Read Beasts of Antares for Free Online Page A

matters that were of concern to her.
    After all, in the mating of noble houses coalitions formed and business was transacted and heads could be parted from shoulders.
    I ventured again, attempting to sound as though I was fully apprised of the situation. “So no one knows where Ortyg has gone?”
    “Where he has taken poor Fransha!”
    “Now, Jilian,” I said in my reasonable voice. “Perhaps she went willingly. Perhaps they are in love—”
    “Of course they’re in love! That’s why she went! And that’s why we have to get her back!”
    I shook my head. I reached for the glass of Vela’s Tears. I sipped the strong red wine that comes from Southern Valka. I was all at sea again. These women...!
    A kind of brain wave occurred to me then, and I spoke up with a firmer voice. “Call all the members of both households. Call all our chamberlains. Contact Naghan Vanki. Order a fast voller. Saddle a dozen zorcas and two dozen totrixes. Have the Emperor’s Sword Watch stand to arms — No.” I felt I’d gone far enough. I didn’t want the Emperor’s Sword Watch given unnecessary burdens, turned out of barracks at all hours, their training program interrupted. “No, cancel that last order.”
    Delia saw through all that nonsense on the instant.
    “You may think it all very funny, Dray. But it is serious. Ortyg and Fransha are passionately in love and the match is generally regarded with great favor—”
    “Well, why—?”
    “Because if they run off like this the families will never agree, old Larghos of Mavindeul, Fransha’s father, will turn against Ortyg Voinderam and make his daughter wed that Fridil Goss.
Then
you know what will happen.”
    I did. My old antagonist, Natyzha Famphreon, with the wizened face and lush body would rub her hands with glee when she heard the news. She was a leading member of the Racter party, once the most powerful political force in Vallia, able to dictate to the emperors, and now sadly fallen away and confined to their locus of discontent in the northwest. After Turko had regained Falinur we had to deal with Layco Jhansi who fought the damned Racters to the north of him. Many men expressed the pious hope that they’d kill each other off before we had to march against them.
    I looked down at the cluttered desk. A paper protruded from a file — a thin file, just opened — and on the paper two names were written out fairly. Weg Wegashtorio. Nath Karidge. The next file concerned the state of our airboats. We could buy none from Hamal, seeing Hamal was at this time our mortal enemy. We could not manufacture airboats ourselves, only our flying sailing ships. Embassies had gone down south into the Dawn Lands in the hope of buying fliers. I had to go to Hyrklana not just to find our friends; making deals to buy fliers was also on the agenda there. I sighed.
    All these pressing problems of empire, and I was being entwined in the passions of lovers. A world might shiver and shake and empires totter and fall, but two foolish young people in love must take precedence.
    Well, there is a justice in that, I suppose...
    The other three people in my study were well aware of the network of agents — spies — I had set up distinct from the empire’s chief spymaster, Naghan Vanki, and his organization. Enevon had been an active participant in our plans.
    So now Delia could burst out hotly, “We have worked hard up there in Mavindeul. The stromnate is ready to declare for us if they are guaranteed support. And old Larghos has no love for Natyzha, despite he holds his stromnate at her hands.”
    A strom, the equivalent of an Earthly count, has certain powers. We had promised to make Larghos, Strom of Mavindeul, a strom in his own right with his own province if he threw in with us. The marriage of his daughter Fransha was a part of this, for young Ortyg Voinderam was the son of the Vad of Khovala, and Khovala’s southwestern border marched with that of Mavindeul. If everyone agreed, Mavindeul