by David Weber
“Really?” Ahzmynd repeated, then smiled back at his Charisian visitor. “Somehow, Sir, I can’t quite seem to find it in my heart to regret that. Odd, isn’t it?”
. III .
Parliament Hall,
City of Cherayth,
Kingdom of Chisholm
It’s a good thing Sharleyan warned me, Cayleb thought wryly as he and his mounted bodyguard arrived outside Parliament Hall.
Chisholm’s Parliament had a much more magnificent home than its Charisian equivalent. Unfortunately, that owed rather more to the Chisholmian nobility’s delusions of grandeur (and appetite for power) than it did to any reverence for popular participation in the Kingdom’s government.
The sprawling building’s windows flashed back the cold northern sunlight, and its white marble gleamed like chilled alabaster under a sky of palest blue, burnished with a few high puffs of cloud. The Kingdom’s banner snapped and popped from two of the flagstaffs above it, flanking the tallest, central staff, which bore the banner of the new Charisian Empire: the traditional black field and golden kraken of Charis, quartered with the blue and white checkerboard of Chisholm. An icon of the Archangel Langhorne in his role as Lawgiver crowned the roof above the Hall’s portico, scepter raised in stern benediction and admonition; gold leaf glittered; and deep, detailed bas-relief sculptures decorated the Hall’s enormous bronze doors. Doors whose sculptures, by the strangest turn of fate, seemed oddly dominated by heroically posed nobles on their prancing chargers, with precious few peasants, merchants, sailors, mechanics, or manufactory owners anywhere to be seen.
The more I see, the more impressed I am that she managed to survive, much less retain her throne, Cayleb thought much more soberly as he took in the monument to the aristocracy’s traditional domination of political power here in Chisholm.
He’d always known the political equation in Chisholm was fundamentally different from the one in Charis. He hadn’t realized before becoming privy to the Brethren of Saint Zherneau’s hidden influence just why Charis was so different from so many other kingdoms and principalities, but he’d always realized that commonly born Charisians had far more say than commoners in other lands when it came to the way in which they were ruled.
Chisholm had been one of those “other lands,” at least until Sharleyan’s father had taken the throne. The Chisholmian aristocracy had secured a firm grip on the levers of power when a not-quite-rebellious alliance of his most powerful nobles forced Sharleyan’s great-grandfather, Irwain II, to “graciously grant” the Charter of Terayth. According to Merlin, the terms imposed upon the Crown at Terayth had been similar to those of something called the “Magna Carta” back on Old Earth, except that they’d been substantially more restrictive of the Crown’s prerogatives.
The situation probably still wouldn’t have been irretrievable except for the unhappy (from the Crown’s perspective, at least) fact that her grandfather, Irwain III, had been a well-meaning but weak monarch. Sharleyan had once told Cayleb that her grandfather would have made a truly excellent minor baron back in the hills somewhere, but he’d been a disaster as a reigning king. Instead of regaining the ground his father had lost, Irwain III had sought compromise rather than conflict. He’d dreaded the thought of what open warfare would have cost his subjects and refused to inflict it upon them in defense of royal prerogatives . . . and so he’d seen the nobility make even more inroads into the king’s authority. By the time he died, the great nobles had reduced him to little more than a figurehead.
Unfortunately (from the great magnates’ perspective, at least), however, they hadn’t quite completed the process at the time of his death . . . and Sharleyan’s father, King Sailys, had been made of sterner stuff. The fact that he’d grown to young manhood watching his own father’s humiliation as he kept steadily losing ground had probably had something to do with it, but he’d also been aware that factionalism among “his” nobles threatened to split Chisholm into warring fragments. That civil war would soon inflict all the bloodshed and horrors his father had bartered away the Crown’s authority trying desperately to avoid . . . unless he made it his business to prevent it. He did, and he’d found the two men whose support he needed to accomplish his seemingly hopeless task. Mahrak Sahndyrs had been Sailys’ chief adviser and confidant, but the king had been ably assisted by his future brother-in-law, the Duke of Halbrook Hollow, as well.
