The Lord-Protector's Daughter

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

“What else do you suggest?”

  “Cousins have married,” Berenyt said.

  Joramyl merely offered the slightest of smiles.

  “You and Rachylana?” asked Mykella, knowing full well that that was exactly what Berenyt had in mind.

  “I would leave that decision to Rachylana, after she talks with you and Salyna.” Berenyt smiled.

  “You three should discuss such matters,” added Joramyl, gazing pointedly at Mykella. “Your father did wish his successors to be of his blood.”

  Mykella looked blankly out the window toward the public gardens beyond the avenue before the palace. If Berenyt married Rachylana, no one would ever complain, not loudly, that Joramyl had succeeded her father, because both bloodlines would be united in their children. But…it was wrong.

  Yet, if she challenged Joramyl and Berenyt, she would be acting against her own sister’s desires. And what could she really do? Could what she had learned sustain her against Joramyl and the leaders of the Southern Guards?

  Still…now was not the time and place for confrontation. If she had to fight, it would be on her terms.

  After a moment, she inclined her head politely. “That is true. He did wish his successor to be of his blood, and his successor will be.”

  Berenyt relaxed ever so slightly. Joramyl did not, although he smiled broadly. “I’m sure he would have been glad to know that you intend to support his wishes.”

  “I have always been a dutiful daughter,” Mykella replied, inclining her head, “and his wishes are and will be my command.”

  “After you three talk and agree on what you wish, and until matters are formalized, of course,” Joramyl added, “we will entertain the envoy of Prince Skrelyn.”

  “Of course,” Mykella said politely.

  Joramyl stood. “You are all well-bred and most intelligent young women, and you know that I have your best interests at heart. As close as I was to your father, I want to see you all matched suitably and happily, and I know that you understand that.” He smiled warmly.

  Mykella rose and inclined her head to her uncle. “You are most kind, and, as you suggested, we will talk over these things. It is difficult to try to be practical when we have lost both a brother and a father in such a short time, but we know your advice is meant for the best, and we thank you.”

  “We do,” murmured Salyna.

  Rachylana merely nodded politely before the three sisters took their leave.

  None of the three spoke until they returned to the parlor.

  Once the door was closed, Rachylana glared at Mykella. “Do you want me to have to wed that barbarian from Midcoast?” asked Rachylana. “Is that what you two want?”

  “No,” Mykella said firmly. “What I want is for you not to be pushed into things. If we all agree right now, then Joramyl and Berenyt will push you around for the rest of your life. You have one thing they want, and that’s the security of your being Father’s daughter. You will write a note to Uncle Joramyl saying that you are extremely fond of Berenyt and that you know he is most fond of you, and that everyone has observed this. At the same time, you feel it is not seemly or respectful to make a commitment to marrying Berenyt until at least several weeks after Father’s memorial.” Mykella looked hard at the redhead. “You do not wish to do anything disrespectful to Father or his memory, and you are certain that Uncle Joramyl would not wish that either, but you look forward to the time when it is seemly to make such a commitment.”

  “That seems better,” suggested Salyna.

  “What if he presses me?” Rachylana looked from Salyna to Mykella. “Then what?”

  “Tell him that’s what you want,” replied Mykella. “It is, isn’t it?” After the briefest of pauses, she added, “But tell him that you just can’t have it made public right now.”

  Rachylana looked helplessly toward the window, then the floor. “I don’t want to lose Berenyt and get married off to some Midcoast barbarian.”

  “He won’t press you, not until after he’s invested formally as Lord-Protector,” Mykella said. “If he does it could become public, and that might raise the question of why he pressed, and that might suggest that his claim to being Lord-Protector isn’t that strong. After all, a brother has never inherited yet.”

  “That’s because there have always been sons,” Salyna pointed out.

  “That’s true,” said Mykella, “but Uncle Joramyl wants things to go smoothly. He always has. But, if you want Berenyt to respect you, you have to hold fast on not making a commitment this moment.”

