“Yes, Your Majesty,” Merlin replied, and stepped close enough to the window for both of them to see him. Seahamper’s bayonet point rose a little higher, and he seemed to settle even more solidly into place, but Sharleyan leaned around him, looking past him, and Merlin studied her expression with his enhanced vision.
She looked terrible, he thought. Her hair had slipped its elaborate coiffure and hung in random braids. Her face was smeared with blood and powder smoke, and her eyes were dark with the knowledge of how many men—men she’d known and cared about—had died to protect her. Yet even after all of that, the familiar sharp intelligence still lived in those eyes, as well. Despite shock, grief, loss, and now the fact that she was forced to confront the sheer impossibility of his own presence, she was still thinking, still attacking the problem before her rather than retreating in dazed confusion or denial.
My God, he thought. My God, did Cayleb luck out with you, lady!
“How—” Sharleyan paused and cleared her throat. “How can you be here, Merlin?” She shook her head. “Not even a seijin can be in two places at once!”
“No, Your Majesty. He can’t.” Merlin bowed slightly, still staying far enough back to avoid triggering any protective reaction on Seahamper’s part, and drew a deep breath. “Two hours ago, I was in Corisande, in my tent,” he told her.
“Two hours?” Sharleyan stared at him, then shook her head. “No, that isn’t possible,” she said flatly.
“Yes, it is,” he said, his tone compassionate. “It’s entirely possible, Your Majesty. It simply requires certain things you don’t know about . . . yet.”
“Yet?” She pounced on the adverb like a cat-lizard on a near-rat, and he nodded.
“Your Majesty, Cayleb doesn’t know I’m here. There wasn’t enough time for me to tell him and still get here soon enough to do any good. As it is, I was barely in time. The problem is that there are secrets not even Cayleb is free to share—even with you, as badly as he’s wanted to ever since you arrived in Tellesberg. How I got here, how I knew you were in danger, are part of those secrets. But despite all the reasons he hasn’t been able to tell you, I had to decide on my own authority whether to risk letting you learn about them or to stand by and do nothing while you were killed. I couldn’t do that. So now I have no choice but to tell you at least a part of the truth.”
“Your Majesty—” Seahamper began sharply.
“Wait, Edwyrd.” She touched him gently on his armored shoulder. “Wait,” she repeated, and her eyes seemed to bore into Merlin.
“No mortal man could have done what you’ve done, Seijin Merlin,” she said, after a moment. “The fact that you appeared so . . . miraculously to save my life—and Edwyrd’s—inclines me to feel nothing but gratitude for God’s miraculous,” she reused the word deliberately, “intervention. But there are other possible explanations.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, there are. And that’s precisely why the secrets of which I spoke are so carefully guarded. Charis’ enemies—your enemies—would immediately proclaim that my capabilities must be demonic and use that accusation to attack everything you and Cayleb hope to accomplish.”
“But you’re about to tell me they’d be wrong, aren’t you?”
“I am. On the other hand, I’m as aware as you are that even if I were a demon, I’d be telling you I’m not. I had this same conversation with Cayleb, before Darcos Sound, but he’d already known me for over a year by then. You haven’t. I know that will make any explanation I can give you even harder to believe and accept, but I beg you to at least try.”
“Seijin Merlin,” she said, her lips twisting wryly, “whatever you may be, I wouldn’t be alive to be having this conversation, or feeling any crisis of doubt, without your intervention. Edwyrd wouldn’t be hovering here, ready to stick a bayonet clear through you if he thought you intended to harm me, either, and that’s almost as important to me as all the rest of it. Under the circumstances, I suppose the least I can do is at least listen to what you have to say.”
Seahamper stirred slightly, but he kept his jaw clamped tightly.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Merlin said with the utmost sincerity. But then he shook his head with a snort. “Unfortunately, I don’t really have time to give you the complete story. It’s already daylight in Corisande, and no one—including Cayleb—knows where I am. I’ve got to get back there as quickly as possible.”
