The King's Justice (19 page)

Still Thrysus Indolent did not hesitate. His assurance acknowledged no rebuff. With a conspiratorial air—the air of a man who commonly spoke so as to foil eavesdroppers—he answered, “Your Majesty, your discernment may misguide you. I remain confident that I have not judged Baron Plinth and Baron Estobate unjustly. Yet I have no cause to question the worth of your spies.
For that reason, I surmise that you seek to divert yourself at my expense. Thus I have no means by which to demonstrate my loyalty, both to you and to Indemnie, other than by still greater daring. I have spoken honestly. Hoping to sway you, I will hazard a more perilous honesty.”

“Then do so,” she instructed him, now without graciousness.

Though he held her gaze, his eyes appeared to continue their dark dance as he pounced at last. “Your Majesty, I am responsible for the recent attempt upon your daughter's life.”

“You?” There my Queen betrayed true surprise. “Not Jakob Plinth?”

Indolent made a dismissive gesture. “Baron Plinth's rectitude condones no subterfuge. He is blameless. Yet I do not scruple to assert that I also am blameless. Or rather, I will assert that my purpose in the attempt was not blameworthy.”

Outfacing her scrutiny, he said, “Your Majesty, I state my case thus. Turmoil afflicts Indemnie. So much you will surely acknowledge. But any turmoil that endangers you must also imperil the succession. Therefore no good will come of our efforts, should Baron Venery, Baron Panderman, and I exert ourselves for our own protection—or should we fail in yours—unless your daughter is worthy of rule—aye, and
proven
worthy.
That
was my purpose.”

While my Queen studied every shift of muscle, every fleeting expression, every intake of breath, Thrysus Indolent presented his defense.

“By various means, none in themselves honest,” he admitted
as though he sought to appear innocent as water, “I made arrangement that a unique powder be mingled with your daughter's wine, for her preferences are well known.” So saying, he confessed—albeit indirectly—that his own spies were as skilled as hers. For myself, I began to fear his more so. “For those whose blood holds no admixture of our distant ancestors' gifts, this powder might well prove fatal. However, I did not fear that outcome. Your daughter is your daughter. A portion of her blood is yours. And on one of mixed blood, my powder would inflict no more than a fleeting distress. To one of pure blood, however, my powder would occasion no conceivable discomfort. Rather it would provide a pleasing elevation of the senses. A pleasing elevation of
life
, Your Majesty.

“I sought no harm to your daughter,” he avowed. “I desired only to prove her worthy of command over all the realm—and to do so covertly so that she, and you, and Indemnie might have no cause to fear a subsequent public demonstration. And I did not speak to you ere I risked my test because—” He made a show of chagrin and honesty. “Well, because, Your Majesty, I had no wish to incur your displeasure unnecessarily. I could imagine that you might take my head without heeding my reasons.

“Sadly”—now he feigned regret, though he could not mask his more private anticipations—“I did not foresee the expedient of a taster. Also I was but recently informed that an earlier attempt had been made upon your daughter's life. Had I know of
that
treachery, I would not have undertaken my own small machination.

“Your Majesty, my ignorance of that earlier attempt accounts for the insistence of my present wish to speak with you. Now I await your mercy—or your ire, should you deem my purposes blameworthy.”

I could not fathom him. To the extent that his defense was honest, his ploy appeared comparatively harmless—certainly less fatal than a knife in the night. Yet his credibility, suspect at best, was undermined by an air of satisfaction that he did not trouble to conceal.

And my Queen clearly thought as I did, though her insight surpassed mine. “Indolent,” she replied, her voice a silken blade, “I find truth in few of your fine speeches, cause for offense in many. However, your observation that Indemnie is in turmoil is simple fact. And my keen desire to put
you
to the sword—to have you beheaded after much torture—will achieve only an increase of turmoil. For that reason, and for that reason alone, I will not heed the counsels of my ire. Be careful now that you do not sway me against my better self. I will have truth or blood.

“What cause justifies your doubt that my daughter's lineage is pure?”

