How Firm a Foundation (94 page)

It wasn’t often Merlin Athrawes had the opportunity to simply sit and think, which made him value those rare chances even more when one of them came along. For the most part, he was far too visible (aside from those “retreats to meditate” which had become a more frequent part of his life of late) for something like this. If “
Seijin
Merlin” dropped out of sight, even briefly, people started
wondering where he was and what he was up to and, as a general rule, he tried very hard to avoid having people wonder about things like that.

In this instance, however, it was going to be necessary to explain how Captain Athrawes had gotten to the city of Talkyra. Or, to be more accurate, it was going to be necessary to allow time for him to have made the trip. Everyone knew
seijins
moved in
mysterious ways and at speeds few other mortals could match, so the exact details of his travel arrangements could be glossed over. But it still took them at least
some
time to make a journey of over six thousand miles, which was why he’d left Tellesberg five five-days earlier.

He’d spent most of that time in Nimue’s Cave, going over reports, discussing the events racing towards a violent confrontation
in the Republic of Siddarmark with the rest of the inner circle, refining the propaganda Owl’s remotes were distributing across all three continents, catching up on some reading, and working with Owl on a couple of private projects he’d been unable to give proper attention before.

In particular, he and the AI had the Class II VR unit almost up and running. Owl still didn’t have the specifications
he needed to build another PICA, and Merlin was no more enthusiastic than he had been about letting the computer take apart his own cybernetic housing to find out how it worked. But at least if he had to, he now had a refuge for his and Nimue’s memories and personality. A Class II VR wasn’t as big and capable as the massive virtual reality computers the Terran Federation had used as “homes” for
electronic iterations of their top R&D, military analysts, and pure researchers. It simply didn’t have the memory and the processing power to maintain two or three dozen fully aware personalities in detailed virtual environments indistinguishable (from the inside) from reality. A Class II could handle no more than three or, at the outside, four virtual personalities if it was going to give the
VPs a fully developed world in which to live. There’d be plenty of room for Nimue/Merlin, though. If worse came to worst, he could set up housekeeping in there even if “Seijin Merlin” became totally inoperable, and at least one other possible use had occurred to him, although he still wasn’t at all certain that one was going to work out.

In addition, he’d decided it was time to take advantage
of Commander Mahndrayn’s work with his breech-loading rifle and the percussion caps he’d developed for it, and he and Owl had used some of the free time to redesign his own sidearms. Those were going to come as a nasty surprise to someone—possibly sometime soon—he thought, and they wouldn’t violate a single clause of the Proscriptions. Father Paityr had already made that abundantly clear, although
none of the Empire’s gunsmiths had yet come up with the design he and Owl had built.

The truth was, though, that as much as he’d enjoyed having time to tinker and putter, he’d gotten bored. Unfortunately, he’d had no choice but to go on marking time for at least another five-day or two if he didn’t want to raise all sorts of eyebrows about the truly miraculous, not simply mysterious, speed with
which
Seijin
Merlin could cover distances of six or seven thousand miles. That was why he’d landed here in the mountains after Zhevons’ chat with Coris, sent the recon skimmer back to Owl, ordered his nannies to regrow
Seijin
Merlin’s hair, and then gone to standby mode for fifty minutes of every hour.

Of course, even with that, if anyone ever started adding up times, they were bound to come
to the conclusion that
seijins
must know some magic spell to give them command of wind and wave.

In theory, he’d sailed from the Earldom of West Harding, the Island of Charis’ westernmost headland, rather than Tellesberg, which had at least reduced the length of his supposed voyage to the Desnairian Empire’s Crown Lands from over ten thousand miles to “only” fifty-seven hundred. He’d actually
turned up in West Harding, publically (and noisily) “borrowed” a forty-foot single-masted schooner, and put to sea in order to make sure everyone “knew” how he’d gotten where he was going in the fullness of time.

That schooner, unfortunately, was now on the bottom of the Parker Sea. He regretted that. It had been a sweet little craft, and Nimue had always loved single-handing her sloop back on
Old Terra whenever she’d had the chance. In fact, he was increasingly irked with himself for having abandoned the schooner as quickly as he had. With so much time to kill, he might as well have spent some of it doing something he’d always enjoyed so much before.

