“I can understand your feelings, Chorister Amalyt,” responded Quaeryt in as gentle but firm a voice as he could manage, “but so far as I am aware, and you may certainly correct me if I misspeak, the Nameless stands above physically taking sides in the conflicts of men. Yet … over time, those who have served the Nameless have often expressed their views about the practices of rulers and High Holders and whether those practices were in accord with the precepts set forth as worthy of the Nameless. If I recall correctly”-Quaeryt paused just slightly, then continued-“in olden times, the noted chorister Tharyn Arysyn barred even Rholan the Unnamer from the north anomen in Montagne, not far from Rholan’s own home, saying that only those who had studied the Nameless could speak and that Rholan’s teachings were not in accord with the ways of Tela. Perhaps I am misinterpreting that history, but it would appear that the chorister was using the imprimatur of the Nameless in support of the way things were, and that includes the ways of ruling. Likewise, is it not true that when barely a man, Rholan supported the Chorister Sumaal, when Sumaal allowed High Holder Quintus of Montagne to proclaim the unfitness of Lord Suffryk of Tela to rule? As I have read, Rholan declared that Sumaal was only doing what any good chorister should do in allowing Quintus to apply the precepts of the Nameless to rulers as well as to the common man, the tradesman, the factor, or the High Holder.” Quaeryt looked to Amalyt, waiting.
“You appear unusually well read in matters concerning the Nameless,” replied the chorister, “yet times and people demand … certain adjustments … to … older practices.”
“Rholan had some words for that, I believe,” said Quaeryt. “Justice is what men should do, while law is what codes and powers require them to do, and that is invariably less than what they should do or what the Nameless requires of them. Your words suggest that choristers must refrain from applying the precepts of the Nameless to rulers. Would it be inaccurate, or against the precepts to which you have devoted your life, to declare that, while war is indeed deplorable, and that many suffered in the conflict, Lord Bhayar has behaved more honorably than the previous ruler of Bovaria, and that you trust he will continue to do so … and that you will measure his behavior and acts, as you do those of all men, against the precepts of the Nameless?”
A wry smile appeared on Amalyt’s lips. “You are a dangerous man, Commander, especially for one so comparatively young. If I speak against your words, I appear unreasonable to you … and to a lesser amount, to myself. Yet if I raise my voice in support of Lord Bhayar, most of my congregants will discredit me.”
“Then do not speak in support of Lord Bhayar,” replied Quaeryt. “Tell your congregants that, so far, matters have been far better than anyone could have hoped in a war of such scope and that Lord Bhayar has behaved honorably, unlike the late Rex Kharst, and that the test of Lord Bhayar’s character and acts will come in the months and years ahead.”
Amalyt turned to Bhayar. “He is most persuasive, is he not?”
“I have found him persuasive not because of his words, but because of his judgment.” Bhayar offered a slightly crooked smile. “I will not say that I have always found his words agreeable. But his counsel is seldom wrong, even when he was but a modest scholar. Quaeryt has studied more history, and forgotten more than I ever learned, for all that his tutor and mine attempted to require us to learn.”
“I suspect you know more than you allow,” suggested Chamion.
“That is a trait of all rulers,” said Amalyt, “and one cannot blame them.”
“It’s true of all men of ability,” added Deucalon.
After a moment of silence, the councilor spoke again. “There was much destruction in the western part of Variana … of a rather strange and mysterious nature.”
“There was,” agreed Bhayar. “That often occurs in war.”
Chamion frowned.
“Perhaps,” suggested Vaelora, “the councilor meant to inquire about what you plan to do there.”
“We have already rebuilt the exterior and interior of the Chateau Regis, thanks to Commander Quaeryt and his officers, and we have begun to refurbish it. We will restore the lands as time and golds permit. I will see … perhaps … about repairs to some anomens.”
Quaeryt understood the implications of the word “perhaps.”
“But … what of all the others…?”
