“And you expect me to believe you decided to accept the convent’s stipulations solely on the basis of cold calculation. Is that it, Your Majesty?”
“No, but if doing what I think is the right thing works out to be the same thing I would have decided to do if I had calculated coldly, I’m not going to object,” Sharleyan replied serenely.
“I’m relieved to hear that you have your priorities in order, Your Majesty,” Father Carlsyn said dryly, and Sharleyan chuckled.
“I’m glad you’re relieved, Father. On the other hand, I was scarcely likely to come up with any other answer where my confessor might overhear it, was I?”
“Except that such duplicitous thinking would never occur to someone who’s had the advantage of my spiritual counsel for so long, Your Majesty,” he replied tranquilly.
“Oh, of course not,” she agreed, then looked back at Gairaht. “At any rate, Wyllys, the convent’s rules are the convent’s rules, and I don’t intend to argue with them.”
“And how many years has it been since you put yourself to bed?” the commander of her guard detail demanded.
“If you want to be technical about it, I don’t suppose I ever have . . . except on religious retreats. Which, I suppose I could point out, if I were the sort of person who liked to repeat herself, is what this particular excursion happens to be, now isn’t it?”
“And you expect me to believe Sairaih was happy to hear about this, Your Majesty?” the captain asked skeptically.
“While I realize this may be difficult to believe, Wyllys, Sairaih has learned to accept—unlike certain Imperial Guard officers I might mention, if I were the sort of person who did that—that upon occasion I may actually decide to set my royal dignity aside. And, amazingly enough, she doesn’t argue with me about it.”
Gairaht might have growled something under his breath, but if he had, he’d done it quietly enough Sharleyan could pretend she hadn’t heard it. And at least he hadn’t called her on her bald-faced lie. While it might technically be true that Sairaih Hahlmyn hadn’t said anything against her imperial charge’s decision to leave her behind aboard HMS Dancer, she’d certainly found ample opportunity to make her feelings clear. She probably could have supported herself quite comfortably as an actress, assuming she could have resisted the temptation to overact. Which, judging by this morning’ performance, was unlikely.
“I at least wish Lady Mairah were here,” the captain said aloud.
“And if she hadn’t taken that tumble and broken her leg when she and Uncle Byrtrym went riding, she would have been,” Sharleyan pointed out.
“You could have asked one of the other court ladies—” he began.
“I’m going to be just fine, Wyllys,” she said firmly. “And I don’t intend to spend all night arguing with you about it.”
He gave her one more disapproving glance, then drew a deep breath, puffed out his mustache for a moment, and nodded.
The empress shook her head affectionately. Like most of her guardsmen—and, of course, Sairaih—Gairaht was far more sensitive to the demands of her royal dignity than she was. Perhaps that was because it was “her” royal dignity—well, imperial dignity, these days—and not theirs. She’d learned very early that she couldn’t afford to allow her dignity to be undermined by the real or apparent slights of others. Whether or not she wanted to be hypersensitive in such matters was actually beside the point, given the importance of appearances in the world of political calculations. Yet a reputation for humility could also be valuable, under the appropriate circumstances, and the opportunity to step back from her persona as queen or empress, even briefly, was literally beyond price. That was one reason she’d been fond of occasional religious retreats ever since the day she’d assumed the throne of Chisholm. The opportunity to slip the day-to-day secular demands of her crown and spend some time contemplating the demands of her soul, instead, had always been welcome. And the opportunity to stop standing upon her dignity, however fleetingly, had been almost equally welcome.
Gairaht and Seahamper knew that as well as she did, and they’d had conversations very like this one many times in the past. It was an old and familiar topic, and her uncle always tended to weigh in on their side, shaking his head and wondering rhetorically why she hadn’t simply gone ahead and taken vows herself.
She smiled at the memory, but the smile was brief as she remembered their estrangement. He hadn’t accompanied her to Saint Agtha’s, although she’d invited him, hoping the opportunity might draw them closer once more. His refusal had been polite but firm, and she wondered if it would have hurt less if she hadn’t suspected that he’d sensed the same possibility . . . and wanted to avoid it.
