by David Weber
“He may not have given you an answer yet, Maikel. This time, though, I think he’s going to have to.”
At that particular moment, Staynair thought, Cayleb looked a great deal like his father. There was very little humor in his brown eyes, and—at least as importantly—Sharleyan’s expression was as serious as her husband’s.
“I don’t want to get up on my Emperor’s high dragon with the Brethren any more often than I have to,” Cayleb continued, “but in this instance, I think I do have to. They’ve been debating this particular decision for months. They started on it well before you ever left for Emerald, for God’s sake, and I can’t afford to let it go on any longer. I’m going to have to insist they give me a decision—now.”
Staynair looked at both of his monarchs for a long, silent moment, then dipped his head in an unusual formal gesture of respect. But then he looked up again, meeting their eyes steadily.
“If you wish a decision, Your Grace, then you’ll have one,” he said gravely. “But you have considered the consequences if the Brethren agree and it goes . . . poorly?”
“We have,” Sharleyan said, grimly, before Cayleb could reply. Staynair turned toward her, and she returned his regard with equal steadiness. “If we tell Nahrmahn the truth, and it turns out we’ve misjudged his reaction, we both know what we’ll have to do, Maikel. I pray it won’t come to that. And if it does, I’m sure I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting it, and asking God’s forgiveness. But if the decision has to be made, we will make it.” She smiled bleakly. “After all, we’ve faced the same possibility with everyone we’ve ‘brought inside.’ So far, we’ve ‘come up golden’ every time, as Cayleb likes to put it. And, to be honest, part of that is probably exactly because the Brethren’s first instinct is always to go slow and think things through as thoroughly as possible. But we’ve always known that, sooner or later, we’re almost certain to be mistaken. And we’ve always known what the price of that mistake will be . . . just as we’ve accepted that there are some people we’ll never be able to tell the complete truth.”
“Very well, Your Majesty. You’ll have your answer, one way or the other, this very day.”
“That, Harvai—as always—was delicious,” Sharleyan said with simple sincerity, several hours later, as the servants finished clearing the dessert plates. “You spoil us shamelessly, you know. You and all the staff. Which is probably why we appreciate you all so much. Thank you... and please pass that on to Mistress Bahr and the rest of the kitchen staff, as well.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Sir Harvai Phalgrain agreed with a smile and a deep bow. Phalgrain, the palace’s majordomo, saw to it that its organization ran with the sort of smooth efficiency any military command might have envied . . . and few could have attained. Given the identities of the emperor and empress’ dinner guests, he’d taken personal charge of to night’s supper to make certain nothing went wrong, and he was obviously pleased by Sharleyan’s compliments.
“And now,” Cayleb said, “I think we can take care of ourselves for a while, Harvai. Just leave the bottles on the side table, and we’ll ring if we need anything else.”
He smiled as he spoke, and Phalgrain smiled back. Then the majordomo bowed once again—this time a more general courtesy, directed at all of the diners—and withdrew.
Cayleb watched him go until the door closed behind him, then returned his attention to his and Sharleyan’s guests.
In some ways—many ways, if he were going to be honest—he wished there were only two of those guests, not three. He supposed they could have insisted this would be a “working supper” to which Princess Ohlyvya was not invited. In fact, they’d started to do exactly that. But then they’d thought about it a bit more and realized just how unwise that might have proved.
First, it would have been uncharacteristically rude. He and Sharleyan would have regretted that, but they could have lived with it. Unfortunately, Ohlyvya Baytz was a very, very smart woman. If she’d been excluded from the invitation and . . . something happened to Nahrmahn, she was more than capable of asking exactly the sorts of questions Nahrmahn himself would have asked. It was entirely possible she’d get answers to them, too, and even if she didn’t, turning her against Charis would be only marginally less disastrous than turning Nahrmahn into an enemy would have been.
Second, though, Nahrmahn and Ohlyvya, in their own ways, were at least as close as Cayleb and Sharleyan themselves. The steadying influence she exercised upon him grew out of that closeness, the strength of that commitment and love. Not telling her after they’d told Nahrmahn would put the portly little prince in a position just as invidious as Cayleb’s had been before Sharleyan finally learned the truth. And, on top of all that, it was distinctly possible that telling both him and Ohlyvya at the same time would make it easier for both of them to accept the truth.
