by David Weber
He’s going to be one of the good ones, the earl thought, smiling at the boy—no, the young man, now—who was the closest thing he’d ever had to a son. He’s got his father’s political instincts, his sister’s compassion, his brother-in-law’s sense of duty and integrity, and Cayleb and Sharleyan’s example. God, I wish his father could see him! He’s what Hektor could have been—should have been, if he hadn’t lost Raichynda so early—and I think he’d recognize that. I’m sure he’d still be pissed off over losing to them—the earl’s lips quirked ever so briefly—but he loved his kids to pieces. He’d have to approve of how well Cayleb and Sharleyan have done by Daivyn and Irys. And by Corisande as a whole, for that matter.
“It’s good of you to be so gentle about my shortcomings, Your Highness,” he said out loud, and Daivyn chuckled.
“It is turning into rather a large family, though, isn’t it?” Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk buffed the fingernails of his right hand—the only one that functioned properly—on his doublet, then blew on them complacently. “I wouldn’t want to say anything about Old Charisian virility, but still—!”
He shrugged modestly, then “oofed” as Irys smacked him in the stomach.
Sharleyan chuckled, but she had to admit he had a point. One thing Crown Princess Alahnah definitely wasn’t going to lack were siblings and cousins to support her future reign. Her twin brothers, Gwylym and Bryahn, had turned three in April, about the same time she’d turned nine. Her half-Corisandian cousins, Princess Raichynda and Prince Hektor (universally known as Hektor Merlin, to avoid confusion with his father, his deceased uncle, and his deceased maternal grandfather) would be six in another four months. And her Uncle Zhan and Aunt Mahrya had provided two more cousins—Prince Haarahld Cayleb, a sturdy two-and-a-half-year-old, and Prince Nahrmahn Merlin, who was barely two months old—while Owl had already confirmed that Irys was expecting twins yet again, even if the Pasqualate obstetricians hadn’t heard the heartbeats yet.
And that doesn’t even count all of the Breygarts, especially now that Mairah’s started popping out babies of her own! she thought.
Hauwerd Breygart, the Earl of Hanth and now Duke of Thesmar, and his first wife had produced five children. His second wife, Mairah, was seven years older than Sharleyan. She’d started late and been delayed by the minor fact that he’d been off fighting a war for the first three years of their marriage, but she’d been making up for it since. She’d already produced a son and daughter of her own, and she was due to deliver her third child in October.
All in all, Alahnah could count on a veritable phalanx of support when the time came, including her new baby sister. Princess Nynian Zhorzhet was due any day now, which explained why Father Ohmahr Arthmyn had made the trip to Chisholm with them this year. Arthmyn trusted Sister Fahnycis Sawyairm, who’d midwifed all of Sharleyan’s children, implicitly and it might be only eleven days from Tellesberg to Port Royal aboard HMS Ahlfryd Hyndryk, the Imperial family’s twenty-three-knot yacht, but this pregnancy truly had been harder than the others. That was the reason Arthmyn hadn’t been going to let her out of his sight that far from any properly equipped hospital for two full five-days. It was also the reason Sharleyan was secretly so grateful for Daivyn’s insistence she stay seated and for his insistence on coming to Cherayth rather than subjecting her to the trip to Manchyr, even aboard Ahlfryd Hyhndryk.
“Yes, it is turning into a large family,” she said now, with the soft smile of an only-child princess who’d lost her own father when she was barely twelve. “And I’m glad. But speaking of large families, Hektor, what did you do with the patriarch?”
“Patriarch!” Hektor hooted. “Oh, wait till I tell your ancient and decrepit husband you dropped that one on him! Especially when you’re two years more ancient—or would that be ancienter?—than he is!”
Sharleyan’s lips twitched. It was true that at thirty-three (only thirty in the years of long-dead Terra) Cayleb was scarcely an antique. On the other hand, he was approaching patriarch status, given the enthusiastic manner in which his family and its allies had embraced the admonition to be fruitful and multiply.
“Don’t try to change the subject!” She shook a severe finger at him. “Just be a dutiful son and tell me what you did with your father!”