They arrived at the guesthouse, and she reached out to lay an affectionate hand on Gairaht’s arm.
“You, Wyllys Gairaht, are a fussbudget,” she told him.
“As Your Majesty says.” The stiffness in the guardsman’s voice was belied by the twinkle in his eye, and she squeezed his mailed forearm.
“Exactly. I’m the Empress around here, after all. And, I assure you, I’ll manage just fine in my lonely little convent cell. If I should suddenly discover that I’m physically incapable of getting myself into bed, I know that all I have to do is call out and my stalwart guardsmen will charge fearlessly to my rescue.”
“Your Majesty, physical danger is something any guardsman is pledged to face on your behalf,” Gairaht said gravely. “I’m afraid helping you prepare for bed isn’t.”
“Coward.” She smiled, then took her hand from his elbow, and glanced at her confessor.
“Are you ready for bed, Father?” she asked, and he nodded.
“There, you see, Wyllys? I’ll have at least one loyal soul close at hand if I should suffer some terrible nightmare!”
“And I’m very happy for you, Your Majesty,” he assured her.
“Thank you,” she said, and stepped through the guesthouse door. The priest stayed long enough to exchange commiserating smiles with her armsmen, then followed her inside and closed the door behind him.
Gairaht and Seahamper exchanged silent but eloquent glances of their own, then shrugged as one.
“Captain, you’re not going to change her at this date,” Seahamper pointed out.
“Of course I’m not, but she’d be disappointed if I stopped trying, and you know it!”
Seahamper chuckled, then looked around the convent grounds.
Saint Agtha’s was located in the Styvyn Mountains above the Earldom of Crest Hollow’s Trekair Bay, on the narrow isthmus dividing Howell Bay from the Cauldron. The voyage from the capital aboard Captain Paitryk Hywyt’s fifty-six-gun galleon HMS Dancer had been a welcome diversion. The ride up the narrow, twisting track which served Saint Agtha’s and the farmsteads around it had been rather more strenuous, but still enjoyable, and the convent’s elevation was sufficient to actually give the gathering evening a bit of a bite.
Probably just my imagination, the sergeant thought. I’m a northern boy, and I think I’ve been away from home way too long if this feels chilly to me!
“Any special concerns, Sir?” he asked Gairaht after a moment.
“No, not really,” the captain replied, carrying out his own survey of the convent. “In some ways, I wish she’d listened to the Duke and brought along even more men, but I think we’re in pretty good shape, Edwyrd.”
“Yes, Sir,” Seahamper agreed.
“All right, then,” Gairaht said more briskly. “I’ll make one more check of the perimeter, then hand over to the Lieutenant and turn in. Call me if you need me.”
“Yes, Sir,” Seahamper said, exactly as if Gairaht hadn’t told him exactly the same thing scores of times before. The captain smiled at him, then headed out into the gathering dusk.
Thunder rumble-grumbled from the west, and Seahamper grimaced. It rained a lot in Charis, especially by the standards of someone who’d grown up in Chisholm. From the sound of things, it intended to do some more of that raining tonight.
br />
Wyllys Gairaht heard the same sound of thunder as he stepped out through the convent’s open gate, nodded to the ten men posted there with Lieutenant Hahskyn, his Charisian-born second-in-command, and turned to his right.
The ancient stone wall around the convent proper was more for privacy than any sort of genuine security. He was glad enough to see it, he supposed, but it would have been far more useful if it had been either a little shorter or else enough wider and taller that he could have put men on top of it. As it was, it was just high enough that the men on the outside were effectively separated from those on the inside, and that they’d have to use one of the three gateways to get past it in any sort of a hurry.
The main gate, in the southern wall, was wide enough for heavy freight wagons. There were smaller, merely human-sized gates in the western and northern walls, and all three of them had stood open when the Imperial Guard’s advance elements had arrived. They’d promptly collected the keys to the smaller gates from the abbess, who had surrendered them readily enough. However intractable she might be about the convent’s rules where servants were concerned, she clearly understood the realities of providing proper security for her empress. And, Gairaht reflected gratefully, despite the fact that she’d been the abbess of Saint Agtha’s for almost twenty years, she was obviously one of the Charisians who had enthusiastically embraced the Church of Charis, as well. He’d been more than half afraid they’d been going to encounter someone with Temple Loyalist sympathies.