Oblivious to her threat, or perhaps merely unalarmed by it, the Baron positively gleamed. “The simple fact, Your Majesty,” he replied at once, “that your daughter's father was murdered.
His
purity cannot now be examined.”

“And you call it
credible
,” she retorted like a woman stung, “that I would endanger the succession by bedding a man lacking the requisite heritage?”

Thrysus Indolent shrugged again. As though he considered his rectitude the equal of Baron Plinth's, beyond doubt or aspersion, he answered, “I call his death murder. So much is commonly known. But more knowledge is needed, and there is none. Do you ask me to imagine that a woman who offers marriage to five barons would scruple to bed
any
man who chanced to appear desirable?”

Tension filled the boudoir until the very lamps appeared to flicker. The insult of his retort filled my bowels with tremors. As for my Queen, her tone hardened, and a dire fury burned in her eyes. “You dare to provoke me? I perceive now that you are certain of my restraint, as you have been from the first. However, your cunning betrays you. Alter the terms of your query. Do you imagine that a woman who did not scruple to shed her daughter's father's blood would fear to shed yours?”

So plain a threat might suffice to unman any of the barons, yet Thrysus Indolent's daring did not falter. “Answer my question, Your Majesty, and I will answer yours.”

Briefly I imagined her voice raised to summon guards. However, she did not call out. Rather her manner became both resigned and rigid.

“My lord Baron,” she announced in a tone of extreme self-mastery, “I will not partner with you in this gavotte of deception and falseness. Stripped of its obfuscations, your defense rests upon Indemnie's turmoil, which I have chosen to call simple fact. I will have one simple fact from you to counter your affronts.

“You assert that a
unique powder
in my daughter's wine would serve to gauge the purity of her blood. Name that powder.” Unbidden, the word
chrism
came to my mind, though I could not account for it. “If it has no name,” she continued, “tell me of its composition, its preparation. I will suffer no further hazard to my daughter until I have tested the efficacy of your powder upon myself.”

The man had pounced. Now he acted a dignified reluctance. “Your Majesty, I cannot. That secret is not mine to reveal. You must glean the knowledge you seek from another. You will not have it from me.”

Thus he pretended honor.

With sweetness and venom commingled, my Queen countered, “Not to save your head? Not to spare yourself the attentions of my torturer?”

Did I perceive a suggestion of concern in the Baron's mien? I could not be certain of it.

“If I must experience agony and death,” he offered with seeming hesitancy, “now is as good a time as any, and better than some.” Then he rallied his assurance. “However, I am confident that you will not harm me. You dare not. Were your threats more than mere vapor,
four
barons would have no recourse but to rise against you. And when you were slain, the condition of your daughter's blood would not suffice to ward her. My fellow barons would see your line entirely ended.”

I repeat that Baron Thrysus Indolent was a dangerous man. Only now did I begin to grasp the magnitude of the peril that he
presented to my Queen, and to the realm. His innocence—and indeed his honor—I discounted altogether. Yet I could not dismiss his appraisal of
armies
. I had heard a multiplicity of threats, some perhaps imagined, some certainly feigned. Nevertheless the danger of armies had substance.

“Enough, my lord Baron.” On the instant, Inimica Phlegathon deVry became imperious and calm. Though she did not condescend to raise her voice, her command was unquestionable. “You may depart. We have acknowledged the absence of scruples. You will feel no surprise, then, that I do not scruple to conclude that Baron Plinth and Baron Estobate ready themselves for war at your instigation. Now be gone while you remain able to obey.”

Thrysus Indolent appeared to contemplate some protest. If he did so, however, her abrupt quiet dissuaded him. Apparently he had discernment enough to recognize that he was not the only dangerous personage present. Making a hasty leg, he withdrew like a man both routed and jubilant.

For some moments, there was silence in the chamber. I heard only the clenched wheeze of my own breath and the hard labor of my heart, nothing more. After a time, I began to suspect that my Queen meant to withdraw as Baron Indolent had done, with no word for her alarmed Hieronomer. Then, however, soft as a whisper, she spoke my name.

