97 - Are You Little Boys Quite Finished?

The konsiliarch listened to the whole story quietly, her hands flat on her desk. Kyrus glanced sideways at his deovar then brought his eyes back to her, trying not to feel like a boy called up in front of a teacher.  Ilax put the best possible face on it of course.  It had seemed perfectly sensible to him as an overwrought, overwhelmed warrior fished out of the snow and desperately in love with his worst enemy.  It had seemed perfectly logical to hide for all these years.

This had all been thoroughly thrashed out by the Unity before the wedding but suddenly finding out that he wasn’t disposable, exposable trash but a siwion, a prince of Lainz just put the icing or gilding on this whole turd of a situation.

The konsiliarch rose after thinking about this and crooked a finger at them both as if she were going to whisper a confidence, and they both leaned in.  Her bellow was as shocking as a Unity one-stone call to order and Kyrus felt himself rock back on his heels.  If he could have pinned his own ears back he would have.

“Are you little boys quite finished messing in politics?  How on the blessed landing site and our ancestor’s blood and work did you two manage to find SUCH a tangled mess to drop in my lap?  Warriors with unfermented beer mash for brains trying to do diplomacy?  You just want to drop everything here and go haring off to Lainz... to the city of the old monster, Prime-like, sitting there wanting to take over everything like an OWNER.  You want to run there because you’re following your penis after the new potential PRIME OF LAINZ? Who happens to be your inamour, married in front of half the country?” She paused for breath.

“It’s hardly his fault, Vidarna.  We couldn’t know any of this because neither he nor his son knew any of this.”

She sat down abruptly.  “Of course.  I’m not blaming you.  It just seems so... needlessly complex.”

“People are complex, Vid.  Look.  In the long run it will work out well.  All we need to do is get Ky and Kyrus safe to Lainz and under the old man’s protection and then we can work toward a joint policy.  He and I aren’t likely to go to war anytime soon.  Look at me as the unwitting marriage card.  I’ve married into their problems and we’re suddenly marriage allies.”

“That will go over with the Hive Lords like finding a mess of oyuks infesting their beds.  Anyone of them strong enough to make a play to overthrow the old man and try to own the place?”

“No.  He’s kept them fractured enough, though they squawk like castrated Bakons.  There aren’t a lot of Lainz Hive Lords I could work with, but the old man is... well, he could be a friend.”

“This opinion rises out of one extended negotiation at the end of the last war, when you and that nasty Lainz general defended him?”  She put up her hands and massaged her temples.  “All right.  You are going to go to a visit to Lainz.  We can easily say it is to fend off another war or war-like action, based on your marriage to this –“ she jerked a thumb at Kyrus “—warrior idiot who just came out of the land of the dead.  I’ll appoint a secundus to your position.”

“I’d suggest Xsmeetath.  She’s got enough warrior reputation to keep warlike nations from thinking we’d be a push-over when I’m gone, and she’s got the ova of a three ton war bird.”

“Without the ravening monster temperament to match, yes.  Go get things organized.  Are you taking the children?”

“I think young Kyrus would explode if I didn’t take Hara with.  She’s old enough.  But the youngsters I’ll leave here.”

“I’ll let everyone know.  They’ll either be thrilled to be seen as independent enough to stay at home ‘by themselves’ or chagrined to be left behind and not part of this so called grand adventure.”

“I’ll be cleaning the school out of our senior zon.”

“Good.  Lainzers will have a fit, presented with an entourage entirely made up of Manders and Cliners. I’ll put out a call for juniors to come up to the capitol.  We could use some new teachers in the school.”