by David Weber
“Did he say what’s so important?”
“I’m afraid not, Your Grace. His Eminence informed me that it was a matter for your ears alone.”
“Indeed?” Clyntahn frowned for a moment, then shrugged. “I assume he’s waiting in the library?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Very well. If what he has to say is so important, I suppose I’d best hear him out. And if it’s for my ears only, I suppose you’d best leave us to it. If I need you, I’ll ring.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
The valet vanished with well-trained alacrity, and Clyntahn continued through to the library. Stantyn sat in a chair, gazing out into the snowy night, and Clyntahn’s face smoothed into a mask of non-expression as he saw the archbishop’s tense shoulders and noted the other man’s nervously drumming fingers.
Stantyn twitched around from the window, then stood abruptly as he saw Clyntahn.
“Your Eminence,” Clyntahn said, stepping fully into the library and extending his ring. “What brings you here at such an hour?”
“I beg your pardon for disturbing you so late in the evening, Your Grace,” Stantyn said as he straightened from kissing the proffered ring. “I realize this is highly irregular, but I felt a great need to speak to you. Privately.”
The Desnairian’s voice might have sounded calm to another’s ears, but Clyntahn’s were the ears of the Grand Inquisitor. People often tried to sound calm when they spoke to him—especially when what they actually felt was something very different. And this, he decided, was one such time.
“My door is always open to any child of God who feels the need to speak to me, Your Eminence. And if that’s true for all children of God, how much more true must it be for my own brothers within the episcopate? Please, tell me how I can serve you.”
“Actually, Your Grace . . .” Stantyn’s voice trailed off, and he looked like a man who abruptly wondered what he could possibly be doing. But Clyntahn was accustomed to that, as well.
“Come now, Your Eminence,” he said chidingly. “We both know you wouldn’t be here at this late hour unless you’d felt it was essential that we speak. And I fear the office I hold has made me somewhat . . . sensitive to hesitance when I see it. It’s too late for you to pretend you didn’t feel compelled to come here.”
Stantyn looked at him, and his face seemed to crumple. Something happened inside him—something Clyntahn had seen more times than he could count.
“You’re right, Your Grace,” the archbishop half-whispered. “I did feel compelled. I . . . I’m afraid. Too much is happening. The Grand Vicar’s Address, what’s happened in Ferayd, the Charisians’ defiance . . . It’s all changing the ground under our very feet, and what seemed so clear before isn’t clear anymore.”
“Like what . . . Nyklas?” Clyntahn asked gently, and Stantyn inhaled deeply.
“For the last several years, Your Grace, I’ve . . . been involved with certain others here in the Temple. At first, and for a long time, I was certain I was doing the right thing. The others are all men I’ve known and respected for many, many years, and what they said seemed to make so much sense to me. But now, with this schism changing everything, I’m not sure anymore. I’m afraid that what seemed to make sense is something else entirely.”
He stared appealingly into Clyntahn’s eyes, and it took all of the Grand Inquisitor’s decades of experience to keep his own eyes gently sympathetic instead of narrowing them in sudden, intent speculation. He knew the steps to this dance entirely too well. What Stantyn wanted was the Inquisition’s promise of immunity before he continued with whatever had driven him here. And the fact that an archbishop of his seniority thought he needed immunity suggested that whatever had brought him here was at least potentially of enormous importance.
“Sit back down, Nyklas,” Clyntahn said soothingly. “I know moments like this are always difficult. And I know it can be frightening to admit the possibility that one may have fallen into error. But Mother Church is God’s loving servant. Even those who have fallen into error may always be received back into her welcoming arms if they realize their error and turn to her in a true spirit of contrition.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” Stantyn’s voice was barely audible, and for a moment Clyntahn thought the man was actually going to break into tears. “Thank you.”
“Now,” Clyntahn continued, settling into a chair of his own as Stantyn sat back down, “why don’t you begin from the beginning?”
