The Lord-Protector's Daughter

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Several moments later, she smiled.

  When she had ridden from the palace to confront Demyl, she’d done something with her Talent and voice, because she’d felt a certain power. Even the gate had shaken at her Talent-amplified voice. Could she channel that, more subtly, in a more directed fashion, to unsettle Maxymt? Without rage?

  She stepped back into one of the regularly spaced alcoves, then Talent-reached along the long corridor. She only clicked her tongue disapprovingly, since Maxymt would recognize her voice.

  The clerk stopped and looked around. That Mykella could sense. He resumed walking toward the Finance study door.

  She clicked her tongue again.

  While Maxymt twitched, he did not look back, but deliberately made his way to the door and unlocked it.

  Mykella waited for close to a glass, experimenting with projecting sounds up and down the corridors, before she finally walked to the Finance study and entered.

  Maxymt smiled politely. “Good morning, Mistress.”

  “Good morning.” Mykella took her place at her table, hoping the day ahead would not be so long as she knew it would be. Still, she was pleased about what else she had discovered about her Talent, even if she wasn’t quite sure how she might use either ability.

  46

  On Duadi, Mykella woke to a day that promised to be brighter, with clear skies and early white light flowing across the palace courtyard below her window. Brighter or not outside, she was dreading going to work on the ledgers. That had become more and more of a chore, and yet Mykella felt that, if she did not keep overseeing the accounts, matters would revert to what they had been. She also had discovered traces of another problem, and she knew she needed to investigate, and she feared her father—or Joramyl—would find yet another excuse. In some ways, she wondered why she bothered, because, if her father had his way, she’d end up in Dereka, certainly before the end of summer. Yet…part of her insisted that it was important.

  So she washed and dressed and had breakfast with her father and sisters, and spoke little, but politely, and learned that the envoy from Midcoast would arrive on Quinti. At that point, Rachylana had excused herself, claiming she felt unwell.

  After a more strained end to breakfast, Mykella had made her way to the Finance study, where she resumed her investigation. Late on Londi, she had discovered that the outlays and the paychests sent to the Southern Guard outpost in Syan over the winter had been a fifth larger than in the previous winter, but the number of guards stationed there had not varied, and the pay scales had not changed. But tracking down all the entries was a tedious business, and she needed to make sure that all her figures were correct before she brought them to her father. At least, when she did, he wouldn’t be able to accuse Kiedryn.

  In mid-afternoon, as she was completing her comparative listing of figures, the door to the Finance chambers slammed open, and Salyna rushed in. “It’s Father! He’s had a seizure. He’s dying, Treghyt says, and he wants you!”

  Mykella bolted from her table-desk, not even glancing at Maxymt. She dashed out of the study and down the long upper corridor toward the Lord-Protector’s apartments, with Salyna running beside her.

  They burst into the Lord-Protector’s private quarters, past the pair of duty guards, then came to a stop at the door to the bedchamber. There stood Joramyl. His face wore a concerned look, and there was worry beneath the expression, although Mykella had the feeling that the internal worry was somehow…different.

  “What happened?” Mykella asked.

  “We were having an afternoon chat in his study, and he began to shake.” Joramyl shook his head. “He tried to stand, and his legs gave out. I helped him here to his bed and summoned the healer…”

  “Mykella…he needs you.” Salyna pulled on Mykella’s sleeve.

  Mykella turned.

  Treghyt, the white-haired healer Mykella had known for years, stood at the far side of the wide bed on which Feranyt lay, still in the brilliant blue working tunic of the Lord-Protector, although the neck of the tunic had been opened and loosened. Treghyt had just placed a cold compress on Feranyt’s forehead, then had grasped his left wrist, as if checking his pulse.

  Mykella stepped into the bedchamber and moved to the nearer side of the bed. She bent over the shuddering figure. “I’m here. I’m here, Father.” She forced the tears back from her eyes.

  Salyna stood beside Mykella, silent, but bending over and reaching down to touch her father.

  “…Lord-Protector…” gasped Feranyt.

  “You’re the Lord-Protector,” Mykella insisted quietly, taking her father’s hand in hers, aware that his fingers were like ice, even though she could feel the heat radiating from his forehead despite the cool compress there.

  His life-thread was fraying as she sensed it. She tried to link with the greenish blackness below and to reinforce that disintegrating thread with her Talent, but the fraying accelerated faster than she could cope with it.

  “Joramyl, and…after him…Berenyt…they…must…”

  “Berenyt?” blurted Mykella.

  “…still of our blood, daughter.” Feranyt took short shallow breaths, each one more labored than the one previous. “Promise me…promise me. The Lord-Protector must…must be of our blood.”

  “The ruler of Tempre must be of our blood,” repeated Mykella. She could promise that…somehow.

  The faintest smile crossed Feranyt’s lips before a last spasm convulsed him.

  “He’s gone,” said the angular healer, looking toward Joramyl, who remained standing beside the doorway. “It happened so quickly. There was nothing…” Treghyt shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Mykella’s cheeks were wet, and she hadn’t even realized that her tears were flowing.

  The healer turned to Joramyl and bowed his head. While he did not say, “Lord-Protector,” he might as well have.

