“Since we have increased the number of mercenaries among our troops,”
Aedan continued, “there has been a marked increase in such establishments to cater to them. Along with them has come a marked increase in crime. Once quiet and peaceful areas of the city have become raucous fleshpots where taverns and brothels remain open till the early hours of the morning and men stagger drunkenly through the streets, accosting female citizens, getting into brawls, and generally creating a nuisance. They, in turn, have attracted a growing number of alleymen and cutpurses, and the city sheriff is too overtaxed to deal with them all. There have been numerous petitions from our citizens complaining of this situation and of the behavior of the mercenaries when they are on the town. We need to hire more men for the sheriff’s guard, which will further tax our resources.
To put it bluntly, Sire, we just cannot afford to continue on this course.”
“As I said, Aedan, you worry too much,” Michael had replied. “The empire is growing, and we are merely experiencing some growing pains.
These are all matters that can be sorted out. We need no more men for the sheriff’s guard when we can employ the
army to help police the city. A curfew can be instituted for soldiers on the town, and the city council can pass an ordinance decreeing that taverns, gaming houses, and other such establishments may not remain open past a certain hour. These are all matters that can be settled with a little thought and practical application. I leave them completely in your hands, as I have utmost confidence in you. Work with the city council to resolve them. I cannot be bothered with such trivial affairs.
“As for the rest of your concerns,” he added, “these things will all be settled in due course. New territories mean new wealth and opportunities and more security for the citizens of the empire. If this will tax our resources in the short run, the long term gains will compensate for short-term losses. We must look to the future. If that requires us to make some sacrifices in the present, so be it.”
Later that night, Aedan repeated the conversation to his wife as they prepared for bed. “It just seems hopeless,” he told her when he finished describing his discussion with the emperor. “He is wrong, and he is trying to move too fast, but I cannot convince him. It’s no different than when we were children.
He is just as stubborn and obstinate as ever. The trouble is, I have always been the sensible one, the voice of restraint, and he simply thinks I am being stodgy and overcautious. Of what use am I as his first minister if he won’t listen to my advice?”
“He needs a wife,” said Ariel as she got into bed.
Aedan stopped his pacing back and forth across the room. He looked at her, taken aback, then chuckled and shook his head. “You women always think that marriage will settle a man. Nothing short THE: IRON THNONE of another explosion like the one on Deismaar all those years ago will settle Michael, and even then, I’m not so sure.”
“Now who is thinking in overly simplistic terms?”
she asked. “Or has it not occurred to you that a wife may influence her husband in ways his friends and advisors cannot? Aside from which, have you considered asking the emperor what will become of all his efforts if he does not produce an heir? Right now, he has nothing else to occupy his attention save his plans for the future of the empire.
What about the future of his line? Has he stopped to consider that?
“And it wouldn’t do for him to marry just anyone,” she added. “The selection of a suitable bride for the emperor would take time and effort, much of which he would doubtless delegate to you, but his consultation would certainly be required, and that would give him something else to think about. Then there is the matter of reaching a decision. He would have to meet his potential bride and get to know her.
I could not see the emperor blindly accepting an arranged match. He would naturally insist on forming his own opinion and making his own choice.
“Then there would be the matter of the marriage itself, of course, with all the necessary arrangements,” she continued. “That, too, would take some time and effort. And following the marriage, there would be the customary period for consummation, after which a certain amount of his attention would be occupied by the production of an heir. If we could find the right sort of woman for him, one who is as intelligent as she is beautiful, one whom he could fall in love with and respect and not dominate completely, then it is doubtful he would spend every waking hour thinking about new campaigns. If a marriage would not settle him, as you say, then at the very least it would slow him down.”
Aedan rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “You know, you’re absolutely right,” he said. “It would be the perfect solution. I cannot imagine why I did not think of it myself.”
“I can,” Ariel said softly. “Considering the circumstances of our match, I would not expect you to think of marriage as a desirable solution to anything.”
Aedan compressed his lips into a tight grimace.
He sighed heavily. “Have I been so inconsiderate a husband?”
Ariel shook her head. “No,” she said. “You have been most considerate and kind and gentle. I could not ask for a more doting father for our daughter, nor a husband more attentive to my needs. I can complain of nothing. I know you have come to care for me over the past four years, but I also know that had you been able to choose freely, I would not have been the one you would have chosen for a wife.”
Aedan sat down on the bed and took her hand. “It is true that I loved Sylvanna, but I have no regrets for the way things turned out. A marriage with Sylvanna would have been impossible, for all the reasons you gave me at the time. She knew that as well, which was why she left the way she did, along with all the others. We shared a brief moment of happiness, but we could not have made a marriage. I knew that even then. We were from two different worlds, and fate brought us together.
