The Lord-Protector's Daughter

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Gheortyn is a Seltyr, not a High Seltyr, and he will not be one for many years, as his father is close in age to your sire, but he is handsome, most intelligent, and a horseman without peer.”

  That’s what any envoy would say. “A few particulars about him would be nice, if you might indulge me.”

  “But, of course.” Malaryk smiled insincerely. “His hair is shining black, as black as that of the Alectors from whom sprang the forebears of Southgate, and his eyes are equally so. He is long of limb, yet sinewy, and strong, and a quarter head taller than your brother, I would judge. His eyesight is that of a hawk, and he can ride any mount.”

  Mykella concealed a wince at the overtones and feelings behind the envoy’s last phrase. “You said that he was most intelligent. In what fashion?”

  “He knows all the verses of Elharyd, and most of those of Sheidahk. He has also studied the works of the great military strategist Gebyet.”

  A poetry-spouting stud whose father is looking for an intelligent woman so that his grandchildren won’t be complete idiots. And who hopes to rule until those grandchildren are old enough to succeed him. Wonderful. “He sounds most handsome and athletic.”

  “That he is, Mistress. That he is.” Malaryk looked slightly past Mykella.

  She smiled and stepped away, letting her father escort an appropriately pallid Salyna to meet Malaryk. She had taken but three steps before Lady Jylara appeared, inclining her head respectfully.

  “Mistress Mykella…”

  “Mykella, please, Jylara.” Mykella had no trouble being pleasant, especially as she sensed the friendliness and concern behind the words of the older woman. She also had no doubt that Jylara had more to convey.

  “Gharyk said that you visited him and that you had a chance to see the portrait of Rachyla that hangs in his Justice study. He was quite amazed at the resemblance when you stood before it. Quite amazed indeed.”

  “I was surprised myself,” Mykella replied. “I’d never seen that painting before. In fact, no one had ever mentioned it to me. It is quite striking.”

  Jylara laughed. “Some men just don’t think of those things, especially when they think about rulers and ruling. To them, it’s just a painting of a beautiful consort or a wife on a wall, and she was beautiful indeed. But from what Gharyk told me, Rachyla was such a force that Mykel the Great always listened to her. Her father didn’t, alas, and that might be why he was killed…”

  Mykella managed to keep smiling, even as she understood the meaning behind the words, even as she kept listening.

  “He was a High Seltyr of Dramur, you know, and once he was killed, the lands went to one of her cousins, and she was sent to live with another. It would have been better for Dramur had the lands gone to her, but the way things turned out, it was better for her and for us that they didn’t.”

  “That’s true. It’s a pity that more men aren’t as perceptive as Mykel.” Mykella paused, then added, “But Lord Gharyk seems most perceptive, I must say. I imagine you two have many interesting conversations.”

  “That we do, indeed. Of course, he tells me that I see things that aren’t even there, and he nods when I insist that they are, as if he must humor me. He does, but I do appreciate that.” Jylara smiled broadly and warmly. “I won’t take any more of your time, but it was a pleasure to see you again.”

  No sooner had Jylara slipped away than Rachylana appeared, slipping close to her older sister and commenting in a low voice, “She’s rather loud, isn’t she? Everyone in yards could hear what she had to say. A history lesson to you, no less.”

  “She’s very cheerful, and, at a time like this, that’s helpful.”

  “I see that the envoy is still talking to Salyna. He seems taken with her.”

  “Your turn will come,” Mykella pointed out.

  “I simply cannot wait.”

  Mykella smiled and eased away. She really wanted a goblet of wine, but she kept smiling, exchanging pleasantries as she crossed the few yards between her and the nearest sideboard and server.

  “The Vyan Grande, please.”

  The server poured a goblet, and Mykella let her senses range over the wine and the goblet, but she sensed no sign of the bluish green she had felt on her pitcher or within Rachylana, and nothing seemed amiss.

  Then, with the goblet of Vyan Grande in hand, she took tiny sips and continued to make light conversation until the chimes sounded. Once everyone was seated at the long dining table, Feranyt nodded to the envoy seated to his right.

