must be what God wil s.” Silence came. No one wanted a religious discussion. Habibul ah did say, “Submission is God’s Law. You think about it too much.” Yasmid lowered her gaze. “I do, don’t I? I always admired my father’s conviction. He never knew doubt.” She looked up. “How much longer…? Ah!”
She screamed and col apsed.
“Lady? What is it?” Elwas demanded.
Habibul ah asked the air, “Did she faint?” He looked around frantical y. “Why did she scream? Look for a snake.
Maybe it was a viper.”
Yasmid had fal en onto her right side, then had curled into a bal . She seemed to be suffering severe stomach pain. No snake Habibul ah knew could cause that.
“Maybe a spider.”
Yasmid mumbled something about ghosts.
The men were on their knees around her when Phogedatvitsu arrived with her father.
Chapter Fifteen:
Dahl Haas and Aral Dantice rode ahead to make the arrangements. Kristen slipped into Sedlmayr soon afterward. Her party fol owed, a few people at a time. They al vanished into the home of Cham Mundwil er and his brothers.
Cham was a long time dead but his kin shared his vision. They would support the lost king’s grandson while the younger Bragi continued policies parented by Queen Fiana and the first King Bragi.
Kristen was a believer. Her father had been a Wesson soldier who had risen to become King’s Champion.
Kristen’s party assembled in a banquet room in the Mundwil er compound, which was a minor fortress. From without the public saw a square, three-story structure a hundred forty feet to the side, without windows at ground level. Light entered the second level through archers’ slits.
There were regular, shuttered windows on the third floor.
Stepping back, the outsider would see the stone tower that stood in the yard inside. That final refuge could be entered only by climbing a ladder.
Al important Sedlmayrese families lived in some sort of urban fortress. Business and political disputes could become quite animated.
The Mundwil er compound stood out because its architecture had been adopted from cities farther west.
During the reigns of Fiana and Bragi, Sedlmayr had become a semiautonomous city-state acknowledging the Crown while disdaining the nobility and any feudal obligations.
There were other, similar charter towns. Al were rich.
Sedlmayr was weathering the current chaos with less hardship than any Nordmen demesne.
There was jealousy and resentment. Natural y. But prevailing economic conditions made it impossible for the Nordmen to impose themselves.
Al of which Kristen learned within minutes of her arrival.
She and hers were in a room so crowded with Sedlmayrese that the heat was becoming intolerable. Many of those bodies had gone too long unwashed, as wel .
Body odor was not something most people noticed. Kristen did so because the Sedlmayrese diet was heavy on pork.
Sedlmayrese smel ed different.
Bight Mundwil er was the youngest of the surviving Mundwil er brothers. His family had assigned him to Kristen. He stuck like a jealous lover, left hand always on the hilt of a long knife. Kristen suspected that he had not been pleased with the assignment before he met her. Now she feared she would not be able to get shut of him.
Dahl and Aral Dantice were amused.
Bight was seventeen.
The grand dame of the clan, Ozora Mundwil er, cal ed for silence.
Silence rained down immediately.
A raised eyebrow from Ozora Mundwil er could alter the destiny of the clan.
The old woman said nothing after the silence fel .
Aral stepped up to address the crowd. He told everyone that Queen Inger’s writ no longer had any force outside Vorgreberg’s wal . Kristen whispered to Dahl, “What is he doing?”
“I’m not sure. How about we listen and find out?” He slipped an arm around her waist.
Dantice went into detail about the situation in Vorgreberg.
Kristen found his report depressing.
Inger had a staff sorcerer. He appeared to be competent.
His main assignment was to find the missing treasury money.
Those who thought young Bragi should be king had little more influence in the countryside. The Nordmen nobility were content to operate without any strong central authority.
Kristen thought they were being short-sighted. In time they would realize that life was better when there was a strong king in Vorgreberg.
She whispered her thoughts to Dahl. He said, “Tel these people.”
She understood. They wanted to know if she could think. So she spoke up.
Ozora Mundwil er nodded. “That’s true, child. But I think you see the flaw in your argument as wel . Periods of prosperity and peace were few and brief because we were so often at war, if not with El Murid or Shinsan, then with one of our neighbors. And if not with any of those, then with ourselves for whatever reason seemed fashionable. Those who ponder such things believe Old Meddler caused most of the turmoil.”
Ozora Mundwil er had to be ninety, yet was neither stooped nor frail. She had no trouble making herself heard. “The remarkable truth is that, given any window of peace, even as briefly as a few months, Kavelin produces wealth and makes life better for its peoples.”
The woman surveyed her audience. “We have entered upon such a period of peace, if only because every faction is exhausted. Things are getting better. Those who look backward do not see that. They see wanderers on the road, looking for work. They do not see that work found everywhere, in field and forest. They see castles fal ing into disrepair because the nobility have squandered their fortunes on aggression. They do not see the new mil s and mines. They do not notice the caravans beginning to move through the Savernake Gap. Where they are particularly constipated of outlook they have failed to see the remarkable explosion in agricultural confidence brought on by what has been the most benign and propitious climate to bless us in a generation.”
Ozora paused. Tentative applause tickled the silence.
Kristen realized she knew nothing about what the woman was saying. She did, in fact, have very little idea what was going on anywhere in the kingdom. Which might be the old woman’s point.
One theme had run through the reigns of the old Krief, his childbride Fiana, and her lover King Bragi. Each had been determined to do what was best for Kavelin, not for themselves. Each had made huge mistakes and had committed dreadful sins but none of them ever forgot that they were part of something bigger than themselves. Each, in his or her way, had been married to Kavelin, forsaking al others.
Kristen looked up at the old woman. She understood where this was going.
Sedlmayr would support Bragi I —provisional y. Sedlmayr would not spend lives or treasure to put him on the throne.
He would be protected til time decided between him and Fulk.
Ozora Mundwil er suffered from the disease that had afflicted Kavelin’s last three monarchs. She would not
