The scent of onions, sharp and stringent, rose unbidden to Trel’s nose. He
angrily scrubbed a meticulously manicured hand across the back of his face and
scowled across the distance toward the village of Stewartsville that sprawled
lazily before him, its collection of green fields and modest homes laid out like
a patchwork quilt.
Harman, his personal manservant, looked over at Trel from his perch atop his
chestnut gelding. “Is something wrong, my lord,” he asked, his round face
registering concern. “You are not unwell, I trust?”
“Nay. Nothing wrong,” Trel snapped. “Let’s keep going.” He roughly
booted his charger in the ribs and began a brisk trot toward the village.
It was the damned village, he told himself, that brought that despised aroma
back to him. All those daub and wattle houses, those muddy, bug-infested
fieldsâ€"all signposts that pointed their way back over his shoulder, back down
the road of his life to his distant childhood.
Take any human farming village in the Basin, and you were likely to find the
same setting. He knew this; it was a simple matter of logic and common sense.
But by the same token, Trel had ardently made it his life’s work to avoid such
places as a matter of course. Life among the incessantly competitive Magnagorans
was difficult enough without the constant distractions of his early
memoriesâ€"and besides, he had no interest whatsoever in working amongst the
villages of the Basin, attempting with words and deeds to convince them to
support the bastion of the east.
But his life’s pursuits and his own preferences were of no import to Keran
Tal, secretary to the high ambassador.
“It would be a great service to His Excellency, you understand,” the wiry
viscanti had hissed between his thin lips, steepling his fingers and leaning
across his desk toward Trel. “Stewartsville is a plum ripe for the plucking,
and we already have our arm raised to catch it. All you need do is open your
hand.”
Trel opened his mouth to reply, then closed it. The use of the word “plum”
had been quite intentional, he had no doubt.
Tal, though, who never missed a blink or twitch, could not resist the
opportunity to drive the point home. “You know the importance of the hemp
trade, and you are well acquainted with the exorbitant prices we have been
forced to pay to keep the city well-supplied with rope and cloth. With Delport
firmly beneath the thumb of the Serenwilde for the past several years, and the
citizens of Stewartsville swearing life and allegiance to New Celest, we have
had precious little opportunity to wedge a foot between the door and jamb.”
“But with the recent success of our ... men and women in the field, we now
have an unparalleled opportunity to sway the minds of Lady Stewart and the
village council. If we can bring those country bumpkins to our way of thinking
with only a few well-placed words and a handful of empty promises, we will
greatly enhance our position in this never-ending conflict.”
“And besides,” Tal leaned backward on his stool and spread his
long-fingered hands wide. “When one of the city’s most successful diplomats
just happens to have roots in such a place, can you blame His Excellency for
choosing that diplomat?”
That, of course, was the crux of the whole problem. In a city where word and
deed counted in equal measure, where prestige and altitude were gained through
diligence and persistence, one was never free to rest on one’s laurels. To
maintain the well-deserved reputation for excellence Trel had cultivated over
the years, he had no choice but to return to those roots, to face the old men
with their dusty teeth, the old women and their perpetual sun-baked frowns, the
dirty, naked children and their thrice-damned ignoranceâ€"and if a higher rank
and greater standing came out of this accursed venture, then he assuredly
deserved them.
The village of Stewartsville was a modest collection of sturdy homes and
well-tended farms which lay upon the shores of the inner sea. The people of the
town were known to be peaceful, hard-working folk who put home, hearth, and
common sense first and foremost among their virtues. Noble sentiments, Trel
thought darkly, except for one small flaw. Homes and hearths could be improved
with more money, and common sense dictated to more than a few of
Stewartsville’s citizens that a change in trade negotiations could mean a
drastic increase in that most precious of life’s pursuits. In a world torn by
constant strife and warfare between the four great powers of the Basin, there
was always a need for the goods and services that Stewartsville provided, and as
long as the people of this land were free to continue to live in peace without
the fear of bloodshed or conscription, they would have no qualms about being
shrewd traders insofar as their goods and services were concerned.
