By Heresies Distressed (77 page)

“Which are?” she asked as he paused.

“First, Your Majesty, there's the rather ticklish problem of what we do about your safety and the identity of the people who orchestrated this attack.”

And I still haven't decided whether or not to tell you your own uncle was one of them
, he thought.

“The identity?” she repeated, and he nodded.

“There aren't any survivors of the actual attack on the convent, Your Majesty,” he said grimly. His enhanced vision noticed how Sharleyan's eyes widened . . . and how Seahamper's narrowed in satisfaction. “There are a few wounded over near the bivouac area, but I'll . . . deal with them before I leave. I don't much like having to do that, but I'm afraid I don't have a choice this time. If
any
of them were to realize I'd been here, the consequences could be disastrous.

“However, there are two bodies out beyond the main gate. One of them no longer has a head, although it's close enough to the body Edwyrd should be able to find it. I think it would be a very good idea for him to do just that.”

“May I ask why,
Seijin
Merlin?”

“Of course you may, Your Majesty. Up until a few minutes ago, that head belonged to one Mylz Halcom, the ex–Bishop of Margaret Bay.”

Sharleyan looked at him in disbelief, but Seahamper grunted as if in sudden understanding.

“Apparently, the good bishop has been providing organization and leadership to the Temple Loyalists in Charis ever since he decamped from Hanth Town. I think it would be a good idea to take his head back to Tellesberg where his fellow bishops can positively identify it. And while they're doing that, you might mention to Baron Wave Thunder that Traivyr Kairee has been the main source of Halcom's funding. Tell him I can't prove that yet, but that I'm sure he'll find the evidence he needs if he looks under the right rocks. Tell him that, in particular, he might want to take a close look at the crew of Kairee's schooner,
Sunrise
.”

And if he does, maybe I won't have to be the one to tell you about your uncle, after all. That's probably cowardly of me, but right this minute, I don't really care
.

“I think we can probably manage that,” Sharleyan told him, her voice equally grim. “And the second thing you wanted?”

“Edwyrd loves you, Your Majesty,” Merlin said gently. “And right now, he's afraid of what I might still turn out to be. So, I'd like to ask you to do two additional things for me when you return to Tellesberg. First, speak privately to the Archbishop. Tell him every single thing I've just told you, and seek his judgment on whether or not you should listen to anything more. And, second, please arrange for Edwyrd to be there as well when Cayleb and I turn up. I think no one would be surprised if you feel the need for a little additional security after something like this, so perhaps you could insist that Colonel Ropewalk post Edwyrd on your balcony. I want him to hear everything Cayleb and I tell you
when
we tell you. I want him to be able to make up his own mind, and to know that no one and nothing is attempting to harm you.”

“I can do both of those things,” Sharleyan assured him, not trying to hide her relief at his mention of the archbishop.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

He bowed deeply, then straightened and met Seahamper's eyes.

“You did well here tonight, Sergeant,” he told the Chisholmian quietly. “Her Majesty is fortunate to have you.”

Seahamper said nothing, and Merlin smiled crookedly.

“I know you're still trying to make up your mind about me, Edwyrd. I'm not surprised. In your place,
I'd
probably have already gone ahead and stuck that bayonet into me. If you'll allow me to, I'd like to give you a little advice, though.”

His tone turned the final sentence into a question. After a moment, Seahamper nodded.

“I'm reasonably certain I've identified and dealt with—or will have dealt with, shortly, at any rate—all of the Temple Loyalists behind this particular attack. I can't be absolutely positive of that, however. And even if I could, there's no way
you
could be. So, I think the proper way for you to proceed is to assume that you and the rest of Her Majesty's detachment managed to deal with the attackers, but not to be overly confident that there aren't one or two of them left still in the woods. Under those circumstances, the logical thing for you to do would be to send one of the sisters—or their gardener, if the Abbess can dig him out of his hiding place under his bed—to
Dancer
with a message for Captain Hywyt. Tell him you want a company of his Marines, loaded for kraken, as an escort back to the ship. And while you're waiting for it to arrive, find someplace safe to park Her Majesty while you stay between her and any doors or windows.”

