Ambassador (Conqueror of Isles Book 1) Read online

  Copyright 2020 by Stephen L. Hadley

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  Conqueror of Isles:

  Ambassador

  By Stephen L. Hadley

  Chapter One

  It had been nearly three months since Elias Ansiri had visited his wife’s sepulcher. The long absence should have made him feel guilty—he’d visited every day for the first six months after Catherine’s death to light incense and whisper the requisite prayers to guide her spirit to its final home. Instead, he found that the small, stone crypt filled him more with a peculiar listlessness than guilt. The two years that she’d been gone was nearly twice the length they’d been married, after all.

  Still, he didn’t leave. He’d spent the half-hour walk from his home at the center of Islesmark to the northern mausoleum yard dwelling on far more mundane issues. The least he could do was observe the necessities.

  The candle he’d retrieved on his way in had burned low enough to sting his fingers so rather than light the incense properly, he simply laid it atop the pile of incense left over from his last visit. Despite its age, the chalky powder ignited quickly, filling the crypt with its thick, heady aroma by the time he retook his seat on the stone bench opposite. Lifting his hands, Elias allowed his gaze to wander to the bronze statue of the three-legged god resting in its alcove above his wife’s remains.

  He didn’t pray—not personally, at least. He hadn’t done that once in the past two years, however much the circumstances had warranted it. It had been resentment at first, then stubbornness. Now, he doubted he could have even mouthed the words without feeling like a fraud. Catherine had been the religious one. And if her faith hadn’t been enough to change things, what hope did he have?

  Without the distraction of prayer, Elias heard the footsteps echoing off the stone path long before the crypt door opened. He’d hoped, futilely it seemed, that they might belong to some unknown mourner who would pass him by. But, naturally, that too was denied him.

  “I’m surprised you’re here,” Luka said, leaning against the doorway. The older man wore his usual expression, a look that somehow managed to appear both stern and sympathetic at the same time. “You remember what day it is, don’t you?”

  “Of course I remember,” Elias said, lowering his hands. He offered Luka only the briefest of glances before returning his gaze to the three-legged idol. “I figured this might be my last chance to pray for her.”

  “You’ll have other chances. Offert’s a hard bastard, but he’s not so heartless that he’d deny a man the chance to say goodbye to his wife.”

  Elias disagreed, but there was no point in saying as much. He stood silently and leaned forward to rub Lanin, the three-legged god’s central foot. He heard Luka swallow his disapproval and was relieved when the man waited for him to exit the crypt before speaking.

  “You know that’s bad luck,” the man chided gently.

  “You don’t believe that.” Elias set off down the path without waiting for the man to respond. Even without turning to look, he could almost see Luka roll his eyes.

  “No,” the man admitted. “But a bit of superstition never hurt a man. Besides, what if the priests are right and Taish or Inaban get jealous?”

  Elias snorted, unable to help a wry smile. “They’re gods,” he pointed out. “I’m sure they’ll find some way to get over it.”

  “Is that what this is about?” Luka asked, quite suddenly. “Getting over it?”

  The man’s voice changed only slightly, but the somber tone was enough to spark a wave of tension throughout Elias’ neck and shoulders. He had to force himself not to grind his teeth or clench his hands into fists. He shook his head, but the motion was jerky and, so it seemed to him, unconvincing.

  “No,” he lied. “That has nothing to do with it.”

  The sun had only just risen, its light peeking over the squat, flat roofs of Islesmark, but the streets were already growing crowded as Elias followed Luka back into town. A few of the roads were so densely packed that he was half-tempted to simply duck into the sea of humanity and return home. The thought of Luka arriving at Governor-General Offert’s palace only to discover that he’d misplaced his charge was almost enough to make him grin. It was the sort of thing he might have done as a younger man, if only because he knew Luka would have forgiven him.

  Now, he wasn’t so certain.

  Besides, his path was mostly kept clear by Luka’s broad shoulders and the deferential nods and smiles offered by those they passed. From the way the man answered them with his own, it was clear he appreciated the courtesies. And if he noticed the way those smiles soured when the pedestrians and shopkeepers noticed the man walking beside him, well, Elias was altogether conscious of them.

  The members of the Governor’s Guard who met them at the front gate were professional, if not overly warm. They saluted Luka respectfully, though that was only to be expected. He was the man who paid them, after all.

  Elias, on the other hand, they pretended not to see.

  The Governor-General was waiting for them in his receiving room, rather than the official chamber where Elias was used to seeing him. In sharp relief to the grand hall, the receiving room was rather haphazardly decorated. A handful of mismatched tapestries and ceremonial arms hung on the walls, surrounding a long, mostly empty table. And, aside from the Governor-General himself, the room contained only a single functionary seated at a small desk in the corner.

  Offert smiled and rose as they entered, abandoning his seat at the head of the table and rounding its corner to offer Luka his hand.

  “Sheriff Vaalen,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “An honor, sir,” Luka said. Taking the Governor-General’s hand, he bowed over it before straightening and gesturing to Elias. “I know that you have matters to discuss with Master Ansiri so I hope that I’m not imposing.”

