David Weber - How firm a foundation

“And that, my lords and ladies, is what I’ve come here to Corisande to demonstrate for all to see. I will make no deals in secret. There will be no secret arrests and executions, just as there have been none yet. We will not torture confessions out of those we suspect of wrongdoing, and if we must inflict the death penalty, it will be carried out quickly and cleanly, without the torture in which Zhaspahr Clyntahn delights.

“In the end, you-as all of God’s children-have a choice to make. You may choose to align yourself with the Empire and Church of Charis against the evil threatening to twist Mother Church and all we believe in into something vile and dark. You may choose to stand with Corisande and the rightful Prince of Corisande, and it’s our hope that in the fullness of time Prince Daivyn will choose to stand with us. You may choose to reject the Empire and Church of Charis and fight them with all your power and all your heart, and that, too, is a choice only you can make. No Charisian monarch will ever seek to dictate your final choice to you, but we will do whatever we must to protect and nurture the things in which we believe, the causes for which we choose to fight and, if necessary, die. If our choices bring us into conflict, then so be it. Charis will not flinch, will not yield, and will not retreat. As my husband has said, ‘Here we stand; we can do no other,’ and stand we will, though all the forces of Hell itself should come against us. Yet whether you make yourselves our friends or our foes, I will promise you this much.”

The stillness was absolute, and she swept the listening throng with that level brown gaze yet again.

“We may fight you. We may even be forced to slay you. But we will never torture or terrify you into betraying your own beliefs. We will never convict without evidence. We will never ignore your right to trial and your right to defend yourself before God and the law, never capriciously sentence men and women to die simply because they disagree with us. And we will never dictate to your conscience, or murder you simply for daring to disagree with us, or torture you vilely to death simply to terrify others into doing our will, and call that the will of God.”

She looked out at those silent, listening faces, and her voice was measured, each word beaten out of cold iron as she dropped her sworn oath into the silence.

“Those things are what the Group of Four does,” she told them in that soft, terrible voice, “and we will die before we become them.” . V.

Imperial Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis

“I’m going to strangle that parrot,” Cayleb Ahrmahk said conversationally. “And if I weren’t afraid it would poison me, I’d have the cook serve it for dinner.”

The parrot which had just stolen a pistachio out of the silver bowl on the wrought-iron table landed on a branch on the far side of the terrace, transferred the stolen nut from its beak to its agile right foot, and squawked raucously at him. Obviously no respecter of imperial dignities, it proceeded to defecate in a long gray and white streak down the lime tree’s bark, as well.

There were quite a few similar deposits decorating the terrace, Cayleb noticed. In fact, there were enough of them for at least two heroic sculptures. Probably even three, unless they were equestrian sculptures.

“With all due respect, Your Majesty,” Prince Nahrmahn said, reaching out and scooping up a handful of the same pistachios, “first you’d have to catch it.”

“Only if I insist on strangling it,” Cayleb retorted. “A shotgun ought to do the job permanently enough, if a little more messily. It might even be more satisfying, now that I think about it.”

“Zhanayt would be less than amused with you, Your Majesty,” Earl Gray Harbor pointed out from his seat beside Nahrmahn. The first councilor shook his head. “She’s turned that dratted bird into her own personal pet. That’s why it’s bold enough to swoop down and steal your nuts. She’s been hand-feeding them to it for months now to get it to ride on her shoulder when she comes into the garden and it thinks it owns all of them. She’ll pitch three kinds of fits if you harm a single feather on its loathsome little head.”

“Wonderful.”

Cayleb rolled his eyes while Nahrmahn and Gray Harbor chuckled. Princess Zhanayt’s sixteenth birthday would roll around in another few five-days. That meant she was about fourteen and a half Old Terran years old, and she was entering what her deceased father would have called her “difficult stage.” (He’d used a rather strong term when it had been his older son’s turn, as Cayleb recalled.)

Prince Zhan, her younger brother, was only two years behind her, but his engagement to Nahrmahn’s daughter Mahrya seemed to be blunting the worst of his adolescent angst. Cayleb wasn’t certain it was going to last, but for now at least the assurance that he would in just over three years’ time be wedding one of the most lovely young women he’d ever met appeared to be giving him a level of confidence the mere fact that his brother was an emperor (and that he himself stood third in the line of succession) wouldn’t have. Despite the inescapable political logic of the move, Cayleb had had his doubts about betrothing his baby brother to someone almost eight Safeholdian years older than he was, but so far, it was working out well. Thank God Mahrya took after her mother-physically, at least-rather than her father! And it didn’t hurt that Zhan was far more inclined to be bookish than Cayleb had ever been. Nahrmahn’s genetic contribution was obvious in Mahrya’s keen wits and love affair with the printed page, and she’d been subtly guiding Zhan’s choice of books for almost three years. He was even reading poetry now, which made him pretty nearly unique among fourteen-year-old males of Cayleb’s acquaintance.

“Oh, come now!” Gray Harbor scolded the emperor. “I remember you as a teenager, Your Majesty. And I remember your father’s description of you just before he sent you off on your midshipman’s cruise.”

“And that description would have been what?” Cayleb asked suspiciously.

“I believe his exact words were ‘A stubborn, stiff-necked young hellion ripe for hanging,’” the earl replied with a smile. “I could be wrong about that, though. It might have been ‘obstinate,’ not stiff-necked.”

“Why did everybody who knew me then persist in thinking of me as stubborn?” Cayleb’s tone was plaintive. “I’ve always been one of the most reasonable people I know!”

Gray Harbor and Nahrmahn looked at one another, then back at their liege lord without saying a word, and he snorted.

“All right, be that way.” He selected one of the roasted, salted pistachios, peeled the shell, and popped the nut into his mouth. He picked up another while he was chewing and tossed it at the parrot, which ignored the assault on its dignity with lordly disdain. The emperor shook his head and turned his attention back to Gray Harbor with a more thoughtful expression.

“So you think Coris is seriously contemplating some sort of an arrangement with us?” he asked, carefully projecting a note of skepticism. He couldn’t very well tell Gray Harbor he’d been looking over Coris’ shoulder-or that one of Owl’s remotes had been, at any rate-at the very moment the Corisandian earl wrote the message Gray Harbor had received.

“I’d say he’s definitely contemplating an arrangement, Your Majesty,” Gray Harbor replied soberly. “Whether he actually wants to consummate anything of the sort is another matter, of course.”

“You’re saying you think this is in the nature of a sheet anchor?” Nahrmahn put in.

“Something like that, Your Highness.” Gray Harbor nodded. “Whatever else he may have been, Coris was never a fool. I’ve come to the conclusion that he underestimated you rather badly, Your Highness, but then so did everyone else. And while he doesn’t come right out and say so in his note, it has to be obvious to someone as astute and as well informed as him that it would’ve made absolutely no sense to assassinate Hektor and his son.”