“You seem to be living an even more complicated life than I’d realized,” Sharleyan observed, and he chuckled.
“Your Majesty, you don’t know the half of it,” he told her. “I think you’re going to have to, though. Know, I mean. For now, I ask you to accept—tentatively, at least—that I’m neither an angel nor a demon. That the things I can do don’t violate any natural or sacred law, however the Inquisition might regard them. That I wish you and Cayleb well, and that I will do all in my power to serve and protect both of you. That there are other people, good and godly people, who know about me and my abilities. And—” he looked directly into her eyes “—that I will die before I allow men like Zhaspahr Clyntahn to go on using God Himself as an excuse to kill and torture in the name of their own ambition and perverted beliefs.”
“You’re asking me to accept, even if only ‘tentatively,’ a great deal,” Sharleyan pointed out.
“I know that. If you can, though, at least until you return to Tellesberg, I’ll try to prove the truthfulness of all I’ve just told you. I’ll admit now that I can’t ‘prove’ all of it, but if you’ll see to it that the balcony outside your quarters in the Palace is clear all night on your first night back in Tellesberg, I think I’ll be able to produce a friendly witness you’ll feel able to trust.”
“Cayleb?” she asked quickly, her face lighting, and Merlin nodded.
“Managing the arrangements so that he and I can both disappear for several hours without sending the entire army into a furor is going to be difficult, you understand. That’s one reason I can’t give you a specific hour for our arrival. But I feel quite confident that when I tell him about what happened here tonight, he’ll insist on coming to you himself. And, now that I think about it, I have two additional requests.”
“Which are?” she asked as he paused.
“First, Your Majesty, there’s the rather ticklish problem of what we do about your safety and the identity of the people who orchestrated this attack.”
And I still haven’t decided whether or not to tell you your own uncle was one of them, he thought.
“The identity?” she repeated, and he nodded.
“There aren’t any survivors of the actual attack on the convent, Your Majesty,” he said grimly. His enhanced vision noticed how Sharleyan’s eyes widened . . . and how Seahamper’s narrowed in satisfaction. “There are a few wounded over near the bivouac area, but I’ll . . . deal with them before I leave. I don’t much like having to do that, but I’m afraid I don’t have a choice this time. If any of them were to realize I’d been here, the consequences could be disastrous.
“However, there are two bodies out beyond the main gate. One of them no longer has a head, although it’s close enough to the body Edwyrd should be able to find it. I think it would be a very good idea for him to do just that.”
“May I ask why, Seijin Merlin?”
“Of course you may, Your Majesty. Up until a few minutes ago, that head belonged to one Mylz Halcom, the ex–Bishop of Margaret Bay.”
Sharleyan looked at him in disbelief, but Seahamper grunted as if in sudden understanding.
“Apparently, the good bishop has been providing organization and leadership to the Temple Loyalists in Charis ever since he decamped from Hanth Town. I think it would be a good idea to take his head back to Tellesberg where his fellow bishops can positively identify it. And while they’re doing that, you might mention to Baron Wave Thunder that Traivyr Kairee has been the main source of Halcom’s funding. Tell him I can’t prove that yet, but that I’m sure he’ll find the evidence he needs i
f he looks under the right rocks. Tell him that, in particular, he might want to take a close look at the crew of Kairee’s schooner, Sunrise.”
And if he does, maybe I won’t have to be the one to tell you about your uncle, after all. That’s probably cowardly of me, but right this minute, I don’t really care.
“I think we can probably manage that,” Sharleyan told him, her voice equally grim. “And the second thing you wanted?”
“Edwyrd loves you, Your Majesty,” Merlin said gently. “And right now, he’s afraid of what I might still turn out to be. So, I’d like to ask you to do two additional things for me when you return to Tellesberg. First, speak privately to the Archbishop. Tell him every single thing I’ve just told you, and seek his judgment on whether or not you should listen to anything more. And, second, please arrange for Edwyrd to be there as well when Cayleb and I turn up. I think no one would be surprised if you feel the need for a little additional security after something like this, so perhaps you could insist that Colonel Ropewalk post Edwyrd on your balcony. I want him to hear everything Cayleb and I tell you when we tell you. I want him to be able to make up his own mind, and to know that no one and nothing is attempting to harm you.”
