Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "Huh." Rubrik stared at the rain which was coming down in a solid sheet. Karal watched his expression very carefully, trying to guess his thoughts. "Well," he said, very slowly, "I would have said that I didn't believe in miracles, if I hadn't seen one or two lately with my own eyes. Smallish ones, mind, compared to your moving statues and shrinking Crowns, but they definitely qualified." He paused, and Karal had the sense that he was choosing his words with the utmost care. "The Lady-Goddess of the Hawkbrothers and Shin'a'in seems to intervene now and then on behalf of her own people, so why not the Sunlord, right?"

  Karal nodded cautiously. He wasn't entirely certain he ought to be agreeing to anything that compared Vkandis with some outlandish heathen Goddess—but Rubrik said he'd seen this Goddess working miracles....

  Vkandis was supposed to have a Goddess-Consort in the oldest records, but she seemed to have gotten misplaced somewhere far back in the past. Or had the Priests in that far past been right to eliminate her?

  This was getting more confusing by the moment. "Goddess?" he replied weakly. "What Goddess?"

  Rubrik shook his head, and chuckled. "Oh, this theology business is too much for a simple soul like me! Let me order us some dinner, and you tell me just what Solaris did once she had that crown on her head, all right?"

  Karal agreed to that with relief. Rubrik summoned a serving-girl, who eyed Karal in a way that made him blush and wish secretly that he wasn't sharing a room with his master. He was only a novice; he hadn't taken any oaths yet, much less oaths of celibacy and chastity....

  Rubrik must have ordered something that the kitchen already had prepared, for the girl returned with laden platters in short order. Karal's stomach growled as the aroma of hot sausage pie hit his nose. The scent was unfamiliar, as unfamiliar as most of the Valdemaran food, but even if he hadn't been starving, it would have been enticing. He felt ready to eat the pie and the plate it was baked in.

  Rubrik dug into his own portion without hesitation. "So," he said, gesturing with a fork, "what did your Solaris do next?"

  "There was no question of naming anyone else the Son of the Sun, of course," Karal replied, around a mouthful of sausage and crust. He swallowed; the pie was wonderful, and the spices weren't too different from the ones used at home. "Everyone who would have protested was there for the Miracles, and they were terrified that any more miracles would target them. Solaris was invested right then and there with the White Robes—she already had a Crown—and the acolytes swept what was left of the False Son out with the ashes of last year's Fire. The next day she called a convocation, and told everyone that the duties of the Black-robes would change from that moment. She ordered that Black-robes would retain their rank, but they would serve exactly the same duties as the Red-robe Priests. Demon-summoning was declared anathema, forbidden, and the texts that taught the means of summoning the creatures were to be burned."

  "That's a good start, though normally I don't hold with burning books," Rubrik observed. "But destroying something so open to misuse instead of burning innocent people was a pretty good way of beginning her rule."

  Karal nodded enthusiastically and had another couple of bites before continuing. "She said that she had been having visions for some time now, and that the event in the Temple merely confirmed that her visions had been from Vkandis and not mere dreaming and vainglory. She told us all that she had been shown that the ways of the Writ and Rule were not the ancient and true ways of worship."

  "I'd hardly expect her to say anything else," Rubrik pointed out dryly. "If she was going to establish herself as an authority, she would have to shake up things in your Temple right from the beginning. First day."

  Karal bit his tongue to keep from making a sharp retort, and took a little time eating before continuing, lest he say something he shouldn't. No matter what Solaris was, one thing she wasn't was a mere political creature. Yes, she understood politics, but it was only to take them into account. When politics didn't agree with what she was going to do, she worked around them.

