A Mighty Fortress (122 page)

He snorted a laugh, took another sip, then stood and crossed back to the study door. He opened it and looked out at the sentry outside it.

“I need some messengers, Corporal.”

“Of course, Sir! How many?”

“Well, let me see. I need one to Sir Charlz Doyal, one to my father, one to Earl Tartarian, and one to Viceroy General Chermyn.” The corporal’s eyes had widened a bit farther with each name, but he only nodded, and Gahrvai smiled at him. “Tell Major Naiklos I said to pick good, reliable men he knows will keep their mouths shut. I’ll have notes for them to deliver by the time they can assemble here. Oh, and find Yairman Uhlstyn. I’ll want him . . . and he’ll want to be here.”

“Yes, Sir!” the sentry said, and dashed off down the hallway. Gahrvai watched him go, then went and sat behind his desk, pulled several sheets of stationery out of a drawer, dipped a pen, and began writing.

“What’s this all about, Koryn?” Sir Rysel Gahrvai grumbled as he marched into the meeting chamber. “I’d just settled in for the evening when your man came thundering on the front door!”

“I apologize for disturbing you, Father, but something’s come up.”

“Damn it, you
know
how I hate those words!” the Earl of Anvil Rock groused, crossing to his chair at the council table. “
‘Something’
has been
‘coming up’
at the most inconvenient possible moment for the last two damned
years
!”

He plunked himself down, leaned back, and regarded his eldest son and the apple of his eye with remarkably scant favor. His august and trusted fellow councilor, Earl Tartarian, chuckled, and Anvil Rock turned his glower upon him.

“I suppose you think this is humorous?” he demanded, his tone irate, although there might have been just a spark of amusement in his eyes. “I happen to know that you usually stay up until all hours, anyway, instead of going to bed at a
sane
hour. You probably hadn’t even had supper yet when this young jack-anapes’ note reached you!”

“Of course I hadn’t,” Tartarian soothed. “What ever you like, Rysel. And now, if you’ve got that out of your system, perhaps we could get down to business?”

“Spoilsport,” Anvil Rock muttered, but he also turned his attention back to his son. “All right, Koryn,” he said in quite a different tone. “What is it?”

“I just received a note of my own, Father,” Gahrvai replied. “The one
Seijin
Merlin warned me I might be receiving.”

“Ah?” Anvil Rock sat up straighter, his eyes narrowing.

“You’re certain this is really from one of Merlin’s mysterious . . . assistants, Koryn?” Tartarian sounded a bit cautious, and Gahrvai didn’t blame him.

“I don’t see how anyone but another
seijin
could have delivered it the way it was delivered.” Gahrvai shrugged. “It was on my desk in my locked study when I walked in after dinner, My Lord. And there’s enough sensitive material in that study that it’s under guard day and night. But
someone
got in, anyway. I’m not going to say it would have been
impossible
for someone other than a
seijin
to pull that off, but it would certainly have been difficult. And Charlz”— he twitched his head towards the foot of the table, where Charlz Doyal was poring over the letter even as he spoke—“is confident what he’s seen so far is genuine. You know we’ve been doing a little checking of our own ever since
Seijin
Merlin warned us about this ‘Northern Conspiracy’ of his. We haven’t wanted to overset any potato carts or step on any of the
seijin
’s . . . associates’ toes, so we haven’t pushed too hard. Everything we’ve turned up, though, is consistent with this letter.”

“I see.” Tartarian looked at Anvil Rock. “Rysel?”

“If Koryn and Charlz are satisfied it’s genuine, so am I.” Anvil Rock’s expression was as grim as Tartarian remembered ever having seen it. “And, to be honest, I’m just as glad to hear it. I
want
these bastards, Taryl. I want them badly.”

Gahrvai watched his father’s expression, as well, marveling at how Anvil Rock’s attitudes had altered since he’d unwillingly assumed the role of the absent Prince Daivyn’s regent. The earl was no happier than he had been at the notion that his princedom had been conquered by a foreign power, and as the man who’d commanded Prince Hektor’s army, he continued to take that conquest as a personal failure. At the same time, however, it was obvious he’d come to genuinely accept that the Charisian occupiers were doing their best to be no more repressive than they had to. And, Gahrvai knew, little though his father cared to admit it, Anvil Rock had grudgingly, against his will, fighting every inch of the way, come to accept that Cayleb of Charis and Sharleyan of Chisholm were better rulers than Hektor had been, as well.

Oh,
how
he fought that one!
Gahrvai thought ruefully.
It really stuck in his craw. And I suppose I understand that, too. They were cousins, and here at home, at least, Hektor always tried to ride with a light rein. But you were too close to him, Father, weren’t you? You knew what he was like when it came to the “great game.” Just like you knew—as well as I did—who really started the conflict between Corisande and Charis. And it wasn’t Haarahld, was it?

Even now Sir Koryn Gahrvai wasn’t even tempted to think of his father as a Charisian partisan. In fact, the mind boggled at the concept. But, especially since Archbishop Maikel’s visit, Anvil Rock had at least accepted that Charis was trying to make a bad situation better. And, Gahrvai suspected, while the earl might not yet have worked his way around to considering himself a Charisian subject, he
had
found himself much more firmly in agreement with the
Church
of Charis’ doctrine—and the growing support that doctrine was finding among Corisande’s own Reformists—than he’d ever anticipated.

