David Weber - How firm a foundation

“I’ll have you know, Seijin Merlin, that I rule my household with a will of iron,” she told him firmly.

“Oh, of course you do.” Merlin rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen the way they all jump to obey your orders in obvious terror.”

“I should certainly hope so.” She elevated her nose with a sniff Sairaih couldn’t have bettered, but a sudden, renewed complaint from Alahnah spoiled her pose.

“There, baby,” she murmured in the child’s delicate ear. “Momma’s here.” She nuzzled the side of the little girl’s neck, inhaling the scent of her while she patted her back gently.

Alahnah’s protests died back to a more sustainable level, and Sharleyan shook her head.

“How much longer until that wind change gets here?” she asked.

“Another seven or eight hours yet, I’m afraid,” Merlin replied, watching the real-time weather map from Owl’s sensors.

“Wonderful,” Sharleyan sighed.

“At least we’ve got better weather than Cayleb does,” Merlin pointed out. At that moment, Empress of Charis was battling headwinds and high seas as she fought her way steadily westward. “And we’ll be heading into even better weather in the next few days. Of course, it’s going to get a lot hotter.”

“Fine with me,” Sharleyan said fervently. “Don’t tell any of my Chisholmians, but this northern girl’s been spoiled by Charisian weather.”

“Would that have anything to do with the fact that the snow was three or four feet deep when we left Cherayth?” Merlin asked mildly.

“I think you can safely assume it factors into the equation.”

“I thought it might. Still, you might want to remember that too much heat’s as bad as too much cold, and the last time Cayleb and I were in Zebediahan waters, it was hot enough to fry eggs on a cannon’s breech. I thought it was going to render that toad Symmyns down into candle fat right on the quarterdeck.”

“And it would’ve saved all of us-including him-a lot of grief if it had,” Sharleyan said, her voice and expression much grimmer than they had been. “That’s another part of this trip I’m not looking forward to, Merlin.”

“I know,” Merlin agreed soberly. “And I know it probably doesn’t help, but if anyone’s ever had it coming, it’s certainly him.”

Sharleyan nodded. Tohmys Symmyns, Grand Duke of Zebediah, was presently ensconced in a reasonably comfortable cell in what used to be his own palace in the city of Carmyn. He’d been there for four months now, awaiting the arrival of Cayleb or Sharleyan, and he’d probably have preferred to go on waiting a lot longer. Facing the emperor or empress against whom one had committed high treason wasn’t something to which most self-serving, treacherous schemers looked forward. Unfortunately for Symmyns, he was going to have the opportunity to do precisely that-briefly, at least-in another seven or eight days. And while Merlin knew Sharleyan wasn’t looking forward to the meeting either, he also knew she would never flinch from what her duty required.

“I’m not looking forward to Corisande, either, for that matter,” she said now. “Well, not most of it, anyway. But at least there’ll be some good news to go along with the bad in Manchyr.”

“Would it happen that Hauwyl’s reaction is one of the things you are looking forward to?” Merlin inquired dryly.

“Absolutely,” Sharleyan replied smugly.

“I still say it was a nasty trick for you and Cayleb to keep him entirely in the dark about it.”

“We’re cunning, devious, and underhanded heads of state engaged in a desperate struggle against an overwhelming foe,” Sharleyan pointed out. “It’s one of our responsibilities to keep our most trusted henchmen alert and on their toes, ready for anything which might come their way.”

“Besides which you both like practical jokes.”

“Besides which we both like practical jokes,” she agreed.

Royal Palace, City of Talkyra, Kingdom of Delferahk

Thunder rumbled far out over Lake Erdan, and multi-forked tongues of lightning glared down the heavens. Heavy waves broke on the reed-grown shore far below the hanging turret, and Princess Irys Daykyn propped her elbows on the windowsill as she leaned out into the rough-armed wind. It slapped at her cheeks and whipped her hair, and she slitted her hazel eyes against its exuberant power.

The rain would be along soon. She could already smell its dampness and a hint of ozone on the wind, and her gaze searched the heavy-bellied clouds, watching them flash as more lightning danced above them without ever quite breaking free. She envied those clouds, that wind. Envied their freedom… and their power.

The air was chill, cool enough to be actively uncomfortable to her Corisandian-trained weather sense. March was one of the hot months in Manchyr, although the city was so close to the equator that seasonal variations were actually minimal. Irys had seen snow only two or three times in her entire life, on trips to the Barcor Mountains with her parents before her mother’s death. Prince Hektor had never taken her back there after her mother died, and Irys wondered sometimes if that was because he’d had no heart to visit his wife’s favorite vacation spot without her… or if he’d simply no longer been able to find the time. He’d been busy, after all.

Thunder crashed louder than before, and she saw the darkness in the air out over the lake where a wall of rain advanced slowly towards the castle and the city of Talkyra. It was rather like her life, she thought, that steadily oncoming darkness moving towards her while she could only stand and watch it come. This castle had been supposed to be a place of refuge, a fortress to protect her and her baby brother from the ruthless emperor who’d had her father and her older brother murdered. She’d never wanted to come, never wanted to leave her father’s side, but he’d insisted. And it had been her responsibility, too. Someone had to look out for Daivyn. He was such a little boy, so young to be so valuable a pawn and have so many deadly enemies. And now the refuge felt all too much like a prison, the fortress too much like a trap.

She’d had time to think. In fact, she’d had entirely too much of it in the months she’d spent with her brother as “guests” of their kinsman, King Zhames of Delferahk. Months to wonder if they’d escaped one danger only to walk straight into one far worse. Months for her brain to beat against the bars of a cage only she could see. To think about why her father had sent her and Daivyn away. And, perhaps worse, to think about who and what her father had truly been.

She hated those thoughts, she admitted, gazing unflinchingly into the heart of the oncoming storm. They felt disloyal, wrong. She’d loved her father, and she knew he’d loved her. There was no doubt in her mind about that. And he’d tutored her well in the arts of politics and strategy-as well as if it might have been possible for her to inherit his crown. Yet her very love for him had kept her from looking at him as clearly and fearlessly as she now contemplated the lightning and rain sweeping towards her across the enormous lake. He’d been a good prince in so many ways, but now, trapped in Delferahk, fearing for her brother’s life, she realized there’d been a side of him she’d never seen.

Was it because I didn’t want to see it? Because I loved him too much? Wanted him to always be the perfect prince, the perfect father, I thought he was?

She didn’t know. She might never know. Yet once the questions were asked, they could never be unasked, and she’d begun to consider things she’d never considered before. Like the fact that her father had been a tyrant. A benign tyrant in Corisande, perhaps, yet still a tyrant. And however benign he might have been within his own princedom, he’d been nothing of the sort outside it. She thought about his ruthless subjugation of Zebediah, his rivalries with King Sailys of Chisholm and King Haarahld of Charis. His ambition for empire and his intrigues and relentless drive to accomplish it. The bribes he’d paid to vicars and other senior churchmen to influence them against Charis.