Seahamper considered Merlin's words carefully. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken them as an order, given Merlin's rank in the Imperial Guard. As it was, he was obviously thinking about their source with a rather greater degree of suspicion than usual. After several seconds, however, he nodded again.

“Thank you,” Merlin said, his smile turning even more crooked for a moment. Then he bowed once more to Sharleyan.

“And now, if you'll excuse me, Your Majesty, I really must be getting back to Corisande.”

“Oh, of course,
Seijin
Merlin,” she said with a faint, slightly shaky smile of her own. “Don't let me delay you.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” he repeated, and disappeared into the pounding rain.

Sharleyan looked out the window after him for several seconds, then turned to Seahamper.

“Your Majesty, is this wise?” he asked her, and she laughed a bit wildly.

“
Wise
, Edwyrd? After a night like
this
one?” She shook her head. “I have no idea. I only know that without him—whoever and whatever he truly is—you and I would both be dead at this moment. Beyond that, I don't have the faintest idea of what's truly happening here, but I do know Archbishop Maikel and Cayleb are
good
men. If they know Merlin's ‘secrets' and trust him as deeply as they obviously do, then I'm prepared to at least listen to what he has to say. And I think he has a point about you, as well. I think it is important that you hear the same things I do.”

Seahamper looked at her long and intently, and then he began to nod.

“I think you're right, Your Majesty,” he said slowly. “I don't know what to think about all of this, either. But you're right about one thing. That man—or whatever he really is—saved your life tonight. I owe him at least the chance to explain how he did it.”

“Good, Edwyrd,” she said softly, and then drew a deep breath of her own.

“Right now,” she said sadly, “I think it's time we went and found the Abbess and told her I'm still alive.”

“I don't suppose there's been any word from Merlin?”

Lieutenant Franz Ahstyn, the second-in-command of Emperor Cayleb's personal guard, looked up as the emperor poked his head out through the flaps of his command tent with one eyebrow raised.

“No, Your Majesty,” the lieutenant replied. “Not yet, I'm afraid.”

“Well, at least he's capable of looking after himself,” the emperor said philosophically, and withdrew into his tent once more.

Ahstyn gazed at the closed tent flaps for a moment, then glanced at Payter Faircaster. The huge sergeant was the only other member of the emperor's personal guard, aside from Captain Athrawes himself, who'd been with him when he was still crown prince. Which meant he was also the only one of them who'd served with
Seijin
Merlin ever since the mysterious foreigner had appeared in Charis.

“Don't ask me, Sir.” Faircaster shrugged. “You know how much the Emperor relies on the Captain's . . . insights. If he's decided something's important enough to send the Captain off to take a personal look at it, then he must think it's
really
important. Like he says, though—the Captain can look after himself.”

That last sentence, Ahstyn reflected, had to be the most mammoth case of understatement he'd ever heard in his entire life. Ahstyn hadn't personally seen the
seijin
perform any of the impossible feats legend ascribed to him. For his own part, the lieutenant was willing to assume the impossible feats in question had grown in the telling . . . which didn't mean Merlin wasn't the most dangerous man he'd ever known, anyway. All of Cayleb's personal guard had worked out against the
seijin
. No one was accepted for the detail which was already becoming known as the Emperor's Own until Merlin had personally tried him out in a no-holds-barred sparring contest, and none of them had ever managed to best him with practice blades, hand-to-hand, or on the rifle range. In fact, none of them had even managed to make him sweat. Despite that, the tales about him carving his way single-handedly through hundreds of enemies aboard
Royal Charis
at the Battle of Darcos Sound probably weren't true.
Probably
. Ahstyn wasn't quite prepared to bet money on that, but he was pretty sure he didn't
really
believe it. After all, no matter how good the
seijin
might be, he was still only a single mortal man.

