Rex Regis (31 page)

“You seem to have created a bit of a problem for yourself and the imagers, haven’t you, Quaeryt?”

“For the next few weeks or months, sir.”

“You won’t get out of it that easily.” Bhayar shook his head. “I need to think things over. I’ll let you know by Lundi. You don’t have anything else in the way of facts to add to what you’ve said, do you? Facts … or other solid indications.”

Quaeryt caught the quick look from Vaelora. “No, sir.”

“Until later, then.” Bhayar turned back toward the window.

Neither Quaeryt nor Vaelora said much until they returned to their private ministry study.

“He was rather short with us,” observed Quaeryt after he shut the door.

“He was upset. Deucalon and Myskyl served Father, and they’ve served him. He can’t see why they’re acting the way they have. Oh … I know power or the temptation of it changes people, but Bhayar always thought fair and firm treatment would keep people loyal, and now he’s worried that it won’t. He won’t dither, but he needs some time to think it through alone. If we’d said more, he would have felt we were pushing, and his reaction would be to delay deciding. It would help if Aelina were here.”

“I told him to send for her, and to send Pulaskyr to Solis as the regent of Telaryn or some such.”

“He can’t do that yet, dearest.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t think Variana is safe enough for her. If we’re right, it isn’t.”

Quaeryt couldn’t disagree with that, although he couldn’t help observing that Bhayar had less compunction about risking his sister.

“That brings up another question,” said Vaelora softly. “If he does send you, who will you take?”

“Khalis, Lhandor, and Elsior. I promised Horan he wouldn’t have to do battle imagining. Given how he feels about it, he’d be limited. Between them, he and Baelthm can handle most imaging. If necessary, Horan has strong shields, and he could protect the Chateau Regis.”

“You don’t think it will come to that, do you?”

“Not so long as Bhayar remains healthy and alive. Even the senior officers beholden to Deucalon and Myskyl would balk at an attack on Bhayar. But if Bhayar dies in an accident or of illness, Deucalon will certainly step forward to hold together what the great Lord Bhayar has unified. If you can, persuade Bhayar never to eat with Deucalon except at his own table here at the chateau.”

“You want
me
…”

“He’s far more likely to listen to you than me about poisons and intrigue.”

Vaelora nodded dubiously. “I said this earlier, but what if all this is designed just to get you away from Variana?”

“That’s possible, even likely, but Myskyl’s being insubordinate. You heard your brother. He’s ignoring dispatches. If Bhayar can’t bring him into line, then Decaulon will have reason to supplant Bhayar.”

“That means they’re both in this together.”

“I don’t see how it could be otherwise.” Quaeryt paused, then added, “Although they could be playing each other off.”

“Even if they are, Deucalon can’t take over from Bhayar without killing him if you’re alive.”

“He can if we do nothing. What happens when tariff time comes, and no tariffs come in? Kharllon may well be in on this plot as well.”

“We don’t even know if there is a plot, dearest.”

“No … we don’t. But if it waddles like a goose, hisses like a goose, and has a nasty disposition like a goose … then it’s probably a goose.”

A knock on the study door punctuated Quaeryt’s words.

“Yes?”

“Lady, sir, it’s Hullyt.”

“Come in.”

The dark-haired clerk entered with a broad smile on his square face. “Lady, I found where High Holder Taelmyn is. Or where his mansion in Variana is…”

Vaelora nodded.

“His holding proper is fifty to sixty milles east northeast of Variana off what they call the old pike road where it crosses the Lusee River. His city place is two milles outside Variana on the east pike beyond the Saenhelyn Road.”

Vaelora and Quaeryt exchanged glances, Quaeryt’s expression reflecting that he had no idea what those directions meant.

“We’re not terribly familiar with the east side of Variana, Hullyt,” said Vaelora. “Could you draw a rough map of where the city mansion is?”

“Yes, Lady. It sounds hard, but it’s not. You just follow the Boulevard D’Este from the Nord Bridge until you reach Saenhelyn Road-that’s where all sorts of roads and streets come together, and some folks say that there ought to be a plaza there, but there’s not…” The clerk paused, then said, “Best I draw it out.”

