Aliver felt keenly the insult of being classed as pale, but he let it pass without comment. “My father had no wish to rob anyone; neither do I.”

“Many in his name crept down into our lands and stole from us. You are either a skilled deceiver or you are ignorant of the workings of the world. You lived in a beautiful palace, did you not? An entire island you called your own. Horses and jewels and fine food, servants to attend you. How do you think all that was paid for? I will tell you something. Come close.”

Oubadal beckoned with his staff. Aliver leaned forward and supported himself, somewhat awkwardly, on his hands and knees. The chieftain slanted toward him, fragrant with sandalwood and the sharp tang of sweat. “Men such as you and I are not blessed by the Giver. This is the lie the people eat. In truth, we rule because we know better than our people that the Giver has left us. There is no world but the one we make, and the world your father presided over was one that made a few very rich and kept many very poor.”

A few of the old men along the periphery murmured their approval. One smacked his tongue from the roof to the floor of his mouth, making a popping sound.

The chieftain continued. “It was not just gold your people took from us, not just slaves. Your people grasped hold of my younger brother, of my sister, and my father’s second wife, to hold them captive. My people, understand? My very own blood. Leodan kept them locked away with one hand and grasped my father’s heart in the other and made him know that if ever the Halaly spurned him, my father’s children would suffer for it. I’ve never seen them since. Even now I don’t know if they are alive. Can you give my siblings back to me? Can you promise that?”

Aliver blinked before he spoke, held his eyes closed for a long moment, and then opened them slowly. “I don’t know. A thing like that might have been handled from Alecia. My father may not have known…”

“What king can claim ignorance?”

“A wiser one than claims all knowledge,” Aliver snapped. “Acacia was an enormous nation. Much of its running was in the hands of the governors. If you knew my father, you would understand that he valued family above all else. He would not have harmed yours in such a way had he known about it.”

Oubadal shook his head at this. “With complete power comes complete responsibility. Our people give us a gift when they hail us; the price we pay is that our souls bear the wounds of their sins. If you cannot accept this, you do not deserve the crown you seek. Crawl back and be a child; seek your mother’s teat.”

A sparrow darted under the enclosure and flitted around inside, landing on one beam and then another. Aliver looked up and watched it. This was not going as he had planned. He felt like a fool, just like that child the chieftain alluded to.

“Now, enough of this,” Oubadal eventually said. He changed the pitch of his voice and stepped down from the high oratory of a moment before. “No man can go back to his mother’s teat; let us move on. There is a way for you to get what you want. You know of my enemies, the Balbara? They’ve plagued my people since the first days of the earth. The Halaly have been their masters for some time now, but in recent years they’ve grown bold. They thumb their chins at us and encroach upon our lands and sometimes raid our outlying villages. I have had enough of it. I wish to destroy them.”

“Destroy them?”

“Yes. I’ll kill all their warriors, castrate their boy children, and sell their women as concubines to bear Halaly children. If you help us to wipe them from the earth and recognize my people as equal to Talay and promise us the right to collect tribute in your name-”

“I want no tribute.”

“Hah! When your people were in power, Acacia drank tribute like a thirsty man wine. It will be the same again, I’m sure. When we are made equal to Talay, you will agree that our lands should be renamed Halaly: not just on our maps but on yours. Why should the land from one horizon to another all be called Talay? And if they still live, you will return my family to me and take no further captives from our people. Grant me what I ask you, and the Halaly will help you in your war. You will find no stronger fighting men than mine. I can bring ten thousand warriors to your cause in a week’s time. You have never seen fighters like mine, Prince. I don’t know much about these people who fight for the Mein-the Noom-reek-but we will drive them before us like laughing dogs, their tails between their legs.” He flashed his grin again. “I can guarantee that the Bethuni will stay loyal to you as well. If you like, we can exchange a blood drink to bind us, so that the agreement cannot be broken, even if you or I perish.”

Aliver stared at Oubadal for a long moment. He no longer felt frightened by the man’s heavy eyes and calm air of superiority, nor humbled by his own ignorance, not when this man’s version of leadership was so vile. He would just have to find another way. “I will not help you destroy an entire nation. If you are so mighty, why not do it yourself? Why not ask the Bethuni, if you control them also?”

“The Bethuni are bound by older loyalties,” Oubadal said. “They have a blood bond with the Balbara. They cannot fight them, but neither do they love them. I won’t speak from the side of my mouth to you, Prince. Without your help, the war between us and the Balbara would be uncertain. They aren’t without bravery.”

Aliver said, “Perhaps I should be speaking to the Balbara. I’ve come to speak to the wrong nation.”

Oubadal seemed amused by this observation. “If, Prince, you were friends to our enemy and came against us, you would find yourself cursed in many ways. Who would be your army? The Balbara and Talayans? We would fight them. And while we did, the Bethuni would attack Talay. The coast tribes would not fight us, as they are bound to us by blood. If the Balbara did not come against us but marched away with you, we would pounce on their women and children or the old ones. And because they know this, they would never do it. And so you would gain nothing, except the defeat of your cause before you had yet begun.”

“When I am king of Acacia you will no longer talk to me thus,” Aliver said. “You will remember respect.”

“If you were the king of Acacia, Prince, I would bow before you and suck your big toe.” Oubadal glanced around at his companions, who fell into laughter, the old men especially so. “But you are king of nothing right now. Is that not the truth?”

Aliver barely managed to get through the formal courtesies of leave-taking, so anxious was he to run out into the open air, away from the scent of sandalwood and the lazy, simmering intensity of Oubadal’s eyes.

Kelis stopped him a little distance outside the village gates. He grabbed him by the elbow and slowed him to a halt. “Oubadal can bring us ten thousand fighting men. You cannot walk away yet.”

“I will not slaughter a blameless people,” Aliver said. “This is not what my father intended.”

“This is the way things have been done since the beginning, by all races of men,” Kelis said. “Do you want to achieve your goal or not? I know what you believe. You have noble intentions, but rarely do noble men shape the world. They talk about it, while men such as Oubadal act. Do not leave here without making this moment yours. It is not yours yet, Aliver. So do not leave.”

Aliver sat down on the parched gray earth and cradled his head in his hands. Thaddeus had said that the world was corrupt from top to bottom. Here was his first proof of it. He tried to still his mind and see good in this somewhere, but there was no good in it. He could not begin this war in such a foul way, not if he was to maintain any grip on his humanity. He tried to think of some other terms the chieftain might accept, but the convolutions of tribal alliances were so frustrating that he kicked out at the dirt. It was stupid! It was petty! Too coarse and small. It was one small example of all the practices he wanted to wipe the world clean of. Thinking this, he had an idea.