Off Armageddon Reef (34 page)

“Langhorne,” Haarahld sighed, and covered his eyes with his hand. He sat that way for quite some time, then made himself straighten once more, lowered his hand, and looked at Gray Harbor.

“Oh, stand up, Rayjhis!” he half-snapped.

The earl's head came up once more, and Haarahld made an unhappy sound, halfway between a snort and something angrier.

“The
seijin
's right,” he said. “Yes, you were stupid and you violated your oath. And if you'd told me the way you should have, I would have done something equally stupid. Because, as
Seijin
Merlin says, I loved Kahlvyn. God forgive me, but I
still
love him. And he
would
have used that love to kill me and Cayleb, and probably Zhan and Zhanayt, as well.”

“Your Majesty, I—” Gray Harbor began, but Haarahld shook his head sharply.

“No. Don't say it. You're too valuable to me—to the Kingdom—to be permitted to resign your post. And however…unwisely—” The king smiled thinly, tightly at Merlin. “—you may have acted in this instance out of love, certainly you've also given me the strongest possible proof of your own loyalty. Terrible as this has been for me and for Cayleb, it will be even worse for you in the days to come. I can't do without a man willing to shoulder that much pain in the service of the oaths he swore to me and to my crown. So stand up, come over here, and sit where you belong. Now.”

Gray Harbor hesitated an instant longer, then stood a bit unsteadily, walked across to take his place at the council table, and seated himself. That left Merlin standing alone before the table, and Haarahld leaned back in his chair and gazed at him.

“And so to you,
Seijin
Merlin,” he said softly. “You carry deadly gifts.”

“I regret that,” Merlin said unflinchingly, “but I told you I'd give you the truth, Your Majesty.”

“You did, and you have.” Haarahld raised one hand in a little throwing-away gesture. “I thought truth was what I wanted to hear; now I know better. It isn't what I want to hear; it's only what I
need
to hear. It will be a long time before I can truly forgive you, or Rayjhis, or Bynzhamyn, or—especially—myself for what's happened tonight. But the truth is that you, and Rayjhis, have quite possibly saved my life, and my children's lives. And whether Kahlvyn's plans would have succeeded ultimately or not, you've unmasked and destroyed the most dangerous traitor in the entire Kingdom. And so, even though my heart cries out in anger, you aren't the proper target of that anger.”

Merlin bent his head, bowing silently, and Haarahld gave himself another shake.

“In addition,” he continued more briskly, “it would appear you've once again saved a valued servant of the Crown from assassination. And against even more formidable odds than before.”

He regarded Merlin with an intent expression, his eyes much closer to their normal piercing sharpness.

“I've glanced over Lieutenant Huntyr's preliminary report,
Seijin
Merlin. Fifteen armed and armored guardsmen, I believe he said. And while Kahlvyn may have been a traitor, he was an excellent judge of fighting men. Yet according to Lieutenant Huntyr, you went through fifteen of his picked men like a scythe through grass. Not to mention arriving—once again—at a most…opportune moment.”

He paused, obviously awaiting a response, and Merlin shrugged slightly.

“As I already told Prince Cayleb during supper, Your Majesty, I had a vision of the Earl. It was sufficient to alert me to the danger in which he was about to place himself, but I feared it would be impossible to convince anyone else the Duke was a threat to him or to the Crown. Or, at least, to convince anyone in time. So I went myself to do what I could.”

Cayleb stirred slightly at his father's side. Merlin glanced at him, one eyebrow slightly quirked, and the young man settled back into stillness.

“You went yourself,” Haarahld murmured, his attention so focused on Merlin that he paid no heed to the silent exchange with Cayleb. “And how, pray, did you manage to get out of Marytha's Tower and off the Palace grounds without so much as a single challenge from my reasonably competent Guards?”

“Your Majesty,” Merlin replied with an easy smile, “the night is dark, it's pouring down rain by the bucketful, I'm dressed entirely in black, and I came to you from the Mountains of Light, where there are many steep cliffs upon which to practice climbing. And, in all fairness to your Guards, none of them have the training and other advantages I have.”

