by DAVID B. COE
Under most circumstances, the archminister wouldn’t have cared one way or another. But the longer the king remained there, hunched over the bloody table, the more likely it was that others—in particular the duke of Orvinti and his first minister—would think about how the king had died, rather than merely accepting that he was dead. So, claiming to be concerned for the queen, Pronjed kept the hall locked, opening the doors only for the men and women of the cloister, and the servants who were to clean the mess.
As it happened, the queen appeared to be just fine. She had yet to shed a tear in front of him, and she had already begun preparations for the funeral, dispatching messengers to all the dukedoms with word of Carden’s death. She was a model of strength and courage, more worthy of the circlet she wore on her brow than her husband had been of his crown. All of which made Pronjed’s next task that much easier.
Killing the king had been his idea. The Weaver, he felt certain, would have approved had there been an opportunity to discuss it with him first. But it only occurred to him at the evening’s meal, when Orvinti handed him the blade. He had heard of the garroting of the surgeon—everyone in the castle was speaking of it—and he could guess the reason. He was no fool. The king’s daughter would turn ten during the snows and there had been no child since. Not even a stillbirth. It should have been obvious to everyone, especially the king. The greater surprise was that they had a daughter at all. It was enough to make one wonder if Chofya had strayed all those years ago. But the others in the castle were either too circumspect to speak of it, or too dull-witted to see it. Whatever the reason, their silence and the king’s made the previous night’s murder possible. In the light of morning, the garroting of the surgeon looked less like the pique of an over-proud king and more like the desperate rage of a dying man.
More important, the king’s death assured Pronjed of great power and influence when the Qirsi finally put an end to Eandi rule of the Forelands.
The Weaver hoped to divide the land by killing the duke of Bistari and setting the king’s foes against House Solkara and its allies. Brall’s unexpected appearance at the city gates gave the minister cause to think that this plan might have worked, given some time. But that was the problem. Such unrest would build slowly. It could have taken a year or more to undermine Carden’s power enough to put his house at risk. Killing the king accelerated the process. House Solkara stood now with neither a leader nor an heir. Bistari’s duke was dead as well, leaving the field open for others to grasp at the crown. Mertesse, Dantrielle, Orvinti, even Rassor and Noltierre; any one of them might be bold enough to think that he could rule Aneira. If all went well, the land would be at war with itself before the plantings. Surely the Weaver would be pleased.
Only one piece of his plan remained.
Glancing into the hall once more, he saw that the servants had almost rid the table of Carden’s blood. Pronjed nodded his satisfaction and made his way through the castle corridors to Carden’s quarters, where he knew he would find the queen.
He very nearly let himself into the room without bothering to knock. With Carden dead, the minister almost felt that Castle Solkara belonged to him.
Smiling at the misstep, he knocked once on the door, waiting until the queen called for him to enter before pushing the door open.
She sat at the king’s desk, reading through the messages and scrolls piled upon it. Throughout his reign, her husband showed little patience for matters of state, preferring the pageantry and swordplay that came with the crown. The fees that aroused such resentment in Bistari had been levied at Pronjed’s suggestion. The archminister couldn’t help but think that he had done the people of Aneira a great service the previous night. No matter who ascended to the throne next, it had to be an improvement over Carden. Of course, the next reign promised to be quite brief. Once the Weaver rose to power, he would assign Qirsi to all the thrones in the Forelands.
“Archminister,” the queen said, looking up from the papers. With the windows shuttered against the cold, the room was dark, save for two lamps burning on either side of the desk. “I’m glad you’re here. Do you know if all the dukes have paid their fees for this turn? I see messages here from every dukedom but Bistari and Tounstrel. I can understand if Chago’s son might be late with his tribute, but I don’t want Vidor thinking that he can delay out of anger. Particularly now.”
Truly she was a wonder, as brilliant as she was beautiful. Dressed in a black gown, with her dark hair held back by the golden circlet on her brow and her oval face paler and thinner than usual, she looked every bit the grieving young queen. This was a woman who could win the hearts of a kingdom. If Aneira’s dukes took her lightly, she would crush them. But first she had to be convinced that she wanted to.
