Safehold 10 Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  “Lywys, aside from a few illiterate shepherds up in the Iron Spines back home in Chisholm, there aren’t two people in the entire Empire who don’t know you saved my life. You think that’s not going to cut any ice with my future subjects? Because I damned well promise you it does with me and my parents!”

  “It wasn’t me, it was Merlin!” Lywys protested.

  “Who wouldn’t have gotten there in time without you,” she said relentlessly. “And the reason you were there was because you chased that monster through the woods knowing you couldn’t kill it, knowing no magic seijin was going to arrive in the nick of time, and then you stood there on the ground shooting at it to give me time to run when you knew it was going to kill you where you stood.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears and her voice quivered.

  “My mother and father told me years ago that the true test of love is knowing the other person will always be there for you, no matter what. Well guess what? I’m luckier than a lot of people, because I know the man I love will be there. That he’ll stand beside me just like my father stands beside my mother, even in the face of Hell itself, because he’s already done it. So don’t you tell me marrying you is a bad idea, Lywys Whytmyn! Only tell me that if you don’t want to marry me.”

  “Of course I want to marry you!” he said, sweeping her into his arms once more. “I want that more than anything else in the world, because whatever you may think, I’m not really an idiot, and I know nobody could deserve to marry you. I just … I just can’t help looking at the obstacles.”

  “There are obstacles, and then there are obstacles.” Her voice was a little muffled in his crushing embrace, and he eased up enough for her to step back and look up at him again, still from the circle of his arms.

  “You’re absolutely right about how a lot of the rest of the world will look at this,” she said then, and despite her youth, he heard her parents’ pragmatism in her voice. Then again, he reminded himself, she was barely a year younger than her father had been the day he met Merlin Athrawes in the woods.

  “I don’t care about most of those ‘obstacles’ of yours, and I don’t think Mom and Dad will care about them either,” she continued. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t real, though, and the biggest one is the problem that you’re Dohlaran. I don’t think that’s going to matter to most Charisians, although you and I both know there are some Charisians who’re never going to forgive Dohlar for being ‘Clyntahn’s cat’s-paw.’” She shrugged. “Stupid of them, but hate and grief make people do and feel stupid things.

  “That’s not the real problem, though, because those Charisians are a minority, and by the time I’m inheriting any thrones, most of the people who think that way will be safely dead. And I don’t really think Rahnyld or Duke Fern will have any serious problems with the notion of a dynastic alliance between the House of Thirsk and the House of Ahrmahk. Neither of them is that stupid. Oh, Fern might wish I’d decided to marry Rahnyld, instead, but he’s a realist. Besides, Rahnyld wasn’t involved with any great dragons and me, and the truth is that whether he wants to admit it or not, Fern is a romantic at heart.”

  “Really?” Lywys asked dryly. “Odd. I’d never noticed that melting, gooey part of him before.”

  “Not my fault if you haven’t been paying attention,” she replied with a grin, but the grin faded quickly.

  “No, the problem will be Siddarmark, because a lot more Siddarmarkians hate Dohlar. And for a lot better reasons, when you come down to it. I know it wasn’t your grandfather’s idea—and it sure wasn’t yours. For that matter, Rahnyld was a schoolboy when it happened, so it wasn’t his, either. But they haven’t forgiven or forgotten, and the way Dohlar’s taken off industrially—and how close Dohlar and the Empire’ve gotten since the Jihad—really grates with those people. If I marry you—if we even make any formal announcement that I’m going to marry you—the people who already hate Dohlar—and a lot of the same people already resent ‘Charisian interference’ in the Republic, for that matter—will have what Aunt Mairah calls a ‘hissy fit.’ I wouldn’t mind about that, if the Trans-Siddarmark Railroad wasn’t still in its formative stages. Or if the Silkiah Canal wasn’t hanging fire. Grand Duke Kahnrad’s not the only person who’s figured out Dohlar’s the other logical partner for the canal. If we get married, or even betrothed, before Siddarmark and Charis break ground on the canal, the consequences could be … unfortunate.”