  “In the name of the One Who Shall Never Perish, we offer praise and thanks for the poetry of life, for the beauty of sunrises and sunsets, for lands filled with handsome men and fair maids, for the bounty of love and the children that bounty brings, and for all the blessings that cannot be named but should never be forgotten, in the name of the Eternal and Imperishable.”

  Mykella was less than impressed with the idea of children as the bounty of love, at least after having listened to Envoy Malaryk wax on about Seltyr Gheortyn. Still, throughout the dinner, Mykella smiled, offered more than a few pleasantries, and listened, using her Talent to concentrate on what the envoy said. One exchange particularly intrigued and concerned her.

  “…We of Southgate have always had a great interest in the strength and good will of Lanachrona. We welcome strong leadership in Tempre. Once more the nomads of Illegea and Ongelya are rallying their clans. Unless they are crushed, trade all across Corus will suffer…”

  And Southgate wants the Southern Guards to take the casualties so that Southgate’s traders can continue to prosper at our expense. Mykella stifled a snort of disgust, keeping a pleasant smile upon her face.

  “…and there have been secret meetings between the advisors of the princes of Midcoast and Northcoast. Should they unite in an effort to increase their territory and power, that would not be in the best interests of either Southgate or Lanachrona.” Malaryk offered a smile meant to be supportive and friendly.

  Mykella noted that the smile was directed at Joramyl, who nodded politely, the expression masking intense interest. Yet her father seemed not to notice. At least Mykella could sense nothing other than polite boredom, and the words of Lady Jylara echoed in her thoughts, only reinforcing her own feelings.

  34

  On Quattri, Feranyt was smiling broadly as he took his place at the breakfast table. “Matters are looking promising indeed.”

  Mykella could sense his satisfaction, but what bothered her far more than that was that the node in his life-thread held a shade of bluish gray. “Promising, Father?”

  “Joramyl tells me that the envoys from Dereka and Southgate both seem pleased and that they plan to return to their lands with recommendations for the Landarch-heir and the heir of the High Seltyr of Southgate, and their choices do not conflict.”

  Across the table from Mykella, Jeraxylt nodded knowingly.

  But which of us gets bartered to whom…and for what? Mykella feared she knew all too well who was likely destined to go where. Strangely, she worried more for Salyna than for herself. Was that because she could escape? Yet, what sort of life would that be, fleeing from everything she knew? And for what? Still….

  “Are you going to tell us?” she finally asked.

  “You probably already know, daughters, but until an actual offer of a match is made, no one will say anything. Nor will I.”

  Salyna and Mykella exchanged glances. Salyna was pale. Rachylana was trying to conceal a smile of satisfaction.

  “Next week we are expecting an envoy from the Prince of Midcoast,” Feranyt added.

  Rachylana’s half-smile vanished.

  “Is there anything else we should know?” Salyna’s voice trembled slightly.

  Mykella sensed that the emotion behind the unsteadiness was neither sorrow nor despair, but fury barely held in check.

  “Not for now.” Feranyt continued to smile.

  Jeraxylt spoke quickly. “I did hear something interesting yesterday.”

&nb
sp; “Oh?” asked Rachylana.

  “Some of the Southern Guards on patrol saw a ghost of Rachyla the other night.”

  “A ghost? That’s absurd,” snapped Salyna. “She’s been dead for centuries.”

  “They say they saw her. They swore it. Two of them.” Jeraxylt nodded seriously. “Good solid men, too. They said that she was floating in the air, or walking on it.”

  “Maybe it was a soarer,” suggested Mykella.

  “That’s ridiculous. Soarers are just as dead…and they have been for longer,” added Rachylana.

  “The pier watch saw her, too,” added Jeraxylt, “but the woman he saw floated over the water, and she was partly shrouded in mist.”

  “That had to be fog,” Mykella said. “There are always patches of mist or fog over the river in winter.”

  “A ghost is more interesting, though.” Jeraxylt laughed, then paused and looked at Mykella. “Duadi night, at the reception, someone was talking to you about Rachyla, weren’t they?”