Neither Cayleb nor Sharleyan were entirely happy with the decision they’d finally reached, but, in the end, it had been the only one they could reach.
Well, if Merlin’s right about both of them, it’s not going to be a problem,Cayleb told himself yet again. Of course, Merlin would be the first to admit that he has made a mistake or two along the way.
Speaking of which... “Why don’t you come over here and join us, Merlin?” he invited, looking over his shoulder at the tall, blue- eyed guardsman standing just inside the dining-room door.
Merlin Athrawes smiled slightly as Ohlyvya Baytz looked up just that little bit too quickly from her quiet conversation with Sharleyan. Princess Ohlyvya had spent de cades married to a reigning head of state. Along the way, she’d learned to conceal little things like surprise far better than most mere mortals ever did.
Normally, at least.
Nahrmahn, on the other hand, had had ample opportunity to watch Cayleb and Merlin interact during the Corisande campaign. In fact, he’d already been informed that the seijin saw “visions.” That his function as seer and adviser was even more important than his function as Cayleb’s personal bodyguard. Along the way, he’d also come to understand that Captain Athrawes’ relationship with both Emperor Cayleb and Empress Sharleyan was even closer than most other people would ever have surmised.
That was something he’d learned to factor into his analyses of Merlin’s “visions.” It was not, however, knowledge he had ever shared with his wife, and the fact that the emperor and empress had apparently decided it was time for Ohlyvya to discover at least part of what he himself already knew had to have come as a significant surprise for him, as well. If so, it wasn’t evident. He simply cocked his head with a mildly speculative expression which would probably have fooled just about anyone. Merlin had come to know the plump little prince at least as well as Nahrmahn had come to know him, however, and he could almost literally see the thoughts flickering through that agile brain.
“Of course, Your Grace,” he murmured out loud, and crossed to the table. Cayleb’s wave indicated a chair between himself and Maikel Staynair, and Merlin bowed in acknowledgment. He unbuckled his weapons harness, standing his sheathed katana and wakazashi against the wall, then pulled back the indicated chair and seated himself in it.
“Wine, Merlin?” Staynair inquired with a whimsical smile. “If you please, Your Eminence,” Merlin replied, and watched Princess Ohlyvya’s bemused expression from the corner of one eye as the primate of the Church of Charis poured wine for a mere bodyguard. The archbishop passed the glass across, and Merlin nodded in gratitude and took a sip.
“Nahrmahn, Ohlyvya,” Cayleb said then, gathering back up the prince’s and princess’ attention, “as I’m sure both of you have already deduced, Sharleyan and I invited Merlin to join us at table to make a point. And that point, as I’m sure both of you have also already realized, is that Merlin is quite a bit more than simply my bodyguard. In fact, Ohlyvya, Nahrmahn was already acquainted with that minor fact, although I’m aware he hasn’t shared that knowledge with you.”
“Indeed he hasn’t, Your Grace,” Ohlyvya said when he paused for a
moment, and despite herself, there was an edge of anxiety in her voice.
“We know that,” Sharleyan said quickly, reaching out to touch the older woman’s arm reassuringly. Ohlyvya looked at her, and the empress smiled. “Trust me—when I say we know Nahrmahn has never betrayed a single one of our confidences, even to you, we truly do. You’ll understand what I mean after Merlin completes his explanation.”
“Explanation, Your Majesty?” Ohlyvya’s confusion showed much more clearly this time, and Sharleyan nodded. Then she glanced at Merlin.
“Why don’t you go ahead and begin?” she invited. “Of course, Your Majesty.” Merlin bent his head in acknowledgment, then looked across the table at Ohlyvya. “Prince Nahrmahn has already heard a part of this, Your Highness,” he said, “but most of it will be equally new to him. Or, perhaps I should say he’s about to discover that the information he’s already been given was . . . incomplete. I apologize for that, Your Highness,” he said, shifting his attention to Nahrmahn for a moment, “but it was one of those ‘need to know’ items, as I feel confident you’ll understand when I finish explaining.”