  Lywys nodded gravely, any temptation to smile at her characterization of Duke Fern less than a memory as she laid out her reasoning. Obviously, she’d given this a lot of thought, but she wouldn’t be eighteen for another four months. That was barely sixteen in the years of murdered Terra. He was astounded by her ability to stand back and analyze the complicated and volatile world of diplomacy so clearly and to summarize it so concisely.

  Which I shouldn’t be, given her parents, he thought with a deep sense of pride in her and of the even deeper respect for her. Now that I know about DNA, I have to wonder if there’s a gene for this. If so, she obviously got it from both sides!

  “It sounds to me like you just explained exactly why we can’t get married,” he said, after a moment. “On the other hand, knowing you as well as I do, I’m sure you have a plan to deal with it, even if I can’t imagine what it might be.”

  “That’s because I don’t have one. Not for marrying you in Tellesberg Cathedral anytime soon,” she admitted, meeting his gaze without flinching. “I want to—oh, how I want to! I want to walk down that aisle in front of all those hundreds of people and stand in front of that altar beside you and tell God—not the frigging ‘Archangels,’ but God—that I am and will always be your wife, forever! But it’s not going to happen until we break ground on the damned canal. Less because we need the canal than because we need to patch up the relationship with Siddarmark the canal will represent.”

  “Then why—?” he asked slowly, looking down at her.

  “Because we may be running out of time,” she said very, very softly. “If the ‘Archangels’ are coming back a thousand years after the Creation, and if they don’t react the way we all hope and pray they will, I’ll never see my twenty-second birthday.” His arms tightened around her again, but her eyes never flinched. “If there’s one family on the face of Safehold which will have to be destroyed if they try to reestablish the Proscriptions, shut down industrialization, it’s mine. They can’t leave us alive, if that’s the way they react. I realized that the minute Mom and Dad and Merlin explained it to us. In that respect, I’m Nimue Alban and they’re the Gbaba all over again, Lywys.

  “But you don’t have to be. Some of the new ‘Rakurai’ are bound to splash onto Dohlar, given how enthusiastically the Kingdom’s been industrializing. But if you go home, if we arrange to grow ‘estranged’ from your family—and I’m sure Mom and Dad would do that for your parents, your aunts and uncles, even if we could never explain to them why they’re doing it—then you and the other people you love may not have to be on the ‘Archangels’ list.

  “So you can go home,” tears glittered on her lashes, “and a part of me wants you to do that, so badly. Wants you to get as far away from me, from my family, as you can. But the selfish part of me wants you to stay, and if we have only four years, then … I … want … those … years, Lywys.” She looked up at him. “I can’t announce our betrothal, not marry you the way I want. Not right now, and I may never have time to do that, to give us and your family that, but I want that time with you. I want to share it with you, to know you and I are husband and wife, whatever the rest of the world knows or doesn’t know. And the question I needed to ask you standing here, with you, is whether or not that’s what you want.”

  * * *

  The moon rode high and silver in a heaven of cobalt blue velvet, and the stars of Safehold were a magnificent diadem, draped across the night. It was cool, for Charis in November, and the private chapel’s open windows admitted the gentle night breeze that fluttered the candle flames.<
br />
  It wasn’t an enormous chamber, although archbishops, as a rule, had larger chapels than mere bishops, and at the moment it was crowded. Indeed, it was far more crowded than the casual beholder might have guessed.

  Maikel Staynair stood there, smiling as the young man standing at the sanctuary rail turned to watch an even younger woman enter the chapel. She wasn’t on her father’s arm, because her father already stood at the groom’s elbow as his best man. She was on the arm of a very tall man whose sapphire eyes glittered in the candlelight. That had been her parents’ choice, not her escort’s, although Alahnah had agreed with tears in her eyes that if any living being deserved to stand sponsor to this marriage, it was Merlin Athrawes.

