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The galleot moved like a dragon among the barges and flat-boats. Boatmen frantically poled their craft out of the way. Wandervere backed oars, stopping the galleot’s ram just short of the boom. Trumpets blared, and the small garrison filled the battlements of the roundhouse.

Wandervere watched the Ergothians’ reaction with amusement. Had he wished, he could have charged the boom and broken it asunder. As it bobbed peacefully in the slight current, Quarrel’s friendly intentions should’ve seemed obvious.

Kiya was below, rowing, when they reached the canal. Miya, who was on a different rotation, was on deck with Tol.

Cupping hands to his mouth, Tol called, “Halloo! Captain of the guard!”

After some scrambling, an officer with a crest on his helmet appeared on the roundhouse parapet.

“Who are you?” he shouted. “What are your intentions?”

“This is Tolandruth of Juramona! I am summoned to the capital to attend upon the new emperor! Open the boom!”

The officer visibly started. “Lord. Tolandruth? Draco Paladin! Stand fast, my lord!”

Tol had little choice, short of ramming imperial property. With the blare of more horns, the garrison turned out on the stone quay below the little fort. The officer, followed by two aides, walked out on the catwalk that ran along the top of the boom. He halted below the prow of the ship and saluted briskly.

“It is you, my lord!” he exclaimed.

“Of course it is!” Miya said. “Who were you expecting? Pirates?”

The officer ignored her. “If my lord would come ashore, I shall explain!”

Though he chafed at any delay, Tol nodded. Wandervere’s sailors dropped a rope ladder over the bow and he climbed down to the catwalk on the boom. Miya followed.

The officer bowed. “My lord, my name is Nazik. You won’t remember me, but I served under Lord Urakan in Hylo. I was with you when we beat the Tarsans at Three Rose Creek.”

Tol did not recall him, but he extended a hand and clasped Nazik’s forearm. “Why is the canal still closed?” he said, bringing his host back to the matter at hand.

“Orders, my lord. All traffic heading for Daltigoth is to be thoroughly checked.”

“Checked for what?” asked Miya.

Nazik blinked. “Anything treacherous or seditious.”

Tol and Miya exchanged a quick glance. “There’s no cargo on Quarrel but my party,” Tol said. He gave a rapid account of his journey from Tarsis to Thorngoth, omitting completely the incident with the Blood Fleet, then asked, “May we proceed?”

Nazik snapped his ironclad feet together with a clank. “Certainly, my lord! My apologies for detaining you!”

“Never apologize for doing your duty.”

Tol returned to the galleot. Behind him, Nazik bawled for the boom to be opened.

The heavy timber structure moved slowly back. Great oiled ropes, as thick as a man’s thigh, slid over wooden tackle as the boom swung away from the ship. Wandervere called for a speed of eight beats, and Quarrel ghosted ahead. Its wake sent waves surging back among the waiting river craft.

While the half-elf tended to shipboard duties, Tol and Miya stood alone at the bow, watching the rich farmland of central Ergoth glide past them.

“Sounds like the new emperor is afraid of something,” Miya said.

“Amaltar was always afraid,” Tol replied in a low voice. “Assassins, poisoners, plotters-he kept me in Daltigoth for years to ward off imagined dangers.”

“Only imagined?” Miya had lived in Daltigoth long enough to know how full of intrigue were the lives of Ergoth’s rulers. Plots and counterplots were like meat and drink to them.

“A change of rulers is an especially dangerous time,” Tol admitted.

“Well, they can keep their crowns and palaces. Someday I will put this all behind me and live like a real human should, in the woodland of my ancestors.”

Her words surprised him. Sixteen years the Dom-shu sisters had been by his side, and not once had either of them expressed any desire to return to the Great Green. Miya was two years older than Tol, and Kiya three, and they always seemed to take each new experience in stride. Wonders that left Tol speechless barely turned their heads. To the tribes-women, everything outside their verdant home was equally strange and unnatural-whether it be the glories of Daltigoth, the splendors of wealthy Tarsis, or the terrors of the battlefield.

“Leaving any time soon?” he teased.

“Once you marry a real wife, you won’t need Sister and me around any more.”

“What real wife?”

“The one you truly love. Valaran.”

Hearing her name, and in such a matter-of-fact tone, was like a blow to the face. Tol turned away, pretending to stare at the passing scenery.

The vagaries of fate had made the Dom-shu sisters partners in his romance with Valaran, after she had married the crown prince. For the three years Tol had lived in the imperial capital, Kiya and Miya helped him keep his secret trysts with Valaran.

After a long pause, he said, “Valaran is an imperial wife. She is beyond my reach now.”

“Could she be the next empress?”

It wasn’t likely. Valaran wasn’t the highest born of Amaltar’s eight wives, nor was she his first wife. Tradition dictated the new emperor choose his first wife to be his empress. Failing that, he would designate the mother of his chosen successor.

That thought gave Tol a pang, equal parts pain and curiosity. He didn’t even know whether Valaran had children with Amaltar.

Being empress was certainly the highest of honors but not a pleasant life. The Empress of Ergoth lived in total seclusion. No one was allowed to see her save the Consorts’ Circle, some servants, and the emperor. Anyone else caught in her company could be arrested and executed.

This total seclusion had its roots in the time of the first emperor, Ackal Ergot. His empress, Balalana, had been the wife of one of his chief enemies, the Lord of the Western Hundred. Ackal killed his rival and took Balalana for himself. To insure his successor would be of his own blood, and to prevent her first husband’s supporters from using her to foment insurrection, he kept his empress in the heart of his ancient fortress, where she saw no man but him. Later, the isolation of the Empress of Ergoth became entwined with the worship of the goddess Mishas. The empress was titular high priestess of the important and popular cult of the goddess of healing, and her purity and honor were held to be sacred.

It seemed ridiculously complicated to Miya, but she approved of Ackal Ergot’s directness.

“If you love the woman and she loves you, just make her yours!” she said, and her pointed look told him she wasn’t speaking only of Ackal Ergot and Balalana.

Kiya appeared on deck, soaked with sweat. Miya went below to take her stint on the oar, and Kiya headed aft for a dipper of cool water.

Watching the green fields unfurl before the galleot’s prow, Tol pondered Miya’s words. Years ago, he had wanted to make Valaran his, but she had resisted. Her duty, she said, was to marry Amaltar and further the fortunes of her family. She didn’t love the prince, and he didn’t love her. Theirs was a family alliance, but one did not insult the honor of the imperial dynasty with impunity. If she’d refused his proposal, her entire family would’ve lost honor, and all their fortunes would have declined. Harsher emperors were known to murder or enslave the families of women who refused them.

Now, after a decade of silence from Daltigoth, Tol had no idea whether Valaran even remembered him, much less still loved him. Whatever his accomplishments, as a warrior and a general, he was no Ackal Ergot, to slay his lover’s husband and take her for his own.