By Heresies Distressed (84 page)

But the longing lasted only for a moment. Whatever Tartarian might have wished couldn't change what
was
, and however they had arrived at their present situation, he was a Corisandian, not a Charisian. Hektor was his prince. Tartarian owed him fealty, and the way in which Hektor had ruled Corisande meant his subjects were almost as willing to stand by him as Cayleb's Charisians were willing to stand by the House of Ahrmahk.

Maybe he's right
, the earl thought.
Maybe Cayleb
will
recognize that loyalty, realize how disastrous it would be to depose or execute him. God knows Cayleb's obviously
smart
enough to recognize it . . . assuming he can manage to hate Hektor at least a
little
less than Hektor hates him
.

Tartarian thought once more about the terms Cayleb had offered Nahrmahn and decided to hope for the best.

“He's sent a herald to Cayleb.”

“You're sure?” Father Aidryn Waimyn asked, rather more sharply than he'd intended to.

“Of course I'm sure.” The other man wore the embroidered tunic of a minor court functionary or petty noble, and his voice was tart. “You don't think I'd be here, having this conversation, if I weren't, do you?” he demanded, his expression tight.

“Of course I don't.” Waimyn shook his head apologetically, then looked around the dusty office of one of the many warehouses which had been idled by the Charisian blockade of Manchyr. If he was searching for something, he didn't find it, and he looked back at his companion.

“It's just . . . It's important that I be certain, that's all,” he said.

“Why?” the other man asked, then shook his own head, much more quickly and harder than Waimyn had shaken his. “No. Don't tell me. I think I'd really rather not know.”

“So do I,” Waimyn agreed with a crooked smile. “In fact, I think it would be better for both of us if you never remembered this conversation at all.”

“I'll take that as a command of Mother Church,” the other man told him. He, too, looked around the dusty office, then shrugged.

“I'll be going now,” he said, and eased his way out through the office door into the unused warehouse's huge, quiet emptiness.

Waimyn watched him go, then drew a deep breath and said a quiet prayer.

An intendant often found himself doing things which somehow lay outside the official parameters of his duties. Sometimes those additional tasks could provide a priest with a solid feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Other times, they weighed heavily upon him, like the hand of Schueler itself.

This was one of those other times. Bishop Executor Thomys knew nothing about Waimyn's private instructions from the Grand Inquisitor. Or, at least, Waimyn
thought
he didn't. It was always possible the bishop executor knew all about them and simply had no intention of admitting that he did. Not that it mattered one way or the other to Waimyn. Not really.

He drew another deep breath, then squared his shoulders, stepped out of the office, closing the door quietly behind him, and followed the other man into the warehouse's silence.

Hektor Daykyn closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the feel of the breeze. Although it might technically be autumn, July had come in hot and humid, especially for the past five-day or so, which was what made today's weather so welcome. It was still undeniably on the warm side, but the morning's thunderstorms had broken the humidity, and the breeze sweeping in off the harbor was a welcome relief.

It was good to be out of the palace, he thought. It was too easy for his thoughts and his emotions, not just his body, to become trapped inside those palace walls. He
needed
this open air, the sunlight and cloud patterns, and the feel of the horse moving under him. His regular inspection trips were important to the morale of his soldiers and sailors. He knew that, yet today he was much more aware of how important getting out of the palace was to
his
morale, and he didn't feel the least bit guilty about it, either.

He glanced over his shoulder at the youngster riding along behind him. Hektor the Younger had shown rather less enthusiasm for this particular outing, once he found out it was going to require him to climb around aboard one of the navy's galleons and look interested yet again. Now he was busy practicing his “sullen obedience” look. For some reason, he seemed to find his obligatory participation in the inspection of naval units even more of a burden than his trips to tour the fortifications facing Cayleb's army on the landward side of the capital.