  “Impossible,” Offert said. His smile cooled as he turned slightly to regard Elias with a haughty gaze. “A servant of Islesmark could never be an imposition.”

  Elias nearly turned and walked out. It would have been the height of discourtesy and ruined months of careful planning, but even a split-second interaction with Offert had brought him the edge of caring. He was tired.

  Fortunately, he was ambitious as well. Forcing a broad smile as if oblivious to the man’s thinly veiled insult, Elias bowed low.

  “You flatter me, sir,” he said, showing his teeth. “Like Sheriff Vaalen, I’m honored to be entrusted with such a vital matter of state.”

  The Governor-General did not rise to the bait. He studied Elias for a moment, his eyes oddly emotionless, then turned and retook his seat before indicating the table. Luke sat smoothly, leaving only a single unoccupied seat between him and Offert, and glanced warningly in Elias’ direction.

  Winking, Elias took the seat to the man’s left, leaving the open chair untouched. No sooner had he sat than Offert began.

  “There are new developments,” Offert said. Thumbing through a stack of papers piled before him, he retrieved one and slid it to Luka, who passed it along. “Troubling ones. In the past month, four different frontier plantations have been attacked. They were burned to the ground and their inhabitants slaughtered indiscriminately. Three of them were only discovered when trade caravans brought word back to Islesmark. The fourth, and presumably most recent, was a port town near the northern tip of Sutherpoint. Some fishermen
managed to escape. According to them, an elven warband was responsible for the attack.”

  It was as though all the air had been sucked from the room. Elias found himself gripping the arms of his chair tightly. Despite his rumors he’d heard over the past fortnight, hearing the full story laid out in such a terse manner drove home just how dire the situation truly was.

  He glanced at Luka, but the man did not look back. Instead, the Sheriff was studying his own clasped hands.

  “If this is true,” Elias said, eying the page before him, “then why send an ambassador at all? This is as good as a declaration of war.”

  “We don’t know that,” Offert said. The man scowled, but Elias couldn’t tell if it was directed at him or the circumstances. “It could very well be that the elves are preparing a full-scale invasion. But they have enough bloody factions that Taish only knows who is actually responsible. It could be internal strife. I’m not about to summon the other governors, much less draft an army in the middle of planting season, until we know for certain.”

  Elias stared at the man in disbelief. While he could understand, intellectually at least, why Offert was reluctant to act aggressively in the face of the unknown, the extent of the man’s caution confounded him.

  “The elven homeland is weeks away, even by sea,” he said, frowning innocently. “Even if I were to sail there on favorable winds, discover the truth, and sail home the same day, it could be almost two months before I return.”

  “Which makes it all the more essential that you depart immediately,” Offert said.

  This time, words failed him outright. Elias stared at the man in tight-lipped shock. He turned to Luka, but the man was still avoiding his gaze.

  “The elves, or some significant number of them, are likely preparing an invasion,” he repeated slowly. “You are asking me to sail into that storm while you, what? Sit here and hope for the best?”

  Offert’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  “The other governors, the generals, and I will prepare as the situation warrants,” he said. “And need I remind you that this ambassadorial mission was your idea to begin with? No, don’t bother denying it. You’re bright enough to have made a capable alderman, Ansiri, but your subtlety leaves something to be desired.”

  This time, it was Elias’ eyes that narrowed and far more drastically than the Governor-General’s. It was true that he’d pushed hard for such an assignment, calling in favors and petitioning the few influential friends left to him. But he had done so under far different circumstances. That mission had been nothing but a last ditch effort to salvage his mortally wounded reputation.

  This one bordered on suicide.

  “Forget it,” he snapped, rising. “I’m not about to throw my life away to spare you the trouble of making hard decisions.”

  He turned to leave but managed only a step when Luka caught him by the wrist. He tried once to pull free, but the older man held fast.

  “Eli,” Luka said quietly. “You don’t have a choice.”

  Elias fixed him with a withering scowl. “Of course I do,” he growled, yanking his wrist free. “I’m not an alderman or in the militia. Neither of you can order me to do shit.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Luke explained quickly. “I mean this is it. Your last chance. If you have any intention of putting Catherine behind you, you need to accept the Governor-General’s commission.”

  Elias nearly struck him. He certainly wanted to. But, however much he wanted to deny Luka’s words, some part of him knew deep down that the man was correct. He had pushed too hard and wagered too much on this possibility. If he walked away now, there would not be a second opportunity for redemption.

  He sat. Folding his arms, he stared hard at the map before him and imagined he could feel the very coastlines marked upon it taunting him. They weren’t quite as articulate as the politically knowledgeable folks he passed on the street, but their intentions were quite the same.

  “If I do this,” he muttered, “I want to be rewarded for it. Handsomely.”

  “You already will be,” Offert reminded him. “The board of aldermen approved your stipend yesterday. Two thousand sovereigns—one quarter to finance your departure and the rest as a reward upon your return.”

