Heritage of Cyador

LIX

When Lerial meets with his officers and senior squad leaders on twoday morning, after going over muster reports, Strauxyn asks, “Begging your pardon, ser, but do you know when we’ll be leaving?”

“That’s one of the things I hope to settle with the duke this morning. Now that he’s dealt with his brother’s memorial, we should be able to settle things.”

“You don’t like Swartheld so well?” asks Kusyl jestingly.

“It’s all right. It’s just…” Strauxyn breaks off his words.

“Who is she?” Kusyl grins.

Strauxyn flushes.

Lerial smiles. “It’s amazing what women can do.”

“Or what men will do for the ones they love,” adds Kusyl.

That comment shocks Lerial, because it’s not what he’d have expected from the sardonic older undercaptain. But there’s likely so much you don’t know, just like Aenslem and Atroyan, and perhaps even Rhamuel, who know so little of those below them. He pushes aside that sobering thought, as well as the near-continual thoughts about Kyedra, wondering if there is any way he can get his father to agree to letting him ask for Kyedra’s hand. That’s assuming Aenslem and Rhamuel-and Haesychya-would agree. And that is anything but certain.

“Ser … there is one thing,” ventures Dhoraat.

“Yes?”

“There are some rankers whose terms expire on eightday…”

Lerial should have remembered that. All rankers’ terms expire on one of ten days in the year-the last day of a season or the eightday of the fifth week of the season. “They can still travel back to Cigoerne with their company. It’s not as though we’re likely to be fighting, and they can draw pay for the travel time without agreeing to extend their term.”

“They know that, ser. There are a couple who want to stay here. They’ve found positions.”

“And lady-friends, I’d wager,” adds Kusyl.

“That can happen to any man, anywhere,” Lerial replies. “I don’t see a problem there. If there aren’t too many, I can find a way to cover their back pay.”

“Just three that want to stay, ser.”

“We can manage that. Anything else?”

“No, ser.”

“Then I need to get to the palace to meet with the duke.”

Lerial takes only a half squad of rankers as an escort, and he doubts he needs more than two men, but there still is the question of appearances. When he reaches the anteroom outside the duke’s study, only Norstaan is there.

“Go right in, ser,” says Norstaan. “He’s alone. The commander is at South Post this morning.”

“Thank you.” Not without some trepidation, Lerial steps into the receiving study.

Rhamuel motions for him to take a chair, and Lerial does so, waiting.

“To begin with, I thought you’d like to know that five days ago, Maesoryk died peacefully in his sleep. The local healer could find no trace of chaos or poison.”

Lerial manages to avoid taking a deep breath. “I’m not surprised.”

“I didn’t think you would be. In fact, I think you’d only have been surprised if you had not heard of his death.” After a moment, Rhamuel continues, his voice firm and decisive, “I have some other things I’d like to discuss with you, but let’s go over what you had in mind first. Save the questions about your departure for last.”

Lerial again feels like taking a deep breath. He doesn’t. “You need to make some changes in what the merchanters can and cannot do.”

“Such as?”

“Powerful order-mages or chaos-mages should serve the duke and/or the Afritan Guard, not the merchanters. Less powerful mages or wizards should only serve merchanters with the knowledge and consent of the duke.”

“Why do you think that?” Rhamuel’s tone is even, not quite skeptical.

“Most of the treachery your brother faced was made possible by the fact that Duke Khesyn had control of chaos-mages and traitorous Afritan merchanters did also-”

“And the only thing that saved me and Afrit was one powerful magus loaned to me by the grace of the Duke of Cigoerne.”

“I’m not a full magus, and never will be.”

“Call you a war magus, then, but you were the difference. I’ll admit it. I also agree with your recommendation. There is, however, just one small problem with it. How exactly am I going to enforce it?” Rhamuel smiles.

“You make failure to comply treason against Afrit and execute anyone who fails to comply. It won’t work otherwise.”

“I’d agree with that as well, but the same problem remains. If someone has a powerful mage, how can a duke without mages make them comply?”

Lerial can see the difficulty … and he realizes, as he has considered before, just how much tradition and structure had kept the Cyadoran Magi’i and merchanters in their places … and that Rhamuel has neither. Nor does he have any mages.

“You see…” says the duke, “I’ve thought about this. So did my brother. But we’ve never had enough golds to buy mages, and without them, we don’t have enough power to raise tariffs to gain the golds to buy their services, let alone their loyalty.”

“I can see that.”