You need a vacation
, he told himself.
Well, to be fair, I guess you
needed
a vacation. You’d really have to call the last month or so
something
like
a vacation, after all, but you’re just too damned contrary to actually take time
off,
aren’t you? Always have to be
doing
something. Everything depends on you.
He snorted mentally.
You need Sharley or Cayleb closer to hand to kick you in the butt when you get too full of your own importance
.

It was amazing how comforting it was to be able to think that. The loss of so many colleagues
left a special aching wound at the center of the theoretically immortal “
seijin
’s” heart, yet the inner circle had survived, even continued to grow. Best of all,
he
wasn’t indispensable any longer, and that was a greater relief than he’d ever imagined it might be. If something happened to him, the others would still have access to Owl and the technology hidden away in Nimue’s Cave. Not that he
planned on anything happening to him, of course. It was just—

“Excuse me, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”

Merlin twitched internally, although his physical body never moved, as Owl’s voice invaded his thoughts.

“Yes?”

“The sensor net deployed to cover Talkyra has reported a situation which programming parameters require me to call to your attention.”

“What sort of situation? No, scratch that.
I assume you have the raw take from the sensors for me, yes?”

“Affirmative, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”

“Then I suppose you’d better show it to me.”

*   *   *

“Tobys.”

Tobys Raimair looked up from the dagger edge he’d been carefully honing and cocked an eyebrow at the man who’d just poked his head into his spartan little bedchamber. Corporal Zhak Mahrys was one of his small guard force’s
noncoms. Normally a calm, almost phlegmatic sort, he looked more than a little anxious at the moment.

“What is it, Zhakky?”

“There’s something going on,” Mahrys said. “You know Zhake Tailyr?”

“Sure.” Raimair nodded; Tailyr was one of King Zhames’ guardsmen. He was also a drinking buddy of Mahrys’, and Raimair and Earl Coris had encouraged the corporal to pursue the friendship. “What about him?”

“He says there’s been a lot of going back and forth between Colonel Sahndahl’s office and Father Gaisbyrt’s office since lunchtime. A
lot,
Tobys.”

Raimair’s face stiffened. Father Gaisbyrt Vandaik was a Schuelerite upper-priest attached to Bishop Mytchail’s office in Talkyra.

“What kind of back and forth?” Raimair asked.

“Dunno. He said it was Brother Bahldwyn mostly, though … and Vandaik came
back to the castle with him about an hour ago.”

Better and better, Raimair thought. Bahldwyn Gaimlyn was attached to the king’s household—technically as a “secretary,” although there was precious little evidence King Zhames had requested his services.

“Did Tailyr have any idea what it was about?” he asked.

“If he did, he wasn’t telling me.” Mahrys looked even more concerned. “He’s somebody
to hoist a few beers with, Tobys, not my blood brother. He may know—or suspect—a lot he’s not telling me. On the other hand, at least he dropped some warning on me.”

Raimair nodded, although he had to wonder if Tailyr’s decision to “warn” Mahrys had really been his own. Raimair could think of a couple of scenarios in which a particularly devious Schuelerite—and they were
all
devious, sneaky,
underhanded bastards—might arrange to have a “warning” passed in order to manipulate someone he suspected into incriminating himself.

“Thanks, Zhakky,” he said now, standing and sliding the dagger into its belt sheath. “Pass the word to the rest of the lads. No one makes any moves, no one does anything to suggest we’re worried, but check your equipment and be sure you keep it handy. I want them
ready to move fast and hard if we have to. Got it?”

“Got it.” Mahrys nodded and disappeared, and Raimair walked down a short hallway, up a half-flight of stairs, and knocked on another door.

“Yes?” a voice responded.

“Could I have a minute of your time, My Lord?”

*   *   *

“I don’t know, Irys,” Phylyp Ahzgood said, looking out the turret window into the darkness. “
I
can’t think of any good
reason for Vandaik to be talking to Colonel Sahndahl. Or not any reason that would be good for
us,
anyway.”

“Can we go ahead and run now?” Irys asked, watching his back, seeing the tension in his shoulders.