“Archminister?” she said again, frowning slightly.
“Yes, Your Highness. The fees. I’m not certain who has paid and who hasn’t, but I’ll speak with the treasury minister.”
“I’d be grateful.” She gestured at a chair with an open hand. “Please.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” he said, stepping to the chair and sitting. “You’re to be commended for your attention to these matters, Your Highness, but surely they can wait. Shouldn’t you be with your daughter?”
She stared at the desk. “Perhaps. I was with her for a time earlier. She’s still in the cloister, crying for her father and praying with the prelate.”
“That’s to be expected, Your Highness. She’s suffered a terrible loss. As you have.”
“It’s harder for her.”
“Only because she’s young, Your Highness. You’ve lost the man you love.”
She pushed herself out of her seat and began pacing behind the desk. “Stop playing games, Archminister. We both know better.”
Pronjed prided himself on knowing all that went on in Castle Solkara, be it in the feasting halls and working chambers, or the corridors and sleeping quarters. But this caught him utterly unprepared. “Truly, Your Highness, I don’t understand.”
“You know what kind of man he was. He didn’t marry me out of love any more than he married me to please his father.”
This much at least, the minister knew. Chofya came from an earldom in Noltierre, the daughter of a insignificant noble. Tomaz, Carden’s father, had wanted his son to marry the daughter of a duke, preferably one from Dantrielle or Kett. Such a marriage would have gone a long way to healing the rifts that had already started to divide the kingdom. But while journeying to the south for a hunt, Carden saw Chofya and, Pronjed had always believed, fell in love with her. When he returned to Solkara the young prince insisted that his father arrange the marriage. For a time, the king refused, but Carden was not to be dissuaded and finally Tomaz relented.
“I was a prize, Archminister,” she continued after a few moments, and to his surprise there were, at last, tears on her face. “I was a jewel to be worn so that he might dazzle others. The same pride that led him to take his own life made him want me as his queen. He wanted me for my beauty, and I wanted him for his power and his wealth. Our marriage was a calculated matter for both of us. I wouldn’t call it loveless, but neither would I call it loving. He had his dalliances, and it may surprise you to know that I did as well. So let’s not speak of love and other trifles. There are more important matters at stake here.”
“Such as?”
“The future of the kingdom, of course.”
Pronjed had to suppress a smile. Just a few moments before, walking through the castle corridors, he had wondered how he might turn their conversation to this point. He never imagined that she would do it for him.
“I believe, Your Highness,” he began, as if misunderstanding her, “that you are the future of Aneira. Whether or not you and the king loved each other, you are the queen. All the land sees you that way.” He waved a hand at the desk. “Already you’re applying yourself to the task of running the kingdom. It might not be easy to convince the dukes, but I can think of no better choice to succeed your husb
and.”
Chofya laughed. “You flatter me, Pronjed. Even I know that I can’t rule Aneira. There’s no Solkaran blood in my veins, nor even the blood of one of the other major houses. I’m from a low family. If I tried to claim the throne for myself, the other houses would band together and destroy me. No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not Aneira’s future.”
“If not you, then who? Brall? Tebeo of Dantrielle? The boy in Mertesse? None of them is worthy, Your Highness. We both know that.”
“I agree,” she said, surprising him again. “But there is one who is worthy, and who would continue the Solkaran line.”
It was more than he could have hoped. She had taken him just where he intended to take her. The minister found himself wondering if he had misjudged the queen. He knew how clever she was, and how long she had worked to educate herself in the ways of the court. But he hadn’t realized just how ambitious she was.
“Who, Your Highness?” Trying not to sound too eager.
“Kalyi, of course. I want my daughter to rule Aneira.”
“She’ll make a fine queen, Your Highness, but what I said about you applies to her as well. The kingdom hasn’t been ruled by a queen since the Time of Queens centuries ago, and that ended with the other dukes threatening rebellion.”
