Safehold 10 Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  “I rather thought you might feel that way, My Lord, and the fact that you do does you as much credit as any of your previous actions. May I suggest a possible avenue?”

  “By all means, Your Grace!” Rainbow Waters tipped back in his chair once more, watching the vicar intently.

  “My Lord, you can’t avoid some of the appearance that concerns you. I’m sorry, but there simply isn’t a way to do it. What I would suggest, however, is that you announce that the rupture with Yu-kwau is obviously irreparable because of what Zhyou-Zhwo is proclaiming. That he’s made it abundantly clear a return to the authority of the House of Hantai on any peaceful terms is impossible. Because of that, you have no choice but to accept the situation he’s created and proclaim the independence of East Harchong. However, at the same time you do that, you also proclaim the creation of a Harchongese parliament, similar to the one the Charisians have established. As the commander of the Host, you’ll retain the … executive authority, I suppose you might call it, but your new parliament will contain a lower house, elected from and by your enlisted and noncommissioned personnel, and an upper house, elected from and by your officer corps. Exactly how the houses would be arranged, what their relative positions would be, would have to be worked out in advance, but its goal should be made very clear and very simple: to take a page from Siddarmark’s experience and proceed, in consultation and coordination with you, to enact a written constitution for the provinces under your protection which lays out the relative powers of the executive and the two houses. And if that constitution grants the parliament what the Charisians call ‘the power of the purse’ and the authority to approve or reject treaties between East Harchong and the rest of the world, I think the men and officers of the Host will heave a vast sigh of relief.”

  “And what about the civilians in the ‘provinces under our protection’?” Rainbow Waters asked. “If they find themselves excluded from this new parliament, this new constitution, why shouldn’t they conspire with Zhyou-Zhwo to restore his authority? They aren’t the ones who invaded his territories, after all.”

  “No one says the houses of parliament established after the constitution is proclaimed have to be identical to the ones that write it, Uncle,” Wind Song pointed out. “The Host, as the guarantor of peace and stability, can proclaim the constitution by right of possession, but they can also constitute the ultimate parliament any way they wish under that constitution.”

  “Yes!” Awstyn said enthusiastically, delighted by Wind Song’s support.

  Not only was the baron Rainbow Waters’ most trusted advisor, he was also the earl’s obvious heir apparent. Rainbow Waters’ wife, Hyngpau, had defied all of her relatives to join him in his exile, but much as the two of them loved one another, they’d never had children. That made Wind Song, his only sister’s eldest son, his heir under Harchongese law. More importantly, Wind Song’s faithful service in the Jihad and since made him the earl’s only possible successor in the eyes of the Host, as well. If he got behind the proposal and pushed, clearly accepting whatever limitations on his own future position the new constitution might impose, it had to weigh heavily with his uncle.

  “My Lord,” the vicar continued, “I could see a mix in which the lower house of any future, permanent parliament consisted of commoners who meet property qualifications, such as landownership or income, and also of all of the enlisted and noncommissioned personnel of the Host. In other words, all of your men and the non-noble civilians who meet those qualifications would share the franchise and be eligible for seats in the lower house. By the same token, your officers could be granted noble status and assigned seats on that basis.”

  “Or their seats could be elective, too, Uncle. We could limit eligibility for them to those who hold patents of nobility or served as officers in the Host, past or future, but they could still be required to stand for election by all franchized voters, as well,” Wind Song said, and Rainbow Waters arched an eyebrow at him.

  “Should I assume you’ve been reading more of that Charisian drivel about the rights of man, Nephew?” he asked, but his tone was light, affectionately teasing, and Wind Song shrugged.

  “Men do have rights, Uncle. You’re one of the people who taught me that. I’m only saying that if a commission in the Host and a patent of nobility, however great or minor, qualifies a man for a seat in this ‘upper house,’ and if they, too, have to stand for election, then we give every man in East Harchong a potential place at the table. The chance to speak their minds in the halls of power.”

  The baron shook his head, his eyes somber.