“He’ll be along shortly,” Hektor said without pointing out that everyone in the room—except Daivyn—already knew precisely where Cayleb was, thanks to the Self-Navigating Autonomous Reconnaissance and Communications platforms of an artificial intelligence named Owl. “He and Dunkyn and Admiral Tartarian had a matter they urgently needed to discuss. I believe it had something to do with Glynfych or Seijin Kohdy’s Blend.”
“Well,” Sharleyan said philosophically, “at least he’s considerate enough not to drink the good stuff in front of me now that I’m pregnant again.”
“I think the word you want is ‘prudent,’ not ‘considerate,’” Irys said thoughtfully. “It took Hektor a while to acquire the same degree of prudence.”
“I’m not surprised.” Sharleyan shook her head. Then she squared her shoulders, gripped the arms of her chair and pushed herself steadily—if a bit ponderously—to her feet.
Daivyn popped to his own feet, offering her his arm, and she took it gratefully. This pregnancy really was taking more out of her than the earlier ones had, and she was grateful they’d been in Chisholm, with its cooler climate, for the last three months. Her Chisholmians were, too. In their opinion, it was past time for one of their Empress’ children to be born on their soil for a change.
She smiled at the thought, but then the smile faded as she reflected on all the other reasons it was fortunate she and Cayleb had moved back to the kingdom of her own birth for the half-year mandated by the imperial constitution.
“I think it’s time we went and disturbed those reprobates who are currently enjoying some of the finer things in life denied to the pregnant mothers of their children. Well, not Dunkyn’s children, perhaps, but still. And then the cooks can go ahead and serve, now that the lot of you have finally arrived from Manchyr.” She smiled warmly at all of them. “It’s good to see you,” she said with simple sincerity, “and we have a lot of catching up to do.”
* * *
Much later that evening, Sharleyan leaned back in the huge armchair beside her bed with her bare feet in her husband’s lap and stretched like a pregnant cat-lizard as his strong fingers worked on her aching ankles and weary calves.
“You really do that very well,” she sighed. “I think I’ll keep you.”
“I’m flattered,” he replied, “but I think you’re drifting a little from the point of this gathering, dear.”
“And if you think any of us are going to argue with her, you have another think coming,” a deep voice said over the invisible plug in his ear. “Some things are more important than others.”
“Or more likely to get us thumped if we say they aren’t, at least,” a voice which sounded suspiciously like Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s added.
“I don’t understand why everyone is so concerned about my temper,” Sharleyan said a bit plaintively.
“‘Everyone’ isn’t worried about your temper.” Cayleb Ahrmahk leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Just those of us in range of it.”
“Which I’m not,” Trahvys Ohlsyn put in from far distant Tellesberg. The Earl of Pine Hollow sat gazing out his Tellesberg Palace office window across the sunlit roofs of the Old Charisian capital. “And I’m afraid Cayleb’s right about staying focused in my case, Sharleyan. I’m truly sorry to say that, but I have a Council meeting in about two hours.”
“I know,” Sharleyan admitted. “I think I’m trying to waste time because of how much I really don’t want to think about any of this right now.” She inhaled deeply and looked at Cayleb almost apologetically. “You know I get disgustingly weepy in the last month or so.”
“Love, this is enough to make anybody cry,” Cayleb replied. “Not that Trahvys doesn’t have a point about time marching on. So, d
oes anyone have anything to add to Nahrmahn’s observations?”
There was silence over the heavily stealthed com network connecting the members of the inner circle. It lingered for several moments, and then the deep voice spoke again.