  Nynian and Stefyny Athrawes, the Duke of Delthak and his wife, Earl Pine Hollow, Duke Rock Point, Rahzhyr Mahklyn, and a dozen other members of the inner circle filled the chapel to capacity. They’d arrived in ones and twos, using the hidden tunnels between Archbishop’s Palace and Tellesberg Cathedral and Tellesberg Palace. And all across Safehold, other men and women who’d joined the inner circle’s battle attended over their coms, filling the chapel with their presence.

  The archbishop reached out to take the hands of the young man and the young woman before him.

  “Lywys and Alahnah,” he said quietly, “you’ve come here to become man and wife, whether or not the rest of the world ever learns of that decision on your part. I honor you for it, and I’m honored that you’ve asked me to marry you. And that despite having learned the truth about the Church of God Awaiting your faith in God Himself has never wavered. I believe in the validity of the sacraments of the Church of Charis, because those sacraments represent the beliefs and the deep and abiding faith of uncountable men and women and children who have been able to know God only through the distorting prism of the Church of God Awaiting. That makes Him no less God and them no less His children, but you know the truth of the Church. And so, at your request, we will use an older liturgy, one that speaks of the God Nimue Alban and Jeremiah Knowles brought to Safehold with them. The liturgy Merlin and Nynian chose when they wed. Are you prepared for us to begin?”

  They looked at one another, then back at him and, as one, they nodded.

  “Very well, my children.”

  He squeezed their hands and drew a deep breath.

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God and in the face of this company to join together our son Lywys and our daughter Alahnah in holy matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee, and is commended of Saint Paul to be honorable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God. Into this holy estate Lywys and Alahnah come now to be joined. If any man can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else here after forever hold his peace.”

  The ancient words, the words Eric Langhorne, Adorée Bédard, and Maruyama Chihiro had stolen and twisted so many centuries before, rolled through the private chapel on the deep, velvety music of his superbly trained voice, and Alahnah Ahrmahk and Lywys Whytmyn held their heads high as they stood side-by-side before him … and the future.

  MARCH YEAR OF GOD 912

  .I.

  Ananasberg, The Stylmyn Gap, Moon Thorn Mountains, Mountaincross Province, Republic of Siddarmark.

  “I’m telling you, Kynyth, this crap is going to get somebody killed!”

  Aivahn Ohgylsbee’s Zebediahan accent was more pronounced than usual as he glared at the length of rail. It had just been unloaded from a flat car piled high with identical rails, and his eyes were unhappy as yet another charge of Lywysite roared from the excavation for the Trans-Siddarmark Railroad’s roadbed between the capital and the rebuilt city of Guarnak.

  “It’s not quite that bad,” Kynyth Sahnchyz objected. Ohgylsbee shifted his glare from the rail to his putative superior, and the Siddarmarkian raised one hand in a placating gesture. “It’s not going to get anyone killed … as long as our on-site inspectors catch it before the track gets laid,” he amended his earlier statement. “If this’d gone into one of the sections without being spotted, then, yeah, it could’ve—would’ve—been bad.”

  Ohgylsbee glared at him for another long moment, then drew a deep breath, nodded, and kicked the offending rail. He was careful to use the heel of his boot, because he liked his toes unbroken, but his lip curled with contempt as Sahnchyz joined him in glowering down at it.

  “For Hasting’s sake, this thing doesn’t even match the profile,” Ohgylsbee said, “and the son-of-a-bitch is cast iron, not steel! How the hell did they get this past the inspectors farther up the line?”

  Sahnchyz glanced up at him, then sighed. Ohgylsbee was one of the best engineers he’d ever known—he was certainly better than Kynyth Sahnchyz, at any rate!—which was the main reason he was one of Duke Delthak’s personal representatives to the TSRR. But in some ways, he was a child.

  No, that’s not really fair, the Siddarmarkian reminded himself. What he is, is an honest man who’s used to dealing with honest suppliers.

  “Are you asking that as a serious question, or a rhetorical one?” he asked. Ohgylsbee looked up from the rail. “I mean, both of us know who sent it to us.”

  “I don’t really expect better than this out of Hymphyl,” Ohgylsbee growled. “I mean, it’s a little bareknuckle even for him, but we’re talking about Hymphyl, for God’s sake. I just don’t understand how the inspectors didn’t catch it.”

