The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [61]
“Does it speak?” asked Betriz.
“Yes,” said Umegat, “but only rude words. In Roknari, perhaps fortunately. I think it must have once been a sailor’s bird. March dy Jironal brought it back from the north this spring, as war booty.”
Reports and rumors of that inconclusive campaign had come to Valenda. Cazaril wondered if Umegat had ever been war booty—as he had been—and if that was how he’d first been brought to Chalion. He said dryly, “Pretty bird, but it seems a poor trade for three towns and control of a pass.”
“I believe Lord dy Jironal gained rather more movables than that,” Umegat said. “His baggage train, returning to Cardegoss, took an hour to file through the gates.”
“I’ve had to deal with slow mules like that, too,” murmured Cazaril, unimpressed. “Chalion lost more than dy Jironal gained on that ill-conceived venture.”
Iselle’s eyebrows bent. “Was it not a victory?”
“By what definition? We and the Roknari princedoms have been pushing and shoving over that border area for decades. It used to be good land—it’s now a waste. Orchards and olive groves and vineyards burned, farms abandoned, animals turned loose to go wild or starve—it’s peace, not war, that makes wealth for a country. War just transfers possession of the residue from the weaker to the stronger. Worse, what is bought with blood is sold for coin, and then stolen back again.” He brooded, and added bitterly, “Your grandfather Roya Fonsa bought Gotorget with the lives of his sons. It was sold by March dy Jironal for three hundred thousand royals. It’s a wondrous transmutation, where the blood of one man is turned into the money of another. Lead into gold is nothing to it.”
“Can there never be peace in the north?” asked Betriz, startled by his unusual vehemence.
Cazaril shrugged. “Not while there is so much profit in war. The Roknari princes play the same game. It is a universal corruption.”
“Winning the war would end it,” said Iselle thoughtfully.
“Now there’s a dream,” sighed Cazaril. “If the roya could sneak it past his nobles without their noticing they were losing their future livelihoods. But no. It’s just not possible. Chalion alone could not defeat all five princedoms, and even if by some miracle it did, it has no naval expertise to hold the coasts thereafter. If all the Quintarian royacies were to combine, and fight hard for a generation, some immensely strong and determined roya might push it through and unite the whole land. But the cost in men and nerve and money would be vast.”
Iselle said slowly, “Greater than the cost of this endless sucking drain of blood and virtue to the north? Done once—done right once—would be done for all time.”
“But there is none to do it. No man with the nerve and vision and will. The roya of Brajar is an aging drunkard who sports with his court ladies, the Fox of Ibra is tied down with civil strife, Chalion…” Cazaril hesitated, realizing his stirred emotions were luring him into impolitic frankness.
“Teidez,” Iselle began, and took a breath. “Maybe it will be Teidez’s gift, when he comes to full manhood.”
Not a gift Cazaril would wish on any man, and yet the boy did seem to have some nascent talents in that direction, if only his education in the next few years could bring them into sharp and directed focus.
“Conquest isn’t the only way to unite peoples,” Betriz pointed out. “There’s marriage.”
“Yes, but no one can marry three royacies and five princedoms,” Iselle said, wrinkling her nose. “Not all at once, anyway.”
The green bird, perhaps irritated at losing the attention of its audience, chose this moment to vent a remarkably lewd phrase in rude Roknari. Sailor’s bird, indeed—a galley-man’s bird, Cazaril judged. Umegat smiled dryly at Cazaril’s involuntary snort but raised his brows slightly as Betriz and Iselle clamped their lips shut and turned a suffused pink, caught each other’s gazes, and nearly lost their gravity. Smoothly, he reached for a hood and popped it over the bird’s head. “Good night, my green friend,” he told it. “I think