by DAVID B. COE
“Natan, are you all right?”
The Qirsi tore his gaze from the bed and found the other ministers watching him.
“I’m fine,” he said. He looked at Wenda, who had spoken, and made himself smile. “What were you saying?”
She leaned forward and patted his leg gently.
Wenda had been in Audun’s Castle serving Aylyn almost as long as he. He remembered seeing her for the first time as well. She had been rather plain-looking in her youth—the passage of the years and the gentle lines they had brought to her pale face had actually made her a more handsome woman—but Natan had fallen in love with her anyway. She was brilliant and she carried Bohdan’s spirit in her heart. Even the king could not resist her humor. Wenda and Natan were both joined to other people; nothing ever came of his affection for her. But he liked to think that in some small way she had loved him as well.
Wenda became high minister shortly after Natan did, and four years ago, when Aylyn’s archminister died, the king made it clear that he was considering both of them as possible replacements. In the end, the king chose Natan, largely because he had served the throne longer. If by some remote chance Natan died before Aylyn, no one doubted that Wenda would succeed him in the position.
“Paegar was asking if we could act as the king’s surrogates,” she said.
Natan glanced at the others. They were watching him, waiting for his reply. He was supposed to be presiding over this discussion. Actually Aylyn was. But with the king unable to join them, this responsibility fell to the archminister. And it was all he could do just to listen to what the others were saying.
He cleared his throat. “To what end?”
“To send the King’s Guard to Kentigern,” Paegar said. “To stop Aindreas and Javan from going to war.” The man frowned, a look of concern in his yellow eyes. “Are you certain you’re well, Archminister?”
“Yes, of course. just a bit distracted, that’s all.” He smiled again, though these lapses concerned him. His father and mother had both died before their thirty-eighth birthdays and here he was nearing his fortieth. He should have been thanking Qirsar for his long life, but he couldn’t help cursing the years for what they had done to him. Lately his mind wandered like that of a child, and he could barely keep himself awake during ministerial conclaves. Three nights before he had tried to summon a wind to his chambers, just to see if he could. The draft he conjured—it could hardly be called a wind—barely stirred the curtains by his window. Yet the effort left him breathless and damp with sweat.
“So what do you think, Archminister?” Paegar asked, the smile on his face not quite masking his impatience.
“I think it’s a bad idea.” Natan had to keep himself from grinning at the reaction of the other ministers. Even Wenda and Paegar looked surprised.
“You do?” Wenda asked.
“We’re just ministers,” Natan said. “It’s one thing to collect tithe from the dukes in Aylyn’s name, or even to extend trading privileges to merchants from other kingdoms. It’s quite another to order the King’s Guard to one of the dukedoms.”
“But surely under these circumstances, we’d be justified,” said Dyre. He was one of the younger Qirsi, the underministers, as they were called, though in truth any first minister in any dukedom in Eibithar would have gladly surrendered his or her place to be one of them.
“In whose eyes?” the archminister asked. “In our own? Perhaps. But to the captain of the guard and his men, we’re sorcerers. They’d no more take orders from us than they would from the king of Caerisse.”
“Not even to prevent a civil war?”
“We don’t know this will end in war. We can’t prove it to them. Unless you’ve gleaned something I don’t know about.”
Dyre’s face reddened. After a moment he shook his head.
He reminded Natan so much of himself when he was young and new to the castle, when he had wanted nothing more than to wield his power in the name of the king. Natan had been fortunate to serve as a young man under a wise king, seasoned by years on the throne, who knew something of power and its limits. What would it have been like to come to the City of Kings as a young minister and find that the king one served was too infirm to lead? The archminister wondered if he had been too quick to dismiss the man’s suggestion.
“I’d be willing to discuss the matter with the captain of the guard,” he said after a brief silence. “He may be more open to the idea than I expect.”
The young minister nodded. “Thank you, Archminister.”
“Could we have one of the dukes act on the king’s behalf?” another minister asked.
“I like that idea even less,” Wenda said, before Natan could respond. “Enlisting the aid of a duke in the king’s name could be very dangerous. For all we know, that could start the war we’re trying to prevent.”
“I have to agree,” Paegar said. “If the archminister can’t prevail upon the captain to take his men, there’s little we can do.”
A door opened near the king’s bed and Obed, the prelate, stepped into the room. He glanced toward the Qirsi ministers, then quickly looked away, hurrying to his usual place beside the king to begin his whispered prayers. Ean worshipers had little use for the Qirsi, and the prelate was no different. A moment later, though, the prelate stole a second look toward the Qirsi, and seeing that Natan was looking his way, Obed gave a small nod. The prelate had come to the City of Kings as a priest just a turn before Natan began his service to the king, and over the years the two men had come to understand one another. They weren’t friends. Natan, who spent some time each day meditating in one of the city’s four sanctuaries, had heard too many of Ean’s servants railing against Qirsi heresies and the evils of the Old Faith to befriend any prelate. More often than not the two men offered Aylyn conflicting advice and sought to undermine each other’s influence with the king. But while Natan had questioned Obed’s judgment on many occasions, he never doubted the prelate’s devotion to Aylyn, nor did he believe that Obed doubted his. Natan didn’t have to imagine what the prelate was feeling at that moment, praying to his god, waiting for the king to die, for the Qirsi was feeling it as well.