  “They didn’t catch it because someone told them not to catch it.” Sahnchyz’s own anger made his voice come out harsh, choppy. “And they probably got paid pretty well to look the other way, too.”

  “You think it’s gone that far?” Ohgylsbee asked with a frown.

  “Look, I know you probably don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff back home in Charis,” Sahnchyz began, “but—”

  “Kynyth, my family’s from Zebediah,” Ohgylsbee interrupted, “and before Emperor Cayleb kicked his arse out, Tohmys Symmyns was about as sorry—and corrupt—an excuse for a grand duke as ever existed. My family were serfs under the old League of Corisande, and we saw the shit-end of every stick there was. Bit different since Their Majesties put in Grand Duke Hauwyl, but, trust me, I know about corruption and I know about corner-cutting. Hell, I even know about bribery and kickbacks! What I don’t know is why anyone’s letting them get away with it on something this important to the entire damned Republic. And what I’m afraid of is that it’s only going to get worse. Right now, it’s more of an irritation than anything else, but if other subcontractors start pulling this kind of crap, it’s going to be a significant problem down the road.”

  Kynyth Sahnchyz revised his opinion of Charisian naivety as he saw the bitterness in Ohgylsbee’s eyes.

  “I don’t know how bad it’s going to get,” he admitted unhappily. “Trust me, I’ll be sending a report up the line, but I don’t know how much good it’ll do. Our good friend Hymphyl has what they call ‘friends in high places,’ and I suspect at least some of them work for—or with, at least—the General Board.”

  “Any of those friends have a name?” Ohgylsbee asked, his eyes narrow.

  “Maybe,” Sahnchyz said. “I’m not throwing around any names above Hymphyl without something a lot more like proof to go on, but somebody’s steering contracts. That’s the only explanation for this. And it’s the reason sending my report’s not likely to do a whole frigging lot of good.”

  It was his turn to kick the rail, and Ohgylsbee frowned.

  “You really think no one’ll pin his ears back if you report it? Believe me, I’ll be delighted to sign off on your report if you think it’ll do any good!”

  “I’ll take you up on that, and I’m sure he’ll
get his knuckles smacked, but I don’t expect anything more than that.”

  “Kynyth, this thing is cast iron. No way it meets spec!”

  “Not for Trans-Siddarmark, no,” Sahnchyz agreed. “But I’ll guarantee you I know what’ll happen if anyone really does come back on him about it. It’ll turn out it was a ‘clerical error’ and we got sent the wrong shipment.”

  “Wrong shipment?”

  “Sure. It’ll turn out this piece of crap was supposed to go to one of the trolley lines, or some of the light rail going in at some manufactory.” Sahnchyz kicked the rail again. “The General Board may’ve specified first-quality steel, thirty-five pounds to the foot, but we don’t have the kind of universal code enforcement you have in Charis. For that matter, we’re still producing a lot more iron and a lot less steel than you are, and a lot of the lighter traffic’s running on iron for right now. The rails won’t last as long, and I sure as hell wouldn’t try to run any heavy freight over them or put any fast automotives on them, but they can be turned out domestically and a lot of palms are being greased to use them wherever we can. So, if Hymphyl gets hammered over this, he’ll just say his warehousers loaded the wrong shipment on the wrong flatcar. He’ll fall all over himself apologizing for it, replace it with the right rails, and probably offer some kind of half-arsed discount on the next shipment as a ‘voluntary refund for the inconvenience.’ And that’ll be that. No harm done, everything’s been made good, and everybody’s happy. Except maybe you and me.”

  “Shan-wei.” Ohgylsbee shook his head. “If anybody tried that back home, they’d better have tons of paperwork to back it up. And odds are, somebody’d still see the inside of a cell before it was all over!”

  “I wish it worked that way here, too, but it doesn’t. Not yet, anyway.” Sahnchyz shrugged. “And the good news is that, so far, anything that gets by the initial inspection’s being caught by our inspectors here on-site. If it doesn’t get any worse, we can cope with it.”