She looked out at those silent, listening faces, and her voice was measured, each word beaten out of cold iron as she dropped her sworn oath into the silence.
“Those things are what the Group of Four does,” she told them in that soft, terrible voice, “and we will die before we become them.” . V.
Imperial Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis
“I’m going to strangle that parrot,” Cayleb Ahrmahk said conversationally. “And if I weren’t afraid it would poison me, I’d have the cook serve it for dinner.”
The parrot which had just stolen a pistachio out of the silver bowl on the wrought-iron table landed on a branch on the far side of the terrace, transferred the stolen nut from its beak to its agile right foot, and squawked raucously at him. Obviously no respecter of imperial dignities, it proceeded to defecate in a long gray and white streak down the lime tree’s bark, as well.
There were quite a few similar deposits decorating the terrace, Cayleb noticed. In fact, there were enough of them for at least two heroic sculptures. Probably even three, unless they were equestrian sculptures.
“With all due respect, Your Majesty,” Prince Nahrmahn said, reaching out and scooping up a handful of the same pistachios, “first you’d have to catch it.”
“Only if I insist on strangling it,” Cayleb retorted. “A shotgun ought to do the job permanently enough, if a little more messily. It might even be more satisfying, now that I think about it.”
“Zhanayt would be less than amused with you, Your Majesty,” Earl Gray Harbor pointed out from his seat beside Nahrmahn. The first councilor shook his head. “She’s turned that dratted bird into her own personal pet. That’s why it’s bold enough to swoop down and steal your nuts. She’s been hand-feeding them to it for months now to get it to ride on her shoulder when she comes into the garden and it thinks it owns all of them. She’ll pitch three kinds of fits if you harm a single feather on its loathsome little head.”
“Wonderful.”
Cayleb rolled his eyes while Nahrmahn and Gray Harbor chuckled. Princess Zhanayt’s sixteenth birthday would roll around in another few five-days. That meant she was about fourteen and a half Old Terran years old, and she was entering what her deceased father would have called her “difficult stage.” (He’d used a rather strong term when it had been his older son’s turn, as Cayleb recalled.)
Prince Zhan, her younger brother, was only two years behind her, but his engagement to Nahrmahn’s daughter Mahrya seemed to be blunting the worst of his adolescent angst. Cayleb wasn’t certain it was going to last, but for now at least the assurance that he would in just over three years’ time be wedding one of the most lovely young women he’d ever met appeared to be giving him a level of confidence the mere fact that his brother was an emperor (and that he himself stood third in the line of succession) wouldn’t have. Despite the inescapable political logic of the move, Cayleb had had his doubts about betrothing his baby brother to someone almost eight Safeholdian years older than he was, but so far, it was working out well. Thank God Mahrya took after her mother- physically, at least-rather than her father! And it didn’t hurt that Zhan was far more inclined to be bookish than Cayleb had ever been. Nahrmahn’s genetic contribution was obvious in Mahrya’s keen wits and love affair with the printed page, and she’d been subtly guiding Zhan’s choice of books for almost three years. He was even reading poetry now, which made him pretty nearly unique among fourteen-year-old males of Cayleb’s acquaintance.
“Oh, come now!” Gray Harbor scolded the emperor. “I remember you as a teenager, Your Majesty. And I remember your father’s description of you just before he sent you off on your midshipman’s cruise.”
“And that description would have been what?” Cayleb asked suspiciously.
“I believe his exact words were ‘A stubborn, stiff-necked young hellion ripe for hanging,’” the earl replied with a smile. “I could be wrong about that, though. It might have been ‘obstinate,’ not stiff-necked.”
“Why did everybody who knew me then persist in thinking of me as stubborn?” Cayleb’s tone was plaintive. “I’ve always been one of the most reasonable people I know!”
Gray Harbor and Nahrmahn looked at one another, then back at their liege lord without saying a word, and he snorted.
“All right, be that way.” He selected one of the roasted, salted pistachios, peeled the shell, and popped the nut into his mouth. He picked up another while he was chewing and tossed it at the parrot, which ignored the assault on its dignity with lordly disdain. The emperor shook his head and turned his attention back to Gray Harbor with a more thoughtful expression.
