How Firm a Foundation (47 page)

“I suppose that could explain it,” Doyal said in a tone which implied he believed nothing of the sort, and Tartarian pointed an index finger at him.

“Don’t you go shooting holes in my perfectly good theory unless you’ve got one to replace it with, young man,” he said severely. Doyal, who wasn’t that many years Tartarian’s junior, laughed, and Tartarian shook
his head. But then his expression sobered. “And don’t go shooting holes in my theory until you’ve got an explanation that won’t scare the shit out of me when you come up with it, either.”

“She really
is
more than a little frightening, isn’t she?” Gahrvai said into the small silence Tartarian’s last sentence had produced. Lightning flashed again overhead, close enough this time that the thunderclap
seemed to rattle the opened garden windows in their frames.

“I’m not sure frightening is exactly the right word,” his father objected, but Tartarian made a moderately rude noise in his throat.

“It’ll do until we can come up with a better one, Rysel,” he said.

“I think a lot of it was Archbishop Maikel’s fault,” Doyal put in. The others looked at him and he raised his right hand, palm uppermost
as if he were releasing an invisible bird. “Remember how he reacted after that assassination attempt in Tellesberg Cathedral. According to the reports, he didn’t even hesitate—just went ahead and celebrated mass with the assassins’ blood and brains splashed all over his vestments. Frankly, I had my doubts about the stories at the time; now I’m starting to think it must be something in the water
in Charis!”

“You may be righter about that than you think you are, Charlz,” Gahrvai said ruefully. Doyal raised an eyebrow, and Gahrvai shrugged. “Don’t forget, before he celebrated mass, he also rebuked the members of his congregation who wanted to go out and start stringing up Temple Loyalists in revenge. Does that remind you of anything?”

Doyal gazed at him for a moment, then nodded, and
Gahrvai nodded back while his mind replayed the chaos and confusion of the assassination attempt.

The only thing he’d been able to think when the would-be killer shouted was that Cayleb Ahrmahk would never forgive Corisande for allowing his wife to be murdered on her very throne. There’d been
no way
the man could miss, not from a range of no more than fifteen feet. Gahrvai would have been one
of the first to admit that it was far harder to fire a pistol accurately than most people probably believed, especially when someone was gripped by the excitement and terror of a moment like that. Still, at that range? The man could almost have reached out and
touched
her with the pistol’s muzzle before he pulled the trigger!

But his fears—like the assassin, apparently—had failed to reckon with
Merlin Athrawes. Despite all the stories Gahrvai had heard, and despite the things he knew firsthand were true, he would never have believed any mortal man could move that quickly. The
seijin
clearly hadn’t seen anything coming before the assassin produced his weapon. Despite that, the first two shots had sounded as one, and his bullet had hit the man who’d been identified as Bahrynd Laybrahn
(although Gahrvai sincerely doubted that had been his true name) before “Laybrahn” could fire his second shot. The smear of lead where Laybrahn’s second bullet smashed into the marble floor was barely two feet in front of where his body had fallen, and Spynsair Ahrnahld’s left shoulder had been grazed by the ricochet before it buried itself in the ceiling.

Gahrvai had been in more than his fair
share of chaotic, violent situations. He knew how impressions could blur, how a man could be absolutely positive of what he’d seen … and yet absolutely wrong about what had actually happened. And Merlin had reacted so quickly, moved with such speed once he did see the weapon, that he’d seemed almost to have been teleported by a wizard’s spell out of some children’s tale. But still, granting all
of that, it simply didn’t seem possible Sharleyan could have been missed.

Yet when Captain Athrawes rolled aside, coming up on one knee from where he’d covered her protectively with his own body, she’d been unhurt. Well, perhaps not totally
unhurt
, which certainly shouldn’t surprise anyone. Merlin had been more concerned with protecting her from assassins than gentleness, and the weight of an
armored man his size coming down that hard would have been enough to knock the breath out of anyone.

From Sharleyan’s expression and the tightness of her shoulders when Merlin assisted her to her feet, Gahrvai had been certain for one heart-stopping moment that she
had
been hit. She’d leaned to her left, left hand pressed hard against her ribs, and her face had been pale and strained. But then
she’d straightened, drawn an obviously cautious breath, and shaken her head—hard—at something Merlin must have said into her ear.