  “I want half upfront,” Elias countered. He leveled his stare on Offert and though the man’s face was calm, he could practically hear the harsh, mocking words he would share once Elias had gone. “And I want the Legion.”

  “Impossible.” There was no hesitation to Offert’s reply. “The Legion of Islesmark is reserved for soldiers. Heroic ones.”

  “And I’m sailing into hostile waters. If the elves capture me, they’ll hang me as a spy—or worse. What could be more heroic than that?”

  “Irrelevant. As I said—”

  “Pardon, sir,” Luka interrupted. The man practically squirmed in his seat, visibly uncomfortable to be contradicting his superior. “But I respectfully disagree. Under the circumstances, it might be possible to justify Master Ansiri’s appointment. If he were to return, either with valuable intelligence or diplomatic assurances that help avoid open war, I believe a majority of the aldermen would approve of your decision. And in the event of a… an unsuccessful mission…”

  “I won’t be around to complain that I was insufficiently rewarded,” Elias finished for him.

  Offert was silent for an uncomfortably long time. The man’s expression did not change throughout, apart from a slight creasing of his brow. To Elias’ eye, he did not appear to be wrestling with the decision itself, but rather with the personal implications.

  “Very well, Master Ansiri,” he said at last. “Succeed in the manner Sheriff Vaalen described and I will endorse your appointment to the Legion. Additionally, I will speak to the Treasury Minister and approve a thousand sovereigns as an advance against your stipend. I expect he will have the coin delivered by this evening. As such, you will leave on the morning tide.”

  Elias nodded, leaving Luka to bow over the table and offer thanks for the both of them.

  ***

  The walk from the Governor-General’s palace to his own, far more modest residence was not a long one, but Elias made the journey alone. It would have been nice to have Luka accompany him, if only to have a somewhat sympathetic ear into which to pour the endless complaints cluttering his mind, but the Sheriff had other matters to discuss with Offert. Still, he couldn’t begrudge the man his duty. Luka Vaalen was just about the only person in Islesmark that Elias actually respected.

  Unfortunately, another waited beside the front door of his estate.

  Elias sighed as he spotted her then repeated his exasperation when he drew near enough to be heard.

  “Kyra, what are you doing?” he asked.

  The woman, Kyra Hammond, looked up abruptly from her book. Her eyes lost much of their sharpness almost immediately then entirely as she slid the book into a satchel at her waist.

  “Waiting for you,” she said, flashing a toothy grin. “So? Are you going to tell me how it went? Or do I need to wait for the next Gazette?”

  He snorted but didn’t answer. Stepping past her, he rapped his knuckles on the door. “Somehow, I have trouble imagining you reading it.”

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything.” The door was still closed, but Kyra slipped forward and stretched out an arm, blocking his path. “What did my uncle say?”

  “Your uncle—” Elias began. He was spared the need to finish by the sound of the latch.

  Fast as a whip, Kyra dropped her arm and turned to stand beside him. Her smile was plainly intended to appear innocent, but from how near she stood, it was obvious she would not be so easily dismissed.

  “Welcome home, Master Ansiri.” The uniformed servant who opened the door curtseyed low then froze at the sight of Kyra. Her pleasant mask remained as the woman followed him inside, though Elias thought he spied a flicker of disapproval as he passed.

  Or, more pr
ecisely, at the trousers Kyra wore.

  “We’ll be in the study, Linn,” he said. “Could you bring us tea?”

  “As you wish.”

  He lingered in the anteroom until Linn had gone then turned and found Kyra smirking. That was hardly unusual. What was unusual was the way she leaned to observe the servant’s path down the hall.

  “Six years I’ve been coming to visit,” she said. “You’d think she’d be used to it by now.”

  Ignoring her, Elias stepped out of the anteroom and strode purposefully toward the study. As expected, Kyra followed, practically treading on his heels with every step.

  “You know you can afford more servants,” Kyra continued. “Wasn’t it Catherine who—”

  “I don’t need more servants,” he countered, more out of habit than anything else. “Besides, Linn does good work. She knows how I like things done.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  He interrupted her again, this time by closing the door to the study. He did it forcefully enough that Kyra glanced at him, clearly worried that she’d pushed too far. Rather than soothe her fears, however, he walked forward and leaned wearily against the front of his desk.

  “Your uncle offered me the Legion,” he said.

  It was a relief to share the secret and Kyra responded with the enthusiasm he’d hoped for.

  “You’re joking!” she exclaimed, somewhere between a whisper and a hiss. “How in the Isles did you convince him?”

  “I didn’t,” he admitted, shrugging. “Luka did. It sounds like the situation is a lot worse than I thought. Islesmark might be at war by the time I arrive. Hell, we might already be at war for all Offert knows.”

  “But you said yes?” There was a peculiar quality to Kyra’s voice that Elias couldn’t remember hearing before. “If it’s really that dangerous, you should have refused.”

  “This is my only chance, Kyra.” He sighed deeply, far more earnestly and with less exasperation than earlier. “I have to make this work.”