“Enough,” said Charyn firmly.
The rest of dinner was largely silent, and Charyn made no effort to be cheerful. He did wish Alyncya had been there, but that would have been unfair to her. She’d already listened to him long enough.
After dinner, he retired to his sitting room. He tried to read Devoryn’s History of Solidar, but his eyes refused to focus on the words. Finally, he just sat there, thinking, wondering what he could have done otherwise … and if it would have made a difference.
Predictably, he didn’t sleep that well. When he got up on Samedi, again early, he wondered why Bhayrn’s death—murder—gnawed at him more than it had in the days right after he’d fired the shots.
Because you were numb … or just didn’t realize fully what you’d done?
He finally went down to the breakfast room once he knew the cooks and Therosa would be there.
Therosa immediately appeared. “Yes, Your Grace?”
“Just tea, please, Therosa.”
“Just tea, sir?”
Charyn nodded and sat down at the table.
Two quints later, he began a second mug of tea. After a single sip, he looked up as his mother walked into the breakfast room.
“Iryella said that you’re not eating much,” said Chelia.
“Therosa told me the same about you,” he replied. “I asked.”
“I haven’t been very hungry.” She sat across the table from Charyn.
“Neither have I.”
“You were braver than your father, Charyn.”
“Or crueler,” he replied. “I just didn’t see it ever ending.”
“It wouldn’t have. It didn’t with your father and his brother, not until Maitre Alastar ended it.”
“I can’t imagine … you…” He broke off the words.
“You might well face the same problems if you and Alyncya have sons, each believing they’re better fitted to be Rex.”
“If I live long enough,” replied Charyn, “there won’t be another Rex.”
“I assume you’re not planning to let Solidar fall apart.”
“Nothing like that. In the meantime, I’m going to gently force the Council to take more responsibility for changing things.”
“Can you count on things going as you plan?”
“Some things won’t work, but it’s like getting the tariffs fixed. That took over a year for one little change. Or maybe it’s like Paersyt’s steam-powered boat. It’s taken him years to get it to work, but that means we have an engine that can propel ships, maybe even carts of some sort. If we just keep working…”
Chelia offered a gentle laugh. “Your father never would have believed this.”
“Neither would I,” replied Charyn ruefully. “Nor the cost … in so many ways … and I’ve been Rex only eight months.”
“Everything has a cost, Charyn. Especially change.”
There was little Charyn could say to refute that, and to agree was trite. He just nodded.
“I saw Maitre Alastar with two men I didn’t recognize. They weren’t attired in the manner of factors or High Holders. All three were leaving your study. What do they have to do with your plans?”
“They were craftmasters. They’ll be at Council meetings beginning in Finitas.”
“A year ago, I would have said it wouldn’t work,” said Chelia. “Now…”
“It will take years, but I want the Council to consider matters as to how they affect not only High Holders and factors, but crafters and workers.”
“Is that why you didn’t impose martial law immediately?”
“That was a feeling. I couldn’t prove it, but I wanted both the High Holders and the factors to see how strongly people felt, but I also didn’t want matters to get out of hand. I listened to Maitre Alyna and Alyncya as well as to the Council.”
Chelia frowned. “I knew you and Alyncya exchanged quite a few letters, but you didn’t spend much time together until the past week or so.”
“Those letters were sometimes very long. She asked a number of questions, many about factors, High Holders, and power.”
“Just about those?”
Charyn blushed. “Poetry and likes and dislikes as well.”
“That doesn’t sound like the usual courtship, but neither of you two is quite the usual. Keep listening to her.”
How could I not? “I intend to.”
“I wish your father had listened more…”
Charyn just sat there, listening as she talked.
65
Something was nagging at Charyn as he left his apartments on Solayi morning. Although he thought he’d slept late, the light was leaden gray, and the air was cool. Not only that, but the Chateau was eerily quiet as he made his way to the grand staircase and started down the polished marble risers. His boots did not echo. In fact, they made no sound at all, as if the heavy air had absorbed their usual echoes.
He found he was breathing hard, and sweat dripped from his brow, despite the coolness of the air. Had an autumn storm blown in, dark and gray, but with heavy damp air?
As he took the last steps down to the polished marble tiles of the main foyer, he saw that neither of the two guards posted there moved, but stood motionless, like the painted statues of the ancient Naedarans. How could they not be breathing heavily in the oppressive and damp air? He tried to stop, but he kept walking toward the statue-like guards, as if his legs were being ordered to carry him onward, at another’s command.
Before he knew it, he was on the last riser, and then on the polished white marble tiles of the foyer, even with the two guards.
The guard on the right turned, with brutal swiftness.
Charyn gaped, because above the guard’s formal greens, there was Bhayrn’s face, twisted in anger, and the overlarge pistol in his hand was aimed right at Charyn’s forehead.
“Did you calculate it all along, Brother? Did you push me to the edge to make it easier to kill me? Did you ever think about what I wanted, or what I felt?”
Charyn could not answer, but stood there frozen, numb.
“Did you calculate leaving Palenya or the value of Alyncya? What good are your calculations now?”
