By Heresies Distressed (86 page)

“I don't know if anyone
could
be ‘up to the job' under the circumstances,” Tartarian replied. “On the other hand, I do know what you mean,” he admitted. “The good news is that I think Zhoel would say the same thing.”

“So do I,” Anvil Rock said heavily. “He's always done his best, but to be brutally honest, he makes a good baron.”

Tartarian nodded. The current Baron Wind Hook was only eighteen, and he'd succeeded his father—and become his younger siblings' legal guardian—when both of his parents were killed in a coach accident, three years before. Unlike Crown Prince Hektor, he'd always tried as hard as he could to discharge the responsibilities of his birth, yet his wit was no more than average, if that. As Anvil Rock had just said, he managed to meet his obligations to his barony, if only by dint of working doggedly at them, but he would really have been happier as a simple gentleman farmer, and the thought of ascending to the Corisandian throne under any circumstances, far less the ones which currently obtained, must be terrifying to him. Assuming, of course, that the possibility had ever crossed his mind for a moment. Which, even now, it very well might not have. A probability which only underscored how utterly unsuited to the throne he would prove.

If they did place him on it anyway, he would be desperately unhappy. Tartarian could have lived with that, if he'd had to, in the best interests of Corisande. Unfortunately, the one thing it most definitely would not be was in Corisande's best interests. The amiable, hard-working, very likable young dullard would find himself the hopeless—and helpless—target of factional manipulation, with disastrous consequences for the princedom. His younger brother, Mahrak, at fourteen, would have been a far better choice. But he was the
younger
brother, and passing over Zhoel in his favor would only exacerbate what would inevitably become a ferocious succession dispute if Daivyn was set aside in
anyone's
favor in the first place.

“If it's not Zhoel, then it has to be Daivyn,” Tartarian said aloud, “and that unmuzzles a slash lizard all its own.”

“Tell me about it,” Anvil Rock said dryly.

“There's no way Zhames is going to send him back to Corisande,” Tartarian continued. “Even if he were inclined to do that, there would have to be a legitimate question in his mind about Daivyn's safety. If Cayleb did have the Prince and young Hektor assassinated, he certainly wouldn't hesitate to murder Daivyn, as well. And whether Cayleb was behind the Prince's murder or not, Zhames has to be aware of how valuable a card Daivyn's just become, especially given the fact that
he's
at war with Cayleb, too.”

“And if there were any possible way Zhames might not notice it, Clyntahn and Trynair damned well will.” Anvil Rock's expression was grim.

“Exactly.” Tartarian nodded. “So, if we insist he's the legitimate Prince of Corisande, then we have to establish a legitimate regency in his name, and as you just pointed out, your writ of regency was for young Hektor, not Daivyn. Which means getting the Council to agree to making a nine-year-old boy, who's not even in the Princedom, and who's likely to be seen as a valuable pawn by every ambitious politician in the world, Prince of Corisande
and
to name someone as his regent.”

“Wonderful.” Anvil Rock leaned back, rubbing his face and eyes wearily.

“To be honest, I don't think you and I have very much choice, Rysel,” Tartarian said grimly. “As you say, Zhoel would undoubtedly be a disaster on the throne, and we can't afford to fracture the succession any further than we can possibly avoid. And, unfortunately, the only two men I know whose loyalty to the Prince and to Corisande I trust—and who have the power to force a resolution of the entire question—are you and me.”

“I won't be party to any coups,” Anvil Rock said flatly, lowering his hands from his face and meeting Tartarian's eyes levelly across the table. “Once we open that door—once
anyone
opens
that
door—we set our feet on the road to outright civil war. A civil war with a Charisian occupation sitting right in the middle of it!”

“You're right, and I'm not suggesting any coups.” Tartarian met those eyes without flinching. “I'm an admiral. You're a general. Even if we managed to seize power, how would we manage to exercise it without driving the coach straight over the edge of the cliff? Neither of us is the politician Phylyp is, but he's out of the Princedom. Without him to advise us, we need a substitute at least as good to keep us from making some sort of disastrous mistake, and I don't know another politician here in the Princedom I'd trust. The good news, such as it is and what there is of it, is that Cayleb's presence means the traditional political arrangements aren't going to apply, anyway. Or do you think Cayleb Ahrmahk is likely to leave
any
Corisandian in a position to threaten his own plans?”