“I cannot afford to rebuild all that Rex Kharst destroyed in Telaryn. Surely you do not expect me to rebuild all that has been destroyed here as a result of Kharst’s unwise decisions.”
“One could hope … for … some assistance.”
“On that, we will have to see once Bovaria is settled once more.”
“You have said little, either here or in public, Lord Bhayar, about High Holders … whether they or their heirs might still hold their lands, or whether you plan great changes.” Chamion looked to the head of the table.
“There will doubtless be some changes in holdings, councilor,” replied Bhayar. “There were some High Holders whose behavior was so egregious as to merit loss of position and lands, and there may be others who perished in the fighting without direct heirs. In general, I do not plan to replace reasonable and effective High Holders unless they give me cause. Some may lose a portion of their lands, as I see fit, depending on circumstances, but I believe these matters will sort themselves out over the next few months.”
“And choristers?” asked Amalyt.
“Unless a chorister incites against me or causes others to do so, I have no plans to replace choristers. I reserve the right to do so, but would only do so for cause.”
Amalyt offered a nod that was as much grudging as accepting.
“Might I inquire as how you plan to rule both Bovaria and Telaryn?” Chamion glanced from Deucalon to Bhayar.
“As one land, with the same laws for both … in time, of course. Anything else would not be fair.” Bhayar laughed musically. “Anything else wouldn’t work well for long, either.”
After another three courses, a dessert of pear tarts, and a sparkling wine … and more questions and much carefully worded conversation, Bhayar eased back his chair, then rose. “Chorister Amalyt, Councilor Chamion … it was a pleasure to get to know you. I trust that we will all be able to work together to assure that the future is more promising than the past.”
“That would be our hope as well,” replied Chamion.
Amalyt merely nodded and said, “Lord Bhayar.”
After the two Bovarians had departed, Bhayar nodded for Deucalon, Quaeryt, and Vaelora to join him in the reception room, although once there, he did not seat himself.
“Marshal, what are your thoughts?”
“They’re like all functionaries. They’ll accept matters as they are going to be, and they won’t openly oppose you. For now, they won’t even do so behind closed doors. They will strive to position themselves favorably.” Deucalon cleared his throat. “You’ve never said about High Holders…”
“That’s because we don’t have a complete accounting yet. It appears as though close to fifty High Holders were killed in the battle of Variana and the aftermath. Most died when the Chateau Regis froze solid.” Bhayar smiled. “That worked out rather well, because the majority of those were those closest and most loyal to Kharst.”
“From what I observed during the campaign,” said Quaeryt, “those most loyal to Kharst would most likely be High Holders of the kind least disposed to an honest and direct ruler.”
“Deucalon,” said Bhayar, nodding to the marshal, “and I made similar observations from what we saw. That is another reason for dispatching Submarshal Myskyl to the north and west and Submarshal Skarpa to the south. Until they return, we will not know how many high holdings there are in which we will have to replace the holder. There will certainly be those who will need to be replaced with more reliable and loyal High Holders. Such replacement will have to wait until all is largely settled, but it will happen.”
“I can see that,” said Deucalon, “and I am glad t
o hear it.”
“I’m sure you can, and I’ll be taking your counsel in that.” Bhayar smiled at Deucalon. “I’ll be walking back to my quarters with Vaelora and Quaeryt.”
“Yes, sir.” Deucalon smiled politely, bowing slightly before turning and departing.
“That went about as well as it could have,” observed Bhayar.
“You’ve been having dinners like that for weeks?” said Quaeryt.
“Not every evening, but more than I’d like. How are your imagers doing?”
“They all recovered far more quickly than I did. Would you like me to see if they can make some repairs to Amalyt’s anomen?”
“If it does not strain them for the journey west.”
“Are you sending them all with me because I’ll need them, or because you want to see how matters are here without us around?”
Bhayar shrugged. “There are reasons. Those are some of them. Imagers are another form of power. I’d like to believe that they’re the kind of power the Pharsi can respect.”