  “What if he insists?”

  “Tell him that, if he won’t respect your respecting your father, how can he expect you or anyone to respect him? You can say it more politely than that,” Mykella said dryly.

  “Mykella’s right about that,” Salyna said.

  “You’re not the one who has to face him,” Rachylana said.

  “No…we’re the ones who’ll end up in Dereka and Southgate,” snapped Salyna.

  Rachylana sighed. “I know that…but I worry.”

  Don’t we all? But Mykella only nodded.

  49

  That evening, after a cold dinner, Salyna followed Mykella back to her chamber.

  “What do you want, little sister?” asked Mykella gently.

  “Rachylana’s worried, Mykella,” Salyna said quietly.

  “Why should she be worried?” replied Mykella. “We went over this earlier today. Joramyl will allow Rachylana a little time before Berenyt asks formally for her hand, whether he loves her or not, and she’ll become the wife of the future Lord-Protector of Tempre. That’s what she wants more than anything, isn’t it?”

  “She thinks you’ll do something stupid, like try to poison Joramyl, and that you’ll be killed, and we’ll be exiled.”

  Mykella laughed, a low and ironic sound. “You can tell her that I never once thought of poisoning anyone, not after I saw what it did to Father.”

  “Father? You think he was poisoned?”

  “I can’t prove it to anyone. But he was healthy. He had a glass of wine, and he had a seizure. He was dead in less than half a glass. That all happened less than half a season after Jeraxylt died in a sparring accident that probably wasn’t an accident at all. Most convenient, don’t you think?”

  “I had wondered.” Salyna’s face crumpled, and her eyes brightened. “But what can we do? You can’t…Either it was all the way Uncle Joramyl said it was…or…” She said nothing for a moment, before asking, “If you’re right, who would believe it?”

  Mykella nodded. “And if anyone poisoned anyone now…I’m most certain everyone would look at me. For all your swordplay, you’re still seen as too sweet, and Rachylana has everything to lose. So you can tell Rachylana that I have no intention of poisoning anyone.”

  “And then they’ll send you to Dereka and me to Southgate.”

  “That’s possible.” Mykella didn’t want to let her sister know anything, for Salyna’s own protection. “We’ll probably be safer there than here. Rachylana will be safe enough.” At least until she has a son or two.

  “What…about you? How do you feel about going to Dereka?”

  “I understand it’s not too bad a place, except that it’s cold and dry.”

  “Do you know what he’s like?”

  “He’s supposed to be warm and kind, and caring. But that doesn’t seem to matter, does it?” replied Mykella.

  “But…Mother loved Father…”

  “They were fortunate,” Mykella pointed out.

  “What will happen, Mykella?” Salyna’s voice was small.

  “We’ll have to see, won’t we? But there’s no use in worrying right this moment.” Mykella wrapped her arms around Salyna, all too conscious that her younger sister was the taller.

  Once Salyna had left, Mykella reached out to the green-blackness below and slipped through the stone down to the Table chamber.

  There was not the slightest sign of the pinkish purple tinge that she associated with the I
frit, for which she was thankful, as she stepped up to the Table.

  First she sought out Berenyt. When the mists cleared, not surprisingly, the Table revealed that he was entertaining a redheaded young woman in his chambers. Mykella thought she was the one who had been eyeing Jeraxylt at the season-turn parade, although she couldn’t be certain.

  Mykella released the image, shaking her head, although she wasn’t about to tell Rachylana about Berenyt’s interests, for more than a few reasons.

  Next, she sought out Joramyl, who was, surprisingly, exactly where he should have been, in a sitting room with Cheleyza. From what Mykella could determine, he was trying to reassure her about something, although he was smiling warmly and confidently.

  Arms-Commander Nephryt and Commander Demyl were in a small chamber, somewhere she did not recognize, talking intently and intensely. In turn, Mykella let that image lapse.