“I don’t think I have anything to add to Nahrmahn’s observations,” Merlin Athrawes said. “He and Owl called this from the beginning, and thanks to the remotes, we even know who the main players are … at least for now. But I have to say I don’t like the consequences I see coming one bit.” Cayleb’s and Sharleyan’s contacts showed his image as he shook his head, his expression grim. “I was afraid all along that the Jihad would make something like this inevitable, but then those idiots in Shang-mi did every damned thing they could to make sure it did! And now that it’s finally happened, it’s going to be even worse than it might have because they managed to keep the lid on it, more or less, for so long.” He shook his head again. “If everyone involved was as organized as Syngpu amd Husan I might be less concerned, but they’ve lit a fire that’s going to be a hell of a lot worse than the one that killed Winter Glory and all his men. I’ll be surprised if Nahrmahn’s not right about this killing at least as many people as the Sword of Schueler did, once the real ‘grassroots’ rebellion starts.”
The slender woman sitting comfortably beside him on the couch in their quarters with her feet tucked up under her lifted her head from his shoulder to look at him.
“You are not going to add this to your ‘Things I Am Responsible For’ list,” she told him severely. “Harchong—especially North Harchong—was a catastrophe waiting to happen before anyone on this planet, aside from you and Nimue, was ever born! Yes, the Jihad finally pushed it over the edge, but this was bound to happen anyway—later, if not sooner—and you know it.”
“You’re right, love.” He smiled crookedly. “And I promise not to beat myself up over it. Not much, anyway. Doesn’t change how bad it’s going to be, though.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Nynian Athrawes acknowledged, and her magnificent eyes darkened. Very few humans in history had ever been tougher minded than Nynian Rychtair Athrawes, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to watch the unspeakable atrocities being inflicted in Harchong.
“I can’t disagree, either,” Maikel Staynair said from Tellesberg. The Archbishop of Charis’ voice was as powerful as ever, his eye as clear, but the grief in his expression was profound. “I know it’s foolish of me, but I can’t help wishing that anyone who’s suffered as much as Harchongese serfs have would show at least a little compassion!”
“Some of them—a handful of them—have shown compassion, Your Eminence,” Sir Koryn Gahrvai said heavily. “Expecting more than that—?”
His image shrugged on the others’ contact lenses, and the slender, red-haired woman sitting on the other side of his desk nodded somberly.
“I wish we had a magic wand that could make it all stop, but we don’t.” Her eyes—the same deep sapphire as Merlin’s—were dark. “And I know a lot of the people this is happening to, especially the children, don’t deserve it. But some of them do, Maikel.” Her face tightened. “Some of them deserve every damned second of it.”
“Of course they do, but it’s not about ‘just deserts,’ Nimue.” Staynair shook his head sadly. “The fact that some of them don’t deserve it is terrible, but I pray as much for the people torturing and murdering them as I do for the innocent victims. Nothing else in this world can damn and destroy souls as effectively as our need to inflict vengeance and call it justice.”
“You’re probably right,” the Earl of Coris acknowledged, “but I don’t see any way to change human nature, Maikel. So I suppose the question is whether or not there’s anything we can do to minimize its consequences. If we can’t stop it, is there some way we can at least limit the carnage?”
“Not one I can see yet.” Cayleb cocked an eyebrow at Sharleyan, but his wife only shook her head in sorrowful agreement.
“Officially, we still only have rumors of what’s going on,” the Emperor continued, refocusing his attention on the rest of the group. “I know confirmation’s on the way, and we’re going to have to formulate an official policy of some sort when it gets here, but until it does, there’s nothing we could do even if we could think of something to do.”
“Actually, I think I may have some hope for Baron Star Rising’s initiative,” Prince Nahrmahn said from the computer in which he and his virtual reality resided.
“You really think he’ll be able to pull that off?” Pine Hollow sounded skeptical, and Nahrmahn’s computer-generated image shrugged.
“I truly think he may … if he’s luckier than hell, pardon the language, Maikel.” Staynair’s lips twitched, and Nahrmahn grinned. Then his own expression sobered. “Owl and I couldn’t predict something like him coming along, Trahvys—or, rather, we deliberately refused to engage in wishful thinking and hope someone like him turned up. But I think he’s really going to try rather than cutting and running for it with his family, and Doctor Johnson had a point. God knows Star Rising’s got enough horrible examples next door in Tiegelkamp to concentrate anyone’s thinking! Not only that, serfdom in western Harchong’s never been quite as brutal as in the rest of North Harchong.”