We fought shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the war, facing death countless times, and when a man and woman
-even a human and an elf-are together in such circumstances for so long, I suppose it is inevitable that such feelings should develop.”
“I wish I could have gone on the campaigns with you,” said Ariel wistfully. “I am strong, and I can fight as well as most men, and better than some. I pleaded with my father to let me go, but he said it was not a woman’s place to take up arms in battle, especially a lady of the court.”
“Be grateful you were spared the horror,” Aedan said. “I would not wish for you to share the nightmares that still plague me.”
“I would share anything with you,” she said.
“You have made me very happy, Ariel. You have become the nearest and dearest person in my life, more important to me even than the emperor, whom I have known and loved as a friend and sovereign since my childhood, and whom duty demands I place above all else. I could never have given Sylvanna what she truly needed, nor cou s e ave done the same for me. You, on the other hand, have fulfilled all my needs and more.”
“Had things been otherwise,” she said, “and had you the opportunity to choose between us now…”
She stopped. “No, I will not ask that. It is unfair and pointless.
And I don’t think I really want to know.”
“But I did choose you,” said Aedan. “And I have never had cause to regret my choice.”
They blew out the candles and went to bed, but Aedan couldn’t sleep for a long time.
**chapter TWO**
The birth of Aerin of Boeruine was the occasion of great rejoicing at Seaharrow. Derwyn had declared a festival to celebrate the birth of his heir, and the bells of the town tolled to commemorate the event.
The wine cellars of Seaharrow were opened, and barrels sent out to the town, placed in the squares so that the people could join the duke in a celebratory libation, and a dispatch rider was sent to Anuire to inform the emperor of the happy news that he had become an uncle. A feast was held in the great hall of the castle, and Derwyn had spared no expense to
make sure the celebration was every bit as lavish as those held at the emperor’s court. All present had remarked that they had never seen him happier.
For Laera, it was an occasion of immense relief.
She had loathed carrying the child. She was grateful to be free of the sickness in the mornings, of the immense discomfort that had only continued to increase as the child grew, of the pain in her back and the swelling in her ankles and the twisting and turning and kicking of the infant as it lay within her womb. She had known that birth was painful and precarious, but she had still been unprepared for the agony she felt as Aerin made his way into the world.
It had felt as if she were being torn apart.
She had screamed and cursed Derwyn’s name in terms so crude and vehement that even the midwives had been shocked and she was later grateful her husband had not been present to hear how she abused him.
It would have certainly conflicted with the new image of herself that she had worked so hard to build up in his mind.
Derwyn had obtained a wet-nurse for her, as was customary, for which Laera was profoundly grateful.
She had suffered long enough in carrying the child.
She had no wish to be burdened further by needing to care for it. That was why women of the common classes aged so quickly, she thought.
Their children suck the life right out of them.
As it was, she had to bear pain in her bosoms for at least a week or more past the delivery and the discomfort of the compression bandage wound around her chest each day to catch the leaks and inhibit milk production. She knew that it would not be long before Derwyn wanted her to bear him a second son, and she was not looking forward to the experience. She would postpone it for as long as possible. She did not even want to allow him in her
bed, and in this, fortunately, she had the support of the midwives, who had explained to Derwyn that she was weak and needed time to recover from the birth.
She thanked the gods the child hadn’t been a daughter. She hoped the next one wouldn’t be. That would mean she would have to suffer through the entire process yet a third time, or even more, if another daughter came. She still had a small supply of her special potion left, but she would soon run out and have to find a source for more. She would have to find and cultivate some young woman of the Court of Seaharrow she could trust. A servant wouldn’t do. She had learned her lesson.
Servants could betray her. She would need to find a girl of some position who had a lot to lose.
For all that she had suffered, the birth of Aerin had now made possible the next stage of her plan. She had already begun working on it. As before, it would be a slow process that would involve the gradual manipulation of her husband, but she had already laid the groundwork.
Derwyn had intended to be her lord and master, but by now, it was she who held control. It had been such a simple matter to convince him that he had made her fall in love with him and that it was his prowess as a lover, and not the subtle skills she had learned over the years, that brought out the best in her and made sex so pleasurable. She would now use it as a weapon to get her way.
She had already planted the seeds for the next phase of her plan. When Derwyn came to see her following the birth, she had told him how pleased and proud she was to have given him the son he wanted and added, as if in passing, an observation as to the importance of the birth.
“He shall grow up to do great things, my husband,” she had said. ‘I know it. I can feel it in my bones.”
“I have no doubt he will,” said Derwyn proudly.
“You now have a strong son to carry on your name,” she said. “And he shall be an important person in the empire, for the emperor remains unmarried, and without an heir. As the firstborn of the eldest princess of the House of Roele, Aerin shall be the next in line to sit upon the throne. Of course, I am sure Michael will marry someday and produce an heir. It is just that he has been so busy with his campaigns of late that he has had no time to devote to such pursuits.”
