The Blue Sword (Damar #2)(3)

Istan had lately become a place of some importance in the governmental network the Homelanders had laid over the country they had conquered eighty years before. It was still an isolated spot, and no one went there who didn't have to; for it was at the edge of the great northern desert of the peninsular continent the Homelanders called Daria. But thirteen years ago the Aeel Mines had been discovered in the Ramid Mountains to the northwest, and in the last eight years the Mines had been officially declared the most profitable discovery on the entire Darian continent, and that was saying a great deal. The profits on oranges alone paid the wages of half the civil servants in the Province.

"The Mines are awful to get to, though; the Ramids are very nasty going. Istan is on the only feasible route to the Mines, and is the last town large enough to re-supply any caravan or company going that way or coming back out again. That's why we got the railroad, finally. Before that we were the only reason anyone would want to come so far, and our attractions are limited. But the Mines are the big thing now. They may even figure out a way to dig a road through the Ramids. I wish them luck."

Istan also remained tactically important, for while south of it the boundary to Homelander territory swung rapidly east, the Homelanders failed to push it back any nearer the mountains of the north and east. The natives, perhaps from learning to cope with the desert to survive at all, had proved to be a tougher breed than their southern cousins.

Some of this Harry had read at Home when she had first heard of Richard's posting three years before. But she felt the reality of it now, with the western wind blowing down on her from the rich Aeel Mines, and the odd greenish-bronze tint in the sky, and the brilliant red of the sunsets. She saw the dull brown uniforms of the Homelander soldiers stationed here, with the red stripe vertically drawn over the left breast that indicated they served in the Darian province of the Homelander sovereignty. There were more soldiers, the farther they traveled. "It's still a sore point that Istan is the eastern frontier; we can't seem to bear the idea that the border doesn't run straight, north to south, because we would like it to. They keep threatening to mount new offensives, but Colonel Dedham - he's in charge of the old Mundy - says that they won't do it. And who wants to own a lot of desert anyway? It's the farmland in the south - and the Mines - that make it worthwhile to be here."

She encouraged him to talk about Her Majesty's Government of the Royal Province of Daria, and if she did not listen as closely as she might to the descriptions of the ranks and duties of the civil servants Richard had the most contact with, she arrived at Istan at last with some small idea of how Homelanders in general were expected to respond to Daria. And she had seen korf with her own eyes, and a band of the wandering tinkers known as dilbadi, and the changing color of the earth underfoot, from the southern red to central brown to northern yellow-grey. She knew a broad-leafed ilpin tree from the blue evergreen torthuk, and when Lady Amelia met her with a corsage of the little rosy-pink pimchie flowers, she greeted them by name.

Lady Amelia was a small round woman with big hazel eyes and curly grey hair and the wistful look of the fading beauty. Her husband, Sir Charles, was as tall as Richard and much broader; he must ride sixteen stone, Harry thought dispassionately as she shook his hand. He had a red face and white hair and a magnificent mustache, and if his blue eyes were a little shallow, there were laugh lines generously around them, and his smile was warm. She felt as if they had looked forward to her coming, and she relaxed a little; there was none of the loftiness she was expecting toward a poor relation - someone else's poor relation at that. Sir Charles during the first evening gave her a complete history of Daria, its past, its conquest by the Homelanders, its present, and its likely future, but most of it she was too tired to follow. Lady Amelia's occasional quick comments, when her husband stopped to draw breath, about Harry's present comfort were much more welcome, although she tried not to show it. But midway through the evening, as Sir Charles was gesturing with his liqueur glass and even Richard was looking a bit glassy-eyed, Lady Amelia caught her new charge's eye for a long moment. A look of patience and affection passed between them; and Harry thought that perhaps all would be well, and she went up to bed in good spirits.

For the first few days in Istan she unpacked, and looked around her, and only saw the newness of everything. But the Homelanders of Istan were a small but thriving community, and she was the latest addition to a society which looked forward to, and welcomed, and cross-examined, and talked about, its additions.

She had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure that she told herself severely was the result of reading too many novels when she was a small child. As she grew up, and particularly after her mother died, she had learned to ignore that restlessness. She had nearly forgotten about it, till now. She wondered sometimes if her brother felt that impatience of spirit too, if something like it had had anything to do with his ending up at a small Border station, however tactically important, although his prospects, when he graduated from university, had suggested something better. This was one of the many things she did not ask him. Another question she did not ask was if he ever missed Home.

She set down her empty orange-juice glass, and sighed. They'd missed the orange groves, coming north from Stzara, where her ship put her ashore. She picked up her fork from its shining white, neatly folded linen napkin, and turned it so that the sunlight that had glittered through her orange juice now caught in tiny star-bursts across its tines. Don't fidget, she told herself.