“And it’s very good to see you, too, Sharleyan,” he said with a flicker of a familiar smile. “Did you have a nice voyage? Was Alahnah less seasick this time? And what do you think of Archbishop Ulys?”
Sharleyan made a face and struck him—very gently—on top of his head with a small fist. He winced theatrically, and she laughed.
“There were times I wanted to do that so badly—and a lot harder!—when I was a little girl. You have no idea how lucky you were to have Mairah around to protect you!”
“Why do you think I gave in and let you have her as your lady-in-waiting? I knew I’d need a friend at court eventually.”
She laughed again and bent beside his chair to put her arm around him. She hugged him a bit more tightly than she’d really intended to, trying to stifle a fresh pang as she felt how frail his robust frame had become. She’d known how badly wounded he’d been in the terrorist attack which had almost killed him, but there was a difference between intellectual knowledge, even backed up by the direct visual evidence through Owl’s remotes, and actually hugging her second father. He’d lost his right arm between elbow and shoulder and his right leg below the knee, and if he wore the black eye patch over what had been his left eye with a certain debonair style, his face was still badly scarred … and far, far thinner than she remembered.
Well, of course he feels frail. It’s been barely six months since the attack! It takes time to come back from something like that—if you ever do—and he’s not a young man anymore.
“You,” she told him, straightening and trying to hide her concern, “are incorrigible.”
“Agreed. And my question?”
“All right, I surrender!” She threw up both hands dramatically. Then her expression sobered. “Actually, I think I like him a lot. I miss Archbishop Pawal, and I hate the way he was killed.” Her eyes turned bleak as she remembered watching the imagery of Pawal Braynair’s death when the archbishop personally tackled the grenade-armed assassin in his own cathedral and smothered the explosion with his body. “He seems to be smart,” she went on, “and I have to say he seems to have … I don’t know, maybe what Cayleb would call more ‘fire in his belly’ than Archbishop Pawal did.”
“I think you’re right,” Green Mountain agreed. “Pawal was a good man, and no one on the face of this world was ever more determined to do the right things, but I always thought of him as a man who’d been driven by principle to do something his heart found almost too hard to bear. Young Ulys is a Reformist to his toenails, though.” He shook his head with a smile that held more than a trace of regret. “He hates the Group of Four with a passion and fire I think he sometimes finds hard to reconcile with his priestly calling. And I think—maybe I’m even afraid—he’s going to be much more … apt to your needs then Pawal was.”
“Afraid, Mahrak?”
She looked down at him, eyes questioning, and he shrugged.
“Pawal was like me, Sharley. He was driven into resisting Mother Church because she’d fallen into the grasp of men like Clyntahn, but in his heart of hearts, he was still her son. He was never comfortable as a rebel; he’d simply been left no choice but to become one. Ulys is younger than Pawal was—and considerably younger than I am now—and his opposition to Mother Church stems from outrage over her failings, not grief at the failings of men who captured her and caused her to fail. He’s embraced that opposition in a way Pawal and I never could. And that means that when the schism is finally formalized, he’ll be one of the Church of Charis’ strongest pillars. You’ll need that.”
“And you, Mahrak?” she asked softly, finally willing to ask the question out loud now that he was free of the crushing responsibilities of his office.
“And I was never a willing rebel, either,” he told her with a twisted smile. “But, like Pawal, Mother Church left me no choice.” He reached up and touched her cheek with his remaining hand. “And neither did you. So young, so fiery! So determined … and so right. In the end, I cared too much about you and too little about God, perhaps. You left me no choice but to look at what men like Clyntahn had made of the Church I loved. I couldn’t do anything but support you after my eyes had been opened, Sharley, but there were always tears in them.”
“Oh, Mahrak.”
The words were barely a sigh as she bent once more, this time putting her cheek against his, and wrapped both arms around him. He returned her embrace, and they stayed that way for several seconds before she straightened once more.
“I always suspected you felt that way,” she said, realizing there were tears in her own eyes, “and I felt guilty for dragging you behind me.”
