Two Kingdoms 50 - Diplomacy

[DoctorM]

TWO KINGDOMS 50: DIPLOMACY

This is the fiftieth part of an AU construction about a Gwynedd where the duel at Kelson Haldane's coronation went very differently indeed. We are now nearly three years into the Gwynedd Wars-- Charissa's new kingdom at Valoret against the Haldanes in the south and the kingdom of Torenth in the east. This episode follows some time after "Dancers" and "Borders". As always, comments and suggestions are very much appreciated.

****

Magister Cleirac and the bird are staring at one another across the empty room. There behind the lanner falcon the Shadow Queen is perched on a high stool. Next to her is a small wooden cart with a tray of imping tools, and she's bent over her lanneret, scraping at the shaft of a broken feather.

Cleirac's chair is in the center of the room, and he's been put there and left in silence. He's come to meet the Shadow Queen in his full academic regalia, and she's kept him waiting without a word long enough for him to become deeply uneasy. He's been in Valoret for two weeks now, and there hasn't been a single hour when he hasn't wished he was back in Bremagne.

There's nothing at Valoret that's made Cleirac feel at ease. There are Moorish guards throughout the inner rooms of the new royal residence, and Etienne de Cleirac is Bremagni enough to feel his jaw clench every time he has to walk past armed Moors. The court itself is nothing like Remigny or the great palace at Millefleurs. There's a kind of feral informality here, all side by side with archaic rituals presumably brought from the Shadow Queen's homeland in the East. He's been left to himself with his servants in guest rooms that are just barely suitable for someone of his rank and mission.

The lanneret swivels its head to look back at the Queen. The Queen is Deryni, and for all Cleirac knows, the Queen is reading its mind or looking out at him through the bird's eyes.

The Queen is fitting the broken feather into a new shaft. She's brushing glue across the join with a fine brush. She speaks without looking up. "You have academic rank," she says. "I suppose we can call you Magister, then."

Cleirac starts. "Yes, your Grace," he manages. "I'm a Magister at Remigny, and I'm also named a Doctor there. A Doctor of Laws."

"Elsewhere as well, I believe." She's finally looking up from the bird.

"I hold an appointment at the School of Nations at Millefleurs," he says. "King Ryol has made me vice-chancellor there." He's very much aware of how empty the room is, and of the space around the chair. It's all too much like being in some inquisitor's chambers, too much like being interrogated.

The Shadow Queen tilts her head. She's arranged her face into the most formal of smiles. "The School of Nations," she says. "King Ryol's academy for diplomats. I congratulate you on that. My husband and my State Inquisitor both say that when the Gwynedd wars are done, we'll have one of those at Valoret. What sort of law do you teach, Magister?"

He bows his head. By all rights, he should be standing to bow, but he's been put into this chair and the queen hasn't told him to move. More than that, the Shadow Queen already knows the answer to every question she's asking. "Maritime law, your Grace," Cleirac says. "I teach maritime law. And the law of nations— the laws of diplomatic usage."

The Shadow Queen reaches down for another imping tool. She holds up a fine-bladed knife. "Maritime law," she echoes. "So now we come to it. The king of Bremagne has sent a Doctor of the maritime law to my court. You came with a message from King Ryol, but yet you aren't accredited as an actual ambassador. Let's talk about your mission, Master Cleirac."

The bird is looking at Cleirac again, and he thinks that its gaze is far too like the queen's. He takes a breath. He's trying to think, but he's afraid: what if this Deryni queen is reading his mind while he thinks?

"Your Grace," he finally says, "my king has sent me to Valoret to talk about what's happening at sea off the Atalantic coast. Bremagni vessels are being attacked and taken by ships reputed to be flying your banners. Two towns on the Finisterre coast have been raided by unknown galleys carrying unknown soldiers. At Millefleurs the king's officers believe these ships to be in your employ."

Charissa is cutting away at a damaged shaft with the imping knife. "There's a war all across the Eleven Kingdoms," she says. "You can't be surprised if it spills into the seas. And I'll note that these galleys are...unknown. As you've said. There are ships out there that someone says are flying Leopard banners. Banners aren't hard to make, are they? I'll note that pirates can sew, Magister. I'm taking it that you have no tangible evidence, then."

Cleirac sits straighter in his chair. "Your Grace will know that Bremagne has remained neutral in the Gwynedd wars. These galleys, these raiders— they are preying on neutral shipping. They have attacked my master's lands and burned villages in a neutral state."

Charissa looks up at him. "I would dispute that word, Magister— neutral. My own ministers and officers would very much dispute that word. This may not be the worst-kept secret in the Eleven Kingdoms, but it must be close— Bremagne is helping to fund the Haldanes' war. Bremagne is paying for mercenaries from Howicce-and-Llannedd to support the Haldane armies. There are Bremagni knights and men-at-arms filtering unannounced into Gwynedd. My intelligencers say that fifteen hundred sell-swords were hired out of Llannedd to fight alongside Nigel Haldane and his captains." The Shadow Queen smiles. "Those are the people who burned Rhemuth city when Nigel Haldane took it— that's known all through the Gwynedd south, Magister. So I dispute any use of neutral here."

