The Walls of Air Page 0,109

to baby-sit the convoy down from Karst when he could have been on his way to Quo already. And, she reflected wryly, getting damn little thanks for his trouble.

Why do I care? she wondered desperately. Why am I concerned, why do I fear this way for him and grieve with him in his grief? This world is none of mine 'and I'll be returning to my own, to a place where the sun shines and there's always enough to eat. Why do I hurt this way?

But as Ingold always said, the question was the answer. Always provided, she added wryly, you want an answer that badlv.

'Gil?'

She looked up. Minalde blew out the touchlight she carried and stepped through the thin veil of its smoke. She looked white and tired, as if from exhausting labour. As she stepped into the tiny circle of the lamplight, Gil could see she had been crying.

There was no need to ask why. Gil knew there'd been a Council that evening, and Aide was still dressed for it, the high-necked black velvet of her gown sewn with the gold eagles of the House of Dare that glittered as if she had been sprinkled with fire. The braided coils of her hair flashed with jewels. This was Aide as Queen, and very different from the girl in her thin peasant skirts and worn bodice who hurried so eagerly through the corridors of the Keep.

She brought up a folding chair and sat down, mechanically stripping the rings from her fingers and her ears, her face as unmoving as wax. Gil sat opposite her, watching in silence, toying self-consciously with her curlicued silver hairpin.

After a long time Aide said shakily, 'I wish he wouldn't do this to me.' Her trembling fingers dropped a ring, a signet carved out of a single blood ruby.

'How did the Council go?' Gil asked gently, to get her talking.

Aide shook her head, pressing her folded hands against her mouth to keep it from trembling. Finally she steadied her voice. 'I don't know why it keeps on hurting me when he gets like this, but it does. Gil, I know I'm right. Maybe I am wanting -

wanting to eat my cake and still have it to look at, at the expense of our allies. But they can afford to feed their own troops. We can't, not if we're going to have enough seed in the spring to mean anything. And yes, I know we had trade commitments to them for corn and cattle, but those were made years ago, and everything's changed. And yes, I know I'm trying to welsh out of a bad debt when the going gets tough, but God damn it, Gil, what can we do?' Her voice rose, cracking, skimming almost unnoticed over the first swearword Gil had ever heard her utter. 'But I'm not going to buy our way out of those debts by signing away part of the Realm! I've learned enough from you and Govannin about legal precedents for that. If I sign that treaty...'

'Wait a minute,' Gil said, trying to cut the rising flood of fury and pain and guilt. 'What treaty? What part of the Realm do they want you to sign away?'

The words broke the flow of Aide's emotions as a rock breaks the coming of a wave, reducing its force. She sat still for a moment, her white fingers stirring at the little heap of jewels before her, like miniature coals dyed with reflected flames of crimson, azure, and gold. 'Penambra,' she said finally.

'Penambra!' Gil cried, horrified. 'That's like selling New Orleans to the Cubans! That seaport's the key to the whole Round Sea. If you sign it over to the Alketch, they'd hold that whole coastline!'

Aide looked up hopelessly. 'I know,' she said. 'And I know it's flooded and there's nothing there but the Dark and ghouls and ruins. It's worthless to us; we can't hold it if we don't get a - a bridgehead at Gae. Alwir says that would be paying the Emperor of Alketch in counterfeit coin, and we can always take it back. He wants a bargain with Stiarth at any cost.'

'You didn't sign, did you?' Gil asked worriedly.

Aide shook her head. 'Afterward, he said I'd ruined us all.' She sniffed and wiped at her nose, the fine-carved nostrils red and raw. 'He said I'd condemned us to rotting here in the Keep while the Realm was hacked apart piecemeal between the White Raiders and Alketch, all because I