Endgames

by L. E. Modesitt Jr

  “So long as you keep trying to rule as fairly as possible, the Collegium will do what it can.”

  “That’s all I’m asking. That, and the fact that you never mention what my goal is.”

  Alastar nodded slowly. “We can do that, provided you keep your word.”

  “I don’t have any choice.” Not with all the blood on your hands and in your mind.

  “Did you ever?” Alastar’s words were gently sardonic … and held a trace of sadness.

  As Charyn slowly stood, he wondered what nightmares would now torment him … and for how long.

  61

  On Jeudi morning, Charyn rose well before dawn, this time for a sad and solemn purpose. Instead of wearing regial greens trimmed in black, he wore black entirely, except for the mourning sash, regial green edged in black. The blacks didn’t fit his frame exactly, since they had been borrowed from the choir vestments of the Anomen D’Rex, but Charyn doubted anyone would care that much. He didn’t feel like eating, and he only drank half of the mug of tea Therosa brought up to his apartments. Then he walked down to the family parlor, where he sat down and waited in the deep gray light before dawn.

  Shortly, Chelia joined him. She studied what he wore, but said nothing.

  “Black, in mourning and disgrace. Mourning for Bhayrn, disgrace for me. I should have seen it much sooner.”

  “Then what would you have done? Given him Lauckan and exiled him there, the way your father did his brother? So that you’d have to put down another revolt and kill him later … or fail to put it down and be killed? Once Bhayrn decided he was more fit to rule than you, only one of you would survive. Like all of the Ryel lineage, and you share it, like it or not, you did what you had to do. Your father did not. Treacherous relatives are the lot of all who rule.”

  Yet another reason to work to end the Rexes in a way that doesn’t destroy Solidar. “Rather a sad commentary on monarchial rule, isn’t it?”

  “It’s far better than what preceded it. Do you really want hundreds of squabbling High Holders, with weak regional rulers?”

  Charyn couldn’t dispute that, and the fact that he couldn’t didn’t much help.

  At that moment, Faelln appeared at the parlor door. “The Collegium coach is arriving, Your Grace, Lady Chelia.”

  “Thank you.”

  Charyn stood, as did his mother. They walked out to the foyer and waited.

  Wearing imager grays and a black and green mourning scarf, Aloryana was the first up the unmarked white stone steps and through the doors. She hurried to Charyn and put her arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Charyn.”

  Charyn just held her, his eyes burning.

  “He didn’t give you any choice. Not a real one.” Her next words shook him. “That was his choice, not yours.”

  She’s already grown up, an imager third who will be a maitre. Then the tears oozed from his eyes.

  After a time, he started to let go of Aloryana.

  “He wouldn’t have wept for you,” she murmured before releasing him.

  I was weeping for you and me, not Bhayrn. But he didn’t say that, not to Aloryana. He would, in time, but not yet.

  Alastar and Alyna stepped forward. Both wore imager gray tunics and trousers, and mourning sashes. Both inclined their heads.

  “Thank you for coming,” Charyn said.

  “We appreciate your thinking of us,” said Alyna.

  Charyn understood exactly what she meant—that Aloryana was living with her and Alastar and that it was helpful to everyone that they be at the small family farewell. “I appreciate your being here. None of this has been easy.” And you never expected it to turn out this way … which just might be why it did. And that thought depressed him even more.

  Chelia looked toward the rear of the Chateau.

  Charyn nodded, then took his sister’s arm. The two walked to the rear door, which a guard opened for them, and down the stone steps in the gray light that seemed to press in on Charyn. He turned to the left and walked past the stables toward the corner of the walled courtyard.

  The pyre stood in the far corner. Bhayrn’s body, covered in black canvas, rested on a bier in the center. Four guards flanked the pyre, two on each side. One of them was Dhuncan, and he held a burning torch.