Which is the real reason you want “those bastards,” Father,
Gahrvai thought affectionately.
Because you don’t trust them as far as you could spit upwind. Because you know damned well people like Craggy Hill and Barcor and Zebediah
aren’t
trying to make a bad situation better . . . unless they can do better for
themselves
in the process
.

“Your note said you were informing the Viceroy General?” his father said, and he nodded.

“Yes, Father.” He shrugged slightly. “First, because it was my responsibility to inform him, and, second, because I figured it was entirely possible he was going to get a note of his own.” Gahrvai smiled crookedly. “Under the circumstances, it seemed the most prudent thing to do. Although I did tell him I’d be meeting with you and Earl Tartarian and that you two would advise him of the Regency Council’s decision in this matter.”

“Tactful sort, aren’t you?” his father observed, then looked at Tartarian. “Well, Taryl, I don’t see that we have a lot of ‘deciding’ to do here, despite Koryn’s efforts to spare our feelings. And I’m not sure I see any reason to go convening the entire Council, either. This clearly comes under the executive authority of the Crown, which is presently vested in me as Regent. Besides, we have—as Koryn just pointed out—an obligation to inform Chermyn and cooperate with him fully in this matter.” He grimaced. “Comes with all those oaths the bunch of us and Parliament swore to Cayleb and Sharleyan. Would you agree?”

“With the observation that nobody in Zion or the Temple is ever going to accept those oaths as binding, yes,” Tartarian said mildly.

“Huh!” Anvil Rock snorted contemptuously and shook his head. “Of course they aren’t! But the truth is, Taryl, I’ve discovered I really don’t give a fart for the damned Group of Four anymore. This whole mess is that lizard-loving bastard Clyntahn’s fault in the first damned place. And ‘Grand Inquisitor’ or no, if
he
really gives a damn what God wants, I’m a frigging Harchong grand duke!”

Gahrvai’s eyes widened. Despite his own earlier thoughts about Anvil Rock’s attitude towards the Church of Charis, that was, by any mea sure, the strongest statement his father had ever made about the Temple’s current leadership. Yet even though he’d never expected to hear it, what surprised him the most was that he felt so
little
surprise when the words were actually said.

He looked at Tartarian and felt another little spasm of surprise, because Tartarian was actually
smiling
at Anvil Rock.

“Took you a little while to figure that out, did it, Rysel?”

“His mother”— Anvil Rock twitched a thumb in his son’s direction— “always did say I could be a little slow. But I’ll tell you this, Taryl, it’ll be a cold day in hell when you see someone like Grand Vicar Erek or that murderous ass-hole Clyntahn trekking all the way out to someplace like Corisande. You think they give a spider- rat’s arse what happens to us out here?”

“Of course not,” Tartarian said quietly. “I never did. On the other hand, I never thought there was any way to change that, either.”

“Well, neither did I, really,” Anvil Rock admitted. “And I didn’t think there was when Cayleb sailed over here from Old Charis and kicked our arses up between our ears, either. Religious reform? Dragon shit! Old- fashioned imperial politics with a new justification, that’s what it was, and I knew it. I’m still not entirely ready to give up on that interpretation, either, but . . .”

“But then there’s Archbishop Maikel, isn’t there?” Tartarian finished for him in a soft voice, and Anvil Rock nodded.

“There’s Archbishop Maikel, and there’s priests like Father Tymahn, and there’s the cold- blooded bastards who
murder
priests like Father Tymahn. Bastards like Zhaspahr Clyntahn, who murder
children
and call it ‘God’s will.’ ”

Muscles bunched in Anvil Rock’s jaw for a moment, and then he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and gave himself a shake. When he opened his eyes again, the jaw muscles had relaxed once more, and he smiled crookedly.

“I don’t think Cayleb Ahrmahk is the Archangel Langhorne come back in glory, but I
do
think he’s a basically good young man doing the best he can in one hell of a messy situation. A young man who refused to just roll over and die when the Group of Four decided to destroy his kingdom. I also think Clyntahn and the Inquisition have shown their true colors now. And I’ll tell you this right now, Taryl—I’ll side with anyone this side of Shan- wei herself who’s willing to stand up to someone like that.”

City of Telitha,

Telith Bay,

Earldom of Storm Keep,

Princedom of Corisande

There was nothing remarkable about the two merchant galleons lying to anchor well out from the harborside quays of the city of Telitha. They’d arrived separately, hours apart, one flying the house flag of a rather disreputable Manchyr trading house, and the other of Chisholmian registry. They’d anchored within a few hundred yards of one another, then proceeded to ignore each other as they awaited their own turns to go along quayside or lighter their cargo ashore.

Neither seemed in any particular hurry, since their skippers hadn’t made any special push to arrange to land their cargoes, but no one in Telitha cared particularly about that. In fact, no one in Telitha paid them the slightest mind as they lay there, a handful of men moving about their decks, watching darkness settle slowly over the bay. Lights began to glow here and there ashore—nothing like the illumination one might have seen out of Tellesberg or Cherayth, or even Manchyr, but glittering like beached stars nonetheless. They seemed even brighter to night than they might have been otherwise, since there happened to be no moon.

Complete darkness closed in, turning the galleons into all but invisible black blots against the only slightly brighter water. Stars came out overhead, briefly mirrored in the oily- smooth swell, but even as they appeared, cloud began sweeping in from the east.