Shouts and screams had still filled the huge chamber, and no one else had been close enough to hear what the
seijin
might have said, anyway, but Gahrvai had no doubt at all what Merlin had advised. Unfortunately, even
seijins
had their limits, and one of those limits,
clearly, was Sharleyan Tayt Ahrmahk.

“Be seated!” she’d shouted, and somehow she’d managed to pitch her voice so that it could be heard. Not by very many people at first, but those closest to her first stared at her in disbelief and then started repeating her command at the top of their lungs. In less than two minutes, by some sorcery Gahrvai didn’t come close to understanding, she’d actually
managed to restore something like order as she stood almost straight, one hand still pressed to her side.

Merlin Athrawes had stood beside her, his pistol still in his right hand, merciless sapphire eyes scanning the witness-filled benches, and Sergeant Seahamper had stood on her other side with an expression which could only be described as murderous. Gahrvai hadn’t blamed either of them at
all. God only knew if there was
another
assassin out there. It didn’t seem possible, but then Gahrvai wouldn’t have believed the first one could have gotten in unchallenged. And if there
was
another assassin, the slender white-and-blue-clad figure who’d lost her crown and whose long hair had come tumbling down about her shoulders would be a perfect target.

She’d seemed unaware of that, however,
just as she’d seemed unaware of the bruise already darkening her left cheek. She’d simply stood there, exposed to any follow-up shot,
willing
the Corisandians back onto their benches. Only after the last of them sat had she seated herself once more, sitting very erect, her left elbow beside her and her upper arm still pressed against those ribs.

“Thank you,” she’d said in a calm voice whose normality
seemed utterly bizarre under the circumstances. Then she’d actually managed a smile, and if it was a bit shaky and passed quickly, who should blame her? She’d reached up with her right hand, tucking a strand of that fallen, glorious sable hair behind her ear and shaken her head.

“I deeply regret that this should have happened,” she’d said, looking down at the body in the pool of blood as four
of Gahrvai’s guardsmen prepared to remove it. Her eloquent brown eyes had been shadowed, and she’d shaken her head sadly. “Surely God weeps to see such violence loosed among His children.”

Stillness had seemed to flow outward from her. The scraping sound of the corpse’s heels as the guardsmen picked up the body had seemed shockingly loud in the silence, and the empress had turned her head, watching
as the man who’d tried to kill her was carried from her presence. A trail of blood droplets had followed him, dark in the lamplight as the guardsmen and their burden vanished through the double doors, and she’d gazed at those doors for a handful of heartbeats before she’d turned once more to look out at the assembled witnesses.

“There are times,” she’d told them quietly, almost softly, “when
all the killing and all the hatred strike me to the heart. When I wonder what sort of world my daughter will inherit? What kind of men and women will decide how the people of that world live? What they’re allowed to believe?”

Gahrvai’s eyes had widened as he realized she’d abandoned the royal “we.” And they’d gone even wider as he saw those benches filled with Corisandians leaning towards a Chisholmian
queen who was also a Charisian empress and listening intently. She’d no longer been a conquering monarch dispensing justice and retribution; she’d been something else. A young mother worried about her own child. A young woman who’d just survived a murder attempt. And a voice of calm when she should have been demanding vengeance upon those who had allowed such a thing to happen.

“Is this what
we truly wish?” she’d asked in that same quiet voice. “To settle our differences with murder? For those of us on one side to leave those on the other no option but to kill or to be killed? It grieves my soul to know how many people—some of them known personally to me, some of them beloved friends and kinsmen, and far more who I never met but who were
someone’s
kinsmen or kinswomen or beloved—have
already died, yet the death toll is only starting. Yesterday I sat here in front of you and sent thirty-nine people to the headsman. Tomorrow and the next day I’ll send still more, because I have no choice, and those decisions, those confirmations of the sentences of those brought before me, will live with me for the rest of my own life. Do you think any sane woman
wants
to order the deaths of
others? Do you truly believe I wouldn’t rather—
far
rather—pardon, as I’ve just pardoned Master Ibbet, Master Pahlmahn, Master Lahmbair, and young Dobyns? Despite anything the Group of Four may say, God does
not
call us to exult in the blood and agony of our enemies!”