  The five mourners moved into position, in a line less than two yards from the pyre, with Charyn in the center, and Chelia to his immediate left, and Aloryana beside her. On Charyn’s right was Alastar, flanked by Alyna. No chorister, not even Faheel D’Anomen, was present, because his presence would have made the farewell a memorial. Karyel and Iryella watched, as Charyn had ordered, from the study window.

  After several moments of silence, Charyn took one step forward, then nodded to Dhuncan. The guard stepped forward and handed the torch to Charyn.

  Charyn took the torch and stepped forward, raising it and saying, “For Bhayrn, son and brother, in sadness and regret that he could not come to terms with both himself and what bounties life and the Nameless offered him. Farewell.”

  Then he touched the torch in turn to each of the three reservoirs of oil before placing it on the pyre and stepping back in line with the others. The flames raced from the oil reservoirs, then slowed as they gnawed at the wood of the pyre.

  Charyn stood, watching, thinking, remembering … as the flames rose around what remained of Bhayrn and his dreams of what never could have been.

  62

  Much later on Jeudi, well after second glass, Charyn sat alone in his study.

  He’d already taken care of the one absolutely pressing duty, that of requesting Sanafryt to draft the decrees charging Aevidyr, Laastyn, Ghaermyn, Laamyst, and Gherard with high crimes against the Rex and people of Solidar.

  For perhaps the third time, he picked up the latest edition of Veritum. His eyes half-read, half-remembered the words.

  … men clad in white gowns and hoods attempted to storm the Chateau D’Rex. According to Marshal of the Army Vaelln, the attackers were not True Believers, but used the white garments to cast the blame on the religious dissidents in order to provide cover for an attempted assassination of Rex Charyn. The Rex foiled the assassination attempt by shooting the purported assassin himself, despite an injured right hand, the result of an earlier assassination attempt …

  One of the Rex’s ministers and three High Holders, as well as some members of those families, have been taken into custody by the army. Marshal Vaelln has not disclosed whether others were involved in the plot, but he did indicate that, of the main conspirators, only the assassin was killed, and that all the conspirators would appear before the High Justicer …

  Charyn set down that newssheet and picked up the other. The Tableta article wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

  A plot to assassinate Rex Charyn exploded into gunshots and death at the Chateau D’Rex on Meredi afternoon when Lord Bhayrn, the younger brother of the Rex, tried to shoot Rex Charyn, but found himself the victim of the Rex’s left-handed shot. Also slain or wounded were a number of men wearing the white gowns and hoods of the True Believers. By this stratagem, the plotters attempted to place blame for the would-be assassination on the True Believers, whose recent record of violence against choristers would have made the charge plausible. The fact that the Rex is the only non-chorister attacked by the True Believers lends substance to the possibility that the earlier attacks on the Rex may have also be the work of the plotters. Those seized and gaoled by the army, under the provisions of martial law, include Minister of Administration Aevidyr, High Holder Laastyn and one of his sons, and High Holder Ghaermyn and his heir, Gherard D’Ghaermyn …

  No memorial service will be held for Lord Bhayrn. One can scarcely blame our beloved Rex …

  Not for that … but for not really seeing, until it was far too late, what Bhayrn had become. But then, would anything have changed matters? You offered him the best of all the regial holdings that could be given … if only he had tried …

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Your
Grace?” asked Wyllum, from his seat at the conference table.

  “No, thank you.” Charyn looked to the open window, wondering if open windows would always remind him of Bhayrn and those last fateful, terrible, and inexorably necessary moments. He looked back to the few papers on his desk, well aware that, beyond the window, the late-afternoon sky was clear, and white sunlight bathed L’Excelsis.

  There were two draft responses from Sanafryt, in reply to petitions from High Holders Charyn had never met, or even heard of. After having read the petitions twice, he still didn’t remember the issues.

  He found himself looking nowhere when there was a rap on the study door.

  “Your Grace … you have a visitor.”

  “I asked not to see anyone, except if it was urgent.” Charyn didn’t even look up.