“I also have another problem. As duke, I’m supposed to produce heirs-sons. What most people do not know is that I was more seriously injured than almost anyone knew in the battle against your father and the Mirror Lancers years ago. It is sheer fortune that I even have a daughter. With Mykel dead, it will become obvious that I can have no heirs. The only living individual who can carry on the family blood is my niece.”

“That’s not true.” Lerial doesn’t want to dwell on that. “Besides, Amaira is your daughter, and her mother is the sister of the duke of Cigoerne. You can’t get better bloodlines than that. Why not just find her an appropriate consort and make her son heir to Afrit?”

“I thought of that. It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Because Amaira isn’t known to either the merchanters or the people of Afrit and because you can’t consort your cousin.”

“I can’t? What does that have to do-”

“Whether I like it or not, or whether you do or not, the duke of Afrit must be seen as both wise and powerful or be wise with a powerful backer. I can supply the wisdom, or at least enough of it or the image of it, but no one believes a crippled ruler is powerful, and you are the only individual of ducal lineage in all Hamor that the merchanters absolutely know is powerful and loyal to me … at least loyal to me in terms of Afrit.”

“But … what about Lephi?” Lerial hates to ask that question, but it is one his parents will certainly ask.

“He doesn’t have your skills, and even if he did, which he doesn’t, the last thing the merchanters would accept is a consorting that puts Cigoerne in a position to control Afrit. You have fought and nearly died, possibly more than once, to save Afrit from the Heldyans. You are of ducal blood, but you are not the principal heir. In addition, and not unimportant, you’re halfway to falling in love with Kyedra and she with you.”

“I still don’t like Kyedra being forced to consort me as if she were a tool.”

“We’re all tools, Lerial. I was for my brother, and you have been for yours. Your father was for your grandmere until he was old enough and smart enough to rule on his own. Even after that, she supplied the wisdom he had not yet learned. I know. I was there, you might recall.”

“I don’t recall. I was too young, and they kept me away from you.”

“There is one other thing. If you consort her, you’ll have to renounce any claim to Cigoerne, you know,” Rhamuel says.

Renounce Cigoerne? Everything Grandmere had worked for? All that Father has done? All that you’ve done? All those you’ve killed to allow Cigoerne to survive and prosper? “That’s asking a great deal, even though you know I never intended to be the heir.”

“I know that. Few others do, and fewer still will after all that has happened. If you don’t renounce any claim to Cigoerne, the people, especially the merchanters, will not accept Kyedra’s son, assuming she will have one, as duke, or her as his regent, should I die before he is of age.” Rhamuel laughs ironically. “In my condition, that is likely. Do you want another uprising? Do you want another Maesoryk scheming to turn Afrit over to Khesyn or his heirs? You have to decide what you think is best. No one else can. You can ride back to Cigoerne, and no one will think badly of you. Not after destroying Khesyn’s invasion.” Rhamuel holds up his hand to stop Lerial from saying anything.

Lerial can see the effort that requires of the duke, and the fact that his hand begins to shake, and Rhamuel has to lower it. He’s not as strong as he seems.

“You gave your word that you wouldn’t reveal Maesoryk’s treachery. But how long will that remain hidden once you leave … if that is your choice?”

Lerial also knows what Rhamuel has not said. That if he does not consort Kyedra, that will further weaken Rhamuel … and Afrit … and Cigoerne in turn. And now that Kyedra is the only one carrying the possibility of producing an heir, she cannot consort Lephi, because all the merchanters of Afrit would protest. Paradoxically, he is faced with what he never wanted for Kyedra, for her to be forced into consorting someone, and he is that someone. What would the majer have said to this? How would he…?

A slow smile crosses Lerial’s face as he realizes that the majer had already known. Why else would he have written that last letter? The one that had said, the words burned into Lerial’s memory:

What I task you with, and it is a task and not a request, is to assure that the heirs of the Malachite Throne do not perish, that they do not stoop to petty bargains for a peace that will not last, and that their heritage will shine on when the City of Light is long forgotten. This does not mean you are to re-create Cyad or Cyador. That time is past. It does mean that what was best of that time should live on through you and what you do.

And what is the best of that time? “Doing what is right and proper.”

“What?” asks Rhamuel.

“I will consort Kyedra … only if she will have me of her own free will.”

“It took you long enough,” says a too-familiar voice.

Lerial turns and then stands to see Emerya standing in the corner of the study, with Kyedra beside her. Kyedra is smiling, offering that radiance that warms him even when it is not directed at him.

A concealment shield … and you didn’t even sense it!

His expression must have revealed his thoughts, because Emerya says gently, “There are still some things you don’t know about order.”

Then he and Kyedra are moving toward each other, and no one else is in the study, not for them.