“So you think Coris is seriously contemplating some sort of an arrangement with us?” he asked, carefully projecting a note of skepticism. He couldn’t very well tell Gray Harbor he’d been looking over Coris’ shoulder-or that one of Owl’s remotes had been, at any rate-at the very moment the Corisandian earl wrote the message Gray Harbor had received.
“I’d say he’s definitely contemplating an arrangement, Your Majesty,” Gray Harbor replied soberly. “Whether he actually wants to consummate anything of the sort is another matter, of course.”
“You’re saying you think this is in the nature of a sheet anchor?” Nahrmahn put in.
“Something like that, Your Highness.” Gray Harbor nodded. “Whatever else he may have been, Coris was never a fool. I’ve come to the conclusion that he underestimated you rather badly, Your Highness, but then so did everyone else. And while he doesn’t come right out and say so in his note, it has to be obvious to someone as astute and as well informed as him that it would’ve made absolutely no sense to assassinate Hektor and his son.”
“I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, My Lord,” Nahrmahn said thoughtfully. “About its making absolutely no sense, I mean. It would have been uncommonly stupid to have had him assassinated at that particular moment, I’ll grant you, but I’m sure quite a few of the world’s rulers wouldn’t have shed any tears if an enemy like Hektor were to suffer a fatal accident after he’d sworn fealty… and before he could get around to violating that oath.”
“All right, that’s true enough.” Gray Harbor nodded again. “But my point about the actual assassination stands. Not only that, but he has to realize how… convenient Hektor’s murder was from the Group of Four’s perspective. Assuming he’s genuinely committed to young Daivyn’s well-being, or simply to preserving his own future access to power in Daivyn’s eventual court, he’s got to be worried about someone like Clyntahn’s deciding that Daivyn’s death might be as helpful as his father’s was. So as far as that goes, yes, I’m inclined to think he truly is looking for a way out of Delferahk if one should become necessary.”
“But you don’t think he’s going to make a move in our direction unless he does decide it’s necessary?” Cayleb asked.
“No, I don’t. And to be fair, why should he? It’s not as if we’ve done anything that would endear us to him, and for the moment at least it’s entirely reasonable for his loyalty to Mother Church as well as whatever personal loyalty he feels towards Daivyn and Irys to push him towards staying out of our grasp. He was never as precipitous as Hektor, and I don’t see any reason for that to change now. Especially when he knows that until he’s actually forced to turn to us, he’s in a far better bargaining position in Talkyra than he’d be in Tellesberg.”
“So how do you think we should respond?”
“I’ve discussed that with Bynzhamyn and also with Ahlvyno,” Gray Harbor replied, and Cayleb nodded. Bynzhamyn Raice wasn’t simply Old Charis’ spymaster and Ahlvyno Pawalsyn wasn’t simply its finance minister; they were also two of Gray Harbor’s oldest friends and most trusted colleagues.
“Both of them agree this is an opening that’s far too valuable to pass up,” the earl continued. “Obviously, we can’t know where it’s going to lead, but there’s always the possibility it really will end up with Coris forced to seek asylum with us. From a political perspective, it would be impossible to overestimate the advantage of getting our hands-metaphorically speaking-on Irys and Daivyn. Whether we’d be able to convert that into any sort of willing cooperation on their part is another matter entirely, of course, and given Princess Irys’ obvious influence with her younger brother and her evident conviction you did have her father and her older brother murdered, Cayleb, I’d say the chances were probably less than even. On the other hand, from all reports she’s smart enough to recognize that whether we’re her favorite people in the world or not, her brother probably has no option but to cooperate with us, at least officially. Especially if Coris does believe Clyntahn had Prince Hektor killed and he’s managed to convince her of that.”
“Well,” Cayleb selected another pistachio and cracked it open, “I’m inclined to go along with you, Bynzhamyn, and Ahlvyno. So the next order of business is how we go about moving this courtship along, I suppose.”
“I expect the biggest difficulty’s going to be simply communicating back and forth,” Nahrmahn said thoughtfully. “This isn’t exactly something we can discuss with him over the Church’s semaphore system, and speaking from the perspective of an experienced intriguer, that could be a real problem, especially in a case like