Haarahld cocked his head to one side, and if he'd still been a being of protoplasm, Merlin would probably have held his breath. So far, nothing he'd said had been an actual lie, and he wanted badly to keep it that way.

“I suppose,” the king said finally, slowly, “that when a man can come crashing down through a skylight to a floor twenty-five feet below him and kill not just fifteen armed guardsmen but
sixteen
, including Rayjhis' supposed guardsman, it shouldn't be surprising if he can also scale palace walls like some sort of human fly. I feel, however, that I really ought to point out that you seem to be establishing a very difficult example for the next
seijin
to live up to.”

“That isn't my intention, Your Majesty,” Merlin replied. “In fact, I think it would be a very good thing if we could minimize my own part in this evening's events.”

“That might be just a bit difficult,” Wave Thunder observed dryly.

“And possibly pointless, as well,” Haarahld added.

“Difficult, perhaps, My Lord,” Merlin replied to the baron, “but not ‘pointless,' Your Majesty. If I may explain?”

“By all means, Master Traynyr,” Harold said, his tone even drier than Wave Thunder's had been, and Merlin surprised himself with a small chuckle.

“Master Traynyr” was a stock character out of the Safeholdian puppet theater tradition, a sort of symbol of yin and yang, although the terms were unknown on Safehold. The name was given to a character within the play who was usually a bumbling conspirator, someone whose elaborate plans always miscarried. But, in a sort of backhanded joke, it was also the traditional
nom de theatre
of the master puppeteer who controlled all of the marionette “actors.”

“Perhaps not Master Traynyr, Your Majesty,” he said, “but a conspirator of sorts, nonetheless. With the revelation of the Duke's treason and Lahang's murder by Nahrmahn's own man, all of Nahrmahn's and Hektor's other agents here in Charis are going to be in what might charitably be called a state of consternation. All of them, I'm certain, will be wondering if Baron Wave Thunder's agents are about to pounce on
them
, as well. And they're undoubtedly going to be wondering exactly how the Baron and his investigators tumbled to the Duke's involvement in the first place.

“I believe all of us are in agreement that concealing the existence and accuracy of my visions from Nahrmahn and Hektor is desirable on a great many levels. On the level of grand strategy, keeping your enemies unaware of the advantage those visions offer you will only make them even more advantageous. And it would probably be a very good idea to keep those who wish you ill from looking too closely at any of my other activities, as well. On a purely personal level, I would vastly prefer not to have to be perpetually on guard against the horde of assassins I'm sure the two of them would send after me to…negate that advantage.”

“I rather doubt any ‘horde of assassins' is going to succeed in killing
you
,” Haarahld observed. “So far, it's been rather the other way around, after all.”

“Any mortal man can be killed, Your Majesty. I'd like to think it would be somewhat harder to kill me than some, but at the very least, slaughtering assassins in job lots would be fatiguing. Not to mention a…distraction from all the other things I really ought to be doing.”

“I see.” For the first time since Merlin and Gray Harbor's arrival, there might actually have been a small flicker of amusement in the king's eyes. “And I'd hate to have you inconvenienced in that fashion, of course. But that brings us to the minor matter of Bynzhamyn's observation about the difficulty in concealing your modest part in this evening's activities.”

“I'd prefer not so much to conceal it as to downplay it, Your Majesty,” Merlin said in a more serious tone, “and your decision to name me as Cayleb's personal guard may make that easier. If you and Earl Gray Harbor are willing, I would prefer for the official version to be that Baron Wave Thunder's investigators became suspicious of the Duke after interrogating the single assassin we captured alive, not because of anything
I
may have said. After that, the Baron began a cautious investigation, and the Earl reacted much as he actually did, by going to the Duke and suggesting that it was imperative for him to clear his name of any suspicion. However, instead of taking only his personal guardsman, he requested that I accompany him, as well, which I did.”

“And why, precisely, did he request that?” Haarahld asked.