“It was several years ago,” Stantyn began. “Shortly after your own elevation to Grand Inquisitor, I was approached by Archbishop Zhasyn. I didn’t know him as well as I knew many others within the episcopate, but I respected and admired him. When he invited me to discuss our shared duties as archbishops of Mother Church, I was both surprised and, I suppose, flattered. In the course of those discussions, however, he began to gently lead the conversation into the direction of Church politics, rather than the discussion of pastoral tasks with which we’d begun.”
The Desnairian paused, his hands clasped tightly in his lap, then met Clyntahn’s compassionate eyes once more.
“Eventually, Your Grace, I learned Archbishop Zhasyn was a member of a larger group, a circle, here within the Temple. And that circle was concerned about what it saw as Church corruption. Its members were . . . unwilling to bring their concerns before the Office of Inquisition, and so they were amassing their own evidence. Exactly what they intended to do with that evidence was not immediately made clear to me, but Archbishop Zhasyn did make it plain that they wished to recruit me as another reformer, and he asked me to begin to take note of any evidences of corruption I might see. At that time—”
Clyntahn’s expression never even flickered, and he leaned back, listening.
JUNE,
YEAR OF GOD 893
. I .
Elvarth, Earldom of Storm Keep,
League of Corisande
“Are we there yet?” Prince Daivyn asked plaintively.
Compared to his older brother, Phylyp Ahzgood reflected, the query was only plaintive. Crown Prince Hektor would have asked the question in something uncomfortably more like a whine, and there would have been no doubt that it was a complaint.
“Not quite yet, Daivyn,” Princess Irys said soothingly. She leaned over and tucked the boy’s cloak more snugly about him. “Go back to sleep. I’m pretty sure we’ll be there by the time you wake up.”
Daivyn looked at her, his eyes puckered with worry in the dim light of the single turned-down lantern hanging from the carriage’s roof. Then he nodded, obviously as reassured by her manner as by her words, and settled back down on the comfortably padded seat. It was more than big enough as a bed for a boy of his age, and he closed his eyes obediently.
Irys sat looking down at him for several minutes, her eyes tender, but then she drew a deep breath, leaned back in her own seat, and looked across at the Earl of Coris.
“I hate this,” she said very quietly, speaking softly to avoid disturbing the boy who was obviously already drifting back off despite the rapidly moving carriage’s swaying, frequently jouncing motion and the sounds of their cavalry escort’s hooves.
“I know you do, Your Highness,” the earl replied just as quietly. “I don’t blame you. I feel like I’m running away, as well.”
“You shouldn’t.” She shook her head. “I know perfectly well that the only reason you’re here is because Father ordered you to be.”
“Your Highness, it’s my honor, as well as my duty—” he began, but another shake of her head cut him off.
“Can we just go ahead and consider all of the obligatory comments already said and accepted?” she asked, and smiled wearily at his expression. “I’m sorry, Phylyp. I didn’t mean to suggest for a moment that what you were saying was anything but sincere. I’ve known you too long to think anything else. But I’m so tired of saying what we all have to say, playing the parts we all have to play.”
“I can understand that,�
� he said after a moment. “Still, you are a princess of Corisande, and I am, by your father’s appointment, your legal guardian and your younger brother’s first councilor, if it should come to that. I’m afraid those are parts we can’t stop playing, Your Highness.”
“Given how long we’ve known one another, and the fact that I’m sure you were there on at least one occasion when my diaper was being changed, do you think you could call me ‘Irys’ rather than ‘Your Highness,’ at least when we’re alone, Phylyp?”
He started to reply quickly, then paused.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said finally. “Under the circumstances, it’s particularly important that your dignity and Daivyn’s are as effectively protected as possible. If I address you too familiarly, it’s going to undercut your authority in your person as your father’s daughter. And, from a more selfish perspective, I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m presuming on the position your father assigned me to for personal advantage.”