  Mykella wanted to protest those unspoken words. She did not, but straightened, looking down at the silent figure of her father. There was an ugly bluish green that suffused his form, fading slowly into gray as his body cooled. Poison? It had to be. She had no doubts about who had been behind it. Yet how could she prove it when the only evidence was what she could sense that no one else could? Treghyt doubtless suspected, but he would say nothing when the only heir was Joramyl.

  And if she insisted it had been poison, too many questions would arise as to how and why she knew. Besides, her father was dead. So was Jeraxylt, and Joramyl was Lord-Protector. And…all of it had happened in spite of everything she had tried to do to stop it.

  Salyna reached out and put her arms around Mykella, and the two clung to each other.

  Joramyl, thankfully, said nothing.

  47

  The night of her father’s death, Mykella was still numb all over. When Tridi dawned, she did not feel that much better, knowing that, at least overtly, she would have to go through the motions of being a dutiful daughter. She did not go to the Finance study. One way or another, what she had been doing with the accounts could have no effect, not any longer.

  At the same time that she struggled with her grief, she knew that matters would not improve, not when both Treghyt and Joramyl had announced that her father had died of a brain seizure. She would have to act, but her actions would have to be dramatic and open, where they could not be hushed up or overlooked or excused as the efforts of an emotional and hysterical daughter.

  So she planned…and forced herself to wait. Waiting was the hardest part, and that was the part of the role of a woman of Tempre that had always challenged her. The second hardest part was something that should have been easy for a “traditional” daughter, and that was altering the brilliant blue vest that had been her brother’s. Mykella’s needlework skills were not excessive, but the work in the seclusion of her own chamber—and practicing using her Talent to manipulate light and her voice—did pass the glasses on Tridi.

  Then, late in the day, there was a knock on the door of Mykella’s chamber. She
walked to the door.

  “Yes?”

  “A missive for you, Mistress,” said Uleana.

  Mykella opened the door, if warily.

  “It’s from Lord Joramyl, the guards said.” The maid handed Mykella a sheet of parchment, sealed shut in blue wax.

  “Thank you.” Mykella eased the door shut and walked back to the window, where she broke the seal and unfolded the single sheet.

  The salutation read, “My dearest niece,” and Mykella bridled at the words. “Dearest indeed,” she murmured, but she forced herself to read the remainder of the words that followed.

  In this time of your great sorrow, my thoughts, and those of Berenyt and Cheleyza, are with you and your sisters, for you have been asked to endure much in such a short time.

  For all your sorrow, however, the last needs of your father must be met, as must those of Lanachrona, and I would like to request that you, as the eldest, gather your sisters to meet with me tomorrow after breakfast in the Lord-Protector’s formal study.

  The signature was that of Joramyl.

  Instead of crumpling the parchment, as she would have liked to do, she folded it and walked from her chamber to the parlor, hoping to find both her sisters there. Only Salyna was present, her eyes on the window, looking blankly beyond the courtyard to the trees of the Preserve beyond the gardens and the rear walls of the courtyard.

  “Salyna,” Mykella began softly, “where’s Rachylana?”

  “She said she had to get out. She’s somewhere being consoled by Berenyt, I’m sure. Why?”

  Mykella held up the parchment. “Our dear Uncle Joramyl wants to meet with us tomorrow after breakfast.”

  “For what?”

  “To go over the arrangements for Father’s memorial, it appears, and other matters of import to Lanachrona.”

  “And those are how to get us out of Tempre as quickly as possible, and how soon he can officially take over as Lord-Protector, no doubt.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Mykella said.

  “You sound so calm.”

  “I only sound calm,” replied Mykella.

  “Oh…Mykella…what can we do? I don’t want to go to Southgate. Do you really want to go to Dereka?”

  “No.” Mykella sat down across from her younger sister. “We do have some time. It will be at least another week before the Seltyr’s reply—or his envoy—returns.”

  “What about you?”

  “There’s no point in talking about it until something happens.”

  “You’re thinking about something, aren’t you?” said Salyna.

  Mykella offered a wry smile. “I wonder what would have happened if Mykel had died before Rachyla.”

  Salyna frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. Except she was a strong woman, and no matter what they say, most men don’t care for strength in women—except in childbirth.”

  “They do, too. Mother was strong, and Father loved her.”

  Mykella laughed, ironically. “I’ll phrase it another way. Men like strong women, provided they’re stronger than the woman they marry.”

  “That may be true, but that doesn’t help us.”

  “Not now.” Mykella glanced toward the window. “Will you tell Rachylana about the meeting with Joramyl?”

  “I can. What are you doing?”

  “I need to see if I can find something.” Mykella turned and walked from the family parlor, making her way back to her own chambers.

  While she could have walked down to the lower levels of the palace, she didn’t know which of the guards were loyal to Joramyl, and she did not want him to know what she was doing. Instead, she stepped over to the outer stone wall of her chamber, touching it with her left hand, and reaching out to the darkness beneath and then guiding herself down to the basement chamber that held the oldest archives.

