by David Weber
. IV .
Emperor Cayleb’s Headquarters Tent,
Duchy of Manchyr,
League of Corisande
“My God, Merlin! You’re certain they’re both dead?”
“Yes, I am,” Merlin replied, and Cayleb sank into the camp chair, shaking his head while he tried to come to grips with this fresh, cataclysmic upheaval. Birds sang and wyverns whistled quietly in the hot, sunny afternoon, and the subdued sounds of a military encampment seemed to enclose the headquarters tent’s silence in a protective shell.
“How did it happen? Who’s responsible?” the emperor asked after a moment.
“I’m not absolutely certain who’s responsible,” Merlin admitted. “I suspect it was Waimyn, though.”
“The Intendant?” Cayleb frowned. “Why would the Church murder the man fighting against the ‘apostate traitors’? I mean—oh.”
The emperor grimaced and shook his head.
“It’s amazing how sheer surprise can keep someone from thinking clearly, isn’t it?” he said sourly. “Of course the Church—or, more probably, Clyntahn—wants him dead. He was about to ask for terms, wasn’t he?”
“Exactly.” Merlin nodded grimly. “In fact, he probably signed his own death warrant when he sent you that herald.”
“They couldn’t have him switching sides,” Cayleb agreed. “And after the way Sharleyan and Nahrmahn have done just that, they couldn’t be certain Hektor wouldn’t do the same. Which he probably would have . . . long enough to get into range to slip a knife between my ribs, at any rate.”
“Exactly,” Merlin repeated. “But—”
“But that’s not the only wyvern they’ve thrown this rock at,” Cayleb interrupted him. “Oh, believe me, I see that, too, Merlin! Even if we could prove it was Waimyn, and that he did it on Clyntahn’s direct orders, who’s going to believe us? Especially when the Church starts trumpeting the announcement that I’ve murdered Hektor for his support of the true Church?”
“And the fact that Nahrmahn, who helped your cousin try to assassinate you, is now one of your inner advisers is going to play into their version of it, as well,” Merlin pointed out. “For that matter, by the time the Church gets done with it, our ‘ridiculous lies’ about the Temple Loyalists’ involvement in the attempt to murder Sharleyan are going to be seen as nothing but an additional layer of deception. Obviously the Church’s true sons never tried to assassinate Sharleyan! The entire thing probably never even happened! It was all a ruse, just an act we cooked up, probably to give us an excuse to remove Halbrook Hollow—who was loyal to God and the Church—and to lend some sort of credibility to this ridiculous story about the Church’s murdering Hektor and his son.”
“Wonderful.”
Cayleb leaned back in his chair, eyes closed as his brain came fully back on balance. He wished there were some way—any way—he could have disagreed with Merlin’s analysis. Unfortunately . . .
“You do realize that the ‘cover story’ we put together for our visit to Tellesberg is likely to turn around and bite us on the arse now that this has happened, don’t you?” he asked without opening his eyes. “Who could I have been so eager to meet privately and secretly—so privately and secretly that I only took a single trusted bodyguard with me—but the people who could deliver Hektor’s death to me?”
“That thought had occurred to me,” Merlin agreed sourly.
“And I’ll bet you very few people in Manchyr had any idea he’d just taken the first steps towards asking for terms,” Cayleb continued. “So I can’t even make the logical argument that I had no reason to assassinate him when he was about to surrender his entire princedom to me!”
“Not to mention the minor fact of his popularity with his own people. I don’t see any way to convince them we weren’t behind this, and that’s going to make maintaining order here in Corisande one hell of a lot harder,” Merlin said grimly.
“You do have a way of continuing to cheer me up.” Cayleb opened his eyes and showed Merlin his teeth. “Have any more . . . less than positive aspects of this situation presented themselves to you?”
“Not yet, but I’m pretty sure they will.”
“So am I,” Cayleb admitted unhappily. He shook his head. “You know, whatever we may think of Clyntahn, this is one move on his part that doesn’t have any downside for him, as far as I can tell.”
“Aside from the trivial consideration that it required him to murder a sixteen-year-old boy, as well as his father.”