  "She made quite a few changes in the first week," he told the Valdemaran, "And later, when Ulrich and I were doing research into the older ways, we found out that the changes she had made were nothing more than a reestablishment of those ancient paths. 'The Sunlord has always been a God of life, not destruction,' she said. 'His Fire is the life-giving Fire of the Sun, not the Fires that eat the lives of children.' She decreed an end to the Cleansing Ceremonies as we knew them. She declared the Feast of the Children to be a time of testing youngsters for their powers and intelligence, but ordered that no child was to be dragged away from its family; children must come to the Temple by consent of their families and their own will." He answered Rubrik's slightly raised eyebrow with a sardonic smile of his own. "She also pointed out that in families with many children and limited resources, telling the child and its parents that from now on the Priesthood would feed and clothe it would get them to at least give the Cloisters a try. I have to admit that I was fed and housed better than my parents could afford when I was in the Cloisters, and on the whole I had less work to do. I'm told now that children sometimes cry when they aren't taken, instead of crying when they are."

  "Ah," Rubrik said, with a twitch of his lips. "As we say in Valdemar, presenting the apple instead of the stick."

  "Precisely." He finished off his portion of pie and took a long swallow of ale. "The changes she made with the children and the novices were that they were to be allowed full contact with their families and annual leave to visit them if they wished, just as if they were recruits in the Army. But that all came later; it was part of the changes she made that were really restorations of the old ways."

  "The old ways..." Rubrik finished his own food thoughtfully. "So, just how did she come to know all these 'old ways'? More visions?"

  Karal laughed. "Oh, no, not at all! She appointed a number of friends of hers among the former Black-robes to find them in the archives!"

  "Don't tell me—" Rubrik said quickly, holding up his free hand. "One of the places where she used to spend a lot of her free time was the archives, right? And I already know that she is a linguist and a scholar and can read all the oldest records for herself. So that was how she just happened to know that the 'old ways' weren't exactly the same as your current—what did you call it?"

  "The Writ and Rule." Karal shrugged. "I don't know, but does it really matter? The point is that she knew that there was a record of the old ways in the archives, and everything we found confirmed or added to what she had already declared. Ulrich was one of the former Black-robes she assigned to the archives, and since I was his secretary, I worked beside him."

  The serving-girl came to clear away their empty plates, refill their cups, and bring them a dessert of fruit and cheese. Rubrik said nothing while she was there, and spent some time carefully cutting up an apple without continuing the conversation. "None of this ever got to Valdemar," he said at last. "We only heard that there had been some disturbance, and that suddenly the ruler of Karse was a woman. Then we learned nothing at all for a year or two." He looked up from his apple dissection, and cocked an eyebrow at Karal. "Is there any connection between your Solaris and the other woman that called herself 'the Prophet of Vkandis' about ten or fifteen years ago? The one that decided she was going to be the head of your army and damn near got herself a big chunk of Menmellith?"

  Karal shook his head. "No—and in fact, that woman is the reason the original Crown of Prophecy went missing. It was lost with her when she vanished."

  No point in getting into that; the story was much too complicated. And if Rubrik did not know the part of Solaris' story that his own countrywoman Talia figured so prominently in—he wasn't as well-informed as Karal had thought.

  Rubrik ate his apple thoughtfully. "I can't imagine that the rest of your priesthood just rolled over like cowed dogs and let Solaris rule as she wanted."

  Indeed they didn't, Karal thought quietly. But this was one of the subjects Ulrich had inst
ructed him to say nothing about. There had been a great deal of opposition to Solaris' new Writ and Rules, and to her decrees as well. Not only from the Priests, either.

  There had been plenty of people in Karse who liked the corrupt ways very much indeed. A number of the highly born resented the intrusion of the Priests into areas of governance they had always considered their private preserve. There had been a kind of understanding between the Priests and some of the nobles that certain—excesses—would be ignored if gifts "to the Temple" were valuable enough. There had been Priests who were as corrupt as some of those nobles; they had shared in those excesses.

  Solaris put an end to those "understandings." And an end to the slave trade, to a profitable market in deadly intoxicants, and a number of other unsavory trades that had been ignored or even given tacit sanction by the Priests.

  This did not earn her friends in some quarters.