“Partly to help convince the Duke of the serious nature of the charges, Your Majesty. I was, after all, present when the assassination attempt failed. As such, my presence tonight might have helped to…rattle the Duke's nerve, if he'd been involved even peripherally with Nahrmahn. And also as an additional witness to anything which transpired.”

“That sounds a little thin to me,” Haarahld mused, then shrugged. “On the other hand, if we all say the same thing—and manage to keep our faces straight while we do it—we can probably make it stand up. So. Rayjhis has gone to visit Kahlvyn, and he's taken you along. And then?”

“When the Duke was confronted, he responded exactly as he actually did, Your Majesty, except that he'd brought only five of his own guardsmen into the library at that time. When they attempted to seize the Earl, his guardsman and I managed to prevent them from doing so and, in the process, killed or wounded most of them. At which point the Duke summoned the other ten men he'd had waiting outside the library door. In the ensuing fight, the Earl's guardsman was killed, but not before he, the Earl, and I—fighting together—had defeated the Duke's men. In the general chaos of the fight, the Duke himself was killed, after which the Earl summoned the Royal Guard—not surprisingly, considering that a member of the royal house had been killed—and Lieutenant Huntyr and his men responded.”

“Master Traynyr, indeed,” Haarahld said after a moment, then looked at Wave Thunder and Gray Harbor and raised both eyebrows.

“It cuts against the grain to turn Zhorzh into one of the heroes of this piece of fiction,” Gray Harbor said heavily, and shook his head. “I believed for years that he truly was that loyal to me. It would be hard to maintain a straight face knowing he was actually a traitor and died a traitor's death.”

“It may cut against the grain, Rayjhis,” Wave Thunder said, “but it also might just work. Aside from you and
Seijin
Merlin, the only one left alive who knows what
actually
happened is probably this Wyllyms, the Duke's majordomo. Even he wasn't there for the actual fight, although he does know you arrived without
Seijin
Merlin. He'll undoubtedly report that to Nahrmahn, but there's nothing we can do to prevent that, unless we manage to catch him before he gets back to Emerald, which, frankly, is unlikely, to say the least. All the same, I suspect Nahrmahn and Baron Shandyr are going to tend to discount the more outrageous rumors about the
seijin
, just as we would in their place. So they're going to know we're covering up
something
, but they won't know exactly what. And
Seijin
Merlin and the King are quite correct when they say his ability to see these ‘visions' of his will be even more valuable to us if no one else knows he can do it.”

“I think Merlin and Bynzhamyn have a point, Rayjhis,” Haarahld said. “And if it helps, think of it this way. Your man may have been a traitor, but this way his death will actually strike a blow against the very men for whom he actually worked.”

“Very well, Your Majesty.” Gray Harbor inclined his head once more, then gave Merlin a lopsided smile. “And I suppose, under the circumstances, that it's the very least I can do for
Seijin
Merlin in return for his saving my life after I'd openly accused him of being a traitor himself.”

“Then that's settled,” Haarahld said. “Bynzhamyn, I'll have a few words with Lieutenant Huntyr myself, just to ensure that his final report doesn't disagree with Merlin's…creativity.”

“That would probably be wise, Sire. In the meantime, I think Rhyzhard and I need to get back over to the office and decide which of Nahrmahn's other spies the Duke—or something we found in his papers—might have implicated. With your permission, I intend to prune back Nahrmahn's network rather severely.”

“Consider my permission granted,” Haarahld said grimly, then sat back in his chair and gazed speculatively at Merlin.

“Your Majesty?” Merlin said politely after several seconds, and Haarahld snorted.

“I was just thinking,
Seijin
Merlin.”

“Thinking, Your Majesty?” Merlin prompted obediently when the king paused.

“Thinking about how predictable and orderly life was before your arrival here in Tellesberg. I'm sure that, in time, we'll all adjust, but I hope you won't take it wrongly if I tell you I find myself more than a little terrified when I contemplate the future and reflect upon what's followed in your wake in the space of less than a single five-day. Especially because a part of me suspects the
real
chaos and confusion is yet to come.”

Merlin smiled crookedly and shook his head without speaking. There wasn't much other response he could have made.