With the last words, Bhayrn pulled the trigger, and the bullet emerged from the barrel of the pistol, moving inexorably and slowly toward Charyn’s forehead.
Charyn tried to throw himself to the side, to jerk his head away, but his body was frozen in place, even as sweat poured down his forehead, and his eyes fixed on the grayish-black bullet that oozed through the silent air toward him as he fought to move. The bullet expanded into a black shroud …
“No!”
His own voice echoed across the bedchamber as he struggled to free himself from the shroud that enveloped him.
Abruptly, he was awake, and real sweat poured from him, even as he began to shiver, although the early-autumn air was barely cool.
He sat up in the bed and tried to swallow, but could barely manage it, so dry was his throat. After a few moments, he eased his feet onto the carpet and just sat there on the edge of the bed for a time, blotting his face and body with the corner of the sheet that had felt like a shroud.
66
By later Solayi morning, Charyn was feeling less washed out. He ate a small breakfast, with two mugs of tea, and then made arrangements with Faelln for the coach and guards to pick up Alyncya and take them both to services on Imagisle. After that, he spent time in his study, looking over the petitions he hadn’t even realized were there.
He also read through some of the poems he’d copied, including “The Streets of Gold.”
Although the subject matter differed from what he’d done, he read the last line aloud, because, in a way, it expressed what he felt when he thought of Bhayrn. “And how I long for days of vanished grace.”
But how much of your vanished grace is just the destruction of innocence by necessity? And how much of that innocence was just naïveté?
He smiled ironically as he read the last poem he’
d copied.
GLORY’S PRICE
Some glory in their might, some in their birth.
Some in their words, and others in their graces,
Yet our moons shine sightless on rock and earth
And ashen traces of the fairest faces.
Oh, hunter of the endless void and veil,
And golden goddess of the aching heart,
Can conscience and forbearance yet prevail
O’er endless strife that rends these selves apart?
Charyn wasn’t quite sure where the remainder of the afternoon went, but even before fifth glass he was dressed in regial greens and down in the rear courtyard, where duty ostlers readied the unmarked coach. He did not wear a mourning sash, not after saying farewell to Bhayrn and especially not in public. Nor was he carrying his pistol.
By the time the coach reached the portico of the Shendael mansion, Alyncya stood there waiting. She wore a golden-brown dress with a matching jacket. Charyn smiled as he noticed the peach scarf that complemented the brown and brought out her eyes, and he kept smiling as he stepped out and helped her into the coach.
“This is a tasteful but unornamented coach. One would scarcely note it belonged to the Rex … except for the guards flanking it.”
“It’s the same one I arrived in on Vendrei.”
“I was rather preoccupied in getting myself presentable for a very unannounced visitor.”
“And I was only returning the favor. Your arrival on Jeudi was definitely a favor, if not a rescue.” Charyn leaned over and kissed her cheek, a kiss slightly misplaced as the coach began to move.
“You were distraught and trying not to show it.”
“I kept knowing it was going to happen and hoping that it wouldn’t. But … I didn’t really try to dissuade Bhayrn, not when he reacted so badly to everything I said … and now I ask myself if I should have. But, obviously, it’s far too late.”
“From what you’ve said, and from what I’ve heard from a few people, it was too late months ago.”
“You’re kind.”
“Not at the expense of honesty. I couldn’t even tell my sister that she would get better. I could only say that I was there with her and for her.”
“I hope I never have to hear those words,” said Charyn wryly.
“I hope not as well, but I won’t say them.” She smiled. “I might say something else.” After a moment, she added, “If it comes to that, don’t lie to me, either.”
Charyn winced. “We aren’t even married yet.”
“That’s why it’s a good time to make sure we’re honest with each other.”
“Gently honest,” suggested Charyn.
“So long as the gentleness doesn’t destroy the honesty.”
“That’s fair.”
“Good.” She took his hand. “What can you tell me about Maitre Alastar and Maitre Alyna that I should know?”
“Besides the fact that they’re the most powerful imagers in generations, or that they’ve saved my family more times than they should have?” Charyn paused. “They’re both very wise and sensible, but often you have to listen to what they don’t say. They know far more about L’Excelsis than I do, possibly than you do…”
For the rest of the ride to Imagisle, Charyn recounted what he could, including how the two had welcomed him into their house and how they had made Imagisle a comfortable place for him when not many places had been.
Aloryana was waiting just outside the Maitre’s dwelling when the coach came to a stop.
“I hope you don’t mind that I brought someone with me,” said Charyn, as he stepped down from the coach, then turned and helped Alyncya out.
“You brought Alyncya! I hoped you would. No one here has really met her.” Aloryana turned to Lystara, who had just joined her. “Lystara, this is Lady-heir Alyncya D’Shendael, and … she’s special.”
Coming down the steps from the Maitre’s house right behind Lystara were Alastar and Alyna, the latter with a faint but knowing smile on her lips.
“I think everyone here can keep it to themselves for the next few days,” said Charyn with a smile. “Alyncya has asked me to marry her. I accepted.”
“That’s so she can keep her High Holding,” added Aloryana quickly. “She has to ask.”