Anvil Rock opened his mouth, then paused, and closed it again.

“Exactly,” Tartarian said again, and produced a wintry smile. “What we're really talking about here isn't seizing power. It's going to be a matter of making the best terms we can when we
surrender
power to Cayleb. I'm sure at least some of our esteemed fellow nobles aren't going to see it that way. They're going to figure we're cutting some sort of deal with Cayleb, because that's exactly what they'd be doing in our place. Which is why I say you're the only other man in a position to act whose loyalty I trust.”

“No matter what we do, we're going to find ourselves with enemies coming at us from every direction,” Anvil Rock said after a moment. “The ones who think we've made some sort of arrangement with Cayleb are going to be furious that they didn't have the opportunity to do it first. And the ones who recognize that we've surrendered to Cayleb are going to blame us—and probably especially me—for the fact that Cayleb kicked our arse in the first place.”

“And while you're enumerating all of the people who are going to be pissed off with us,” Tartarian agreed with a grimace, “let's not forget, in order of importance, our own Temple Loyalists, the Church, and the Group of Four. Especially the Grand Inquisitor.”

“Lovely.”

“Trust me,” Tartarian said very sincerely, “if there were any way in the world I thought we could hand the responsibility for this off to someone else, I'd take it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, we can't.”

“Well, technically, we
could
,” Anvil Rock pointed out. “There's a legal quorum of the Council here in Manchyr with us, you know. We could always let them decide what to do about it.”

“I can just see you doing that.” Tartarian snorted.

“Actually, as you pointed out yourself a few minutes ago, we are going to have to assemble the quorum, if only so the two of us can lean on them to formally name Daivyn as Prince.”

“Sure. And are you going to tell me that when we do assemble the quorum you'd trust any of them with a broken-down draft dragon? The ones who wouldn't steal it or sell it to someone else would probably starve the poor critter to death!”

“You're probably being too kind to them. And, no, I wouldn't trust them with a broken-down draft dragon.”

“So we're in agreement, then?”

Silence hovered in the wake of Tartarian's question. He could see the conflicting emotions behind Anvil Rock's exhausted face, and they were easy to recognize, since he shared them fully. The desire to avoid the responsibility. The shame of admitting military defeat. The bitter anger left by the assassination, and the lingering suspicion—whatever logic might say—that Cayleb Ahrmahk had, in fact, ordered that double murder. The knowledge that whatever they decided, the two of them would be reviled by other men who hadn't had to make the same decisions . . . or whose own hopes for power had been dashed. And the awareness that it wouldn't matter to the Group of Four that they'd had no choice but to negotiate with the schismatics of Charis. There were far more reasons than Tartarian could count for the two of them to shirk the decisions which lay before them, and both of them knew it. And yet—

“Yes,” Sir Rysel Gahrvai, the Earl of Anvil Rock, said heavily. “We're in agreement.”

Cayleb Ahrmahk rose as the earls of Tartarian and Anvil Rock were escorted into his command tent.

“Earl Anvil Rock and Earl Tartarian, Your Majesty,” Lieutenant Ahstyn said. The two Corisandians bowed stiffly, and Cayleb returned the courtesy with a half-bow of his own.

“My Lords.” The emperor smiled very slightly and waved one hand at the other man who'd just risen from the table. “I believe you know General Gahrvai.”

“Father,” Sir Koryn Gahrvai said. “My Lord.” He bowed to Tartarian, and his father held out his hand.

“It's good to see you again, Koryn,” he said. “Although,” his own smile could have frozen water, even in Manchyr, “I could wish it had been under other conditions.”

The younger Gahrvai clasped his father's hand and nodded. Then Cayleb cleared his throat quietly, and all three of the Corisandians looked at him.

“My Lords,” he said to them, “I'm sure all of us wish we might have met under happier circumstances. Unfortunately, we haven't. Yet whatever the circumstances, a host has certain duties. Please be seated. Allow me to offer you refreshment.”