  “Oh, that was Lady Gharyk,” Mykella replied. “She was telling me that there was a portrait of Rachyla in Lord Gharyk’s study on the lower level of the palace.”

  “I’d forgotten about that,” mused the Lord-Protector. “It’s been there for years. There’s some story about it…” He paused, then shook his head. “I don’t remember, but it’s another one of those legends that don’t make much sense. I recall looking for something in the archives to verify it, but there wasn’t anything to it at all. No proof at all, and what’s the point of talking on and on about something that you can’t prove?”

  Lord Gharyk thought there was. But Mykella did not speak that thought, though she trusted Lord Gharyk’s words about the portrait far more than her father’s, and that was somehow sad.

  “Do you have any other news…that is more…substantial?” asked Feranyt, looking at his son.

  “Majer Choalt will be leaving on Octdi to take command of all of the Southern Guards’ operations out of Soupat,” Jeraxylt replied.

  “You said he was a good man, didn’t you?” asked Mykella.

  “Very good,” replied Jeraxylt, “and he was effective in dealing with the nomads. He learned a lot from Undercommander Areyst.” Jeraxylt paused. “There’s some talk about Areyst being dispatched to the east once the terms of the border-guarding agreement with Deforya are worked out—”

  “This isn’t the place for discussing that,” Feranyt said.

  “I didn’t know that brigands were a problem in Soupat,” offered Salyna, clearly obeying the letter of their father’s prohibition, but not the spirit.

  Jeraxylt looked to Feranyt, who nodded, before replying. “Commander Demyl says that the winter has been cold and that with the coming of spring they’ll be especially dangerous this year.”

  “They’ll be planting crops, like everyone else,” replied Salyna. “Brigands never attack places like Soupat in the spring. It’s not on the main trade routes, and those are the only places where there’s much in the way of booty early in the year.”

  Soupat was on the way to nowhere, Mykella reflected, except for the copper mines immediately to the south of the town. She didn’t like the idea that both Choalt and Areyst were being posted away from Tempre—not at this time and not when both were characterized as “good men.”

  “If Undercommander Areyst is likely to be posted to the east,” Mykella said, “perhaps that posting should be delayed until matters of matching are determined. Then he could accompany…whoever…It would be good to have someone of experience…” She smiled as winningly as she could, hating herself for stooping to that.

  Feranyt frowned for a moment, then nodded. “That might be for the best. It might indeed. I’ll so inform Arms-Commander Nephryt.”

  Mykella could sense the puzzlement from all of her siblings, especially from Salyna, and she wasn’t surprised when her younger sister cornered her in the corridor after breakfast.

  “Why did you do that?” Salyna’s voice was low, if intense. “You don’t even know the undercommander. You’re not serious about going to Dereka, are you?”

  “I didn’t say I was.” Mykella smiled. “It hasn’t even been formally proposed, for either of us, but Undercommander Areyst is supposedly a good and solid officer, and if a match is made and accepted…I’d certainly feel better, the way things are happening, with someone like that commanding the escort party.”

  “They could still…” Salyna broke off her words. “Yes…I can see where that might be for the best.”

  “It’s all I can think of right now.”

  Salyna nodded.

  After that, Mykella quickly washed up, then checked how she looked in her chamber mirror. Just as she stepped out and closed her door behind her, heading for the Finance study, Rachylana appeared.

  “A mere undercommander, Mykella? What’s come over you?”

  “I don’t even know the man,” Mykella pointed out. “I just want protection.” And that was true, so far as it went.

  Rachylana smiled widely. “How do you know you’re going to Dereka?”

  “I have black hair. Salyna’s blond. You darkened your face when you met the Southgate envoy.”

  “That’s hardly—”

  “Would you like to wager against it?” Mykella forced a smile.

  Rachylana could only keep looking at Mykella for a moment before she glanced away. “You think you’re so smart.”

  “I know I’m not. I just do what I can.” If I were really smart, I’d have figured out what to do about things, and I still haven’t.