“Very few men agree to that,” Alyna said in a tone that conveyed approval.
“When?” asked Aloryana immediately.
“Sometime around Year-Turn, possibly the Samedi of the ball,” said Charyn.
Lystara frowned.
“Since I’m the one who was asked,” replied Charyn, “isn’t it my mother who gets to set the date?”
Alyna laughed.
“Now I need to be more serious,” said Charyn. “Alyncya, might I present you to Maitre Alyna, Maitre Alastar, and Maitre Lystara, the only time I believe that an entire family has been composed of imager maitres.”
Alyncya inclined her head. “I’m pleased to meet you all. Charyn, I know, regards you all as family. I’m honored.”
“We’re the ones who are honored,” replied Alyna, “by your grace and Charyn’s trust.”
“Trusting you,” said Charyn, “has been what has saved me and my family more times than not, and for that, I’m most grateful.”
“And I’d be slightly grateful,” said Alastar, not quite acerbically, “if we could begin the walk to the anomen so that Charyn doesn’t have to hurry.”
Charyn just shook his head.
Not by coincidence, he found himself accompanied by Aloryana and Alastar, while Alyna and Lystara talked to Alyncya.
“How are matters with those behind the plot?” asked Alastar. “If I might inquire?”
“I’ve signed the decrees finding them guilty of high crimes and sent them to the High Justicer.”
“Then their execution is assured.”
“Under the present law.”
“That suggests…?”
“It does, but it will take a little time. The first thing is to hope that no more violence occurs so that I can lift martial law, and the second is to revise and improve the finance and tariff system. The third is to begin to strengthen the Council—”
“You’ve already begun that. I’m curious about the ironworks. That was quite a surprise. Might I ask why?”
“Because I need it to build steam engines…” By the time Charyn had explained what he had in mind and why, they were approaching the anomen.
“If those engines do what you think, that will change all Solidar … and the world.”
“If they work the way I think, we can truly control the oceans and trade, and there will be many more manufactorages. That was why I needed to push through the minimum-wage law before that happens.”
“I think the next years will be quietly interesting,” replied Alastar.
Several imagers stepped aside as Charyn and the Maitre and the others approached the doors. Once inside, Charyn took Alyncya’s hand and guided her behind the two maitres to the left side of the anomen near the front.
Charyn did notice that there were a few more glances in his direction than there had been before, but he suspected those glances were far more to take in Alyncya than for another look at him.
He tried to concentrate on Iskhar’s homily, which focused on greed as a manifestation of naming, in that trying to obtain anything—power, land, golds, or even reputation—no matter what the cost was a form of self-arrogation, and thus naming. Much more than that, Charyn really didn’t recall, aware as he was of Alyncya standing so closely beside him.
On the walk back to the Maitre’s house, which he could tell would take longer, he found himself flanked by Alyna and Lystara.
“Your leg still hurts, doesn’t it?” asked Lystara.
“When I’m on it for a while.”
“It’s only been two weeks, Lystara,” said Alyna.
“It seems longer than that.”
Charyn nodded. “Much longer than that.”
“You’re very fortunate wit
h Alyncya,” Alyna observed.
“Better than I deserve, most likely.”
“False modesty doesn’t become you, Charyn,” replied Alyna firmly, but without raising her voice. “It appears that you deserve each other, and that’s good.”
“I like her,” added Lystara.
“She’s very perceptive, and she’s also very good with the clavecin.”
“It will take both of you to hold Solidar together,” Alyna went on.
“And the Collegium,” said Charyn.
“How is your mother taking it?”
“As a devastating, brutal, and inevitable necessity.”
“And you?”
“Pretty much the same. I keep looking back, though, but I can’t see where I could have done much differently.” Charyn snorted ruefully. “But then, that’s one of my shortcomings. I tend to see what should be, or what I think should be, and proceed from there. That’s why I need Alyncya, and you and Maitre Alastar … and the Council.”
“Just keep that in mind, and you’ll find a way.” Alyna smiled. “There’s a special cake waiting at the house. Aloryana had the feeling that, sooner or later, you’d bring Alyncya. She’d hoped it would be this evening.”
“I needed to bring her.” As much for me as for anyone else.
Before that long the six were back in the parlor at the Maitre’s house, where Charyn sank gratefully into one of the armchairs.
Alyncya moved one of the straight-backed chairs next to him, and they both had white wine, cheeses, biscuits, and then cake … as well as cheerful conversation that never neared the events of the two previous weeks.
More than two glasses later, as the unmarked regial coach pulled up to the portico of Alyncya’s mansion, she turned in the seat and kissed Charyn warmly and gently, then said, “I don’t think I’ve ever had quite so lovely a time in going to services and afterward.”
“Neither have I, but there will be more.”
“Sometimes, first times are special.”
“And sometimes,” Charyn grinned, thinking of a Year-Turn Ball, “second times are.”
67
On Lundi morning, Charyn couldn’t help feeling guilty because he’d enjoyed Solayi evening so much, particularly when he stepped into the breakfast room, where his mother was already seated.
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