By Schism Rent Asunder (89 page)

None of the other three spoke for several seconds. Then Merlin cleared his throat, which, despite the tension, won an involuntary grin from Cayleb. The emperor still might not fully grasp everything involved in the concept of a PICA, but he was aware that Merlin would never have any
physical
need to clear his throat.

“First, Cayleb, let me say I agree with you completely. But, however deeply I may agree with you, there are certain practical realities we simply can't ignore. And one of them is that the Brethren are still concerned by that possible ‘youthful impetuosity' of yours. Let's face it, you just married a beautiful, smart, and—if you'll pardon me for saying it—sexy young woman. Nothing could be more natural than for you to be besotted with her. Or, at least, for all of those factors to push you into making something less than a careful, fully reasoned decision where she's concerned.”

“Kraken shit,” Cayleb said bluntly. “Oh, I suppose a sufficiently older, close-minded, cranky monk under an oath of celibacy in a bare monastery cell somewhere might think that way. I'll even go so far as to drop the oath of celibacy. But I'm a king, Merlin. In fact, I'm a bloody
emperor
now! This isn't just a decision to be made by a new husband. It's a decision to be made by a ruling head of state on what's effectively the eve of his departure for the invasion of a hostile princedom. I know the odds are against my getting myself killed. But don't any of you forget that the odds were against my father getting
himself
killed, too. It
can
happen. And if it does, and if Sharleyan has to be told the truth after my death, how do you think that's likely to affect her willingness to accept the trustworthiness of the Brethren—or of you and Maikel, for that matter?”

“That's a very telling argument,” Staynair said after a moment. “And, by the way, one I agree with wholeheartedly. But there's an aspect of this that Merlin left out of his analysis a moment ago.”

“Such as?” Cayleb challenged.

“The truth is that in the past few months the Brethren have admitted more people into what we might call the ‘inner circle' than in the preceding ten
years
, Cayleb. Don't forget that some of these people, like Zhon Byrkyt, have spent literally a lifetime—and a
long
lifetime at that—protecting that secret, worrying about what would happen if their security arrangements had even the tiniest flaw. At the moment, they're feeling exposed and off-balance. To be blunt about it, they don't want to tell
anyone
else unless they absolutely have to.”

“That's not the best basis upon which to be making decisions, Maikel,” Cayleb pointed out, and the archbishop nodded.

“I couldn't agree with you more about that. Unfortunately, it's what's happening. And as important—even vital—as it may be to bring the Empress fully into the ‘inner circle' as soon as possible, it's equally important that we maintain the confidence of those already inside that circle.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, Cayleb, I think he has a point,” Merlin said quietly. Cayleb half glared at him, and Merlin shrugged. “I don't say not telling her is a good decision. I'm just afraid that at this particular moment, given the pragmatic constraints of the situation, there really isn't any ‘good' solution available to us. So we're just going to have to do the best we can choosing between less than optimal ones.”

Cayleb made an irate grunting sound, but his grimace also indicated at least unwilling acceptance, if not outright agreement. He wasn't quite done, though, and he leaned back in his chair once again.

“All right,” he said. “I'll concede where Sharleyan is concerned … for now, at least. But what about Rayjhis? He's going to be her primary political adviser here while I'm gone, and God knows he spent the last two or three decades showing that he knows how to keep secrets of state secret! Don't you think it's about time we told
him
the truth?”

“Actually,” Staynair said, “I'm afraid that I rather think the time to tell Rayjhis the
entire
truth will never come at all, Cayleb.”

The emperor looked at him in obvious surprise, and Staynair sighed.