He had lost track of the discussion again, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was tired. All he wanted was to return to his chambers and rest.
“I hate to even ask this,” Paegar said, eyeing Natan. “But have the healers given us any sense of how long the king … how much time he has?”
The rest turned to him. Wenda, the underministers. Glancing toward the bed once more, the archminister saw that even the prelate was watching him, awaiting his answer.
“I gather from all they’ve told me,” Natan said, pitching his voice so Obed could hear him as well, “that they can only guess at such things. But he hasn’t much time left. A few days. Perhaps half a turn. Perhaps less. It seems they almost lost him last night.”
Paegar nodded, as if he had expected this. “And what happens if he dies, making Javan king, before this matter in Kentigern is settled?”
“I’ve thought of that as well,” Wenda said. “If Aindreas truly intends to keep Javan from the throne, the king’s death could bring war.”
“All the more reason to send the guard,” Dyre said, refusing to meet Natan’s gaze.
The archminister shook his head. “All the more reason not to.”
“What?”
“Think for a moment. If the king dies and the King’s Guard is in Kentigern, they become Javan’s men. Right now we have two dukes of roughly equal strength threatening to start a war, the end of which neither of them can foresee with any confidence. If Curgh suddenly adds the King’s Guard to his army, it’ll be a slaughter.” Natan glanced around the circle of advisors. “Is that what we want?”
Dyre just shook his head, staring at Natan as if the archminister had shown him a new magic, a way to use his Qirsi powers that the younger man had never seen before. There! Natan wanted to say. You see? Even as an old man, with one foot alread
y in the Underrealm, I can think of things you’ve never even considered.
Wenda cast a sly grin Natan’s way. “I think we’re done for the day,” she said, looking at the others. “We’ll gather again in the morning. In the meantime, pray for the king’s comfort and for an easy journey to the Underrealm.”
It was his place to adjourn them, but under the circumstances Natan did not mind at all. He had said his piece.
Most of the underministers stood and began slowly to file out of the king’s chamber. Dyre lingered, however, seemingly intent on having the last word.
“You’ll speak with the captain?” he asked.
Natan had to think for a moment before remembering that he had promised to do so. “Of course,” he said. He already knew how the conversation would go, but he had given his word.
“Thank you.” The man hesitated briefly, glancing first at Paegar and then at Wenda. After a moment he turned and left the room.
“The man’s a fool,” Natan muttered, watching him go.
Wenda smiled, placing a hand on his leg again. “He’s just young, Natan. I remember when we were the same way.”
“He’s not just young,” Paegar said. “He’s also scared.” He looked over at the prelate, before continuing in a lower voice. “So am I, to tell you the truth.”
The archminister knew that he should have been as well. The kingdom had been through several civil wars over the course of its history; Eibithar’s major houses had fought among themselves more frequently than the kingdom had fought the Aneirans. Natan did not doubt for a moment that Javan and Aindreas were capable of dragging the land into yet another war. But as with so many other things recently, this failed to arouse any feelings in him at all. He should have been frightened, or angry with the dukes’ foolishness, or at least sad that the kingdom could still be threatened from within in this way. But he felt nothing.
“It would be best if Javan would simply abdicate,” Paegar went on a moment later.
“And give the kingdom to Aindreas?” Wenda said. “He’d never do it.”
It was one of the few flaws in Eibithar’s Rules of Ascension. The rules had been created eight centuries before by the leaders of all twelve houses, and they remained, in Natan’s mind, a most reliable and equitable method for choosing a leader. By allowing only the eldest son of a king to ascend to the throne, the dukes hoped to keep one house from becoming the sole ruling power in the kingdom. But by establishing an Order of Ascension, a hierarchy among the houses, they hoped as well to maintain some consistency of leadership. Occasionally, over the centuries, Thorald’s supremacy had drawn the resentment of the other houses, leading to civil war, and in more than one instance, to experiments with other methods of selecting a king. Always, however, the houses turned back to the Rules of Ascension. Simply put, they worked.
But these were extraordinary times. The House of Galdasten was still recovering from its terrifying brush with the pestilence, which had killed the duke and his entire line. Under the rules, the new lords of Galdasten would have to wait four generations before they could lay claim to the crown once more. The House of Thorald, tragically robbed of both its duke and his brilliant son, did not have to wait as long as its rival to the south, but still it could place no heirs on the throne for another generation. With the land’s most powerful families removed from the Order of Ascension, stability vanished, but not the rivalries that still existed among the other major houses and the outrage engendered by Brienne’s death and Tavis’s imprisonment. A duke of Thorald, and even Galdasten, might be convinced to give up the crown in circumstances such as these, knowing that under the Order of Ascension their houses, the preeminent houses in the land, would reclaim the throne in the foreseeable future. But for the men of Curgh and Kentigern, whose houses gained the throne but once or twice in a given century, abdication was out of the question. Javan could be expected to guard jealously Curgh’s newfound status as the kingdom’s highest-ranking house.
