The Vondish Ambassador Read online

  "The New City is on the hill you mentioned?"

  "Yes. You might have seen it from the sea, before you came ashore."

  "I might have, yes. It's part of Ethshar of the Spices?"

  "It's right in the middle of Ethshar of the Spices!"

  "But it's called the New City?"

  "Yes! Because it's newer than the Old City, but most of the city is even newer."

  "Ah. So, I am on Merchant Street – what then?"

  "Then you just walk down Merchant Street to Palace Square, and there's the Palace on the other side of the Grand Canal, across the bridge."

  Lar nodded. "Tell me something, Emmis," he said. "How do you remember all that?"

  Emmis's mouth opened, then closed. He stared at the foreigner in bafflement.

  "Never mind, then," Lar said, with a wave of his hand. "You know the city well?"

  "Parts of it," Emmis said. "Don't ask me to find my way through Fishertown or Newgate."

  "What if I wanted to find a warlock?"

  "Oh, Warlock Street is in the Wizards' Quarter. There are a few warlocks elsewhere, but that's the easiest place."

  "And where is the Wizards' Quarter?"

  Emmis sighed. He had just known the foreigner would want to see the Wizards' Quarter. "You follow the directions I gave you before, but instead of turning on Merchant Street you stay on High Street right through the New City, over the hill to Arena Street. You turn right on Arena Street and just keep going, past the Arena. If you get to Southgate you've gone too far. Once you're in the Wizards' Quarter just read the shop signs and notice boards until you find warlocks."

  "It's more than a mile?"

  "Three or four miles, I'd say. Arena Street is long."

  "All inside the city walls?"

  "Yes, of course."

  Lar shook his head in amazement. "A city this size is hard to believe!"

  "It's the largest in the World," Emmis said, with a touch of civic pride. Then his natural honesty compelled him to add, "Although some people say Ethshar of the Sands might be larger."

  "I think you were right. I won't stay in this... house? No, this inn. I won't stay in this inn for long. Can you find me a place between the Palace and the Wizards' Quarter?"

  "I think so," Emmis said warily.

  "I will be talking to several magicians."

  "I thought the Small Kingdoms had their own magicians."

  Lar grimaced. "Yours are better," he said. "Much better."

  "I thought the Small Kingdoms didn't like magicians."

  "That's why yours are better."

  "Oh." Emmis could hardly argue with that. "But then why do you want to talk to them?"

  Lar sighed. "Emmis," he said, "sometimes we must do things we don't like. But also, the Empire of Vond is not like the other Small Kingdoms. It was created by the Great Vond, who was a magician from Ethshar, and it is ruled now by Lord Sterren, who came from Ethshar. We have different ideas from our neighbors."

  "Oh," Emmis said. He chewed his lower lip to keep himself from frowning, hoping that he looked thoughtful rather than disapproving.

  He hadn't really known how the Empire of Vond had come about. A couple of years ago stories had started arriving of someone conquering a dozen or so of the Small Kingdoms and uniting them, but Emmis didn't remember any mention that the conqueror came from Ethshar.

  Ethsharites weren't supposed to meddle in the Small Kingdoms. Everyone knew that. When the first three overlords had created the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars after the Great War they had deliberately excluded certain other lands. The Baronies of Sardiron were excluded because they carried the lingering taint of the old Northern Empire; the northern coasts, Tintallion and Meroa and so on, were excluded because they were too cold and empty to be worth bothering with.

  And the Small Kingdoms had been excluded because they were a bunch of madmen and fools, always bickering among themselves, a source of nothing but trouble. The people of the Hegemony prided themselves on their common sense, and common sense was obviously in short supply in the Small Kingdoms. Emmis had seen that for himself in talking to sailors from the Small Kingdoms. He had heard Kushinese speak scathingly of Amessans, Amessans denounce Meyans, Tantasharites insult Londans, Imryllirionese abominate Morrians, and to him and the other Ethsharites all those various nationalities were indistinguishable. Oh, a Perelian might be a little paler than an Ashthasan, a Mergan might have a slightly different accent than a Weidamonite, but really, they were all barbarians alike compared to the good people of Ethshar. Their major redeeming feature was that they were so fragmented they were harmless, far more interested in squabbling among themselves than bothering Ethshar.