  There were Priests and the favorites of Priests who lost prestige and position with the change in stature of the Black-robes—those who were no longer permitted to call demons did not inspire the same fear. This didn't earn her any goodwill from those factions, either.

  There were even those at the borders who wanted the demon-summoners back. At least when demons roamed the night, the bandits stayed hidden, and conducted their raids only by day, when it was somewhat easier to see them coming and to fight them. There were plenty of border dwellers who feared the Rethwellans, the Valdemarans, and the Hardornens on the other side of those borders, and wanted the demons and their summoners to keep the "foreigners" away.

  The two years that followed the Miracle were not easy ones, and Solaris had fought a grim and mostly-silent battle against a number of enemies. But Karal was not going to tell Rubrik any of that. If the Valdemaran spies weren't good enough for their Queen to have learned that much, too bad. And if no one had bothered to inform this agent of the Queen of these things, that was not Karal's problem.

  "So, at some point after Ancar stole his father's throne, he decided that Karse was an easy target, hmm?" Rubrik took the hint, restarting the conversation with something obvious.

  Karal shrugged. "I suppose so. I've never talked to anyone from Hardorn. Those who were trying to escape went across your borders. I suppose they didn't want to chance the demons; they had no reason to know there weren't any demons anymore. All I know is that suddenly we had an army trying to run over the top of us. Solaris was very good at picking brilliant generals, but good generals were obviously not going to be enough. Ancar's fighters didn't seem—human."

  "They weren't, exactly, anymore," Rubrik replied, and it was obvious from his expression that he was not going to elaborate on this point. Well, fine. So they both had things they weren't supposed to share.

  "You should know the rest," Karal continued. "Solaris retreated to the Sun Tower and came back down with a new decree from the mouth of Vkandis Himself.

  "Truce with Valdemar." That was a statement, not a question, but Karal nodded anyway.

  And if the situation hadn't been so bad, that would have been the end of Solaris. As it was, Ancar's fighters and mages committed so many outrages that even her worst enemies were convinced that she was right. There hadn't been a single family in all of Karse that didn't know of someone who'd been affected. Torture and rapine were the least of the vile deeds Ancar's followers had perpetrated, although they in themselves were quite bad enough.

  Rubrik shook his head with an expression of wry sympathy. "You know, when your messengers reached our people, and we were finally convinced that Solaris meant what she said, there were some of us who thought the world had surely come to an end. I mean, truce with Karse! How much crazier could things get? And most people were certain it wouldn't last."

  A flicker of expression on Rubrik's face, quickly suppressed, told Karal that this man was in the group of those in Valdemar who had felt that way. "I don't imagine your people were terribly happy about the idea, especially anyone in your Guard."

  Rubrik grimaced. "Well, when those Priest-mages of yours came north and helped hold Ancar's armies to a crawl, it pretty well convinced even the most skeptical that you meant to hold by the spirit of the truce and alliance as well as the letter of it. At this point, we've got acceptance—if a grudging acceptance—of the situation. There are still people who can't keep up with the changes in the land, though. So much has changed so quickly inside Valdemar—and outside her borders—that probably half of the population is in a whirl."

  Karal sighed, and then caught himself in a yawn. How late was it, anyway? "I suppose you could say the same about us," he replied. "Except for two groups, that is."

  Rubrik raised an eyebrow.

  "Those who support Solaris without reservation, like Ulrich, purely because she is the Son of the Sun by Vkandis' Own hand," Karal said, "And those who are simply too young to have fought Valdemar personally, and so have no personal grudges to bear. When you're young enough, the world is new every day."

  "Ah." Rubrik considered this for a moment—perhaps noting that Karal did not say which group he belonged in—and straightened a bit in his seat, stretching and flexing his shoulders. "And on that optimistic note, I suggest we both find a nice warm bed," he said.

