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when
considering alliances.
    “ Go on.”
    “ With your permission,
Majesty, I would like to call in one of my men.”
    “ Go ahead—I clearly can’t
stop you.” But if I live, I shall surely
avenge myself.
    Her tone conveyed the menace well
enough.
    “ Thank you.” He raised his
voice towards the door of the chamber. “Kann.”
    The door came crashing open and the man
in question came in with a calm visage and confident air. There was
someone else out there she noted, as the door was pulled closed
from outside.
    “ So far we are
undiscovered, sire.”
    “ Thank you. The map,
Kann.”
    His Serjeant at Arms drew it out from a
long leather pouch and unrolled it.
    He spread it out on a table normally
used for sewing, embroidering tapestries, and the odd light
refreshment when the nights were long and cold and the ladies were
all in attendance.
    “ Please.”
    Eleanora, with Theodelinda, moved in
closer.
    It was a map showing the northern half
of the Great Sea and its littoral.
    “ Kann.”
    The Serjeant nodded and went to secure
the door to the area where the ladies-in-waiting were quartered in
the dormitory-like upper floor on this wing of the
castle.
    He came back in a moment.
    “ It’s locked, and it seems
fairly quiet over there.”
    Lowren nodded.
    “ All right. Let us begin,
then.”
     
    ***
     
    The Great Khan ruled over a hundred
satrapies. Some said there were more than that but no one could
remember all of their names.
    His predecessor, Cyril the Great, had
ruled by force internally and at the same time, with his empire
turbulent with internal dissensions, he had kept the peace, for the
most part, with his neighbors. Yet the military reputation he had
acquired in his youth during his rebel years, and then the constant
fighting, over the course of decades to consolidate and pacify his
newly-won people had deeply influenced his sons. The one lesson
Cyril had inculcated, over and over again, practically pounding it
into the heads of all his sons, was that one had to be strong to be
secure—a usurper with no real claim on the throne, Cyril had both a
strength and a personal insecurity that could tolerate no
rivals.
    Upon Cyril’s demise, three or four of
the elder brothers had fought it out. Their younger siblings had
been quickly dispatched in battle or strangled with their own
bowstrings in the sanctity of the seraglio.
    The wars had been long and bloody, and
the man who would become the Great Khan had a long memory. His
embassies and requests for alliances had been rebuffed here and
there, everywhere almost, by the sovereigns of neighboring states.
They were, quite openly in some cases, waiting to see which way to
jump. They were afraid to back a loser. No one could ever really
know in the early stages which of the brothers stood the best
chance of winning. To back a loser was often fatal for other allied
rulers and nations. The plain truth was that his neighbors just
didn’t want to get involved.
    That’s not to say that Jumalak didn’t
take it personally, because he did. Very much so. Especially after
he had won in a war that cost eight years, the best years of his
youth, and the lives of millions of his eventual
subjects.
    Feeling that he alone had been anointed
by his Gods to rule over his people, he also believed that the
sword of justice was his and his alone. He could accept of no
other. All such men had their justification.
    Simply put, he was a man with a grudge.
He had a standing army which needed employment and which it would
be dangerous to disband. That army was costing him hundreds of
thousands of gold pieces a day just to feed.
    In short, sooner or later, he would
come.
    Lowren looked up from the
map.
    He met their eyes, for both were
formidable women. There was no underestimating Theodelinda. He was
going on an impression gained by merchant and traveler’s reports,
one now borne out by his own observations.
    She asked the first question, while the
Queen carefully studied