“Should I assume something has changed and given me the ‘need to know’ after all, Seijin Merlin? And, for some reason, Ohlyvya, as well?” Nahrmahn asked the question calmly, but he also reached out to take his wife’s hand reassuringly. There was something profoundly touching about the protectiveness in that small gesture, Merlin thought, and felt his heart warming to the pudgy Emeraldian.
“It’s not so much something that’s changed as a decision process which has worked its way through, Your Highness,” Merlin told him. “There were more people involved in making that decision than even you can have suspected, I think. And most of those other people lacked the . . . unfair advantages, you might say, which you were already aware I myself possess. That tended to make them more hesitant—well, cautious would actually be a better word—than they might have been otherwise.”
“But not you?” Nahrmahn murmured with a smile, and Merlin shrugged. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if Cayleb, Sharleyan, and Arch- bishop Maikel weren’t already quite confident about how it will work out, Your Highness. None of us is infallible, so it’s possible we’re all wrong about that. I don’t think that’s very likely, though.”
“Well, I suppose that’s a relief,” Nahrmahn said. “On the other hand, perhaps you should go ahead and begin that explanation. Now.”
“Certainly, Your Highness.”
Despite the potential gravity of the moment, Merlin found it difficult not to chuckle at the mingled exasperation, impatience, and humor in Nahrmahn’s tone. Then the temptation faded, and he leaned forward in his chair, folding his hands around the base of his wineglass as he looked soberly at Nahrmahn and Ohlyvya.
“I realize, better than either of you probably even begin to suspect, just how disillusioned both of you are with the Group of Four,” he said very levelly. “I know—I don’t suspect, I don’t think, I don’t estimate, I know—that Princess Ohlyvya is just as disgusted and heartsick and angry as Cayleb or Sharleyan themselves over the way Clyntahn and Trynair are using and abusing the Church’s authority and the faith of every Safeholdian. By the same token, I know your own disgust over the Group of Four’s blatant corruption and taste for tyranny is far deeper than you’d really like anyone else to guess, given that cynical, pragmatic, ruthless politician’s image you’ve spent so long cultivating, Your Highness.” He smiled faintly at Narhmahn’s slightly affronted expression, yet no trace of his amusement touched his somber tone as he continued. “But what neither of you know is that the Group of Four are scarcely the first to abuse the faith of all Safeholdians for their own purposes. In fact, they’re following in a tradition that was established even before the Day of Creation.”
The husband and wife sitting across the table from him stiffened in unison, their eyes widening in confusion, and this time his smile was far, far grimmer.
“You see, just over a thousand years ago—”
The silence in the dining room was profound when Merlin finished his explanation two hours later. The faint, icy sigh of the winter wind, plucking at cornices, battlements, and gables, tapping invisible fingers on the closed windowpanes, was clearly audible, despite the solidity of the palace’s ancient stony bulk.
Nahrmahn and Ohlyvya Baytz sat side by side, holding hands as they had from the moment Merlin began, and Ohlyvya’s eyes were huge, dark pools in the lamplight, as they clung to the communicator, the compact holographic projector, and the bare wakazashi lying on the table before her. Merlin wondered, looking at her, which of his bits of story- proving technological evidence she’d found most convincing. In some ways, he suspected, it had probably been the wakazashi. The communicator and the projector both looked alien, strange, even magical. The wakazashi didn’t, yet she’d watched him use the impossibly sharp battle steel blade to whittle long slivers of iron off the poker he’d selected from the dining- room fireplace tools. The fact that the wakazashi didn’t look alien yet obviously was had probably made it even more . . . impressive.
And I’d better make damned sure that poker disappears for good, he reminded himself. Better for the servants to wonder where it went than find it chopped up like a Christmas goose.
He felt a brief pang at his own choice of similes and wondered if it was his recitation of humanity’s true history which had recalled it to his thoughts.
Nahrmahn’s expression gave away much less than his wife’s did. Her wonder, and the ghost- haunted eyes that went with it, were plain. Nahrmahn’s eyes were merely hooded, thoughtful, his lips pursed as if he were pondering an everyday conundrum rather than a complete and fundamental shift in the universe he’d always thought existed.