“Two more murders? Piffle!” Cayleb snapped his fingers, the sound like a pistol shot in the tent. “He’s God’s Inquisitor, Merlin—anyone he has to kill obviously deserves to die! It’s God’s plan for Safehold!” The emperor’s voice was inexpressibly bitter, and his brown eyes might have been carved from stone. “And even if that weren’t true,” he continued, “what are two more murders against all the ones he’s already ordered? There’s enough blood on his hands to damn fifty men to Hell, already, so why not shed a little more?”
Merlin didn’t reply. There was no need.
Cayleb sat glaring at a spot in the air three feet in front of him for several more seconds. Then he pushed himself to his feet.
“We’d better send for Nahrmahn,” he said, and actually managed a thin smile. “How fortunate that we’ve admitted him to the outer arc of the inner circle, as it were. At least we can get his advice and figure out how to start putting a handle on this before the ‘official word’ reaches us.”
. V .
Sir Koryn Gahrvai’s Quarters,
Dairos,
Barony of Dairwyn,
League of Corisande
“Do you believe him?” Alyk Ahrthyr asked harshly.
He sat in the comfortable sitting room of the house which had been assigned to Sir Koryn Gahrvai and his two senior subordinates in Dairos. As prisons went, this one left remarkably little to complain about. Except, of course, for the minor fact that one was a prisoner.
At the moment, the Earl of Windshare found himself rather less concerned with that than with the question he’d just asked.
“I don’t know,” Gahrvai admitted after a moment.
He stood by the window, looking out at the two rifle-armed Charisian Marines standing sentry duty in front of the house. Beyond them, the streets of Dairos were far busier than they’d ever been before the invasion. It remained Cayleb’s main supply base, which meant enormous quantities of supplies, freight, and reinforcements were constantly landing. By now, Gahrvai estimated, Cayleb’s field strength really had to be up to somewhere near seventy-five thousand, which made Dairos even more important to his logistics.
It also meant Charis needed as much warehouse space as it could get its hands on, and Cayleb—to the astonishment of the Dairosian business community—was actually paying the going rate for the space he was monopolizing. He refused to allow himself to be gouged into paying more than that, but the fact that he was willing to pay at all was, frankly, astonishing. It also helped to explain why the city’s economy was as robust as it had ever been, and the shore patrols organized by the emperor’s Marines had been extraordinarily successful at preventing ugly incidents between the invaders and the city’s citizens, as well. There’d been some, of course. That was inevitable. But Cayleb’s military governor had quickly and publicly administered justice under the stern requirements of the Charisian Empire’s articles of war. The Dairosians were still only too well aware of the fact that they were a conquered city, yet they also knew they were as safe in their persons and property under Charisian rule as they’d ever been under Corisandian rule.
Cayleb’s been smart enough and careful enough to ensure that in a minor port city, Gahrvai thought. Could the same man have been stupid enough to have Prince Hektor assassinated in the middle of Manchyr?
“I don’t think Cayleb was behind it,” Charlz Doyal said, and reached for the cane which had become his constant companion since Haryl’s Crossing.
“Why not?” Windsh
are growled, watching the older man limp across to stand beside Gahrvai, looking out the window at the same scene.
“Because the one thing he isn’t is stupid,” Doyal said simply, echoing Gahrvai’s own thoughts. “Look at the way he’s treated us, the way he’s insisted on maintaining public order in his own rear areas, punishing anyone who victimizes a Corisandian subject, paying fair price for the property he’s seized or the warehouses he’s impressed. He’s taken every conceivable pain to avoid enraging us, our troops, or Prince Hektor’s subjects. Do you really think that now that it’s only a matter of time before the Prince would have been forced to surrender he’s going to do something like this?”
“But if it wasn’t him, then who was it?” Windshare demanded.
“That’s a thornier question, Alyk.” Gahrvai turned back from the window. “It’s possible it was someone in Corisande—in Manchyr—who was stupid enough to think Cayleb might actually thank him for removing the Prince. Or I suppose it could’ve been Nahrmahn. He and the Prince were allies against Charis for a long time. I imagine it’s entirely possible, maybe even likely, that Prince Hektor knew something about Nahrmahn which Nahrmahn would just as soon not have his new emperor find out about.”