“Don’t be silly!” he scolded her. “Didn’t I always teach you a queen does what she must in the service of her people and of God?” He held her gaze until she nodded. “Well, that’s exactly what you did. Because the truth, however hard I found it, is that there really is a difference between God and any mortal edifice, even one ordained by His own archangels. God would never—could never—condone the acts of a Zhaspahr Clyntahn or the rest of his murderous clique. That much I know, without question. And because you had the courage to face that squarely, and do it before I did, you proved you were worthy of your crown. I was never prouder of you, Sharley, however much I regretted what you’d been forced to do.”
She looked down at him for a moment, and then nodded again. This time it was a nod of acceptance.
“I wish you’d never had to be put into that position,” she told him, resting her hand on his shoulder. “But, you know, if I turned out ‘worthy’ of my crown, it was because I had such good teachers. Like you. Always like you, Mahrak.”
“You were your father’s daughter, and your mother’s,” he replied, looking up and smiling as he put his hand over hers. “And you were my Queen, with the courage to do what you knew was right and damn the consequences before you were tall enough to see over the council table. It was easy to give you my love with all of that going for you.”
* * *
“—why I’m concerned, Your Majesty. Concerned, not worried. Not yet, at any rate.”
“I understand, My Lord,” Sharleyan said, looking across the council chamber table at Sir Dynzayl Hyntyn, the Earl of Saint Howan and the Kingdom of Chisholm’s Chancellor of the Treasury.
Saint Howan was young for his position, only in his midforties. Fair-haired and gray-eyed, he was also smart, and his earldom’s coastal position made him a strong supporter of the Imperial Navy, with a keen appreciation for the possibilities of maritime trade. At the moment, those gray eyes showed the concern he’d just mentioned, and she understood his position.
“We here in Chisholm were never as devoted to manufactories as Charis,” she said. “And Charis had to begin preparing for war sooner than we did. That meant they had to expand their foundries, their shipyards, their textile mills and sail lofts—all the things that go into supporting a war—which is why so much of the Empire’s manufactories are concentrated in Old Charis now. It is, however, Emperor Cayleb’s and my policy to encourage and sustain such enterprises here in Chisholm, as well, to the very best of our ability. It was my impression that policy was clearly understood.”
“The policy is clearly understood, Your Majesty,” Saint Howan replied. “It’s its implementation that concerns me.”
“My Lord?” Sharleyan turned to Braisyn Byrns, Earl White Crag, the former lord justice who’d replaced Mahrak Sahndyrs as her first councilor.
“Dynzail’s talking about certain of our fellow peers, I’m afraid, Your Majesty.”
White Crag was twenty years older than Saint Howan, with white hair and shoulders which were a bit stooped. He looked rather frail, but he had an underlying toughness, like well-cured leather, and he was possibly even smarter than the chancellor. His blue eyes were beginning to turn cloudy with cataracts, and his vision was so bad he had most of his correspondence read to him by his secretaries rather than reading it himself. Sharleyan always felt vaguely guilty over her inability to do
anything about that without revealing far too many difficult truths, but he was far more cheerful about it than she was, claiming that his present duties actually required less reading than those of the kingdom’s highest jurist had imposed.
“I’m afraid we’ve been facing some obstruction,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s that anyone actively wants to oppose the introduction of Charisian manufactories, but some of the nobility want to make certain they get their share of the profits from them. And, frankly, their idea of a fair share isn’t mine.”
“Oh, go ahead and be honest, Braisyn!” Sylvyst Mhardyr snapped.
The Baron of Stoneheart, who’d replaced White Crag as lord justice, was as bald as Bynzhamyn Raice, but scrubbed, scented, and manicured, without the Charisian’s air of weathered toughness. His brain was no flabbier than Wave Thunder’s, however, and he waved one elegant hand when White Crag looked at him.