  The old wooden steps were where Mykella had left them on her last visit, and the dust had settled, to reveal that no one else had been there since. She clambered to the top of the steps, and once more, she could barely reach the topmost box. Just as she eased it out, she sneezed, and almost dropped it.

  Then, she balanced the wooden box on one of the middle steps and, forcing herself to be even more careful than she had been in her earlier and more cursory searches about Mykel and his Talent, she paged through the documents, one at a time. There were proclamations for this, and for that. In the third box, she found a complete set of summary budgets for all the years of Mykel’s time as Protector of Tempre.

  In the end, when she finished, close to midnight, she had found nothing new about Rachyla’s possible succession as Protector of Lanachrona in the ten boxes of papers that were all that remained of the records of Mykel’s years ruling Lanachrona. The only reference remained the notation to the documents proclaiming his son Olent as Protector of Tempre, in which there was a single line noting that the contingent succession proclamation naming Rachyla as Mykel’s successor had been rendered moot because she had predeceased her husband.

  She slipped that complete set of documents inside her tunic before she reached out to the greenish darkness in order to make her way back up through the cold granite to her own chambers.

  48

  On Quattri, the three sisters sat alone in the breakfast room, talking after they had eaten, not that any of them had partaken of all that much.

  “Where were you last night?” Rachylana looked at Mykella. “We looked for you, but you weren’t anywhere around.”

  “Outside…in the gardens,” lied Mykella. “I wanted to think.”

  “It was damp out there.” Rachylana shivered. “Why…?”

  Salyna offered the slightest frown, but said nothing for a moment, then asked, “Do you think Uncle Joramyl wants to talk about more than the memorial?”

  “It can’t be about matching,” said Rachylana quickly. “The Midcoast envoy hasn’t even arrived.”

  “He’s supposed to arrive later today,” Mykella pointed out.

  “He wouldn’t talk about matching,” insisted Rachylana. “It has to be about Father.”

  “It might also be about his investiture as Lord-Protector,” suggested Salyna.

  Mykella wanted to ask why everyone just accepted that Joramyl would be Lord-Protector. She did not raise the question, saying only, “That’s possible. He’s not the kind to tarry when it’s…something like that.”

  “That’s unfair, Mykella,” protested Rachylana. “Father was terribly close to Uncle Joramyl.”

  Unfortunately. “He was, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  “Who else could be?” asked Rachylana. “The only men related to Father are Uncle Joramyl and Berenyt.”

  “That’s true,” Mykella said, “but Father’s only been gone two days. Joramyl is already acting as Lord-Protector, and not one of us has been asked about anything.”

  “Why would he ask us?” questioned Rachylana.

  “Mykella knows more about the finances than anyone,” Salyna pointed out. “She knows more than Father or Uncle Joramyl did. She’s the one who discovered the missing golds.”

  “He probably should have asked you about that.” Rachylana’s tone was grudging.

  “We need to get ready to meet him.” Mykella rose from the table.

  Once they had washed up, Mykella led the way down the wide western corridor on the upper level, past Jeraxylt’s quarters, still sealed, and the Lord-Protector’s private apartments, also sealed.

  When they walked past Chalmyr and into the formal study, Mykella could not have said that she was in the slightest surprised to find Joramyl behind her father’s table-desk, at least the desk she had thought of as her father’s. Nor was she particularly amazed to see Berenyt there, although he was standing beside the desk.

  “If all of you would be seated.” Joramyl gestured to the four chairs set in a semicircle before the desk.

  Mykella recalled that there were usually only three chairs there.

  Af
ter waiting until the four were seated, Joramyl went on. “Everything has been arranged for your father’s funeral tomorrow. There will be a week of mourning following the ceremonies. The procession will be public, along the avenue and in front of the palace, the interment and final blessing private, in keeping with tradition. Do you have any questions?”

  “Who will do the blessing?” asked Salyna.

  “Would you like to, since you asked?” inquired Joramyl. “I had thought that Mykella might offer the statement of his life, since she is the eldest.”

  Salyna nodded.

  “Is that acceptable to you, Rachylana?” asked Joramyl.

  “Yes.”

  A silence descended on the study. Mykella waited, unwilling to be the one to speak and wanting Joramyl to be the one to commit himself.

  Joramyl cleared his throat. “Now…uncomfortable as it may be, we need to talk about your future.” The Lord-Protector-select’s words were mild.

  Mykella could sense the calculation and the disdain behind the politeness. “Now? We have not even had Father’s funeral.”

  “By the end of the week after the funeral, of course, you will all retire to your father’s hill villa for a half season of mourning. Before then, you will all have a chance to see and meet the envoy from Midcoast. If necessary, we can begin the negotiations for Rachylana’s match and marriage. I understand that the Landarch’s heir will be making an offer for your hand as well, Mykella, as will Seltyr Gheortyn for yours, Salyna.”

  “Salyna isn’t old enough to be married to anyone,” Mykella said quietly.

  “She needs the protection of a strong consort, especially now,” suggested Berenyt. “So do you and Rachylana.”

  “And you think that the princeling of Midcoast would be strong enough for Rachylana?” asked Mykella.

  “There are other possibilities,” ventured Berenyt.