  Optimistic? Well, I suppose so—if you consider that he means that eventually all the old fossils will die and the new generation, presumably without the prejudices of the old, will take over. "That sounds like a good idea to me," Karal agreed. "And forgive me if I hope that your bad weather holds long enough to prevent us from leaving until the sun is properly above the horizon!"

  Rubrik only laughed. "I won't promise anything," he replied. "But I think this is a wizard-storm, and if it is, it will be cleared up before midnight at the latest."

  Karal sighed.

  Ulrich was still awake when Karal came in, and Karal reported the whole conversation faithfully. As Ulrich's secretary, he had learned how to memorize long conversations verbatim, when they had been in a situation where taking notes would have been impolite or impolitic. Ulrich listened without comment, then nodded approval.

  "You did very well," he told his protege. "You told him nothing he should not know—and perhaps, having been told of the Miracles by an eyewitness, he will be reporting them as fact rather than hearsay to his superiors."

  Karal stretched his knotted muscles and grimaced. "Master, I have to tell you that although I do enjoy this man's company, I had almost rather be facing an armed enemy than have another of these conversations with him. He is very good, very subtle. I think that if he tried, he could probably have gotten much more out of me than I intended to tell him. I believe he was hoping for just this sort of opportunity to catch me alone and question me. He knows what will be good for Valdemar to know of Karse now, but if I spent too much more time in his presence I think it might be that I would tell him too much—or something he would misinterpret."

  Ulrich considered this for a moment, staring into the fire in the tiny fireplace in their room. "I think you are probably right," he replied, his expression thoughtful, though not at all apprehensive. "It was probably not coincidental that he began asking all these questions of you at the moment when I was out of reach and earshot. I think that the next such conversation should include me."

  Karal heaved a sigh of relief at that. He had been concentrating so hard on telling only the truth, and yet not all the truth, that he had not realized how tense he had been under Rubrik's scrutiny until he got back to the room he shared with his mentor. Now, he found he had to go through every stretching and relaxing exercise he knew just to get himself unknotted enough to sleep!

  This Rubrik was subtle, very subtle. And although he had not consciously been aware of the fact, something instinctive had reacted to that. Among the Priests, "subtle" frequently meant "dangerous."

  And among the Priests, "subtle" always meant that the man must never be underestimated.

  But as Karal blew out the candle and climbed into his own bed, he found himself hopi
ng only one thing—that in this case, "subtle" did not mean "treacherous" as well.

  Six

  Regrettably, Rubrik was right about the weather. A tap on their door at an absolutely unholy hour proved that the storm had cleared; before dawn, if not by midnight. Karal pried himself out of his warm cocoon of blankets with a groan of regret that was only slightly softened by the fact that the servants who woke them also brought breakfast along with wash water and a candle. A real breakfast this time, not just bread and drink.

  I might be able to face the day, he decided, after a decent meal of eggs and bacon, hot bread and sweet honey-butter, with plenty of freshly pressed cider to wash it all down. The hastily-snatched meals on horseback tended to wear very thin, long before Rubrik would decree a halt for further food.

  "I think that our escort has probably forgotten how much a young man needs to eat," Ulrich observed with an amused smile, as he watched Karal devour the remains of his mentor's breakfast as well as his own. "I shall remind him."

  "Thank you, Master Ulrich," Karal said with real gratitude. "It's not as if he hasn't been very reasonable, but—"

  "But he is probably as many years removed from the age at which one devours one's weight in food every day as I am," Ulrich replied. "One forgets."

  Karal only smiled, and washed his hands and face clean of the sticky honey he had devoured so greedily. If there was one thing he had a weakness for, it was sweets.

  Which means I'd better never take a real scholar's position, or I'll soon resemble Vkandis' own seat cushion.

  "Are you sure you can ride?" he asked his mentor anxiously. Ulrich had been moving with the slow, deliberate care that meant his joints were still stiff. Karal had more than a duty to Ulrich as his mentor, he was under orders to make certain Ulrich remained healthy during his tenure as Karse's envoy.