  The door opened. “I think it’s very urgent…” began a feminine voice.

  Charyn turned toward the door, where Alyncya stood. Stunned, he said nothing.

  “Wyllum,” said Alyncya firmly, “if you’d leave us.”

  Wyllum looked to Charyn.

  “You can go, Wyllum.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alyncya walked to the chairs opposite the desk and looked directly at Charyn. “I need to be here. You need me here.”

  Charyn didn’t dispute that. “Why did you come, after what I did?”

  “I sat and watched my sister die. I could do nothing. It was terrible. I didn’t have to do what you did.”

  “I shot my brother. Twice. I didn’t do it because I was scared. I did it for reasons that not many people would understand.”

  “Try me.” Her voice was gently firm.

  “What I did was absolutely wrong. I killed my only brother because I feared that, if I didn’t, Solidar would face another revolt and thousands more would die. Would that have happened?” Charyn shrugged tiredly. “I think so. But I don’t know. Bhayrn was ready to follow anyone who would tell him he’d be a better Rex … and he didn’t even want to learn the first thing about running a High Holding … After Aevidyr and Laastyn and Ghaermyn … there would have been someone else. And how could I execute those who were behind it … and let him go?”

  “You felt you had to shoot him?”

  “I’d have been a coward to let anyone else do it. That’s not right. Alastar was there and would have shielded me. So, after a fashion, I was a coward anyway. But I had to be the one, not out of pride … but so that I can’t forget. Does that make sense?”

  “More than you know, dear one. More than you know.”

  “And then there’s Aevidyr. I know that he schemed to enrich himself because he felt entitled to more. And he’ll have to die as well, and he’s my bastard uncle…”

  “Aevidyr’s your uncle?”

  “Grandsire’s son from a High Holder’s daughter who died in childbirth. I didn’t find out that until this week. I think it was this week. Grandsire made him a regional minister. Father made him Minister of Administration. I discovered he used his position to remove some properties from the tariff rolls of certain High Holders, in exchange for lands and other properties. When he discovered Alucar and I were reviewing all the tariffs of High Holders, he likely poisoned the chief clerk and then must have told Laastyn and Ghaermyn, and they came up with the idea of tempting Bhayrn into thinking he should be Rex. And Bhayrn wanted to kill me at the end.”

  “They owed enough to lose their High Holdings?”

  Charyn nodded. “With all the weather damage and the war, Solidar needs those tariffs, and how could I just let them get away with it?”

  “No fair Rex could or should.”

  “My uncle Ryel had my father killed and tried to kill the rest of us. My uncle Ryentar was seduced into supporting the High Holders’ revolt because he thought it would make him Rex. My bastard uncle conspired to get my brother to kill me. I keep asking where will it ever end, and it won’t, not so long as a Rex rules Solidar.”

  “After all this … you’re not thinking of stepping down?”

  Charyn shook his head. “No. There’s no one to replace me.” His short laugh was bitter. “And likely that’s the same thing every Rex has thought at one time or another.” He paused. “But a man shouldn’t be forced to kill his brother, or to face death if he doesn’t, generation after generation. That’s why I’d like to be the last Rex Regis of Solidar.” He looked to Alyncya. “Do you still want to marry a man who killed his brother?”

  “I’d only think of marrying you if you’ll keep your word on being the last Rex of Solidar. I’d never want anyone else to face what you did. Especially our children.”

  Especially our children. The warmth and meaning of those words washed over him. After several long moments, he said, “This isn’t something we can exactly tell anyone else … except I did tell Maitre Alastar that was my dream.”

  “Will you share that dream with me?” Alyncya stood and walked around the desk. “And the grief?”

  “How could I not?” Charyn stood as she took his hands in hers.

  63

  On Vendrei morning, Charyn sat down at the table in the breakfast room, early and alone, as he suspected would be usual for some time. He had just taken a mouthful of tea when Iryella appeared.

  “Might I join you, sir?”

