A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  Ohlyvya’s eyes narrowed, and Staynair shrugged.

  “I won’t dispute a single thing Merlin’s had to say about Langhorne and Bédard and the rest of the ‘Archangels.’ They were mass murderers and, clearly, megalomaniacs, and what they created was a monster and an abomination before God. I’m a Bédardist myself, and discovering the truth about the patron of my order was one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life. But having said that, the Order of Bédard’s done an enormous amount of good over the centuries. I believe it’s grown into something quite different from what Adorée Bédard had in mind when she was busy ‘reprogramming’ the minds of helpless, sleeping people to make them believe the lie, but I’ve also been forced to admit I might be wrong about that. We know what she and Langhorne did; we will never know what they were truly thinking when they did it. I’m not proposing that the nobility of their motives, assuming they actually possessed any such thing, justifies their acts. I’m simply saying that we, as human beings, have a tendency to judge on the basis of what we understand, what we see, even when we know intellectually that there are almost certainly things we don’t understand and haven’t yet seen. We do that with other humans. We do it even with ourselves, when you come right down to it. I think we ought to recognize that, Your Highness. And, just perhaps, that we might try to avoid doing the same thing to God.”

  She gazed at him for several moments, then nodded slowly. It wasn’t really a gesture of agreement—not yet at least. But it was a concession of understanding. Or perhaps of a beginning of understanding.

  “In time, Ohlyvya,” Sharleyan said, “every human being is going to have to decide how to respond to the lie for himself or herself. I know how I’ve responded, but no one can predict how everyone else will. That’s one reason we’ve been so cautious when it comes to deciding who we can reveal the truth to.”

  “And if it turns out you were wrong to reveal it to someone, Your Majesty?” Ohlyvya asked very softly. “What happens then?”

  “The fact that you’ve asked means you already know the answer,” Sharleyan replied, her voice equally soft yet unflinching. “We can’t—and won’t—pretend about that. God alone knows how many people are going to die before this struggle ends, and the information Merlin’s shared with you and Nahrmahn to -night would be devastating in the hands of the Temple Loyalists. If you were in our place, what would you be willing to do to prevent it from reaching them?”

  Silence hovered once more, tense and brittle. Then, surprisingly, Ohlyvya Baytz smiled. It was a small smile, but genuine, Merlin realized.

  “I’ve been married to Nahrmahn almost as long as you’ve been alive, Your Majesty,” she said. “During all those years, he’s done his best to ‘shelter me’ from the harsh realities of the ‘great game.’ I’m afraid, though, that he never really succeeded in that quite as well as he thought he had, even if I didn’t have the heart to tell him he hadn’t.”

  She turned her head, her smile growing broader and warmer as her eyes met her husband’s and she squeezed his hand. Then she looked back at Sharleyan and Cayleb, and her expression had sobered once more.

  “But after all that, of course I know what you would have done, and I don’t doubt for a moment that Nahrmahn would have done exactly the same thing in your place. For that matter,” she looked Sharleyan in the eye levelly, “so would I. So I suppose it’s a good thing, for all our sakes, that you won’t have to.”

  “We won’t?” Cayleb asked quietly, and Ohlyvya shook her head.

  “Your Grace, if Nahrmahn had been inclined to denounce you as heretics and demon worshippers, he would have done that the moment you told him Seijin Merlin sees ‘visions.’ You didn’t need to tell him the seijin also flies through the air, and doesn’t need to do little things like, oh, breathe, for him to have realized there was more at work in him than the Group of Four guesses. He knew from that moment that Merlin was an ‘unnatural creature,’ and I don’t doubt the Writ’s warning that such things serve Shan- wei passed through his mind. It’s a very active mind, you know.”

  She smiled again, shaking her head at Nahrmahn yet managing simultaneously to keep her gaze on Cayleb as she continued.