“You’re clutching at straws, Koryn,” Doyal said very quietly from behind him, and Gahrvai’s expression stiffened. “You know perfectly well that if it wasn’t Cayleb, it almost certainly was the Church.”
Windshare inhaled quickly, angrily, but Gahrvai didn’t even twitch for several seconds. Then his shoulders slumped, and he nodded heavily.
“You’re right, Charlz.” His voice was barely audible, and he closed his eyes. “You’re right. And if the men fighting against God act with honor while the men who claim to be fighting for God do something like this, then what do you and I and Alyk do?”
AUGUST,
YEAR OF GOD 893
. I .
Prince Hektor’s Palace,
City of Manchyr,
League of Corisande
“I hope you have some damned idea what we do next,” the Earl of Anvil Rock said harshly.
He and Earl Tartarian sat in what had been Prince Hektor’s privy council chamber, looking at one another across the table where they’d spent so many hours conferring with Hektor. The western sky, visible through the chamber’s window, was an angry sheet of beaten copper, streaked with fire-edged bands of cloud.
Which, Tartarian thought, is altogether too damned appropriate for words.
The three days since the murders of Hektor and his son had been among the most exhausting of Tartarian’s life. Probably the only man who was even more exhausted than he was was the one who currently sat across the table from him. Together, they’d managed to maintain order in Corisande’s besieged capital, but how long they could continue to do that—and what was happening outside the city of Manchyr—was more than either of them could say.
“If you want brilliant ideas, you’ve come to the wrong man, Rysel,” Tartarian said frankly. “All I know for sure is that right now we’re riding the slash lizard . . . and you know how well that worked out, according to the story.”
Anvil Rock’s mouth twitched in a brief smile, but it never touched his eyes, and he drew a deep breath.
“We have to decide what we’re going to do about the succession,” he said. “And we’ve got to decide what to do about Cayleb’s goddamned army, too.”
“I’m afraid Cayleb’s army is the easy part,” Tartarian replied. “There’s not anything we can do about it, which really only leaves us one option where Cayleb is concerned, doesn’t it? It’s not one either of us likes, but at least it has the virtue of a certain brutal simplicity.”
“After the son-of-a-bitch murdered Hektor?” Anvil Rock half-snarled.
“First,” Tartarian said in a deliberately calm tone, “we don’t have any proof Cayleb was involved in that assassination at all. He—”
“I know he said he wasn’t,” Anvil Rock interrupted. “That’s exactly what he would say, though, isn’t it? And if it wasn’t him, who else was it?”
“I don’t know who it was. That’s my entire point.” Tartarian thought again about mentioning one unpleasant suspicion which had occurred to him and decided—again—not to. Not directly, at any rate. “It could have been Cayleb, although exactly how he could have gotten his assassins through the siege lines is an interesting question. On the other hand, it could equally well have been someone trying to curry favor with Cayleb, someone trying to force a surrender before the war did even greater damage to whatever his interests might have been. Or even someone who’d learned the Prince was planning to negotiate with Cayleb and was determined to prevent him from reaching any sort of accommodation with Charis.”
That last possibility was as close as he cared to come to suggesting that the assassins might have been Temple Loyalists . . . or even direct agents of the Church. From the unhappy flicker in Anvil Rock’s eyes, the army commander had caught his implication.
“The one thing that strikes me about it from Cayleb’s viewpoint, though,” Tartarian continued, “is how incredibly stupid it would’ve been. Mind you, people do stupid things, especially when there’s enough hatred involved, and God knows Cayleb and the Prince hated each other. But if it was Cayleb, it was the first stupid thing he’s done that I know of. And whether it was him or not, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s still got an army and a navy . . . and we don’t. I hate to say it, Rysel, but we don’t have a choice. In fact, with the Prince gone, we’ve got even less of a choice than he had.”
“Even if that’s true, what makes you think the rest of the Princedom would pay any attention to us?” Anvil Rock asked bitterly.