“I've known Rayjhis Yowance since he was little more than a boy, Your Majesty,” he said rather more formally than had become his wont with Cayleb. “He was still a midshipman, and I was only a novice, when we first met. I hold him in the deepest affection, and I would cheerfully trust him with my life or the life of my Kingdom. But I have to tell you that as disillusioned as he may be about the Group of Four, as committed as he may be to the separation between the Church of Charis and the Church of the Temple, I don't believe he is—or ever will be—prepared to accept the full truth about Langhorne, Bédard, and Pei Shan-wei. I'm actually more than a little frightened about how he might react even to the discovery that Merlin, here, isn't actually ‘alive' after all. He believes in the Archangels, Cayleb. Deep inside, where the very things that make him so strong, so determined and trustworthy, come together, he
believes
. I don't think he'll be able to step beyond that. And, to be completely honest with you, I don't know that we have any right to ask him to do that.”

Cayleb's eyes narrowed as he gazed at the archbishop. It was obvious he was thinking hard, and the better part of a full minute dragged past before he exhaled noisily.

“I'm afraid you may be right,” he said then, slowly. “I guess it's just that I've never thought of Rayjhis as being … parochial, or narrow-minded.”

“This is neither parochialism nor closed-mindedness,” Staynair said. “It's faith—the faith he's been taught literally since the cradle. And it's what's going to make this struggle so extraordinarily ugly once its full dimensions become known to all. Which, as I suggested to Merlin once, is the reason we can't afford to make those full dimensions known yet.”

“I agree, Cayleb,” Merlin said. “And, on a pragmatic level, I have to say I don't really think it matters a great deal where Rayjhis is concerned.”

“No?” Cayleb cocked his head, and Merlin shrugged.

“Whatever he might or might not be able to accept about Shan-wei, he's obviously accepted my
‘seijin'
abilities. I think he's pretty sure they go beyond mere
seijin
-hood, in fact. But the fact that both your father and Maikel here have accepted those abilities as serving the Light and not the Dark is enough for him. And I know he's learned to allow for them and to make the most effective possible use of them. There's an old saying, one I haven't come across here on Safehold, but one I think we'd all do well to bear in mind upon occasion. ‘If it isn't broken, don't fix it.'”

“I agree,” Staynair said, nodding vigorously. “Rayjhis is a very good, very loyal, and very capable man, Cayleb. You know that as well as I do. And you also know he's been using that goodness, loyalty, and capability in effective partnership with Merlin for almost three years now. Admittedly,” the archbishop smiled without any humor at all, “their relationship got off to a rocky start, but since he accepted that Merlin was on Charis' side, he's worked wholeheartedly with him. I don't think we need to tell him anything more than we've told him so far—all of which, mind you, has been the truth, if not the
entire
truth. And if, as you've suggested is possible, anything should ‘happen to you' in Corisande, there are already several people here in Tellesberg, including myself, who do know the full secret and who Rayjhis already trusts.”

“All right.” Cayleb nodded again, then laughed a bit sourly. “I seem to be being defeated on all fronts tonight. I hope it isn't an omen for how well things are working out for Domynyk at Ferayd!”

“If it's an omen of any sort, let's hope it's an omen from the theater,” Merlin suggested, and all three of the others chuckled. Safehold's theater tradition continued to enshrine the ancient belief that a bad rehearsal was the best guarantee of a good performance.

“Still, that does bring up something else I've been thinking about, Merlin,” Cayleb said, turning to the man who had once been Nimue Alban.

“That sounds ominous,” Merlin remarked, and Cayleb snorted.

“Not quite that bad, I think. The thing that's occurred to me is that all of us, except you, of course, have only the most imperfect understanding of what humanity was like before Langhorne and the Church of God Awaiting.”

“I'm afraid that's unfortunately true,” Merlin acknowledged.

“Well, what I've been wondering about is this thing Zherneau called a ‘NEAT' in his journal. He said Shan-wei used it to reeducate him after Langhorne and Bédard had erased all of his earlier memories.”

He paused, and Merlin nodded.

“And did ‘Nimue' have one of the things—whatever it is—in her ‘cave'?” the emperor asked.

“As a matter of fact, she did—I mean, I do,” Merlin said.

“Well, I got the impression from his journal that they were capable of teaching someone an enormous amount in a very short time. So I've been wondering if it wouldn't make sense for us to use one of those machines to ‘educate' some of the rest of us, just in case anything untoward were to happen to you.”