“There is so ‘active opposition,’ and you know it! And the real reason the ones doing the opposing are such pains in the—” He paused and glanced at Sharleyan. “The real reason they’re being so difficult,” he continued, “is that they’re worried that bringing in Charisian techniques is going to bring in Charisian attitudes! They already think commoners’re too uppity, and half of them are afraid they’ll get even more uppity, especially when they start having employment opportunities the nobles can’t control.” He snorted. “They were pis—angry enough when we adopted Old Charis’ new child labor laws. They resent the Shan-wei out of that, and they’re smart enough—barely, I admit, but smart enough—to realize that’s only the tip of an iceberg.” His expression was as disgusted as his tone. “If you think for one moment they haven’t heard all the horror stories about how Howsmyn treats his workers, you’re not nearly so clever as I always thought you were!”
Sharleyan raised one hand to hide a smile as the lord justice gave the first councilor something remarkably like a glare. She wasn’t a bit surprised a Chisholmian noble would find the notion of a crew of common-born rabble actually being permitted to send representatives to sit down and discuss labor conditions and wages with the owner of the manufactory which employed them … distasteful. And the notion of paying them bonuses keyed to exceeding production quotas rather than docking their pay if they didn’t meet those quotas would be equally alien to them.
Her smile faded as she considered the rest of what Stoneheart had just said, however, because it cut to the heart of the difference between Chisholm and Old Charis. The majority of Cayleb’s nobles had been infected with the same drive to expand and explore new possibilities as the rest of their society, which meant accepting the legitimacy of trade and joining forces with the less nobly born in pursuit of their common goal. The Chisholmian nobility still cherished a landowner’s contempt for mere tradesmen and wasn’t prepared to give up its economic primacy without a fight, especially since her father, King Sailys, had used the commons’ support to break the great nobles’ political stranglehold. They were afraid of what would happen to their power and positions when the sinews of wealth slipped irrevocably towards the Charisian model, in which men of no blood—like, say, Ehdwyrd Howsmyn—could rise to the most dizzying heights. And it wasn’t simply blind reactionism, either. Oh, it was reactionism, but it wasn’t blind, for they were right about what would happen.
It would also happen to the guilds, which were far more powerful in Chisholm than in Old Charis, although the guild masters didn’t seem to have scented the change in the wind quite as quickly as the nobility. The guilds had operated in large part as a mutual-protection society for master craftsmen for centuries; the discovery that their treasured apprenticeship structure was about to be overturned might well bring them into opposition as well, once it penetrated. That could prove even more of a problem than the aristocracy, especially if they decided to ally with the nobles.
“Don’t mistake me, Your Majesty,” Saint Howan said now. “The Charisians you and His Majesty have sent are finding places to locate manufactories. The problem is that they aren’t finding them quickly and that too many of them aren’t in the best places from the perspective of efficiency and are concentrated in … certain areas. For example, there’s plenty of coal and some rich iron deposits in Lantern Walk, and the Lantern River’s navigable most of the way to Saint Howan’s Bay. We’d have to put in locks in two or three places, but that’s not an insurmountable problem, and I assure you that I personally would love to see Sherytyn turn into a major seaport! But Duke Lantern Walk wants ten percent of any coal or iron mined in his duchy. And the Earl of Swayle”—his eyes met Sharleyan’s—“has thrown up every conceivable roadblock to improving the Lantern where it flows through his lands. Under the circumstances,” he raised his hands, palms uppermost, “I can’t really blame any Charisian investors for … hesitating to even try to develop those possibilities.”
Sharleyan didn’t allow herself to grimace, but she was tempted. Barkah Rahskail, the previous Earl of Swayle, had been executed for plotting with the previous Grand Duke Zebediah and the Northern Conspiracy in Corisande. Once a confidant of her own uncle, the Duke of Halbrook Hollow, he’d followed Halbrook Hollow into treason against the Crown out of loyalty to the Church. His widow Rebkah’s religious convictions were at least as strong as his had been, to which she’d added bitter hatred for her husband’s execution, and the situation wasn’t helped by her choice of chaplains. Father Zhordyn Rydach was Temple Loyalist to the bone. He was also charismatic, physically striking, and preached a potent sermon. Officially he was an under-priest of the Order of Chihiro; actually, he was an upper-priest of that order—almost certainly affiliated with the Order of the Sword, not the Quill, as he claimed—and one of the Inquisition’s more energetic apologists. Wave Thunder and the rest of the inner circle suspected he’d also been the conduit through which Barkah had initially reached out to the Corisandian conspirators. Unfortunately, not even Owl’s remotes had been able to catch him in any overtly treasonous act, which meant they couldn’t arrest him without violating their own policy of religious tolerance.