She’d paused, her expression sad, her eyes dark in the shadows yet lit by the lamplight while the stink of blood and voided bowels
and the brimstone reek of gunsmoke drifted like Shan-wei’s perfume, and then she’d shaken her head.

“I wish I had some magic wand that could make all this go away, but I don’t, and I can’t. The only ‘peace’ someone like Zhaspahr Clyntahn will ever accept is the destruction of everything I know and love and hold dear. The only ‘agreement’ he will ever tolerate is one in which his own twisted,
vicious perversion of God’s will rules each and every one of God’s children. Charis didn’t
start
this war, my friends; Charis simply
survived
the war someone else launched at her like a slash lizard crazed by blood. And Charis will continue to do what she must to go on surviving, because that’s what she owes to her own people, to her own children, and to God Himself.

“Which is what brings me
to this throne in this room, delivering and confirming sentences of death. Many of these people amply deserve those sentences. For others the case is less clear-cut, however clear the law itself may be. And in still other cases, what the law decrees is neither true justice nor what compassion and mercy require. I must err on the side of caution in the cause of protecting that which I’m charged to
protect, but where I can, where the chance exists, I’ll grant that mercy whenever and however I may. I won’t be able to do that as often as I wish, or as often as
you
could wish, but I’ll do it as often as I
can
, and I’ll ask God’s help to live with the many times when I cannot.”

A ripping sound had been loud in the stillness as Edwyrd Seahamper tore open Spynsair Ahrnahld’s sleeve and applied
a dressing of fleming moss from the emergency case each of her Imperial Guardsmen carried at his belt. She’d looked down, watching her secretary’s pale face as the bandage was adjusted, then cocked her head at him.

“Can you continue, Spynsair?” she’d asked him, and Ahrnahld’s hadn’t been the only eyebrows which rose in astonishment at her question.

“Yes—I mean, of course, Your Majesty. If that’s
your wish,” he’d said after a moment.

“Of course it’s my wish,” she’d replied with a crooked smile, that elbow and upper arm still pressed against her ribs. She’d sat very erect, but she’d also sat very still, and Gahrvai suspected it had hurt her to breathe. Yet if that was so, she’d allowed no sign of it to cross her expression or shadow her voice.

“We have much still to do today,” she’d told
her secretary, her eyes rising across the puddle of her assailant’s blood to include the gathered witnesses in the same statement. “If we refuse to let Clyntahn and the Group of Four stop us, then we won’t allow this to, either. Let us proceed.”

*   *   *

And proceed she had, Koryn Gahrvai thought now. For another four hours, until lunch. She’d seemed unaware her hair was steadily tumbling into
looser and looser falls about her shoulders, just as she’d seemed unaware when Merlin Athrawes picked up the crown which had fallen from her head and stood holding it in the crook of his left arm like a paladin’s helmet. There’d been the slightest, barely perceptible breathlessness in her voice, like a catch of pain, yet it was so faint Gahrvai suspected most of those watching her never heard
it at all.

Seventeen more people were sent to execution that morning … but another six were pardoned. And in each case, Empress Sharleyan—still without notes—had recited the extenuating circumstances which led her to grant mercy in those cases. She’d continued unhurriedly, calmly, as if no one had ever attempted to harm her at all, and by the end of that morning, she’d held that audience of Corisandian
witnesses in the palm of one slender hand.

The bell announcing the end of the morning session had sounded at last, and the empress had looked up with a wry smile.

“We trust no one will be disappointed if we adjourn for the day at this time,” she’d said. “Under the circumstances, we believe it might be excusable.”

There’d actually been an answering mutter of laughter, and her smile had grown
broader.

“We’ll take that as agreement,” she’d told them, and stood.

She’d stepped down from the dais, and Gahrvai’s eyes had narrowed as she took Merlin Athrawes’ left arm. She’d swayed slightly, and her nostrils had looked pinched as she’d seemed to stumble for a moment. Her elbow had still pressed against her ribs, and there’d been a certain fragility to her normally graceful carriage, yet
she’d smiled graciously at him and at the others who bowed as she passed them.