Cleirac takes another breath. He's watching the Shadow Queen's face. He's used to ladies at court at Millefleurs; he's never encountered a reigning duchess, let alone a reigning queen. Women shouldn't be on a throne, and this young woman is a frightening creature.

Too tall, too gaunt, too cold. She has sapphire-blue eyes, but they're colder  than her bird's eyes. He looks at the long scar across her nose and cheek. Deryni in the East had Healers; he knows this. Why did she leave the scar? She's known to have killed a king by sorcery, and she's whispered— he has no idea if it's true —to have had a hand in killing two more.

Her Bremagni, he notes, is perfect court Bremagni, even if there's something odd, something a generation or two behind the times in the formal phrasing, something from Millefleurs Palace in his grandfather's day. Who taught her Bremagni? Where did she learn it? He holds up a hand in a well-practiced diplomatic gesture.

"You Grace," he says, "King Ryol has issued proclamations of neutrality in the Gwynedd wars. His officials and vassals would of course be obedient to that, But it's hardly a secret that there are numerous ties between the House of Haldane and the royal house of Bremagne. There is a great deal of support for the Haldane cause among the nobles of Bremagne. Many of them have ties of blood and marriage in Gwynedd. It's possible that some few knights or minor lords have come to Gwynedd as...volunteers. If King Ryol were made aware of who and where such individuals might be, I'm certain he would command these few mere adventurers to return to Bremagne at once. My master takes his declaration of neutrality very seriously. Just as he takes the neutral status of Bremagni commerce in the western ocean very seriously. My mission here is to raise the issue of restitution for ships of His Majesty King Ryol's kingdom— and the king's own personal demesne —attacked on the open seas."

"No," Charissa says, "it isn't. That isn't your mission at all." She caresses a newly-repaired feather with one fingertip. Her lanneret stretches under her touch. She looks at Cleirac with nothing at all in her face. "Your king didn't send his favourite Doctor of Laws here to talk about the value of cargos taken by pirates or about coastal raids by unknown ships in Finisterre. Those aren't rare events, Magister— not rare in my lifetime, not rare in yours. Your king has you coming all the way across Meara and the Connait to Valoret because he wants to know what I'm doing here. He wants to know if I'm likely to be on a throne this time next year. You're his scout. You're here to tell King Ryol whether or not I'm worth taking seriously. You know that, I know that, my intelligencers and my inquisitors know that."

Cleirac leans forward in the chair. His academic robes in Remigny colours fall around him. "Your Grace, I'm hardly a spy. I'm King Ryol's envoy—"

"Yet not an accredited one," Charissa says. Her accent is as good as any courtier's at Millefleurs. "My justiciar read your letter of introduction very closely. So it seems you're without the usual diplomatic protections."

Cleirac has to retrace his thoughts. "Your Grace— there are men at the School of Nations, men who are versed in the laws of diplomacy, men who are masters of heraldry, who have argued that you have very little claim in successions law to the Gwynedd crown. Certainly King Ryol wishes to settle these maritime issues and discuss restitution— but my master wishes to know what your reign at Valoret is based upon. The kingdom of Bremagne is neutral in the Gwynedd wars, but to remain neutral we must be sure that this is a war between legitimate claimants to the Gwynedd crown—"

She cuts him off. "What you mean is what I said. You want to know if I'm going to be alive next year and the year after. Trade goes on. It always does. They want to know in Millefleurs Palace if they need to reach some arrangement with me or if they can just send money and men north and be the ones the Haldanes owe a throne to. You're here to tell them about that."

"Your Grace— you and your kingdom are...an anomaly. No one has conjured up a new kingdom in centuries. You've given your new kingdom a new name; no one knows what that means. Legitimacy matters, your Grace. King Ryol and his lords need to know that there are two legitimate sides in the Gwynedd wars. Bremagne has strong ties to the Haldanes. Your Grace, we can be neutral in a war between legitimate claimants in legitimate kingdoms, but—"

"But what you're trying so very hard not to say is that if I looks like I'm going to lose, Bremagne can support the Haldanes openly. That's translated from academic speech."

She picks up a tool with a thin spike and regards the tip. "I'm not going to lose. I'll be in Valoret for a very long time, and the heirs of my body will be here longer. I'm going to hold a kingdom, and I'm going to take and hold all of Haldane Gwynedd. Tell them that at Millefleurs."

"If your Grace's claim is—"

"My claim?" Charissa takes a feather from the tray and works the spike into the shaft. She's not looking at Cleirac. She holds the feather up to the light. "So the question is my legitimacy as a claimant to the throne."