  For a time, she looked down at the mirror surface of the Table. Then she swallowed, and concentrated on Undercommander Areyst. She could feel the relief when she saw the image. He was seated at a writing desk, with stacks of papers on both sides, studying them and making notations, as if comparing one set to another, and noting the differences…or the discrepancies.

  She let the images in the Table lapse.

  What else could she do? She’d practiced with using light and sound, and, as the soarer had said, she could move unseen, and even kill. But now…all she could do was wait for tomorrow and trust that what she had planned would indeed work.

  50

  Mykella rose early on Quinti. She prepared herself for the ordeal of the funeral procession and memorial service, in all the ways that she could, including her dress, severe dark green and high-necked, trimmed in black. Her headscarf was black, but of shimmersilk—and had been her mother’s—and her cloak was black. Under the long skirt of the gown, she did wear her black formal boots, well polished.

  She forced herself to eat at breakfast, but kept to herself, even as she stood near her sisters, until the time for the ceremony. She said little as the three joined Joramyl, Cheleyza, and Berenyt, before a small honor guard escorted them to the small reviewing stand set up on the north side of the boulevard, directly in front of the wall enclosing the palace. More than a thousand people lined the space on the south side of the boulevard, crowding the area between the low wall that marked the northern edge of the public gardens and the edge of the boulevard. The warm spring sun doubtless had swelled the crowd.

  As the late Lord-Protector’s eldest surviving child, Mykella stood on the uppermost level of the stand, under a clear green sky, with a cool breeze blowing out of the northwest. To her right was Joramyl, and beyond him, Berenyt. To Berenyt’s right was Lady Cheleyza. To Mykella’s left were her sisters. Below the family were the Seltyrs and High Factors of Tempre—in effect the councilors of the city and more—and their wives.

  “I can see the Southern Guards are leaving the Great Piers now,” Joramyl said conversationally.

  “It won’t be that long now.” Berenyt concealed his impatience badly, so much so that Mykella could have read it clearly even without her Talent.

  Her eyes and senses went to Cheleyza, whose second life-thread was more pronounced, if thin. Mykella couldn’t help but worry about what might happen to Rachylana, should she actually wed Berenyt, given Cheleyza’s prior attempt at poisoning Rachylana. Mykella had no doubts that Cheleyza wanted her yet unborn offspring to become the ruler of Lanachrona, and that did not bode well for Rachylana.

  As Berenyt had predicted, it was not that long before the funeral procession appeared, led by two Southern Guards riding on each side of a riderless horse whose saddle was draped in the blue of the Lord-Protector. Behind them rode Second Company, and all the officers and men wore black-edged blue mourning sashes. Directly following them was the caisson carrying the ceremonial coffin that contained the urn holding her father’s ashes, drawn by four black horses.

  Just before the caisson carrying her father’s coffin, also draped in the blue of the Lord-Protector, drew abreast of the reviewing stand, Mykella stepped forward slightly. She drew upon the lifeweb darkness beneath her and Tempre and focused light around her…and then around the coffin, not enough to be blinding, but just enough, she hoped, so that all who watched saw the faint link of light between her and the coffin of the late Lord-Protector. Then she projected respect and honor for her father, the Lord-Protector, easing it out across the area, but she let that projection center on her as the caisson passed. The riders of Second Company looked back and those of First Company, following the caisson, also fixed their eyes upon the Lord-Protector’s daughter. Mykella remained motionless, but she did not bother to try to control the tears that rolled down her face.

  Then, once the last of the riders had passed, she stepped back.

  “How…did that happen…?” murmured someone.

  “Don’t say a word,” murmured Joramyl.

  Mykella let tears continue to roll down her face as she watched the caisson heading into the palace grounds and toward the mausoleum on the hillside behind the palace.

  After the last horseman in the procession had entered the palace gates, as Mykella walked down the steps toward the honor guard that would escort them to the mausoleum, Salyna slipped beside her.