Wahlys Rahskail, the new Earl of Swayle, was only seventeen and thoroughly under his mother’s thumb. He was also even more thoroughly cowed by Rydach than by Rebkah, for the priest had convinced him his soul hovered on the lip of hell, ready to slip over the brink the moment he gave his allegiance to the Church of Charis.
Sir Ahlber Zhustyn, Sharleyan’s own spymaster, was watching the situation closely—aided, though he wasn’t aware of it, by Wave Thunder via Owl’s remotes—because in addition to her own enmity, Rebkah was related by blood to a great many of western Chisholm’s nobles. In particular, to Zhasyn Seafarer, the Duke of Rock Coast; Payt Stywyrt, the Duke of Black Horse; and Edwyrd Ahlbair, the Earl of Dragon Hill. The three of them were firm allies, all with seats in the Imperial Parliament as well as the Chisholmian House of Lords, and all of them were mulishly opposed to anything which might further enhance the Crown’s authority. They formed a potentially potent bloc of opposition in the west, and Sharleyan was uncomfortably aware that Duke Eastshare’s Expeditionary Force had been forced to pull troops out of the garrisons and bases usually maintained in and around the Western Crown Demesne. There was no sign so far that Rock Coast and the others might contemplate taking advantage of those troops’ absence, but he and Black Horse were stupid enough to try something like that if they thought they saw an opportunity. Rebkah Rahskail probably wasn’t, and neither was her cousin, Dragon Hill, but they might find themselves pulled into an adventure if the others got the bit between their teeth.
And then there was the other part of what Saint Howan had just said. The handful of spots where Old Charisian investors had so far found places to put manufactories were in places already firmly behind the Crown, like Eastshare, her own Duchy of Tayt, and the eastern territories between Maikelsberg and Port Royal. It was good to see her and Cayleb’s core supporters embracing prosperity, but if that created affluence in those areas and poverty in others, the C
rown’s opponents might find themselves with a potent economic weapon to rally disaffection behind them.
And one thing they won’t do is admit they’re the reason for the poverty, either! They’ll just point to the way we’re unjustly favoring our toadies— obviously the only reason for their prosperity!—and scream that all they want is “fairness” and “justice”!
The thought made her want to spit, but she couldn’t do that, so instead, she smiled.
“I wish I could say I was surprised to hear about the Earl of Swayle’s position. Unfortunately, I’m not.” She looked at White Crag. “I imagine you’ve tried … reasoning with him, My Lord?”
“I’ve tried reasoning with him with everything short of a baseball bat, Your Majesty,” White Crag said tartly. “I’ve even gotten him to agree—twice!—to lease that stretch of river to the consortium and let them pay for the improvements. But that was when I had him here in Cherayth. And, unfortunately, he refuses to actually sign anything without discussing it with his mother.” He rolled his eyes ever so slightly. “Somehow, whenever he goes home to discuss it with her, he goes back to his original position. We might have more success with him if we could, ah … adjust his household slightly.”
“‘Get thee behind me, Shan-wei,’ “Sharleyan quoted dryly, shaking her head at him. “I’m not particularly pleased by the reports of Father Zhordyn, either, but if the Crown started trying to remove a peer of the realm’s chaplain just because we don’t like him, it would only justify even greater opposition. And”—she added grudgingly—“rightly so, unless we have overt proof of treason.”
“We’re looking, Your Majesty,” Zhustyn said. “Unfortunately, he’s either very, very careful, very, very lucky, or very, very disinclined to act on his own advice about opposing the ‘heretical tyranny’ of the ‘monstrous’ Church of Charis.” He shook his head in exasperation. “We haven’t been able to find a single piece of hard evidence.”