“Once the imagers are settled, they should wear gray.”
“Settled?” The Lord of Telaryn raised his eyebrows.
“On the isle of piers,” Quaeryt reminded Bhayar.
“Gray?” Bhayar frowned.
“The black of mourning mixed with the white of ice. Call it a reminder of what the excesses of imaging can do. The imagers will need that reminder. So will a few others.”
Bhayar looked at his sister. “He doesn’t give up, does he?”
“You wouldn’t be here, dear brother, if he were a man who did.”
Bhayar winced at the polite chill in Vaelora’s voice. “I can see I’m outnumbered.” He laughed softly. “The isle of piers and gray uniforms it is, but only after you and I-and Vaelora-are all agreed that matters are settled. Is that all?”
“For now,” said Quaeryt cheerfully.
“I fear I may hear that from you two for some time.”
“It was your idea that we wed,” said Vaelora sweetly.
“It was a good idea,” replied Bhayar, “but even the most beautiful rose has thorns, and the most useful knife can slice the user.” He walked toward the door. “Tell me what you expect from the Pharsi while we walk back to our quarters.”
“They will expect to be treated with respect, and most likely, as you pointed out, many of those on the High Council will be women. They will be leery of a strange Pharsi officer from Telaryn, but Vaelora will help…”
By the time they reached the landing leading up to their tower chamber, where they parted with Bhayar, Quaeryt felt he had offered more qualifications and generalizations and fewer concrete observations and expectations than he would have preferred. He said little more until he and Vaelora were alone in their sitting room.
“I was surprised that he actually accepted my suggestions about Myskyl and Skarpa. I’m even more surprised that he mentioned what he’d done at dinner.”
“Oh? How do you think he could admit you were right without actually saying so?”
“There is that. But I’ve never thought of myself as a great speaker.”
“You? After giving all those wonderful homilies?”
“Homilies are different from conversations at dinners involving matters of state where every word and expression is weighed and analyzed.”
“You remind me of Rholan,” said Vaelora.
“Me?”
“Wait a moment.” She walked to the table that held the small brown leatherbound volume and began to leaf through it. “Here. Just listen to this.”
Quaeryt listened.
“To hear Rholan converse, one would never have guessed at his power when he spoke to believers or to deliver a homily. Some years back, when Rholan was visiting the small hamlet of Korisynt on the lands of High Holder Klaertyn, the people gathered to hear Rholan, and they petitioned him to beg for flour from the High Holder, for drought and burning heat had scorched their fields. They had already been refused by Klaertyn, who claimed that he had no flour or grain to spare. Klaertyn heard that the people had gathered, and he rode down to the hamlet with a score of armsmen to disperse them. When they saw the High Holder, they once more begged for flour so that they could have bread, and again he said he had none.
“Then Rholan stepped forward and said to Klaertyn in that strangely powerful voice, ‘Tell your people that you have no grain for them, or no flour. Tell them, when this very day you have sold barrels of fine flour to the factors of Cloisonyt. Tell them that your armsmen did not see this.’ Klaertyn could not say such without branding himself a liar. So he made the best of it, and told the people of the hamlet that his steward would deliver barrels of flour on the morrow. And he did. But he never forgot, and, subsequently, when an outbreak of the Red Death struck Korisynt, leaving no family unscathed, and some with no survivors at all, High Holder Klaertyn removed the survivors, razed all the structures, and planted saplings, primarily oaks and goldenwoods, so that by the time of his grandsons, no one would know that such a town had ever existed, and already, as I write this, few remember, and some choristers believe that Rholan made up the entire incident.”
When Vaelora finished, she looked at her husband. “You see?”
“I’m not Rholan.”
“No … you could be more … if you let Bhayar claim much of the credit for what you do.”
Quaeryt decided to let her have the last word on that … because, much as it sometimes galled him, he knew she was right. So he put his arms around her and embraced her gently, holding her silently for a long, long time.