  “What did you do?” whispered Salyna. “They all looked at you. Joramyl got that stern stone-faced look he gets when he’s displeased.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Mykella lied, “except step forward a bit to pay my respects to Father—publicly.”

  “But everyone looked at you…”

  Mykella certainly hoped so.

  Joramyl certainly had felt both anger and worry, but he had said nothing to Mykella. Even so, she maintained a Talent shield around herself as she let the honor guard escort them through the plaza in front of the palace and then through the rear courtyard and the rear gate to the memorial garden around the private mausoleum—to the north and uphill from the regular palace gardens.

  Once the urn had been removed from the coffin and carried to the granite presentation table under the front arch of the mausoleum, and everyone had assembled facing the small outer rotunda, Joramyl began the ceremony.

  “We acknowledge that the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona has died, and that he has left a legacy of love and goodness bestowed on his family and people throughout a long and prosperous life. We are here to mourn his loss and offer our last formal farewell in celebration of his life.” With that, he stepped back and nodded to Mykella.

  Mykella stepped forward. She waited several moments before she began to speak, letting silence fall across the mausoleum and the area beyond. Her eyes traversed the three Southern Guard officers present, but she did not look sideways at Joramyl, nor at her sisters.

  “Our father was the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona, but he was more than that. He was a good man, a caring man, and a trusting man, who loved his wife, his children, his larger family, and his people. He believed most deeply that the principal goal of a Lord-Protector was to protect his people, both from those outside the borders of Lanachrona and from those within our borders, for there are enemies in both places. He spent his efforts as Lord-Protector to assure peace and prosperity for all his people, and not just a favored few. And…to the end of his days, he believed in the goodness of those around him. We will miss him, and so will Lanachrona.”

  While her words were brief, Mykella did not know that she could have said more, or that more needed to be said.

  After another silence, Salyna delivered the blessing. “In the name of the One and the Wholeness That Is, and Always Will Be…”

  Mykella listened intently, but while Salyna almost choked on the words near the end, her voice remained firm, steady, and loving.

  During the entire brief ceremony, Mykella had barely glanced in the direction of Undercommander Areyst, except one time in passing, not because she had not wished to do so, but because she felt that any favor she might show him might
jeopardize his very life.

  The honor guard re-formed below the steps of the mausoleum.

  Joramyl turned to Mykella, a pleasant, but thoughtful look upon his face, an expression belying a mixture of anger and worry within him. “You were very…impressive today. I trust you will be equally supportive of your father’s successor.”

  “I intend to be, Lord Joramyl. Like you, I am beholden to my father’s legacy.” She paused. “I apologize if my words are brief, but it has been a trying time.” She did her best to offer an apologetic smile.

  51

  Mykella wasn’t certain exactly how she made it through the rest of the day, replying to all sorts of meaningless platitudes politely. She was just thankful when she could plead exhaustion after a light supper and retire to her chamber.

  As she closed the door, she realized she was thirsty, and she walked toward the side table by the bed. The tumbler there was empty, but the pitcher beside it had been refilled by the staff, most likely by Uleana, and she reached for it. Her hand stopped short. A bluish green aura surrounded the pitcher—the exact shade she’d perceived shrouding her father just before he died.

  She bent over the pitcher and sniffed, but she could smell nothing.

  For the briefest of moments, she thought about using the sight-shield to place the pitcher where Joramyl would use it, but that was not a good idea for two reasons. First, he had not moved into the palace and would not until after he was formally installed as Lord-Protector at noon the next day—far too soon, Mykella thought, but no one had asked her. In fact, she had only found out late in the afternoon. Second, as Salyna had pointed out, Berenyt would make certain that Mykella was blamed, and Berenyt would just become Lord-Protector sooner—and then he probably wouldn’t even have to marry Rachylana.

  Mykella snorted. If she’d drunk the poison, doubtless Joramyl would have claimed a brain weakness ran in the family.

  She did make sure that the door bolt was fastened before she put out the lamps and climbed into bed. She was more than tired; she was exhausted.