  “I know my husband,” she said simply, “and while I don’t doubt the seijin would have been able to keep him under continuous observation, I think he would have succeeded in betraying you, if he’d decided you and Merlin did serve Shan- wei. He might not have survived the experience, but he would have succeeded. And I think, now that you’ve come to know him, you probably realize he would have done it knowing he wouldn’t survive, if he’d truly believed you intended to betray the entire world to the Dark.”

  Nahrmahn’s face had turned an interesting shade of pink, Merlin observed, but the rotund little prince didn’t flinch.

  And she’s right about him, too, by God,Merlin thought, and shook his head mentally. I wouldn’t have thought it myself, when I first met him, but she’s right. If he’d thought that, he would have done exactly what she’s just said.

  “As it happens,” Ohlyvya continued, “I have considerable faith in his judgment. It’s not infallible, and he’s made his share of mistakes. But it’s a somewhat smaller share than that of quite a few other princes I could mention. And in this case, I think my judgment agrees with his.”

  She looked at Staynair. “Your Eminence, I’d really like the opportunity to examine some of those other holy writs you’ve mentioned. I’m sure that when I do, they’ll create plenty of questions of their own. But I was prepared to trust you against the Temple when your rejection of Mother Church’s interpretation of the only Writ I knew of was based on nothing but faith. Perhaps you are asking us to believe even more, now, but you’re also offering us a lot more in the way of evidence and proof.” She shrugged. “No doubt someone like Clyntahn will still find all sorts of reasons to reject it. I’ve already made up my mind that he doesn’t worship the same God I do, though, so that’s not a problem for me.”

  Merlin felt himself relaxing as he realized she meant every word of it. He looked around the table and saw his own reaction mirrored, to greater or lesser extent, in each of the other faces. Except Nahrmahn’s, perhaps.

  The Prince of Emerald wasn’t looking at Merlin Athrawes. Nor even at his emperor and empress. No, he was looking at someone far more important than either of those august individuals.

  He was looking at his wife, and for once, as his eyes clung to hers, there was no guard on his expression or his emotions at all.

  .VI.

  Prince Nahrmahn’s Sitting Room,

  Imperial Palace,

  Cherayth,

  Kingdom of Chisholm

  Good morning, Your Highness.”

  “Yes it is, isn’t it? Morning, I mean.” Nahrmahn Baytz looked out the palace window at a winter- gray Chisholmian day, and shuddered.

  It wasn’t actually all that early, Merlin reflected, but then again, Cherayth was four time zones farther east than Eraystor. Of course, Nahrmahn had enjoyed quite a lengthy voyage, so there’d been plenty of time for his internal clock to reset. Which led Merlin to the sad conclusion that Prince Nahrmahn simply wasn’t what deplorably perky people back on Old Earth had persisted in calling “a morning person.”

  Fair enough,Merlin thought, suppressing a temptation to smile. After all, I was never a “morning person” if I could avoid it, either.

  “And what may I do for you at this ungodly, frigid hour?” Nahrmahn inquired, stepping closer to the fire crackling on the guest sitting chamber’s hearth. He held out his hands to the flames, although, to be perfectly fair, it wasn’t especially freezing in the sitting chamber. Or not by Chisholmian standards, at any rate.

  “Actually, I need to discuss a few things with you, Your Highness,” Merlin said, and Nahrmahn’s eyes narrowed, his expression turning rather more serious as he looked at the seijin.

  “In my role as Their Majesties’ imperial councilor for intelligence?” he asked. “Or in my role as new initiate int
o the ‘inner circle’?”

  “Both, actually.” Merlin shrugged slightly. “I’m sure you’ve already realized, at least theoretically, how your ability to analyze intelligence is going to shift once we get you properly instructed in the use of your com. I doubt you’re fully prepared for it, though. I mean no offense when I say that, but, frankly, I don’t see how anyone who hasn’t already experienced it could be fully prepared.”

  “Somehow, I don’t doubt that at all.” Nahrmahn’s tone was dry and he shook his head. “I’ve been remembering all those neatly written ‘summaries’ you and . . . Owl have provided and trying to visualize what it must have been like to actually watch the things you reported in such detail.” He shook his head again. “The one conclusion I’ve positively come to is that no matter how hard I try to imagine it, the reality’s going to be even more . . . impressive, shall we say?”

