privy Councillor and King's Representative for Foreign Affairs, sat absolutely still. His chin was in one cupped hand, his other arm lay negligently over the back of his chair. His long thin body in its flowing green robe looked relaxed but his cold grey eyes in his aristocratic close-cropped head were fixed to the man sitting opposite him.
General-Lord Esha el Gaiel van H'las had pulled back his chair from the table as if to separate himself physically from the hysterical frenzy of the clerks. He wore a red robe but was clearly a soldier: broad and bluff with short greying hair, a neat beard and gentle brown eyes.
Lord van Sietter felt an almost intellectual interest in what van H'las' next move might be. He knew van H'las could come up with tactics in politics as great as those he demonstrated in warfare. He had good cause to know how great a tactician van H'las was in warfare.
General-Lord van H'las suddenly stood up. He thumped one fist on the table, making jugs and glasses jingle. The council clerks slowly fell silent.
"We cannot talk here," van H'las said, looking intently into the motionless pale face opposite him.
van Sietter removed his chin from his hand and said to a footman: "Fetch two chairs."
They walked through the long windows into the brilliant harsh sunshine outside. They sat down where no one would overhear them, in the middle of the long green palace lawns, at some distance from the sandy paths and neat hedges. The garden had been cleared of the large numbers of staff who maintained perfectly clipped lush lawns in the baking heat of summer at the palace. The long-haired clerks clustered in the windows in their dark robes, staring. The two aristocrats sat side by side in the hot sunshine heedless of the extravagance of the fresh green lawns.
van Sietter and van H'las had met in this way seven times. The bitter war they had fought had ended in stalemate. Since then, they had over-taxed merchants until it was cheaper to travel to court by a route twice as long as the one through their lands. Merchants right across the country were trying to work out what they wanted and begging the council clerks to give it them.
van H'las said bluntly, looking with frank clear eyes into van Sietter's face: "Let us bind our families with a tie."
van Sietter raised one eyebrow, staring coldly away down the hot empty green lawn. "I have come here willing to discuss a mutual lowering of taxes," he said.
"How long would such an agreement last?" van H'las asked. He opened his arms and stretched his hands out to van Sietter. "Let us give the merchants a guarantee of the goodwill that should lie between our lands. We are one body, el Maien. My port is the left hand, your Maier Pass the right hand to our prosperity. Let us bind our families closer."