And so the cycle continued much as it had for centuries. Stewartsville, like
the other villages of the Basin, would pledge its loyalty and support to one of
the four powers and offer that city or commune exclusive trade agreements. And
then some country hick or otherâ€"usually with the aid of a well-planted
“diplomat” or greased palmâ€"would suddenly get the notion that perhaps life
might be more favorableâ€"not to mention prosperousâ€"if he and his fellow
citizens changed sides in the great war. “Now I don’t hold with all the
beliefs of those fanatical Glomdoring witches,” he might confide to his
neighbors over a horn of ale. “But I sure wouldn’t mind if those stingy
Celestians paid us a few more sovereigns for a bail of hempâ€"and if they
won’t pay it, maybe Glomdoring will, you know?”
This small shift in thinking would quickly set off a chain reaction of new
ideas and possibilities for the villagers, and before long a veritable tidal
wave of controversy would sweep the village from the shores of placid existence
into the churning depths of revolt. A storm of town hall meetings would quickly
take place; gatherings would spring up as readily as weeds in Summer. Brother
would argue with brother., longtime neighbors would be reminded of old grudges,
gatherings of washerwomen at the river would suddenly erupt into vigorous
shouting matchesâ€"and as if by magic all work would cease.
This put quite an interesting strain on whichever power currently held sway
with the rebellious village. Its citizens and soldiers needed the production of
hemp or meat or wool to resume, but it could not commit military forces to the
struggle lest it leave itself open to attack from one of its enemies.
And so that city would summon its diplomats and send them forth to bandy sweet
words with the citizens and the ruling councils, the farmers and the governors
alike, each man and woman arrayed in their finest garments and jewels, ruffled
and primped like peacocks bound for a battlefield. At the same time the other
cities and communes of the Basin, sensing a possible gain in status, would send
their own diplomats into the village in an attempt to convince them that life
and trade would certainly be more profitable should the citizens ally themselves
with a newâ€"and far superiorâ€"governing power.
It was a time for festivals and stump speeches, presentations and
exhibitionsâ€"and as far as the villagers were concernedâ€"a general time of
merriment and celebration. They knew that when the treaties had been signed and
the diplomats left town, life would resume as it always hadâ€"with the exception
that now each one of them would have a few more golden sovereigns to squirrel
away in their private stashes regardless of the outcome.
For the diplomats, however, this revolt meant war, albeit a war fought with
words and promises rather than swords and spears. It was just one more battle in
the ongoing struggle for control of the Basin, and whether the villagers in
their revelry knew it or not, it was a battle on which the threads of countless
lives could depend.
Trel Merandin was not a veteran of such battles; in fact he ardently avoided
them. He much preferred the company of like individualsâ€"high-ranking
diplomats, heads of noble houses, ruling council membersâ€"to common folk who
passed their days squatting in muddy fields or milking cattle. He was at home at
banquet tables, in well-appointed studies and parlors, and in grand halls where
heads of state convened governing and legislative sessions. He was not one to
raise a glass with working men at a local tavern or deliver passionate speeches
to the masses at a public forum. In almost every other instance a man with
Trel’s talents and aspirations would have been kept busy with affairs in
Magnagora itself rather than being dispatched to some remote farming village
miles from the city, but the particular village of Stewartsville was of an
altogether different sort than many of the basin’s other settlements.
For time out of mind Stewartsville had been ruled comfortably by members of the
Stewart family, an aristocratic brood of displaced nobles who mightâ€"had
circumstances been vastly differentâ€"have been able to create for themselves a
small kingdom by the sea. Unfortunately for the Stewarts, the war had long ago
been joined by the time they set down their roots and began to plant their
crops, and there was no room in the Basin for a fifth superpowerâ€"especially
one which insisted on peace. Nevertheless, the Stewart family created for
themselves a tiny agricultural haven amongst the constant feuding, and because
they managed to secure relative peace within their modest borders, the citizenry
adored them for it. Though other families rose to prominence over the years, it
was always the Stewarts who held benevolent sway over the hearts and minds of
the citizens, and it was their suggestions and proposals that the townsfolk
usually acceded to.
Trel was quite confident in his ability to work in such an environmentâ€"one
in which diplomacy was served from the pinnacle rather than the baseâ€"and in
almost any other circumstance he would have been comfortable with the
assignment. But it was the village itself which stirred uneasy feelings in the
pit of his stomach and brought back distant, long-suppressed memories. Try as he
might he could not shake the nagging doubts that hovered just at the edge of his
perception. The doubts, the memories, and that damned smell of onions.