“I know that. But she’s Carden’s only heir, and as such has a legitimate claim to the throne.”
“You’ll need a regent, of course. That complicates matters as well. The dukes may oppose you.”
“Some might. But I believe I can convince Brall to support me in this, and if so, perhaps he can win over some of the others.”
“You’ve given this much thought, Your Highness.”
“I’ve thought of little else all day. The hardest part, as you say, will be choosing her regent. Obviously, I can’t be selected. It will have to be one of Carden’s brothers.”
Pronjed raised an eyebrow. “Ah, the brothers.”
“You know them?”
“Well enough, Your Highness. If I may be permitted to speak freely, I don’t think much of any of them.”
“Neither do I,” the queen said. “And neither did Carden. The Jackals and the Fool, he used to call them.”
“I remember.”
“I wouldn’t trust the Jackals with my daughter, not for a moment. Numar, the Fool, on the other hand, will be more easily turned to our purposes.”
Our purposes. Pronjed nearly laughed aloud. Already she counted him as an ally in this.
“Numar is the youngest, Your Highness. All Aneira will expect us to turn to Grigor. Tradition demands no less.”
Chofya stopped her pacing, shaking her head with such vehemence that Pronjed half expected the circlet to fly from her brow. “Grigor is a dangerous man. He’ll do everything he can to take the crown for himself, even if it means killing Kalyi.”
“Then we’ll have to watch him with great care. Against one of us or the other, his designs might bear fruit. But against both of us he won’t have a chance.”
She smiled at him, looking so relieved and so grateful one might have thought that he had already placed the Scepter of Tomaz in the girl’s hands.
“Thank you, Pronjed. All of this will be much easier with you at my side.”
Chapter Seven
City of Kings, Eibithar
“It all comes back to Thorald, Your Majesty,” Wenda said, her eyes fixed on the king, who stood motionless before the fire. “In that respect nothing has changed. As long as Tobbar continues to support you, and remains above the dispute between Curgh and Kentigern, you should be able to keep the houses from going to war.”
Dyre sat forward, his pale eyes flicking from Wenda to the king and then to Keziah. “But Tobbar isn’t well. If he dies before these matters are resolved, there’s no telling what Thorald will do.”
“Actually, it seems quite clear to me,” Paegar said. “Tobbar has two sons in Shanstead, both of whom have much to gain from Thorald’s return to supremacy. I expect that if Tobbar dies any time soon, they’ll immediately throw the weight of their house behind Aindreas.” He turned to Gershon. “Wouldn’t you agree, swordmaster?”
Keziah might as well have not been in the room. She might have been archminister to the king of Eibithar, but to Kearney’s other advisors, she was nothing. Wenda, Paegar, and Dyre had all served as ministers under Aylyn the Second, the late king. Natan jal Samara, Aylyn’s archminister, left Audun’s Castle when the old king died, having served him for nearly seventeen years. One might have expected the other ministers to do the same, but Kearney chose to keep them on, and at the time it seemed a wise decision. Kearney, the former duke of Glyndwr, ascended to the throne under the most extraordinary of circumstances, agreeing to lead the land after it became clear that this was the only way to avoid a war between Javan of Curgh and Aindreas of Kentigern. Recognizing that some might question his claim to the throne, since under Eibithar’s Rules of Ascension he was not the rightful king, Kearney thought it best to continue the practices of his predecessor as much as possible.
But rather than raising Wenda to archminister, making Paegar and Dyre his high ministers, and bringing in his own Qirsi as underministers, Kearney made Keziah his lead advisor, just as she had been in Glyndwr. No one could find fault with the king for doing this. He also made Gershon Trasker, his swordmaster in Glyndwr, the commander of the King’s Guard. Such was the prerogative of a new ruler.