Hektor wondered if it was because the crown prince was remembering the brief, pointed lecture he'd delivered to him on the bloodstained deck of the galley
Lance
. If so, that was too bad, and the boy had better get over it. In fact, he'd better get over a
lot
of things.

The crown prince had been moody and depressed, especially since the surrender of Koryn Gahrvai's army. Well, that was hardly surprising. Not even a spoiled, self-absorbed, petulant prince who'd just turned sixteen could be totally blind to the peril in which he stood. Sometimes that could even be a good thing, if it made the spoiled, self-absorbed prince in question actually begin attending to his duties. Unfortunately, what young Hektor appeared to feel was mainly resentment and a sullen unhappiness if anyone asked him to exert himself in any way.

You aren't being fair to him
, the disappointed father told himself, turning back in the saddle to look ahead down the broad avenue towards the navy yard once again.
Irys would tell you that . . . and she might even be right. When a sword's not tempered properly, should you blame the sword . . . or the swordsmith?

He didn't know how to answer his own question.
Was
the fault his? Had he gone about the task of raising his son the wrong way, somehow? Or was it, indeed, something in the boy? Something lacking, that no amount of proper rearing could have magically instilled?

Sometimes he was convinced it
had
been his fault, but other times he looked at Irys and Daivyn. Whatever it was that Hektor lacked, his older sister and his younger brother both appeared to possess it in ample measure. And if Hektor had managed to raise two children, either of whom he could have seen seated on his throne after him without a qualm, then what could he have done so wrong in Hektor's case to have caused the child who actually was his heir to turn out so differently?

Is it that he knows you don't love him as much as Irys? Is that what it is? But you wanted to. You
tried
to. It's your disappointment in him that makes it so hard, and you didn't begin to feel that until he was—what? Ten? Eleven
?

It was hard for a father to admit that he wasn't even certain he loved his own son any longer. Yet he wasn't
just
a father. He was also a ruler, and it was a ruler's responsibility to train up his successor. To feel confident his rule would be passed to someone prepared to assume that burden. And when he couldn't feel that way, when a parent's natural disappointment found itself coupled with a ruler's recognition of his heir's unfitness, the anger and the worry were all too likely to poison that same parent's natural affection.

I don't need to be worrying about this right now
, Hektor told himself firmly.
There are so many
other
things I need to be dealing with. If I can't somehow convince Cayleb that it would be more dangerous to remove me than to leave me in place, it's not going to matter whether or not Hektor would have made a competent ruler after me, because he'll never have the chance
.

Of course he won't
, another corner of his brain replied.
And how many times in the past have you used the excuse of “other things” to avoid dealing with this?

The Prince of Corisande grimaced, feeling his enjoyment of the morning sunlight, breeze, and salt-freshened air slipping away from him. And mostly, he knew, that was because he knew that biting corner of his mind was right. He did have to “deal with this.” It was easier to admit that than it was to figure out exactly how he was going to go about it, of course, but there were many aspects of being a ruler, or, for that matter, a parent, that were as important as they were unpleasant, and—

This time, things had been better arranged. There weren't two crossbowmen; there were twelve, and not one of Hektor's guardsmen saw them in time.

Four of the steel-headed quarrels ripped into Prince Hektor. Any one of the wounds they inflicted would have been fatal, and the brutal impacts hammered him from the saddle. It was like being hit in the chest and belly with white-hot spikes, and he felt himself falling, falling, falling. . . . It was as if he were tumbling headfirst through some impossibly deep gulf of air, and then he cried out in anguish as he hit the ground at last and time resumed its passage. Hot blood pulsed, soaking his tunic, filling his universe with pain and the awareness that death had come for him at last.

And yet, dreadful though that pain was, he barely noticed it in the face of an agony deeper than any anguish of the flesh.

Even as he fell, his eyes were whipping towards the horse behind his, and it wasn't pain that ripped that cry from him when he hit the ground. No. It was that deeper, far more dreadful anguish as he saw the three crossbow bolts sprouting from the chest of the Crown Prince of Corisande and knew too late that he did—and always had—loved his son.