“Your Majesty.” Trembling, I emerged from my covert. Yet when I stood in her presence, I found that I had lost my voice. I had witnessed Inimica Phlegathon deVry in a variety of moods—
some or most admittedly dissembled—but on no other occasion had I seen her forlorn.

To my sight, her air of lonely bereavement only served to make her beauty more ineffable.

She did not glance at me. Rather she considered some private vista of loss or ruin. In a small voice, as though I were not near enough to hear her, she murmured, “I have erred, Mayhew. I did not foresee Indolent's boldness. You are now aware of matters concerning which I have sought to preserve your ignorance. Your gifts are thus made useless to me.”

“Your Majesty.” Her distress prompted me to a boldness that would have eluded me under any other circumstance—a boldness entirely unlike Baron Indolent's. “My gifts have been useless for some weeks. I have made many attempts and shed much blood, yet the outcome of my scrying remains unaltered. For that reason, my efforts as your Hieronomer serve no further purpose.” She had encouraged me to sacrifice a child, but that I would not do. Even to spare my head, I would not. The horrors of having once studied the entrails of a stillborn infant remained present to me. “Yet the possibility remains that my understanding will prove of some worth.

“May I question you, Your Majesty?”

Still she did not direct her gaze upon me. Like a woman embattled within herself, she remained silent a while. When she replied, her tone was frayed. “Speak, Mayhew. I fear that I have been made blind. I see no harm in you.”

At another time, I might have answered that she saw none
because there was none. Now, however, the urgency of the occasion pressed me to persist in daring.

As though I were certain of myself, I said, “You have spoken of turmoil. I have spoken of rebellion. It is plain now that the turmoil is of your own making, and that therefore the threat of rebellion has acquired substance. Your Majesty, I wish to comprehend the policy that inspires you to provoke the barons.”

As she turned toward me, the force of her regard caused me to quail. “Provoke?” With that word, and with those that followed, she gathered strength. “I have done more than
provoke
, Mayhew. I have positively
lashed
those weak men. I require them to set aside their complacence. They luxuriate in it, and their self-indulgence will ensure at least one of the dooms which you have foretold.

“Mayhew Gordian, I must have war. For the sake of the realm, Indemnie must have civil war.”

I gaped indecorously. In one respect, her assertion answered me. It accounted for her many contradictory dealings, with the barons as well as with her lesser subjects. Yet in another and deeper form, it defied my explication. I could imagine no measure by which war was preferable to peace.

I must have croaked a protest, though I did not hear myself. My Queen's smile now resembled the glare of a headsman's axe. “I repeat so that you will heed me. Mayhew,
we must have civil war
. If I am deposed, I will not regret my loss. If I am slain, I will not fault my foes. Indemnie
must
have war.”

Swallowing consternation, I contrived to ask, “Why?” I felt
myself gasping to ascend an endless stair into an abyss of darkness. “Your Majesty,
why
?”

“
To reduce the population
.” The frustration and ire in her voice was such that a lesser woman might have rent her hair. “We must have bloodshed,
quantities
of bloodshed, lest we fall to the curse of Indemnie's prosperity.

“We live too easily, feed too easily, multiply too easily. For the present, no subject of this realm knows true
want
. Even the most vacant of our people—those lacking in wit enough, or vitality, or will to engage in constructive effort—do not also lack food or shelter or garments.

“Yet our population
grows
, Mayhew. It
doubles
. With every generation of Queens, it
doubles
. In a short space of years—a time which I am now able to foresee as clearly as you—true want will begin. It must. We are blessed by bounty in every form, but that kind fortune has become a curse because it does not extend to
land
. We have not
space
enough, neither for our people nor for the crops to sustain them.

“And when true want begins, it will end as you have foretold it. Those with less will grow jealous of those with more. Jealousy and hunger will fester into ire. Eventually that ire will catch its spark, and then Indemnie will burn with revolt—not the rebellion of barons unendurably provoked by their sovereign, but the savage and indiscriminate conflagration of
want
.”