He reached the corner of the wall, made another right, and started through the fruit orchard outside the western wall. The abbess had been a bit dismayed by the size of Empress Sharleyan’s guard detail. Convents weren’t exactly accustomed to playing host to men with weapons, and her housing arrangements hadn’t been up to the arrival of eighty armed and armored Imperial Guardsmen. She’d attempted to hide her dismay when they turned up, but she’d obviously had no idea where to put them, and she’d gratefully accepted Gairaht’s suggestion that perhaps his men might camp in the meadow just beyond the orchard. A deep, rapidly flowing stream offered plenty of fresh water, and the location was convenient to the convent’s inner grounds by way of the smallish western gate. The fact that its location also happened to give some additional security to that gate was simply a welcome side effect.
At the moment, half the detail was preparing to settle down in tents and bedrolls. In six hours, they’d be roused to relieve the duty watch, and he hoped their ability to sleep wouldn’t find itself too sorely taxed if the evening’s weather turned as interesting as it was threatening to do. No guardsman would ever be encouraged to sleep too deeply, but adequate rest was important if they were going to stay alert in the middle of the night, and thunderstorms were seldom exactly restful for men sleeping in canvas tents.
The eight-man watch on the western wall was satisfyingly difficult to spot. Two of its men were easy enough to find, openly sweeping back and forth along the foot of the wall with their bayoneted rifles on their shoulders. The other six, however, had found proper concealment, allowing them to maintain their over-watch without revealing their own positions to anyone who might happen by. The sergeant in charge of the detail emerged from the shrubbery to salute as Gairaht walked by, and the captain returned the courtesy.
The northern wall’s duty section was equally alert, equally focused on its responsibilities, and Gairaht felt a deep pride in all of his men. Half of them were Chisholmians; the other half were native-born Charisians, and without actually hearing their accents it would have been impossible for any outsider to pick them out from one another. There’d been a certain amount of friction when the guard details were combined to form the new Imperial Guard, but these were all elite troops. They’d settled down quickly, united by their responsibilities and their pride in the fact that they’d been found worthy to guard the empress from harm.
He started his swing along the eastern wall, heading back towards the southern wall and the main gate. This was the shortest of the convent’s walls, and he was just as happy that it was. The last of the sunset’s bloody light, oozing ominously through the narrow chink between the storm clouds and the Styvyns’ summits, was fading quickly, and the trees on this side of the convent—mature-growth forest which had never been logged off, unlike the neatly ordered fruit trees of the orchard—stood back fifty or sixty yards from the wall. The shadows underneath them were already impenetrable, and they loomed like a dark, vaguely sinister barrier, or some sort of crouching monster. The thought made Gairaht uncomfortable, and he brushed it aside impatiently as he finished checking the last post on that side and headed for the front gate.
You’ve got entirely too active an imagination, Wyllys, he told himself firmly. That’s probably better than being too stupid to worry about the obvious, but it’s not exactly—
The steel-headed arbalest bolt that came hissing out of the darkness under those trees struck him squarely in the throat and interrupted his thoughts forever.
. XIII .
A Farmhouse near Saint Agtha’s,
Earldom of Crest Hollow,
Kingdom of Charis
Bishop Mylz Halcom forced himself to sit serenely at the roughly made table in the farmhouse a mile and a half from the Convent of Saint Agtha. What he really wanted to do was to pace furiously back and forth, expending physical energy in an attempt to work off the nervous tension coiling deep within him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do that.
If all was going according to plan, the attack on the convent would be beginning shortly, and he closed his eyes in a brief, silent, heartfelt prayer for the men out there in the gathering darkness who had accepted God’s stern demands. The irony of the fact that such a brief time before he would have been horrified at the very thought of praying for success in a mission like this one wasn’t lost upon him.