“My God, Merlin! You're certain they're both dead?”

“Yes, I am,” Merlin replied, and Cayleb sank into the camp chair, shaking his head while he tried to come to grips with this fresh, cataclysmic upheaval. Birds sang and wyverns whistled quietly in the hot, sunny afternoon, and the subdued sounds of a military encampment seemed to enclose the headquarters tent's silence in a protective shell.

“How did it happen? Who's responsible?” the emperor asked after a moment.

“I'm not absolutely certain who's responsible,” Merlin admitted. “I suspect it was Waimyn, though.”

“The Intendant?” Cayleb frowned. “Why would the Church murder the man fighting against the ‘apostate traitors'? I mean—oh.”

The emperor grimaced and shook his head.

“It's amazing how sheer surprise can keep someone from thinking clearly, isn't it?” he said sourly. “Of course the Church—or, more probably, Clyntahn—wants him dead. He was about to ask for terms, wasn't he?”

“Exactly.” Merlin nodded grimly. “In fact, he probably signed his own death warrant when he sent you that herald.”

“They couldn't have him switching sides,” Cayleb agreed. “And after the way Sharleyan and Nahrmahn have done just that, they couldn't be certain Hektor wouldn't do the same. Which he probably would have . . . long enough to get into range to slip a knife between my ribs, at any rate.”

“Exactly,” Merlin repeated. “But—”

“But that's not the only wyvern they've thrown this rock at,” Cayleb interrupted him. “Oh, believe me, I see that, too, Merlin! Even if we could prove it was Waimyn, and that he did it on Clyntahn's direct orders, who's going to believe us? Especially when the Church starts trumpeting the announcement that I've murdered Hektor for his support of the true Church?”

“And the fact that Nahrmahn, who helped your cousin try to assassinate you, is now one of your inner advisers is going to play into their version of it, as well,” Merlin pointed out. “For that matter, by the time the Church gets done with it, our ‘ridiculous lies' about the Temple Loyalists' involvement in the attempt to murder Sharleyan are going to be seen as nothing but an additional layer of deception. Obviously the Church's true sons never tried to assassinate Sharleyan! The entire thing probably never even happened! It was all a ruse, just an act we cooked up, probably to give us an excuse to remove Halbrook Hollow—who was loyal to God and the Church—and to lend some sort of credibility to this ridiculous story about the Church's murdering Hektor and his son.”

“Wonderful.”

Cayleb leaned back in his chair, eyes closed as his brain came fully back on balance. He wished there were some way—any way—he could have disagreed with Merlin's analysis. Unfortunately . . .

“You do realize that the ‘cover story' we put together for our visit to Tellesberg is likely to turn around and bite us on the arse now that this has happened, don't you?” he asked without opening his eyes. “Who could I have been so eager to meet privately and secretly—so privately and secretly that I only took a single trusted bodyguard with me—but the people who could deliver Hektor's death to me?”

“That thought had occurred to me,” Merlin agreed sourly.

“And I'll bet you very few people in Manchyr had any idea he'd just taken the first steps towards asking for terms,” Cayleb continued. “So I can't even make the logical argument that I had no reason to assassinate him when he was about to surrender his entire princedom to me!”

“Not to mention the minor fact of his popularity with his own people. I don't see any way to convince them we weren't behind this, and that's going to make maintaining order here in Corisande one hell of a lot harder,” Merlin said grimly.

“You do have a way of continuing to cheer me up.” Cayleb opened his eyes and showed Merlin his teeth. “Have any more . . . less than positive aspects of this situation presented themselves to you?”

“Not yet, but I'm pretty sure they will.”

“So am I,” Cayleb admitted unhappily. He shook his head. “You know, whatever we may think of Clyntahn, this is one move on his part that doesn't have any downside for him, as far as I can tell.”