“Well?” Cayleb said quietly, at last, into the silence.
Ohlyvya’s head snapped up, her eyes flitting to the emperor like startled rabbits. Nahrmahn simply looked at Cayleb, but his free hand reached across to join the one already holding his wife’s. He patted the back of her hand gently, reassuringly, then looked across the table at Merlin.
“It wasn’t Her Majesty’s bodyguards who saved her life, after all, was it, Seijin Merlin?” he asked calmly. “Not entirely.”
“Not entirely, no, Your Highness.” Merlin’s voice was low, his sapphire PICA eyes dark. “Without them, I would’ve been too late, though . . . and it’s my fault so many of them died. I dropped the ball badly that day.”
Sharleyan stirred in her chair, as if she wanted to dispute his verdict, but she didn’t, and Nahrmahn smiled faintly.
“I’ve just been replaying that entire morning in my mind.” His tone was almost whimsical. “Here I thought you’d explained so much, when it turns out there was so much more you didn’t even touch on!” He shook his head. “I have to admit that a few things make a lot more sense now than they did then, though. For one thing, I’ve been persistently perplexed by the extent to which Their Majesties seem to think so much alike. Mind you, I’ve had enough experience of how well a man and a wife can learn to read one another’s minds. And”— the skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled briefly but warmly at Ohlyvya—“of the way they can still surprise one another, even after years. But you two”— he transferred his gaze back to Cayleb and Sharleyan—“haven’t been together that long, which is why you’ve amazed me, more than once, by how smoothly your actions and decisions have coordinated despite the fact that you were months of travel time apart. The way Her Majesty decided on her own to come home to Chisholm after the assassination attempt, for example. That was exactly what I felt needed to be done. In fact, it was what I advised rather strongly that very morning, but it had never occurred to me that she might actually do it so promptly. Now I understand how the two of you have managed it.”
“In fairness to Cayleb and Sharleyan, Your Highness, they didn’t have the advantage of instant communication until after the assassination attempt,” Merlin pointed out, and Nahrmahn nodded thoughtfully.
&nbs
p; “You’re right,” he agreed. “And they were operating almost that smoothly even before that, weren’t they?”
“Yes ‘they’ were,” Cayleb said rather dryly. “Which brings me back to my original question, Your Highness.”
“I won’t say it doesn’t come as a considerable surprise, Your Grace,” Nahrmahn acknowledged. “Of course, I suspect you’d be a bit disappointed if it hadn’t! The odd thing, though, is that I don’t think it’s really shocked me.”
“It hasn’t?”
There was a faint but distinct tremor in his wife’s voice. He looked at her quickly, and she gave a slightly shaky smile at the concern in his eyes.
“I can safely say it shocked me,” she continued. “And”— she turned her eyes to Cayleb and Sharleyan—“I have to admit it disturbs me, as well. Even with all of Seijin Merlin’s evidence, you’re asking us to believe a great deal. Or perhaps I should say to disbelieve a great deal. You’re not talking about just the Group of Four anymore. Not just about corruption in the Church, or about evil men twisting God’s message. You’re telling us the message itself is a lie. That the faith to which we’ve trusted our souls—the souls of our children—is nothing more than one enormous falsehood.”
There’s steel in that woman’s soul,Merlin thought respectfully. She’s telling the truth when she says she’s shocked, but she’s cutting straight to the core of the entire story, what really matters to her.
“That’s exactly what Merlin is telling you, in part,” Staynair responded before anyone else could. She looked at the archbishop, and he smiled sadly at her. “The Church of God Awaiting is a lie, the ‘enormous falsehood’ you just called it,” he said. “But the men and women who created that lie built it out of fragments of genuine belief in God. They stole pieces of the truth to build a lie, and that’s what’s made it so damnably—and I choose my adverb with care, Your Highness—believable for so long. But as Merlin said when he began, there really isn’t that much difference between Eric Langhorne and the Group of Four. Aside from the fact that, whether we agree with him or not, Langhorne truly could argue that the very survival of the human race depended upon the success of his lie.”