The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [122]
“Yes,” Cazio said. “It seems very unnatural.”
“It is. And so when a dike is broken or opened up, it all floods again. But why didn’t they wait until we were here, marching across the poel, before they opened it? That way we might have been drowned.”
“That would have been too risky,” Artwair explained. “If the wind is blowing the wrong way, it can take a long time for the poel to fill, and we might have made it across. This way Robert has made our task very, very difficult.”
“Yet we still have our boats,” Cazio pointed out.
“Auy,” Artwair replied. “But look there, though the mist.”
He pointed at the base of the great hill. Anne recognized the shadowy shapes, but Cazio didn’t know where to look.
“Are those ships?” he finally asked.
“Ships,” Artwair confirmed. “I’ll wager that when the fog lifts, we’ll see nearly the whole fleet. Warships, Cazio. They couldn’t have maneuvered very well in the river channel, but now they’ve got a lake. We might have slipped across the Dew and set up a beachhead, but now we have to cross all of that, in full view of the imperial fleet.”
“Can we?” Cazio asked.
“No,” Artwair said.
“There’s more than one approach to Eslen, though,” Neil said. “What about the south side, the Warlock side? Have they flooded the poelen there, as well?”
“That we don’t know, not yet,” Artwair admitted. “But even if that side hasn’t been flooded, it’s a very hard approach. The rinns are difficult to march through and easily defended by a few archers on the heights. And then there are the hills: difficult to take but easy to defend.
“But you’re exactly right. We need to send someone around the island. A small group, I think, one that can move quickly, quietly, unseen.”
“That sounds like the sort of thing I might be able to do,” Cazio volunteered.
“No,” Anne, Neil, and Austra said at the same time.
“What good am I otherwise?” the swordsman asked irritably.
“You’re an excellent bodyguard,” Neil said. “Her Majesty needs you here.”
“Besides,” Anne said, “you don’t know the terrain. I’m sure the duke will have good men chosen for the task.”
“Yes,” Artwair said. “I’ll pick a few parties. But you know Eslen as well as anyone here, Anne. What do you think? Have you any ideas?”
“You’ve sent word to our kin in Virgenya?”
“Yes,” Artwair said. “But the well has been poisoned, you know. Robert’s cuveiturs went ahead of us with stories of how your mother was in the process of handing the throne to Liery.”
“And yet my uncle would give the country to Hansa. Which would they prefer?”
“Neither, let us hope,” Artwair replied. “I’ve told them that if they fight with you, we can keep a Dare on the throne, one who will lean toward Virgenya. But it’s complicated. Many in Virgenya would prefer to see a high king back on their own throne, with no emperor in Eslen to lord over them. Even if he—or she—is one of their own.
“That group reckons that Hansa would be content with Crotheny and let Virgenya go its own way.”
“Oh,” Anne said.
“Auy. And even if they started today, it would be months before Virgenyan troops could arrive over land, and almost as long by sea, considering that they’d have to sail the Straits of Rusimmi to get here. No, I think we must plan this without counting on Virgenya.”
Cazio pointed. “What’s that?” he asked.
Anne followed the direction of the Vitellian’s finger. A small craft was approaching, a canal boat flying the colors of Eslen.
“That will be Robert’s emissary,” Artwair said. “Probably come to arrange a meeting. We might as well see what my cousin has to say before we make too many plans.”
As the boat approached, Anne realized with a tightening of her gut that the emissary was none other than Robert himself.
His familiar face peered at her from underneath a black cap and the golden circlet her father used to wear for less formal state occasions. He was seated in the center of the boat, in an armchair, attended by figures in black. She couldn’t see any archers or, in fact, any weapons at all.
She had the sudden profound