Probably.

Personally, the lieutenant suspected the tales about Merlin's prodigious lethality had been quietly encouraged by the then–crown prince and his Marine bodyguards. Focusing on his deadliness as a warrior had undoubtedly been a part of the careful cover story which had been constructed to protect the truth about Merlin's greatest value to Charis. Ahstyn hadn't really believed it when he and the rest of the Emperor's Own were first briefed on the
seijin
's “visions.” It had sounded far too much like the children's tales about
Seijin
Kohdy and his magical powers.

In this case, however, the tales had happened to be true. Ahstyn had seen too many examples of the emperor using those visions to doubt that, and he understood perfectly why it was essential to keep anyone else from knowing about the
seijin
's true capabilities. And making certain everyone knew Merlin was the most deadly bodyguard in the world—which, after all, didn't take that much exaggeration—was the perfect way to explain why he was always at the emperor's shoulder. He wasn't there as the emperor's most trusted and . . . “insightful” adviser, as Sergeant Faircaster had so aptly put it; he was there to keep the emperor alive.

Which helped to explain why the other members of the detail had been more than a little concerned when the
seijin
didn't turn up for breakfast. Merlin always ate early, before the emperor was up, so that he could be already on duty while Cayleb was served, and he was as persistently perfect in his timing as he was with a sword. So when he was a full fifteen minutes late, Ahstyn had poked his head cautiously into the small tent Merlin had been assigned for his personal use.

He'd expected to find the
seijin
sitting crosslegged in the middle of the tent's floor, concentrating on one of his “visions.” That, after all, was the reason he'd been assigned a private tent in the first place. To the lieutenant's astonishment, however, the tent had been empty, and the bedroll looked as if it hadn't been used at all.

That had been totally unprecedented, and more than enough to send Ahstyn to the emperor. To the best of Ahstyn's knowledge, Captain Athrawes had never once been absent when he was supposed to be on duty. And he'd certainly never simply disappeared in the middle of the night without at least telling someone he intended to! For that matter, Ahstyn had felt more than a little miffed by the clear evidence that Merlin had somehow gotten through the protective ring around the emperor without a single one of Cayleb's guardsmen noticing him. The man might be a
seijin
, but he wasn't invisible!

Fortunately, the emperor, at least, knew where Merlin had gone. Ahstyn had waited patiently while Gahlvyn Daikyn went in and roused the sleeping emperor. Then the valet had poked his head out of the emperor's sleeping quarters and beckoned for the guardsman to enter with his message. For just a moment, Ahstyn had thought he saw surprise in Cayleb's eyes, but he'd obviously been wrong.

“I'm sorry, Franz,” the emperor had said, shaking his head with a wry smile. “I told Merlin I didn't want anyone to know, but I didn't expect him to take me quite that literally. I'd assumed that he'd at least tell the rest of the detail I'd decided to send him off.”

“Send him off, Your Majesty?” Ahstyn had repeated.

“Yes.” Cayleb had stood and stretched, yawning hugely, before he accepted a tunic from Daikyn. “Let's just say I needed a message taken to someone who couldn't exactly be seen opening a letter from me. Not if he wanted to keep his head, at least.”

Ahstyn's eyes had widened for a moment. Then he'd understood, and the fact that the
seijin
had been able to filter through his own sentries without anyone spotting him explained exactly why the emperor had chosen him to carry a critical message to one of his agents behind the Corisandian lines.

“Obviously,” the emperor had continued, turning back to face Ahstyn as he belted the tunic, “I'd prefer that no one else know about this.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Ahstyn had half-bowed. “I'll brief the rest of the detail immediately.”

“Thank you, Franz. And I apologize. I'd rather hoped Merlin would be back by now. I hadn't expected you to have to cover his watch, as well as your own.”

“Don't worry about
that
, Your Majesty.” Ahstyn had smiled. “Captain Athrawes works longer hours than any of the rest of us. I don't mind giving up a little of my own off-duty time if you need me to.”