Irwain III had been stripped of everything the nobility recognized as a source of power, but he’d retained his status as the head of state . . . and the Crown had retained the power to summon—and dissolve—Parliament. When the old king died, and Crown Prince Sailys assumed the throne, the law of the Kingdom required that Parliament be summoned to confirm the new monarch and to swear fealty to him.
Everyone had known it was a mere formality, of course, but they’d been wrong. What none of Irwain III’s aristocratic masters realized was that Sailys and his friend Mahrak Sahndyrs had spent the last ten years of King Irwain’s life planning for the day that summons would be issued. Along with a few very carefully chosen and recruited members of the House of Lords, they had steered the new Parliament in directions no one else had anticipated, and they’d done it so quietly, so skillfully, that their intended victims had never even seen it coming.
That first Parliament of King Sailys was referred to now as the “Parliament of Love” in most of Chisholm’s histories. Ostensibly, that was because everyone had been so carried away with their enthusiasm for their charismatic new king that they’d gladly acquiesced in the “modest changes” he’d requested. Foremost among those “modest changes,” although Sailys and Green Mountain had been careful to bury it as deep in the underbrush as they could, had been the formation of the core of a small standing army. That particular proposal was justified on the basis of the growing threat from Corisande, and—according to those same official histories—Parliament had gladly supported such a farsighted request. In fact, the Lords had seen the minuscule authorized strength of the new “Royal Army” as little more than giving their youthful monarch a shiny new toy with which he could amuse himself rather than interfering in the serious business of running the Kingdom.
Some toys were more dangerous than others, however, and before the great nobles had awakened to their danger, the king and his handful of trusted advisers had created a genuine royal army, one which was both rather larger than the nobility had anticipated and answerable directly and solely to the Crown. And one which was independent of the feudal levies upon which previous monarchs had been forced to rely.
They should call it the Parliament of Idiots, Cayleb thought bitingly. Not that I mind the fact that they were idiots, but how in God’s name could they have let him get away with it?
Actually, he had a pretty shrewd notion of exactly how it could happen. Chisholm’s military traditions had been so backward by the standards of the great kingdoms of the mainland that it had still relied on feudal levies on the rare occasions when an army was required. That was the way it had always been, and Sailys’ nobles had been so accustomed to thinking in terms of those same feudal levies—which they controlled, not the Crown—that it had never occurred to them that a professional standing army could actually pose a threat.
Unfortunately for them, they’d been wrong. The Royal Chisholmian Army might not have been particularly large by the standards of mainland realms, but it had been large enough. And its troops had all been volunteers, raised from the ranks of commoners. That had made them a dragon of a different color compared to the conscripted peasants who had filled out the ranks of the traditional levies. Among other things, they’d had a cohesiveness, an awareness of themselves as servants of the Crown and as voluntary members of something far greater than the usual noble’s drafted levies ever attained. More than that, they’d had a very good idea of who was most likely to get ground into dust in the course of any fighting between their betters’ competing factions, as well, which probably helped to explain why they’d been so impervi
ous to aristocratic blandishments or threats once the nobility finally woke up to what was happening.
With Sailys shrewdly playing the nobility’s factions off against one another to prevent them from combining against him while Green Mountain adroitly managed the Kingdom’s financial affairs and Halbrook Hollow commanded the Army, the king had broken the three most powerful of those factions, one by one, within six years of taking the throne. The other factions, made wise by the misfortune of their fellows, had finally combined against him and attempted to cut off funding for the Army through their control of Parliament, rather than face it in battle. But while they’d been looking at Halbrook Hollow’s campaigns in the field, they’d missed Green Mountain’s rather quieter yet ultimately more deadly efforts inside Parliament Hall. Until, that was, the traditionally browbeaten Chamber of Commons had suddenly defied its rightful lords and masters and ranged itself at the Crown’s side under Green Mountain’s leadership. Even worse, the alliance Sailys and Green Mountain had quietly concluded with a sizable chunk of the lesser nobility (who had resented the great nobles’ self-aggrandizing monopoly of power just as much as the Crown had) made common cause with the Chamber of Commons. Instead of depriving the Army of funding, Parliament had actually voted to increase its size!