  “You’ve seen how our men reacted to the land Grand Vicar Rhobair gave them. The men in the Host right now left that land only because of their trust in you, and if they hadn’t left it, they would have defended it to the death against anyone who tried to take it from them. Do you really think, after all that’s happened since the Jihad, since the Rebellion and the anathemas Zhyou-Zhwo and Byngzhi have thundered from Yu-kwau, that if we gave the same incentive, the same hope, the same sense that they’re men, not just ‘serfs’ and peasants—not just property—to every civilian who’s turned to us for protection, they wouldn’t fight to keep it, too?”

  It was very quiet in the office, so quiet the traffic sounds came clearly through the window and the clock sounded like thunder.

  FEBRUARY YEAR OF GOD 909

  .I.

  Protector’s Palace, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark.

  “Place your left hand upon the Writ.”

  Archbishop Dahnyld Fardhym was almost seventy-two years old, but his voice carried clearly on the afternoon air. He stood on the balcony of Protector’s Palace, looking out over the square where so many thousands had died in the Sword of Schueler’s attack on the Republic’s government. Today, that square was packed not with rioters, but spectators, with strategically located, specially trained priests prepared to relay whatever was said upon the balcony. They faced a rather more demanding task today, however, because many of that enormous crowd were … restive. Klymynt Myllyr had been reelected Lord Protector only by a narrow margin, and not everyone in that crowd had voted for him.

  Myllyr looked out across the square, then placed his left hand upon the beautifully embossed copy of the Writ and raised his right. A wyvern drifted high overhead, riding the updrafts from the city’s paved areas, and the faintest of breezes stirred Myllyr’s hair.

  “Do you, Klymynt Myllyr, solemnly swear before God and the Archangels to faithfully discharge the duties and responsibilities of the office to which you have been elected?” Fardhym asked.

  Myllyr waited a moment, long enough for the relays in the crowd to repeat the words.

  “I do.”

  “You will see that the Constitution is fully and fairly enforced?”

  “I will.”

  “You will maintain the Army and preserve the safety of the Republic and its citizens against all enemies, domestic and foreign?”

  “I will.”

  “You will account the Republic’s state and condition—fully, freely, and accurately—to the Chamber of Delegates no less than once per year?”

  “I will.”

  “And do you swear upon the Writ and your own soul that you will honor, keep, meet, and discharge all of the promises you have just made?”

  “I do so swear,” Myllyr said levelly, looking into the archbishop’s eyes.

  They stood for a moment, and then Fardhym stepped back a pace with the bound Writ and bowed.

  A thunderous roar went up from the square, startling wyverns and birds roosting on rooftops and cathedral spires. It was the traditional acclaim of a new lord protector, but loud as it was, it was weaker than it ought to have been, and here and there in the crowd banners blossomed with slogans that were less than complimentary to the man being cheered.

  * * *

  “Well, thank God that’s over!” Lord Protector Klymynt said, an hour later, as he strode into the well-appointed guest chamber on the side
of Protector’s Palace that faced the square. He handed the Sword of State to an aide and grimaced as he shrugged out of the heavy, old-fashioned, thickly embroidered tunic he’d been forced to wear in the August heat.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Cayleb Ahrmahk replied, turning from the window with an off-center smile. “As coronation ceremonies go, it didn’t seem all that arduous.”

  “Please, Cayleb!” Daryus Parkair said with a shudder which wasn’t entirely feigned. “Don’t call it a ‘coronation’! That’s the last thing we need to hand the opposition.”

  “Well, that’s what it was.” Cayleb’s smile broadened. “For a purely limited reign, of course, what with all of those deplorably republican traditions you have.” He shook his head. “Never do for an old-fashioned despot like myself!”

  Myllyr snorted and crossed to the bar against the chamber’s back wall. He opened the top of an insulated, wood-paneled chest and took out one of the bottles of beer which had stood on the block of ice from the Palace’s icehouse, opened it, and crossed to stand beside Cayleb.