  And Ethshar left them carefully alone, so as not to risk becoming a common foe they might unite against.

  At least, that's what the old men on the docks had told Emmis, and when he had asked his father, the old man had shrugged and said, "I suppose there's some truth to it."

  Yes, the Empire of Vond had united about a dozen of the Small Kingdoms a few years ago, but it was far off on the southern edge of the World, at the other end of the Small Kingdoms, and the conquests had stopped after a few months, so no one in Ethshar had paid very much attention to it – but maybe they should have.

  This man, this ambassador – why had he really come to Ethshar? Why did Vond need an ambassador? Emmis was fairly sure that most of the Small Kingdoms didn't bother with such things.

  And why was this Vondish ambassador so interested in magicians?

  "Should I look for an inn on Arena Street, or do you think you might want to rent a house, or even buy one?" Emmis asked. "How long do you expect to stay in Ethshar?"

  "I don't know," Lar replied. "Rent a house, perhaps?"

  Emmis nodded. "Then I'll start looking," he said. "And you can stay here until I find one."

  "That sounds good," Lar said. He took off his hat and tossed it on the bed. "That sounds very good."

  "How big a house do you want? Will you have a staff? Are more of your people coming?"

  Lar's mouth quirked.

  "No," he said. "Just me. You're my staff."

  "Oh." Emmis frowned. "Well, do you want others? A cook? A housekeeper? Will you be entertaining often?"

  Lar turned up an empty palm. "Emmis," he said, "I don't know these things. I have never been in Ethshar of the Spices before today. I have never been an ambassador until this journey. In the Small Kingdoms ambassadors are given rooms in the royal castle, and attended to by the castle staff. They do not have their own cooks or housekeepers. A secretary, perhaps, or an aide. But my regent tells me this is not how it is done here – ambassadors do not live in the overlord's palace, but in the city. Very well. I did not bring a secretary or an aide. You are my aide. I am paying you very much money – I am not a complete fool, I know that even here ten bits in silver a day is not reasonable. I am paying you so much so that you will figure these things out for me. I can spend... well, I have a certain amount of money, and no more. I will pay you what I have promised, and I can pay for some more than that, but I cannot be..." He paused, groping for a word, then rephrased. "But I must be reasonable," he said. "You must pay for much from the money I pay you."

  Emmis could hardly complain about that, since Lar was quite right that ten bits a day was outrageously generous, but it did call for an adjustment in his plans. He had been imagining himself as the head of a grand household high in the New City, but now it did not sound as if the ambassador's funds would stretch that far.

  Well, he would make do.

  "You don't know how long you'll stay?"

  Lar shook his head. "No. I have instructions from Lord Sterren that I must follow, and when that is done I can go home. I don't know how long that will be. Perhaps a month, perhaps a year, perhaps a life."

  "What is it he wants you to do?"

  Lar smiled crookedly. "I am not to tell. Perhaps when I know you more."

  "That makes it difficult for me to help you."

&nbs
p; "I know. For now, do what I say, and we will see what happens."

  Emmis turned up a palm. "All right. You want a place between the Palace and the Wizards' Quarter, appropriate for an ambassador but not too expensive. What else?"

  "You must make an introduction to the overlord. Lord Sterren does not want me to be secret, even if my instructions are." He sighed. "He didn't want me to try to be secret. He didn't think I could do it, here in Ethshar."

  Emmis looked at the gaudily-dressed foreigner, with his sun-darkened complexion and curious accent. He would certainly not pass as a native Ethsharite.

  "And he wanted me to be able to speak for the Empire of Vond, if need is, not just ask questions," Lar continued. "So I am an ambassador, not a spy."