“I can do both of those things,” Sharleyan assured him, not trying to hide her relief at his mention of the archbishop.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
He bowed deeply, then straightened and met Seahamper’s eyes.
“You did well here tonight, Sergeant,” he told the Chisholmian quietly. “Her Majesty is fortunate to have you.”
Seahamper said nothing, and Merlin smiled crookedly.
“I know you’re still trying to make up your mind about me, Edwyrd. I’m not surprised. In your place, I’d probably have already gone ahead and stuck that bayonet into me. If you’ll allow me to, I’d like to give you a little advice, though.”
His tone turned the final sentence into a question. After a moment, Seahamper nodded.
“I’m reasonably certain I’ve identified and dealt with—or will have dealt with, shortly, at any rate—all of the Temple Loyalists behind this particular attack. I can’t be absolutely positive of that, however. And even if I could, there’s no way you could be. So, I think the proper way for you to proceed is to assume that you and the rest of Her Majesty’s detachment managed to deal with the attackers, but not to be overly confident that there aren’t one or two of them left still in the woods. Under those circumstances, the logical thing for you to do would be to send one of the sisters—or their gardener, if the Abbess can dig him out of his hiding place under his bed—to Dancer with a message for Captain Hywyt. Tell him you want a company of his Marines, loaded for kraken, as an escort back to the ship. And while you’re waiting for it to arrive, find someplace safe to park Her Majesty while you stay between her and any doors or windows.”
Seahamper considered Merlin’s words carefully. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken them as an order, given Merlin’s rank in the Imperial Guard. As it was, he was obviously thinking about their source with a rather greater degree of suspicion than usual. After several seconds, however, he nodded again.
“Thank you,” Merlin said, his smile turning even more crooked for a moment. Then he bowed once more to Sharleyan.
“And now, if you’ll excuse me, Your Majesty, I really must be getting back to Corisande.”
“Oh, of course, Seijin Merlin,” she said with a faint, slightly shaky smile of her own. “Don’t let me delay you.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” he repeated, and disappeared into the pounding rain.
Sharleyan looked out the window after him for several seconds, then turned to Seahamper.
“Your Majesty, is this wise?” he asked her, and she laughed a bit wildly.
“Wise, Edwyrd? After a night like this one?” She shook her head. “I have no idea. I only know that without him—whoever and whatever he truly is—you and I would both be dead at this moment. Beyond that, I don’t have the faintest idea of what’s truly happening here, but I do know Archbishop Maikel and Cayleb are good men. If they know Merlin’s ‘secrets’ and trust him as deeply as they obviously do, then I’m prepared to at least listen to what he has to say. And I think he has a point about you, as well. I think it is important that you hear the same things I do.”
Seahamper looked at her long and intently, and then he began to nod.
“I think you’re right, Your Majesty,” he said slowly. “I don’t know what to think about all of this, either. But you’re right about one thing. That man—or whatever he really is—saved your life tonight. I owe him at least the chance to explain how he did it.”
“Good, Edwyrd,” she said softly, and then drew a deep breath of her own.
“Right now,” she said sadly, “I think it’s time we went and found the Abbess and told her I’m still alive.”
. XVI .
Emperor Cayleb’s Headquarters Tent,
Duchy of Manchyr,
League of Corisande
“I don’t suppose there’s been any word from Merlin?”
Lieutenant Franz Ahstyn, the second-in-command of Emperor Cayleb’s personal guard, looked up as the emperor poked his head out through the flaps of his command tent with one eyebrow raised.
“No, Your Majesty,” the lieutenant replied. “Not yet, I’m afraid.”
