“I shall speak with my father at the earliest opportunity, Your High-uh, my lord Michael,” Aedan promised.
“When I am emperor,” said Michael, petulantly, “I shall make such decisions on my own, without having to consult all sorts of people. It is foolish.
Suppose we are in battle and someone is coming up behind me? By the time you call out, ‘Your Highness, look out behind you,’ I’ll be dead.”
“In such an event, my lord,” said Aedan, suppressing a smile, “in the interests of brevity, I shall be 48 sure to call out your name.”
“Good,” said Michael. “I should hate to die of royal etiquette.”
That evening, when Aedan repeated the conversation to his father, Lord Tieran responded with amusement. “I see no reason why the prince’s intimates cannot address him as ‘my lord Michael’ or my lord’ in informal circumstances,” he said, “though use of his first name alone would be highly improper, of course. Unless it were in battle, in a situation such as he described,” he added with a smile.
“And as emperor, needless to say, he will certainly be free to make all such decisions on his own, without consulting anyone.” Then he grew serious. “And I fear that he may get his wish much sooner than he .”
Aedan frowned. “Is something the matter with the emperor?”
His father nodded. “His health is rapidly failing. It is generally known that he has not been well, and that he is old and tires easily, but I have taken pains to conceal just how weak and frail he has become.
I do not know how successful I have been in keeping his true condition secret, but I am seriously concerned that he may not last out the summer. And if he were to die before we returned to the Imperial Cairn, we could all find ourselves in a rather precarious situation.”
“Why?” asked Aedan.
“The Archduke of Boeruine is an ambitious man,” his father said. “A powerful man. Prince Michael is much too young to rule unguided. He will need a regent. Ordinarily, the empress would fulfill that role, guided by myself as royal chamberlain, but she too is young and Boeruine could easily claim that the empire required a stronger, more experienced hand. With the court at Seaharrow, it would be a simple matter for him to take control and appoint himself as regent. And once he had done that, he would be but one step away from the Iron Throne itself.”
“But. . . Prince Michael is the heir,” said Aedan.
“Surely, Lord Arwyn could not entertain notions of displacing him.
That would be high treason!”
“You still have much to learn, my son,” Lord Tieran said, shaking his head. “Since he was regent, Boeruine could wed the empress, and whether she wished to marry him or not, she would be in a poor position to refuse while in his hands here at Seaharrow. Once he had brought about the marriage, if some unfortunate accident befell Prince Michael, Lord Arwyn would become the next Emperor of Anuire.”
“And I always thought Lord Arwyn was loyal to the emperor!” said Aedan.
“He is,” his father replied.
“But … if he is loyal, how could he contemplate committing treason?”
Aedan asked, uncomprehending.
“Because he would not see it as treason,” his father explained patiently. “He would see it as a responsible and entirely reasonable act taken to safeguard the security of the empire.”
Aedan simply stared at his father with disbelief.
Tieran saw that he didn’t understand, so he elaborated for his benefit.
“Arwyn of Boeruine is not an evil man,” he said, “but he is an ambitious one. In many ways, an evil man is easier to deal with, so because you always know what to expect. An evil man knows what he is and accepts his nature. As a result, he has no need to justify his actions. An ambitious man, on the other hand, is a far more slippery creature, and highly unpredictable. He often fools himself as well as others.
“Boeruine is not an evil man,” Lord Tieran continued, “but he could easily convince himself that the empire was in danger with a mere child on the Iron Throne, and that the empress was herself too young and inexperienced to rule as regent. In that, at least, he would be correct. She could certainly do so with my guidance, but Lord Arwyn would doubtless feel that his guidance would be superior to mine. And he may even be right at that-who knows? He certainly is capable of governing the empire. Either way, he would tell himself that, as a widow, the empress would be vulnerable to unscrupulous suitors seeking to gain power, so by marrying her, he would only be protecting her and safeguarding the empire from greedy and ambitious men.
“And as a descendant of Roele,” he went on, “who better than himself to guide the empire and provide for the emperor’s widow? The empress is a beautiful woman, so I suppose it would not be very difficult for Lord Arwyn to convince himself he loved her. He is a strong and handsome man, and he might even be able to convince her. After all, the only man that she has ever known has been the emperor, and a man of his age and constitution does not really stir the fires in a young woman’s heart.
But whether he courted the empress or coerced her, Lord Arwyn would convince himself that he was acting out of the best possible motives.
And that is why ambitious
men are dangerous, my son. I would rather have an evil man to deal with any day. At least evil men are honest with themselves.”
“But how could he possibly justify doing anything to