“Maybe. But we weren’t
supposed
to run for another two days, and we don’t even know for sure what’s happening. Making a break for it now might be the worst thing we could do!” The frustration
in his voice was evident, and he turned to her with a sour expression. “I’m not used to having things like this sneak up on me.”

“I know you’re not,” Irys said with a lopsided smile. “And I count on it not happening. But you’re only human, Phylyp, and the truth is—”

“And the truth is,” a much deeper voice neither of them had ever heard before said calmly, “that everyone makes mistakes occasionally.
Even me.”

Irys and Coris whipped back around to the window just as a tall man with blue eyes, fierce mustachios, and a dagger beard swung lightly over the windowsill and into the room. The fact that they were three stories up and that the wall fell sheer from the window would have made that astonishing enough, but to make bad worse, the stranger wore the livery of the Charisian Imperial Guard
in the middle of the capital of the Kingdom of Delferahk.

The earl and the princess gaped at the apparition, and he bowed gracefully.

“Please excuse my unceremonious arrival,” he said, straightening from the bow and stroking his mustache. “Captain Merlin Athrawes, at your service.”

“But … but how—?”

The imperturbability of even a Phylyp Ahzgood had its limits, and the Earl of Coris couldn’t
seem to get the question finished. He only stared at the newcomer, and Merlin chuckled. Irys Daykyn was made of sterner stuff, though.

“Captain Athrawes,” she acknowledged, bending her head in a gracious nod. “I won’t say the Empire of Charis is especially near and dear to my heart, but at this moment, I’m
most
happy to see
you
.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” He bowed more deeply. “And please
accept Their Majesties’ greetings. They look forward to seeing you safely out of Delferahk.”

“And
into
Tellesberg, of course,” she riposted in a slightly barbed tone.

“Well, of course, Your Highness, but I’m trying not to be tacky,” Merlin murmured with a slight smile, and Irys’ lips quivered for just a moment. Then she cleared her throat.

“It would appear you’ve arrived at an opportune moment,
Seijin
Merlin,” she said then. “Of course, we don’t know
why
it’s an opportune moment or how you’ve managed to arrive at it, now do we?”

“In answer to the second half of your question, Your Highness, everyone insists on calling me a
seijin
, so it’s only reasonable I should act like one on occasion, including arriving at opportune moments. If I recall my fairy tales correctly,
Seijin
Kody did a
lot
of that sort of thing.” He smiled more broadly, but then his expression sobered. “And in answer to the question you and Earl Coris were discussing when I arrived—I hope you don’t mind that I spent a moment or two listening outside your window before I intruded—it turns out Master Seablanket wasn’t the only spy planted on you by the Inquisition, after all.”

“He wasn’t?” Coris came back to life,
his eyes narrowing. He sounded more than a little affronted by Merlin’s explanation, and Merlin smiled at him.

“It’s not really your fault, My Lord,” he said. “As you may know from your discussion with my friend Ahbraim, we
seijins
have our own means of gathering intelligence. That’s how I discovered Bishop Mytchail had decided to insert one of his own agents into King Zhames’ household to keep
an eye on you. He wasn’t instructed to, and his agent reports only to him, not to Rayno or Clyntahn, but I’m afraid he’s come to the conclusion that you’re … well, up to something. He doesn’t know
what,
but he’s decided it’s probably something you shouldn’t be doing. So he’s sent Father Gaisbyrt to order Colonel Sahndahl to take your own armsmen into custody and replace them with members of King
Zhames’ Guard … under Father Gaisbyrt’s direct command. Just for your own safety, of course.”

“And the King?” Irys asked, gazing at Merlin intently. “Is he party to all this?”

“No, and so far as I’m aware, neither is Baron Lakeland or Sir Klymynt,” Merlin told her. “On the other hand, none of them will attempt to overrule Bishop Mytchail, Your Highness. And, to be honest, you can’t really blame
them, can you?”

“My
heart
certainly can,
Seijin
Merlin!” she said tartly, but then she shook her head. “My head, unfortunately, can’t. Not knowing what that butcher Clyntahn would do to anyone who helped us slip out of his clutches.”