Chapter 11 - The Gorvoid

“I spoke with that manservant below, that human with the gigantic freckles over his eyebrows. What an alien specimen you Barthan’s hired. I asked him for supper. Something muira and traditional. Imagine what he said to me!”

Gorvoid Villniver Varadi paused for an answer. Odden of Barthos, his back to the dusk shining through his wide office windows, scratched behind an ear with the hand that was not tucked into his cloak pocket. Before he could speak the Gorvoid went on: “‘Will a simple dish of baked pears in gambol serve, setter?’ That’s what he said. How can your humans live in a city rich with muira heritage and hardly know the most rudimentary meal we eat with our ancestors?”

“I will send to a restaurant if you wish, setter Varadi,” said Odden.

“No need,” said the gorvoid. He set his double-ridged helm on the corner of Odden’s desk. “I sent one of my knights to your kitchen. He was only an army cook, but he’ll put your staff in shape. I gave him my order: baked eggs in pepper sauce, a thick pheasant soup in ground almond bullion, a strong Villgoranian punch with a sweet mead, maybe something like artichoke-and-mushroom sauce on the side. Don’t take fright like an elk fawn. I’m sure your own staff will know your tastes. They should! Do you trust your kitchen?”

Odden, who had not so much as blinked, said, “I’m afraid I have an appointment with General Alus of the Teironian Army at the seventh span, setter. You’re welcome to stay and dine if-”

“The Teironians!” Villniver slammed himself into a seat opposite the barthan ambassador. “I hate the Teironians. I know the wisdom of my gods would say that it is wrong, but I cannot help it. Teiron has fought to remove my race from the continent since we first disembarked on the witch’s land of Vorvaros and made it our own.”

Odden shared a glance with the Barthan soldier standing guard at the entry of his study. He inclined his chin slightly. The soldier stepped out quietly, with only a creak from his leather armor signaling the departure. He shut the door behind him. Odden returned his attention to Vilniver, whose nostrils were pink and flared above his thick mustache. “I confess,” said Odden, “that the precise diplomatic intentions of Teiron are not known to me as a Barthan diplomat. Yet I will not say certainly that I accept the suggested motive.”

“Will you take wine?” Vilniver asked sharply.

“I have time for one drink,” Odden replied. He pulled a fairly fine red bottle from a basket under the slab of his table, along with a tray of silver cups. He set two cups out and poured a moderate serving for each of them .While Odden took a small sip from his own drink and set it back on the table - over a dark burl in the wood - the Gorvoid drained his own in two swallows. He set the silver cup down sharply.

As Odden refilled Vilniver’s drink, the latter went on: “I stand by it. The Teironians have always hated Ahn and his people. They plotted to kill her highness Anastasia Balgah, I swear it!”

“You have obtained proof of a plot funded by the Teironian Tyrant?”

“They only killed Srik because they realized they’d never come close to her,” Vilinver went on without answering. “I myself have had to call more of my own soldiers. For safety.”

Odden checked his pocket clock, then took a seat in the plush chair opposite his muira counterpart. He drew a pipe from an inner pocket of his cloak, along with a pouch of smokethistle. He lit and smoked, leaning back in his seat, the thumb of his other hand sliding back and forth along the lining of his pocket. He said, “Gorvoid, are you informing me, as one diplomat to another, that you have mobilized the Villgoranian force retained at Fort Petra?”

“I’ve summoned men to guard my life! The Teironian serpents slither in the shadows, switchknives for fangs. But they’ll think twice when faced with sturdy Villgoranian men fresh off the road. Unblinking men. Muira, pale faces flaking from the march under Theman’s bloody sun.”

“Any mobilization must necessarily be seen as an act of aggression.”

“You’d have me ignore the peril to my life I suppose.”

“Setter,” Odden went on, tapping out his pipe in an ash dish, “I have no doubt you understand your own welfare.”

“Of course I do.”

“You also surely understand the inevitable response across the continent to an unannounced military mobilization.”

“Whose response?” The gorvoid leaned toward the placid Barthan ambassador.

“The continent’s. Teiron, of course, but the other volon counties shall rally around her. And every one of the islands in Sziklia would order its fleet to-”

“Sziklia,” the gorvoid scoffed. “Should the tall bull elk of Ahn fear the wrath of a sleeping lamb?”

Odden set his glass down, still mostly full. “Setter Varadi, you understand that I’m unable to make any definite statement on the readiness of Ahn and her Villgoranian cousin to meet the armies which may be arrayed against her. Especially in a purely hypothetical conflict.”

Gorvoid Varadi stood. From inside his cloak he pulled a folded piece of paper, which he proceeded to unfold very quickly across the polished slab table. “What is this?” he asked, jamming a finger at a region of land inside of Teiron, on its southern border.”

Odden cleared his throat. “That is the Altes Plain.”

“That is the rightful territory of Barthos. Your volon held that ground under six - six - generations of Barthan tyrants. How can you sit there so, when the Teironian savages have stolen the lands of your grandfathers? Your ancestors’ bones lie buried on that soil. Soil which the Teironian serpents now pollute with their spit and urine. These two faced thugs think they are the inheritors of the Golani Empire, the next great unifiers of Leeges. They ally with Barthos as long as Barthos remains strong. But they will turn to you their other face the moment you show weakness. Now, setter Odden, you are a sensible man. You understand that my race is an honorable one. Our gods watch and see every action we take. Look. I carry my own great-grandfather’s doll of smallbones here around my neck - like our own hero knight, Merrick Bathory. You know I could never tell a lie before the listening spirit of Hoskas Varadi.”

Odden sat still, with his brows raised. “I’m certain that is true, setter.”

“Well then, listen to truth. The Barthans should consider the muira of Ahn and Villgorania as peaceable, trustworthy neighbors. Better neighbors than Teiron. Barthos’ tyrant would be a madman if he sided with duplicitous Teiron and its sick-old-man of a Tyrant, against the friends across The Mantes. A minimum common decency would demand Barthos abstain from involvement in a conflict between her neighbors.”

“One could not give a decision about a hypothetical contingency which has not arisen.”

“The muira will not suffer ourselves to be bled by small cuts. We must raise our spear!”

Vilniver slammed his palm onto the tabletop. The cup of wine Odden had served him jumped and toppled. The wine inside splashed against the rounded surface of Vilniver’s helm, the lip of the cup struck the same with a loud metal ring that faded in the superseding silence. Vilniver stood for a moment, breathing heavily. Odden leaned back with an uncertain and disturbed expression.

Finally the gorvoid noticed the red wine shining wetly over the table and his helmet. “Damned cup’s unstable,” he muttered.

“Here, setter,” said Odden. He pulled a gilded blue handrag from a pocket and handed it to the gorvoid.

“Villgorania has no choice, setter Odden,” said Vilniver as he wiped down the helmet. His face turned sullen as he folded up the map and stuck it into a pocket. “Our army must mobilize in defense of our muira ally.”

“Gorvoid, I implore you to reconsider.”

“It’s not up to us, ambassador. We are forced.”

“I have to meet with the general,” said Odden, rising suddenly as he checked his clock. As the gorvoid raised his helm, tucked it into an armpit, and both men turned to go, the Barthan ambassador added, “Please, setter Varadi. Wait for Ahn’s bountyman.”