  “I think that’s probably a safe estimate. Still, I also think you’ll get accustomed faster than you expect right now.” Merlin smiled. Then his expression sobered a bit. “But another thing you’ll discover, unfortunately, is something called ‘information overload.’ ” It was his turn to shake his head. “That’s how Sharleyan almost ended up assassinated despite all of my SNARCs and parasites. There was simply too much data coming at me, even with Owl to help, for me to keep track of everything. And unlike you, Your Highness, I really can go without sleep virtually indefinitely when I need to.”

  “I imagine that’s true enough,” Nahrmahn said thoughtfully. “For that matter, I’ve been thinking about how difficult it must be for Their Majesties simply to find the time—and privacy—to sit down and ‘look’ at all the material you’ve been describing. It’s not as if they can just sit around in the throne room ignoring everyone else while they listen to voices no one else can hear, now is it? Sooner or later, people would start to talk.”

  “Believe me, it’s even worse than you may’ve been thinking.” Merlin rolled his eyes. “I imagine it’s going to be at least as bad with you, for that matter.”

  “ ‘At least as bad’?” Nahrmahn repeated, arching both eyebrows. “You’ve got access to Owl’s computer files now, Your Highness, and I know where your older children got their taste for reading. I shudder to think what’s going to happen when you find Owl’s history banks. And God help us all when you get your hands on a copy of Machiavelli!”

  “Machiavelli,” Nahrmahn repeated the bizarre- sounding name slowly, wrapping his tongue carefully around the odd syllables. “What a peculiar name.” He cocked his head. “Is that the name of the book, or the author?”

  “I’ll let you find that out for yourself, Your Highness.” Merlin did shudder, delicately. “I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it to you at all, but I’ve told Owl to help all system users figure out how to do data searches, and knowing you, you’d have turned up all sorts of references to it on your own soon enough.”

  “You realize you’re only making me even more curious,” Nahrmahn pointed out.

  “Yes, I guess I am.” Merlin crossed to the window and stood looking out across the winter- dulled countryside beyond. “I think part of it’s finally having someone I can talk to about this at all,” he said slowly. “It’s almost . . . almost as if human history isn’t really dead anymore, and I hadn’t truly realized how much I missed it until I discovered other people I can actually dare to share it with.”

  Nahrmahn’s expression softened, and he laid one hand lightly on the seijin’s shoulder.

  “There’s a proverb,” he said quietly. “I imagine they had something like it back on ‘Old Earth.’ It says, ‘Lonely is the head that wears a crown.’ ” He shook his own head, looking out the window beside Merlin. “I realized years ago just how true that was, but it never occurred to me that there could be someone who was as lonely as you must have been when you woke up in that cave of yours.”

  Merlin turned his head, looking down and across at the pudgy little Emeraldian for a moment, then nodded slowly.

  “You know, Your Highness,” he said in a deliberately lighter tone, “I’m happier every day that we managed to settle that unpleasantness between Charis and Emerald without making anyone a foot or so shorter than he used to be.”

  “Especially those of us who had so few inches to spare to begin with,” Nahrmahn agreed wryly, looking up at the towering seijin.

  “To be sure.” Merlin smiled. Then he gave himself a shake. “But I suppose I ought to be getting back to the real reason I came to see you this morning,” he said more briskly.

  “By all means,” Nahrmahn invited. “The thing is that I’m leaving for Maikelberg as soon as you and I finish this chat. I have an errand there for Their Majesties—one that actually does have a little something to do with our present conversation. Because I’m going to be away, I won’t be able to walk you and Princess Ohlyvya through the familiarization with your coms the way I would otherwise. Cayleb and Sharleyan can do that just fine, though, and I believe they’re going to invite you—and Archbishop Maikel—to supper again to night to do exactly that.”

  He paused, eyebrows raised, until Nahrmahn nodded in understanding, then went on.