“My Lord, we have a . . . visitor.”
Halcom opened his eyes and looked up quickly as the tension in Ahlvyn Shumay’s voice registered. His aide stood in the farmhouse kitchen door, and his expression was anxious.
“What sort of visitor, Ahlvyn?” he made himself ask calmly.
“Me, My Lord Bishop,” another voice replied, and Halcom’s eyebrows shot up as the Duke of Halbrook Hollow pushed past Shumay.
“Your Grace,” the bishop said after several taut, silent seconds, “this is not wise.”
“With all due respect, My Lord, I’m not all that concerned with ‘wise’ when we’re talking about my niece’s life,” Halbrook Hollow replied flatly.
“And how do you intend to explain your presence here, Your Grace?”
“I won’t have to. Everyone knows Sharleyan and I don’t see eye-to-eye politically any longer. No one’s going to be surprised that I preferred not to sit around in Tellesberg when she was away. After all, it’s not as if I have a lot of friends there, is it? Officially, I’m visiting Master Kairee, and the two of us are staying at his hunting lodge. I’ll be back there and waiting by the time official word can reach me.”
“My Lord, you’ve run too many risks.” Halcom’s voice was even flatter than Halbrook Hollow’s had been. “How many people know you’re here?”
“Only a handful,” the duke replied impatiently. “Kairee, my personal armsmen, and the crew of the schooner that brought me.”
“Excuse me, My Lord,” Shumay put in, momentarily drawing both of the older men’s eyes to him, “but His Grace used Sunrise.”
Halcom’s eyes narrowed for a moment. Then he tossed his head in an odd cross between a shrug and a nod as he realized Halbrook Hollow hadn’t been—quite—as rash as he’d originally believed.
Traivyr Kairee’s unhappiness over the sudden infusion of questionable innovations which had flooded Charis, his matching unhappiness and disgust with Cayleb’s and Maikel Stayinair’s decision to openly defy the Temple and the Grand Vicar’s authority, and his wealth and political prominence had all combined to make him one of Halcom’s first, cautious contacts when the bishop arrived
in Tellesberg. He’d responded quickly and firmly, with a fierce promise of support, and he’d also accepted Halcom’s direction and moderated his open, public anger and disgust. Neither of them had been foolish enough to think he could suddenly pretend he actually supported all of the blasphemous changes taking place around him, but he’d made it abundantly and firmly clear that he had no intention of trying to fight them. As he’d said publically on more than one occasion, the Kingdom was committed now, whether wisely or not, and to pretend otherwise would have been treasonous.
Of course, what he hadn’t said aloud was that he was perfectly prepared to be treasonous, and he’d also followed through on his initial promises of support. The portions of his wealth he and Halcom had carefully diverted through “charitable donations” to the churches and monastic communities which shared his religious views, like Saint Hamlyn’s in Rivermouth, had become a critically important element in the bishop’s ability to successfully create, supply, and arm his Temple Loyalist organization.
Halcom hadn’t been entirely happy about the fact that Kairee and Halbrook Hollow had become open friends, but he’d realized that the relationship had its advantages, as well as its drawbacks. And given the fact that the duke’s unhappiness with his niece’s marriage and policies was well known, it had probably been inevitable that someone as wealthy and politically prominent as Kairee, who was known to share his unhappiness, should become one of his relatively few friendly associates in Charis. Neither man was prepared to openly condemn their monarchs’ policies, but there had to be a perfectly understandable “comfort zone” in their shared views. Besides, Halbrook Hollow had invested heavily in Kairee’s various enterprises, and the two of them shared many of the same interests in horses and hunting, and Kairee had made his hunting lodge available to introduce his new friend to the game animals of Charis. In the end, Halcom had decided that Kairee was right; it would have looked even more suspicious if the two men hadn’t become friends. And since everyone knew they were both avid hunters, the duke’s decision to visit Kairee’s lodge once again, especially while the empress was out of town anyway, was actually perfectly reasonable. Or would have been if the timing had been a bit different, at any rate.