  “I don’t think that’s how all those Harchongians think of you—any of ’em,” he said. “The ones who like you seem to think you’re even more republican than we are, and the ones who don’t like you think you and Sharleyan are both scheming manipulators, playing the credulous fools who trust you like fiddles.”

  “We always were sadly transparent.” Cayleb shook his head, and Myllyr snorted again. Then he took a long swallow of beer.

  “Heard the catcalls out there, didn’t you?” he asked more abruptly.

  “A few,” Cayleb conceded in a less mischievous tone.

  “Trust me, there’d have been more if the Guilds could’ve gotten themselves properly organized.” Myllyr shook his head, looking out the window as the square continued to empty. “I’ll be honest—if I hadn’t known Flahnairee would have killed the Bank in a minute if he’d won, I’d never have run again. I know I owe it to Greghor and Henrai—and the rest of the Republic, of course, whether it appreciates it or not—but it’s going to be a bumpy ride, these next five years.”

  “I know.” Cayleb sighed. “I hate it. And you know we’ll do everything we can to help. But somehow, it seems that the more we try to help, the worse it gets.”

  “There are a lot of factors tied up in that, Cayleb,” Samyl Gahdarhd said. He’d followed Myllyr into the guest chamber. He also continued in the office of Keeper of the Seal, although his hair was much more heavily streaked with white and his face was more lined than it had been. “Some of them may be things we can do something about. Others?” He shrugged. “All we can do is try to ride it out.”

  “Like those frigging idiots out West,” Myllyr said, still looking out the window, and his own western origins only made him more bitter. The violence which had flared back up after Maidyn’s assassination might have burned itself out again, more or less, in the western provinces, but the political corruption was only growing even more entrenched. “But at least it looks like we may be starting to turn the corner on the Bank.”

  He hadn’t turned from the window as he spoke. Now Cayleb glanced at Gahdarhd, and his lips tightened at the keeper of the seal’s very slight headshake.

  “Are you at a point where we could make our version of the ‘Ahrmahk Plan’ work?” he asked after a moment.

  “That’s a better question for Bryntyn and Brygs.” Myllyr rubbed his scarred left cheek through the concealing beard. “I just don’t know if we’ve … stabilized things enough.”

  Cayleb nodded. Bryntyn Ashfyrd was Myllyr’s replacement as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was hardworking and bright, but he was more of what Merlin called a “policy wonk” than a politician. Zhasyn Brygs might actually have been a better choice for Chancellor, given his political acumen, but he couldn’t be spared from his job as the Central Bank’s governor. Although there had to be times when he wished he could have had some other—any other—job, whether he could be spared or not.

  “The truth is that the Ahrmahk Plan is still a two-edged sword here in the Republic,” Gahdarhd said, and shook his head again, harder. “I wish I understood how so many people could be so damned blind to how much we owe Charis!”

  “Forgive me,” Cayleb said gently, “but I think part of the problem is that they aren’t.” Gahdarhd raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. “You know the saying, Samyl: gratitude is a garment that chafes. And rightly so, especially if people keep throwing it into your teeth.”

  “You and Empress Sharleyan’ve never done anything of the sort!” Myllyr said sharply, turning from the window at last.

  “Haven’t we?” Cayleb looked at him levelly. “We’ve certainly tried not to, but there are a lot of Siddarmarkians who think we’re doing our damnedest to direct the Republic’s policy. And they think we’re trying to do it because we think the Republic owes us.” His expression was completely serious now. “You only wound up in the Jihad because there was a Jihad, and that happened only because Clyntahn came after us, Klymynt. Maybe he would’ve attacked the Republic anyway. In fact, I’m pretty sure he would have. But when he did it—and the way he did it—evolved out of his war against Charis. And without you as an ally and as a means to take the war to the Church here on the Mainland, we couldn’t have won. Not the way we did, anyway. So, yes, we shipped in food, we shipped in new industrial processes, we shipped in troops, but the price the Republic paid in blood outweighs anything we could’ve done. I think most of your citizens understand that, and if they do, and if they genuinely believe we’re trying to direct your policies, then they have every right to resent the hell out of us.”