“Did the people you talked to have any idea about the High Holder?”

“No, Lady … well, excepting that he must be alive, because they’re delivering goods and one of ’em saw him last week.”

“How long would it take to ride there?” asked Quaeryt.

“Two glasses, maybe a bit more, sir.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Quaeryt said to Vaelora. “I’d rather not show up just before they might be entertaining. Do you wish to come?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Quaeryt couldn’t quite conceal his surprise at her diffident tone.

“It’s not that. I just don’t know that I want to ride four glasses when the reason deals with something I had nothing to do with.”

Her smile reassured Quaeryt.

“And now,” Vaelora added, “we need to go over more than a few things in case you have to travel next week.” She turned to the young clerk. “If you’d draw that out, please, Hullyt, and then you can get back to the work we disrupted.”

“It was a pleasure, Lady. I don’t mind getting out now and again. I’ll go back to my table and draw it out proper.”

“Thank you.”

When the door closed, Quaeryt said, “He seems quite well mannered and pleased to be here.”

“His father was a clerk for a High Holder who fell from Kharst’s favor. He was working for a miller as a wagon boy.”

“How did you find him?”

“I have my ways.” Vaelora flashed a smile, then said, “I watched Aelina.”

Quaeryt wasn’t sure that was an answer, but decided against pressing.

Quaeryt woke, then stiffened, glancing around the chateau chamber. The shutters were secure and the door barred. In the dimness, he turned toward Vaelora, but she was facing away from him in the wide bed. He could hear a faint pattering sound, almost like rain, except that it wasn’t. Then the shutters over the center window flew open and a swirl of rain sprayed across the chamber-except the raindrops were large and each glittered with silver light.

He started to rise, to close the shutters, but some of the swirls of silver rain cascaded over him and formed into chains of light that pinned him against the headboard of the bed. The silver rain intensified, even as the pattering dissipated into silence, and formed a silver archway, with the reddish silver road beyond it leading upward into a brilliant star-filled sky.

Silently, as if unable to speak, Quaeryt watched as a figure strode down that reddish silver road until he walked through the archway and halted. Erion, for it had to be he, stood there for a moment, then gestured.

Vaelora started, then turned over and half sat up against the headboard.

In the light that poured from and around and behind the silver-haired man, Quaeryt could see Vaelora’s eyes open, and an expression of shock cross her face. As before, Erion held a dagger with a blade of brilliant light, yet part of the blade held a dark reddish substance. Across his back was the mighty bow, and in his other hand was something shimmering so brightly that Quaeryt could not rightly determine what it might be … Yet he felt that it must be a book.

The silver-haired figure surveyed Quaeryt and then Vaelora, before turning back to Quaeryt and speaking. “You have seen treachery, and yet you have not seen it. There is always treachery, especially by those who are powerful, but for whom no amount of wealth and position will suffice, for they know their failings and will not see them, and seek forgetfulness in the elixir of power. You, my son, will never know forgetfulness of your failings. Never.”

Quaeryt could believe that, and he could feel the cold certainty of those words.

“In all treachery there is greater treachery, for the greater the scheme, the greater the deception, and often those who seem to be great traitors are only the lesser traitors.”

Great traitors only turn out to be lesser traitors?
Quaeryt could believe that in a way, but whom was Erion talking about … and how did the all-too-real dream figure know?

“Take comfort in doing what is right, and not in what brings power, for power is fleeting, and seeking power for its own sake brings only grief…” The silver-haired figure offered an enigmatic smile, then turned and walked back up the red-silver road through the archway that had been a window … and was once more, leaving the bedchamber lit in a silver radiance that slowly faded.

“Did you see…” Quaeryt asked.

“I saw … and heard.” Vaelora’s voice seemed unsteady. “He talked about treachery, and seemingly great traitors only being small ones … and that you have to do right.”

“Seemingly great traitors…” mused Quaeryt.

“Rescalyn?” asked Vaelora.

“It could be … but then, it could be Myskyl or Deucalon?” Quaeryt paused. The greater question in his mind was the apparently real appearance of Erion. Yet how could that be? Was Erion real? An actual god? Or were his dreams taking over his imaging?
So much so that they seem real … even to Vaelora.