“Do you think Javan would renounce his son if Aindreas agreed not to take the throne himself? That way Javan would rule, but when he died the crown would fall to Aindreas’s boy.”
Wenda shook her head. “That would only work if Aindreas was willing to accept Javan as his sovereign, and Javan was willing to acknowledge Tavis’s guilt. And if those things were possible, we wouldn’t be worrying about civil war.”
Paegar muttered a curse and propelled himself out of his chair. “So there’s nothing at all we can do.” He offered it as a statement, but he looked from Wenda to Natan, as if hoping one of them would contradict him.
“There’s nothing we can do without a king,” Natan said. “Under almost any other circumstance, I’d be in favor of sending messages to all the houses, telling them of Aylyn’s state and asking them to allow his successor to take the throne. But we can’t even do that right now.”
The midday bells tolled from the city gates, their peals echoing among the great towers of Audun’s Castle, and drifting into Aylyn’s chambers like sweet spirits of the Underrealm. The priests kneeling at the king’s bed climbed stiffly to their feet and stepped somberly from the room. Obed remained, however.
“I’ll return later,” Paegar said, his mouth set in a hard line. He glanced once at the king, then left, though through a different door from the one used by the Ean worshipers.
Wenda stood as well and smiled down at Natan. “I was thinking of walking to the marketplace. Join me?”
The archminister shook his head. “Perhaps another time. I’d like some time with Aylyn, and after that I need to rest.”
“I understand.” She took his hand, giving it a quick squeeze. A moment later she was gone as well.
Natan pushed himself out of his chair and crossed to the king’s bed to stand next to Obed.
Noting that the prelate was in the middle of a prayer, the archminister kept his silence, looking down at Aylyn. The king was so pale, his hair so white and thin, that he could easily have been mistaken for a Qirsi. Even as an older man he had looked as an Eandi king ought to, handsome and tall, with icy blue eyes and strong, angular features. But now he just looked old and sickly, his hair disheveled and his cheeks so sunken that his skin seemed about to tear. His lips were cracked and dry, and his chest rose and fell unsteadily, with a high, rasping sound. Eibithar needed a miracle; it needed its king. But looking at him now, Natan knew that Aylyn would never open his eyes again. The most for which any of them could hope was that he would outlive the crisis on Kentigern Tor.
The prelate finished his prayer and rose, brushing off his robe. “He looks worse every day,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Your healers can do nothing more?”
They weren’t his healers, of course. They were the king’s. But they were Qirsi, and so his in Obed’s eyes.
“He’s an old man,” Natan said. “If it were just the sickness they could heal him. But the king’s body has given all it can.”
Obed nodded. “I heard some of what you and your ministers were saying. Are you as concerned as the others?”
I should be, but I feel nothing. “The danger is real enough. It remains to be seen whether Javan and Aindreas will follow through on their threats or come to their senses.”
“I’ve met both of them,” the prelate said. “Neither has much sense.”
Natan laughed, and after a moment Obed joined in. The archminister had known many prelates in his years and as far as he could tell, Obed was the only one of them with any humor. Their laughter faded quickly, and they stood, wordless, watching the king.
“It’s time for my devotions,” Obed said at last. “Be well, Archminister.”
Natan nodded. “And you, Father Prelate. Pray for our king’s long life.”
He couldn’t help feeling that they were being watched, that someone was marking their progress through the ward, wondering what they were doing together. He knew he was being foolish. No one would think twice about one of the king’s Qirsi ministers spea
king to one of his Qirsi healers, not when the king was so ill. Certainly none of the Eandi would notice. Most of the guards still didn’t recognize him, and he had been living in Audun’s Castle for nearly eleven years. To them he was just another Qirsi advisor. He could count on one hand the ones who knew enough to call him high minister as he walked by. He had nothing to fear from them. Nor did he have cause to worry about his fellow ministers. Only the day before he had seen the archminister speaking with a healer, just as he was doing now. He shouldn’t have been nervous at all. Yet Paegar had to walk with his hands behind his back so the healer wouldn’t see how they trembled.
“The king’s master healer is very protective of his patient. He won’t allow any of us to attend to the king unless he’s there as well. As I said before, there’s nothing I can do. With Natan insisting that you and your fellow ministers sit vigil with the king, you are the best choice to see to this matter.”
Paegar nodded, but offered no other response. What they were asking of him went far beyond anything he had done for them before. Perhaps he should have expected it, given what he had heard of others doing, but somehow he thought that it would be different for him. Aylyn was old, and he was dying. The minister wanted to believe that they could wait half a turn for Bian to take him. But after all that he and the other ministers had discussed the past few days, it had become clear to him that they couldn’t wait at all, not even a day.