Ten years after assuming the Crown, King Sailys had made himself the master of his own house. In the process, he’d established the precedent of the Crown’s alliance with the Commons which had been maintained during Sharleyan’s reign. The Chisholmian aristocracy was far from resigned to the permanent curtailment of its power, but it had at least learned the rudiments of discretion. The fact that Chisholm had become progressively more powerful and prosperous under Sailys had probably helped it swallow the painful medicine he, Green Mountain, and Halbrook Hollow had forced down its collective throat. Unfortunately, that power and prosperity had also posed a threat to Prince Hektor of Corisande’s plans, which explained Hektor’s subsidization of the “pirates” who had ultimately succeeded in killing Sailys.
The more disgruntled of Sailys’ nobles had publicly mourned their king’s death even while they laid quiet plans for dealing with their new child-queen as their own great-great-grandfathers had dealt with Queen Ysbell. But if Sailys had been killed, Green Mountain and Halbrook Hollow were still very much alive, and Sailys’ daughter proved even more capable—and, when necessary, ruthless—than he had been himself . . . as the Duke of Three Hills and his allies had soon discovered.
There was no doubt that the aristocracy retained a larger share of political authority in Chisholm than its Charisian counterparts did in Tellesberg, but that authority had been drastically reduced. And it was only a shadow of that which the nobility continued to enjoy in most other Safeholdian realms. Yet the trappings of its four-generations-ago dominance remained in Parliament Hall’s decoration and procedures, and Cayleb made it a point to keep reminding himself that the Chisholmian tradition of royal authority was younger—and probably weaker—than the Charisian tradition.
On the other hand, we’re establishing all sorts of new traditions, aren’t we? Cayleb thought. And—so far, at least—Alahnah and Green Mountain have the situation in hand. Probably—his lips twitched in an involuntary smile—at least partly because these people really don’t want to see Sharleyan coming home to deal with any . . . unruliness herself!
As always, the thought of his wife’s proven capabilities was deeply comforting . . . and sent a tremor of loneliness through him. It was still a marvel to him that someone should have become so deeply, almost painfully, vital to him in so short a time. And not just on a pragmatic level. In fact, if he was going to be honest with himself, not even mostly on a pragmatic level, any longer.
He glanced over his shoulder to where Merlin rode at his back in the uniform of the new Imperial Charisian Guard. The blackened armor remained, as did the black tunic, but the golden kraken on Merlin’s breastplate now swam across a kite-shaped shield in the blue-and-white of the House of Tayt. Sharleyan’s personal guard detachment wore the same uniform, except that hers bore Chisholm’s doomwhale in place of the kraken.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” the emperor said quietly, twitching his head at the building looming before them, and Merlin snorted.
“So is the Temple,” he pointed out, equally quietly. “The wrappings are less important than the contents.”
“Is that one of those wise seijin proverbs?” Cayleb asked with a grin.
“No, but it probably should be.” Merlin cocked his head, studying the Hall’s imposing façade. “I wish Her Majesty were here to play tour guide,” he added.
“So do I,” Cayleb admitted, then stopped speaking as they reached their destination and halted in the space a cordon of halberd-armed Royal Army infantrymen had kept clear before Parliament Hall.
The emperor swung down from his saddle, accompanied by the sharp-eyed, handpicked Imperial Guard troopers of Merlin’s detachment. Those guardsmen were even more alert than usual, Cayleb noticed. None of them were oblivious to just how convenient certain parties would find it if something fatal were to overtake one Cayleb Ahrmahk.