  “Once we’ve got you up to speed and you’re comfortable using the interface with Owl, we’ll ask you to help take some of the information load off the rest of us. Cayleb and Sharleyan already have aspects of Owl’s total intelligence take that they’re responsible for vetting every day. The hard part where you’re concerned is going to be avoiding the temptation to really load you down. To be honest, Your Highness, I believe you’re the best analyst we have. You’re certainly better at it than I am, and I think you’re actually better at it than Wave Thunder, for that matter. So we need to strike the right balance between having you screening raw data yourself and looking at all the more important things someone else—someone who’s not as good an analyst—has turned up for you to consider.”

  “I can see that,” Nahrmahn mused. If he was embarrassed by Merlin’s compliments about his analytical ability, he hid it well, the seijin reflected wryly.

  “There are some areas, however, where we are going to want you to take the first look at the data itself,” he said out loud. “Which brings me to my trip to Maikelberg.”

  “In what way?” Nahrmahn asked when Merlin paused. “Certain people,” the seijin chose his words with care, “are either already talking to people they shouldn’t be talking to or else looking for people they shouldn’t be talking to. Some of them are quite highly placed.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Nahrmahn said sourly. “In fact, I could probably hazard a guess at some of the ‘highly placed’ people in question. Those summaries you used to hand me contained a few of those names, for that matter. Should I assume someone in Maikelberg falls into that category?”

  “There are several people in Maikelberg who fall into that category, as a matter of fact, Your Highness.” Merlin grimaced. “Fortunately, there are a lot more who might have fallen into it who don’t. Duke Eastshare, for example.”

  “Really?” Nahrmahn gazed at Merlin intently, then nodded slowly. “Good. Good!” He nodded more firmly. “I thought that was probably the case, but I’m delighted to have it confirmed!”

  “You’re not exactly alone in that,” Merlin said feelingly, then shrugged. “For obvious reasons, we can’t go around arresting people when we can’t possibly present the evidence—the proof—of their treason in an open court. We can use what we know to steer people out of particularly sensitive positions when we know we can’t trust them, and we do. But there are a relatively small handful who we know are traitors who we either can’t ease aside without some ironclad justification or who, for various reasons, we don’t want to ease aside.”

  “Knowing who the traitor is allows you to control the information flow,” Nahrmahn said.

  “Exactly.” Merlin nodded vigorously. “That’s the thinking behind most of Cayleb and Sharleyan’s decisions to leave people in those sorts of positions, and they�
��re going to ask you to take over on monitoring that information flow.”

  Nahrmahn nodded again, still gazing thoughtfully up at Merlin. “In addition, though, there are a very few people—just a handful, actually—who have been left in place for very specific reasons. Reasons that don’t really have much to do with controlling the information they’re passing to someone else. Cayleb calls them our ‘Master Traynyr Specials.’ ”

  He watched Nahrmahn’s expression expectantly. The prince frowned for a moment, then found himself nodding yet again at the reference to the legendary director of Safeholdian puppet theater.

  “So your journey to Maikelberg has something to do with one of those puppets.” His tone was thoughtfully speculative. “Someone you’re maneuvering into doing something himself? Or someone you’re using to maneuver someone else into doing something?”

  “Your Highness, watching you in action is one of my guilty pleasures,” Merlin told him with a grin. “For that matter, it was one of my guilty pleasures even when you were on the other side!”

  “I’m enchanted to discover I’ve given you so many hours of amusement, Seijin Merlin.” Nahrmahn’s tone was dry, but his eyes twinkled, and Merlin snorted.

  “Let me tell you about the noble Earl of Swayle,” he said. “He’s quite an interesting fellow. He has even more interesting friends, too, and Cayleb and Sharleyan—and I—would appreciate your perspective on him. And, for that matter, on exactly how I should go about . . . presenting myself in the course of that errand I mentioned a few minutes ago. You see—”

  .VII.

  Archbishop’s Palace,

  City of Tairys,

  Province of Glacierheart,

  Republic of Siddarmark