Still, that had set Derwyn’s mind to thinking about the possibility.
She could tell. Unlike his father, Derwyn revealed every thought through his expression. And the thought of his son one day sitting on the Iron Throne was something he had not previously considered.
However, now that the thought had been planted, it would grow. And she would slowly nurture it until it bloomed into a driving ambition.
If Michael remained without an heir, and if something were to happen to him on one of his campaigns, Aerin would stand to inherit the throne, and Derwyn would become the regent until Aerin came of age. Once that had been accomplished, if some ill fate were to befall Derwyn, then as his wife, she would become regent. And she would rule the Empire of Anuire.
Each night as she lay alone in bed, keeping Derwyn 371 at bay until she had recovered from the birth, she planned as diligently as Michael planned the strategies for his campaigns. In her mind, she went over each aspect of her goal, refining it, contemplating every last detail.
The one thing she could not control was Michael. If he were to marry and produce an heir, that could ruin everything. There seemed nothing she could do to prevent that from happening.
But if, by chance, he did marry and the new empress, whoever she might be, bore him a son, she would have to find some way to make certain the child did not survive.
One night, as she lay in bed contemplating possibilities, she became aware of a subtle change in the air within her room. The candles guttered, and the atmosphere around her took on a certain thickness.
It grew darker in the center of the room. As she sat up in bed, she perceived a smoky, faintly glowing mist that appeared just above the floor and rose in tendrils that began to swirl, spinning around and around until they formed a vortex, a misty tunnel in the air. Through that tunnel came a dark figure, walking slowly toward her.
She held her breath. As the figure approached, looming larger, she could make out the robes he wore and the staff he carried in his hand.
Even before he stepped out into her room, she knew who had come to visit her.
“Callador!” she said.
He bowed to her. “My lady,” he said, pulling back his hood and revealing his ancient, hairless features.
“It has been a long time. I trust I find you well?”
“I am recovering from having given birth,” she said. “Derwyn has a son.”
37?
“Yes, I know,” the wizard said. “I have kept track of events. I still have an interest in what transpires at Seaharrow.”
“Where have you been?” she asked. “You disappeared without a trace after the war. It is widely assumed that you are dead.”
“That serves my purpose,” Callador replied. “I had to take certain precautions. When I learned that Arwyn fell in battle, I feared the possibility of retribution for the part I took in his rebellion. For all I knew, your involvement in it might have been exposed, and the emperor could have taken it into his head to punish me severely for the part I played in it.
Had you been revealed as an agent of Boeruine, I had little doubt you would try to save yourself by claiming to have been ensorcelled.”
He held up his hand to forestall her comment. “Do not protest,” he said. “That would have been the only logical course for you to take if you wished to save yourself, and I would not have blamed you for it.
However, under the circumstances, I felt it prudent to remove myself from the possibility of imperial retribution, and since I had lost my patron, it was needful that I find another. I had not anticipated you might escape suspicion.
“I thought it likely Derwyn would denounce you in an attempt to save himself,” Callador explained.
“I never expected your brother, the emperor, would be so forgiving as to raise Derwyn to his father’s dukedom and allow him to retain his lands.
Nor had I anticipated you might become his duchess. Strange how things turn out. You appear to have emerged unscathed and done q
uite well for yourself, all things considered. Congratulations are certainly in order. However, knowing you, I expect you still have hopes of doing better.”
“That I do,” said Laera, “and I have already taken steps in that regard.
But where had you gone? You say you went searching for another patron.
Am I correct in assuming that you found one?”
“I have, indeed,” said Callador. “And I must say, it took some convincing on my part to be accepted by my present lord. He is powerful enough in his own regard that he did not really need my services.
However, I was able to make him see there would be certain advantages in taking me on.”
“Who is this powerful lord?” asked Laera. “Gorvanak of Thurazor?”
Callador chuckled. “He is powerful, but not nearly powerful enough for me to feel secure in his service.”
“Then who?”
“You will learn that in due time,” Callador replied. “First, I wish for us to reach an understanding.
You had expressed an interest in my tutelage once the war was over. Do you still desire to study the thaumaturgic arts?”
Laera’s eyes lit up. Learning how to use magic would benefit her plans enormously. “More than ever,” she said. “Of course, it would have to be done in secret. I could not allow my husband to suspect.”
“That goes without saying,” Callador replied, nodding. “I had an apprentice when I resided in Boeruine, but he lacked promise. You, on the other hand, possess the necessary attributes in rich abundance.
You are clever, patient, quick-witted, and ambitious. I feel I could do a lot with you.”
“When can we start?” she inquired eagerly.
“Soon,” said Callador. “Very soon. I am growing old and would be grateful for the opportunity to pass on all my skills and knowledge.
But there are certain conditions that would first have to be met.”
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