Despite the cold temperature, which struck Cayleb and the majority of his Charisian-born bodyguards as outright frigid, a substantial crowd had assembled outside Parliament Hall. The overwhelming majority of the spectators standing there amid steamy clouds of exhaled breath were commoners, probably because most of the nobles in the capital were already sitting snugly in their seats inside the Hall, Cayleb thought just a bit enviously as the cheers began to rise. The crowd’s enthusiasm meant he had to proceed slowly, graciously, acknowledging their greetings rather than scurrying towards the Hall’s waiting warmth.
His guardsmen almost certainly shared his desire to get inside and out of the wind as quickly as possible, but they allowed no sign of that eagerness to distract them from their duties. They formed a loose ring around him, wide enough to keep anyone who might break through the Army cordon from getting to him with a knife. Ranged weapons were more problematical, of course, but Cayleb took a certain satisfaction from the knowledge that Merlin and Owl, the seijin’s computer henchman, had provided him with garments made out of the same sort of “antiballistic smart fabric” (whatever that was) from which they’d made Archbishop Maikel’s vestments. Even if some unfriendly soul with an arbalest or a rifle were crouched behind one of the windows overlooking Parliament Hall, nothing he could do was likely to leave Cayleb with anything more than a painful bruise or two.
Well, that and the need for some fairly inventive explanations, I suppose.
His lips quirked at the thought, and then he heaved a surreptitious sigh of relief as he managed to get inside the building’s comforting warmth at last.
It was much quieter inside Parliament Hall than it had been outside, although he wasn’t certain it was all that much of an improvement. However happy the members of the Commons seated on the western side of the Hall’s grand meeting chamber might be to see him, the Lords seated on its eastern side appeared to find it remarkably easy to restrain any unseemly enthusiasm they might be experiencing.
I suppose it’s hard to blame them for that, Cayleb thought as the Speaker came towards him to offer formal greeting. They must have been unhappy enough with only Sharleyan to worry about. Now there’s me, as well . . . and any of them who have been awake enough to smell the chocolate have to be aware of how Charis’ Parliament operates. Whatever else they may be expecting out of me, it’s not going to be anything that will improve their position here in Chisholm.
“Somehow,” he heard Merlin murmur very, very softly into his ear, “I don’t feel all warm and loved.”
“You don’t?” Cayleb snorted back, then adjusted his face into an expression of proper formality as the Speaker bowed to him in greeting.
“Welcome! Welcome, Your Majesty!”
“Thank you, My Lord Speaker,” Cayleb replied graciously.
“Both Houses await your pleasure with eagerness,” the Spe
aker continued more diplomatically, Cayleb was certain, than accurately, at least where the Lords were concerned.
“Then let us not keep them waiting,” Cayleb said.
He looks like an emperor, Mahrak Sahndyrs thought from his place among his fellow nobles as the Speaker ushered Cayleb to the lectern which had been draped in the new imperial flag to await him. Personally, Sahndyrs would have preferred to be seated on the western side of the Hall, among the commoners who were his staunchest allies. Unfortunately, he was a peer of the realm, and tradition demand that he be seated among his fellow aristocrats.
Besides, it gives them all the opportunity to remind themselves—and me, of course—that while I may be First Councilor, I’m also still a mere baron.
Sharleyan had offered several times to do something about that, but Green Mountain had always declined. He could put up with the pretensions of snobbish earls and dukes all day long, if he must, and his decision to remain a “mere baron” was important to his commoner allies. They understood that the queen’s senior minister had to be a nobleman, but they found a “mere baron” far more acceptable than they would have found an earl or a duke. Now he watched the young man in the embroidered thigh-length tunic and loose-fitting breeches which still looked undeniably exotic to most Chisholmians standing where Sharleyan had stood so often, the emerald-set chain of a Charisian king flashing about his neck, and leaned back comfortably in his own chair. He’d half-expected Cayleb to come in full imperial regalia, and he still wasn’t sure the younger man’s decision not to hadn’t been a mistake, but the baron had to admit that he’d never seen a more kingly young man in his life.