“Well, at least he’s capable of looking after himself,” the emperor said philosophically, and withdrew into his tent once more.
Ahstyn gazed at the closed tent flaps for a moment, then glanced at Payter Faircaster. The huge sergeant was the only other member of the emperor’s personal guard, aside from Captain Athrawes himself, who’d been with him when he was still crown prince. Which meant he was also the only one of them who’d served with Seijin Merlin ever since the mysterious foreigner had appeared in Charis.
“Don’t ask me, Sir.” Faircaster shrugged. “You know how much the Emperor relies on the Captain’s . . . insights. If he’s decided something’s important enough to send the Captain off to take a personal look at it, then he must think it’s really important. Like he says, though—the Captain can look after himself.”
That last sentence, Ahstyn reflected, had to be the most mammoth case of understatement he’d ever heard in his entire life. Ahstyn hadn’t personally seen the seijin perform any of the impossible feats legend ascribed to him. For his own part, the lieutenant was willing to assume the impossible feats in question had grown in the telling . . . which didn’t mean Merlin wasn’t the most dangerous man he’d ever known, anyway. All of Cayleb’s personal guard had worked out against the seijin. No one was accepted for the detail which was already becoming known as the Emperor’s Own until Merlin had personally tried him out in a no-holds-barred sparring contest, and none of them had ever managed to best him with practice blades, hand-to-hand, or on the rifle range. In fact, none of them had even managed to make him sweat. Despite that, the tales about him carving his way single-handedly through hundreds of enemies aboard Royal Charis at the Battle of Darcos Sound probably weren’t true. Probably. Ahstyn wasn’t quite prepared to bet money on that, but he was pretty sure he didn’t really believe it. After all, no matter how good the seijin might be, he was still only a single mortal man.
Probably.
Personally, the lieutenant suspected the tales about Merlin’s prodigious lethality had been quietly encouraged by the then–crown prince and his Marine bodyguards. Focusing on his deadliness as a warrior had undoubtedly been a part of the careful cover story which had been constructed to protect the truth about Merlin’s greatest value to Charis. Ahstyn hadn’t really believed it when he and the rest of the Emperor’s Own were first briefed on the seijin’s “visions.” It had sounded far too much like the children’s tales about Seijin Kohdy and his magical powers.
In this case, however, the tales had happened to be true. Ahstyn had seen too many examples of the emperor using those visions to doubt that, and he understood perfectl
y why it was essential to keep anyone else from knowing about the seijin’s true capabilities. And making certain everyone knew Merlin was the most deadly bodyguard in the world—which, after all, didn’t take that much exaggeration—was the perfect way to explain why he was always at the emperor’s shoulder. He wasn’t there as the emperor’s most trusted and . . . “insightful” adviser, as Sergeant Faircaster had so aptly put it; he was there to keep the emperor alive.
Which helped to explain why the other members of the detail had been more than a little concerned when the seijin didn’t turn up for breakfast. Merlin always ate early, before the emperor was up, so that he could be already on duty while Cayleb was served, and he was as persistently perfect in his timing as he was with a sword. So when he was a full fifteen minutes late, Ahstyn had poked his head cautiously into the small tent Merlin had been assigned for his personal use.
He’d expected to find the seijin sitting crosslegged in the middle of the tent’s floor, concentrating on one of his “visions.” That, after all, was the reason he’d been assigned a private tent in the first place. To the lieutenant’s astonishment, however, the tent had been empty, and the bedroll looked as if it hadn’t been used at all.
That had been totally unprecedented, and more than enough to send Ahstyn to the emperor. To the best of Ahstyn’s knowledge, Captain Athrawes had never once been absent when he was supposed to be on duty. And he’d certainly never simply disappeared in the middle of the night without at least telling someone he intended to! For that matter, Ahstyn had felt more than a little miffed by the clear evidence that Merlin had somehow gotten through the protective ring around the emperor without a single one of Cayleb’s guardsmen noticing him. The man might be a seijin, but he wasn’t invisible!