  Myllyr looked at him in silence for several seconds, and Cayleb knew he was remembering conversations with Mahlkym Preskyt. The Charisian ambassador might not be a member of the inner circle, but he was a very intelligent man. He’d made almost exactly the same points to Myllyr more than once, but this was the first time Cayleb had said them to the lord protector directly and personally.

  “He’s right, Klymynt,” Gahdarhd said. Myllyr glanced at them, and the keeper of the seal shrugged. “I said I don’t understand how they could be so blind, but that’s because reason ought to triumph over what Cayleb’s just said. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. And the fact that we just seem to keep staggering along without ever getting our feet back under us isn’t helping one bit. It’s been going on for years now, and every time it looks like we’re turning the corner, something else happens. No wonder people like Hygyns are making ground!”

  Myllyr looked like he wanted to spit, and Cayleb didn’t blame him.

  The lord protector had served in the quartermaster’s corps during the Jihad after the serious wounds he’d suffered trying to stop the Army of God’s advance down the Stylmyn Gap. Zhermo Hygyns, on the other hand, had served in combat commands throughout the Jihad, rising to the rank of brigadier general by the end of the war. He’d performed … competently, if not brilliantly, but there were those—quite a lot of those—who pointed to his combat experience and contrasted it with Myllyr’s “rear echelon” experience … conveniently forgetting how he’d come to be wounded in the most desperate campaign of the entire Jihad.

  Hygyns hadn’t been shy about playing upon his combat record when he entered the rough-and-tumble of the Republic’s political strife. The fact that he’d been one of the senior officers Daryus Parkair sent to Tarikah to deal with the unrest there was another factor in his favor. The violence had been in the process of dying down by the time he arrived, if only because the remaining Temple Loyalists had been driven out by the Siddar Loyalists, leaving them with no one to lynch, but he’d earned quite a lot of political support in the western provinces because of his “man on a white horse” status. The flare of violence which had followed Lord Protector Henrai’s assassination had only enhanced that reputation as he took steps—firm ones, admittedly—against it. Since then, however, he’d resigned his active-duty commission to enter politics, and he was doing dismayingly well in his n
ew career. He did have his critics, even in Tarikah, but there was no denying his popularity in the West, and his star was obviously rising on the national level, as well. He hadn’t been a candidate against Myllyr in the election just past—that had been up to Rohskoh Flahnairee, who’d headed the Oil Merchants’ Guild before challenging Myllyr—but it was obvious which job he had his sights set upon in the fullness of time.

  “I know you don’t like him, Klymynt,” Gahdarhd went on as the lord protector grimaced. “I don’t much like him myself. But he represents those people Cayleb’s talking about, and he’s getting more popular.”

  “That’s how we read it from Tellesberg,” Cayleb said. Myllyr and Gahdarhd both looked at him. “We do try to keep up with events here, you know,” he told them dryly, and it was Gahdarhd’s turn to snort, and not entirely with amusement.

  “I promise we don’t have hordes of seijins scattered through the Republic spying on you,” Cayleb continued, truthfully, as far as it went. SNARCs weren’t seijins, after all. “But from what we’re seeing, he’s got a damned good chance of being elected Governor of Tarikah next month.”

  “I wish you weren’t right about that,” Myllyr growled. “Draifys has been on thin ice ever since Henrai’s assassination. Those bastards Ohlsyn and Zhoelsyn have been working to cut his throat from the beginning, and too many people who disagree with the two of them blame Draifys for ‘letting’ Henrai be killed, as if it was somehow his fault!”

  “Exactly.” Cayleb nodded. “And those same people credit Hygyns with stepping on the flames when they sprang back up. And we have reports he and the Syndicate crowd are very comfortable with each other.”

  “And if Samyl had proof of that, the bastard’d be in jail!” Myllyr sounded even more disgusted. “Unfortunately, he’s too damned good at hiding the payoffs.”