“I don’t disagree with any of that. That’s why I said ‘at least when we’re alone.’ But it’s going to be difficult enough in Delferahk, whatever happens. I’d like to have at least one person I know I can trust who’s willing to call me by my name at least sometimes. And if my ‘legal guardian’ can’t do that, then who can?”
“Very well . . . Irys.” His own smile was bittersweet. “And you’re right; I was present when your diapers were changed.”
“Good!”
A gleam of genuine amusement flitted across her expression. It didn’t last long, but he thought he saw a few less shadows in her eyes when it had passed. It was difficult to tell under the present lighting conditions, of course.
“I wish he hadn’t done it,” she said.
“Sent you away with Daivyn?”
“Sent me away at all,” she corrected, and if there were fewer shadows in her eyes, the lantern light touched the diamond gleam of tears on the ends of her long lashes. “I know he didn’t have any choice—not if he was going to send Daivyn at all. But I ought to be with him, Phylyp!”
“Don’t think for a moment that this was an easy decision for him,” Coris said gently. “In fact, I haven’t seen any others that were harder.”
“I know. I know!” She shook her head. “And I promise I don’t want to sound like a petulant, spoiled princess, either.”
He started to reply to that, then stopped and simply shook his head with a small smile.
Irys sat silent for several more minutes, reaching down to smooth her brother’s hair across his forehead. Finally, she looked back up at Coris.
“I suppose, since there’s not any point crying about the basic decision, I ought to spend my moaning time on the travel arrangements, instead,” she said with a determinedly lighter air.
“They do leave a bit to be desired, don’t they?” Coris acknowledged wryly as the carriage went over a particularly solid bump. “Call it another inconvenience to blame on Cayleb and his Charisians.”
“Oh, believe me, I’ve got quite a list of ‘inconveniences’ to . . . discuss with Emperor Cayleb some fine day.” Her tone was whimsical; the anger in her eyes was not.
“Under the circumstances, I think Admiral Tartarian was entirely correct, though,” Coris continued, and she nodded.
At the moment, their carriage, even at its rapid speed, was still some hours from the minor city—little more than a glorified fishing port, if the truth be known—of Elvarth. The journey overland from Manchyr had been an exhausting and lengthy ordeal, especially for Daivyn (who still didn’t really understand all that was happening), since Elvarth lay in the Earldom of Storm Keep, at the northern tip of the island of Corisande. But the town had three significant advantages. First, it was so small and insignificant that it hadn’t occurred even to Cayleb of Charis that it needed to be blockaded. Second, it was about as far away from Manchyr as it was possible to get. And, third, there’d happened to be a small galleon already anchored there, taking refuge from the Imperial Charisian Navy.
“I’m sure the Admiral was right,” Irys agreed. “And I’m glad he was able to give us Captain Harys.”
Coris nodded again. In many ways, he supposed, command of the galleon Wing was something of a step downward for Zhoel Harys. The onetime commander of the galley Lance had been promoted to command one of Tartarian’s first armed galleons, the Cutlass. Wing, unlike Cutlass, carried only a handful of falcons and wolves, and she was no more than half Cutlass’ size. Of course, there’d been the distinct probability that Cutlass was going to find herself pounded into a bloody wreck by the Imperial Charisian Navy sometime soon, but Harys’ appointment to command her had represented an enormous professional step upward.
Despite that, he’d responded with every appearance of genuine pride when he’d learned that his prince had chosen him to transport his daughter and younger son to safety, and Coris never doubted that the captain would do everything humanly possible to carry out his mission successfully.
Tartarian’s plan for doing just that ran back through Coris’ mind once more. The notion of sailing east, rather than west, had a great deal to recommend it, in Coris’ opinion. The Charisian Navy was overwhelmingly concentrated in the waters around Corisande and Zebediah, and its attention was focused on the area between the League of Corisande and Charis proper. A single small vessel sailing east, rather than westward into that area of interest, was far more likely to get through unintercepted.
