The Conqueror by Louis Shalako Read Free Book Online

Lowren.
    Theodelinda was calm and
cool.
    “ Why are you here,
Lowren?”
    “ Because you have something
I need.”
    “ Why should we help
you?”
    He straightened, addressing himself to
Eleanora.
    “ Because it would be in
your best interest to do so.” His shifted his gaze to the cousin.
“I have ten thousand warriors available to me. We will be swept
away just as surely as a dead branch in a flooding river in
springtime…”
    Eleanora nodded. This much was true—the
Lemni didn’t have stone fortifications, neither were their soldiers
professionally trained. And yet her own chances didn’t look all
that good either. Even if they were put together, their forces
would be puny. To treat with the Khan would be to delay the
inevitable, nothing more. To wait and do nothing, and not act in
accord with neighboring kingdoms, was to be devoured in turn, each
afraid to stand up alone against the common enemy. It was fatal to
be unwilling to ally with an old and not particularly friendly
neighbor…it was the old dilemma. Even the Lemni had raided
Windermere, not fifteen years ago.
    There were too many petty
nation-states, and too many tongues and creeds, too many peoples,
and not all of them happy under a given flag. Some rulers were
rather precarious on their thrones, and some of them knew it very
well. Lowren laid it all out, starting with the basics of
statecraft as it was practiced these days. Some of the precepts and
some of the lessons sounded very familiar—like something her father
might have said.
    “ And then comes along
someone truly formidable—with a view to conquest and the means to
do so.”
    “ Keep talking.” It wasn’t
her kingdom to worry about or dispose of, but Theo had a
point.
    In truth, she was next in line of
succession. Eleanora had no heirs.
    “ What exactly are we asking
for, Lowren?” It was the first time she had spoken since he
began.
    “ Well. I have a plan. As
you might imagine.”
    She clamped her mouth firmly shut, eyes
narrow.
    “ I will ask for your word.
We must keep this secret.” His eyes traveled to the door where the
ladies in waiting had disappeared. “Just the fact that I was here
would tell the Khan much.”
    Eleanora bit her lip. He was right. The
man had already dragged her into it—unless the secret could be
kept.
    She knew so little about
Lowren, and yet everything that she had heard redounded to his
credit as a king, a soldier and as a man. Her father had ended up
buying off his father. All of their captives and hostages had been promptly
returned, having some oddly good things to say about the humanity
of their savage conquerors once you got to know them a
little…
    “ What do you
propose?”
    “ That I shall escape in the
night from your bedchamber, Majesty.”
    A bitter smiled crossed her
face.
    “ It will be said that I
disappointed you in love, but somehow overpowered my guards and
escaped on the way to the block.”
    “ But of course.”
    “ It’s not your own people
that matter, Majesty. It is the distorted view that will be
transmitted across the seas by the very next commercial vessel to
make the journey to Sinopus—or more importantly to the Khan’s
palace at Artesphihan.”
    By map, it was eleven or twelve hundred
miles to the Khan’s capital. The queen was familiar enough with
ocean commerce. It was, after all, the lifeblood of her kingdom. A
ship, fully laden and with favorable winds might only be making six
or eight knots. On a very good day, nine or ten.
    Over the course of twenty-four hours,
that was still a formidable distance. This was a good story and the
news would travel fast. If we can’t keep the secret, then let us
distort the truth.
    “ Assuming I don’t have
hundreds of men outside that door, Kann and I, one or two others,
are completely in your power, Majesty. I turn our fates over to
you.”
    What an extraordinary thing to
say.
    She regarded him for a long moment. He
was a brave man, but she hadn’t had any doubts of that