After the Guns Fall Silent

Light spilled over the huge polished table littered with papers. No air moved in the green velvet curtains draped at the long windows though the windows were flung wide open. The dark wood panelling of the walls, the low ceiling smoky from candle-lit conferences going on into the night seemed to increase the weight of the hot humid atmosphere, to press the distressed faces of the long-haired council clerks into frowns and scowls and force their clashing voices into shriller and more anguished tones.

Lord Pava el Maien van Sietter, Privy Councillor and King's Representative for Foreign Affairs, sat absolutely still. His chin was in one cupped hand, his other arm lay negligently over the back of his chair. His long thin body in its flowing green robe looked relaxed but his cold grey eyes in his aristocratic close-cropped head were fixed to the man sitting opposite him.

General-Lord Esha el Gaiel van H'las had pulled back his chair from the table as if to separate himself physically from the hysterical frenzy of the clerks. He wore a red robe but was clearly a soldier: broad and bluff with short greying hair, a neat beard and gentle brown eyes.

Lord van Sietter felt an almost intellectual interest in what van H'las' next move might be. He knew van H'las could come up with tactics in politics as great as those he demonstrated in warfare. He had good cause to know how great a tactician van H'las was in warfare.

General-Lord van H'las suddenly stood up. He thumped one fist on the table, making jugs and glasses jingle. The council clerks slowly fell silent.

"We cannot talk here," van H'las said, looking intently into the motionless pale face opposite him.

van Sietter removed his chin from his hand and said to a footman: "Fetch two chairs."

They walked through the long windows into the brilliant harsh sunshine outside. They sat down where no one would overhear them, in the middle of the long green palace lawns, at some distance from the sandy paths and neat hedges. The garden had been cleared of the large numbers of staff who maintained perfectly clipped lush lawns in the baking heat of summer at the palace. The long-haired clerks clustered in the windows in their dark robes, staring. The two aristocrats sat side by side in the hot sunshine heedless of the extravagance of the fresh green lawns.

van Sietter and van H'las had met in this way seven times. The bitter war they had fought had ended in stalemate. Since then, they had over-taxed merchants until it was cheaper to travel to court by a route twice as long as the one through their lands. Merchants right across the country were trying to work out what they wanted and begging the council clerks to give it them.

van H'las said bluntly, looking with frank clear eyes into van Sietter's face: "Let us bind our families with a tie."

van Sietter raised one eyebrow, staring coldly away down the hot empty green lawn. "I have come here willing to discuss a mutual lowering of taxes," he said.

"How long would such an agreement last?" van H'las asked. He opened his arms and stretched his hands out to van Sietter. "Let us give the merchants a guarantee of the goodwill that should lie between our lands. We are one body, el Maien. My port is the left hand, your Maier Pass the right hand to our prosperity. Let us bind our families closer."

van Sietter turned to look at him from a completely expressionless face. He did not seem to understand what van H'las was hinting at. van H'las frowned, impatient that van Sietter was being slow when there was so obvious a tie they could make between their families.

"I have one son," van H'las went on. How much more did he have to say? van Sietter was still staring blankly at him. "He is my only child, the future sworn Lord. Commander of an H'las troop, a fine boy, intelligent ... sweet-tempered." He gritted his teeth at this disgusting necessity to describe his own Vadyan as if his son were some horse he were selling to the dealers.

van Sietter said: "Do you want me to place my son in his troop?"

van H'las said angrily: "You forget that I know Lord Clair el Maien. I saw him come to court to plead with us for peace. I know it well that he is a Commander himself. I am not seeking to insult you by asking him to serve under my son!"

van Sietter said: "I did not mean my oldest son."

"You have another son?" van H'las asked in surprise. "If you have a younger son .... Is he commissioned? In what troop?"

van Sietter sat silent by his side then said, "my sons are both former officers of Fourth Sietter." van H'las scowled at the mention of this particular troop. "My younger son's current designation is ... privy." van H'las' eyes flicked in puzzlement. van Sietter's grey eye turned with his habitual cold expressionless stare in it. "You are not asking for one of my sons to be placed in your son's troop," he stated.

"N-no," van H'las said hesitantly. "I am asking, I am thinking .... I have not yet sought to arrange a marriage for Vadya."

van Sietter's eyes opened wide then suddenly he laughed. "Sweet Hell!" he exclaimed, his face lit up in the sunshine. This suggestion pleased him far beyond what van H'las had expected. "Of course. Dear Anastelle, the flower of my family's honour. Angel of Grace! Well .... Do you know much of her? My daughter. The daughter of the el Maiens."

"I came to the child's Angel blessing," van H'las said, eyeing van Sietter mistrustfully. "My wife was, um, Lady el F'lara's cousin." He turned his eyes away in embarrassment.

Lord van Sietter's first wife had been a famous beauty: a Northern heartbreaker with exquisite slanted dark blue eyes, a creamy magnolia petal face and a mouth bunched like a rose-petal. van H'las knew that van Sietter's oldest son had inherited his mother's beauty; he had seen him in the King's Council on his knees to plead for peace. Commander-Lord Clair el Maien had lifted a face back then twisted with an agony that was made the more appealing by heartbreakingly lovely Northern features. They still said of him that he was the most desirable man at court.