“Mostly because that’s where so many of North Harchong’s craftsmen and artisans are concentrated,” Nynian pointed out. “Especially in Boisseau and southern Cheshire. Not so much in Omar and Pasquale, of course. And there’s not much of anything in Bedard Province, aside from a few fishermen along the coast.”
“But the guilds have been just as much in bed with the aristocracy in western Harchong as anywhere else,” Ehdwyrd Howsmyn, the Duke of Delthak, countered. “They’re just as invested in the old system as anyone else.”
“Not really,” Nahrmahn disagreed. “Oh, they are invested in it, I don’t think anyone could argue about that, Ehdwyrd. For that matter, I know they don’t want to see your style of manufactories move in on their turf. But I doubt they want to see their families massacred, either. And not even the aristocracy’s interests are as tied to the land as they are for the major power holders in, say, Tiegelkamp or Chiang-wu, given how many more smaller landholders there are in Boisseau and Cheshire.”
Delthak nodded, albeit with a doubtful expression. Some of those “smaller landholders”—like Baron Star Rising himself—were among the most ancient of Harchong’s aristocratic families, given the initial pattern of human colonization, moving into those provinces from the original enclaves around Beijing Bay and the Yalu Inlet. However, they’d also moved into them before the great nobles managed to monopolize power. In fact, those ancient families had been largely squeezed out of the Harchongese power structure’s top slots by the more recently ennobled families spreading out eastward from their new capital in Shang-mi into Tiegelkamp and Chiang-wu.
That probably helped explain why serfdom was less oppressive in Boisseau and Cheshire. Some of the peasant freeholds in those two provinces were almost as ancient as Star Rising’s title, and the huge estates with hundreds, even thousands, of serfs bound to the soil were rare.
That was also the reason wealthy families there were more invested in trade than elsewhere in North Harchong. South Harchong was another matter entirely, of course, with fewer great nobles of any sort and a much more open mind where commerce was concerned. But not only were Star Rising and his fellows excluded from the lucrative perquisites of office by the more powerful aristocrats who monopolized the imperial government and bureaucracy, they couldn’t generate sufficient income from farming their smaller estates, especially given the inefficiency of Harchongese agriculture. So they’d had no option but to seek other avenues … which, of course, allowed the great, land-rich members of the aristocracy to despise them as mere tradesmen.
“I’m not saying the odds are in Star Rising’s favor,” Nahrmahn continued. “I’m only saying he might pull it off. And if he does, I’m sure he will follow up on the suggestion that he seek Charisian aid.”
“How much ‘aid’ could we actually give them?” Delthak asked skeptically.
“A valid question,” Cayleb said. “Care to take a swing at it, Kynt?”
“If we’re talking about military aid,” Kynt Clareyk, Baron Green Valley and Duke Serabor, replied, “I’ll have to give it some serious thought before I could give you any sort of definitive answer. But I can already tell you there’s no way we have sufficient military capability to intervene on any broad scale in Harchong. That kind of rolling disaster sucks up manpower like a sponge, and we’re still building down from Jihad levels.”
“None of us think we can do that,” Merlin said. “But what about in just the western provinces? Assuming Star Rising and his friends can keep a lid on things?”
“Unless the ‘lid’ includes something besides suppression, I think the technical phrase is ‘not a chance in hell,’” Serabor said bluntly. “If he’s able to bring the free peasants and what little middle class he has into some kind of genuine power-sharing relationship with the aristocracy, and if the lot of them manage to convince the majority of serfs they’re truly willing to implement real reforms, we could probably find the strength to provide at least some islands of stability. But that’s a lot of ifs, Merlin!”
“That’s true,” Staynair said. “But they may have a better chance of managing all that than you think, Kynt, given how much less hardline the local Church has been about resisting Duchairn’s reforms. In fact, there’s a strong Reformist element in both Boisseau and Cheshire—especially Boisseau. You know how severely Bishop Yaupang’s been hammered by both Shang-mi and Shynkau because of his support for it.”