“Actually, I think that would be a splendid idea, especially where you, Maikel, and Rahzhyr are concerned. Unfortunately, we can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because ‘NEAT' is an acronym, which stands for ‘Neural Education and Training,'” Merlin said. All of his Safeholdian listeners looked blank, and he raised his right hand, holding it cupped before him as if to contain something.

“What that means is that it directly interfaces—connects with—the human neural system. Your nerves and brain. It's rather like the technology Nimue used to record her personality and her memories when she uploaded them to me.”

It felt more than a little peculiar to be having this conversation, Merlin reflected. On the other hand, it probably would have felt equally peculiar to have held it with anyone from Terra. Not least because of the fact that he was so far past the mandated ten-day legal maximum which had been permitted under Federation law for a PICA to operate in autonomous mode.

“The problem is that for a NEAT to interface with a human being, the human being has to have the necessary implants.” They looked even blanker, and he sighed. “Think of it as … the fitting a water hose screws into aboard one of the water hoys the harbormaster uses to refill a ship's water tanks. It's a very, very tiny … mechanism, for want of a better word, that has to be surgically implanted into someone before they can connect to a NEAT. Shan-wei was able to reeducate Zherneau and the others because all of the ‘Adams' and ‘Eves' had already received their implants. Everyone on Old Earth received them shortly after birth. No one here on Safehold has them, though. So without something to attach the ‘hose' to, I can't just pour knowledge into your heads.”

“I'm extremely sorry to hear that,” Mahklyn said. Merlin glanced at him, and the doctor chuckled a bit harshly. “Reading over the texts you've had copied for me is exciting enough, Merlin. Having the same knowledge ‘magically' made available to me would be even more marvelous. And it would save so much time, too.”

Merlin chuckled. Mahklyn was in the process of completely revolutionizing Safeholdian mathematics. It would be some time yet before he was prepared to publish, because at the moment he was busy reading the works not only of Newton, but of several of Newton's contemporaries—and successors—for himself. Brilliant as he undoubtedly was, that was a huge amount of theory and information to soak up, and the task of translating it into his own words, so that it was obviously a native Safeholdian development, and not something which came from the “dark knowledge of Shan-wei” was likely to take the entire remainder of his life … and then some. His discomfort at passing off the gigantic work of others as his own was manifest, but at least he seemed to have accepted that he had no choice.

“I don't doubt that it would,” Merlin said now. “Unfortunately, we can't do it.”

“Well, there it is,” Cayleb said philosophically. All of the others looked at him, and he smiled crookedly. “Three strikes, and out,” he said.

“I don't think that's a completely fair way to look at things, Cayleb,” Staynair said mildly. “None of them were really
strikes
, you know.”

“You can call them whatever you like, Maikel. For me, they were strikes. On the other hand,” Cayleb shoved himself up out of his chair, “that's not necessarily a terrible thing. After all, if I've just struck out here, then it's only reasonable for me to head off to the showers. And,” he smiled wickedly, “to bed. If I can't tell Sharleyan everything I'd like to tell her, I can at least make it obvious to her just how much I'm going to miss her while I'm away.”

.IV.

Ferayd Sound,
Kingdom of Delferahk

“They're
what?
”

Sir Vyk Lakyr jerked upright in his chair, staring at the very young officer on the far side of his desk. Lieutenant Cheryng had become a rather frequent visitor in Lakyr's office since the bloody August fiasco here in Ferayd, because he was in charge of Lakyr's clerks and message traffic. There'd been a lot more of that traffic over the last two and a half months, and very little of it had been pleasant. In fact, Lakyr was more than a little surprised that he was not only still in command of the Ferayd garrison, but that he'd actually been promoted when that garrison was reinforced by providing the gunners for its batteries. He wasn't certain if that meant King Zhames recognized that it hadn't been his fault, but he
was
certain that he might yet be dismissed if the Church demanded it. Which, given the fact that it was the Church's own bloodthirsty Inquisitors who had truly provoked the massacre, was still entirely possible.