While the other Qirsi accepted the new king’s choice, however, they did not accept her. When she spoke, they listened, and when Kearney agreed with her counsel, they yielded to his judgment. But they never asked her opinion, and they never deferred to her in discussions such as this one, though it would have been proper, given her position. They wouldn’t even look at her, unless it was to glare at her responses to the king’s questions. In recent days, over the past turn or so, Paegar had begun to show some signs of accepting her. But this was just a beginning, and a small one at that. Kearney had made her the most powerful Qirsi in the kingdom, and Keziah found herself afraid to so much as speak without leave from the king.
Gershon, who distrusted all Qirsi, hated her most of all, and did nothing to help her. Indeed, he seemed to relish her discomfort. While they still lived in Glyndwr, Kearney and Keziah had been lovers, sharing a dangerous and forbidden love for which the swordmaster blamed her and not his duke. Keziah had hoped that coming to the City of Kings might force them to put their differences aside and allow them to build on the progress they made during their ride to Kentigern, meager though it was. But if anything, the swordmaster had grown more protective of Kearney and thus more hostile toward her.
For his part, the king appeared to be oblivious of the politics of his court, or perhaps he just felt that it was up to Keziah and the others to make peace with each other without compromising their oaths to serve him. Their love affair ended with Kearney’s ascension—it was one thing for an Eandi duke in the remote highlands of Glyndwr to love a Qirsi woman, he explained at the time, but it was quite another for a king to do so. She still remembered their last night together, in the Glyndwr Highlands, shortly before Kearney’s army marched to Kentigern, with a vividness that made her skin tingle.
“I agree that Tobbar’s sons have less interest than he in recognizing Glyndwr’s claim to the throne,” Gershon said, glancing at Paegar before turning his gaze to the king. “But they have much to lose if this comes to civil war.”
Kearney looked up from the fire. “Explain.”
“When you ascended to the throne, we assumed that both Javan and Aindreas had abdicated in your favor. That’s what you and the others agreed to in Kentigern. And so it followed that your investiture was consistent with the Rules of Ascension. But since then, Aindreas has claimed that he never agreed to this, that the bargain struck that night involved only you and Javan. In effect, Kentigern claims that you and Curgh stole his crown, and he’s convinced the duke of Galdasten of this as well. In their eyes, with you as king, the Rules of
Ascension are dead. This leaves them free to challenge your authority and even wage war against you without it being treason under the law.”
Dyre nodded. “It also allows the lords of Galdasten to lay claim to the throne again, without waiting any longer.”
Keziah had to agree that this made a good deal of sense, though she still found Aindreas’s deception infuriating. Not only did it allow Aindreas to justify his defiance of the new king, but it allowed the House of Galdasten to move beyond the tragedy of 872, when a madman brought the pestilence to Galdasten Castle, killing the duke and duchess as well as their children. Under the Rules of Ascension, the House of Galdasten would have had to wait four generations before being recognized once more in the Order of Ascension. Abandoning the rules ended their wait.
“All this may be true,” Wenda said. “But where does that leave Thorald?”
“Under the Rules of Ascension,” Gershon answered, “Thorald has been Eibithar’s preeminent house. Tobbar’s sons, particularly the older one, won’t be inclined to give up that standing.”
Keziah cleared her throat awkwardly, drawing their gazes, including Kearney’s. Feeling their eyes upon her, she nearly held her tongue. I’m archminister, she told herself. I have a right to speak here, and a responsibility as well.
“With the deaths of the elder and younger Filib,” she said, “Thorald has no immediate claim to the throne either—that’s why Javan was in line to be king. Won’t Tobbar’s sons be as willing as the duke of Galdasten to turn away from the rules?”
“Maybe,” Gershon said. “It depends upon whether their own ambitions outweigh their loyalty to the house and their ambitions for their children. Their situation is different from that in Galdasten. Kell of Galdasten had no brother. His death nearly killed the entire family line. Filib the Elder had Tobbar, so the damage wasn’t as great. Tobbar’s sons can’t claim the throne, but they need only wait one generation more. Marston’s son can rule the land, and if he does, the younger boy’s son becomes duke of Thorald rather than merely thane of Shanstead.”