David Weber - How firm a foundation

“You may have a point,” Nahrmahn conceded. “On the other hand, I could see some advantages-from his perspective-to stretching things out, hitting us with a series of attacks to demonstrate we couldn’t stop him from getting through to us. So-”

He paused suddenly, staring out the window. Then “Stop the carriage!” he shouted. “Stop the carriage!”

The carriage came to a sudden halt, and the commander of its mounted escort wheeled his horse, trotting back towards it with a puzzled expression. He had no idea what was happening, but like most of Nahrmahn Baytz’ armsmen, he had a lively respect for the prince’s instincts.

“Out!” Nahrmahn said to Ohlyvya. “Out, now!”

She stared at him in confusion and a sudden sparkle of fear. She’d never seen his expression like that, but the crack of command in his voice had her moving before she even realized it. He pushed her towards the carriage’s left-hand door, already reaching out, turning the handle. She hesitated for a moment as the door swung open, then cried out in sudden panic as her husband put his shoulder into her back and literally heaved her out the door.

It was a three-foot drop to the paving, and Ohlyvya Baytz cried out again, this time in pain, as she landed off-balance and her ankle broke. But there was no time for her to think about that. Nahrmahn was already plunging out of the carriage behind her, pinning her down, covering her with his own body.

And that was when the wagon parked by the Cathedral Square exit closest to the palace-the wagon that wasn’t supposed to be there-exploded. . IV.

Royal Palace, City of Eraystor, Princedom of Emerald

“Leave us,” Ohlyvya Baytz said flatly, her expression terrible.

It was night outside the bedchamber’s window-a beautiful moonlit night, sprinkled with the stars that were God’s own jewels. A gentle breeze stirred the window drapes, night wyverns whistled sweetly, and the harsh, agonized breathing of the semi-conscious man in the bed filled her heart with grief.

“But, Your Highness-” the senior healer, a Pasqualate bishop, began.

“Leave us!” she snapped. The bishop looked at her, his expression worried, his eyes dark with sympathy, and she made herself draw a deep breath.

“Is there anything else you can do for him, My Lord Bishop?” she asked more quietly. “Can you save him?”

“No, Your Highness,” the bishop admitted, his voice sad but unflinching. “To be honest, I don’t understand how he’s lived this long. The best we can do is what we have, to ease his pain.”

“Then leave us,” she repeated a third time, tears welling in her eyes, her voice far softer than it had been. “This is my husband. He will die with his hand in mine in this room we have shared for twenty-seven years. And I will be alone with him, My Lord. I will bear him company, and I will witness his death, and if he speaks again before the end, what he says will be for my ears and no others. Now leave us, please. I have little time with him, and I refuse to lose any of it.”

The bishop looked at her for a moment longer, then bowed his head.

“As you wish, Your Highness,” he said softly. “Shall I send in Father Zhon?”

“No,” Princess Ohlyvya said, staring down at her husband’s face and holding his remaining hand in hers.

The bishop started to argue, then made himself stop. Father Zhon Trahlmahn, the royal household’s official confessor, was actually more of a tutor to Nahrmahn and Ohlyvya’s children than the keeper of the prince’s conscience. The prince, the bishop thought, had never been as observant a man as the Church might have wished. The bishop was a man of strong Reformist beliefs himself, and Prince Nahrmahn’s courage and willingness to speak in the cause of reforming Mother Church’s faults and healing her wounds had won his admiration and gratitude, yet he could wish that at this moment…

It wasn’t his decision, he reminded himself. It was Princess Ohlyvya’s. Father Zhon had already administered extreme unction, and presumably heard the prince’s confession, before the princess had sent him to comfort the children. But who would comfort her in this terrible hour, the bishop wondered. Who would hold her hand as she held her dying husband’s?

“Very well, Your Highness,” he said very quietly. “If you should decide you need me, send word.”

“Thank you, My Lord, but I think that will be unnecessary,” she told him with heartbreaking serenity. “I’m sure you’re needed by the other victims of this attack. Go, do what you can for them with my thanks and my blessing.”

The bishop bowed, then gathered up the lesser clergy with his eyes. The door closed behind them, and Ohlyvya leaned closer to the bed, resting her head on the pillow with her forehead touching Nahrmahn’s cheek.

“I’m here, love,” she said softly. “I’m here.”

His left eye was covered in a thick dressing, but his right eye opened. He blinked slowly, the tiny movement of his eyelid heavy with effort, then turned his head and looked at her.

“Ear… plug?” he got out, and Ohlyvya astonished herself with a soft, weeping laugh.

“Oh, Nahrmahn!” She cupped the uninjured side of his face with her free hand. “Oh, my love, who but you would worry about that at a time like this?!”

He said nothing, but there was a flicker of something almost like amusement under the pain and the drug clouds in his eye, and she shook her head.

“I don’t know what happened to your earplug,” she told him. “No one found anything when the healers examined you, anyway. Maybe they just had other things on their mind than looking in your ears. I don’t know.”

“Make… sure, later,” he whispered.

“I will,” she promised. “I will. Now hush, my love. Don’t worry about anything, not now.”

“Love… you,” he said. “Always have. Never… told you so… enough.”

“You think I didn’t know?” She smoothed hair from his brow. “I knew. I always knew. And you saved me today, Nahrmahn.” She managed a wavering smile. “I know you’ve never thought you were a properly heroic figure, but you were always hero enough for me. And never more than today.”

His answering smile was heartbreaking but his eye slipped slowly shut once more, and her grip on his hand tightened. Had he heard her? Did he understand? Her ankle was broken, the left side of her face was one enormous bruise, and it had taken fourteen stitches to close the gash on her left shoulder, but not a single member of their escort had survived. Neither had the coachmen. And if Nahrmahn hadn’t protected her with his own body, she would be dead or dying, too. It was important that he know that, and She heard a foot on the marble bedchamber floor behind her, and her head jerked up, her eyes flashing with sudden, grief-fueled fury as she wheeled.

“How dare you intrude-?!” she began, then stopped abruptly.

“I came as soon as I could, Ohlyvya,” Merlin Athrawes said. “I couldn’t risk it before dark, and getting away from Tellesberg under the circumstances…”

He shrugged, crossing to the bed, and sank to one knee beside her chair. He held out his arms to her, and she threw herself into them, weeping on his mailed shoulder as she’d refused to let anyone else see her weep.

“Take him to your cave, Merlin!” she sobbed. “Take him to your cave! Let Owl save him!”

“I can’t,” Merlin whispered into her ear, stroking her hair with a sinewy hand. “I can’t. There’s not enough time. We’d lose him before I ever got him there.”

“No!” She struggled against his embrace, striking his unyielding cuirass with her fists. It was as if his arrival had offered her the hope of a last-minute reprieve and the destruction of that hope was more than she could bear. “No!”