  “Of course.” Charyn wondered what she wanted or if she just couldn’t sleep. “What brings you down so early?”

  “I woke up early. Why did you want us to watch the pyre yesterday, but you wouldn’t let us join you and Aunt Chelia?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Lord Bhayrn tried to kill you. That was wrong, but why couldn’t we say farewell?”

  “Immediate family has to be there, both to remind us that even those we have loved can turn from the right path and to show we care. Any others would be a sign of respect, and what Bhayrn did was not worthy of respect. I wanted you to see that.”

  “But the maitres were there, and they’re not immediate family.”

  “They’re acting as Aloryana’s immediate family until she is of age.”

  “Because she’s an imager?”

  Charyn nodded, then waited as Therosa set the platter of ham strips and cheesed eggs before him, along with a small loaf of dark bread. “What would you like, Iryella?”

  “Could I please have the eggs scrambled without cheese and ham and tea?”

  “It will be a few moments for the eggs,” replied Therosa. “I’ll bring your tea right out.”

  Once Therosa left, Iryella looked to Charyn. “Why did he do it, sir?”

  “Bhayrn, you mean? It’s always difficult to know what someone else really thinks, even your own brother. We have to go by what they say and what they do. From what Bhayrn said and what he did, I believe that he didn’t agree with the decisions I made as Rex and he thought he would be a better Rex.” Charyn took a bite of the eggs, then realized he didn’t feel like eating. He took another small bite before having some more of his tea.

  “Why did he think that?”

  “There were many reasons, I think, but the difference between us was that he wanted things to stay as they had always been, and I think that when times change, the Rex has to change, usually to keep the change from getting out of hand while allowing those things that cannot be stopped to take place in an orderly fashion. I’d say change is like a flooding river. You can’t stop it for long. All you can do is to channel it away from where it will do too much damage and to allow it to flood where it won’t.”

  “Is that why you declared martial law but ordered the factors to pay the workers more?” Iryella’s voice held what Charyn thought was honest curiosity.

  “That was my hope. We’ll see how well that works.”

  “It will work, Your Grace,” murmured Therosa, as she set the mug of tea before Iryella.

  “Why do you think that, Therosa?” asked Charyn.

  “No Rex ever listened to the little people before. You did two things for them. The two-copper law and the law to
make choristers be more honest.”

  “Will it be enough?”

  “We all hope so, Your Grace.” Therosa slipped away before Charyn could say another word.

  Charyn smiled wryly. “That also means that I can’t stop listening.”

  “Lord Bhayrn only listened to his friends, didn’t he?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Karyel’s like that sometimes. Is that another reason why you wanted us to watch?”

  “I hoped you might remember it in times to come and understand what happens when you see only what you want to see. We all like to see what we want to see, and we need to try to see what others see. They’re often not the same.”

  Iryella nodded.

  Charyn could see that she’d had enough of serious talk. “Are you going to keep practicing harder on the clavecin?”

  “Until I’m better than either you or Karyel.”

  Charyn laughed softly. “You’re likely better than I am right now.”

  “You’ll get better again.”

  Charyn certainly hoped so.

  After breakfast, most of which he left, Charyn talked briefly with Maertyl, then made his way to the study, where Wyllum was already waiting.

  Alucar had left early, accompanied by two squads of troopers, to visit Ghaermyn’s holding in order to determine how many properties weren’t on the tariff rolls. He’d have to do that with Laastyn’s properties as well, which would take longer, possibly much longer, Charyn suspected.

  Just before eighth glass, Sanafryt entered the study. He set five documents on the desk before Charyn. “Here are the decrees.”

  “Thank you.” Charyn read over each decree of high crimes committed against the Rex and the people of Solidar, then signed and sealed it, before handing it back to Sanafryt. “High Justicer Sullivyr is expecting this?”

  “I already informed him that he would have the decree for his review before noon. It’s more of a formality in cases like this. They’ve each so exceeded the law in so many ways.”