“At the moment, who else can they pay attention to? With Phylyp out of the Princedom with Irys and Daivyn, you’re the closest thing we’ve got to a first councilor. Not to mention the fact that the Prince had named you as Regent if anything happened to him.”
“But he named me Regent for young Hektor. With him dead right along with the Prince, I don’t have anyone to be Regent for.”
“There’s always Zhoel,” Tartarian said very cautiously.
“No!” Anvil Rock’s flat palm cracked explosively on the council table’s surface, and his exhausted face flushed with anger. Despite the glare in his eyes, Tartarian was glad to see the emotion, for more than one reason.
“If I don’t say it to you, Rysel, someone else will,” he said after a moment. “If the Prince had ever contemplated, even for a moment, that he and young Hektor might both be killed, he wouldn’t have sent Daivyn to Delferahk. But he did, and we’re all stuck with the consequences of that.”
Anvil Rock’s jaw muscles ridged. For just a moment he seemed to hover on the brink of lunging to his feet and storming out of the council chamber. But then he made himself sit back and draw another of those deep, steadying breaths of which he seemed to require so many recently.
Tartarian was right, and Anvil Rock knew it, which didn’t make him like it one bit better. And not simply because of the invidious position in which it threatened to place him, personally.
The previous couple of generations had not been overgenerous where the House of Daykyn’s progeny was concerned. Prince Hektor’s grandfather, Prince Lewk, had produced only two children: Hektor’s father, Fronz, and his uncle, Alyk. Prince Fronz had produced only two children who’d lived to their majorities: Hektor, himself, and his sister Sharyl. And Alyk Daykyn had produced only a single daughter, Fahrah, Hektor’s first cousin. Both Hektor and Sharyl had been rather more prolific than their parents. Hektor had produced three children, and Sharyl had produced no fewer than five, and thereby hung Anvil Rock’s problem, because Sharyl had married his own second cousin, Sir Zhasyn Gahrvai, the Baron of Wind Hook, which made her children Gahrvai’s second cousins once removed.
And, of course, made them Prince Hektor’s nieces and nephews.
Under Corisandian law, Prince Daivyn was his father’s legal heir, follo
wing his older brother’s murder. Neither he nor Tartarian doubted that Irys would have made a better ruler than her nine-year-old brother, especially under the current calamitous circumstances, but unlike Chisholm, Corisandian law had established generations ago that a daughter could not inherit the throne. And the question, unfortunately, was moot at the present moment, anyway, since neither Daivyn nor Irys was in Corisande. Their first cousins, on the other hand, were, and young Zhoel Gahrvai, the current Baron Wind Hook, stood next in the succession after Daivyn.
“I know someone’s going to argue that we ought to put Zhoel in Daivyn’s place,” Anvil Rock said after a moment. “I can even see some pretty forceful arguments in favor of doing just that. But whatever anyone else might suggest, I can’t be a party to deciding to do it, for a lot of reasons. Including the fact that all of my oaths were sworn to Daivyn’s father, not to Zhasyn. And,” he added more unwillingly, “even if that weren’t the case, Zhoel isn’t up to the job, and you know it, Taryl.”
“I don’t know if anyone could be ‘up to the job’ under the circumstances,” Tartarian replied. “On the other hand, I do know what you mean,” he admitted. “The good news is that I think Zhoel would say the same thing.”
“So do I,” Anvil Rock said heavily. “He’s always done his best, but to be brutally honest, he makes a good baron.”
Tartarian nodded. The current Baron Wind Hook was only eighteen, and he’d succeeded his father—and become his younger siblings’ legal guardian—when both of his parents were killed in a coach accident, three years before. Unlike Crown Prince Hektor, he’d always tried as hard as he could to discharge the responsibilities of his birth, yet his wit was no more than average, if that. As Anvil Rock had just said, he managed to meet his obligations to his barony, if only by dint of working doggedly at them, but he would really have been happier as a simple gentleman farmer, and the thought of ascending to the Corisandian throne under any circumstances, far less the ones which currently obtained, must be terrifying to him. Assuming, of course, that the possibility had ever crossed his mind for a moment. Which, even now, it very well might not have. A probability which only underscored how utterly unsuited to the throne he would prove.