  Rachylana’s voice dropped into almost a whisper. “Be careful, Mykella. Please.”

  The concern in her words—and behind them—touched Mykella, and she swallowed, but only said, “Thank you.”

  “Nothing’s quite right, but there’s so little we can do,” added Rachylana. “You and Salyna always think you can do something, but you can’t, and…I don’t want you hurt or angry.”

  Salyna’s furious, and I’m not that much less angry. “I understand, but we’re all different.”

  This time, Rachylana was the one to nod, before offering a sad smile, and then turning away.

  As she watched Rachylana walk away, Mykella couldn’t help but wonder what her sister knew or suspected. She also knew Rachylana had said all that she would. After a moment, Mykella began to stride down the corridor toward the Finance study.

  When she entered, she merely nodded to the acting chief clerk.

  “Good day, Mistress Mykella,” offered Maxymt.

  “It is, if you like cold rain and fog,” Mykella replied dryly. “I’d rather have snow.”

  “They’ll both pass before long, and travel to other places will be far more pleasant.” The clerk proffered his oily smile.

  “Only if one stays on the high roads or waits until the mud is gone, and that will be a while.” Mykella walked to the shelf that held the Southern Guard accounts and slipped the ledgers out, then carried them to her table. “Has Lord Joramyl made a decision on Shenyl’s replacement?”

  “Not yet, but it will not be too long, I understand.”

  “That puts extra work on the others, especially Haelyt.”

  “They do not appear to be overstrained…as of yet.”

  Mykella merely nodded. She’d said enough, and talking to Maxymt was like trying to carry water in a sieve. She ended up frustrated and never accomplishing anything.

  Less than a glass past midday, scarcely half a glass after he’d arrived and closeted himself in his study, Joramyl opened the inner door and beckoned. “Maxymt, we need to talk over some things.”

  “Yes, Lord Joramyl.” The acting chief Finance clerk immediately rose and walked quickly from his table, closing the inner study door behind him.

  Although the heavy-set clerk was not that large or ponderous, his walk was a scurrying, swaying waddle, reminding her of a lizard in a hurry.

  Mykella glanced to the closed outer door, then raised a concealment shield and tipto
ed up to the inner door, where she focused her Talent beyond the door into the study, trying to make out the conversation. Even so, she could only hear parts of the low-voiced interchange.

  “…keeping the ledgers as you ordered, sir…”

  “…any hope of squeezing out some golds?”

  “…she knows where every gold goes…no way to divert anything…”

  “…no matter…for now…pay for it myself…won’t be long before she’s matched and gone…won’t matter then…better head back to your ledgers…”

  After she slipped back to her own smaller table and the Southern Guard accounts she had been reviewing, Mykella dropped the concealment shield. Sitting there looking down at the entries, she couldn’t help wondering about Joramyl’s last words, because she had sensed a falseness about them. Yet he’d made no secret about wanting her matched and away from Tempre.

  35

  Quinti passed. So did Sexdi, Septi, and Octdi—and her weekly trip to the Great Piers—and then came Novdi afternoon, when Mykella stood in the reviewing stand for the traditional parade to mark the end of winter and the turn of spring, although, formally, that did not occur until Decdi evening. For the past four days, Mykella had watched and listened, and worked with her Talents, and used the Table to observe others. Yet she had learned absolutely nothing she had not suspected or known already, and she had no more proof about anything, or not the kind of proof her father would have accepted. Joramyl and Arms-Commander Nephryt continued to meet, as did Joramyl and the Lord-Protector. The Finance ledgers remained scrupulously kept, and Rachylana talked far too much in far too great detail about what she would wear to the ball on Novdi night.

  Only one thing, so far as Mykella could tell, had changed. She continued to observe herself and others with her life-senses, if that happened to be what they were, and from what she could tell, only her life-thread held that strange combination of black and green. Everyone else’s seemed to be some shade of brown, although a few held traces of yellow. She had the feeling that with each day that passed the green in her thread was becoming more brilliant, and the black was shrinking away bit by bit. But was she just imagining that? Was she imagining everything?