The others settled into the indicated chairs, and Cayleb nodded to the single tall, blue-eyed guardsman standing behind his own chair. Captain Athrawes came briefly to attention, then personally poured brandy into four glasses. He offered the first of them to Cayleb, but the emperor shook his head and indicated Anvil Rock, the senior of the three Corisandians. The earl accepted the glass, sipped politely, and nodded approval, and Merlin served the other two Corisandians before placing the final glass in front of Cayleb.

“I realize,” the emperor said then, “that the customary rules require you to compliment me on the quality of my brandy, for me to wave off the compliments with some modest disclaimer, and for the four of us to discuss the competing virtues of our national vintages, the local hunting, and the weather before getting down to our real business. With your indulgence, and in the interests of maintaining our mutual sanity, I propose that we consider that all of those polite conversational gambits are already behind us.”

Earl Anvil Rock maintained an admirably impassive expression. Tartarian's lips might have twitched slightly, and Sir Koryn raised his brandy glass again, sipping once more just a bit hastily.

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Anvil Rock replied after a moment. “In that case, however, I—”

“Pardon me,” Cayleb interrupted in a courteous tone, raising one hand. “I realize that the request for this meeting came from you, but before we begin, there are a few things I would like to say. I assure you,” he produced a crooked smile, “that they aren't conversational gambits.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Anvil Rock settled back in his chair, his eyes wary, and Cayleb leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table.

“My Lords,” he said quietly, “diplomacy, unspoken understandings, and polite lies no doubt have their place. In this instance, however, I think there's little point in any of us pretending that you, Earl Anvil Rock, and you, Earl Tartarian, must not at least suspect that I had a hand in the assassination of Prince Hektor and his son. In your place,
I
certainly would, and I'm quite certain much of the rest of the world is going to automatically assume Prince Hektor was murdered at my orders. And, to be perfectly frank, given the . . . history between my House and his, and the recent attack on Charis, I believe I would have been perfectly justified in having him killed.”

Tartarian and Anvil Rock both tensed visibly, and Cayleb smiled once more. This time, there was absolutely no humor in his expression, and his eyes met theirs levelly. They had no way of knowing that he had used his security com to personally view the transmissions from the SNARC which had spied upon their private meetings. Watching the holographic images had been like borrowing God's own eye. At the same time, the experience had helped him understand even better why not even Merlin could manage to keep track of everything that happened across the face of an entire planet. It had also suggested at least one possible way to ease Merlin's burden in that regard, although he hadn't brought it up yet.

More to the immediate point, however, it meant he knew exactly what Tartarian and Anvil Rock had said to one another on this very subject. More than that, he'd seen their expressions, heard the tone of their voices. It was an advantage no other negotiator in Safehold's history had ever enjoyed, and he intended to use it.

“I said I would have been
justified
in having him killed, My Lords,” he reminded them, “and I believe both of you are probably sufficiently aware of all the reasons why that would have been true. I didn't say it would have been
wise
of me to do that, however. And whatever justification I might have had for having him killed, I'm not in the practice of casually killing children.”

There hadn't been that many years between Cayleb's age and that of Crown Prince Hektor, but neither of the Corisandian earls saw anything ironic in the emperor's use of the word “children.”

“Even setting aside all considerations of justification or justice, and ignoring the fact that the Crown Prince was killed, as well, ordering Prince Hektor's assassination would have been a particularly stupid thing for me to do under the circumstances. I fully realize that despite all of the reasons my subjects and I might have for . . . thinking unkindly of him, his own subjects saw him in quite another light. Imprisoning him, or even having him executed after giving him time to make his peace with God, would have been one thing. They might not have cared for it, but they would have understood it, given all that had passed between us. Ordering him
murdered
would have been quite another thing, however, and I can think of nothing better calculated to harden any resentment and resistance here in Corisande. Nor, for that matter,” he looked directly into their eyes, “can I think of anything the Group of Four could use against me more effectively. I assure you, gentlemen, that whatever my other failings might be, I'm neither blind nor stupid enough not to understand all of the dozens of reasons why assassinating Prince Hektor would have been one of the worst things I could possibly have done.”