  "You want an introduction to the overlord." Emmis frowned. "I'm just a laborer, sir; I've never met the overlord."

  "You are an ambassador's aide. That should be enough."

  "Maybe," Emmis replied. "Maybe."

  Chapter Three

  The guard on the bridge listened politely. When Emmis had said his piece there was a moment of thoughtful silence; then the guard said, "A Vondish ambassador?"

  "Yes."

  "And he wants an audience with the overlord?"

  "Yes."

  The guard glanced up over his shoulder at the golden marble walls of the palace. "I suppose that seems reasonable," he said. "I'll pass the word, but it may take some time to get an answer. Can you come back tomorrow, about this same time? I should have an answer for you by then."

  "You can't find out sooner?"

  The guard turned up an empty palm. "I might," he said. "I don't know. It's not an emergency, and so far as I know it's not a standard situation where there are procedures in place. We do see ambassadors sometimes, from Sardiron or Tintallion, but I don't know just how that works. They usually have appointments made in advance."

  "Well, that's what I'm trying to do, make an appointment," Emmis protested.

  "Yes, but they usually do it with an exchange of letters, or with magicians sending messages, they don't just walk up to the door here."

  "I didn't know who to address a letter to!"

  "Well, I don't, either, but the ambassadors we've had here before apparently do," the soldier explained. "So I'll have to find out, and let you know, and I don't know how long it will take, so could you please come back tomorrow?"

  Emmis sighed. He started to turn away, then stopped. He took a deep breath, and turned back.

  "Am I doing something wrong?" he said.

  Startled, the guard said, "I don't think so."

  "I'm not making some horrible mistake in protocol, or being rude somehow?"

  "No. I really just don't know the procedure."

  "Keeping an ambassador waiting like this doesn't seem right, somehow, so I thought maybe I'm doing something wrong," Emmis explained. "I mean, I'm new at this; the ambassador hired me as his local guide on a whim, and I haven't had any training at all, I'm just making it up as I go. If there's anything you can tell me about how I should be doing this..."

  The guard looked at him helplessly. "Honestly, I don't know," he said. "The only time I've seen any ambassadors, they've shown up on the bridge and said they were expected, and sure enough the names would be on the daily orders, so I let them in. I'm only a sentry, not some sort of official."

  "But you've never had a... a diplomatic aide come up to you like this? Or heard any of the other guards talk about it?"

  "No. Never."

  "Then I'm probably doing it wrong." Emmis sighed again. "Well, thank you. I'll be back tomorrow morning, then." He turned away with a polite nod, and this time kept going, ambling back across the red stone bridge, past the two outer guards and into the plaza beyond.

  Perhaps he should have spoken to a magistrate, he thought, instead of the palace guards. At least he hadn't followed his original plan of marching down here with the ambassador in tow, expecting to be admitted immediately. What's more, he had found a house for rent just off Arena Street, and he had found it in less than a day. It wasn't actually in the New City, where the lords and ladies lived if they didn't live in the Palace itself, it was, if the truth be told, in Allston, but it was almost in the New City, and not all of Allston smelled of fish or sawdust or glue. Emmis hadn't smelled anything inappropriate when he inspected the property, and the wind hadn't seemed to be in an odd quarter.

  So now it was back to the Crooked Candle to report to the ambassador. With any luck they could be settled into the house on Through Street by nightfall. He trotted across the plaza and through the midday crowds to Merchant Street, then up the gentle slope to High Street.

  This whole business still didn't seem entirely real; he kept thinking it would all turn out to be a prank, or a misunderstanding, but then he felt the bulge in his purse as it slapped against his thigh, listened to the jingle of silver as he walked, and told himself that at least the money was real. If Lar turned out to be a madman rather than an ambassador, or if the overlord had him cast into a dungeon as an enemy of the Hegemony, at least Emmis would have something to show for it.

  He turned right onto High Street, into the Old Merchants' Quarter, and hurried on, ignoring the calls of hawkers and the scent of herbs and spices, eager to return to the familiar streets of Shiphaven.