5
Sunlight poured in through the small leaded panes of the tower window on Vendrei morning barely after dawn. The diffused illumination turned the top of the ancient oak bedstead a dark gold, a gold Quaeryt had restored from the white to which his semiconscious imaging had turned everything around him after the battle. He still wasn’t certain that their chambers looked as they once had, although he had needed to re-image the finish of the stone walls and the floor more than once to meet Vaelora’s standards.
Quaeryt turned slightly, reaching for her, only to find that she already had moved to a sitting position in the wide bed and was propping another pillow behind her back.
Quaeryt smiled broadly at her.
“Not this morning, dearest. My back is aching, and I’m sore all over. No one mentioned that those sorts of things happened when you’re with child.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he admitted.
“Both Bhayar and Deucalon were eager to mention you are an imager, but neither mentioned that you had acted as a chorister? Bhayar even made sure that never came up.”
“You know exactly what that means, devious woman.”
“Me? Devious? How could you say that? I was the one who approached you in the beginning, was I not?”
“I stand corrected. Perhaps you’d prefer ‘deceptively direct,’ dear one?”
Vaelora laughed, that low husky sound that Quaeryt had always liked. “For all that you protest, dearest, you do have a way with words … and not just in delivering homilies.”
“I wish you were receptive to my other ways…” Quaeryt grinned, mock-lasciviously.
Vaelora arched both eyebrows. “What are your plans for the day?”
“I have to plan for the day?” When Vaelora only replied with a despairing look, Quaeryt finally answered her question. “I will rise, wash up, dress, eat breakfast, and proceed from there.”
“What about the nineteen glasses you’ve left out?”
“And when I finish, I’ll try to get seven solid glasses of sleep.”
“Dearest…”
Because that long-drawn out word was not an endearment, Quaeryt capitulated. “I need to meet with the imager undercaptains individually, especially Khalis and Lhandor. Skarpa and I also need to talk over the arrangements for travel for nine-odd regiments. If the day goes the way they usually do, I’ll discover more that I will have to deal with. Oh … and I may send imagers to rep
air an anomen.” He smiled as cheerfully as he could. “What about you?”
“Trying to get the estate seamstress to sew some riding clothes that will fit me in the months ahead.”
“In three days?”
“I can be persuasive, you’ve always said.”
“That you are, and you’ve persuaded me that it’s time to get up.” Quaeryt did not quite bound from the bed.
“Of course, dearest.”
Quaeryt didn’t bother hiding the wince, especially since Vaelora left the bed in a movement carrying hints of a flounce … and disapproval.
Washing up and dressing were accomplished with polite phrases.
Early as they were in getting to the small breakfast room that served only the three of them, Bhayar was getting up from the table when Quaeryt and Vaelora appeared.
“You’re up earlier today.”
“Quaeryt is feeling much more energetic these mornings,” said Vaelora brightly.
This time, Quaeryt managed not to wince.
Bhayar laughed. “I’ve heard those words from someone else. At least, you’re still talking to each other. Or should be.” With a smile he glanced at Quaeryt. “We’ll talk before I have dinner. I’m entertaining several High Holders from the northeast of Variana-at their request.”
“After you sent an indirect invitation?” Quaeryt doubted any Bovarian High Holder would request a meeting with Bhayar without some indication of receptivity and personal safety.
“Something like that.”
“You’d like to see me at fifth glass?”
“Around then.”
Once Bhayar had left them alone in the breakfast chamber, Vaelora said quietly, “You are fortunate, dearest, that I am slightly more forgiving than Aelina … but only slightly.”
“I’ve always said I was fortunate in you,” Quaeryt murmured in reply, breaking off what else he might have said as the serving girl appeared with two mugs.
“Tea, sir and Lady?”
“Please,” said Vaelora.
Quaeryt nodded, then added, after the server had set the mugs before them and departed to bring breakfast, “Very fortunate, but it is difficult at times not to appreciate you excessively.”
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