There were still risks, of course. The Trellheim pirates came to mind, and so did the swarms of Charisian privateers operating in Dohlaran waters. On the other hand, Wing wouldn’t be flying Corisandian or Dohlaran colors. Harys had quite a selection of national colors laid in, along with a splendidly falsified set of Harchongese papers, and Wing had been chosen almost as much for the cargo she’d carried when the Charisian threat drove her to ground at Elvarth as for her out of the way location. So far, at least, all information available to Coris indicated that the new Charisian Empire was leaving Harchong’s limited merchant marine strictly alone. If the reports about Harchong’s involvement in building the Group of Four’s new navy were accurate, that immunity from Charisian attack was unlikely to last long. For now, though, it appeared to be holding, and they should be able to make Shwei Bay without interception. From there, it would undoubtedly be safer to travel overland to Delferahk.
Especially traveling incognito, Coris thought a bit grimly. You’re far too valuable a prize, Irys. Far better for you to be simply my niece, Lady Marglai, traveling with me to Delferahk.
That, too, had been suggested by Tartarian. It made at least some sense for Hektor to have sent his most trusted councilor off to Dohlar and Delferahk in search of aid. And if any of Corisande’s enemies decided to interpret his mission as an effort on his own part to get out of Corisande before the final shipwreck, that was perfectly all right with Coris, as well. The additional cover story that his sister-in-law had asked him to take her daughter and son to safety in Delferahk also made sense. Marglai Ahzgood was a few years older than Irys, and Kahlvyn Ahzgood was a few years younger than Daivyn, but the match was close enough, and the Ahzgoods had relatives in Delferahk who might be expected to provide their distant cousins with a safe haven in these troubled times.
There were still far too many opportunities for something to go wrong, even if one completely disregarded the possibility of natural disaster overtaking a galleon at sea. Still, under the circumstances, it was probably the best plan available.
“Do you really think this will all work?” Irys asked quietly, as if she’d been reading his mind.
“Honestly?” He looked at her, then shrugged ever so slightly. “I do think it will work. I won’t pretend there aren’t a lot of things which could still go wrong, but I think it’s the best plan, with the best chance of success, anyone could have come up with under the circumstances.”
“Then that’s just going to have to be good enough, isn’t it?” she said simply, then adjusted her own
cloak about her, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes.
Merlin Athrawes frowned in unhappy agreement with the Earl of Coris’ assessment. Although Merlin had been late in picking up on Hektor’s decision to get his daughter and younger son safely out of Corisande, he’d realized almost a full five-day ago what was happening. Unfortunately, Hektor’s instructions to his daughter’s coachman and accompanying cavalry escort had included the order to move as rapidly as possible. By the time Merlin had become aware of what was happening, there’d been insufficient time to get word to the handful of light cruisers covering the waters between Sword Point and East Island before Irys and Daivyn could reach Elvarth.
He’d considered using his recon skimmer to intercept them himself, but only very briefly. The skimmer could have gotten there in time, but what was he supposed to do after he arrived? He could hardly destroy the galleon tied up to the town’s wharf without raising at least a few eyebrows. And he wasn’t prepared to simply sink the ship with all hands—including a teenaged girl and her younger brother—once the galleon got to sea, either. Nor could he and Cayleb send word to the privateers operating in Dohlaran waters—not in time for it to do any good, at any rate—without raising all sorts of unpleasant questions about just how they’d come by the information that Princess Irys and Prince Daivyn were taking a cruise.
He’d told Cayleb about it, of course, and the emperor had shared his own unhappy conclusions. If they were lucky, one of their patrolling schooners would happen across Wing, snap her up, and discover an incredibly valuable prize. If they were unlucky (which, frankly, given Captain Zhoel Harys’ general level of competence, was much more likely), then Irys and Daivyn were going to arrive unintercepted at King Zhames’ court.