  Half an hour later he marched through the taproom of the Crooked Candle, ignoring the rather sparse lunchtime crowd, and climbed the three flights of stairs to the ambassador's room on the top floor.

  The door, which had been standing open when he left that morning, was closed; he hesitated, then knocked.

  No one answered, and all his worries about fraud or insanity, which he had been able to hold at bay until now, suddenly tumbled in on him.

  "Lar? Sir?" he called, as he rapped on the wood again. He tried the latch, but the door was locked. He groped for an appropriate title for an ambassador, and called, "Your excellency?"

  Still no response. He dropped his hand to his purse – the possibility that those coins weren't really silver at all, but some lesser substance enhanced by a bit of magic, had finally occurred to him. He frowned.

  If that was the case, well... all he had really lost was a day's work, give or take a few hours, and a little of his self-respect. He could stand that. At least he hadn't bragged about his new job to anyone; by the time he had gotten Lar settled in the Crooked Candle, answered hundreds of questions about the city, discussed rents and wages, and carefully gone over the plans for today, he hadn't felt like talking to anyone else. He had eaten supper with Lar downstairs here, then gone back to his attic room in the tangle of uncertainly-named streets behind Canal Square, where he had looked over the foreign silver carefully, gotten out his best clothes to air overnight, and then gone to bed early, so as to get an early start today.

  He had spoken to his landlady in passing, on his way up to his room, mentioning that he had a new job that might force him to move out, but he didn't think he had told her anything that would embarrass him. He hadn't run into any of his friends or family.

  And today he had breakfasted with the ambassador here at the inn, then set out on his business. He had not told the owner of the house in Allston who his employer was, merely that it was a foreigner with business at the Palace.

  He had told the guard at the Palace the whole story about the Vondish ambassador, but he could live with that.

  "Are you looking for the man with the red coat and the fancy hat?" someone asked.

  Startled, Emmis turned to find a young woman standing at the top of the stair. "Uh?" he said.

  "The foreigner with the plumed hat," she said. "Are you looking for him?"

  "Yes," Emmis answered.

  "He went out about an hour ago. I'm not sure when he's coming back, but he left all his things, so I'm sure he'll be back eventually."

  Emmis glanced at the locked door, then back at the young woman, who, he realized, was wearing a beer-stained white apron and had her hair tucked up under a mobcap. "
Oh," he said. "Do you work here, then?"

  "Sometimes. My uncle owns the inn, and I help out when he's short-handed."

  "You're sure he'll be back?" he said, nodding toward the door.

  "He didn't take his belongings, so I'd say so, yes."

  Emmis's hand squeezed his purse; the silver, if it was really silver, was still there. And the girl said Lar's luggage was safe inside the room.

  Lar was probably real after all, and he had been worrying about nothing. The ambassador had surely just gone out on an errand of some sort, perhaps to buy a few things in Shiphaven Market.

  Not that Emmis had seen him when he had passed through the market a few minutes before. "Did he say where he was going?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "No. Not a word."

  For a moment Emmis stood silently staring at her, trying to think of something useful to ask her, but nothing came to mind.

  The girl stared back. "The other foreigners might know something," she said at last.

  Emmis blinked. "Other foreigners?"

  "Downstairs, eating lunch," she said. "Four of them."

  "Are they Vondish, too?"

  She turned up both palms. "I have no idea," she said. "I just know they're foreigners from the way they talk."

  "Oh." He took a final look at the locked door, then said, "Could you introduce me, perhaps? My name's Emmis of Shiphaven."

  "Of course. My name's Gita, by the way. Come on." She turned and beckoned, and led him back down to the common room.

  The four foreigners were three men and a woman, seated at a large table to one side of the room. The woman was middle-aged and full-figured, wearing a white blouse embroidered in two shades of blue; the men wore brown cloaks with hoods thrown back. All four had the dark hair and dark complexions common in the far south, but were otherwise unremarkable.

  Gita took his hand and led Emmis directly to them.