Neither possibility was exactly comforting.

He looked to Vaelora, and she looked at him.

“You’re making your dreams so real that they’re … disturbing.”

“How about frightening?” he said, attempting to make his words dryly humorous. “They’re a bit more than disturbing. I just wish I knew what my dreams seem to know.”

“I can see that.” Vaelora shivered, even though the bedchamber was not that cool.

Quaeryt eased closer to her and put his arms around her. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“So am I.”

Quaeryt lay there, half awake, long after Vaelora drifted back into sleep.

Unsurprisingly, Quaeryt woke early on Solayi morning, thankful that he’d had no dreams, of even the conventional type, at least not that he could remember. Although he tried to be quiet, before long Vaelora woke, and they summoned breakfast, a luxury that Quaeryt, and Vaelora, did appreciate greatly.

As they lingered at the small table after eating, Vaelora asked, “Do you have any more thoughts about last night?”

Quaeryt set down the mug of lager-the morning was too warm for tea-and thought for a moment. “Nothing that we didn’t already talk about.”

“Who else might be a traitor besides Myskyl or Deucalon?”

“Any number of people neither of us might know or think about,” replied Quaeryt. “In Tilbor, there were some who turned traitor because they thought it might benefit them, and in the end, they lost everything. They would have benefited more from being loyal.”

“Is that always so, though?” asked Vaelora. “We remember those for whom treason did not pay. What about those for whom it did?”

“You’re right,” replied Quaeryt with a laugh. “They don’t call it treason then … like when your great-grandsire revolted against the Lord of Telaryn. Or when Kharst’s forbears quietly removed the direct heirs to the throne of Bovaria.”

“Sometimes, it works. That’s why people try.”

“Because they’d rather fail in attempting to achieve great power than accept modest power in service of another?” Quaeryt took another swallow of the lager. “That raises another question. What did they want power for? For the sake of having it?”

“That’s the difference between them and you, dearest. You have a very direct and specific goal, and you want just enough power to accomplish it.”

Much as he wanted to believe Vaelora, Quaeryt couldn’t help thinking,
Just enough power? How much is that? Will you ever know? Or will you be like so many others? Others who wanted power to do good and ended up just doing well for themselves.

After a moment of silence, Vaelora added, “You need to finish dressing and ride out to see if you can talk to Taelmyn.”

Quaeryt nodded, if reluctantly.

In less than two quints, he and four rankers from the duty squad were riding south. Before long they were on the north road headed toward the Nord Bridge. The road was less traveled than on other days, but far from deserted, even though most of the shops fronting the road were closed, most of which were located in the last half mille before the west end of the bridge, and again for another half mille east of the bridge. The paving on the east side of the river consisted of uneven and mismatched cobblestones, and modest dwellings lined the road for perhaps a mille beyond where the shops ended. Then the paving ended totally, and several hundred yards farther east, amid ramshackle dwellings, he came to a point where four roads and several lanes all met in an area of packed clay that was likely a muddy morass when there was any significant rain.

“This must be what Hullyt meant by a place that ought to be a square someday,” Quaeryt observed quietly to himself.

He turned the gelding southeast along the heavily packed clay road that he thought might be Saenhelyn. After he rode about half a mille, following Hullyt’s directions, he turned onto what looked to be the East Pike, since he could see the mill on the creek on the left side of the road. After a few hundred yards, the pike began a curve around a hill, surrounded at its base by a stone wall two yards high, with a substantial dwelling perched near the top. The next hill was lower, but only the burned-out remnants of a dwelling crowned its crest.

Quaeryt looked for a gate or an entry road to the dwelling on the next rise, since that supposedly held the “city” dwelling of High Holder Taelmyn, although calling a hilltop dwelling a good mille from any real congregation of houses or shops a “city dwelling” seemed to stretch that description. The wall around the long rise was clearly older and of reddish brick, as was the modest dwelling situated on the north side just below the crest. A brick-paved drive led from the brick gateposts and angled up through a lawn interspersed with three gardens of varying sizes.