Cleirac spreads his hands. "Your Grace, your ancestors once ruled Gwynedd, but it's been two hundred years since. Your position within the Furstan bloodline is—"

"Festil." Charissa puts the feather down and looks hard at Cleirac. "Not Furstan. Festil. I don't use the Furstan name. I don't care what lines on a chart the heralds can draw."

"But, your Grace—"

Charissa puts the feather back on the tray. "My claim is simple enough. It's sword-right. I hold my kingdom by sword-right. You can tell King Ryol that. Tolan-and-the-West is a sword-won kingdom. The day I walked into Rhemuth cathedral, that was the right I had— sword-right."

Cleirac blinks. "But your Grace, sword-right is a mere brigand's claim. Any hilltop robber chieftain can sit in his fort and claim land by sword-right."

"That's exactly what robber chieftains do," the Shadow Queen says. "And it's what every king does. If you go back to where kingdoms start, sword-right is how they begin. Augarin Haldane made himself king of Gwynedd by right of the sword; that was five hundred years ago. A hundred years before that, King Erispoé made Bremagne a kingdom by devouring all the other little kingdoms on the coast."

She looks at Cleirac and arranges her face into one of her colder smiles. "My husband," she says, "knows history. If something happened a thousand years ago and a thousand miles away, he can tell you about it. So I know how kingdoms form."

The bird is staring at him again. Cleirac has known envoys who've fallen foul of princes before, men who'd said one word wrong on missions to Moorish courts or Forcinn princelings and spent years in dungeons. The Shadow Queen has killed a king with her own hand— maybe she's killed three —and it's all too easy to imagine what this freakish girl might do if angered. For a moment he has a vision of the lanneret coming up off the table and coming at his face with its talons. 

"My master," he begins, "wishes very much to remain neutral in the Gwynedd wars. He simply wishes—"

"He wants very much to be taken for neutral while he pays for Haldane armies. That's what he wants." The Shadow Queen is tracing a long finger over her bird's back. "If King Ryol wants to be treated as a neutral, he can act like a neutral. Go to Millefleurs and tell King Ryol and his ministers that I have nothing to do with piracy in the western ocean. Tell him that you've told me in turn that there are only a few Bremagni adventurers coming north to the Haldanes, and coming without his permission." The bird looks back at her and stretches itself towards the queen. "We might even believe each other, Ryol and I."

Charissa looks past the lanneret to Cleirac. "Tell King Ryol that I control my captains at sea just as much as he controls his knights by land. Tell him that I'll treat Bremagne as a neutral power just as much as Bremagne behaves as a neutral in the Gwynedd wars. Tell him that I'm at Valoret and that the Leopards will be flying here long after Ryol and I are both dust in our royal tombs. Tell him that I'm a queen by sword-right and that I'll defend everything I have with the edge of the sword. If he wants to send a fully-accredited ambassador, I'm ready to receive him. Trade does go on, after all. Tell him that if he wants to keep sending money and men to the Haldanes, then I'm ready for that as well. Tell them all at Thousand-Flowers that sometimes Leopards can cross the sea."

[Jerusha]

Not a woman I would want to cross.  Luckily Magister Cleirac managed to escape her claws, as well as the bird's.

[tmcd]

"But your Grace, sword-right is a mere brigand's claim."

Well, Henry II, W. L. Warren (free with a book club decades ago), had an interesting bit on that, in Our Time Line's 1100s. "Self-help" had some laws against it, increasingly in Hank 2's time, but taking land by force was not 100% illegitimate. Especially in REtaking land.

[DoctorM]

I remember reading Warren's "King John" a long time ago. You do find interesting citations!

"But your Grace, sword-right is a mere brigand's claim."

Well, Henry II, W. L. Warren (free with a book club decades ago), had an interesting bit on that, in Our Time Line's 1100s. "Self-help" had some laws against it, increasingly in Hank 2's time, but taking land by force was not 100% illegitimate. Especially in REtaking land.

[DoctorM]

Raptor birds are amazing and fascinating. If you haven't read a classic little book called "The Peregrine" (J.A. Baker), you really should. It's magnificent. Nonetheless, I'd hate to be the target of a hungry or angry falcon.

Not a woman I would want to cross.  Luckily Magister Cleirac managed to escape her claws, as well as the bird's.

[tmcd]

Like I mentioned, it was a set from a book club. I got my parents to buy the 7 volumes from a bookstore at the beach one year ($70 in the 1980s!). Henry II Plantagenet is my favoriteist king EVAR!!!1! Inter alia, he has an interesting story.

[DoctorM]

I like sets like that. I remember finding all of Thos. Costain's Plantagenet series in a used bookstore and just being thrilled by the biographies. (I rather like Henry II, too)

Like I mentioned, it was a set from a book club. I got my parents to buy the 7 volumes from a bookstore at the beach one year ($70 in the 1980s!). Henry II Plantagenet is my favoriteist king EVAR!!!1! Inter alia, he has an interesting story.